“Okay, time to give you some spy gear,” Millie announced once the crowds had thinned and the posted faculty guy was waving in stragglers. “As a former spy myself… it feels like I’m passing the torch. First of all, Jace, take this. Sorry, I only have one.”

           After he was handed a bulky yet quite durable 1998 era cell phone, Jace, looking unimpressed, replied, “Amazing. This will really help me… do what, exactly?”

           “Well, I put my number in the contact list, so you can call me if it all goes wrong and you need bailing out. But really try not to screw up in the first place, because my quartz is running on fumes. I don’t want to risk an unnecessary time jump. That’s why I chose to bring Laurie with us instead of wasting a charge to redo our meeting. Still, I did also say that this could still work for a reason. That’s because of these.”

           She raised part of her jacket to reveal a carbon fiber side satchel hidden underneath, and pulled out a pair of large metallic futuristic armlets. She gave them to the kids, who put them on without asking despite their weight and strange nature.

           “Looks like some kind of sci-fi gear,” Laurie said, feeling the smooth material.

           “They’re stealth rings! They bend light and make you invisible. Cool, right? If you’ve ever had a dream where you’re wandering around school and no one sees you… I mean, I have. More than once. Just be careful; they don’t hide sound. And people can still run into you, of course. See, I figure that since you’re smaller than me, you’ll use less power than I would if I went in with Jace. And these will let you see each other.” She gave them pairs of tinted glasses. “We have to wrap this up before they lock the doors.”

           “Yeah, about that—Cookton is pretty much a prison during school hours. What are we supposed to do after the mission is complete?” Jace asked. “Do we try to break out, or just… what, hang around, invisible, until the doors open again at 2:30?”

           “Do… whatever you think is the safer bet. You’ll at least have the freedom to go anywhere you want inside. And you both know the school layout by heart; it’s been so long since I’ve been here that I’d get lost. Hey, Jace, why not track down all the kids you helped back in fifth grade and tell Laurie about them? It would at least pass the time.”

           “This could kind of be fun…” Laurie said. “Exploring the school unseen, getting to check out what life was like at Cookton in the 90s… What will you be doing, Millie?”

           She yawned. “Taking a nap, hopefully. I’ve been awake at least thirty hours.”

           “Guess we’ll make the best of it,” Jace said as he and Laurie put on their shades.

           Without overthinking it, they both touched their bracelets and vanished for everyone except each other. They rushed up the stairs and through the front doors, just behind the last group of kids to go in. Jace noticed, as the doors were being locked, that Charlie Pippin just so happened to be among those near-truants.

           Jace tapped at Laurie’s shoulder and pointed him out, her appearance like that of a ghost. The pattern of the lockers past her made her tricky to spot; it was like someone had turned down their bodies’ opacities to 10% on Photoshop. But they could see each other, enough so to confidently creep side by side to a nearby classroom door. They looked in through the glass to see students settling into their desks.

           “Homeroom…” Jace whispered. “Let’s just wait and follow Charlie to a real class, where we’ll have more time. Doors opening on their own might cause a scene, too.”

           “I still don’t really get the purpose of homeroom,” Laurie admitted. “Ya think schools would’ve come with something more… efficient by 2022. By the way, Jace, your shoes are too loud. If kids hear them clomping around the halls, urban legends about a Cookton ghost and his cursed clogs may still be around when we get back home.”

           “My heels don’t reach the backs, so they hurt to walk in, anyway.” He took them off and hid the pair behind a nearby trash can. “Hey Laurie… Heheh…” He flexed his socked toes on the hallway tile and stomped softly. “It’s like Ninjas. Remember? Us and Warren, creeping around our houses all quiet like, sneaking up on adults and scaring them? It was great. Until the adults got mad.”

           She huffed. “That was a thing when we were five. We aren’t little kids anymore.”

           “Y-yeah… I know that. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t fun.” Jace briefly watched Charlie scratching into his desk with a paperclip as the teacher did roll call. “I didn’t think we’d be back in school again already… Are you still feeling okay about all this?”

           “I’m just trying to take it in a moment at a time. Oh, great,” she groaned as the morning announcements started up on the room’s small outdated TV, complete with cheesy graphics and two student anchors who read out the ‘news’ with zero inflection. “I’m suddenly more empathetic with our parents, who had to endure this every morning, too. I… I can’t watch. Jace, tell me more about when you time-traveled before.”

