Marty had mixed feelings about the
night of November 12th, 1985. On the one hand, she was excited about returning
to 2025 with Phineas and Ferb; on the other, she was worried about how her plan
with Linda would go down. And then there was the fact that she still hadn’t
told Emma about her future death, no matter how much she was advised not to by
Phineas.
A few minutes before eight o’clock,
Marty was gathered at the Town Square with Emma and the boys, putting
everything together for the big departure. A cable was strung down from the
lightning rod atop the clock tower to a lamp post, which Emma had connected to
the socket of an extension tied around the post. Her Pacer Wagon was parked
just across the street from the DeLorean. In spite of the fact that DeLorean
motor vehicles of this model existed in 1985, Emma thought it nonetheless wise
to keep it covered by a tarp from prying eyes.
Sitting atop the hood of the covered
DeLorean was a boombox Lewis brought to listen to tunes off the radio as they
worked. After playing Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time,” an ironic tune
considering the night’s circumstances, there came a weather report from the DJ:
“Area weather on this Tuesday night – an electrical storm in the vicinity will
bypass the Tri-State Area, including Danville and Hill Valley – but we can
expect continued cloudiness and some light rain…”
Listening to the report from the top
of her ladder, Emma grew skeptical. “Are you sure about this storm, honey?” she
asked Marty.
Marty, of course, smirked knowingly.
“Since when can a weatherman predict the weather, let alone the future?”
“Good point,” Emma smiled,
descending from the ladder. “You know, I’m gonna be real sad to see you
sweeties go. You’ve really made a difference in my life and certainly in
Lewis’s.” She approached the covered DeLorean, lifting the tarp halfway at the
rear to look at the units on the engine. “To think, one day, we’re gonna live
to see the 21st century, and that I’ll succeed in this – time travel!”
To hear Emma reflect on these events
made Marty uncomfortable, knowing the fate that awaited her. It wasn’t any
better when Lewis then told her and the brothers, “It’s going to be hard to
wait 30 years before we can talk about everything that’s happened in the last
few days. I’m really gonna miss you guys.”
“We’ll miss you, too, Lewis,”
Phineas said. “Or, at least, this version of you. It’s like meeting a
1985 equivalent of me and Ferb.”
Marty couldn’t fight it any longer.
“Doc, listen, about the future…”
“Marty!” Emma deflected. “We’ve
already talked about this. Having knowledge of the future can be incredibly
dangerous. Even if your intentions are good, it could backfire drastically.
Whatever it is you need to tell me, I’ll find out through the natural course of
time.”
This was not what Marty wanted to
hear; but, just as before, she saw there was no arguing with Emma.
For the remaining minutes Phineas
and Ferb had to assist Emma and Lewis in the preparations, before leaving for
the Battle of the Bands, Marty was nowhere to be found. The boys set out around
the square to look for her, ultimately seeing her walk out of the Century Café.
“Marty? Are you O.K.?” Phineas
asked. “What were you doing in there?”
“Oh,
nothing,” Marty answered. “I felt a little hungry, so I grabbed a quick bite
before we left – that’s all.” She seemed rather cagey to Phineas; she hid her
hands behind her back during their brief exchange. Phineas didn’t bother
looking into it, as they were late enough as it was to get to the Battle of the
Bands. Had he been paying close attention to Marty before they left in the
Pacer Wagon, he would have noticed her slipping something into Emma’s fur coat
that she kept draped over the covered DeLorean.
-----------------------------
The Battle of the Bands was in
full swing inside Hill Valley High’s gymnasium. Some of the school’s faculty
served as chaperones for the big event, while a few were selected to be the
judges for the bands that performed onstage. Sticky Rosen and his band, “The
Sticklers,” were the first ones up with their rendition of “Things Can Only Get
Better” from Howard Jones.
George stood at the back of the gym,
behind the mosh pit of teens that jumped and screamed in support of the
performing bands. There was a buffet table that offered a variety of snacks and
other dishes, supplied by the school staff. George decided to try some of the Pâté,
out of curiosity, only to spit it into the nearest trash bin.
“I think that’s Mrs. Hughes’ cat
food.” He heard a girl giggling hysterically at his expense. Looking up, George
froze with his head hovering over the trash bin with bits of the Pâté around
his mouth. The girl of his dreams, Lorraine Baines, was laughing at him. But it
wasn’t the sort of laughter that was meant to belittle him; it was more out of
pity. Once she was able to collect herself, Lorraine grabbed a napkin off the
buffet table. “Here, you got a little…” She wiped the leftover Pâté off
George’s gaping mouth.
“Uh, t-thanks,” he stammered, not
once taking his eyes off Lorraine. “D-Do you know who you are?”
Lorraine chuckled. “I would hope
so.”
George mentally slapped himself over
the flub in his phrasing. “What I meant to say was – do you know who I
am?”
