“Make it Didn’t Happen: by Glenn Hauman is a time travel tale, in which a teenage girl gets a visit from the future, to protect her from an act of violence that will forever alter her fate. Does her protector arrive in time? Does she even believe he’s there to help? Or does someone have revenge on their minds?
To find out, here’s an early look:
Make it Didn’t Happen
By Glenn Hauman
The creepy old perv had been following me around for three days before he finally came up to me outside of school.
And he was old. Older than any of the teachers, probably older than that pile of bricks, too.
I don’t know why I noticed him at all, really—he stayed a good distance away from the schoolyard, and he never came any closer than two houses away. He just seemed to be lurking. He spent a lot of time fiddling with branches and things like an old guy does instead of feeding pigeons, but he always seemed to be keeping an eye on me. No one else seemed to notice him, and the teachers didn’t do anything.
But when I was supposed to be walking home on Thursday, I felt like there was something itching at the back of my neck. I wished I hadn’t been wearing a dress, but it was picture day and BitchMom insisted that I wear something nice.
I was sure that I was being watched.
So I took another way home that I knew, one that would take me near the woods. No one had bothered me there since 6th grade, so I was pretty sure I could get away if I had to.
I guessed wrong. He was there waiting, leaning on the big tree at the front of the path.
“Hello, Kelly,” he said. Now that I could see him better he didn’t look like a pervert, but he was sizing me up as if he was trying to fit a piece of the puzzle into place, like he’d seen me before from a distance, and this was just him wondering what he was going to do with me now that he had seen me up close. Like a stalker meeting his favorite actress for the first time, he seemed unsure as to what to say next.
“Who the hell are you?”
“I’m a friend, I promise.” He raised his hands to his chest like I had a gun pointed at him. I wish I had.
“The hell you are. How long have you been following me around, old man?”
He paused and his eyes darted back and forth, like he was trying to figure out the answer and didn’t want to tell me the truth. “A while, kind of. Look, I’m just going to reach into my pocket, very slowly, and then I’m going to show you something. I know this will convince you.”
“How do you know?”
“I know.” His hand pulled out a little piece of shiny metal, about the size of an index card but about as thick as a pencil. He looked at it like he was looking into a mirror, and dragged his finger across it, and tapped it a few times. Then he smiled and turned it around. A picture flashed on the metal like a tiny television.
Then I saw her.
“Hey, Kelly-Belly.”
She looked like my mom, but with the same little mole over her eyebrow that I have.
“Wow, this is really weird—I’m saying the exact words I remember her telling me. It’s just happening. This is just the way I remember it happening. Kelly, this is going to sound crazy, but . . . I’m you. From the future. I’m here with Matt—show her,” she said, and the screen’s point of view swished around and showed a close-up of the same man in front of me, who waved at the camera, then panned back.
“This is going to sound strange—maybe impossible to believe—but there are two things you have to know right off the bat. One: I’m you, from years in the future. Let me show you—Matt, zoom in here—see, here on my foot? This is the scar that’s left from where you dropped Mom’s good scissors. Two: Matt has invented a way to travel through time, and he’s fit it all into a belt. He’s wearing it now.”
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