“Oh, Marty!” Lorraine cried. “That was so wonderful! Thank you!”
Marty shrugged.
“What did you say your name was?”
The voice was the familiar rasp of Mr. Strickland, who was now at Marty’s side. Marty coughed, looked into the eyes which resembled a pair of slit trenches.
“Marty,” he said.
“Last name.”
“Uh…Brown.”
“Well, here’s some friendly advice for you, Mr. Uh-Brown. Don’t slack off in my school.”
“Slack off, sir?” Marty murmured, his tone questioning.
“In the vernacular, that means don’t screw around,” Strickland said. “Understand?”
“Yessir. And thank you, sir.”
Strickland turned and marched away just as the bell rang. Lorraine hopped up, collected her books, and ran over to Marty.
“Thanks again, Marty,” she smiled. “Maybe I’ll see you later?”
It sounded more like a prayer than a suggestion. Marty nodded and pretended he was late for class.
Returning to Doc Brown, he noted that once again George McFly had flown the coop.
“He said he had a class,” Doc Brown explained. “But he looked like he was getting ready to have a good cry, if you ask me.”
“This is getting ridiculous, Marty murmured.
“That’s the way life is, my boy. Try to be a hero or impress somebody and everything goes wrong. But when you’re not trying, you can fall down the toilet and come up with gold.”
“Yeah.”
“So what’s next?”
“I guess I just have to keep after George. He’s the key. Until we can get him to ask for the date, nothing’ll happen.”
“Maybe we can get your mother to ask him,” Doc Brown suggested.
“No. That won’t work.”
“How do you know?”
“Because girls in 1955 never asked guys for dates. At least that’s what Mom says. They never called them on the phone, asked them out, or did anything that was fun until the boy thought of it.”
“Hmmm.”
“I’ll grab him again after school,” Marty said. “It’s the only thing we can do.”
Doc Brown nodded. “You know, it might be better if you took a shot at him alone,” he suggested. “It could be he feels cramped with both of us around, particularly since I’m an old guy of thirty-five.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Marty shrugged.
“I’m gonna go back and study those tapes you made,” Doc said. “They may tell me something I need to know about how the time machine runs. If we’re gonna blast you back to ’85 Saturday night, I’ll have to know everything possible about that boat and how she operates.”