Izzy propped the cardboard refrigerator box up against the shining silver fridge in the Playa Des Losers kitchen, tested its balance, and then took a step away and put her hands on her hips. "Yeah, that's good enough. It'll do just fine for Izzy's purposes."
"Are you sure about this?" Beth asked, watching from a seat at her kitchen table. "I mean, um…"
"Oh, don't worry your tiny little head, Bethy-friend." Izzy patted the shorter girl on the scalp with the sound of jetpack-wearing hippos sloshing through tar pits on a raft of gazelle bones. "I've done this time-travel thing a dozen times. All you have to do is push this green button here - right here, see it? - to send me into the future, and in exactly one hour, press this blue button here to bring me back to the present. It's easy!"
"Izzy, you drew those with crayon."
"You doubt Izzy's powers?"
Beth shrank away, tugging on the collar of her shirt. "But, you know, if it'll make you happy…"
"Great! I knew I could count on you!" Beaming, Izzy embraced her. "You know, I tried getting Geoff and Bridgette to help me with this, but I think they got so distracted with making out that they forgot to bring me back to the present for, like, three extra hours, and when I explained all this to Heather, she just looked at me like I was crazy, ha ha."
"That's, uh, surprising."
Izzy nodded, then checked her watch. "There's no time for this: I have to be in position now." She stepped inside the cardboard box and was about to pull it closed, but then she opened it again to poke her head out. "Remember: The green button first, and then the blue one in one hour exactly. Any longer than that and I could mess up space-time-continuum stuff or something."
"Green first, then blue in one hour. Got it."
Relieved, Izzy sank back into the cardboard and closed her eyes. She heard Beth moving around on the outside, heard her say, "Er, well," and then the box gave a slight shake as Beth's finger poked against it.
Here we go.
Blinding nothingness flashed through the inside of the box, painting her eyelids. Crazy colors swirled around her, almost making her dizzy. A low hum started up in the back of Izzy's head. The time machine shifted and tumbled, weaved in an out of cracks formed by too many parallel universes rubbing up against one another…
And then, all at once, it stopped with a thunderclap.
Izzy's stomach scrambled up her throat as the ground dropped away beneath her feet. She gave a yelp as she tumbled, flipping head over heels, but she managed to land lightly and easily with her feet flat on the pavement.
"Ten point landing, awesome!" she pronounced, spreading her arms, and the box that had once held extra blankets came down on her head. Pushing it away, Izzy tilted her head back to look up at the sky.
"Whoa. Guess I messed up a little on the coordinates this time, ha ha."
She stood in a city, though she couldn't remember the name of it. All around her people rushed and engines thrummed as cars darted along the street. Izzy sprang backwards to avoid a woman carrying a load of shopping bags and slammed her elbow against the shoulder of a man who was, for whatever reason, carrying an open umbrella despite the lack of rain.
"Hey-"
"Oh, sorry. My mistake, haha."
The man squinted at her then. "I know you. Hold on- You're that Izzy girl from that old reality show my children watch. But that's-"
"Impossible," Izzy finished. "Incredible? Deranged? Yeah, I know. You're imagining things. I mean, me? Izzy? Haha! You're crazy!"
She broke into a run, dodging around pedestrians, occasionally calling, "'Scuse me, 'scuse me- ooh, cute puppy dog and cuter stroller," as she went along. Izzy had time-traveled to this place three times before, and she had a vague memory of where to go to find who she was looking for. Hardly pausing from her sprint, Izzy reached into her bra, pulled out a small spiral-bound notebook, and flipped to the third dog-eared page.
"Okay," she murmured to herself, "let's see here. The last time I came here, she was living in that apartment down Ticket Street, and he was living over on… Snapdragon Avenue."
The nearest street-sign read Cindy Lane. Izzy paused beneath it to gather her bearings. She turned west, towards the setting sun, closed one eye, and held up her thumb. Measuring.
"Yeah, that's totally it. I remember that silly fountain. Take a left, down the street, and I'm there, right?"
She only had an hour. She had to move fast.
Izzy sprinted down the lane, dodging a child on a tricycle by a narrow margin ("Sorry kid! Nice firework hat!"), and only skidded to a halt once she had reached the apartment building she was looking for. She peered into the lobby, scowling thoughtfully at the woman behind the front desk.
"Huh. Yeah, didn't she try to throw me out the last time I came here? I wonder if she still remembers that, or if all my time-traveling screwed up her memories."
