At ten in the morning the following day, Alex was waiting around his house impatiently. When the doorbell rang, Alex ran as fast as he could to the door. Rufus ran beside Alex and halted at the door. Opening the door, Alex found two familiar faces, both belonging to his friends, Yasmin and Danny. Rufus was yelping and bouncing around in excitement to see both of them.

"Hi, Alex. Hi, Rufus," said Danny as he stepped inside the house.

Getting inside, he knelt to the floor and gave Rufus a tummy rub.

"Alex, nice to see you," said Yasmin after she had entered the house.

"Did you remember to bring the equipment?" asked Alex.

"It's in the bag," said Yasmin, pointing to the backpack she was carrying on her back.

"I brought provisions in my bag," said Danny.

"Provisions?" inquired Alex.

"Flashlight, walkie-talkie, food, anything that might come in useful during our time at the academy," replied Danny. "Let's go to the academy."

"Let's go to the living room; my backpack is there," said Alex.

Alex led his friends into the living room, where he got his bag and placed it on his back.

"Ready, everyone?" asked Alex.

"Ready," said Yasmin and Danny in unison.

Alex took out the card that Calvin had given him and tapped the card once. A thin yellow glowing line appeared. It widened and stretched until it formed a rectangular doorway, a portal to the Time Traveling Cafe.

Alex, Yasmin, and Danny stepped through the portal, arriving at the cafe. The portal behind them disappeared into thin air. Alex tapped the card two times, and another portal appeared. It was the gateway to the academy. Yasmin and Danny had never seen the academy before; this was the first time they had set foot in the cafe. They had only glimpsed the cafe before, not daring to enter the place.

Danny, being curious, wanted to look around the cafe, but he knew helping his friend was the top priority. He would get another chance to explore the cafe on the way back home.

The three friends stepped through the portal and into the academy.

"Greetings!" said a virtual person.

The three of them tried to find out where the source of the hologram was coming from.

"You are all late to class," said the virtual person.

"Class?" asked Danny.

"Class has already begun thirty minutes ago," said the virtual person. "Please follow me."

"It's the weekend," protested Danny. "I won't go to any class."

"Alerting roboguard," said the virtual person.

"I'll go, I'll go," said Danny nervously.

"Please follow me to class," said the virtual person.

The three of them silently followed behind the virtual person. Alex looked for an opportunity for him and his friends to slip out of sight of the virtual person, but there was no opportunity with a roboguard following them at a distance.

"Please wait here," said the virtual person once they had reached a door.

The virtual person disappeared, and a moment later, the door opened to reveal a middle-aged lady.

"Come in," said the lady.

The three of them followed the lady inside the room to find themselves standing in front of a class with students about their age.

"Please tell me your names?" asked the lady as she looked through a list of student names on her electronic tablet.

"We are new here," stated Yasmin.

"I didn't get any notice from the academy about new students. Then again, I can't blame them for not informing me about it. They've forgotten to inform me before about other things," said the lady.

"I am Mrs. Gabby, and I am your science teacher," said Mrs. Gabby. "Please take a seat. I will get your names after class has ended."

The three of them looked around and saw five empty seats, with three of them one behind another in a column. They took their seats with Yasmin in the front seat, Danny in the middle, and Alex in the last seat behind Danny.

Mrs. Gabby approached, carrying three textbooks. She gave each of them one book before returning to her table at the front of the classroom.

"We are on page 25," said Mrs. Gabby.

The three of them turned to the page to find that the class was studying 'Butterfly Effects'.

"As I mentioned, if you were to travel in time to the past and cause a minor change in events, a small ripple in time, it could lead to a significant alteration in the future timeline, creating a series of unpredictable events," Mrs. Gabby explained.

Yasmin, Danny, and Alex looked at each other. Had they all heard Mrs. Gabby just say 'travel in time'?

"Did she say 'travel in time'?" whispered Yasmin to her friends.

"Maybe she is talking hypothetically," whispered back Danny.

"It sounded real, the way she mentioned it," whispered Alex. "Like the Time Traveling Cafe. Calvin mentioned he's a member of the academy."

