“No reason.”
Okay. So it looks like the timeline from the other day isn’t the same as the one I’m in now. Before Rachel’s party, Kelsey made a point of mentioning how bizarrely I’d been acting that morning, so it’s unlikely she would have forgotten about it so soon afterwards. I might have to test my theory again at some point, though, just to be sure.
I follow Kelsey outside and grab my bag. She looks down at it. “Running late today, huh?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Cramming in some last minute study for the chemistry test? I am totally going to fail. I was going to study last night, but then Andy got home and he invited his friends over and we all ended up getting high…”
Chemistry test? There’s no way I’m sitting a chemistry test.
“I think I’m going to go home,” I say.
Her eyes widen. “Why?”
“Because I don’t want to do the test.”
She laughs. “I don’t either, but it’s not like we have a choice.”
I do, but I can’t tell her that.
“You should go. I’ll see you there,” I say.
She narrows her eyes. “Really?”
“Yeah. I’m just going to stop by the bathroom first.”
I know I don’t sound very convincing, but there’s not enough time for her to argue with me further.
She shrugs. “Suit yourself.”
I head off in the opposite direction and down to the school’s back exit. I figure I’m less likely to see anyone that way.
I’m just at the gate when I hear someone call out.
“Miss Parnell!”
I spin around, despite Parnell not being my surname anymore. Damn. It’s the principal. What was his name? Mr. Quinn?
“Uh, yeah?”
“Where do you think you’re going? Class is that way.” He points to the building behind him.
“I forgot my textbooks,” I say lamely.
“Well, I’m sure you can get by without them this morning. Someone will share with you if need be.”
“I also forgot my lunch,” I try.
His mouth pinches into a disapproving O. “Miss Parnell, I thought you were one of our good students. Do I need to reconsider my assessment?”
God. This is definitely not how I envisioned spending my morning. And while it’s tempting to tell my old school principal to get lost, I don’t want to screw up the rest of the day. There’s also an overwhelming force compelling me to do the right thing. I’m not sure if that’s just who I am, or if the compound has something to do with it.
I cave. “I’m sorry, Mr. Quinn. I’m just going through a tough time at the moment.”
His face softens. “How about you go off to class then, and at recess you can visit the counsellor? She might be able to give you some guidance.”
“Okay,” I agree.
He waves his hand to usher me back in the direction I just came. “Better hurry.”
I take my time walking away from the gate and freedom. I’m starting to think coming back to 1996 again was a mistake. I can’t imagine my day here is going to be more fun than a Monday spent alone in Brisbane without anyone telling me what to do.
Mr. Quinn walks behind me. I have no idea where the chemistry lab is, so I open my bag and rummage around inside, searching for clues. It looks like I did, in fact, forget my books AND lunch, so I wasn’t lying. But my school diary is in my bag and it thankfully has my timetable on it.
Monday at 9am: Chemistry in S2. Where’s S2?
“What’s your first class?” Mr. Quinn asks.
“Chemistry in S2.”
He nods. “I’ll see that you get there without any detours.”
Great. Mr. Quinn can lead the way.
We reach the room and he opens the door.
“I have a straggler for you, Joe,” he says, moving aside to let me in.
The entire class looks up.
Joe, or Mr. Green as I remember him, frowns. “You’ve interrupted the students and missed the first ten minutes of your exam. Sit.”
I meekly sit down in the last available seat. Kelsey gives me a bemused look. Everyone else turns back to their test papers.
As Mr. Quinn leaves, his expression seems to be one of annoyance and pity.
Mr. Green slaps down an exam booklet in front of me. “You will not get a time extension,” he says quietly.
I nod. It’s not going to make a difference anyway. I have no idea how to answer any of these questions. Luckily, it doesn’t actually matter.
I spend the next half hour staring at the unanswered exam. I was never any good at chemistry the first time around, and that was even with study. This time, it all looks like a foreign language.
Instead, I think about what other things might not have mattered in my original timeline. How many events or situations affected where I ended up? Is everything so finely balanced that even the slightest variation could change the future? I’m kind of glad I’ll never know. At least not by using the Youth Compound.
When the bell goes, I hand in my blank paper. Mr. Green looks at it and then up at me.
“Detention. Recess. Here.”
I nod. But I don’t mean it.
Screw this. I grab my bag and head out to the back gate again.
This time, I’m not stopping for anybody.
EIGHT
Ten minutes later, I arrive home and let myself in. The house is blissfully empty. I help myself to a glass of milk and some cookies and sit down at the breakfast bar.
Ah. This is more like it. School is awful. I can’t believe I survived thirteen years of it without any permanent emotional scarring. As far as I’m aware.
Outside, the sun blazes down. It’s supposed to be winter, but the walk back was surprisingly warm.
Hmm…maybe I should go down to the beach. And why not? The one thing I could not easily do if I was in Brisbane is spend the day at the beach—at least without a lot of driving.
I run upstairs and change into my bikini. That’s another thing I couldn’t do in the future—wear such a tiny swimsuit with confidence. I didn’t appreciate my body nearly enough when I was this age. I took it for granted that I would be skinny forever without trying.
