At seven thirty on the first Saturday in May, 1975, Marion Vernell answered the blue phone that hung on her kitchen wall on its third ring. She tucked the receiver between her face and her shoulder, so she could continue mixing her batter. 

‘Hello, Vernell residence.’

There was silence on the other end of the line.

‘Hello? Who is this?’

Still nothing.

‘I can assure you that I don’t find this the least bit amus…’

‘I’m coming, Mummy.’

Marion smiled.

‘I’m afraid you’re mistaken, dear; I don’t have any chil…’

The line went dead. Marion froze. She was still standing there with the receiver pressed against her face a minute later, and would’ve remained this way had she not been forced to snap out of it.

‘Love? Are you okay? Who was that on the phone?’asked her husband, Kevin.

‘Wrong number, I guess.’

‘Coffee?’

Marion shook her head and put the phone back on the hook. 

‘Coffee, yes, it’s right here.’ She turned to the counter, took the coffee pot off the hot plate and turned back to the table to fill her husband’s mug.

‘Don’t forget, I’ve got choir practice today, Mummy,’ said the eight or nine year old girl who was now sitting next to Kevin.

Marion stared at the child, who had her nose and Kevin’s dirty blonde hair. She also had eyes of an almost translucent blue, like no one on either side of the family.

‘Are you alright, Mummy?’

Marion stared at her a moment longer, then she slowly broke into a smile.

‘Yes, of course, Suzie. Eat your brekkie and clean0 your teeth, and we’ll get there right on eleven. Pancake?’

Eleanor Vance, who lived several thousand miles away from the Vernells, got a call at seven forty – ten minutes after Marion Vernell got hers.

‘Hello?’

‘I’m coming, Mommy.’

‘Nice try, jokers, but you are really barking up the wrong…’

The line went dead. 

For the next five minutes, Eleanor stood next to the nook between the living room and the kitchen of her small apartment with the phone glued to her hand. Then something flew over her head into the kitchen and stirred her.

‘Sorry, Mom; I guess it got away from me again.’

Eleanor turned slowly toward the source of her rude awakening and stared. The girl was her living image, apart from the ghostly blue eyes. Eleanor smiled.

‘You’re gonna kill somebody with that thing one day, creep.’

Stephanie Vance, a twelve-year-old whose conception was put down to a confusing encounter at a frat party that neither participant could recall, let her mother ruffle her hair before going into the kitchen and pouring herself some Corn Flakes.

At seven fifty, forty-one year old Helen Irons answered the shrill ringing of the avocado green phone that sat on her hall table.

‘Who is this?’ 

Helen and her husband Fred had been receiving nuisance calls since Helen put in a formal complaint with the council about the mess the errant kids in the neighbouring flats were making of the communal laundry. 

When she heard nothing but silence on the other end of the line, Helen pulled the whistle she’d purchased the day before out of her pocket and held it up to her mouth, ready to deafen the little smart-arses.

‘We’re coming, Mum.’

‘What the bloody hell are you playing at?’

The line went dead and Helen, who had just put the whistle in her mouth, froze. 

Five minutes later, two plump, rosy cheeked boys came barelling out of the second bedroom, elbowing and tickling one another, playfully vying for custody of a soccer ball. They spoke in unison.

‘Mum, can we go down the park and have a kick-about?’

Helen’s mouth fell open. The whistle dropped to the floor. A wink of a shimmering blue eye from each of her ten-year-old sons brought her out of her stupor.

‘Alright then, but eat your breakfast first, and no getting into mischief with your mates down the way; Mrs Kirk screamed to the council last time. Promise me, both of ya.’

‘O-kay,’ grinned Steven Irons.

‘We promise,’ grinned Simon Irons.

‘Get on with ya,’ Helen smiled.

By eleven-fifty-nine, forty thousand, eight hundred and fifty one couples and individuals, none of whom were especially affluent or remarkable, were settling down to bed after what was to them just another normal Saturday.

Although they had all been leading reasonably happy child-free existences the day before, they drifted off to sleep, blissfully unaware that their lives, and the lives of every man, woman, and child dwelling the Earth in the present and future, had just been changed dramatically. You see, the children were the gift that kept giving.

Some became scientists, covering every discipline from botany to quantam mechanics; others found their calling in economics, politics, social services, and the arts. There were also doctors, and teachers, and representatives of every other vocation which would lead to the children using their talents to, to use a dusty old Earth cliche, make the world a better place.

The benevolent ones who had gone back in time and scattered these priceless jewels all over the world sat back and observed the results of their experiment. Earth was as happy and as productive and as peaceful as it was ever going to be.

Things could only go downhill from here.