           “Hm. All right. I’ll try to summarize, since we only have a few minutes.”

           “Is homeroom really that short? Guess the announcements make it feel longer.”

           “Like I said, Wes time traveled before I did, and spent a year in the past from ’95 to ’96. Then he grabbed me to do it all again, this time with a big plan to make things ‘better,’ which mostly had to do with setting up just the right team for the King Arcade laser tag tournament—that ended up having no winners because of a blackout he caused. I felt like a spy at first, since I sorta infiltrated his childhood group of buddies, but pretty soon I considered them all friends, too. Let’s see… We took a road trip to Las Vegas, LA, and San Diego. And after tons of pizza and maybe fifty sleepovers, we had to fight a giant liquid metal super computer thing that got hijacked by Wes’ other, original older self. That nearly ended us. Then we fought the Old Wes, too—right in the middle of the theme park, with the whole class watching. It got mostly destroyed in the battle. Luckily, though, we could go back in time to undo the damage and erase memories.”

           “… Holy crap, Jace…” Laurie quietly exclaimed. “You went through all that?”

           “That’s not all, either. There were more down-to-earth things along the way, like me finding ways to help out all the kids in my uncle’s fifth grade class. But the biggest thing was me and Wes finding out that he was supposed to marry Aunt Sadie and have kids, but getting into the Toys ‘R’ Us Super Toy Run contest changed all that, which is something his older self set up, and tried to keep a thing, despite… the consequences.”

           “Warren didn’t exist?! Or Sally, obviously. That would’ve changed everything.”

           “Well… Warren did still kind of exist, just in the past, stranded from the original timeline. I know, it’s weird and confusing. But he was sixteen and really cool and strong. You should’ve seen him swinging his sword around in this cybernetic ninja get-up. And after my uncle learned some lessons, we saw Independence Day with his class, went home, worked with Millie to hide all the evidence and our time quartz, and gradually… forgot.”

           “Except for Charlie in there… He’s still up to something.”

           “Guess so. Charlie was always going to be a ‘loose end,’ like they say in adult TV shows. So keeping him from making another time machine is fine with me. Besides, Millie’s plan only does anything if he tries to build a new one in the first place.”

           “And that’s what Millie meant by ‘all the kids you helped…’ Hm.” Laurie seemed to release a bit of worry, and grinned. She untied her shoes, slipped them off, hid them behind the trash next to Jace’s borrowed loafers, and gave her toes a wiggle. “All right. I’m not happy about getting my socks filthy, so you owe me a tour of Wes’ classmates.”

           “Heh. Okay, sure. Not like we can do much else while trapped in school.” The bell rang, so the two shuffled to the side of the lockers to avoid the crush of students heading to their first classes. Jace added, “But let’s take care of Charlie first.”

           The doors opened, teens flooded the halls, and Jace kept his eyes on Charlie as soon as he emerged. Likely at least somewhat nihilistic by this point, it wasn’t a surprise to see him procrastinate outside of a nearby classroom with two other fringe, anti-social, too-cool-for-school lads in dark clothes. Charlie at least stood out in his red jacket and torn blue jeans, but the appeal of leaning on lockers looking bored was lost on Jace.

           “He’s not even going in,” Laurie murmured. “Oh, I get it. This is what ‘nothing matters’ kids do before smart phones, when they’ll stare at screens like the rest of us.”

           “Laurie—there’s Zach. The cool guy in Wes’ group,” Jace pointed out as Mr. Pentino, now among the taller seventh graders, walked by with no shades in sight.

           “Yeah, it is. I’ve only seen him a couple times as an adult when our parents have house parties, but I’ve heard the stories. He made my zari the leader of some dumpster club at DTE back in… 1996, I think? Hm, does he have a history with Charlie?”

           “They all did. It’s complicated,” Jace whispered as they watched Zach go up to Charlie, and based off the body language, seemed to criticize his life choices again; it was too noisy to hear exactly what he was saying. Charlie only rolled his eyes, and Zach went to class without him. “And he is sort of dangerous. He knows I’m a time traveler.”

           “So, it wouldn’t be good if he saw you, at all. But I could do the mission.”

           “Maybe. But his backpack needs to be unguarded first. Like… on the floor.”

           Once the hall had just about emptied, Charlie left his leaning buddies, the three separating without so much as waving. Stealthily, Jace and Laurie followed him through the closing door and into the classroom. The last student to arrive, Charlie plopped into a beat-up desk in the front row, dropping his backpack with as much care as he showed to everything else. Jace and Laurie moved to the corner by the door and huddled up.

