By Christopher Woods

Word Count: 5603

Rating: G

Summary: No. 1 in the Unbelievable Stories of Theo MacLinnich, a Homeschooler, and his adventures with the Doctor. 

It was January, the second Monday of the month, to be exact. Naturally, I was quite excited about this. The only thing I really enjoyed about school resuming was, to be quite honest, HOMAD (Homeschool Music and Drama) and Justinian Debate also resuming. Which meant I would be able to see all of my friends again. The Justinians (as we called ourselves), today. I was highly looking forward to that. At the practice tournament, I had told them all that I wouldn’t be back next semester, until just before Mike and Robert left, when Mom told me that Dad had said I could continue. So here I was, Mom driving on I-355, getting ever nearer to Grace Church. Ha! I could just imagine how all my friends would react, seeing me return when I had said that I wouldn’t have. I couldn’t wait to see the looks on their faces!

We pulled up the driveway and parked in our usual place. Despite it being real close to the church entrance, it was rarely taken. I jumped out and eagerly walked toward the doors and downstairs. The first person I saw was Jim Kuster.

“Jim!” I cried, “Ship to shore, but doesn’t Lander look familiar?”

“Theo! What are you doing here?”

“Turns out I can come for the classes, but still not the tourneys. Shame, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but we still get to see each other here.”

“Haha, yes. Mondays are still a highlight for me!”

“Hey, Theo.” Kathy said, interrupting Jim and I.

“Kathy! How’s it goin’?”

“I have a little problem.” Kathy started walking away from most of the people to a corner of the room. I followed, curious as to why she was telling me about this.

“I don’t think I can help you very much with your speech. You have plenty more experience than me, and got first place with your IO.” I said, assuming that’s what it was all about.

“It’s not about speech,” replied Kathy, smiling at my reference to her award. “It’s about Julia.”

I immediately looked around the room as my heart plummeted. Julia was there, yes, surrounded by the usual gang of friends, but did not seem to be contributing much to the conversation. And Christian, Faith, and the others did not seem as comfortable with her as they were wont to. “What’s wrong?” I asked, as I finished my glance about the room.

“She’s not been acting very normal at all since last week. I don’t know how or why, but she’s changed, and not in a good way at all.”

“I doubt there’s much I can do to help.”

“I know, but–” Kathy sighed. “We’ve known each other for so long. If only there was something to do that can help.”

“We can pray.”

“I’ve been praying for days. But you’re right, it’s the only thing we can do.”

Deeply saddened by this odd turn of events, I went to sit with Julia and the others. I tried to get Julia’s attention by making jokes, references to past times together, but if she responded at all, it was with a sarcastic remark.

“Come now, Julia,” I said, thinking that the thought that this could be her last year was eating at her, “You’ve still got one more semester. And you’re going to a few tourneys as well! That’s better than me.”

“True.” Julia stared right into my eyes, her own flashing green. I sat straighter in my chair, startled. “We’re better than you in many ways, beyond your imagination.” Her eyes resumed their usual color, but the statement remained ingrained in my head.

“Alright,” called out Mr Burgen, getting everyone’s attention. “Time for announcements.”

The evening went on, but I couldn’t stop thinking of Julia’s odd behaviour. Thankfully, I managed to push it out of my head enough during debate class, but all the ride home was silent, as I thought about what it all could possibly mean. That night, it took hours for me to get to sleep, and I woke hardly rested. The following day, I was constantly distracted by the memory of Julia with green eyes, but still managed to get my work done. The following night passed much the same as the first: little sleep, and too much worrying. Except, I really didn’t think it was too much.

Wednesday, I woke with some excitement. It was the first day of HOMAD, so I tried even harder to forget the odd experience of Monday and focus on simply enjoying being with my friends. It seemed to be working, and nobody noticed my sadness, until another odd occurrence happened. I was just heading to the kitchen for lunch, when I heard a sound near the hallway. Turning around, a caught a glimpse of a small, goat-like thing dashing by. Intrigued, I hurried after it, turned the corner, and saw–nothing. The crazy apparition had vanished. I thought no more of it, and all that afternoon enjoyed being with all my friends. Esther, as usual, made several witty puns. Valerie showed me some piano music she had learned over Christmas break. Amy and I talked about Russia and Tolkien while trying (and not very well succeeding) to do our school. It was a usual day, when you also take into account Dan sneaking up on people at the minute we were talking about him. But later in the afternoon, after Amy had left, and I was practically the only one there not in class, Julia’s odd behaviour came back to me. As I usually did when worried, I put on my coat and went outside, despite the frigid weather.

