Time Drifters

When Thomas saw us walking up to Hemenway Hall, he jumped like he’d been hit with a taser gun. He took off, stopped, wheeled around and jiggled his arms like a short-circuiting robot and then bolted across the lawn, into the darkness.

Sam and I passed Jennifer on the stairs.

“They played ‘Perfidia,’” she said, desperate. “Where were you?”

I was speechless. Fortunately, her mother’s hand was a strong tether that kept her moving down and towards the exit, despite the protests.

“See you at the next dance, Liam,” she called back. I waved. And then she and all her frills disappeared.

“You have an admirer,” Sam said, bumping my shoulder with his elbow. I smiled but I was secretly dreading two possibilities. Either that Calico would be dancing with someone else as we entered, or that Thomas had been desperate because he needed to find her.

The place was jumping, or rather the students looked like they were… literally. There was hardly anyone sitting down and the floor was packed.

How could I keep Sam if Calico didn’t show?

I practically pushed him along the wall of windows, scanning the dancers. The song stopped and everybody cheered.

“Not here?” Sam asked, looking around.

“Cake!” I said. The food table had been restocked with new mounds of goodies.

“Cake?” I repeated, offering Sam some.

Just then the next song started. I even knew this one.

Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.

Cheers went up and the dancers jumped back to the floor. Sam looked around and seemed restless. He accepted the plate I gave him, but when I cut a piece of cake he shook his head. I could tell an exit was in the works.

“Liam!” Calico said, rushing towards me and coming up short when she saw Sam beside me. She smiled and nodded.

“Your little brother is very… precocious,” he said, happy with himself for summing me up in a word.

“My… brother?” Calico said, cautiously, “He is.”

“Would you like to dance?” Sam said, graciously extending his hand towards the dance floor.

“Oh! I…” Calico stuttered. She appeared flushed and nervously brushed the hair back from her face with her fingers. “It’s just so hot. I’m… uh.”

I looked at her as forcefully as I could. I hadn’t been able to do the trick of getting one of my eyebrows to lift by itself but I could feel both of them straining expectantly. Calico looked out at the other dancers, dismayed.

“I’m not very good,” she said.

“Neither am I,” Sam said. “I don’t think anyone is going to notice. They are too busy.”

He reached over and took her hand and Calico was off, like it or not.

I felt a surge of accomplishment but it was short lived. Sam and Calico had just started to bounce and jump when the song ended. Calico nodded her thanks, but Sam refused to let go of her hand. She looked alarmed as he pulled her back to face him. For a moment I thought Calico’s instincts to go on the attack might be activated. And then the next song started. A slow dance.

Sam let go of her hand and lifted his arms into position, never taking his eyes off of Calico. I saw her hesitate and look down at the ground, flustered. Sam took a half step closer to her. She looked up and finally, slowly took his left hand and placed her palm on his shoulder.

Stardust.

I might have heard the song before somewhere. Maybe as muzak in a restaurant. The melody sounded a bit familiar. Thomas told me later the singer was Bing Crosby. I only know that it was a magic song. I know because I watched as Sam handled Calico like she was a princess. You’d never have guessed they hadn’t danced before. She kept looking away and then back at him. Everything about her softened and flowed.

I don’t know if she was thinking about her uncle, about the boy she knew back home, or about what was coming the next day. But as I listened to the lyrics, I thought it could have been written just for this moment.

“Love is now the stardust of yesterday, The music of years gone by.”

#

The song ended and the two of them separated, still holding hands, staring at each other. I wondered if they were going to kiss, the way Calico was looking into his eyes. He smiled and bowed slightly. She instantly did a subtle curtsy. She looked completely stupefied as he walked her back towards me in the corner. He waited until she sat in a chair and then released his hand, bowing slightly to me.

“Thank you,” I mouthed to him. He smiled.

Two girls whirled to either side of Sam as though they were grabbing a rope for a tug-of-war. Giddy giggles bubbling over, they pulled him towards the floor.

“Are you okay?” I asked, sitting down next to Calico.

She looked at me liked I was speaking Greek.

“Yeah,” she said, slowly. There was a deep crease in her forehead, like she was troubled. Her eyes drifted up to watch Sam on the dance floor. “I’m fine,” she added dreamily.

I decided to let her be and brought some dessert over to her before I dared to ask where Thomas was. She seemed surprisingly unconcerned.

I learned that Jennifer’s mother, the Regent, had made a stipulation that if he was going to return to the dance that he not enter more than five feet inside the room. I got two humongous pieces of cake and found him sulking in the first chair inside the door.

“What about the flask?” I asked.

“Cali threw it into the bushes,” he said grimly. “So that lady wouldn’t find it.”

