Hello, hello, hello! Sorry it's been a while. Been busy, as usual. Sigh.
Buuuut it's my birthday month! Yay! So excited about that!
Hope you like this new chapter!
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The door creaked open into a dark room.
"Tara? Are you in here?" Sam whispered.
"Yeah. I'm here."
Sam flipped the wall switch on.
There was Tara, lying on Sam's bed with her back facing the door.
Sam sighed, then walked towards the bed. She sat on the edge.
"I know I usually like all things dark, but I'd also like my room with just a little bit of light so I can see."
She tried to chuckle; Tara didn't move.
"Okay…uh…you know, the others are looking for you too. They'll be glad to know you're okay!"
"I miss home."
"Yeah," Sam said with a sigh. "I can imagine."
"…There's no place for me here in the past."
"What do you mean?"
Tara shot up into a sitting position facing Sam.
"I don't belong here! Here I am, chased out of my grandparents' home, with no place to go, so I run to my other grandparents' house, only to hide in a room and pretend I don't exist."
"I know the circumstances are…cruddy, to say the least. But we've just got to be patient…"
"I'm tired of being patient! I want to go home to my own bed, to my family who knows everything about me."
She turned back into her fetal position, facing away from Sam.
"It's lonely pretending I don't exist."
Sam could hear the faint sound of sniffling.
"Tara, I'm sorry. I'm sorry this happened to you. I'm sorry you feel like this. Unfortunately, we can't change anything. Even if we were to walk around, pretending you were some made-up person from Canada, we would be running the risk that someone, outside the four of us, remembering you. It could throw time off. Not to mention the chaos that could happen once people find out a time machine exists."
"I've ruined everything. You and Danny should've naturally and smoothly gone into marriage. I shouldn't have told anyone their futures; they should've figured it out for themselves. I've learned my lesson. I'll never disobey my dad again."
"Never is a really strong promise. Teens are notorious for breaking the rules."
Sam grabbed a tissue box from the night table next to her.
"Here," she said.
Tara turned her head. She sadly smiled and accepted it.
"Ugh, I'm sorry for being so whiny," she said, wiping her eyes. "It really could've been a lot worse. I'm just glad you guys accepted me."
"Hey, sometimes we've just got to cry it out."
Tara loudly blew her nose.
"I'm hungry," she muttered.
Sam laughed out loud.
"I'll bet. Let's grab something to eat."
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The Sun was halfway setting on the horizon, painting the sky orange with faint wisps of yellow. The teenage girls sat on top of a green hill, away from the town.
Tara took a second big bite out of her burger.
"Wow!" she said with her mouth full. "They were right! The Nasty Burger hasn't changed its formula in 25 plus years!"
Sam picked up a fry. "I can't believe I couldn't make you into a vegan, like me." She then tossed it into her mouth.
"Well, I am vegan at home. But I cheat when I'm with friends," Tara said with a laugh.
Sam shook her head, but smiled.
"Sam! Tara! Hey!" Danny called from above them.
He planted his feet on the ground and turned back to normal.
"I was looking all over for you guys," he said as he took his place next to Sam, his right shoulder leaning against her left.
"Oh, shoot! I forgot to text you! Sorry about that. I just made a quick stop at the Nasty Burger to get me and Tara something to eat. Wait, what about Tucker?"
"Yeah, where is he?" Tara asked.
Danny looked towards town. "Uh…"
They could soon hear someone panting from below them.
It was Tucker, huffing and puffing his way up the hill.
"There he is," Danny said sheepishly.
When Tucker finally made it up the hill, he bent over with his hands on his knees, gasping for air.
"Dude! …you totally…oh man, give me a sec here."
He inhaled deeply and then stretched his back into an upright position.
"Okay! Right, as I was saying…dude, you totally lost me back there!"
"I'm really sorry, Tucker. I didn't mean to."
"The next time you go, 'Hey! There they are!' you tell me exactly where 'there' is! And you give me a lift up the hill! I hate hills."
"Why? Because your vitamin-deficient body from lack of vegetables doesn't allow you to climb them?" Sam said, smirking.
"Hey! N-no!"
They laughed as Tucker finally sat down.
Suddenly, a metallic boomerang hit Tara on the back of her head.
"Gah!" she yelled and fell face first on the ground.
"Tara! Are you okay?" Sam exclaimed.
"Ow…" Tara quietly groaned.
"What was that?" Tucker said as he looked around.
