CLIPPED: Another Time Travel Tale (The Harmon Family Adventure Series Book 2)

by Angela R. Hart

  "I feel much better, I will go home and start making the arrangements. I have to have a funeral for them, so that nothing looks suspicious or out of the ordinary, that was their idea." she explained. "Okay Mom, that sounds like a good plan. I'll help you." I said. "Okay Chloe Bear. I love you." she said, hugging me. "I love you too, Mom." I said, hugging her back. Then she hugged Callie, and Callie had a tear in her eye as she hugged her back. She made her way to Carson and kissed him softly and then said, "I love you both, too. I'll see you soon." and she walked out the door. "Bow chicka bow wow!" said Callie to Carson, poking him in the ribs. "Shut up, dude." he said.

  "That was quick thinking when she asked about why we couldn't just poof the Others here from the past for good. She has a good mind. Poor Alyssa, that was really sad, but she doesn't understand the intricacies of the traveling. She doesn't know that they wouldn't have been able to stay for good if they just came here with the links." said Carson. "We know, but we had to give her the short and sweet answer. There wasn't any sense in getting all into the details." said Callie. "Yeah, she will be okay. Talking to them on the Screen seemed to help her a lot." I said. "That's good. Unfortunately, it looks like we have to go to a funeral." said Carson.

  "You two are not going to the funeral, look at you!" I said. "We are going, but we will change our appearance, it isn't hard. We need to be there to see if anybody shows up. We will wear the Contacts and sit in the back. You wear the Contacts and sit in the front with your Mom." said Callie. "Don't worry, nobody will recognize us." said Carson. I wasn't sure if I believed them, but it was worth a shot. We needed to see every face at that funeral. Dad had a good idea with that one, plus it would keep the cops off of our trail. "Okay, change it up then, let's see what you can do." I said, and they both looked at each other and smiled.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  "Come on already, guys! We're going to be late to your own damn funeral!" I screamed from the living room. They were taking a century to get ready. They said that they were going to be able to change their appearance, but I wasn't so sure that they would be able to change it enough to not be noticed. I started tapping my foot impatiently, waiting for them to get a move on. "Late for their own funeral. Just ridiculous." I thought, annoyed. "SERIOUSLY!" I screamed, glancing up at PawPaw's old wind up clock over the mantel, we had less than an hour to get there.

  "We're ready, here we come." said Callie, as she walked out the doorway. "HOLY CRAP!" I screamed. She had dyed her hair, a dark auburn. She also had it down and very wavy. "Woah! Look out! Who are you?" I yelled, clapping. "That's awesome. Nice suit! Do a spin." I said. She did and I took a closer look. Her normal muddy green eyes were now a dark brown, almost black. "Your eyes are creepy and weird." I said, looking at them closer. "I downloaded an app for the Contacts. Can you believe that they have some shit like that? Unbelievable. It let's you choose whatever color you want to make them. I figured that this would definitely do the trick." she explained. "Oh yeah, it's different." I said, weirded out. "Something else is off about your face too, what is it?" I asked.

  "I ordered some plumper gloss from the Shop App, that crap works way better than what we had in our time." she said, sticking her big lips out seductively. "Nice." I said, shaking my head. "I also got lashes, since mine are blonde, and I have on a shit-ton of makeup, that contouring crap was all the rage back in our day, changes your whole face. Glasses too, so that way, maybe nobody will notice my facial features as easily. Oh, and I dyed my eyebrows since they're nearly invisible. Let's not forget the tanning patch, ordered that from the Shop App too, and silicone boob enhancers. How are they, voluptuous?" she said, puffing out her chest. "Very... umm.. large. Well good job, I wouldn't recognize you if I didn't know you already. "CARSON! COME ON!" I screamed. "I'm coming, calm down daughter!" he screamed from he bathroom.

