The back of the car stuffed with their purchases, Wes pulled up to a Days Inn.

“It feels weird staying at a hotel in our own city,” Jace noted as they stepped out.

“Yeah, that’s right! It’s like you’re a tourist in your hometown,” Wes replied as they went through the sliding doors. “You wouldn’t have had a reason to come to this place until you started visiting your mom and me in the nursing home.”

Check-ins had just opened, and Wes looked confident that he’d get a good room despite it being the height of the tourism season. He asked for a non-smoking with two beds, a microwave and a fridge, and said he’d be paying upfront for four days, with cash.

As Jace was looking at things in the lobby, Wes tugged on his sleeve. He turned to see the wad of cash that he had in hand and was trying to pass off to him.

“Jace, pay the nice lady while I start getting our things, okay?”

After he dropped the money into his palm and had taken the luggage trolley out, Jace suddenly realized, in disgust, what Wes had just done. But, feeling he had no choice, he forced a smile and gave the money to the desk clerk.

“Thank you, young man!” she said with a smile and began counting the bills. “Are you on vacation with your dad? Are you having fun?”

“S-sure…” Jace stammered. “Lots of fun…”

“Okay, we seem to be all set here.” She typed on her loud old mechanical keyboard to confirm a few things, and then handed Jace a pair of metal keys. “Your room number is 203. Have a good stay and call us if you need anything at all!”

“Yeah. Okay. Um, thanks.”

Hoping that the money would stay in the register, Jace rejoined his uncle once he returned with the shopping bag-laden trolley and went with him into the elevator, with a bit of a scowl on his face. On the ride up, Wes checked his pockets.

“Looking for something?” Jace muttered. “I don’t think it’s gonna work. That ‘nice lady’ touched the money last, so it probably won’t come back to you.”

“Hey,” Wes shrugged, “it was worth a try.”

“You just tried to rip off the hotel of over a hundred bucks!”

“And yet, there’s really no harm or foul, because maybe I was planning to come back a third time and reset everything again anyway. You’ll realize at some point that this city is kind of our playground. I’m not saying we should kill anyone, but…”

“You think there’s no consequences, so it doesn’t matter who you hurt?”

“Kind of,” Wes said with another shrug as they stepped off into the hallway. “I don’t plan on getting myself arrested, but what’s wrong with bending the rules in our favor a little? Use a few cheat codes? I’m already gonna game the stock market a bit.”

“You know, Uncle Wesley, you’re… You can be a real assclown sometimes.”

Wes held back a laugh that turned into a snort. “Hey, careful. Clowns stopped being funny after the big scare of ’16.”

“Yeah, well…” Jace demurred as they stopped at their door. “You don’t have to tell me. I lived it. I still have nightmares from my seventh birthday party.”

Wes put the key in and turned the knob. “If you don’t want to do the kind of stuff you can do as a time traveler, that’s fine, bud. But I’m here to have some fun.”

“But that just seems… really selfish.”

Once the door was opened, Jace quickly walked in and dropped himself onto the bed by the window, where he turned to see the view. Past the pool were the suburbs—his future house somewhere within them—and the distant desert hills beyond.

“I’m gonna go and take care of a few things in fifteen or so,” Wes explained as he packed the minifridge full of snacks and drinks. “And when I get back, we can go check out the big water gun game me and my gang’ll have just before sunset.”

“You have a gun fight with your gang?”

“With water, yeah. We always have them late in the afternoon. We’ll do a little spying, you’ll get to see my friends and my old neighborhood, and how we kept ourselves entertained. Hey, come over here, see what I got for food.”

Jace flipped around and looked down from the end of the bed.

“Geez, don’t you think you went a little overboard?”

“Maybe.” Wes took some things out from the bag and tried to organize them to optimize space in a way so they’d actually all fit. “But I kept seeing stuff I wanted you to try. I’m still kind of surprised at how much that store has…”

Jace picked up a six-pack of tall plastic bottles filled with green liquid.

“Squeezits,” Wes said. “Apple juice flavor, supposedly. The gimmick is… you squeeze the bottle to drink them. Not around anymore. Got Capri Sun, too.” He held up a box of forty silver pouches. “Variety pack. These lasted—you must’ve had a few.”

“Mom doesn’t let me have drinks with this much sugar,” Jace said, looking at the nutrition facts. “Everything is junk food. Didn’t you get any meals?”

