Page 15 of Time for You
“El, I get it. It’s—not believable. But it’s what happened, I swear.”
Ellie sat back down on the stool. “He’s a time traveler. Okay, sure, why the fuck not?” she muttered. “Now what? Where do we go from here?”
“You handled that remarkably well, Miss Levine,” Henry said. “A little profanely, but well.”
“Uh, thanks?”
“You’re quite welcome.”
“What do we do with him?” Ellie asked, turning to Daphne.
Daphne shrugged. “I had just finished processing the time travel thing myself when you came in. Psych said they don’t have room for him, and anyway, he’s perfectly sane, just—”
“From the past,” Henry supplied.
“Exactly. So that leaves ... the social worker?”
“So Kiana can send him to a shelter? Those are already overflowing, and if he’s from, um, the past, then how is he going to manage literally anything?”
“Maybe an inpatient program of some kind?”
“You yourself just said he’s not mentally ill,” Ellie countered.
“Well, do you have any bright ideas? Or are you just going to shoot down mine?” Daphne grumbled.
Henry cleared his throat. “Would either of you two ladies consider asking me where I’d like to go?”
Daphne stifled an eye roll. “And where would you propose going? Time machine is still out, as we don’t have that technology.”
“And I still find that hard to believe.”
“Believe it or don’t—either way, you’re stuck in the twenty-first century for now,” Daphne said.
“Then I guess no, I don’t have any ideas,” Henry admitted, and sat back down.
Ellie rotated slowly back and forth on the stool. “I have an idea, but you’re not going to like it.”
“She won’t, or I won’t?” Henry asked.
“Daphne won’t. She hates breaking rules of any kind.”
“What are you thinking, El?”
“Helen’s.”
“No.”
“Hear me out—”
“Who, or what, is Helen’s?” Henry interrupted.
“Our neighbor. She’s in Florida for the winter—wait, did you have Florida yet back then?”
“You mean the peninsula in the southern United States? Yes, that particular land formation existed.”
“She meant if you knew of the state,” Daphne said, not liking his condescending tone, seeing as Ellie was currently the closest thing he had to someone on his side.
“Again, I have some concerns about the state of education in this century.”
