Normal kids worry about tests and arguments with their parents. Normal people worry about their job and their pay. It takes a bit more than that to worry me, so if you called me not normal it wouldn't be unusual. It also wouldn't be untrue. What am I? That's easy. What I do, is not.
* * *
It was dark for August. The wind blew gracefully through the trees and the street lamp just ahead left an Erie glow onto the street. It was about eight o'clock on a warm summer night in our small little town just outside the capital city Madison, Wisconsin. The wind blew through the trees again and I became grateful I wasn't alone.
"Brian," I mutter. "I thought we were supposed to be meeting Julia."
Brian let out an annoyed sigh clearly tired of explaining what Julia had told him. Which, as usual, wasn't much.
"She said," Brian began in an annoyed tone that I ignored, "That she had to tell us something urgent tonight before we start school tomorrow morning. Something she overheard. That was all she would tell me besides to bring the rest of you," Here he paused, silently agnologing the fact that there were only two of us, "and where to meet. Once I clarified it she literally hung up on me Alanna, that's all I know."
As he said this you could hear his ultimate frustration on the idea of not knowing, which made me crack a smile. Brian is a genius to the high school freshman standards that we are. We kept walking along the darkening street and reached the corner Julia had specified. No one was there. I was about to start bugging Brian about the street name, wondering if he'd gotten North mixed up with Lemon again because yes, that has happened before, when a flash of hot pink light came out of nowhere a few feet in front of us.
"Julia," Brian and I both mutter.
When the approaching footsteps stopped and standing in front of us was the bright, bubbly, blonde haired Julia herself, Brian immediately launched into why she shouldn't "Travel" with a capital T unless it was an emergency because it was dangerous and she could get caught etc, etc, Julia simply laughed.
"How ya been Bri, Alanna?" She asked, her bright voice filling the dark street causing Brian to glare at her pointedly.
"Spectacular," He grumbled, making me laugh. "Now can you please explain why you wanted to see us in the middle of the night, the day before school starts?"
The smile melted from Julia's face.
"Right," she said quietly, "Back to business, and you're not going to like it."
My thoughts on coming tonight were simple; if Julia is bugging us about this the night before school starts, it must be pretty important. I was almost positive that the only things keeping her from becoming the most popular girl in school were us- her weirdo geeky friends- and her semi decent nature (kidding haha). Normally Julia would be engrossed in pre- school day prep, sending Charli and me pictures of outfits, trying to cover up the details of who she really was. Who we really were. It's a long and complicated story, one none of us like to tell. And as Julia and Brian argued, I seemed to remember. And I really hate remembering.
Finally, being the group peacekeeper I am, I ordered the two of them to be quiet before the neighbors called the cops. Then I asked Julia what she'd heard.
*******
We're time travelers. There, I have spared you from your curiosity and it will plague you no longer. And no, we didn't build our time machine. Actually, it's been around for a while, to the point of which we've expanded from the original model. Notice how I say we. That's right. Tons of people know about time travel and most of them work on the good side, where I work. Also with my close knit group of friends: Julia, Brian, Charli, Sam, Will, Ella, Marie, and Ryan. We're all in ninth grade pretending to be normal teenagers. And luckily most people Don't pay enough attention to care. Also notice how I say "good side." Yeah... that's a long story.
