12

“What are you doing here?”  LB—no way was Kendra going to call her rude younger self  “Elle” that night--leaned over her bed to peer at her older self.  Kendra had landed on the bedroom floor.  It was a hardwood floor, and she hadn’t managed to hit the skimpy mat near the bed.

“Nice welcome.”  Kendra’s tongue hurt. 

LB switched on the lamp near her bed.

Kendra blinked in the unexpected light, then got off the floor and stuck her tongue out at LB.  “Am I bweewin?”

“What?  Ooo, gross.  Your tongue’s bleeding.”

Kendra drew her tongue back into her mouth, and spoke normally.  “A lot?”

“No, I can hardly see it.  So what’s up?  I do need sleep, you know.”

Kendra didn’t bother to answer.  She lifted the digital alarm clock off LB’s bedside table.  It was one in the morning.  “Shit,” Kendra said.  “I’m late.”  She’d missed her target.

“So?”  LB thumped her pillow, then lay down.   “You travel in time.  Just jump back two hours more.”

Kendra sighed.  “It’s not that easy, besides you’re awake now so it doesn’t matter.”

“Maybe not to you.”  LB closed her eyes.

“Hey!”  Kendra shook her younger self.  “Get with the program.”

“Fine,” LB articulated the word with such force that she spat a little.

“Gross,” Kendra complained, and wiped her face.  “Can you get some ice for my tongue?”

“No,” LB said as if the suggestion had been a crazy one.  “You know where the ice cubes are.  Get it yourself.”

Kendra sighed.  To walk around in her childhood home risked her being discovered by her parents, but it would be easier to get the damn ice herself than to debate with LB given the girl’s mood.  

“Fine.  Get dressed while I’m gone.  We have work to do.”  Kendra heard LB sigh as she pulled the bedroom door gently shut behind her.

She paused at the head of the stairs to listen at her parents’ door--nothing but deep silence.  Were they asleep or, if her clumsy landing had awakened them, listening for more noise?  Kendra shuddered.  She didn’t want to think of her parents in bed, whether they were fearful and awake with the sheet clutched to their chins, or sleeping curled around one another.  She hurried down the carpeted stairs, and slipped off her shoes at the bottow, crossing the wooden floor in her socks.

Ice in hand, she again heard nothing as she passed her parents’ door on the return trip.  Inexplicably, a very physical remembrance of the way she’d responded to Shag--to Matt gripped her.  Kendra exhaled and felt her knees go weak.  Snap out of it, she thought harshly, and lurched silently back into LB’s room.

“What’s the matter with you?” LB whispered after one glance at Kendra’s face.  The fourteen-year-old had dressed, and was seated at her desk with her math text open.

“Nothing,” Kendra lied.  “Let me see your homework.”

“No way.”  The girl folded her arms on top of her work and grinned.  “How was your date?  You fell for him, didn’t you?”

Kendra studied the young face in front of her, and felt an unexpected reluctance to disillusion the girl--or maybe she just wished to protect herself.  Not knowing what to say, Kendra put the ice cube in her mouth, and let her finger and thumb warm up.  She wished she’d thought to bring a saucer from the kitchen.  Her mouth became uncomfortably cold.  She took the ice cube out, and watched it drip on the rug.  What the hell she was doing hiding in the past?  LB couldn’t help her with Xenopoulos.

“Nice.  Very elegant,” LB’s sarcasm cut into Kendra’s thoughts.  “Feel free to make a puddle in my rug any time.  Wake me up in the middle of the night, and don’t tell me about your juicy date.  Go ahead--”

“Calm down.  Let’s get to work.”  Kendra popped the slightly diminished ice cube back in her mouth, and gestured toward LB’s math text.

They worked steadily for a couple of hours.  Kendra was pleased that LB’s questions had gained complexity.  LB seemed pleased by the amount of progress they made through the text.

“We’ll be done with the whole book the next time you come,” the girl crowed.  “Why can’t Mrs. Nickelston explain things the way you do?”

“She’s not as familiar with the way you think.  No one is.”  When she wasn’t a brat, her young self was okay.  “How’d you do on the quiz Friday?” 

“Fine,” Elle said, but she looked away as she said it, and her shoulders hunched.

“Right.  Let me see it.”

LB glared at her in wordless defiance.

Kendra kept her hand out expectantly, and maintained eye contact.  The urge to blink nearly drove her mad, but she refused to give in.

Finally LB huffed, slumped some more, and then fished the quiz from the pocket of her notebook.

Kendra unfolded it.  “A ‘C’?!” she almost shouted, but remembered at the last minute to keep her voice down.  She did her best to express her outrage with a hiss.  “How could you get a ‘C’ after all that work we did?”

Kendra shrugged.

“No.  No way!” Kendra insisted.  “You don’t get to play the shutdown teen with me.  This has something to do with your friends doesn’t it?”

“I can’t get an ‘A’ in math all of a sudden,” LB whined, slumped back and down in her hair, arms crossed across her chest.

Kendra was surprised to see tears shine in the girl’s eyes.  “Why not?” she asked.

“Mrs. Nickelston already thinks I’m cheating because my homework’s so good.”

“Did you give her the explanation we talked about?”

“That I watched a bunch of tutors on YouTube?  Yes.”  The words tumbled out in a defiant rush.

Obviously her teacher wasn’t the thing that bothered LB.  “And your friends, how are they taking it?”

A sigh escaped the slumped heap of adolescent melodrama seated next to Kendra.  She waited.  Finally LB whispered, “You know they don’t like the kids who get good grades.  They make fun of them.”

Kendra nervously tapped a pencil on LB’s desk.  Teen psychology—shit.  She glanced at LB, who steadfastly looked away.  Kendra’s first impulse was to jump back into her own timeline, but the girl had trusted her with the truth, a stupid, inconvenient truth, but obviously one that meant so much it hurt.

LB uncrossed her arms and shifted a few millimeters in her chair.  Maybe just listening would help.  With an annoyed look, LB glanced at the blur of motion that was Kendra’s pencil.

“Sorry,” Kendra said, and set the pencil on the desk.

LB made eye contact.  Definite progress.  Could she appeal to the girl’s vanity?  Lord knew she had plenty at her current age--worth a try. 

“I can’t speak to you as if you were a kid.  Can we try some logic, like we did last week with fashion trends?”  Kendra tried not to hold her breath while she waited for LB to respond.

Finally the girl pushed herself upright in the chair.  “Yeah, all right I guess.”

“Great.  First tell me how long you expect to live.”

“Huh?”  LB looked a little shocked.

Good.  Kendra waited.  She had to force herself not to repeat the question.

“I dunno,” tried LB.

Kendra waited some more.

“Like…eighty?” LB suggested finally.