Pacing up and down beside the building, I debated what to do in my head. It all seemed so very strange. Why would Julia even consider acting in such a way? Unless it was a joke. But Kathy seemed much too worried for it to be a joke. A week-long joke does rather tend to get on one’s nerves.

The sky was overcast, and not a breath of wind shook the bare branches of the few trees between the church and the shed. Chilled to the bone, I decided to go inside. Turning to the door, I suddenly felt a blast of wind on my back, and a groaning, wheezing sound reached my ears. Hesitating a moment, I turned and looked around. Behind me, a blue box was appearing out of thin air, fading in and out, but becoming steadily more there. Suddenly, with a thump, the box became quite visible, and looked very solid indeed. It looked like a telephone booth, only wider, and blue, and the walls were made of more wood than glass. A small lamp was on top, and a notice on front of the door read: “Available for public use,” and more that I didn’t care to read at that moment. I would’ve, had not the door opened, and a head poked out. It was the head of a man, around fifty years of age, clean-shaven, gray-haired, with eyes that seemed to pierce you all the way through. And the eyebrows! They were the crossest eyebrows I’d ever seen.

“Hello, there!” he called out, and stepped out of the box. He wore a red velvet suitcoat, white shirt, no tie, black waistcoat and pants, and large boots. He smiled as he stepped out, and I began to think that he may not be as cross ashe at first seemed.

“Hello,” I replied. I wanted to go back inside, but something kept me there. Not to mention the fact that it was obvious the man wanted to make my acquaintance. He came up to me and offered his hand.

“I’m the Doctor,” he said, in a distinctly Scottish accent. I hadn’t really heard a genuine one before in person, but I knew this was it.

I gave his hand a small shake. “Theodore MacLinnich,” I said by way of introduction. “And if I may ask, doctor of what, exactly?”

“Just the Doctor.” He emphasized. I was slightly confused by this. After all, everyone has a name. But I respected his wish, and changed the topic.

“So, what brings you here?” I asked.

The Doctor looked at me oddly. “A large blue box appears out of thin air, and you aren’t even bothered by it?”

“Well, to be quite honest, I am. That’s why I asked why you’re here.”

“Right, of course. Well, I’m not quite sure why I’m here yet. Seen anything odd? Unworldly?”

Of all the questions this Doctor could have asked, I certainly wasn’t expecting that. I gave him a queer look, and rephrased my earlier question: “What kind of doctor are you?”

“I told you, just the Doctor. You haven’t answered my question.”

“Sort of hard to, when a man walks out of a big blue box that just appeared out of nowhere and asks questions about extra- terrestrial sightings. I’d be rather inclined not to trust such a man, wouldn’t you?”

“Alright, you’ve proved your point but you still haven’t answered my question.”

“If that’s all that you need to be off, then no, I haven’t seen anything queer or odd or extraterrestrial. Goodbye.” With that, I walked back to the door, but hesitated just as my hand touched the knob. “Unless…”

“Yes, what is it?”

The odd Doctor seemed so eager to hear my tale, with a smile that stretched all across his wrinkled face, and so, well, trustable, that I felt compelled to tell him everything about Julia. After all that, he frowned. And if his smile was welcoming, his frown was positively frightening.

“Graske!” he said, and headed back for his box.

“Excuse me, but are you going to help?”

“If that’s what you need, you have found the perfect person. Just step in here, and we’ll be off. I simply need to find the Graske that captured your friend, and then we can follow it back to their base, where your friend should be.”

“But I saw my friend, she was sitting just across a table from me a couple days back!”

“That wasn’t your friend. It was a Graske duplicate, which explains why it’s eyes flashed green. Now then–” Suddenly he stopped. “Didn’t you say you had seen something odd here today?”

“Yes,” I stammered, “A goat-like figure.”

“Stay here,” said the Doctor, and jumped back into his box. After a while, he came back out with the oddest contraption I had ever seen. It looked like a large, bulky calculator, with a long antenna and some kind of rotating fan on top.

“What in the world is that?” I asked, wondering how this Doctor-man would possibly manage to find and rescue Julia with it.

“It’s the thing that goes ‘ding’.” He replied, waving it around in front of the doors. “If there’s a Graske or Graske duplicate inside the building, it’ll go–”

At that precise moment, the machine dinged.

