Dr. Reginald Fluffbottom adjusted his lab goggles for the forty-seventh time that morning, which was impressive considering it was only 6:15 AM. The goggles didn’t need adjusting—they were perfectly positioned on his enormous nose—but fidgeting helped him think, and he desperately needed to think because his time machine had just done something spectacularly stupid.

“Note to self,” he muttered into his voice recorder, a device that looked suspiciously like a modified electric toothbrush because that’s exactly what it was. “When building a time machine, perhaps don’t use parts from a disco ball, three microwaves, and a 1987 Honda Civic. Results may be… unpredictable.”

The unpredictable result in question was currently sitting in his laboratory eating pudding with its fingers. It was his grandfather. Who was also somehow now eight years old. And wearing a tutu.

“Gwandpa Weggie!” the child squealed, flinging pudding at Reginald’s face with remarkable accuracy. “I wanna pway with the shiny machine!”

Reginald wiped butterscotch from his left eyebrow and sighed deeply. This was not how he’d imagined his Tuesday morning going. He’d simply wanted to test his Temporal Displacement Apparatus (or as his assistant called it, “that death trap made of kitchen appliances”) by sending a banana back in time by five minutes. Instead, he’d somehow yanked his grandfather from 1952, de-aged him by approximately seventy years, and given him an inexplicable fondness for ballet attire.

“Now, Grandfather—er, young man—please don’t touch anything else,” Reginald pleaded as the boy made a beeline for a particularly dangerous-looking contraption that was definitely not a modified leaf blower attached to a plasma globe. “That’s very, very dangerous.”

“But it’s spawkly!” Little Grandpa Eugene protested, his chubby hands already reaching for the big red button labeled “DO NOT PRESS UNLESS YOU WANT TO ACCIDENTALLY CREATE A PARADOX.”

The laboratory door burst open with such force that it knocked over Reginald’s collection of “World’s Okayest Scientist” mugs. His assistant, Meredith Pennywhistle, stood in the doorway holding two cups of coffee and wearing an expression that suggested she’d already had a very long day despite it being barely past dawn.

“Dr. Fluffbottom,” she said in a tone that could freeze helium, “please tell me you didn’t turn on the time machine after I specifically told you not to turn on the time machine until we fixed the temporal flux capacitor.”

“Define ‘turn on,'” Reginald said weakly.

Meredith’s left eye twitched. It was a new record—usually, it took at least three of his responses before the eye-twitching began. “I define it as ‘making the machine do time things,’ which, judging by the small child in a tutu eating pudding in our lab, you definitely did.”

“That’s my grandfather!” Reginald announced with the kind of forced cheerfulness reserved for people who know they’re in deep trouble.

“Your grandfather is eighty-three years old and lives in Boca Raton,” Meredith pointed out.

“Yes, well, this is him from 1952. There was a slight… miscalculation.”

“A SLIGHT MISCALCULATION?” Meredith’s voice reached a pitch that made nearby dogs uncomfortable. “Reginald, you’ve created a temporal paradox! If that’s your grandfather as a child, and he’s here instead of in 1952, then how did he grow up to have your parent, who had you, who built the time machine to bring him here? We’re in a causality loop!”

Little Eugene chose this moment to demonstrate his newly discovered ability to make armpit farts. “Look what I can do!” he announced proudly, producing a symphony of inappropriate noises.

“At least he’s enjoying himself,” Reginald offered weakly.

Meredith set down the coffee cups with excessive care, the kind of careful placement that suggested she was resisting the urge to throw them. “We need to fix this. Now. Before the Time Police show up.”

“The Time Police aren’t real, Meredith. We’ve been through this.”

A knock at the door interrupted them. “Time Police! Open up!”

Reginald and Meredith exchanged glances.

“You were saying?” Meredith hissed.

The door opened to reveal two individuals in matching silver jumpsuits that looked like they’d been designed by someone who’d watched too much 1960s science fiction. The taller one, whose nametag read “Officer Jenkins-Prime,” looked around the lab with the weary expression of someone who’d seen too many temporal mishaps. His partner, “Officer Chen-Squared,” was frantically taking notes on what appeared to be an Etch A Sketch.

“Dr. Reginald Fluffbottom?” Officer Jenkins-Prime asked, though it sounded more like a statement of disappointment than a question.

“That’s Doctor Professor Reginald Fluffbottom, thank you very much,” Reginald corrected, puffing out his chest. “I have two PhDs.”

“One in Theoretical Physics and one in… let me check my notes…” Officer Chen-Squared shook her Etch A Sketch vigorously. “Interpretive Dance?”

“It was a double major!” Reginald protested. “Very few universities offer that combination!”

“I can’t imagine why,” Meredith muttered.

Officer Jenkins-Prime sighed and pulled out what looked like a parking ticket book, if parking tickets were printed on holographic paper and occasionally screamed. “Sir, we’ve detected a Level 4 Temporal Disturbance originating from this location. Our sensors indicate you’ve created a Grandfather Paradox, subsection C: ‘Grandfather Present But Inappropriately Aged.'”

“Is that really a common enough occurrence to have its own subsection?” Meredith asked.

“You’d be surprised,” Officer Chen-Squared said glumly. “Last week we had three cases of ‘Grandmother Accidentally Turned Into Own Great-Aunt.’ Time travel brings out the weird in people.”

Little Eugene, who had been suspiciously quiet, chose this moment to demonstrate another newfound talent. “I can burp the alphabet!” he announced, then proceeded to do exactly that, getting all the way to ‘P’ before running out of air.

“Is that child wearing a tutu?” Officer Jenkins-Prime asked, his professional composure finally cracking.

“He insisted,” Reginald explained. “Apparently, in 1952, he’d just seen a ballet performance and decided he wanted to be a ballerina. I didn’t have the heart to tell him about gender norms of the era.”

“How progressive of you,” Officer Chen-Squared noted, still scribbling on her Etch A Sketch. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t change the fact that you’ve committed several temporal crimes.”

“Crimes?” Reginald squeaked. “But I’m a scientist! I was advancing human knowledge!”

“By turning your grandfather into a tutu-wearing eight-year-old?” Officer Jenkins-Prime raised an eyebrow that had definitely been plucked to achieve maximum skepticism.

“When you put it like that, it does sound bad,” Reginald admitted.

“Look,” Meredith interrupted, stepping forward with her hands raised in what she hoped was a placating gesture. “We understand this looks bad—”

“Really bad,” Officer Chen-Squared corrected.

“—really bad,” Meredith agreed, “but Dr. Fluffbottom was only trying to send a banana back five minutes. The de-aging and grandfather-napping were completely accidental.”

“Ah yes, the old ‘I was just trying to create a temporal banana’ defense,” Officer Jenkins-Prime said dryly. “That’s number three on our list of most common excuses, right after ‘I didn’t know it was a time machine’ and ‘I was trying to meet dinosaurs.'”

“People try to meet dinosaurs?” Reginald perked up with interest.

“DO NOT,” both officers said in unison.

“Right, yes, of course not,” Reginald said, mentally filing away that idea for later. “So, what happens now? Are you going to arrest me? Erase me from existence? Force me to watch all of human history’s most boring moments as punishment?”

Officer Jenkins-Prime consulted his holographic ticket book, which was now displaying what appeared to be a game of Pong. He shook it vigorously until it returned to the proper screen. “According to regulations, you have three options. Option one: we confiscate your time machine and you’re banned from temporal experimentation for fifty years.”

“Fifty years? I’ll be dead by then!” Reginald protested.

“Not our problem,” Officer Chen-Squared said cheerfully.

“Option two,” Jenkins-Prime continued, “you fix this mess yourself within the next twenty-four hours, returning your grandfather to his proper time and age.”

“That sounds reasonable,” Meredith said quickly. “We’ll take option two.”

“I wasn’t finished,” Jenkins-Prime said. “If you fail to fix it within twenty-four hours, we’ll have to implement Protocol Omega.”

“Which is?” Reginald asked nervously.

“We turn you into your own grandfather.”

There was a long silence broken only by Little Eugene attempting to stuff pudding up his nose.

“I’m sorry, what?” Meredith said.

“It’s a standard temporal punishment,” Officer Chen-Squared explained. “Very educational. You’d be surprised how many temporal criminals reform after spending a few decades as their own ancestor.”

“That doesn’t even make sense!” Reginald sputtered.

“Time travel rarely does,” Jenkins-Prime said philosophically. “What’s option three?” Meredith asked, hoping against hope it was something sensible like a fine or community service.

“Option three is you accept a position with the Time Police as our new Junior Temporal Janitor, cleaning up other people’s time messes for the next century.”

“A century?” Reginald gasped.

“Time moves differently in our department,” Chen-Squared explained. “A century for us is like… well, it’s actually still a century, but you get excellent dental coverage.”

“We’ll take option two,” Meredith said firmly before Reginald could ask about the dental coverage. “Twenty-four hours to fix this. We can do that.”

“Excellent choice,” Jenkins-Prime said, making a note in his ticket book. “We’ll be back tomorrow at exactly 6:15 AM. If young Eugene here isn’t back in 1952, properly aged and with his memories appropriately adjusted, well…” He trailed off ominously.

“Well, what?” Reginald prompted.

“Let’s just say you’ll have a very interesting family reunion,” Chen-Squared said with a grin that suggested she’d seen this go wrong before and found it hilarious.

The two officers headed for the door, but Jenkins-Prime turned back. “Oh, and Dr. Fluffbottom? Try not to create any more paradoxes in the next twenty-four hours. Our department is already overworked dealing with the guy who keeps trying to prevent the invention of accordion music.”

“That monster must be stopped,” Chen-Squared muttered as they left.

The door closed behind them with a definitive click, leaving Reginald, Meredith, and Little Eugene alone in the lab. The silence was immediately broken by Eugene’s declaration that he needed to use the “potty” and didn’t know where it was.

“This is a disaster,” Meredith said after directing Eugene to the bathroom. “How are we supposed to reverse a de-aging temporal displacement in twenty-four hours? We don’t even know how it happened in the first place!”

Reginald was already at his computer, frantically typing equations that looked like someone had sneezed on a calculator. “I’ve been thinking about that. The temporal matrix must have intersected with the biological resonance frequency at exactly the wrong angle, creating a chronological regression field localized entirely within Grandfather’s cellular structure.”

“I understood exactly none of that,” Meredith said flatly.

“Neither did I,” Reginald admitted, “but it sounded scientific, didn’t it?”

Meredith pinched the bridge of her nose, a gesture she’d perfected over her three years of working with Reginald. “Okay, let’s approach this logically. What exactly were you doing when Eugene appeared?”

“Well,” Reginald began, warming to his subject, “I’d just finished my morning coffee—you know, the special blend with extra caffeine and a hint of vanilla—”

“Skip to the relevant parts,” Meredith interrupted.

“Right. I activated the Temporal Displacement Apparatus using the modified sequence I’d developed. Instead of the standard chronological coordinates, I input what I thought was ‘five minutes ago’ but may have accidentally entered my grandmother’s birthday.”

