spinning. Do you realize what this means ?”
Lianna glanced at him curiously. “What what means?”
“Grandma. Jazz. They’re alive. ”
“Why shouldn’t they be?”
Her eyes were blank. Baffled.
She doesn’t know.
“Lianna, you know about the videocamera, right? About what it can do?”
“Adam, of course I do. That’s why we’re here. To talk about Ripley’s ridiculous idea. It’s bad enough you want to go. How can you possibly let him? And what on earth do you mean by—”
“I have to go. Because I can change the past, Lianna. I just did it. I saved Jazz’s life—and your grandmother’s.”
“Uh…say that again?”
“Lianna, listen to me. As of a few minutes ago, you had no Grandma and no Jazz. Do you remember that?”
Lianna shrank back. “Adam, something has happened to you. You’re crazy.”
“Okay. How about the big train derailment about two years ago—it killed about twenty people?”
“What’s that got to do with—”
“Your grandmother was supposed to be on that train. Why? Because she was supposed to have given up driving. Why? Because exactly four years ago, on that day when her Chevy slipped into Drive, she ran over Jazz. She killed him. But I changed that, Lianna! ”
Lianna reached for the doorknob, but Adam placed himself in her way.
“Let me go, Adam.”
“Don’t you see? I went into the past. I knew what was going to happen to Jazz, and I stopped it from happening. And now the whole past has just…reshuffled. As if the accident never happened.”
“Please. Go home before I scream!”
“Don’t. Think about it, Lianna! Didn’t you say I couldn’t change the past, because what’s done is done?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what if I can? What if I did? What if Jazz and Grandma really were dead, and I saved them? What’s done is done, right? Their deaths suddenly never happened—so you have no memory of it!”
“Nothing happened to them!”
“So that proves it!”
“Just because you say so? Just because you claim Grandma and Jazz died, I’m supposed to accept that? Adam, you could say that up until ten minutes ago, we were all chimpanzees—but zoom, you went into the past, changed that, and wiped out all memories.”
Hopeless.
How could she believe him? How could anyone believe a story like this?
I wouldn’t believe it.
He flopped down onto the sofa.
“And what about your memory?” Lianna asked. “Wouldn’t it be wiped out, too, if what you say is true? Why do you remember these deaths?”
“I don’t know! Maybe it’s because I did the time travel. I saw both versions. I mean, I’m the same person. Even if I jump back and forth in time, my memory stays in a straight line. It records everything I see.”
“That is the most horrible, ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Lianna said.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. If only I’d had a tape in the camera!
Adam spotted a package of blank videotapes in the Frazers’ wall unit. He stood up and took one. “The next time I go into the past,” he said, “I’ll have proof.”
He pressed EJECT and shoved the tape into the slot.
It stopped halfway.
He pushed harder. No luck.
“What the—?” Adam peered into the tape bay. Bits of plastic and metal were twisted off, mangled. “It’s broken.”
“You dropped it pretty hard on the driveway.”
“That wouldn’t damage it on the inside, would it?”
Maybe…or maybe it’s something else.
Adam thought back. He’d had the camera with him all day. No one could have tinkered with it.
Except for one time.
“Lianna, when I left Ripley’s bedroom to get snacks, what did he do?”
“Are you suggesting…?” Lianna’s voice trailed off. “Well, I did go to the bathroom for a minute. But Ripley wouldn’t have done something like that. ”
“You said he wants to time travel. Maybe he tried to rig this for himself.”
“You think so?”
Adam’s head was throbbing. He stretched out on the sofa and took a few deep breaths.
Okay.