The Unlikely Time Traveller (10 page)

We were so excited about getting on a high-speed train, Robbie started singing one of his favourite tunes and we jigged along the boardwalk. “When we get back,” I said, “we’ll tell Agnes she was right. People in the future dance in the street.”

“Agnes,” he said, suddenly stopping. “What is it with you and Agnes?”

“She’s in our gang, Robbie,” I reminded him. Then I started listing things off on my fingers, just like he did ordering his imaginary breakfast: “She’s brave, she likes climbing trees, she does things to help other people, she gets really excited about stuff like sleeping out overnight in our wild garden and watching the Northern Lights, and she’s funny, and clever, and would never make fun of someone. She helps people with their homework. She doesn’t have much money and she’s not that bothered about buying stuff anyhow, she shares…”

“Ok,” he said, “point taken. Just say it: she’s not a dough-ball.”

“You’re not a dough-ball either.” We stood on the slatted boardwalk staring at each other. Robbie sniffed like he might cry. “You’re not,” I said, feeling kind of guilty for ever thinking he was. Then I grinned at him. “You’re just a bit nuts sometimes.”

He winked at me then flung his arms to the side. “If I wasn’t, we wouldn’t be here!”

He was right about that. I would never have time travelled a hundred years into the future on my own, just to see what it was like. But now that I was here, I was starting to enjoy myself.

Just then he cried out and stuck his hands in front of his face. From out of nowhere I heard a low whirring sound. “Duck!” Robbie yelled. I did, just in time to see what looked like a low-flying wheelchair skim above my head.

“I told you,” Robbie said, wide-eyed and gasping as soon as the flying chair had passed out of sight. “I told you I saw one of those. Awesome!”

Then we started running along the riverside, past a lot of boats all moored up. “Once we’ve done Edinburgh,” Robbie said, slowing down to catch his breath, “we could take one of the rowing boats out on the river. I’m loving the future. Oh, and I want to check out the cemetery and see how long I lived. I know that sounds a bit, you know, spooky, but I can’t stop wondering.”

I had been wondering about that too, but something told me it was better not to know. “Not a good idea,” I told him.

“Bet I live longer than you do,” he said.

“There are some rules about time travel,” I said, suddenly making them up. “And searching for your own gravestone is a strict not-allowed rule. Like, if you do, you might never get home.”

It worked. He shrugged. “Ok, forget the graveyard then, we’ll visit the pool.”

That was the last place I wanted to go back to with Robbie. We were probably barred. “Maybe not there,” I said, as we rounded a corner and there ahead of us was
the sleek train, pulled in at the station. A sign with huge lettering said:
Bullet Commute.

“Cool,” Robbie said. “Bullet. I like that.”

There didn’t seem to be any ticket office or train guards. There didn’t even seem to be any doors or windows on the train. A few people were waiting around next to the train, most of them wearing the usual onesie thing. “Just act like one of them,” Robbie whispered, spy-style. “When they get on, we get on, ok?”

I nodded, wondering just how we were going to get on a train with no doors. Next thing a voice out of nowhere said, “Bullet commute destination Edinburgh, but forty-five seconds then leaves. Heed doors.”

And silently the sides of the train rolled up. The people flowed in.

We snuck in behind a girl with a rainbow-coloured onesie. Just in time, because then the sides rolled down and snapped shut. All the people sat down at the same moment and strapped themselves in. It was like one great synchronised click. Except me and Robbie couldn’t find the seat belts. Robbie got in a flap. The girl with the rainbow clothes lifted up my seat belt, a spider cord thing. I bowed to thank her, clicked in, then clicked Robbie’s.

“Phew,” he said, too loudly. Some heads turned. I saw how people glanced at Robbie’s fake I-band and short hair, and frowned. But at that moment the train took off. At least I think it did. It was so smooth you hardly felt it move. A high-pitched whirring noise and a slight vibration under my feet were the only clues that this train was hurtling towards Edinburgh at super-high speed. “If someone comes round asking for tickets,” Robbie whispered, “pretend we’re foreign and don’t
know what they’re on about, ok?”

Most of the time on that sleek train I sat holding my breath, dreading a guard would come round, ask for tickets, then chuck us off. Robbie didn’t seem worried. He was busy listing off his favourite attractions in Edinburgh: Dynamic Earth, Alien Rock, the skatepark, Butterfly World, the castle, Portobello beach, a few shopping malls and cinema complexes and bowling alleys. Then he went on to his best restaurants, ice-cream parlours and shops. The fact that one hundred years had passed didn’t seem to occur to him.

