By the time she dismissed us for recess, my face felt so hot I thought it would melt my shirt.
Tyler ran to the basketball courts to join a game. I knew Aisha and Jasmine would be by the bars, but I walked in the other direction, all the way out to the soccer field, walking farther and farther.
Tyler was right: I hadn’t been chosen first for Study Buddies because of my excellent people skills. Mrs. A. had chosen me and Tyler because she thought we were both losers!
I didn’t even hear the whistle blow that recess was over. I only realized it when I looked up and there were only four kids still out on the playground—one of which of course was Tyler, which just proved it even more!
I had to run all the way back to class. Then I slumped down in my seat with Jasmine and Aisha staring at me with my face still all hot.
Aisha whispered, “Where were you at recess? Did Mrs. A. make you stay inside?”
But I just stared straight ahead at Mrs. A. like I hadn’t heard her.
I didn’t look at anyone, wondering if the whole class knew—Jasmine and Aisha and maybe even Megan. Maybe they’d known I was a loser all along. They were probably only being nice to me because their parents said they had to be nice to everyone, even losers. They probably forgot all about the vet/beauty parlor/day care the minute they got home.
I hated Study Buddies, and there was no way I was going to that stupid Good-bye–Hello Ceremony on Monday. I’d go hide in the stupid bathroom.
As soon as the bell rang, I grabbed my backpack and hurried out of class.
TJ yakked about his short the whole way home, but I didn’t say a word. I just ditched my backpack inside our front door and ran over to Professor Reese’s.
I opened the door and ran into the living room. Baxter popped up in his bed.
“I need to ask you something, OK?” I nodded.
He nodded back.
I didn’t know if Professor Reese was right—that it was just Baxter’s mirror neurons making him nod—or if TJ was right—that Baxter was just doing what I did. Or if Baxter really, truly did understand me. I just knew I had to ask: “You still love me even though I’m a loser.” And I couldn’t help myself—I nodded long and hard. “Don’t you?”
I took a deep breath.
And Baxter, he nodded back.
I threw my arms around him and buried my face in his fuzzy neck. I hugged him so long that after a while everything else fell away (except the faint hum from the microchip). It was just me, nose deep in warm dog, which smells nice (even though wet dog smells bad, which is weird because why would plain old water make you smell worse? Only somehow it does if you’re a dog).
And pretty soon, I was feeling a tiny bit better.
I sat back on my heels and looked around. The late afternoon sun was coming in the living room windows, warming the old wood floors.
The first time I’d ever come into Professor Reese’s house by myself, this room had felt museum empty, like nobody lived there. Now it felt empty again—because someone was missing.
“Did Professor Reese come home during the day?” I asked Baxter. “Let’s see if she left a note.”
Baxter followed me into the kitchen, but the counter was empty except for my note about the slumber party. “If she left a note, it’s probably in the lab,” I told him.
We walked down the stairs, but there was nothing, just the computers and the cables running everywhere and the teleporter and the electronic console with the lights and buttons, the big red one glowing like someone had pushed it on—
But never pushed it off.
And that’s when I knew what had happened. Professor Reese had wanted to look at things from a different angle. She’d wanted to look at teleportation from the hat’s point of view—and there was only one way to do that.
She’d teleported herself.
20The Missing Professor
I sat down in the spinny chair, my own head spinning a little bit. Professor Reese had actually done it: she’d climbed into the teleporter and vibrated herself into a million little pieces. The million pieces had been picked up by the T-waves and plopped down somewhere else. And hopefully, the instructions had arrived via radio waves so she could put herself back together.
“But if she teleported herself,” I said to Baxter as I scritched his ribs and thought it all through, “why didn’t she just walk home afterward?”
Unless. Unless . . . something had gone wrong.
There were so many possibilities of what could go wrong. We’d teleported a hat. We’d teleported Spike (by accident). But even though Spike had survived, and even though he seemed fine, all we had to go on was how he acted.
Crawling on a stick and eating apple slices seemed way easier than all the things Professor Reese would need to be able to do when she’d landed—wherever she’d landed. Because who knew after being vibrated into a million little pieces and POPped across town, if the reconfiguration instructions included reminding you that you were Professor Reese and you lived on Quimby Street and you should call Jordie and TJ and tell them you were OK.
That seemed like a lot for one little beep-beep-boop to accomplish.
I turned to Baxter. “We have to find her!”
We ran upstairs, and I clipped on his leash. Then we went over and got TJ, and I explained everything to him.
“Since she teleported herself, Baxter should be able to find her just like he always finds the hat,” I said as we started to walk.
And walk.
And walk.
“C’mon, boy! Find Professor Reese!” I said. But Baxter wasn’t galloping on the end of his leash. He just trotted along with us, stopping to sniff or, sometimes,
