"They seek each other all their weary days

And die unsatisfied-and this is Fate."

The class applauded and Keely sat down in her seat. "Good job, Keely. Very dramatic, very..." Ms. Donaldson was cut off as the bell rang. "Well then, Mr. Diffy, you're next to read a poem tomorrow. I hope you've started memorizing!" Phil nodded and grabbed his books to leave along with the rest of the class, including Keely. He caught up with her and took her books with his, as he does everyday, groaning with the weight of the texts.

"You did pretty good out there. That's a hard poem, but you had it down." He smiled, gasping under pressure.

"Thanks! It was so captivating; it almost had me in tears in front of the whole class."She paused. "Are you sure you've got that load?" Keely pointed to the stacks of homework in Phil's arms as he nodded.

"You ask that everyday, and everyday I've got it!" The human pack-mule sighed.

"Good, 'cause I've gotta jet to class, and I'd like it if you could hold some of these books. I only need French." The blonde picked up the lightest book from the top and waved to Phil as she skipped off to Room 521. Tia walked by short seconds afterwards and put her books on Phil's already-tilting burden and watched it almost fall to the ground, saved by a quick gesture by himself. "Tia, take your books back."

"What?" she pouted, taking her homework from his stack. "You carry Keely's books everyday. You must have a thing for her!" She flicked her wrists and headed off towards the French class as well. Phil jogged towards her.

"What do you mean by that? Keel's my best friend. There's nothing between us!"

"Phil, nothing could be more obvious! We all know your 'deep, dark secret'." She giggled.

"My secret! You know! Oh, boy, oh, boy..." Phil choked.

"Don't wig out, Diffy. I was talking about you practically in love with Keely?"

"Oh...what? But, I'm not...I'm-" Phil rambled as Tia put two fingers to his lips. "Don't try and hide it. We women can just read these things. Except Keely...she doesn't seem to know." She watched Keely from afar, naive, young Keely. "Veuillez m'excuser... d'être en retard, Madame Peters. J'étais...occupé." Keely said, rolling the words right off her tongue with little difficulty. Phil looked back at Tia.

"Do I really love her?" Phil asked aloud. Tia nodded. "I've gotta go." Phil ran towards the men's restroom and took a long, thin wand out of his pocket. A quick push of a button and, waving it over himself, he became invisible and fled from the school.


"You are moving through the crowd..." Keely sang out as the phone rang. She let it ring, trying to polish off the song, but it rang ten times before she lost patience and picked it up.

"Keely, look up..." A rasp voice whispered. Keely looked to her room's upper wall. "I see a ceiling. Is this Phil?"

"Go to the window, then look up." The tone became hasty. Keely walked to the glass panes and checked to the sky. "Keely" Dark clouds spelled out in the obscure, rainy night sky. She gasped, then looked to the ground. A Skyak was upside down on the grass, in plain view. She looked to the right and saw Phil's feet swinging. "Phil?" She opened the windows and stepped onto the sill. "Don't look down, Keel." Phil said to her and smiled, with a cell phone in his hand. He hung up, put it away, took out his arms and took her hands, pulling her up to the rooftop.

"Tadowsers." Keely said, sitting near the gutter and looking out. "I've never seen the neighborhood from my roof before." She seemed amazed, but that mood changed quickly. "Why are you up here?" She turned to him. Phil promptly put up a meek smile and merely nodded towards the sky where the silver clouds stuck out. "I sorta fell at the last minute, but don't worry, your chimney broke my fall."

"You did that? Up there? Oh, Phil..." She bit her lip. "It's amazing, but I know your intent...we can't be..." She sighed. "One day, you'll have to leave, and everything that we had will be gone." She swept a hand over the sky. "If we stay best friends, we'll have something that will live on. But we can't have a romance...we just can't do it." She put her head on his shoulder. "You know, I've always liked you. I don't mean I like you like I like Tia, or my guitar. I mean 'like love'. You understand. It's a LOT like love." She giggled slightly. "But I know that if we were ever going to have something between us, then we'd both have to be commitment free. And like it or not, you have a commitment between you and your family: to get back home."

