by Sarah McNamara

I couldn’t get the kid’s hands off of the pocket watch, so he was dragged along with me. The child’s eyes widened as we were wrenched through time and space.  We tumbled onto soft grass, but as I tried to roll over and stand up I bumped into a concrete wall. Dizzied, I tried to get my bearings as I heard voices behind me. Turning around I saw someone holding a skateboard staring at me and the child. “Holy S***!” he exclaimed. He was wearing a tie dye t shirt that said “Ben & Jerry’s Ice cream & so much more!” on it.  At this point they guy was trying to get the attention of his friend, “Duude, this guy just fell out of the sky!”

I looked around, we seemed to have landed by a skate park. Beyond it was a crumbling brick building surrounded by a variety of boats. Beyond that was some sort of lake crowned by distant blue mountains. We were not anywhere near where we’d been.

They guy’s friend skated over, popped up her skateboard and said, “Dude, how high are you? It’s just some random guy and his kid.”

  Kid? I don’t have or want any offspring! Oh yes the kid, oh dear. I looked down to see that the troublesome kid looked just as baffled as I thought he might. He looked up at me with fear in his eyes. I guess I’d have to take care of him, silly earthling young need so much care. I sighed and held out my hand, “Er, come on, er, son.” I tried to sound convincingly parental and failed miserably. The kid took off running and I was obliged to follow. He ran all throughout a green park along the water. People gave us odd looks but didn’t stop me as I chased the kid down a boardwalk lined with swinging benches. 

We both ran out of breath as we passed a building labeled “ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain”. There were railroad tracks that ran between ECHO and a shack with “Creemees” written on top. A small sign on the sidewalk said “Today Maple Creemees”  What on earth was a creemee? There seemed to be a picture of an ice cream cone next to the sign on the shack. But that didn’t seem to make sense. The kid had sat down on one of the rocks outside echo and I sat down next to him. Because I had to look after him I guess I had some explaining to do. “Look kid,” I began, “I don’t know where we are, but the reason we’re here is because you tapped my pocket watch. It, well, it helps me travel through time and space”

The kid’s eyes widened, “Are You the DOCTOR!?” he asked.

“Huh?” I was incredibly confused.

“You travel through Time! and Space!” he said excitedly, getting rather loud.

“Oh shh, shh, don’t be so loud about it!” I winced, glancing around nervously. “Yes I do travel in time and space, but I don’t know a thing about medicine.”

“The Doctor doesn’t know medicine either” said the kid.

“What kind of doctor are they then?” I muttered, “What’s your name anyway kid?”

“Jack, what’s yours?”

I desperately tried to remember my former alibi. and glanced around, on the side of the Echo center there was someone named “Uhh, Stephan” I sputtered. “and we’re gonna have to stick together ‘til I can, ‘til I can, get you back to your mom.”

Jack was already distracted, “Is that Ice Cream!?” he asked looking as the shack that said “creemees”. I glanced up to see a teenager walking away with some sort of soft ice cream in a cone. “Looks like it,” I replied wrinkling my nose at the odd lactose loaded creation.

“Can I have some?” Jack asked.

I looked at him confused for a moment but then decided that it would help me fit the whole parent thing that the skater implied, it would make me look less suspicious. So we walked over to the counter and I asked for one soft serve ice cream.

“We call ‘em creemees ‘round here,” she informed me, “you want maple right? we make our ice cream with pure Vermont maple syrup.”

Ah, Vermont that made sense, I nodded and she quickly passed me the so-called creemee. As Jack ate the creemee I checked google maps and discovered that we were in Burlington. Google informed me that Burlington was the largest city in Vermont. I looked skeptically up the hill from where we were standing, noting the considerable lack of any building that would come close to the word “highrise” let alone “skyscraper”.  The creemee girl leaned out the window of the shack.

“You folks from outta town?”

“Ah yeah,” I replied.

“You ought to go up to the farmer’s market today then if you haven’t been yet.”

I raised an eyebrow and she said, “really it’s the biggest thing to do in town on Saturday and it’s right next to Church street, you can’t miss it. Just head straight on up this hill, you’ll see it”

Having nothing better to do I called to Jack and we started walking. I was dubious of being unable to miss a few carts of vegetables but we struggled up the hill anyway. It was longer and steeper than I had anticipated. But I took my slow panting time to look at the brick buildings that lined both sides of the street, they dated back to various points in the 1800s and I didn’t recognize any of the names of the tiny shops.

We could hear the farmer’s market before we saw it, music and crowd noise drifting down the block, but as we passed the Vermont Pub and Brewery which had a large scholarly Raven in the middle of its sign the road opened up. The park ahead of us was a mess of people and canopy tents. Even the road we were about to cross was mobbed with stalls. The trees had their bright june green leaves shading the park. Jazz seemed to be emanating from a tiny stage just visible through the crowd.  As we moved forward Jack quickly spotted one stand after another that was selling baked goods or fresh made lemonade, the line at the stand with the sign “Rookie’s Root Beer” stretched past a whole row of stalls.

We discovered that this massive event happened every weekend, all summer. In the winter it simply moves indoors. It was especially busy today because it was the first weekend of the annual Jazz Festival. The Jazz festival seemed to have taken over the whole downtown. The tourist shopping district was the next street over called Church Street. There was a street performer on almost every corner. Near the top of Church Street was the Ben and Jerry’s scoop shop which was almost as mobbed as the farmer’s market. A woman walking by me said to her friend “the only time I see Ben and Jerry’s busier is on free cone day.”

As the afternoon heat set in we settled in the public library, which was one of the few buildings that had air conditioning and was open to the public without the need to at least buy a drink. I let Jack run free through the kid’s section and tried to find out more about the history of this little city in the Historical reading room. It was very much a college town, with the top of the main hill in town crested by the University of Vermont, Champlain college and Burlington College also maintaining buildings downtown. It’s population of just over 60,000 people put it as the largest city in Vermont. It was settled in 1783 but by that point it was already the home of a Revolutionary by the name of Ethan Allen who’s Green Mountain Boys had been important in the battle of Ticonderoga. It was a large port town throughout the 1800s, which explained why most of the decent looking buildings dated from the 19th century. 45 miles south of the Canadian Border and 95 miles south of Montreal, it was an important stop between Canada and New York city to the south and all towns west along the Erie Canal.  It’s most famous current resident is Bernie Sanders, Senator and Presidential Candidate. I was about the thumb through some of the most recent newspapers when I realized I had not seen Jack in awhile. I peeked my head out over the balcony over the kids section and saw nor heard any sign of him. I rushed down the stairs ignoring the wide wooden balustrade in my haste and checked around for him. But Jack was nowhere to be found.