‘The Master will see you.’
We’re shown to a dingy, brown-painted, panelled room on the right-hand side and told to wait for instructions. Big Ben’s too restless to sit down.
‘When will we have cake?’
‘Very soon, my dear,’ says Anon. ‘Dear Samuel is exceedingly fond of drinking tea and although it is not yet the fashion to accompany afternoon tea with cake, he has an appetite for it to match your own. We will be called upstairs once tea is served. I can hear the cacophony of crockery in the kitchen below. This house has few rules but they take tea very seriously.’
‘What are the other rules?’ I say.
‘When you meet Mr Johnson, you must curtsy to him. And you, Big Ben, must bow. That is the norm for the 18th century. In all other respects, Mr Johnson is casual for a man of his time.’
The sound of clomping footsteps up and down the stairs is strangely reassuring. Mistress Anna is still cross but at least she’s carrying the tea set from the basement kitchen. She must find everything extra tricky if she’s blind like I find things challenging because I’m autistic. Ten minutes later, we follow her up the winding staircase and enter a room on the right with pale green walls, much brighter and nicer than the waiting room. She announces us and opens a cupboard on the far side of the room.
The large man in the white wig is staring out from the same window as before, shaking his head and waving. Even from this distance, I can smell his sweat. His wig is a dirty grey colour, singed at the edges, and his shirt’s stained with what looks like faded black ink. He’s waving like Anon’s still there. I wonder for a moment if Anon has leapt twice, once now and the other on a different occasion and is playing tricks on him. But then I realise he’s not MEANING to wave at all. His hand can’t stop waving. He’s tapping his feet, too, muttering to himself under his breath, then suddenly he blows out a loud whistle. I’m mesmerised and a bit scared of him at the same time.
Abruptly, he turns, like a shot putter in the circle and speaks in a loud, booming voice that makes me jump:
‘Anon, what is it of the clock?’
‘Four in the afternoon, Sir,’ says Anon, with a curtsy.
‘Then it is time for tea. Before I made your acquaintance, I took tea morning, noon and night. Now I have taken to indulging in the afternoon; I am a hardened and shameless tea drinker. Pray, be seated, one and all. What is your name, boy?’
‘Big Ben,’ says Big Ben with a bow, without pausing at all.
I’m surprised he answered straight away and used his nickname, rather than his christened name, Benedykt. He must like Mr Johnson already. That’s a good sign; Big Ben’s very good at judging character.
‘A befitting name for a fine fellow!’
I’m glad Mr Johnson likes Big Ben, too. I curtsy to him like Anon told me. I’ve been concentrating on Mr Johnson so intensely, especially his eyes. One of them seems half closed and the other is squinting. Now I see what Anon meant about them taking tea seriously. They don’t serve it in mugs. On the table in front of us Mistress Anna has placed an elaborate china tea set, white with pink flowers; the teacups are tiny, with no handles at all. Mistress Anna takes an oak box out of the cupboard which looks a bit chipped and almost drops it beside the tea set. It has a lock on it. I wonder what’s inside? Maybe it’s jewels. It must be something very precious. Then she unlocks it with a tiny silver key and the smell overpowers me. Tea! I should have guessed.
Once Mistress Anna has added the tea leaves and hot water to the teapot, locked the box and put it back in the cupboard, Mr Johnson pours cups for everyone. He offers us milk and sugar and drinks down his own immediately. I politely refuse both, take a sip of the liquid and almost spit it out – it’s so bitter! And the cup burns my hand! Maybe milk helps to make it taste better AND cool it down. Then I notice Anon has poured hers into the saucer to allow it to cool quicker so I do the same. There are two large plates and a pile of small matching ones. Big Ben looks at Anon and she reads his mind.
‘Oh, I almost forgot the hamper.’ She lays out a selection of cakes onto the large plates and a knife. ‘Elle, I have brought your favourite coconut cake. Sir, would you care for a slice?’ Anon busies herself with serving.