Danny jumped up and scanned around.
A gray color practically screamed out to him from his peripheral vision.
"Danny, is that…the 'Boo-merang'?" Sam said as she watched him pick it up.
"…It is."
He held it in his hands, feeling the texture in his hands, and turning it over.
"But it's different. It looks busted."
Tara lifted her head.
"Wait. Let me see."
"It's heavy," Danny said as he carefully handed it to Tara.
"Yeah. I could feel that."
She inspected the front side of the boomerang, then flipped it over. She cocked her head to the side.
"There's a button here that says 'Press me'."
"I don't know if you should do it," Tucker said.
Tara gingerly pressed the faded red button.
A small ball of light slowly appeared at the tip of the boomerang. It then floated out and upwards towards the group, growing brighter and larger.
Then, a ringing tone.
"What's going on, Tara?" Danny said.
"I'm not sure," she murmured.
Suddenly, a click replaced the ringing sound.
"TARA!" a young girl's voice shrieked.
"Megan? MEGAN!" Tara screamed as she hopped up from her seated position.
She began to tear up. "Megan, it's me! It's me, Tara!"
"TARA! I missed you!"
"I've missed you so much, Megan!"
"Hey," Danny whispered. "Who's Megan?"
"Uh…my little sister."
"LITTLE SIS—"
Tucker quickly covered Sam's mouth.
"Tara, what was that?" Megan said.
"Uhhhh no one! No one! Forget about it!"
"Hmm…okey-dokey! Anyhoo, where have you been? You've been gone for days! Did you go on a trip? Why did you need the time machine? I wish you were here. Nes has been giving me the best days EVER! We went to the park, the zoo, we played dress up, and ooh! We even went into the city and got ice cream! You should've been here!"
"I know, I know. I'm so sorry for missing out, Megan."
"She hasn't been going to school. Nope! Just taking me to school and then playing with me the rest of the day!" She giggled.
Tara winced. "Oh. I feel really bad."
"Mommy and Daddy haven't been going to work either. They've been in the basement aaaaaaaall day!"
"Oh man. Now I feel awful."
There was a pause.
"…Mommy cried the other night. I think she misses you."
"Oh, no. I'm so, so sorry, Megan. I'll make this right somehow, I promise."
"Hey, you wanna hear a song I just learned in school today? F IS FOR FRIENDS WHO—"
"Megan? Are you down there?" a teenaged voice called.
"Guess who I'm talking to, Nes!" she said in singsong.
There was a sigh, then loud, slow footsteps.
"I leave you for five seconds to go to the bathroom…"
"VANESSA!" Tara screamed.
The footsteps stopped, then sprinted down the stairs.
"Tara? Is that you?"
"Heeeeeyyyy, I wasn't done singing my song!" Megan whined.
"Megan, go upstairs and find your parents. Tell them it worked!"
"What worked?"
"Never mind what, just GO!"
"Okay, okay! Sheesh!" There was a sound of tiny, quick steps.
"Tara! Oh my goodness, are you okay? What happened? Where are you? Were you trying to kill me or somethin'?!"
"I am SO sorry, Vanessa. I…"
"Do you have ANY idea what you've put me through?! I had to miss out on school, girl! I am so behind now! And when I'm not playing nanny with your sister, I'm building a new time machine with my dad and your folks!"
"Yikes."
"Yikes doesn't even begin to describe it. You owe me big time, girl. Oh, and congratulations. That girl Elle from your pre-calc class? Yeah, she told me Mrs. Dunham passed back the tests, and she saw you got an A-."
"Oh. That's not bad."
"Yeah, not bad at all. Hold on, I hear someone else coming down."
The tiny footsteps returned, along with larger strides.
"Oooooh!" Megan squealed. "Tara, you're in troubleeeee!"
"Vanessa, get Megan out of here. Please," a feminine, but firm voice said in the background.
"Ooh, girl. Your mom doesn't look too happy…"
Sam's eyes widened.
There were sounds of chairs shifting.
"Hello? Hello?" a woman's voice said clearly.
"Uh…Hey there, Mom…"
"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?!"
The entire group cringed at the sound of her mother's screaming.
"HOW could you do this to us?! Do you even have a clue about what kind of hell you've made us go through?! I raised you to be smart! I raised you to be better than this! Your father tells you the time machine is unfinished and unpredictable. ON WHAT PLANET is that the 'go-ahead' sign to use it?!"