Well, she certainly wouldn't find out if she continued to stand here and gawk like a lump on a frog's butt. Moving as casually as she could, Izzy opened the glass door and made her way to the elevator. The woman glanced up, frowned when she saw her, and then went back to her work.
Hmph. How boring.
Without pausing from her walk, Izzy spun crisply on her heels and marched back out onto the street, where she again consulted her notebook.
"Okay, unless I've already altered the time-stream continuum, her apartment's on the seventh floor, third window from the left. From the left…" Izzy scrutinized the apartment, then walked alongside the wall. After several different checks to see if anyone was watching, she dug her fingers and toes into the mortar that lined the bricks and began hoisting herself skywards. She wasn't sure if anybody noticed what she was doing, but whether they did or not, no one tried to stop her.
Absolutely dull.
Izzy peered into the third window on the fourth floor. A couch, a table, and a small kitchen. The fifth room had been decorated much the same way.
"Look at me!" she hollered, more out of boredom than anything else. "I'm about to commit a blatant B&E in broad daylight with nowhere to run and only fifty-five minutes to scurry back to my getaway vehicle!"
Nothing. Other than the tricycle kid, who was looking around in confusion for the source of her voice, the area seemed fairly deserted.
The seventh window had a curtain drawn tightly across it. Izzy threw one leg over the railing of the balcony and then the other, sort of half-falling and half-ninja-rolling onto solid ground. Her fingers ached, so she sucked on them a few times. Her toes also ached, but she didn't suck on those too. There was no time for that, even with the dirt of the future being as high in nutrition as it was. She checked her notebook once more.
"So when I came here last week, she was still hiding out in this apartment, and he was dating that one really boring lady, but now after I've taken them with me on that whole road trip with the hotel and the amusement park and the zoo and her house and all that other crazy stuff, surely I've changed the future now, right?"
Once again, there was only one way to find out. Izzy rapped hard on the glass door.
"Hello? Eva?"
No answer.
"Hmm… I'll be in trouble if she went out to the gym or something. If I remember correctly, that's the only place she ever goes now. That and the grocery store, I guess." Izzy knocked again. "Hello?"
Still nothing. Izzy flashed a quick glance at her watch. Eleven minutes down, only forty-nine to go. Last time she'd been able to see Eva through the window. She knew she was taking a risk with messing with the future anyway, but she had to know. Had to know her two best friends in the world were going to be okay.
"Hello-" Izzy started calling again, but she cut off halfway through and slapped a hand over her mouth. The girl on the other side of the glass did exactly the same thing. Izzy made a bit of a strangled noise and took a step away, and the other girl lunged forward and opened the door.
"Time travel?" she guessed. Not 'Hello' or 'What's going on?' or 'What are you doing here' - just jumping straight into it.
Izzy nodded and slowly took her hand from her face. Her eyebrows shot up. This was new.
"H-hi… Izzy," she managed, stepping inside the house. This could be bad. This could be really, really bad.
Of course, it was simultaneously pretty cool.
Izzy looked her future-self over. So she'd finally tamed that wild ginger hair of hers, and it poured down her back in waves, but none of that nonsense about puffs or tangles or curls. She was dressed all in green still. The sarong had been abandoned in favor of long slacks (All the better to climb walls with, m'dear), but the shirt had the same design, the upside-down heart and all.
Distracting. Izzy shook her head. "There's not much time," she told Big Izzy. "I'm here on a mission. I'm looking for Eva. When I last time-traveled, I found her living in this apartment."
"I remember that," Big Izzy said, scratching her head. "The time-traveling thing, once back at Playa Des Losers and another time at-"
"Is she here?"
"Right, sorry." Big Izzy gave a slight chuckle, but no 'Ha ha's, which was rather disappointing. Did she really turn boring later in life? What a letdown. "After Eva quit college, she came looking for me, and now we room together, share the rent, you know."
"Why did she drop out?" It had been the same way last time she'd time-traveled, but Izzy thought it best to ask just in case the reason itself had for some reason changed. She checked her watch. Forty-six minutes left.
"Lack of motivation."
"No Noah to encourage her."
"Exactly."
"What was she majoring in?"
Big Izzy frowned. Izzy particularly liked the way her tongue darted out to dab at her nose when she was thinking. So maybe she didn't lose all her traits when she mellowed out after all.
