Time Travel for Love and Profit Read online

  “Whoa!” he said. “Guten Morgen!”

  “First day of freshman year! Look how excited she is.” Mom was wearing her white sweater over her yellow sundress, pouring orange juice. “Horace, can you believe our baby is all grown up?”

  “I can, Maddy. Our Fi, freshman in high school. Take that, world. She’s coming for you.”

  I let go of Dad and leaned on the green kitchen table. My body felt like it had been cranked through a pasta machine, and my brain felt mealy, like an overripe tomato.

  What did he say?

  “Remember, Fi,” said Dad as he shook a skillet on the stove, “don’t let those upper-class cats mess with your head. Everybody has to be a freshman once.”

  “A freshman?” I said.

  “Best freshman ever,” said Mom, tweaking my cheek and taking a seat.

  I looked at the faucet, which was dripping—drip, drip, drip—and knew this wasn’t a dream. I did something. I went somewhere.

  “I did it,” I said softly. “I’m doing it.”

  “Did what?” asked Dad.

  I covered my mouth so I would not scream I JUST WENT BACK IN TIME! And I’m not dead! I LOVE YOU, DIRK ANGUS! I was patting my back pocket, looking for my phone, when I realized I was wearing the same hoodie and jeans I’d had on the night before, and started laughing. I felt delirious as I pulled out my chair and sat beside my mother at the kitchen table—the kitchen table my beautiful, wonderful mother had dragged in from the street last spring like a beautiful, wonderful maniac and painted bright green!

  No—not last spring.

  Next spring.

  Wait.

  “Eat this,” said Dad. A plate of scrambled tofu slid onto the green patch of table where my eyes were glued. “Freshman fuel.”

  “Wait,” I said. “Wait, wait. Dad, when did we get this table?”

  When Dad looked at Mom, his eyes flickered like someone was playing with their on-off switch. “When did we get this table?” he repeated.

  Mom’s eyes were crackling, but not in their usual mermaid-y way; it looked like they were freezing over. Her body swayed. “You’d think I’d remember.” Her voice sounded waterlogged, like she was sinking to the bottom of the ocean. “We did acquire this table at some point.”

  Dad smoothed his mustache; his lip was twitching. “That we indubitably did.”

  What was happening? Did my parents remember rescuing this table from the street and painting it, or didn’t they? How could they remember something that hadn’t happened yet?

  And what was wrong with them?

  Mom blinked hard several times, like there was a lash in her eye, and stopped swaying. “Hustle, Fi,” she said. “Don’t want to be late for school!”

  Dad’s lip quit spazzing, and he took a seat and stabbed his tofu scramble.

  I watched my parents for a few seconds; they seemed totally normal again. It was like a powerful spell had possessed them, but then, just as abruptly, had worn off.

  Or maybe I was imagining things. If I was sitting at the green kitchen table—which I totally was—I must’ve misheard my parents about it being the first day of high school. My parents weren’t malfunctioning; I was.

  I’d failed.

  I frowned at my breakfast. “Sophomore year is gonna blow.”

  “Language,” said Mom.

  “Blow bubbles,” I said. “You interrupted me.” I took a bite of tofu scramble but didn’t have the energy to chew it. Zingy spices dissolved in my saliva.

  “Don’t get ahead of us,” said Dad. “Freshman year gets to blow bubbles first.”

  “Freshman year,” said Mom. “Time flies.”

  I dropped my fork and it clattered on my plate. Well, had I gone back in time, or hadn’t I? I scooted out of my chair and marched upstairs to look for my phone so I could find out, in private, what year it was.

  My phone was lying on my star quilt. When I grabbed it, it felt warm to me, like a pet. A pet I couldn’t quite trust not to pee on the rug. I unlocked it and looked at the date.

  Okay, so it wasn’t one year ago; it was tomorrow. I mean, today. The day after I’d attempted to travel through time. But if that was the case, why had my parents said it was my first day of freshman year? It was my first day of sophomore year—wasn’t it?

