For dinner, Stuart made chicken casserole for two. The preparation was fairly simple, actually, since most of the ingredients came in the package, but it was one of his mother's favorites. She didn't always leave the mall in time to have dinner with him, but the casserole would reheat well. On that night, her timing was nearly perfect – her aging gray Volvo pulled into the driveway just as the oven timer ticked down to four minutes. In spite of the strange and somewhat unpleasant day he was having, Stuart felt himself smiling widely. He busied a few moments tidying up the area while she made her way inside.
"Hey there, kiddo!" she called, stepping into the kitchen, carrying a pair of overflowing grocery bags. Her nose crinkled as she took in the kitchen scene. "Aww, you made dinner already! I was going to cook tonight!"
Stuart took one of the paper bags from her, set it on the counter, and began unloading its contents into the fridge. "That's okay," he said mildly. "You can let me cook for you tonight."
She made a noise somewhere between a sign and a laugh. "Okay, then." She spoke quietly, like she had more to say but had decided against it. After the groceries were unloaded, she went upstairs to change out of her work clothes and soon sat across from Stewart at the kitchen table, wearing her "house clothes" - old sweat pants and a long sleeved Pennbrook t-shirt.
Marla Minkus was the youngest mother in Stuart's class by a few years. She'd been married right out of high school, and her first child arrived a little earlier than expected. Now, as a single woman with a twelve year old son and a hefty mortgage, she only showed her age under her eyes. She had a pale, round face with a slightly pointed nose. When her hair was pulled pack, as it usually was, one could clearly see her protuberant ears and long, graceful neck. Stuart, being only a few inches shorter than his mother, was used to men hitting on his "older sister". He wished she would date again; he dreaded the day she dated again.
"How was work today?" he asked her, once they were settled in.
She shrugged. "Well, Dr. Anand was cranky all morning because the Horner kid bit him again. Not hard enough to break the skin, but just enough to ruin her mood, you know? I had lunch with Cathy at a perfectly horrible Italian place, but when I got back there were two dozen roses waiting for me."
"Really?"
"Well no, not for me, really. Apparently, they were delivered to our shop by accident, so they sat on my desk all afternoon until about four o'clock when the delivery guy came back. Still, it brightened up the place quite a bit."
"And at the department store?" Stuart prodded.
His mother shuddered the way she did when she had something gross on her skin. "Well, it wasn't a great day, but it wasn't unusually horrible either, and I got out early, so I guess that's a win."
"Yeah." When his mother made comments like that, Stuart started tabulating the Minimum Wage Math – how long until he could get a job, how many hours he would work, how much money he could contribute to the mortgage.
"Okay, buddy," she said between mouthfuls of casserole. "Out with it. What's new?"
The question was the same every time. No matter what happened in either of their lives, she always wanted to be on top of his life. She didn't want to miss anything, insisting to be filled in on even the minutiae. Fighting back a grin, he looked at the table top to avoid her eyes. "Nothing."
"Stuart Albert Minkus!" she exclaimed. "Don't try that on me!" She had always sworn she wouldn't let him grow up into one of those closed-off teenagers that wouldn't talk to their mothers. He knew that many adolescents rebelled against their parents – it was even considered healthy. He couldn't fathom rebelling against his mother.
"Well, yesterday I got a question wrong in math," he told her.
"Well, that's okay. You don't have to get them all right… right?"
"Yes, but… I kind of made a big deal out of it. Cory Matthews got it, like, extra wrong and I rubbed it in his face, you know? Then I was wrong, too… It was hard for me," he confessed.
"Oh, I can see where that would be tough. You've got kind of a sore spot with Cory Matthews, don't you?"
Among other more exotic postulates, Stuart had previously considered whether it was literally impossible to hide anything from his mother. "Yeah, I guess he gets under my skin."
Yeah? Why do you think that is?"
"I guess he's just…" Stuart trailed off. He wanted badly to tell her the truth – that Cory Matthews was the symbol of everything that was wrong in his life. That his existence was a prison sentence and Cory Matthews was the grinning, sadistic warden. Ultimately, he knew he couldn't tell her about all of that. One of two things would happen then – she'd either dismiss it as childish nonsense, or she'd confirm its truth. He wasn't sure he could handle either from her. Searching his thoughts, he found something he could relate to her. "Topanga kissed him."
He'd never told his mother how he felt about Topanga, but he knew he didn't have to. She could tell. "Oh baby, I'm sorry," she murmured. "That's rough."
He spoke again immediately. "It's not a big deal, it's just-". His face felt hot suddenly, and he didn't want to look at her. His crush, or infatuation, or undying love or… whatever it was with Topanga had not always been kind to him, but he'd always had hope. He could handle the fact that she had kissed Cory, and even that there might be more romance in their future, but actually talking about it made things so much more difficult.
To her credit, his mother kept her cool. She downplayed the moment and changed the subject, and before long the knot in his throat loosened up. After dinner, they did the dishes together, and then she suggested they watch a movie.
"Aw, Mom, I'd love to…" he said, and he meant it. Usually, by the time his mother got out of her second job, she was exhausted, and headed to bed right after dinner. Getting to hang out with her on a weeknight was a rare treat, one he hated to miss out on, but that night there was a lot more going on. True to her word, Topanga had called, and the whole crew was supposed to meet up. "I was supposed to spend the night at Darren's."
Her face fell, just for a second, but he caught it. "Oh, right."
