Free A Wrinkle in Time Quintet by Madeleine L'Engle Page A

hands and held it tight.
    “You see,” Mrs Whatsit said, “if a very small insect were to move from the section of skirt in Mrs Who’s right hand to thatin her left, it would be quite a long walk for him if he had to walk straight across.”
     

     
    Swiftly Mrs Who brought her hands, still holding the skirt, together.
    “Now, you see,” Mrs Whatsit said, “he would
be
there, withoutthat long trip. That is how we travel.”

    Charles Wallace accepted the explanation serenely. Even Calvin did not seem perturbed.“Oh,
dear
,” Meg sighed. “I guess I
am
a moron. I just don’t get it.”
    “That is because you think of space only in three dimensions,” Mrs Whatsit told her. “We travel in the fifth dimension. This is something you can understand, Meg. Don’t be afraid to try. Was your mother able to explain a tesseract to you?”
    “Well, she never did,” Meg said. “She got so upset about it. Why, Mrs Whatsit? She saidit had something to do with her and Father.”
    “It was a concept they were playing with,” Mrs Whatsit said, “going beyond the fourth dimension to the fifth. Did your mother explain it to you, Charles?”
    “Well, yes.” Charles looked a little embarrassed. “Please don’t be hurt, Meg. I just kept at her while you were at school till I got it out of her.”
    Meg sighed. “Just explain it to me.”
    “Okay,”Charles said. “What is the first dimension?”
    “Well—a line:——————”
    “Okay. And the second dimension?”
    “Well, you’d square the line. A flat square would be in the second dimension.”
    “And the third?”

    “Well, you’d square the second dimension. Then the square wouldn’t be flat anymore. It would have a bottom, and sides, and a top.”
    “And the fourth?”
    “Well, I guess if you want to put it into mathematical terms you’d square the square. But you can’t take a pencil and draw it the way you can the first three. I know it’s got something to do with Einstein and time. I guess maybe you could call thefourth dimension Time.”

    “That’s right,” Charles said. “Good girl. Okay, then, for the fifth dimensionyou’d square the fourth, wouldn’t you?”
    “I guess so.”
    “Well, the fifth dimension’s a tesseract. You add that to the other four dimensions and you can travel through space without having to go the long way around. In other words, to put it into Euclid, or old-fashioned plane geometry, astraight line is
not
the shortest distance between two points.”
    For a brief, illuminating second Meg’s facehad the listening, probing expression that was so often seen on Charles’s. “I see!” she cried. “I got it! For just a moment I got it! I can’t possibly explain it now, but there for a second I saw it!” She turned excitedly to Calvin. “Did you get it?”
    He nodded. “Enough. I don’t understand it the way Charles Wallace does, but enough to get the idea.”
    “Sso nnow wee ggo,” Mrs Which said. “Tthereiss nott all thee ttime inn tthe worrlld.”
    “Could we hold hands?” Meg asked.
    Calvin took her hand and held it tightly in his.
    “You can try,” Mrs Whatsit said, “though I’m not sure how it will work. You see, though we travel together, we travel alone. We will go first and take you afterward in the backwash. That may be easier for you.” As she spoke the great white body began to waver, the wingsto dissolve into mist. Mrs Who seemed to evaporate until there was nothing but the glasses, and then the glasses, too, disappeared. It reminded Meg of the Cheshire Cat.
    —I’ve often seen a face without glasses, she thought;—but glasses without a face! I wonder if I go that way, too. First me and then my glasses?
    She looked over at Mrs Which. Mrs Which was there and then she wasn’t.
    There wasa gust of wind and a great thrust and a sharp shattering as she was shoved through—what? Then darkness; silence; nothingness. If Calvin was still holding her hand she could not feel it. But this