5

A former actor named Ronald Reagan was in the White House. Every girl wanted to be Cyndi Lauper while every guy lusted after Madonna. The top TV shows on television were Knight Rider, the A-Team and The Cosby Show. Girls wore layered clothing, and the guys sported mullets and talked about the seven things George Carlin could not say on the radio. Eddie Murphy was going to be a big movie star while the Material Girl and Wham hit the charts. Country music wasn't cool again yet. Justin looked across the sub shop done over in a Fifties motif. His father was still just an employee at the counter to the previous owner, Jack Hennessy, who lived upstairs in the loft in this time. Max ogled the girls around him swarming the modern Eighties burger joint that would someday be the Waverly Sub Shop. Alex felt herself snubbed by girls who would be the mothers of her future classmates. Connie Evans waited tables as Jerry Russo managed the counter.

"Justin…" Alex looked round. "What happened?"

"I think we got sent back in time."

"Well, duh!!!" Max stayed near his brother as girls wore attire based on that of Madonna or Pat Benatar. Now he knew why the Eighties never lasted; they looked like idiots, but now he realized what it looked like when girls imitated Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera.

"Oh my god…" Alex looked to the counter. "Dad never told us he had a mullet!"

"Hamburger and fries…" At the counter, twenty-year old Jerry Russo passed out another order. He shined happily as a young earnest hard-working young man hoping to someday open his own restaurant. Well, either that or become a rock star with Kelbo, his older brother. He wiped down the counter of spilled soda and excess ketchup. He looked up to the young man staring at him.

"Welcome to Bob's Big Boy…." He shined toward Justin. "Would like to try the curly fries. They're new!"

"I'm not crazy about curly fries." Justin admitted.

"Who doesn't like curly fires?" Jerry chuckled at him a bit. "I bet you listen to your parents all the time too."

"He sure does!" Alex laughed at her brother.

"Wow…" Jerry turned his attention to her. "You're like one of the prettiest girls I've ever seen. You got a boyfriend?"

"Not seriously…" Alex flirted a second before catching herself. "But you know…." She started hiding behind her brother. "Oh my god, did dad just make a pass at me?"

"So…" Max was looking over two Madonna wanna-be's. He checked out their bodies up and down. "Underwear on the outside. I like it!" Justin jerked him back from the socializing.

"Dad, you got to help us!" Jerry faced his young father point blank.

"What did you call me?"

"I called you dad." Justin told him. "We're wizards just like you, and we're also your kids from the future."

Twenty year-old Jerry Russo stared disbelievingly at this crazy kid a second.

"Is this a joke?" Jerry forced a grin. "Old Spence from Wiz Tech send you guys, right? He's always testing me!"

"No, it's real!" Justin grabbed his young father by the apron as a few diners moved away. "You tried to send my future sister back to the future, but instead of sending my future sister back to the future we your future kids got sent back to this time from the future, got it?"

"No." Alex didn't get it.

"Yes…" Jerry did get it. "You're my future kids?"

"Yes…."

"What? Who? How? Why?" Jerry looked around the restaurant full of customers. "Wizards aren't allowed to time-travel; it's against the rules!" He whispered clandestinely to them over the counter.

"We know, but there were mitigating circumstances." Justin explained. "It's all her fault!"

"My fault!" Alex snapped at her brother. "It was future me's fault! I had nothing…" The two of them started bickering between them. Max just rolled his eyes, and Jerry was left to just listen to them. Were they really his kids? Right now, becoming a swinging bachelor for the rest of his life was looking better and better.

"Ow!!!" Justin, Alex and Max suddenly felt splitting migraine headaches in unison. "My head hurts!"

"Mine too." Max reacted. "It feels like…"

"An ice pick through the back of your eyes." Jerry asked.

"Yeah…" Justin answered.

"That's because you guys shouldn't be here!" Jerry looked round and gestured them to the empty end of the restaurant under the spiral staircase. "You guys' being here has sent a ripple through time. It's affecting the future and what affects my future affects your past. You're going to start forgetting your past, and then…"

"And then what…." Alex rubbed her head.

"Well, no one is exactly sure." Jerry looked at the three of them. "Some wizards think you just wink out, others think you just forget your past from a future that never existed. I mean, how can you cease to exist if ceasing to exist means you were never around to screw up time to begin with. I gotta tell you, temporal mechanics can be a major headache."

Justin looked at him.

"Pun not intended." Mullet-topped young Jerry added. "If anything, you get stuck in a loop until the sequence of events is fixed."

"Well," Alex looked around the future Waverly Place Sub Shop. "Why don't you just send us back to the future?"

"Say it like the movie!" Max requested.

"What movie?" Jerry reacted confused. "Because I don't get off schedule until five o'clock. I'll have to blow off my date with Theresa to send you guys home."

"Mom???" Justin and Alex and Max looked at each other and exchanged glances.

"Theresa Rodriguez is going to be your mother?" Jerry stepped aback and walked around in a circle absorbing this new knowledge. "Oh my god, I didn't think I really had much of a chance with her. I mean, heh…" He tapped Justin confidently. "She's like a major babe!"

"She is?" Justin grinned then changed attitude. "Wait a second, that's our mom! Look, we can't change history! Take mom out and then send us back afterward!"

"I don't want to stay in this time." Alex sniped a bit. "Everyone is just so…. Eighties!"

"This is the Eighties!" Max pointed out.

"Look…" Jerry was torn between doing the right thing and tending to his duty as an employee. He looked so weird with the short hair in front and the long hair in back. MacGyver he wasn't. "Sit here in back and I'll bring you guys some burgers. I'll send you home after your mother... I mean, Theresa and I see The Empire Strikes Back."

"The Empire Strikes Back?" Justin beamed ear-to-ear. "In a theater? Oh man, I so gotta see that! Can I get popcorn with you guys?"

"Sit in a theatre and watch our teenaged parents making out?" Alex looked back at her brother as she slid into a booth. "I don't think so!"

"Alex…" Justin's sci-fi geek was showing. "This is The Empire Strikes Back. It's in a theater! It's not like seeing it on TV with commercial interruptions."

"Yeah…" Max sat on the empty side of the table. "It's so much more cooler to hear Darth Vader claim to be Luke's father in surround sound." He reacted sarcastically.

"Darth Vader is Luke's father?!!!" Jerry reacted stunned by that piece of advice. Justin looked back ashamed for spilling the news, then fixed it by placing his hand on his future father's shoulder.

"You are so going to love Return of the Jedi…"