Lena woke up to the noise and commotion coming from downstairs. Half-awake, she went downstairs and found her parents scolding Max.
"My God, what's going on this early in the morning?" she asked in a sleepy voice.
"Max. He smashed the car to pieces after dropping his girlfriend off last night," Leo said as he passed by and went upstairs.
Lena frowned:
"You can't be serious."
"You're just like your father!" shouted Mrs. Fontana. Hearing this, Mr. Fontana intervened:
"What does this have to do with me?"
"Your alcohol problems are affecting your children too!"
"You're the one who lets your son go out with some weird girl after dark!"
Max took the opportunity of his parents fighting to slip away and go upstairs. Lena followed her brother.
Max continued playing video games, ignoring Lena who sat down next to him.
"Good thing I smashed the car after getting this game. Otherwise, they would never let me out," he said, grinning. Lena looked at the game Max was playing. It looked like a more advanced version of a game she had seen before.
"I think I've seen you play this before," she said, watching the game on the computer screen.
"No, this is not GTA San Andreas. It's much better. GTA 4 just came out this year. It's amazing."
As Lena continued to watch the game, she heard her phone ring. Natasha Bedingfield's "Pocketful of Sunshine," her favorite song since it came out, was her ringtone. Lena hummed along for a while, then left her brother's room and answered the phone. The caller was an unknown number.
"Hi Lena, it's Tyler."
That strange feeling filled Lena again.
"Hi," said Lena.
"Do you want to meet up for the project?"
"Sure."
"Okay, I'll pick you up from your house in half an hour. You live on... Town Springs Street, right?"
"Oh, yes, but that's not necessary. How about we meet at the market?"
"The market?"
Lena didn't want Tyler's car to be seen by anyone at home.
"Yes, and we can also grab some snacks while we work."
"Good idea, see you there then."
"See you."
Lena returned to her brother. Max asked Lena without taking his eyes off the game:
"Who was it?"
"Marla," Lena lied.
"She wants me to help her arrange some new products at the market," she continued.
Marla was Lena's best friend and three years older than her. Her father owned a small but well-known market in the town, and Marla had always been there with him as long as Lena could remember.
At that moment, Max jumped up and, in his frustration at losing the game, threw the game controller aside:
"God! This guy is such an idiot! I couldn't kill him no matter what. Have they made the missions harder or what?"
Then he turned to Lena:
"When are you going to change your ringtone? It kills me every time I hear that song."
"Maybe I'll make it one of Avril Lavigne's or Britney Spears' new songs," said Lena as she left the room.
Lena went to her room and put her phone on the table, then looked at herself in the mirror. She didn't know why she was doing this. It was as if she was trying to look good for someone, but the only person she was going to meet was Tyler, with whom she had to do a project. She took out her low-rise jeans, typical of the 2000s, from her closet. She brushed her long brown hair and quickly got dressed. She put her research notebook and lucky pen in her bag. When she left her room, she ran into Max in the hallway. When Max saw her all dressed up, he asked with a disbelieving look on his face,
"Did you get all dressed up to help Marla arrange products?"
"Yes. After all, I'm going out," Lena said as she opened the door.
"I wonder who you'll meet later," Max said. Lena turned to him and said,
"There's no one else. Then I'll go to the library for my research project."
Of course, this wasn't true.
"Who goes to the library when there's a computer at home?" Max persisted. He didn't believe Lena would go to the library.
"I need access to government archives," Lena said.
"My God, what are you, an FBI agent or something?"
"It's just for a project! I have to find an interesting place in Park Springs and research its history."
"Which place did you choose?"
"I haven't decided yet. That's why I'm going to research. Maybe I'll find something interesting."
"Good luck," Max said, shrugging. Then he went back to his room and slammed the door behind him.
As Lena was putting on her shoes at the door, she ran into her mother.
"Where are you going at this hour in the morning?" Mrs. Fontana asked in a suspicious tone.
"I have to do research at the library for my history project," said Lena in a fake tone, tired of being questioned by everyone. So much so that her mother believed it.
"Good luck," she said, smiling.