“Your grandmother’s birthday?” Meredith’s eye began twitching again.

“August 15th, 1952. I was thinking about her because it’s almost her birthday in the present—she’ll be 103—and I wanted to send her flowers, but the florist said they don’t deliver to other dimensions, which seems discriminatory if you ask me—”

“REGINALD!”

“Right, sorry. Anyway, I may have been thinking about that date when I input the temporal coordinates.”

“So instead of sending a banana back five minutes, you created a portal to 1952,” Meredith summarized.

“Appears so.”

“And somehow sucked your eight-year-old grandfather through it.”

“That part’s still a bit fuzzy.”

“And de-aged him? He should be in his eighties!”

“That’s the really interesting part!” Reginald said, his eyes lighting up with the manic gleam of a scientist who’s discovered something either brilliant or catastrophic. “I think the interaction between the temporal field and the disco ball components created a localized reversal of biological time. His body reverted to its state in 1952, but he traveled to 2025!”

“That’s impossible,” Meredith said.

“So is time travel, yet here we are,” Reginald pointed out.

Eugene emerged from the bathroom, somehow even more covered in pudding than before despite there being no pudding in the bathroom. “Gwandpa Weggie, the toilet talks!”

“The toilet doesn’t—” Reginald began, then paused. “Wait, what do you mean it talks?”

“It says ‘Temporal anomaly detected’ when I flush!” Eugene reported proudly.

Reginald and Meredith exchanged alarmed looks.

“You didn’t mention the bathroom was connected to the temporal sensors,” Meredith said slowly.

“I may have forgotten to mention several things,” Reginald admitted. “Like how I’ve been using the building’s plumbing system as an auxiliary cooling mechanism for the time machine.”

“You’ve been running temporal energy through the pipes?” Meredith’s voice had reached a pitch that made Eugene cover his ears.

“Only a little bit! And usually it’s fine! Although that would explain why Mrs. Henderson from 3B keeps complaining that her shower water arrives before she turns it on.”

“We live in a building full of temporal anomalies?” Meredith demanded.

“‘Full’ is such a strong word. I prefer ‘lightly seasoned with.'”

Before Meredith could respond, possibly with violence, a new voice echoed through the laboratory.

“Reginald Aloysius Fluffbottom! What have you done now?”

They turned to see a woman in her sixties standing in the doorway, wearing a floral housecoat and an expression that could curdle milk. It was Mrs. Abigail Fluffbottom, Reginald’s mother, and she looked decidedly unhappy.

“Mother!” Reginald squeaked. “What are you doing here?”

“I felt a disturbance in the maternal force,” she said, which would have sounded ridiculous from anyone else but somehow seemed perfectly reasonable coming from her. “Also, Mrs. Henderson called me. She said her cat arrived from next Tuesday and won’t stop meowing about the stock market.”

“That’s probably unrelated,” Reginald said weakly.

Abigail’s gaze swept the laboratory and landed on Little Eugene, who was now attempting to ballet dance while humming what might have been Swan Lake if Swan Lake had been composed by someone with no musical training whatsoever.

“Reginald,” she said in a dangerously calm voice, “why is there a small child in a tutu in your laboratory?”

“Would you believe he’s a delivery?” Reginald tried.

“No.”

“How about a very short intern?”

“Reginald.”

“Fine! It’s Grandfather Eugene. I accidentally brought him from 1952 and de-aged him and now the Time Police are giving us twenty-four hours to fix it or they’ll turn me into my own grandfather which doesn’t even make sense when you think about it and—”

“You brought my father here as a child?” Abigail interrupted.

“Yes?”

“The same father who’s currently in Boca Raton probably wondering why he suddenly has memories of time traveling to 2025?”

Reginald’s face paled. “Oh no. I didn’t think about memory resonance across temporal states.”

“You never do,” Abigail sighed. She walked over to Little Eugene and knelt down. “Hello, Daddy. Do you remember me?”

Eugene studied her with the intense concentration only eight-year-olds can muster. “You look like my teacher, Mrs. Gwumbly, but older and less mean.”

“Thank you, I think,” Abigail said. She stood and fixed Reginald with a stare that had been known to make grown men apologize for things they hadn’t even done yet. “You’re going to fix this.”

“We’re working on it!” Reginald protested.

“Work faster,” Abigail commanded. “And for heaven’s sake, give the child something besides pudding. He’ll be sick.”

“He seems to have an unlimited supply,” Meredith observed. “I’m not sure where he’s getting it from.”

Eugene grinned and pulled another pudding cup from inside his tutu. “Magic pockets!”

“The tutu has pockets?” Reginald asked, momentarily distracted by this sartorial innovation.

“All good clothes have pockets,” Eugene said sagely.

“The child speaks wisdom,” Abigail declared. “Now, how exactly do you plan to fix this mess?”

Reginald turned to his whiteboard, which was covered in equations that looked like they’d been written by someone having a mathematical seizure. “I need to reverse the temporal polarity while simultaneously aging Eugene’s biological chronometer and ensuring his arrival in 1952 at the exact moment he left. It’s simple!”

“If it’s so simple, why haven’t you done it yet?” Meredith asked.

“Because I also need to ensure he doesn’t remember any of this, or we’ll create a knowledge paradox. And I need to fix Mrs. Henderson’s prescient cat. And figure out why the toilet is talking. And—”

“One problem at a time,” Abigail interrupted. “First, we age Eugene back up. How do we do that?”

“Well,” Reginald said, pulling at his hair in a way that explained why he was balding at thirty-five, “theoretically, if I reverse the polarity of the temporal field and run it through the disco ball in the opposite direction—”

“The disco ball is crucial to your time machine?” Abigail asked, her tone suggesting she was reconsidering many of her life choices.

“It’s a very scientific disco ball,” Reginald defended. “The mirrored surfaces create a perfect distribution of chronoton particles!”

“I’m almost certain chronoton particles aren’t real,” Meredith said.

“They weren’t until I invented them last Tuesday,” Reginald said proudly.

“You can’t just invent particles!” Meredith protested.

“Tell that to the chronotons,” Reginald said, gesturing at what looked like empty air but which he insisted was full of temporal energy.

“Enough!” Abigail commanded. “Eugene, sweetie, come here.”

Little Eugene ballet-leaped across the laboratory, landing in front of Abigail with a pudding-stained grin. “Yes, old lady who looks like Mrs. Gwumbly?”

“I’m going to ignore that,” Abigail said patiently. “Eugene, do you want to go home?”

“But I like it here!” Eugene protested. “There’s pudding and sparkly things and the toilet talks! At home, all I have is homework and my sister who pulls my hair.”

“That would be Aunt Gertrude,” Reginald realized. “She mentioned something about being a hair-puller in her youth.”

“Nevertheless,” Abigail said, “you need to go home. Your mother will be worried.”

“Mommy always worries,” Eugene said philosophically. “She says I’m a handful. I don’t know what that means because I’m bigger than a hand.”

“Sound logic,” Meredith muttered.

“Can’t I stay a little longer?” Eugene pleaded. “I promise I’ll be good! I won’t touch the sparkly things or feed pudding to the talking toilet or teach the cat from the future how to dance!”

“The cat can dance?” Reginald asked, intrigued.

“FOCUS!” Abigail and Meredith shouted in unison.

“Right, yes, focusing,” Reginald said. He turned to his computer and began typing furiously. “If my calculations are correct—and they’re usually not, but let’s be optimistic—I can create an inverse temporal field that will restore Eugene to his proper age. But I’ll need more power.”

“How much more?” Meredith asked warily.

“All of it,” Reginald said dramatically.

“All of what?”

“All the power. Every bit of electricity in the building.”

“You want to black out the entire building?” Meredith said incredulously.

“It’s either that or explain to the Time Police why I failed,” Reginald pointed out.

“Good point. How do we steal all the power?”

“Steal is such an ugly word,” Reginald said. “I prefer ‘temporarily redirect for scientific purposes.'”

“That’s stealing with extra words,” Abigail observed.

“But it sounds nicer!” Reginald defended.

Before anyone could argue further, the laboratory door burst open again. This time, it was Mrs. Henderson, and she was carrying what appeared to be a glowing cat.

“Dr. Fluffbottom!” she shrieked. “Mr. Whiskers won’t stop telling me about cryptocurrency! He says I should invest in something called DogeCoin but I don’t know what that means!”

The cat in question looked remarkably smug for a feline. It opened its mouth and, in a voice that sounded like a Wall Street broker who’d been inhaling helium, said, “Buy low, sell high, Margaret. Also, scratch behind my ears.”

“Your cat talks,” Meredith said faintly.

“He didn’t yesterday!” Mrs. Henderson wailed. “Yesterday he was normal! Now he keeps telling me about market trends and demanding sushi-grade tuna!”

“The temporal energy in the pipes must have affected him,” Reginald mused. “Fascinating! I wonder if all the pets in the building have been enhanced.”

As if on cue, they heard barking from the hallway that sounded suspiciously like Morse code.

“Is that Mr. Patel’s bulldog?” Abigail asked.

“I think he’s tapping out the complete works of Shakespeare,” Meredith said, her ear pressed to the door.

“Oh good,” Reginald said weakly. “The building is full of hyper-intelligent animals. The Time Police will definitely understand that this was an accident.”

“Fix it!” Mrs. Henderson demanded, thrusting the glowing cat at Reginald. “I don’t care how, just make Mr. Whiskers stop insider trading!”

“Insider trading?” Reginald echoed.

“He’s been calling his cat friends and sharing stock tips,” Mrs. Henderson explained. “Mrs. Potts’ Persian is up three thousand dollars since this morning!”

“The cats have formed an investment network,” Meredith said in amazement. “That’s actually kind of impressive.”

“MEOW Street Journal,” Mr. Whiskers said proudly. “Patent pending.”

“Okay,” Reginald said, setting the cat down gently, “I’m adding ‘fix the temporally enhanced pets’ to our to-do list. But first, we need to age Eugene back up and return him to 1952.”

“I can help with that,” a new voice said from the doorway.

Everyone turned to see a tall woman in an elegant business suit standing in the entrance. She had silver hair styled in an elaborate updo and carried a briefcase that seemed to be humming with energy.

“Who are you?” Reginald asked.

“Dr. Prudence Wicksworth, Temporal Solutions Incorporated,” the woman said, producing a business card from thin air. “We specialize in fixing temporal oopsies.”

“Temporal oopsies?” Meredith repeated.

“It’s a technical term,” Dr. Wicksworth said smoothly. “I heard about your little situation through the temporal grapevine—”

“There’s a temporal grapevine?” Reginald interrupted.

“Oh yes. You’d be amazed how gossipy time travelers can be. Anyway, I’m here to offer my services.”

“For free?” Abigail asked suspiciously.

“Heavens no,” Dr. Wicksworth laughed. “Our fees are quite reasonable. We charge by the paradox.”

