Meet Wilbur Robinson, Ch. 1

Wilbur Robinson sighed contentedly as he sat down at the dinner table. Most of the family was pointedly ignoring him, but he was OK with that. He knew the silent treatment was apart of the long and complicated punishment that was in store for him. After nearly ripping the space-time continuum, and causing himself to inexhist, not to mention messing up several things, though he'd fixed all of them, required a specific and extremely excruciating punishment. Wilbur knew, because Carl had spilled the beans about the punishment, that first the silent treatment would ensue, and then the work would begin. He was being disgraced by the family, temporarily.

Wilbur thought it was a little unfair to go so far with the punishment, but he didn't really mind. He was probably going to have to clean the roof, help build a new time machine, even though he'd gone back in time with his dad to get the other one that the Bowler-hat-guy, er, Mr. Yagoobian, Wilbur corrected himself, had left behind when Lewis, or dad as he called him in present, showed the man what spending time with the evil bowler-hat would do to the future, even as it changed back. Wilbur still didn't trust the guy, but he figured that his dad would fix, or had fixed it. Either way, Mr. Yagoobian was now a famous baseball player, thinking no evil thoughts, and stealing no time machines. "Wilbur." His mom said. "When you finish your lunch of spinach salad with sauerkraut and kidney beans, you have to go and scrub the roof." Carl himself placed the platter of the distasteful meal in front of him with an apologetic look. Wilbur winced, but commenced eating. After all, with the story he had, it was worth everything he was going to have to do.

Mom was distributing the punishments, Wilbur assumed, because his dad was still acquiring new memories that hadn't been there, ones of Wilbur, before he was even supposed to know. His dad was most likely going to spend the rest of the day upstairs in his lab, looking through his memory scanner, getting the rest of the story, the bits Wilbur had not told him in person, but had done with him when he was a kid. Wilbur was unsure whether or not his dad would be furious, because who had known his father had been so . . . under confident in his inventing abilities! And Wilbur had helped him with that. Plus, he'd worked like crazy to fix everything, and had even told his dad so. Wilbur was confident that, if he was not cleared because of everything he'd done by dinner, at least he'd have time to think over the story. Maybe he'd write a book about it. Wilbur shrugged and continued eating, concentrating on the latest and grandest adventure, in order to take his mind off the disgusting meal that was at hand.


It had all started with Wilbur sitting in the garage, reading comic books. Actually, it had started with Lewis, an orphan boy, years earlier, but that's another story. The action, Wilbur figured, had started when he had been reading comic books in the garage. He was avoiding chores as usual, when his mom called on the intercom, "Wilbur? Are you taking out the trash?"
"Yeah mom." Wilbur had called back, absentmindedly, still focused on the comic books. His parents and many uncles and aunts had left their comic books in the garage for him to read since he'd been six. The garage was nice because many of the adults forgot it existed, and the only other one who enjoyed it was his dad.

Of course, the only reason his dad even spent time in the garage was because of the past five years' project. He had woken up in a cold sweat, wanting to build a time machine. The first thing he did was buy three movies. They'd been made in the 80's, and were rather good, Wilbur thought, if you didn't watch them every night for a year! These movies, the "Back to the future Chronicles," as his dad called them, were possibly the latest thing on time travel other than books, which, in Wilbur's view, was pretty sad. I mean, you'd think people would have more interest in that kind of thing. His dad had gone through all the libraries he could find and read all the time travel books he could get his hands on, from romantic novels to science fiction, to horror.

At first, the family had been interested, and enjoyed talking to Cornelius about the space-time continuum. But as time went on, they became less and less interested, especially since he always went to the more science-bits, and the bits about the space-time continuum, constantly taking notes. Wilbur practically had the movie memorized by heart, which, he had to admit, had helped in his adventure.

Back to the garage. Two time machines were the product of his dad's hard work, and all his notes and movie-watching. He had left for a business trip that day, and Mom was in charge. "Wilbur!" Franny yelled. "You take the trash out right now, and stop fooling around with those comics! And make sure to shut the garage door all the way, so the alarm will engage!"

"Okay, mom!" Wilbur called back, just as he took the trash out. Wilbur suddenly had a strange feeling. The feeling that he was being watched. He looked up, taking off his poncho hood to see better, but saw nothing. He shrugged, and walked to a side door to get inside. He liked the route better because it was not so far from his room, his favorite place to hang, and only was equal to the quiet of the garage. It was a mistake Wilbur regretted with all his being for the next 48 hours.