Everyone Here Knows Me

The plane took off and climbed into the sky.

Alice Stockwell shifted in her seat. Was everyone looking at her? It felt like everyone was looking at her. Not too much, but every now and then someone would look up at her and smile. She guessed that it was strange to see a kid flying alone, but she wasn’t used to being stared at. It made her uncomfortable. The air was very stuffy in here.

At least the seat next to her was still empty. Alice had worried that she’d be seated next to a stranger. “You probably will be,” Daddy had said. “Just remember your manners.” Alice would remember her manners. She chewed on her thumbnail and looked at her ticket, which she hadn’t put away since she’d arrived at the airport. It was getting all wrinkly and folded.

Boarding pass

Gate 21

Seat 14c

ANA Flight #008

The idea that she had a space comforted her. Seat 14c was hers- it was reserved for her, preordained, set in stone on printed cardstock. She was traveling alone all the way to Michigan to see her Aunt Karen, but it was all okay because the ticket said it was okay. This was all normal and there wasn’t anything to be scared of because she had a seat all to herself, it was hers. This sort of thing happened.

She hadn’t seen Aunt Karen since Mommy’s funeral. It would be nice to see her. It had been hard to look forward to anything in the past year. The color hadn’t come back into the world yet, but Daddy kept saying it would. She believed him.

A woman glanced up at her. Alice shifted in her seat again and looked away. A story bloomed in her mind, almost fully formed. In the story, a girl was trapped with vampires that were curious about her and don’t yet know she was edible. The girl just had to survive using her wits until daylight. In the end she fooled the vampires into thinking she was one of them by acting exactly as they did, then opened the shades at daybreak, turning them all to yucky piles of dust. Alice abandoned her story. The heroine had been lacking something. She gripped her ticket.

The PA system made its electronic ding noise and the seatbelt light went off. We can now move freely about the cabin, Alice thought to herself. She had looked forward to it since the flight was booked but now didn’t feel like it. There were too many strangers.

A voice spoke from the aisle. “Alice?” Alice flinched and looked toward the noise. A woman was standing there wearing a sweater and pencil skirt. She had short red hair and was smiling under thick glasses. “My name is Maggie Connolly. How are you today?”

Alice blinked. Not only was this woman in glasses looking at her, but the people around her were as well. “Fine,” she said at last.

“Do you mind if I sit down?”

“I guess.” She really wished people would stop staring at her.

Maggie sat down and smoothed out her skirt. “Thank you very much. Hi.”

Alice realized she was clutching her ticket away from the woman, as if she might try to take it from her. She relaxed her arms with some effort and laid her hands in her lap. “Hello,” she replied politely. Alice looked out the window and watched the clouds go by. It’s okay, she thought to herself. I’m on a journey and on journeys you meet people. Like Bilbo did. Of course, Bilbo had also met monsters.

The woman, Maggie, spoke again. “Aren’t you curious about how I know your name?”

Alice blinked. It hadn’t even occurred to her that this woman shouldn’t know her name. Generally, everyone that spoke to her had been introduced. She looked at Maggie, who was still smiling. “Um.”

“I know who you are, and I’m here to talk to you,” Maggie said. “I’m just going to come out with it, and it’s going to sound strange, but it’s the truth. I’m from the future. I’m from the year 2037. This plane is a time machine, and we’re going to 2037 together. ” Alice looked at the lady and tried to not seem scared. Daddy would say this is crazy, this woman is crazy. Alice needed an adult. “There’s a number of things we need to discuss-“

Alice reached up and pushed the flight attendant call button. Maggie nodded and waited as an attendant made his way up the aisle. The man leaned over and looked at Alice in that smiling way that everyone else was. “Yes?” Now, she realized that she didn’t know what to say. How do you tell one adult that another adult is crazy and possibly dangerous right in front of them?

At last, she chose a simple list of facts. “I don’t know this woman and she says we’re in a time machine and I think I may need help.”

“This is a time machine, miss Stockwell. We’re going to 2037.” Alice realized everyone was looking at her. Every eye across the aisle was on her. Some people turned to look back over their seats. The flight attendant gestured to Maggie Connolly. “Everything this woman is about to tell you is the truth.” He grinned amiably. Everyone kept staring at Alice.