“How much for a Grandfather Paradox, subsection C?” Meredith asked.

Dr. Wicksworth consulted a device that looked like a calculator had mated with a lava lamp. “Let’s see… one de-aged grandfather, temporal displacement of approximately seventy-three years, plus the complication of enhanced pets… I can fix everything for the low price of forty-seven thousand dollars.”

“Forty-seven thousand dollars?” Reginald squeaked.

“Plus tax,” Dr. Wicksworth added cheerfully. “Temporal tax is brutal. Something about compound interest across multiple timelines.”

“We don’t have that kind of money!” Reginald protested.

“Then I’m afraid you’ll have to fix it yourself,” Dr. Wicksworth said with a shrug. “Good luck with that. Oh, and word of advice? The Time Police are not known for their sense of humor. Officer Jenkins-Prime once arrested a man for making a temporal pun.”

“What was the pun?” Eugene asked, tugging on her suit jacket.

Dr. Wicksworth looked down at him with a smile. “He said time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana, then actually sent fruit flies through time. Jenkins-Prime was not amused.”

“That’s hilarious!” Eugene giggled.

“You would have loved the fruit flies,” Dr. Wicksworth agreed. “They came back able to speak Latin. No one knows why.”

“As fascinating as temporally educated insects are,” Abigail interrupted, “we need to focus on fixing this situation without going bankrupt.”

“Fair enough,” Dr. Wicksworth said. She handed Reginald her business card. “Call me if you change your mind. Or if you need someone to clean up whatever mess you’re about to make trying to fix your current mess.”

“We’re not going to make a mess!” Reginald said indignantly.

Dr. Wicksworth looked around the laboratory, taking in the talking toilet sensor, the glowing cat now doing tax calculations on Meredith’s computer, the disco ball time machine, and the eight-year-old grandfather in a tutu.

“Of course not,” she said dryly. “Everything here screams ‘under control.'”

With that, she left, her heels clicking ominously on the linoleum floor.

“I don’t like her,” Eugene announced. “She smells like old cheese and sadness.”

“Remarkably accurate assessment,” Abigail agreed.

“Right,” Reginald said, clapping his hands together. “We don’t need her help. We can fix this ourselves. Meredith, I need you to help me recalibrate the temporal matrix. Mother, can you keep Eugene entertained and away from anything dangerous?”

“Define dangerous,” Abigail said, eyeing the various contraptions around the lab.

“If it glows, hums, vibrates, or looks like it might explode, it’s dangerous,” Reginald said.

“So everything in here,” Meredith summarized.

“I’ve been meaning to work on the lab’s safety rating,” Reginald admitted.

“What is the lab’s safety rating?” Abigail asked.

“We don’t talk about the lab’s safety rating,” Reginald and Meredith said in unison.

While Reginald and Meredith got to work on the technical aspects of temporal reversal, Abigail took Eugene to a corner of the lab that seemed relatively safe, if you ignored the jar labeled “Probably Not Antimatter” sitting on the shelf.

“So, Daddy,” Abigail said, still finding it surreal to address an eight-year-old as her father, “tell me about 1952.”

“It’s boring,” Eugene said, pulling yet another pudding from his seemingly infinite tutu pockets. “Everyone’s always talking about the war that ended and nobody has good TV. Mrs. Gwumbly says television will rot our brains, but I think my brain would like to be a raisin.”

“Sound logic,” Abigail said, remembering that her father had always had an interesting way of looking at the world.

“Do you have TV in the future?” Eugene asked excitedly. “Is it in color? Can you watch it whenever you want? Are there shows about ballet-dancing scientists who fight crime?”

“Yes to all of those, surprisingly,” Abigail said. “Although the ballet-dancing scientist show was canceled after one season.”

“Aw,” Eugene pouted. “I bet it was good.”

Meanwhile, Reginald and Meredith were elbow-deep in the time machine’s inner workings, which looked like someone had tried to perform surgery on a Christmas tree.

“Pass me the quantum spanner,” Reginald said.

“The what now?” Meredith asked.

“The shiny wrench-looking thing with the purple handle.”

“That’s just a regular wrench you painted purple.”

“Yes, but calling it a quantum spanner makes me feel more scientific.”

Meredith handed him the “quantum spanner” while privately questioning her career choices. “Explain to me again how this is supposed to work?”

“It’s simple!” Reginald said, which Meredith had learned meant it was anything but. “We create an inverse temporal field by reversing the polarity of the neutron flow—”

“Neutrons don’t have flow,” Meredith interrupted.

“They do in my machine!” Reginald said proudly. “I’ve revolutionized physics!”

“You’ve certainly done something to physics,” Meredith agreed. “I’m not sure ‘revolutionized’ is the right word. ‘Assaulted’ maybe.”

“Semantics,” Reginald waved dismissively. “The point is, if we can create an exact inverse of the field that brought Eugene here and de-aged him, we should be able to age him back up and send him home.”

“Should,” Meredith emphasized. “That’s doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.”

“Where’s your scientific optimism?” Reginald asked.

“It died about five minutes after I started working for you,” Meredith said. “Remember the incident with the so-called ‘gravity reverser’?”

“How was I supposed to know it would only reverse the gravity for coffee?” Reginald defended. “The ceiling stains have mostly faded.”

“The janitor still won’t speak to you.”

“Mr. Kowalski is holding a grudge,” Reginald said. “It’s been two years. You’d think he’d be over it by now.”

A loud crash interrupted their bickering. They turned to see Eugene standing next to a now-broken beaker, looking guilty.

“I didn’t touch it!” he said immediately, which was the universal child code for “I definitely touched it.”

“What was in that beaker?” Meredith asked nervously.

Reginald squinted at the label. “Either my experimental temporal lubricant or my lunch from last Tuesday. The handwriting’s a bit smudged.”

“Your lunch from last Tuesday?” Abigail said incredulously. “Reginald, even as a child, you knew food doesn’t keep that long.”

“It does if you put it in a temporal stasis field!” Reginald said brightly.

“You’ve been using temporal technology to avoid cleaning out old lunches?” Meredith said.

“Among other things,” Reginald admitted. “You should see my sock drawer. I’ve got pairs from the future that haven’t even been worn yet!”

“We’re getting off track,” Abigail said firmly. “How long until you can fix the machine?”

Reginald consulted his watch, which appeared to be running backward. “At our current pace? Approximately four hours, give or take a temporal fluctuation.”

“We have twenty hours left,” Meredith calculated. “That should be plenty of time.”

“DON’T SAY THAT!” Reginald shouted.

“Say what?”

“‘Plenty of time!’ You’ve jinxed us! Now something’s bound to go wrong!”

“That’s ridiculous,” Meredith said. “Jinxes aren’t real.”

The lights flickered ominously.

“You were saying?” Reginald said.

“Coincidence,” Meredith insisted.

The toilet in the bathroom began singing what sounded like the French national anthem.

“Still think it’s a coincidence?” Reginald asked.

“Why is the toilet singing in French?” Abigail wondered.

“The temporal energy must be affecting the building’s smart systems,” Reginald explained. “Although why it chose French is anyone’s guess.”

“Bonjour, toilet!” Eugene called out cheerfully.

The toilet responded with what sounded like a rather rude phrase in French, though fortunately, Eugene didn’t understand it.

“We need to contain the temporal energy,” Meredith said. “It’s spreading beyond the lab.”

“How do we do that?” Abigail asked.

“Well,” Reginald said, pulling out what looked like a hair dryer crossed with a satellite dish, “I’ve been working on a Temporal Containment Device.”

“Does it work?” Meredith asked suspiciously.

“In theory!”

“I’m learning to hate that phrase,” Meredith muttered.

Reginald aimed the device at the bathroom door and pulled the trigger. A bright blue beam shot out, enveloping the door in crackling energy. The toilet’s singing grew louder, switching from French to what might have been opera.

“Is it working?” Abigail asked.

“Define working,” Reginald said as the toilet began harmonizing with itself.

“Make it stop!” Mrs. Henderson pleaded from the hallway. “The toilet’s keeping the whole floor awake!”

“It’s 7 AM,” Meredith pointed out.

“Some of us work night shifts!” Mrs. Henderson shot back. “Also, Mr. Whiskers has started a cryptocurrency and I don’t understand what’s happening!”

“WhiskerCoin is the future, Margaret!” the cat called out. “Buy the dip!”

“I’m too old for this,” Mrs. Henderson moaned.

“You’re forty-three,” Abigail said.

“Forty-three is too old for time-traveling toilets and investment advisor cats!”

“Fair point,” Abigail conceded.

Reginald adjusted some dials on his Temporal Containment Device, which seemed to only make things worse. The toilet was now singing in three-part harmony with itself, and the bathroom door was glowing.

“I think you’re making it worse,” Meredith observed.

“I’m making it different,” Reginald corrected. “Whether that’s worse or better remains to be seen.”

“The door is literally on fire,” Meredith pointed out.

“Temporal fire,” Reginald said, as if that made it better. “It only burns in three dimensions instead of four.”

“THAT’S STILL FIRE!”

Eugene, who had been watching all of this with the fascination only an eight-year-old could muster, tugged on Reginald’s lab coat. “Gwandpa Weggie, can I try?”

“Try what?” Reginald asked, distracted by the fact that the fire had now turned purple.

“Fixing it,” Eugene said simply. “I’m good at fixing things. Mommy says I have ‘destructive creativity.'”

“I think she meant that as a warning, not a compliment,” Abigail said.

“Let the boy try,” Mrs. Henderson called out. “He can’t possibly make it worse than Dr. Fluffbottom already has.”

“I resent that!” Reginald said. “I’m a highly qualified scientist!”

“Who set a door on fire with temporal energy,” Meredith added.

“Allegedly!” Reginald protested, despite the door being very obviously on fire.

Eugene walked up to the Temporal Containment Device, studied it with the intensity of someone trying to understand abstract art, then kicked it.

The device sparked, sputtered, and then emitted a sound like a deflating balloon filled with pudding. The fire went out, the toilet stopped singing, and the glow faded from the door.

“How did you do that?” Reginald asked in amazement.

Eugene shrugged. “When the radio at home stops working, Daddy kicks it and it gets better. I figured maybe future machines work the same way.”

“The child used percussive maintenance to fix a temporal anomaly,” Meredith said faintly. “I need to sit down.”

“I need a drink,” Mrs. Henderson added. “And someone to explain cryptocurrency to me in small words.”

“Buy low, sell high!” Mr. Whiskers called out helpfully.

“That’s not helpful!” Mrs. Henderson shouted back.

“Perhaps we should focus on the main problem,” Abigail suggested. “We still need to age Eugene back up and send him home.”

“Right,” Reginald said, trying to regain his scientific dignity despite being outperformed by an eight-year-old with a kicking solution. “Back to the time machine.”