After grabbing a towel and checking to see if Mum or Dad left a car behind (they didn’t), I call a cab.
Down on Shell Beach, I find a spot on the sand and lie in the sun, feeling much better about my decision to use the compound again. This is what I should have been doing all along. The ocean is a shimmery blue-green and there isn’t a cloud in the sky. While the water is chilly, the air temperature is perfect.
I glance back at the scenery behind me. I haven’t spent a lot of time here in recent years because the town has changed, and not in a good way in my opinion. Right now, all I can see are a few low-set, family-friendly resorts and a handful of houses around the point. In the future, the family-friendly resorts are made over to cater to the Sydney and Melbourne hipster crowds, and the rich visitors who decided to stay permanently have built mansions around the point. I often wondered if I had rose-tinted glasses on when it came to preferring nineties Shell Beach to the current one, but it turns out I was right to think that way.
I lie back on my towel and close my eyes. This is the life.
“Heads up!” I hear the warning too late, and suddenly there’s a flurry of sand and a large body falling on top of me.
“Oh my God, I am so sorry!”
I have sand in my eyes, so I don’t respond immediately. I use the corner of my towel to wipe my face, and try to blink the irritation out. I think my side might be bruised.
“What the hell?” I complain.
“Are you okay?” the voice asks. It sounds vaguely familiar. “I was trying to make sure my Frisbee didn’t clonk you on the head, but I think it would have caused less damage than me.”
I manage to open my eyes properly and look at the person now watching me with concern. I jump with shock.
“Kurt!”
/>
His face is confused. “Do I know you?”
“It’s me, Anna. From the record store the other day!”
He nods slowly. “Well, I do work at a record store, but I guess I serve so many people, I might accidentally forget some of them. I’m sorry.”
I’m just about to mention the whole listening-to-vinyl-together thing when I catch myself. I think along with Kelsey’s lack of memory, Kurt’s reaction definitely confirms I’m in a different timeline to the other day.
“Oh. Never mind. I just…um…assumed you would have recognised me.”
He squints at my face and smiles. “Well, I’m an idiot for not remembering someone as pretty as you.”
I blush and then point to a couple of guys further up the sand, obviously waiting for Kurt to re-join the game. “I think your friends are getting impatient.”
He reluctantly collects his Frisbee and stands up. “I guess I should go. But I promise to remember you next time you visit the music store. You said your name was Anna?”
“That’s right.”
“Okay, Anna. I am mentally taking a photo of your face, so I’ll never forget it again.” He stares at me for a second, a half-smile playing on his lips, and then walks away.
My stomach fizzes. I blame sixteen-year-old hormones seeping through. But also, who wouldn’t be flattered by a cute guy flirting with them?
I watch Kurt and his friends from a distance, but redirect my thoughts back to this timeline situation. It appears that I’m one step closer to understanding how it all works. But what’s the point of taking the compound if I can’t change the future? And if I can’t even set up an event in this new 1996 and see it through the next time, why bother at all?
Also, if it’s not actually a dream, but some portal I’m accessing via the compound, does this version of reality continue on its own trajectory after I leave? Or does it only exist while I’m here and disappear when I wake up?
I look at my watch. It’s not even lunchtime, so there’s still plenty of time to contemplate these things and work out the best way to spend the rest of the day.
But for now, I think I just want to enjoy the sun.
I lie back down and close my eyes again.
Ah.
This is definitely better than a day alone in Brisbane.
***
I enjoy a leisurely couple of hours relaxing on the beach and then walk up Main Street, looking in all the shops that are long gone in the future. Like the cute little convenience store that sells bags of mixed sweets for fifty cents and rents out old eighties comedies like Big and Twins. Or the t-shirt shop where my friend Rachel works on the weekends. It pretty much only sells t-shirts embroidered with the words Shell Beach. And then there’s the cheesy resort clothing boutiques that in the future are designer stores like Boss and Tigerlily.
I finally stop in at Beans, the coffee shop I used to practically live at as a teenager. I can’t remember the last time I was here.
I go up to the counter and order a soy chai latte. The waiter, who I don’t think I remember, looks at me strangely. “A what?”
Oops. Clearly, chai lattes didn’t make it to Shell Beach until after 1996.
“Um, just a hot chocolate is fine,” I say hastily. Normally, I drink double shot espressos, but I don’t feel like I need the caffeine boost in this body.
“That’ll be three dollars, please,” he says.
I hand over my coins. Very reasonable for a drink on a busy tourist street.
“Anna!”
I turn to the voice and see Jackson, a waiter I once had a crush on. I eventually found out he was gay, so I had to re-channel that energy into a more platonic admiration.
“Hi, Jackson.” Man, why didn’t I stay in touch with this guy? He was so awesome. I can imagine we would have had a lot of fun hanging out together.
“Why aren’t you at school?” he asks mock sternly.
“Uh, long story,” I say.
“I’m about to have a break. You want to keep me company?”
“Sure.”
I collect my hot chocolate and go sit at a small table near the back, away from the street. I take a sip of my drink and wait for Jackson to join me.