“Well, there you are. Either your goaty friend from earlier, or a duplicate. Shall we see?” Without waiting for my consent, he walked right in. The entrance room was empty, as was the kitchen. The Doctor pointed his ding-machine at the people sitting around the tables, including my younger brother Philip, but thankfully got no result. He then went over to the orchestra, but stayed back far enough not to be noticed. Examining the students, the machine let out a small ding. The Doctor quickly moved it back, and determined the one who was apparently a Graske duplicate.

“The girl with the violin, right in front of the director and back a row,” he said, pointing her out to me. To my horror, it turned out to be Sarah, Esther’s younger sister.

“No, not her!” I whispered.

“And why not?” asked the Doctor, heading back out of the building. “Has she been acting perfectly normally today?”

“Well, now that you bring it up, she did seem a little ill…”

“There you are!”

“But that’s quite normal for her. For all of the Jaspin girls, actually. They’ll show up and feel fine at the beginning of the day, and not feel too well later on.”

“Was she at lunch?”

“No, she wasn’t. Esther said she had left to get something from the car.” My voice slowed down as I realized what had happened.

“It’s too late to track the Graske from here,” said the Doctor, “So you’ll have to show me where it had taken this Julia.” He exited the church and walked straight for his box.

“But wait!” I protested. “That happened over a week ago!”

“Doesn’t matter,” the Doctor said over his shoulder as he entered his box.

I stood outside, confused at what was going on.

“Are you coming, or aren’t you?” the Doctor’s voice came to me from the box.

“Yeah, sure.” I shook my head and entered the box. Jumping up the steps, I joined the Doctor at a hexagonal table, which had myriads of buttons and levers and such on it, in the center of a large room with circle things on the walls. Stairs went up and down from the main platform the Doctor and I were on, leading to a platform on the wall above us and the floor below us. I also caught sight of doorways both above and below. In the center of the hexagonal table was a clear pillar, with six glowing blue lines, or tubes, running through it.

“Nice place you have here, Doctor,” I commented. “I thought it was gonna be a bit crowded, but thankfully I was wrong.”

The Doctor just stood there, with a confused smile on his face. “Aren’t you going to say ‘where are we’, or ‘it’s bigger on the inside’, or something like that?”

It was my turn to look and smile. “I’ve gone through enough doors in my life that I know you can never really expect what to find on the other side. So then,” I said exuberantly, “You said that time didn’t matter.”

“Not when you’ve got a time machine!” exclaimed the Doctor. “Now then, if you’ll put your hands right here, it’ll take us to the time and place Julia was kidnapped by the Graske.”

“Just wait.” I said, putting up both my hands. “Would you please tell me just and exactly how it works?”

“Well, not exactly, but I can give you the rough run down.”

“That, at least, would be nice.”

“Basically, the TARDIS reads your mind, and goes to the place or person you’re thinking of.”

“That didn’t take half as long as I thought it might.”

“We’re in a hurry!”

“I thought you said we’re in a time machine!”

“We’re still in a hurry! Just put your hand right there.” The Doctor grabbed my hands and thrust them into part of the table, which felt quite rubbery. I had the impression of putting my hands into a couple of soft, toothless jaws. Not very comfortable. The Doctor left me there, and threw a large lever. I was not prepared for what happened next. A sudden shock almost threw me across the floor, as if the box, or TARDIS, had jumped up without warning and was now flying all over the place. But I concentrated on Julia, and a week ago, giving the machine the exact person to meet and time to meet her at. After a few seconds, the room stabilized. Looking up, I saw that there were three large, flat cylinders, covered in crazy circles, the top and bottom of which were rotating in one direction, and the middle was rotating in the opposite direction.

“Have we landed?” I asked in a whisper.

“Not yet,” replied the Doctor. Just then, another large thump shook the room. “Now.” He left the table and headed for the door, but changed his mind and came back. “No, we’ll just have to go invisible and watch from in here. You can take your hands out now.”

Indeed, I had almost forgotten my hands were there in the first place. But I eagerly took them out, counting them to make sure they were all still there. After all, I had just run away with a total stranger who had a box that was bigger on the inside. Just the kind of environment where one might lose a few fingers.

I stood by the Doctor, who had been throwing some levers and pressing buttons, but now stood, watching a screen. I looked at it too, and my eyes saw a familiar sight. It was the Burgen’s backyard, and Kathy, Fatih, Julia, and some others were just heading inside laughing and talking. I couldn’t quite hear what was being said, so I only watched as Julia suddenly remembered something, and ran back to the tree house to fetch it. The others continued on inside. Julia, with her retrieved something, started back for the house when the air stirred in front of her, and an odd creature appeared. It was small, with two curled horns, and held some kind of gun.

