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But it was deserted.
After a few moments of searching, he located the right section. His eyes fell on the collection of old-school yearbooks that spanned back decades. The new ones were bright and the pages crisp, while the older ones were yellowed and dusty.
He pulled down the most recent yearbook, flipping to the page for his fifth-grade class. Colorful pictures of his classmates stared back at him, all familiar faces. Sure enough, his picture was right there along with the other kids in his class. His eyes darted to his friends’ portraits.
Michael looked stiff and uncomfortable in his picture. His mom had clearly made him comb his hair into a dorky style and wear that lame polo shirt. Then he found John pulling a goofy face with crossed eyes, even though that wasn’t allowed. Leave it to John to always break the rules. Barrie smirked, but then sadness swept through him again.
He remembered their jeering laughter at the park and them telling him to go play with someone his own age.
But I am your age! he had wanted to yell back at them.
The yearbook was proof of that. He’d take it back to the park to show them that he was actually in their class. Maybe it was just an elaborate prank, and they were taking it too far. That had to be it.
Buoyed by that thought, Barrie turned to leave, but then the yearbook from last year caught his eye. It couldn’t hurt to bring more than one to prove that they’d been in the same class together since kindergarten. After all, that was how they became best friends in the first place, learning to skateboard after school and falling in love with the same band.
Barrie reached for the yearbook and pulled it down. He flipped to the fourth-grade class pictures, expecting to see his face superimposed in front of the fake blue background staring back at him.
But Barrie didn’t see his picture. He double-checked the year and also the alphabetical order. Where was it?
It has to be a mistake.
He located Michael’s and John’s pictures. They were right where they should be, along with the other kids from his fourth-grade class. But where was Barrie’s class picture?
A chill shot through him as he remembered Mr. Bates’s words.
You stay in my class…forever.
Barrie’s fingers trembled as he flipped to fifth grade. Mr. Bates smiled back, and then pictures of his fifth-grade students took up the rest of the page. These faces looked mostly unfamiliar to Barrie. Maybe he’d passed them in the hallways, but they were older than him. Kids mostly stuck with the other kids from their class.
That’s when he saw something that made his heart jump. His picture. Barrie’s picture. Right there in the middle of the fifth-grade class.
This is not happening.
He flipped back to the fourth-grade page, double-checking it. Michael and John hadn’t budged. Then he double-checked the year. It all checked out. He should have been in fourth grade, too.
His mouth went dry, and he tasted metal on his tongue. Quickly, he started pulling down yearbooks from the shelf, going back several years. In each yearbook, Barrie was pictured along with the fifth grade. Even when Michael and John were in kindergarten, Barrie was there with the fifth-grade class.
Then, in one book, he spotted…Rita.
His sister’s school picture was right next to his picture in the fifth-grade class.
Barrie Darling. Rita Darling.
Rita looked so young. She looked his age. It was so weird, seeing their two pictures next to one another this way. It made his stomach turn.
We used to be the same age?
Starting to feel panicked, Barrie grabbed the next yearbook. In this one, Rita was back in fourth grade, while Barrie remained in fifth. How could he have ever been older than his sister, who was now sixteen years old and in high school?
He grabbed more yearbooks. Year after year, Barrie stayed in fifth grade while his classmates changed and strangers surrounded him. He found one where his sister was in kindergarten. Her girlish smile and gap-toothed grin sent a shudder down Barrie’s spine.
Chilled, he dropped the yearbook. They had piled up at his feet in a big jumble. Hundreds of kids grinned back at him, looking ghostly in the dim lighting. Most of them were strangers to his eyes.
With trembling hands, he reached for a yearbook that was labeled CLASS OF 1984. That was decades ago. He located the page for the fifth-grade class. Mr. Bates hadn’t been the teacher back then. A strange woman with permed hair and thick glasses grinned back. He glanced down at the pictures, then gasped in shock.
“No, it can’t be true,” he whispered.
But sure enough, there was his class picture, surrounded by strange, old-timey kids.