  I looked at the button I’d created for the Dirk Angus app. To amuse myself, I’d snapped a photograph of Dirk Angus’s head from the cover of Thirsty for Thrills and cut-and-pasted it on a backdrop of cartoon bubbles. Get it? Quantum foam? Now the image struck me as sinister. Like some decapitated mannequin was mocking me from a nice hot bath.

  I spotted my backpack on the floor and rushed to unzip it. Time Travel for Love & Profit was still inside. So Oona Gold had come here with me. The question was, where was here, exactly? And were Oona Gold and I the only ones who’d made the trip?

  * * *

  —

  Redwood Cove High School is tucked in a grove of coastal redwoods on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Tourists sometimes mistake it for a cute seaside hotel and turn off the road, looking for a place to check in. I crossed Highway 1 and went down the path toward the school feeling sicker with every step.

  I’d lingered at home as long as possible, interrogating Mom and Dad about my first freshman year. Did they remember my fifteenth birthday? “Your fifteenth birthday?” Mom had laughed. “Let’s get through your first day of high school.” What about New Year’s Day, when we’d gone line-dancing at the VFW hall on Main Street and Mom had kicked her leg in the air and thrown her back out? Dad’s eyebrow had convulsed like it was being prodded by a Taser as he’d said, “Now, there’s a picture.” I’d asked about big things, little things, any and every memorable thing I could think of that had happened last year.

  My parents remembered nothing.

  I’d only meant to poke a hole in the fabric of the universe. Had I accidentally hacked off a year-long hunk of it?

  Meanwhile, between demonic glossy spells, Mom had been getting more and more panicked about me being late for my first day of high school, so finally, I’d decided, fine. I need to figure out where Dirk Angus sent me, and this is my logical next step. Go to school, see what happens.

  The first person I recognized was Youki Johnson, standing with his friends under the cypress tree beside the bike rack about seven meters away. My jaw started trembling. I was looking for someone else, anyone else I knew, when Youki looked at me.

  For a fraction of a second.

  Then looked away.

  No rude gestures. No references to woolly mammoths. No yelling “Neffa-Freak!” Did that mean no one had invented the nickname yet? That was a good sign, wasn’t it?

  I kept walking through the mob of students, with their backpacks and their hairstyles and their music blasting from their phones. Redwood Cove is a fraction of the size of the wing of a fly that lands on the corner of a postage stamp; there was almost nobody my age I didn’t at least sort of know, and almost nobody who didn’t at least sort of know me. Whenever I caught someone’s eye, I raised my eyebrows and tried to look non-threatening—the We-know-each-other-but-we-don’t-have-to-chat face—but everyone looked through me or away. It wasn’t the same sort of ignoring as last year, when it had felt like people didn’t want to be associated with me. It was the way you look past someone you don’t recognize.

  I was trying to figure out what to make of that when I saw Vera. She was standing with Ramsey Schultz near a patch of orange poppies by the picnic tables. Her long, straight black hair was parted down the middle, and she was wearing almost the same outfit as Ramsey but in different colors—a plastic-looking dress and beige knee-high boots with treacherous platforms. If it was the first day of freshman year, Vera was already friends with Ramsey from dance class—but Vera and I were still best friends. Which would mean she hadn’t dumped me yet. I
felt a pang of hope. How I longed to hear her broken-blender laugh again.

  I was heading in Vera’s direction when Ramsey whispered in Vera’s ear and Vera smiled this twisted smile, like she’d just heard some extra-juicy gossip. Then the wind caught Vera’s hair and it flew straight up like she was electrified. A thought popped into my head that stopped me cold.

  What if Vera wasn’t happy to see me? If it turned out that Dirk Angus had sent only me to the past? If today was Vera’s first day of sophomore year, she’d still avoid me, like my aggressive weirdness was contagious.

  Which would be crushing.

  I was standing on the blacktop, staring at Vera, when the bell rang and everyone swarmed inside.

  I looked toward the forest and spotted a squirrel darting up a redwood tree. I was tempted to follow it. All I needed was a harness. Ropes. The proper footwear. A tent, so I could sleep in the canopy.

  I shoved my hands in my hoodie pockets and sighed. Unfortunately, fleeing to the treetops wasn’t an option. It was my scientific duty to continue my investigation into what the hell I had done.

