The Unlikely Time Traveller (8 page)

I could have given him the whole strip of food for saying that, but it tasted so good we had half each. “Way better than that apple juice,” Robbie said, licking his lips. Things felt better because we had something inside us, or maybe because I had finally found Robbie, and come clean with Ness about where we were really from. We mucked around like we usually do, skimmed some stones and jumped about a bit.

“I can’t believe Ness is actually a girl,” he said, when we’d done a few leap-frogs then flopped down on a quiet bit of the riverbank. Ness was right about rest hour. I couldn’t see anyone about.

“I think what happened is that people got healthier, and fitter,” I told him. “She’s got pretty big hands which might be to do with working in the fields.” I wrestled him again, and said how he had got it so wrong about the future, saying everyone would be lying in bed doing nothing and getting machines to do it all.

“There are machines.” Robbie grabbed my arm. “I practically got knocked down by this thing hovering about. No joke. I was trying to find the cinema when this flying wheelchair skimmed over my head.”

“Yeah, right.” I pounced on him, but at the same time glanced up. Maybe he
was
right? The future wasn’t all
horses and parsnips. We stopped mucking about and lay on our backs panting. That’s when I told him about the high-speed train that gets to Edinburgh in ten minutes. After that he wouldn’t stop going on about it. It was like, one hundred years on and nothing had changed; Ness and her French saying were right. Robbie
still
wanted to go into Edinburgh, go round the shops and eat pizza.

“Come on, Saul.”

He got to his feet, grinning all over his freckled face like he was ready to jump into the next adventure. Robbie was like that mouse: he didn’t fear the future! He tugged at my sleeve. “I’m sure we can get on the train for free. That’s how they do things in the future. We’ll go to Edinburgh, have a look about and come back. See if they built that new skatepark they promised us. Check out if the multiplex cinema is still there. I bet they have a zillion 3D screens. And let’s see what kind of toppings they put on pizza now. Maybe they have these cars that drive about by themselves. It’ll be great. Then we’ll really have stuff to tell Agnes and Will.”

It sounded tempting, but the sun was already going down. Because I was the gang leader and Robbie was so clueless, I had to be the responsible one. “Ok, let’s go to Edinburgh tomorrow,” I said firmly, getting up and arranging my hoodie cause Robbie had twisted it round. “Right now we’d better find some quiet spot where we can sleep tonight after we help out in the fields.”

Robbie’s jaw fell open.

“What did you think? That we would book into some fancy hotel?”

Robbie shrugged. He obviously hadn’t thought anything.

I took off along the river and he followed me. Instead
of the usual muddy path, someone had built a wooden platform thing. “It’s called a boardwalk,” Robbie said. “You get them in California. It stops you stepping on snakes or mud.” The way it was made, with thin slats of wood and gaps between, I thought how dogs wouldn’t be up for it at all. Their feet would slip through the gaps. Maybe there were no dogs in the future, just horses? I missed the normal grass and the mud, but Robbie said a boardwalk was way more hygienic.

Me and Robbie had done loads of tree climbing, biking, sledging and general messing about in Hay Lodge Park. “Wonder if the massive oak tree is still here?” I said.

It was: a hundred years more massive. And, even better, someone had built a tree house in its big branches. “Home sweet home,” I said, thinking how it was like our den, only higher. But Robbie looked none too sure about spending a night up in a tree. “Come on!” I said, slapping him on the back. “It can be a practice for sleeping out in the den.”

“And we’ll definitely go to Edinburgh tomorrow on that high-speed train?”

“Definitely.”

So we climbed up and checked out the tree house. “Better not be any spiders, or mice,” Robbie mumbled, picking up a ragged woollen blanket he found in one of the corners and shaking it out. “Shame there’s not one for you.” He smoothed it down on a patch of floor and made himself a bed. “That’s me sorted for tonight.”

I was sweltering away in my thick hoodie and doubted I would need a blanket, but it was still a selfish thing for him to say. Miffed, I said, “You can have it half the night, then me. Fair’s fair.”

He looked up at me, frowned, and muttered, “Ok.”

I thought maybe he was remembering I ripped my
favourite T-shirt for him. Or that I got him down off the high diving board. Or that I came after him a hundred years into the future.

But what he actually said was, “You gave me half that delicious strip of meat.” He laughed. “So yeah, fair’s fair. You get half the blanket!”

