The Unlikely Time Traveller (9 page)

“You have a story perhaps from your land?” Ness’s dad said, after supper. He was helping his wife into a comfier chair. Ness cleared away the soup bowls. “A story of magic, perhaps? Or adventure? It would do us muckle good to hear a traveller’s tale.”

Ness returned and took a seat too. The room was dim, glowing with pale pink light from the glass. “We hope you don’t mind this low light,” said Ness. “We are saving the power allocation for the festival. It is not always so.”

“I don’t mind,” I said, wondering what ‘power allocation’ meant. Maybe Ness saw I was confused.

“The sun and wind store us power,” she told me in a quiet voice, “and each community is allowed to use only so much. We save it up for special occasions. We are using less now so our festive party will be truly bright!”

“Come! A story,” her mum said, looking excited like a little kid.

They were all staring at me. Maybe it was the custom for visitors to repay their hosts with a story.

I racked my brains. “Well…” I took a deep breath. “This happened a long time ago.”

“I do love the stories from long ago,” Ness said. “Please, Saul, go on.”

“It was Saturday, the fifteenth of December, 2012,”
I said, remembering it like it was yesterday, “and it was quarter to ten in the morning. I know it sounds weird to be so exact about it, but this story’s got a lot to do with time. That was when a boy was sent along to the corner shop.”

“Corner shop,” whispered Ness’s mum. “What a sweet notion.”

“Go on,” urged Ness. “Ma, please, let him tell.”

“Well, he had to walk to the corner shop to buy a newspaper and a packet of biscuits.”

“A what?”

“Ma, let him tell the story. It is set in history, remember. You know they once had newspaper. A printout of world events.”

“Anyway,” I went on, “this boy was allowed to buy something for himself costing no more than thirty pence.”

“Is that a lot?” Ness’s mother asked.

I shook my head. “No, you could only buy a Milky Way for thirty pence, and that’s over in two bites. But that was the deal, thirty pence. You see, the boy had been grounded three times that month for sneaking out when he was supposed to be in his room doing his homework. But then for three days he had behaved, meaning he had stayed in. (With the doors and windows locked he didn’t have much choice.) He had a den, this boy. That’s where he usually hung out when he wasn’t grounded, but his mum didn’t know about the den.”

I paused and glanced over at Ness. In the pinkish glow her eyes grew wide as saucers.

“He lived back in the time when the streets were full of cars and vans, and everybody was on their phones, and played on computers, though this boy did adventurous stuff too, like travel.” As I said this I looked straight at Ness. She nodded like she understood I was telling her
about me.

“Carry on,” Ness’s mother insisted.

“Yes, please do,” said Ness. So I told them the story of Agatha Black, the accidental time traveller. It was one of the few stories I knew.

“The boy’s den was a shed in—” I paused.

“Where?” they asked impatiently.

“A big abandoned garden,” I blurted out, “with a yew tree in it. It was a really old yew tree.”

Ness’s mother gasped. “Like our one.”

Ness smiled. I hadn’t had the chance to tell her exactly where we hung out each day – how her garden with the horses in it was also our garden with our den in it. By the way she looked at me, I knew she understood.

So I sat there, telling them the story of how I met Agatha Black, the time traveller, who came from 1812. I didn’t tell them the whole story, just about Agatha staying in the den, and drawing pictures and coming to school and getting really freaked out with the bell and films and stuff like that. But I made it sound a bit of a fairy tale, so I don’t think Ness’s parents imagined it was a true story. I was getting to the bit where the boy wrote an essay about history for a competition, when I saw the red clock on the wall was showing ten o’clock. I reckoned I had been chatting away for at least an hour. I really had to go and check on Robbie. And on my way out, have a dig for the time capsule. “Anyway,” I said, wrapping it up fast, “he won and they all lived happily ever after.”

“You are a wondrous teller of tales,” Ness said. “Your story helped me greatly forget the speech I am so nervous of making.”

“A thousand thanks,” Ness’s mother said, then yawned. “My very own mother, the stars bless her, did once tell the
same tale. I think so, though my memory slips now. How strange.” Her voice faded into a whisper.

