Waking in Time

by Angie Stanton

  Professor Smith pauses as he’s snapping photos. “Did you and Will have a good visit? Was he able to tell you anything helpful?”

  I screw up my face with indignation but say nothing.

  “Not getting along?”

  I stare at the clay ashtray on his desk that holds paperclips. It looks like something one of his kids made at school. “We sort of had a fight,” I mumble.

  “Already?” he laughs. “You barely know each other.”

  Professor Smith is way too entertained by this.

  “Will is so stubborn. He refuses to tell me anything!”

  “Did he say why he wouldn’t?”

  I clench my jaw and fight to keep my cool, but my voice comes out laced with sarcasm. “Apparently, I asked him not to.”

  A grin creeps over the professor’s face.

  “It’s not funny!”

  “I’m sorry. I’m sure that from where you’re sitting, it’s quite frustrating, but the fact is, I’m glad. It’s a very responsible decision you’ve both made. We don’t know how giving advanced information will affect the future. It could change things in a negative nature.”

  “Or do nothing at all. I don’t see how telling me how far back I travel or who I meet can be such a big deal.”

  The professor cocks his head to the side. “You’re the one who asked him not to tell your future self, so you must have had a good reason.”

  “Whatever,” I huff.

  As angry as I am at Will, though, I feel myself drawn to him. I’m both mad that he’s not here, and worried about why he’s not. What if he’s right and we are something special, and I only have today before one of us travels? I realize that I want to see him again to get some things straight. Besides Professor Smith, Will is all I’ve got.

  The black rotary phone on the professor’s desk jangles loudly, startling me.

  He frowns at it before answering, but soon he’s beaming. “Tonight? How far apart are the pains? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I’m on my way!”

  He hangs up the phone and beams at me. “The baby is coming! I’ve got to go!”

  “That’s wonderful,” I manage to say, though I can’t help but feel abandoned. Together we return the memorabilia to the hatbox. I stand and secure the lid. “I’ll get out of your way so you can go.”

  The professor stands, pats down his pockets, and looks at his desk for anything he might need. “I’m sorry to cut our meeting short.”

  I collect the hatbox and head for the door. “Oh my God, are you kidding? You’re having a baby!”

  He pulls his keys from his pocket and locks his office door. Together we head toward the stairs.

  “I’d like to meet you and Will again tomorrow, but if I can’t make it, I’ll call and leave a message for you at your dormitory.”

  “Sure… if I’m still here.” A slow dread bubbles in the back of my mind.

  He glances at me through narrowed eyes as we take the stairs. “Do you have reason to think you won’t be here?”

  “Well, I seem to zip through time like a hummingbird flitting from flower to flower,” I say, lacking emotion, because I’m trying to mask my frustration.

  The professor pauses at the landing. “Do you have premonitions about when you travel? Is it based on whether you’re happy or sad?”

  I think for a second. “No, I don’t have a sixth sense or anything. But now that you mention it, I have been sad each time. It all began with my missing Grandma. I couldn’t help it. Being on campus and so far from home made me miss her all over again. I don’t know if that’s relevant.”

  “I don’t either, but one never knows.” We continue down the last flight of steps and into the night air. He bounds toward the parking lot and calls back to me, “I’ll see you tomorrow!”

  “Congratulations on the new baby,” I call back. And then I sigh.

  * * *

  As I walk the short distance back to Liz Waters, I’m happy for Professor Smith. The joy on his face was euphoric. He loves his family so much. And that just makes the loneliness of my situation even worse. I miss my mom more than ever. I have the professor, but only once in a while. I’ve met Will, who seems to know more about me than anyone, but refuses to tell me what he knows. I’m glad he showed me the buried tobacco tin, but why wouldn’t he tell me more? I’d hike out to Picnic Point right now and dig it up, but it’s dark and creepy, and I know I’d just get lost.

  I hope that he’ll be waiting for me at Liz Waters, but he isn’t. I go to my room and wait but don’t hold out hope he’ll show up. Apparently he’s snuck in plenty of times. Maybe he will tonight too?

