Chapter 1

3 years before the spur, Heather Williams is getting used to settling down for the first time in her life.

THE SPUR--CHAPTER 1
Life before the Spur kind of blends together into one gigantic blur. I remember bits and pieces, my mother and father getting a divorce, reading and drawing non-stop, and of course books. Where I am today, be it a blessing or a curse, started in no physical place, but instead with the insufferable itching of an idea that hid in the depths of my brain. That itch is the sole reason I sit where I do today, so I guess it's only fair I tell the story of that itch in the hopes that it can begin to bring closure to the people I used to call my friends.
The farthest back I can remember is the first day of school somewhere in 1985. My mom was an author, and after the past 9 years were spent crisscrossing the country she decided to buy a 1 story house 30 miles east of Seattle in a town called Yarrow Hill in an attempt to give me a somewhat traditional life. I'd had 14 first days in 12 different school districts, and the one thing I'd learned was to not make any connections. That was when I knew I was out of town in 3 months, I was unsure of how I'd deal with this whole "settling down" business.
This is how I found my self in the aptly named Yarrow Hill High School. As a transfer student, I was required to go over some of the details before I was officially a Yarrow Hill bumble bee. The counselor's office was adorned in the school's colors (green and yellow) as well as inspirational quotes, diplomas, and a clock that was stuck 7:20 that hung over the head of the counselor. Her gigantic desk was marked with a name plate reading DEBBIE BACHMAN as well as papers covering its surface.

"Everything seems to be checking out here, Heather," Ms.Bachman said, stacking my transfer papers in a stack to her right, "let me get your schedule and you can be on your way!"
She stood up and walked out the door behind me. This gave me enough time to exhale in an attempt to try and rid myself of the anxiety I felt was encompassing me. I had a plan of how today would go, but this was all a challenge I wasn't sure I could handle. I would've killed for a cigarette at that moment.

Ms.Bachman soon returned, handing me a warm piece of paper with my class schedule on it.
"Where are ya from Ms.Williams," Ms.Bachman asked as I was standing up to leave.
"Camazotz," I quickly answered, an answer I had practiced since arriving in Yarrow Hill.
"Ooo," she exclaimed, "sounds lovely. I hope you enjoy Yarrow Hill just as much! If you ever need anything my door is always open."
I thanked her and quickly left the room and walked to the school's library. School wouldn't start for another 30 minutes so I had some time to plan out my day. This is how I came to the conclusion that I needed to do 1 thing: to make a good first impression on all my teachers. Most people would expect by giving me a one over that I was just some stoner who just listened to the Ramones. I just needed to relax, breathe, and do what I knew I could do and had done 12 times now.

That was resolved, but there was still the social element. I had never tried to make friends before, knowing that I basically was going to be gone in a few months. From what I had read and watched in movies I knew that I should probably join a sport or something like that, which immediately caused me to laugh. It was then, as if it was placed as a response to the universe hearing me ask, I saw a board near the back of the library reading BUSY BEE CLUBS.

There were the standard clubs, drama, literature, chess, all standard. At the bottom though, one really caught my eye. The words ADVANCED SCIENCE---1739 were written at the very bottom of the board. Out of all of the other clubs, the advanced science club sounded like it would fit me best. I got out my pen and wrote 1739 on my forearm.
The bell rang. I took a deep breath, and headed to pre-algebra.


The next few hours scraped by and I honestly don't remember most of it, only that each second passed like an hour. Everything went according to plan, I was able to surprise my pre-algebra teacher with a 100 on a pop quiz with material from the end of the course. My English teacher was shocked for some reason that I knew Fitzgerald's 6 word story. Biology had a substitute which I didn't even bother to entertain. And of course the history teacher was floored that I didn't fall asleep while she read off the syllabus.

