The Hipster Who Leapt Through Time (The Hipster Trilogy Book 2) (18 page)

“He’s over here,” another voice said. Softer and higher pitched. It was the kitten. The sweet little kitten. Moomamu held no resentment towards him.
 

“I forgive you, little guy,” Moomamu said to himself.
 

“Everyone, he’s over here,” the kitten said again.

“Wait, what?” Moomamu opened his right eye first. He looked past the stone walls of the castle, to the corner, and saw the kitten. It was no dream. Not some memory. Not some visage over the wind. It was clear: the kitten was standing on its two legs, his tail curling away from him. He pointed at Moomamu.
 

Moomamu opened his other eye. He felt his face fall into the confused configuration. “How did
you
get back?”
 

Within a matter of seconds, a horde of the cats turned the corner and stood behind the kitten. Snuckems appeared in the mass of fur and pushed his way to the front. It was the whole town. Moomamu hadn’t teleported them away to some distant star, and definitely not Obonda. He’d simply teleported himself behind the castle.
 

“Get him before he disappears again,” Snuckems ordered.
 

He slashed the air in front of him and, like a volcano finally bursting, the cats poured forward into a shouting sprint.

Nisha Bhatia

Darpal squeezed Nisha’s hand in his own. His was small and soft and wrinkle-free. The only imperfection was a beauty spot on his thumb.

“How old are you, Darpal?” Nisha said.
 

They were in a smaller classroom. A one-to-one tuition type. Nisha had taken Darpal there after the copper-haired woman, the child-killer, had been caught. She wanted to make sure the he was at ease. She wasn’t willing to leave until she knew Darpal was safe. Physically, and emotionally.
 

“Twelve and three-quarters,” he said.
 

His face was a conundrum in itself. She couldn’t understand how or why. Darpal’s eyes were full of a worry and a pain that Nisha had never seen in a child so young. The deep dark pupils against the pure white. The golden soft skin. Just a boy. He probably read comics. Maybe still wet the bed. Actually, she remembered Dr Warwick saying a lot of the indigo children still wet the bed. They were prone to mind spasms during REM sleep. Their bladder control would weaken. Usually resulting in a wet bed and an embarrassed child. Dr Warwick mentioned how none of the children spoke about it either. It was an unwritten rule. A law of the children. What happens with their bladders at night-time, stays with their bladders at night-time.
 

“And tell me, Darpal. What do you want to be when you’re older?”

Darpal looked around the empty classroom. He searched for his answers on the digital whiteboard, the informational posters on the walls, in the formulas, but he didn’t seem to find anything. He looked back to Nisha. His eyes locked onto hers.
 

“Miss Bhatia,” he said.

“You know you can call me Neesh?” she said as she reached out and ran her hand through his soft, puppy hair.
 

“Miss Neesh,” he said. “I have something I can do that I never showed Dr Warwick or any of the teachers.”

“What do you mean, Darpal? What kind of thing? And … I’m sure you could show Dr Warwick if you wanted. He’s a doctor.”

“No,” Darpal said quickly. “I don’t believe that Mister Warwick is a good person. Not like you.”
 

“Okay,” she said as she tickled his chin. “What do you want to show me?”

“Miss Bhatia, sorry, Neesh, let me show you.”
 

He gently pushed her hand away and stood up from the chair and walked to Nisha’s side. He placed the palms of his hands on Nisha’s temples and pressed his forehead against her own. She felt the cool stickiness of his hands on her head. He stared into her eyes. His eyes were oily wells with no bottoms.

“Darpal, what are you …”

As she spoke she saw something changing in Darpal’s eyes. His irises, which were a dark brown, dark enough to merge with the pupils themselves, they were fluctuating, moving, igniting. She saw sparks of light in there. Like lanterns in a night sky. Tiny explosions of deep purple.
 

“Wait, Darpal I don’t …”

Nisha tried to move but Darpal clasped his hands on the sides of her head. He locked her in with a vice-like strength that didn’t belong to a child. He pressed so hard she felt the skin of his palms go past the skin of her head and reach into her skull. His fingers wrapped around her brain. His head followed next. It pressed against her head so hard that the front of her skull gave way, and his head pushed inside her own. His fingers interlocked around her mind. It gave him the leverage to pull himself deeper into her mind. It was only a few seconds before he’d pulled himself all the way in.

