Chapter Two - Time It Was And What A Time It Was

Well, it's obvious isn't it? A freak worm hole has opened up in the fabric of the space-time continuum. This seemingly insignificant woodcarving has been sucked back in time ten years to the bedroom of the infant Lynda Day. But what awesome celestial forces are behind this strange phenomenon? And what, Lynda, is their evil purpose? We shall have to act quickly to save the entire Universe! - Mr. Sullivan, English Teacher

Lynda Day, editor of The Junior Gazette, had been dreaming when suddenly she was awoke by a loud unearthly whooshing sound. Looking up, bleary-eyed, Lynda remembered the words of Mr. Sullivan as what seemed like a worm hole in the fabric of the space-time continuum appeared in her bedroom, directly above her, and proceeded to spit out dust, garbage and five bodies (covered in dust and garbage) on to her bed, which made creaking noises under the weight.

Fortunately as soon as she'd seen the unexplainable phenomenon, Lynda had leapt out of bed, thus avoiding the falling bodies. Rather than trying to comprehend what was happening, Lynda was furiously searching her room trying to find that camera she'd been given as a birthday present a few years beforehand. It took her less than a minute to locate it, but just before she had time to take a picture of the vortex, and also just before she would have realized that there was no film in the camera, the vortex vanished.

"Well, there goes the front page," she said to herself as her fingers reached for the telephone to dial Spike.

"Spike, come over here quick. No, skip the waking up bit, there isn't time. You're needed here! There's all sorts of weird stuff happening in my bedroom. I've just had all these strange filthy people drop in, and I don't think my bed can handle this much pounding. What? You'll be here? Straight away? Great."

That was remarkably easy, thought Lynda, as she turned her attention to her uninvited guests.

Willow had been spun round and round and round by the vortex, which, along with the occasional piece of garbage colliding with her head, had eventually resulted in her losing consciousness. Since then her brain had been busy dreaming. Now she saw a brown-haired girl in pyjamas leaning over her - it looked like it was going to be another one of those dreams. And then the girl spoke.

""Hello, my name's Lynda. Are you all right?"

"I've never had any complaints," Willow responded, and then she realized with horror that the girl had a British accent. Was she supposed to represent Giles? Or Wesley? What was this dream trying to tell her? And how come she was analyzing her dreams when usually she slept through them? And then she realized that it wasn't a dream.

At that moment, there was a knock at the door. As Lynda went away to let Spike in, Willow took the opportunity to drop back into unconsciousness.

"Hello again," said a concerned Lynda, waking Willow up once more. "Are you all right? You don't look in the best of shape."

"Where am I?" exclaimed a startled Willow, adjusting her eyes to the light. "I was just outside The Bronze and a twister picked me up."

"Hey, you're American," realized Spike Thompson, "So am I, I'm from N.Y."

"Phew, that's a relief, I was afraid I was in O.Z., then again I've never been in Oz, although conversely, Oz has ..."

And at this point, before she could finish her sentence, Willow, as a result of being spun around in the vortex for an immeasurable amount of time, threw up all over Lynda's pyjama bottoms.

While Lynda fumed, Spike, with a smile on his face, observed "Hey, you're speaking in tongues and throwing up. It's a good job your head's not spinning around or I'd think you were possessed."

"But it is," groaned Willow, and then threw up over Spike.

"We better get cleaned up," said Lynda. "When we come back we want some answers. Here, you can listen to some music while we're away."

Lynda placed a tape in her cassette player and "Shiny Happy People" came on.

"Great, I like REM's old stuff," Willow said to the departing Lynda.

"I think you'll find it's off their latest album," replied a patronizing Lynda, before closing the door behind her.

"Out Of Time," murmured Willow, as she suddenly realized that getting home wouldn't be the least bit easy.

For the next hour or so, having cleaned themselves up, Spike and Lynda went about reviving the rest of the vortex's passengers. This mainly consisted of whoever woke up moaning and groaning a lot (except Anya who was in her usual high spirits) and telling Spike that he wasn't Spike. Lynda found the Spike confusion amusing and found it incredible that two different people could be named after a cartoon dog.

Eventually everyone was awake, and everyone had had time to clean up.

Spike and Lynda stood up in her living room, in front of Willow, Dawn, Spike, Anya and Buffy who'd taken up all the available sitting space.

"So," pointed out Lynda matter-of-factly, "let's see if I've got this right. You come from Sunnydale, USA, in the year 2001, and somehow you've crossed time and space to end up here in Norbridge, UK, in the year 1991, and you all need to get home. Is that right?"

Everyone nodded.

"OK, that shouldn't be a big problem. Just wait here." And with that, Lynda Day left the room and started to get ready for work.

Meanwhile, twenty miles away an estate agent was in the final stages of renting a large house to an American lady who'd just arrived in the country. Trying to ignore her strange-looking companions, he handed over the two sets of house keys she'd requested.

The lady smiled as she looked at the keys in her hand.

"That's good - it's always nice to have a spare key," she said, straightening her red dress.