‘Kate! Max!’ I bellowed, my voice sounding thin and feeble amongst the wind’s mighty...windiness, I suppose. I thought I heard a faint reply, saw a shadow. I squinted, trying to see through the sand whirling around us. At least, I hoped it was sand. The wind howled, and I knew the place was devoid of moisture, lifeless, soulless. ‘KAAAAATE!’ I bellowed again, aiming for a louder attempt than the last one. I gave it up. It was like being in a hurricane, or a whirlwind. Being in the eye of the storm, minus the rain but the ferocity was multiplied by a hundred times over; it didn’t belong on earth. However, the strange thing was, it wasn’t even cold, but warm in a kind of dry way.
Suddenly, everything went white. Pure white, at the end of the spectrum—I think, I don’t pay much attention at school—and it shone like a beacon, like the sun. It was blinding, and I shut my eyes tight and covered them with my hands, but still it got through somehow. The storm raged around me, or possibly us, for what felt like decades, and then the sand cleared and I could see. The surroundings came into being around us, like some crazy TV ad.
I was lying on the ground, on my side, watching it all, but all I saw where whirls of colour appear. I checked in my pockets. Nope, no glasses there. I sat up and groped around. I groaned, and then my fingers came into contact with something that felt suspiciously like my glasses and I jammed them on. It looked like we were a couple of streets away from home. As I wondered how we’d gotten out of the mall, I watched Kate sort of fade into being; her appearance just simply popped--kind of like Apparating in Harry Potter. Well, it wasn't as abrupt as a pop, but it wasn't the smoothest thing that had happened. It seemed that as she faded from one place, she wasn't entirely in the next place either. It was like...pouring the contents of one cup into another, because the water is in the air before it is in the second cup--neither of the two cups, neither of the two possibilities of where it could and should be. Somewhere...not. I watched her appear from her feet upwards. It was frightening. Finally all of Kate regained its normal colour and seemed to grow more...real, more authentic, more solid and stronger, more noticeable. In the words of Pratchett, or Prattchett, or Pratchet, her “I am here” signal got stronger. I gathered similar things had happened to myself and Max, because she was gaping at me.
‘Where are we?’ I heard a small child’s voice say. We both whirled our heads around to spot Max sitting on his bottom, with a comically bemused look on his face. The bemused expression soon turned to fear and confusion as a tall, dark, and rather frightening man said to us, ‘Hey! Kid! Get off the street, you’re blocking the way.’
‘Oh, sorry. These two aren’t the brightest stars in the sky.’ Kate spoke politely to the man like she did to everyone, and firmly yanked mine and Max’s collars back. The man nodded to her as approval and acknowledgement as he passed.
‘Owch!’ I sulked after he’d gotten out of earshot. I realised it was evening now, not many folk out. That guy was the only sole soul on the street. Traffic was light, too.
‘Shh.’ Kate watched the stranger turn the corner. She checked both sides of the road—she turned her head left and right, her blonde hair swishing as she moved it. Well, it wasn’t entirely blonde, she had blonde highlights dyed into her hair. Why do girls always dye their hair weird colours that don’t suit them? I shook my head. Suddenly a thought struck me.
‘Hang on,’ I said slowly, ‘where’s the arcade? Where’s the people? And...what was that weird storm? Where are we?’
‘Look, that man’s clothes were styled like the 70s! And look, across the street,’ she added. Kate pointed to a store almost directly parallel to us, across the road. It looked like an old electronic store. There was a TV there that looked like it belonged in an antique store, a bulky thing that looked like a black brick with a stick poking out, and something that could’ve been called a computer about thirty years ago. Above this, there was a large, brightly painted sign that proclaimed proudly: “The latest electronics! 10% off for the first twenty buyers!”
‘Oh my God.’ Max snorted. Even at the tender age of six he knew it was a crap shop.
‘That thing belongs in a rubbish dump.’ I picked at a nail.
‘Listen, you moronic imbeciles!’ Kate sounded mad. ‘Have you seen a storm like that before, Sam? No. Didn’t think so. That was just...strange...whatever it was that happened to us. And...’ Her voice took on an odd tone. I turned to look back at her. ‘Doesn’t that look like...Jonny’s store, only, like, what it would look like in the 70s? And that women over there, her clothes look...vintage or something. And how she’s giving us a weird look. And it was cloudy before. Now, the sky’s clear, no clouds at all.’ I glanced at the woman Kate described. She looked like my friend Tom’s mum.
All colour drained from Kate’s face. I shivered. The wind started to pick up around us.
‘No,’ I whispered, but my mind said Yes. This could not be happening. ‘No way in hell.’ My dad’s voice echoed in my head from past years: Don’t mess with things you don’t understand, son. Which was exactly what Max had done. He had put a coin into the game. He’d tried to play it, even when it had an “OUT OF ORDER” sign splashed across the screen. He pressed the big red shiny flashing button that said “start”. Max loved shiny, flashing things.
We were in the 1970’s. Somehow, in some weird way, we were in forty years in the past, when our parents had been children.
‘Oh, no,’ I whispered. My eyes opened wide at Kate. Her face mirrored mine, a mask of shock. I guess it was all too much for her. She sank down onto her knees. ‘No, no, no, no, it’s not possible, science says it’s NOT POSSIBLE!!!!’ She was losing “it” in denial. I felt like doing the same thing, but first I had to ask Max something. I had to know what year was on that coin, the year it was made.
‘Hey, Max?’ I turned around.
He wasn’t there.
My little cousin wasn’t there. He’d gone.
Kate was bent over on her knees, her shins lying flat against the concrete, her arms crossed over her chest, holding herself together. I tugged her shoulder. My voice wasn’t mine as I heard it speak the words, ‘Max is gone, Kate.’
She looked up at that and looked wildly in all directions. ‘What?’ she whispered. She still looked pale, as though she might faint. Please, please, Kate, don’t faint. Don’t. Wait, I take it back: Now it was all too much for her.
She fainted, going slack right in front of me. I held her shoulders and shook her vigorously. ‘Kate!'
Why does God hate me?
... as it is for some.