“Your goaty friend,” the Doctor murmured to me.

The creature, which I took to be a Graske, raised its weapon and pointed it at Julia, who stood stock still, totally bewildered by the situation. “No! Julia!” I cried out and lounged for the door. But the Doctor grabbed my shoulder and held fast. “Wait, there is still hope. We mustn’t interfere here.” Chastened, I had to watch as a ray burst forth from the gun and struck Julia full on. The ray stayed there for five seconds, then withdrew back into the gun, and the air around the Graske began to shimmer again.

“Now we’ve got you!” cried the Doctor, his exclamation directed toward the Graske. Jumping to another part of the table, he pressed some more buttons and threw some more levers, and once again the TARDIS leaped up. Not holding to anything this time, I was thrown onto the floor, and there slid around until the TARDIS stopped jerking so violently. I had only regained my feet when we landed with another thump.

“How much more of this do we have to do?” I asked.

“Don’t know. Hopefully not too much.” The Doctor pulled the screen over. His face grew alarmed.

“Of course!” he said. “If it was the same Graske, of course we would end up here!”

“Where are we?” I queried, making my way over to the Doctor. I looked at the screen, and saw the church, right outside the side door. The door opened, and Sarah came out, feeling all fine and happy. But the now-familiar shimmering appeared in front of her, and within seconds the Graske had claimed another victim.

I was feeling quite odd by now. While the effect of time travel had not yet gotten to me, I understood the idea all too well. And I hated watching helplessly as my friends were taken from me.

“Here we go again!” said the Doctor. Remembering the last trip, I quickly grabbed the edge of the table, and managed to stay upright. After the usual cycle, the Doctor glanced at the screen once more.

“Ah, this is it!” he said with a smile. “Ready to rescue your friends?”

“I’m always ready,” I replied, though in truth, I was beginning to feel a bit queasy as well. Nonetheless, I resolutely followed the Doctor out the TARDIS door. We found ourselves in a long, low room, the walls bristling with guns the likes of which I had never seen before. Immediately, I became quite hopeful.

“Doctor!” I said, “You couldn’t have taken us to a better place! The armory!” And with that, I headed for a gun. But I hadn’t gotten far when the Doctor’s stern voice pulled me up.

“No. No guns. I only need this.” He reached into his coat pocket and took out a small object, rather like a screwdriver in size. It was blue in color, the same shade as his time-machine-box-TARDIS- thing, and came to a point at one end. The whole thing was covered in small knobs and levers, the use of which I later learned were simply decoration.

“And you’re telling me that that little thing’s gonna rescue my friends from a horde of goat-aliens?” I was slightly incredulous.

“Sonic screwdriver. Works every time,” the Doctor replied.

Skeptical of this futuristic device, I secretly grabbed a promising-looking pistol from the wall.

There was a small window in the door of the armory. The Doctor looked out, determined it was safe, and pointed his screwdriver at the lock. The tip of the sonic glowed blue, there was a buzzing sound, and the door unlocked with a click. Opening it, we entered the hallway. Not a sound did we hear. The Doctor again used his screwdriver, but this time simply waved it about, like he did with the ding-machine. After a minute, he turned to me.

“This way!” he shouted, and started running at full tilt, holding his screwdriver in front of him. I quickly followed, but not before an alarm went off.

“They’re on to us, Doctor!” I cried after him.

“Doesn’t matter!” the Doctor shouted back. However, as we soon realized, it did indeed matter. As we ran down the corridor, we spotted five Graske coming at us, armed and ready for combat. “Other way!” exclaimed the Doctor. But no sooner had we turned around than a door dropped like a stone from the ceiling, blocking our escape.

“Good thing I grabbed this,” I muttered and whipped out the pistol.

“Didn’t I say no guns?” asked the Doctor.

“This is a question of life or death, Doctor. I don’t think you would object so much now.” With that, I fired off shot after shot at the approaching Graske. Surprised that their prey was so well armed, they soon fell victim to my attack. “Path cleared, Doctor. Onwards!” Cheered on by this victory, I sprang forward, forgetting for a moment that I had no idea where I was going.

“See?” said the Doctor, “You need me more than you think.” And with that we set off again, I making sure not to pass the Doctor. Even though I was still skeptical of the screwdriver, at the moment it was all we had to go on, the only thing that could possibly help us to locate my friends.

