Of all the crazy, unexpected, and occasionally downright random things that happened in Jefferson G. County Middle School, Zack Underwood thought that this was probably the weirdest.
"Okay," Zack began, taking a deep breath before pointing at various objects around Mrs. Murawski's strangely intact classroom. "We have an open mixture of dangerous chemicals over a Bunsen burner, an open window on a windy day, a pile of flammable papers on the table between the burner and the window... and yet, nothing is happening."
He glanced at the girl next to him—the only other person currently at their three-seater desk—and frowned.
"I can't believe I'm saying this, but not having some huge disaster before lunch is really weird."
Melissa Chase, who was probably paying a little bit better attention to their work that he was, just shrugged absentmindedly as her pen scratched away at the paper.
"Eh." She glanced at her workbook, then back to her paper, where she continued to write. "Toldja it gets boring when Milo's not around. Might as well get some work done while it's quiet."
Zack shrugged slightly in assent, though it didn't do much to shake the feeling that everything about today had been way too quiet. Even with Milo late for school, most of the time something would happen.
But, oddly, nothing did.
By lunch, Zack began to get a little annoyed of being on edge all morning, particularly if nothing bad was actually going to happen. With Milo, looking over your shoulder every two seconds was a smart thing to do—without Milo, it just made a person look paranoid.
"How late is Milo usually for school?" Zack asked in curiosity as he put his lunch tray down on the table.
Melissa, who had decided to do a large portion of her homework at lunch for whatever reason (though if it was homework they'd been given today or homework that was due today, Zack couldn't tell), shrugged once more as she methodically jotted down answers.
"Either he's exactly on time, he gets here right in time to miss lunch, or he misses everything but getting assigned a project at the end of the day," she answered, pausing in her writing to glance up at the wall clock across the room. "...Or, sometimes, he doesn't show up at all. If I get my homework done now, we can go find him afterward."
Zack frowned in concern, following her gaze up to the clock. "What takes him so long?"
"A list of things way too extensive to be worth distracting me for right now. Use your imagination. Then add a stampede of animals."
Zack had to chuckle in agreement—because where Milo was concerned, that was the truth.
"Yeah, okay," he relented. "Still, hope he's all right. He didn't text us or anything."
"Nah, he texted me earlier. Somethin' about wolverines."
Zack blinked in surprise, then lowered his eyebrows in mild annoyance. "Okay, you could tell me these things. Where are there even wolverines around here?"
Although her eyebrows went up cynically, Melissa kept her eyes on the paper, clearly busy working out the problem in her head. How she could be so focused on homework when their best friend was who-knows-where, running from probably angry wolverines, was beyond him. Could a person get completely used to that?
"Zoo, nature preserve, Coyote Woods..." she answered, waving her pencil slightly as she listed them off. "I don't know, you can check what he texted."
Zack took a brief bite of his questionably authentic fish sticks from the cafeteria's lunch menu, then pressed the button on Melissa's phone to bring up the screen. Sure enough, a long conversation was open, though only two messages were from that morning.
Milo: probably won't make it to school till late, wolverines after me again
- Np, will save you some lunch
Zack set the phone back down and furrowed his eyebrows, something strange just occurring to him. "That is a weirdly casual conversation."
"No weirder than usual," Melissa murmured, sounding distracted as she continued her work.
The sound of her pen scratching on the paper faded into the idle chatter of their friends around them, and Zack hummed in quiet agreement, propping his chin in his hand.
Things had been a little strange today.
So, of course, they began to get a lot stranger.
The afternoon came and went, and for the first time since Zack had arrived here in Danville, the bell rang to signal the end of a perfectly normal day of school.
Well, 'normal' was subjective. For those who were used to hanging out with Milo, it was a little bizarre. And not that Milo probably couldn't handle whatever life was currently throwing at him, but at this point, even Melissa looked a little concerned.
"Well," she remarked, taking a deep breath as they walked out of their last class, surrounded by casually chattering classmates and distinctly un-smashed locker doors. "Usually, I'd bet that Milo's phone wouldn't've exploded yet, but I've been texting him and the messages are not gettin' delivered."
