Series Wednesday: Timetopia Page 11

                As we drive into the city, Rev pulls off the road. “We can’t drive into the city on a wellness checker's bike.” She has a good point. She hides the bike in some bushes. We start to walk to town. “We should stay at the visitor center tonight.” I tell Rev. “How would that work? Don’t we need some of those bar-code things on the back of our necks?” I look at her. I’m not sure what our bar-codes would have to do with the visitor center. “All we have to do is go in and sign up for a room. We just have to tell them we are on our way to my grandma’s. Since I am not 20 or married I have no ID yet.  So there won’t be anything for us to show them, but we have to do something about your hair.” Rev stops me. “Listen to me, you can’t tell anyone where we are going. You are going to have to lie.”  I don’t like this. Why should I lie? I am not doing anything wrong. “Why? I don’t want to lie.” Rev takes a deep breath and rolls her eyes at me. “I’m going to tell you a saying from back home. You can’t trust anyone not even your pet, because if you stop feeding them, even they will eventually eat you. Okay? Good chat.” Rev starts walking again. What does that even mean?

                                 Rev has her fake hair as we walk into town, we walk over to the visiting center. “So it’s like a hotel.” Rev shrugs, I’m not sure what a hotel is. She walks right into the visiting center and walks right up to the front desk. “Hi welcome. How many rooms are you going to need?” Asks the guy at the front desk. “Just one. There is just me and my cousin on our way to our aunts house.” The guys looks at Rev for a few seconds. “Okay one suite.” He hands her the keys. She smiles at him. “My name is Ron, if there is anything you need I’ll be the one to help you.” He smiled at me as he said it. Rev doesn’t seem to notice the little things, like the way everyone is kind. She is kind when she has to be but it never feels like it was taught to her like it was to us. We get to our suite. She pulls bowls out of her bag. “You want my hair color changed then you have to help.” She hand me gloves. She start pouring things into the bowl, the mixture turns dark brown almost black. “Where did you get this?” she laughs. “I brought it with me from back home. You don’t have this stuff here.” She starts to part her hair and has me evenly put what looks like mud on her hair.  She sits with it in her hair for a while and goes and washes it out. When she came back out her hair is brown and shiny. She has long brown hair now. “Are you happy now?” she asks. “Why did you have your hair that color in the first place?” She rolls her eyes. “Some stories are better not before bed. Let’s get some sleep and back on the road tomorrow.”  We hear a knock at the door. Rev grabs her knife and walks toward the door slowly. I run over to her and stop her. I walk to the door and open it. “Hello, I am responsible to let you know the day after tomorrow is Switch Festival. Here are the specific details. Enjoy your night.” It’s Ron the guy from the front desk, he hands me a paper with our itinerary for the festival. “Why thank you Ron.” I smile and close the door. Rev gets up and grabs the itinerary out of my hand. “Too bad we are going to miss this.”  I forget that she didn’t grow up here. “We can’t miss this. They shut down all the roads. There is no way out of the city until the switch is over.” Rev rolls her eyes “What is the switch? And why do they lock down the roads?” I stick my hand out for her to hand me the itinerary back. I sit in our sitting area and lay the paper out for her to see. “It’s the switch, we are getting a new one of the Five. It’s been a year since the last switch. So for a few days all of the cities are on lock down. Just until the Five get here, well the one in our time at least. So see here tomorrow the old one leaves and for 24 hours we are alone to have our festival without a Five.  Then the new one comes and it’s time to start anew.” She looks at the papers. “So you realize that there are only 5 right so there can’t be new ones or old ones because there is only 5. Just helping you with the math on that one. So we are stuck great.” I laugh. “But this is the most fun time of the year. It’s the start of the New Year. It’s the only time we can drink more than one glass of liquor a day it’s all you can drink.”  Rev smiles. “Okay so it’s New Years, maybe we could have a little bit of fun. Wait, you can drink?” I look at her. “Yes I am 17, we can start having a glass of wine at 16.”  Rev gets up and walks to her bed. “How do you know which one of The Five you’re going to get?”  What a strange question. “We don’t, that’s why the switch is such a big deal. We see who we are going to get. It’s exciting.” Rev’s eyes go to the ground… how strange.