“Don’t look now, but it’s Miss Thing herself coming down the hall,” Kate muttered darkly. I turned and rolled my eyes as Jade and her friends strode towards us. The sight of her pink top turned my stomach; that and the beaming smile that was plastered on her face. She was always smiling as if she’d never had a bad day in her entire life. It was annoying. I leered at her when she made the mistake of glancing our way. She lowered her head and hurried past us to get to her first class.
“Well, guess I’ll see you in history class,” Kate said before heading towards her own classroom.
“Yep, see you then.” I grabbed my binder and closed my locker.
I turned around to dive into the bustling crowd just as the five-minute warning bell rang, and found myself walking right into someone. “Hey, watch it!” I snapped as my binder fell to the floor and burst open, scattering papers everywhere. “Seriously? Why don’t you look where you’re going?”
“Sorry,” a voice replied sharply, and I glanced up to stare into the face of Zac.
“Oh, hey,” I mumbled quickly, but he was already shoving my binder at me and straightening up. “What’s wrong with you?” I frowned at him.
“Nothing, I’m fine,” he snapped, and before I had a chance to say anything else, he stormed away.
I watched him move on down the hall, gripping firmly onto my binder when he paused to talk to Jade. The two of them laughed at something he’d said and then he gave her hand a quick squeeze before continuing to class.
I ground my teeth as I stepped into first period and took my seat to the right of Jade. She stared pointedly at the board as I leaned in closer. “I see you and Zac are getting awfully close.”
“We’re just friends,” she insisted quietly, her hand trembling as she held her pen tighter.
“Sure, whatever you say. But you’d better just be friends!”
She slumped in her seat as I glared at her through the entire period. We left that class, and I did the same thing in our next class, smirking when she squirmed in her chair. By the time history class rolled around and Zac tried to talk to her, she wanted nothing to do with him. Good. He shouldn’t want to talk to her; he should want to be with someone like me. I had no idea why he was interested in her, anyway.
But to make matters worse, our teacher made us pair up for some dumb assignment. I sat with Kate while Zac scooted his desk closer to Jade’s.
All through class, I watched them talk quietly and laugh about something or other. My lips twitched with growing aggravation until, by the end of the class, I had successfully destroyed the cap of my pen from chewing on it so hard. We were barely out the door when I purposely turned back and stuck out my foot just as Jade exited the classroom. She tripped, and I faked a gasp of shock as Kate stood laughing alongside me.
“Oh Jade, I’m very sorry! I didn’t see you there,” I said and bent down. “Let me help you.”
“Why don’t you just get away from her?” Zac said, stepping in front of me and blocking my path. “Just go away and leave her alone. Just leave everyone alone.”
I glowered at him as Jade scrambled to her feet, clutching her books to her chest and hiding behind him. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” I said in an attempt to defend myself. “I was just trying to help her,”
“You know this problem you have against the world? It’s getting really old, Holly.”
“What problem? I don’t have a problem!”
“Oh no? Then why do you act like you hate everyone?” He glared at me openly as the students around us fell quiet. “You never used to be like this, and then one day it’s like you snapped. You’re mean to everyone for no reason. Why?”
I shifted uncomfortably on my feet. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah you do, and that’s the problem. You’ve changed. Most of us used to be your friends, remember? And then one day you decided you hated everyone.” He scoffed as he guided Jade past Kate and me. “Whatever…just leave us alone, alright? Be miserable all by yourself.”
My jaw dropped as he moved towards the cafeteria, talking quietly to Jade. “Seriously?” I said to Kate, raising my eyebrows sky-high.
“I don’t know what he’s going on about,” Kate said as she stood beside me, twirling her hair around her finger. “But you’re not alone; you’ve got me at least.”
I flinched at her words. But at the very same time, part of my dream from the night before came rushing back to hit me full in the face. This wasn’t right, none of this felt right.
We entered the cafeteria and took our usual table so we could watch everyone else. But today I found myself staring absently out the window. Kate was talking about her earlier classes and what had happened with some girl or another, but all I did was nod as she chatted away.
I couldn’t put my finger on the problem, but everything about today, how I was acting, what I was saying, what I was wearing, was wrong…I suddenly felt very uncomfortable in my own skin. It was like I’d pulled a different version out of the closet and slipped it on without realizing what life I was stepping into.
I felt as though I’d fallen into someone else’s life completely and the Holly I was now…was not the real me.
“Man, I have to stop eating ice cream before bed,” I mumbled when lunch finally ended, blaming the sugar for giving me crazy dreams and feeling so weird. “I’m going to the bathroom. See you in class,” I told Kate as I headed into the girl’s restroom.
It was empty, and I set my binder on the ledge by the sink as I stared long and hard at my reflection. I tugged at a strand of hair that had come loose from my braid then poked at my cheeks and picked at my dark purple fingernails. I felt like me, I looked like me, but at the same time, I knew that the Holly staring back was different. I closed my eyes, remembering my dream a little more. Then my eyes abruptly shot open to see another version of me, laughing and joking around with Kate, Oliver, and Zac. Even Zac’s kid sister. I knew that had never happened, but it had been so real in my dream. I was friends with Zac and lots of other kids.