“What about the Commonwealth Pool, eh?” I nudged him. “You forgot to mention that.” But right then the vibration at my feet stopped. The high-pitched whirring too. Silently the train sides rolled up. We had arrived.

Welcome to Edinburgh Waverley – the only train station in the world to be named after a novel.
I read looped white lettering on glass.

Robbie pulled at my sleeve. “First stop: breakfast,” he said, yanking me away, “then we have to find a disguise, like a hat and some clothes.”

“Second breakfast you mean.” He’d obviously forgotten the plum feast.

We charged up a rolling walkway that led away from the station. Out in the bright light of day it didn’t seem that Edinburgh had changed much. First thing I saw was the castle, sitting ancient and powerful on the castle rock, looking as old as it always did. People in their long hair and beautiful onesie suits filed past us. Some of them did a double-take when they saw us. Some stood and stared. Robbie was right: we should find disguises as soon as possible.

Sloping away below a very wide street was a huge park. “Wow, check that. That’s Princes Street Gardens,” Robbie said, sounding stunned. The park was beautiful – all flowers and art works and fountains and play-frames for kids, and because it was sunny lots of people were lazing around, or sitting on benches sipping coffee. Maybe it wasn’t coffee. Some were playing guitars and violins, and instruments I didn’t know. Horses with riders passed on
the wide street. Next to them, silent trams snaked past.

“Wonder what happened to cars, eh?” I said.

“The petrol ran out, of course,” said Robbie, like how stupid was I not to know that.

I thought how, if we ever managed to get the lid off the time capsule, we could show Ness the tiny bottle of petrol that Agnes put in. I guess not having petrol would change the way everything moved about. It would even change what things could move about, what things you could have, how people could visit and shop and send things… “Hey, Robbie,” I said, nudging him, “you know that Post Office Museum in Peebles? They’ve got a letter that your mum wrote, about that Playstation that took 3 weeks to arrive, and you had a temper about it. Honest, I read it out. I couldn’t believe it.”

“Serious?”

“Yeah, your mum said in it how you were so upset and how she was really disappointed with the Post Office. Ness was laughing her head off.”

Robbie mumbled sheepishly, “It’s not my fault my mum is always writing letters complaining about everything. Anyway,” he said, perking up, “that’s like, so last century.” Then he punched me on the back and grinned. “Let’s shop!”

Great plan, except we couldn’t find any shops. We still had our hoods up and must have looked weird, especially as it was kind of hot. “Let’s tell them we work for a history museum,” I suggested after the millionth stare in our direction. “Like that Post Office place in Peebles. Or we could offer walking tours along Princes Street and tell people about life long ago. Yeah, or pretend we’re actors, or tour guides.”

The lack of shops was getting Robbie down but I
could see him brightening up at my suggestions. “Tour guide sounds like a laugh,” he said. “But first I have to eat something decent or I’ll keel over and die.” He did look kind of pale. And it was really bugging him that we looked so old-fashioned and out of place. He couldn’t wait, he kept telling me, for his amazing intelligent onesie to be ready. Though he never mentioned how he was going to pay for it.

He looked around frantically for some burger van or pancake kiosk. “Like, do they just eat plums and apples? And parsnips?” He was sounding pretty rattled. “I mean, massive advances in technology and that’s it? Plums? Big deal!”

I remembered the meat strip that Ness had given us. Standing up for the future, I mentioned it.

“Yeah, that was tasty,” he admitted. “That was food.” We both looked further along Princes Street Gardens. I didn’t remember a loch, but it was there in the future. And there were a few palm trees around it. Maybe it had been left by the flooding Ness said they had these days?

To cross the road there were glass-covered walkway bridges. Me and Robbie used one that smelled like roses. I reckoned the smell was to make you feel all calm and Robbie reckoned it was to make you forget about food. Over the road, where all the big shops used to be, there were huge glass-fronted buildings. People were swarming in and out of them, but they looked more like libraries and community centres than actual shops.

“The Royal Mile,” Robbie said, tugging me by the sleeve, “let’s go up there. If that’s not chock-full of shops and cafés I’ll eat my arm.”

So we bolted across another walkway bridge (this one smelt like pine trees), then ran up a flight of stone steps.
But there were still no obvious shops.

“Don’t!” I said dramatically, elbowing Robbie and putting on a really tragic face. “Don’t do it, Robbie!”

“Don’t do what?”

I made out I was wiping tears away. I sniffed. “Don’t eat your arm.”

Which put a smile on his face and stopped him moaning about the lack of bagels and baguettes. “You’re a good actor, Saul,” he said, sniggering. “It might come in handy.”