Nisha screamed. From the outside, it was nothing more than a whimper but inside her mind it was a cacophony of her pain.

“It’s okay,” Darpal said. His voice hugged her. Comforted her.
 

As she tried to relax she found herself floating in a shade of red and pink shadow. The fluids around her kept her alive. Outside the walls. A heartbeat that wasn’t her own. A giant pulsing lullaby. It was a mother. And outside the walls, a father. They were swaying back and forth — on a boat, riding the waves. They’d been travelling for a month by that point. Rough waves pushed them back and forth and she felt sick. The baby was due. They’d been travelling from Azad Kashmir. Already a month into their escape and still miles away.

“It’s okay,” Darpal said. His voice all around her. Each word a tendril that gripped tighter around her mind.

The parents were hiding now. The boat came ashore and they were scared. They’d arrived in the UK. Men in big yellow coats took them to a warehouse. They gave them tea and biscuits and wrapped them in towels and asked them questions about where they’d come from and why they’d came to the UK. The men gave them paperwork. The word that bounced around was ‘asylum’. A sense of ease and happiness washed over them and then … wait … no.

“It’s okay.”

It was raining. They were surrounded by cars. A parking lot. The husband didn’t see them. He wanted to protect his young family. The mother and her baby. The men, different ones, with shaved heads and tattoos. They screamed at them about not belonging. A fight broke out and the terrified mother took a knife to the chest. They ran but the husband fought back. He grabbed one of them, a younger one, and pulled him to the ground. He kicked him. He kicked him again. The sound of the wet boot against the skinhead’s bloodied face. And then …

“It’s okay.”

The child could see for the first time. Light. Colours. All blurred. The doctors. But the mother — too much blood lost. The repetitive beeping turned into one long tone and the woman in the white coat said to “Call it”. A month later and the father was visited by a man in a blue hat. CCTV footage. Attacking a teenager. He was taken away. Regardless of who attacked first. “Deported,” the men said. And then the child was alone. Taken to home after home. Watched over by family after family but he never stayed in one place.
 

Eventually the school. Older now. Able to read and speak. Too fast, though.

“It’s okay.”

The teachers told him he’s special. They passed him to another school. One they called IPC-funded. The other children were like him there. Smarter. The man in front of the class. Beard and glasses. And then the numbers. They spilled out from his mind and through his mouth. The numbers. Pouring out and into space.

“It’s okay.”

The numbers were a part of something bigger. They flew outwards, and reached towards something. A mass. A cloud. Pain. Something was in great pain. Nisha felt the pain. A black cloud. And then she saw a face. It looked at her. It screeched.

“No!” Nisha stood up.
 

She was back in the classroom. Sweat dripped down her forehead. Breathing heavy, hands shaking and her legs unsteady. She looked around. Tried to make sense of where she was. The face. Looking at her. It was Darpal. He was standing next to her, looking up at her. The indigo colouring to his eyes had died down somewhat. He took a step back from her.

“I’m sorry Miss Bhatia. I just … I wanted to show you.”
 

“No, it’s okay Darpal, but …” She sat back down on the chair, took a moment to recalibrate her mind. Remind herself of how she got there. Of who she was. Who her family were. Her entire history and identity lost for a second. Like a purse she’d dropped. She needed to pick it back up. She closed her eyes and ran her hand over her head. “It’s fine Darpal, but tell me, what did you show me?”

“It was my life,” he said. “I showed you my experience.”
 

The parents. The foster care. The school. It was all far too much for a child of Darpal’s age. In his short twelve years, he’d experienced more pain than most adults had in their entire lives.

“Come here,” she said, lifting her arm. “Hug me.”

Darpal walked over and wrapped his arms around her. He tucked his head into the nook between her neck and shoulder and kissed her.
 

“I want to be alive,” he said. “You asked me what I wanted to be, and I want to be alive. But I know that I won’t be.”