“Hmm,” I said, pretending to commiserate. Secretly, I was glad to know that he’d gotten scolded by someone he might actually listen to.

“I screwed it all up,” he said, sadly.

“Sam told me that Yuka’s parents insisted that she be home by 11:30 anyway,” I said, recalling the last part of our discussion on the way back. “So he was going to leave at 11.”

“Really?” he said, brightening. I nodded.

It was true. And from the looks of things, Sam’s friends had decided to keep him hopping. I checked out the doors beside us, just to see if there was a way to lock Sam and everyone else inside, in case he made a move.

Song after song played. Thomas told me how the scuffle with the students had started. It was naïve curiosity. He asked the lanky Japanese student how offensive that “N” word was to them, and it went downhill from there. I told him about Sam and the meaning of Nisei.

The sugar rush from the cake came and went. The next thing I knew, Calico was shaking both of us.

“Boys!” she said. “Wake up. It’s just past 11:30. We need to move.”

There were a lot more kids sitting on the sidelines, but conversation and slow dances were keeping everyone engaged and in place.

We went down into the activity room and stayed there for another 15 minutes, keeping watch at the door to see if Sam strolled by. But he didn’t.

Calico lead us out into the night, the humidity giving me a chill. We waited on the edge of the lawn, watching the kids leaving, lulled by the smell of the ocean and the damp earth. Finally, the music ended and the distant murmur of chatter was all that followed.

“The last dance,” Calico said wistfully.

“Where to now?” Thomas asked.

“There’s a park on the other side of the library,” Calico said, turning us to the north. “I found it when I was looking for you and Sam,” she added, looking at me and smiling. “That was close. And you did really well. You both did.”

A carillon stuck midnight.

“That’s it,” Calico said. “It’s now December 7. This is the day that America joins the world in war.”

I got shivers. There was little light and the shadows felt more menacing, knowing that a predator was already preparing to pounce. We walked on in silent observation, passing a large brick building and onward into the darkness of the park.

“I hate to be a party pooper and be the first to go,” Calico said. “But if I am, do you boys promise not to go back and get in trouble?” We nodded.

“And Thomas,” she said, bending down. “Tell me again you know why we can’t say anything to anyone here.”

“Maintain the timestream,” he said.

“You got it,” she said, messing his hair as she stood. She suddenly gasped. “Liam, the paper! Take it out…”

But she froze as a deep golden bubble emerged from her solar plexus. Standing there in her pretty dress, holding her shoes in her hand, I saw her look of concern. And I couldn’t tell her that I knew what she meant.

“What the…?” Thomas gasped.

“It’s okay,” I said. “She’s just shimmering.” I moved behind him and put my hands on his shoulders. He was a younger kid, and I felt protective of him and of Calico in this moment. I noticed again that he was smaller than me.

“She’s just going back,” I said. “It’s a good thing.”

The opaque mist had come and finally Calico disappeared and her shimmer orb dematerialized with a kind of vacuum-popping noise.

“Oh my God,” Thomas said, whipping around. He looked horrified. “Do I have to do that?”

“You don’t have to do anything,” I said. “It just happens.”

“But…”

“No,” I assured him. “It means we did what we came to do. The crystals, or something else does the rest.”

Remembering, I pulled the paper from my pocket; the registry that had Sam and Yuka’s names and addresses.

“I wish I’d left this back in the activity room,” I said, looking around the park. It was a weird place to just toss it, so I leaned it up against the trunk of a palm tree.

“But I messed up,” Thomas said. “I messed up and now they won’t take me back.”

“No, it’s… you didn’t mess up,” I said, seeing Thomas coming unglued.

“I did,” he said, clawing at his hair. “I just do that. I screw up. And if I have to stay and the war starts…”

“No! Stop it,” I said, trying to physically get a hold of him. He pushed me away.

“You did good, Thomas,” I said. “You helped keep Sam at the dance, and you got the money for the post. I only got seven cents, and you got…”

“Big whoop!” he said. “Fifteen cents.”

“Right, so fifteen cents makes a big difference back here,” I said.

Thomas froze, his hand going to his chest.

“It’s thumping,” he said, alarmed.

“What do you mean?”

“The thumping, feel it,” he begged.

“I can’t touch it,” I said, recoiling.

“What does it mean?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know,” I said. “You mean it’s vibrating?”

“No, it’s going like a jacked up roadster when you’re pumping the brakes,” he said.

I was freaked out because now I could almost feel it too and I swore there really was something wrong.

“Twenty-two cents, not twenty,” I said. “Thomas, what’s in your pockets? You have to get rid of it.”

“Two pennies?” he asked, wildly.