“Thank you, Jeremy,” Maggie said. He walked away and she turned to Alice. Maggie held her hand up. “Relax, hon. You look terrified.”

She felt terrified. Tears prickled beneath Alice’s eyelids and she held her face muscles utterly still so that her lip wouldn’t tremble in front of everyone. She was moments away from crying, and everyone was going to see her do it.

Maggie’s smile softened as she saw the child’s eyes taking in the glares around the cabin. She turned to the other passengers. “Guys? Give us a minute.” She made a dismissive shooing hand gesture. The others all turned back to their windows and magazines. She fished in her handbag and brought out a tissue, then handed it to Alice. “I’m sorry, sweetie,” she said. “There was no easy way to do this. I know this is scary.”

Alice hesitated and took the tissue. She wiped her eyes and sniffled as softly as she could.

“I promise you, this is the worst of it. You’ll understand everything very soon. Oh!” Maggie said. She gestured toward the window. “Look, it’s happening.” Alice looked. The sky outside the window was flashing purple and red, then a bright white, then the details of the world faded back in, melting through pale yellow to reveal passing clouds beneath a blue sky again. “That’s it. Welcome to 2037.”

Alice was confused by what she’d just seen. Was that real? It couldn’t have been. She didn’t know what to say. Finally, she said “It doesn’t look like 2037.” A number of people around them stifled chuckles into their hands.

“I suppose it doesn’t,” Maggie agreed. “So here’s the thing. Alice? People are staring at you because you’re famous.”

“…What? No I’m not.”

Maggie reached into her bag and pulled out another item. This was a book, which she handed to Alice. On the cover a boy wearing an orange hat faced a crowd of snarling monsters in a confident stance. The book’s title was PERCIVAL PIEBALD AND THE GOBLIN CROWN. Maggie reached over and tapped the author’s name.

by Alice Stockwell

Alice’s jaw fell open. “I write stories,” she mumbles in astonishment. “I do! I… sometimes stories just come to me. In my head. I’ve never actually written one down.” She flipped the book around and read the back.

Percival Piebald thinks he is an ordinary boy - until he discovers that he is destined to be one of the fabled heroes of legend. With his magic hat and a ragtag group of new friends, he faces an uprising of goblins from the far reaches of a land no one’s ever known existed!

“This is… I wrote this?”

Maggie grinned. “In 2025 you self-publish this, the first of a series, from your college dorm room. The books catch on and become something of a sensation. You launch an empire- 11 books, a TV show, 3 movies and an upcoming theme park. Worldwide adoration. And me? I’m your assistant.” Maggie tented her fingers above her chest and nodded primly. “I’ve worked for you for a few years now. Oh, look, we’re descending already. I guess we’ll be landing shortly. We just had to get airborne enough for the time stuff to function properly.”

“Okay, so…” Alice’s head was thumping. “…So why are we going to 2037?”

“Ahh, yes.” Maggie’s demeanor sobered. She fished in her bag again and pulled out a picture of a boy that was about Alice’s age. “This is Michael Budge. Michael has cancer.”

Alice took the photo and looked at it. “My mom had cancer.”

“I know honey. That was recently, wasn’t it? I’m sorry.”

“December.” Alice stared numbly at the photo of the boy. “Everyone says they’re sorry.”

“Yeah, I…” Maggie paused for a moment and took another run at the topic. “The Dream Big Organization has granted Michael a last wish, and his wish was to meet you… 2017 you. That’s why we’ve come to get you today. No one from 2017 but you could know what we were doing , which is why the whole plane is filled with actors from our time. We didn’t want to confuse a bunch of people going to Michigan, so we bought all the seats.” Maggie gestured around, and the other passengers of the plane waved shyly. “We even orchestrated that you would be taking this flight alone. That took some doing, I’ll tell you that. The legality of this whole thing is murky, but technically there’s precedent for a person having legal guardianship over their younger self. That’s kinda a new thing, what with time travel being about seven years old or so.” Maggie shook her head. “Sorry, I ramble sometimes.”

