Note: Use my name in Chat or somewhere else where’s people I don’t know and there will be Hell to pay. Explaining who in the hell I am to those outside of the internet (i.e.: parents, siblings, classmates) does not apply though.

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It was a blustery March day in Lansing, Michigan. Large crowds of high school students were milling about with their teachers, having come from all over the state to compete in an academic tournament. Needing to take a break from the embarrassing and typical defeat handed to them from the Grosse Pointe North team, the delegation from Lakeview (from Saint Clair Shores, not Grand Rapids, to the relief of many others) decided to tour the State Capitol building. They were in the central rotunda, underneath the large and majestic dome, where two of the young men were tugging at the wrists of a female teammate, attempting to bring her off the marble and onto the glass block floor.

“No, no—I am NOT going on there!” the young woman said firmly. She was just a week shy of seventeen and had been rather upset that she could not celebrate her birthday during the tournament. Her friends laughed at her in amusement.

“Come on, Ellen! You can do it! Don’t be silly!”

“That’s glass, you guys! I don’t care if you can only see shadows through it, I am not walking on that floor!”

“Suit yourself,” the tallest boy answered. Ellen stormed off in a huff, not exactly pleased at the scene.

“Stupid… frickin’… we walked under that…” The girl was used to talking to herself, as she did that frequently anyways, and kept on muttering as she walked down one of the building’s wings. Remembering the way from a family day trip the previous month, she went up the velvet staircase and to a balcony, where she stared upon the Congressional floor below her. She did not get too close to the balcony’s railing however. That was a daring feat for another day.

Turning around, she jumped at the sight of someone else on the balcony. The newcomer was leaning against the wall with a sad smile on her face. Ellen immediately recognized the denim jacket, the pale skin, the pencil jammed unceremoniously behind the ear…

It was her.

“Shit…” the teen cursed. She was a mixture of fright and awe.

“Freaky, huh?” the elder Ellen smirked. “Getting ready for the universe to implode or something?”

“This is a paradox… this shouldn’t… you shouldn’t exist.”

“Well, here I am then.” The elder chuckled in her throat. “I came to talk to you.”

“Why?” the younger asked warily.

“Come on out into the hall and I’ll tell you.”

With that, the two Ellens walked into the hallway, where there was a pair of chairs waiting. Sitting down on the gaudy upholstery, the elder chuckled.

“You know, I had a choice for this.”

“What do you mean?”

“Either visit myself from four years ago or visit myself from ten years ago. That would be… oh damn… 2000? Yeah. You know what was going on then.”

“Fifth grade,” the younger replied. “You had a chance to warn yourself about that monster of a teacher we had the year after and you chose to pass it up?”

“The teasing and utter hell I got—we got—back then is going to become pretty necessary in becoming who I am now. It may have involved wanting to recreate Columbine with kitchen knives, but at least we were smart enough to talk ourselves out of it, right?”

“I guess…”

The two sat in silence, the elder staring at the wall across from them, on the other side of the staircase, while the younger examined the time traveler. She wore the same jacket that she had at home, except it was a lot more worn and threadbare. It was even ripped at a sleeve. Her hair was cut much shorter than before, just barely brushing her shoulders compared to being partway down her back. She wore jeans and heavy boots and a black t-shirt with some sort of flaming skull that had wore pointed sunglasses. Her older self looked pretty cool, but she did not look happy.

“So you’re from four years in the future, so that must mean you’re almost twenty-one.”

“Yup.”

“What’s it like? I mean… what happens between now and then?”

“A lot.”

“…like…?”

“…like, I’m waiting for a letter from the University of Michigan. They’re supposed to be mailed out this month.”

“No…! I want to go to Wayne State! Besides, I don’t have the GPA for Michigan!”

“It’s called college,” the elder said, looking back at her younger self. “This thing called high school that you’re going to is nothing more than a way to stifle yourself. You shouldn’t even graduate high school, but you will. You’ll be at the bottom of the class, right down there with the skippers and druggies and airheads that might as well just resign themselves to waitressing and being hairdressers.”

“Aunt Marie’s a hairdresser.”

