The Wells Bequest Read Free Page A

wouldn’t count on getting it done for the fair, though. The deadline’s at the end of the semester.”
    â€œIf it took longer, I could use the time machine to go back in time and show myself how to finish,” I said. “I could even make an extra time machine and carry it back in time to my present-day self.”
    Hey! Was that what I had been doing yesterday?
    No, probably not—in fact, I’d seemed to be trying very hard
not
to tell myself anything about time machines.
    Ms. Kang shook her head. “Wouldn’t that be cheating? The other kids only get a few weeks to work on their projects.”
    She was right. Plus, that would be changing the past, and the one thing Future Me seemed completely certain about was that I/he shouldn’t change the past.
    But wait. If the only reason I wasn’t changing the past was that Future Me was dead set against it, then by influencing
me
to not change the past, Future Me was doing exactly what he didn’t want to do: changing the past. So in order to save Future Me from changing the past, did I have to change the past myself?
    â€œYou okay there, Leo? Your face is all scrunched up.”
    â€œSorry. I was just trying to think the whole time-travel thing through,” I said. It’s all right, I told myself. I hadn’t needed Future Leo to tell me changing the past was dangerous. I knew that already, all by myself. “So if I can’t build a time machine, got any other suggestions?”
    â€œBut Leo, you’re usually so full of ideas! Remember that time you used mirrors and fiber-optic cables to project the view from the roof into the auditorium? Or when you and Jake tuned the toilets to play chords when they flushed? Why don’t you do something like that?”
    â€œFor my
science fair
project? But those things weren’t real science! They didn’t discover anything new or test any theories. They were just . . . fun.” That was one great thing about Poly. It may not be as rigorous as my siblings’ schools, but the administration can be surprisingly tolerant. Any other school would kick you out for messing with the plumbing.
    â€œThe science fair is supposed to be fun too,” Ms. Kang pointed out.
    I shook my head. “Not if you come from
my
family. Science fairs are deadly serious. If I do some silly gag project, my brother and sister’ll disown me.”
    â€œWow, that sounds like a lot of pressure,” said Ms. Kang. “You’re not your brother and sister, you know. You have your own unique talents and interests.”
    â€œI know,” I said. “That’s the problem.”
    â€œI can’t see it as a problem. But if you really don’t want to build one of your fun inventions, have you considered submitting something in the History of Science category?”
    â€œHistory of Science? Is that even a category?”
    She nodded, tugging down her sleeves. “Sure. It’s not as popular as some of the more hands-on ones, but it’s on the list. You’d look at how some aspect of science or technology developed over time.”
    â€œLike, write a library research paper instead of doing an experiment?” I liked that idea. No plants or mice to die on me.
    Ms. Kang nodded again. “It could be book research, or you could do some hands-on history. You could look at how scientific tools changed over time and how that affected the science. Like telescopes or clocks. Maybe you could build a model.”
    â€œThe library has lots of books about science and history. But where would I find a bunch of antique telescopes and clocks?” I asked.
    Ms. Kang said, “Have you ever heard of the New-York Circulating Material Repository?”

CHAPTER TWO
    The New-York Circulating Material Repository
    B efore I did anything else, I had to follow Future Me’s advice. That afternoon I hunted down
The Time Machine
and found a nice sunny corner in