Note: Another CWW assignment—the prompt was to write a story containing the line “where were you last night?” I’m not quite sure how the tea happened, but it did, and here it is. Thanks to Chiomi, my CWW teacher, and a girl in my C-dub class for the edit; I tried to fix it, but there was only so much I could do without putting in so much backstory the story would completely lose its pacing. So, anyway, here’s my mutant brainchild of time travel, tea, and general madness—enjoy! And please review!

The Oolong Incident

March 4th, 2006—Minneapolis

“…Wish Roger would bring me roses.”

“He gave you chocolate, didn’t he?”

“Yes, but…”

Jake shook his head fuzzily as his roommates’ conversation found his ears. They are far too awake in the mornings, he decided grumpily. Normal people don’t get up at seven to discuss the night before. He limped to the kitchen door and hesitated a moment, contemplating going back to bed.

“Jake, get in here!” Christine called, and he had no choice but to enter the kitchen.

“So, what did you do last night?” asked Jenny. “We were just comparing notes.”

Jake shrugged as he made his way to the cupboard, favoring his left leg slightly. “Nothing much.”

“Come on, Jake, we heard you get in at three in the morning. Where were you last night?” Madeline prodded.

“Nowhere,” he replied, searching through the boxes of teabags. He seized a box of Oolong by mistake and tossed it back with a grimace; he’d seen too much of that particular variety in recent memory.

“Trevelyan,” Jenny complained, using his surname as she often did when she was annoyed with him, “even Maddy spilled. Where were you?”

“Physically, mentally, or temporally?” he asked, hoping a joke would diffuse their questions.

“Ha ha. If you were anywhere else temporally, it wouldn’t have been last night,” Christine said, narrowing her eyes.

Jake regarded her with a sigh. That’s precisely the problem…

“Mr. Adams, this cannot go on.”

Samuel Adams glanced at him over the top of his papers. “What cannot go on, Mr—ah—”

“Trevelyan, sir. Jacob Trevelyan. I’ve only recently joined the Sons of Liberty, but—”

“But already you think you can run it better than we do, hmm?”

“No sir,” Jake said hastily. “It’s just…we’ve had demonstrations in the past, Mr. Adams, but it isn’t working. We need something bigger, to show King George that we’re serious.”

Adams set the papers down on his desk. “And what did you have in mind, Mr. Trevelyan?”

“Well, as you of course know, Governor Hutchinson’s support Tea Act has given the British East India Trading Company a monopoly over tea in the colonies. We need to strike out at the company directly. They brought a large shipment of tea, mostly Oolong, two days ago, and it’s just sitting in the harbor, waiting…”

“Jake…”

He sighed again, glancing at the girls and trying to figure out a way to wriggle out of their questioning. “I’m not at liberty to say,” he tried. I wonder how they would react if they knew everything I’ve said was true.

Jenny rolled her eyes. “Oh, don’t try that again. I swear, Trevelyan, you’re impossible. Did your date go that badly?”

“It wasn’t a date; it was work,” he replied. Another true statement.

“Work that kept you out until three?” Christine said suspiciously.

“It ran late…”

“The Dartmouth, the Eleanor, and the Beaver. These three ships have been docked at Griffin’s Warf for the last eighteen days, their cargo holds full of imported tea from China. Though we have refused to let the ships unload their cargo, it becomes increasingly likely that Governor Hutchinson will intercede and the tea will be sold. We cannot allow this to happen,” Adams said, rounding on the fifty men gathered before him.

“We plan to attack the ships tomorrow evening and destroy the goods,” James said, coming to stand by Adams’ elbow. “It should be fairly easy—most of Boston feels as we do.”

Adams nodded, frowning down at the diagram of Griffin’s Warf they’d spread out on a table. “It is a good plan, Trevelyan. But I don’t know that it will be enough; we need something sensational to grab old George’s attention.”

“Actually, Mr. Adams, I have just the thing…”

Jake couldn’t blame the girls for being curious; he usually kept very regular hours, and they were nosy by nature. But they didn’t know he worked for Chrono—hell, they didn’t even know Chrono existed—and he certainly couldn’t tell them he was the mastermind behind the Boston Tea Party.

I work for a secret organization that monitors pivotal events in history to ensure that they proceed the way their supposed to, I’m the one who started the War of the Roses, the Boston Tea Party, and the Beatles, and by the way, I’ll have to kill you for telling you that. Oh yeah, that’ll go over real well…Not to mention his boss would kill him.

December 16th, 1773—Boston

“All ready, Trevelyan?” Adams asked.

“Yes, sir. And may I just say, you look exceptional.”

“All thanks to your genius, Trevelyan,” Adams replied, grinning wolfishly through his Mohawk-inspired war paint. “Now come on, men! We can’t stay around the meeting house forever!”

March 4th, 2006—Minneapolis

“Any job that requires you to work until three in the morning is a job you should be quitting,” Madeline spoke up. “Honestly, Jake, to keep you up that late…”

“It’s not usually like that,” he protested. “There were just a few…problems.” Like an assassination attempt by Oolong tea leaves…

Jake hurled his axe into the nearest crate with a grunt, sending splinters flying across the bow of the Beaver. Another grunt and blow of the axe had the crate open, packets of tea spilling over the deck.

This is weird, he thought as he slung tea over the railing and into the harbor. He knew that historically, the Sons of Liberty had met with no resistance, but it was rather unsettling to be trashing an eighteenth-century sailing ship with no one around to protest. Usually on these types of jobs, he was in the midst of raging battle or a mob riot, not a dumb show for the silent citizens.

Seizing the axe again, Jake attacked the next crate. As he sent the next batch of tea into the ocean, he glanced nervously at the crowd of Bostonians gathering on shore.

Aren’t they going to do anything? Help us, or stop us, or… Historically, they hadn’t, and he knew he shouldn’t be hoping to change anything. But it was just so surreal, the way they were staring…

“Are you all right, Trevelyan?” Adams asked, slinging an armful of Oolong into the harbor.

“Yes, sorry,” Jake said, hastily tossing his own load. “I juAAAAH!” He ended on a yell as his feet slipped on a pile of loose tea leaves. Arms flailing, he skidded across the deck, smack into a precarious stack of Chinese tea. Crates tumbled across the deck, bursting against the railing to dump their contents into the ocean.

Oh, brilliant…

“Trevelyan!”

“I’m fine, Mr. Adams, just fi—ow—no, not entirely fine,” he amended as he tested his left ankle. “I think I may have to leave the rest of the fun to you, Mr. Adams…I’ve twisted my ankle.”

Adams frowned. “Do you need—”

“I’ll be fine, sir, just continue with the tea,” Jake cut him off. “I’ll be just fine on my own…”

“Problems resulting in a twisted ankle?” Jenny asked suspiciously. “Don’t think I hadn’t noticed. Do legal interns commonly sustain physical injury while photocopying?”

“It happens…”

“You are impossible,” Christine decided. “I shall now ignore you and drink my tea with great dignity,” she informed him, tossing her nose in the air and swiveling so her back was to him.

Jake caught a glimpse of the tag of her teabag and choked. The label read, in oriental caligraphy, Finest Chinese Oolong.