Young Writers Society

Guilt shifted into a strong wave of embarrassment Wren hadn't expected when the TV suddenly switched to Mr. Rogers instead of the news reports. She didn't wanted to see the footage of 9/11 again, and wanted Amy to feel better. But Mr. Rogers was something she had watched when she was so little that she didn't even remember what happened in any of the episodes; Wren was at that awkward age where any reminder of childhood made her feel like she was being treated like a little kid.

"I remember seeing it when I was little," Wren said. Her voice was quiet and hesitant - she wasn't sure if she was saying the right thing anymore. "I...I don't remember much about it. I just remember it was on PBS Kids..."

She was glad that the screen changing helped Amy in some way. Hablex never was the person who could truly comfort other people. Not from lack of trying, but more so from the lack of knowing how to help someone.

“Well,” she whispered, handing over a completed drawing of Wilson to her companion, “maybe it’s time I tell the truth myself.”

Hablex glanced up at the rest of the girls, a frown forming as she spoke. “As you all could probably tell from the beginning, I’m simply not from this world.”

"PBS Kids? I didn't know they showed Mr. Rogers, but I love that," Amy said. She supposed maybe Mr. Rogers would stop, and they'd play old episodes on PBS Kids. He was getting old, after all. But she loved that his message would be kept alive. "I don't want to know anything more about the future. Just watch."

Another episode was starting now. Amy took a breath. She remembered this one. it was the one where the kid in the motorized wheelchair went to visit Mr. Rogers and he sang It's You I Like. That song had saved her on more than one occasion.

"Mr. Rogers felt like the father I never had," Amy said. "He's wonderful."

Then, Hablex said had interjected to say he was from another world.

"What do you mean?"

Hablex said they probably guessed by it now. Actually, Amy hadn't.

Wren fell silent at Amy's request. She was still unsure of what she was supposed to say or do around someone from the past, but she also wasn't entirely sure she wanted to watch the show. The episode on the TV was a good one; she had forgotten what watching it was like.

But liking the episode didn't make her ironically childish embarrassment go away. She was grateful when Hablex spoke - it gave her something else to focus on. She turned away from the screen and from Amy, giving Hablex a shy but surprisingly confident smile.

"...I was guessing that," Wren quietly admitted. "You felt...different..."

Wilson looked between the others with wide eyes, her head bobbing from person to person as each spoke. She looked a little lost until Hablex's admission and then her eyes lit up, and she raised her hand, going: "Oh! Oh!" And once a pause presented itself, eagerly added: "I'm not from here too!" Which all came out very quickly - she was talking rather fast.

"Although I kinda figured none of us are from the exact same place or time or world or whatever because that's kind of just how these things work - though it would be funny or uh, nice! I guess! If we were from the same place! But I also haven't really been paying attention to where this place is and I guess I could try to find out but that kind of violates the laws that I have made for myself and wait - ahah, maybe that's too much. Sorry! We were talking about Hablex. Hablex! Where are you from?"

Hablex couldn’t help a smile smile at Wilson’s excitement. “That would make sense if we were all from different places.”

She darted her eyes over the other girls for a second, but then stared hard at the bookshelf by the fireplace. “I come from a place without much of a name besides, home, but it was quite unlike this one.”

“For one,” Hablex said, “we don’t have whatever that box thing is,” and she indicated whatever was playing on the weird screen, where a man was speaking with a child.

Wren's smile grew a little.

"It's called a TV," she quietly explained. "It plays recordings. It's...It's kind of like a book, but as a performance-"

Her eyes widened as a better way of explaining it came to her.

"It's like a theater performance," she said, a little bit of excitement seeping into her voice, "but with the convenience of a book."

“TV is short for television!” Wilson added. “And the square where the moving pictures show up is called the screen. When you want the television to work, you would ‘turn it on.’”

"Well," Amy said. "The man that's on TV now. I used to watch him with mom. And he inspired me to become a teacher. What I really want to do is write though."

Wren looked over at Amy and gave her a small smile. Her embarrassment finally faded, even though her demeanor was still small and hesitant. "Both of those sound nice," she said. "I bet you're a great teacher..."

She faltered.

"...I'm not really sure of what I want to do," she said, awkwardly rubbing the back of her neck. "I'll probably stay in New York City. There's my parents' cafe, and-"

She caught herself mid-sentence.

Eyes widening, she hurriedly came up with something else to fill in the blank with. "-my community service!" she added. "I, um, do a lot of it? And I think I really help out my local community with it..."

Hablex thought over the strange terms. TV, screen, turn on. From the moment she has landed here, she knew this world was unlike her own, but she didn’t think she would see such different things.

“The closest thing we have to these ‘moving pictures’ are pieces of glass that we drew on.” She paused, looking over the people that had been quite kind to her. “Thanks for explaining those things to me.”

“Where I come from, we don’t have too many options for what we could do, either as kids or adults, but I do like to draw ... as seen by this thing.” Hablex held up the whiteboard. “Maybe I can draw everyone a picture.”

Wilson clapped her hands together excitedly, smiling wide. "Oh! Oh! Yes that would be lovely! If you want to, that is!" She reached out a hand and patted Hablex's knee briefly. "Only if you want to!"

Wren nodded in agreement.

For a moment, all thoughts of the Actor - and her supposed community service - were forgotten.

She gave Hablex a shy but eager smile. "I'd love that."

Wren had once heard that you weren't supposed to think about what you weren't supposed to think about. She had never given the saying much thought before. But thinking about how she had gotten distracted from the situation with the Actor only made her think of that "community service" excuse. Wren tried to banish the thought from her mind again.

She wasn't successful.

And then she heard the sounds from the TV change.

She slowly glanced over at it.

It had switched channels again. It wasn't showing Mr. Rogers anymore - it had shifted to a news station. And while she didn't watch the news frequently, she couldn't keep her eyes off of the TV.

It was a report from a week ago, right down the street from her parents' cafe. If she squinted in the distance, she could make out the front of her family's restaurant. But that wasn't what her eyes lingered on.

It was an interview with the Actor about the latest heroic feat the city had seen. She found herself whispering the words to the interview underneath her breath; she couldn't count how many times she had watched it after it aired. But then she remembered that she wasn't the only one in the room, and her face turned a very bright shade of red.

The blush was so bad that she tried to cover her face with her hands - not realizing that doing so would show just how embarrassed she was.

The TV sure was causing a lot of trouble, wasn't it. Wilson watched as the interview popped up between the newscaster and the superhero person. It seemed to be pretty standard for superhero world things, but then she noticed Wren was... lipsynching to it?

Was this some new trend? Or was she just some kind of mega-fan? She could check... but she wasn't going to.

As Wren's face flushed red Wilson tilted her head curiously, and her long hair fell to the side. It was a conscious motion. She liked how it was cat-like.

"You a superhero fan?"

Amy took a deep breath, completely oblivious to Wren's reaction to the TV. It's weird she that she would have turned as red as a tomato like that, but Amy didn't think much of it.

She wasn't even paying much attention to it. She was thinking about Tara and Adam, and how they wouldn't believe her crazy little foray into the future when she had the chance to tell them about it. As messed up as each of their lives had been, they were family, and she missed them.

"What movie is this?" She asked Wren.