Time Drifters

I had changed, and I think it was mostly for the better.

The first person to say anything about it was Mr. Pedin, in History class. I had never put up my hand so many times, or tried to answer his “Does-Anyone-Want-to-Take-A-Guess-At-It” questions. I got unexpected interest from Tarika Johnson and her friend, Suzanne Legon, the mayor’s daughter. It was more from Tarika talking me up in the hallway before class, with Suzanne just being there to hang out with her. But there was still eye contact and a bit of a smile. She had never seemed to notice me before.

That was also a problem for Joel Babbitt. He was a cross between a jock and a braniac and was pretty high on himself.

“Amazing dork boots,” he said loudly, banging his books down on his desk before class one day. They were new high tops that I’d gotten on the weekend. My feet had grown and the toes on most of my shoes were getting painfully tight. I wondered if Drifting had caused them to expand, but then I realized I wasn’t the only one who was changing.

Some of the kids laughed, and Suzanne smirked. I sloughed it off with just a sneer. I didn’t want to make waves with Joel.

“Own it,” Miss Prankle had said about my weirdness.

I talked to Mom about going back to exchange them, but she gave me the Kids-will-be-Cruel speech, saying that I’d likely grow out of them fast enough that no one would see them for very long anyway. Then I saw other kids wearing the same kind and I figured that I’d just have to watch Joel during soccer games to make sure he didn’t have a reason to tackle me. It likely wasn’t the shoes that he didn’t like and, unfortunately, knowing that didn’t make it feel better.

Harris started coming around, too. Loneliness can do that. There had been a time, just after the first Drift, that I wanted to tell him about it. Now I realized it was just as well that we hadn’t been talking.

The more I thought about it and the farther away the Drift got, the more I wondered if it was real. I knew it was. But everyday life was so totally different.

I also wondered about the other Drifters. What was Capucine doing? Had she been able to escape from that mean man? Caelen was going to be married, and Marijka and the twins… and Thomas! That was the one that stuck out over and over in my head.

Since our Middle School and Tarrytown High were part of the same building, I’d see the high school kids a lot… always there in the background. They were bigger, of course, and sometimes I expected to see Thomas break out of a crowd and come charging after me. I worked extra hard to push myself in track, so I could get better at running faster and longer. Difficult!

Summer was coming and it was staying light later and later in the evenings. It was harder to avoid cutting the grass after dinner, and harder to deal with the mosquitoes in the grass when I did. Dad had pushed that task off to me and it was cool at first being in charge of something, and even having him watching to make certain I knew his tricks for avoiding a severed electrical cord… but not as much fun when it had become a regular deal. I’d come in when I was done and he’d barely look up from his desk, even though I could see him looking out the window at me now and then.

“Only two weeks until Solstice,” I said, one evening at dinner. Mom and Dad exchanged quizzical looks. “The longest day of the year,” I added, trying to make it a sensible thing to have discussed.

“Yes, I know,” Dad said. “Are you studying astronomy now?”

“No,” I said, realizing too late that I’d just boxed myself into a corner. “It’s just on the calendar. If you really look at it.”

Happily, that triggered Mom to ask Dad about a barbeque party they had in the works for Dad’s office, which preoccupied them in a discussion about torches and citronella candles to keep away the bugs.

With solstice coming, I was getting excited and a bit freaked out about Drifting again. I found myself drawing lightning bolts and spheres, sketching the images of the things that I’d seen, and then hiding the sketchbooks on the shelf.

I’d gone by Mr. Danby’s place a couple of times. Finally, on a warm Sunday afternoon, I’d caught him in. I wasn’t expecting a hero’s welcome. Not necessarily. A look of surprise and a warm smile, maybe.

So I was taken aback when he acted like I had knocked just to sell him a newspaper subscription.

“Hello,” he said tersely.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

“I’m just painting, that’s all,” he said, mulling something over in his head. “Sorry, I just get into a groove and it’s hard to deal with anything… external.”

“External,” I repeated, noting that I was outside the front door and that obviously made me very external.

He softened a bit and sighed loudly, looking over his shoulder.

“Come in, if you want,” he said. “It’s just all a mess.”

I noticed the rag in his hands, the fresh smears on his painters pants and even a matching drop of turquoise on Teabag’s rump beside his wagging tail – at least he was happy to see me.

