Author's Note: I recommend you read Worst First Day first if you haven't already. These are a collection of oneshots but they will tie together in a way. For example, Henry already knows things are weird here and that's what he learns in Worst First Day. Reading it won't be necessary to understanding things, but again it's recommended.
Summary: Henry decides to talk to some old friends from kindergarten, only for it to go horribly wrong.
For the first time all week, Henry smiled as his mom dropped him off for school. He was happy not because it was Friday, and thus the last day of his first week of first grade. No, instead he was happy because he finally had a plan, one that he believed to be full proof.
Everyone was insisting he belonged in first grade. Henry couldn't prove to them that his friends, Jack and Jill, belonged there as well. The whole Kindergarten class should be in first grade now, and Henry had thought of a way to prove it. All he had to do was get Jack and Jill to come with him into the first grade classroom. His friends wouldn't mind. They could sit with him, tell the teacher this was where they belonged. If they were asked surely they could prove they knew everything a kid who'd finished Kindergarten should know. And then they could stay and Henry would have fixed everything. He could still be with his friends, instead of forced to be in class with a bunch of new students.
Henry walked toward the swing set of the playground, where Jack and Jill were. Kids who got to the school early would usually play on the playground for a bit, and Jack and Jill were no exception. Henry waved at them, and when they saw him he jogged over. "Hi guys!"
Instead of greeting him back, they looked at each other. They both seemed so confused. They also seemed smaller than he remembered. Maybe they had always been a bit shorter than him? Or, his mom had said he grew over the summer. Maybe they just hadn't had their growing spurt yet. Still, that wouldn't explain why they didn't want to say hello.
"Um, hi …" Jack said, looking uncertain.
Jill looked a bit more confident than her brother, and she offered Henry her hand to shake. "Hi. Who are you? I'm Jill."
Henry just stared. Who was he? Jill should know that! They'd only been best friends for an entire year of school. "I'm Henry. Don't you remember? I was in your class all last year?"
Jill glanced at her brother again before speaking. "You can't have been. We weren't in school last year."
Henry was shocked and scared all at once. This is what the adults were saying … but how could his best friends forget him? "Come on Jack. You've got to remember me! Don't you remember letting me play with your favorite toy? The king with a really nice crown?"
Jack looked shocked, and took a step away from Henry. "No one touches him! Not even Jill!"
"But you let me …"
Jill took a step back too, holding her brother's hand. They both seemed nervous. Why would they be scared of their friend? None of this made any sense to Henry. How could they forget him?
"He can't have let you. He doesn't let anyone."
Maybe he just had to jog their memory. "Remember the time we were playing firefighters? And Jack hit his head?"
"That's never happened," Jill insisted. "You're just making stuff up."
That was when Henry started to cry. His full proof plan wasn't so full proof after all. They wouldn't come to class with him if they didn't even remember him. They even thought he was lying. "I'm not pretending! Jill, Jack, please! Don't you remember me? I'm your best friend!"
Jack shook his head, and both the twins took another step back. "You're not our friend, we've never met you," Jill told him. "I think you're just crazy."
Crazy. It was that same word that Henry's mommy had used. She said he was crazy, and now Henry's best friends thought so too. "No I'm not! I remember!"
"Go away." It was Jack who spoke up this time, but Jill seemed to agree. "Just leave us alone! You're weird."
Henry couldn't see them well anymore. His eyes were too blurry. He turned away from them and ran away; toward a tree at the edge of the playground. Once there, curled up underneath it, drawing his knees up to his chest and putting his head on his knees. He couldn't stop crying. His best friends in the whole world didn't remember him. They thought he was crazy and weird. If they thought that, well, maybe he was. Everyone else seemed to agree. It was only Henry who even had memories of being friends with Jack and Jill. Maybe they never really had been friends. Maybe he'd made it all up like everyone thought.
...
That evening was his first "session" with Archie. Henry had met Archie a lot before, and liked him a lot. But this was the first time he was going to be Archie's patient.
He sat on the couch, legs crossed because he had no hope of them reaching the floor. He looked at his therapist, who was just finishing looking over the paperwork Henry's mommy had filled out. Maybe he would know. It was his job to help crazy people, that's what Mom said. So, if he didn't think Henry was crazy, maybe Henry could hope that he wasn't.
Once Archie made sure the paperwork was in order, he asked Henry's mommy to sit outside, and then sat down across from Henry with a smile. "Hi Henry."
Henry didn't great him back. Instead, he jumped into his very important question. "Am I crazy Archie?"
Archie seemed a bit taken aback by the sudden question. Even so, his initial answer was immediate. "No Henry, I don't." Henry felt a wave of relief, even as Archie sat back to think of a more detailed answer. "I think you're a very imaginative boy who's having trouble transitioning to first grade. But I don't think you're crazy."
The rest of the session was Archie asking Henry about things that made him nervous or scared or sad. Archie seemed to think that Henry missed his Kindergarten teacher or felt like he was growing up too fast. Henry didn't really care too much about that stuff. He was just relieved that Archie didn't think he was crazy.
When the session was over, Henry hugged the psychiatrist before leaving. "Thanks Archie. I'm glad I'm not crazy." It was Archie's job to determine who was crazy after all. If he said you weren't crazy, you couldn't be.
Archie hugged him back, and when the hug was done he bent down so he was at Henry's eye level. "You're not crazy Henry. Just because you're having a rough time doesn't mean you're crazy. Remember that, okay?"
Henry nodded and agreed he would.
As he was leaving with his mommy, who had seemed a bit frustrated that she hadn't been involved for most of the session, Henry looked up at the huge clock tower. He wasn't in this part of the town much, but he liked how big and cool the tower looks. "Mama that means it's eight fifteen, right?" Henry asked her, wanting to show off his clock-reading skills.
"Yes Henry, but it's broken," Henry's mommy told him as they walked toward the car.
Henry stopped, accidently forcing his mommy to stop too since she was holding his hand. He kept looking at the clock. "How long has it been broken Mommy?"
Someone was walking by as he asked that, and they answered him before his mommy had a chance to say anything. "It's been broken as long as I can remember."
Henry's mom gave the man a glare, so he kept walking. Henry didn't notice. "It's been broken forever?"
Regina sighed as she helped him into the car. "No Henry. It was working once. Now it's broken. Just because no one remembers when it broke doesn't mean it never worked."
"So you don't remember it working Mommy?"
"No," she answered. And that got Henry's mind turning. The whole drive home, all Henry did was think.
Archie said he wasn't crazy. Henry was starting to think Archie was right. The clock didn't move, and no one else seemed to be growing older but Henry, at least in his school. Maybe, the two were connected. Clocks told time. Maybe, since the clock wasn't moving, time didn't move quite right either.
That night, when he was in his room in his pajamas, Henry had discovered he could see the clock from his room. He was supposed to be sleeping, but instead he sat staring at the clock not moving. It was stuck, forever eight fifteen. Henry thought, that whenever he felt crazy or sad, he'd look at that clock. It could remind him he wasn't crazy. It could remind him that he was in a town where time stood still.