We turned a corner, and were brought up short. We had suddenly ran right onto a balcony overlooking what appeared to be a storeroom. Large cylinders were everywhere, and the Graske were busy walking about from one to the next, checking on things, it looked like. A large desk was at one end, covered in buttons.

“Here’s the plan,” the Doctor told me, “You fire a shot over at that corner to distract the Graske. Then we’ll run down to the desk and try to free our friends. If I can find the right combination, it’ll send all the prisoners in these cylinders back to where they’re supposed to be, immediately replacing the Graske duplicates. If I don’t, then I may still be able to release them, but they’ll all be right here, and we’ll have to figure out a way to get them all home in the TARDIS. Ready for this?”

“No, but let’s do it anyway!” I shot over at the corner, making a terrific explosion, much louder than I would’ve expected. Thankfully it worked. All the Graske dashed over there at once, leaving the room empty for the Doctor and I to reach the control desk. Screwdriver in hand, the Doctor began examining all the myriads of buttons. I stood beside him, ready to shoot any Graske who might show his little horns around the corner.

“How much longer, Doctor?” I asked

“Agh, I don’t know! This is much more complicated than I expected!” he whispered agitatedly.

“Well, hurry up, I think the Graske are beginning to lose interest!”

As if my sentence had been a cue, the Graske started coming back to work, when they caught sight of the Doctor and I.

“Down!” I yelled, just as the Graske started to pull out their weapons and fire at us. Despite the heavy fire, the Doctor continued to try and find the right combination of buttons. I covered him with my own fire as best I could, and was happy to see a Graske go down.

“That’s one,” I murmured, “Now just about a dozen to go.” It had been a long day already.

“I’ve got it!” cried the Doctor, and then added: “I hope.” He punched a few buttons, nearly losing his eyebrows to Graske laser in the process, and ducked back down beneath the table. To our horror, we heard the cylinder doors open, and the prisoners all began to scream wildly. Chaos broke out. The Graske were completely bewildered, and began shooting in every direction. Conscious of the danger, but unwilling to let any innocents die, I jumped out of safety.

“Hey, goat-heads!” I yelled, “Over here!” After firing a few shots from where I was, I dashed off to another place. The Doctor also jumped up and started to gather the freed prisoners together and lead them to safety. I was singed once or twice by passing lasers, but never quite hit full on. Another couple Graske had fallen to my pistol, and I began to follow the Doctor, when he threw me the screwdriver.

“Point and think!” he called. “It’ll lead you back to the TARDIS! Be a decoy!”

Deftly catching the screwdriver, I dashed down an opposite tunnel from the Doctor, firing a shot or two over my shoulder as I ran. Switching a lever on the sonic, I ran in the direction it gave me, twisting and turning through a silver maze, with now dozens of Graske somewhere behind me. To my distress, I suddenly came across a door that blocked the tunnel. Remembering what the Doctor did in the armory, I attempted the same here. With a click, the door unlocked, and was opened with a gentle push.

The room I had entered looked like an engine room, with great tanks all over the place. Straight ahead was another door, through which the sonic directed me. But I had another plan. Turning, I closed and locked the door, then jumped up a ladder onto a catwalk high above the tanks. The door shuddered as the Graske blasted it with their own weapons. Trembling from the recent excitement, I watched as the door burst open, and the Graske came pouring in. I shot right into the middle of them. Confusion and turmoil broke out, and finally the Graske decided to beat a hasty retreat. Dashing across the catwalk, I reached the other door and passed through like a whirlwind. Except that whirlwinds don’t lock doors behind them. Suddenly, a huge explosion from the room behind threw me forward faster than I ever could’ve run, and I realized that a stray shot must have hit run of the tanks. I hit the floor hard, but got up again, following the sonic’s signal that would eventually lead me home again. Down corridors and upstairs I ran, knowing that if I stopped, I’d most likely end up dead. And that was the last place I wanted to be at the moment. After several right-hand turns, I saw the most welcome sight ever: the TARDIS, facing me, with its doors wide open. Not even slowing down, I dashed on in, and found the control room to be rather crowded.

“Good! You made it,” called the Doctor as he snapped his fingers.

“Made it, yes, but I think I blew up an engine on the way.”

The Doctor frowned. “Now, then, we weren’t supposed to do that. But at least Earth won’t need to worry about this particular lot of Graske.”

“My point is, Doctor,” I was practically shouting over the din of all the people in the control room. “We need to get out of here–fast!”

