“Speakers are amazing, aren’t they?” he said.
I froze.
“I’m sorry?” I said.
“Speakers. I mean … take this tiny thing here…” He held up a slither of silver between the points of the tweezers. “This piece of mesh is a gateway to a world of discovery.”
I blinked at him.
“Through this tiny square you can choose to listen to the cleverest scientists in the world discussing the mysteries of the universe, or maybe the most beautiful piece of classical music ever created or perhaps a cricket match being played on the other side of the world. Technology is amazing when you think about it, isn’t it?”
“I s’pose so,” I said, still holding the Union Jack case in my hand.
“Take my missus for example. She drives lorries and she always has one of those audiobooks on the go, playing in her cab. She listens to those stories for hours and hours. She loves it! She’s read hundreds of books without actually reading any of them! Brilliant!”
He was grinning at me, waiting for me to say something.
“My friend listens to the sun,” I said. The man’s grin fixed on his face. Why was I telling him this? I still had the phone case in my hand. I couldn’t exactly steal it now, could I?
“The sun?” said the man. “What is that, a new band or something?”
“No, the actual sun. He found some recordings on the internet. It was the sound the sun’s magnetic field makes … or something like that anyway. Someone made a recording of it.”
The man stared at me.
“That is incredible. See what I mean? See what I mean?” he repeated, his eyes wide. “How incredible is that? The sound of a burning star. Amazing … just amazing…”
He stared off into the distance and I took the chance to step to one side, pretending I was looking at some reconditioned phones in a cabinet. I slipped the phone case into the waistband of my jeans, pulling my jacket down to hide it from view.
“Did you know that in the nineteenth century they could make musical boxes so tiny they could fit inside a necklace pendant? Isn’t that fascinating?”
I stared at him and swallowed. A musical box? Wasn’t that what Reg had called the wooden egg? My mind raced. The more I thought about it, the more I was sure he’d called it a musical box. And there had been some noises coming from the box just before I’d been erased. Some kind of plinky noises that had reminded me of my sister’s old jewellery box. But then I’d pulled everything out of the cabinet when I was trying to look for Reg’s portrait. Had I broken the egg? It had definitely been lying on the floor, I was certain of that.
“Anyway, are you looking to buy a new phone case?” said the shopkeeper. “What size are you after?”
I could feel my cheeks beginning to burn. The man watched me closely.
“Oh, I’ve … I’ve changed my mind,” I said, blinking back at him.
He opened his mouth to say something else when I quickly turned around and ran.
The library assistant looked up at me from her desk when I walked in and then turned back to her computer. I walked around the library and found Bex in the history section. She was sitting at a table with her head hanging over a book. When she saw me she quickly closed it.
“You got it?” she whispered. I took the phone case out from my jacket as I sat down and slid it across the table. Her face seemed to relax. Claudia clearly had some kind of hold over her. The whole thing stank.
“OK, now it’s time for your side of the bargain. Tell me what you know about Amun-whatsit,” I said.
She stared at me again and then checked around before she began.
“Right. Listen up and concentrate ’cos I’m only going to say this the once.”
I nodded.
“Roald Amundsen was a Norwegian explorer. In 1911 he led an expedition team to try and be the first people to reach the South Pole. His team did it – they got there first. It was an incredible achievement.”
Now she said it I kind of remembered seeing something about that on TV once. There had been a black-and-white photograph of some men in the snow wearing thick fur clothing. I remember wondering if the fur clothes had been warm enough. Maybe that piece of woollen fabric had something to do with it?
“Did something happen to Amundsen? At the South Pole?” I asked, swallowing.
“No. They returned from the Pole OK, but a few years later Amundsen was part of a rescue team who went out to the Artic to help try and find a missing airship.”
She paused but I already had a feeling that this wasn’t going to end well.
“Amundsen’s plane never made it,” she said. “He and the crew were never found.”
I shuddered.
“Just like the Mary Celeste,” I said. “Another disappearance.”
Bex narrowed her eyes at me.
“You know about the ghost ship then?” she said, and I nodded.
“The ship was found adrift in the ocean and all of the crew members were missing,” I said. “No one knows what happened to them. It’s a mystery that will never be solved.”
Bex popped a little bubble with her gum.
“I read about it in a book,” I added.
She grinned at me.
“See? You didn’t need a phone or computer after all!” she said.
My mind was buzzing. That was two disappearances connected to the egg: the Mary Celeste and Roald Amundsen, the Artic explorer.
“Why all the questions?” she asked.
I was trying to think of a reason for asking but I decided to just tell the truth. Part of it anyway.
“I’ve got a friend who has a collection of old things but he’s not sure what they are. I said I’d try and find out for him.”
“What sort of things?” she said, shuffling in her seat.
“Erm, well there’s a little square of thick fabric. I think that’s a piece of sail from the Mary Celeste,” I said.
Bex snorted.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
I smiled at her shocked face.
