The Accidental Time Traveller (14 page)

The prize ceremony was over and I stepped down from the platform.

“Son! That was fabulous,” Dad hugged me, crushing the fat envelope between us. “Brilliant. I loved the bit about the flapping fish and the squealing pigs.” Then Mum hugged me. “Christmas came after all!” she said. “Well done, Saul, I’m so proud of you.”

Then Agnes came dashing up to me. Only now I noticed she looked totally different. It looked like Agatha had given her a haircut. “That was fantastic,” she said.

“Yours was probably loads better,” I said.

Agnes shook her head. “Not a bit. Yours was real.”

Up at the front of the hall the choir had started singing – “We wish you a merry Christmas” – and a few red balloons floated up to the ceiling. I could smell hot mince pies. School was out and everyone was cheering. In all this buzz, Agnes stood quietly in front of me, with Agatha by her side.

“Hey, Agnes?” I said, “want to join our gang?”

Her jaw fell open and her pale blue eyes widened. “She certainly does,” Agatha said putting an arm around her shoulder. Agnes looked so stunned she could only nod her head.

Next thing my gang appeared, right next to me. Robbie and Will slapped me a high-five, then Agnes. “Hey,” I said, turning to Robbie and Will, “why don’t you two go with Agatha and Agnes to the den? They can show you how to make fire without matches.”

“Sure thing,” they immediately replied.

“I’ll be there in half an hour,” I said. “There’s something I need to do first.”

“Sure,” they chorused again as I turned and threaded my way out of the packed hall. Before I reached the door, about a hundred people had shouted, “Well done, Saul!”

I waved to Mum and Dad and ran out of the school and through the streets, the fat envelope with a whole £200 clenched in my hand. The sun had come out. The sky was blue and the white world sparkled.

I dashed over the road, up the Northgate, looking for number 79. My heart was thudding. I ran all the way to the quiet end of the street. Then I saw it: a tiny shop with three gold balls over the door.

TILLY’S PAWN SHOP

I slowed down. I was panting hard. Looking in the window I felt this thud of disappointment. I thought a gold shop would be special but this place looked like a junk shop. There were loads of china teapots and necklaces and milk jugs and stuff. But then, beside a guitar, I saw it, lying on a tiny scrap of purple velvet – a small gold ring. Next to it there was a piece of paper with the words
Pure gold
written on it. This was it! This
had to be the gold that would help Agatha get home.

I burst into the shop. A bell tinkled and the man seated behind the counter looked up. He had a white pointy beard and white hair down to his shoulders. “Ah! Good morning young man,” he said, “and what can I do for you?”

“The gold ring,” I blurted out, pointing to the window, “I want it.”

“Ah,” said the man again, lifting his glasses up to peer at me, “that one?” Then he shook his head. “I have other pretty rings.” He came out from behind the counter. With his little round glasses and pointy beard it was like he had stepped out of a wizard film.

“How much is it?” I asked. “The pure gold one? The one on the purple velvet?”

“Too much,” he replied, shaking his white head. “You might be interested in these?” He whisked a couple of rings out of a glass cabinet but I shook my head.

“No. It’s that one I want.” I pointed again. “It says it’s pure gold, and it looks like the perfect size.” I lifted my envelope up. “I’ve got money. I just won the history prize. I wrote an essay about Peebles in 1812.”

The man’s face creased into a smile. “Isn’t that marvellous?” He went over to the window, fumbled about, pushed aside the guitar and eventually brought out the pure gold ring. He breathed hard on it and rubbed it on his sleeve. “Pawn shops are sad places,” he said, more to the ring than to me. “People sell their dreams.” Then to my amazement he put the ring back in the window. “Save your prize money. I’m hoping the old woman raises enough money to buy her
granddaughter’s ring back. It’s a bonny one. Old too, very old.”

“But I need it. How… how much is it?” I stammered.

He stared at me, made little clucking sounds, then said, “I’d let it go for £180, I suppose.”

“I’ll take it,” I said, tearing open my envelope.

The man looked unsure, but he nodded then wrapped the ring in the purple scrap of velvet. “Dreams for sale,” he said, handing it towards me. At the same time he opened his other hand, waiting for the money. I put £180 into his hand and quickly he wrapped his fingers over the notes. Then he let me have the ring.

He stuffed the money into his till, muttering how a pawn shop was the saddest place on earth. “History, eh?” he said, as I made for the door, clutching the precious ring in both my hands. “There’s a lot of history and broken dreams here.” He swept his arm round the shop – at the guitars, clarinets, golf clubs, necklaces, bracelets, china plates and rings.

I opened the door. The bell tinkled. “Merry Christmas,” I shouted then dashed out into the street and headed for the sweet shop.

