A circular tale of time travel in a picture book! Max and her dog Boomer accidentally break a vase, a treasured family heirloom the only thing that Max's great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother managed to save when her houseboat sank. Instead of coming clean, they decide to do the next most logical thing: Build a time machine, travel back to her great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother's home, and smash the vase then so that they can't smash it later! What could possibly go wrong? Building the time machine is surprisingly easy, but controlling the thing proves difficult. After mucking up the time-space continuum, Max and Boomer end up crashing into the family houseboat and sinking it. Lacking the heart to break anything else, Max and Boomer return to the near present to warn their near past selves not to build a time machine. "I can build a time machine?" asks the other Max, before tossing the Frisbee that breaks the family's treasured vase.