In all the craziness, I forgot to tell them about Francis 1752.
I look at my phone again and do big-eyes. I have to sit down at the table. There are two texts. One from Mrs C Eckler apologising for phoning earlier on her husband’s Chronophone, asking if I’m OK and reminding me about the Triple M Activity Day tomorrow. The other’s from Francis!
Greetings, Elle! Can you visit me in 1752?
So Francis DOES live in 1752 as well as having the year as his phone number. Maybe he knows something about the theft of the Infinity-Glass. I must visit him but I can’t do it alone. Leaping back in time is very VERY dangerous. You should really do it with a grown-up but we can’t tell grown-ups about The Infinites or our mission because it’s top secret. I know one thing: I must tell the others, not by text, but face-to-face tomorrow evening.
We must meet Francis in 1752!
Chapter 08:00
ANNO, ANON AND NONA
The Music, Maths and Movement School is on the opposite side of town to Intercalary International. It hasn’t opened to pupils yet; it’s still in development. They invite local pupils as guinea pigs to test their ideas out. This is the first of their Wednesday Summer Activity Days. The main building reminds me of the eco-style buildings from 2048 that we saw last year. It has huge windows to let in the light and the wooden panels on the outside of the building look like bamboo!
We have to get there by bus because it’s not a Leapling-only school. We can’t just appear out of thin air in front of the building. That would be breaking our Oath of Secrecy because Annuals might see us. But the school is co-founded by Anno, who gave the talk on the Infinity-Glass at the museum, and she’s a Leapling. I hope we get a chance to use The Gift today.
Big Ben and I hook up with Jake and Maria at the entrance since we’re in the same group. I’m glad they’ve kept all the Leaplings together so we can be more open about what we say and do. There are 24 visiting pupils divided into six colour-coded groups of four. We’re in the silver group taken by Anno. Today she’s dressed more like a teacher, in a black trouser suit and white blouse, but her hair’s like a sculpture of the Empire State Building!
She addresses all 24 of us.
‘Welcome to the Music, Maths and Movement School. I am Anno, one of the co-founders and Director of Movement. There will be no whole-group sessions; we believe in smaller group learning. We will begin with movement. This is how we staff start our days: yoga or dance or running to stimulate the brain. We want our students to have a head start on the day, too. Enjoy your first session.’
Anno leads the four of us outside the main doors, we turn left and follow the building round. I notice she’s walking quite close to me and it feels a bit uncomfortable but I don’t want to tell her to move further away, it might come out wrong. Then she says something surprising.
‘Elle, I was very shocked to witness the theft of the Infinity-Glass on Monday. And I’m very sorry to hear about your friend, MC2. He visited us here in the future, helped us develop the core curriculum for Movement. I believe he is innocent. If there’s anything we can do to help, don’t hesitate to ask.’
I’m surprised she knows we’re friends. She certainly doesn’t know we’re INFINITES. But the Leapling community is tiny and word travels fast.
‘Thank you,’ I say, hoping she will give me some space now but she doesn’t.
‘I know Kwesi and Ama, too, of course. I keep track of exceptional pupils across the timeline. Ama is lined up for a career in robot design and Kwesi’s created outstanding murals since leaving our school. They excel at athletics, too.’
‘Kwesi calls himself Visual ASD. For him, ASD stands for Autistic Street Designer. He speaks his own sign language. And he’s so fluent in Standard Sign Language, he does presentations at international art exhibitions in the future.’
‘Indeed, he is very creative. I paint myself but sculpture’s my thing. You’ll see some later.’ She stops walking for a second and checks her watch. ‘We have tried to create an inclusive school that nurtures autistic people’s skills and minimises sensitivities as well as catering for pupils with different or minimal challenges. We are meeting our goals in the mid-21st century. Kwesi benefitted.’
‘Do you travel to the future often?’
‘All the time. It’s cheating but why not use The Gift to develop the best educational programme? We’re light years ahead of contemporary schools. But some of the ideas are stuff we already know in the present.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘We know sitting at desks doesn’t always get the best results; that many students benefit from rhythmic learning; and maths makes more sense in the real world. But it’s hard to break old traditions.’
