It was World History class, and once again I was utterly bored. The topic for this lesson was the fall of the Soviet Union, which of course in 1995 was recent history. While it was peculiar to listen to my teacher talk about events that I had remembered in the long past as only a few years, I wasn’t paying close attention. Instead, I was thumbing through a notebook with a list of names on it.
This wasn’t The Butterfly Notebook, which behind its cartoon cover lay decades of future events I had written down. I never took that notebook out of my room anymore. If it were to be lost, I would have to remember everything from my previous timeline again, which in all honesty was more difficult to do the longer I relived the past. It would be even more disastrous if someone picked it up and read it; I doubted anyone would take it seriously, but a notebook full of accurate predictions about the future was no small thing. Even if it had a pink butterfly on it.
The regular notebook I was paging through today contained a list of names. Practically no one would understand what a “dot com” was in a world before the internet took off, but I was well aware of what was coming. There was a list of dozens of innocuous domain names that I had planned to register, since at this point in time all it took was a small fee to reserve a web address. I intentionally didn’t choose any names like twitter.com or youtube.com, since they wouldn’t exist for over a decade. I also didn’t choose any name brands, like McDonalds.com or Disney.com, since they were probably taken by now.
Instead, I applied for some very common sounding names. Names like shopping.com, mortgage.com, and onlinedating.com. I wasn’t sure if they were available, but I was hoping that when I had Dad send in my applications a few days ago that at least some of them would be. I had to sell off a few of my stocks in order to pay for them, but I knew it would be worth it. Even if I only got a handful of them, it would be a win. I knew I shouldn’t keep staring at the list, but I couldn’t help it. The wait was killing me.
The bell rang, signaling it was the end of the day. I slapped the notebook closed, and hugging my books to my chest I made for the door. I headed for the main commons, where my locker was, to drop off my stuff before I headed to the gym for cheerleading practice. The hallway was a chaotic, noisy sea of bodies, and not for the first time was I annoyed about being a girl surrounded by upperclassmen who loomed over me. I followed the tide and eventually made it to my locker.
As I turned the combination, I heard a voice behind my shoulder. “Hey, girl.”
I turned my head, seeing a thick boy leaning against the locker next to me. He was nearly a foot taller than I was, wearing a letter jacket which had white patches for football and a big “96” indicating that he was a senior. There was a certain dullness to his eyes, and an ugly buzz cut to match.
I turned back to my locker. “Hello,” I muttered coldly.
“My name’s Jim. I’m one of the linesmen on the varsity team, you know,” he bragged, trying to sound casual.
“I didn’t ask,” I replied as the hairs on my neck rose.
Jim seemed to not hear me, and continued. “You’re a freshman, right? I’ve seen you around.” He casually inched closer to me, and I cringed as I heard him breathing through his mouth ever so softly.
“Well, I’m here every day,” I muttered, not making eye contact with him.
“You doing anything for Homecoming?” he asked, ignoring my growing discomfort.
Before I could attempt to dislodge myself from this conversation, a voice popped out from behind me.
“Hey Maya, mind if I squeeze in here?”
The voice belonged to a guy named Jake Mason, who was a basketball player and in my English class. He was slender and dark-haired, and had a nice smile. He was one of the few athletic boys I knew from middle school that didn’t grate on me. He coolly slid between me and the neanderthal trying to chat me up and leaned against the locker facing me.
“Oh, hi Jake!” I said with exaggerated enthusiasm. “Say, are you heading over to the—”
“The gym? Yeah, I was,” he replied. “Let’s walk together, shall we?”
“Sounds good,” I smiled brightly as I slammed the locker shut, without a second glance at the senior who stood dumbly at the interjection. As soon as we were out of earshot I breathed, “Ugh. That’s the first time a senior tried to chat me up.”
Jake smirked. “Yeah, I heard from some of the guys that he was prowling for freshmen. Didn’t figure he’d try for the smartest girl in school.”
I sighed. I still had no idea how to deal with boys poking around when I didn’t have a gang of my girlfriends around. “Well, thanks in any case, Jake.”
“I wouldn’t thank me too quickly,” replied Jake. “It looks like it’s just me and you that are up for the treasurer elections.”
I had been too focused on my newfound access to the internet to remember that I had thrown my name in for freshman student council. “I didn’t know that anyone else had even signed up.”
Jake rolled his eyes. “I think no one else at this school even knows what a treasurer is. But I figured it would look good on a transcript or something.”
I sneered a little bit. I had the exact same thought, which is why I was looking for a role without competition. I was a bit annoyed that I wouldn't win by default.
Jake paused, seeing the direction we were walking in. “Oh, were you actually heading to the gym?”
“Hm? Yeah, we have cheerleading practice today.”
Jake sucked the air between his teeth. “Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we’re in there today. Coach said he wanted a scrimmage this afternoon.”
“Again! This is the third time that we got kicked out of the gym and sent to practice in the cafeteria,” I grumbled. “It’s not fair!”