"I mean, if that's okay…"
"Yeah, of course. Go hang out with Darren, and I'll stay here. There's a book I've been trying to finish for a while now."
"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely. You're in sixth grade, Stu. This is the time of your life when you're supposed to hang out with your friends, not your mother. I'm just glad you've got good friends."
They met outside the school at midnight. Getting inside proved laughably easy; an unseen hand had unlocked each door they tried, and no alarm sounded as they made their way through the deserted hallways. Topanga strode purposefully in front, and Stuart remained steadfastly at her side. Darren, Hillary, and Ned walked a few paces behind in a loose semicircle. The only light came from an electric lantern that Topanga carried before them at shoulder level.
"Should this be so easy?" Darren asked uneasily. In the complete silence of the empty elementary school, even his low tones sounded harsh. Stuart had to fight the instinct to shush him. "Isn't there a security guard or something?"
Topanga said nothing, but led on imperiously in the direction of Mr. Feeny's classroom.
"Of course it should be this easy!" Ned remarked suddenly, his voice almost a yell. "There are no locked doors and no alarms and there won't be a security guard, either – mark my words!"
"Jesus, Ned, keep it down!" Stuart hissed.
"Why bother?" Ned went on at the same volume. "Don't you get it? It's easy to break in here because this isn't a real elementary school! It's an elementary school in a sitcom. We'll only get caught if the producers want us to!"
Stuart scowled. He didn't find that line of reasoning terribly convincing. The immunity Ned described might exist, but probably only for principal cast members during "on camera" moments. There was no reason the second string couldn't get into serious legal trouble.
"The reason our entrance is achieved so easily is that the way has been prepared," Topanga announced enigmatically, and that served to shut everyone up for several minutes. When they reached the classroom, Topanga led them inside and immediately approached the teacher's desk. The rest of them stood in the aisles, unwilling to sit in the student desks, as if this were a usual class. She switched off the lantern, and darkness engulfed them, broken only by a shaft of orange light coming through the window from the street lamp outside.
"What's this all about, Topie?" Ned asked. It seemed like he was trying to act bolder than he felt.
"Not yet, Ned," she answered mechanically. With a soft click a small flame sparked to life in her hand. She used this to light a group of candles arrayed around the edge of Mr. Feeny's desk. The flickering candlelight rendered the sixth grade classroom eerie and menacing. The walls and the corners of the room hid in deep shadow while dim light played across the glossy surfaces of their desks. Someone had brought in a collection of thick, leather bound books, arranged into two stacks on what was Stuart's desk during business hours.
Presently, Topanga turned back around and addressed them again. "I've asked you all to join me tonight to address our mutual problem."
"You mean that we're just characters in some idiot's damned television show?" Ned asked, demonstrating his grace.
"Yes, precisely, Ned," Topanga agreed.
From the collective intake of breath, it seemed like everyone was about to speak at once, but Stuart overrode them all. "Topanga," he said simply and loudly. "You asked us to come here in the middle of a school night, and we came. I know I would follow you anywhere, but it isn't easy for us. We all had to leave our warm homes and sneak past our parents, risking a lot of trouble for ourselves to be here. At this point, I have to ask you guys… am I the only one who is tired of talking about this?" He looked around at the faces of his friends, lit orange by the dancing candlelight. "Isn't it about time to move on? To accept the things that we can't change, and to stop pretending otherwise?"
Darren was nodding, and he thought he could see agreement in Hillary's face. Ned looked unaccountably angry and refused to meet his eyes.
Topanga nodded once to indicate that she had heard. "I asked you all here tonight because I believe that our situation is not hopeless. I think there is something we can do. In fact, I think there is something we will do." She gestured to the books on Stuart's desk. "We're going to master time travel."
Perhaps it was the intensity of her expression, or the seriousness of their surroundings, but no one laughed. The anger slowly drained from Ned's face, replaced with what looked like concern. "That's ridiculous, Topie."
Stuart took a step closer to his desk, and inspected the tomes stacked there. After only a cursory examination, he discerned that they were textbooks for advanced Physics. What did she think - that they would pull an all-nighter with some theoretical physics equations and sort out time travel before morning classes? Even if they did, what good would it do, exactly? Could they jump ahead to after the end of the show and hope there were lives waiting for them? Could they go back in time and make the show about them, rather than Cory? Would that even be preferable? Stuart used his softest tones when he spoke to her next. "You have to know that isn't possible."
"Of course it is. We're just going to have to cheat," Topanga said simply. "We start the process tonight and we work on it for as long as it takes. All we really need to do is figure it out before we all die. Then, one of us goes back in time to tonight and shows us how it's done, and we can be out of here whenever we want."
Ned shook his head, looking angry again. "That's not how it works! Suppose there is some trick to time travel, and once you know how, it's easy to do. If the future version of us gives us the secret, then they'll already have it from this moment forward, and there'll be no reason for any of us or them to devote our lives to figuring it out. No one will have ever put in the leg work in any timeline to make time travel possible."
"It's called a Bootstrap Paradox."
It was a woman's voice, and it came from the entrance to the classroom behind them. Stuart's heart leapt up into his throat as he whirled around. He could barely make out the silhouette of a young woman framed in the doorway before she advanced on them. As she approached the candles, her features resolved more clearly. His brain stuttered and stalled for a moment as the familiar but altered face appeared, and soon he recognized-
"Topanga!" he gasped.