Skip

"Well, OK, say this one is when you are born, and this is about two years old.  Now, you're born, and then you go through your life..."  Her finger traced a line through the sand from the first shell, past the second.  "...and then at, say, ten years, you are in danger and suddenly you go back to two..."  The furrow deepened as her finger moved back to the second shell.  "...but you're still ten.  So you have to start again, and now there's two of you living at the same time, one two years old and one ten years old.  And every time you're in danger, what if you go back again, then there's three of you, then four, then - Gary!"
  Her boyfriend, who had just started mock snoring, pushed himself up onto his elbow and grinned lazily at her.
  "Sorry babe, I lost you around that second shell.  You thinking of becoming a sci-fi writer or something?  I can't cope with plots like that!"
  "Yeah, but don't you think it's a problem?  I mean, what would you do if that happened to you?  How would you cope?  What would you do if you met yourself?"
  Gary shrugged, then glanced at his watch and surged to his feet.  "I dunno, but I do know we're gonna be late back is we don't go now.  I am dead meat if I'm late again."  He threw his head back and finished off his beer.
  With a sigh of disgust, Julie stood up, showering sand back onto the beach, and followed him to the car.  "Are you sure you're OK to drive?"
  "Yeah, of course!" he retorted sharply.
  The car sped along the darkened roads.  "Gary, you're way over the limit," Julie muttered unhappily.
  "Listen, relax, I know what I'm doing, alright?"
  She giggled nervously.  "We're starting to sound like a TAC ad here.  Gary!
  Brakes screeching, Gary yelling, her own scream, BANG...

SKIP

Julie opened her eyes, and nearly burst into tears.  She stood in the abandoned warehouse which was so familiar to her.  It had obviously been empty for a long time, and  the wooden floorboards creaked in protest at the sudden presence of six people, only one of whom had been there the second before.  Julie, aged eighteen, looked around at the other five girls, all different ages.  She knew four of them well.  Julie, aged ten, was staring around in shock and confusion.  Julie, aged twelve, had an expression of surprised recognition.  Julie, aged fifteen, was crying quietly.  But it was Julie, aged thirteen, who attracted Julie eighteen's attention.  She was standing silently, looking at the last Julie, the only one who Julie eighteen had yet to be.  And the last Julie was looking at Julie eighteen, who had a sudden sense of deja vu.  For obvious reasons.  
  She had been thirteen, and had witnessed the encounter between the two oldest Julies, and now she would be one of them.  The fact that she only skipped to this place and time once more suggested that she was either going to lose the ability, or learn to control where and when she went.  For the first time in eight years, she felt hope.
  The two Julies stared at each other awkwardly.  As a rule, she had tried to avoid talking to herself, but now she needed to hear whatever the last Julie was going to tell her.
  "Er...hi."
  "Aren't you going to tell me something?" Julie eighteen asked.  She felt uncomfortable speaking to an older version of herself, as could only be expected, and wanted to get the conversation over with as soon as possible.
  "Oh, yeah...  Here," the older girl thrust a small card at her, a business card.  "Follow the directions on the back, OK?  Ask for Harvey."
  "Harvey?"
  "Um, yeah.  You have to answer some questions.  You have to say...oh, hang on, no I don't tell you that, do I?  You'll say the right thing.  You have to.  Oh, and I'm twenty-one."
  She shifted to one foot, then the other, and finally turned and hurried away towards the roll-up door, which had a long hole in it.  The other Julies were already slipping through the gap, the older girls silently leading the younger ones.  Julie eighteen followed at a casual pace, frowning over the directions on the card.