“So Michael wants to meet… young me. Why?”

“I asked you the same question. You didn’t answer. You just said that there were very good reasons as to why he should. You partially funded this flight. This whole operation wasn’t cheap.”

“Okay.” Alice thought, chewing on her thumbnail. “Why did she… why did I send you to come get me? Why couldn’t I be here to meet me?”

“You will meet you,” Maggie assured. “Man, this is confusing.” They both burst into laughter. “I think it might have been jarring to see yourself without knowing it was going to happen. Does that make sense?”

“Daddy showed me a movie where there was time travel, and if someone saw themselves in another timeline, the universe exploded or something.”

Maggie flapped a hand at that notion. “Yeah, that’s bullcrap, people meet themselves all the time.” They laughed again. Alice always liked when adults swore conspiratorially to kids. Plus, bullcrap was just a funny word.

The plane passed beneath the clouds and a city was revealed beneath. Alice leaned over and looked down from her window. “Wow, it… actually, it looks about the same.”

“Doesn’t it? No gleaming spires, no flying cars. Twenty years isn’t that long for a city, much of the infrastructure is the same. The technology, though… oh boy.”

“Yeah?” Alice’s eyes went wide. “Ooh, ooh, let me see your phone!” This prompted more chuckles from the actors in the surrounding seats. Normally it would bother her to know that people were eavesdropping on her, but she was too excited to care.

“I can’t! Your orders. Michael wants to show you everything. I don’t get to show you any of our 2037 technology. …Except the time machine, of course.”

“What? Why?”

“He’s very excited to introduce you to the fun new stuff we’ve got. It’s part of his wish. I mean, think about if you got to show a kid from 1997 an iPhone.”

“Wow, yeah, that’d be so fun. They’d flip out.” Alice moaned. She crossed her arms and pouted. “I bet you guys have the coolest stuff.”

“Oh, we do. Wait till you see the full-immersion video games.”

“What?? That sounds amayyyzing!”

“Michael can’t wait. Plus, I think he’s going to show you the Percival Piebald movies at your home movie theater.”

“Whoa. So… I’m going to watch the movies before I write the books? That’s going to be crazy. Is… is that okay? Won’t that ruin the story for me?”

“Nah, there were a lot of questions about that sort of thing when time travel was new, sci-fi movies like to make people afraid of new advancements, but as it turns out it’s not much of a concern. You’ll just go home knowing some of the future. Things will be fine.”

“Weirrrrrd.” Alice thought for a moment. “Did you say I have a home movie theater?”

“Yes! It’s really incredible. Plus, I happen to know of a certain 2017 girl that likes pizza and ice cream. There will be all the best pizza, ice cream, candy, milkshakes, soda, everything. Full-on movie party. Plus, I hear you’re going to get outfitted with esophageal phase units, so you can eat and eat and eat and never get full.”

“Never get full??”

“Oops, that’s technology, I’ve said too much already.” Maggie winked and made a lip-zipping gesture. She threw the invisible key over her shoulder.

“No way. This is going to be the best.”

“That’s the spirit! I’m glad you’re getting excited.”

Another story appeared in Alice’s head. In this one, a turtle who was suddenly given everything he’d ever wanted took off his shell because he no longer needed a place to hide. Without the constraints of his shell, joy filled him, and he got bigger and bigger until he popped. The moral was that he needed his shell to keep him humble, Alice thought. Or grounded. Or something like that. She discarded this story as well. She didn’t like morals that told people to be less happy.

She got up on her knees so she could look over her seat back. All the faces looked at her and smiled. Everyone here knows me, she thought. Everyone here likes me.

One person held up a copy of a PERCIVAL PIEBALD book. Another held up his. One by one, every passenger lifted a book Alice would write. Some were dog-eared, some were brand new.

Maggie rolled her eyes and nudged Alice with her elbow. “Oh boy, here come the autograph hounds.”

Alice’s eyes went wide. “Autograph? My autograph?”

“Yup. Price of fame, kiddo.” She clicked a marker open and held it out. “Up for it?”