  But Will doesn’t show. As the night grows late, I find myself listening for noises in the hall. Has something happened? Has he shot back in time and I’ve missed my only chance to learn more from him?

  I press my forehead to the window and stare at the ground below. I scan the nearby woods, and my eyes are drawn to the warm golden stone of the Carillon Tower, peaking up over the treetops.

  “What are you doing? Go to bed,” Janice complains, rolling over and punching her pillow.

  I think about sneaking out to go look for Will, but I have no idea what room he’s in at Tripp Hall. Besides, as a girl in 1961, I’m pretty sure I can’t just march into a guys’ dorm this late at night and ask for him. I’m nervous to go to bed, afraid that I’ll travel again. If I slept somewhere other than my own bed, would it make a difference? Or would that somehow close my time travel window, stranding me here forever? I shudder at the thought and slip between the cool sheets, arching my head to see the bell tower and willing it not to chime. Maybe if I stay awake, it can’t send me away? I hope.

  The minutes turn to hours and I hear the bells chime, reverberating through the air. A thought niggles at the back of my mind that I’m falling asleep.

  CHAPTER 9

  I wake facing the wall. An alarm clock clangs loudly, like the bell at my old grade school, but I cling to my downy pillow and stare at the painted cinder block. I am afraid to roll over and see what torturous year time has dropped me into. Someone turns off the alarm, confirming I’m not alone.

  “Abigail, rise and shine, sleepy head,” a chipper voice calls. It’s not Janice’s voice, which confirms that I have indeed traveled again. I want to cry.

  “It snowed last night. It’s a perfect day!”

  I stretch my head to peek out the window. The air in the room is chilly. Sure enough, snow has collected on the bare branches of the trees outside. It’s winter. This is new. I burrow back into my warm bedding, not ready to face this new time. Maybe I’ll hide in bed all day.

  Suddenly a pillow knocks me in the head. Great. I have a perky roommate. With a sigh, I roll over and push my hair out of my face to see who I’m dealing with. Will she be a bossy clean freak, or laid back and fun?

  Sitting on the side of her bed, rubbing her hands together for warmth, is a girl who looks exactly like the girl in the picture from the hatbox. The picture I accidentally left back in present day on the nightstand. A girl who looks identical to my…

  “Grandma?” I whisper in disbelief.

  The girl looks up. “Did you just call me Grandma?”

  Her delicate features are exactly like Grandma’s, minus the joyful wrinkles and stylish gray hair. The bright amber eyes that never missed a trick are exactly the same, as are her high cheekbones and the curve of her lip.

  “Uh, no. I was dreaming about my grandma,” I say, staring at this svelte version of my grandmother as she plugs in a little pot on her nightstand.

  “What was your dream about?” She lights about the room wearing a blue bathrobe over a long flannel nightgown.

  I can’t think straight. My heart is pounding. My grandmother is standing right in front of me, clueless that her future granddaughter has traveled here from the future. Her waistline is tiny, her skin flawless. She can�
��t be any older than I am.

  “Was it a good dream or a bad dream?” She turns on a record player, filling the room with soft crooning music, and sings along to the melody, “Gonna take a sentimental journey, gonna set my heart at ease. Gonna make a sentimental journey, to renew old memories.” She smiles and looks at me expectantly.

  I try to talk, but can’t get the words out. I clear my throat. “Good. It was really good.” My eyes are glued to her. “I was lost and couldn’t find my way home. Then my grandmother appeared.”

  “I like that dream. I never met my grandmother. She died when my mom was only two.”

  I sit up in bed. Grandma never talked about her mother before. “What happened?”

  “No one knows,” she says, riffling through items on her bookcase with her back to me. “The story goes that she was fixing dinner one night, looked out the window, had a scare, and fell over dead. My mother was a few feet away in her highchair.”

  “Oh my God, that’s terrible.”