Lunch was easy to sit through, I made my way to the library where I sat in the corner and read a few books. Reading always made time go by faster. The rest of the day was relaxed and I did my best to learn from experience how people communicated in high school.
Before I knew it, school was over. As I was walking to the bus loop, I caught glance of my forearm displaying the number 1739. I questioned if it was a good idea to do this, but before my brain decided on a verdict, my legs were already walking towards room 1739.
Room 1739 was on the far side of the school, its door open. Walking in, the desks in the room were messily pushed up against the walls of the class. The blackboard, which had the words "Science," served as a backdrop to a group of 6 students sitting backwards on chairs in a cluster. Most of them looked like they were juniors and sophomores, 5 of them boys and 1 other girl. I added my backpack to a pile of others near the door.
"Welcome!" the presumed teacher of room 1739 said from behind a desk directly in front of me, "this is the Advanced Science club! What year are you?"
"Freshman," I said as I assessed the man in his mid-30s, his green eyes matched the dress shirt, sloppily adorned with a black tie. His glasses were thick black rectangles that seemed to hover a foot in front of his face.
"I'm Mr.Scarborough, I teach Physics AL. What's your name?"
"Heather."
Mr. Scarborough extended a hand which I promptly shook, "welcome Heather, we're just waiting for everyone to show up. Take a chair and get comfortable."
Finding a chair was easy, but the 6 sets of eyes that studied me like some exotic animal made it very hard to get comfortable. The girl was wearing a white blouse and a black skirt, making me feel extra uneasy at my shorts, black shirt, and a red and black flannel that looks 2 sizes too big for me.

"Are you gonna ask her?" a boy with a mop of brown hair asked, locking eyes with another boy sporting a red and orange striped long sleeved shirt.
"Dude, I don't even know her name yet."

I was already regretting the decisions my legs made in coming to this class. I felt like I imagine a lobster would as it sits center stage on a silver platter.
After a moment of an intense conversation involving only fervent eye movements was followed up by the boy with the red and orange shirt saying rather defeated, "fine," he took a deep breath, "have you seen Teen Wolf?"
"Um, yes, I did when it came out."
"Okay," he took a drink from his water bottle, his face basically matching the color of his shirt, "do you think that was the guy's dick in the background or just some prank?"
"Oh uh..." there was an obviously uncomfortable moment as the group placed the crux of the conversation on my shoulders, "I um, guess it was."

This gave way into a chorus of laughing, defeated grunts, and clapping of hands. My eyes drifted to Mr.Scarborough in the chaos and all he did was pretend he wasn't paying attention from behind his desk.

"Joe, she probably has no clue what you're talking about," the girl to my left said to the boy in the red and orange shirt.
"Damn, I just really wanted to win this stupid thing already," Joe readjusted in his seat, "at the very end of it, there's a guy in the back who has something stickin' out of his fly, Ben, Amy, and I thought it was a dick, but these killjoys all thought it was just some random object from set he wanted to trick everyone with."
"I didn't even notice it," I admitted, wigged that my introduction to these people was about dicks.
"It was too white to be a dick," the boy with the mop of brown hair chided.
"That's your big reason. I don't ever let mine get a tan, it's white as sn-"
"I think that's my cue to say we start today's activity," Mr.Scarborough said, cutting him off like hedge clippers to dental floss. The club rejoined in their revelry as Mr.Scarborough passed out sticky notes to each of us, a smug smile plastered on his bearded face. I just decided that I would go with the flow, no matter how absolutely bizarre it would be, and maybe this whole settling down thing would be more interesting than I had expected.
As time passed a few more students filtered into the room, and as Joe and mop-head carried the conversation loudly with the occasional comment from Amy the rest of the students silently watched like they were the main act in Hollywood. When there were 8 boys and 2 other girls in the classroom, Mr.Scarborough walked up to the blackboard and erased the "Science!" with sweeping arm movements, replacing it with his name.
"Good afternoon everyone, how was everyone's first day?" Mr.Scarborough asked as there were several mumbles croaked out by the mostly quiet crowd.
"Ms.Singer fell off the stage during choir practice and I'm still ridin' high off of that," mop-head said jokingly, earning spattered chuckles.
"Thank you Cecil, anyone else have anything not sadistic?"

