• “School already! Where did summer go?” I thought as I looked into the mirror. I was ready for school and my Mom made me dress up nice. I was wearing a dark blue skirt with a green spaghetti strap shirt and a white tank top underneath. I was entering the 6th grade.
    “Nicole, a new school will be fun! You'll make new friends and you get to switch classes instead of having to stay in one class with one teacher.” That's what my Mom told me the previous week. I hated it when she called me Nicole. Although that was my name everyone called me Nicky. I was also annoyed because I thought that all those statements were Negative. Why would I want to make new friends, when I already have plenty? I don't want to stay in one class with one teacher, my teacher the previous year was excellent. I sighed as I looked into the mirror one last time, then left for school.

    Evidently, my first period was homeroom. My homeroom teacher was Mr. Ronalds. While everyone was making failed attempts at finding homeroom, a girl walked up to me and sweetly offered to show me around, she said her name was Clara. “I would be pleased to show you around the school if you would like.” I gladly excepted her offer.

    “So, what's your name?” Clara asked me, with a smile on her face.
    “Nicky” I responded, then quickly said, “Nicole, actually, but everyone calls me Nicky.” because I felt like I was lying. I looked around the school at the green tree, and all the classes in session.
    “How do you like the school?” Clara asked me.
    “It's alright... Well, actually it has a beautiful campus and the students here are really kind to me.” Clara blushed.
    “The thing I'm mad about is my new house and the fact that elementary school was so much more welcoming. My new house is not as good as my old one. It is so much bigger and I like a small cozy one. If I were given the choice to go and live in another magical world and I couldn't come back ever, or to stay with the life I have now, I would choose the other world.” I hushed my voice to a whisper.
    “My dad is a real jerk. He spends all his time in the bar. Sometimes he will come home drunk and it really sucks. So I really wouldn't miss him, or should I say it.” Clara half grinned.
    “My mom is nice but that would be a sacrifice I would have to make.” Then the bell rang. I wondered if it could be any louder.
    “Well, we better get to homeroom.” Clara said. Then we rushed off to homeroom, not realizing that this was the start of a dangerous, but wonderful adventure.

    When I got home from school today I asked my Mom if Clara could sleep over sometime, and she said yes.
    “How about tomorrow?” I asked, hopefully.
    “The only problem is that when your father comes home at 3:00 in the morning... well... you know how he kind of...” my Mother lowered her voice so low I don't know how I heard. “when he gets home he wakes everyone up at sometimes he will beat you. I don't want that happening well your friend is over.”
    “Don't worry. He found a new bar that is open twenty-four hours. He won't even come home. Please! Please!!” I begged.
    “Alright fine.” My mother caved.
    “Yes! Thank you so much!”
    “If your father comes home it is not my fault!”
    “I know mom.”
    The next day at school I told Clara, “My Mom said you could sleep over at my house.”
    “Awesome!” exclaimed Clara. “When?”
    “How 'bout today?” I asked.
    She paused. I could tell she wasn't sure.
    “It will be fun. My dad found a twenty-four hour bar. He isn't going to come home if that is what you are worried about.”
    “Alright. I'll call my Dad at...” Then she said, more to herself than me, “Better call my Mom.”
    “Ya, tell me about it.” I said. Then I said with sarcasm. “Dads will always let you do what you want.” We both laughed. “So today you can just come with me to my house on the bus.”
    “Okay, If my Mom says yes.”
    “Don't worry, she will. I mean what are the chances of a Mom saying no?” I reassured her.
    “You would be surprised. My Mom loves to say no. It's like her hobby or something.”
    We both laughed again.
    “This is why we get along. We both have a sense of humor.” I thought. Then the bell rang.
    “You would think its a nuclear bomb alarm or something.” We both laughed again.
    “I'll see you later.”
    “Alright. Bye.”
    As I walked to Mr. Borings homeroom class I thought about tonight. This is going to be great. And what I didn't know, was that this was the beginning of a scary, but great adventure.
    That night I got everything all prepared for the sleep over. I had sleeping bags and everything. We were getting dressed for bed and we started playing this game. We were in this pretend world called Perosia. The way to get in and out is through the mirror. We pretended to go through the mirror and then we both screamed at the same time! We went through the mirror! We were in Perosia.
    “You know, I would totally freak out right now, but we both know this is a dream.” I said, blankly.
    “Well, since it is a dream we should make the best of it.” Clara said, with a grin. We started to go exploring. Since we appeared in an ally in “Perosia” we started to walk out of it. Suddenly a hippie popped out of the nearest dumpster. He gave us the “peace out” sign and then went back to live his lovely life of elegancy, in dumpsters.
    “I didn't know there were freaks in Perosia.” Clara said, trying to smile, but could not. She looked a little concerned. We continued on. When we finally got out of the ally it was like we went back in time. We saw 1960's station wagons and hippies everywhere.
    “I don't think this is a dream.” I said, worrying. “I don't think this is Perosia, either.”
    “I'm scared!” cried Clara.
    “We need to ask someone what is going on.”
    “Not another freak!”
    “Clara! What else are we going to do. Live in this freaky hippy land forever?”
    “Alright fine!” We started walking and then asked the first person we saw what year it was.
    “Excuse me, sir” I said, politely. “What year is it?”
    “Why don't you ask Mr. Happy sun?” he said, well he spun around and pointed at the sky. “Weeeeee!!! Where is my disco ball!?” Clara and I stared at each other with horrified looks on our faces.
    “Good-bye giant ice cream cones!” he yelled and he started to walk away. Then he called back “Happy troddle waks!”
    “What in God's name just happened?!” I exclaimed.
    “Stupid hippy!!!” Clara screamed at the hippy. We continued to look around and then we saw the cutest guy ever!
    “Oh my god!” Clara and I said at the same time. “If we were not in some kind of freaky weird other dimension then I would totally ask him out!” Then another girl our age walked up to us.
    “Hi. My name is Aliza. I heard you were talking about Cory.” the girl said.
    “Hi Aliza. My name is Clara.” Clara said. “I didn't know his name was Cory. We just saw him and thought he was cute. This is my friend Nico- Nicky.”
    “Hello Nicky.” Aliza said. “The reason I said something was because I think Cory is really groovy, too. Isn't he far out?”
    “What is this, the 60's?” I thought to myself.
    “Well you should totally ask him out!” I exclaimed.
    “Ya think so?” Aliza asked.
    “Of course!” Clara insisted.
    “Alright, I will.” Aliza said with confidence. “Bye!”
    “Wait!” Clara stopped Aliza. “Can I have your cell phone number so we can keep in touch?”
    “Cell phone?” Aliza looked confused.
    “Don't you have one?” asked Clara. “Almost everyone does.”
    “What do you mean cell phone?” asked Clara. “What's that?” She paused for a second. “Oh I get it. That is a groovy new word for phone number right? Here I'll right it down.” She wrote down the number twice and handed one to me, and one to Clara. I immediately put it into my pocket without looking.
    “Wait, one more thing!” I just remembered. “What year is it?”
    “1964 of course!” she said, and at that, she skipped away.