Ness’s dad helped her mum from the chair and they said goodbye and that we’d all see one another at the harvest celebration. Next thing a wall folded down, which gave me a shock. It seemed to swallow them up.

Ness laughed. “Their nightroom,” she explained.

“Cool. Anyway, thanks Ness,” I said, still thinking how long I’d been there, “I’d better head back. See if Robbie is ok.”

But now that her parents were out of earshot there was suddenly so much Ness wanted to know. “This many cars,” she said. “Was it not so great a noise? And so many phones. Did people forget simple talk?” She kept her voice low but questions poured out in an excited rush. “And why did the bell for school ring so strong? The den was here, was it not? In this very place? Up by my swing seat. And the old yew tree. Tell me Saul, is it the very same yew tree? I have seen the carved AB. I did think someone was practising their alphabet. Oh Saul, I have shivers over me. And more – Grandmother spoke the very name in her stories. She spoke of Agatha Black.”

Her parents called for her to come and help. “Oh Saul, I am sorry you cannot stay here, but… my mother…”

“The tree house is fine,” I said, “really. It’s an adventure. We’re used to it. It’s like…”

“The den?” Then she pulled out a little round disc from a drawer, spoke softly into it and handed it to me. “It will guide you,” she said. “Step into the light it throws and heed the pulse beats. For breaking fast,” she told me hurriedly, “lift the disc to the light then speak into it, clearly: O. P. 132.”

“O.P?”

“Orchard plums, and I have the right to feast from plot 132. You are my found friend, so you also.”

“Oh, right,” I said, staring at this little silver disc. But what did breaking fast mean? Making a quick getaway?

Again, Ness picked up my confusion. “You will wake and feel hungry. The disc will guide you to the community orchard. There, sweet plums drip from branches. Feast.” She pressed a hand to her heart. “Saul, I thank you for coming so far. Few people in life are visited by travellers from another time.”

Her dad called again. I imagined her mum needed help. Ness bowed to me. She scooped up a couple of woollen blankets from a shelf and draped them around my shoulders. Then she ran through to her parents as I stepped out into the grounds of what was once our old abandoned garden and was now a tidy sanctuary for old horses.

The disc pulsed in my hand and threw a thin line of light onto the ground. Here was technology at last, a kind of sat nav that nestled in the palm of your hand. I had forgotten to ask Ness about the high-speed train to Edinburgh. We’d just have to work it out ourselves.

I hurried down the garden to the yew tree, feeling the disc whirr, like it was telling me I was going the wrong way. I didn’t know how to turn it off, so shoved it in my pocket with the rest of my collection.

Under the tree I sunk to my knees and started madly patting the ground. Agnes and I had buried the tin with a stone on top then a square of Astroturf. The Astroturf had probably disintegrated, but the stone should still be there. All the time the disc was going crazy in my pocket. I heard a horse whinny. Just then my fingers scraped the edge of a stone. I grabbed a couple of pebbles and placed them over the spot to mark it.

I tied the bulky blankets round me, then ran out to the field and grabbed a spade. Still ignoring the disc whirring, I hurried back to the yew tree, yanked up the stone and started digging. The edge of the spade rang as it hit something metal. I shone the torch down.

I couldn’t believe it, but the time capsule we had buried a hundred years ago was still there. The top of the tin glinted in the torchlight. I heard a door swing open.

“Saul,” Ness called, “is that you?”

I threw down the spade and sunk to my knees. “Bye! Thanks! Just going!” I called back, getting as good a grasp of the tin as I could. It was now or never: I pulled it upwards with all my strength. One hundred years it had been buried, but up it came.

I kicked the small mound of earth back into the hole under the yew tree, stamped it flat, then bolted, time-capsule tin in one hand, spade in the other. The blankets slowed me down but I ran to the community field, flung down the spade, then sped on. As I ran, I brushed century-old dirt off the tin. The disc pulsed, steady now, taking me along a back path through town.