One of the kids that came in after me raised his hand. He wore a green collar shirt and owned a pair of brown, almost black, eyes that were guarded by circular glasses with rims as thick as his black eyebrows. He was about as tall as I was, and was basically built like I was, not fat or skinny, just somewhere in a comfortable middle. Much like me as well he was dressed in a flannel, only his was blue and black, its buttons making a B-line from his clavicle to his blue jeans.

"Yes sir," Mr.Scarborough said looking expectantly at the boy.
"I just moved here from Pennsylvania," the boy began, his voice shaky.
"Super! My uncle is actually from Philadelphia, what part of Pennsylvania?"
"A town 40 miles north of Pittsburgh."
"Excellent, that is a perfect segway," Mr.Scarborough grabbed a sticky note from his desk, "this sticky note is going to go on this wall. All the freshmen raise their hands." I raised my hand, as well as the boy with the circular glasses and 3 other kids.
"Everyone else did this last year, all you gotta do is write your name, hometown, favorite scientist, and favorite field of science. Write nicely, these will go on that board," he extended a finger to a wall with construction paper pinned to it that read Advanced Science Club 1985, which was the newest number on the board that went back to 1982, "and won't come off until the school is in a pile of bricks."
There was small talk between the students as they wrote their answers on their sticky notes. I followed, writing:
Heather Williams
Camazotz
Nikola Tesla
Quantum Mechanics
I passed mine to Mr.Scarborough, thinking he would do what all teachers do and ignore it entirely. He surprisingly studied it before locking eyes with me.

"You were born in a made up city?" Mr.Scarborough said with that smug look creeping in from the sides of his cheek. My face grew increasingly red as I realized I had been caught in my lie, other students looked up to see the scene unfolding between me and the teacher.
"Oh, um, it's a kinda a long story," I said, which was true, just not the part about me being from the city in A Wrinkle in Time.
"I would love to hear it," Mr.Scarborough added. This was a common mistake adults made, thinking that me saying my life prior to the present was anything but a train wreck.
"Well I was born in New York, my mom doesn't know the name of the city, but anyway I've kind of always changed cities after a month or so, so I never have an exact hometown," I pushed the words out, feeling the eyes of everyone in the club on me.
"Oh, so you won't be here too long then?" Mr.Scarborough said, a hint of gloominess lingering on the words.
"Well we're staying here for good, my mother wanted me to have a permanent high school."
"That wasn't a long story," Mr.Scarborough sealed his words with a smile, "and if my math is correct, then Yarrow Hill is your first hometown?"
I chuckled nervously, finishing the interaction with a simple, "I guess."
The rest of the club finished their sticky notes off, and I learned the name of the boy with the thick rimmed glasses was Daniel and that he was from the creatively named "Oil City." I decided to stick with the city of Camazotz, the fictional city where every element was eerily similar felt more like a home than one that I've only known the existence of for a week.
Joe and Cecil continued to talk and the club seemed to taper off into smaller sections, I managed to stay outside of the bubbles of conversation until a voice to my left popped my own personal bubble. I pulled Out Of The Silent Planet from my backpack and started from where I'd left off.

"Do you like to read?" the near-silent voice's owner, Daniel, asked.
"Oh yeah, I guess," which was a severe understatement. Not wanting to freak out someone who seemed like they would recoil at the sound of a pin dropping, I refrained from bringing up the fact that I've read basically every book made in the past 30 years.
"The town I lived in had this really nice library, I would walk there after school every day. Yarrow Hill has one too, but I haven't been to it yet. What kind of books do you like?"
Before I realized it, I was apart of a conversation, "well I like anything interesting. You?"
"Sci-fi is kind of my favorite, but I just like to pick up science books and see if I can learn anything. That's kinda the whole reason I'm here."
"Alright, everyone listen up," Mr.Scarborough suddenly butted in, "today will be pretty light, I'm going to ask you to compose a mini project on why you picked your favorite scientific subject. That's it, after you're done, you can all hang out until 4. Allez tous!"