"But the 22nd century isn't my home. It could never be. A home is a place where you feel you belong. Where you're comfortable, where you are sound." Phil put an arm on her shoulders. "I belong with you. There's no other place like this." He put his lips to her cheek. She blushed a bright red that glowed as the letters in the sky started to part and were no longer legible.

"You're gonna have to leave." Keely sighed.

"Not if my dad doesn't fix the time machine." Phil whispered in her ear.

"No, I mean now. We've gotta go. It's a school night." She pointed out.

"Oh." His voice stiffened. There was an awkward silence as no one moved. The rain hit the gutter hard.

"I'm kind of stuck." He grinned ineptly.


There was little said between Keely and Phil the next day at school. They walked together, but no one said anything until Keely broke the silence:

"I might need my English book."

"Oh, yeah." Phil walked to his locked and opened it up as many books fell out of it as a mighty avalanche would, piling over him. She kneeled down, picked up a big black book and stiffly went to class. Tia walked past a mute Keely and crouched down to a text covered Phil. "What'd you do to her?"

"I tried to woo her." He said, lying on the floor. Tia picked up three books and put them back in his locker.

"What'd you do that for? You should have tried to make her be your girlfriend!"

"That's what 'woo' means!" Phil was exasperated. "I don't see why...I thought she said she liked me back...I thought she said she loves me."

"She does." Tia smiled. "Maybe you've gotta appeal to her senses. Tell her what she wants to hear."

"Thanks, Tia." He said, pulling books off himself and handing them to Tia to put on his locker shelf. "Wait a second, why didn't you tell me she loved me before!"

"I don't like to ruin endings for people." Tia giggled and picked up the final book from the floor as Phil stood up. "Hey, that was witty! I should remember that!" She tore a piece of paper from the book and took out a pen, scribbling her words on it. "Well, bye! Don't be late for English!" She skipped off with Phil's book.

"Wait...English...my poem...that's it!"

"Ms. Donaldson, I believe it was my turn to go next." Phil said with sophistication.

"Yes, Phillip, please,go ahead." Phil walked up to the front of the class. He bit his lip and put his hands in his pockets. "Um, this is a poem by Lord Byron, written in...a long time ago." Everyone laughed...but Keely. She kept a fixed, emotionless gaze to the chalkboard beside him. "It's called 'She Walks In Beauty'." Keely's attention was now waived. She was rendered weak.

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies."

Keely mouthed 'Oh my gosh'. "He loves me...way more than I thought." She whispered, hardly audibly at all.

"One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
How pure and dear their dwelling-place.

"And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tells of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent."

Everyone was silent, then bursts of giggles spread out everywhere.

"What a loser!"

"Who'd he pick that poem for?"

"I bet he let his girl friends pick that out for him and everything, too!"

Phil slumped out of class, defeated by his own charm. The teacher didn't do a thing, but someone did:

"Can I have a pass to the restroom, Ms. Donaldson?"


Keely ran to Phil's locker and took a small remote out of her purse. She pushed a big red button and the cabinet opened immediately. "Phil? I know you're here." She stuck her hand into the small space and grabbed a 5-inch Phil by the hood of his jacket. She let him off at his shelf, where they could talk at eye level.

"Fine, you got me. I should have never given you that Locker Genie. I've probably got to go soon anyhow, so just leave me be. I'm sure that I've got no intent of staying here." He scowled, turned around and sat down, his back to her.

"Phil Diffy, don't make me squish you." Keely said, grinning, then getting serious once more. "That was really beautiful, the poem, you know? I-I had no idea..." Her voice trailed off.

"Yeah, well, it won't last. I was trying to make things up to you, for us... mostly for you. But of course, you're not going to care. Because I'm gonna leave. My dad hardly tinkers with the RV anymore. Who knows if we're ever going back? Oh, wait." He sat up and faced her. "Keely Teslow does. The Teslow that I thought was a risk taker. The one who'd give it all for one thing. But I understand. That I'm not that important to you. That everything that I've done for your sake was a waste of time! You can leave now. You're the one wasting time right now. When I get home, I'm gonna work on the time machine, and I'll probably fix it. And then I can leave, and not have to deal with this mess anymore." Keely's mouth was open the whole time, in total shock.