As Nisha tried to understand what Darpal had just told her an alarm rang. They both jumped and looked up. A light at the top of the monitor at the front of the classroom started to spin, flashing red and white. One of the computer screens beeped into life.

“Miss Bhatia? Can you hear me?” It was Dr Warwick, readjusting the camera to get all of his face in view.

“What’s happening?” Nisha said.

“I’m not sure. Most likely a drill. But I want you to go past the courtyards and to make your way to one of the safe rooms. Darpal, are you able to show Miss Bhatia the way?”

“Yes sir,” Darpal said.
 

“Thank you. I’m just finishing up my questioning. I’ll come and find you when this is all straightened out.”

With that, the screen turned off with a beep and Darpal pulled on Nisha’s hand.

“Please, Neesh. I don’t like this. We must go now.”

Cape Canaveral, January 31st 1961

Dr Liz Cooper

“Calm the fuck down, Sam!” Adam, one of the animal handlers said. He was getting irate.
 

Liz had just delivered the bad news that the flight had been delayed by four hours. A hot inverter. Whatever the fuck that meant.

“Adam, be careful,” Liz shouted from behind her desk. She’d been going over the final checks. Her part of it, anyway. It was her job to make sure that Miss Sam performed the tests that were given to her and would be safe and mentally stable when up there. It was everyone else’s job to get the chimp into suborbital flight and back down again.
 

“God, I wish Donald was here,” she said to herself as she ticked a box. One of many on the checklist. “Speaking of Donald, has anybody seen him?”
 

The cluster of twenty or so technicians and handlers shrugged. Too busy. Someone mentioned the bar. Drowning his sorrows. Pitying himself.
 

“Fine, Donald,” she said. “Don’t be here, miss all the fun.”
 

The warehouse was large, open, full of people and equipment. It was here that they’d be putting Miss Sam into the nosecone of the rocket. And it would be a short time before Miss Sam was thrown into space.
 

Liz looked at the chaos and the mutterings of people around her and sighed. She felt hot. It was a strangely hot day for January. She yanked on her shirt collar and tried to get some air in there. She wondered what her life would be like when all of this was over. In fact, what would humankind’s life be like? Would it even change? Sending people to space, maybe they’d find life on Mars. Maybe aliens would come down to Earth and live amongst them. Maybe there would be some sort of galactic war.

Not likely.

Liz sipped from her white mug with ‘The Twilight Zone’ written on it in black. Just a marker pen. Donald had written it when she wasn’t looking. He’d told Liz that working with her had been like stepping into another dimension. As she wrapped her mouth around the ceramic mug she avoided the side of the mug that bore a brown stain, and drank a mouthful of the tepid water. It was malty to her tongue. Not as refreshing as she would’ve hoped. She went to take a step outside. Hopefully catch some sort of breeze to cool her down. As she put the mug down on the table and turned to move, she stopped in her tracks at the shriek.
 

The howling.
 

The crying.

It was Miss Sam.

“Liz! She’s having a fit,” Adam shouted from the white capsule chair they’d seated Miss Sam into.
 

She ran over, holding her glasses as she went.
 

“Adam, what the hell are you—”
 

As she neared she saw Miss Sam’s teeth. She was rocking back and forth in the white chair. The straps around her were digging into her chest.
 

“She’s not fitting, Adam, she’s just—” She took a step towards her and repeated the words “Home, home, home” over and over until Miss Sam recognised her face. Her squealing calmed to a huffing and Liz placed her hand on Miss Sam’s and the other on her shoulder. “It’s okay baby,” she said. “It’s okay. I’m here.”
 

When Liz was a child she was never much of an animal person. Her only pleasurable experience that she could recall was in science class in the third year when she had a frog on her desk, its limbs splayed outwards and its insides in a jar. She never understood the idea of having a
relationship
with an animal. They weren’t humans. They were things. They didn’t have consciousness. Not like a human did. Her dad once asked if she wanted a puppy or a kitten, but she’d balked at the idea. To have a furry little shit-monster to look after. To clean and feed. She told her dad that she’d only allow it if she could run tests on it.