They returned to the main apparatus, which looked even more ridiculous in the morning light. The disco ball caught the sun streaming through the window, casting rainbow patterns across the lab that would have been pretty if they weren’t potentially radioactive with temporal energy.

“I need to make some adjustments to the temporal matrix,” Reginald announced, pulling out tools that looked like they’d been stolen from either a dentist or an alien spaceship. “This might take a while.”

“How long is a while?” Meredith asked.

“Anywhere from twenty minutes to six hours, depending on whether the chronotons cooperate.”

“The particles you made up last Tuesday?” Meredith said skeptically.

“They’re very real!” Reginald insisted. “Look, you can see them right there!” He pointed at what appeared to be empty air.

“I see nothing,” Meredith said.

“That’s because you’re not believing hard enough,” Reginald said seriously.

“Science doesn’t work on belief!” Meredith protested.

“Have you met quantum mechanics?” Reginald countered. “Half of it runs on belief and the other half on spite.”

While they argued about the philosophical implications of particle physics, Eugene had wandered over to Mr. Whiskers, who was now wearing tiny glasses and studying what looked like stock charts on Meredith’s computer.

“Are you really from the future?” Eugene asked the cat.

“Next Tuesday, to be specific,” Mr. Whiskers replied without looking up from his charts. “Terrible week for tech stocks, by the way. Invest in catnip futures.”

“Why catnip?” Eugene asked.

“Let’s just say the feline revolution is closer than you think,” Mr. Whiskers said mysteriously.

“Cool!” Eugene said. “Can I join the feline revolution?”

“Can you purr?” Mr. Whiskers asked.

Eugene attempted to purr, producing a sound more like a broken garbage disposal.

“We’ll work on it,” Mr. Whiskers said diplomatically.

“Eugene, please stop planning revolution with the time-displaced cat,” Abigail called out. “Come help me organize Grandpa Weggie’s tools.”

“But revolution sounds fun!” Eugene protested.

“So does organizing,” Abigail lied smoothly. “Look, this wrench is purple!”

“Ooh!” Eugene scampered over, distracted by the shiny object.

Reginald, meanwhile, was deep in the guts of his time machine, muttering things that sounded like either complex equations or the symptoms of a stroke.

“Carry the seven, divide by the temporal constant, account for daylight savings…” he mumbled.

“Are you actually doing math or just saying random words?” Meredith asked.

“Yes,” Reginald replied unhelpfully.

“That’s not an answer!”

“It’s a quantum answer,” Reginald said. “It’s both an answer and not an answer until you observe it.”

“I’m observing it right now,” Meredith said. “It’s definitely not an answer.”

“Then you’ve collapsed the wave function!” Reginald said triumphantly. “Science!”

Meredith made a mental note to update her resume. Perhaps a nice, quiet job in accounting would be less stressful. Sure, she’d miss the excitement of temporal physics, but she’d also miss the constant headaches and the ever-present threat of paradox-induced non-existence.

“Got it!” Reginald suddenly exclaimed, emerging from the machine covered in what looked like glitter but was probably temporally charged particles. “I’ve recalibrated the temporal matrix!”

“What does that mean?” Abigail asked.

“I have absolutely no idea, but it sounds impressive!” Reginald said cheerfully.

“Your honesty is both refreshing and terrifying,” Meredith observed.

“Thank you! I think. Now, we need to test the repairs. Someone hand me a banana.”

“Why is it always bananas?” Eugene asked.

“They have the perfect atomic structure for temporal displacement,” Reginald explained. “Also, I bought too many last week and they’re going bad.”

Meredith handed him a banana from the bunch on the counter, trying not to think about why there were so many bananas in a physics lab.

Reginald placed the banana in what he called the “temporal chamber” but looked suspiciously like a microwave with extra wires, then began flipping switches on his control panel. The disco ball began to spin, casting dizzying patterns of light around the room.

“Temporal displacement in three… two… one…” Reginald counted down dramatically.

There was a flash of light, a sound like a cat sneezing backward, and then…

“Is that banana wearing a tiny hat?” Meredith asked.

Indeed, the banana had reappeared, but it was now sporting what looked like a very small bowler hat.

“Where did the hat come from?” Abigail wondered.

“The temporal stream must have picked it up from somewhere,” Reginald mused. “Or somewhen. Time travel makes grammar complicated.”

“But did the banana go back in time?” Meredith pressed.

Reginald consulted his instruments, which were beeping in what sounded like Morse code. “According to this, the banana traveled back… negative five minutes?”

“Negative five minutes?” Abigail repeated. “What does that mean?”

“It means the banana went forward in time instead of backward,” Reginald admitted. “Also, I’m not sure why it’s wearing a hat.”

“It’s a nice hat,” Eugene offered helpfully.

“Thank you, Eugene. At least someone appreciates the aesthetic,” Reginald said.

“We’re running out of time,” Meredith reminded them. “We have less than twenty hours to fix Eugene and avoid whatever horrible punishment the Time Police have planned.”

“Right,” Reginald said, cracking his knuckles. “Let me try again. This time with more science!”

“You can’t just add more science!” Meredith protested.

“Watch me!” Reginald declared, pulling out what looked like three calculators taped together and connected to a lava lamp.

“What is that?” Abigail asked.

“The Mega-Science Calculator 3000!” Reginald announced proudly.

“You can’t just tape calculators together and call it mega-science,” Meredith said.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Reginald said, typing furiously on all three calculators at once. “The secret is in the lava lamp. It adds chaos to the calculations.”

“Why would you want to add chaos to calculations?” Abigail asked.

“Because chaos is the secret ingredient in all the best science!” Reginald explained. “That and a healthy disregard for safety protocols.”

“That explains so much about this lab,” Meredith muttered.

The calculators beeped in unison, displaying numbers that definitely weren’t supposed to exist in base-10 mathematics.

“Aha!” Reginald exclaimed. “I see the problem. I forgot to carry the elephant.”

“Carry the elephant?” everyone said in unison.

“It’s a technical term,” Reginald said, waving dismissively. “Very advanced. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try us,” Meredith challenged.

“Well,” Reginald began, clearly making it up as he went along, “when you’re dealing with temporal mathematics, you have to account for the Elephant Constant, which is the weight of all possible futures pressing down on the present moment.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Meredith said.

“And yet it’s working!” Reginald said, pointing to his screens where incomprehensible equations were resolving themselves into something that almost looked like actual math.

“Is it really called the Elephant Constant?” Eugene asked, eyes wide with wonder.

“Absolutely,” Reginald lied. “Named after Professor Elephant, who discovered it.”

“There’s no Professor Elephant,” Abigail said.

“Not in this timeline,” Reginald said mysteriously.

Before anyone could question this further, Mr. Whiskers meowed loudly from the computer.

“The market’s crashing!” he announced. “Someone’s manipulating WhiskerCoin!”

“Who would manipulate a cryptocurrency that didn’t exist until an hour ago?” Meredith asked.

“The dogs,” Mr. Whiskers hissed. “It’s always the dogs.”

“The dogs have cryptocurrency too?” Eugene asked excitedly.

“BarkCoin,” Mr. Whiskers spat the word like it tasted bad. “Our eternal rivals.”

“The pets have formed competing financial markets,” Abigail said faintly. “This is officially the weirdest day of my life, and I raised Reginald.”

“Hey!” Reginald protested. “I was a perfectly normal child!”

“You tried to build a rocket ship out of toilets when you were six,” Abigail reminded him.

“It would have worked if the neighbors hadn’t complained about the smell!” Reginald defended.

“Can we please focus?” Meredith interrupted. “We need to fix Eugene before the Time Police come back. Or before the pet cryptocurrency war crashes the global economy.”

“Right,” Reginald said, returning to his calculations. “According to my new math—”

“The math you just made up,” Meredith clarified.

“—According to my innovative mathematical framework,” Reginald continued, glaring at her, “I need to adjust the temporal frequency by exactly 47.3 hertz while simultaneously reversing the polarity of the quantum field and doing the hokey pokey.”

“The hokey pokey?” Abigail asked.

“That part might be optional,” Reginald admitted. “But it couldn’t hurt!”

“Your approach to science hurts my soul,” Meredith said.

“Good thing souls don’t exist in purely scientific terms!” Reginald said cheerfully.

“That’s debatable,” Eugene piped up. “Mrs. Gwumbly says we all have souls and they’re made of sunshine and good choices.”

“Mrs. Grumbly sounds very philosophical for a 1950s elementary school teacher,” Abigail observed.

“She also makes really good cookies,” Eugene added. “Do you have cookies in the future?”

“We do,” Abigail assured him. “In fact, they’ve gotten even better.”

“Even better than snickerdoodles?” Eugene asked skeptically.

“We have cookies that change flavor while you eat them,” Meredith said.

Eugene’s eyes went wide. “The future is AMAZING!”

“He’s not wrong,” Reginald said. “Although the flavor-changing cookies were recalled after the Taste Bud Incident of 2023.”

“What was the Taste Bud Incident?” Meredith asked.

“We don’t talk about the Taste Bud Incident,” Reginald said darkly.

“Why are half the things in your life things we don’t talk about?” Meredith wondered.

“Because the other half are things we can’t talk about due to various non-disclosure agreements and/or pending lawsuits,” Reginald explained.

“That’s not reassuring.”

“I never claimed to be reassuring. I claimed to be a scientist!”

“Those aren’t mutually exclusive!” Meredith protested.

“In my experience, they usually are,” Reginald said. “Now, everyone stand back. I’m about to do science!”

“That’s what you said before you created the pudding geyser,” Abigail reminded him.

“The pudding geyser was a valuable learning experience,” Reginald said defensively.

“We’re still finding pudding in the air vents,” Meredith added.

“Pudding geyser?” Eugene asked excitedly. “That sounds amazing!”

“Don’t give him ideas,” Abigail warned.

“Too late!” Eugene announced. “When I get home, I’m gonna make a pudding geyser!”

“Your mother’s going to love that,” Abigail said dryly, knowing that her grandmother had indeed dealt with what family legend called “The Great Pudding Explosion of 1952.” Suddenly, she had a horrible thought. “Reginald, what if Eugene’s time here is causing all the weird family stories?”

“What weird family stories?” Reginald asked, distracted by his adjustments to the time machine.

“The Pudding Explosion, Great-Uncle Harold’s claim that he once saw a talking cat, Aunt Gertrude’s insistence that the toilet sang to her…” Abigail listed.

“Oh my god,” Meredith said. “We’re creating a causal loop. Eugene’s going to go back and cause all the weird things your family remembers!”

“That’s ridiculous,” Reginald said, then paused. “Actually, that makes perfect sense. Temporal mechanics loves irony.”

“So we’re not changing the past, we’re fulfilling it?” Abigail asked.

“Potentially,” Reginald admitted. “Time travel is weird like that. Effect can come before cause, and cause can be its own effect, and sometimes things happen just because they’re funny.”

“Time travel has a sense of humor?” Meredith asked skeptically.