    “1964!?” Clara screamed to me. “We are in a time warp!”
    “I could kinda tell!” I said. I was freaking out. Clara saw my terrified and confused face. She could see there was something else, besides being in a time warp.
    “Is there something wrong?” Clara asked. “Besides being in a time warp.”
    “Nothing.” I said, blankly.
    “Tell me!”
    “It's nothing!”
    “Nicky!”
    “It's just that, my mom is named Aliza. But I'm sure that it's just a coincidence. I mean what are the chances of that being my mom.” I grinned.
    “Your probably right” Clara said, reassuringly.
    Then we decided to go find a mirror, and go home. We started walking towards the nearest building we could find, well Clara screamed at hippies on drugs. We finally found a mirror inside an old abandoned building.
    “If there is one thing I hate more than time warps,” Clara yelled, “It's hallucinating hippies.”
    “Lets just get back home before we are missed.” I said.
    Then together we said, “One, Two, Three, GO!” and we ran towards the mirror at full speed, and we went through.
    “Yes! It worked! We are back home!” I yelled, excitedly.
    “No, were not.” Clara said. “Look around.” I did. We were not back home. We were in some strange limbo. We were literally nowhere. All that was around us was white, pure white. Behind us was a portal.
    “Are we in hell?” I asked, “I have always thought hell to be fire and flames and torture and pain and suffering, not this.”
    “No this is worse! We were never born! We don't exist! That Aliza person is your Mom and I can prove it! Pull out the phone number she gave you!” Clara exclaimed. We were both freaked kind of freaked out. I obeyed. “Is that your phone number?”
    “Oh my God!” I yelled.
    “Is it?” Clara demanded. I couldn't speak. “Is it?” Clara was slightly louder this time.
    “Y-Yes!” I whispered.
    “Your Mom married Cory instead of your father! That means you were never born!” Clara said. She made it seem so easy to figure stuff like this out.
    “But if my Mom married Cory,” I asked, “Then why don't you exist? This has nothing to do with you!”
    The next thing Clara said, scared me half to death. “Guess who my Dad is.” She said.
    “You don't mean...”
    “Yes, my Dad is Cory.” She told me.

    “We have to get back and fix this!” I panicked.
    “How are we going to do that? She already likes Cory!”
    “We just have to get her to stop liking Cory and start liking my Dad. Lets go.” So we both ran back into the portal, and into a challenge.