“No! It’s all there in a cabinet in his lounge,” I said proudly. “There’s a finger from a glove which I think might have belonged to Amundsen and, erm … someone’s handkerchief, but I can’t remember their name. And a silver button belonging to someone else.”
She stared at me for a bit.
“Do you think I could come and see them? I might be able to help tell you what they are.”
I grinned.
“Yes! Come after school. You’ll love it! There’s all sorts of old stuff in there and I bet you’ll know what everything is because you know so much about history and that…”
Her face fell and she looked at me weirdly.
“I mean … you look like someone who would know a lot about history.”
She stood up and put her bag over her shoulder.
“Look, don’t tell anyone about this will you?”
“What, the phone case?” I said.
“Well, obviously that!” she said, doing her famous eye-roll again. “But also the bit about me being in here, in the library. Keep that to yourself, all right?”
I realized that for this version of Bex, being seen in a library would be incredibly embarrassing. I shrugged and gave her Reg’s address. As she left to go back to school I smiled to myself. My sister was going to help me get back home!
When I got back to the bungalow, the first thing I did was check the egg again. I looked at the little wooden knob on the top. I remembered now! Before I’d been erased I’d wound the little knob like a watch. But when I tried again it just spun round and round. There were no little noises, no notes. I gave it a shake and it rattled like something was loose inside. I opened it up and then I noticed that in the middle of the egg was a small, boxed area. That must be where the workings that played the music were. The man in the phone shop had said that they could make musical boxes really small. I closed the egg and went to the window to wait for Bex. My sister had a super-brain. She
’d definitely work out how I could get home, I was sure of it. I wasn’t planning on telling her who I was or what had happened, I was just hoping she’d come up with something to explain what was going on.
It wasn’t long before I saw her high ponytail appear around the corner and I went to the side door and waved at her to come that way. She looked fed up but I guessed that was probably because she’d had to stay behind at school again.
Reg was in the kitchen boiling some water in a saucepan on the stove. There was a packet of pasta on the side and two bowls.
“Ah, Maxwell! I’m just getting dinner on. Who’s your friend?” he said.
“This is Bex. She’s my … she’s my … she’s Bex.”
Bex glared at me. She really didn’t look very happy at all.
“Are you staying for dinner, Bex? It’s pasta.”
She ignored him and turned to me.
“Are we going to look at this cabinet then or what?”
Luckily Reg didn’t appear to notice how rude she was being.
“Can I show Bex some of the things in your cabinet, Reg? She’s really interested in history.”
I heard Bex’s huff but I didn’t look at her. Reg waved a hand at us.
“Of course! There are some real precious treasures in there, Bex. Be very careful though. Put everything back exactly where you found it, won’t you? Everything has a place.”
He turned away and fiddled with the packet of pasta and Bex and I made our way to the lounge.
“Ta-da!” I said, extending my hand towards the cabinet. “Look at it! I bet you can’t wait to have a look through all that, can you?” Bex sniffed and folded her arms like she really wasn’t bothered, but I saw her eyes quickly scanning all the shelves. I opened the glass doors and Bex reached for the dark, brown globe.
“That looks really old,” said Bex.
“I wonder what the little holes mean?” I said, watching her run her fingers across the dots over Africa.
“I reckon the owner made punctures for all the places they’ve visited,” she said.
I grinned at her. She’d solved a puzzle already! But Bex just frowned at me and shoved the globe into my chest.
“Where’s the piece of sail then?” she said. She really wasn’t in a good mood at all.
I picked up the wooden egg and carefully opened it, revealing the items inside.
“It’s a musical box. The workings are in the bottom bit, I think. But it’s broken.” I didn’t tell her it was because I had pulled everything out of the cabinet in a rage.
“Each of the four sides has something written on it. See?” I said.
Bex took a step closer and peered inside and I passed it to her.
“M. Celeste,” she said quietly, pointing to the engraved words. I took the piece of sail out of the middle and gave it to her. Bex stuck out her bottom lip as she held the piece of fabric in between her fingers.
“It’s definitely too thick to be clothing or some kind of sheeting,” she said, holding it up to the light. “And it looks really old. The material looks strong. It could be a part of a sail I guess.”
Her eyes twinkled a little and I smiled at her. She put it down and reached for the piece of glove and then she looked at the engraved names inside the egg again.
“Amundsen,” she read.
“I think that might be part of his glove?” I said. I saw Bex’s throat go up and down as she swallowed.
I picked up the handkerchief and passed it to Bex. She held it to the light and looked at the letters A.E. embroidered in the corner and then she looked back at the words written inside the egg.
“Earhart,” she said, tracing the engraving. I noticed her hands were trembling.
“Did this…” she said, her voice cracking a little. “Did this really belong to Amelia Earhart?” She looked at me but I just shrugged.
“I dunno,” I said. “Who was she?”
“She … she was incredible,” said Bex, clearing her throat. “Amelia Earhart was an American aviator and the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. A real adventurer! But in 1937 she tried to fly around the world and she disappeared over the Pacific Ocean.”
The room went silent.
“What happened to her?” I whispered.