  Slightly under half an hour later, she stood outside a little shop.  The sign hanging over the door matched the decorative writing on the front of the card: Ye Olde Curiositie Shoppe.  Julie smiled at the name, and pushed open the door, causing a set of miniature wind chimes to jangle merrily, if discordantly.  She looked around the cluttered inside of the shop, mildly impressed.  There appeared to be relics from the Roman empire onwards, all in impossibly good condition.  Some of this stuff has to be fake, she decided as she inspected it all, rubbing a decorated copper plate between finger and thumb.  Very realistic fakes, though.
  "Can I help you, dear?"
  Startled, feeling rather guilty, Julie, whipped her hands behind her back, and turned quickly.  An elderly woman stood behind the counter, smiling at her.  Her hair was powdery white, but long, swept back in a loose plait that reached halfway down her back.  Her kindly face had probably been quite pretty at a younger age, and her hazel eyes were still bright.  Julie realised she was staring, and dropped her eyes shyly.
  "Um...I'm looking for Harvey?"
  The woman's eyes narrowed as she stared at Julie.  Then she said, "Where did you get Harvey's name from?"
  "A friend," Julie answered quickly, defensively.
  "And how old was this friend?"
  Julie hesitated, then remembered.  "Twenty-one."
  "And how old is she now?"  The old woman was staring at her intently.
  She knew she couldn't lie now.  "Eighteen."
  Abruptly the woman relaxed and smiled again.  "Come through here, then."
  Julie came forward cautiously.  The old lady took her behind the counter and through the strings of beads which separated the shop from the rooms behind it.  As she ushered the girl into the room ahead of her, the woman called out, "Harvey!  Julie's here!" and retreated behind the beads before Julie could react.  In confusion, Julie started back to the shop, to find out how the lady had known her name, but was brought up short by a soft voice behind her.
  "Hello Julie."
  She spun around.  An old man sat at a small table in the middle of the room.  How she had failed to notice him on entering the room, Julie had no idea.  At first she didn't know what to say.  Then she was disgusted at herself, intimidated so easily.
  "Are you Harvey?" she demanded.
  The man looked at her calmly.  His hair was dark brown, liberally streaked with steel grey.  His quiet blue eyes, laughter creases at the corners, stared into hers.
  "I am.  What do you wish?"
  This question surprised her so that she couldn't answer for a second.  Then she realised just what she wished.
  "I want you to teach me to - to stop skipping."
  He frowned.  "Well I can't do that.  I can teach you to control it though.  Which I'm sure you would like."  He leaned back in his chair with a smile, and Julie experienced the disconcerting sensation that he already knew all about her.  "Very well.  Let's get started."

  For two and a half years Julie studied with him.  During the day they would work on her skip, or she would work in the shop with Harvey's wife, who she knew as Nanna.  At night she stayed with them in the cramped flat behind the shop.  Finally, on her twenty-first birthday, Harvey judged Julie's training complete.  It was time for the final test.
  "You are to choose two very different times and places, visit each, and return to this time and place, bringing back proof of both visits.  Please make them brief, because even though it makes no difference at this end, I wouldn't want you returning too much older than you are supposed to be.  Alright?"
  "I understand."
  "Then, in you own time..."
  Julie considered.  "Hold on, there's something I have to do first.  Could I borrow a pen?"
  He gave her one, and she looked around for something to write on.  Grabbing the first thing she spotted, a business card for Ye Olde Curiostie Shoppe, she turned it over and scribbled hastily on the back of it.
  "OK, I'm ready."
  "Then off you go."