I take a bite of the coconut cake: delicious! I try not to focus too closely on my host but I can’t help myself. Although the tea set is posh, Mr Johnson’s eating is not! He stuffs food into his mouth and the crumbs fall more on his clothes than the plate. He constantly refills his teacup and twice stretches out his arm whilst still holding the tea, spilling most of it on the floor! Even though his manner is gruff and his voice loud, I begin to feel relaxed. He is being himself, not pretending to be polite; we can be ourselves too. He seems to particularly like the coconut sponge.
‘An extraordinary mind makes extraordinary cake. Did you cook this?’
He’s addressing me! My face instantly burns red with the unexpectedness.
‘No, Sir.’
‘What is your name?’
‘Elle.’
‘The French for she, a palindrome, what better?
The letter L becomes my favourite letter.’
I’m pleased he noticed my name is a palindrome, love that he made it into a rhyme but not sure if I’m supposed to reply. I say nothing; he peers closely at me.
‘You do not know what to make of me, Elle. I am in perpetual motion. My intellect mirrors my body; thoughts animate me. Furthermore, Anon informs me my voice is harsh. I may bark but I don’t bite.’
Although his face is twitching, he gives me a twinkling smile. I like Mr Johnson. He can’t help his body spasms any more than I can help it when I repeat phrases out loud or Big Ben stims by running up and down. I don’t think he’s autistic though. I’ll ask Anon later. She takes a sip of her tea.
‘How goes the Dictionary, Sir? On my previous visit, you had barely reached Bamboo!’
‘Ah, the Dictionary. I was for a long time BAMBOOZLED but now I am merely PERPLEXED by the length of the undertaking.’
‘You have reached the letter P?’
‘I have indeed. And illuminated some meanings with several extracts from your poems I recall from memory.’
‘You are too kind.’
‘Verba volant, scripta manent: spoken words fly away but written remain.’
‘Sir, I glow with pleasure when you quote Latin. Please permit Elle and Big Ben a glance at your great work?’
‘Why, of course.’ He stands up. ‘If you follow the stairs up until you can rise no further, you will find yourselves in the garret. There, my scribes will keep you occupied . . .’
The garret is a word paradise!
It’s a huge, long, light room the length of the whole house, with piles and piles of brown hardback books scattered all over the place and covered in dust. Some of the piles are so high they’re like sculptures! I’ve never seen so many books outside a library! They’re old and faded with battered spines. Mr Johnson’s books are like his clothes. Several men are standing at a long table copying out passages from books in beautiful, sloping, old-fashioned handwriting onto slips of paper. Everything’s larger than life; I feel tiny, even though I’m tall for my age. Halfway along the wall is a writing desk with an inkpot on it and a very large chair with only three legs which must be where Mr Johnson sits.
One of the men comes over, a short stocky man in a clean white wig who looks much younger than Mr Johnson.
‘You must be friends of young Frank,’ he says and before we can correct him or ask who young Frank is, ‘come in, come in and see words at work!’
On the table are sheets of paper nearly two feet high with slips of paper all over them, covered with written extracts from poems.
‘I thought it was a dictionary, not a poetry anthology.’
I know that sounds rude but I wasn’t expecting that at all. Mr Johnson just said he’d used extracts from Anon’s poems but all the dictionaries I’ve seen give definitions of the words in prose.
‘Mr Johnson is
an expert on poems,’ the man explains. ‘He is a poet himself and his head is bursting with them. “Why use prose when you can use poetry,” he always says. But in my humble opinion, he prefers poems because he can remember them. He has an UNCOMMON memory and is constantly speaking them aloud. We have difficulty keeping apace with him.’
‘Why are the pages so big?’
‘To fit all the words on, young madam. There will be two volumes, for the first only takes us to the letter K.’
I smile. People accuse me of speaking like I swallowed a dictionary. Imagine if I swallowed this one!
Heavy footsteps are coming up the stairs. Mr Johnson joins us a minute later. He must be fit because he’s not out of breath at all. I wonder how fast he can run the 100 metres? I don’t ask him though. That would be inappropriate.
‘I trust you have occupied my scribes,’ he says, ‘for I always outtalk and outquote them.’
