The Blonde, the Time Machine and Johnny Bell
by Kenneth L. Harrison
Johnny Bell, a reporter for the Clarion, expected to get a story out of Pop
Keller’s Curiosity Shop. What he didn’t expect to find were a blonde who looks like
Betty Grable who cons him into buying a used time machine.
This was a $25 contest winner story, but Harrison, 23 at the time and living in Portland, Oregon, never published another story.
But the strangest thing he had ever seen was the queer-looking mechanical apparatus in
the center of the window. Johnny Bell’s gray eyes narrowed in perplexity as he read the
advertising card atop it:TIME
MACHINE
FOR SALE—CHEAP
FOR SALE—CHEAP
“The Blonde, the Time Machine and Johnny Bell” by Kenneth
L. Harrison, Thrilling Wonder Stories, December
1940.