Chapter Eleven
KENNETH HAD NEVER considered patience a virtue.
Even during gym class, where he typically sat out all the class activities, he had always been restless, waiting for the period to end.
At first, it had been a game for him to fight with Mrs. Wren about whether he'd do anything other than twiddle his thumbs in a corner somewhere. Some days, he'd even show up to gym class in his jeans, not having changed into his workout gear. After a while, Mrs. Wren came to ignore him. When that happened, Kenneth had always been left on his own to pass the time in whatever way he could.
Sitting alone in the access room reminded Kenneth of those class periods.
He had to watch while Unquill fiddled about with the computer. Unquill's hands flew about the keyboard while he whispered to himself under his breath. Savannah had sat down on one of the wide power cords under the floor, away from Kenneth. He glanced at her once, just long enough to see that her eyes drooped. He didn't want to look too long, lest she sense his gaze.
He thought about what Unquill had said about marriage. His own parents had separated for two months when he was eleven. Kenneth had blamed himself. He remembered distinctly how it felt to walk on eggshells every minute while at home, lest the slightest word cause a blow-up.
He had decided one day that, if all he could expect as a result of attempting conversation was irascibility, he just wouldn't say anything.
Before long, he found himself staying quiet in class, even when called upon. He had been brought into the guidance counselor's office. The man with the off-color brown mustache smelled of wood shavings.
Kenneth had confessed everything right then and there.
The dam had burst.
He hadn't known that the counselor's report would reach his parents. If he had, he wouldn't have said anything.
Soon afterward, his parents got back together. Three months passed before Kenneth felt safe enough to ask for the salt at the dinner table.
In Kenneth's opinion, marriage had caused all those negative consequences. He didn't think he would ever get married, even if that meant learning how to cook his own meals.
Moreover, he couldn't see himself getting married to Savannah, a girl he barely knew.
He wondered why she had come to him that day.
She hadn't ever done so before.
They shared gym and English class. In gym class, she had always been aloof, separate from everyone. In English class, her favorite subject, she always had her hand in the air. Kenneth felt the classes might as well have been conducted as a conversation between the teacher and Savannah alone. All the other students only had to listen. Kenneth hadn't ever liked English, so he'd found himself doodling during that period.
He couldn't see himself spending time with her every day.
He found himself wishing that Unquill hadn't brought him forward to the future. The future, as Kenneth perceived it, turned out to be a boring place. They didn't even have pizza.
SAVANNAH HAD TRIED to understand everything Unquill had said.
Bits and pieces of information floated through the barrier she believed was blocking her path to knowledge.
She had been abducted and brought into the future. Furthermore, she had been brought to this place in order to speak to a man who would destroy the human race.
Savannah didn't know what she thought about that.
She supposed there would be no one around to preserve the works of Robert Frost, a poet she particularly enjoyed reading while in study hall. That, to her, was the worst consequence that could come out of humans no longer being alive.
She understood the word marriage well enough, though. She had dismissed it at once, especially after Kenneth's reaction during gym class.
She, like him, hadn't wanted to play badminton that day. A little conversation never hurt anyone, yet he had persisted in drawing forth from her mind a few words Savannah had heard her own father mention at six o'clock when the phone always rang as he sat down to eat.
She didn't want to repeat those words, partly because she didn't understand them all and partly because she knew the word that galled him the most.
After searching the computer with Kenneth, Unquill worked on his own, trying to determine the problem. Savannah didn't have the slightest idea what he was doing. She yawned. Images flashed across the screen. Unquill typed so fast that Savannah wondered if he'd break the keyboard. Whenever she'd sat down in front of the computer, she'd always found herself looking at the keys to see where they were. She couldn't imagine being able to type as fast as Unquill did, or how much training had to be required in order for him to do so.
She suddenly felt tired. She wanted to sleep, but at the same time stay awake.
Staring at the flashing images on the screen, she began to sense that many of them did repeat themselves. She watched Unquill cycle through a restart process, only to find it unchanged.
She lay down on a cord. Her hair spilled out in all directions. She rubbed at her eyes.
Savannah wondered if they made flip-flops in the future.
Journey Through Time (A Time Travel Adventure Collection Part 1) Page 11