  “Yes, it truly was,” she says, setting mugs and spoons on her nightstand next to the pot, which is now giving off a low whistle. “My mother grew up being shuffled from one relative’s house to another until her father eventually remarried. Then she had to deal with an evil stepmother who shipped her off to boarding schools.”

  “I had no idea,” I mumble. Except that I sort of did… but now I have more of the story.

  Grandma spins around with a grin, revealing a trace of her mischievous side that I rarely saw in her final year. “But I turned out perfectly, despite being deprived a grandmother.”

  A knock sounds at the door. Grandma looks at me in a panic.

  “What?” I ask. I can’t imagine what is so horrible about a knock on the door.

  She gestures to the hot pot as steam shoots out the top. “Answer the door, but don’t let them in. I can’t get written up again.”

  “For what?”

  “Have you gone daft? The hot pot!”

  “Oh. Right.” I jump out of bed wearing my baggy, era-inappropriate T-shirt. My feet hit the cold tile floor, and I dance my way to the door, grabbing a bathrobe on the way.

  The knock sounds again. I turn back to see Grandma unplugging the pot and setting it on the floor out of sight, between her bed and the bedside table.

  I tie the sash of my robe and open the door a few inches, blocking the view of the room. A girl with short red hair peers back.

  “Yes?”

  “Here’s the invitation for you and Sharon to the Winter Carnival. I hope you both plan to come.” She holds out a card with our names and room number printed neatly on the outside. “We’ll be making decorations on Tuesday in the library if you want to help.”

  “Sure. Thanks.” I accept the invite and close the door. When I turn, I notice the wall calendar displays February 1951. I should be shocked, but I don’t care. I’m with Grandma!

  “That was close.” Grandma retrieves the pot and fills two mugs, then spoons in something from a box. She stirs them both and hands one to me. The sweet aroma of hot chocolate tickles my nose.

  “Thank you.” Even at eighteen, Grandma is already taking care of me.

  * * *

  During breakfast in the cafeteria, we look out at the freshly fallen snow on the patio. Grandma—or Sharon, as I should call her?—gobbles down her food.

  “Hurry up,” she urges.

  I’ve barely eaten anything. I’m too busy staring at her perfectly unwrinkled skin and dancing eyes. “What’s the rush?”

  “Do you realize it’s been three weeks since we’ve had more than a dusting of snow?” She waves her fork and knife in the air as she talks.

  Suddenly she sets them both down with a clink. “Let’s go sledding!”

  “Um. Okay. When?” I take another bite of pancake.

  “Now!” She removes the dishes from her food tray and stacks them neatly.

  I wash down my food with a gulp of milk. “Don’t you have class?” Heck, I probably have class too, not that I care.

  She glances about the dining room, checking for anyone listening in, then whispers, “Today’s a snow day.”

  “They canceled class?” There may be six inches of snow, but that’s nothing for Wisconsin.

  “No, you silly goose. It’s the official Sharon and Abigail Skip Class and Play in the Snow Day.” She takes the plate of pancakes off my tray.

  “Hey, I want those!”

  “Too late, slowpoke. The early bird gets the worm.” She clears both our trays, then stands up. With a quick covert look to see if anyone’s watching, she slides her tray under her sweater.

  “You’re stealing the cafeteria tray?”

  “Hurry up. Nobody’s looking. Take yours.”

  I think she’s a little bit nuts, but I’m willing to do anything she wants, now that I get to be with her again. Stretching my scratchy wool sweater over the metal tray, I slide it up so it looks like I’m wearing flat body armor, or, more likely, a tray under my sweater.

  Sharon beelines for the exit and I follow. We scurry out of the dining room and scramble up the stairs and down the halls, until we’re finally safe in our room. She pulls out her tray and falls giggling onto her bed.

  “What was that about?” I join her in fits of laughter even though I’m not sure why I just stole a food tray.

  “Now we have sleds!” She slaps her tray.

