May 2011-Tulsa, Oklahoma

I was sort of listening in my history class, but sort of not listening. Okay, I was texting inside my desk, but I did hear the teacher talking. She was a sub. Our regular history teacher, Mr. Fields, had come down with a case of double pneumonia.

I saw the windows that lined one side of the classroom with their film of dirt, I saw the wooden desks all in neat little rows. Each desk had graffiti on it, initials and phrases and little pictures of birds and anarchy signs carved into the wood. I wondered who had done that and when. I felt the carvings with the pad of my index finger. We certainly couldn't bring in little carving knives to school.

The substitute teacher, Ms. Harrington, she wasn't like other substitutes. She wasn't as overweight and bland as they were. There was a funny edge to her, I couldn't quite place it. The sharp angle of her nose and her beady little eyes kind of made her look like an eagle, a great bird about to take flight. I kept on texting but I kept my eye on her.

She had her eagle eye on me, and I ended my text and snapped my phone shut but it was too late.

"Amber," she said, and my name trembled in her mouth with derision and disappointment. I looked up alertly, as though I had been giving this class and her lecture my full attention all along.

"Yes?"

"You are not paying attention," It was a statement, and I was afraid it was a correct one. I could feel the overhead lights as they burned down on the top of my head. I could feel them buzzing in my cells. I wanted more than anything to be on the other side of those grimy opaque windows.

"Do you not find the decade of the 1960's able to hold your attention?" she said, and now she smiled, but it was the oddest smile I had ever seen on another human being in all of my 15 years of life. I squirmed in the unearthly glow of that smile.

"I don't know…I guess," I said.

"You guess?" she said, and her smile somehow turned down at the edges. I glanced around me, at the obedient heads of my classmates. I could see the bulge of cell phones in their pockets, the tell tale wires of ipods snaking out of purses and under sheets of hair to fit snuggly in their ear canals. I couldn't breath the thick air in the classroom. I wanted to pass out.

"In this decade the country was in turmoil. There was Vietnam, there was social unrest, there were hippies," I nodded as she spoke but I wanted to be out of there. I wished I could turn into a bird and fly.

"You couldn't so easily run to the nearest computer and google anything you wanted to know," she said, keeping her eagle eyes on me. I felt the hardness of the seat underneath me. There wasn't much room left to squirm.

"You had to look things up in a library, you had to use the card catalog system. Then you would have to find the book that might contain the information you wanted and look it up there. There were no computers for students to use. Computers took up entire rooms! There were only black and white T.V.s and no cable! There were about three channels so guess what kids did back in those days?" No one was guessing. We sat in silence, the grimy windows sealing us in.

"They went outside! They played sports and rode bikes and did things! They were more connected to the world in a way. More than you. They paid attention in class, they certainly were not texting inside their desks during a lecture,"

Nailed. So she'd known all along what I was doing. I hung my head in shame.

"Amber," she said, and now she smiled, showing every last tooth she had. I stared into all those off white teeth and wished that Mr. Fields would get better soon. I could sense a paper coming, some horrible 1000 word thing that had to be footnoted and all of that. It would consume my night, my entire weekend.

"Amber, I think you might like to experience the 60's for yourself," Her tone was odd, and what she said didn't make a lot of sense. Would I have to read some book, watch some video or something? I didn't want to experience anything.

"Yeah, okay," I said, and now her eyes lit up and focused like two tiny lasers on my face.

"You would?" she said, and I noticed how her incisors were pointy. I noticed how the whites of her eyes were shot through with tiny red lines. I nodded, wanting her to get away from me. I'd agree to anything.

She touched my arm, my upper arm, and her hand was bony but strong. I felt caught in her grip, trapped, I felt like prey. I felt like a mouse being plucked off the ground by the eagle.

"You will," she whispered, and her breath smelled like incense.

May 1966-Tulsa, Oklahoma

I had gone to sleep in my bedroom like I did every night. I knew that. But when I woke up I was freezing. I sat up and realized that I was outside. I rubbed my arms, looking around. I was in an empty field. I saw my neighbors house, the oldest house in our neighborhood. It looked a bit newer. There were no other houses. The road that had been paved was packed down dirt. The tree by my window was still there, but now there was no window for it to be by.

It was a dream, I thought. It had to be. But it felt very real. I felt awake. I stood up and started walking.