  He walked out the door and my mouth dropped. "Dude." said Aunt Callie. "Weird." I said, amazed. He had shaved off his entire beard except some sideburns then dyed his hair almost black, and it was neatly combed back and in place. He also changed the color of the Contacts to that creepy dark brown and had on some thick framed glasses. "Did you use a tanning patch too? "Well yeah, and even though I'm wearing a suit and tie, I wanted to make sure to cover up any of the tattoos that might accidentally be visible. Oh, and I whitened my teeth with that light thingie. That shit really worked, look!" he said, showing off his extremely white teeth. "Fancy." said Callie. He looked at her and laughed at her giant boobs. "Really sister, they didn't have to be like Dolly Parton." "Shut up." she said, adjusting them back into place.

  "Well, I wouldn't recognize you two as being them if I saw you and didn't know you, but I would notice that your were related to us, so if anybody asks, you're just our cousins from, I don't know, wherever. Sit in the back, that way you can get snaps of every person in there." I said. "YES SIR." Carson said. "We know, Lovebug. We will be snapping the whole time, plus I don't know if I want to see our dead bodies." said Callie. "Don't worry, Mom had them do closed caskets, she didn't want to see either." I said. "Whew, thank God." said Carson. "I was not looking forward to that." said Callie. "Alright then, let's go, we need to take two separate cars." I said, as we grabbed two sets of keys. "Ugh, here we go." I thought, sadly.

  We got to the funeral home and parked in separate areas of the parking lot. I was parked near Mom, and she was waiting for me so that we could go in together. "It's going to be a long ass day." I thought, as I told her hello. "Are they here?" she asked. We told her about them both coming incognito, and she wasn't thrilled about it, but they swore to her that they wouldn't be recognized, so she agreed to it. "They're here. You'll probably know them when you see them, but I don't think that anybody else would ever notice that they looked like Auntie and Dad." I said. She nodded and we walked inside and sat down in the family section.

  I also had my Contacts set to snap, so that way, if someone came to talk to me or Mom, I would have an up close and personal shot of their face. I saw Callie and Carson come in together from a different door and they went to sit at the very back of the room. They didn't even look at the caskets. I wasn't looking at them either, I just pretended that I was, but really, I was looking just above them. People came up to us and expressed their condolences, and Mom was genuinely distraught. I couldn't make myself be sad, because I had two different versions of them available to me at all times, and I knew that eventually, we were going to change their fate. I blinked and snapped everytime another person came up to talk to us, but I didn't recognize anybody as being out of place.

  I glanced over at Callie and Carson and they were blinking and snapping too, trying not to be noticed while they did it. I hoped that Callie's snaps would come out okay with all of those lashes covering her eyeballs. Nobody paid them any attention whatsoever, which meant that their disguises were really good. I pointed toward them to show Mom who they were. "Look Mom, back there, in the back corner." I said. She looked over and then her eyes went wide. "Wow, you're right, they are unrecognizable. He looks really odd without a beard doesn't he?" she said. "Oh yes, I don't know if I would have even recognized him dressed regularly without the beard. It is very strange." I said, nodding.

  The funeral went on as it normally would, and nobody seemed weird or different. I didn't pay much attention to anything, I didn't want it to feel real, so I just went into la la land and daydreamed about how we were going to eventually fix the problem. I watched Callie and Carson out of the corner of my eye and they looked like they were in la la land too, but they also looked very sad. "It must be hard, attending your own funeral." I thought as I watched them.

  Finally, the funeral was over and we were going to be in the procession going to the cemetary. I did not like the idea of my Auntie and my Dad taking a dirt nap, but it had to be done, for now, they were actually dead. The cemetary wasn't far and it was a nice, sunny day, so we got there quickly and sat in our chairs waiting for the interment. The man speaking said a few words that I didn't pay atten
tion to, and the caskets were then lowered. Mom was crying again and I hated that. I glanced back and Callie and Carson, they were standing back on the outskirts of the crowd of people, snapping again, and looking everywhere but the caskets lowering slowly into the ground.

  I looked around the grounds of the cemetary and suddenly noticed someone out of place. He was standing rather far away, leaning on a tree, but he looked familiar. I zoomed in with my Contacts and immediately gasped, it was the man, the one from the bank that day. He was dressed very handsomely in a dark three piece suit and tie, complete with cufflinks and tie clip. I max-zoomed onto the cufflinks, to make sure that they weren't like ours, but they looked slightly different, although similar. I couldn't figure out what was weird about them. The tie clip was made of gold, nothing strange. I snapped and snapped every inch of him and his apparel while trying to act like I wasn't actually looking at him. He didn't seem to notice me, probably because he was too far away.