    “How are we going to find your Dad?” Clara asked me.
    “Well, my parents... my Mom said that her and my Dad met at a party at there friend Jean Recher's house. I only know one Jean Recher and he lives in a house down the corner. I know the party is tonight because there were so many people there. We could go there and introduce them.”
    “This better work!” said Clara. “If it doesn't, we will be stuck in freaky hippie land forever. I hate hippies!!!”
    “Don't worry, it will.”
    “I hope so. We better start over there before everyone leaves.”
    “Good idea.” So Clara and I passed several hippies (Clara screamed at all of them, including the dog with a hippie wig on.) and finally got to the hippie party. Before we got in I had a little talk with Clara. I told her she couldn't be screaming at all the hippies that are going to be in there.
    “Clara, you can't be screaming at all the hippies. There are going to be a lot of them. Don't yell at them!”
    “But I hate them so much!” said Clara, with a devious look on her face.
    “Clara! If you yell at the hippies we could be stuck here forever!”
    “Fine. But don't expect me to talk to them!”
    “You don't have to!”
    Clara agreed not to yell at the hippies and we started to go inside. Once we were inside we started to try and find my Mom and Dad. The problem was everyone looked alike. All the boys had hippie wigs on and the girls all had headbands and long hair. It was a hippie party! The way I identified my Mom was that she has a scar under her left eye. I immediately identified her. My dad was harder. I knew that my dad's favorite colour was White, and there was only one guy there wearing all White. So I went up to Aliza, (My Mom), and started talking to her.
    “Hey Aliza!” I said.
    “Hey Nicky!” She said. “Isn't this just the most far out party ever? Cory is here. He is so groovy. I hope he digs me.”
    “Well actually, I thought about it and Cory doesn't seem to be a great match for you.”
    “Really? I thought Cory would be great for me.”
    “I think Da-... That handsome young man over there seems like a great match for you.” I pointed to my Dad.
    “What, you mean Doug?”
    “Yah, Doug. He is so cool and he really thinks you are awesome.”
    “Awesome? Is that a bad thing?”
    “No. Awesome means groovy.”
    “Oh. Groovy!”
    “So are you going to ask him out or what?”
    “I don't know...”
    “Look how lonely he looks.” I pointed to my Dad who looked really sad.
    “Okay Fine. I will ask him out.” She said.
    “Good. Why don't you ask him right now?”
    “Why not.” My Mom started to walk over there and said something to my Dad that I couldn't quite hear. Then I saw Dad start to walk away. But he was just getting some punch for them. Then they started to dance! I was so happy that my Mom and Dad were back together I almost forgot about Clara. I ran over to her and asked her about her parents.
    “What are we going to do about your parents?” I asked her.
    “Don't worry. They are meant to be together. It will all work out.” she said.
    “So, should we go?” I asked.
    “We shall.” said Clara. We walked out of the house, down the block and down the street, into the abandoned building. We saw the mirror and we were ready to jump in.
    “Well Perosia, I'm going to miss you.” I said.
    “Me too.” Clara said. Then together we jumped into the portal, banged heads on the way out, and were knocked out.

    When we awoke we were surprised to remember what happened then night before.
    “It seemed so real” Clara said.
    “I know. I can't believe it wasn't. It's kinda sad.” I said with a frown.
    “And even if it was real, don't have proof.” Clara said. Then I thought of something amazing! Now it was my turn to be the one to figure it out. I slowly reached into my pocket, and sure enough there was a small piece of paper.
    “Clara!” I said, “It was real! I can prove it! Reach into your pocket!” She did and we both pulled out are papers. We looked at them and it had my phone number on it!
    “Do you know what this means?” Clara exclaimed. “It means that everything last night was real!”
    “We should have brought something back.” I complained. “I mean besides a phone number.”
    “Oh Well. You can't change the past.” Clara said. We both started laughing. We both got the irony. Then my Dad came in the room and said,
    “Good Morning guys! Don't be too loud or you will wake your mother up.” Then he gave me a big hug. “Breakfast will be ready in five Minutes.”
    “When did you get back from the bar?” I asked surprised.
    My Dad laughed. “You know I don't drink, honey.” Then he left the room. Clara and I stared at each other for a couple seconds, but then I realized what had happened.
    “My father never started drinking” I said, “Because he had a girlfriend and got married earlier. My parents told me that they met at a party when they were 21 so my dad was already drinking then. But since we got them together at an earlier party my Dad never even Started.”
    “That's so great!” Clara said. So Clara and I went to have a delicious breakfast made by my Dad.

    That day at school after first period (which I spent daydreaming about the time warp) and second period, (Which I also wasted this way), and third period (which I wasted by passing notes to Clara) and Lunch (which I definitely did not waste) was history.
    “Now Class” the teacher said, “ We are going to be learning about a time not long ago. A time of good, and bad. A time of music, and of peace protests. We are going to be learning about the 60's!” Clara and I both groaned very loud and decided to waste our history time passing notes about the stuff we were not learning about the 60's.