A wave in the great big blue. It might one day finally get to wash upon the sandy beach of the little town on an island called Timely Tides. The island was named after a project that had been long abandoned: Time travel. The first people to settle in Timely Tides had discovered an undiscovered area in the ocean. No matter what the tide was or how much time had gone by in the span of 10 years, there was one wave that never moved. The sun’s light was always shining on it, its rays lighting up the inside of the wave in the same exact area. The small amount of light that managed to get through the water was big enough to light up an area in the water extremely close to the right peninsula of the island where the town was located, so close that you could swim to it in under 20 minutes. It had been rumored that a chest full of treasures was in the water right where the light was shown. It was also said, however, that the chest was guarded by a monster. As time in the town went on, and the town of Timely Tides advanced, the wave continued to be still, never moving a millimeter from where it was. Then, one day, it finally moved.
Jacky’s the name. Actually, it’s really Jacklyn, but everyone just calls me Jacky. I live on Timely Tides, the secret little island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. We are surrounded by water, all 150 or so of us who live on the island. There’s a few palms (Palm trees) and lots of rocks and sand. Closer to the middle of the island, there’s lots of fresh green grass in the Park, a place where people have picnics and hangout, talk about the weather and whatnot. I went the other day, to spy on The Gossips with my friend Aurora, or for short, Rory. When I say spy, I mean pretend that we’re spies and we’re trying to get special info from our enemies. We always choose The Gossips to be our enemies because, well, they’re our enemies. The Gossips always talk about boring stuff, like who likes who or “what was that weird glob was on the floor that other day?”, or bla bla bla about this teacher, or “WHAT did he say?!” but usually, the hot topic is the nerd, the weirdo, or the ones who act like little kids. That’s us. The last two, I mean. The weirdos and the ones who act like little kids. But anyway, as I walk out the door, my backpack slung over my right arm, I watch the bus drive away. Ugh! I’m gonna be late again! I think to myself as I take a step, planning to take off towards the school.
“Did you remember your lunch, honey?” My mom shouts from inside the kitchen. I head to the dining room, where my brown bag sits on the table waiting for me. I yank it off the table, run back to the door, and just as I’m about to go outside again, my mom shouts,
“Did you forget your homework?”
“I’m gonna be late, Mom!” I scream back, completely ignoring the fact that she’s actually right, as I watch the school bus speed down the street at a speed that’s probably illegal. I take off down the stairs from my house, hoping to get to Windled (Wind-l-ed) Middle on time. “It doesn’t make any sense why the island’s called timely tides and yet no one is on time. Not even the school bus manages to be on time.” I think to myself.
After ten minutes of running to the school, I meet up with Rory at the front of the school, under the overhang. We take a single step into the school and the smell of sweat, unwashed feet and armpits, as well as disgusting cafeteria food, and other unknown substances overcome us like a tidal wave. After a long weekend, I had forgotten how bad it smelled, and judging by the look on Rory’s face, I guess she forgot too. We go to our lockers, numbers 167 and 168, right next to each other. They were also in the front of the school, and by our homeroom teacher, on the left.
Our homeroom teacher just sits there as we talk, and doesn’t care that we play games or listen to music, which is beneficial to us since that’s mostly what we do. Occasionally, we finish homework. As we walk into the homeroom from our lockers, the entire class looks at us. I quickly look at the clock and see that we are ten minutes late. We sheepishly sit down at our desks, right next to each other.
“Alright class, today we will be learning about time. Or more specifically, the reason why the first people came to this island: Time Travel!” Mr. Claves hollered, trying to be heard over everyone who was chattering away at homeroom. As the other kids started to calm down, Mr. Claves pulled up a video that explained that the first people to come here had discovered a wave in the ocean that never moved, and that they did certain tests on it. The video never specified what tests they did on it, it just said that they had found a revolution as they tested it. They then started to work on time travel, and gave up just as they were halfway to figuring it out. They disposed of all traces of their plans, except kept the memories and told those to their children and so on. Throughout this, me and Rory looked at each with the look that said we would be the ones who finally figured it out.
After the long and blurry day of school, we met at the usual spot in the park and set out to make plans to solve the unknown and learn to time travel.