Lena couldn't understand why her mother believed her so quickly, but her mother knew she often went to the library to do research. Without running into anyone else, she managed to get outside. Listening to her favorite Britney Spears album on her MP3 player, she headed towards the market in the town square. A passing municipal vehicle's announcement interrupted her music:
"Re-elect Mayor Humphred! Progress is Georgina Hamphred's middle name. Park Springs has never been this beautiful. Vote for Mayor Hamphred!"
"Just before entering the market, she stopped by Starbucks for a coffee. As she rounded the corner, she noticed Tyler waiting for her in front of the market. She quickly took out her pocket mirror and checked herself. She fixed her hair and approached Tyler.
"Oh, hi Tyler!"
Tyler smiled when he saw Lena.
"Hi Lena."
"Hope I didn't keep you waiting too long," Lena said, feeling embarrassed.
"No, no, actually I just got here too."
When Tyler leaned back against the market door, it opened and he almost fell, but he quickly recovered, grinned, and made a gesture as if to let Lena in first. Lena entered, and Tyler followed her. At that moment, the girl placing boxes under the counter looked up at the newcomers. "Lena! So nice to see you," she said, smiling at her friend. "Hi Marla, I'm here with my school friend Tyler to grab some snacks," Lena said, getting straight to the point. She then realized she'd made a big mistake. She had told Marla how much she hated Tyler while gossiping about school. "Hi, I'm Tyler," Tyler said, unaware of the situation, waving at Marla.
Marla turned to Lena:
"Isn't this the boy you always say you hate?"
Lena cut her off and immediately changed the subject:
"Well, actually, we've been assigned to do a project together. Do you know any places worth discovering in Park Springs?"
"Hmm, let me think... There's a forest under the settlement areas. Do you know it?" asked Marla.
"Lincoln Forest?" asked Lena.
"Yes. It's the only place in Park Springs without people. If you're lucky, you might discover interesting things," said Marla.
"That's a good idea," said Tyler, flipping through some newspapers.
"Did you know a scientist disappeared in that forest a long time ago?" Marla asked.
"I'd heard about it somewhere, but that's quite an interesting topic, isn't it?" Lena asked Tyler, who was holding chips, a soda, and a newspaper.
"Oh, definitely. It sounds like a very interesting topic," said Tyler, clearly focused on satisfying his hunger as the girls talked.
As Marla rang up Tyler's items at the register, Lena noticed Tyler looking at her and then turned to him.
"Does anyone still read newspapers in 2008?" Marla asked, giving Tyler a strange look.
Tyler, taking advantage of the question, stopped looking at Lena and turned to Marla, escaping the awkward moment.
"Well, actually my dad reads them," he said.
Marla nodded.
"That'll be 5.99."
As Tyler took out some change, he asked Lena:
"Aren't you getting anything?"
"Actually, I'm not feeling hungry," Lena said, with a fake smile on her face.
Tyler handed the money to Marla and headed outside.
"Good luck with the weird kid," Marla said to Lena.
"Booyah," Lena replied, giving Marla a look that indicated she wasn't pleased with the situation.
Tyler and Lena began walking toward Tyler's car. They passed by the basketball court next to the parking lot. Tyler's eyes seemed to be looking for someone there.
"I haven't seen that one before," Lena said, referring to the chips Tyler was holding.
Tyler, his attention diverted from the basketball court, was startled.
"Did you say something?"
"I haven't seen that one before," Lena repeated.
"Oh, this? I saw it in the weekly market flyer in the best chips of the month section."
"Is there really such a section?"
"Want to try it?"
"How does it taste?"
"Like guacamole," Tyler said, offering Lena the Doritos Guacamole. Lena shook her head to indicate she didn't want any.
"Save Lincoln Forest!" said a woman suddenly, shaking a donation jar at Lena and Tyler.
She was from the Volunteers of the Municipality.
"For years, it's been a crucial green space for Park Springs! A construction company wants to build houses here with the city's agreement. Don't let this happen!"
Tyler quickly took out a quarter and put it in the jar to stop the woman from talking more.
"Thank you. Don't forget to take a flyer," she said, handing Lena a flyer. After the woman left, Tyler showed Lena his car.