  Fifteen minutes later, bundled up in wool coats and scarves and wearing bulky snow pants, we stand atop Bascom Hill with the trays in our mittened hands as snowflakes float down from the gray sky, sticking to Sharon’s hat and melting on her nose. She’s radiant.

  We’re not the only ones taking a snow day. Students are scattered everywhere, sliding down the hill on everything from cafeteria trays to pieces of cardboard. One brave soul is using a shovel.

  “Come on!” Sharon hollers, running to place her tray on the snow run where others have gone before us. The hill is pretty steep, but she’s unconcerned. She sits down and pulls her wool coat up so it won’t drag in the snow.

  “Hey, Tom? Give me a push?” she calls, and a guy with an infectious grin and red nose plows through the snow to reach her.

  “Big push or baby push?” he asks.

  “Give it all you’ve got,” she says, pulling her feet onto the tray.

  Tom gives her a running push and off she slides. She goes a good thirty feet before her boot catches the snow. She spins into the fresh powder, letting out a hearty squeal.

  I climb aboard my own makeshift sled and tug myself forward with my hands until Tom gives me a push too. I scream as I fly down the hill, whizzing past Sharon before spinning out of control and biting the snow face-first.

  When I get up, Sharon is bounding toward me laughing. “Are you all right?”

  “Let’s do it again!” I wipe the snow from my cheeks with the back of my snow-coated mitten. Sharon offers her hand and we climb the hill together and slide down again and again.

  We build a snowman with other students and then a snowball fight breaks out. By the time we trek back to the dorm, we’re exhausted, our woolen clothes are soaked, we’re chilled to the bone, and I’m utterly happy.

  That afternoon, with our wet clothes draped over the radiator, we listen to old-time records by Perry Como and the Andrew Sisters, artists I’ve never heard of. Sharon pulls out her styling supplies and twists my hair into pin curls. “Are you sure you don’t want me to cut your hair?” she asks. “It would be so much easier to style, and it would look lovely.”

  “You know how to cut hair?”

  “No, but how difficult can it be?” she says optimistically, eyeing the scissors on her desk.

  Touching a long lock, I say, “No thanks. I’ll keep it as is.” The tight, curly look suits Grandma well enough, but it’s nothing I want to be stuck with when I finally get back
to my time. Especially since she has no idea how to cut hair.

  When she’s finished pinning my hair, she pulls what looks like a shower cap with a hose coming out of it over my head. The hose plugs into a machine that she turns on. My shower cap fills with warm air and I smile to myself, feeling like an alien in an old cartoon.

  We page through National Geographic magazines. Sharon scoots over and points out pictures of Machu Picchu. She yells to be heard over the noise of the hair dryer. “This is where I want to travel to this summer. It looks so exotic.”

  The ancient green mountains look familiar with the rocky-tiered ruins of a village below. I think I’ve actually seen old photos of Grandma at this place.

  “But my mother keeps forgetting to send me my birth certificate, which I need to apply for a passport.” She slumps back against her pillow.

  Seems to me it would be unusual for a young woman to travel so far away in this day and age, but Grandma was never predictable.

  “If I had a nickel for every time Mother promised to look for it, I could have gone five times by now. I think she’s afraid of me leaving the country.”

  “What does your father think?” I yell over the sound of the humming dryer.

  “That I should sow my oats while I’m young.” She grins.

  “He sounds like a good guy.”

  I think of the hatbox on my bed and the framed picture of Grandma and her parents. They both appear politely reserved in the stuffy formal portrait, nothing like the fun goofiness of their daughter. What would Sharon think if I opened it up and showed her? I hope she isn’t a snoop and that she doesn’t look into it when I’m not in the room. She’d be in for a shock.

  “Oh, he is. Mother likes to tease about how she tamed him of his wild ways.”

  When my hair is dry, I’m amazed at how Sharon styles it to curl under and then swoops up the front and pins it in place. It resembles the look of her hair, despite it being so long, and I definitely look like I fit in here now. I giggle to see what looks like a pin-up girl from one of those old calendars looking back at me in the mirror.