“George McFly, right?” Lorraine
said. “We have 3rd period Biology together.”
“That’s right!” George exclaimed. “Mr.
Dawson made us lab partners once.”
Lorraine verified this with a nod
and a smile. “I was there last Saturday at Century Café to see Linda perform.
It’s a bummer she never got to because of that mouth-breather Tiff Tannen. Is
she going to perform tonight?”
George shrugged. “Only time will
tell.”
However, in discussing Linda, George
was shaken with recollection. He was finally able to take his eyes off Lorraine
to glance at the wall clock hanging above the buffet table. It read 8:59, which
prompted him to check his own watch that read 8:55. That prompted him to ask
Lorraine, “What time do you have?”
Lorraine checked her pink
wristwatch. “Five after nine, why?”
Panic stricken, George told
Lorraine, “I gotta go! I’ll be right back! Promise!”
She
watched as he ran out of the gym like a bad out of Hell, concerned as to what
made the young man so alarmed.
-------------------------
For once, Marty was the one on
time and everyone else was late. She waited outside the gymnasium with Phineas
and Ferb. The music from the performances vibrated through the walls, booming
from inside the building. Marty envied all those bands who were chosen to be
the finalists in the school event, never able to have her own chance back in
2025. She couldn’t allow those thoughts to distract her from why she was really
there that evening: to convince Linda to go onstage and perform herself. Of
course, she couldn’t do that, unless Linda was there altogether.
“Where are they?!” Marty griped,
checking the time on her smartphone, every few seconds. They were in a fairly
secluded area for her to do so.
“Relax, Marty,” Phineas urged. “We still
have plenty of time.”
“You sure about that?” Marty asked.
“It’s seven past nine, which leaves us less than an hour to get your mom on
stage and get back to the square in time before the lightning hits the clock
tower! If you ask me, we’re cuttin’ things pretty close!”
In seeing how much of a nervous
wreck the usually cool-headed Marty was, Phineas suggested, “Ferb and I will head
inside and get ready for the performance, just to be on the safe side.” It
sounded like a solid plan for Marty. She watched the brothers round the corner
and disappear out of sight.
Unfortunately, Phineas and Ferb
never reached the gym entrance.
The boys were blindsided as soon as
they were both snatched up in bags large enough to hold them. Judging from the
synthetic odor the bags carried, they figured their purpose was meant for
holding recreational equipment, like soccer balls. As they were lugged away to
who-knows-where, they heard voices outside the sacks, presumably spoken by
their captors…
“Where did Tiff say to take these
runts?”
“How dah heck should I know?!
She never even told us!”
“Duh, I know where we oughta take
‘em!”
Ranging from cynical to dimwitted,
Phineas and Ferb could only deduce that Tiff Tannen’s weasel cronies were
behind their sudden abduction. Clearly, Tiff was getting revenge for what
happened a few days ago – the putrid scent of manure could be whiffed even
through the sacks.
They heard what sounded to be two
locker doors opening before suddenly being dumped out of the sacks and into
cramped spaces. Sure enough, those were lockers they heard and stuffed
into by the weasels. “Have fun gettin’ outta dis one, ya lil’ punks!” said the
weasel in the pink zoot suit, prior to closing the locker doors. The weasels
departed after the fact, relishing in their malicious act.
Thankfully, it didn’t go unnoticed
by an outside party who witnessed the whole thing – a teenage African-American
boy who was on his way to the gym to perform a saxophone solo for the Battle of
the Bands. But, now, he felt the need to help free Phineas and Ferb. “Hang in
there, fellas,” he told them as he approached the lockers. “These belong to some
friends of mine, so I know the combinations. I’ll have ya’ll out in a jiffy.”
“Mr. Gardner?” Phineas said from
inside his locker. “Is that you?”
The
boy frowned. “Do you know my daddy or somethin’? Only everybody else calls him
‘Mr. Gardner’. You can call me ‘Joe’.”
---------------------------------
Marty checked her smartphone
for what felt like the billionth time. It was now 9:15, and her nerves were
practically shot. While she had her phone out, she took a glimpse of the photo.
Looking at it was just as nerve-wracking as looking at the time, being another
ticking clock.
“Oh, no,” she muttered.
Candace had completely vanished from
the photo.
It was just Marty, Phineas, and Ferb
left in the frame – and Phineas’s form was starting to fade right before
Marty’s eyes.
“MARTY!” She jumped at the enraged
calling of her name, turning to see Linda storming right up to her, apparently
still angry. That made things a little easier for Marty’s plan. “You really
don’t know when to give up, do you? George tells me that you had some sort of
complaint about his song and my singing?! What about it?! If there’s
something you wanna say, say it to my face!”
Marty
could barely get a word in, with Linda doing most of the shouting.
Maybe
this plan was going a little too
well?