“What are you painting?” I asked, debating whether I should intrude. Dad was always the one to point out that people had busy lives and that it was rude to interject oneself.

“Is everything alright?” he asked, impatiently.

“Fine,” I said. “I just wanted to know when I should be here. For the Drift?”

“Oh,” he said, snapping into a completely different mood. “Come in, then. I’ll check.”

Yeah! It’s only a matter of Maintaining the Timestream, I thought. Kind of hard to miss that on the calendar.

“But you should probably stay in the hallway,” Mr. Danby cautioned, stepping back into view briefly, assuring himself I wasn’t going to run into the Great Room.

“It’s getting close now, you’re right,” he bellowed, so I could hear. “Don’t want to be picking up broken crystal before I’ve had a chance to put it away.”

If Mr. Danby never had people come by, I wondered why he bothered to put any of the crystal back in place.

“Here it is,” he said, reappearing with an envelope in one hand and a sheet of crisp paper in the other.

“That doesn’t look very old,” I said.

He squinted at me, thinking, and then pulled the paper back with him as he retreated into the living room.

“Can I see it?” I asked.

“No,” he said, clearing his throat.

“Why?”

“Really?” he asked. “Liam, I think you’re aware, aren’t you?”

“I saw that first one,” I said, annoyed. “I still went. So it shouldn’t be a big deal.”

“You saw the note you’d written to yourself. Not the Post,” he corrected, sweeping a paint-spotted hand through his hair. He had grown a moustache and a short beard since I’d seen him and I noted that both of them had white hairs poking through. He looked a little older, even for such a short period of time.

“I don’t see the difference,” I muttered.

“You’re a first year Drifter,” he said.

“And when I get through the year, do you then tell me what it’s all about?”

He contorted his mouth, as though he were tasting something sour, and then popped his head back around the corner, consulting something.

“It’s right here,” he read curtly. “June 21^st. Three thirty-eight. A.M.”

“What?” I said, so loudly that I heard him jump. “As in, in the morning?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t even get to stay up until 11 at night, yet,” I exclaimed, freaking out at the thoughts racing through my head. “Can’t you move it?”

“No!”

“Well… do you really need me for this one?” I continued.

“Liam,” he said, incredulously, coming back into the hallway. “If you don’t show up for this one, you never show up for another.”

“Says who?”

“I don’t know,” he said, frustrated. “That’s just the way of it. You can show up and not go anywhere, and keep coming back to see if you ever travel again. But you don’t not show up.” He was almost frantic. His eyes were darting around and his mouth was hanging open in between sentences.

“Well, I’m sorry,” I said. “Not being told how it all works, I don’t know how you expect me to know all of this.”

Words escaped him this time.

“It’s just so unfair!” I said. It was my turn to pace.

“You… you could stay here that night, I guess,” Mr. Danby offered.

“Parents?” I said. “I have parents. And they like to know why I’m deciding to have a sleep over at the house…” I stopped, a thought coming to me.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I don’t know, because it’s a week and a half away,” I said. “I was just wondering if I could fake a sleepover, somewhere. Is this going to happen a lot? Does solstice usually happen at really weird times?

“It’s not a human activity, per se,” he said cautiously. “ I can start to look ahead, in future. If that’s helpful.”

“Little bit,” I said, realizing I was imitating Joel Babbitt, and one of his pet phrases. He was a jerk, so I was probably not impressing Mr. Danby very much.

“Oh, no,” I said, covering my mouth and rocking from side to side. My stomach had tightened so much it was painful.

This would mean more lies to my folks… lies that could be so easily found out. If I got Harris in on a plan, I’d have to sneak out of the Rautbard’s place without having full knowledge of the locks and alarms and creaking boards. Saying that there was some kind of school trip wouldn’t work since school was over at the end of the week.

I got really freaked out, thinking that my schedule was free from classes and my folks might spontaneously want to travel out of town. Thoughts of buses back to Tarrytown only lead my imagination to visions of police searches for a missing boy. Not good either.

I concluded by telling Mr. Danby that the best option was for me to set an alarm—and then try to muffle it in my pillow, even though I was sleeping—and then sneak out of my own house in the middle of the night.

“Do something good,” Mr. Danby suggested. “Because if you’re going to do something bad, it’s less likely that anyone will take notice since they aren’t on the look out for it.”

