Read The Wells Bequest for Free Online Page B

never want to have lunch with me again. Better start a more interesting conversation.
    â€œIf you had a time machine, where would you go?” I asked. “I mean when? Where and when?”
    â€œIs this an essay question?” Abigail asked.
    â€œNo, I was thinking about time travel for my science fair project.”
    â€œI thought you were doing your project on robots,” said Jaya. She sounded suspicious. Did she know about the time machine after all?
    â€œI am,” I said. “I decided time travel would be too hard. But I’m still interested. What do you know about time travel?”
    Jaya shrugged. Her hat bobbed. “That it shows up in a lot of cheesy movies about knights trying to joust with trucks.”
    â€œI would totally kill for a time machine,” said Abigail. “I’d use it to go forward a few millennia and see how they end up solving the climate-change problem.”
    â€œWhat if they don’t solve it?” I asked. “What if the whole planet’s a post-nuclear wasteland?”
    â€œWhy would it be? Global warming isn’t the same thing as nuclear war,” objected Jaya.
    â€œOh, there’ll be plenty of war. When the oil starts running out, they’ll fight over what’s left. And food and land and clean water. Maybe they’ll fight over your time machine so they can go back to the past before all the wars start,” I said.
    â€œOkay, so where would
you
go?”
    I chewed my sandwich and thought about it. “I’d like to meet Leonardo da Vinci,” I said.
    â€œMe too,” said Jaya. “Leonardo rocks. Or dinosaurs. Don’t you want to see what colors they were?”
    â€œSure, from a distance,” I said. Could that be how the stained-glass designer figured out what colors to make the dinosaurs in the Main Exam Room windows? Did they use a time machine?
    â€œShakespeare,” said Abigail. “I’d go see the premiere of
Hamlet
. No, I know—I’d go hear Jesus preach.”
    â€œThat would be awesome,” said Jaya. “I bet he was a great speaker. But would you understand him? Do you know Hebrew?”
    â€œNot Hebrew, Aramaic. That’s what he spoke. I would learn it before I went.”
    â€œWould you warn him about Judas?” Jaya asked.
    Abigail shook her head. “Don’t you think he already knew?”
    â€œYeah, you’re probably right,” said Jaya.
    I got out my multi-utility tool and used the medium blade to core my apple and slice it into eighths. I held out the slices.
    â€œFancy knifework! Thanks,” said Jaya, taking one. “I would go meet Marie Curie. I’d warn her about radiation sickness.”
    â€œYou can’t!” I said. “That would change the past, and who knows what would happen? Maybe if she hadn’t died young, they would have invented nuclear weapons decades sooner.”
    â€œYeah, and maybe France would have used them to stop Hitler and World War II would never have happened,” said Jaya. “That would have been a good thing.”
    â€œMaybe. Or maybe Hitler would have used them on New York and you would never have been born.”
    â€œOr maybe I’d be born Indian. My family lived in India back then. Maybe they’d still be there.”
    â€œBut you wouldn’t be
you.
Your parents might never have met. Or even if they did meet, what if they had a baby a year sooner or a week later? You could have been somebody else. You could have been a boson. You could have been a boy. Who knows
who
you would have been!”
    â€œMaybe I would be somebody way better. Maybe I would be just like me, except with perfect teeth.”
    â€œI like your teeth,” I said.
    â€œYou wouldn’t if you were the one wearing the retainer. Anyway, maybe I would have liked being a boy.”
    â€œDon’t you like being
you
?”
    â€œOf course I do! That’s the point,” said Jaya.