Before
Marty could utter so much as a syllable, she was suddenly sucker-punched right
in the stomach, a move that brought her down to her knees. Angry as she was at
Marty, the punch didn’t come from Linda, who merely stood in shock of what just
happened. The scent of manure plagued Marty’s senses as a figure in a stained,
tattered karate gi approached from her left, picking her up by the collar, so
that she was face-to-face with them. Marty found herself staring into the eyes
of Tiff Tannen, flaming with murderous intent.
“You
cost me $1,200 damage to my car, you lil’ snot!” she told Marty. “And now I’m
gonna take it out on ya!” She sucker-punched Marty in the stomach again and
tossed her aside, right into the waiting clutches of the weasels, who were
sharing a bottle of Jack Daniels as they drunkenly roughed Marty up.
Linda
even smelled the booze off of Tiff. “Leave her alone, Tiff,” she demanded.
“You’re drunk!”
“Great
deduction, Watson!” Tiff retorted. “Now beat it! This don’t concern you!”
“I
told you to leave her alone!” Linda charged at Tannen, only to be shoved back.
The
commotion spurred from their confrontation rang over the area. From around the
corner, George heard it and figured Marty and Linda were well into their
squabble. Made it just in time,
he thought, psyching himself up for what was sure to be the performance of his
life. “Alright, you two,” he put some bass in his voice for added measure.
“Break it up!”
But
when George marched to the scene, he immediately dropped his act out of sheer
terror, once he saw Tiff standing over a downed Linda and the weasels
manhandling Marty. No one said anything about Tannen and her cronies being
there, which only made George that much more scared.
Tannen
leered at him. “I think you oughta pretend you saw nothin’ here, McFly. Just
turn around and walk away.” George didn’t move an inch, staring in dumbfounded
amazement, not knowing what to do. “Are you deaf, McFly?! I said turn around
and get outta here!”
For
a moment, George considered taking a step back, and he did, only to take a few
unsteady steps forward – towards Tiff. “No, Tiff,” he said, his voice breaking
yet somehow summoning courage that he thought he never had. “You leave them
alone.”
Tiff
snickered, shaking her head in disbelief. “Alright, McFly. You asked for it –
and now yer gonna get it.” With the snap of her fingers, she sicced her weasels
on George, as if they were her own attack dogs. They swarmed in on George,
expecting to get the jump on him. The odds were in their favor, being four
against one.
However,
in a surprising turn of events, George successfully took them down with some
lefts and rights that he threw out at random, each one hitting their intended
target. George never knew himself to be capable of such a feat of strength.
Sure, he watched a few boxing matches on pay-per-view, but he never would have
imagined it to contribute to his coldcocking Tannen’s weasels. “Yeah! That’s
what’s up!” he celebrated. “That’s what you get for messin’ with George Seamus
McF—ACK!”
All
of the sudden, George received an unbearable pain in his left arm, courtesy of
Tiff. When his guard was down, she rushed on him and locked his arm in an
agonizing position that was liable to snap it in half. George could barely
stand it, howling in pain.
Linda,
finally fed up with Tannen, jumped back on her feet and did what she should
have done all the years Tiff had bullied her – punch her right in the face. The
tremendous left hook made Tiff release her hold on George before she hit the
ground, out cold. Linda could barely believe she did it, looking at her fist
and then at Tannen, grinning widely.
“Whoa!”
She heard another girl say, walking into the aftermath of the chaotic conflict.
She saw it was Lorraine Baines, the most popular girl in Hill Valley High. “Is
everybody alright? What happened here?” Surveying the litter of bodies sprawled
over the pavement, she noticed George nursing his arm. “George! Are you
alright?”
Soon
as he was able to catch his breath, George told her, “Yeah…Tiff hadn’t caused
any permanent damage.”
“Oh,
thank goodness,” said Lorraine, with profound relief.
George
smiled from her concern.
Meanwhile,
Marty began to recover from the weasels’ attack, managing to get back on her
feet, with some help from Linda, who dashed over to check on her. “Marty, are
you O.K.?”
“Yeah,
I’m fine,” she verified. “How’s—?” She looked over towards George, noticing the
moment that he was sharing with an attractive young blonde who Marty recognized
in mouth-gaping bewilderment. “Mom?”
“Mom?”
Linda parroted in confusion, seeing how Marty was looking at Lorraine when she
said it. “How hard did those weasels hit you?”
Marty
smiled, watching her teenaged parents together.
That
smile dropped just as she spotted the teen counterpart to another adult figure
from her future – Joe Gardner – show up at the scene with Ferb…and only Ferb.
“Where’s Phineas?” Marty asked. “Is he still inside, getting ready for the
performance?”
Ferb
just stared blankly at her and asked, “Who’s Phineas?”
That
question mortified Marty. She stood aside, privately taking out her smartphone
and glimpsing at the photo again.
Only
her and Ferb were in the shot.
Phineas
was gone.
