Chapter 6: "So here's the story..."

In the present, curiosity got the better of Junior. He started wondering out loud, "What would it be like to be a blob and then to disappear...?"

Senior started to protest, but Junior had already run outside underneath the magnet. He heard the machine whir, and then the lasers hit him. He was only a blob for a fraction of a second before he was zapped into the future.

Junior was a little disappointed when he found out that he could barely remember being a blob, as it had happened so fast. He landed, and took in his surroundings. He saw the issue with the banana, and then looked behind him. There were two people in lab coats, and they appeared to have fallen with him. The taller one said,

"Hello. I'm George Hoovey, and this is my sidekick, Reely Short. It appears that our machine was a success."

"Your invention caused all this trouble?! This was YOUR invention?" Junior was starting to get a little upset.

"We apologize, but it's not our fault–we forgot to turn the time machine off, and so it appeared to look for more things to zap into the future..."

"Time machine," repeated Junior. "What year is it?"

"It's 2236," say George Hoovey. "You have been frozen in time inside Netherspace for years. Yes, I know it seems like you were just zapped into the future. But that's what it's supposed to feel like."

In the present, Senior was getting worried. He flipped through his phone book and found SCIENTISTS -- 1-555-846-8785.

His hand was shaking as he dialed the number. When the phone was answered, Senior blurted, "There's something outside that's disappearing my family!"

There was a pause. "This sounds like our magnetic time machine," said the man on the other line. "How many have disappeared?"

"3 or 4," replied Senior.

"Okay," said the other man, "let me set a date for them to come out..."

"Come out of where?" asked Senior.

"Oh, of course, you wouldn't know," began the other man, but then another man on the other line said,

"Hey, Reely! What have I told you about telling others about our experiments?!"

"That it's your job," said Reely.

"Correct," said the other man. "So give me the phone and let me tell him."

Senior waited for a second as Reely gave the phone to the other man (who was George Hoovey).

"Okay," started George. "So here's the story..."

Chapter 5: Misses's Sacrifice

After Misses's announcement, there was another long silence.

"You?!" asked Junior, breaking the silence. "B-but what will happen to you??"

"I don't know," Misses solemnly responded. "But I've got to save Brother and Sister."

"Will I ever see you again?" Junior was close to tears.

"I hope so," said Misses.

There was a long wait full of tearful good-byes. Junior hoped to see his mom soon. Then Misses bravely stepped out the door. To see what would happen, Senior kept the door open.

There was a whir from above. Then Misses turned into a blob, and then the white flash appeared again. And Misses was gone. Senior sighed.

"Well, if she's gone..."

"Don't say that," cried Junior.

"...at least she went trying to save our family."

But of course Misses was not gone. She reappeared in the future, although it felt like no time difference to her. She saw the banana fall. But before she could look at her surroundings, the banana hit a girl to her left. It was Sister! Her head hit the floor, and she stopped moving. The next instant, the banana had flown up into the air, and into Misses's mouth.

That's when she vaguely heard "Mom??" She looked from the unconscious Sister to in front of her, and she saw Brother, crouching on the ground. She almost sighed with relief, in response to finding out that everyone was still alive.

Misses tried to answer Brother, but with the banana in her mouth, all she could manage was "Mmfb." Brother shook his head, tried to convince himself that it was a dream, and asked himself to wake up.

"Brother?" Misses began, in order to assure him that it was not a dream, but the word was muffled by the banana, so it came out as "Brfgnr?" Then she realized that the banana was still in her mouth. She spit it out so that she could tell Brother that it was real, but the banana hit Brother on the head before she could say anything. She was so shocked by this that, instead of telling him it was real, she gasped and fainted.

Chapter 4: Proof

Once Brother was successfully zapped into the future, though Misses didn't know it, she called for Senior and Junior. They wondered what was going on, and Misses told them what she knew.

"Was it chance?" asked Senior.

"I doubt it. The two disappearings seem to be related," answered Junior.

"Do we have anything we could throw out there that would test that?" asked Misses.

"How about this?" replied Senior, returning with a brown banana.

"No, I'm saving that for banana bread!" said Misses.

Junior inspected the banana. "No, Dad's got a good idea, Mom. There's a yellow spot right here...near the stem, see it?...that looks like Mickey Mouse. If it wasn't there, we couldn't tell that it was THIS banana!"

Senior handed the banana to Misses. She saw no reason not to use the banana anymore, so she threw it out the door. The lasers zapped the banana, it turned into a blob, and it disappeared in a white flash.

"Okay. Now we know that whatever's going on is consistent," said Senior. "But how do we save Brother and Sister?" There was a long pause as they all thought.

During the silence, Misses watched two flies fly into a spiderweb. Both flies tried to free themselves. A spider came and started to eat one of the flies. While it was still eating, the other fly managed to untangle itself and it flew free.

That fly sacrificed itself for its friend, thought Misses. That's when she got her idea.

"I'll go," she announced.