We turn a corner and I forget she’s still in my personal space. My eyes go bigger than Jupiter, Big Ben starts stimming with excitement, Maria swears in Portuguese in a good way and Jake whoops. I thought the athletics track at Intercalary International was good but this is like an Olympic stadium! The track is orange, obviously brand new and has covered, raked seats all the way round.
‘I’ve never seen an orange track before,’ I say, thinking aloud.
‘It’s an eco-friendly surface and international standard. It’ll give you extra spring,’ says Anno, smiling. ‘We’ll be paying it off for decades but it’s worth every penny. Take a run on it.’
‘I didn’t bring my trainers.’
That’s not the only thing that’s bothering me. The track looks too perfect to walk on. I don’t want to be the first to spoil it. It’s like Anno can read my mind.
‘Don’t worry, it’s indestructible. You’ll get a good idea, even in shoes.’
Jake’s on the track before she’s finished her sentence. Maria goes next, followed by Big Ben and me. We’re jogging slowly but our stride length is incredible. It’s almost TOO bouncy. I wonder how fast I can run the 100 metres here. That must be how the sprinters felt in 1968, the first Olympics on a synthetic track. The perfect surface and high altitude meant they smashed all the records under 800 metres!
When we’ve done a lap, Anno makes an announcement.
‘We’re having a closed meet this evening,’ she says. ‘We have to raise money every way we can to pay for the facilities. But you are all very welcome to participate free, as guest runners. That way we don’t need to list your school name.’
The existence of Intercalary International is a secret outside the Leapling community so we don’t usually get the opportunity to do interschool sports events. Jake shrugs but Maria says yes immediately. She’s a champion high jumper. I look at Big Ben and wonder if he’s thinking what I’m thinking. We should really be having a meeting this evening to work out what to do next. I LOVE athletics, it’s my specialist subject, but Big Ben and I are on a mission. We mustn’t get side-tracked and run out of time.
‘I’m busy,’ I say. I know that must sound rude but I hate having to choose and feel a bit panicked. My words came out wrong. But Anno isn’t offended at all.
‘It’s totally your choice, Elle. Ama’s doing the long jump. And the 100 metres.’
‘AMA!’
Kwesi’s Annual sister. The friend I haven’t seen since last year’s school trip to 2048! Ama, now in Tenth Year in 2049. How will they luggage her here?
‘She heard you were coming here this week in 2021 and was desperate to see you. We offered to transport her.’
‘Who’s we?’
‘Myself and my co-founder sisters, Anon, Director of Music, and Nona, Director of Maths. You’ll meet them in due course.’
Anno, Anon and Nona. I LOVE their anagram names, like the same person with different emphasis. If they had a pet dog, they could call it Nano! Big Ben would like that.
‘Are you triplets?’
‘Good gracious, no! Anon and I look alike – some people get us confused – but she’s 12 years older than me. Nona’s the baby.’
‘Are you all Leaplings?’
‘Anon and I, yes. Nona missed out.
But she has her own gift: architecture. She designed this school building.’
Big Ben smiles. ‘The odds on two members of the same family being Leaplings is one in two million.’
‘I believe so, Ben. Do you know the odds for two Leaplings with The Gift? Anon used to be a talented gymnast but fell off a beam, which affected her mobility. She walks with a stick now.’ Anno turns to me. ‘Nona’s like Ama; swore the Oath but can only leap as luggage. I’m sure Ama will understand how busy you are, Elle.’
My stomach ties up in a knot. It’s so difficult to change my mind once I’ve made a decision. But now I know Ama’s coming here, everything’s changed. It would be wonderful to see Ama again; we’ve missed each other loads. And she’ll want to race me as much as I want to race her. It would be great fun. AND seeing her do the long jump. That’s her best event. Surely there’ll still be time to solve the crime, too?
‘I’d like to come,’ I say.