"And that's normal?" Zack asked, frowning in concern as he waited for Melissa to retrieve a few things out of her locker. "Milo just not showing up sometimes? I mean, I get why he wouldn't, but... it kinda seems like we should've heard from him by now."
Melissa swung her book bag over her shoulder with one hand and shut her locker door with the other, falling into step with her friend as they trailed their classmates outside. She surveyed their surroundings for a moment, but upon not seeing anything broken or flaming or swinging haphazardly, she shrugged and frowned slightly.
"I texted Sara and the hospital, and got a negative Milo report from both of them," Melissa said, following a portion of their class as they began the trek past the line of out-of-commission school buses and back toward their section of the neighborhood. "I can ask his parents, but they usually let me know if he's with them on a school day."
Zack paused for a moment and frowned, not noticing as most of the other students filtered past him. "So do you think we should—wait, you can text the hospital?"
Melissa was already several strides ahead of him, but Zack could hear the smirk in her voice. "I can, yeah. They're supposed to call me if Milo's there, but y'know. Still never hurts to check."
Zack frowned as he followed, his thoughts already elsewhere. "You think he's time-traveling again? I guess Dakota and Cavendish could've picked him up."
Melissa frowned slightly and shrugged, glancing around at their oddly unchaotic surroundings. "The good news is, if he's time-traveling, he could be back anytime. The bad news is, if he's time-traveling, he shoulda been back right after he left because he can do that because he's time-traveling."
Zack paused, furrowing his eyebrows for a moment as he thought about this. "...Yeah, okay."
Melissa was already nearing the crosswalk, so he hurried to catch up with her, pulling his backpack further up on his shoulders. They passed the last of the Jefferson G. County school buses—a line of six of them, still smelling like nachos and plastered over with tar—which were still out of commission from the disastrous Nacho Cheese Incident of the previous week.
Melissa smirked, almost fondly, at the half-blackened buses that loomed over them as they passed.
"Yeah, on a scale of one to the Llama Incident, that was a solid eight," she remarked, very casually, as though reminiscing about a weird disaster like that was as ordinary as commenting on the weather.
Zack almost smiled. For any friend of the Murphys, it was as ordinary as commenting on the weather.
"What about the Woodpecker Incident? Can't we use that as the scale? I was there for that one."
"The One-to-Llama Scale was established long before the Woodpecker Incident; however, the latter scored a nine-point-one on the scale, which is by far the highest in extended craziness we've encountered since." Melissa glanced sideways at him, cracking a grin. "Besides, the Llama Incident always tops. Just because."
"I dunno; the Woodpecker thing was pretty intense. We took a shopping cart full of monkeys into SeaWorld. And then walked on stilts. Through the Everglades!"
With an air of great calmness, Melissa smirked, holding up both hands at shoulder height and forming them into what looked like llama-head shadow puppets.
"The llamas don't care," she replied matter-of-factly, making the llama puppets tilt their noses up and nod haughtily.
Zack stared at said 'llamas' for a moment, unimpressed, before shoving his hands in his pockets.
"...Sure," he replied simply, rolling his eyes. It sounded suspiciously like Melissa had picked up a new catchphrase. Ever since 'boom' had come to fruition during Milo's heated-salt-block-in-an-umbrella-full-of-water trick, she'd been subtly hunting for a new one... though 'subtly' was probably being generous. "Should we split up and look for Milo, then?"
Melissa nodded as she dropped her hands, but furrowed her eyebrows in thought. "Yeah, I think we should. Lemme call his dad first, though, in case he knows anything."
"Won't he be at work?"
Melissa simply shrugged, scrolling through her phone for the number.
"Nah. It's Columbus Day, right? He should be off today."
As a matter of fact, it was not Columbus Day, and Martin Murphy was not off work.
Across town, Martin was posing atop a radio tower for a selfie, holding his phone at arm's length as he adjusted the angle.
He squinted to see the screen as he held it, trying to keep himself in frame while not being blinded by the glare of the sun off the glass.