"I don't remember. Leadership skills? Is that a major? Or maybe it was… physics? You know, gravity, strength… Something. That's kinda the only thing I could think of that's relatively related. Creative writing? Chemistry? Yeah, I have no idea. Whatever it was, she got bored of it and dropped out."
"Lack of motivation," Izzy repeated to herself. "No Noah to encourage her. How did that happen? I mean, I time-traveled here last week and things were still looking pretty grim, and so then I dragged them both on this awesome road trip with me at this hotel and the amusement park and the zoo and Eva's house. I thought we had, like, a whole ton of fun and did some bonding and stuff, you know, but right now things are kinda looking exactly the same. Except, for some reason, you're here, and you weren't before. Yeah, I don't really know what happened there."
"Road trip," murmured Big Izzy, tapping thoughtfully on her nose. "We had so many of those that I can't quite… Oh yeah! That road trip! The one when we shared that hotel room and they wanted to play all those carnival games at the amusement park and then I jumped out the car window to get them to come to the zoo, and I thought the, uh, the wagtails and sandpipers were telling me to push Noah into the hippo tank, and so I did, and Eva had to rescue him from security…" She laughed, but then sighed, staring up at the ceiling. "Yeah, I was so stupid as a teenager."
"Excuse me? Oh, never mind. Like, can you tell me how they grew apart? I mean, I thought I was so careful, bringing them together so often to make sure their friendship didn't all fall apart and everything." Forty-two minutes.
Big Izzy said carefully, "Izzy, don't take this the wrong way, but… I think it's possible that that's what might have ruined them."
"What… what do you mean?"
"There's a lot of it. So much time together, no time apart. The forcing." Big Izzy flinched at one of her own memories. Their memories. "And maybe it, like, had something to do with me - with you - with always being the planner. The one who set things up, and then when the RCMP caught us-"
Izzy's ectoplasm froze in her veins. "They catch me?"
Big Izzy flinched a second time. "You didn't- Oh, I mean, uh, they… But it turns out all right in the end! Really! I mean, after the whole… the incident with the… I shouldn't talk about it. I might mess something up. The point is, when I couldn't plan anything anymore, they didn't talk so much to each other. They lived five hours away, after all. They visited each other less and less often, I guess. And when I finally got back to them right before Noah was about to leave for college - like, right before - I gathered us up for one more road trip to remind them of their friendship… but I was too late."
"Too late?" Izzy prodded softly.
"Things were so awkward between the three of us. Short answers to everything. 'Fine.' 'Good.' 'Okay.' 'Sure.' 'Yeah'." Big Izzy trailed off, staring out the window, and blinked to dispel any tears that had been threatening to form. "Three sarcastic comments. That was it, the whole time. Only three in two days. And she never smiled, never laughed. Not really, only once, and it wasn't even. There was this… Well, it was over. I was too late to save them. He'll hardly even talk to me. They still keep in contact over the phone. Once every six weeks or so, and they'll talk for about twenty minutes at a time. Sometimes she'll even laugh. But it's not the same, and I think it's my fault. At least part of it. I pushed them together so much in the beginning, and then dropped off just like that, and everything… just… collapsed."
Thirty-eight minutes.
"Where is Eva? She's not, like, out getting drunk or something, is she? I mean, even Izzy knows that stuff's bad for you."
Big Izzy glanced over her shoulder. "I think she's sleeping. Or moping. Or 'painting'."
"Painting?"
"Don't ask."
Izzy stared at the direction Big Izzy had been looking, down a small hallway. "She's really bad now, isn't she? Too late to save her?"
"Yeah," Big Izzy said at last. "Things are pretty bad for her now. I've tried getting her to make friends with the other people from Total Drama. Gwen. Trent. DJ. Cody. But everyone has moved on now, everyone's started to change. They still said 'Hi', they greeted her with smiles and all, but-"
"When did things start going bad for her?"
Big Izzy dabbed again at her nose. "Start going… I guess after her father died."
"Mr. Baker? But… but I love Mr. Baker! He's so awesome! He always says 'Hello' to me and he never says that I'm a bad influence on his daughter and he always lets me hang out and he invites me over all the time. H-he dies? How does he die?"
"I kind of, um… killed him."
Izzy clapped both hands over her mouth. "You what? But you- we- I what?"