Big Ben’s looking at the pages intently and I’m reminded of his dyslexia. When he tries to read printed books, he says the letters move around like ants crawling across the page. But this handwriting looks so beautiful in blue-black ink, it doesn’t matter that you can’t read it. Each s looks like an f and there are lots of swirly doodles. I find it hard to read handwriting at the best of times and I LOVE reading. It must be impossible for Big Ben. Handwriting is very different to print.
‘Do you tell them what to write down, Mr Johnson?’ he says.
‘Indeed I do. But they have to check quotations from the library,’ he gestures to the piles of books on the floor. ‘I pride myself on accuracy but it is the job of the scribes to locate the sources. Shakespeare is simple, but Anonymous a superior challenge.’ He smiles.
‘What if you made a spelling mistake?’
‘They begin over again. But spelling has been a fickle phenomenon, young man. Before dictionaries, you could spell a word every which way you liked. The great playwright himself spelt his name in all manner of abbreviations, and spellings from Shakspere to Shakspeare with an ‘a’. And it was printed in many more ways than there are days of the week.
‘Nowadays, however, there is a fashion for fixing the language. But take heed, young man: the language refuses to be fixed.’
Big Ben nods. I can tell he likes the idea of spelling things lots of different ways. Maybe now he’ll be more open to travelling further back into the past, when people thought differently. Before dictionaries, he’d be less stressed about spelling words wrong.
‘Do you have a favourite word in your dictionary, Sir?’ I say.
‘No, I do not. But here is one for you: backfriend. It means a friend backwards, an enemy in secret. I thought it might appeal since Anon informs me you are a poet inspired by reversing the natural order of things. Beware the backfriend, Elle, but treasure the genuine article. Big Ben is clearly the latter, a true friend.’
‘Thank you, Sir,’ we say, at exactly the same time.
Later, downstairs, Mr Johnson is unusually quiet. His face and hands are still twitching but he looks like he’s aged. He notices me looking at him.
‘Cave canem, Elle. Beware of the dog. But especially, beware of the black dog, melancholia. Since the death of my dear wife, Tetty, the black dog has been the shadow at my side. Were it not for female company such as Anon and Mistress Anna, I would despair completely.’
‘Oh, Mr Johnson, you shouldn’t say such things.’ Anon adjusts her glasses and I can see she’s gone quite pink. ‘Surely Frank is a comfort to you?’
Mr Johnson seems to come to life again. ‘Ah yes, dearest Frank. Until his arrival, this was my annus terribilis, the worst year of my existence. But he does indeed keep gloomy thoughts at bay.’
‘Is Frank your son, Sir?’ I ask.
‘No, we bear no kinship. And yet,’ he pauses, ‘he is more than a son to me, though I pay him a servant’s wage. The good lord saw fit to deliver him to my household after Tetty died. Frank is black and I, as you can plainly see, am white. Time and circumstance can be cruel; the enslavement of black people in the colonies is rife and even here in London some villains choose to practise it, but I offer Frank a safe haven.’
‘As you do many others,’ says Anon.
Oh my Chrono! That must be the real reason Kwesi didn’t want us to leap to 1752. I know about slavery but thought it only happened in the Caribbean and America. Not in Britain. And maybe that’s why that couple were staring so hard at me earlier – they wanted to BUY me. I could be in terrible danger! I take deep breaths and remind myself how lucky I am to be in Mr Johnson’s house. A safe haven. His face twitches into a smile.
‘Frank has a greater claim on me than the others. He has barely reached his first decade. And he is particularly obsessed with the sea and the change in the calendar this September.’ He stands, walks across the room and opens a long thin cupboard to the right of the fireplace. ‘It is my good fortune that you are here today. I require your opinion.’
He takes a brown paper package out of the cupboard, places it on the table and unwraps it. I almost gasp out loud.
It’s a large hourglass, as high as a relay baton with dark wood bases at each end, connected by three columns. It’s an Infinity-Glass without the infinity symbols! It must be THE Infinity-Glass!
‘This is a present for Frank. He is obsessed with time and the sea, though this wicked time dictated he was born into slavery and the sea is an unhallowed graveyard for blacks. What say ye?’
‘It is exquisite,’ says Anon. ‘And we must fight against these crimes of commerce!’
