To enter, tell us in twenty-five words or less why YOU deserve to win an exclusive time-travel package consisting of five (5) ten-minute Time Journeys, return flights to Sydney from your nearest capital city, accommodation at the Novotel on Darling Harbour, and transfers to and from the Time Travel Agency™.

Okay, first of all, I want to say that twenty-five words are nowhere near enough. I intend to use a lot more. You should forgive me for this because look how many words you use to describe this competition! There are, like, fifty or something!

Not like fifty. Exactly fifty. I just counted. That’s a minute of my life I’ll never get back. UNLESS I GO BACK IN TIME! To get the minute back!

Which is why I deserve to win this competition.

And that concludes my entry.

Ha-ha.

No. I haven’t even started on the reason I deserve to win. It’s a sound and noble reason with educational overtones. Also, as you will eventually see, choosing me will benefit you guys as well. It’s what I like to call a win-win.

I made that expression up, by the way: win-win.

Ha-ha, no, I didn’t. But that’s the kind of thing my dad does all the time: he takes a cliché and acts like he invented it. ‘You know what I just realised,’ he says, in a voice like he can’t quite believe where this sentence is heading, but he’s pretty sure we’ll all drop to the floor and cry out with amazement when we hear. ‘I just realised that every cloud has a silver lining.’

Then Mum goes, ‘Yeah, there’s a poet named John Milton, had that exact same thought about four hundred years ago?’

It never embarrasses Dad. He just steps up his amazement. ‘No way! What are the chances? Milton and I, eh? Two peas in a pod. Hey, did you hear that, everyone? Two peas in a pod! Whoa! What a metaphor! So vivid!’

Another thing I would like to say, before I get started, is that I will not need return flights to Sydney, thanks, as I am already IN Sydney. However, it seems fair, as the winner, that I get some flights. Otherwise, you guys will be like, ‘SCORE! We save money on flights! Let’s have an office party with the leftover cash and buy all the cakes and the beer!’ Not cool, guys. Not cool.

You can give me flights to a capital city of my own choice instead. Melbourne seems nice in the TV ads. So elegant and swishy, with mood lighting. Or Honolulu would work? You don’t specify that it has to be a capital city in Australia. There are plenty of capitals out there. New York? Paris? Anyway, we can sort that out when I win. We can iron out the details.

Finally, I live on Wynton Road in Neutral Bay, which means I am a four-minute walk to the Time Travel Agency™. So it would make zero sense for me to stay in Darling Harbour and get ‘transferred’ back to where I started. But before you start fist-bumping (‘Score! We save cash on her hotel! Office party, here we come after all!’), please note that I’ll stay at the Novotel another time. I’ll take some friends from school and we’ll make a night of it.

(Cheer up. I’ll bake you a cake for your office party.)

That was a pretty big introduction. Interestingly, I always get my school essays returned with huge, red circles around the opening paragraphs and scrawled across the margin: Get to the point!

On the plus side, I have built up suspense. By now you must be desperate to know the reason I deserve to win your time-travel package.

To answer that question, let me take you back in time.

Ha-ha.

But no, seriously, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

We’re going to this morning. So. Not far.

It was a mild and cloudy morning.

It was the morning Taylor Morgan came to school with the quadratic formula tattooed on her arm. (‘Totes indestructible cheat plan. They can’t make me wash it off ’cause it can’t be washed off,’ she said. ‘They could make you cover it?’ I reasoned. ‘Holy crap. Didn’t think of that. Oh well, I know it now. Intense pain association, right?’)

And, finally, it was the morning my Year 9 history class went on an excursion to the Time Travel Agency™. Each of us took five (5) ten-minute Time Journeys.

‘Whoa!’ is what you are saying right now. ‘You’ve already been on Time Journeys? And you want to win more?! No chance!’

And you’re about to shred my competition entry. Forgetting that I offered to bake you a cake.

Stay away from the shredder until you’ve heard my story! There is a point, and I intend to reach it.

Back to this morning.

We knew we were going on the excursion, of course. It wasn’t like Ms Watson said, ‘Surprise! Today, we time travel! Am I the best teacher ever or what?’ and we all whooped and gave her flowers.

No, as you will recall, the Time Travel Agency™ offered all the local high schools free trial packages to ‘celebrate’ its opening in our neighbourhood. Our school was the only one to take up the offer. Some parents complained that this was a ‘disgraceful waste of school time’, but most laughed, made us promise to take photos and signed the permission slips.

So all Ms Watson said this morning was, ‘Best behaviour on the walk over, please.’ But she didn’t sound that invested.

No offence, but many jokes were made about time travel on the walk. Ms Watson pretended not to hear, or maybe she was distracted. She was really bothered by how short a ‘window of time’ the lights stayed green at crossings, and by the way the class ‘straggled’ so that we kept missing the ‘windows’, and by the way we kept tripping from the path onto the road because we were laughing so hard at the jokes being made at the expense of your agency.

‘Honestly, what is it that keeps you people alive in your day-to-day lives?’ Ms Watson asked. Nobody answered her. It was too complex a scientific and philosophical question.

We arrived at the agency at 10 a.m.

Now, I will say that I like your shopfront. Some might have gone for a big, blazing sign like, The Time Travel Agency! with fireworks exploding from each letter. Like, to indicate the excitement of movement through time! Others might have used a historical font, The Time Travel Agency, with pictures of carriages and gentlemen in top hats.

But you just have that white screen and the tiny, neat: TIME TRAVEL AGENCY. PLEASE ENTER, alongside a stack of pamphlets setting out your price list.

There are maybe twenty of us in the class, and we were all suddenly silent, staring at this shopfront.

Still, there is something about the idea of a time-travel agency sitting on Military Road between a sushi place and a 7-Eleven, cars and buses crawling by, half-heartedly honking their horns, that splits right through a moment of doubt like this. By the time Ms Watson pushed open the door we were laughing again.

You’ve got a great colour scheme in your reception area. Black and orange, and all dim and moody, like Melbourne. Striking! Surprising after the understated shopfront, too.

A woman in black-framed spectacles stepped out from behind the reception desk and welcomed us. She had a hip look and a warm smile and we stared at her, interested to find that this sort of woman would agree to work in time travel.

‘Kara,’ she said and Kara Ripley said, ‘Yes?’ in a trembling and astonished voice. But it turned out the receptionist’s name was Kara. She was just introducing herself. Our Kara was, like, ‘OMG, I thought you must have travelled back in time to find out my name in an alternate universe and that this was, like the twenty-fifth time we’d got here, and we’re in a loop where you’ll just keep finding out all our names!’

The receptionist looked at her for a long moment and then she said, ‘No.’

After that she asked us to follow her into a briefing room with a podium, and she gave us a quick summary of the Time Travel Agency™. How it was started by the cosmologist, Professor Eliza Raskdfjsa, when she discovered the key to time bending, and how Neutral Bay was the flagship store, but eventually the professor hoped to have agencies all over the world, and how her mission was to make time travel an affordable, comfortable option for everyone.

We already knew all this because of the articles in the Herald and the Telegraph and all the talk on Twitter and Tumblr, etcetera, and here I might gently remind you that this coverage has universally mocked and savaged Professor Raskdfjsa, the agency and time travel itself.

