The Portal

Chapter Six: Twelve Again

Claire hurried up to her bedroom and closed the door behind her. She plopped down on her old, twin-sized bed and tried to think.

What am I supposed to do now? I can't be twelve again! It was bad enough the first time around.

With a sigh, she stood up and looked at herself in the dresser mirror. She couldn't help but smile. When she was twelve she had thought she was fat. That seemed so funny, now.

Well, as long as I'm stuck here, I might as well enjoy it!

"Claire! Come on down for dinner!" Her mom's voice called.
"Coming, Mom!"

After dinner, she ran up the stairs to her bathroom and applied some makeup. It was almost time to go to church youth group and she had to look her best. She found that it really wasn't that hard to think and act like herself as a twelve-year-old, it had been a very memorable year and despite the time that had passed, she remembered it quite well.

She went through the next few days as if in a dream. Riding her bike around Knopp Valley thirty to forty times a day, just as she had always done. It was a mile around and, as a pre-teen, she had been obsessive about exercise. From ages eight to eleven she had been about fifty pounds overweight. When her parents bought her this Schwinn World ten-speed for her eleventh birthday, she had ridden it every day during the summer before sixth grade and had dropped the fifty excess pounds, easily.

At twelve, she was determined not to be fat ever again.

If I had only known how easily it could be gained back. I'd have been more careful! Claire smiled, ruefully. She had a pretty good idea of what she had come back to change, and was unsure of the exact date that the event would occur, but knew it would be soon.

She even thought about avoiding it all-together by not going for her regular bike rides, but part of her still wanted the event to happen, she just wanted better control over the actual outcome.

What if changing it makes the future even worse, though. How should I change it? Claire worried. She really had no idea what the possible repercussions were, but she knew she had to do something! Why else would the portal have brought her here, to this time? There had to be a reason. Therefore, she couldn't just avoid the situation, she had to alter it somehow. She only hoped, that in doing so, it wouldn't make things even worse.