Alice took the marker with a wild grin. She hadn’t dreamed that she’d ever sign an autograph. “Yes I am.”

People passed their books up to her and she signed, never failing to read the name of the title and her name beneath it. There were so many books. There was PERCIVAL PIEBALD AND THE GALACTIC WAR, PERCIVAL PIEBALD AND THE FORGOTTEN DUNGEON, PERCIVAL PIEBALD AND THE SEVENTH LEVIATHAN, PERCIVAL PIEBALD AND THE HAUNTED LABYRINTH and several others. She signed until her hand was sore.

The PA dinged again, and it was time to sit back down as the plane was about to land. Alice signed a copy of PERCIVAL PIEBALD AND THE SEVENTH LEVIATHAN and handed it back. “Thank you so much,” the young woman said. “It’s an honor meeting you. You taught me how to be brave.” The woman returned to her seat and Alice plopped back into hers.

She clicked her belt into place and looked out the window. The plane was turning to align with the runway. She could see things on the ground more clearly now. Cars still looked like cars. Maybe they were being driven by robots or whatever, but they looked more or less like cars. The city still looked like a big mean monster. Cars were driving, people were walking, stores were open everywhere and clouds passed constantly overhead. The world had kept turning in much the same way. Alice sat back. “Maggie?”

“Yes?”

Alice chewed her thumbnail again. She almost put the question aside, then asked it. “That lady said I taught her how to be brave. What does that mean?”

“The whole thing about Percival- the one thing that makes him special- is that he’s brave. He’s not smarter, faster or stronger than anyone else, although he is all of those things. He just doesn’t let fear hold him back from what he knows he needs to do.”

“No, I mean, how could I teach anyone bravery? I’m not brave. I don’t know anything about being brave. I think I’m the least brave person I know.”

“Well…” Maggie thought for a second. “Maybe you portray bravery because you write so well about what’s scary, and why there are so many reasons to be afraid. Would you say you understand feeling small and afraid?”

Alice nodded and whispered so that her fans wouldn’t hear her confession. “I’m afraid all the time.”

“I would say that’s the first step, then. An author has to know fear to write what’s scary. When most kids read the scene in the hall of spiders in book three, they sleep with the light on for the rest of the night… but also, they’ve comforted in seeing how Percival made it through. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah,” Alice replied, but she wasn’t sure. She still didn’t understand. Not really.

The plane touched down and plane taxied to a stop in front of a crowd. Alice looked out and saw signs, lots of signs, like at a protest on TV. Some of the signs read welcome Alice or welcome to 2037. Most were signs declaring avid fandom of the Piebald series. A few were references to lines or situations from the books, which was only confusing Alice because she hadn’t written them yet. She unchecked her seat belt with a trembling hand and stood up.

Everyone on the plane was standing as well, and looking at her again with those smiles. Only Maggie stood in the aisle, and she extended a hand toward the door. “Ready?”

“I guess,” Alice murmured. She picked up her backpack and stepped into the aisle. She walked past the rows of seats and staring people, feeling like a museum exhibit. Three feet from the door, she stopped and lowered her head to look out of the window again. There really was a great number of people, and they moved almost like a tide of ants behind their barrier. At the end of a red carpet were several people wearing suits and a child in a wheelchair waving wildly. Standing behind the child was a woman that looked almost exactly like Alice’s mother. The tears came to Alice’s eyes again.

A story unfolded in her mind. In this story, a boy suddenly found himself in a land far away, and it was filled with goblins. It was very scary, but then he found out that he wasn’t just a boy, he was a legendary hero, and it was his destiny to defeat the goblins. Because he knew it was his destiny, that made it easy. In the end, he realized he could be destined for anything he wanted. He just needed to choose to be a hero and he would be. That made everything easy.

Maggie touched Alice’s shoulder. “Alice? Are you okay, sweetie?”

Alice rubbed the tears away and took Maggie’s hand for a moment. “I’m okay. Thanks for everything, Maggie. I promise to hire you someday.” They smiled at each other.

Alice stepped through the door and the cheers became deafening.