"So... are we going to the forest?" he asked.
Lena nodded and got into the car. She was reading the flyer in her hand. Marla's words came to her mind. A scientist named Margaret Lincoln disappeared in that forest twenty years ago, and the forest was named after her. It said the woman had vanished suddenly during a stormy night. The town's people speculated it might have been related to her last experiment. Some even claimed she built a time machine and disappeared.
At that moment, Tyler broke the silence:
"The more I get to know you, the more I see you're nothing like the other girls at school."
"In what way?" Lena asked, looking up from the flyer at Tyler.
"In every way. Your style is so different. You do remarkable work, you don't do the boring and stupid things the others do."
Lena didn't expect to hear this from Tyler. She stared at him.
"Oh, I mean, being different isn't a bad thing. In fact, it's a very good thing," Tyler said, his voice getting quieter as he spoke, watching Lena for her reaction.
"Yeah, is that so? I didn't know you thought that. You used to call me a freak," Lena said, looking out the car window.
"You have so many qualities I got wrong; even if I apologize a million times, you wouldn't be wrong for not forgiving me," Tyler said, embarrassed.
"It's okay, I did the same to you," Lena said, smiling at Tyler.
Tyler didn't say anything. He just smiled.
Five minutes later, the car slowed down and stopped at the forest entrance. Lena and Tyler got out of the car.
"I guess you know this place better than I do," Tyler said.
"Actually, I used to come here with my dad to fish when I was a kid," Lena said.
She started walking ahead. After a ten-minute walk, they saw the sky covered with clouds. Shortly after, it started pouring rain.
"It's unfortunate that it started raining," Tyler said.
"It's not that big of a deal," Lena said.
"Let's go this way. Maybe there's somewhere we can take shelter," she added.
They took the right path at the fork. Lena realized she didn't remember ever coming here. At that moment, her foot slipped on the wet ground, and she fell. When she fell, she noticed something. The two-meter hole next to her was actually a cave.
Tyler offered his hand to help her up.
"Oh my God, look at this. We can stay here until the rain stops," Lena said, pointing down. Tyler knelt down and looked where Lena pointed.
"Good idea," he said, nodding.
Lena grabbed the tree next to her and stood up. Her pants were covered in mud, and her hair was sticking to her face. Holding onto the tree, she jumped down. Tyler followed her. When Lena turned towards the cave, she screamed:
"Oh my God!"
"W-what is that?"
Tyler turned around to see what Lena was pointing at. A human skeleton was lying at the cave entrance.
"Oh my God."
"Could there be a bear inside?" Lena asked, worried.
"I don't think so. The cave isn't deep; it's closed off at the back," Tyler said.
"And the skeleton is decayed. It must be from a long time ago," he added.
Lena approached the skeleton. She noticed a brown box partially buried in the ground next to it.
"Look, there really are interesting things here," Lena said. Tyler approached Lena and looked at what she was pointing at.
"Help me get this out," Lena said. They grabbed the rusty handle of the box and pulled. It wasn't difficult to remove the box since the ground was wet.
"Wow, look at this," Tyler said excitedly.
"It probably belonged to the person lying here," Lena said, looking at the skeleton next to her.
"Could it be the scientist the girl in the market mentioned?" Tyler said in a mocking tone.
Lena knew Tyler was joking, but the idea didn't seem far-fetched. She looked at him with a mixture of excitement and horror.
Meanwhile, Tyler was examining the lock on the box.
"We can break this and open it," he added.
Lena looked at the rusty lock:
"Right, the lock is already rusted. It shouldn't be too hard to break." She picked up a stone from the ground. She then hit the lock hard several times. After a while, the lock broke and fell to the ground. Lena excitedly opened the box. Inside, there was a notebook with yellowed pages, a Polaroid camera from the 80s, and a tape.
"I expected more valuable things," Tyler said, disappointed. "You didn't expect to find treasure, did you?" Lena said. She picked up the camera and examined it. Then she picked up the notebook and flipped through the pages. There were numerous sketches of cameras and notes written in messy handwriting. On the cover of the notebook, it said "Margaret Lincoln, 1983."
"Oh my God, we found her!" Lena said, with excitement and astonishment.
