"Did you hear that?" Liz asked. Emma lifted her head up from the computer.
"Sounded like laughter." Emma said. "It sounded like it came from our toilet." She looked over at the office toilet. Liz looked towards it too as the door slowly creaked open.
"Surprise!" A voice said. Out of the small room stepped Steven.
"What were you doing in there?" Liz asked.
"Arriving." He said with a huge grin on his face. "I can't get over how different you two look."
"You look pretty different yourself." Liz told him. "You look like you've aged ten years." Steven smiled at that comment.
Steven's hair was thinner and greyer than it had been the previous day. In fact he was balding pretty badly. It wasn't the only thing different about him. He had a few more wrinkles on his face for one thing. His Wilko polo had a giant white 'W' on the back.
His name badge was now illuminated by some sort of colour changing light. The text was on some sort of small graphic display and was alternating every few seconds between 'STEVEN', 'WILKO' and 'ASST. MANAGER'. He was also wearing new glasses which appeared to have some blinking lights in them too. The whole look was in a word - distracting.
"You always were the clever one Liz." He said. "I am here from the future, ten years in fact. I have travelled in time."
Emma looked up from her computer. She was used to Steven's hi-jinks so had been largely ignoring him until now. "Have you been sniffing the cheap air fresheners from the car care aisle again?" She asked him.
"No, I'm trying to explain. I came here from the future using this." He held up a small hand-held device covered in buttons. "It allows me to travel in time."
"So why are you here?" A sceptical Liz asked.
"To bring you gifts from the future." He looked around. "Oops I forgot to bring her, again." He pushed a few buttons and there was a bright flash of light that briefly blinded Emma and Liz. Steven's future glasses automatically darkened to prevent eye damage.
Standing besides Steven now was Carly. Dressed as fashionably as ever. There were a few streaks of grey in her blonde hair. Under her eyes was some rainbow coloured glittery make up. "About time." She said angrily to Steven. "I've been waiting ages. If you can't learn how to work that thing properly," she pointed at Steven's device, "I'm taking it off you." She looked around and noticed Emma and Liz who were both staring at her, obviously shocked. "Hi ladies, I'm from the future, blah, blah, blah."
"This is incredible." Said an amazed Emma.
"It changes my whole world view." Said an equally amazed Liz.
"Oh, I get it," Steven said, somewhat annoyed, "when I tell you, I'm from the future, nobody believes me but when Carly says it everyone's like wow, this is incredible."
"Oh shut up," Carly said, "we've got work to do." She handed Steven a very large carrier bag.
"Ah yes." Steven said as he started explaining to Liz and Emma. "In the future we have a bit of an issue. All this crazy stuff keeps turning up in the store."
"In my salon too." Carly added
"What kind of crazy stuff?" Liz asked.
"All sorts of magical items and weird technology. You name it and it has appeared - spell books, ray guns, amulets, potions, strange clocks, glowing crystals, board games, bizarre helmets not to mention a small mountain of remote controls."
"I see." Said Emma.
"Anyway," Steven continued, "Liz, she's the manager now, has been locking it all away in the safe." Steven pointed at the safe behind Emma.
"Oh, where am I in the future?" A curious Emma asked. Steven and Carly exchanged a panicked look with each other before Steven turned back round.
"So anyway," he carried on without replying to Emma, "the safe is full to bursting. No more room. We needed somewhere to take the items. I'd just about figured out this time travel thing." He waved the device again. "Carly, and I discussed it and I came up with the idea of spreading it all through the history of the shop. That way we keep our present free of all this strange stuff."
Liz thought that Steven hadn't thought this through very well.
He walked up to Emma's desk. "So this is for you." He emptied out about half the contents of the bag on her desk. "Gifts from the future." He handed the bag back to Carly.
"Where are you going now?" Liz asked.
Steven started pushing buttons on the device. He started waving his arms around "We're going to grab our Furbies, Rubik's cubes and our hula-hoops. We're going to slip on our winkle-pickers and our hot-pants, listen to some cool tunes on our cassette walkmans and head off to the nineteen nineties." He pushed a button and vanished in a flash of light.
Carly was left behind. "I don't think Steven has a good grasp of pop culture." She told them. Liz nodded.
"I don't think Steven has a good grasp of anything." Liz said just before Carly vanished too.
Emma looked at the pile of random objects on her desk. "We've no idea what any of this stuff does."
"Or how it works." Liz added.
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