Bex held the handkerchief close to her face, studying every stitch.
“No one knows. It’s assumed she crashed into the sea but they never found her or the plane.”
I could feel my skin prickle with goosebumps. She stroked the handkerchief then carefully folded it up.
“The final name carved on the egg is Louis Le Prince. Who was he?” I asked.
Bex picked up the little silver button.
“I’ve no idea,” she said, studying it closely. “But I’m guessing that this is his button. It looks like it’s made of real silver too.”
Reg appeared from behind the kitchen door and Bex jumped a little.
“Pasta’s ready, Maxwell,” he said, clapping his hands together. “Would your friend like some too?”
Bex shook her head. Reg went back to the kitchen again and I could hear him getting the cutlery out of the drawer.
“I gotta go,” she said quickly, shoving the egg towards me.
“Don’t you want to look through the other stuff?” I said. “There’s probably loads in here that you’ll know about.”
She looked at the cabinet and her nose curled upwards.
“It’s just a bunch of worthless junk, Maxwell,” she said. “There’s nothing of interest in here.”
I couldn’t believe it.
“What? But you were really excited about it a minute ago. You were shaking when you looked at Amelia Earhart’s handkerchief! I saw you!”
Bex scowled at me.
“No I wasn’t! Think about it, Maxwell. If these things were real, why would they be stuffed in a cabinet in an old bloke’s bungalow, eh? It’s just a pile of rubbish.”
My heart sank. I really thought that she’d explain something that would help me find my way back home.
“But these are all things you love and care about!” I said. “This is history! History Ain’t Dead – remember? You always say that. You’ve even got it on a T-shirt!”
Bex looked at me with disgust in her eyes.
“I’ve never said that before in my life,” she said. She put her schoolbag on to her shoulder and walked out of the kitchen without another word.
I spent the night thinking over what Bex had said about the cabinet being full of rubbish. Maybe she was right? But so far I’d discovered three things that had something to do with a disappearance: Amundsen’s glove finger, the Mary Celeste sail and Amelia Earhart’s handkerchief. And they were all inside the egg. Surely that wasn’t a coincidence? That egg definitely had something to do with me being erased.
The next morning I decided that Charlie Geek was my next best hope to help me get out of this mess. Like my sister, he was smart and knew about loads of stuff. Especially science. Surely there was something scientific behind what had happened? Maybe he could get the musical box working again? And this time I was going to tell the truth – I was going to tell him exactly what had happened to me. I’d tell him that I’d been erased. Plus, I needed to borrow some new clothes as these ones were really starting to stink.
I didn’t want to risk being seen at school again so I decided to wait for Charlie at his house. His mum worked full-time so there wouldn’t be anyone around asking awkward questions. I sat on their front step and stared at the scruffy garden while I waited for him to get home from school.
Charlie and his mum used the front garden and the people upstairs in the maisonette used the back. When we were seven, I got the idea that we could make a super-deluxe “Dirt-Track Mountain” on an empty flower bed. We asked his mum and she said she didn’t mind what we did, as long as we cleared up any mess. We moved buckets of earth from one side of the garden to the flower bed and piled it up into a great big mound. We used fat sticks to scrape out a track that
swirled round and round and Charlie stuck a big leaf at the top which he said was the starting post. We then pushed our toy cars along the track while making brrrrrrr and nerrrrrr noises. Charlie knew all the makes and models of the cars and he always let me have the fastest, coolest one. Although actually, I probably made him give it to me. I probably made him do a lot of things that he didn’t want to do. I was that kind of “friend” to him. Not a good one.
After we’d played with Dirt-Track Mountain a few times we lost interest in it, but the big mound of earth stayed there, piled high in the corner. Over the years the “mountain” became covered with weeds.
I looked at the same corner of the garden and rubbed the side of my face. The flower bed where we’d piled tons of earth was completely flat. It wasn’t such a shock to me any more now. It was just a fact: I hadn’t existed to have had the idea for Dirt-Track Mountain in the first place, so it had never been made. The memories I had in my head were mine and mine only. I had a past that no one else had shared. Nobody at all. The thought of that made me feel lonely. Very lonely.
I gave a deep sigh and when I looked up Charlie Geek was walking right towards me.
“What are you doing here?” he said. His hair was still spiked up and his school tie was hanging around his neck, undone.
I jumped up and brushed the back of my jeans.
“Charlie! Good to see you, again!” I said, trying to sound friendly. I grinned at him but he just scowled.
“Look, I know you’re a bit freaked about why I keep turning up … but I need your help. Can I explain?” I said.
Charlie stared back, his eyes narrowing to little slits.
“No,” he said. He rummaged around in his bag, took out his door key and put it in the lock.
“Honestly, you’re going to love what I’ve got to tell you! You know how you love science? The planets and how things work and … soundwaves and, erm … yeah … stuff. You know you like all that and you find it all fascinating? Well, what I’ve got to tell you will blow your mind. Trust me!”
The Day I Was Erased Page 13