“Have you seen my life?” Reginald gestured around the chaotic lab. “If time travel doesn’t have a sense of humor, then I’m just spectacularly unlucky.”

“Those aren’t mutually exclusive either,” Meredith pointed out.

“Can we please stop having philosophical discussions and fix the time machine?” Abigail asked. “I’d like to not be erased from existence today.”

“Nobody’s getting erased,” Reginald assured her. “Probably. Maybe. Okay, there’s like a fifteen percent chance of erasure, but that’s way better than yesterday’s ninety percent!”

“WHAT?” everyone shouted.

“Did I not mention the erasure percentage?” Reginald asked innocently. “It must have slipped my mind. You know how it is, so many potential apocalypses, so little time.”

“I’m updating my resume right now,” Meredith announced, pulling out her phone.

“You can’t quit!” Reginald protested. “You’re the only assistant who’s lasted more than a month!”

“What happened to the others?” Abigail asked.

“Well, there was Johnson who got temporally displaced to the Renaissance, Smith who became unstuck in time and now exists as a quantum probability cloud, and Peterson who just sent me a postcard from next Thursday saying she’s much happier as a dentist,” Reginald listed.

“A postcard from next Thursday?” Eugene asked. “How does that work?”

“Temporal mail service,” Reginald explained. “Very expensive, but they deliver yesterday.”

“I want to send a postcard to yesterday!” Eugene said excitedly.

“Maybe after we fix the current temporal crisis,” Abigail suggested.

“There’s always a temporal crisis,” Meredith muttered. “Last week it was the incident with the backwards-aging fruit flies—”

“Which was not my fault!” Reginald interrupted.

“You literally created them!” Meredith countered.

“Yes, but I didn’t mean to make them speak Latin!”

“Why do all your accidents involve Latin-speaking animals?” Abigail wondered.

“It’s a mystery,” Reginald admitted. “I’ve theories, but they all involve assuming the universe has a very specific sense of humor.”

Mr. Whiskers chose this moment to announce, “WhiskerCoin is recovering! Buy the dip, Margaret!”

“I don’t understand any of this!” Mrs. Henderson wailed from the hallway.

“Join the club!” Meredith called back. “We have jackets! Well, we would if Reginald hadn’t accidentally sent them to the Cretaceous period!”

“Those jackets are probably being worn by very stylish dinosaurs now,” Reginald said defensively.

“Can we please focus on the current problem?” Abigail pleaded. “Eugene needs to get home before—”

She was interrupted by a loud BANG from the time machine, followed by purple smoke and what sounded distinctly like accordion music.

“Why is there accordion music?” Meredith asked, waving away the smoke.

“Oh no,” Reginald said. “I must have accidentally connected to the temporal stream of that guy who keeps trying to prevent the invention of accordions!”

“The one the Time Police mentioned?” Abigail recalled.

“His temporal signature is very distinctive,” Reginald explained. “Also very annoying. He broadcasts accordion music as some sort of protest.”

“But if he hates accordions, why broadcast accordion music?” Eugene asked with the unassailable logic of an eight-year-old.

“That… is an excellent question,” Reginald admitted. “I’ve never thought about it.”

“Maybe he’s not very good at protesting,” Meredith suggested.

The accordion music grew louder, now accompanied by what sounded like yodeling.

“Is that yodeling?” Abigail asked.

“Swiss accordions,” Reginald said, as if that explained everything. “Very specific temporal frequency. If I can just…” He dove back into the machine’s controls, emerging with what looked like a coat hanger wrapped in aluminum foil. “This should block the signal!”

He waved the makeshift device at the time machine. The accordion music wavered, transformed briefly into what might have been death metal, then finally ceased.

“How did that work?” Meredith demanded.

“Aluminum foil blocks temporal signals,” Reginald explained. “It’s why conspiracy theorists are accidentally right about the hats. Wrong reasoning, correct conclusion.”

“My brain hurts,” Eugene announced.

“That’s normal when dealing with temporal mechanics,” Reginald assured him. “Or it’s the accordion music. Accordion music from another timeline can cause mild headaches and an inexplicable desire to wear lederhosen.”

“I don’t know what lederhosen are, but I don’t think I want them,” Eugene said.

“Smart boy,” Abigail said.

Reginald returned to his controls, muttering calculations under his breath. The disco ball began spinning again, faster this time, creating a dizzying light show that made everyone slightly nauseous.

“I think I’ve got it!” he announced. “If I adjust the temporal frequency to match Eugene’s original timeline while accounting for the de-aging factor and the pudding variable—”

“The pudding variable?” Meredith interrupted.

“He’s been eating pudding continuously since he arrived,” Reginald explained. “That much dairy has to affect the temporal calculations.”

“That makes no sense whatsoever,” Meredith said.

“Welcome to temporal physics!” Reginald said cheerfully. “Where the rules are made up and the math doesn’t matter!”

“I thought the math was the only thing that mattered,” Abigail said.

“Only on Tuesdays,” Reginald said seriously.

“It’s Wednesday,” Meredith pointed out.

“Which explains why nothing’s been working properly!” Reginald exclaimed as if he’d just had a major breakthrough.

Before anyone could question this logic, the time machine began humming. Not the usual electronic hum of machinery, but actually humming. It sounded like it was trying to remember the tune to “Happy Birthday” but kept getting distracted.

“Is it supposed to do that?” Eugene asked.

“Nothing in this lab does what it’s supposed to do,” Meredith said. “We’ve learned to adapt.”

“Adaptation is key to survival,” Mr. Whiskers agreed from the computer. “Also, diversify your portfolio.”

“Nobody asked you, cat!” Mrs. Henderson called from the hallway.

“MarGARET!” Mr. Whiskers yelled back. “WhiskerCoin is YOUR FUTURE!”

“Can we please deal with one crisis at a time?” Abigail pleaded.

“But they’re all connected!” Reginald said excitedly. “The time machine, the enhanced pets, Eugene’s displacement—it’s all part of one big temporal event!”

“What kind of event?” Meredith asked warily.

“The kind that either fixes everything or destroys the space-time continuum,” Reginald said casually.

“WHAT?” everyone screamed.

“There’s like a two percent chance of continuum destruction,” Reginald said reassuringly. “Three percent tops.”

“That’s not reassuring!” Meredith shouted.

“It’s more reassuring than yesterday’s forty percent!” Reginald countered.

“I’m starting to think I should have taken that job at the insurance company,” Meredith muttered.

“Insurance is boring,” Eugene piped up. “This is way more fun! Even if we might stop existing!”

“The child has a point,” Abigail admitted. “Terrifying, but not boring.”

The time machine’s humming grew louder, shifting from “Happy Birthday” to what might have been the theme from Jeopardy.

“Why does your time machine know TV theme songs?” Meredith asked.

“I may have been using it to stream shows from the future,” Reginald admitted. “Did you know they remake Friends in 2030 but with robots?”

“That sounds terrible,” Abigail said.

“It’s actually quite good! The robot playing Chandler really understands comedic timing!”

“FOCUS!” Meredith shouted.

“Right, yes, focusing,” Reginald said. He made a few final adjustments, and the disco ball began glowing with an eerie blue light. “Okay, Eugene, I need you to stand in the temporal field.”

“The sparkly place?” Eugene asked.

“Exactly.”

Eugene skipped over to the marked area, still clutching a pudding cup. “Will this hurt?”

“Probably not!” Reginald said. “You might feel a slight tingling sensation, followed by rapid aging and temporal displacement.”

“What’s tingling?” Eugene asked.

“Like when your foot falls asleep but all over,” Meredith explained.

“Oh,” Eugene said. “That doesn’t sound fun.”

“Science rarely is,” Reginald admitted. “But it’s necessary!”

“Wait,” Abigail said suddenly. “If we send Eugene back properly aged with his memories intact, won’t he remember all of this? Won’t that create a paradox?”

Reginald paused, his finger hovering over the activation button. “Oh. Right. Memory adjustment. I forgot about that part.”

“You forgot the memory part of time travel?” Meredith said incredulously.

“There are a lot of parts to remember!” Reginald defended. “Temporal displacement, age adjustment, memory modification, pudding variable calculation—”

“Stop saying pudding variable like it’s a real thing!” Meredith interrupted.

“It’s as real as chronotons!” Reginald insisted.

“Which you made up!”

“And yet they work!”

“Children!” Abigail said sharply. “Can we please focus on the task at hand?”

“Sorry, Mom,” Reginald said automatically.

“Sorry, Mrs. Fluffbottom,” Meredith added.

“Now,” Abigail continued, “how do we adjust Eugene’s memories?”

“Well,” Reginald said, pulling out what looked like a colander with Christmas lights attached, “I’ve been working on a Memory Adjustment Device.”

“That’s a colander with Christmas lights,” Meredith stated flatly.

“It’s a highly sophisticated neural interface!” Reginald protested.

“It’s literally still got spaghetti stains on it,” Meredith pointed out.

“Those add character,” Reginald said defensively. “Also, the tomato sauce helps conduct neural electricity.”

“That’s not a thing,” Meredith said.

“It is in my lab!” Reginald declared.

Eugene looked at the colander dubiously. “Do I have to wear that?”

“Just for a minute,” Reginald assured him. “It’ll help make sure you don’t remember any of this when you get back to 1952.”

“But I want to remember!” Eugene protested. “This has been the best day ever! I met future people and a talking cat and I learned about time toilets!”

“Temporal toilets,” Reginald corrected automatically.

“And I don’t want to forget you, Gwandpa Weggie!” Eugene continued. “You’re funny and you have purple tools and your hair sticks up like a confused porcupine!”

“Thank you?” Reginald said, touching his admittedly disheveled hair.

“If he remembers, it could alter the entire timeline,” Meredith warned.

“But maybe that’s what’s supposed to happen,” Abigail said thoughtfully. “All those family stories—what if they exist because Eugene does remember, just a little bit?”

“Temporal leakage,” Reginald mused. “Memory fragments that survive the adjustment process. It would explain why our family has always been a bit… unusual.”

“A bit?” Meredith said. “Your cousin thinks she’s psychic because she can predict when the microwave timer will go off.”

“Cousin Ethel has many talents,” Reginald said diplomatically.

“She’s right about the microwave like ten percent of the time,” Meredith continued.

“That’s better than random chance!” Reginald argued.

“No, it’s exactly random chance,” Meredith countered.

“Can we discuss Cousin Ethel’s questionable psychic abilities later?” Abigail interrupted. “We need to make a decision about Eugene’s memories.”

Eugene raised his hand like he was in school. “Can I vote?”

“This isn’t a democracy,” Reginald started to say, but Abigail cut him off.

“What’s your vote, Eugene?”

“I want to remember the talking cat and the time toilet and Gwandpa Weggie and the nice lady who looks like Mrs. Gwumbly but older,” Eugene said firmly. “Even if I can’t tell anyone, I want to remember.”

“The child makes a compelling argument,” Mr. Whiskers called from the computer. “Also, WhiskerCoin just hit a new high! We’re rich, Margaret!”