“Hey, we’ll get meals. No worries. In the meantime, if you get hungry, try one of these.” He ripped off a package of Dunkaroos from its brethren and tossed it up to him. “Cookies with dippable frosting. Great stuff. I think they’re still around, too. But only online, not really in stores anymore. Oh, and here.” He gave him a strawberry-flavored Push Pop. “It’s like lipstick candy, for kids. Keep it in your pocket and satisfy your sweet tooth whenever you want. Some of us always had one on hand.”

“I know what these are. But what’s so special about the Trix cereal?”

Wes took the box out of the bag. “Truth is, it was never a favorite of mine. But… the green and blue pieces exist again now, so I thought it’d be worth a purchase. There’s something to be said about eating things that don’t exist anymore, right?”

Jace shook his head a little. “I… I dunno. I don’t really see the point.”

“Of course you don’t. None of the food you like has gone extinct yet.”

“That’s not exactly true. There were these nice, organic shortbread biscuits made in California that I liked as a kid, and they’re not around anymore.”

“Sounds like a tragedy. Here, try a bite of this.” Wes unwrapped a strawberry Fruit by the Foot and handed it to him. “You have had a fruiter footer before, right?”

“A what? Oh. I’ve… traded for a few at lunch before.”

“The ones they got in the present aren’t anything like these babies. Try it.”

Jace sighed once more and tore off a small piece, which he quickly ate. “Well. It’s thicker and chewier. And it feels like it has tiny little seeds in it or something.”

“I know, right? The texture is completely different! By the way, it’s not like I’m still eating all this crap as an adult on a daily basis. But I do try them sometimes to see what the survivors have become. Uh, let’s see, what else did I get…” He reached into a bag and pulled out a couple of Lunchables packages. “Got some classics here. A nachos and a ‘Mega Pizza’. Oh, and here are some cheese and cracker Handi Snacks, too.”

“Ugh… the fake cheese in stuff like that makes me kind of sick.”

“Then don’t eat the cheese,” Wes said with a shrug. “And in the last bag… Some good old Kid Cuisines. Consider them emergency meals. Look, see how they still have a polar bear chef character on them? Isn’t that… you know, different?”

“I really hope we don’t eat like this the whole time,” Jace said, his uncle trying to cram it all into their small icebox. “Do you even do any of your own cooking?”

“I can cook. When I’m not lazy enough to not do it.”

Jace turned his arms into a pillow and looked up at the ceiling. “Mom makes me all of my lunches. She says I shouldn’t eat what the school gives us. Even though she says California has higher standards for their lunches. Says it still has too many carbs. I don’t even know what a carb is…” he said tiredly and closed his eyes.

“I figured. I have a pretty clear picture of what kind of mom she is. She surprised me; she was different as a kid. Problem is, she doesn’t realize what she’s doing to you.”

“She’s a nice mom…” Jace whispered. “She’s so nice…”

“Uh-huh. And what do the other kids think when they see you bringing in your recyclable brown bag every day, and reading your nice little notes from Mommy?”

Jace didn’t respond, but he felt his face twitch.

“Hey. Buddy. I think this would be a good time to have a little chat.”

“About what?” he asked after his eyes shot open and he saw that his uncle was looking down at him with a serious expression, his arms crossed.

“Even if we had actually gone camping, I probably would’ve brought this up. And, uh, trust me on this one—I’m not looking forward to this either.”

“W-what are you talking about?”

“You’re having school problems. Or, you were. No point in hiding it. I watched you graduate, kiddo. You looked pretty mad. Didn’t even look the principal in the eye.”

Jace turned over so he wouldn’t have to look at his uncle. “It’s nothing. Just something stupid that happened at the end of the year. It doesn’t even matter anymore.”

“Okay.” Wes sat on the bed, right next to him. “Time to take a crack at being a parent. Listen to me, it does still matter. You think things will get better when you go to middle school in a few months? You’d be wrong. It’ll all just get worse.”

“Can you let me rest for now? I’ll… I’ll deal with it when we go back.”

“I doubt it. So, what went wrong? You were happy back in fourth grade, weren’t you? Who are the little punks who made your life a living hell?”

He waited for a response, but Jace didn’t give him one.

“I can stay here all day,” Wes said. “And it’ll only keep getting more awkward.”

“They’re… they’re all jealous because I’m smart…”

“What? You think they’re jealous? Because you’re intelligent? Jace, I, uh, I hate to break this to you, but no one’s ever envious of a kid who has a high IQ.”

Unable to see his face, Wes had assumed that his nephew was close to tears by this point—until Jace suddenly shot up straight and spat fire.

“Yeah, they are, because what other reason would there be? Like my school didn’t have enough morons already, and then even my own friends turned on me at the start of the school year, for no reason at all! They all went and joined the idiot squad!”