We lay on the wooden floor of the tree house, chatting about anything and everything, the way we always did. How the meat strip was tasty, and did I happen to have any more of that toffee? I handed him a grubby peanut but he turned up his nose, even though I told him peanuts were like gold dust in the future. He launched into how it was weird that the Post Office had turned into a museum. And how awesome that wheelchairs could fly. And how he couldn’t wait for his new clothes. Then I remembered something. Something that wasn’t so awesome.

“Houston, we have a problem,” I said in my American TV voice.

“No fuel left, Bud?” Robbie’s accent was better than mine. He had actually been to America. “You mean to say we’re in space for all eternity, Bud? Hey, but that’s too bad.”

“Yeah, real bad.” I switched accents. This wasn’t a game. “It’s going to be seriously difficult to make a fire at the yew tree with these horses around.”

Robbie shrugged like that was no big deal. “They sleep, don’t they?”

“Yeah,” I said weakly, imagining us fiddling about with a fire in the middle of the night, mumbling an antique song, trying not to wake up old horses, or Ness’s mum or dad
in the house there. I wasn’t at all sure how it was going to work. “When do you reckon twilight is?” I asked him.

“Dunno.” He yawned. I was pretty sure he didn’t care. He wanted to go into Edinburgh. He wanted to check out the big party. Then, like a celebrity returning from some jungle, wearing his super-cool clothes, he wanted to go home. Working in the fields wasn’t high on his list. “What does ‘twi’ mean, anyway?” he mumbled, half asleep.

“Double, I think, or maybe two. It’s a bit like twins. So maybe twilight means two lights, like light and dark. Yeah, like when the light is half light and half dark. That’s it.”

But he didn’t hear. His ruffling little snores puttered through the tree house. I could hear the oak leaves rustling in the breeze. It was only afternoon, but it had been a busy day. Then I must have drifted off too…

I woke wondering why I couldn’t hear the twins making their usual racket. I lay with my eyes closed, trying to decide between Rice Krispies or a bacon roll. I decided I would have both, opened my eyes, and it dawned on me I wouldn’t be having either. I wasn’t in my bed at home. I was in a tree house a hundred years away from home, and Robbie was snoring next to me. I sat up, pushed a branch aside, and saw it wasn’t dark yet. It looked like late afternoon, and we were supposed to get ourselves over to the field to pick potatoes.

“Robbie,” I hissed. “Get up.”

“Uhhh,” he groaned.

I pulled the blanket off him. “It’s twilight,” I said. “Time to work. We fell asleep. Get up.”

He rolled over and groaned again. “Noooooo,” he wailed. “I can’t move.”

“Ness is waiting for us. We only have to brush dirt off
a few parsnips or pull up a few tatties.”

He groaned again. “Saul, I can’t.”

He did look kind of wasted. All that jumping probably really took it out of him. And before he reached the pool he had been running around Peebles like a mad thing, trying to find the vanished cinema, flinging litter everywhere, crashing into postcard stands, getting measured for clothes and attacked by horses. I threw the blanket back on top of him. He pulled it around himself, still groaning and next thing he was snoring again.

“So,” I said, deciding at least if he was asleep he would stay out of trouble, “don’t you worry about a thing, Robbie. You just keep that blanket and I’ll head off and work. That’s fine!”

He snored.

I climbed down the tree, whipped up my hood and ran along the boardwalk, back past the Aqua Park (which was now closed) and through the town. As I approached the field I saw a huge wooden sign:
Community
Market Garden
. I could see at least fifty people all bent over pulling up veg. I glanced around for Ness.

It was Scosha who spotted me. She stood up and bowed. “You come late for the new potatoes,” she said.

I shrugged, feeling guilty. “Sorry. We fell asleep.”

“Harvest the sweet brigettes, then.” She pointed to a patch of ground at the edge of the field. I swung round and there was Ness, down on her knees and pulling up plump long green things, a bit like giant cucumbers. I guessed they were brigettes. She flung me one and I caught it. It was heavy.

“The dirt you must wipe clean with a damp rag,” she said, flinging me a facecloth thing. “For the skin of brigette is sensitive. But muckle tasty, you’ll see.” She
grinned and went on pulling up food out of the earth.

As we worked I told her about the tree house and she said she was glad we found it. If she had been able to think straight, she said, it is the very place she would have recommended. Many tree houses, she said, are used as emergency platforms when the storm floods come. Floods? I glanced up at the darkening twilight sky, hoping it wouldn’t suddenly pour. I couldn’t see any rain clouds, but what did I know? I guess the weather in the future wasn’t all warm, sunny and easy. Maybe that was why there was a boardwalk? I tried to focus on wiping the brigettes and placing them gently into the box and to stop thinking about floods.