At first glance, the Royal Mile looked pretty historic, like I remembered it: a long cobbled street with dark stone gothic-looking buildings and a cathedral. “Result!” Robbie suddenly chirped, pointing to a cluster of silver pod things behind the cathedral. “Market stalls! Food!”

Each pod was like a huge egg, some so big you could step inside. I guessed they opened up in the day and closed at night. “This way munchies.” Robbie headed off into the throng.

“Pssst!” I pulled his sleeve and reminded him of something. “We haven’t got any money.”

“So? The future’s moved beyond money. Don’t you get that, Saul?” He had already spotted a pod that looked like a mini butcher’s shop. Dried sausages and hams were swinging from metal hooks. He dragged me towards it. “Wonder if they have the meat strip things?”

There was a little queue at the meat stall. Someone in front of us bought a ham. The stall-holder wrapped it in brown paper and the one buying the ham handed over a coin.

“The future isn’t as futuristic as you think,” I whispered, nodding in the direction of the money changing hands. I pulled him back a step and, in case he got any funny
ideas, told him straight, “No stealing.” When Agnes and I had time travelled to 1914, I ‘borrowed’ a cape to cover up my clothes, but got caught and had to do hard labour in a big old house as punishment. “I’m serious.” He shrugged and looked longingly at the meat. “Robbie,” I hissed, “it was bad enough you dropping litter about the place, then doing mad tricks on the diving board. I mean it: you take anything and I’m out of here, and I’ll leave you behind.”

“Take a chill pill,” he said, then grinned and whispered in my ear, “Good thing my mum sent me to those terrible drama classes.” He winked at me. “Time,” he said, “to set up our historical tour-guide company before we starve to death.” And before I could say anything, the Robbie and Saul History Tour-Guiding Company began.

Robbie stepped out into the crowds milling around the cathedral steps, coughed loudly, then in a booming actor’s voice shouted out: “Roll up, roll up! Real history tours by wandering players! Let us show you Scotland as it was one hundred years ago.” Already a few people had turned round to stare at us. I felt my face flush red, but I tried to smile and look confident. I nodded along with everything Robbie said. A few interested-looking folk even stepped forward. “Pay what you can afford,” Robbie shouted breezily, “and let us guide you down the Royal Mile.” Amazingly, even more people flocked towards us. Robbie was on a roll and I was pretty impressed with what he had learnt in his drama classes. “Trust us, this wee walking tour is the real deal! You won’t regret it, och no, not one bit.”

People laughed. I heard someone say, “They do dress as from the past.”

“And also use the speech from former times,” someone else said.

“I’m Robbie.” With an actorly flourish of his hand he jabbed himself in the chest. “Named after Scotland’s great poet, Robert Burns.” I was pretty sure that was a whopper, but it fitted in with the historic stuff. People nodded, and even more flocked towards us. “He wrote ‘Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beastie!’” Robbie told them, and some people laughed.

“He does have talent,” I heard a man say.

Robbie flung an arm in my direction. “This is my pal, Saul.” I bowed, nodded, smiled, felt such a fool. “We love history, don’t we, Saul?”

I nodded again and looked down at my trainers. I didn’t know if I could carry this off. I never went to any drama classes. Robbie rattled on though, drumming up business and sounding as confident as anything. “We found these clothes in my grandmother’s attic, in case you’re wondering. And we even got our hair done in the actual old-fashioned style.” With a flourish he pulled down his hood. People gasped at his short hair. I kept my hood up and Robbie cottoned on quick. “A lot of boys in the past kept their hoods up, in case you’re wondering about that too. Roll up, roll up! Tour starting in two minutes!” I shook my fringe down over my eyes, feeling seriously embarrassed. “Hand your coins over to Saul, ladies and gentlemen. Pay as much as you like.” I stuck out my cupped hand, took a deep breath and waited. I could cope with taking the money.

The swelling crowd laughed as though he had cracked a big joke. Robbie’s crazy plan seemed to be working. Or was it my plan? If it was, I’d meant it as a joke. I couldn’t quite believe it, but people handed me coins. They looked like small silver pound coins, and felt very light. I stuffed them in my pocket, to join the rubbish, torch,
Ness’s disc, my phone, the photo and the gold chain. Quite a big group of people now stood in front of us, looking expectant.

Then Robbie dropped the next bombshell. “Saul here won a history essay competition. Saul knows everything about history. Saul,” he shot me a quick glance, “will lead the tour.” I couldn’t believe it. Then he thrust out his hand dramatically and, like a sergeant major addressing a soldier, ordered me to, “Take it away!”