AAAARGH!!! (15 page)

“Glug, glug, glug!”
Dorie
glug
-ed.

Chad stretched for all he was worth until, finally . . . “Gotcha!” He pulled her from the water.

Of course Dorie did the usual coughing and choking routine (which tends to happen when your lungs are full of water). And of course TJ threw her arms around her and did the usual sobbing and crying routine (which tends to happen when you almost lose someone you love).

“Oh, Dorie, I’m so sorry,” TJ cried.

“Cough, cough, choke, choke,”
Dorie replied.

And then, just when things were getting way too sappy, they heard

which, as you might recall, was the sound of one Reverse Beam Blade being activated. And if you couldn’t tell by the cheap sound effects, you could tell by the

“!EM PLEH, JT”

“!su ees saremac eht tel t’noD !su ees saremac eht tel t’noD”

“!thgie fo seceiP !thgie fo seceiP”

until, finally, TJ had traveled so far back in time that she was back in her own bed waking up.

Amazing! Incredible! (And by now, completely off the Weirdness Scale.) Everything was just the same as when she first woke up that morning.
Nothing
was different.

But it soon would be.

“TJ?” little Dorie’s voice squeaked from the other side of the door. “You awake?”

TJ coughed and cleared her throat. “What do you want, Squid?”

“You coming to church with us?”

A smile slowly spread across TJ’s face. The boys had sent her back from her own future. She’d get a second chance. And this time she’d do it right.

“TJ?”

“Yeah,” she said, throwing off her covers. “Just give me a sec to get dressed.”

“Cool. And maybe, maybe . . .” Dorie’s little voice began getting excited. “Maybe after that, we could go to the beach?”

“You bet.” TJ chuckled as she headed across the room toward her closet. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

TIME TRAVEL LOG:

Malibu, California, October 23—TAKE TWO

Begin Transmission:

Thanks to our incredible genius and great skills, subject has finally done things our way. Which, for some unexplained reason, actually worked.

End Transmission

“Don’t go out too far,” TJ shouted to her little sister.

“Please . . . ,” Dorie begged, “just a little farther,
please . . .
”

Of course she used the exact whine described in the
Little Sisters Can be Such a Pain Handbook.
The whine listed right next to such requirements as:

—Little sisters must use the bathroom at the most inconvenient times. (Usually in the middle of a movie you’ve finally agreed to take them to.)

—Little sisters must sneak into your closet and steal your clothes. (Then put them on and act like they were theirs in the first place.)

—Little sisters must spy on your friends whenever they come over. (Especially if the friend happens to be a boy.)

“I won’t drown,” Dorie begged. “Pleeeeease? I promise.”

“You heard me.”

“Oh, all right.”

Granted, only letting Dorie wade up to her ankles might be overly cautious and extreme. But after all that had happened today (or hadn’t happened today), TJ wasn’t taking any chances. In fact, after her little field trip through Weirdville, she decided it was time to make some other extreme decisions as well.

—Today, the beach with Dorie

—Tomorrow, the truth with Miss Grumpaton (and, no doubt, after-school detention for the rest of her life)

“It won’t be too zworked,” Herby said, floating beside her above the sand.

“He’s right,” Tuna agreed, floating at her other side. “You really are doing the correct thing.”

“I suppose,” TJ sighed. “I just wish I could have learned without all the drama.”

“It does keep things interesting,” Tuna said.

“And it’ll look fantabulous in our history report,” Herby said. Then, with a sigh, he added, “If we ever do get home.”

TJ gave a small shudder at the thought. It was true; they’d been here for almost two weeks now, and their time-travel pod was still no closer to being repaired. She didn’t want to be rude, but the sooner they left, the sooner her life would return to normal.

“Hey!”

They turned to see Chad Steel hobbling down the beach toward them.

“Oh no,” TJ whispered, “what do I do?”

“Converse with him,” Tuna whispered.

“Unless you want to send him to that school of whales we saw earlier today,” Herby said, reaching for his Swiss Army Knife.

“No!” TJ gasped. “Put that away!”

“I’m sorry—” Chad frowned—“what’d you say?”

TJ swallowed and looked another direction.

He tried again. “I thought that was you down here.”

She nodded. There was nothing but silence.

Spotting Dorie, he asked, “Is that your little sister?”

She nodded. Nothing but more silence.

They watched a moment as Dorie kicked and splashed, having the time of her life in three inches of water.

“Cute kid,” he said.

More nodding. Even more silence.

It was deafening. At least to TJ. But as far as she could tell, Chad was perfectly comfortable with the silence. And why wouldn’t he be? He wasn’t the one worried about how stupid he looked in a one-piece bathing suit, or why his hair always frizzed in the ocean air, or why he always came down with a bad case of muteness whenever he was around.

“Why aren’t you watching the surfing match?” he asked.

Instead of nodding, TJ tried something brand-new, a revolutionary approach. She shrugged.

