“I’ve got on my Bubblegum Taffy Hot Pink High Heels!” announced 12-year-old Aiyana Mitchell from the back porch.
No one answered.
Her best friend Maya was at sleepaway camp for six whole weeks. The neighborhood kids were visiting cousins. Even the pool felt too big and too quiet without someone to race.
Every summer day felt exactly the same.
Wake up. Swim. Dry off. Repeat.
Aiyana wanted something unexpected. Something different.
“My time-traveling shoes,” she whispered, pulling the sparkling pink laces tight.
Aunt Olivia had given them to her at the start of summer.
“These belonged to a magical shoemaker in England,” Aunt Olivia had said with a wink. “I found them at Portobello Road Market years ago. They only work for someone brave enough to try.”
No one else believed Aunt Olivia’s stories. But Aiyana did.
Her mother definitely did not.
“It’s better to stay in the present,” her mom always said. “Adventure is fine. Just don’t go looking for trouble.”
Still, Aiyana had hidden the shoes in an old box under her bed. Just in case.
Now she slipped them on.
“Somewhere beautiful,” she decided. “Somewhere not boring.”
She clicked her heels together three times, blinked twice, and said the rhyme Aunt Olivia taught her.
“Two steps forward, three steps back,” she said.
Aunt Olivia had warned her of one rule: Never lose the shoes in another time.
The air spun around her, tugging at her hair and sleeves, as if the world had grabbed her and pulled her somewhere else.
When she opened her eyes, she was sitting in a wooden rowboat floating on a quiet lake. She wore a lace dress. A parasol rested in her hand. Swans glided past like drifting clouds.
It looked like one of her favorite Impressionist paintings.
For one perfect second, she felt important. Elegant. Brave.
Then the boat tipped.
The parasol slipped.
The world flipped.
Splash!
Freezing water swallowed her. The lace dress dragged at her legs. She kicked and grabbed the side of the boat, coughing.
And then she saw them.
Her Bubblegum Taffy Hot Pink High Heels were sliding off her feet.
They sank slowly, like two bright fish disappearing into shadow.
“No!” she cried. “Come back!”
They vanished into the dark water.
Her heart pounded so loudly she could hear it in her ears.
She wasn’t just wet. She wasn’t just embarrassed.
She was trapped.
“My lady! Are you hurt?” called a man in a striped full-body swimming suit from the shore. He dove toward her without waiting for an answer.
“My shoes!” Aiyana gasped. “They fell to the bottom. I need them.”
“Shoes?” he asked, treading water beside her.
“They’re not just shoes,” she whispered.
He nodded once and took a deep breath before diving.
Aiyana clung to the rocking boat. The lake smelled like mud and old leaves. What if the shoes were buried in the sand? What if he couldn’t see their bright pink color in the dark water?
What if she had to live here forever?
No phone. No air conditioning. No Maya.
She might never get home.
The man surfaced, shaking water from his hair.
“I cannot see them,” he said.
Her throat tightened.
“Please,” she begged. “Try again.”
He studied her for a moment.
“You do not belong here,” he said quietly.
She froze.
He dove again.
This time he stayed under longer. Much longer.
Aiyana squeezed her eyes shut.
She didn’t want to run anymore. She just wanted to get home.
Just as panic bubbled up in her chest, a hand burst through the water.
Clutched in it were two sparkling pink heels.
“I found them wedged between stones,” the man said, breathing hard. “You must hold onto what brings you home.”
Home.
Aiyana swallowed.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
She slid the wet shoes back onto her feet and tied them tightly—double knots this time.
Before she clicked her heels, she looked at the man one last time. For a second, he reminded her of Uncle Herb. Or maybe someone she hadn’t met yet.
“Will I see you again?” she asked.
He smiled in a way that felt familiar.
“You’ll see,” he said. “Time has a way of bringing people back.”
She clicked her heels. Blinked twice.
“Three steps forward, two steps back,” she said.
The lake dissolved into sunlight. The swans blurred. The boat faded.
In the blink of an eye, she was back on her porch in suburban Philadelphia.
Her mom called from inside.
“Aiyana! Dinner!” she said. “Please set the table.”
Water dripped from her hem as she walked into the kitchen.
Her mother stared at the puddles.
“Did you fall into the pool again?” her mom asked.
“Something like that,” Aiyana said.
Later, she slid the shoes back into their box under her bed. She still wanted to visit the Roaring Twenties. The Renaissance. Even outer space.
But maybe adventure didn’t mean escaping the present. Maybe it meant learning how to stand inside it—even when it felt quiet.
She slipped on her flip-flops and went downstairs to help set the table.
Summer suddenly felt a little less lonely.
Copyright 2020, 2026 Jennifer Waters
Pen Jen's Inkwell Podcast version:
“I’ve got on my Bubblegum Taffy Hot Pink High Heels!” announced 12-year-old Aiyana Mitchell, sitting on the back porch.
She lived in the suburbs of Philadelphia and spent one too many summer days at the swimming pool.
“My time-traveling shoes!” she declared. “I can close my eyes and travel to places in the future and the past!”
As she pulled the laces tight on her sparking pink heels, she thought of where she would like to travel for the first time. Of course, the pointy stiletto shoes were a special gift from her Aunt Olivia, who had outgrown time-traveling with age.
“These shoes are now yours,” Aunt Olivia told her niece. “Have the time of your life! I’ve traveled enough for now.”