I was sure I’d been away longer than half an hour. I hurried over the snow-covered wasteland but kept stopping every two minutes to check the purple velvet was still in my pocket, and the gold ring was still in the velvet. As I got closer to the den I sniffed wood smoke in the wind. The wind on my cheek, I noticed, wasn’t biting cold like it had been.

By the time I reached the secret gap in the hedge I could hear Robbie, Will, Agatha and Agnes laughing in the garden. I wriggled into the gap but didn’t step through. Feeling like a spy, I looked and listened. The fire was burning bright. The four of them were
standing
with their backs to me and Robbie was flinging twigs into the fire. “Our gang is the best,” Will was
saying
, “and we do ace games.”

“Yeah,” Robbie piped up, “it’s totally amazing. We’re always having adventures and playing pirates and robbers and spies and soldiers. It’s the best fun.”

Good old Robbie. I smiled at that, glad I had bought his favourite sweets. Meanwhile my time-traveller’s mind was racing. We had the fire blazing. We had earth and air. I had a bottle of water. The crystal still hung from the tree, and now that the sun was shining we’d
get rainbows galore. The fire smoke made vapours. We had the yew tree. I remembered Michael’s song. And for the umpteenth time I patted my pocket. I had the gold!

Agnes was laughing. “I’m going to love this gang so much,” she said. “Oh, and we could trap rabbits and skin them and roast them and have picnics and midnight feasts.”

I heard Robbie make a loud, “Yuk,” noise. Agatha laughed.

I saw Will turn to Agatha and say, “You were already kind of in the gang as Randolph. So, I mean, if you’re hanging around, you can join again as Agatha.”

I stepped out and strode down the garden. “Agatha’s going home,” I announced, and they all swung round to look at me.

“Really?” said Agatha, wide-eyed. She dropped the twig that she’d had in her hand.

“Really,” I said, hoping this time it was. Then I tossed packets of jelly babies and midget gems to Robbie. I handed Agatha a tangerine. I gave Agnes a box of Maltesers and I gave Will a huge bag of smoky bacon crisps.

“Hey!” shouted Robbie, “The rich brainy kid is here to feed the poor,” and he crammed half the packet of jelly babies into his mouth.

We all sat down on the log to tuck into our feast. I bit into a Milky Way and watched Agatha unpeel the tangerine then eat it, segment by segment, as if it was the most delicious thing she’d ever tasted. “Yummy, scrummy,” she said, licking her lips.

Will munched on a few crisps, looking very
thoughtful
. “Is Agatha really going home?” he asked.

“Back to 1812,” I said, drawing the purple box from my pocket.

“Back to the body snatchers and the monkeys?” asked Robbie, his mouth full of jelly babies, “And the market days and the pigeon pie?”

“And the flapping fish?” asked Will, “And the games of cards and pipe smoke?”

“That’s right,” I said, feeling a lump in my throat after I’d already swallowed the Milky Way.

“Yes,” said Agnes, “all of that, and then there’ll be the growing up.” She took Agatha by the hand and looked at her. “When there’ll be the dancing with the bonny gallants and you’ll marry one of them, the very best one, and have children.”

“And grandchildren,” said Agatha who looked like she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She licked the last bit of tangerine from her lips. Her face was flushed. Her eyes shone. “And great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren.” She smiled at Agnes and whispered, “and great-great-great-great-grandchildren.”

Agatha tugged Agnes up onto her feet and the two of them spun round and round in the snow. Flakes whirled up, then they fell back, laughing. “Let’s make an angel,” Agatha shouted and flipped her arms up and down. Agnes did the same. Robbie and Will threw a few snowballs at each other and ate more sweets.

Meanwhile I got busy. I placed the bottle of water by the yew tree. For a moment I stared at the letters carved there:
AB
It struck me how it was the beginning of the
alphabet – like the beginning of everything. I pushed the crystal and watched it sparkle and swing.

It didn’t take long to set everything else up. I took a deep breath then called to Agatha, “If you really want to go home, it’s time now.”

“One moment,” she called, grabbing Agnes by the arm and pulling her into the den. In minutes, they’d stepped back out. Agnes was dressed in my blue trousers and red hoodie. She was carrying the old coat Mrs Singh had given Agatha that day she arrived. “The coat is for my dad,” she said.

Agatha was wearing the clothes I had first seen her in, except of course, the long red hair was gone. “Now I am ready to go home,” she cried and stepped towards me. Her pocket, I saw, was crammed full of drawings. I spied the top of the Christmas card I had made for her.

“Wow!” Robbie and Will cried. “You really are old fashioned. This is seriously for real.”