Anno smiles. ‘I thought that might persuade you. What about you, Ben?’
Big Ben nods and I’m pleased. It will be even more fun with Big Ben around.
‘Excellent. We have all sizes of the most comfortable kit ever because it’s made of a material . . .’
‘That hasn’t been invented yet!’ I smile. I’m already looking forward to this evening.
Assistants give us headphones for the music session before lunch. It’s taking place in one of their teaching rooms, a bright, light space with large windows overlooking the athletics stadium. Usually bright lights give me a headache but these ones don’t so they must be from the future. The four of us have the option of sitting on seats, standing or walking around. I prefer to sit but Jake and Maria stand and Big Ben does running up and down, stimming to relax. It’s nice they let us do what makes us most comfortable. Anno was right; not everyone learns best when they’re sitting in a chair. The headphones are amazing. They filter out all the whispering and fidgeting before the session begins. I wish we had them at Intercalary International.
A minute later, a tall woman with black hair streaked with grey and pulled into a tight bun, round bronze glasses and a matching bronze walking stick enters the room. She’s wearing a mustard-coloured shiny dress with a tight-fitting bodice and long full-length skirt and cream shoes with buckles on. Maybe she’s from the olden days! When she clips the microphone onto her lacy shawl, it spoils the effect.
‘Dear Intercalary Intellectuals, I am Anon, as in Anonymous. But anonymous means no name, and Anon IS my name. I am therefore a walking, talking contradiction.’
I smile. Anon likes words as much as I do. And I remember she’s a Leapling, so we have that in common as well. She continues.
‘I am a famous and unacknowledged poet. Raise your hands if you have heard of me.’
I put my hand up. Anon peers at me through her glasses.
‘I believe you are Elle, winner of the 1752 Poetry Prize? What do you know of Anon?’
‘I read a poem in an anthology called Poor Old Lady, about a woman who swallowed a fly. It was by Anon. But I’ve heard people sing it with different words.’
Anon slowly nods. ‘In the olden days, when poets WROTE poems, they signed their names underneath so people knew they were the author, for example, William Wordsworth. But lots of illiterate people – those who could neither read nor write – made up poems, too. These poems were ORAL, spoken or sung. People learnt them, altered the words across the centuries and editors published different versions in poetry anthologies. Since they knew not who first invented the poems, they attributed them to Anonymous, shortened to Anon.’
‘There were lots of poems by Anon in that anthology,’ I say. ‘But as YOU are Anon, they can’t all have been made up by illiterate people. Were some of them written and signed by you and published at different times in history?’
‘Indeed they were. But take heed: Annuals know not of my existence. Let this be our secret. What is poetry but a songbird perched on a page? As Director of Music, I fervently believe music and poetry spring from the same muse.’
‘If they’re all published as Anon, how do we know which ones were written by you?’
‘Mine, fellow poet, are the BEST.’
This makes me smile. It was a good joke and I like that she called me a poet and I like her. She’s different to anyone I’ve ever met. I wonder if she’s autistic and poetry’s her specialist subject.
‘I have a passion for poems; they allow words to break the rules. Some believe poetry is putting language in a cage but I believe the opposite. The cage is a liberation. The caged word truly sings!’
‘Try telling that to a zoo animal,’ says Jake.
‘Young man,’ Anon fixes him with her round glasses, ‘I speak of words not birds. I wish you to listen to an 18th-century poem on your audio-apparatus. Poetry is not merely—’
A mid-teen with bronze skin and short spiky blue-and-green peacock hair pokes her head round the door. Anon blinks behind her glasses, obviously cross.
‘What is it, Portia?’ She pronounces it Porsha and Big Ben stops running.
‘There’s a problem.’
‘You may speak freely, we are all of us Leaplings.’
‘It’s 2033. They delivered the wrong robots.’
‘The fiddlefaddle future I despise most of all; they make much ado about nothing. Give me the past any day.
‘Intercalaries, this is Portia, my adopted niece. She is named for the heroine in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice and knows more than she should about music of the past, present and future. She will conduct the remainder of your session.’
