Mom closed the door. The Magnificent Lady Grayson of the Silky White Underbelly, or Just Grayson for Short went limp inside my jacket.

"Fez is kind of a funny word, isn't it?" I asked.

"It's a type of hat."

"I know, but where does it come from?" My mom's an instant-on dictionary. Watch and learn.

"Well," she began. "Let's see. One day in 980 CE, in a brilliant piece of marketing, a clever haberdasher decided to hawk his new hat to a bunch of students. Not only did it turn out to be a flashy fashion statement, but it was also instantly associated with braininess. Before you could say Judah ben David Hayyuj, the entire north coast of Africa was wearing them."

"Let me guess, the hatmaker's name was Fez?"

"Noooo," she said, as if what I'd said would have actually been funny if only I had more brainpower than a canary. "But the city he lived in was."

"There's a city named after a hat?"

My mom laughed. "I can see how you might think that, but no. The city of Fez was doing plenty well all on its own long before the hat came along."

"What do you think that big red G stood for?"

"That I don't know. But I do know that, traditionally, a woman's fez is smaller than the one she was wearing. And they're usually colored a shade of red made from a particular berry that, for a very long time, Fez held a monopoly on."

"More great marketing!" Geniuses love it when you pipe up and show that you've been paying attention.

"Yes! But all that changed after synthetic aniline dyes were invented in the nineteenth century." Sadly, geniuses never know when to stop explaining stuff. "The shade of red made from that berry represents the supreme height of practical wisdom. Isn't that fascinating?"

"Erm, not so much."

"You know, honey," said Dad, scratching his head. "That woman did kind of have a point."

"How's that, dear?"

"Well, the whole bit about what could happen if you applied your invention to something as large as a city. I mean, call me crazy, but I think a lot of people would probably get a little antsy about being tossed in stasis for a week. Don't you think?"

Mom dismissed Dad's concerns with a wave of her hand. "Don't be silly. That woman was being kooky."

"But Mom," I said, jumping in, "don't you think placing millions of people's lives on hold could be confusing? Yay, it's Tuesday! Whoa! Now it's Thursday! Hey, where did Wednesday go?"

"But that would never happen!" she insisted. "It's for a purse."

I looked at Dad. "She's not getting it. Why isn't she getting it?"

"Hey, guys! Lighten up, will ya?" said Mom. "Who's the genius in the family?"

"You are," Dad and I said dejectedly. Geniuses have been using this technique on Idiots for centuries, and with good reason—it's devastatingly effective.

Before we left for the lecture, I placed the jacket containing the Magnificent Lady Grayson of the Silky White Underbelly, or Just Grayson for Short on the living room floor, loosened the arms a bit, and ran for it. The instant I was out of the house, my dad slammed the door shut and peeked through a little porthole of a window high up on the door.

"Did she get out?" I asked.

Dad frowned. "Are you sure she was still in the jacket?"

"Positive. Can I see?"

Dad lifted me up. Sure enough, there was the empty jacket, but no sign of Grayson. Then, all of a sudden, I heard a gallop, followed by silence. A second later, Grayson's face appeared plastered to the other side of the little window. As she slowly sank from view, she let out a long, plaintive meow. Her claws sounded like nails on a chalkboard.

"Ooh! Looks like I'm going to be painting this weekend!" I said.

Dad rearranged some of his tools and plumbing supplies so I could sit in the back of his work van. Just as we were pulling out of the driveway, I heard a loud thump on the roof but didn't think anything of it. Later, I would learn that Grayson had run upstairs to Mom's laboratory, hurled a glass beaker through a window, and then launched herself into the big maple tree out front. From there, she leapt for it, attaching herself to the big snapping fingers on the van's roof. (Get it? Snap! Snapping fingers? Our last name is Snap? Try and keep up.)

We didn't discover Grayson until after we'd parked near MIT. Dad gave her a poke. She was like a frozen furry statue. "Should we leave her up there?"

He wasn't serious . . . I'm pretty sure.

"Um, can you get her down?" I asked.

He pried her from the giant thumb while I dumped out one of his tool bags and held it open.

"If you don't want to lose her, I suggest you don't open that bag again until we're back home," he cautioned.

But we weren't ever going home, and that's how Grayson ended up being with us the day we were abducted.

The Hall of Speculative Science was smaller than I'd imagined. It consisted of a podium and about thirty folding chairs. A crisp-looking woman sat my father and me in the wings behind a little curtain, like she didn't want us to be seen or heard. Dad pulled a book out of his pocket. He's a voracious reader: mysteries, historical fiction, memoirs, fantasy, plays, science fiction, you name it.