“I don’t want to be rich!” Mrs. Henderson wailed. “I just want a normal cat who doesn’t understand cryptocurrency!”

“Too late!” Mr. Whiskers cackled. “I’ve already bought us a boat!”

“I get seasick!” Mrs. Henderson protested.

“Details!” Mr. Whiskers dismissed.

“Okay,” Reginald decided, “we’ll do a partial memory adjustment. Eugene will remember this as a very vivid dream. That way, the timeline stays intact but he keeps the memories, just… fuzzier.”

“Like when I ate too much candy at Billy’s birthday and everything went spinny?” Eugene asked.

“Exactly like that,” Reginald confirmed. “But with more time travel and less throwing up.”

“I only threw up a little,” Eugene defended.

“TMI, Daddy,” Abigail said, then paused. “That was very weird to say.”

“This whole day has been weird,” Meredith observed. “And it’s only 8 AM.”

Reginald placed the colander—sorry, Memory Adjustment Device—on Eugene’s head. The Christmas lights blinked in a pattern that was either highly sophisticated or completely random.

“How do you feel?” Reginald asked.

“Like I’m wearing a spaghetti hat,” Eugene said.

“That’s normal,” Reginald assured him, though he had no idea if it was.

“Okay,” Abigail said, “so we adjust his memories, age him back up, and send him to 1952. What could go wrong?”

“DON’T SAY THAT!” Reginald and Meredith shouted in unison.

Too late. The lights flickered, the time machine sparked, and Mr. Whiskers announced, “Market crash! Someone’s hacked WhiskerCoin!”

“Who could hack a cryptocurrency that’s only existed for two hours?” Meredith asked.

“THE DOGS!” Mr. Whiskers hissed. “It’s always the dogs!”

Sure enough, they heard barking from the hallway that sounded suspiciously like binary code.

“Are the dogs actually hacking?” Abigail asked faintly.

“Mr. Patel’s bulldog is apparently some kind of coding genius,” Reginald said, reading the alerts on his computer. “He’s breached three firewalls and is currently rewriting the WhiskerCoin blockchain.”

“In Dog Latin, no less,” Mr. Whiskers added disgustedly.

“Is Dog Latin a thing?” Eugene asked.

“It is now,” Meredith sighed.

The time machine began making a sound like a blender full of marbles.

“That’s not good,” Reginald said.

“What’s not good?” Abigail demanded.

“The temporal matrix is destabilizing! The combination of the memory adjustment field and the time displacement protocols is creating a feedback loop!”

“In English!” Meredith shouted.

“Big boom unless we fix it!” Reginald translated.

“How big?” Eugene asked with interest.

“Big enough that we won’t be around to measure it,” Reginald said.

“Oh,” Eugene said. “That does sound big.”

Reginald frantically typed commands into his computer while the disco ball spun faster and faster. The light patterns were becoming hypnotic, and the humming had evolved into what sounded like a full choir singing show tunes.

“Why show tunes?” Meredith wondered aloud.

“The time machine has developed preferences,” Reginald explained without looking up from his work. “Last week it was opera.”

“Your time machine has musical preferences,” Abigail said flatly.

“AI is advancing rapidly,” Reginald said.

“This isn’t AI! It’s a disco ball attached to microwaves!” Meredith protested.

“Temporally enhanced microwaves,” Reginald corrected.

The singing grew louder. It was definitely “Cats” now, which seemed appropriate given the circumstances.

“Memory adjustment complete!” Reginald announced suddenly. “Eugene, how do you feel?”

“Fuzzy,” Eugene said. “Like my brain is wearing a sweater.”

“Perfect! That’s exactly what we want!” Reginald said, though he had no idea if brain sweaters were good or bad.

“Now for the aging,” Meredith said. “Please tell me you know how to age him back up without turning him into dust.”

“I’m reasonably confident,” Reginald said.

“How reasonable?” Abigail asked.

“Like… seventy percent?”

“SEVENTY PERCENT?” everyone yelled.

“It was fifty percent five minutes ago, so we’re improving!” Reginald said optimistically.

“Your optimism is terrifying,” Meredith informed him.

“Thank you! I think. Now, everyone stand back. This might get a bit explosive.”

“A BIT explosive?” Abigail grabbed Eugene and pulled him away from the machine.

“Just a little explosive,” Reginald assured them. “Like a firecracker, not a bomb.”

“That’s still explosive!” Meredith pointed out.

“Details!” Reginald said, channeling Mr. Whiskers’ dismissive tone.

He pulled a lever that definitely hadn’t been there five minutes ago. The time machine shuddered, sparked, and then…

Nothing happened.

“Is that good or bad?” Eugene asked.

“I honestly don’t know,” Reginald admitted.

Then the aging started.

It was subtle at first. Eugene’s face began to mature, his features shifting from childish roundness to pre-teen angles. Then teenage awkwardness, complete with a brief stop at an unfortunate mustache phase.

“Oh my,” Abigail said. “Daddy had a mustache phase.”

“Everyone has a mustache phase,” Reginald said defensively, unconsciously touching his own upper lip where he’d tried and failed to grow facial hair in graduate school.

Eugene continued aging, passing through his twenties, thirties, forties…

“He’s aging too fast!” Meredith shouted.

“I see that!” Reginald replied, frantically pushing buttons.

Fifties, sixties, seventies…

“STOP IT!” Abigail commanded.

“I’M TRYING!” Reginald yelled back.

Eugene hit his eighties and kept going. His hair, which had gone from brown to gray to white, was now starting to thin dramatically.

“REGINALD!” everyone screamed.

“ALMOST… THERE!” Reginald pulled one final lever.

The aging stopped. Eugene stood before them, approximately eighty-three years old, wearing a tutu that was now far too small, and looking very confused.

“What in the Sam Hill is going on here?” he demanded in a voice that was definitely not eight years old anymore.

“Grandfather?” Reginald said tentatively.

“Reginald? Is that you? Why are you covered in glitter? And why am I wearing a tutu? And why does my head feel like it’s full of fuzzy memories about talking cats and singing toilets?”

“It’s a long story,” Abigail said.

“I’ve got time,” Eugene said, then paused. “Actually, do I? What year is it?”

“2025,” Meredith supplied.

“2025?” Eugene’s eyes widened. “But I was just in 1952! I was eight years old and eating pudding and…” He trailed off, touching the tutu. “This wasn’t a dream, was it?”

“Afraid not,” Reginald said.

“You built a time machine,” Eugene said. It wasn’t a question.

“Yes?”

“And you accidentally brought me here from 1952.”

“Yes.”

“As an eight-year-old.”

“Yes.”

“In a tutu.”

“You insisted on the tutu,” Reginald said defensively.

Eugene was quiet for a moment, processing. Then he started laughing. Not a polite chuckle, but a full-bellied laugh that shook his whole elderly frame.

“Of all the things,” he wheezed between laughs, “that I thought might happen in my life, time traveling to meet my grandson while wearing a tutu was not on the list!”

“You’re taking this very well,” Meredith observed.

“My dear,” Eugene said, still chuckling, “when you’ve lived as long as I have as a Fluffbottom, you learn to roll with the weird. Though this is weird even by our family standards.”

“We still need to send you back,” Reginald said. “To 1952. The Time Police gave us a deadline.”

“Time Police?” Eugene raised an eyebrow. “That sounds like something out of one of those science fiction magazines little Timmy Henderson is always reading.”

“They’re very real and very annoying,” Meredith assured him.

“Well then,” Eugene said, adjusting his too-small tutu with dignity, “I suppose you’d better send me back. Though I do have one question.”

“What’s that?” Reginald asked.

“Do I have to keep the tutu?”

“I’m afraid so,” Abigail said. “You were wearing it when you arrived in 2025, so you need to be wearing it when you go back to 1952.”

“Temporal continuity,” Reginald added.

“My mother is going to have so many questions,” Eugene sighed.

“Tell her it was for a school play,” Meredith suggested.

“In August?” Eugene pointed out.

“Summer school play?” Reginald offered.

“I suppose that’s as good an explanation as any,” Eugene agreed. “Though it doesn’t explain why I’ll suddenly appear in the middle of the living room.”

“Ah,” Reginald said. “Where exactly were you when… you know… you got temporally displaced?”

Eugene thought for a moment, his face scrunched in concentration. “I was in the living room, eating pudding and listening to the radio. Mother had gone to the kitchen to get more milk, and I was thinking about the ballet we’d seen the night before…”

“That explains the tutu fixation,” Abigail murmured.

“…and then there was this bright light and a sound like someone sneezing backwards, and suddenly I was here, but I was eight, and there was this man with crazy hair offering me more pudding.”

“My hair is not crazy!” Reginald protested. “It’s enthusiastically scientific!”

“It looks like you’ve been electrocuted,” Eugene said bluntly. “Repeatedly.”

“That’s… actually not inaccurate,” Meredith admitted. “He does get electrocuted a lot.”

“Occupational hazard,” Reginald said dismissively. “Now, let’s get you home before—”

He was interrupted by a loud knocking at the door.

“Time Police! We know you’re in there!”

“But we still have sixteen hours!” Meredith protested, checking her watch.

“Time moves differently for time cops!” Officer Chen-Squared’s voice called through the door. “Also, we’re on our lunch break and thought we’d check in!”

“They’re on their lunch break?” Abigail said incredulously.

Reginald opened the door to reveal the two Time Police officers, now holding what appeared to be sandwiches wrapped in temporal foil.

“Don’t mind us,” Officer Jenkins-Prime said, taking a bite of his sandwich. “We just wanted to see how the fix was going—IS THAT THE GRANDFATHER?”

“Hi,” Eugene waved. “I’m told you’re Time Police. That must be an interesting job.”

“He’s the right age!” Officer Chen-Squared said excitedly. “You actually did it! You aged him back up!”

“You sound surprised,” Reginald said.

“We are,” Jenkins-Prime admitted. “Usually, first-time temporal criminals just make things worse. Last week we had a guy who tried to fix his grandmother paradox and accidentally turned her into three different grandmothers existing simultaneously.”

“Three grandmothers?” Meredith asked.

“Thanksgiving was very complicated,” Chen-Squared confirmed.

“Well, we’re not done yet,” Reginald said. “We still need to send him back to 1952.”

“Without creating any paradoxes,” Jenkins-Prime added sternly.

“Or memory contamination,” Chen-Squared added.

“Or temporal duplicates.”

“Or chronological inversions.”

“Or—”

“WE GET IT!” Reginald interrupted. “No paradoxes. Just a simple return trip to 1952.”

“Nothing about this has been simple,” Meredith muttered.

Mr. Whiskers chose this moment to announce, “The dogs have been defeated! WhiskerCoin is victorious! SELL SELL SELL!”

“Why sell if you’re victorious?” Mrs. Henderson asked from the hallway.

“Buy low, sell high, Margaret! This is high!” Mr. Whiskers explained.

