“Hello World.”  Terry programmed into his computer, “I’m having a problem figuring out how to get his to work.”
Terrible Terry was genius and only eight years old.  Still there was one thing that Terry couldn’t figure out.
He went on and on at his computer plugging in formulas, filling stacks of papers with notes.  Long into the night he tried and tried.
Finally, he had to quit and go to sleep.  He fell asleep on the ground on a stack of papers with his face on his computer.
The next day at school he was so very tired.  Poor Terry couldn’t even walk straight.
“Terry,”  his teacher said, “Come here.”
Terry walked over to Mr. Upstill’s desk.
“Yes, Mr. Upstill.”
“Whatever is the matter with you Terry?”
“Nothing is wrong with me.”  said Terry.
“You can’t even walk straight Terry, maybe you should go home.”
Terry couldn’t agree more and nodded his head in agreement.
Terry tried to walk to the office to call home but instead walked right into a tree.  He fell asleep in the grass next to the tree, drooling all over himself.
Terry’s mind wasn’t thinking of his problem.  No, instead he was thinking of walking with dinosaurs and watching T-Rex’s run wild.
All of a sudden, out of nowhere, the solution popped into his head.  He simply had to square the cube root of 12 one more time and the formula would work.
Terry jumped up full of energy.  He ran all the way home not bothering to call home to his mother.  He ran inside the house, quietly slipped up the stairs, and went into his bedroom.  He sat his computer on his lap and sure enough, his formula was complete!
Now his time machine would work.
 

                2
                        Building the contraption
 

“The moment mankind has long awaited is now upon us.”  Terry triumphantly said to himself.
“Now I can go back in time!”  He yelled.
Terry slipped outside to his Father’s workshop and gathered all the materials he would need.
“One saw, I think I’ll need this, too.  I need some wood.”  Terry said out loud to himself.
Then quietly and quickly, while his mother was gone some where in her car, he slipped back up the stairs with all of the parts and tools needed for the time machine.
He spread the wood, small engine parts, the propeller, and tools all in separate piles on his floor.  Out of his back pocket he pulled his plans for the time machine.  And then he began the construction of ‘Terrible Terry’s Time Travelling Contraption’.
He started out by hammering wooden doors onto his old, beaten up wagon making it twice it’s normal height.  He placed a blanket on the bottom inside the wagon and a pillow for a seat.
Terry constructed a wooden box for the most important element other than the computer: the engine.
He placed the engine into the machine and attached the propeller, then linked his computer up to it using a parallel cable.
“Now all I have to do is set a course.  Let me see, the Jurassic Period sounds exciting.”  With that said, Terry entered “Jurassic Period” on his computer, pressed the enter key to be transported back in time.
“Put-put-pa-tooie.”  The time machine screeched.
“Oh no, what could be wrong?”  Terry asked.
The front door could be heard opening downstairs.  Terry scrambled about in his room hiding his time machine in the closet and the tools and extra material under his bed.
“Terry, are you here?” his mother yelled upstairs.
“Yes, mother.”  He yelled back as he ran down the stairs to meet her.
“I went down to meet you at the bus stop and you weren’t there.”  Terry’s mother said.
“Yeah, I must have beat you home.”  Terry said.
“How was your day at school?”  His mother asked.
“It was okay.”
Terry was now anxious to explore another time.  His mother just couldn’t understand that he was a busy little boy.
“You didn’t get into any terrible trouble like you usually do did you?”  She questioned again.
“No, mother.  I behaved myself today, honest.”
“I’m going upstairs to work on my homework.”  Terry lied to his mother as he raced up the stairs to his room.
“What on earth could be wrong with my time travelling contraption?”  Terry asked himself.
Terry reorganized his tools and pulled his time machine out of the closet.  He checked to see if his computer was set up correctly, that he had enough gas, and that all the wires were well connected.  Everything checked out fine.
“What else could be wrong?”  Terry thought.  “The spark plug maybe?”
Yep, the spark plug had burnt out.  Terry threw a blanket over his contraption and traveled by foot down the stairs in a hurry.
“Mama, I’m going outside to play.”  Terry said to his mother.
Before he could see his mother shake her head he was outside in his father’s workshop digging through piles of old junk looking for another spark plug.  He found one and grabbed it.
“I better grab some spare parts in case something goes wrong on my trip.  I wouldn’t want to be stuck in the Jurassic period when the dinosaurs die out.”  Terry thought.
Terry put an extra spark plug, extra gas and oil, and water along with some other parts, into a small backpack.  On his way up to his room, Terry also grabbed some potato chips and some first aid equipment.
Once in his room, he placed the spark plug into the engine, checked his computer again, then hopped into his time machine ready to go.