Put simply, nobody believes in it.

Anyhow, next, Kara-the-receptionist warned us about ‘time lag’. ‘You may experience mild dizziness and confusion,’ she said. ‘Don’t be alarmed. They fade. We’ve found that the symptoms are minimised if a single time destination is visited in any twenty-four-hour period, and if that visit is split into ten-minute increments with short breaks to rehydrate.’ The agency only offered journeys to the past, not the future, she said, and we would each get our own time booth, and —

‘Why not the future?’ Ari Dadash asked.

‘Because this is a history class,’ Ms Watson scolded him. ‘Not science fiction. Don’t interrupt.’

‘In fact, the agency doesn’t offer trips to the future,’ Kara said. ‘The future hasn’t happened yet. Nowhere to go.’

‘If you can travel backwards in time,’ Lila Saraya declared, ‘you can travel forward. Basic physics.’

Kara smiled at her. ‘A lot of our ideas about time travel come from movies,’ she said. ‘For example, I bet you think you’ll be able to change the past while you’re visiting? You will not.’

‘Did you hear that, everybody?’ Ms Watson put in. ‘No messing around with the past! You will interfere with the space–time continuum!’

At the podium, Kara scratched her ear. ‘Mess around with the past as much as you like, actually. The space–time continuum is rock-solid. My point is that your actions can’t affect it. No matter what you do back then, the present will stay the same.’

A voice spoke up. A soft, low voice. The sort of voice that makes feathers slide up and down your spine, and fireflies zing around your stomach. Take note of this voice. It belongs to Noah Brackman.

‘This is a big part of why people doubt your agency,’ Noah said (in his voice). ‘If nothing changes, you haven’t really been there, have you? I mean, at most, it’s all in your subconscious?’

There was a brief, startled silence. Noah had just changed the rules. None of us actually believed in time travel (except maybe Kara Ripley), but that was something we joked and smirked about between ourselves, not brought up with the agency employees!

Ms Watson was frowning. ‘Noah,’ she said. ‘These people have kindly offered us a free trial of their program! If they have the technology to provide you with an immersive historical experience, we will play along.’

Kara smiled again but in a sad, weary way. She turned to Noah. ‘Of course you can’t change the past,’ she said. ‘It’s already happened.’

Then she pointed at the door behind us. ‘Booths are down the corridor to the left. Time destinations have been locked in: all within your teacher’s preferred frame. England in the seventeenth century. Right, Ms Watson?’

‘Ha. Trolled,’ Farrell Kafji said. ‘Wrong century. We’re doing the sixteen hundreds.’

We all explained to him how centuries work while Ms Watson sighed at the ceiling.

‘Wait,’ said Taylor Morgan. ‘Is this safe? I mean, will we get the plague?’ She held up her new tattoo. ‘I don’t want this getting infected.’

So maybe Taylor Morgan believed in time travel, too.

‘Perfectly safe,’ Kara said. ‘We’ve had people stabbed on their journey! They feel it, but in the present, nothing has happened to them, so they come back fine.’

‘That,’ said Noah, ‘is another reason.’

Kara seemed not to hear him. ‘Everyone get settled in a booth. I’ll seal the doors and send you on your way. Happy travels!’

Now, I’ve been pretty honest with you in this entry so far. You probably appreciate that. So I may as well continue with the honesty.

You know how I laughingly mentioned that Kara Ripley and Taylor Morgan maybe believed in time travel?

Well, so did I.

Not completely, you understand. It was more that my mind was like a peach. The fruit part was going: Ha-ha, total scam! Oh well, have fun anyway, while the stone in the middle whispered: Wait, this could be real.

I had no basis for that stone’s whisper. I just wanted it to be real. Time travel! So cool! Plus, I like the pictures of Professor Raskdfjsa in the papers. Her face, her clothes, her eyebrows, her bangles — everything about her, basically, is a shrug.

Print whatever you like about me, she seems to be saying. I know the truth. Shrug.

So when I got into that booth, I was trembling. England in the seventeenth century? It would be noisy! Smelly. I might get kicked in the face by a horse!

That was my main concern, really. Landing in the path of a horse and getting kicked in the face. Sure, I might come back intact, but in the moment, a broken nose would hurt.

Also, the plague seemed like it might have more serious implications than an infected tattoo.

I’d like to compliment you on your booths. Slick whites and chromes, but so comfortable. There was a monitor with keyboard and headphones, a bottle of water in a holder, a muesli bar leaning up against this. Also, surprisingly, a pink post-it note with a scribbled number on it, and a set of keys on a Pokémon keyring.

I sat in the reclining leather chair, put on the headphones, and admired the font on the screen. Here is what it said:

Destination: Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, England, 10 January 1643, 8.35 p —

A cursor blinked after the ‘p’.

It wasn’t finished.

I leaned forward, touched the keyboard, and typed ‘m’. So now, as you will have guessed, it said:

Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, England, 10 January 1643, 8.35 p.m.

I thought about that. 8.35 p.m. January. In England? That was winter. It would be freezing, and dark!

With respect, Ms Watson, you’re an idiot (I thought to myself, respectfully).

I leaned forward and typed again. So now it said:

Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, England, 10 June 1643, 2.35 p.m.

‘Stand by,’ said the voice of Kara through a loudspeaker, ‘doors closing.’

Hiss went the doors, and I heard the hiss echo up and down the corridor.

My heart really wanted my attention. It was like a little puppy scrambling all over my chest.

I looked down at my clothes. We’d been told to wear ‘casual’ rather than our uniforms. I was wearing jeans! A T-shirt that said, Save it for the Subterraneans, which I’d stolen from my brother’s closet! Very hip and enigmatic, sure, much like Melbourne, but how would it look to the good folk of Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire?

They’d totally stare at me! And maybe throw rocks?

Also, what if I got trapped in the past? Why had nobody addressed that issue? At the very least we should have been provided with a stack of seventeenth-century currency and a help line!

‘In one minute,’ piped Kara through the loudspeaker, ‘your journey will commence. If you have any concerns, please press the red button marked HELP.’

I reached for the red button.

My hand paused.

I looked at the screen. At the keyboard. Back at my hand.

‘Time destinations have been locked in,’ Kara had said. Not in my booth, they hadn’t been. I just changed it. I considered the pink post-it note and the Pokémon keyring. They had a left-behind feeling about them. Someone was interrupted, I realised, before they’d finished here.

My heart stopped jumping around. It sat still, blinking at me. So did the cursor on the screen.

‘Twenty seconds till departure.’

I leaned forward, deleted, typed at high speed —

‘Departing! Now!’

The booth lit up and blasted sideways: 32 Wynton Road, Neutral Bay, NSW, Australia, 23 May 2016, 4.25 p.m.

And that’s where I went.

To my own home.

On a Monday afternoon, two weeks ago.

I landed just inside the front door. My dog, Babstock, lying on the carpet, seemed surprised and amused to see me. He got straight up, pressed his nose to my stomach, wagged his tail a bit, and lay back down. You know your way around, he seemed to say.

I headed to the stairs.