“What did I tell you?” I said, my mind leaping about for how to involve them.

“What do you want us to do?” asked Will.

I thought of Macrimmon. “If you could stand just outside the hedge and make sure no one comes in, that would help us focus. And imagine like mad that this is going to work, ok? Picture Agatha back home, two hundred years ago.”

They nodded eagerly, like they were glad to have a job to do and, ran towards the hedge waving to Agatha.

“Bye, Agatha,” they both shouted, “it was great to meet you. Have a merry Christmas in 1812!”

“It was great to meet you too, dear Robbie, dear Will,”
she called. “I will have a right merry time, be sure of that.”

Robbie and Will hurried off to stand like bouncers by the entry to the garden.

Then me and Agatha and Agnes made our way over to the yew tree. Agnes, with her haircut, now looked spookily like Agatha. We walked over the snow, which was beginning to turn slushy, in silence. I saw Agatha gazing at her initials in the trunk.

I took the ring out of the box. It felt warm. “Right,” I said. It was like my heart was in my mouth. “We’ll do what we did before, except this time it’s going to work.” I slipped the ring onto Agatha’s middle finger. It fitted perfectly.

She gasped. “Oh Saul, oh mercy. Bless you!”

Agnes stared down at the ring, and smiled. “Goodbye, dear Agatha,” she said, “and thank you so much. Thank you for visiting, thank you for everything.”

“Thank you,” said Agatha. “It isna every day you meet your great-great-great-great-great-grandchild, is it?” Then she turned to me and smiled her widest smile. “And it isna every day I meet a courageous and wondrous boy such as you. I will never forget you, dear Saul. Never ever. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye Agatha,” I said, swallowing hard. She smiled at me and I hardly knew what I was doing, but I gave her a big hug, then let her go.

Agatha stretched her arms out to the side. The sun caught the gold ring, flashing dazzling bright rainbows all over the garden. She turned in a slow circle, as though she was taking notes for the very last time. The den. The white hills of the Borders. The empty land where her
grandfather’s house had once stood. The fire in the middle of the garden. Her snow angel. Agnes’s snow angel. The hedge where Robbie and Will were. And Agnes and me.

She looked like an angel herself. I felt tears in my eyes. This was it. I knew after today I’d never see her again. Slowly she brought her arms down by her side, looked at me and nodded.

“Ready?” I said. We stepped towards the yew tree. She stretched out the hand with the ring on it and placed it against the bark of the tree. I put my hand over hers and Agnes put her hand over mine. “Believe it,” I whispered.

In front of me, Agatha stood tall. “I do,” she whispered, “with all my heart, I do,” and with a shiver up my spine, I started to hum the old tune.

I felt the warmth of Agatha’s hand under my palm. I felt the wind on my cheeks. I could smell the wood smoke. I heard a robin chirp. The crystal flashed. I heard the water in the bowl stir and splash of its own accord. Still I hummed the tune and it was as if the tree itself shuddered. Goosebumps ran up and down my spine. I felt my eyelids droop.

I don’t know how long I was there, singing and wishing and believing. Slowly I became aware of a drip-drip-drip sound. I stopped humming. What was it going drip-drip-drip? Tears? Or snow melting from the branches?

In the distance I heard the church bell strike one o’clock. I could feel the sun warm the back of my neck. I felt the rough bark of the yew tree under the palm of my hand. I felt the warmth of Agnes’s hand resting
on the back of my hand. I felt like I was waking from a very long sleep. And I felt something else, something small, hard and warm against the back of my middle finger. I opened my eyes.

“She’s gone,” Agnes said.

I felt drowsy, but happy, like when you wake after a really good dream. There was only Agnes and I standing under the yew tree. I looked around. “And the snow is melting,” I said.

I took a half-step back and heard a small gasp escape from Agnes’s lips. “Look!” she said, “Oh, look!” She held up her hand. A ray of sun flashed from the gold ring on her finger. “I got it back!” she said. “My mother’s wedding ring. I got it back!”

I nodded like I understood. Somehow I had helped Agatha with time travel, but time itself was still a mystery. “That’s great.” I really meant it.

I moved away from the yew tree. The fire was still burning brightly. Robbie and Will were standing faithfully outside the gap in the hedge.

Will leaned down to look through. “Has she gone?” he called.

“Yes,” Agnes and I both called back. “She’s gone.”

They scurried through, and ran across to us, looking about, stunned. I grabbed two bags of sweets and shoved them in their hands, as though that would make everything normal.

And I looked back at the tree, just to make sure. I couldn’t really believe it myself. Water was dripping from the branches. It was like the yew tree was watching the turning of time, and crying.