It was getting dark. So dark that I could hardly see whether the brigette was clean or not. I half thought about using my torch, but that might cause alarm, so I kept going, fumbling for the next brigette. Just then everyone rose and Ness came over, stretching her arms above her head.

“Soup,” she announced. “I told Ma and Pa you would join us.”

People wandered back into town. Because Ness lived in our den – well, in the house built next to the stables – we didn’t have far to go.

I could hear the horses whinny, like they were greeting Ness, as we walked towards the garden gates. There were spades hung at the edge of the community field. That made me wonder whether I might get a chance to search for the time-capsule tin later. The horses would be in their stables, I’d just need to get to the yew tree somehow.

“Ma and Pa are fond of travellers,” Ness said as we approached her round house, but she paused at the front door. “Dear Ma suffers with illness from drinking
unclean water,” she said. “It happened while she was hiking in far lands. Her I-band helps, but still she has weakness. Sometimes illness is too strong for I-bands to create change.” Then she opened the door and in we went.

The house was made mostly of tinted glass with panels of pale wood and a white wooden floor. Though it was getting dark outside, the glass seemed to give off a warm glowing light. “Nice place,” I said, gazing up at a glass mobile swan thing. Ness saw me staring at it. She smiled, reached up and pulled a string, and next thing the swan’s wings flapped open and rainbow flashes shot out.

“Cool,” I said, my mind racing. That would be perfect for the time-travel ritual.

The swan wasn’t the only thing suspended from the ceiling. There were what looked like bees made of twisted wire. Ness gave them a gentle push and they swung about the large room. I had to duck not to get bashed. She laughed softly.

I gazed about for gadgets, but couldn’t see any, although the glowing glass was pretty impressive. “Ma!” Ness called out. “Pa! I am returned with one guest.” I heard movement behind a screen, and they came into the room.

Ness’s mum walked with a stick. She wasn’t old, but she limped slightly. Ness’s dad guided her towards the table with a hand under her elbow. “Ah, Ness,” her mum said, smiling at her daughter, “you bring the world to meet us. I am muckle glad.”

They bowed. I bowed. I knew I looked strange wearing my T-shirt and jeans, but Ness’s parents didn’t even blink. They didn’t look so different from my parents. They had I-bands on but they weren’t wearing onesies, or if they were, they were under their colourful woollen jumpers. Now that the sun had gone down it was much cooler. I
hoped Robbie would be warm enough.

“Kale soup,” Ness’s dad announced. (Kale was one step away from cabbage. Good thing Robbie had stayed away.)

I tried not to gawk round the room, but couldn’t help noticing a clock that was ticking loudly. Not exactly digital, let alone futuristic. Ness’s dad must have seen me eye it. “An antique,” he said proudly. “I do enjoy to find curios from times past.” I gulped, then smiled, but didn’t trust myself to speak, and looked at the weird light, swinging swan, bees, and… I gasped, quickly turning it into a cough. On the floorboards, holding open the front door, was an ornamental stone. It had been buffed clean, but I would know that stone anywhere.
OUR GANG,
it said. The letters were so faint it was hard to make them out, and my scored-out name underneath was almost completely faded.

“Saul?” Ness was dangling a ladle of green soup in front of me. I pulled my eyes away from the stone. She scooped two ladlefuls into my huge wooden bowl and next thing spoons were clattering and everyone was schlurping. Manners had changed, I noticed, amazed at how much noise they all made when they were eating.

“Do you not enjoy?” Ness’s mum asked, a dribble of green soup on her chin. “It is filled with VitaKeen. It is a tonic for me.”

I didn’t expect to like it, but actually it was tasty. And there was delicious cornbread too.

Ness’s mum turned to me and smiled. “Ness tells us you, her found friend, will attend the grand celebration. She is deeply glad you turn up now, to support her. She does not like to speak in front of so many.”

“Ma!”

I felt sorry for Ness squirming in her chair knowing
she didn’t have a speech yet. I thought again of the time capsule. Maybe if I could dig it up and show her, she would find something in it to talk about. She couldn’t exactly make a speech about me and Robbie, because folk would be too weirded out by hearing we were time travellers. But she could talk about stuff from an old box. When I left the house, I was going to do some night-time digging.