"G-goodbye, Phil." Her voice cracked as she ran out of H.G. Wells. The words echoed through the hallway as Phil turned around. His eyes flickered as he realized what he said, and as the bell rang, he jumped onto the locker door, closed it, and gave himself a mental note to page Pim and tell her to open this thing.


"Mom, I don't wanna talk!" Keely screamed down the steps with cold, ungrateful, piercing green eyes. "Leave me alone!" She slammed the door shut as Ms. Teslow sighed and muttered something under her breath. Keely sat down on her rug and took out a shoebox from beneath her bed. She ran through pictures of her and her mom, her late father, and her old Chow-Chow, Fritz, before she rested on pictures of her and her best friend.

Them at the dance, with Phil acting crazy and Keely just laughing.

Them washing the side of the Teslow house, after a horrific incident involving Curtis and spray cheese.

And a whole 30 pictures of them at Christmastime. Her mother went out of town for a Realtor's Convention that she couldn't back out of, so she spent Christmas week at Phil's house, bunking with Pim. They were in various poses, one in particular that she could remember quite vividly. They were going to have a picture taken of them hugging when Mrs. Diffy put up a mistletoe between them. They refused to kiss, so Pim took out a stick of lipstick and made lip-marks all over Phil's neck and face. They'd taken the picture with the mistletoe in view, and usually that would have made her laugh, but it made nothing but angry things pop into her head. She stuffed the pictures under her bed and sighed, letting tears wash down over her face.

Phil came to stop on Keely's house. He put his fingers on the doorbell, until he remembered how cruel he was, and how she's probably not answer at all. He took out his WZRD and zapped his hands and feet. He rested one palm on the side of the house, letting it stick well before he put his other hand, having it bind to the surface. He climbed up the side of the house, perching on the sill of the window. He looked inside the panes to see Keely's back as she practically whispered:

Sometimes I feel like crying,

Laying down and dying:

That's when I need you.

Laughing's always easy,

But sometimes I'm just scared

You'll leave me.

That's when I feel

Emotional.

He remembered the song from 'Keely's Top Ten', a CD he burned for her. He turned himself invisible with his Invisi-spray again before humming out:

Sometimes I get emotional.

Sometimes I do some stupid things.

Sometimes I say

What I should just keep inside.

Keely looked around for the source of the song before she sang again.

Sometimes I'm sad

'Bout everything.

Sometimes I'm mad,

And break some things.

Sorry times ten,

But you just got in the way.

Don't give up now running away;

I won't hurt you.

Sometimes I'm just a pain

And that's the way it is.

That's just the way I am.

Sometimes I feel like crying,

Laying down and dying:

That's when I need you.

Laughing's always easy,

But sometimes I'm just scared

You'll leave me,

That's when I feel

Emotional.

You say I'm just impossible.

Totally unpredictable.

I'm just a girl get used to it,

No big deal.

Phil opened the window and stepped in. He came behind Keely and began to sing along again.

You can't change me.

Why would you try?

I'm no angel,

But I can make you smile.

And that's the way it is.

And that's just the way I am.

Keely turned around and Phil became seeable. She bit her lip, turned around and cried. Phil sat behind her and wrapped his arms around her. He stroked her arm as she wept, him still singing quietly.

Sometimes I feel like crying,

Laying down and dying:

That's when I need you.

Laughing's always easy,

But sometimes I'm just scared

You'll leave me.

That's when I feel

Emotional

Don't give up now running away;

I won't hurt you.

Sometimes I'm just a pain

And that's the way it is.

That's just the way I am.

Sometimes I feel like crying,

Laying down and dying:

That's when I need you.

Laughing's always easy,

But sometimes I'm just scared

You'll leave me

That's when I feel...

Sometimes you get emotional...