  I got back down to the cufflinks, to try and get a better snap of them and I gasped again. It was the mystery journal. He was holding it in his right hand, and leaning on the tree with his left shoulder touching the trunk. I snapped the journal and as I was snapping, I realized that it looked different, but the same. It was newer. It wasn't worn out at all. "I wish I had a way to get Carson and Callie's attention." I thought. "I could try to call one of them with the Contacts." I realized, as I gestured gently toward my Call App. "Hello" Callie whispered. "Look at that tree back there, to your right, 5:00." I whispered.

  I saw her turn around and look in the area that I specified and then turn back around and tap Carson and whisper to him. He turned slowly and looked too and then looked back up front. "Who is that?" she asked very quietly. "The man from the bank, he has the mystery journal." I whispered. Mom was staring daggers at me by that time, so I said, "Gotta go." and quickly gestured the call away. "Sorry, it was important." I leaned to her and whispered.

  I continued to look at him nonchalantly and snap, but I needed to get to him, as soon as this horrid funeral was over I was going over there. It ended about 15 minutes later and I rushed to get up to walk back toward the man. I saw Callie and Carson do the same thing.

  There were too many people trying to talk to me when I was headed in that direction, so I just pushed through them all and kept saying, "Excuse me," over and over, until I was nearly there. I thought that I could see the top of his dark brown hair across the grass, but people were everywhere. I looked for Callie and Carson, and I couldn't spot them either. I hoped that they were able to catch up with the man, and I hoped that Carson wasn't packing. "God forbid he gets in a shootout at his own funeral. That would be awkward." I thought.

  I made it to the tree where the man had been leaning, but he was nowhere in sight. I turned and looked in every direction, and finally spotted him walking off toward the gate of the cemetary. I moved as quickly as I could and he took a right, headed for the parking area. I lost him behind the stone pillar holding the gate up. I had been right behind him, and I turned right and there was nothing. Nobody was around, just dragonflies swooping and buzzing through the air. "Shit." I thought, as I turned around and saw Callie and Carson walking up to me.

  "Where did he go?" Carson asked. "I have no idea, one minute I was right behind him, then he turned this corner, and the next minute, POOF, he was gone. Then I realized what I had just said. "POOF!" I said again. They both looked at me and I explained that I thought that I saw cufflinks similar to ours. "I can't be sure though, but I took hundreds of snaps of the guy, so we can all go through them later. "Well, we will get with the Others tonight and go through the snaps, maybe they'll shed some light." said Callie. "Okay, well, let me go tell Mom goodbye and then we can go. I don't want to be here anymore." I said, and they nodded in agreement. "Time to go home and figure out our new mystery man."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  We all piled onto the couch once we got home and waited for all the snaps to load up into the app. "We need to get the Others on the Screen, we can go through all of the snaps together, maybe they know something that we don't." I said. "Good idea." said Callie, ripping out the silicone boob enhancers and flinging them onto the coffee table. "Ew, gross dude." said Carson, taking off his glasses and switching the color change app off on his Contacts. Callie switched off her color too, and they both looked much more normal after that, those dark eyes reminded me of demons for some reason. "The dye goes away in two washes, so we will look normal again soon, except Carson's beard." said Callie, grinning. "Shut up, it'll grow back soon, I'll take some of those hair growth thingies." said Carson.

  We logged into the Live Stream with Auntie's password and then waited to see where everybody was. Nobody was there on the couch. "Call them." I said. Carson gestured to the Call App and said, "Dude, where are you, we're back, we have lots of snaps." and then gestured it away. "They'll be there in a minute." he said, sitting back to wait. They appeared a couple of minutes later and both sat down on the same couch of the past.

  "WOAH! DUDE! What did you do!" yelled Dad, when he got a look at his younger self without the beard. "I was in disguise, it'll grow back damnit." said Carson, self-conscious about his face. "You two look great, very convincing disguise." said Auntie. "Thank you, Allie." said Callie. "You missed the giant boobs." said Carson, Callie slapped him upside the head. "Back to business, children." I said.

