Stuff Happens, Tom Page 4
Smack!
It landed close to the centre line and shot past Zac like a rocket. But was it in?
I was about to find out.
Zac took a long look at where the ball landed. I waited for his signal. A flat palm meant it was in, a raised finger meant it was out.
He looked up and gave a small smile. My heart sank. I got ready to hit a second serve.
Then Zac put his hand down flat.
Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t have stopped the grin that spread wide across my cheeks. I’d won, but that hardly seemed to matter. The really cool thing was that I loved playing tennis again.
As kids clapped and cheered, I walked to the net. Zac shook my hand firmly and said, ‘You were on fire today. What have you done to improve so much?’
‘Well,’ I answered, ‘I kind of found a time machine.’
Zac shook his head. ‘Miss Hobbie sure teaches some weird stuff. I hate to break it to you, but time machines are only in the movies.’
I didn’t argue, but Zac was wrong. I had a time machine, all right. Sure, it can’t change the past, but it did help me leave the past behind. What it does best, though, is travel into the future. I can close my eyes and go wherever I want, and once I’m there, I can see good things happen. I can see my dreams come true.
It doesn’t mean they always will, and that’s fine. I can handle disappointment. (That sentence is written on my bedroom wall.)
But hopping in my time machine and seeing the life I want to live makes it possible. It gives my dreams a fighting chance.
How good is that?
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First published by Penguin Group (Australia), 2015
Text copyright © Pat Flynn, 2015
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Series editor: Susannah McFarlane
Design by Tony Palmer © Penguin Group (Australia)
Cover and internal illustrations by Dean Rankine
puffin.com.au
ISBN: 978-1-76014-126-4
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