Closer to the river, I slowed down and whipped the disc out of my pocket. It threw down enough light for me to step into and took me a quick way down to Hay Lodge Park. The disc and the I-band must have given me courage, because normally I would be pretty scared walking about on my own in the park at night. But there was something peaceful about the future, and a few twinkling stars were right above me. The stars looked the same as they did back in my time. That was a comfort.

I wondered if the things we had put inside the tin had survived. Maybe the letter me and Agnes had written to the future had faded? Pulsing faster, the disc guided me straight to the oak tree. I made a huge bag thing out of one of the blankets and carried the time-capsule tin in that for climbing. Halfway up I paused to catch my breath. That’s when I heard a whimper coming from the branches above me.

“Go away,” a voice moaned. “Leave me alone.” Then I heard more whimpering. “Don’t eat me. Please. Mum! Help!”

“Robbie?” I called. “It’s me… Saul.”

The whimpering stopped. I heard a scrambling noise from the tree house above. “Saul!” Robbie cried, gasping, sounding terrified. “Quick! There’s a wolf prowling around. No joke.”

I climbed that tree faster than a monkey. I hadn’t heard any wolf, but this wasn’t the time to stroll round and search for one. Robbie’s whimpers turned into a non-stop stream of garbled words. “He howled – no j-j-joke – and prowled about the bottom of the tree and I thought it was you or anyway a d-d-dog and I forgot this was the future and I yelled for the dog to shut up and peered through the branches and like that’s when I saw it was really a
wolf
, cause I’ve seen them in films, all shaggy silvery coats and you just kn-kn-know it’s not a normal dog and I didn’t know if it could climb the tree and I c-c-couldn’t stop shaking and my teeth were like, chattering and for ages I huddled in the corner of the tree house with that old b-b-blanket over my head…”

I whipped out my torch and turned the beam of light onto Robbie. Poor guy was shaking like a leaf. “I threw a bit of wood at it. I th-think that frightened it off. I wouldn’t f-f-fancy being in the f-f-future without you,” he stammered. “Pretty amazing and scary, eh, Saul? They’ve got wolves in-in-in the future. I wouldn’t have expected that.”

“Yeah,” was all I could manage.

“Maybe that’s why they’ve got these boardwalks,” he went on, sounding slightly less petrified, “cause the wolves won’t go on them in case their paws fall through the slits. I got the fright of my life, honest Saul. I nearly wet myself. I mean, honest, I thought that was it. The end. Death by wolf.”

“Yeah,” I mumbled again. I felt sorry for Robbie. I flung him a blanket and then I swear I heard, way in the distance, a howl. He was right. That
was
a wolf. I had heard them in films too. But this was the first I ever heard for real. The deep, wild call sent a shiver right through me.

“He’s probably howling at the moon,” I whispered. The howling went on, but it seemed a long way off, and weirdly I found the sound comforting, not scary.

“We’ll be alright up here, Robbie,” I said. “And hey, I’ve got more cosy blankets.” We lay there in the darkness and after a while the wolf must have wandered off. At any rate the howling let up. In the distance I heard an owl hoot. Robbie said he didn’t mind owls. Actually, he said, all chatty suddenly, he loved owls. “This is a real adventure, isn’t it Saul?” he whispered.

“Yeah,” I whispered back. “And guess what I dug up from under the yew tree.”

“What?”

“Remember that tin we buried, with stuff in it we thought folk in the future might like?”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah,” I said, “the time capsule.”

“Cool! So, like, where is it?”

I lifted the tin and shook it. It made a dull jiggling noise. “Right here.”

“Great! Let’s have a look, see if my lock of hair is still there. And didn’t we put chocolate in it? Man, I could seriously scoff a bar of chocolate.”

I tried to prize the lid off but it wouldn’t budge. “We’ll get a stone and wedge it off in the morning, ok?” I was too sleepy to climb back down.

“Ok, Saul.” Robbie was quiet for a while, then piped up, “It is so going to be magic fun tomorrow, eh Saul?”

I thought he was talking about the time capsule. “Yeah,” I mumbled back.

“Maybe they’ll have shops where we could get long wigs. Let’s face it Saul, we are sticking out like two old-fashioned dinosaurs. And I so can’t wait to get on the high-speed train. The future’s turning out to be pretty…” he laughed, and I waited to hear what the future was turning out to be, “wild,” he said.

