Time School: We Will Remember Them

by Nikki Young

  With her heart beating out of her chest, Jess wished she had Nadia by her side. Her head was spinning with all the talk of war and death and bombs; she didn’t know what to think. The man began to speak again and everyone raised their heads to look back up at him.

  “The war is close to an end,” he said. “We hope to hear of the Allies signing a peace treaty with Germany very soon.”

  Jess looked at Nadia, who had turned around to seek her out. Nadia’s face was white, her eyes wide and, as Jess looked towards the boys, searching for Tomma and Ash; she could see they had turned a funny shade of pale too. Then, her vision began to blur and she could feel her body start to sway. Before Jess had time to do anything about it, the world went black.

  Chapter 6

  All Is Not As It Seems

  Jess came around to see Matron hovering over her, wafting something under her nose. The smell was sharp and pungent like vinegar. It made Jess cough and her eyes water.

  “There you go, that should do it. Don’t sit up too quickly,” Matron said. “You just fainted.”

  After what they’d heard in assembly, it was no surprise that Jess had fainted. Jess was now positive something strange had happened that morning and there was no getting away from that fact. It was becoming clear whatever had happened had affected them in a big way, like in a going-back-in-time way. Nadia might have been joking when she’d said it, but now Jess was beginning to wonder whether she might have been right.

  Jess’s head spun, not just from fainting, but with the possibility of it all. It’s not every day you travel back in time, is it? And to a war! What war? The man, whoever he was, hadn’t said. Jess wondered if he was the Headteacher at Hickley School the Head always conducted assembly the school had a tradition of doing it that way. As for going back in time, that wasn’t possible, surely? Jess still clung to the hope it was all a strange dream, but that hope was fading by the minute.

  Feeling uncomfortable on the cold, hard, wooden floor, she shifted and rolled onto her side, coming up to a sitting position. She tried to focus so she wouldn’t black out again. There was no one left in the hall apart from Nadia, Matron and Martha. Martha was looking down at Jess with concern. Her brightly coloured hair falling down the front of her chest, lighting up her pale face.

  “Don’t just stand there, girls, help me get your friend up,” Matron said, staring hard at Nadia, who looked like she was in a world of her own, probably a world that involved twenty-first-century technology. Nadia came to her senses and took Jess’s hands to help her stand.

  “I think you’ll be just fine. I have to get back to my office now. Would you girls be so kind as to take your friend to her classroom?” Matron asked.

  Martha and Nadia nodded enthusiastically, both immediately moving to each side of Jess, supporting her arms.

  “You okay?” Nadia said.

  “Not really, you?”

  Nadia shook her head, looking grave. “I almost fainted too when I heard what he said, and it looked like Tomma and Ash were going to go the same way. What are we going to do?” It wasn’t often Nadia asked that sort of question to Jess.

  It was usually the other way around and Nadia was the one who came up with a solution.

  “I don’t know. My head hurts just thinking about it.”

  Jess began to sway a little, but Nadia and Martha kept a firm grip on her arms. They led her over to the side of the hall, where there was a small wooden bench. The three of them sat down, elbows on knees, resting their chins upon their hands.

  “Probably from when you bumped it on the floor,” Nadia said, turning her face towards Jess.

  “Not in the mood for jokes, Nad.”

  “Sorry, can’t help myself.” Nadia’s eyebrows shot up as she cocked her head to one side and smiled with an air of nonchalance.

  Jess let out a long sigh before rubbing at her temples where she could feel a headache beginning to form. She turned her attention towards Martha on her other side. Not knowing whether they should be back in their form rooms or somewhere else, Jess was grateful to have Martha with them.

  “Don’t worry, it’s not that bad here,” Martha said. “Some of them don’t want the likes of you here. It reminds them of what they’ve lost themselves or might lose. Most of them are all right though.”

  “Is that why no one took any notice of Jess when she fainted?” Nadia said, her expression more serious now. “You wouldn’t believe it! They acted like you weren’t even there. No one seemed to care.”

  “Folks are always fainting round here. Some have to walk miles to school every day and with food so scarce, they don’t always have ‘owt to eat. We’re all starving.”