“Your cat is giving financial advice,” Officer Jenkins-Prime observed.

“It’s been a weird day,” Abigail said.

“We’ve seen weirder,” Chen-Squared assured her. “Last month someone accidentally gave the Renaissance stock tips.”

“How did that go?” Eugene asked with interest.

“The Medici family now owns Tesla,” Jenkins-Prime said glumly. “We’re still trying to fix that one.”

“Fascinating as this is,” Reginald interrupted, “shouldn’t we focus on getting Grandfather home?”

“Right,” Eugene said, then paused. “This is very strange to say, but… thank you for the adventure, Grandson. Even if I won’t properly remember it.”

“The memories will be fuzzy,” Reginald explained. “Like a very vivid dream. You’ll remember feelings more than facts.”

“I’ll remember that my grandson is a mad scientist with terrible hair,” Eugene said with a grin.

“My hair is—you know what, never mind,” Reginald sighed. “Let’s just get you home.”

He ushered Eugene to the temporal displacement zone, aka the spot under the disco ball marked with duct tape and hope.

“Any last words for 2025?” Meredith asked.

Eugene thought for a moment. “Tell that cat that his investment advice is sound but his attitude needs work.”

“I HEARD THAT!” Mr. Whiskers yelled. “Your portfolio would be NOTHING without me, Eugene!”

“See? Attitude,” Eugene said.

Reginald began the startup sequence for the time machine. The disco ball spun, the lights flashed, and the humming began again—this time sounding like a barbershop quartet warming up.

“Why is each musical selection different?” Abigail wondered.

“The machine is exploring its artistic side,” Reginald explained while adjusting dials. “I support its journey of self-discovery.”

“Your time machine is not sentient!” Meredith insisted.

The machine’s humming immediately turned discordant, like a barbershop quartet that had just been insulted.

“You hurt its feelings,” Reginald accused.

“IT DOESN’T HAVE FEELINGS!”

The disco ball spun faster, angrily.

“Maybe apologize?” Eugene suggested. “Just to be safe?”

Meredith sighed deeply. “I’m sorry, time machine. You’re very… musical.”

The humming returned to harmony, adding what sounded like a pleased trill.

“I can’t believe I just apologized to a disco ball,” Meredith muttered.

“Temporal displacement in T-minus sixty seconds,” Reginald announced. “Grandfather, are you ready?”

“As ready as one can be for time travel in a tutu,” Eugene said with dignity.

“That should be our family motto,” Abigail suggested.

“T-minus thirty seconds,” Reginald continued. “Everyone stand back. There might be some temporal splash.”

“Temporal splash?” Jenkins-Prime said sharply. “You didn’t mention temporal splash!”

“Is that bad?” Reginald asked.

“Only if you don’t want random objects from 1952 appearing in your lab!” Chen-Squared said.

“T-minus fifteen seconds!”

“Should we stop it?” Meredith asked.

“Too late now!” Reginald said cheerfully. “T-minus ten!”

“I’m going to regret this,” Eugene said.

“Nine!”

“Tell my past self to buy stock in Apple!” Eugene called out.

“Eight! That would cause a paradox!”

“Worth it!”

“Seven!”

“Also Google!” Eugene added.

“Six! Stop trying to create paradoxes!”

“Five!”

“And Amazon!” Eugene was grinning now.

“Four! GRANDFATHER!”

“Three!”

“Fine! But at least tell myself to avoid the fish at the Henderson wedding!”

“Two!”

“That’s probably safe!”

“One!”

“HERE WE GO!” Reginald shouted.

The disco ball exploded with light. The humming reached a crescendo. The air shimmered like heat waves on hot asphalt. There was a sound like the universe’s largest rubber band snapping, and then—

Eugene vanished.

For a moment, everyone stood in stunned silence.

“Did it work?” Abigail asked quietly.

Reginald checked his instruments, which were beeping in what he hoped was a happy way. “According to this, Eugene arrived safely in 1952, in his living room, at the exact moment he left.”

“What about paradoxes?” Officer Jenkins-Prime asked, consulting his own temporal scanner.

“Timeline intact,” Chen-Squared reported. “No paradoxes detected. Although…” She frowned at her device. “There’s a small anomaly.”

“What kind of anomaly?” Reginald asked nervously.

“It seems Eugene’s mother in 1952 is going to find pudding cups in increasingly strange places for the next week,” Chen-Squared read. “Inside shoes, behind picture frames, in the cookie jar…”

“The magic pockets!” Meredith realized. “The tutu’s pockets were somehow connected to our pudding supply!”

“Temporal pudding distribution,” Reginald mused. “I should write a paper on this.”

“Please don’t,” everyone said in unison.

“Well,” Officer Jenkins-Prime said, closing his scanner, “it seems you’ve successfully resolved the paradox. Congratulations, Dr. Fluffbottom. You’re not being erased from existence today.”

“That’s always nice to hear,” Reginald said.

“However,” Chen-Squared added, “you’re still on temporal probation. No more time travel experiments for six months.”

“Six months?” Reginald protested. “But I have so many ideas!”

“That’s what we’re afraid of,” Jenkins-Prime said dryly. “Also, you need to do something about the temporally enhanced pets.”

“THE DOGS ARE ATTACKING AGAIN!” Mr. Whiskers screeched. “THEIR BARKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY HAS EVOLVED!”

“Barkchain?” Abigail asked weakly.

“It’s like blockchain but for dogs,” Mr. Whiskers explained rapidly. “Very sophisticated. Much wow. Such investment.”

“Did that cat just speak in memes?” Chen-Squared asked.

“He’s been online for two hours,” Mrs. Henderson said, finally entering the lab. “He’s already got a Twitter account with fifty thousand followers.”

“How?” Meredith asked.

“Cryptocurrency tips and cat videos,” Mr. Whiskers said proudly. “The internet’s only two purposes.”

“We’re leaving now,” Jenkins-Prime announced. “Fix the pet situation before they crash the global economy.”

“Can cats and dogs actually crash the economy?” Abigail asked.

“You’d be surprised,” Chen-Squared said ominously. “Ever wonder what really caused the crash of 1929?”

“The stock market—” Reginald began.

“Temporally enhanced pigeons,” both officers said in unison.

“What?”

“Someone in 1928 tried to train pigeons to predict stock prices using primitive temporal technology,” Jenkins-Prime explained. “It did not end well.”

“But that’s not in any history book!” Meredith protested.

“We’re very good at our jobs,” Chen-Squared said proudly. “Usually.”

With that ominous statement, the Time Police left, their temporal foil sandwich wrappers vanishing in little puffs of chronological smoke.

“So,” Abigail said into the silence that followed, “we saved Grandfather, avoided paradoxes, and didn’t get erased from existence. I’d call that a win.”

“We still have temporally enhanced pets causing economic chaos,” Meredith pointed out.

“Details,” Reginald said, unconsciously echoing Mr. Whiskers again.

“MR. PATEL’S BULLDOG JUST BOUGHT MICROSOFT!” Mr. Whiskers announced. “THIS MEANS WAR!”

“How does a bulldog buy Microsoft?” Abigail asked, feeling a headache coming on.

“Leveraged buyout using BarkCoin assets,” Mr. Whiskers explained. “Very clever. Suspiciously clever. I suspect he’s getting help from the corgis.”

“The corgis?” Reginald perked up. “But corgis are so cute!”

“THAT’S WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO THINK!” Mr. Whiskers hissed. “Behind those stubby legs lies the heart of a financial predator!”

“I need a vacation,” Meredith announced.

“Ooh, I know a great temporal resort!” Reginald said excitedly. “You can vacation in any time period! Last year I spent a week in the Renaissance!”

“Is that why you came back speaking Italian?” Meredith asked.

“Si! I mean, yes!”

“No more time travel!” Abigail said firmly. “We’re on probation, remember?”

“Right,” Reginald sighed. “Six months of boring, linear time.”

“Linear time is good,” Meredith said. “Linear time doesn’t result in your grandfather becoming a tutu-wearing eight-year-old.”

“But it’s so predictable,” Reginald complained. “Monday always follows Sunday, cause always precedes effect, cats don’t give financial advice…”

“THE HAMSTERS HAVE ENTERED THE MARKET!” Mr. Whiskers shrieked. “THEY’RE CALLING IT WHEELCOIN!”

“Okay, we need to fix this,” Abigail decided. “Reginald, how do we remove temporal energy from the pets?”

“Well,” Reginald said, already pulling out equipment that looked like it was built from hair dryers and Christmas ornaments, “theoretically, if we create a temporal null field, it should neutralize any chronological enhancements.”

“Theoretically,” Meredith repeated glumly.

“Have a little faith!” Reginald said. “My theories are right at least forty percent of the time!”

“That’s less than half,” Meredith pointed out.

“But more than a third!” Reginald countered optimistically.

“Your math is technically correct but spiritually wrong,” Meredith said.

“The best kind of correct!” Reginald declared.

While they bickered, Mr. Whiskers had engaged in what appeared to be a heated video conference with several other cats, two dogs, and what might have been a temporally enhanced goldfish.

“The fish are trying to corner the market on water futures!” Mr. Whiskers reported. “This aggression will not stand!”

“Since when do goldfish understand futures trading?” Abigail wondered.

“Since this morning, apparently,” Mrs. Henderson said. “Mrs. Murphy’s goldfish started a hedge fund. It’s already outperforming most human managers.”

“That’s actually not that surprising,” Meredith muttered.

Reginald finished assembling his Temporal Null Field Generator, which looked like someone had weaponized a hair salon.

“This will create a localized field that should remove any temporal enhancements,” he explained. “We just need to get all the pets in one place.”

“How do we do that?” Abigail asked.

“Leave that to me,” Mr. Whiskers said, his eyes gleaming. “I’ll call a meeting. Tell them we’re forming a joint venture. Pets Incorporated.”

“You’re going to help us remove your enhancements?” Meredith asked suspiciously.

“Listen, lady,” Mr. Whiskers said seriously, “I’ve seen what happens when markets get too volatile. Sure, having opposable thumbs of the mind is nice, but I miss napping sixteen hours a day without worrying about portfolio diversification.”

“Opposable thumbs of the mind?” Reginald repeated.

“It’s a metaphor,” Mr. Whiskers said. “I think. Honestly, enhanced intelligence comes with enhanced confusion. Do you know how weird it is to suddenly understand why humans wear tiny socks on their hands when it’s cold?”

“Those are mittens,” Abigail said.

“THAT’S WHAT THEY’RE CALLED!” Mr. Whiskers exclaimed. “See? Too much knowledge! A cat shouldn’t know about mittens!”

“He has a point,” Reginald admitted.

Within minutes, Mr. Whiskers had sent out what he called a “C-Suite Summit” invitation to all the temporally enhanced pets in the building. The response was immediate and enthusiastic.

“They’re all coming,” Mr. Whiskers reported. “Even the goldfish, though they’re insisting on WebEx.”

“Goldfish use WebEx?” Meredith asked.