“…but Aunt Marie has talent. How much can you say about some of the other girls that go to cosmetology school?”

“Not the brightest, unfortunately.”

“Right. You’ll prove that you have the smarts, but it’s kinda against the odds, it seems like. Dean’s List and everything.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, are we able to get to States next year?”

“No, but you lead admirably, for having a young team. SADD goes along alright too.”

“Oh. Hey, what are you studying?”

“Film, screenwriting in particular. The state’s economy’s gonna tank and it will become a very real option.”

“So, I get really good in writing?”

“Better than that crap you turn out now.”

“Hey!”

A light clicked on in the elder’s mind. “This is 2006, isn’t it?”

“Yeah… why?”

“Get ready for a tough one,” the elder said. “There’s going to be a lot of crying this summer. You’re going to need to babysit John a lot. Don’t be tricked—he’ll eat more Fritos than you can give him.”

The younger laughed. “Why’s that?” The elder frowned.

“Andy’s opener for The Music Man starts a week from tomorrow. Andy won’t know it until after the play, but Opa’s gonna go into the hospital for the first in a long series of visits this year. Dad won’t tell Erik until afterwards either. Opa’s gonna die in October and he’ll take his sweet time getting there, kinda like how he would shuffle around the house a little bit faster than one of those wind-up toys.”

The younger Ellen’s eyes went wide. “What?! Seriously?! Holy crap! No!”

“Grandpa goes too, in June, I think. It’s gonna be rather depressing. You’re gonna have the Cyborg 009 theme looped for the entire summer. Grandma holds out another two years and Grandma Barb… let’s not go there.”

“Wow…”

“Yup. We’ve only got Oma left. Don’t look so sad; it happens.”

“Yeah, but…”

“Don’t worry. It’ll be okay.”

“I know… but I don’t like knowing about it.”

“You’ll tough it out like you always do. You’re gonna be surrounded by some great friends before you know it.”

“What, the guys from Quizbowl?” the younger laughed.

“No, the guys from the internet.”

“Seriously?”

“’Cha! Just remember: Version Vibrant—it’s gonna be big. You’ll get to meet people from all over and some will even come to Youmacon and you’ll have an awesome time and write stuff starring each other and draw stuff involving you guys and you’ll get to have Chat events like Movie Sign and you’ll stay up late watching Doctor Who and it’ll all be awesome.”

The younger Ellen looked at the elder one incredulously.

“You get a little sister.”

“Seriously?!”

“Yeah! She’s just about five hundred miles away right now, is all. Just remember… when you fall, you fall extremely hard.”

“I what…?”

At that, the elder Ellen brought out a littler laser-pointer-looking thing and shined it on the younger’s head. There was a whirring sound and the younger collapsed on the ground, knocked out cold.

“Knew swiping the screwdriver’d come in handy!” the elder grinned. She walked over to the door that said “NO ENTRY—LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR ONLY” on it and went in. There, in middle of the office, was a blue police call box like the ones scattered all over Britain. A couple of other people were sitting on the couch, clearly waiting for her arrival.

“Took you long enough,” the girl with the goggles said.

“I know, I know,” Ellen replied. “Looks like we’ve got about forty-five minutes before the BBC finds out we’ve got this thing. Where next?”

“Not my place, that’s for sure,” the young man with his arm around the goggled girl chuckled. The three of them walked into the call box to join the friends still waiting inside and the blue booth vanished into thin air with only an indentation on the rug to signal that they were ever there.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

“Hey! I found Ellen!” one of the girls from the team shouted. Her teammate had been gone for too long, so everyone had split up to find her. The senior girl walked up to Ellen, who was laying down on the floor, and poked her with her foot.

“Freshman, now’s not the time to sleep.”

“Huh? What…?” Ellen sat up and looked up at the other girl in the blue polo identical to her own. “What’s the matter Katherine?”

“We’ve been looking everywhere for you. Come on Freshman, or we’ll be late for the bus home.”

“I’m a Junior, you know.”

“Doesn’t matter.” The two made their way for the stairs. “Why were you laying there on the floor anyways?”

“I have no idea. Must’ve tripped over myself; when I fall, I fall hard, you know?”

“You idiot.”