Whoa, is what you’re saying right now. (You should stop saying that.) And you’re thinking I’m a right wuss. Scared of a little kick in the face from a horse! Scared of a touch of the plague! And so on.

Let me be perfectly clear. Yes, I was scared, but that’s not why I changed the destination.

I changed it because 23 May 2016, 4.25 p.m. is a date and time that has been seared into my skull, inked into my consciousness, spring-loaded into my brain ever since it first took place.

Here is why.

Noah Brackman kissed me that day.

It was my first kiss.

And he hasn’t spoken a word to me since.

In the last two weeks, every waking and many sleeping moments have been consumed by my fierce and fiery desire to go back in time and find out what the heck I did wrong.

I could use stronger language than ‘heck’ there, but I don’t want to get disqualified.

Anyhow, here I was at home.

I walked up the stairs. From the kitchen, I could hear the sound of my parents arguing. ‘Cerulean blue!’ my mother shouted, just as I reached the top step. ‘Candy-apple red!’ my dad retaliated in a roar. (They run a graphic design business together.)

Along the corridor, I passed my sister’s room. Someone was crying in there. My sister’s voice was talking to the crying person in a quick, sensible tone. She’s always very practical about emotional anguish, my sister.

I passed my brother’s room. Music was playing. There was a crashing sound, and someone swore.

I reached my own room. I’m the youngest so I get the small one down the end.

The door was ajar. I went to push it open further — and stopped.

Someone had just laughed.

The someone was me.

I was in my room laughing.

I stood in the corridor, hyperventilating as quietly as I could, and listened to my own laughter.

And there it was.

The answer.

Right there.

I couldn’t believe I had solved the riddle so quickly. No wonder Noah hadn’t spoken to me since that day!

My laugh was ridiculous.

Hee-hee ha-ha, up high, down low, then a sort of trail of raspy ha-ha-has. I recognised it, of course, as that is exactly how I always laugh. But ordinarily, when you hear your own laugh, you’re busy finding something funny! You take no notice of the sound! Now, however, visiting from my own future and standing outside my room, I could be objective. And objectively speaking I sounded like a falling cockatoo. The cockatoo’s wings have failed it. The cockatoo is high-pitched panicking, resigned moaning, then hitting the ground with a squawky thud-thud-thud.

I couldn’t believe my parents hadn’t sent me to some kind of Laughter Rehabilitation Centre years before. I couldn’t believe my brother and sister hadn’t sat me down and said, ‘This laugh of yours? It has to stop.’

I leaned against the wall.

Noah was speaking in there. In his voice. I heard myself laugh again. Noah’s voice. My laugh. Noah’s voice. My laugh.

He was saying funny things. I couldn’t hear exactly what they were, but I remembered now: we’d been working on a chemistry assignment together, and just before he kissed me, he’d been hilarious about our chemistry teacher. Why? Why keep being funny, Noah? He must have known the direct consequence of humour would be more laughter!

Mysterious.

Although, now that I thought about it, maybe it suggested that he didn’t have a problem with my laugh?

Plus the kiss hadn’t happened yet. It was about to happen.

Logic would suggest that if you were appalled by somebody’s laugh and wanted no more to do with her, you’d say, ‘Gotta go, sorry,’ as opposed to kissing her.

The bathroom is opposite my bedroom. I crept over there, creaked open the door, unhooked the mirror from above the vanity and carried it back into the hallway.

At that moment, my brother’s door opened. Sebastian stepped out into the hallway along with a blast of music. He turned, still grinning at something in his own world, and saw me.

I was holding the bathroom mirror at a high angle, pointing it at my open door. He raised an eyebrow, interested. Then he looked at me more closely.

‘That’s my shirt,’ he said. I could only just hear him over the music from his room.

‘No, it’s not,’ I replied automatically. But it was, of course. Save it for the Subterraneans. ‘It’s okay,’ I said instead. ‘I’m not actually wearing it today. That happens in two weeks.’

He considered this, raising his other eyebrow to join the first. Then he nodded, apparently satisfied, spun around and ran down the stairs.

I played with the mirror angle.

It worked. I could see into my room.

And there we were.

Me and Noah.

We were sitting on my bed.

Me-of-the-past was facing the window, so I could only see the back of my head and a bit of my profile. My hair looked fine. In its regular ponytail and quite shiny. So it wasn’t that. He hadn’t stopped speaking to me because of a failure of hair style/quality.

Now, as I watched, Noah’s hand curled around the back of my head. He leaned towards me. Past-me took the cue. I mean, I didn’t just sit there and make it difficult for him. I didn’t rush it either. Hurtle myself forward with lively enthusiasm, and send him flying off the bed so that he crashed against my desk and got concussion. No. I leaned forward at his exact, careful speed, and then we were kissing.

I don’t know if you’ve ever watched your own first kiss taking place in real life, but I have to say it is a situation that makes you feel many complex emotions. Especially if it’s Noah Brackman doing the kissing. Noah with the eyes that disappear when he smiles. Noah with the thoughtful way of moving around life, thinking about things, and now and then commenting on those things, in his voice.

I tried to be a scientific observer.

I noted that: (1) I placed my hand on his shoulder, to give myself balance. I admired myself for this. It seemed a smooth and natural move. (2) Noah’s eyes stayed closed for the whole kiss. They didn’t fly open and widen in alarm and horror at anything I was doing. (3) When the kiss finished, we both sat back and smiled at each other. (I could tell that I was smiling from my profile.) (4) Neither of us said anything. (5) We kept smiling for ages! (Longer than the kiss, actually.) (6) Then Noah looked behind me at the clock on my bedside table and said, ‘I am unbelievably late for work.’ (He works at his dad’s plant nursery.) (7) He stood up, and (8) I also stood, ready to walk out with him.

At this point, out in the corridor, I panicked, of course — and then, there I was, back in the booth.

That’s how it happened. No rush of lights or zoom this time. Just: oh look, here’s the booth.

‘Welcome back, everyone,’ said Kara’s smooth voice over the speakers. ‘You have thirty seconds before your next journey. Please use the time to rehydrate. If you feel light-headed or dizzy, we urge you to eat the muesli bar.’

I opened the lid of the water bottle and drank.

‘Ten seconds until departure.’

I only had time to have two specific thoughts — I don’t think that I did ANYTHING wrong in that kiss! and This would not be nearly enough time to eat a muesli bar — when the booth lit up and blasted sideways again.

Once again, Babstock was surprised and pleased to see me, welcomed me politely, and lay back down.

Once again, my parents were arguing in the kitchen while I walked up the stairs. I walked a little more slowly this time so my mum shouted, ‘Cerulean blue!’ and my dad, ‘Candy-apple red!’ at the third step from the top, rather than the top.

Once again, there was crying in my sister’s room, and loud music in my brother’s. The crash! from my brother’s room, and the sound of swearing.

I stopped outside my own room and there I was laughing in there. My laugh had not improved. I went right into the bathroom and unhooked the mirror. In the hall, I looked at my brother’s closed door. Any moment it would open. Sebastian would see me with the mirror. He’d raise an eyebrow and say, ‘That’s my shirt.’

I should avoid that.

