The Sparkklechix In: Mystery of the Missing Milk

You sit in the van for what feels like a very long time. It seems like nobody is particularly eager to venture outside and solve the mystery. Even Atasha who instigated this 'adventure' seems to have calmed down only now that the van's temporal charge has been expended.

"I think I have an idea." You venture. "If we could get our hands on a video camera we could set it up in the kitchen then its just a matter of watching the footage when we get home. It'd minimize the possibility of interacting with our past selves and potentially if we do this now then we never have to have this argument ever again."

"I vote we tear that video camera down the minute we're done with this misadventure." Zafira argues.

"We'd actually need a video camera first." Sara points out. "Otherwise its a solid plan, I like it."

"Can't we do that thing like in that one movie where we promise real hard to go and get a video camera and then travel back to the previous version of the Camper and hide it in here?" asks Mindy, and without waiting for any response she starts lifting up the loose cushions and peering through the beaded curtains to see if she can spot one.

"Time doesn't work that way." You point out.

You know this from experience; the first journeys you took with Aunt Cindy where you were allowed to pick the destination were all about gathering data on the nature of time and the potential for paradoxes. It is a matter of great debate among the scientific community whether time is changeable or whether it is fixed. If time were fixed you could end up discovering that your actions now were the cause of the milk shortage in the first place. If time were changeable you could through your actions end up preventing the milk from being used and thus create an alternate timeline where you never wasted your day's journey on this misadventure.

In practice it turns out that time is frustrating and inconsistent; sometimes behaving one way and sometimes the other with no real rationality (that you can determine) as to how it is operating at any given time. The only thing you've been completely unable to enact is the idea of using your future actions to affect the past.

"Well we don't have time to go and buy a video camera now," Atasha says, "someone could be in there drinking that milk at this very moment."

"Did any of you girls visit the Halls yesterday?" Aunt Cindy asked. She was looking towards the house opposite from yours. "Looks like they should have an unobstructed view of the fridge. We should be able to stake it out without much of a problem."

"I doubt Evelyn would appreciate us dropping by uninvited so we can stare out of her window for a few hours." You point out. Zafira lets out an exasperated sigh at the idea.

Aunt Cindy glances at you and grins. "I can be very persuasive." she says.

"Fuck it." Zafira says. She climbs to her feet, pulls open the door to the outside and climbs out. "It was me. I'll drink the milk then we'll know who drunk the milk because it'll have been me who drunk the milk." You leap up and climb out after her as she strides up the path to the house.

"Zafira wait-" you say but its drowned out by-

"And then we can go and do something, anything other than sit around arguing about who drank milk or not. Maybe we have to kill a few hours before the time circuits recharge but at least we can stop this terrible argument." She's at the front door now, rooting around for the key in her pockets.

"At least let Aunt Cindy go in." you call but your plea falls on deaf ears. Behind you Aunt Cindy and the rest of the chix have spilled out of the van. Aunt Cindy stomps a cigarette out and marches past you towards Zafira. As she gets the front door open Aunt Cindy lays a heavy hand on her shoulder and you remember how unexpectedly strong her grip is.

"Don't worry about it Zaffy." Aunt Cindy says. "We can go down to the arcade for a few hours hows that sound?"

There's a long moment of silence. "Aunt Cindy, is it possible you overshot the target date a little?" Zafira asks.

Aunt Cindy glances at her wristwatch; a massive chunky contraption made of brass and glass that would look at home in a steampunk cosplay. She once told you how it reads the precise universal moment from the fabric of time itself and that most of its bulk is to contain the complex processes that convert that into an understandable local time. "Wednesday 30th November 2011," she reads off, "nope we're right when we're supposed to be." She hesitates. "Why, what's wrong?"

Curiously you approach the pair and follow Zafira's gaze into the house. Inside there's nothing. Not like nothing in the sense of a literal vacuum, but rather nothing as in a completely empty house, bare walls, no furniture, no signs of anyone having lived there in a long time.

"Oh, that can't be good." Aunt Cindy says distantly.

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