"The missing scientist?" Tyler asked, bewildered.
"Yes!" Lena said, examining the items in the box.
"How can you be sure?" Tyler asked, confused.
Lena showed him the flyer she took out of her pocket:
"Her name is Margaret Lincoln, she disappeared in this forest twenty years ago. These items belonged to her."
Tyler looked at the flyer:
"What I don't understand is, how did we find the woman no one has found for twenty years by chance?"
"Yes, it's very strange. No one found her for twenty years."
"Maybe it wasn't in anyone's interest to find her."
"Why not? A scientist does pretty important work, doesn't she?"
"I heard from my dad once. This woman used to cut off the electricity for the whole town for her experiments. She was nuts, you see."
"We need to learn more about this woman," Lena said, standing up.
"At least we have a topic for the project," Tyler said, still disappointed. Lena placed the camera, notebook, and tape back into the box and closed it. Then she started walking.
"Hey, where are you going?" Tyler called after her.
"We need to go to the library," Lena said.
"But it's still raining," Tyler said.
"We don't have time to waste. We need to learn as much as we can about this woman from the state archives," Lena said.
At that moment, Tyler, holding the camera, pressed the power button. A small green screen on the camera lit up, displaying a series of numbers one after another.
"Hey, did these Polaroids have screens on them?"
Lena looked at the camera Tyler handed to her.
"No, look, this screen has been added later."
"What do these numbers mean?"
Lena looked at the three rows of numbers on the small screen. Each sequence was different.
"We'll check these at the library. Let's hurry."
"With that, Lena and Tyler quickened their pace and soon reached the car at the forest entrance. They then drove to the library. Lena examined the notebook along the way, trying to understand the writings. The texts were in a different language, but Lena realized the equations were related to space-time continuity.
They entered the library soaking wet and headed downstairs to the state archives. Lena opened the Park Springs Archive page on one of the computers. She typed "Margaret Lincoln" into the search bar. A few old newspapers appeared on the screen, all from 1983. Below them were older, article-style documents. She clicked on one of the top newspapers. It was titled "Mysterious Scientist Disappears."
"She disappeared on November 11, 1983," Tyler said.
"Hey, give me that camera," he added, looking excited as if he had discovered something. Lena handed him the camera.
"What does it say?"
Tyler showed the flashing screen to Lena. "Current: 01112008 18:23
Destination: 05111983 17:30
Expiry: 12111983 21:25"
"What do these mean?" Lena asked.
"November 12, 1983. Could it be related to the 'expiry' date?" Tyler speculated.
"Yes, of course! These are dates, Tyler. Look, today's date is November 1, 2008. The 'current' part shows today's date. The numbers beside it are the time. It's exactly 18:23," Lena said, showing her digital watch that read 18:23.
"So if the top part shows the current time and the bottom part shows the last used date, what does 'destination' mean?"
Lena looked at the number "05111983."
"November 5, 1983. I don't know, maybe there's some information about it in the woman's notebook."
While Lena was flipping through the woman's notebook, Tyler started examining the number keys on the camera. "Is this thing also a calculator or something?"
Lena looked up from the notebook at the keys Tyler was showing. The keys looked like they had been taken from an old calculator and placed on the camera.
"I think these buttons are for adjusting the dates."
"But being able to change the current date and the last used date would be ridiculous, wouldn't it?"
"Yes, that would be quite ridiculous. So it must be related to the 'destination' part."
"But what could the date have to do with a destination? Does it let you go to the date you want?"
"Yes!" Lena shouted.
A few people in the library looked at them.
"That's it! This is a time machine, look, it even says here."
"Nonsense," Tyler said.
Lena showed him a page from the woman's notebook with a drawing of the camera. The title read "Potential Time Machine."
"So you're telling me this woman invented a time machine?" Tyler asked, bewildered.
"I'm not saying it, here is the evidence."
Tyler took the notebook from Lena.
"This is crazy, how can someone invent a time machine from a simple Polaroid?"
"She's a scientist, didn't you say she was a bit of a nutcase?"