I ducked into the bathroom, out of sight.

Sound of door bursting open, blast of music. Footsteps along the corridor, and down the stairs.

I stepped out again.

The mirror seemed heavier than last time. I hoisted it up, and it swivelled and tilted. Now it faced across the corridor instead. Straight into my brother’s room.

Max Stephenson was in there, sitting at Sebastian’s desk. I recognised his swoopy, swirly hair. (I assume he asks his hairdresser to make his head look like cappuccino foam, please.) Max has been a casual buddy of Sebastian’s for years, but he’s really stepped things up to super-friendship this year. Dropping by almost every day and saying, ‘Dude!’ My brother seems cheerful about this development. ‘Dude!’ he says right back. The rest of our family exchange many doubtful glances.

I don’t mean to boast here, but my brother is a mild genius. He’s also super-efficient and super-conscientious, and these elements, in combination, mean he blasts into first place in every subject that he takes. He’s in Year 12 now, which means that life is suddenly looming from behind the HSC exams (he explained to us the other night).

A lot of time, when Max Stephenson comes by, the second thing he says after ‘Dude!’ is something like this: ‘Logarithms! What the f***, eh?’

To which my brother replies, surprised, ‘Really? I like them! You want me to show you?’

Followed by a free tutoring session.

This explains my family’s doubtful glances.

So I did not beam with delight to see Max Stephenson in my brother’s room. He was hunched forward, studying the computer monitor, hand on the mouse. I moved the mirror around a bit, so I could scan the bedroom. It’s always a treat to see how neat, filed and colour coordinated a life can be. The only glitch today was the smashed glass lying on the floorboards, right by Max’s sneaker. A puddle of Coke stretched from the shards towards the rug.

That explained the crash and the swearing I’d heard. Sebastian must have run downstairs to get a cloth.

I looked up at Max with disapproval. It seemed likely to me that he had knocked the glass over. Sebastian is careful with his surroundings.

A document was open on the computer screen in there. Extension English Assessment Task: In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald explores the life of the imagination, and the imagined life. Discuss.

Discuss. Those are the cheapest questions. Teachers can’t think of something to ask, so they fall back on the vague and helpless: Discuss.

My brother didn’t seem to have had an issue with it. Max was scrolling down the screen now, and one paragraph after another was appearing at high speed. Now Max reached into his pocket, with his left hand. He took out a USB — one of those novelty ones, in the shape of a little red car — and jammed it into the computer.

After that it was hard to see what happened. You will recall I was watching all of this through a heavy mirror that kept tipping and losing its focus. But I caught a flash of files flying across the screen. The ‘trash bin’ icon. And then Max was pulling out the USB again, and dropping it in his pocket; iTunes flipped onto the screen.

I didn’t think. I strode right over to my brother’s bedroom door and shouted, ‘Hey!’

I had to shout. The music was still blasting.

Max spun around in his seat. His eyes were startled. He tried to hide this startlement with a smile. ‘Hey yourself.’

‘What are you doing with that USB?’ I shouted.

Now the smile broke into pieces, like that glass.

‘Just copying some music!’ he said.

‘Music?’ I pounced, with huge amounts of wither and scorn, which, it turned out, were wasted because now I was back in the booth.

‘Welcome back,’ Kara’s voice said. ‘You have thirty seconds before your next journey.’

Once again, she instructed us to rehydrate, and suggested we eat the muesli bar if we needed it. In fact, I did feel lightheaded and dizzy now, but I was pretty sure this was fury at Max Stephenson, rather than time-travel discombobulation. I thought of the trash-can icon on the screen. He hadn’t just copied my brother’s essay, he’d also deleted it.

‘Ten seconds until departure,’ and I was in my own front hallway. I gave Babstock a fierce yet cursory hug, pelted up the steps, two at a time (‘Cerulean blue!’ ‘Candy-apple red!’), skidded along the corridor, and reached my brother’s door.

I stopped.

My hand was raised, ready to turn the handle and throw open the door.

But of course, nothing had happened yet. Max, at this point, was innocent.

Crash! from behind the door, and swearing.

I pursed my lips. If I hadn’t hesitated, I might have saved that glass.

My brother was about to fly out of the room. I sidestepped along the corridor towards the stairs.

But if I had saved the glass, I would not have saved the glass. Of course you can’t change the past, Kara had said in the briefing room, it’s already happened.

The glass broke. It was broken. In the real world of the present, it is broken.

That seemed terribly sad to me, and also quite wise.

My brother’s door flew open, and here he came with the music and the grin. ‘Hey,’ he said to me, friendly, but I wasn’t holding a bathroom mirror in the air, so he had no reason to pause, stare and notice his shirt. He carried on by, and down the stairs.

Now was my chance.

Catch Max Stephenson in the act!

But, again, I stopped. It’s already happened. Max Stephenson has already stolen my brother’s essay. It happened two weeks ago. He’d probably handed it in as his own by now. My brother would have discovered it was gone, and written another one.

The glass was already broken.

Instead of pushing open my brother’s door, I pulled it closed, dimming the music, and sat down on the floor. I needed to think through my new wisdom. So far, I wasn’t sure exactly what was wise about it.

I was sure that it was sad.

Somebody was crying somewhere, as if they agreed with me on that.

Of course, I remembered. There was somebody crying in my sister’s room. Her door was half-open and I was opposite it now, leaning against the wall, so I could hear quite clearly: the sound of a girl crying. There was some rustling and rattling going on. ‘Here,’ said my sister, Harper, in her efficient voice, ‘take this.’ I decided she was offering the person a tissue.

‘Thank you,’ mumbled the girl. I didn’t recognise the voice. The girl blew her nose. So I was right about the tissue.

‘There will be other auditions,’ Harper said. ‘And at other auditions, you will not have a twinge in your shoulder that impedes your boogaloo!’

I slapped a hand over my mouth to stop myself snorting. Boogaloo. Funny. But insensitive to laugh.

‘You think?’ murmured the girl, sniffing.

‘I don’t think, I know!’ declared my sister. ‘You rock the Humpty Hump. And as for the Kriss Kross? And the Twist-o-flex?’

Okay, it was hip-hop. I recognised those terms. Harper is the athlete in the family: she rows, does Tae Kwon Do and dances hip-hop at a professional level. This girl must be in her troupe. And she must have just messed up an audition.

I still didn’t know who she was, but I did know she wore a really powerful perfume. It was one of those high, sweet smells, like freesias and watermelon, with insect-repellent undertones, and it kept wafting out of the open door and into my face. (My sister is not a perfume sort of a person.)

‘Here,’ Harper said briskly. ‘These are the keys to my locker at the studio.’ More rustling. Jangling. ‘There’s a CD in there that Malik burned for me. The set list will —’

But I didn’t know what the set list would do, because here I was back in the booth.

‘Welcome back!’ said Kara, more upbeat this time.

Yeah, yeah, I thought. Have a drink. Eat the muesli bar. I drank, reached for the muesli bar, and flew sideways.

The front hallway again.

I felt despondent this time. ‘Hey, Babstock,’ I said, and sat down beside him. He seemed pleased to have me.

If you couldn’t change the past, what was the point of coming here? What was the point of life?

