That day, I hurried to one of the buildings, where I saw my friends, Nika and Lifi. "I hear there was a stranger here this last week," said Lifi.

"A stranger?" I asked. Then I realized who she was talking about. "Oh, you mean the Time Traveler!"

"You know him?" asked Lifi. She and Nika were looking at me strangely.

"Yes, Lifi, I know him," I answered. "He just left this morning. Why do you ask?"

"Well, Weena, have you heard of the legend of the Little Thinker?" asked Nika.

"The Little Thinker?" I repeated. "No, I haven't."

So Nika and Lifi explained it to me.

"The Little Thinker," Nika began, "was an Eloi with a vivid imagination. One day, when she was eight years old, she was having trouble swimming when a stranger came and rescued her."

As Nika explained this, I remembered the river and how the Time Traveler came to my rescue.

"The Thinker was fond of the stranger," Lifi continued, "but then one night they decided to sleep out in the open. Then the Morlocks attacked. The stranger, thinking the Little Thinker was dead, decided to leave without her."

As Lifi told this part of the story, I pictured the Time Traveler in my mind, leaving me behind in the forest and searching for what he called his Time Machine.

"Eventually, however," continued Nika, "the stranger, thinking that perhaps the Little Thinker was still alive, came back to look for her."

In my mind, I could picture the Time Traveler coming back in his Machine to look for me.

"Then more strangers came," added Lifi, "each one having something very strange about them! Some had red noses and strange ears, and were covered in dark hair, others had no arms."

I pictured the other strangers in my mind. They did, indeed, look very strange.

Nika continued the story from there. "One night, the Morlocks didn't bother coming to snatch any Eloi. That night, they slept instead."

"The next day," continued Lifi, "the Little Thinker was found by one of the new strangers. This new stranger brought the Thinker with him to where he had come from, but not before showing her to the original stranger."

I could picture one of the new strangers finding me and bringing me to the Time Traveler, then bringing me with him to where he'd come from. Or maybe when he'd come from. Maybe this new stranger had traveled through time as well! I had to learn more. "Tell me about the Little Thinker," I told Nika and Lifi.

"Well," said Nika, "as was mentioned before, the Thinker was an eight-year old Eloi girl with a vivid imagination. However, no one knows who she was or when she lived."

This got me thinking. If no one knew when the Little Thinker lived, could it be that the events of the legend haven't happened yet? Could the legend of the Thinker have been written by the Time Traveler, or perhaps some other stranger who had visited 802,701 during or after those events?

Another thing got me thinking, too: the similarity of the legend and my experience. The Thinker was rescued by a stranger when she was swimming. So was I. The Thinker had been left for dead by the stranger. So had I. Not only that, Nika described the Thinker as an eight-year-old Eloi girl with a vivid imagination! That described me exactly! I wondered if, perhaps, I was the Little Thinker!

After all this, I went to see if the Time Traveler had returned.


So now you know where I got the fic's title from. But did you notice the BFDI reference I put in?

If you didn't, I'll tell you where it is. It has to do with Lifi's name. You see, her name is pronounced like "Leafy". That's right, like Leafy from BFDI.

As you might have figured out, I imagine Weena as being around eight years old. In case you don't know, this fic is based on the book, not any of the movies.

In the next chapter, will Weena find out whether or not she really is the Little Thinker? Stay tuned to find out!