Summerton High (Zeke Thompson: Minute Men)

Room 77

I wake up early that morning, excited to see Zeke. I put on black ripped skinny jeans, a white crop top, and black converse. I put my dirty blonde curly hair into a ponytail, spray myself with my signature Marc Jacobs Daisy perfume then hurry to school.

I jump out of my car, hurrying to find Zeke, which was pretty easy, not only because he's the only one at Summerton to drive a motorcycle but because he was so tall! He has a mean glare on his face until he sees me, we make eye contact and give each other big smiles, "Hello gorgeous." He gives me a hug, he smells so good, I hug him tightly back.

Virgil and Charlie soon walk up after. We all then started walking to find Tolkan. After looking everywhere we found him getting angry at the vending machine. "Vice Principal Tolkan, we need to talk about starting a new club." Charlie stated. "No can do. We're
completely maxed out on classroom space. The Future Fonduers of America were the last ones in." Virgil glanced over at the machine, "Is that Chester in the vending machine?" "Hi." Chester said muffled behind the vending machine glass. "Does anyone have four quarters, it's not taking my dollar." I stared at our vice
principal like he was crazy.

Zeke speaks up, "You gonna do something?" He sounds annoyed, "Like what? Change the way high school works? Everything in the world has an order; there are those who stuff people into vending machines, and those who get stuffed into vending machines. It's the way the system works." He responded. Charlie ignored his statement and blurted out, "Room 77! We want room 77!" "Impossible. Never gonna happen." He hit the machine as he spoke the last fragment.

Virgil digs in his pocket, "Perhaps we can convince you to reconsider." He held out four quarters. "Done," Tolkan replied taking the coins, Virgil and Charlie give each other a high five.

Charlie leads us down to room 77 since he's the only one who knows it exists. The boys open the big metal door; it's a mess in there. "This is going to take a lot of work to fix." Virgil complains, "Not necessarily." I blurt out, "I can get all of this cleaned in one day, as long as someone takes care of the cob webs and spiders cause I hate bugs." I look around, "You boys go collect the stuff Zeke needs to build this thing, I'll clean up, but I want to go with you guys the first time you travel back in time, deal?" I look at all three of them, "Sure." They all day in union.

I use my amazing cleaning skills and get the whole place cleaned and ready for time travel all within two hours. The boys finally finish scavenging for parts and they look around shocked, "You did this all within the time we were gone?" Charlie says shocked, I nod, "Yup, I love to clean. But there are still some cob webs and spiders in the corners that I refuse to touch." Zeke and Virgil put their stuff down, "On it." They say in sync then look at each other.

Virgil and Charlie go to class while Zeke and I stay behind to build the machine. "Do they even care if we aren't in class?" I ask as I bring over his tools, he shakes his head, "They think we're in a club meeting they don't care. Especially not Tolkan, he's only worried about himself." He says as he builds, I nod. "Do you need me to help you with anything." He looks up at me, "I think I'm okay for now gorgeous, just your company." I smile wide and sit down next to him.

"I usually like to be alone. But I like something about you, I like you around me." He says looking at me, I look up to him, "Really?" I'm smiling, he nods, "Everyone is always so scared of me, you're not." He turns his body to face me, "Why would I be scared of you?" He shrugs, "Cause I'm the tall quiet kid who works on bikes and likes metal." I shrug, "Sounds like the best guy to be around." I smile up to him, I taps my chin then turns around to continue building.

"Do you know how to weld?" He looks over at me, "Is it similar to soldering? I know how to solder." He moves his hand side to side, "Same concept different thing. Grab us both a face shield, I'll show you." He nods his head towards the face shields. I grab them and we both put one on.

He begins welding pieces together, once he finishes we life up our face shields, "Melting. That's the difference right? Soldering the metal never melts to bond but what you were doing it did then you let it bond, right?" He smiles wider as I keep talking, "Exactly." I smile wide at the fact I knew and his smile makes me happy.

After three hours, he's finally done. "Now we just wait for Charlie and Virg to come back to start this thing up." He stands up and pulls me up too, "It looks good." I look up to him, "Good job." I tell him, "Thank you gorgeous." I blush every time he calls me gorgeous.

Charlie and Virgil finally arrive, holding numerous amounts of clothes, "We should layer, you can never estimate the temperature changes in time travel." Charlie says as he sets the clothes down, "The machine looks amazing!" Virgil says admiring it, "Thanks, I had a little help." He winks at me as he begins to layer clothing on.

We finally finish layering, I feel like I look ridiculous; dressed for an up north winter in the end of summer in California, "Aren't we going to stick out wearing these? Shouldn't we have better outfits?" I say, "Well sorry I don't have matching outfits for us." Charlie said annoyed, "Watch it Charlie." Zeke says, Charlie gets nervous and sits at the machine, we all stand around him.

As Charlie started up the machine, you could hear a whirring sound. "Okay, this is it! One small step for man, but one very large..No, that's not it. It's one small step for-" "Dude, just turn it on!" Zeke yelled cutting Charlie off, he pressed the enter button on the keyboard and the big light tornado lit up.

"So who wants to go first?" Charlie asks. "I'll go." I offered. "No." Zeke said, "It's unpredictable, don't go alone." Virgil added. All of a sudden we hear a cat meowing, Zeke and Virgil are across the room, I gasp, "Where's Charlie's cat?" Charlie shoots up and ran to Virgil, giving him a noogie as he says, "Hello? Vortex! He could die!" "You were fine with me going in there." Virgil disputes, "But Virgil! Albert is a cat, their bodies are not like ours! It's even more dangerous for him." I panic a little, I love animals.

Zeke was pulling on Albert's leash and pulls him back in, I catch him he's full of snow, "Poor Albert." I say softly then grab the watch off of his collar, "Guys look! 2:44" "2:45." Virgil says as he looks at his watch, Charlie looks amazed, "An exact one minute differential. That means..." Charlie started "Your cat is the first time travel in history!" Zeke finished. We all have an excited look on our faces, "Let's try it out." I say anxiously.

Virgil goes first, Charlie hesitates so Zeke picks him up and jumps in with him, then me. We quickly go in and out just to test it. We land hard on our backs, "We have to work on our landing." Virgil says holding his lower back, "Are you okay Sadie?" He asks and helps me up off of Zeke, "Yeah, I landed on Zeke, are you okay Zeke." I crouch down to him and take his goggles off, he nods, "Yes." He stands up.

We hear Charlie singing and we all look over to him dancing, we all laugh. "The remote outlet isn't going to work, if we want to take the lottery numbers someone is going to need to stay behind." Zeke says as he looks at the wires, "I'll do it!" We hear a small voice come from the doorway, it's Janette, Charlie's crush who has also liked him for years according to Virgil. "No!" Charlie screams, "Yes!" Virgil rebuttals, "That way Sadie can come with us, it's only fair since she helped build it." I look over to them, "Charlie it'll be okay if she helps, I won't always go with you guys I can help Janette, having one more person won't hurt." I comfort him, "Fine!" He finally agrees.

Janette claps, "Thank you hummingbird!" She hugs him, he looks so awkward, poor Charlie. "You guys need better outfits." Janette looks all of us up and down, "I told you, Charlie!" "Where can we get some?" Virgil asks, "My dad has plenty of snowsuits, I can bring each of you one tomorrow!" She smiles wide, "Okay." Charlie says.