My parents were arguing in the kitchen. I could hear them quite clearly now.

‘Seriously, that was mad,’ Mum said.

‘What are you talking about?’ Dad complained. ‘He knew it was a joke! Anyway, I can’t help it, I do it automatically.’

‘He signed off on the artwork, right? Before you went mad?’

‘As long as we change the logo to cherry pink.’

‘He’s nuts,’ Mum said.

Cherry pink, I thought. Yum. (I have lip gloss in that flavour.)

‘I know, right?’ Dad said. ‘But I agree with him that yellow is wrong for the Ely logo. Should be candy-apple red.’

‘No way. Cerulean blue.’

‘Candy-apple red,’ my father said firmly.

‘Cerulean blue!’ my mother shouted.

‘Candy-apple red!’ my dad roared in reply.

That escalated quickly, I mused to myself. But that’s always the way with my parents: flighty, tempestuous, artistic types, the pair of them.

Beside me, Babstock sighed. ‘I know, right?’ I said to him.

It seemed a good idea, sighing. I tried it, too. Sigh. It was just the thing.

Upstairs, I knew, I was laughing at Noah’s jokes and kissing him. Max Stephenson was smashing a glass and stealing my brother’s essay. A strange girl was weeping about a failed boogaloo.

And there was nothing I could do about any of it.

I played with Babstock’s ears while my parents carried on bellowing, ‘Cerulean blue!’ and ‘Candy-apple red!’ at each other.

My brother ran down the stairs.

‘Hey,’ he said, seeing me there and, ‘Yo!’ to Babstock, then, ‘Isn’t that my shirt?’ to me, but in a distracted way. He disappeared into the kitchen. There was a brief pause in the battle of colours, while Sebastian chatted and moved about in there, then he hurried by me again, a cloth in his hand, back up the stairs.

My parents picked up their profound philosophical debate immediately, ‘Cerulean blue!’ ‘Candy-apple red!’ but Mum tripped up and shrieked, ‘Cerulean-apple red!’ and they both burst into laughter —

And I was in the booth.

‘Welcome,’ said Kara’s voice.

Then, disconcertingly, she changed the script. ‘You are about to take your fifth and final journey. Here at the Time Travel Agency™, we trust that you have enjoyed your travels today. Be sure to share your experiences on your favourite social media platforms. Departing in ten, nine, eight …’

I straightened my shoulders.

The booth flashed white and skidded sideways.

‘Yes, Babstock,’ I said. ‘It’s me. Surprise!’

It was unfair of me to be snarky with him. He didn’t know this was a loop. Only, I was feeling a little tetchy. I blamed Kara-the-receptionist. She hadn’t reminded me to rehydrate and now I was thirsty. (Knowing that this was my own fault rather than Kara’s, only increased my irritation.) But it was more than that.

Your fifth and final journey, she had said.

Last chance, is what she meant.

Last chance to achieve nothing you mean, Kara, I thought spitefully.

Oh, blah. May as well give it one last go.

I stomped up the stairs.

‘Cerulean blue!’ I mouthed along with Mum’s shout, and ‘Candy-apple red!’ with Dad. I rolled my eyes at them, like a proper teenager.

My sister’s room and the crying girl. My brother’s room and the crash! followed by the same old swearing.

Could you not at least vary your curses? I withered at the door.

I turned into the bathroom, waited while Sebastian’s door flew open and his footsteps disappeared down the stairs, then I unhooked the mirror and stepped back into the hall.

Outside my own room again, I hefted the mirror high. Ha-ha hee-hee. Yes, me-of-the-past, chortle away in there. Soon you will have nothing to laugh about for soon that boy will tear your heart to shreds!

Noah continued being funny, and I continued being amused. His voice, my laugh, his voice, my laugh.

Yes, yes, I know this bit.

But then I stopped. I adjusted the mirror slightly so that the image was all Noah’s face.

There! I was right! His eyes had just skittered sideways. He was looking across the room, at my bookshelf. They skittered right back to me so he could be humorous again.

Obligingly, I laughed.

And there! Now his whole head had turned away. I was saying something myself now, at the same time as laughing, and he had turned his head to look out of the window. He swung his head around quickly. Okay, again, there! His eyes were on the light fittings now!

All this was happening in quick, darting flashes, you understand. Only a girl watching very closely from the hallway with a mirror in her arms would have noticed. But to me, such a girl, it was very clear.

Understanding crept up behind me and got a good grip on my throat.

In the room, Noah was leaning in, me-of-the-past was leaning in, and the kiss was about to happen. I turned away just in time. I couldn’t watch again. It would be an intrusion. Let her have her moment, I thought, referring tenderly to the me-of-the-past. This one, single moment of joy in a life that from henceforth will be desperate with tragedy.

I looked again. The kiss was done. We were at the part where we smiled at each other.

And it was still happening. Noah’s eyes kept wandering the room in quick little bursts. If you can wander in bursts. Well, I know you can because that’s what Noah was doing. I lowered the mirror a bit and saw that he was also doing this weird thing where he tapped his fingers against his elbow. Then he actually pinched the elbow. I lowered it further and there! His foot was tapping madly!

‘I am unbelievably late for work,’ he said, and I lifted the mirror quickly, catching his eyes over my shoulder now, on my clock radio.

He stood up, me-of-the-past stood up, and there I was in the booth again.

‘Welcome back,’ Kara said. ‘Take some time to compose yourself. Re-entering the present can be disconcerting, so —’

Blah, blah. I don’t know what she said next. I was lost in my own forlorn wisdom.

The glass was already broken.

Now I understood what it meant.

It wasn’t anything I had done wrong. It wasn’t the kiss.

The whole time he’d been in my room, his mind had been on other things. He didn’t want to be there. Noah had never been interested in me in the first place.

Kara-the-receptionist hurried into my booth as I was standing to leave.

‘There they are!’ she said, scooping up the post-it note and keys. It was strangely intimate hearing her voice in real life, instead of over the speaker. ‘Good trip?’ she asked, but she swept out before I answered. She did not glance at the screen, so she did not come face-to-face with the grim consequences of her own carelessness.

Everyone was subdued as we returned to school, except for Farrell Kafji, who complained loudly that he had landed in the middle of a seventeenth-century field. ‘And fields then are exactly like fields right now!’ he shouted. ‘I could’ve gone down to Forsyth Park if I wanted to see a field!’ By the last visit, he said, he had actually sprinted across the field, trying to find his way to something interesting, but there were only more fields.

All he ever saw was a cow.

Other people murmured quiet little tales to each other about seeing productions of Romeo and Juliet at the Globe, or having rats run over their feet, or lighting tallow candles, or having met ‘any number of coxcombs’, or arriving just in time to see King Charles the First lose his head.

‘The graphics were excellent,’ somebody said. ‘And the effects? Wow. Beyond gruesome.’ ‘State-of-the-art,’ others agreed soberly. ‘What is it, four-D holograms or what?’

So we were sticking with the sceptical. It was all high-tech theatrics.

I stayed silent. Noah was near the front of the group, and I hung way at the back.

