I hesitate. Clare is content, absorbed. She must be about six; if it's September she has probably just entered first grade. She's obviously not waiting for me, I'm a stranger, and I'm sure that the first thing you learn in first grade is not to have any truck with strangers who show up naked in your favorite secret spot and know your name and tell you not to tell your mom and dad. I wonder if today is the day we are supposed to meet for the first time or if it's some other day. Maybe I should be very silent and either Clare will go away and I can go munch up those apples and steal some laundry or I will revert to my regularly scheduled programming, I snap from my reverie to find Clare staring straight at me. I realize, too late, that I have been humming along with her.
"Who's there?" Clare hisses. She looks like a really pissed off goose, all neck and legs. I am thinking fast,
"Greetings, Earthling," I intone, kindly.
"Mark! You nimrod!" Clare is casting around for something to throw, and decides on her shoes, which have heavy, sharp heels. She whips them off and does throw them. I don't think she can see me very well, but she lucks out and one of them catches me in the mouth. My lip starts to bleed.
"Please don't do that." I don't have anything to staunch the blood, so I press my hand to my mouth and my voice comes out muffled. My jaw hurts.
"Who is it?" Now Clare is frightened, and so am I.
"Henry. It's Henry, Clare. I won't hurt you, and I wish you wouldn't throw anything else at me." "Give me back my shoes. I don't know you. Why are you hiding?" Clare is glowering at me. I toss her shoes back into the clearing. She picks them up and stands holding them like pistols. "I'm hiding because I lost my clothes and I'm embarrassed. I came a long way and I'm hungry and I don't know anybody and now I'm bleeding."
"Where did you come from? Why do you know my name?"
The whole truth and nothing but the truth. "I came from the future. I am a time traveler. In the future we are friends." "People only time travel in movies." "That's what we want you to believe."
"Why?"
"If everybody time traveled it would get too crowded. Like when you went to see your Grandma Abshire last Christmas and you had to go through O'Hare Airport and it was very, very crowded? We time travelers don't want to mess things up for ourselves, so we keep it quiet."
Clare chews on this for a minute. "Come out."
"Loan me your beach towel." She picks it up and all the pens and pencils and papers go flying. She throws it at me, overhand, and I grab it and turn my back as I stand and wrap it around my waist. It is bright pink and orange with a loud geometric pattern. Exactly the sort of thing you'd want to be wearing when you meet your future wife for the first time. I turn around and walk into the clearing; I sit on the rock with as much dignity as possible. Clare stands as far away from me as she can get and remain in the clearing. She is still clutching her shoes.
"You're bleeding."
"Well, yeah. You threw a shoe at me."
"Oh."
Silence. I am trying to look harmless, and nice. Nice looms large in Clare's childhood, because so many people aren't. "You're making fun of me."
"I would never make fun of you. Why do you think I'm making fun of you?" Clare is nothing if not stubborn. "Nobody time travels. You're lying." "Santa time travels."
"What?"
"Sure. How do you think he gets all those presents delivered in one night? He just keeps turning back the clock a few hours until he gets down every one of those chimneys."
"Santa is magic. You're not Santa."
"Meaning I'm not magic? Geez, Louise, you're a tough customer." "I'm not Louise,"
"I know. You're Clare. Clare Anne Abshire, born May 24, 1971. Your parents are Philip and Lucille Abshire, and you live with them and your grandma and your brother, Mark, and your sister, Alicia, in that big house up there."
"Just because you know things doesn't mean you're from the future."
"If you hang around a while you can watch me disappear" I feel I can count on this because Clare once told me it was the thing she found most impressive about our first meeting. Silence. Clare shifts her weight from foot to foot and waves away a mosquito. "Do you know Santa?"
"Personally? Um, no." I have stopped bleeding, but I must look awful. "Hey, Clare, do you happen to have a Band-Aid? Or some food? Time traveling makes me pretty hungry."
She thinks about this. She digs into her jumper pocket and produces a Hershey bar with one bite out of it. She throws it at me.
"Thank you. I love these." I eat it neatly but very quickly. My blood sugar is low. I put the wrapper in her shopping bag. Clare is delighted.