  "Ugly Don and The Scot didn't show up. I don't know that they will, we haven't seen or heard anything from them in this time. We've checked Auntie's house everyday and nobody has been there either. The cats are fine by the way, Auntie." I said to her. She smiled and said "Thanks, Lovebug." "We did see somebody else though. Zoey got a whole bunch of snaps of him. They're uploading into the database now." said Carson.

  "Who was it?" asked Dad. "The man from the bank, Dad, he was there, at the back of the funeral when we were at the cemetary. He had the mystery journal with him, but it was new, not old and worn out like the one that Ugly Don and The Scot had in the house. He also had on cufflinks, but they weren't just like ours. I couldn't figure out what was weird about them, but I got a ton of snaps on max-zoom." I explained.

  "The three of us tried to catch up with him after the funeral was over, but when we turned the corner, he was just gone. Something fishy is going on with that. I think he might be another time traveler, although, I don't know how that could be possible." I said. "Anything is possible, Lovebug, I came to that conclusion years ago." said Auntie, Callie nodding beside me in agreement. "Okay, they're all loaded in, let's go through them." said Callie, flinging the first snap of the man up onto the screen.

  "Does he look familiar to anyone?" asked Carson. "No, I don't think I've ever seen him before, you Andrew?" asked Auntie. He zoomed and pulled his end out to holographic 3D and twirled. "No, never seen the man before, I don't know why he seems familiar to me, but I know I haven't ever seen him. I wonder who he is? He didn't try to do anything to you, right?" he asked us. "No, he just stood back and leaned on a tree and watched the funeral, then he left." I explained. "Maybe he isn't a bad guy, maybe you really were just being paranoid at the bank." said Dad. "Maybe." I said. "Where's Chloe?" I asked, I just realized that she wasn't there. "She's with Alyssa, she will be back later, don't worry." said Dad. "Oh okay."

  We spent the morning going through the other snaps of the man. "That suit is really nice, and old school, they don't make them like that anymore, except for like parties or costumes or something." said Dad. "I thought it looked different. It's really nice." I said. "If he is a time traveler, he is from a very long time ago." said Carson. "That suit is probably from the 1930's or 40's." said Dad. "That's over 100 years ago!" I said. "Time travel knows no limits, Lovebug." said Auntie. "Look at the cufflinks, what do you guys think, are they like ours?" I said, pulling the holograph our and max-zooming so that we could get a better look.

  Dad and Auntie pulled their holograph out too and all of us stood up to twirl it and take a better look. "You
're right, they do sort of look like ours, but not quite. They kind of look like their made from the same material, why do they look weird?" said Dad, twirling again. "I don't think that they're actually cufflinks!" said Auntie. "Look! Swirl it 90°." she said excitedly, and we obliged. "They aren't cufflinks at all, they look like old earrings! But he has them attached like cufflinks!" said Carson, excitedly. "You're right!" said Callie. "What in the hell is going on here!" said Dad. "I don't know but this is something to think about, definitely." I said, looking closely at the back of the cufflink earrings.

  "What if there are more time travel devices out there, and those are a part of another set?" said Callie. "That would explain the second time traveler." said Dad. "I'm sure if he turned up at the funeral, then he will turn up again. The day he followed you into the bank, what was it like, Zoey?" said Auntie. "Like nothing, just like a guy walking in and then he was just waiting and watching me. Maybe he wanted to talk?" I said. "Who knows. He will turn up again, probably on our end." said Dad. "Pull up the snaps of the journal." I said, flicking through until I got to the max-zoomed ones.

  We all pulled out the holograph to see if there were any distinguishing marks on it. "Look there, in the bottom right corner, where his hand is, is that a letter?" I said, looking closer at it. "I think so, it looks like the letter 'R' but his hand is covering the rest of it." said Auntie. "Well, that's a clue, someone with the letter 'R' in their name. I'll write this all down in my journal so we have all of the info and the times of when he appeared, the snaps have the time stamp and date." I said.