The time dragged on during the Class of 24’s graduation ceremony. As the final names were called and the crowd dispersed into a sea of crying parents and sentimental teenagers, Hope Boyer cried out, “I wish I could go back!”
“Luckily for you,” said Kyle Gibson, “I’ve got just the thing.”
They led some of the seniors all the way back into the FabLab, where they, along with Riley Schuab and Brett Walter, showed off their latest invention–a time machine.
“This can take us back to freshman year!” said Eliza Albert.
The seniors loaded into the machine, where Sophia Nortwen started impulsively pushing buttons. A whirring sound filled the machine as a flash of light suddenly took them back…all the way to the Cretaceous period.
“Um…this doesn’t look like freshman year,” said Brooklyn Radecke.
“Look out!” cried Madelyn Moline.
Suddenly, a huge Tyrannosaurus started charging towards them. Cadi Jemilo threw their brand new iPhone at it as a distraction as Miles Roethe, Bo Iverson, Will Nelson, and Denver Schauff hurried the crowd back into the machine.
Gracie Spencer, Jerzi Hutson, Erica Ree, and Mikyra Turner started complaining and saying they wanted to go home, while Emerson Hubert and Zoey Garske insisted that was the coolest experience of their life. Jaymes Olson, Donaven Rice, and Joey Schenck started fiddling with the machine and trying to get it to bring them to their intended destination, but they just ended up in ancient Mongolia where Lilliana Procter left their Stanley cup next to Ghengis Khan.
Their next attempt was closer, but they ended up a couple decades too early. In the rush of excitement to try again, Bella Patrinos bumped into Craig Culver and knocked his papers for founding Culver’s out of his hands, where they blew away into the wind.
They next ended up in the Renaissance era, where Nolan Bertrand, Connor Brown, Austin Campbell, and Carsen Rowin passed by Leonardo Da Vinci as he was painting the Mona Lisa, and their loud chatter changed her smile to a frown.
They next ended up on the Titanic, where Ethan Stam, Aaron Blake, Jesse Boone, and Lilliana Rubio frantically ran around the boat and confused the drivers enough to steer the boat off track.
After several hours of trying to aim perfectly for their freshman year and ending up in several different historic locations instead, Eliana Thomson, Alejandra Melchor, Logan Moschel, and Simon Harris insisted that they give up and go home.
Once they got back and went to the field, Hannah Saari, Juliana Gates-Dunn, Emily Midthun, and Hannah Overmon ran up to them and wondered where they all went off to. Although to the time-travelers it felt like they had been gone for hours, to the people back home it seemed like only 10 minutes.
Just as they were about to explain, everyone’s phone went off and alarms sounded.
Madeline Olsen let out a dramatic scream to let everyone know: There was a rip in the space-time continuum!
Suddenly, all the seniors who had stayed behind stared down the ones who’d left. Shania Holden was the first to ask: “What did you do?”
After a quick run-down on the situation from Ella Hembrook, Felicity Franseen, and Emerson Hubert, Ruby Royston and Annalise Schreier decided to lead the whole class back to the machine and set things right.
They started at the very beginning when Boden Jensen convinced the first fish to learn how to walk on land. That brought them to the dinosaurs, which, enlightened by the technology from the phone that was thrown at them, prevented their own extinction. Luckily, Ethan Sodarbloom expertly hunted them all down.
The seniors then realized that the heat emitting from their technology had prevented the Ice Age from ever happening. Anders Gausman had the genius idea of refreezing the world with a chemically engineered freeze ray, which Brady Wethal, Jack Conant, Marcus Havey, and Austin Guenther gladly built. start page 2
Continuing on their conquest as humanity evolved, the Egyptians built the pyramids, but the pharaohs of their tombs had gone missing. To restore their purpose, Finn Forsythe and Lily Tuttle paint a new sarcophagus. Samantha Beckwith finds the ancient pharaohs engaging with immortality, and puts them back in their place.
With the restoration of the tombs, the class visits eastern Europe to ensure the Greeks destroy the city of Troy. Mika Wacker precisely crafts the Trojan Horse, hiding Reese Koepke, Ashtyn Anderson, Alex Bailey, and Tyler Judd inside to ambush the city.
Still on the European continent, Reis Nisuis, Cameron Luebke, Ian Westerburg, and Colin Meinholz realized the volcano of Pompeii never erupted over the city. To provoke the volcano, Brandon Vaage sings a low C2 as the beast begins to roar, erupting with might, and Michael Anschutz makes sure all of the ash is preserved.
Genghis Khan, after growing fond of his Stanley Cup, convinced his army to become peace-loving hippies who loathe war. To fix this discrepancy, Grace Greenwald steals his Stanley cup, and Kirsten Holm threatens to cancel them online. Fearing for their reputation, the army gets back into shape and once again invades their Asian neighbors.