At home tonight, my parents wanted to know about today’s school excursion to the Time Travel Agency™. I made up a story about having seen things far too traumatising to discuss (which was true enough, and which impressed them both very much).

Dad and I were making tacos for dinner, and Mum was working on her laptop at the kitchen table. Somebody else, meanwhile, was pounding on the front door.

‘Yo?’ called a voice.

My mother rolled her eyes. ‘Come in, Max!’ she shouted. ‘It’s open!’

Max Stephenson, accompanied by his swoopy hair, strolled into the kitchen. He dumped his schoolbag on the floor.

Sebastian must have heard because his footsteps thudded on the stairs and here he was, in the kitchen.

‘Dude,’ said Max.

‘Dude,’ Seb agreed, but without his usual relish. He was frowning to himself. His frown roamed the room. ‘That’s my shirt,’ he said to me.

‘No it’s not,’ I replied automatically and then, also automatically, ‘Oh well, it is your shirt, but I’m wearing it two weeks in the fut—’

Then I remembered that actually this was the future. And here I was, grating cheese and wearing it.

But my brother had lost interest. He was leaning against the bench, flipping through taco shells. ‘I’ve lost my essay,’ he said.

‘It’s not in the taco shells,’ I said. ‘Leave them alone.’

‘It’ll turn up,’ Mum said. She always says that. It’s both comforting and infuriating.

‘Will it?’ my brother asked hopefully.

Dad was at the stove, a spatula in hand. ‘Where did you last see it?’

‘On my computer. Yeah, no, I didn’t have a backup, don’t ask that question. Ask this one. How can three thousand five hundred words on The Great Gatsby just disappear?’

I stopped grating.

‘Whoa,’ said Max Stephenson, swinging himself into a chair at the table. ‘That’s due tomorrow!’

Now I turned around slowly.

Of course Sebastian had finished an essay two weeks before the due date. That was exactly his style.

‘Isn’t that what happened to Gatsby himself?’ Mum pointed out. ‘He disappeared?’

‘Into thin air,’ Dad agreed and then he whispered to himself, ‘into thin air.’ He fluttered his fingers in the air, trying out the concept. ‘Did you hear that, guys? Into thin air. So evocative. Takes your breath away, really.’

‘Anyway,’ Mum said. ‘It makes sense for an essay on Gatsby to disappear, is my point, because that’s exactly what the man himself did.’

‘You two can be a little ridiculous at times,’ my brother pointed out. Our parents turned back to their work, chastened.

‘Just write a new one,’ Max suggested. ‘I was going to get the lowdown on calculus from you tonight, but no sweat. Your essay’s more important.’

My heart was thrumming.

‘Actually,’ I said to Sebastian, ‘Max has a copy of your essay for you.’

The room blinked. That’s how it seemed anyway. Quick, startled glances from everyone.

‘He has?’ Sebastian asked.

Max’s face was busy with expressions of confusion and innocence. ‘Uh, what?’ He decided a little laughter was called for. ‘Sorry, dude. Why would I?’

‘Good question,’ I said smoothly. ‘And yet you do. Remember? Two weeks ago? You copied the essay onto your USB? From Sebastian’s computer?’

‘I what?’

‘You what?’ my parents and brother echoed.

‘The USB that’s like a little red car?’ I prompted him. Here, I took a bold step towards Max’s schoolbag and swept it up into my arms. ‘I’ll check for you!’

People were too confused to point out my violation of privacy and etiquette.

I took a guess, opened the front-pocket zip, rummaged around and there it was.

The little red car.

‘That’s a USB?’ Dad asked. ‘No way!’

‘I love it,’ Mum agreed.

I tossed it to my brother. ‘See if your essay’s on here,’ I instructed him.

Sebastian scratched his forehead. ‘Why would it be —’

‘Just go check,’ I said, and he shrugged, tossing the little red car on his palm. Then he swivelled and ran up the stairs.

While he was gone, Max kept up a low, meandering chuckle.

‘That’s getting on my nerves,’ Mum told him politely, so he stopped.

‘It’s here!’ my brother bellowed from upstairs. ‘It’s here!’

There was a pause while my parents and I raised our eyebrows at each other, very high, and Max attempted to imitate our surprise.

Seb’s footsteps thundered back down the stairs. ‘Dude,’ he said to Max. ‘You legend! I owe you,’ and he handed him the USB.

Now my parents and I swung wide-eyed glances at each other, but our glances were interrupted by the whoosh of the door.

My sister marched in. Hands on her hips, she surveyed us all.

‘Uh-oh,’ Dad said. ‘What have we done now?’

‘I need to leave in —’ Harper paused and studied our kitchen clock. It’s a sailboat clock: us kids gave it to my parents for their anniversary a few years ago, and the numbers are scattered everywhere. The idea is that they’ve been blown off course by a gust of good sailing wind. Clever, but very tricky to tell the time. ‘I need to leave in five minutes,’ Harper decided eventually. ‘And I cannot find my keys.’

‘They’ll turn up,’ Mum declared.

‘In the next five minutes?’ my sister demanded.

‘Oh, that I cannot promise,’ Mum said. She sorted through the papers that were piled around her. At this point, I was trying to set the table, and Mum and I were having a kind of silent battle over how much territory her paperwork could occupy.

‘Maybe Max has got your keys,’ Dad suggested mildly. ‘He had Sebastian’s essay. Check his bag.’

Max made a gurgling sound that I believe was supposed to be a laugh. He was looking pretty pale.

‘You could just take Dad’s car,’ Sebastian offered.

‘Could she?’ Dad said, surprised.

‘It’s not my car keys, it’s my locker key,’ Harper said. ‘For the dance studio. I haven’t used it for weeks, but there are choreography notes I need tonight.’

Up to this point, I admit, I had not been paying much attention to the discussion. The key point for me was that Harper was going out, and therefore not staying for dinner. I was recalculating place settings and taco allocations. But now I straightened up.

‘Your locker key for the dance studio?’

‘Yes.’

‘You gave that to a friend,’ I said. ‘Two weeks ago.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Harper. Honestly, she used the word nonsense. It’s her style. ‘I’d never give away my locker key.’

Here I had a moment’s doubt. Harper has a real certainty about her. But I’d been right about the stolen essay.

‘It was a friend who wears a lot of perfume,’ I remembered. ‘Really sweet perfume. Like freesias and watermelon.’

‘Oh, that’s Isabelle,’ Mum said. ‘She was here visiting you a couple of weeks ago, Harper. I remember I said to her, What IS that perfume, Isabelle? as a gentle way of suggesting that it was awful. But she took it as a compliment.’

Harper’s hands had fallen from her hips. She folded them. ‘Isabelle was here,’ she said. ‘But why would I …?’ She blinked quickly.

‘She was upset about an audition,’ I prompted. ‘Something went wrong with her boogaloo.’ I giggled. So did the family. Max just breathed quietly.

‘She was upset!’ Harper cried. ‘I did give her my locker key! I told her to take a CD from it! She should have given it back! Well done,’ she said to me. ‘Thank you!’ She is always very fair in her distribution of praise and gratitude.