"Darned reflection... okay, that's better. Three, two, o—"
The phone buzzed loudly in his hand as it began to ring.
Martin jumped, fumbling for a grip on the phone, but failing to grab it before it bounced out of his hands and plummeted downward.
He hung onto his safety rope, wincing as he watched the phone diminish into a black speck as it sped toward the street below. The sound of breaking glass echoed upward, and a car alarm began to wail.
"Uh..."
Martin stared for a moment.
"...Hope that wasn't important," he muttered, hesitating for a minute before awkwardly returning to work.
"The number you are trying to reach is no longer in service. Please try agai—"
Melissa frowned, hanging up the call.
"Well, that worked," she remarked dryly, tapping a few things on the screen.
Zack paused a moment to wave his arms outward in exasperation. "It was just ringing a second ago!"
Melissa shrugged. "Yeah, just means his phone got destroyed. Nothing new. Hang on, I'll try Sara again."
"Level 537 of the Dr. Zone Files V-Box 360 game: Cerebroids, you're going down!" Sara Murphy yelled as her virtual character plunged into the dark cave on the television screen. "Time Ape, light our path!"
One of Sara's equally Dr. Zone-obsessed friends, Wally, replied ominously, "May the face of time help us in this dire hour!"
He pressed a button on his controller, causing Time Ape's clock face to glow brightly, illuminating the cavern—and lighting up the faces of the three Dr. Zone fans who had gathered at Kris's house, bathing them and their multiple empty snack bowls in a pale whitish glow.
Sara grinned in relief. "Look! The door! We came the right way after all."
"We have come to the lair of Cranius, lord of the Cerebroids," Kris said dramatically as several creepy-looking alien monsters appeared out of the shadows at one end of the screen. "Behold them!"
"Wh-What? Nooo!" Wally panicked as a Cerebroid attacked him, draining his health bar and kicking him out of the game. "Watch out, he's got my power-ups!"
"Go back to your tunnels, Cerebroids!" Sara exclaimed as she and Kris plunged forward, beating back the Cerebroids with an assortment of hits, spin-kicks, and weaponry fire. "Take that!"
Suddenly, an enormous, brain-headed monster exploded out of the iron double doors, wielding a massive scepter.
"Nooo!" Sara wailed, as the giant monster swung at the onscreen Dr. Zone, his staff hitting the character and slamming him against the wall. "Cranius the Great has come!"
Absorbed in the epic space battle that ensued, she didn't even notice her phone ringing.
Melissa put away her phone, looking a bit miffed. "I... probably wouldn't worry about Milo. He's tough; he can handle himself. We can stop by his house and ask about him when we get there."
"Yeah, okay," Zack replied reluctantly. "As long as he's not time-traveling, I guess. Let's just hope he keeps a hold of his backpack this time."
Absentmindedly, Zack swung down his own backpack to get his water bottle out of it. His bottle was there in its usual spot, which was good—but unfortunately, his largest textbook was missing.
"Hey, wait—I must have left my math book in class."
Melissa smirked. "Who's the forgetful one today?"
Zack raised one eyebrow, not amused. "Uh-huh. And while I'm there, I'll pick up your math book, which you inevitably forgot."
Melissa blinked, then slung down her backpack to begin quickly rummaging through it. "Oh, shoot..."
Grinning to himself, Zack turned and jogged the short distance back to the school, quickly entering just as the last of the students were filtering out. He headed down the hallway, past the perfectly-functioning water fountain (now that was weird, even on a Milo-less day), and slipped back into their math classroom.
A half-unpacked janitorial cart was parked off to one side, and a mop was leaning against one of the desks, but the room appeared eerily empty. The school's mysterious janitor, Fred, had probably been cleaning before Zack had arrived, though how the man could disappear at a moment's notice was something Zack still couldn't figure out.
After quickly snatching up Melissa's math book (as well as her pen, her calculator, and a book on physics theory she'd apparently been reading during class), he glanced over at his own book, which was... lying under his desk?
