Okay, I admit it, I'm impatient. I'll post the third chapter.

Chapter 3: I Found Her

Two months later, my dad called me into the basement. I hoped it was what I thought it was. “Yeah, Dad?” I asked. “You wanted me?”

“Yes, Jason,” he replied. “You won’t believe what I discovered.”

“What? What did you discover?”

“You probably already know,” he said. “I found her.”

He had found Kat. I couldn’t wait to see her again. “So what do we do now?”

“Now,” said Dad, “you look for her.”

How exactly would I do that? Open up another portal, waltz in, and say, “Hi Kat”? She might not call herself Kat. She might go by Kathrine. Or that might not be her name at all anymore. “Okay, but what about the error last time? What was that about?”

“Well,” Dad said, “as it turns out, too much normal radiation was absorbed into the portal. ‘Normal radiation’ being the low levels that hang around each room in the house. Certainly not deadly, but the radiation is there.”

Hmm. “Does this mean that it will collapse like that every time?”

“Yes, but not for a few minutes. Unless, of course, unauthorized objects pass through the portal. But you, Jason, will be authorized, and so will I.”

“You mean you’re coming, too?!” I shouted.

“Why, of course,” he replied, grinning. “What better an opportunity to observe how this girl works without her giggling all over you!”

Giggling all over me? “What?” I asked.

“Oh, you'll see,” he replied casually. “Why are you so concerned all of a sudden?”

“Nothing,” I said. But something did concern me. Did he mean that Kat liked me, too? I thought better than to ask. Even if she did, how did my dad know and not me? Then I remembered that he specialized in studying behaviors in all sorts of animals… could he detect love better than most? Another thing I wouldn’t mention.

“So, dad, if the American dollar really is losing its value… then how much money should we bring with us?”

“Another good question. Things will be more expensive in the future, so we better take plenty of money,” Dad replied.

“Which won’t be a problem,” I said.

“No, it won’t,” Dad agreed.

Well, this seemed like it wouldn’t be hard. Then a thought occurred to me. “When you said you ‘found her’ how exactly did you find her?”

“Well,” said Dad, dragging the “ll” too long. “I found what time frame she would be living in, and she lives in the same town, too. But I didn’t find exactly where she lives. That’s tricky. We’ll have to go by each of the high schools in town and ask where she lives.”

“What, we’ll walk in there and say, ‘Hi, I’m Kathrine’s best friend from the past, here’s a picture, where does she live?’” I guess I’m big on sarcasm.

“Definitely not,” Dad said. “We’ll have to pretend we’re relatives visiting and we lost her address. We’ll talk to the principal.”

“Well, first you’ll have to change out of that lab coat. Get some normal clothes on, and maybe we’ll be lucky and this year’s style will be retro,” I said.

“Since when have you been a fashion stylist?” asked Dad.

“I’m not. I just know how to fit in. One last question: how will we know which school she goes to?”

“We won’t,” he replied, and walked out of the basement.

Well, wasn’t that just perfect.

* * * * *

About twenty minutes later we were ready to go. We didn’t pack anything except money in our wallets – we weren’t planning to be gone long, but just in case, we had brought a lot of money. Stuff could be expensive in the future. We walked into the basement and Dad started typing stuff on a computer.

The floor shuddered and the portal opened again along with a strong wind. This time, though, papers didn’t fly around because Dad had tacked them down beforehand.

“Ready?” Dad asked me.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I replied.

I took a deep breath and walked through.

The world suddenly changed and I was standing in a futuristic town, with cars hovering a foot off the ground as they went by and huge skyscrapers made of steel and glass. Every lawn was perfectly manicured and every house had some look to it that made it seem different. There was one house that was completely made of glass on the outside and one that was so small I would’ve thought it was for a mouse. But as I watched, ten people walked inside there with no problem.

“I love the future,” I said as Dad stepped out of the portal.

“Wow! Floating cars! Although these cars aren’t flying yet. They’ll get there, I’m sure. This is just amazing,” Dad said as he looked around us.

“Well,” I said, “let’s get looking.”

We decided to start looking at Westview High School. Walking through the lobby, we asked the lady at the front desk if we could talk to the principal. “I’ll tell her you asked for her,” the secretary said, then told us to sit on some uncomfortable benches while we waited.

Finally we were led to a conference room with a big long table in the middle. A chair on one end of the table was bigger than the rest, which I assumed to belong to the principal. Then a lady walked in who I thought to be strangely familiar. Who was she?