Then she spun around, called, ‘Bye! Don’t call us! We’ll call you!’, shot the air with imaginary cowboy guns and ran from the room. (That’s a family thing. Years ago, my parents went to pitch to a potential client and they both thought it went great until the end, when the guy said, ‘Don’t call us! We’ll call you!’ and shot the air with imaginary cowboy guns. My parents came home howling with laughter, and ever since that’s become a sort of signature farewell with us. Even Max Stephenson has stopped startling at it.)

At this point, speaking of Max Stephenson, the boy himself pushed back his chair. His forehead looked a bit damp.

‘You know,’ he said. ‘I think maybe I won’t stay for dinner tonight.’

I started recalculating taco allocations again, but Mum was muttering to herself. She was tapping frantically at keys and zipping the mouse everywhere. ‘Where’s the confirmation?’ she said. ‘Where are the emails?’

‘Something else lost?’ Dad asked cheerfully. ‘Max will have it for sure.’

Mum looked up, frowning deeply. ‘The Ely Films programs?’ she said. ‘I can’t see any confirmation here and they need them for that big premiere on Friday.’

‘A thousand copies,’ Dad agreed, returning to the lettuce. ‘Don’t worry about it. You sent the artwork to the printers a fortnight ago. They’ll all be done and dusted. Done and dusted. Now that’s a —’

‘What?’ said Mum. ‘Who sent the artwork to the printers?’

‘You did.’

‘Um,’ said Max Stephenson. ‘I’ll just be off.’

‘Yes,’ Mum shot at him acidly. ‘I expect you have a Gatsby essay to write for tomorrow. Sit down.’ She swung to Dad. ‘I didn’t send the Ely artwork to the printers, you did.’

Max sank into his seat. Beside him, my brother blinked.

Dad, meanwhile, was swaying slightly. He bit his lip. ‘You thought I sent the artwork?’

‘You didn’t?’

‘I thought you did.’

They stared at each other.

‘It’s Monday,’ Mum whispered.

‘And they need the program for …’

‘The world premiere is Friday,’ Mum repeated. ‘The stars of the film are flying in for it. Sydney’s A-list celebrities will be there. Australia’s!’

‘We can still do it,’ Dad said, suddenly pumped. ‘AJs print overnight so as long as we get it to them by their cut-off tonight, they’ll have it for tomorrow — spot UV and celloglaze Tuesday, Wednesday to dry, collate and stitch on Thursday, delivery Thursday afternoon.’

‘Right.’ Mum nodded, looking excited. ‘And AJs’ cut-off is six p.m., so we have …’

They both swung around and studied the sailboat clock. Seconds ticked by.

‘Three minutes,’ they concluded at the same time.

‘Isn’t there a clock on your computer?’ Max mused.

They ignored him. ‘Quick,’ Dad rushed to Mum’s side. Her hands were moving around the keyboard at a high-speed tremble.

‘Where is it? Where’s the artwork? Okay, here it is!’

I looked over their shoulders. The screen filled with a blaze of colour and bubble font. A yellow tiger scowled from centre-top.

‘Okay, he’s approved the artwork, right? Except for the colour of the tiger. It’s their new logo. They’re launching it at the premiere. So just fix the colour, stick it in an email and send!’

Dad was jittering like a teabag. Mum’s fingers flew. On the screen, the yellow tiger turned blue.

‘Done,’ Mum said. ‘The tiger is now cerulean blue. So I just —’

‘Candy-apple red,’ Dad said firmly. ‘He wanted candy-apple red.’

‘No.’ Mum shook her head, still typing. ‘It was cerulean blue.’

‘Candy-apple red!’

‘Cerulean blue!’

Seb, Max and I looked back and forth between them and the clock, with great interest.

‘Stop!’ Dad said. ‘We don’t have time to argue!’

‘You’re right. Let’s call him and check.’ Mum reached for her phone, then stopped. ‘We can’t!’ she said. ‘He’s in New York, remember? He flies back tomorrow.’

‘So we call him in New York!’

‘It’s four a.m. in New York.’

‘He’s an early riser!’

‘How can you possibly know that!’ Mum demanded.

Sebastian looked at his own phone. ‘You have forty-five seconds,’ he said.

‘Is six p.m. an absolute deadline?’ Max wondered. ‘There’s no wiggle room?’

‘Yes!’ Mum and Dad snapped at once. ‘No wiggle room.’

‘I’m sure it was cerulean blue, he wanted,’ Mum said. ‘I’m sending it like this.’

‘I swear it was candy-apple red!’ Dad reached for the mouse. Mum slapped his hand away.

My heart began a low, slow hammer.

‘It was neither,’ I said quietly. ‘Your client wanted cherry pink.’

Mum and Dad were now wrestling each other for the mouse.

‘Cerulean blue!’

‘Candy-apple red!’

‘Cerulean blue!’

I placed my hands firmly on their shoulders.

‘Look at me,’ I said in a voice like a calm school principal. They looked at me. ‘It was cherry pink.’

They glanced at each other. They glanced at me.

Mum reached for the mouse. The scowling tiger turned pink.

The cursor flew across the screen. Email. Attachment. Send.

‘Six o’clock,’ my brother declared.

There was a long pause.

Ding, said Mum’s computer.

‘Confirmation,’ she said. ‘They got the order.’

She put her head down on the table.

Dad pulled out a chair and slumped into it. ‘And we’re sure it’s cherry pink?’ he asked me quietly.

Mum straightened up again. ‘This is the world premiere.’ She looked a bit dazed. ‘If the logo on the screen doesn’t match the logo on the program, I just …’ She turned her dazed expression on me. ‘Are you sure?’

I nodded.

My parents glanced at each other now, like, why did we just trust her?

Of course, I wasn’t sure at all. My heart was skidding around like my brother that time on new rollerblades.

I did know I’d heard Mum say that the client wanted cherry pink, right before they started arguing. I’d thought of my lip gloss when she said it.

But I’d heard it in a booth at the Time Travel Agency™.

And everybody knows the Time Travel Agency™ is a scam.

Sure, I’d been right about my brother’s essay and my sister’s locker key, but maybe those were wild coincidences? And if I had been wrong about those two things? No big deal. I’d only have lost some dignity.

Whereas, if I was wrong about this, my parents could lose their biggest client. Their reputation. Their business.

Dum-de-dum, I hummed to myself. I always hum when I’m nervous.

‘She’s humming,’ Mum said.

‘She hums when she’s nervous,’ Dad agreed.

‘What have we done?’ Mum whispered.

A telephone rang.

It was Dad’s. He pulled it out of his pocket and looked at the screen. ‘It’s him,’ he said. ‘Told you he was an early riser.’

We all watched as he put the phone to his ear.

‘Ely!’ he said. ‘Must be the middle of the night in New York!’

There was a pause. Dad nodded along.

‘Jetlag, right? It’s a killer … Yes, yes. You’re all set … Yep. We changed the logo colour just like you asked. Yep, to …’ He paused, looked around at us, gave a huge, terrified wince. ‘Cherry pink.’

There was a moment of intense suspense in which not a person in that kitchen breathed.

Then Dad’s face broke into a mighty grin. ‘You bet! And you were right! Cherry pink looks awesome!’

I sank down to the kitchen floor in relief.