           “Mr. Pippin…” the overweight teacher, balding despite only appearing to be in his forties, let out a disgruntled sigh. “Even on the last day, you keep us in suspense as to whether or not you’ll show. Do you have homework to turn in, or do I ask too much?”

           “Sure, Mr. Garcia,” Charlie scoffed. “You’re my only teacher to give me any this week, so I figured, ‘eh, why not, what else I got going on?’ Not your toughest stuff.”

           “You are an enigma, Pippin. You only ever complete your assignments when you ‘feel like it,’ yet manage to get A’s and B’s. And from what I’ve heard from your other teachers, this is hardly unique to my class. I don’t know if you’re simply bored, feel unchallenged, or if you’re an example of talent wasted through jaded laziness.”

           “Tell the whole school why don’t ya…”

           “Charlie, you’re such a rebel,” a girl who must’ve been in his fan club swooned.

           “Keep it up, Ms. Peters. Maybe you two will have a chance to get to know each other better in yet another detention,” Mr. Garcia threatened the two edgy-cool kids.

           “It’s the last day of school, teach. How’s that going to work out?” Charlie scoffed.

           “I can find a way. Now, we still have an hour to learn a few things about English literature before brains rot over the summer, so let’s finish studying Hamlet.”

           “Ugh, mean teachers, I swear,” Laurie groaned as the class got under way.

           “We had our own share of them, huh? I’m tempted to pick up a marker and write ‘dork’ or something on the whiteboard with an arrow pointing at him…”

           “That is tempting, but we should probably do what Millie wants.” Laurie took out the USB drive from her backpack and gripped it tightly. “Okay. I’m going in.”

           “Be careful!” Jace whispered half-jokingly, half-seriously.

           Keeping low to the floor to avoid any wayward swinging arms, Laurie crept up to Charlie’s bag, and cautiously, slowly, dropped the stick into one of the open zipper pockets. Then, as she headed back to Jace, Charlie suddenly… didn’t notice.

           “Well, that was easy,” Jace said. “Usually everything goes wrong a few times.”

           “Guess I should be a secret agent when I grow up,” Laurie replied and got back to sitting against the wall. “So, mm… Who do we have in this class?”

           “Most of Wes’ gang, actually. He and Zach look bored out of their minds, but Colin, Sadie, and Arthur seem invested in the work. I don’t see anyone else.”

           “Or they’re just scared of the teacher. I wanna find the others, hear their stories.”

           A boy raised his hand and asked, “Mr. Garcia, may I use the bathroom?”

           “Yes, yes, Mr. Weichster. Just make it quick,” the teacher huffed.

           “He’s our ticket out. Reynold’s needs, reliable since summer camp ’96,” Jace said.

           “Good,” Laurie sighed as they sneakily slipped out behind Reynold. “Better than being stuck in there any longer. Okay, Jace. Let’s have fun at school for a change.”

           Jace followed closely as Laurie speed-walked away, the pair moving enough air and creating just enough noise to make poor Reynold look around spooked as they passed him. This kind of taking charge behavior was common with Laurie.

           “Hey! Where are we going?” Jace asked as they went down the empty hallways.

           “I’ll let you lead in a bit, I just really want to see teen Celly in her natural habitat.”

           “Figures. You’re both brash and bossy. I hate gym… but at least it’s still cool out.”

           With the layout of the school super familiar to them, they had no trouble finding the doors to the activity yards and emerged outside, where the last day of PE appeared to be a free one, with kids doing whatever they wanted so long as they were moving. As the coach kept an eye on everyone, Jace and Laurie got their socks very dirty by going around to see what other seventh graders were up to across the basketball and tennis courts and baseball diamond. That was where Jace spotted Delilah, hitting balls thrown by Hutch. Having hit a growth spurt, Delilah was just as tall as he was.

           “Okay, here’s one,” Jace told Laurie. “The girl at bat—looks like she’s wearing a jersey for the school’s softball team—that would be Delilah. She acts tough, yet she just loves her Beanie Babies. I helped her stand up to her older brothers… sort of. And the pitcher, Hutch… I didn’t help him personally, but he helped with that ‘dumpster club’ after being held back a year, so he’s a little older. Zach tutored him, I’ve heard.”