“Hoo, boy, this sounds like psychiatrist field day territory… All right. I can help if you give me a shot, but you have to, A: be candid and don’t lie about anything, and B: cool your jets. Remember, none of the kids that were mean to you exist yet. You can say anything you want, and they’ll never know you talked crap! Does that make it easier?”

“N-no! Not really…”

“They’re that bad, huh? You think they’re going to reach through time and space to make fun of you right now? This is against my better judgment, but how about you just spill it. Say what’s on your mind. Let it allll out. And then I’ll tell you what I think.”

“No. I don’t want to. You know, you’d be a terrible dad.”

“C’mon. I wanna hear about it. Honest. Please, Jacey-poo?”

“S-shut up! Stop treating me like a baby. I… I can take care of myself!”

“Okay, let’s play pretend. I’m a hired hitman who can take out these kids. Yeah, I’m serious. I got no qualms about knocking out a bunch of prepubescents. All I need is a good reason. So now it’s up to you to convince me to do this job.”

“I don’t want you to kill them! Just… beating them a little would be good.”

“Whoa. Hold on. You know I was kidding, right? Like, to test you? But you legit want me to kick their butts, don’t you? Oh, man. That’s not good, kiddo… Look, I had a few jerks and problems growing up, too, but I never resorted to physical violence.”

“Y-yeah, well… Good for you. It… It’s not like I’d be able to do anything anyway. I’m not strong or tough. I just want things to back to the way they were, when no one was being a jackass to me.”

“Maybe you did something to deserve the treatment.”

“What? No I didn’t!”

“How do I know? You won’t tell me anything. Look, just lay it on me. We need to toughen you up, get you some confidence. And I don’t think you’ll have enough fun on this trip otherwise. It’s important to be able to relax”

“All right! Fine. Fine…” Jace took a deep breath. “Give me a second to think… It all kind of started a while ago. So. At the end of the fourth grade, I had this big fight with my friend Jamie, because we had an argument about some lore in the MMORPG we were both playing, and he was completely wrong about the Cyber-Mage class’s background. He didn’t even get the name of his people’s home world correct, either.”

“Uh-huh…” Wes mumbled as Jace took a hate-bite out of his fruit roll.

“I guess it kind of got out of control, and we never got a chance to patch things up before summer break. Me and Mom went on vacation to Canada and Jamie must’ve thought I was ignoring him and was still angry, but actually, I had stopped caring. So… when we get back, my email’s full of messages from him about why I wasn’t responding even though he knows my mom bans social media and messaging on our vacations.

“Now it’s not about the Cyber-Mage anymore, that I was right about by the way, but this crap about how I should be a better friend. He tells me to apologize for a few things I said about him, that were actually also true. I don’t say sorry because I didn’t do anything wrong, so he starts talking to our other friends, making stuff up about me to be a jerk. It keeps getting worse because we don’t see each other until school starts again.”

“Yeah…” Wes yawned. “Yep…”

“By the time we do go back to school, he’s totally changed! I’m not even sharing a class with Jamie anymore, but Austin and Chad keep bugging me by saying stupid things and trying to turn it all into a joke even though they hurt my feelings and they know it, and at lunch, they ignore me and sit with Jamie instead. They even leave a seat open just to mock me, like they’re pretending I could sit with them. I wasn’t going to fall for that.”

“Uh… Jace…”

“And then they must’ve started spreading rumors about me through the whole school, because kids I didn’t even know that well kept coming up to me and calling me this stupid nickname everyone knows I hate. Then this one girl I actually kind of liked but who probably didn’t know I existed started calling me it and laughing about it.”

“Jace?”

“This crap went on all year! Even a few teachers called me that stupid nickname! Do you know what it’s like to ignore someone and hope they get the hint? It either works, or it doesn’t! It’s not like you can ignore someone more. The only thing I could do was prove that I was smarter than them, like none of their jokes bothered me anymore.”

“Jace! Hey, shut up!”

“You shut up. I’m sure they all started it for more reasons than only me being smarter than them and knowing things, and not liking it when they get their facts wrong. I like people to be correct on things, is that so bad? Is knowledge something to mock? No! Why do you think Mom makes me flash cards and keeps them up to date, and makes me read five Wikipedia articles a day? She wants me to know things! She says I have to help defeat the anti-intellect… ism… Anti-intellect… The dumbness going on in the country. But it’s more than just me being smart! They also make fun of my height! Jamie, Chad, and Austin and Laurie are all taller than me, and I’m the second-shortest in my class!”