Darren Johnson - Arnesto Modesto - The World's Most Ineffectual Time Traveler

“Look,” Arnesto interrupted. Pete looked up and saw the seniors carrying away the damaged crocodile, their fists triumphantly punching the air.

“Well… shit.”

Morgan Residence

Sunday, February 7, 1988

Early Afternoon

Pete still wasn’t convinced of Arnesto’s power. Arnesto must have set the whole thing up. Somehow. Yes, he must have convinced the junior to steal the crocodile, knowing this would anger the seniors, aim for the boy, then allow himself to be tackled. On the track. Which probably hurt like hell. Maybe Arnesto paid the junior a good sum of money. There had to be a logical explanation.

They wouldn’t get much opportunity to argue about it as Pete became bedridden with mono. While he was laid up, he received a letter from Arnesto, which Pete’s mom left in his room for him. He didn’t open it; he didn’t have the energy. All he could do day after day was lie on the couch and play Contra. In fact, it wasn’t until two weeks later when his energy finally started coming back that he even thought of the letter again.

He opened the envelope and saw another sealed envelope inside. The inner envelope had written on it in big letters, “DO NOT OPEN until you’re feeling better!” Pete sighed and opened it. Inside was a note:

Hey, slacker, glad you’re feeling better. I can’t believe you beat Contra in one life, very impressive! Now quit faking and get back to class!

P.S. ¡Bienvenido, Pedro!

Great, now Arnesto was spying on him. How else could he know that he beat Contra in one life? Pete shivered. How did he know? Pete hadn’t told anyone about it. The only one who would care was Arnesto.

He walked downstairs and sat on the couch where he had spent almost every waking hour of the last two weeks. There was no window through which one could see the television screen. He looked around but didn’t see a hidden camera anywhere. Arnesto wouldn’t cross the line like that anyway. He walked into the kitchen where his mom was drinking coffee.

“Mom, did you talk to Arnesto?”

“No, why?”

“Never mind.” She was the only one who stayed home with him, but she had never played Nintendo. It seemed very unlikely that she would have been aware of how many lives he had left at any given time, much less called up Arnesto to inform him of his achievement. Oh well, he was still recovering. He would figure it out when his strength returned.

When he walked into homeroom, Arnesto was sitting at his desk looking smug. Pete walked one column of desks past, then sat in his own desk next to Arnesto’s.

“Seriously, though, good job,” Arnesto said.

“Okay, tell me. How did you—”

“Hold on, here it comes,” Arnesto interrupted, watching the door. In walked Mrs. Gonzalez, who was both their homeroom and Spanish teacher as well as one of their favorites. Arnesto waited until she closed the door and put down her bag before looking at her students. Arnesto then turned to Pete and with a flair, raised his right hand to his right ear while making an expression indicating he was listening for something.

“¡Bienvenido, Pedro! ” Mrs. Gonzalez exclaimed. Arnesto couldn’t help but laugh at his own brilliance.

“Gracias,” Pete said.

“Do you believe me now?” Arnesto whispered.

“No,” Pete said, hoping Arnesto wouldn’t hear the lack of conviction in his voice. He still didn’t accept that Arnesto could predict the future, but the wall of disbelief was beginning to crack. It wasn’t how Mrs. Gonzalez said what Arnesto had written that bothered him; it was the way he seemed to know exactly when . But it still wasn’t sufficient evidence to convince Pete. That would come soon enough.

After surviving his first day back at school, Pete returned home. He did some homework, had dinner with his family, then turned on the television. He was watching Night Court when he saw an ad for Saturday Night Live featuring Tom Hanks. A minute later, the phone rang. His dad said it was for Pete.

“‘Oh, a stumble!’” came Arnesto’s voice.

“What now?”

“Tom Hanks on SNL. He does this Olympic skating bit, it’s hilarious!” Arnesto must have seen the same commercial.

“Are you inviting yourself over Saturday night?” Pete asked, getting the hint.

“Do you want irrefutable proof that I’m a god?” Arnesto asked.

“Fine, you can come over.”

Saturday night arrived and the boys prepared to watch the show. Arnesto couldn’t wait to show off, even revealing in striking detail information about the skit that was about to begin. Pete, on the other hand, wanted it to be over.

During the sketch, Arnesto frequently quoted the lines right before they happened. “‘Oh! A tempo change! Very dramatic.’”

“Please stop,” Pete said, struggling to contain his frustration.

“One more. ‘0.0 — that’s the Russian judge.’”

“…the East German judge,” Phil Hartman’s character said.

“Oh, ‘East German,’ huh, I remembered that wrong. I’m not a very good god,” Arnesto said.

“You’re not a god at all! You must have hacked their system or they sent you a script or you saw a rehearsal or something.” Pete was rattled.

“Well, let’s keep watching. Maybe someone will make a mistake I can point out before it happens,” Arnesto said.

“No! Fuck.” Pete shook his head. “If I say I believe you, will you stop spoiling shows for me?” he asked. Arnesto had to think about it. Besides keeping his and the spectator boy’s faces intact, he had made little use of his skill other than showing off and getting on Pete’s nerves.

“Fine,” Arnesto said as if the compromise was in any way unfair to him.

“Why is it so important that I believe you anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Arnesto shrugged. “You’re the only one who knows. There’s nobody else I can talk to about it.”

Pete looked at Arnesto and saw something he had never seen in his friend before: fear. Arnesto was afraid. He was also alone. In that instant, he knew things would be different. His friend had, for lack of a much better term, some kind of superpower. And who could Arnesto possibly go to for help? Arnesto came to him. Pete’s sense of pity for his friend turned into a swelling of pride.

“No there isn’t anyone else you can talk to,” Pete said at last. “And there can’t be.”

Arnesto turned to face him. “What?”

“You can’t tell anyone. Can you imagine what would happen if word got out about this? People would never leave you alone. Ever. My god, the masses would stop at nothing to question you — or kill you. What about the government? If they found out, they would lock you in a cell for the rest of your life. Or perform experiments on you.”

“Shit!”

Pete stood and began pacing. “Arnesto, we will have to be extremely careful. No more talking about this stuff in homeroom unless we are sure nobody can hear us. And no talking about stuff from the future, including movies and television shows.”

“I already said I wouldn’t!” Arnesto protested, though with a smile because he was no longer alone. It was clear now that Pete believed him.

“Wait a minute, why didn’t you warn me about getting mono?” Pete sounded miffed.

“I didn’t know.”

“So you can remember an SNL sketch almost verbatim but couldn’t remember me lying on my deathbed for two weeks?”

“You weren’t on your deathbed,” Arnesto said. “I don’t know how it works. It seems random.”

“But this all started with your great play in gym class way back when?”

Arnesto sat bolt upright. “No, it didn’t! This has been happening for… years. They were little things, though. I always sort of shrugged them off.”