It was your typical spring day. The birds were singing in the trees, sunlight shone down, the temperature was just right and there was not a cloud in the sky. Everything just felt peaceful. Various kids in the neighborhood were playing on their front lawns or biking together. It was the picture of tranquility. Yet, something felt amiss, as if everything would change. Very soon, it would.
 
I walked outside, yawning and stretching. I had on checkered shorts and my new favorite Aeropostale shirt. Trying to straighten my messy brown hair, I grabbed my bike and hopped on, starting my ride to town square. I loved biking and it was perfect because of my long legs. Rushing by various houses, the wind blowing, I was already thinking about what I was going to do with my friends today.
 
"Ray! Wait up!"
 
I turned around and saw Larissa racing after me, trying to catch up. Ben was behind her, his long athletic legs making him cover twice the distance than she did. Ben came up and blew his black bangs out of his eyes. He was an athlete and one of the popular kids. Unlike the other popular kids, however, he was nice and we had become best friends. Larissa came up to us eventually, scowling at Ben. Larissa was an average height and had her brownish-blond hair down and past her shoulders. Her piercing blue eyes glared at us. She was fairly pretty and was today decked out in a purple t-shirt and blue jeans. After talking for a bit, we headed into town.

  Various shops were decked-out on the street and many people were out today. A street performance was ahead, and farther down the boardwalk could be seen in the distance. Ben, Larissa and I were running around laughing and joking. We went into pizza shop and got some pizza. We even went to the movies. Later that afternoon, we were sitting on a bench watching people hurry past us. Ben and Larissa were bent over a map and trying to figure out what to do today. I stared off into the distance.

 
My attention was caught by a passerby. It was a man, dressed in a trench coat, which was odd because of the warm weather. He had a panicked look in his eyes and he ran down an alley. He was holding a strange object. I slipped away from my friends, vanishing into the crowd of people. I found the man. He was facing a woman and they were talking. I hid behind a trash can and listened. There was almost no light in this alley and everything looked rundown. Only snippets of conversation could be heard.

 
" We have to hide this."

 
"The very fabric of time could be affected!"

 
"I lost them but they might come back."

 
Voices could be heard nearby. While I looked up in surprise, the man and woman looked up in fear. The man shoved the machine at the woman and ran. The woman ran too, but then she dropped the machine! She did not notice. I walked up to it slowly and stared at it. A time machine? From the conversation I had heard I had assumed that was what it was. It had gold design on it, and various buttons covered the machine as well. I heard running feet come up behind me but it was only Ben and Larissa.

  "Where the heck where you? We were worried...you just vanished. Ray!" they said, overlapping each other. I shushed them and picked up the the time machine. Ben and Larissa looked at it.

  "What is that?" Larissa whispered.

  "Guys, I think this is a time machine." I stated.

  Ben and Larissa looked at each other.

  "Yeah."

  "Come on Ray, I think you're just tired. Lets get out of this alley. Its so dark and isolated..."

  They didn't believe me. Even I realized how crazy it must sound. As we were about to leave, a shrill voice screeched from behind us.

  "There it is! They have it! " A woman screamed at us. She was dressed in a motorcycle outfit and was smoking a cigar. We stood, frozen in shock. I pressed a button on the time machine as she closed in on us and suddenly everything was gone.

 
Arriving sometime in the past was odd and startling. We ended up in a crowd and got swept onto a bus. Somehow that woman from the present had followed us to kill us and get the machine, and this was the only way to escape and hide. Unfortunately, I had guessed the time period we were in. We were in Berlin, Nazi Germany. This bus was full of Jews headed to die, and we were going to join them. I felt oddly like I had to help these people. I saw a boy across from me. He was just another innocent Jew. All of a sudden I couldn't help myself and leaned in, saying to him "We can help you."
 