"Yeah, but this is the craziest thing I've ever heard. I would expect a time machine to be made from something cooler. A spaceship or a car, maybe. A Polaroid doesn't make any sense. And how does it even work? Does it transport you to the date when you take a picture? Wouldn't that be ridiculous? Is the person taking the picture transported, or the subjects in the photo? Do you have unlimited transportation-"
Lena interrupted Tyler's endless questions.
"Tyler, I think all these questions are answered in this," Lena said, holding up the tape. Tyler nodded, looking at the tape in Lena's hand.
Tyler turned his keys and entered the house with Lena. "You should take off your shoes," Tyler said to Lena.
Lena looked at him puzzled.
"My mom is a clean freak."
Tyler's mom was washing dishes inside, and his dad was reading a newspaper on the couch. The sound of American Idol was coming from the TV. Lena knew Tyler's dad, Mr. Westin, as Max's basketball coach at school. Tyler's mom got excited seeing Tyler bring a girl home. But this excitement was short-lived. She immediately looked at Lena's muddy pants.
"Why are your clothes so dirty?" she asked, looking at Tyler's shirt, which was wet and clinging to him.
"It's raining outside. Don't worry, mom, we're just here to work on a project. You won't even notice we're here." His mom looked Lena over.
"Is she your girlfriend, Tyler?"
His dad also looked up from the newspaper at Tyler.
"What, no. Well... she's a friend from school..."
"Lena. Lena Fontana," Lena completed Tyler's embarrassed sentence. Then she extended her hand to Mrs. Westin. "Nice to meet you, Lena," Mrs. Westin said, shaking Lena's hand with a disgusted and fake smile. As she rushed off to wash her hands, Mr. Westin stared at Lena.
"Fontana?"
"Do you know Michelangelo Fontana?" he asked.
"Michelangelo," Lena corrected. "And, yes, he's my dad. Do you know him?" she asked, surprised by the unexpected question.
Mr. Westin let out a strange laugh. Lena and Tyler looked at each other.
"I've known him since high school. I used to hang out with that Italian bug in my youth."
"So you were friends?" Lena guessed.
"Oh no, not really. By the way! Your dad owes me 100 dollars, I want it by Monday. Just mention Kyle Westin, he'll remember. Say hi to your mom too," Mr. Westin said, suddenly serious.
"Okay, I'll tell him," Lena said, used to her dad's bad reputation.
"And your brother... Max. If he misses another after-school practice like yesterday, I'll have to kick him off the team. He's just like his father. A little version of him," Mr. Westin said, adjusting his newspaper.
It seemed it wasn't just her dad, but her whole family's reputation was tarnished.
"Aren't you going to eat?" Mrs. Westin asked, washing her hands for the tenth time.
"No, as I said, we're just here to do a project," Tyler replied, then whispered to Lena:
"Sorry, my parents are pretty weird."
Hearing this, Lena smiled. She found it amusing that the boy who teased her at school had such peculiar parents, according to him.
"It's okay. They can't compare to mine," Lena said loud enough for Tyler to hear. There was a moment of silence then, with Tyler's dad returning to his newspaper and his mom mopping the entrance.
Tyler broke the silence:
"Mom, do we have a tape player in the house?"
Mr. and Mrs. Westin looked at each other in surprise.
"Okay, we need to put this tape in it. Then the video will play on the TV."
They were in Tyler's room.
Tyler placed the tape in the tape player, and the video began to play. An elderly woman with glasses in lab clothes appeared on the screen.
"Good evening. I'm Margaret Lincoln. It's Friday morning, around 2 AM, the date is November 11, 1983. Take note of this date. I'm currently standing in the backyard of my farmhouse. I will soon conduct the first timeless experiment before you."
"Thinking that the skeleton we saw belongs to this woman gives me the creeps," Tyler said.
"Shh. Let's watch the video. She's explaining how it works," Lena said, focusing on the video.
"This is my cat, Schrödinger. If my experiment succeeds, he will become the first time traveler in history. And a cat at that!" The woman laughed strangely after saying this.
"This woman must be really crazy. Is she planning to launch the cat into space or something?" Tyler interrupted the video.
"Forget about the cat. Let's see what happens," Lena said, not taking her eyes off the screen.