“Well, boys basketball is sort of a big deal.”
I glowered at him. “What are you saying, that it’s okay for the boys to kick out the girls at the last minute?”
“Well, it’s nothing personal. We gotta practice.”
“And we don’t?”
We arrived at the door to the gym, and I could hear the squeaks and chatter of the boys on the court. It didn’t even sound as if they were playing; they were just milling about. Jake awkwardly backed away from me towards the entry.
“Well, I’ll…catch you later, Maya. Good luck at the election!”
I growled under my breath, and a fire lit under me as I stomped to the cafeteria where the girls all were. I was in the unusual position of being fiercely defensive about the cheerleading squad, after spending so long dismissing it. They were pushing tables out of the way on the hard concrete floor in the lunchroom as I arrived. I sat next to Catherine and started stretching with her.
“I can’t believe we have to practice in here again.”
“It’s not like we can do anything about it,” replied Catherine resignedly, touching her toes.
“Maybe I can,” I answered. “It’s not much, but if I was freshman treasurer, at least I could talk to the student council about last-minute changes to gym scheduling and how it’s unfair.”
“You’d be good at that, Maya,” said Danielle, to my left. “We’d make sure everyone on the squad votes for you.”
“All I’d have to do is beat Jake Mason. He’s the only other person running.” I grinned evilly. “It would be a shame if a member of the cheer squad were to lose, don’t you think?”
Catherine blinked. “Dang, Maya. You can be a little scary sometimes, you know?”
We all agreed to spread the word. Not only would we get everyone on the cheerleading squad to vote for me, we would also spread it to everyone we knew. The girls even agreed to strong-arm their boyfriends and the freshman football team to support me. I even managed to convince the guys in the computer club to agree to vote for me. I’m sure they wouldn’t usually bother, but when the cute girl who has an impressive knowledge of computers and comic books asks you for something, you don’t say no.
A week later, a ballot box was passed around in our homeroom class. When I saw Jake at his desk across the room, I couldn’t help but flash him a competitive glare, to which he raised his eyebrows in alarm. I checked off my name and placed it in the box, feeling pretty confident.
The next morning, the results were posted on the bulletin board. I held my breath as I checked, and sure enough there it was: Maya Brown: Treasurer. I had done it! Catherine hugged me tight as we jumped up and down in celebration. We excitedly chittered away at each other, making plans to tell the rest of the cheer squad of our victory. Catherine congratulated me one last time before heading to her first period class. I grinned and took one last look at the board.
It was then that I saw Jake, who was staring at the board self. He was studying the posting and wore a disappointed frown on his face. He saw me looking at him, and quietly walked over to me.
“Hey, Maya. Congratulations,” he said. “I’m sure you’re going to do a really good job.” There was no sign of bitterness in his voice.
I returned a tight-lipped and forced smile. “Thank you, Jake. I’m sure you would have done a good job, too.”
He casually waved me off. “Nah, you’ll do better than I would. Later, Maya!”
As he walked away, waves of guilt tore through me. Jake really was a nice guy; he was the only boy in my grade that didn’t try to ogle me and had half a brain. The fact that he took the loss so casually and was a good sport made me feel worse. A heavy, sinking weight in my gut formed and for the first time I considered how much I was cheating in my second life. It was like arm wrestling a toddler. I had only run for treasurer as camouflage, to build a cover as a studious teenage girl. I had already lived through high school in Matthew’s timeline, and knew exactly how to game the system. Everyone else was doing it for the first time.
All day members of my squad congratulated me, and while each time I smiled gratefully, each time was like a needle in my skin. It was even worse when the bus dropped me off at home. I was still feeling ashamed when I told Mom that I had won the election. If Jake’s earnest acceptance made me feel like dirt, Mom’s praise buried me six feet deeper. I was about to head down to my room to lose myself in my guitar, when she handed me a package that had arrived by courier. I recognized the name Network Solutions on the sender’s address, so I rushed downstairs and tore it open.
Inside was a collection of confirmation letters as well as rejections for the domains that I had tried to claim. I had sent in about seventy requests, most of which had been poached already. However, a little over thirty of them had been confirmed, such as invest.com, insurance.com, and casino.com. I was shocked that shopping.com hadn’t been taken yet, and now it was mine. There were receipts for each of my domain names as well as a certification form for each one.
It occurred to me that I was doing the same thing in the business world that I had done to Jake; gaming the system and profiting. It was more nebulous, however, since the individuals I had swiped these precious domain names from were nameless and not a nice guy simply trying to succeed at school. It was inevitable that I was going to essentially steal from others, even though no one but myself would see it that way.
As I stared at the certificates, which would someday profit me handsomely, I resolved to myself that I had to make sure that my schemes were worth it. I had to succeed not just for myself, but to benefit as many people as possible. These certificates meant resources and wealth, which I knew I would have to use for the greater good. But when it came to my life as Maya, I needed to proceed carefully. Not take more than I should.
First things first, I had to figure out something nice to do for Jake.