Lunch is amazing. They asked us in advance what we’d like so they could arrange a buffet for everyone. They even asked which cakes we liked for later and I gave them the recipe for my favourite vegan coconut cake. We can stick to our preferences or try new things. We’re allowed to go up to the counter several times so we don’t need to load our plates up with several different kinds of foods at a time like at Intercalary International. That’s one of the reasons I always take sandwiches. I like to know exactly what I’m going to have to eat and make sure it’s the right kind. When I eat mozzarella in white flatbread it has to be a particular brand of mozzarella and a particular brand of flatbread. If not, it tastes wrong, sometimes so wrong I can’t eat it.
Portia’s sitting with the Intercalary International pupils in case we want to ask any secret questions about time-travel because she’s a Leapling, too. She’s accompanied her mum, Anno, and aunt, Anon, on numerous trips on the timeline. When I go up to the counter the second time, I notice her tall, slim figure next to me. She sees me looking at the beetroot.
‘It’s the best colour EVER,’ I say, ‘but I’d have to close my eyes to eat it. Maybe it’s just a feast for the eyes.’ That’s what Mrs C Eckler calls all the foods I like the look of but find too bright to eat.
‘No need,’ says Portia, ‘if you wear these.’
She produces some pink plastic sunglasses from her bag. They look like something from a toy shop but who knows. I put them on and instantly the beetroot looks grey. They’ve made everything go black and white.
‘Now it looks horrible,’ I say and she laughs.
‘They’re colour-coolers. If you press the left button,’ she shows me the inside of the hinge, ‘it changes the shade. The right button changes the colour. You can make it white if you want.’
It works! I carry the plate back to my seat. The beetroot tastes very intense, the vinegar is sweet and kind of explodes in my mouth like sherbet and I like it a lot. But I would never have been able to eat it if it looked purple. Maybe one day I will.
‘Can I keep these?’
‘Of course.’
Big Ben eats three plates of food! Then he bombards Portia with questions.
‘Have you been to 2033? What is it like? Why are the robots wrong?’
I’ve never seen Big Ben so animated and I feel a tight feeling in my stomach. I’m scared Big Ben likes Portia more than me;
I want him to like me best. I’m jealous. Portia’s too old for him. She looks the same age as GMT, 4-leap +1. But she answers all Big Ben’s questions without rolling her eyes clockwise or anticlockwise like some people do so she’s not a bad person. I just find it difficult to like her as much as I thought because of the effect she’s having on Big Ben.
When lunch is over, Portia shows the four of us several of their relaxation rooms for pupils who need 1-2-1 lessons or have Special Educational Needs. There’s a SENsory Room like there was at the Time Squad Centre in 2048 with a couple of white tents inside, lots of cushions and sequinned drapes I have to squint my eyes sideways to totally appreciate; the Lyrical Lounge, which has poems and song lyrics written all over the walls that I find the opposite of relaxing but Portia loves; and the Clashroom, which looks more like a traditional classroom with wooden tables and chairs.
The first session after lunch will be maths. They announce an Oops: the sessions will now be in two groups of 12 rather than six groups of four because some of the group leaders had to leave. In spite of that, Big Ben’s really excited because it’s his specialist subject. We’re in group one. We line up outside the classroom, all the Intercalaries plus eight pupils from other schools. We hear a door close at the end of the corridor and a woman wearing a black trouser suit begins walking towards us. She swings her arms like she’s marching, but her shoes don’t make any sound at all on the futuristic surface. She has short black hair, and looks like she’s about to launch a shot put at us. I gasp and my eyes go bigger than Jupiter as the realisation hits me.
This must be Nona – none other than Evil Nine!
Chapter 09:00
MELTDOWN
It’s a large square room with a clock on the wall and a teacher’s desk underneath where Nona sits. In the middle of the room, 12 chairs are arranged in a circle.
‘Sit!’ says Nona, like we’re dogs.
The Time-Thief Page 6