I saw the shocked look on the boy's face. He seemed happy but unwilling to trust us. He looked short, and had long black hair with dark eyes. The boy ignored us and turned away. Almost all the people on the bus were giving us weird looks. I could see what they thought was odd. We were still dressed in our 21st Century clothes. Ben and Larissa gave me worried glares.
 
The next thing I knew, Nazis were pushing us onto a crowded train carriage. There was barely any room. Many people cried out in protest. I did too. I remembered that Nazis loaded the Jews onto trains like these and they suffocated. It was too late to fight. We were already on the train before we knew it. As if knowing he would not live very long, the boy turned around and suddenly started to talk to us. Surprised, we learned his family was still in Berlin and wouldn't know where he was, and that he was only 12. The boy's name was Joshua. We talked for what seemed like eternity and became friends. Eventually, he turned away and fell into a deep sleep.

  After sitting for what felt like hours, I was angry. Ten people on the train had died and I was horrified. My horror quickly turned into anger. I was angry that all these poor innocent people were being treated like dirt and I was angry at the Nazis. Ben was asleep and Larissa couldn't hold it in anymore.

 
"Why don't we just travel to the future?" she asked, scared.

 
"And leave all these people?" I demanded, "Then we are no better than the Nazis."

 
Suddenly the train came to a stop. We left the train and I almost puked seeing the dead behind us, their lifeless eyes forever seeing no more. We continued on into the unknown.

 
"No!" I screamed as the soldier tried to take the time machine away from me. It was our only hope of getting home and helping these people. We were in one of the Concentration Camps. It was scary. Barbed wire covered the gates, and Nazis were everywhere. The sky was cloudy and it seemed like there was a sad atmosphere hanging around the camp.

 
The Nazi soldier pushed me down and spit in my face.

 
"Respect the Fatherland, you worthless Jew."

 
"I'm not a Jew!" I screamed.

 
"That's what they all say. Don't even try." he smirked.

 
I stood up, blood on my face. It was dark now. We all headed to bed, and I whispered to Ben.

 
"I think I know how to help all these people escape, and get the time machine. Tell everyone to pass on this message..."

 
Later that night, the plan started. We broke into the officers cabin and stole the time machine. As we ran away, there was mass pandemonium everywhere. What seemed like thousands of people ran out. We lit rags on fire and kept throwing them at the Nazis, as well as stones and other objects. Then I noticed Joshua was limping, and that like some other people in the crowd, had been shot by the soldiers. I grabbed him and dragged him behind me but he was very heavy and was bleeding alot. It seemed like he was about to die. So, I did the only thing I could think of. I turned on the time machine and pressed the button that would take us to the present.

 
It wouldn't work. I collapsed to the ground and looked up. The same woman who had tried to track us down in the present was here, and was going to kill us to get the time machine.

 
"Ha! I knew you would fail in the end..." she chuckled.
 
"Who the heck are you?!" I screamed back.
 
"That's none of your buisness little boy. Still it is tempting to tell you. I come from a society that wants to get world domination. That's all we care about and I wouldn't have even cared about you and your friends if you had just given us the machine...but you didn't unfortunately and you must pay the consequences. This could let us change time itself to our advantage. You have no escape child..."


But I had a plan. Signaling Larissa, she started singing Broadway show tunes and distracting everyone. The one guy looked surprised and stared, dropping his gun in confusion. The lady looked away too, screaming for her to be taken away. Then I kicked the woman in the face and pressed the button on the time machine. This time it worked. Larissa, Ben, Joshua and I started to travel to our present. The woman was left in the past forever as I smashed the time machine to dust. We vanished one by one.

 Present

  Later on, Joshua was glad we had saved him. Though he missed his life in the past, he was still interested in our time. I convinced my parents to adopt him (though they wondered where he came from, we never told), and before I knew it, he was my brother. We didn't drastically change the course of history, except for the fact that now there was a chapter in history on Jews overrunning a camp and escaping. There was also a myth of four mysterious kids who disappeared before some soldier's eyes. All in all, we had an exciting and interesting adventure. I wouldn't have changed it for the world.