Space, outer space, was the only source that made any sense at all.
If you’re looking for weirdness, for inscrutable motivations,
for an unending factory for the unexplained,
you can’t beat outer space.

It wasn’t until that evening that I realized neither Evander nor Rufus had returned to talk with us. When I pointed this out to Harvey, he replied, “They both said they’d be back tomorrow.”

“Yes, but today is tomorrow.”

I sat there, stunned. This was bad, very, very bad. I was scared,
and for once I was scared for someone other than myself.

If Meredith stole that money -- if Meredith tried to steal that money,
it was bound to end badly for her.

“We have to get you a phone, and I guess we should talk about allowance.”

“What did you give Celine?” I asked.

He laughed. “Celine was a thief,” he replied. “You don’t need to give money to a thief.”

“Are you kidding me?” she asked, incredulous. “You’re 42 years old!
You don’t need to ask your so-called parents. Seriously!”

“I’m thirteen,” I retorted, “in case you hadn’t noticed. By the way,
have YOU looked in the mirror lately, Mrs. Shearpen?
You’re not a forty-year-old man any more either!”

“If you walk out of this room, if we never see you again,
I will think about you every day.
I won’t want to, but that’s what will happen.”

“Huh,” I said, taking it in. “So how do they switch back? The people who got switched?
Do you bring them together and poof! they’re back to who they were?
Or does the switch wear off after an hour or a day or something?”

At two weeks into his recovery, Georgia made a startling confession.
Nothing in Mrs. Vendall’s scientific studies could have prepared her for Georgia’s revelation,
but soon her own eyes verified the truth of the matter.

Mrs. Vendall sighed. This was the first time her concoction had failed her. By now, Georgia should not only have plunged into puberty, but nearly emerged on the other side of it. This was the experience of every other girl Mrs. Vendall had dosed. Why hadn’t it worked on Georgia?

Helped by the prudery of that time, Georgia had very little difficulty in hiding his condition. After all, there was only one small part of him that could give him away, and that was enveloped in a quantity of skirts that were meant to hide even the faintest suggestion of what lay beneath.

An Altered Fates Story
A second look at the 1967 film, The Graduate
and the 1963 novella of the same name by Charles Webb.
By Iolanthe Portmanteaux
 

“What are you doing, Jenny?” Ben asked.

In answer, Jenny took his glass and brought it to his lips, forcing him to take a generous sip.
“What do you think I’m doing? I’m getting you drunk, so you can take advantage of me.”

An Altered Fates Story
A second look at the 1967 film, The Graduate
and the 1963 novella of the same name by Charles Webb.
By Iolanthe Portmanteaux
 

“What if there’s nothing in the window?” Ben asked. “What does that mean?”

“It doesn’t mean anything,” she answered.

An Altered Fates Story
A second look at the 1967 film, The Graduate
and the 1963 novella of the same name by Charles Webb.
 

“I have a word for you. Are you ready, Ben? The word is: plastics. Think about it.”

Ben’s brow furrowed in confusion. “I.. uh… I don’t understand.”

Mrs Crusoe came to his rescue. “Oh, Chad!” she exclaimed. “He’s too young to get that joke! I’m sure he’s never even heard of that film.”

“Uhh, okay,” Linnea agreed, not without grave misgivings. She felt that she’d already opened Pandora’s Box. Now, she found that the box was full of smaller boxes, all of them belonging to Pandora, and each one more portentious and potentially dangerous than the one before.

Clearly, something was up. At the very least, the miners were snubbing her. No one came to visit. No one came to say hello. No one even bothered to come stare at her or wave at her through the glass.

Did they not want her here?

Moss felt an enormous sense of gratitude when Barfield raised his head and asked his guards, “Do you think I could get a cup of coffee?”

“Uh… yeah,” the first guard said, and Moss could see the two guards mentally struggle to find a joke connecting coffee and Uranus.

Barfield was silent, weighed down by the enormity of his choice.
Yesterday, he couldn’t have found Uranus with a map, and
now he was being asked to live there forever.
He could get out of prison, but only at the cost of his freedom.

There was no sign of the rowboat in the river. No trace of the bathtub in the sky. I was back in my town, back in the normal world. Everything was right again, except that I was someone else, and had a month to learn a new language and a new sport. Perfectly normal.

I held the dress up in front of me, and looked in the mirror. Mayda gazed back at me. Of course she looked wonderful. Of course the dress would look lovely on her. It was weird as hell to know that the girl in the mirror was me.

“But -- but -- I don’t want her body!” I told him.

“What difference does it make?” he asked. “You look the same as before! It’s a well known fact that humans can’t tell each other apart.”

“Of course we can tell!” I shouted. “Believe me, we can tell!”