SKIP

Julie appeared, looked around the empty space, and shut her eyes in frustrated despair.  When she opened them again with a pained expression, it was just in time to witness the sudden appearance of five other girls.  With a sigh of relief, she looked over and spotted Julie, aged eighteen, who was busy trying not to cry.  As she watched, her younger self looked around at the others.  Following the direction of Julie eighteen's eyes, she discovered Julie thirteen staring at her.  Looking back, she was just in time to see Julie thirteen turning to her, hope in her eyes.
  They stared at each other for a while, until Julie twenty-one couldn't bear the silence any longer.
  "Er...hi," she said, uncomfortably.  After all, how do you strike up a conversation with yourself of two and a half years ago.
  Julie eighteen didn't seem to think much of it as an opener, either.  "Aren't you going to tell me something."
  Julie twenty-one remembered saying it, but she hadn't realised she had sounded so rude!  Pushing that thought violently away, she stumbled over her response.
  "Oh, yeah...  Here."  Quickly she handed the card over, then felt the need to say something more.  "Follow the directions on the back, OK?  Ask for Harvey."
  "Harvey?"  Julie twenty-one hadn't recalled that sounding so scornful, either.
  "Um, yeah.  You have to answer some questions.  You have to say..."  She suddenly realised that she hadn't been told what answers to give, and she wasn't allowed to change history, therefore she couldn't tell her.  She faltered, "Oh, hang on, no I don't tell you that, do I?  You'll say the right thing.  You have to.  Oh, and I'm twenty-one."  She had nearly forgotten that part.  Still standing awkwardly in front of her younger self, she felt herself going red, and abruptly turned away.  She saw the other Julies already leaving via the gap in the roll-up door, and gratefully, followed them, leaving Julie eighteen to do what she would.
  Only as she emerged into the morning light did she catch herself.  What am I doing?  I don't have to hang around here anymore!  Grinning to herself, she checked that no one was watching, and left - her way.

SKIP

Harvey was, of course, still standing exactly where Julie had left him just two second ago by his time.  She reappeared, and grinned at him triumphantly.
  "I did it!"
  He smiled at her, silently encouraging her to tell him about it.
  "OK, I went to...well, second I visited the Incas, same time and date, but fourteenth century, and got you this for the shop," she gave him a delicately carved sacrificial knife, shiny and new despite having been made six centuries before.
  "And first?"
  "First I went to a warehouse four blocks down from here, about two years ago, twenty-sixth of October."
  "Your proof?"
  She smiled at him with laughter in her eyes.  "My proof came to you for instruction, two and a half years ago."
  He smiled warmly back.  "Very good, Julie.  Your time learning from me is done."  Something in his tone alarmed her.
  "Harvey, what do you mean?"
 Harvey's wife emerged from the shop and stood by him.  She too was smiling at Julie.
  Quietly, he said, "It's time for you to go out into the world, Julie.  Go out, be happy, meet your husband..."
  "My husband?" she exclaimed sharply.
  "Well, you do want to get married, don't you?" answered Harvey at once, but Julie thought she saw a brief flicker in his eyes.
  "Hold on..."
  "Goodbye Julie."  Harvey nodded to her solemnly.  Before she could protest, he took his wife's hands - and they both vanished.
  Julie stared at the space where they had been in horror.  Her sense of loss was overwhelming.  After a while, she walked dazedly back into the shop.  As she had half-suspected, it was empty, although that meant it had been cleared in the five minutes which were all that had elapsed since she had last been in there.  The door was locked, and boarded up on the outside.  Her eyes smarted with sudden tears as she skipped to the other side of the door.
  The darkened windows of the old shop suddenly didn't feel very welcoming.  As Julie stared  at it sombrely, her stomach reminded her that skipping always made her hungry, and it was lunchtime, after all...  With a sigh, she turned and headed towards her favourite cafe, armed only with what cash she had in her pocket.

  Sitting at the bright plastic table with a heavy heart and a cheese sandwich, Julie couldn't help noticing the young man at the next table.  It was set for two, but he had been there for at least the last fifteen minutes, with no sign of any lunch partner.  In spite of her own troubles, she felt a pang of sympathy for him.
  When her dessert arrived, another half an hour later, she tried to covertly glance in his direction again, and found him gazing at her wistfully.  As their eyes met, he flushed.
  "Don't you hate getting stood up?" she called out to him kindly.  He looked even more self-conscious, but smiled shyly.
  "Yeah.  But I didn't really like her that much," he added hastily.  "Um...would you like to join me?"
  "Sure!"  She picked up her sundae and sat down opposite him.  "I'm Julie."
  "Oh.  I mean, hi Julie!"
  She grinned at his embarrassment.  "What's you name?"
  "Harvey."

(c) Copyright Hespa.
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