July 18^th, 2000

Dear Kate,

I am so sorry that I haven’t written for quite some time. I ended up having quite the adventure, and I was very close to introducing you to Emily Carr! I’m getting a little off track here, let me start from the beginning. It all started when you sent me Emily Carr’s biography and I very carelessly left it lying around.

I was staying at an inn next door to an art exhibition that had a lot of Emily’s work in it. I visited the exhibition quite often, and I left your letter as well as Emily Carr’s biography on a bench in the exhibition while I went to get myself a drink. When I came back, the biography was gone! I was franticly searching everywhere for it when a young woman approached me, she asked if I had lost something and I told her that had I lost a piece of paper. She held up the biography and asked if that was it. I grabbed the biography, thanked her for finding it and got ready to go back outside when she grabbed my arm and asked what kind of sick joke I was playing. I asked her what she meant and she told me that she was Emily Carr and she wanted to know why I had a biography about her, written as if she was dead and saying that she did things that hadn’t happened yet. I became scared, really scared! Should I tell her the truth that I was from the future? That I had a time machine and I was travelling through time? Would she believe me, would she have people come and take me away?

I ended up telling her the truth. She didn’t believe me, and I didn’t blame her. I agreed to show her the time machine hat. She was pretty impressed with it. I even showed her how it worked. I told her all about you, Kate. I explained to her why I had her biography and how I got it. I even told her that she would become more famous and I must say that she became a little bit of a show-off then. ‘"I’m going to be a really famous artist? There will be books about me? Students will do projects about me?" I was getting really annoyed with her at that point but I suppose I would have been that happy and excited if I learned that I would soon become famous!

So, Emily Carr knew that I was a time traveler and I was very glad that she didn’t tell anyone. Imagine how harassed I would have been if everyone knew that I had a time machine! Emily and I met a few times for lunch, and we discussed many things. It was going pretty well, except for her boasting about fame when one day she told me that she wanted to know more about her sister’s death, and that she wanted to prevent it. It took me a while to figure out what she was talking about. In the biography it says that Emily’s younger sister dies at an early age, which she does. I suppose that Emily had been keeping that to herself for a few days and just couldn’t hold it in any longer. She told me she wanted to borrow my time machine, go to the year 2000, read more about her sister’s death and then go back to the time of her death and prevent it!

I was very nervous. Just think, if making a Big Mac too early totally changed the future, what would happen if someone, who was supposed to die, didn’t die? I couldn’t even begin to imagine the torment that would go on. So, I came right out and said it, "Things happen for a reason Emily, and we can’t change history!" We had a little argument and she said that she really wanted to save her sister but I kept saying no. The next few days she kept asking, and asking but I just kept saying no and I now wish that I had explained why she couldn’t go back, but I didn’t.

After a week or two, she didn’t bother me about it anymore and I thought she finally excepted the truth. How wrong I was! One night while I was peacefully sleeping in my bed, I heard someone in my rented room. At first I thought it was a burglar and I was very scared. I grabbed my hairbrush, (it was the only thing I could think of to protect myself, and besides it was the middle of the night) I ventured to where the sounds were coming from and I found Emily Carr with the hat. She had many papers in her hand, and when I looked closer I realized that she had traveled through time and found out more information about her sister’s death. She told me that I couldn’t stop her and that she was going to go and save her sister! I grabbed a hold of her and told her that the future has already been messed up because of me, that the year 2000… I didn’t get to finish my sentence though. We were already off to the year 2000!

We ended up in Europe, so it wasn’t a world run by McDonalds. Although there were quite a few posters and billboards about McDonalds, more then there ever were before. Emily looked dazed and confused, she was looking around at our world in pure astonishment! She couldn’t believe how different the cars were from her time, and how strangely the people dressed. She looked at the technology as if she were in a dream and I actually found it quite amusing to watch her as she still had the silly looking hat on and everyone was looking at her as if she were some sort of freak.

I quickly pulled Emily into a little, lonely looking coffee shop. I took the hat from her and asked her what she thought she was doing. I must admit, I felt a little intimidated because here I was, a teenager yelling at a young adult. I knew I shouldn’t have, but she didn’t realize how messed up things could get from the power of that simple little hat! She told me she was going to save her sister’s life, whether I would help her or not and tried to take the hat back, I hung unto it tight though. This time I explained to her why she couldn’t save her sister. I told her how by simply ordering a Big Mac at the opening of McDonalds ended up changing the whole future, and not for the better! She didn’t seem to really understand so I brought her to North America. When I saw with my own eyes how it actually looked, I almost started to cry. And you have to live in this everyday Kate? Poor, poor you!

Emily and I explored the new McDonalds world a little. And since Emily has never taken a bite out of a McDonalds hamburger, I even treated her to lunch. She didn’t like it very much though, I guess people from 1927 aren’t used to re-heated food. She quickly realized my train of thought though. She couldn’t believe that just by me ordering a Big Mac before it was made could lead to such an annoying world. And then she realized that making someone live on could have much worse consequences. I was very happy about that, but she soon became very sad because she really loves her sister.

We went back to 1927 and she spent a lot of quality time with her sister. It was very sweet, but sad at the same time because Emily knew that her sister was going to die soon, and Emily’s sister thought that everything was fine. Everything Emily and her sister do together will be for the last time. But, I know that Emily will now have many nice memories of her sister, so I guess in a way it’s good that she found out. Of course, in another way, it’s not so good because of the whole little adventure we had.

The next day I hugged Emily good-bye and wished her luck in the future, and now I’m back home. I’m trying to think of a way to fix this McWorld thing. Do you have any ideas?

Your friend,

Zoe

P.S - I put a poem I wrote in the envelope with this letter. It’s about Emily Carr, I hope you like it!