“Don’t worry, the TARDIS can withstand any blast, as long as the doors are locked.” The Doctor turned his attention to the rescued. “You there, why don’t you make yourselves comfortable. I’ll take you home one at a time. Just go into the sitting room (you’ll find it upstairs, left-hand corridor, third door on the right) and I’ll send my associate in to get you, one at a time.”

Still not entirely at ease (after all, who would be?), they slowly walked in the direction the Doctor had given them.

“It’s interesting,” the Doctor said to me, “They’re all humans. Not a single other species among all of them. The Graske must have been planning a full-scale invasion of Earth. But they’re done with now. Why don’t you bring one in?”

I leaped up the stairs and walked quickly to the sitting room. It was so full, only the first few people could really be seen. I gestured to one of them.

“Come on, let’s get you home.”

I don’t know exactly how long it was, but I suppose that with a time machine, it doesn’t really matter. Again and again, I chose a person, brought them to the control room, the Doctor would ask them where their home was and what year it is (which always confused them a bit), and take them home. It was a fulfilling experience, or rather it would have been, if I had been able to find Julia and Sarah. The people didn’t wait for me to come, and starting standing in the corridor, beggin me to take them with me. I, obedient to the Doctor, would only take one, but would also promise the others that I would be back for them. I was too, and I must have seemed to these poor people as an angel of salvation.

So it went on, returning grateful people to their homes, until I came to the corridor and saw no one there. Before turning back, I decide to have a look in the sitting room to make sure it was empty. It wasn’t. Sitting there, holding each other and crying, were two girls. I recognized them both at once. Julia looked up, and the next thing I knew, both of them were embraced me as though they would never let go. Tears of joy were in their eyes now, as they rejoiced at seeing a familiar face in all this crazy day. Laughing and crying alternatively, we stumbled down the stairs and into the control room.

“Well, Theodore,” said the Doctor, “After your brilliant performance today, I wasn’t expecting to see you like this.”

“It’s over, Doctor,” I said, “It’s over. It’s done. They’re safe. Let’s go home.”

It was decided that we would take Julia home first, since both Sarah and I were going to HOMAD. As always, I found it difficult to say goodbye to Julia.

“I guess I’ll see you Monday, then,” I said.

“Yeah. Only this time it’ll be actually me, and not some alien.” She walked over to the Doctor. “Oh, thank you, Doctor!” she said, and threw his arms around his neck.

“I’m not a hugging person!” protested the Doctor.

Julia laughed. “Maybe you should be.” Turning to Sarah, she said, “I’m glad to have met you. I look forward to seeing you again.”

“Though hopefully not in such conditions,” replied Sarah. The two girls hugged each other, and Julia finally came over to me.

“See ya,” I stated, as if she was just leaving Grace Church and I hadn’t rescued her from an army of Graske.

“You know, I really was expecting something a bit nobler from my rescuer,” Julia reprimanded.

“Well then,” I said, getting down on my knees before her, in the fashion of fairy-tale knights, “It has been an honor to be of service to you, my lady.”

Julia pulled me back up and gave me a hug as well. “Oh, Theo, I’m so glad you my friend.”

“Yeah, you don’t want to know what I did to my enemies.”

Julia smiled, then headed for the door. Turning, she waved goodbye one more time, and then exited the TARDIS.

“One more trip,” said the Doctor, throwing yet another lever. Sarah and I quickly grabbed on to something as the TARDIS lept into the time vortex and the adventure came to an end. Sarah was quite thankful to leave the TARDIS and hurried back into the building. I hung around, almost unwilling to leave.

“It’s a magnificent ship, Doctor,” I said.

“You should see the Type 80 TARDISes,” smiled the Doctor.

“Just keep this in mind: I’m always ready for a good adventure. Wouldn’t mind if you dropped by again, someday.” I offered him my hand. The Doctor shook it firmly.

“This is how it ends, then,” I said. “Just like a fairy story. They’re the only true stories, you know.”

“Of course, how many fairy stories do you know of that have a madman in a blue box?”

“Not enough, Doctor!” I said, and finally left the TARDIS. Shortly afterward, the wind began again, and the TARDIS dematerialized before my eyes. I walked back into the building and glanced at my watch: the time was three forty in the afternoon.

“So,” Mom said as we sat around the dinner table, “How was the first day of HOMAD?”

“Quite successful, if I may say so myself!” I replied. Yes, the day had been very successful, though perhaps not in the way Mom thought.