As the story goes, the shoes originally came from an era of magic shoemakers in England during the late 1890s. She bought them on a trip to England from the Portobello Road Market without knowing their magic powers until she put them on her feet. Her aunt had used the shoes to travel to so many places that it seemed like she was on a constant vacation.
The family always said that her aunt was full of stories, and none of them could be true, but Aiyana always believed in her excursions and loved receiving her souvenirs. Now she was about to try the shoes for the first time for herself. Since her aunt didn’t have children, she gave the shoes to Aiyana, as long as she didn’t tell her mom about them.
“It’s better to stay in the present—forget about the past and wait for the future,” Aiyana’s mom explained, rolling her eyes at her sister’s imagination.
Despite her mother’s warning, Aiyana wanted the adventure and mystery of the time-traveling shoes. So, she hid them under her bed in what looked like a beat-up old shoebox, and her mom never noticed them.
Now that she was ready to use them, she decided that she’d better try traveling some place calm and serene.
“How about traveling to the early 1900’s to a lake with a boat and a fancy parasol and swans?” Aiyana asked aloud.
Although the present was full of sunshine and blue sky, she was eager to research the earlier era. So, she put on the shoes, clicked them together three times—saying the riddle that Aunt Olivia taught her to say for traveling back in time—while blinking her eyes twice and visualizing a scene from one of her favorite Impressionist paintings: “Two steps forward, three steps back!”
When she closed her eyes, she was transported to the other century, appearing wearing a lace dress and sitting in a boat on a lake. As she gathered her bearings, she grabbed the side of the boat with her left hand. The parasol slipped from her right hand.
“Oh, no!” she exclaimed, startled by the swans in the lake. Then, the boat capsized, and she fell into the lake with a splash.
“This really does look like a scene from a painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir,” Aiyana concluded, taking in the surroundings.
Her once curly hair had lost its bounce when doused with the water from the lake. She felt like a fat sponge. In all the commotion, Aiyana’s time-traveling shoes slipped off her feet and sank to the bottom of the lake.
“Now I’ll be stuck in the 1900’s forever!” she yelled, grabbing onto the side of the boat, kicking her feet. She pulled herself back up the side of the boat, sopping wet, and cried: “Someone help me get my shoes back!”
The lovely parasol floated on top of the lake as an upside-down umbrella across the rippling water.
“My lady! Let me help you!” proclaimed a proper gentleman in a striped, full body swimming suit, diving her direction.
“I’m from the year 2020, and I lost my time-traveling shoes within a minute of being here!” she clarified for the man. “If you could dive to the bottom of the lake, and find the shoes, so I could go back to 2020, I’d appreciate it so much.”
“That is quite a story, young lady,” the man noted. “They must be your favorite pair of shoes to have such a story!”
“If you don’t find them, I’m going to have to scour the bottom of the lake by myself, and I can’t swim in this dress!” she worried. “And I will probably drown, trying to find my shoes! My mom expects me to be in the present for dinner!”
“Right away, madam! I’ll find those shoes. Then you can travel anywhere you want,” the man quipped, who looked a little bit like her Uncle Herb from the present. “I’m putting on my goggles, and I’m about to descend into the deep.”
As the man dove into the lake, Aiyana squeezed water out her lacy dress and paddled out to the parasol on the lake.
When she raised the parasol, water dumped on her head, and she shook her head until she could see again. Then, the man swimming in the lake on her behalf popped his head above the water: “My lady, still no shoes!” He took a deep breath and went back underneath the water with a splash. A breeze blew over the lake.
“Maybe I should have settled for the swimming pool!” Aiyana deliberated. “It might’ve been easier than all this adventure.”
From beneath the water, a hand arose with the Bubblegum Taffy Hot Pink High Heels, dripping wet.
“I found your lovely footwear,” the man celebrated, handing her the shoes with sand filling in the toes.
“Thank you, kind sir,” Aiyana smiled, shaking the sand out of the shoes, and putting them back on her feet. “I’d rather live in the present. If I can come back to the past or brave the future, there must be a specific reason. I’m just so out of sorts.”
“Well, now you can go on your journey,” the kind sir proposed. “I’ll be swimming in the lake, if you return.”
Again, she put on the shoes, clicked them together three times, blinked her eyes twice, and this time repeated the riddle for traveling into the future: “Three steps forward, two steps back!” She visualized her mother’s swimming pool in her backyard.
With that, Aiyana returned to the present on the back porch in her Philadelphia home with her mother calling.
“I’m so glad to be home,” she whispered, sighing with relief. “There really is no place like it!”
“Aiyana, come help me make dinner,” her mother prompted. “What have you been doing out there all afternoon anyhow?”
As Aiyana walked into the kitchen, she created a trail of footprints and a puddle of lake water that stunned her mom.
“Did you just get out of the swimming pool?” her mom scolded her, wiping up the water with paper towels. “Please don’t tell me that you’ve been trying to figure out how to use those silly old shoes from Aunt Olivia.”
Aiyana ran upstairs to her bedroom before her mother could see her Bubblegum Taffy Hot Pink High Heels.
“Before I go time-traveling again, I need to ask my aunt for advice,” Aiyana considered. “It really has to go better next time. Maybe I should tie the shoes to my feet with ribbons. I’d really like to travel to all kinds of places, like the Roaring Twenties, the 50’s in America, the 1980s, the Renaissance, and future space travel. Time has no limit!”
With that, she put the shoes back into the old box underneath her bed and slipped on her flip flops—ready for the present.
Copyright 2020 Jennifer Waters
https://soundcloud.com/jen-waters/bubblegum-taffy-hot-pink-high-heels
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