"It was an accident," spluttered Big Izzy, lifting her hands and taking a step away. "Really, it was! Honest! All I did was drink the rest of the milk at Eva's house for breakfast one morning, before she woke up, and when Mr. Baker noticed he said that he'd just run to the store real quick to get some more for her. And while he was driving, someone hit him. On the phone or drunk or texting or deliberately or just didn't see him because it was still early in the morning and his truck was black… I don't know. But someone hit him. Because he went to get milk. All because of me."
"When… when did that happen?"
"Maybe seven, eight months after third season ended? Nine?"
"That's coming up fast. I have to remember, have to be there, have to make sure it doesn't happen again. I can change this! I can save him!"
Thirty-five minutes.
"You know, the first time I - we - time-traveled, back at Playa Des Losers… do you remember that?"
A slow nod from Big Izzy. "I think so."
"They were married. Well, technically they were just engaged, but they seemed so happy. They were my friends, and Izzy was so excited, so happy for them… I made some mistakes. I tried pushing them together so that they could live that future in the present, I guess, and I only pushed them apart. And then the next time I time-traveled, I had ruined them. Eva was here, and he was somewhere else. That was ages ago. Izzy's tried like crazy to fix things since then, but I really don't know how much I'm helping…"
Thirty-four minutes.
"I have to go," Izzy said, standing up quickly from the couch- she'd perched herself like a monkey on the back of it. "I've still gotta check on Noah. Thanks for everything, Izzy. Next stop, Snapdragon Avenue."
"You won't find him there now," Big Izzy said. "It's Friday."
"Huh?"
"Friday evening. He always goes for walks in that Juniper Park place with that lawyer girl."
Izzy dropped one fist into her open palm and gave a slight snarl. "Madame Boring Lady! My arch-nemesis!"
Thirty-three minutes.
She exchanged good-byes with her future self and rode the elevator down to the first floor. The receptionist gave Izzy a strange look as she sprinted by, but didn't voice a comment.
Thirty-one minutes.
Out in the open, tearing down the street ("Whoa, watch out! Sorry, kid on tricycle! Cute bunny rabbit!") Turn a corner, pass a fountain.
Twenty-nine minutes.
Down the following street. Stopping to wait impatiently at a crosswalk, then take off once again.
Twenty-seven minutes.
Pausing briefly to catch her breath and gather her bearings.
Twenty-six minutes.
Sprinting.
Twenty-five minutes.
Twenty-four minutes.
Twenty-three minutes.
Twenty-two minutes.
"Oh, for crying out loud," Izzy muttered to herself, dodging a woman with a green baby carriage, "How far away is that stupid park, huh?"
Nineteen minutes.
Eighteen minutes.
Finally she was there. A low brick wall of about elbow-height lined one side of the grass, and Izzy leaned against it to catch her breath.
Seventeen minutes.
Now to find Noah. He could be anywhere. Izzy tilted back her head and opened her mouth. Her tongue flicked against the air, tasting it as if she were a snake (Which she was, on her great-grandfather's left side). If Noah had that lawyer girl with him, she'd just follow the trail of boringness and be there in no time. Simple.
Sixteen minutes.
Walking paths criss-crossed the park. Izzy picked one and started down it, still half-jogging, eyes darting as she went along.
Fourteen minutes.
She didn't have time for this, she didn't have time! She had to make it back to her cardboard box by the time Beth called it back or she risked being trapped in the future for good!
Thirteen minutes.
Twelve minutes.
Izzy shook her head as she skidded to a halt. "I'm sorry, Noah," she gasped out, "but Izzy's gotta go. I'll just have to hope that there's nothing about your past that your future-self's been hoping to change."
She spun on her heels, preparing to leave, and there they were. Off the path a little ways, the two of them standing beneath a tree. Noah and that boring lawyer girl. He was on his knee, holding out a small box, and she was partially covering her mouth, grinning through her fingers.
He'sproposingto her?Her?No way! He's too good for her!
Eleven minutes.
Noah almost looked… happy. Happy? But how? He wasn't marrying Eva- he was just marrying this- this- person! This boring lady!
Ten minutes.
How dare he? How dare he be happy without Eva? Especially after Izzy had put forth all this effort into coming to see them, to be sure their future turned out right? Maybe she wouldn't try to hook them up after all! What would they think of that, huh? Take that, Noah!