“That’s pretty smart of you,” I said.

“Hmm,” he grunted. “It’s manipulation, frankly. But in this case I think it’s necessary.”

I couldn’t decide what would get noticed, so I cut the grass and trimmed the edges of the lawn along the walkway, using a shovel. Then I cleaned up my room and when I got to the laundry machines and found a clump of towels in the dryer, I decided to fold them. I’d thought of trying to cook something, but I figured that could end up being more of a disaster—burning something or making a mess would mean I’d wasted groceries and supplies as well as time. Plus, I wasn’t a girl and the cooking thing might look too suspicious.

I found Dad’s travel alarm again and set that as a backup to my own. I’d also started going to bed a bit earlier. After the first Drift, I realized I needed to be rested up and prepared for anything, especially since this was going to be a clandestine and nocturnal Drift.

Mom was so pleased with my diligent attention to chores, she busted out the muffin tins and made mini versions of my favorite German’s chocolate cake with cooked icing on top. She was smiling during dinner and Dad complimented my hard work. I felt horrible eating the mini cakes, as though I’d tricked them both into trusting me. But, I supposed that was kind of the point Mr. Danby was making. And I wanted to keep Drifting just because it was cool; not to mention the help it could be giving to society, supposedly. I decided the tradeoff was worth it.

“So, you know what tomorrow morning is, don’t you?” Dad said.

“Pardon?” I said, feeling ill despite the yummy taste on my tongue.

“Your Dad and I have noticed that you’re excited about the Solstice,” Mom said. “So we thought it would be nice if we could all observe it together, as a family.”

Visions of the three of us showing up at the Drift Station together flashed before my eyes.

Here, Mr. Danby… these are my parents and they’d like to watch me time travel.

My eyes must have bugged out of my head.

“Oh, come on, it’s not so bad,” Mom said, flicking her finger on the side of my cheek to reattach my drooping jaw. “We still do things together as a family.”

“Your Mom found out that there’s a Solstice festival hosted by New Time Books down in the park,” Dad said cheerfully, “tomorrow night.”

I totally relaxed. “The night of Solstice,” I said, realizing that I’d already be back by then.

“Yes,” Mom said.

“Oh, that sounds like fun,” I said, as enthusiastically as possible.

“Well, good then,” Dad said, although he and Mom were sharing some kind of secret language. I decided not to offer to help with dishes. I didn’t want them seeking medical help on my behalf.

I woke twice before my alarms and then cringed when the first one went off at 1:00am—it sounded like a fire alarm, it was so loud in the stillness of the house. I had decided that I should put my pajamas on over my street clothes. If either Mom or Dad caught me, I could possibly develop a case of sleepwalking.

I had used silicon spray on the hinges of my door two days ago during my practice run. I cracked it open and verified that my parents’ room was dark. They liked to sleep with the door open. Kind of creepy, I thought, but that was them, not me.

I made it mostly down the stairs when I saw the light under the closed door of my Dad’s office. Was he in there? Just as I made it to the ground floor, the light got brighter and then the door opened. He was standing there, silhouetted against the chandelier light.

“Liam! What are you doing up?” Dad asked quietly.

I was straining to seeing him and shielded my eyes.

“Just… glass of water,” I said, happy that my terror had made me sound half asleep.

“Want me to bring it up to you?”

“No, no,” I said, smiling and edging into the kitchen. “I’m good.”

“Have a good sleep,” he said.

Fortunately, he hadn’t noticed that I was wearing shoes instead of just bare feet. Unfortunately, he now had left the door to his office open. And what was he doing at one in the morning?

I had to go back upstairs. He looked out at me on the steps and I gave a sleepy wave and yawned a bit. Back inside my room, I cracked open the door and my mind was frantic. I hadn’t counted on going out the window. There was no trellis or tree, or any ladder to help me down.

Then, I saw him go into the guest vanity bathroom. He hadn’t turned out the office light yet, but he was preoccupied for at least a minute.

I scrambled down the stairs as quietly and quickly as I could go.

My heart was thudding so loudly in my ears that I couldn’t even hear if the door latch made a sound. I made it out the front and closed it before he had finished. I locked the door with my key and then skulked away, keeping to the shadows like the covert operative that I was.

Mr. Danby’s Land Rover was waiting around the corner. Mission Accomplished.