With the Spanish royals, King Franz Ferdinand II is not convinced that the Earth is round, despite Christopher Columbus’s wish to sail across the world. To make sure Columbus carried out his expedition, and was able to report about what is now the seniors’ home land, Lily Maerz, Dominic Molitor, Devon VanFossen, and Kyle Slouber convinced the king with plenty of riches to let Columbus set sail. However, several years later, the people had not left the town of Roanoke, so Allison Kolberg, Isabella Martinez, and Kaylani Cardenas-Vann scare them away with scary stories and Havyn Kretschmann-Charlier, Meliann Sess, and Tayler Keo make sure to write the word Croatoan on the tree.
In an era of Italian artwork, the modern day famous Mona Lisa painting was in the works. However, the lady behind the piece wouldn’t stop frowning while Leonardo da Vinci used her as a reference. To help her mood, Ava Burkhalter, Evan Pfanku-Stewart, and Phig Uriostegui show her funny cat videos, and make her smile.
The Sons of Liberty, discontented, but too scared to do anything about it, decide not to dump the tea into the harbor in Boston. However, to make sure the tea ended up there, Sophia Olveda, Abby Venckus, Kaylin Olsen, and Neela Yellow Bird went on a heist to take all of the British tea and throw it into the harbor themselves. Also included in the American Revolution was the weakness of the army, and their inability to defeat the red coats. Sawyer Schipper, Ty Fernholz, and Beckett Spilde teach the American soldiers intense workout routines to strengthen them, allowing George Washington to take the victory with his fellow soldiers, joined in battle by Riley Hansen, Gabe Schneider, Sam Hjortland, and Haddon Borroughs.
Sir Isaac Newton is sitting beneath a tree, contemplating life and the existence of unexplainable phenomenons, notices an apple fall from the tree next to him. As he’s about to take a bite out of it, Dustin Germann and Jonah Baraboo realize the importance of this event, and Kelsey Leikness, Sophia Niswonger, Grace Kirby, and Alyza Pupp fix it by shaking the apple tree from behind, making another apple fall on his head—making him forget about how hungry he was for the fruit, and allowing him new insight into the theory of gravity.
In the western United States, the prospectors were close to giving up their dreams of finding gold in the rivers. After thousands of pounds of gravel and mud were searched, their efforts were futile. To fix this, Piper Grant, Tiana Heitmanm, Carly Haas, and Blerta Rexhepi rode out to the rivers on horseback to encourage them. Within a few hours, the first piece of gold was found, and the media exploded with Lauren Model, Eniya Jordan Jackson, Lydia Tomczyk, and Hailee Kellnhofer persuading the people with the value of gold ore.
Back in Europe, on the island of Ireland, the people were enjoying the summer harvest of millions of potatoes. In real life, this would not slide. The people of Ireland were potato-less for years in the 1800s, due to the Irish Po start page 3 tato Famine. To make sure this event took place, Eden Lamberty, Mario Jaime, Andrea Hagen, and Brendan Christianson went to the farms and stole millions of potatoes. This supplied them with the food for their journey through history.
Down under, the Australians were winning the war against the emus, by inventing new technological fencing which kept them out for good. Wyatt Huberd-Blair, Austin Freye, Hayden Frank, and Karissa Meicher sabotaged the fencing, which allowed Augustus Schuppel and Oliver Schuppel to rally the emus together and swarm the Australian farms—ravaging their crops and almost taking over the entire island. Rasputin, the so-called holy man who was getting ever closer to the royals of Russia, was subject to many assassination attempts. However, the final act for him was when members of the Russian army poisoned his wine, which made his dinner with them his last meal. To keep him alive (even if it was only for an extra hour or two), Nate Eppler, Cash Haas, Zachary Amyotte, and Cameron Johnston chemically removed the poison from his wine, saving Rasputin from the assassination.
In the chilly Atlantic Ocean, the Titanic looked to be on a clear path with no icebergs in sight. Thinking fast, Rae Peterson grabbed the freeze-ray from the Ice Age and created one not too far ahead, while Evan Muchka, Will Hollister, Ben Harman, and Chris Cooksey went to scare off any ships nearby who could be of help.
Will Bembinster, Ben Haas, Jackson Herman, and Landen Murphey had been working hard to stage the Great Depression, but just as America had found itself running into a deficit, they made a valiant recovery, gaining back millions of dollars to help the economy reconvene. The seniors couldn’t let this happen. With their sacks in tow, Cadence Franklin, Seth Hitchcock, Chloe Kapusta, and Julia Schaefer broke into the New York banks, and made their way into the vault to take all of the money. With the bank sector in shambles, the Great Depression was underway yet again.