Right at nine o'clock, Mom started her presentation to a full house. I'd seen her rehearse it a bunch of times. It was full of boring scientific jargon that I couldn't pretend to understand. After what felt like an hour—okay, maybe it was only five minutes—I peeked out into the audience for the thousandth time and noticed a man in black sunglasses, dressed all in black, and wearing, you guessed it, a black fez with a big red G emblazoned on its front. I tried to get my dad's attention, but he was too into his book. The next time I looked, there were five more black fezzes, all in the front row. As an experiment, I looked away really, really quickly, then looked back. There was another one! I looked away and then back three times fast. Fip-fip-fip! Now there were ten black fezzes in the audience. The most disturbing part, though, was that I couldn't figure out how the normal people were disappearing.

By the time Mom finished her presentation and everyone in the room stood up to clap, they were all wearing black fezzes, most with red tassels, but a few with black.

Walking back to the car, Mom couldn't stop talking. "I think they liked it!"

"Um, Mom? Did you notice anything strange about the audience?"

"Strange? Not that I remember. But I really think they liked it!"

"You were great, honey," said Dad, reading and walking at the same time.

Then an odd thing happened.

"Hey," I said. "Isn't that Heather?" Dad's tool bag growled.

The light changed and we started walking toward each other.

It was Heather all right. I looked around. Somehow, we were the only people on the street.

"Maybe she wants to interview you again," said Dad hopefully.

But she didn't. As we met, she raised her arm and threw something to the ground. There was a flash, followed by a weird, low-frequency noise. A shimmering bubble seemed to grow around us, first ten feet around, then twenty, then thirty. Then a whole lot of things happened at once. A few feet to our right, a strange-looking bus appeared out of thin air. Big purple letters scrolled across a screen on its side: "E-X-P-R-E-S-S T-R-A-N-S-P-O-R-T-A—" Its doors flew open, and people in black fezzes poured out and surrounded us. One of them, looking at his wrist, announced, "Let's move it, people. Fifty-five seconds to temporal harmony!"

In a bored monotone, Heather announced, "Do not attempt to leave the time-bubble. If you attempt to leave the bubble, terrible things will happen to you. Remain calm. You've done nothing wrong." Done nothing wrong? The Black Fez tell lies like this all the time. "We're simply relocating you under the Revised Planet Safety Act of 1926. Do not panic. Please enter the transport peacefully. I repeat, don't panic."

"Forty-five seconds," called out the timekeeper.

My Idiot father threw his hands in the air. "I always knew something like this would happen!"

Mom rested her hands on her hips and gave him her best Oh, really! look.

"Oh, come on, Dad!" I said. "You did not see this one coming!"

Mom pointed at me. "From the mouths of babes," she said.

"Snaps!" said Heather, snapping out of the monotone. "I'm not joking around here! Please enter the transport—"

"Thirty seconds!"

"I most certainly did see this coming!" said my dad hysterically. "Since before we were married! I would say 'Just promise me you aren't going to blow up the world one day by accident. Can you just promise me that?'"

The Black Fez got all extra agitated. A particularly twitchy-looking one pointed at Mom and started shouting. "Code Tesla! Code Tesla!"

Heather made a growling noise. "Bhattarai, Castillo, get Little Boy Blue here into the transport. And make sure no satellite strike-forces are being called down on this location, will you?"

"Twenty seconds!" called the timekeeper.

"Last warning, Snaps!" shouted Heather.

I looked at Mom incredulously. "Hey, I wasn't trying to defend you! I was pointing out how incredibly unlikely it was that Dad could have possibly seen this exact thing coming! I mean, people running around in black fezzes, an invisible bus—what are the odds!"

Mom opened her purse and pulled out a box of tissues. "I hate it when you two gang up on me."

The world outside the bubble wobbled.

"We're losing bubble integrity!" someone shouted.

"Ten seconds!"

"All right, round 'em up," ordered Heather.

"Aw, honey!" said Dad, taking Mom in his arms. "I'm so sorry."

"Me too," I added, joining the group hug.

The Black Fez converged on us all at once, whisking us into the transport and down a wide aisle between facing seats. Doors slammed shut. Outside, in the window of the beloved Cambridge cafe E=More Caffeine2, our reflection wavered and vanished. It was like we'd gone invisible or something.

"5 . . 4 . . 3 . . 2 . ." counted the timekeeper.

The bubble outside started collapsing.

"Henderson!" Heather yelled to the driver. "Punch it!"

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