"Mom, I'm…"
"Save it. Your dad's here."
There was a pause with some shifting sounds.
"Well," Tucker said. "Guess it's your turn to hear how you sound in the future, Danny."
Danny inched closer to the white sphere pulsating with each sound it plays.
Then, finally…
"Tara."
"Dad?"
"I'm not going to yell at you," the mature voice said calmly. "I want to. I could. But I'm not going to. I think your mom said everything I wanted to say. And I think she'll have plenty more to say to you when you get home."
"You'll be grounded FOREVER!" older Sam screamed in the background.
"Yeah, you're pretty much grounded for life, Tara."
Tara sighed. "I understand…"
"I'm just glad you're safe."
"How did you find me, Dad?"
"Well, it's been a long process. First, Tuck, your grandparents, and I tried to design a new time machine, while your mom went to find Clockwork for help.
The strange thing is she couldn't find him. Even his observer assistants were gone. His castle was empty."
"Wait, Dad, that doesn't sound good."
"It doesn't, and that's something I'll look into later. Right now, getting you home is my biggest priority.
So, like I was saying, she went there, couldn't find him, then returned home. And while she was gone, something really weird happened, but it helped me find you. I remembered."
"You remembered?"
"I remembered where you were."
Present Danny gasped. "Of course! Tara altered the time stream!"
There was a silence on the other end.
"Tara, is my younger self there with you?"
"What, you don't remember, Dad?"
"There seems to be a delay with my memory. It's the same thing with your mom and Uncle Tuck."
"Well, yeah, he's here. Along with Sam and Tucker. Or, rather, younger Sam and Tucker."
"Uh…hi?" present Danny said.
"Hey, Danny…er, younger me. This is really weird."
"It really is," present Danny chuckled.
"How much of the future has Tara altered?" present Sam asked.
"Oh, hi Sam. Wow, your teenage voice is something I haven't heard in a long time."
Tucker tried to cover his laughter.
"Anyway, to answer your question, it seems like she hasn't altered anything. Everything's the same."
"Dash?" Tara asked.
"Still a bum."
"…Mrs. Foley?"
"…That didn't change either, honey."
"I don't understand. Why?"
"I don't get it, either. Let's not think about that right now, though. I want to get to how we found you."
"Right. So?"
"So, as I was saying, I remembered. I ran upstairs and it turned out Tucker remembered too. Your mom told us she felt it while flying to Clockwork. When she came home and told us Clockwork wasn't there, we went straight to work on Plan B—going to the past with a new time machine and picking you up. The best thing would've been to have your mom sent to the past by Clockwork and get you that way.
Then Tucker had a brilliant idea to try to at least get in contact with you. We took the old Boo-merang and used the technology that would serve as the basics for the new time machine."
"So this Boo-merang is like a prototype."
"Exactly. We didn't need to throw it farther into the past and wait for it to catch up to you. We found a way to make it open a time portal and just go directly where it needs to go.
Now that we know it works, we're going to use that technology to build the time machine."
"So how much longer will I stay here?"
"That I'm not sure. I don't think it'll be much longer though, now that we've figured out the most complicated part. To build the rocket, I want to say…maybe a day or two?"
"A day or two? Perfect!"
"We'll be working the full 24 to 48 hours. I won't stop until you're safe and sound at home, Tara. Actually, it'll be more like safe and sound in your room without Wifi."
"NOOOO, Dad!"
"If you think that's bad," older Sam exclaimed, "I promise to have you on a strict schedule as part of your punishment. I will drive you to school and I will pick you up, like when you were in elementary school. And if Vanessa wants to hang out, it'll have to be over at our house."
"Aw, Mom! Please!"
"Don't you 'Aw, Mom' me!"
"Okay, okay, you two," older Danny said. "Tara, I'll see you at home soon. I promise."
"Okay, Dad. I love you."
"I love you too, hon. Your mom loves you too, you know, even if she's mad at you right now."
"I LOVE YOU VERY MUCH!"
"I love you too, Mom."
"Keep the Boo-merang. We'll contact you through that."
"'Kay. Bye, Dad."
"Bye, Tara."
The orb disappeared. There was silence between the four.
"Well," Tucker finally said. "That was an interesting phone call. How do you feel, Tara?"
He looked over at her, but she was just smiling at where the orb used to be.
"Uh, Tara?"
"I'm going home," she finally whispered.
She then jumped up and screamed louder.
"I'm going home!"
