AAAARGH!!! (10 page)

“What did you say?” Elizabeth shouted over the alarm.

TJ didn’t know whether to

A)
Be frightened

B)
Be surprised

C)
Be angry

D)
Be all of the above

Unfortunately, she chose D.

“TUNA!” Rising from her chair, she raced through the crowded coffee shop and out into the parking lot.

Elizabeth followed right on her heels (while staying at least six feet away and holding out her cross). “What’s going on?” she shouted. “Is the mother ship trying to contact you?”

“It’s nothing!” TJ yelled. “Absolutely nothing!”

“Are you sure?” Elizabeth shouted.

“I’m sure.”

“Then why is it doing that?”

TJ turned to see Tuna (aka a Ford pickup) not only

but beginning to

like a pogo stick after one too many cups of Mrs. May K. Buck’s brew.

Of course this made TJ even angrier. How dare the boys do this to her! Didn’t they trust her?

“What’s wrong with it?” Elizabeth shouted.

TJ spun back to her and yelled, “How should I know? It’s just some stupid truck with some stupid short in the alarm. Listen, about doing that history report for Hesper?”

“Yeah?”

“I’d be happy to!” TJ yelled nice and loud, making sure Tuna could hear her over the honking. “In fact, I’ll make it the best report the whole school has ever seen!”

As soon as the words came out of her mouth, Herby and Tuna both

morphed beside her, and the car alarm abruptly came to a

stop. (It’s hard to keep a car alarm going when there’s no longer a car.)

“What do you think you’re doing!?” she shouted at Herby.

He shrugged.

“Tuna?!”

Without a word, Tuna opened the blade to their Swiss Army Knife and they were

transported back to TJ’s house.

That was the good news.

The bad news was she’d have a little more explaining to do about why she, a Ford pickup, and a portrait of Mrs. May K. Buck had all vanished from the coffee shop.

TIME TRAVEL LOG:

Malibu, California, October 20—supplemental

Begin Transmission:

More glimpses into future. Subject still unable to see what huge zworkedness comes from a little torkedness.

End Transmission

“Why do you keep spying on me?” TJ demanded once she and the boys were back in her room.

“Why do you keep thinking of cheating?” Tuna asked.

TJ felt her face growing hot with anger. “
You’re
the ones who started this.”

“And you are the one who can stop it.”

“By confessing to Miss Grumpaton and getting an F in English?!”

“An F in English is better than an F in life.”

TJ put her hands on her hips. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

As an answer, Tuna reached for his Swiss Army Knife and pulled out another blade.

“Oh no,” TJ moaned, “not

again.”

Of course there had been the usual flash of light, and of course they were surrounded by the usual holograph of the future . . . except this particular future looked exactly like the present. Same bedroom. Same boxes she
still
hadn’t unpacked since moving. (She’s a bit of a slob.)

“What’s going on?” TJ asked. “Where are we?”

“Five years into the future,” Tuna said.

(Okay, she’s a
huge
slob.)

Herby motioned across the room to her desk. It was covered in a mountain of papers. TJ frowned and stepped closer until she spotted an older version of herself behind the papers. She was hunched over the desk, furiously typing away. She was about 18 and anything but pretty. (Unless by
pretty
you mean bloodshot eyes, ratty hair that hadn’t been brushed in a month, and teeth that hadn’t been brushed in longer than that.)

Then there was the shaking. Her whole body trembled, and her face twitched nervously.

TJ turned to the boys, waiting for an explanation.

Herby cleared his throat. “When Your Dude-ness agreed to cheat for Hesper, the word spread. Soon other students asked for your help.”

“Why didn’t I say no?” TJ asked.

Tuna opened another blade and

the room was suddenly split into two. On one side sat the exhausted, overworked TJ in her sloppy bedroom. On the other side sat Elizabeth, talking on the phone in her super-rich, has-everything-a-person-could-ever-want bedroom.

“Don’t worry,” Elizabeth was saying. “She’ll have a term paper to you by Friday. And at $20 a page times 100 pages, that comes to—” She reached for a calculator and started adding.

TJ asked, “She’s making me do other people’s papers?”

Herby nodded. “She kept threatening to tell on you if you didn’t do more papers for more people. Pretty soon, she had you slaving away night and day.”

“That’s terrible,” TJ exclaimed.

“For you, yes,” Tuna agreed. “But for her it became quite a moneymaking business.”

“Why am I shaking like that?”

“You had to stay awake, so you became a caffeine addict,” Tuna said. “Waaay too much coffee.”

“But I don’t like the taste of coffee.”

“You won’t be tasting it,” Tuna said.

TJ turned to him as he strolled over to the desk. He pushed aside the papers so she could get a better look. That’s when she gasped. (Remember the exaggeration about kids getting their coffee through hospital IV stands? Well, for the future TJ, it wasn’t an exaggeration.)