"I bet she's going to annihilate her cat," Tyler said, unable to stop laughing.
"Tyler! We need to focus on the video," Lena warned him seriously.
"Oh, right," Tyler said, grinning and clearing his throat. The woman became serious.
"Please note that Schrödinger's watch and my watch both show 21:23. Now I am setting the camera's destination time to November 12, 1983, at 21:25, which is exactly two minutes ahead. I will now step back and place the camera in this empty space. Note that the camera will send everything within its frame to the desired time, including the person holding the camera if they take the photo. Therefore, I will use a remote-controlled system to take the photo. I must also add that this device operates on 1 gigawatt of energy, so we might witness a flash of light."
Tyler and Lena watched carefully as the woman placed the cat with the watch on its paw in front of the camera and used the remote-controlled system. The cat began eating the food placed in front of it.
"Now both watches show 21:23."
The woman pressed the button, and due to the poor video quality, they only saw a white light. When the light faded completely, they saw that the cat, the food bowl in front of it, and the camera had disappeared.
"Yes!" the woman exclaimed.
"They're gone! They will reappear at exactly 21:25, which is about a minute and a half from now!"
"God, she disintegrated the cat," Tyler said.
"She must be a scientist ahead of her time," Lena said, fascinated, as she watched the screen.
"Nonsense, that cat won't come back, it can't-" Tyler started to say, but the screen turned white again, and they heard the woman shouting.
"It worked! For the sake of Holy Jesus' triangular underwear! It worked! Schrödinger has become the first time traveler!"
Tyler and Lena watched in astonishment as the cat reappeared in its spot two minutes earlier, continuing to eat the food as if nothing had happened. The camera had also returned. The woman showed her watch to the screen, shouting:
"My watch shows exactly 21:25!"
The woman ran and took the watch off the cat's leg, showing it to the screen.
"And look! Schrödinger's watch is exactly two minutes behind and still running!"
Tyler and Lena looked in horror at the camera in their hands and then at each other.
"So how did the cat come back as if nothing had happened?" Tyler asked himself.
The woman seemed to answer this question:
"As you can see, Schrödinger and the camera did not disintegrate. It happened thanks to their molecular integrity."
"Wow. Does this device run on regular batteries or something?" Lena asked.
The woman had an answer for this too:
"I must add that I replaced the battery compartment of this device with a small fuel tank. This fuel tank runs not on regular car fuel but on uranium. Of course, this thing uses about 1 gigawatt of power. It is also surrounded by a lead plate. After all, changing places in the space-time continuum requires a lot of energy."
"God, this device runs on nuclear energy," Tyler said, showing the uranium input on the camera.
"Where did this woman get uranium from?" Lena asked in astonishment.
"I was inspired while heating water for an experiment to revive my dog that died years ago when the kettle slipped out of my hand and burned half my arm! I thought, why not build a time machine? And here you see, friends! The invention I spent half my life on stands right in front of you!"
The video ended with the woman petting her cat.
"This is ridiculous. This thing can't possibly make time travel possible. For God's sake, it's a Polaroid!" Tyler said, not wanting to believe what he had seen in the video.
"We saw it in the video. It all seemed unbelievably real," Lena said, unable to hide her astonishment.
"What if this is a hoax?" Tyler said skeptically.
"But we saw everything," Lena said.
"What if the woman edited the video later and used visual effects?"
"Tyler, this woman is not a filmmaker. She's a scientist doing experiments in her backyard."
"Could she have edited the video later?"
"I don't think she would do such a thing. This isn't like people faking their school experiments. Besides, we're talking about the '80s. Unless the woman was a filmmaker, she couldn't have edited the video so professionally."
"What if she was a filmmaker?"
"Stop being ridiculous, Tyler. Even if it doesn't seem like it, these things are quite real."
"I know, I just wish it weren't real," Tyler said, swallowing. They both stared at the camera in their hands, not knowing what to say.
When Tyler dropped Lena off at home, it was very late, and it had already gotten dark. Lena got out of the car reluctantly, knowing her parents would be angry with her.
"You keep the woman's bag. My mom is a clean freak, and if she finds it, we won't be in good shape," Tyler said, handing the box to Lena.