“There are some pretty good surfers competing,” he said a little sadly.

Suddenly it dawned on her. He wasn’t there. And before she could catch herself, she croaked, “What about you?”

He shook his head. “Not this time.”

“Why not?” she asked, still sounding more frog than human.

It was Chad’s turn to shrug. “Actually, you and your little sister—you guys were part of the reason.”

TJ didn’t understand.

He explained. “I had the weirdest dream. I was competing in the match—you know, cheating like we talked about a couple nights back?”

TJ returned to auto-nod.

“And I was just about to win, when I looked over my shoulder and saw your sister drowning.”

TJ swallowed, but her mouth was as dry as leather. Of course it hadn’t been a dream, but she wasn’t about to tell him that.

“And for a moment, I didn’t care. I know that sounds awful, but at that moment all I wanted to do was win.”

Again TJ tried to swallow, but her mouth was now as dry as leather stuck in a clothes dryer on high for three days in the middle of the Sahara Desert (on a very warm day).

“And that’s when it hit me. It’s like the more I was cheating, the less I cared about doing the right thing, until . . . well, until I cared more about winning than I cared about people.”

TJ said nothing. It’s hard talking when your heart has leaped into your throat.

Chad looked down at the sand. “Pretty creepy, huh.”

Once again she felt her eyes start to burn with tears. And once again she gave them a swipe.

“You okay?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Must be allergies or something,” he said.

More nodding and more swiping.

“Come on, Your Babe-ness,” Herby whispered beside her. “Say something.”

But there was no way TJ could talk. They’d both gone through the exact same thing. Together, but separately. Unbelievable. She wiped her eyes again. And then, just when she thought of blurting out what really happened, telling him about Tuna and Herby, pouring out her heart (and explaining how utterly and completely perfect they were for each other), she heard a very familiar and very unwelcome voice:

“Hey, Chad, there you are!”

She looked up to see Elizabeth standing with her hands on her very slim and very perfect hips.

“Hesper’s waiting for you up the beach.”

Chad nodded. He glanced up the beach, then looked back to TJ. “Listen, maybe we can get something to eat sometime. You know, just to talk.”

If TJ’s heart was in her throat before, it had now leaped out of her mouth.

“Talk?” she repeated in her best Kermit the Frog voice.

“Yeah. I mean, that’s what friends do, right? . . . Talk?”

TJ nodded, also hoping “friends” would call the paramedics, bring in the life-support systems, and jump-start her heart, which had not only leaped out of her mouth but was now flopping around all over the sand.

“Chad,” Elizabeth said, “are you coming or what?”

He ignored her and continued speaking to TJ. “I can understand if you don’t want to—I mean, with me being such a creep and all, wanting to cheat and everything like that.”

“But you didn’t cheat,” TJ croaked.

Chad looked at her, thought a moment, then slowly started to nod. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I didn’t, did I?” He thought another moment, then chuckled.

Somehow she was able to hold his gaze.

“But only ’cause of that dream I had about you and your sister.”

That was it. That was all she could stand. She felt her ears starting to burn and looked away.

He gave another chuckle. “See what a positive influence you are on me?”

Forget the burning ears; now her entire face was on fire.

“Even when I sleep.”

And forget about those paramedics—it was time to call out the fire engines.

“Chad,” Elizabeth demanded, “you know how Hesper hates waiting.”

Chad sighed heavily. “Well, give it some thought. Getting something to eat, I mean.” Then without a word, he finally turned and started hobbling back up the beach toward Hesper and her beauty queens.

TJ looked on, staring with amazement. The moment had been unbelievable . . . perfect. Well, almost perfect. There was still the little problem of Elizabeth. Once Chad was out of earshot, the girl immediately moved in and gave TJ a piece of her mind.

“You’re not fooling anyone, you know.”

“I’m sorry?”

“With your spells or alien mumbo jumbo or whatever.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Making everyone have the same dream last night. I mean, honestly, did you think I wouldn’t find out?”

TJ only stared.

“But just so you know, I’m still going to expose you. I’m gonna make sure
everyone
knows exactly who or
what
you are.”

“Not from the bottom of the sea you won’t,” Herby said, reaching for his knife.

“What did you say?” Elizabeth asked in surprise.

“No, Herby!” TJ cried. “Don’t!”

But she was too late. Suddenly

Elizabeth was gone.

“What have you done?!” TJ shouted. “Where is she?”

Tuna guessed, “Doing a little whale watching, is she?”

“That’s right, dude,” Herby chuckled. “Up real close and personal.”

“You can’t do that!” TJ cried. “She’ll drown.”

Herby frowned. “Oh yeah.” Then, reaching for the knife, he said, “Guess we’ll have to morph her some

gills and fish fins.”

“Herby!”

He pouted. “Well . . . all right. I guess we don’t wanna scare the whales.” With that he

Elizabeth back out of the water and onto the beach to join Hesper and all her friends . . . who suddenly broke out into a bad case of