  Last year, we’d checked into third period first to get our schedules, so I headed to Mrs. Saint Johnabelle’s science-slash-homeroom, dreading what would happen next.

  I must admit I was also semi-dreading having Mrs. Saint Johnabelle again. The good thing was that she’d taught me how to run a proper scientific experiment. “Be thorough, be organized, and never settle for mediocrity.” She never treated her students like freshmen—more like employees she was training for NASA.

  The bad thing was that in addition to having Mrs. Saint Johnabelle for science, I had her for sixth period, which was Advanced Placement calculus and all seniors except for me. Last year, I’d naturally assumed I’d be free to work independently. Every teacher I’d ever had before had been fine with that because it meant I needed zero attention. Leaving me alone with a four-hundred-page dissertation on parabolas was like a parent plopping their kid in front of cartoons. I’d sit quietly and contentedly until somebody tore the thing out of my hands.

  But Mrs. Saint Johnabelle had forced me to participate in the class discussions and help the other kids, which had bored the living crap out of me. Plus, unlike all the other math teachers, Mrs. Saint Johnabelle had never seemed remotely afraid of me. Which might have been why I was still semi-terrified of her, even after being her student for an entire year.

  I took my usual seat in the back of Mrs. Saint Johnabelle’s classroom and watched my fellow students pour in, which confirmed my growing fear.

  Every single freshman was a year younger than me. I recognized them all from middle school.

  I was starting to panic when Mrs. Saint Johnabelle strode into the room wearing one of her crisp pastel suits and sized us up. Her short white hair, her clear plastic eyeglasses, her brown complexion that glowed sort of coral. The look in her eyes that said she was paying attention; the feeling you had that she’d never let you off the hook.

  Suddenly I felt a little more confident. Didn’t Mrs. Saint Johnabelle always tell us that uncertainty was a necessary part of a science experiment? When you got results you hadn’t predicted, you recorded them, returned to the scientific method and got back to work. Progress happened in small increments, not overnight.

  “Nephele Weather?” called Mrs. Saint Johnabelle. Hearing her stern voice say my name, I felt relieved. I even smiled at her. She did not smile back. She kept looking around the classroom, and asked again. “Is Nephele Weather here today?”

  “Right here, Mrs. Saint Johnabelle,” I said, waving.

  When she looked at me, sparks flashed in her eyes like fireworks and then fizzled. She checked her paper. “Nephele Weather. Did I pronounce your name correctly?” It took me a second to nod. She said, “Fine. Welcome to Redwood Cove High School. Camille Walters? Is Camille Walters here?”

  I looked around once again for signs that I was dreaming. Melting faces or mythological animals, or maybe I wasn’t fully dressed?

  I checked: Normal faces. No centaurs. And thank the goddesses of mathematics, I was wearing pants.

  This was happening.

  Mrs. Saint Johnabelle didn’t remember me.

  * * *

  —

  Between classes, I rushed through the hallways in a panic, looking for Vera. I passed Youki and his friends again, pumping their fists and making dog grunts, and again, they all ignored me. I spotted a cloud of strawberry-blond curls bobbing in the crowd and made a beeline for Ramsey Schultz.

  When she saw me looking, Ramsey stopped walking and flashed her trademark pink lipstick smirk.

  But she didn’t insult me. She just thought I was some freshman who was admiring her, and was humoring me by acknowledging my existence. Weirdly, I felt sort of flattered.

  Then Ramsey waved at someone behind me, and I looked.

  Vera was waving back. When I caught her eye and smiled a cautious smile, Vera nodded and smiled a vague smile like I was anyone, just some random someone she maybe did and maybe didn’t know. A smile that deleted our entire friendship.

  Vera didn’t remember me either.

  When the bell rang for second period, I stood in the emptying hallway, feeling like I’d fallen through a galactic trap door. What was happening to people’s memories of me? Had they disappeared into black holes? Could there be black holes in inner space? Brain holes?

  And if nobody else remembered me, why did my parents?

  The harder I tried to make sense of what had happened, the more confused I got. Time had gone from a circular clock ticking tamely at regular intervals to an animal I’d dredged up from the quantum foam, writhing and snarling and snapping at my hands. It was like I’d made time mad.