My phone rings. I don’t recognise the number, but it could be Kelsey calling from the public phone booth at school, so I answer.
“Hello?”
“Where the hell are you?”
Yep. Definitely Kelsey. “Down on Main Street. Why? Where are you?”
“Um, I’m at school. Why aren’t you?”
“I didn’t feel like being there today.”
“What’s going on with you, Anna? You never cut class. Mr. Green was looking for you because you didn’t show up for detention. Your parents will flip out if he calls them.”
“It’ll all be fine. You want to come and join me?”
“Ha, no thanks. You should come back and join me.”
“Nah. Whatever trouble I’m in, it probably won’t get any worse if I don’t go back.”
“This is really not like you.”
“Well, maybe I don’t want to spend such a beautiful day inside doing work that isn’t going to have any effect on my life in two years’ time.”
Jackson sits down opposite me, holding a drink for himself.
“The bell has just gone, so I have to go, but I’ll call you again after school. Then you can tell me what’s really going on,” Kelsey says.
“I’m not hiding anything, but okay. Later!”
Jackson raises an eyebrow. “Everything all right?”
“Yeah. Just Kelsey wondering why I’m not at school.”
“And there’s no other reason you’re cutting that you’re not saying?”
“Apart from it being boring as hell?”
He laughs. “I hated school too, but I was never any good at it. I’m betting you are.”
“I did…I mean, I do okay.”
“What do you want to do after you graduate?”
“I’m going to study to be a pastry chef in Paris. I don’t really need to get amazing grades for that. I just need to be able to pay for the course. And get there.”
“It sounds like you have it all figured out.”
I’m not going to brag, but I actually did. My final academic results were good, but they didn’t really need to be. I started saving part of my pay from the video store in year twelve, and then I stayed on to work there full-time for most of the year after. That gave me enough money to get to France in 1998.
I’m interested to get Jackson’s take on the workings of the universe. Maybe he knows something I don’t.
“People think everything is so life and death. What if it isn’t?”
He laughs. “This is what I like about you, Anna. You are not a typical sixteen-year-old.”
I smile. I like to think I was a bit more mature than my friends the first time around, but I probably wasn’t.
“I’m serious. Do you think life is full of decisions you have to get right?”
“Yes and no.”
“Do you have any regrets?”
“Not really. I’m only twenty-one, so nothing is really set in stone yet.”
“True.”
I think about my future life. I’m starting to get to a point where some options are almost closed to me. Like being a supermodel. Ha. Or a pop star. Or a famous athlete. Obviously nothing is impossible, but the odds are now stacked against me. Still, I’m mostly happy with where I ended up. Ed and I decided we didn’t want kids, so I don’t have to worry about that option closing off.
He thinks for a second. “I do sometimes wonder how each decision affects the next moment. I don’t mean that if you’re horrible to someone, something bad will happen to you, because I think that’s bullshit—but say if I decided to move to Brisbane instead of staying here in Shell Beach, would my life be permanently on another path? Or would I eventually come back to the same place I was going to end up anyway?”
“That’s exactly what I’ve
been wondering lately. And I have no idea. I think maybe there are some big choices that can have an impact on what ultimately happens, but maybe the smaller ones don’t matter so much. Then again, who knows? Maybe the universe has a clever way of getting you back on track no matter what you decide.”
“I don’t know if I like the idea of a preconceived destiny, because that means there’s not really any free will.”
“But would you know? There’s no way of testing whether something else could have happened.”
He takes a gulp of his drink and winces. It looks like a long black, so I’m guessing it’s hot and strong. “This is a bit deep for a Monday.”
“It is. But I’m glad you want to talk about this stuff. I don’t really know anyone else who wonders why things are the way they are.”
After I say it, I realise it’s true—especially in the future. Ed hates to have deep conversations, but it’s usually because he’s too tired from work and just wants to switch off. And I don’t really have that many close friends. I have lots of acquaintances, and certainly lots of fans from my work, but now that I think about it, I don’t have anyone I feel this comfortable with talking about the meaning of life.
“Where do you think you’ll be in twenty years?” I ask suddenly.
He laughs. “That came out of the blue. Um, I guess I’ll have already turned forty. Hopefully I have a high-paying job, an awesome house and someone who loves me.”
I smile. “That sounds like a great plan. Do you think you’ll still be in Shell Beach?”
“Who knows? But probably not. There aren’t a lot of…” he trails off. I can tell he’s wondering whether I know he’s gay or not.
“Cute boys who also like boys?” I finish for him.
He chuckles, relieved. “That’s right. I might head to Brisbane one of these days. Or maybe Melbourne.”
“Do whatever makes you happiest.”
He finishes his drink and stands up. He comes over to my side of the table and pulls me up, giving me a huge hug. “You’re awesome, Anna. I’m glad you cut class today. I just hope you don’t get into too much trouble.”
“I’ll be fine. I’m glad we got to hang out.”
“When do you turn eighteen? I’m going to take you out dancing.”
1996 (90s Flashback Series) Page 6