And Jade…in my dream she bullied me, not the other way around. She tried to make my life miserable, told me to stay away from Zac. He had protected me from her. I saw it vividly, saw him stepping up and telling her to leave me alone, telling her to mind her own business. But that hadn’t actually happened, had it?
None of it made sense, and suddenly, I wished I could go back to that dream where I was liked and had lots of friends to hang out with; where Zac, the best looking boy in our grade, actually liked me.
The bathroom door opened and Jade walked in. The second she spotted me, she froze. I felt the words rise to my throat. I wanted to give her a hard time about Zac or anything else I could think of. But I forced myself to swallow them down, grabbed my stuff, and rushed past her without saying a word.
Clutching my binder to my chest, I pushed through the crowd of kids in the hallway, apologizing every time I nudged someone and getting very strange looks in return. Another headache started at my temples, and I swore I was seeing flashes of this very same hallway from a different time…from my dream? I didn’t know, but things were becoming very confusing. I wanted that moment again, to be talking to Zac, laughing with him, not having him angry at me for picking on Jade.
There was a time not so long ago when Jade was the one making fun of me. The thought hit me for a second time, but this time it was more intense; her threatening me in the girl’s bathroom as her gang of supporters looked on, made me extremely nervous that it was going to happen all over again.
I froze mid-step and nearly fell over. No, that wasn’t right. Jade had never been mean to me, not outright at least. She wouldn’t dare. I was the one who was mean to her. And yet those images still appeared in my head, our roles reversed and Zac being there for me, not her.
When I finally got my feet moving again, I saw Kate waiting for me outside our science class. As soon as I reached her, she poked me in the shoulder. “You ok?”
“W
hat? Yeah, yeah I’m fine,” I mumbled. “Perfect, why?”
“You’re all pale, that’s why. Did something happen in the bathroom?”
I was going to say no, but when Jade passed us and made her way into the classroom, we both caught her curious stare. Kate glared at her, and she almost sprinted to her seat.
“Did something happen with you and Jade?” Kate asked.
“No, she came into the bathroom while I was there, but nothing happened.” I took a deep breath to steady my unstable nerves and motioned to the doorway. “Let’s just go into class. I can’t be late again.”
“That’s for sure!” Kate nodded in agreement. “Mr. Banes loves giving out detentions too much,” she added as she stepped inside the doorway.
My feet wouldn’t move. “Mr. Banes?”
“Our science teacher, yeah,” she said slowly. “You know, Holly? The man who teaches our science class?”
I gulped as the name reverberated through my head. My gaze slipped from Kate to the man sitting behind the desk at the front of the room.
His glasses were perched at the end of his nose, and his beard and the wisps of hair at the sides of his head were gray. From where I stood, he looked perfect for the part of a mad scientist, and my mouth dropped open as a new flood of memories hit me hard. But whether they were from my dream or were real, I couldn’t decide.
Either way, I knew this Mr. Banes, and it wasn’t because he was my science teacher.
Chapter 4
“Holly? What’s up? You coming in or what?” Kate asked.
She sounded far away. It was like all the air had been sucked from my lungs as I stared at our teacher, sitting behind his desk while he waited for everyone to file in and take their seats. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. I did not want to go in, not into this classroom, I just couldn’t.
“Holly,” Kate said louder, snapping her fingers in my face and making me jump. “What is with you today?’
I wanted to tell her that this man was a bad guy, that we shouldn’t let him see us…but that was crazy! Wasn’t it?
“Girls, please take your seats,” Mr. Banes said. The sound of his voice made me take another step back into the hall. He frowned at us both and pushed up from his desk. “Holly, what seems to be the problem, this time? You forget something in your locker?”
My mouth worked a few times before I gave a quick shake of my head and moved towards my desk near the back of the room. Kate slid into hers beside me. The bell rang, and Mr. Banes closed the door, diving right into his lesson, one I had no interest in paying attention to. The longer I listened to him talk, the more my mind played tricks on me, and I heard him saying other things…threatening my family… But that wasn’t possible. He didn’t know my family, my parents. Did he? No, he couldn’t. No one knew my dad because he ran off when I was a baby.
But just like before, I felt the gnawing sensation that all of this was wrong. Horribly wrong.
For reasons I couldn’t explain, I hated this man. I hated him so much, I glared at him all through class and when the bell finally rang I dreaded the idea of having to see him again tomorrow. And the next day and the next, not after what he did to my family…
I winced as my head throbbed painfully, and when I got to my feet, I nearly fell into my desk.
“Holly? You don’t look too good,” Kate said worriedly. “Maybe you’re getting that bug everyone else has. You’re very pale.”
My knees felt shaky, as did my hands. “I think I’ll go to the nurse. I’ll um…I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
“Okay,” she said as she took a few steps to follow me. “Do you want me to come with you?” I shook my head, and she shrugged before telling me she’d text me later.