             3
                    Really ready to go
 

 “5..4..3..2..1.”  The computer announced in its robotic voice.
 The bedroom melted away into a swirl of black.  Overwhelming wind shook the tiny time machine back and forth, up and down.  Stars were everywhere, dust was thick all around, but breathing the cold air was so smooth.  Thin bright white light came, blinding Terry.
 Terry found himself near a large river.  All around him were strange, exotic plants, some small, others gigantic.  Flying creatures screeched from high above.  A dinosaur poked it’s head out of the river and looked over at Terry.
 Poor little Terry was in the age of dinosaurs.  Dinosaurs were sure here.  In every direction, the land was covered with strange creatures.  Some appeared to be just large types of lizards out of Terry’s own backyard.  Some ran around in large groups and squawked like chickens.  Some flew, some swam, most crept.
 A snake slithered by Terry scaring him more than any of the dinosaurs.  As he stepped out of his time machine he was covered with bugs.  Warm mist could be felt and the swarming bugs were aggravating.
 “This is cool.”  Terry said out loud as a bug flew down his throat.
 In the distance, a dinosaur could be heard roaring.  Terry guessed it to be a something big and scary, he hoped it was a T-Rex.  So the adventurous Terry took off in the direction of the noise.
Terry walked through the dense jungle of luscious, green plants while mosquitoes the size of his head buzzed about.  Butterflies of beauty, covered in bright blue, powerful purple, and gloomy green swam through the air.
 Birds the size of his fist flew by gracefully and quickly, their wings moved so fast they couldn’t be seen.  The ground was covered in grass and pink flowers bloomed while orange roses grew tall.
 Again Terry could hear the magnificent and deadly roar of a distant monster.  Animals ran or flew and even swam away in a flurry every time the creature shouted.
 Giant frogs jumped up and down, monkeys yelled at each other, and birds sang.  The trees were both large and tremendously large.  Some even reached to the end of the sky.
 Terry continued through the jungle, then out of the jungle, following the monster’s loud roar until it became so loud he had to cover his ears.  There was a grassy hill just ahead.
 “The T-Rex must be just ahead.”  Terry thought.
 Another loud roar came and the monster popped its huge head up.  It wasn’t either the head of a T-Rex, or even a monster.  Instead, it was the body of a large grass eating iguana about the size of a pony.  The lizard was roaring from its horrible stomach ache; it rolled onto its back and roared softly.
 “There you go.”  Terry said rubbing the lizard’s stomach.
 Disappointed from not finding a monster, Terry walked back to his time machine.  His new lizard friend followed and occasionally cried in pain which frightened all the other animals and hurt Terry’s ears.
 “Poor lizard,”  Terry thought.  “I wish I could help.”
 After a long walk, only half way back to his time machine, Terry became tired and stopped to rest.  His lizard friend kept walking so Terry decided to get on the lizard’s back for a free ride.
 They went along through the tall, tall grass, and through the wild jungle all the way back to the time machine.
 There was a small dinosaur that looked like a really tiny T-Rex inside Terry’s Time machine tearing it all apart.
 “Get out of there.”  Terry yelled.
 The creature snapped it’s teeth at Terry.  Terry picked up a dead branch and smacked the dinosaur with it.  The dinosaur ran away coughing with discomfort.
 “Thank you for the ride little lizard.  I wonder how you knew where I was going, but I do thank you.  Here’s something for you to eat.  It’ll help your stomach little fellow.”  Terry said handing his friend a couple flavored Tums.
 “Now I have to fix all this mess.”  Terry said to himself.
His lizard friend roared again and Terry turned to give him another Tums only to see a T-Rex screaming at him and his friend with an even louder roar than the others.
 

            4
                        The escape
 

“Awesome!”  Terry yelled.
The T-Rex roared back and began walking towards Terry.
Terry jumped in the time machine and pressed enter.  Nothing happened.  The enter key was broken!
The monstrous T-Rex continued closer still roaring.  The earth shook and so did poor Terry.  Terrible Terry, what have you gotten yourself into this time?
Before the T-Rex was too close to Terry, Terry took off running back into the jungle.  The T-Rex trotted and for every step Terry took, the T-Rex made one footstep the size of ten of Terry’s.  Terry could feel the warm, smelly breath of the T-Rex on his back.
Terry quickly turned around as the T-Rex flew by biting at him.  He ran as fast as he could back out of the jungle.  He ran and ran, the T-Rex followed.
Then Terry had an idea, “I can jump in the river, then he can’t catch me.”
Terry jumped into the river, and floated down the river.  The T-Rex still followed.
The huge dinosaur was now in front of him wading in the shallow water ahead.  The T-Rex cut him off, Terry was in big trouble.
Terry swam as fast as he could to the edge of the river.  He pulled himself out and began to run with his wet clothes as fast as he could.
Lucky for Terry the T-Rex had one foot stuck in the river bottom and was trying to pull it out.  Terry was now very tired and found it hard to run.
“I just wanted to see the T-Rex,” Terry managed to say in a low, tired voice.  “I didn’t know it would chase after me.”
Terry might be ingenious, but I’m afraid sometimes his curiosity gets the best of him.  This was a good example.
He continued to run along the river toward his time machine.  When he made it back he quickly programmed his computer to take him home and then he used a back up short cut key to jump start the time travelling process.
“Please work.”  Terry said.
The T-Rex’s head was now above him and it let out a loud, deafening roar.
Terry’s computer jumped into action, “5..4..3..”
The T-Rex faced the sky and roared again.  The T-Rex bent down to bite poor Terry and his time machine in half.
But Terry’s lizard friend and its mother were now there.  Its mother, unlike the lizard, was huge.  Even bigger than the T-Rex.  She must have also had a horrible stomach ache and when she roared the T-Rex ran away crying with fright.
Terry was already being transported back to his own time, back to his nice, safe home.  The stars and black came again, along with the wind.  Then the wind stopped with a bright white light.  Terry’s adventure had come to an end.