"WOWP: Rock Around the Clock – the Continuation"
As much as the Russos enjoyed dancing in 1977, they knew they had to return to 1957 to retrieve Harper. Upon their return, they found the Waverly Dinner even more packed then when they left before.
"Wow Dad," said Jerry to Grandpa Hank Russo. "I've never seen the place so packed in my entire life."
"I know," replied Grandpa. "And it's all thanks to your friend, Harper. Oh, and by the way, you can call me Duke now – that's the new nickname she gave me."
"Where is Harper, now?" asked Alex.
"Looks like she's in the corner about to make out with Tommy," pointed out Max.
Alex rushed over and asked Tommy if she could borrow Harper for a few minutes. She then grabbed Harper by the wrist and dragged her into the lair with the other Russos, including Grandpa, following behind.
"Harper, I'm sooooo sorry we left you behind again," she said most apologetically.
"Don't apologize," said Harper. "Being left here is the greatest thing that could have happened to me. I'm more popular here than I ever could be back home. I never want to leave. Why do you think I didn't follow you guys in here the last time you left?"
"You can't be serious about staying here, Harper" said Theresa. "Where are you going to live?"
"Here at the diner with Duke," Harper replied. "He practically begged me to move in."
"It's true," confessed Grandpa. "Without her, the kids will stop coming here and I'll go out of business again!"
"But I can't be without my best friend," cried Alex.
"Well, what if we find another popular student like Harper and convince her to bring the other kids here?" suggested Max.
"That's a good idea in theory," said Harper in her 50's accent. "But where are you gonna find another broad as popular as me? You can't duplicate perfection you know."
Alex's eyes lit up as if a light went off inside. "Yes I can!" she shouted with enthusiasm. "I can create a duplicate of you and leave her behind!"
"Oh no, you won't!" retorted Justin. "After the way you messed up my duplicate last year, I'm not going to let you create another one."
"But Justin," begged Alex. . . .
"No buts! "Justin interrupted. "You are not creating a duplicate of Harper! . . . . I'll do it."
The whole family was shocked at Justin's last statement.
"What do you look so surprised for?" said Justin. "Creating a Harper clone is the perfect solution." He then took out his wand, made a spell book appear, and began to show Alex and the other Russos a certain page.
"Excuse me," intruded Harper. "But does anyone want to hear how I feel about being cloned?"
Alex waved her wand at Harper causing her to fall asleep on the sofa.
"Does that answer your question?" she said.
She and the others then turned back toward Justin's book.
"After that fiasco with my own clone," he began, "I did some thorough research on clone-making to figure out what went wrong. As it turns out, if you don't do the spell absolutely correct, the duplicate will quickly become lazy and self-centred like mine did. Now let me explain how to do the spell properly. And pay attention because this is very complex."
After only a couple minutes of Justin's attempted instruction, Alex looked like her head was going to explode from confusion.
"You know what," she said. "I trust you. Just do the spell."
Within a few more minutes, where in Justin recited a few very complicated phrases and did some very fancy wand flashing, an exact double of the sleeping Harper appeared right next to her. The only difference was that the clone was fully awake.
"Wow Justin!" exclaimed Grandpa. "You have got to be one of the most powerful wizards this world has ever seen."
"Yes, I know," said Justin in very smug and pride-filled voice.
Alex then pointed the clone toward the diner. "Alright Harper-Clone," she said. "Go do your thing."
"Just one minute," Justin said to the clone. "Before you go back out there, there's one more spell I need to cast."
Justin then entered the kitchen, stuck his wand out through the ordering-window, and recited some words in an ancient wizard-language. A beam of light then shot from his wand causing all the students in the diner to momentarily seem dazed. A second later, they all resumed dancing as if nothing had happened.
"What did you just do?" asked Max.
"I erased you from everyone's memory," replied Justin. "I want the High Five back."
After sending the Harper clone back with the other kids, the Russos went back into the lair, picked up the time travel device, huddled around the still-sleeping original Harper.
"Well I guess this is it Dad," said Jerry to Grandpa. "See you in a few years."
