Things had been going great lately, Jay thought. After the day that Summerton won at the football game, it seemed that Virgil had a spring to his step because he got back into contact with his old friends. Jay felt happy for him, she really did, and she believed that things couldn't get better than they were now. She was getting along really well with Zeke and it seemed that Charlie was tolerating Jeanette a little more than usual.
PE was as boring and time consuming as always, but it felt fantastic to Jay. That's how cheerful she was, PE (the crappiest class at school) was now freaking awesome. Her class had taken a timed race and Jay improved by a lot. She was hot and sweaty when she went in the locker room, but she didn't care.
Before she knew it, she was dressed and out in the hall. The sound of cruel laughter made her whip around and the sight made her freeze. There was an average girl—average as in not a walking stereotype—that had obviously come out of the locker room after Jay. Her tan jeans had big red stains in the front and in the back, every teenage girl's NIGHTMARE. While some girls wore sympathetic expressions, the crueler ones whipped out their phones and snapped a few pictures before the girl zipped back into the locker room.
Crap, I need to start carrying a sweater again, Jay scolded herself, finding the courage to go into the locker room after the girl.
"E-Excuse me," she heard a timid, anxious voice say. "I wanna—"
"Oh I'm sorry, are we in your way?"
Jay turned a corner and saw the situation. A group of girls were blocking the way to go to the bathroom stalls. The victim had to choose to cover either her rear end or the front side.
One of the girls caught sight of Jay. "Uh, can we help you?"
Jay had never felt more disgusted with herself than when she turned her head away and muttered, "No."
She turned and left. A numb feeling made her walk in a dazed fashion until suddenly, she found herself all alone in the halls. She was such a coward. If she couldn't help ONE girl, she didn't deserve the second chance Zeke and the others gave her the day they stopped her from falling off of her skateboard. How could she just ABANDON someone in need like that? Jay couldn't even begin to imagine what those girls had done to the victim.
She kept telling herself that she didn't deserve to be friends with people as nice as Virgil, Charlie, Zeke or Jeanette. Now THEY would have done something without backing off. Maybe their presence in the locker room would have created some major fan-girling; a distraction for the victim to escape.
Jay's eyes went wide as her brain put two and two together.
Excited, she pulled out her phone and texted Jeanette as she ran out of the school to get some supplies.
…
"Guys I have the next mission!" Jay said before she entered the basement. Luckily, Jeanette was already there with a box that hopefully had Jay's request. Virgil was still absent, but everyone knew he was going to show up a little later.
"It looks like we're going to have a double shift today," Zeke said, pushing himself off of a pillar. "We need to go back to help this kid get rid of some toilet paper."
Jay frowned. "Huh?"
"This guy came out of the bathroom with some toilet paper stuck in his pants," Zeke explained. "He was laughed at as soon as everyone got out of class."
"How are we going to do this then?" Jay asked. "Because the one that I had in mind is going to be…different."
"How so?" Zeke said.
Jay shared a look with Jeanette before answering. "Jeanette and I have to go back to stop it."
She received two surprised expressions.
"Hold on," Charlie held up a hand. "YOU and JEANETTE are going to go back in time and become Minute…girls?"
"Trust me, you aren't going to want to take care of this one," Jay warned. "It's going to require you to go into the girls' locker room to take care of some girl business."
It was then that Virgil showed up, opening and closing the heavy door with a loud creak. He went into the main gathering space. "Hey guys, so what did I miss?"
"Jay and Jeanette are going to go back today," Zeke said shortly.
"What?" Virgil frowned in confusion.
Jay snapped up a hand. "Girl business."
"Hmm…Sounds like we're going to have to split up," Virgil said, walking over to the small group. "Of course, one of us will have to stay—"
Charlie's reply was immediate. He sat down at the computer. "Okay, I'll monitor the machine. You guys have fun."
Smirking, Virgil looked at the remaining three. "Since there are two missions, we'll go in two's. Me and Zeke. Jay and Jeanette. We'll go complete the missions and we'll go back to basement as soon as we're done."
"Think you can handle it?" Zeke asked them. "Don't forget we have the school guards AND the newspaper reporters after us."
Jay and Jeanette shared a look.
"We can do it."
"All right then," Virgil said. "Let's suit up."
…
The girls finally understood how the snowsuits came in handy; jumping through the vortex was freezing cold! Other than that and a quick shake of their heads to get rid of the dizziness, the girls felt fine. As the four were leaving the basement, Virgil was telling them to avoid running into their past selves.
"You can see each other if you happen to cross paths, just don't touch each other," Virgil said.
"Got it," Jay nodded, making a mental note to avoid her past self in the locker room.
They were coming around a corner when they saw a glimpse of a school guard. They immediately ducked back around the corner and peered around every few seconds to see when the guard would leave. They reached the point where they needed to split up, but Zeke was hesitant about letting the girls go off on their own.
"Just get to the basement as quickly and safely as you can," he told them. Before the girls departed he snagged Jay's arm, his steel blue eyes staring into hers intensely. "Be careful. Don't let the guards catch you or all hell will break loose."
With a final nod, Jay and Jeanette were on their way to the locker room. Jay was careful with her messenger bag, keeping it from shaking it too much to keep her supplies safe. She tried to think of a way to get Jeanette out of the locker room so she wouldn't see the carton of eggs she brought along on the trip. Since she couldn't come up with one, she decided to be extra cautious when it came time to use them.
Careful to keep the carton hidden, Jay pulled it out and handed the messenger bag to Jeanette. "Here, find a locker with tan jeans and put it in there. It has extra clothes and a handful of you know, pads."
Jeanette bobbed her head excitedly. "Okay."
She left Jay scanning the lockers, trying to identify the ones that belonged to those bullies. It took her a while, but when she found them she opened the lid to the eggs. "It's payback time."
"All right! I'm…done," Jeanette came skipping back. Jay wasn't fast enough to hide the carton and Jeanette saw them. "What are those for?"
"Um—Th-These? They're nothing really," Jay stammered, quickly closing the lid and hiding them behind her back. Jeanette looked at her in confusion, sadness but most importantly, distrust. Jay couldn't stand that expression for one reason: Jeanette had been her first friend. Everything that's happened, this incredible life, was made possible because of Jeanette's persistence to join a club that one day. The thought of losing her as a friend made Jay feel like an ungrateful prick.
She sighed, bringing the eggs to the front again. "I was going to…egg the bullies' lockers."
Jeannette was appalled but Jay also detected a sense of disappointment. "We represent the Minutemen and they stop injustices before they happen. They don't cause them. If we were to get even…we wouldn't be any better than they are."
She turned and slowly began to walk away. "Don't disgrace them," she added sadly before leaving the locker room.
The five minute bell rang, meaning that the girls from the gym would come barging in any second. If there were any last second attempts to get revenge, now would be the time. But Jay merely sat down and looked at the eggs.
...Jeanette was right. What was the point of coming back in time if more problems would be made than solved? Those girls did deserve some kind of punishment, but it wasn't Jay's right to dish it out. She just had to do her best to avoid it and help others do the same.
Sighing, Jay left the eggs at the bench just as the locker room door was slammed open. Jolting back into action, she ran out to the halls before the girls got a glimpse of her.
…
"Jeanette!" Jay ran as quickly as she could without attracting too much attention. "Jeanette!"
"Yeah?"
The girls almost ran into each other around the corner.
"Oh, geez!" Jay exclaimed. She set a hand on her shoulder. "Let's go before I go back to do it."
She was tackled in a bear hug.
"What the-?!"
"I knew you were a keeper," Jeanette said.