How'd it get down there? Seems like I would've noticed if I'd knocked a heavy textbook off...
Zack frowned in bewilderment, but crouched down and picked it up. It looked unharmed—which was nice, considering that this was Milo's classroom—but... something looked different about it.
What's sticking out of the top? Zack stood up and flipped the book open, confused. I don't think I used a bookmark...
In fact, he knew that he hadn't. This made his discovery even more bewildering—a scrap of paper he didn't recognize had been jammed between the pages.
Meet me in the park at 3:36 PM.
DON'T BE FOLLOWED
DON'T BE LATE
The note wasn't signed, addressed, or dated. But considering he had been using his math book roughly an hour beforehand, Zack couldn't imagine that he could have completely missed the note if it had been placed there before.
...Did someone just put this here? I was using this book an hour ago!
"I see you have come to retrieve your book," a wise-sounding voice spoke up from behind him.
Zack jumped, whirling around to face the source. To his surprise, it was the school janitor, in person, who now held a bucket of clean mop water.
"The Great Key-Keeper!" Zack exclaimed, wide-eyed. "I mean, uh, Mr. Fred. Did you write this?"
The Asian man smiled, tilting his head in a sagely greeting as he set down his bucket. "Hello, young one. No, I am afraid I did not."
"Did you see anybody else come in here, then? Because this is like... borderline kind of creepy."
The janitor shook his head. "I did not. However, both the students and the Keepers may enter this room after school has finished."
Zack frowned, too wrapped up in his thoughts to question the man's words. "Three thirty-six is in, like, fifteen minutes..." he murmured in bewilderment, turning the paper over. "I'd barely have time to get to the park."
Fred's words finally registered with him, and he blinked in surprise.
"Wait, did you say 'the Keepers'? Plural? There more of..." Zack trailed off upon realizing that the room was empty. Even the janitor's cart had disappeared. "...you? Ugh."
A moment passed, and door swung back open. Fred walked back in, heading to the corner of the room to grab a roll of paper towels he'd apparently set on a side table and missed during his sudden exit.
"Excuse me," the greying man apologized, picking up the roll. "I nearly forgot this."
Zack shook his head briefly, trying to clear it. The Great Key-Keeper was here; he had to ask a few questions before the guy disappeared again... "So, wait, what do you mean by 'the Keepers'? Did someone else like you write this note? ...Was it the cafeteria lady?"
Fred tucked the paper towel roll under one arm and regarded Zack in a sagely manner. "All will be explained in the fullness of time," he answered mysteriously—which in reality wasn't much of an answer.
Honestly, Zack had as much respect for the Great Key-Keeper as the next kid did. But was an actual answer really too much to ask for?
"When?" Zack pressed, annoyance creeping into his tone.
"Soon enough," replied the janitor with a small, mysterious smile. "It is only a matter of time."
All these new developments were whirring through his brain—the mysterious note, the don't be followed part which honestly creeped him out a little, and the school janitor being way too enigmatic for Zack's taste—when the door swung open again.
This time, Melissa stuck her head in, meeting Zack's gaze with a curious expression.
"Yo, Zack, a hippopotamus get you again?" she asked, stepping inside after seeming to notice all of her things he was carrying.
Zack rolled his eyes. That had been one time.
"Ha ha, very funny," he retorted, now annoyed for a slightly different reason.
His eyes fell back on the scrap of paper he held. Melissa liked extracurricular, sciencey things like handwriting analysis, didn't she?
"...Hey, can you come look at this?"
Melissa blinked in bewilderment, walking over to peer at the note that he held.
"I came in here and found this in my book," Zack explained, and Melissa frowned uncertainly at the eerie message. "The Great—I mean, Fred the janitor said he didn't know who put it there."
"The Great Key-Keeper was here?" Melissa asked, looking up and glancing around the room in surprise.
"Yeah, he's right—"
Zack looked up to where Fred had been standing. The room was empty, void even of the several supplies that had been left last time.
"—not there," Zack finished, rather flatly. "Okay, seriously. How does he even do that?"