As tensions were spiraling around the world, the Cold War was on the horizon. Parker Housely, Matthew Sorg, Tyler Baxter, and Bryson Yankee had convinced the U.S.A. to start the Manhattan Project, which was a project to make the atomic bomb. But in this timeline, there was no threat from the Soviets to begin with—they never made the bomb, and were too weak and poor to defend themselves, leading to an easy victory and a near-instantaneous defeat of Communism. However, Alexander Thompson, Lance Hess, and Asher Richter snuck into the testing sites to steal the atomic blueprints, and Megan Gille, Elijah Hartberg, and Natiya Ballard siphoned them over to the Asian continent.
Things got out of this world when Colt Patterson, Wyatt Fisher, Logan Hefter, and Jordan Hanneman noticed the Apollo Mission about to send the first man to the moon. Knowing this was completely wrong to broadcast to the eager Americans, Ashley Harbort and Colton Brietzman got on a film set and staged the moon landing instead, using Alexanne Parks, Ella Loup, and Molly Gracyalny as their actors. Now the public knew there was nothing to worry about, and the landing already happened, staging it just as it was in actual history.
After the break-in of the Watergate hotel (expertly staged by Gavin Barefield, Camren Clark, Charles Reynolds, and Jack Wickey), it was ruled that Richard Nixon had no ties to the event. The people finally believed him when he said “I’m not a crook!” However, Penelope Knauer, Tatyana Mier, Piper Ferland, and Jadyn Andreas saw through the lies and played detective, finding ties between him and the crime. Within days, he was impeached, and Thor Armstrong, Charlie McClure, Jake Julseth, and Brandon Hohol swore Gerald Ford into office.
Back in Stoughton, Julia Lehman, Austin Skar, Lexi Tinsman, and Cajsa Engstrom were looking for the Culver’s to get a bite to eat. It was far enough on the timeline that Culver’s should’ve been in town, but it was nowhere to be found. After looking around, Samantha Bellisle, Kaitlyn Broderick, Allison Sankbeil, and Claire Powers realized that Culver’s had never existed in this universe. Becoming entrepreneurs, Sadie Hackett, Alexis Hellwig, and Ermira Zekir play the role of Craig Culver, opening the first store of the beloved Midwestern restaurant, and Ty Wagner, Colin Quam, Colton Vinson, and Kasen Sperle celebrated by buying Butterburgers for everyone.
President George Bush was preparing to give a speech (written by Justin Parker-Scott and Dominic Sanchez-Pelot), but there was one particular audience member who had a divisive plan to protest against his presidency. The audience member, during the middle of the speech, took off his shoes, and threw them right at President Bush. However, just as the shoes were about to hit him, Kylyn Lovell, Leah Heggelund, and Emma Ballweg remembered that he didn’t actually get hit by them, so Madeline Monthie yelled “duck!” Swiftly, President Bush dodges it, and the police promptly arrest the protester with the help of Chloe Bennett, Kaylee Naughtin, and Morgan Rhyner.
Still in the states, Aubrey Hutchins and Trinity Dreyer were taking a trip to the town of Flint, Michigan as part of the mission. Sakara Schouten, Raya Hughes, Maleah Burian, and Enjolice Cystrunk noticed that the water was chemically different from that of the water back home, and Addy Milota knew exactly the cause—it was pure water. To fix this error, Brenna Dalsoren arrives with a wheelbarrow of fresh lead, dumping it into the water, and Teagan Seidel, Jacob Weihert, Brady Lippold, and Luke Parisi restested the water with a drink from silly straws.
Finally, the last task of their historical adventure was to make sure Great Britain left the European Union in 2020. As Prime Minister Boris Johnson vetoed the petition of Brexit, Noah Tiede, Janarion Jackson, Jonathan Hull, and Dillon Matheny burst into his office, demanding they leave the union at once. After some persuasion, and a bribe from Nevaeh Smithson, Malcolm Kincy, Rylee Wickey, and Desiree Perce, he reluctantly agreed, securing the disconnection between the British Isles and continental Europe.
With history returned to normal, the seniors could finally head back to their original timeline safely. Joey Whalin, Malaki Anderson-Sutton, Cole Sarbacker, and Myles Iverson booted up the time machine, and they returned to the graduation field absolutely exhausted. When they got back, Gavin Stadler, Lukas Rabbitt, Owen Reineke, and Joel Tejada took the time machine back to the FabLab and dismantled it so that this chaos could not happen again.
Not convinced the machine should be destroyed, Grace Oettel asked, “Maybe one last try at getting back to freshman year?” met with glares by Addison Arnott, Ireland Arnott, Richard Seekings, and Eleanor Kemppainen.
“I think after all that, we can accept that we’re graduating,” added Mylah Hall.
The rest of the seniors agreed: they didn’t need to time-travel anywhere. They’re right where—or, when—they belong.