Big Ben and I nod in agreement. We’re both moved by Mr Johnson’s speech, his kindness to Frank and his anger against slavery. And we’re too amazed by the coincidence to speak. So much to take in.
‘You must not breathe a word of this. It must be a surprise. Tomorrow, before noon, Frank will break his fast with this.’
There’s a sharp knock on the door panel. Mr Johnson clumsily attempts to cover up the hourglass and says in his loud voice:
‘Come in. What is it, Mistress Anna?’
‘Will you be dining with your . . .’ she looks at the hourglass and frowns at us ‘. . . friends this evening and is Master Francis—?’
‘No, Mistress Anna. I shall be dining with you alone.’
Mistress Anna smiles and leaves the room. Is it my imagination or did Anon jump when he said alone? I bet Anon wishes she lived here instead of Mistress Anna. Their names are so similar, Mistress Anna could almost be a Leapling herself! She’s not, though, Anon would have told us if she was. But something else grabbed me more: the word Francis. I take a deep breath like I’m about to run the 100 metres. My heart is thumping in my chest but I can’t let this opportunity slip by. I have to be absolutely sure what I’m thinking is true.
‘Who’s Master Francis?’
‘Why, Frank, dear girl. Mistress Anna insists on using his baptismal name but the rest of us truncate it.’
Anon has risen from her seat. ‘We really must take our leave, Mr Johnson. Thank you for your hospitality.’
‘The pleasure was mine.’
Everyone stands. He kisses Anon on the hand and waves at Big Ben and me. We wave back. I’m so excited I can barely walk back down the spiral staircase.
It can’t be coincidence. The Francis about to receive an hourglass as a present must be Francis 1752. What are the odds on this happening? Even Big Ben won’t be able to work it out!
Chapter 11:00
THE LITTERATI
As soon as we leap back to the Clashroom in 2021, I have lots of thoughts at the same time, buzzing round my head like bees.
As the past is fixed, what just happened in 1752 actually happened in history.
That makes us the first people to know Mr Johnson bought the Infinity-Glass as a present for Francis!
Who carved the infinity symbols into it, when did they do it and why?
We must visit Francis as soon as we possibly can!
But as I’m a Level 1 Infinite on a mission
, I need to be careful what I say and who I say it to. I like Anon but she’s Evil Nine’s sister. More importantly, this school has cameras which record sound as well as visuals. If I say the wrong thing, it could jeopardise our goal to get the Infinity-Glass back to the museum and prove MC2 is innocent.
So what I actually say is this: ‘Is Mr Johnson autistic?’
Anon smiles. ‘No, he is not. He may appear to be stimming when he waves his hand or makes noises, but this does not calm him or give him joy as it does us. And he derives intense pleasure from conversing with visitors morning, noon and night which I, for one, could never endure.’
Big Ben nods. ‘Logical.’
I frown. ‘If he’s not autistic, what is he?’
‘Dear Samuel probably has Tourette’s Syndrome but he does not know it by that name. In 1752 it had not been discovered. It means he cannot control his repetitive movements and vocalisations. His supreme intellect and extreme challenge spring from the same source. The ignorant mock him; intellectuals flock to him.’
‘I LIKE him.’
‘I too, child. His compassion is embodied in the marine sandglass he bought to comfort young Frank on the morrow. And I like you and Big Ben, too.’ Anon twiddles her glasses. ‘But now I need solitude. The transition back to the 21st century is always an assault on the senses. My phone number is 1709, dear Samuel’s birth year. Text me if you wish to stay in touch.
‘Go, Intercalaries! Change your clothes but retain your new outfits. They may be of use in the past should you wish to revisit. And make haste. Anno awaits you in the Art Department on the first floor.’
We leave. I understand exactly why Anon finds it difficult going from one century to another. I’m actually relieved to be back in 2021. It was very noisy and smelly in 1752 and although I loved everyone speaking like Shakespeare, my head hurts from having to concentrate so much. But it’s different for Anon: her specialist subjects are poetry AND Mr Johnson. 1752 is her favourite year.
The Time-Thief Page 8