Melissa shrugged. "My money's on teleportation. Here, let me see that."
She snatched the note out of his hands, furrowing her eyebrows slightly as she read it.
"That looks... kinda like Milo's handwriting?" she remarked uncertainly as she inspected the paper. "...Except it's more blocky, and that's not how he writes his t's."
"You know how he writes his t's?" Zack repeated, one eyebrow raised. Melissa ignored him, flipping the paper over and back again.
"...He usually can't write in pen, though. The pens just explode." She frowned, staring a it a moment longer before handing it back to Zack. "And there's no ink blots, smoke stains, or teeth marks on it, sooo... I have no clue. Why wouldn't someone just sign their name?"
Zack shrugged helplessly. "To make it more creepy than it already is?"
Melissa studied the note for a moment longer, gears clearly turning in her brain. Finally, she glanced up at him, a hesitant frown on her face.
"You... wanna check it out, then? Milo's apparently missing again—I called his mom and she doesn't know where he is either—and this could be a clue, I guess. I've seen weirder."
"Yeah..." Zack answered, the more worried the more he thought about it. "I guess we should. We'd better stop and get our bikes on the way, though."
"Yeah, we'd better. Looks like we've got another mystery that makes life worth living."
Zack shrugged in agreement, still not quite able to shake the uneasy feeling in his stomach. "Yeah, but seriously. I'd be a lot more comfortable meeting someone in the park if I knew who they even were."
"Well, only one way to find out."
They exchanged semi-confident smirks. Then, Zack grinned, holding out the multiple items of hers that he'd tucked beneath his arm.
"Oh, and here's all the stuff you forgot that you forgot."
"Thanks," Melissa snorted dryly, snatching her things and putting them in her backpack. She slung her backpack back into her shoulders, and pair hurried to jog out of the school.
As they exited the front doors, Melissa seemed to notice Zack's apprehension. She offered him a somewhat reassuring smile.
"By the way, I bet one of us will find him. Ten bucks to the winner. I'm actually feeling like we won't need a musical montage this time."
"Deal," Zack replied with a shrug, because even though the chances of winning a bet against Melissa were more than slim, it at least meant that someone would probably find Milo. It would be well worth ten dollars if the world didn't get taken over by sentient pistachio trees again. "And you felt that too? Good, I'm not crazy."
"Debatable, but yep," Melissa replied, glancing forward at the vast, summery neighborhood that stretched out before them, and the multitude of brightly-colored skyscrapers that towered off in the distance.
A small smile tugged at her face.
"Welcome to the Tri-State Area."
A/N: Welcome to A Matter of Time! I'd hoped to get this posted in celebration of the two-year anniversary of Milo Murphy's Law—but things came up, so it's a couple days late. Hopefully it'll still make for a nice new addition to the archives!
This idea started out about a year ago as the simple question 'what if Zack had to step into Milo's shoes?'. But, as you'll find out, it grew into something much bigger.
(Big enough to warrant outlines for two sequels and a grand Phineas and Ferb crossover arc, even. But I'm getting ahead of myself—this story comes first!)
This is a collaborative work between my brother (who has most of these ideas) and I (who writes them down in way too much detail). A big thanks to him for coming up with this story, and for letting me go overboard helping flesh it out! I love character development, but currently am not great at thinking up action scenes—whereas Cheese is excellent at forgoing excessive details to write what's happening. Together, we have a lot of fun telling the interesting stories we dream up!
Melissa's line at the end was originally at the midpoint of this chapter, if you can believe it. I figured it'd be better to split it into two, because a 7.5k chapter was a liiittle much. Not sure about an updating schedule just yet—we're still working out the ending of the outline for this story—but the next chapter just needs some polishing up, and hopefully subsequent updates will be out as soon as possible. In the meantime, we'd love to hear what you think! Comments are always very appreciated.
Tune in next time, when we see the rest of Zack's adventure trying to figure out what happened to Milo... and things getting just a little more mysterious along the way.
Hope you enjoy this crazy ride as much as we do!
-Bluebird (and Cheese)