As he puzzled his dilemma, Marty looked at the speedometer.
It read: 88.
Behind his head, gauges and indicators began to light up, lines of digits formed and disappeared on the dashboard, and something like a siren sounded. What had he done? Blown a fuse? Driven the engine past its limits? Touched something he should have left alone?
His eyes quickly scanned the dashboard for some clue to the mystery. As he did so, he was suddenly conscious of a large object rising ahead of him, an object that had not been in his line of sight a moment before. Jerking his head up, he saw not the guard rail and arc lamps of the Twin Pines shopping mall—but the face of a scarecrow!
“What the hell—”
As abruptly as it appeared, the scarecrow disappeared, its crude head smashing against the windshield and falling away in a spray of straw. Then another object loomed—a large square building. Simultaneously, the car began to rock and pitch as if it had abruptly turned off smooth roadway onto cobblestones or a plowed field.
Thrown nearly into the passenger’s seat, his head once striking the roof, Marty could do little but hold the wheel as tightly as possible. Meanwhile, the building ahead crowded out the lighter sky behind it until everything in front was variants of black and grey. Having an instant to maneuver, Marty aimed the DeLorean at the lighter square ahead, bracing himself for the crash which didn’t come. Instead, as if falling down a well, he was enveloped by blackness on all sides. Jamming on the brakes, he felt the car decelerate until it smashed into something, causing Marty to fly against the dashboard. At the same time, something landed on the roof with a loud thump.
The air surrounding the immobile DeLorean was filled with floating saffron dust. Marty blinked, trying to orient himself with a new environment which seemed to have snapped him out of the air of the mall parking lot. Gradually objects began to take shape—vertical boards, bales of straw, a pitchfork. Everything was blinking on and off, which puzzled Marty until he realized that the hazard lights of the DeLorean had been knocked out. In the background, he heard a dog barking.
“Damn,” Marty said slowly. “I’m in a barn. How did I end up in a barn?”
The evening had not been a pleasant one for Otis Peabody. At forty-five, he usually came in after a day’s work on the farm dead tired and not at all ready for criticism and pleas from his wife and children. Mostly he just wanted to sit and relax after a good meal, read the morning paper and then drift off to sleep.
The first bad news to greet him when he walked in was that the car battery was dead.
“We can get it recharged,” he said shortly, heading for the dinner table.
Elsie, his wife of seventeen years, shook her head. “Mart Petersen says it’s shot,” she replied. “Lord, it’s been in there since we got the car six years ago, so it’s about time it went.”
“What’s a new one cost?” Peabody said.
“Well, his are expensive,” Elsie said, “but Sears has ’em on sale. A four-year battery is $14.95.”
“Ridiculous,” Peabody mumbled. “That’s too much. I wonder what the ones not on sale go for.”
“Well?” Elsie asked. “Will you be leaving the money tomorrow so I can get it?”
Peabody nodded, sighed, and prepared to sit.
Martha, his fourteen-year-old daughter, and eleven-year-old Sherman chose that moment to add their requests for the day. Actually, they had been bothering their father for nearly a month to buy a television set. Everyone else in the county had one but them, it seemed.
“Can you buy a TV?” Martha smiled. “Please, Daddy. We’ll be going to Sears for the battery anyway.”
“No,” Peabody said bluntly.
The kids were prepared for a negative reaction. Instead of backing down, they launched into a litany of wonderful programs that could be seen—Ed Sullivan, The Mickey Mouse Club, Colgate Variety Hour, The Cisco Kid, Ozzie and Harriet, an endless list.
“They’re all pap,” their father said.
“It’s not fair,” Martha cried. “Some of our teachers are assigning television-watching as homework.”
Peabody looked at her skeptically.
“It’s true. Peggy Ann McVey just took notes from the news about President Eisenhower’s heart attack and turned it in as a complete report. She got an A.”
“You can use the newspapers. Same difference,” Peabody replied.
“No,” Martha persisted. “Teachers can tell when you copied from the newspaper but not from TV. Anyway, when the teacher suggests that you watch Edward R. Murrow, how are you gonna see that in the newspaper?”
“We’ll get a television when we can afford it and not a day before.”
“I want to see the football games,” Sherman added, pouting.