  I took my phone out of my hoodie pocket and looked at it. “Dirk Angus,” I said, “we have a problem.”

  * * *

  —

  Seventh period was French, and unfortunately, time travel, or pseudo–time travel, or whatever the hell I’d just done, had not improved my accent.

  “Répétez-vous, Mademoiselle Weather,” said Madame LeBlanc. “Un, deux, trois.”

  “Uhhn, doo, twar,” I said.

  “C’est horrible!” she said, and then she snorted.

  Orr-ee-bull, I thought. Sounds about right.

  When the final bell rang, I decided to go to the Big Blue Wave. There was only one person I could talk to about what was happening. She had two heads but no brains, which made it physically impossible for her memories of me to get sucked into an inner-space vortex.

  Outside the school, the wind was scooting rotting leaves around the blacktop. I was zipping my hoodie when I noticed someone sitting on the redwood stump, hunched over a comic book and wearing his dark green T-shirt with the alien with a million eyes.

  “Wylie Buford!” I said. “You wouldn’t believe how happy I am to see you.”

  Wylie looked up, his eyes confused behind his glasses.

  I was as surprised by my reaction as he was. It had just sort of slipped out.

  “I apologize,” said Wylie. “Have we met?”

  Of course Wylie didn’t remember me either. “It’s Nephele Weather,” I said. “We’ve been in school together since kindergarten….”

  “Ah. I do apologize. Nothing personal, Neffrey. Sorry: Neffro, was it? Only, I think you’re confusing me with someone else.”

  “I’m not confused, Wylie,” I said, feeling suddenly confident. “We know each other.”

  Wylie gave me an awkward smile. “Ah…” He laughed nervously and looked at his lap.

  I did not laugh. I took a step closer to him and touched his arm. Maybe if I pushed Wylie I could force him to remember all the years we’d spent sitting in the same classrooms together, surrounded by the same peers. “Wylie. Concentrate. Look in my eyes. Look at me.”

  Wylie
laughed a dry laugh that caught in his throat. Then he licked his lips and pulled his arm away gently, like if he made the wrong move, I might attack him. He checked his wristwatch. “Oh, wow. Is it late. Best of luck there, Neffro. Cheers.”

  As I watched Wylie run toward the path to Highway 1, I had an inspiration. If I wanted to go back in time for real, I was obviously going to have to upgrade Dirk Angus. How, I had no clue—but somehow. If I got started on Dirk Angus 2.0 right away, it’d probably be ready in the next few weeks. And when it was ready—

  When I went back in time for real, and escaped from Outcast Island—

  I would take Wylie Buford with me. When I became popular, I wouldn’t be cruel and exclusive. I’d welcome the whole world into my gigantic circle of friends.

  As I watched Wylie disappear into the redwoods, I felt a glimmer of hope. Maybe it was okay that my first time-travel experiment had skidded me into a parallel universe where everything was blurred and out of sync. If it hadn’t, I might’ve forgotten Wylie. How normal it felt to talk with him somehow.

  Saving Wylie Buford was a great idea. My timeship wasn’t a selfish (not to mention illegal) invention that had seriously malfunctioned, drilling memory-chomping quasars into people’s brains. It was simply a fun new app with a glitch. As soon as I fixed the glitch, I could go back to saving myself, and Wylie, and the planet. Hawks screeched overhead; I watched them sail in graceful loops. For the first time that day, I felt optimistic. Dirk Angus 2.0 would put things back on track.

  * * *

  —

  Upstairs at the Big Blue Wave, I leaned against the red wall. “Someday we’ll look back and laugh about this, Chicago.”

  “About what?” she asked, sounding skeptical.

  “About how my first time-travel experiment went awry,” I said.

  “Awry?” she repeated. “Like a goofball plan in a romantic comedy? No way. Dirk Angus is evil and must be destroyed.”

  “Don’t be melodramatic. I made a minor mistake, which I will find and un-make. Meanwhile, I’m living in a parallel universe where I don’t quite exist. It’s comical. The expression ‘wacky hijinks’ comes to mind. Now I just need a boy I can engage in some witty banter with.”