The proud new owner of a tree fort in the Kingdom of the Merriwarts, Newton now gets to do his all-time favourite thing in the world: inventing. And the best part is, he doesn’t need to worry about his older quadruplet brothers discovering and tormenting him. He has turned his attention to building a time machine. And who better to field test it than those smelly newlywed giants, Herbert and Gertrude? Having pushed the button to start the machine, it all looks good, until wisps of black smoke appear ten seconds before blast off…
Frantically Newton tried to stop the countdown. All the smoke made it impossible to see through the goggles, much less shut down the machine. Through the blur, Newton noticed dials spinning and pressure gauges creeping steadily into the red zone of HIGH ALERT.
   Gertrude and Herbert had no idea anything was wrong, but commander Joe saw Newton’s face and was worried. “T minus six seconds. you should cancel the mission, Pokey.”
   “I’m trying to but I can’t,” newton yelled. “Something’s wrong!” A fact that was confirmed when the control panel burst into flames.
—From Newton and the Time Machine