She couldn’t believe her eyes. “That’s terrible!”

Herby nodded. “Zworked to the max.”

“But once I graduate . . . I mean, after that, everything will be all right. Right?”

The boys traded looks.

“Right
?” TJ repeated.

Without a word, Tuna reached for his knife.

TJ groaned. “Oh

no.”

Now they stood in a huge, messy office. On the far wall was a giant screen with a 30-year-old version of Hesper Breakahart. She was yelling at an older version of TJ, who was even skinnier than before. Her ratty hair (which hadn’t been brushed since the last time) was already turning gray. A cigarette dangled from her mouth, and she was shaking worse than ever.

“I don’t have enough lines!” Hesper was screaming.

“I gave you every line in the scene,” TJ said as she reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of antacids.

“Well, I want more!”

“Yes, Ms. Breakahart,” TJ said, shaking out a handful of the tablets.

“Get rid of all the other actors! Just have me talking to myself!”

“Yes, Ms. Breakahart.” TJ threw the antacids into her mouth and began chewing them.

“In fact, have three of me talking to me! That way I’ll get three times the lines!”

“Excellent point, Ms. Breakahart,” TJ said and went back to typing.

“And I need them now!”

“Yes, Ms. Breakahart.”

TJ turned to Tuna, who explained, “You wrote so many reports for Hesper that she made you the head writer of her TV show.”

“But I don’t want to be a writer.”

Tuna shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. With Elizabeth at her side, you had no choice.”

TJ moved closer to her older self and watched with pity as the woman kept typing, smoking, and chewing antacids.

“What about all that caffeine?” TJ asked. “And the smoking? Don’t I know that will kill me?”

“It’s the only way you thought you could keep going,” Herby said.

TJ felt a knot forming in her gut. Finally she looked back to the boys. “But I quit, don’t I? I mean, I eventually find a way out and quit, right?”

Tuna and Herby traded looks.

“Guys?”

More looking.

“Guys, answer me!”

Reluctantly, Tuna reached for the blade and

they were standing with the rest of her family at an outdoor get-together. There were cousins and aunts from all over the country. But they were all dressed up . . . and crying.

“Oh, TJ . . . ,” her dad moaned.

She turned to see him. He was wearing his suit and looked a thousand years older than she remembered. On one side of him stood an older version of Violet. On the other was little Dorie, all grown-up.

“It’s okay, Daddy.” Dorie’s voice was hoarse from crying. She held Dad’s arm, trying to comfort him.

He nodded, blinking his eyes. But it did no good. The tears began to fall.

Violet took his other arm and croaked, “She’s a lot happier where she is now.”

TJ turned to Tuna and Herby. “Who are they talking about?” she asked—though she already had a sneaking suspicion. “And where am I? I see Dad. I see Dorie and Violet. Where am I?”

Neither boy answered (unless you count their own sniffing and eye wiping an answer).

“Guys?” she demanded.

At last Herby motioned behind her.

TJ turned completely around to see . . . a casket suspended over an open grave.

She sucked in her breath. “That’s . . . me?”

Tuna nodded.

“H-how?” she stuttered. “What happened?”

“You worked too hard,” Tuna said. “All that caffeine, all those cigarettes, the stress . . . it was more than your heart could—”

“Oh, TJ!” Suddenly Dad threw himself over the casket. He began to sob uncontrollably. “TJ, don’t leave me, please . . .”

Others in the group also began to cry. Dorie stepped up to join Dad. She wrapped her arms around him, trying to pull him away. “It’s okay, Daddy,” she choked through her own tears. “Daddy, don’t cry. Please don’t cry. . . .”

“Dad,” TJ called out, tears filling her own eyes. She tried to reach out and touch him. But since he was a holographic image, her hand passed right through. “I’m here, Dad. I’m right beside you. . . .”

“He can’t hear you,” Herby said.

“It’s just a projected image,” Tuna reminded her.

“But . . .” She turned to them. They looked all blurry through her tears. “It doesn’t have to be this way, right?’

Herby glanced nervously to Tuna.

“Right?” she repeated. “This is just one possibility. Right?
Right
?”

“If you decide to cheat for Hesper . . .” Tuna dropped off, unable to continue.

“What?” TJ choked, wiping her face. “What?!”

“If you decide to cheat for Hesper, this is your
only
future.”

TJ turned back to her father, tears streaming down her own face.

“Dude,” Herby whispered to Tuna, “I think we better go.”

Tuna nodded.

“No, I want to stay.” TJ wiped her eyes. “There’s got to be some way to let him know!”

Tuna reached for the knife blade. “We have to go.”

“NO!” TJ shouted. “I want to talk to him. I want him to see that everything will be all—”

Suddenly the three of them were back in her room.