Part 1, if you missed it. And Part 2. And Part 3. And Part 4. And Part 5. And Part 6. And Part 7.
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“There?” Stumpy pointed a wing at the yellow rectangle of light from whence she came, now only sort of visible.
“Yes, yes,” said Ida, “And you need to hurry.”
“Why do I need to hurry? Isn’t this time travel? How can there not be enough time?”
“Penguins,” Ida muttered to herself, and then she was gone.
Now the walls were, again, covered in the dinosaur scene. With a staticky sound, Edgar fiddled with a dial, and then the hall was split down the middle, one side almost all Terry, the other a street somewhere in a city, pengumans sliding down ice-slicked sidewalks, buses on long, wide skis, some of them with a rubbery middle making them double, the back sides slipping sideways as they went.
Tall blocks of frozen apartments banked the streets, some over stores, some over restaurants. One shop offered “Wide and small” clothes; the restaurant next door had a bright, illustrated sign showing a squid with its tentacles all buddy, buddy around a krill, touting “Krillamari.”
Stumpy didn’t know what that meant but she was intrigued.
“Stumpy,” said the Edgar she wasn’t sure she actually wanted to see again, “you have to get going now.”
“Are you sure I have to change all this? It seems pretty OK to me.”
“You’ve seen the future.”
“I didn’t mind it. Oliver was alright for a guy with a tooth growing out of his head.”
“Do I need to get Aunty Ida back here?” Edgar’s beak hovered over the desk.
“I’m going, I’m going,” she said, and waddled off a few paces, the egg within an egg within an egg within an egg within an egg nearly shed of it’s layer and on to the next within an egg waiting patiently for her by the doorway.
She turned. “But how are you going to know if it’s fixed?”
“I can see over here.” He flapped his wing at the city side, where a penwoman was walking what looked like a dogfish on a leash. It was wearing a glittery vest and gold boots on its finfeet. “I told you it was a projector, right? So if you change things, it will change.”
“But it looks so nice,” she said, jumping as a siren roared from that side, a black and white squat ambulance tearing through the traffic on quad skis, the lights at the top flashing. “Well, mostly nice.”
“The Icening,” Edward said.
“Don’t the regular humans also have their own climate mishaps? So…”
Suddenly the scenes on both sides vanished, and again Aunty Ida’s face surrounded them. Her wild bun was yet wilder and the strands didn’t catch the light. For the first time, Stumpy noticed how ashen her skin looked.
“For heaven’s sake,” she said, the tone one that had run out of patience over epochs, “It’s the food. Are you happy? It’s the food, I can’t take the food. How am I supposed to advance science with a steady diet of raw fish innards? Not to mention the heads and the tails.”
She closed her eyes, breathed deeply. “The heads. And the tails,” she said.
“Fish heads and tails are the best part,” Stumpy said.
“And that’s entirely the problem. That. You have no idea. What you’ve done to Mark.”
“The chef guy? He seemed really talented,” she said, and then she was lost in the memory of that perfect, perfect feast.
“He was, Stumpy. He was before you went waddling through time and threw everything off. Everything. So what will happen is you will go back. And you will fix it.”
“But I like it.”
Ida tensed her mouth, the lines huge across the space. “We shall strike a deal,” she said.
“I’m listening,” said Stumpy.
“You fix this, and I’ll make you something so you can visit the other timeline whenever you want.”
“I thought you said that would rip a hole in space whatever.”
“Spacetime. Well I eat holes in spacetime for breakfast,” she said. She turned over her shoulder to talk to someone they couldn’t see. “Dot, I think we have another pillow.”
“You eat spacetime for breakfast?” Stumpy leaned against the wall, trying to work it out.
“Practically,” said Ida, her words tense and her voice low, “I have to. Because you have ruined all the food. Have we a deal?”
“How do I know you can do that?”
Edwin snorted, which was a very odd sound for a seagull.
“Stumpy, you should go while I’m feeling generous. Because there are other ways I can fix this, you know. And I suspect you don’t want to go down that road.”
TO BE CONTINUED…
A Bit to Read 
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