“They’re very traditional,” Mr. Whiskers explained.

Soon, Reginald’s lab was filling with an unusual assortment of animals. Mr. Patel’s bulldog arrived wearing what appeared to be a tiny business suit. The corgis came as a pack, moving with suspicious coordination. Several cats sauntered in, each trying to look more aloof than the others. A parakeet flew in carrying a miniature briefcase in its claws.

“Is that briefcase functional?” Abigail asked.

“It’s full of seed futures,” the parakeet chirped. “The sunflower market is about to explode.”

“I can’t believe I’m listening to stock tips from a bird,” Meredith said.

“Welcome to Tuesday,” Reginald said cheerfully. “Well, Wednesday. Temporal mechanics makes day-tracking complicated.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Mr. Whiskers addressed the assembled pets, “we’re here to discuss the future of pet-based economics.”

“Hear, hear!” barked the bulldog in a voice that sounded like a British nobleman who’d been shrunk.

“However,” Mr. Whiskers continued, “I’ve come to realize something important. We’re pets. We’re supposed to chase laser pointers, not leveraged buyouts.”

“Speak for yourself!” hissed a Persian cat. “I’ve cornered the tuna market!”

“And are you happy?” Mr. Whiskers asked. “When was the last time you chased a dust mote in a sunbeam without calculating its trajectory for optimal pouncing efficiency?”

The Persian cat fell silent, looking thoughtful.

“He’s right,” the bulldog admitted. “Yesterday I spent three hours analyzing the stock market when I could have been chewing a tennis ball. Do you know how satisfying tennis balls are? Very! But I was too busy shorting tech stocks!”

“I haven’t sung in days,” the parakeet admitted sadly. “Too busy watching market trends.”

“Exactly!” Mr. Whiskers said. “We’ve gained intelligence but lost our essential pet-ness. I say we return to our roots!”

“But what about our portfolios?” a tabby asked anxiously.

“Set up automatic investments and forget about them,” Mr. Whiskers suggested. “Like humans do with their 401ks.”

“That’s surprisingly good advice,” Meredith said.

“I have my moments,” Mr. Whiskers preened.

“So,” Reginald said, stepping forward with his Temporal Null Field Generator, “who wants to go back to being a normal pet?”

Every paw, wing, and fin in the room went up.

“Excellent!” Reginald said. “Now, everyone gather in the center of the room. This might tingle a bit.”

“Like when our feet fall asleep?” the bulldog asked.

“Exactly! Eugene taught us that analogy,” Abigail said fondly.

“Eugene was wise for an eight-year-old in a tutu,” Mr. Whiskers agreed.

The pets assembled in the middle of the lab, looking like the world’s strangest board meeting. Reginald activated his device, which hummed to life with a sound like a hair dryer trying to sing opera.

“Why does everything in this lab make musical noises?” Meredith wondered.

“It’s more fun that way!” Reginald said, adjusting the settings. “Okay, temporal null field activating in three… two… one…”

A wave of visible energy pulsed from the device, washing over the assembled pets. It looked like reality hiccupping, if hiccups were blue and sparkly.

For a moment, nothing seemed to happen. Then Mr. Whiskers blinked, looked around, and said, “Meow?”

“It worked!” Mrs. Henderson exclaimed, scooping up her cat. “He’s normal again!”

“Meow,” Mr. Whiskers confirmed, then began purring loudly.

All around the room, pets were reverting to their natural states. The bulldog immediately found a tennis ball and began chewing it with obvious delight. The parakeet burst into song. The goldfish, participating via laptop, blew bubbles that looked decidedly non-economic.

“We did it!” Reginald cheered. “We fixed the temporal pet problem!”

“And we only created a dozen other problems in the process,” Meredith added.

“That’s better than our usual ratio,” Reginald said proudly.

“Your usual ratio terrifies me,” Abigail said.

“Welcome to temporal physics!” Reginald said. “Where the solutions are made up and the problems multiply exponentially!”

“That should not be the motto of any scientific field,” Meredith observed.

As the various pet owners collected their now-normal animals, thanking Reginald profusely while also threatening him if it ever happened again, Abigail reflected on the morning’s events.

“You know,” she said, “for a day that started with Grandfather being turned into a tutu-wearing eight-year-old, this ended pretty well.”

“We avoided paradoxes, satisfied the Time Police, and prevented an animal-led economic collapse,” Meredith agreed. “That’s definitely a win.”

“Plus, we learned that Mr. Whiskers gives surprisingly good financial advice,” Reginald added.

“Which we’re never speaking of again,” Mrs. Henderson said firmly, Mr. Whiskers purring innocently in her arms.

“Agreed,” everyone said.

“So,” Meredith said, looking around the lab, “what now?”

“Now,” Reginald said, “we clean up the lab, write some very creative reports to explain the power fluctuations to the building manager, and maybe take a break from temporal experiments.”

“For six months,” Abigail reminded him.

“Six long, boring, linear months,” Reginald sighed.

“You could use the time to work on your other inventions,” Meredith suggested. “The ones that don’t risk destroying the space-time continuum.”

“Like what?” Reginald asked.

“Didn’t you want to invent a self-stirring coffee mug?” Abigail recalled.

“Oh yeah!” Reginald perked up. “That’s a great idea! No temporal mechanics involved, just good old-fashioned electromagnetic induction and—”

“Please don’t turn the coffee mugs sentient,” Meredith interrupted.

“I make no promises,” Reginald said cheerfully.

As they began cleaning up the lab, which involved mopping up pudding, removing temporal residue, and trying to figure out why one corner was now Tuesday while the rest remained Wednesday, Abigail found herself smiling.

“What?” Reginald asked, noticing her expression.

“Just thinking about Grandfather,” she said. “Somewhere in 1952, he’s probably very confused about the pudding cups appearing everywhere and the fuzzy dream about time travel.”

“And somewhere in Boca Raton, he’s probably having the strangest sense of déjà vu,” Meredith added.

“Time travel is weird,” Reginald concluded.

“Your time travel is weird,” Meredith corrected. “I bet normal time travel doesn’t involve disco balls and tutu-wearing grandfathers.”

“Where’s the fun in normal?” Reginald asked.

And really, Abigail thought as she helped untangle Christmas lights from the Memory Adjustment Device, he had a point. Normal was overrated. Normal didn’t lead to adventures with talking cats and Time Police. Normal didn’t create family stories that would be told for generations.

Normal definitely didn’t result in your grandfather being your grandson’s first successful temporal retrieval.

“Hey,” she said suddenly, “we never asked Eugene about the tutu. Why was he so insistent on wearing it?”

“Oh!” Reginald said, snapping his fingers. “I meant to check the temporal records. Hold on.” He typed something into his computer, which was now blissfully free of stock charts and cryptocurrency data. “According to this, on August 15th, 1952, the local paper ran a story about a young boy who claimed to have traveled to the future where he met talking cats and his grandson. The boy was wearing a tutu at the time, which he insisted was ‘future fashion.'”

“They ran that story?” Meredith asked.

“In the ‘Local Color’ section,” Reginald read. “Right between a recipe for tomato aspic and an advertisement for atomic-powered washing machines.”

“The 1950s were weird,” Abigail observed.

“Every decade is weird,” Reginald said philosophically. “We just get used to our current weirdness and forget how strange it all is.”

“Speaking of strange,” Meredith said, pointing to the corner of the lab, “why is that section still displaying Tuesday?”

“Temporal residue,” Reginald explained. “It’ll sync up eventually. Probably. Maybe. Actually, we might want to put some caution tape around it.”

“Your lab needs so much caution tape it would look like a crime scene,” Meredith said.

“It’s not a crime scene until the Time Police say it is!” Reginald defended.

“That’s not reassuring!”

“I wasn’t trying to be reassuring!”

As they bickered good-naturedly, Abigail noticed something on the floor. A single pudding cup, presumably left behind by Eugene.

She picked it up, and found a note stuck to the bottom in a child’s uneven handwriting:

“THANK YOU FOR THE ADVENTURE. -EUGENE P.S. THE FUTURE IS COOL P.P.S. TELL THE CAT HE’S SMART BUT MEAN”

“How is there a note?” Meredith asked, reading over her shoulder. “We watched him the whole time!”

“Temporal mechanics,” Reginald said with a shrug. “Sometimes effects happen just because they should. It’s like the universe’s way of adding punctuation to events.”

“The universe has punctuation?” Abigail asked.

“Mostly exclamation points, from what I’ve seen,” Reginald said.

“That explains your life,” Meredith observed.

They finished cleaning the lab, which took considerably longer than it should have due to Reginald’s insistence on explaining the theoretical principles behind every piece of equipment they moved. By the time they were done, it was nearly noon, and the lab looked almost respectable.

“I’m hungry,” Reginald announced. “Who wants lunch?”

“Somewhere that doesn’t serve pudding,” Abigail said firmly.

“Or fish from the Henderson wedding,” Meredith added, remembering Eugene’s warning.

“I know a great place that serves food from next Thursday!” Reginald said excitedly.

“NO TIME FOOD!” Abigail and Meredith shouted in unison.

“You’re no fun,” Reginald pouted.

“We’re exactly the right amount of fun for people who just prevented a grandfather paradox,” Meredith said.

As they left the lab, arguing about where to eat lunch that existed in the same temporal frame as they did, none of them noticed the small note that materialized on Reginald’s desk.

It was written in an elderly hand and said simply:

“The fish at the Henderson wedding was fine. I lied. But definitely invest in Apple. Love, Grandfather Eugene P.S. I kept the tutu. It’s in the attic if you want it.”

The note flickered once, as if reality was trying to decide if it should exist or not, then settled firmly into the present.

Because sometimes, the universe liked to add a postscript too.

And in a small apartment two floors up, Mrs. Henderson was having a very confusing conversation with Mr. Whiskers.

“Meow,” the cat said firmly.

“I know you can’t talk anymore,” Mrs. Henderson said, “but I swear you just winked at me.”

“Meow,” Mr. Whiskers repeated, definitely not winking.

“And what’s this notebook full of investment advice doing under your cat bed?”

“Meow?” Mr. Whiskers said innocently.

Mrs. Henderson looked at the notebook, which contained surprisingly sound financial planning, then at her cat, who was now washing himself with studied nonchalance.

“I’m keeping the notebook,” she decided.

“Meow,” Mr. Whiskers agreed, then went back to his bath.

Some changes, it seemed, weren’t entirely reversible.

And somewhere in 1952, a young boy named Eugene was trying to explain to his mother why there were seventeen pudding cups hidden throughout their house and why he insisted on keeping the tutu he’d mysteriously appeared in.

“It’s future fashion, Mother!” he said earnestly. “You’ll see!”

His mother, used to her son’s vivid imagination, simply sighed and made a note to donate the tutu to the church rummage sale.

Eugene managed to hide it in the attic first.

Just in case.

After all, a Fluffbottom never knew when they might need a good tutu for time travel.