Grandpa waved goodbye as the group vanished from sight. Moments after their departure, he noticed that the book which Justin had conjured up was still sitting on the table. He then picked it up, looked at the pages, and said to himself: "I have got to learn that cloning-spell."
Upon returning to the 21st century with Harper in tow, Alex felt a little guilty.
"Gee, I hope Harper won't be too mad when she wakes up," she said. "I can certainly understand why she didn't want to leave."
"Well, you can always use the memory-erasing spell so that she doesn't remember anything about our trip" suggested Jerry.
"Good idea," said Alex. "I think I will."
After casting the spell on Harper, Alex then flashed her sleeping friend to her bedroom while the rest of family prepared to open the sub-shop for another day of business.
Later that afternoon, Alex mentioned to her two brothers that she was curious as to what had become of the Harper-clone that they left behind. Just then, they noticed that one of their customers was reading the latest novel by H.J. Darling – a novelist known to the Russo siblings as the Future Harper. Alex looked at her brothers and knew they were thinking the same thing . . . well, Justin was anyway; Max was thinking about filling his head with jellybeans again.
As soon as the restaurant closed for the day, the siblings rushed into the lair and used the I.P.P. to transport themselves to H.J. Darling's residence. Wasting no words, Alex asked straight out: "Are you the grown-up version of the Harper-clone we left in 1957?"
Unable to deny it, the elder Harper replied: "Yes, I'm afraid I am."
"Well then, you lied to us before," insisted Alex. "You told us you came back through time because one of us revealed wizardry in the future. You also told me that you knew me when I was old."
"Yes, and I'm sorry I had to lie like that," said Future Harper. It was necessary to say that in order to ensure that none of you ever revealed wizardry for real."
Justin suddenly became angry.
"But the reason I revealed wizardry to those fake government agents is because you said that one of us would do such a thing! I could have saved the world from aliens with the Wizard World's help without having to expose it to mortals, you know! I only did it because I thought I was preserving the timeline! And now, as a result, I may very well lose the wizard competition!"
"Please calm down, Justin," said Future Harper. "Hope is not lost yet. You're doing such an excellent job with your delinquents that you're bound to be reinstated."
"But you don't know for sure who's going win though, do you?"
"Well no, but I'm sure everything will work out as it's meant to. Have faith, okay?"
Justin didn't know what else to say and simply stormed off into the corner.
"So what exactly happened to you in 1957 after we left?" asked Alex.
"Well for starters," began Future Harper, "I re-enrolled in school and kept the kids coming to your family's restaurant until I graduated. Meanwhile, after your grandpa met your grandmother, he used the cloning spell to create a mortal duplicate of Justin to help me run the shop while they were dating."
Justin came out from the corner again. "He created a what of me?"
"You heard her, Justin" said Alex. "Grandpa made a clone of you. . . . Go on, Harper, continue."
"A couple years later," resumed Future Harper, "after your grandparents married and had your father, the other Justin and I got married ourselves and moved out on our own."
"You did what?" Justin exclaimed again.
Future Harper turned toward Justin: "Well, being a mortal version of you, he didn't have magic to distract him from mortal romance and so he fell for me pretty easily actually. Since then, he's had a successful career in banking and I worked as a fashion consultant before making it as a successful novelist. I chose the pen name of H.J. Darling because the H stands for Harper, the J stands for Justin, and all our friends thought we were a 'Darling' couple."
Justin fainted.
"Ahhh, he's so cute when he's sleeping," said Future Harper as she gazed at the passed out Justin. "I just he could have fallen for the real Harper the way his clone fell for me."
"Well, don't worry about it," said Alex. "The real Harper is very happy with Zeke right now."
Alex then turned to her younger brother. "Come on, Max," she said. "We better transport Justin home before he wakes up. We should probably erase his memory of all this too. Otherwise, he might come here and try to knock some sense into his elder clone or something."
Alex activated the I.P.P. which whisked the three siblings away. The Future Harper then turned and opened her basement door and shouted: "You can come back up now! They're gone!"
The elder Justin emerged. "See I was right," he said. "They did show up today."
The elder Harper-clone wrapped her arms around him. "I love you, Justin Darling" she said.
"I love you too, Harper Darling" replied her husband. "That other version of me has no idea what he's missing."
THE END