… Eva. Eva still needed help. She needed someone, and Izzy knew that only Noah could be that person. They had shared memories. They had become best friends. They understood each other. Noah and this lawyer girl… maybe they could've been something. Something good. But Eva was Izzy's friend - a best friend, a real friend - and maybe one of the only ones she had. And Eva needed Noah. And it was up to her to get them together again. To save Eva. Hopefully to save both of them.
Nine minutes.
Izzy took off at a full run back the way she had come.
Eight minutes.
Seven minutes.
Her breathing came heavy, but she spurred herself onward.
Six minutes.
Now she was out and back in the city, hurtling down the street on the ends of her toes.
Five minutes.
The park was close, so close to where she had landed, and she was at the spot with four minutes to spare. Izzy breathed a sigh of relief, which immediately turned to a gasp of panic when she realized that her time machine was missing.
Three minutes.
There it was! A man in ragged clothes had apparently decided to use her cardboard box as his home. He had splotchy skin tinted almost green, and what little hair he had was stringy and sort of blond-brown.
Ezekiel?
Izzy made a mental note to look into getting that boy some proper help once she was back in her own time.
"Sorry, Zekie," she said, flipping the box over and spilling him out; he gave a low feral growl of surprise. "but I need this a whole lot more than you do right now, ha ha."
Two minutes.
Izzy dove into the box and pulled its flaps shut above her. On the other side, Ezekiel gave a second growl and lashed one hand against the side of her time machine. It moved slightly at the blow, of course, and he did it again. Thump. Thump.
"Zeke!" Izzy called to him, "Stop that! Or you might wreck my flight pattern!"
Thump. Thump. Thump.
One minute left.
Ezekiel clawed at the flaps of the box, and Izzy slammed his fingers with her fist. He whined and shoved again at her time machine. And again, sliding it across the ground.
Twenty seconds.
Ezekiel lifted up the edge of the box as if intending to roll it over. "Zeke!" Izzy shouted, "Not now! Get away! Stop it! Down boy, down!"
Ten seconds. Izzy crossed her fingers, praying that Beth remembered that she needed to hit the return button at exactly the right time in order to make it back to the present.
Five seconds.
Ezekiel gave a last snarl and shoved once more at the time machine. It tumbled a bit, Izzy squeezed shut her eyes.
Thump!
Blackness.
And then her eyelids went red, indicating an explosion on the other side. Izzy felt the box tumble a bit around her at Ezekiel's final attempt to dislodge her. Rainbows swirling in all directions like a blender. The dull, pulsing hum, rising louder and louder, a bit of spinning, more tumbling as the time machine struggled to find its proper course. It made her head ache. The colors were running together now. Strange colors, some of them a purplish green and others an orangey blue.
Once Izzy was sure she had landed back in Beth's kitchen, she finally pushed open the door to her time machine. The world seemed to spin around her, and she groaned and pressed one hand against her head as she tottered back onto solid ground.
"Um," said Beth uncertainly, "So did it work? Have they hooked up yet?"
… Huh?
Oh, the road trip. Had the trip to the hotel and the amusement park and the zoo worked to pair Eva and Noah up.
"No," Izzy said, the simple word making her head throb. "He's still dating that one really boring lady, and she's still a recluse living in her apartment. We'll have to keep trying."
Beth bit her lower lip. "Um, how… do you know? I mean, you didn't really… go anywhere, Izzy."
Izzy gave a tired smile. "Ha ha… That's what you think."
It was a long time before Izzy consulted her time machine again, but when she did she headed directly for the apartments on Ticket Street, this time taking the elevator straight to the seventh level. She knocked on the third apartment from the left (or the right, really, in this case) and was relieved when some random lady screamed at her for soliciting or something- Izzy wasn't really listening. Hopefully it meant that Eva and Noah were living together now.
Izzy took the elevator back down and was out as quickly as she had come. It took twenty minutes, but she finally did locate the two of them, perched on a bench together, talking and laughing and throwing marshmallows at the birds. One had a golden band on the ring finger, and the other did not. She decided to take it as a good sign nonetheless. Their friendship, at least, had obviously been restored.
It took thirty more minutes for Izzy to discover that in this future, Big Izzy had… changed. No more of that nonsense about 'I was so stupid as a teenager'. None of that. No, this Big Izzy still had plenty of craziness that she had never grown out of.
Because according to this future, Big Izzy was in jail.
Yeah, something to look forward to. It made her stomach churn every time she thought about it.
But at least… she had saved her two best friends in the world? That had been worth it.
… H-hadn't it?