Lena took the box from Tyler.
"When should we meet tomorrow?" she asked.
"I'll be at the market at 9 AM," Tyler said.
Lena nodded.
"Good night for now."
"Good night," Lena said, waving as the car disappeared around the corner like the previous day. Lena opened the gate to the yard and looked at their rundown car.
"Max is going to be in big trouble for this," she said to herself. She climbed the steps to the front door and knocked. Max greeted her at the door. Without paying attention to Max's wet and muddy appearance, she quickly went to her room to avoid being seen by her parents. She changed her clothes and hid the woman's box under her bed. She could hear Max's girlfriend Samantha's voice from downstairs. Lena remembered that Max had invited Samantha for dinner. She didn't want to go downstairs to avoid being questioned, but she was very hungry. She went downstairs to eat dinner. As she entered, everyone eating dinner while watching TV turned to look at Lena. She put some meat on her plate and sat in the empty chair next to Max.
"How did your research go?" Mrs. Fontana asked, breaking the silence.
"Oh, quite well. We found a topic to research," Lena said. She wished she could use the camera to disappear, now that the questioning session had started.
"Is that so? When you say 'we,' are you doing the project with someone else?" her mom asked suspiciously.
"Oh yes, um, I'm doing the project with my classmate Eleanor. She's a girl," Lena lied. She emphasized the last sentence deliberately.
"Okay, so what's the topic you found?"
It seemed like her mother's barrage of questions wouldn't end. Lena couldn't tell them what she found in the forest. She was thinking of an excuse to lie, but if she took too long, her mother would get even more suspicious.
At that moment, Max excitedly pointed at the television.
"Look! Iron Man is coming out next week!" Everyone turned their faces to the movie trailer. Relieved that the topic had changed, Lena took a deep breath.
Max looked at his mother pleadingly.
"You wouldn't mind if Sam and I go, right?"
Mrs. Fontana gave Max a stern look.
"New movies are coming out so fast. You just went to see Transformers."
Her expression suggested that she would deal with him after Samantha left.
"Yeah, but none of them were as good as The Matrix or The Lord of the Rings," Max added.
"After wrecking the car, I'll only let you go out again when Lena proves she has a boyfriend," Mrs. Fontana said teasingly. Lena gave her mother a strange look.
At that moment, Mr. Fontana burst out a strange laugh. The TV was showing a rerun of American Idol.
"I hadn't watched anything as exciting as David Cook beating Archuleta."
No one said a word.
"I almost forgot," Lena said, breaking the silence.
"Dad, you owe a guy named Kyle Westin 100 dollars. He wants you to pay him by Monday," she added.
The room fell into an icy silence.
"How do you know Kyle?" Mr. Fontana asked, staring at Lena. Lena realized she made a mistake by bringing it up, but her quick thinking allowed her to come up with an excuse easily.
"I don't. I saw him while helping Marla at the market. When he heard my name was Lena Fontana, he said, 'Your dad owes me money.'"
"Idiot!" Mr. Fontana said, angrily tearing a large piece of meat.
"My dad said you owe him 80 dollars from last Thursday," Samantha added.
After dinner, Lena went up to her room. She took out the box she had hidden under her bed. Tyler had put the taps player in the box too. Lena placed the tapw in the player and transferred it to her computer with an extension cord. She watched the video a few more times to catch important details. Just then, Max walked in. Lena quickly pushed the box under her bed with her foot and turned off her computer. Only the tape player was left on her desk. Max noticed the cassette player and pointed at it curiously:
"What are you doing with a tape player?"
"Well... um... I was watching something. A Star Wars movie from 1983."
"Hm. I love Star Wars too," Max said, turning the cassette labeled 1983 in his hand.
"Actually... I'm really tired. I'll continue watching the movie tomorrow," Lena said nervously.
Max nodded and handed her the tape.
"Okay, good night."
"Good night."
As Max left her room, Lena took a deep breath. It was too risky to mess with the box while people were around. She put the tape player and the tape back into the box under her bed. She hid the box and lay down. She fell asleep thinking about the extraordinary things that happened that day.