"This place is called the 'Academy of Time and Space,'" whispered Yasmin.

"There will be no talking or whispering in class," Mrs. Gabby declared. "Would any of you like to share what is so interesting?"

"We were just talking about class, time travel," replied Alex.

"If you want to be a time traveler one day, you will pay attention to my class," said Mrs. Gabby.

So the three friends sat in silence and listened to the rest of the class. Once the class was over, they would be able to snoop around the academy and find out more about the mission that Alex's father had gone on.

"And that concludes today's lesson. Class is dismissed," said Mrs. Gabby.

Finally, class was over, and the three of them were free to leave the classroom. However, as they proceeded to get up and leave the room, a crowd of students rushed towards the door. Yasmin, Danny, and Alex were swept along with the crowd of students who were exiting the classroom in a hurry. They managed to break free from the crowd and found themselves in a corridor in the academy.

The walls of the corridor were white, and the architecture was smooth and futuristic. There was nothing around except for a student near a wall, reading a magazine. The student's face was covered by the magazine.

"Why don't we talk to the student?" suggested Alex.

The three of them headed towards the student quietly, until they were standing in front of the magazine.

The three of them looked at the magazine cover: 'Galactocentric: The Best Source of Information in the Galaxy.'

Yasmin had unknowingly read the writing on the magazine cover aloud.

"Galaxy?" Yasmin questioned.

"The Milky Way," stated the girl reading the magazine.

"Galactocentric? I've never heard of the magazine before," stated Yasmin.

"It's not from around here," replied the girl reading the magazine.

"You mean it's from another country?" questioned Yasmin.

"Not from this planet," replied the girl reading the magazine.

The three friends looked at each other, puzzled. A magazine from outer space? They had to see with their own eyes what the magazine contained.

The three of them hurried to the side of the girl reading the magazine to get a glimpse of the page she was reading.

"Qarukkin Minninsha: Real or Myth?

Qarukkin Minninsha is a place unlike anything in this galaxy or universe. It is a paradise where the sky is blue, the grass is green, the air is breathable, and the water is drinkable. The weather is suitable for living beings to survive. The place is free from pollution, war, and hunger.

Lost in the mists of time, Qarukkin Minninsha, a fabled realm of mystery and intrigue, continues to captivate the imagination of many. Despite countless theories, the existence of this legendary place remains unproven.

We interviewed deep space explorer Neigh Glup, and he told us that he has charted the position of the place on a star chart. He believes the solar system to which it belonged was destroyed eons ago, and in the process, the planet was deflected off its course around its sun and ended up entering another solar system.

There are astronomers who believe that this place might not have been part of our galaxy or universe to begin with. It was always part of a parallel universe and can only be reached by traveling to the parallel universe."

"Qarukkin Minninsha sounds like an interesting place to explore," said Danny.

"It is," stated the girl reading the magazine.

She closed the magazine and looked at Yasmin, Danny, and Alex. The three friends couldn't believe that her eyes were purple.

"You're the three new students in class," said the girl. "We never got to know your names."

"I'm Alex," said Alex. "And these are my friends, Danny and Yasmin."

"What is your name?" asked Yasmin.

"Tara," replied the girl.

"Was the teacher really talking about time travel, or was it hypothetical?" Yasmin asked Tara.

"Time travel is real. I mean, we all know that. The academy deals with time travel," said Tara, confused.

"We know time travel is real," said Yasmin, embarrassed.

"Everyone who is invited to the academy is told about what the academy does before arriving here," said Tara. "You were invited, weren't you?"

"My dad asked me to come to this place. He works here," said Alex.

"He works here? What is his name?" inquired Tara.

"Jim Johnson. I don't think you know him," said Alex.

"You're joking," said Tara.

"That's my father's name, believe me or not, I am not making it up," said Alex, irritated.

"It's just that he went missing on a mission," said Tara. "A mission to find Qarukkin Minninsha."

Yasmin, Alex, and Danny looked at each other in great surprise. Alex's father went looking for the mythical place in space and disappeared. Why would someone go looking for something that didn't exist? Did it actually exist?