Napoleon meets the 21st century

Chapter 1: "Oh, THAT'S what autism is"

Napoleon's POV
I don't know what went wrong. All I was trying to do was invade Austerlitz as planned, but then this girl came in through a hole that came out of nowhere. She said hi and we talked for a bit, then the hole started getting smaller so she ran to it, still holding my hand. I wanted to tell her but I doubt she'd understand me. Curse my strong French accent! After we jumped, we ended up in this building. Then, before I knew what was happening, the machine I assume the girl went through, exploded and we got covered in debris and we coughed to get smoke out of our lungs. The girl stared in shock at her broken contraption.

"No! I worked SO hard on this! It won me three Science Fairs!" cried the girl.

"I'm sorry about your machine, now, how long till I can get back to invading Austerlitz?" I asked.

"Days, weeks, months, or maybe even a year or so. I don't know! All I know is that my time machine is completely destroyed" the girl said while crying. Someone must've heard us cause a man came in the room a second later seeing the girl wiping tears and snot from her face, and me stand there completely and utterly clueless.

"Hannah, baby, are you ok?" he asked.

"No, I was trying to go back in time so I could say hi to Napoleon Buonaparte. But when I went back, I forgot to let go of his hand and I inadvertently brought him here and the over-stimulation caused the machine to explode" she explained.

"Hey, dad, I accidentally walked in on Mary and now she won't stop throwing things a....wait, who's this?" asked a boy who came down the stairs dressed in orange and black attire.

"Oh, God. Not again" said the man who was apparently the father of the group rolling his eyes and climbing the stairs to help the girl named 'Mary'. 'Hannah' soon followed her father, and I went up too, curious as to what was happening. The father grabbed Mary, a stuffed hippo, and sat down in a chair as he attempted to calm the girl down.

"It's ok, Mary. It's ok, I'm here" he said.

"What's wrong with Mary?" I asked. The girl screamed, must've not heard me come up the stairs.

"She has autism" she said.

"Huh?" I asked.

"You really don't know what autism is?" asked Hannah back.

"I honestly have no idea what you're talking about" I replied. Hannah took me down to a room filled with books and a big black square thing on a desk.

"What's this?" I asked, pointing to the big black square thing.

"It's called a computer, you use it to look up things, go to websites, or talk to friends" she explained.

"Websites?" I asked.

"(Sigh) you have so much to learn about this century" she responded. What does she mean by that? She took me to this 'website' called 'Mayo clinic' (Which btw, is a real medical website, look it up) and told me all I need to know about autism.

"Oh, THAT'S what autism is" I said.

"Yeah, after Mary was born, we didn't see the signs until she was 3-years old. We did research and we read that early intervention was the best thing, but we didn't have the funds to pay for it, so we just did what we could with her" she told me. Wow.

"Yikes! I didn't even know that such a disease existed" I said.

"That's because autism wasn't a thing during your time, there was no reported case of it until 1943. And you were born in 1769" said Hannah.

"That's 174 years!" I exclaimed.

"I know right" she said.

"So, Hannah, why was Mary born with autism?" I asked.

"No one knows, no one knows what causes autism. Some people believe it's genetics, others believe in some environmental factors, and then there's the popular yet false myth that bad parenting causes autism. But that's simply not true" she explained.

"I'm guessing there's no cure?" I asked.

"You couldn't be more right, there's no cure for autism yet. Scientists are still, to this day, trying to find a cure" she said. Man, I do have a lot to learn about this century.