17. The Idea

CHAPTER 17 THE IDEA "I can't believe they're going to separate us," said Harold, as the boys walked home from school that afternoon. George said nothing. He was thinking. He KNEW there was a way to solve this problem. "I can't believe I have to spend an EXTRA YEAR at that school, too," Harold moaned, trying not to cry. "The worst part is that I actually studied! I know this stuff! I could have probably gotten straight Bs if I had taken those tests yesterday!"

"THAT'S IT!" cried George confidently. "We can fix this!" "But HOW?" said Harold. "They won't let us take makeup tests!" "Who says we have to take makeup tests?" George replied. "Let's take the real tests!" Harold looked suspicious. "What do you mean?" he asked. "Melvin said he kept his time-traveling squid thingy in his garage, right?" said George. "Let's borrow it and go back in time to yesterday morning. Then we can take those tests like we were supposed to. Problem solved!" "No WAY!" Harold protested. "Whenever we travel around in time, bad stuff happens!" "What could be worse than being in different grades next year?" George countered. "Do you really want to spend an extra YEAR at that school?"

Harold didn't have an argument for that. "Besides," said George, "we're only going back in time one day. How could anything bad happen in just one day?" "I guess you're right," said Harold. George and Harold turned around and headed over to Melvin's house. Luckily, Melvin's garage door was open. Cautiously, the two boys sneaked inside and looked around. And there, standing in the corner beside a box of Langstrom seven-inch gangly wrenches was the glow-in-the-dark, time- traveling Robo-Squid suit. "We shouldn't be doing this," Harold whispered. "We're trespassing—and stealing!" "Hey, Melvin started this whole mess," George reminded Harold. "We're just fixing it! Besides, we're not stealing. We're just borrowing."

Against his better judgment, Harold helped hoist George up into the cockpit. Suddenly, the Robo-Squid suit powered up and began to glow. A few moments later, the controls were all set. "OK," said George. "Let's go back in time and take those dumb tests!" He picked Harold up with one of his glowing tentacles, took a few steps forward, and pressed the "Start" button.

The glow-in-the-dark, time-traveling Robo-Squid suit began shaking and sputtering as it zipped backwards in time thirty-two hours. A blinding ball of light flashed suddenly, and George and Harold arrived bright and early yesterday morning, just in time for school.

As Harold helped George climb out of the cockpit, he noticed that there were now TWO glow-in-the-dark, time-traveling Robo-Squid suits. "Hey," said Harold. "How come there are TWO glow-in-the-dark, time-traveling Robo-Squid suits?" "Hmmmm," said George. "I guess that one in the corner is the one from yesterday. When we went back in time, we created a duplicate time machine." "Oh," said Harold. "Melvin should thank us!" "Yeah," said George. "That was very thoughtful of us."