All the Colors of Time by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff

Author:Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff [Bohnhoff, Maya Kaathryn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science fiction, time travel, world events, history, alternate history
ISBN: 9781611383898
Publisher: Book View Cafe
Published: 2014-06-10T07:00:00+00:00

Home Is Where . . .

“Home Is Where…” was published in Analog in 1991, but is further along the Questlabs timeline than the previous stories. Am I, you may wonder, writing time travel stories traveling backward in time? Quite possibly. “Home” is a story about the impact on the family of parents’ career choices, about the wiliness of highly motivated children, and the sort of compromise in which everyone really does win. Its key elements arrived in the form of a vivid dream in which a small boy in a familiar Nebraska classroom held a butterfly clip out on the palm of his hand and said, “Well, yes, but I meant to make a banana clip.”

The Jones family in the story is based on a real Jones family of my acquaintance who have been world-travelers and whose two oldest children suffered greatly from culture shock when they returned to America after many years in Africa.

I should also note that some of the technologies I mention in the story have already been surpassed by real tech, but this was back in the days before iPads, when even Jerry Pournelle wasn’t carrying an eReader everywhere.

oOo

Anastasia Jones viewed her new town with little interest from the crest of a maple-shaded hill. It was a fresh-washed picture postcard of a town; all green and white and brick red under a rain-dark sky. An equally fresh-washed breeze rolled up the hill, carrying with it the smell of . . . popcorn.

Anastasia smiled. Now that was interesting. She scanned the buildings along the cobbled main street. Ah, yes, there it was—a theater. She could see the ornate marquee peeking up at her between elm sentinels.

“Looks like they’ve picked another homespun backwater,” said a voice over her shoulder.

She turned, noting that her brother Tamujin’s face looked just as dour as it had the last time she’d seen it. “What’d you expect?” she asked. “They do this every time we start whining.”

“I don’t whine, Stasi.”

“No, you pout. The twins whine. I sulk.”

She swept moist strands of deep burgundy hair from her forehead with one hand and brushed her wind-climbing skirts down with the other. Her eyes searched the trees.

“There’s the school,” she said finally and pointed.

“Oh, royal. Another one-roomer?”

“No . . . It looks kind of nice. All brick and white-washed and a green roof.”

“Don’t get too attached to that green roof, sis. We won’t be here that long.”

“I wish—”

“If wishes were wheels, gramma would’ve been a trolley car,” Tamujin muttered.

Stasi giggled. “Where’d you dig that up?”

He shrugged. “I dunno. Somewhere about three stops ago.”

“What does it mean?”

“Who knows. Does it matter?”

“Anastasia! Tamujin! Dinner!”

Tamujin Jones made a goofy face. “Sounds real down home, don’t she?”

Stasi giggled again. “Well, at least she didn’t ring that stupid triangle she got in Armadillo or wherever that was.”

“Amarillo.” Tamujin snorted. “Armadillo! Geezumminy, Stasi, no wonder you’re having so much trouble with geography. You’ve gotten it mixed up with zoology!”

oOo

The new school was okay, Anastasia decided. It was old and neat and smelled of ancient wood varnish, fresh wood oil and cedar.

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