“Hello,” said the woman, “I am principal Jones.”

Then it dawned on me, just as her eyes widened with surprise as well.

“Jenny?!” I shouted, astonished that the girl who was in my English class would eventually become the principal of my school.

“Jason? What… ah, your dad. Should’ve known he’d discover time travel. Why was I surprised? Anyway, what’s your problem? Why are you even here? Surely you didn’t invent time travel just to find out if I became principal or not,” she said in a voice I vaguely recognized.

“That’s why we needed to talk to you,” said Dad. “We’re looking for a girl named Kathrine. Red wavy hair, green eyes, freckles, imperfect teeth. Here’s a picture,” he said, pulling out a piece of paper and handing it to Jenny.

“Hm,” said Jenny. “I know this girl. She’s a good student. May I ask why you want to meet this girl?”

“Time travel business,” said Dad very simply. He obviously didn’t expect me to recognize the principal, or for her to recognize me. The “pretending to be relatives” plan was out of the question.

“I can’t just give you information out of the blue,” said Jenny. “That would be against regulations.”

“Time travel is against regulations,” said Dad. “We shouldn’t even exist in this time frame at this age, yet we do. We just want to know where she lives.”

“Wait,” I said, “I have a question. Is school still going? It isn’t summer vacation yet?”

“No, not yet, sir,” she replied. “At this point I cannot give you more information unless you give me more.”

“Okay, you asked for it,” I said. “Kathrine was my best friend since forever, until Dad invented time travel. Kathrine had come downstairs into the room the first experiment was in progress, and accidentally got sucked into the portal. Then she was erased from our timeline and was born twenty years later than she had first been. Apparently the only people who can remember her are those who were in contact with her before the accident, which would be my dad and me. We need Kat – sorry, Kathrine – to come back to her own timeline and live her actual true life with her real parents.”

There was silence for quite some time.

“You expect me to believe that?” asked Jenny.

“You believed that we came here via time travel,” I retorted.

Jenny grumbled something that I couldn’t make out. “Fine. Here’s her address. Do you even know her last name?”

“Probably not,” said Dad.

“Her full name is Kathrine Elizabeth Thomas.”

“Huh,” I said. “Wonder where she lives. Got the exact same name.”

Dad was just looking at her information. “Does this address seem familiar to you? I recognize it, but I don’t know where from.”

I took a look at it. “Huh. Wouldn’t you know it, she lives in exactly the same place that she did twenty years ago. What are the odds of that?”

“It seems she might have an older brother, then. I’m guessing… twenty-five?”

“Wow,” said Jenny. “That’s spot-on. Are you psychic or something?”

“No, we just know who lived in that house twenty years ago,” I said. “So… Kat must be about ten years younger? Is that right? Is there really that much of an age difference?”

“We’ll just have to find out,” Dad said. “That will be all, Mrs. Jones.”

We got up and walked out of the school. “Okay, so now what?” I asked.

“Well, we could stop by our house. We got the keys. Besides, we’ll probably be expected,” said Dad.

“And if we aren’t?” I asked.

“Then we’re in trouble,” he replied.

So we walked to our house. I waited impatiently as Dad fiddled with the keys. “Dad, why are we even stopping by here? Couldn’t we just go by her house right now?

“No,” Dad said as walked inside. The house hadn’t actually changed much, except for the fact that no one was inside it currently. “In case you didn’t know, there’s a dance tonight.”

“So?” I said. “What does there being a dance tonight have to do with anything?”

“So, you’re going to swing by and ask her to go with you,” Dad replied with a smile. “She’ll say yes, without a doubt.”

“How do you know?” I asked, skeptical of the reasons.

“I just do,” he said, concluding the conversation. “Now, you’ve got to get ready. You’re going to a dance!”

Four hours later, I was all dressed up and ready to go. It was already dark. I walked along the sidewalk, trying to figure out what to say. I shouldn’t call her Kat, because she might not go by that nickname. But what should I say? What words could get her to like me again?

I looked up and realized I had arrived. I took a couple shaky breaths, then went up the stairs and knocked on the door.

I waited as I heard some hurried shuffles as someone tried to reach the door from across the house. Finally someone opened the door.

A girl appeared, obviously just come from the shower, wrapped in nothing but a towel, her hair still slightly dripping. She blushed. I blushed.

“Kat.”