"Jules, Jules!" Clara caught her son as he fell asleep. "It's all right, Clara, he's just shocked. We should let him sleep, and he'll be as good as new tomorrow."

"This is the strangest thing I have ever heard," Verne said. "Who would want to go out with Karla?"

Chapter Five:

Jules knocked on the Sutfining's door early the next morning, wanting to get this over with as quickly as possible. He gulped as the doorknob turned, and Bill the Fifth stepped out onto the stairs, looking down at Jules. He was just as tall as Bill the First, and just as strong. He wondered if he was stuffed in lockers in this timeline.

"What do you want, Twerp?" Bill said, leaning against the doorframe and crossing his arms.

"Well, he still calls me Twerp." Jules thought. He tried to stand as tall as he could, then he looked down at the paper he had. "Is your sister here?"

"Yeah. What's it to you?"

"I... uh..."

"You know, I don't even care, Twerp. Get in here." Bill pulled Jules in and pushed him through the dirty hallway, horrid kitchen, the stinking living room, up the broken stairs, and into a blank room where Karla was sleeping in a torn and broken bed. Jules stared at her and her room, feeling horrible. How had he done this to her?

She looked basically the same as he remembered her, only now she had more of a resemblance to her brother. Her long hair was a tangled mess, and most of her clothes looked old and torn.

"Karla..." he was about to say, but Bill yelled suddenly at the same time. "HEY SIS, GET UP!" he roared, reminding him of all the screaming Bill the First had done. Karla sat straight up in her bed, trying to focus her eyes on who was standing in front of her. "All right, all right, I'm up."

Jules watched her walk across the room to a dresser, noticing that she shook a little bit when she walked. She took out a brush and tried to brush her hair, but it did no good.

"Twerp is here to see you." Bill said, pushing Jules into the room so hard that he stumbled. Bill laughed, shook his head, then he left. Jules watched him with a glare, and then he turned back to Karla, only to realize that she had shrunk against the wall and was staring at him with the widest eyes he had ever seen.

"Uh... hi Karla." Jules croaked. "I uh... just came here to ask you some questions about a school project." She didn't move. "Uh... I thought maybe we could go to the library to do it..." she slowly began to nod as if she understood. He felt her hand go on his chest, where she started to push him outside. For a moment he didn't understand what she was doing, but when she shut the door in his face, he realized she needed to get dressed.

In the hallways were pictures of the family, though it looked to Jules as if they had been hit many times and weren't cared for. Nothing in the house looked cared for. He studied the pictures but all he saw were pictures of Karla looking upset and the rest of the family looked quite happy. There were no old pictures from 1885.

Jules was quite shocked when the door opened again and Karla came out, putting a finger to her lips to tell him to be quiet. Her messy hair was tied back, and she was wearing clothes that clashed horribly.

They tip-toed down the stairs and out the front door without bumping into any other Sutfining family members. They headed to a run down car, which Jules climbed in the seat next to Karla. It was killing him to see her like this. She wouldn't even look at him.

"What do you need to ask?" she finally said after many minutes of driving in silence. Jules was snapped out of his thoughts, and for a moment didn't know what she meant.

"Oh... I need to know about your family history." He said, surprised to hear her snort.

"You're just wasting your time. You don't want to know about us."

"Well, I need to. I mean I really NEED to." Jules pressured her into agreeing to give him as much information as she could. When they got in the library she finally agreed.

"I drove all the way here, why not?" She told him to sit down while she walked to the other side of the room. Jules started to tap his fingers on the table, thinking it would take a long time, but it actually took no time at all. She was back in a matter of minutes, with a stack of books.

"How many books are there?" Jules blurted out, looking at the many stacks.

"We're a big family." She said, frowning.

"Oh... well, I just need to know about the first Sutfinings in America." Jules watched her glare at him and roll her eyes, which made him feel ever worse. In this timeline, Karla seemed to loathe him. She brought all the books back except two, and then she sat down in the chair across from him and started to read a passage from one of the books.

"Bill Sutfining was the only child of John and Kathy Sutfining, born in 1869. In 1890 he married Kayla-"

"Wait wait!" Jules interrupted as he heard Kayla's name. "Why did he marry Kayla?"

Karla looked at him over the book with a sad and tired look, with anger mixed in with it. She always had that look on her face now. "I don't know! I heard a story once from my mother but I didn't believe her."

"What was the story? Please tell me!" Jules begged and begged, thinking she wouldn't tell him.

"All right, all right! You don't need to be such a baby!" she snapped. "My mother said that they were at a party where she was supposed to punch him out, but she was trying to help a friend escape because he was going to beat him up or something and to distract him she kissed him for the first time." Karla rolled her eyes. "It sounds crazy to me. Who cares about some stupid kiss?" she started to ramble to herself. "She never liked him before, but he had a huge crush on her."

"Is... is that all you know?" Jules asked, his voice shaking. He never thought he would cause this much trouble when he went back in time.

"I'm afraid so. Why are you so interested in this particular price of my history?" she arched an eyebrow up at him.

"Uh, well, I'm really interested in the 1800s..." he said. "Sometimes it feels like I was born then."

She snorted. "Right." She shook her head and started to look through the pages again. He watched her for a few minutes, but then he started to lower in his chair until he was under the table. He had to get out and get back to fix this place as soon as possible, and, to be honest, he didn't feel like staying in a room with this new Karla any more. He crept across the floor and over to the doorway, relieved that he had made it without attracting attention. He quickly was proven wrong.

"HEY! Where are you going?" he heard her shout. Without looking over his shoulder he darted up the stairs and back into the parking lot. Without looking left and right he crossed the street, barely noticing the car coming towards him.