I kept my head down, but it hurt to walk, and I cringed every time I took a step. I passed the janitor’s closet near the front of the school, and another image appeared in my mind. It was of Kate, Oliver, and me landing there after using the time machine to do something…something to do with Jade’s project? I groaned. Now I really was sounding crazy.
“Time machines,” I mumbled under my breath. “No such things as time machines, Holly. You’re losing it; you’re totally losing it.”
When I reached the nurse’s office and told her how unwell I felt, she took my temperature, frowning as she checked the thermometer. “Bit of a temp. I’m going to go ahead and send you home for the day. You walk to school, is that right? I’ll call your mom to let her know. Do you need her to come and get you?”
“No, no I’ll text her. It’s okay, I can make it,” I assured her. After a skeptical glance back at me, she gave me a note to hand to the main office and then told me I could go.
I did as she asked and then swung by my locker to grab my bag before trudging home. At least I wouldn’t have to see Jade or Zac for the rest of the day. When I reached my house, I opened the door and called out to Mom, but there was no answer. I dropped my bag at the stairs and wandered into the kitchen where I found a note on the fridge.
I rolled my eyes, texted her and said I was at home with a slight fever, but not to worry, and disappeared upstairs to wallow in my bedroom. She texted back, making me promise to lie down and take it easy and to let her know if I felt any worse.
Dropping down onto my bed, I tried to clear my mind, to not think about any of the weird stuff that had happened that day. Eventually, I felt myself relax and drifted off to a not so restful sleep…
I was running, and someone was with me. Oliver? And Kate. They were both there, but I couldn’t figure out where we were or what was happening. Then suddenly we were in a room, and there was a blue light surrounding us. I glanced around, hearing the same voice from that morning when I arrived at school, calling my name. It sounded familiar. I knew that voice, knew it really well, but whose was it? I wanted to see the person’s face, know who was calling out to me. Then there was another voice…maybe more? I couldn’t tell. But I didn’t stop running. The blue light blinded me, and I winced when my feet left the ground then thumped back to the floor with a thud. The scenery changed, so did Oliver and Kate…and me. I yelled, asking them to tell me what was going on. Then they ripped away from me, and I was left alone as the light changed from blue to red. I was terrified, but of what, I had no idea.
A sound of cruel laughter filled my ears, and I thrashed around, tangling in the bedsheets. Finally opening my eyes, I stared around my room and glanced at the clock on my bedside table. I’d been asleep for less than an hour, but it felt like a lifetime. With my head pounding even worse than before, I turned over, closed my eyes, and tried to forget about the nightmare I’d just had.
***
When I woke, my room was shrouded in darkness. Groggily, I looked around. The dream this time was worse than the last, and I felt even more off-kilter. I rubbed my eyes as they adjusted to the darkness that had fallen while I was asleep. I couldn’t believe I’d slept that long. My head still hurt, and I wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t. The house was quiet around me, and a weird image of it being deserted and rundown flashed in front of me. I shook my head, and the image was gone again.
“You’re fine,” I told myself. “There’s nothing wrong with you. You’ve had some weird dreams, that’s all. They’re just dreams!” I said it over and over before I finally managed to get to my feet and flip on the light. I stared at my bedside clock and gasped at how late it was.
Midnight! I’d slept right through until midnight! In an effort not to wake anyone, I tip-toed from my bedroom to the bathroom and then to the kitchen to find something to eat.
The longer I stood there, the more I sensed that everything was wrong, all of it. I rubbed my forehead, trying to smooth the sensation away, but it only grew worse. Flashes of Mom in this kitchen, the walls yellow, then blue. Me in the kitchen with Oliver as we made breakfast on the weekends. Seeing Kate and I laughing…and Zac. I held my head, waiting for the strange scenes to stop. There were more bright flashes of blue and then I was fallin
g through a tunnel of light, and when I landed…I saw the hazy figure of a man I recognized immediately.
I wasn’t sure how I knew him. I swore I’d never seen him before. But then I realized. “Dad…it was Dad,” I whispered. And suddenly it was like I was waking up all over again, except this time, I knew exactly what had happened.
“NOOO!...Oh, NOOO!”
The kitchen spun around me as everything came rushing back. My memories were a mess. How had this happened? We’d been using the time machine reset to fix everything and now…now I had no idea where the machine even was.
“Oliver.” My gaze shot to the stairs. He’d been with me when it all happened. And Kate. And Thaddeus and Dad. What went wrong? We were supposed to be making all of this right. But instead, we’d created new versions of ourselves. It was an even bigger mess than ever.
I had to get to Oliver. Scrambling into action, I bolted up the stairs and banged on his bedroom door. When he didn’t answer, I threw the door open and charged in, shaking him awake as hard as I could. I yelled his name until his eyes finally shot open. He yelped in alarm until he finally realized it was me.
“Holly? What are you doing? Is the house on fire?” he grunted through a yawn. “What time is it?”
“It doesn’t matter. Do you remember?”
“Remember what? Can you get off my bed? I have a test in the morning.” He rolled over and tugged the comforter back over his head. I yanked it off, throwing it onto the floor. “What!” he snapped as he shoved me away. “You trying for the most annoying sister of the year award, or what?”
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