‘You bet! Have a great trip home!’ Dad said. ‘Bye! Don’t call us! We’ll call you!’ And he shot the air with two imaginary cowboy guns.

We all cheered and applauded loudly. Then Dad checked that he’d actually hung up, and confirmed that he had, so we cheered again. They wanted to know how I’d known it was cherry pink and I just shrugged and said I’d overheard, which is true. So we ate our tacos, going over the whole thing many times, the way you do after a crisis has been averted.

Even Max joined in the celebrations and, after dinner was finished and the clearing up was done, he said quite happily, ‘Better go home now.’

My brother looked across at him.

‘Dude!’ Max said.

‘Dude,’ Sebastian echoed. Then a number of extremely complicated expressions crossed my brother’s face. My parents and I watched him. Despite Seb’s mild genius with schoolwork, he can be a little slow at life. But he usually gets there in the end.

‘I wonder,’ Sebastian said softly, ‘why you had my essay on your USB.’

‘Right?’ Max tried, stumbling a little as he grabbed his bag. ‘I wonder, too. Crazy!’

Sebastian gave him a long, hard look.

‘See myself out, then?’

My brother nodded. ‘You do that.’

We listened to Max’s steps in the hall. The front door opened and closed. Sebastian drummed his fingers on the benchtop thoughtfully.

None of us spoke. He straightened up his shoulders, raised his eyebrows at us, tried for a small smile, and left the room.

(That’s another family thing. We don’t always spell out the obvious.)

However, I would now like to conclude this competition entry by spelling out the obvious to you.

Remember I said that choosing me for the prize would be a win-win?

Here is how it’s a win for you.

You can publish this entry. (Please change the names though, to protect privacy.) I mean, look at it! It proves that time travel is real! This is just what you need to silence all the doubters! And make the Time Travel Agency™ legit!

The fact is, there is no question that I visited the past today. People say that there are two explanations for the ‘illusion’ of time travel that you guys offer. First, they say you use high-tech effects. But I changed my destination at the last minute! No way you could have rushed through the technology to reproduce my home and family within the half-second that I gave you!

And second, they say it’s all in the subconscious: that people are just imagining their time travel.

Well, with the greatest respect to my subconscious, it is just not that sharp! No way it could have reproduced, with pinpoint accuracy, the events that occurred around my home while I was in my bedroom kissing a boy!

Generally, I have an extremely scatty, dreamy, absent-minded subconscious! It collects absolutely no details. It’s probably not even listening right now! Which is why I can get away with insulting it like this.

So. The only explanation for the events I have outlined here is time travel.

Congratulations. To you and to Professor Raskdfjsa. (Shrug, she will say in reply.)

You have done it. You have invented time travel.

And this competition entry is the proof.

As for me and why I need to win?

Well, when we returned to school after the excursion today, Ms Watson said that, next week, we will have to do presentations on our journeys to the seventeenth century. For obvious reasons, I am not in a position to do such a presentation. Therefore, could I win the competition quite quickly please, and come back to the Time Travel Agency™ in the next couple of days so I can actually visit the seventeenth century and get my presentation sorted?

Sure, I could do some research and invent the whole thing. But would that be fair to my history class?

No.

And thus I bring this competition entry to a close. As promised, I have offered you a sound and noble reason with educational overtones. And I have taken considerable time to do it.

It is now 11.35 p.m. and I’ve been writing this since dinner. Mum and Dad are arguing in the stairway right now. I smile wisely, listening to them. Certain things, I think, cannot be changed. They simply are. This is the great, sad lesson I have learned today.

Farewell, my past. You, I cannot change.

Farewell, Noah Brackman and your voice.

I don’t know why he kissed me. Maybe he couldn’t figure out how to get out of my room after we’d finished the chemistry assignment? And that seemed the only way?

Anyway, although I have learned a terrible lesson, and most likely will never trust anybody again, I’ll be okay! And it’s good news that my brother knows the truth about his false friend, and my sister has her locker key, and my parents did not lose their business!

They are shouting quite loudly outside my door right now, my parents. ‘But again!’ my mother is saying. ‘You did it again, that’s the thing. I keep telling you not to do it!’

‘I do it automatically!’ Dad said. ‘He knew it was a joke!’

‘You cannot say to our biggest client, Don’t call us! We’ll call you! Clients can call you! Anytime they want! That’s what you say to clients! Call us anytime!’

Ha.

That’s what they’re arguing about. The way Dad finished his phone call with the client and shot the air with the guns and so on. Well, what are you going to do? You can’t really blame Dad. It’s a family thing, like I said. We all do it to each other so often that sometimes we forget and do it to people outside the family. My friends at school have asked me to please not do it to them as they find it pretty weird and disconcerting. The point is, that —

Oh.

Do you know what I just —

The strangest thing just —

Okay, wait, I just —

I’m having trouble getting my head clear here.

But the strangest thing just happened. A memory came swooping across my brain. It was like a sheet flying off a clothesline in the wind and splashing over your face.

Here is the memory.

I am running down the stairs with Noah Brackman.

He has just kissed me.

We haven’t said anything to each other. Just smiled at each other.

He’s running late for work.

We stop at the door. I’m still smiling.

‘Well, bye,’ Noah says.

‘Don’t call us! We’ll call you!’ I say to Noah. And I shoot the air with cowboy guns.

Noah blinks.

He smiles again, nods slowly, then runs down my front steps.

Idiot, I think to myself, looking up at my hands in the air. And I go inside again, mortified about having played cowboys.

But I didn’t just shoot the air.

I also said to Noah, Don’t call us! We’ll call you.

How exactly did that sound to him?

No. I’m being ridiculous, right? Reaching for slivers of hope? Like, maybe he hasn’t spoken to me because I told him not to call me?

I’ve visited the scene of the kiss! I saw the way he acted! His eyes flew everywhere. He fidgeted. He wanted to get out of there!

Like I said before, he was never interested in the first place.

Unless.

Well, this sounds —

I mean, I was pretty nervous myself. That’s why I did the weird, ‘Don’t call us!’ shooting thing. I didn’t have a clue what to say to a boy who had just kissed me. I was all atremble.

What if Noah was nervous, too?

And now that I think back, those darting eyes and fidgeting hands, they could have been nerves? And the way he looks around thoughtfully all the time? He could be shy. He could be waiting for me to call him!

The reason he hasn’t spoken to me could be that he thinks I’M NOT INTERESTED IN HIM!

Wait.

Just wait here a moment.

Okay, I’m back.

I just sent a text to Noah. Hiya, when can I see you again?

I can’t believe I just did that.

I honestly cannot believe it.

I have just made myself ridiculous.

I blame you, Time Travel Agency™.

That is the most humiliating thing I have ever done. He is probably looking at it right now and shaking his head with contempt. He is deleting it. He is shuddering at the idea —

Hang on.

Okay. He just replied.

I’m going to look.

This is what he said: Thought you were never going to call. Tomorrow arvo? Coffee? xxx

I believe I may be crying.

Thank you, Time Travel Agency™. I will love you forever.

(But I still need to win the five (5) free journeys. Thanks.)

And that concludes my entry.