“Get rid of them!” I yelled, jumping forward towards his pocket. I jumped back when I saw the mint green shimmer bubble forming from his solar plexus.

“Thomas!” I screamed. His hands were half into his pockets.

He was only frozen for a moment until the bubble reached his waist. Suddenly, there was an electrical crackle and spark that exploded at the edge of the bubble. The shimmer orb popped and Thomas jolted back. He was moving again but trembling from the shock. His hand flung one penny out onto the ground.

“You can’t take them back,” I said. “Get it out!”

He was trying, but he froze again. This time, the shimmer bubble grew until it found the objection and then started to grow around it. Instead of a mint-coloured surface, there were now swirls of red staining the outside of the orb. The resistance of the object was too great and a larger electrical spark popped his field.

He shrieked. The fingers of his right hand came out of his pocket, flinging the penny just as another shimmer bubble formed immediately. He was slowing and even the copper glint of the coin flying through the air was slowing as it sailed away from his fingers.

From the look on his face, I could tell he felt the physical pain from the shock.

I watched the bubble forming, bulging out in uneven spurts from his chest. I saw the penny moving just ahead of the shimmer bubble. I was transfixed on it. My mind raced. Kick it away? Not in the shimmer. Not someone else’s shimmer.

It’ll correct itself. It’ll re-form. It had to.

When you watch water that’s about to overflow at the top of a glass, the bulging edge that forms is what Mr. Flook, our science teacher, called a meniscus. Add one drop too many and the volume becomes too much for the pressure. It all spills over at once.

Thomas’ shimmer bubble was growing like that. It had bulged where it could and slowed in other spots. As though the pressure had built up too far, it suddenly spurted out to its full size, enveloping him from head to toe. But when it did, the edge of the bubble overtook the penny with a brilliant copper explosion. White-copper sparks flew out into the air and landed on the ground. Thomas’s shimmer bubble swirled with the copper stain, and everything that had been green was now a murky brown.

The mist came immediately and I was glad to see it obscure his contorted face. And then the shimmer bubble burst with a quick, grotesque belch.

A couple of sparks sputtered on the ground and then fizzled out. There was the smell of burnt tar in the air.

I stepped closer, my eyes readjusting in the darkness. I knelt down and saw how the dry grass had been singed to black underneath. And right there I saw what was left of the penny he had thrown. It was like a crescent moon, just a curve of copper with a melted, globby edge.

So that was why Thomas’s shimmer was so different. And thank goodness I didn’t have to go back that way.

But then I wondered. I’d already seen myself going back. There was blood on me. That was from my first Drift, the one that was coming later this morning during the attack. Would I now go back even farther? Calico had been concerned and she’d been doing this over five years.

I was scared and so tired. I fell to my knees and closed my eyes. I just wanted to sleep for a month.

“Rip Van Winkle, take me away,” I said.

I opened my eyes. Instead of the darkness of the park, I was looking at a bright room. And Teabag, sprawled in his usual spot by the armchair. I blinked and then blinked again, really hard. Mr. Danby came into view, pacing in the living room.

“Hello?” I said, quietly, not certain if this was just a mirage.

“Oh, Jesus!” Mr. Danby yelped, jumping and startled. He scooted across the floor, grabbed the bucket, while bandages flew off the edges.

“What happened to you?” he asked, jumping down the steps.

“What do you mean?” I asked, feeling my hands and taking stock. “I didn’t feel or see anything while I was coming back. Nothing.”

“But you… you came back before you left,” he said, looking at me warily, “and now you look totally clean. And…”

“And what?” I asked, now standing in place, afraid to move just in case I was still somehow Drifting without knowing it.

“It’s just… I was so worried,” he said nervously fussing with his hands. “It’s not supposed to happen.” Then he suddenly burst with anger. “And… God, you scared the hell out of me!”

“What?” I asked, stepping forward before I realized I’d left the quartz cut. I looked back, noticing that the rock was still and there was no growl or rumble. It was done.

“You left at 7:07,” he said, pointing furiously to his pocket watch. “And now, it’s 7:47! 7:47 for God’s sake.”

“So?”

“You’re late!” he yelled. I was stunned. He was shaking with anger.

I looked down at Teabag who was displaying his unfurled tongue with a face-splitting yawn. Suddenly Mr. Danby flung his arms around me and hugged me so hard, I thought he was going to crush me and I became aware of the scrapes on my elbows.

“You’re late,” he said, softly, rocking me back and forth.

Forty minutes. That was about the time I’d been out on the road when I first Drifted.

“No,” I said, patting Mr. Danby’s back as best I could considering the bear hug I was in.

“For once, I think I might be exactly on time.”