“Yeah,” I mumbled, groggy with sleep, “it’s wild.”

“Saul,” he murmured a bit later.

“What?”

“I just realised, Saul. I’m actually doing it.”

“Doing what?”

“I’m actually spending the night outdoors.”

“That’s wild, Robbie,” I mumbled, “that’s really wild.”

As usual with time travel, I woke up with a vague idea that I wasn’t in my own bed at home, but not straight away remembering where I was, or why. I heard Robbie’s snuffling little snores and thought maybe I was on a sleepover at his house, till I blinked and saw a mass of leaves. This is twenty-second-century Peebles and I’m up a tree, I told myself. No dream, no joke!

For a while I lay there, feeling lazy and cosy. I remembered the wolf howls of last night. Now that all seemed like a dream. Digging up the time capsule seemed like a dream too, till I stretched out my hand and there it was.

I could see Robbie’s shape under his blanket, still sleeping, dreaming he was at home probably. “Wakey-wakey,” I whispered. “Time for breakfast.” I crawled over and tickled his toes. He groaned. Robbie is the kind of boy who can sleep all night and half the next day. But I was wide awake, starving and didn’t fancy picking plums alone. “Breakfast,” I whispered, loudly.

“I’ll have pancakes,” he grunted.

“Try again.” I tickled him under his arms.

“With maple syrup and whipped cream.” He pushed me off him.

“Na,” I said, “not exactly. Or even remotely.”

He did a massive yawn, scratched his head and mumbled, “The full Scottish then,” and listed it off on his fingers: “Sausages – three, bacon, black pudding, tattie scone, beans, stacks of toast, fried egg and I don’t want any mushrooms.” I pictured Robbie in Spanish hotels, reeling off his order. “And I don’t want tomatoes either, but bring me tomato sauce.”

“In yer dreams, Robbie.” I slipped the disc out of my pocket and spoke into it. “O. P. 132.” Then I leant over and held it out so it would pick up the light. “Let’s go. And don’t forget,” I added, lifting the time-capsule tin and shaking it at him, “we can search for something to lever this open and see if your lock of hair’s still there.”

The tin was too big to carry about so I hid it in the pile of blankets. I clambered out of the tree house and down the branches with Robbie following me. It was much easier in the daylight. Not far off I could see the boardwalk – wolf-proof and flood-proof. Though even if the wolf had been real, we were surely safer in daylight.

I whipped the disc out and felt it throb in my hand. “This way breakfast,” I said.

Like I’d imagined, Robbie was none too impressed with plum trees, but he was seriously impressed with the silver disc and said how that would come in handy back home. I reminded him it belonged to Ness.

I sunk my teeth into a ripe red plum and the sweet juice trickled down my chin. Robbie said he didn’t want any, but after seeing me licking my lips and going on about how yummy they were, he gave in.

“It’s ok,” he said, after the first nibble, “nothing to text home about.” But he managed to eat six all the same. “That would make an ace selfie, eh, Saul? Me actually eating a plum? Plus holding the smooth disc thing.” He
whipped out his phone and looked at it glumly, shaking it like it might miraculously ping back to life.

While he was taking imaginary photos I searched for a sharp, flat stone that could wrench off the stuck tin lid. All I found was a twig and I knew that wouldn’t budge it.

“We’ll find something good in Edinburgh,” Robbie said. “Might find a phone charger too!”

I was sure he was wrong about the phone charger, but he’d perked up at the thought of our Edinburgh trip. He grinned at me with bits of red plum skin stuck in his teeth. “The station,” he said, already backing away from the orchard, “is where the supermarket car park used to be. I saw it yesterday when I was checking out the town.” Then he winked at me. “The big city calls. Let’s go! Yo!”

“Yeah, let’s go,” I said. “We better help out digging in the fields when we get back though.” I was thinking of Ness. Her day wouldn’t be non-stop city fun, that was for sure.

“Future Edinburgh!” Robbie yelled. “Here we come!”