"What was your topic?" Daniel inquired, I could tell from the gentle shaking and the way his voice always sounded like it was crawling out of his throat that he was probably as bad as me at talking to others.
"Quantum mechanics."
"Oh neat," I watched as Daniel pulled a piece of lined paper and pencil from his backpack and etch the words Time Travel at the top margin.
"Time travel?" I said questioningly. Daniel was obviously slightly embarrassed.
"I know it's sci-fi, but I read a book once about how there are 4 dimensions. It's fun to imagine what travelling in time is like."

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't very fascinated by the 4th dimension. The concept of time travel was interesting and I had always had the thought of how to actually make a time machine. But it was all fantasy to me.

"Well quantum mechanics hints to higher dimensions, and people say we'll have a time machine within the next decade," I added.
"Time machine?" Cecil suddenly stated, Daniel and I both made the realization that he was standing behind us sharpening his pencil, "you guys talkin' about the DeLorean?"
"Ha, well kinda it's-" Daniel began but was cut off by Joe who had was walking up to sharpen his own pencil.
"You mean the TARDIS?" Joe intruded.
"Dude, no way, the DeLorean is way cooler," Cecil fired back.
"Back me up here Camazotz girl," Joe said to me with a grin, "the TARDIS is way cooler, it can go to different planets!"
"Yeah, but it's a stupid phone booth. And you can't even change anything, time travel is all about fixin' the past."
"Oh whatever shithead, so Danny, you like time machines?"

Daniel was obviously caught off guard by being thrown into the spotlight.
"Nikola Tesla said it's possible," I added, trying to ease the obvious strain on Daniel's face.
"True, true," Joe said, "I hope it's possible, I would love to see Da Vinci."
"Yeah," Cecil agreed, "or kill Hitler."

Cecil and Joe continued to talk back and forth on the topic of if they had a time machine while Daniel and I began to write our paper. I quickly realized that I had not much to say about quantum mechanics. Meanwhile, my mind was racing with the ideas of time travel now. And not just back to the future stuff, but actual, practical time travel.
I quickly flipped my pencil over, erased the heading, and filled the void with the words Time Travel. I never looked to check Daniel's face, but out of the corner of my eye I swear I saw him gave a silent smile.


Daniel was good company for someone who didn't like talking, we shared a comfortable silence until 4, occasionally tossing back and forth ideas on the topic of time. The rest of the club had formed their own little groups, and over time the 3 other freshmen had gravitated towards where Daniel and I were sitting near the pencil sharpener. They started their own conversations, talking about their Ataris, moving to high school, and how all the food was so much worse than it was in middle school.
"Alrighty," Mr.Scarborough announced, "it's 4 o'clock now, everyone pass your papers up and get outta here! Get home safely and see you tomorrow."

"Where do you live?" Daniel asked as we both walked out the door.
"Not too far from here, I think the road is like Mapleleaf or something."
"Oh we live sort of close. I live on Cedar, it's like a 5 minute walk to Mapleleaf."
"Rad, I'll be seeing you a lot more I bet." My words caught Daniel visibly off guard.
"I bet," Daniel and I had made it to the front of the school. He walked to a car stopped in front of the school as I pulled my bike from the rack.
"See ya later," I called out, Daniel turned around, smiled, and opened the door of the car and disappeared as it closed.
I saw a future in relaxing for the first time in a long long time. Maybe this whole settling down thing wouldn't be so hard to deal with. I headed home, the sun being eclipsed by the school, a building that would one day house the most important moment in my life. That wouldn't happen for a long time from that moment, so I just basked in the warmth of a future I thought I had full control of.