  That brought things into perspective. These people were in the middle of a war and as well as losing their loved ones, they had no food. It made Jess feel desperate on their part.

  “Come on, do you think you can walk now?” Martha said. “We have to get to class. Miss Jennings will be wondering where we are and she isn’t shy to use the cane.”

  Jess shuddered, standing up and taking a deep breath. This was the most surreal of situations and they were stuck at school whether they liked it or not. She knew she was going to have to tough it out for the time being, until they knew more about what had happened to them. Martha’s situation was very sobering. There were obvious difficulties going on for everyone around them, yet Martha seemed so strong and accepting. Jess and her friends had none of these troubles to deal with. Their lives were easy in comparison—disregarding their current situation, that is.

  As the girls trudged slowly towards the classroom in silence, they passed Tomma and Ash, who were at the back of a queue of boys filing out of the door. Tomma looked at Jess in concern. She nodded to let him know she was okay.

  “Where are you going?” she mouthed.

  Tomma shrugged before pointing to the door.

  “Outside,” he said but it was clear he had no idea why.

  Jess wished they were all together in class as they usually were, but was reassured when Tomma raised a smile back at her. He was comfortable with the situation, whatever it happened to be and just knowing he was around made Jess feel better somehow.

  Chapter 7

  Back To The Old School

  Martha led them back to the classroom they had been in for registration earlier. Usually, the students collected their bags after assembly and went off to lessons. Jess knew that probably wasn’t going to happen and she was right. The other girls were all sitting at their desks in silence, watching as Miss Jennings wrote an equation on the blackboard. She stopped and straightened up when they walked in.

  “Sorry we’re late, Miss. Jess fainted,” Martha said.

  “Yes, yes, I heard. Come along and sit down. I won’t have you disrupting my lesson. Miss Kaminski, perhaps you can come and show the rest of the girls how we solve this equation?”

  Jess almost fainted again as Nadia looked at her with her eyes wide. Confident in most ways, the one thing Nadia couldn’t bear was standing up and speaking in front of other people. An embarrassing show-and-tell in Year Five had left its mark and was something she was unable to shake off, even two years on.

  Poor Nadia, Jess thought, but all she could do was offer a nod of encouragement, as she left her friend standing before the class. Nadia’s usual glowing skin looked pale and grey as all the blood had drained from it. Everyone was staring at Nadia, and Jess could see her hands shaking, as she took the chalk from the teacher.

  Even though Nadia wasn’t confident being singled out in such a way, especially in front of people she didn’t know, she was brilliant at maths and Jess knew she would have no problem doing the calculation. Jess held her breath as Nadia turned slowly towards the blackboard. Hesitating for only a moment, she lifted the stick of chalk and began to write.

  Jess was relieved, but she could see Nadia was finding it difficult to write on the board with the chalk. It scratched across the dusty black surface, making an occasional screeching noise, tha
t set your nerves on edge like the sound foxes make when they come out at night. Whiteboards were so much easier, but Nadia didn’t have that choice and as she continued to scratch away at the blackboard, marking out each part of the equation, the piece of chalk snapped in half. Some of the girls began to snigger, but one glare from Miss Jennings soon silenced them. If Nadia had been bothered by the sniggering, she didn’t let on. When she finished, she stood back and looked at the teacher.

  “Very good,” Miss Jennings said, and began to explain to the rest of the class what Nadia had done.

  Jess could tell from the wide grin across Nadia’s face that she was both pleased and relieved. So relieved, in fact, that she continued to stand there grinning.

  “Don’t just stand there!” Miss Jennings snapped. “Wipe the board, please, and then take a seat.”

  Nadia looked helplessly at Miss Jennings before following her gaze to a wooden-handled block. She picked it up and began to scrub at the board. Unfortunately, it not only cleared away the numbers, but it also smeared the chalk all around, covering her in a cloud of chalk dust, which made Nadia sneeze. Again, more sniggers. Jess could feel Nadia’s relief as she scuttled back to her seat.

  “Take out your books and complete the rest of these,” Miss Jennings said, writing on the board again.

  Copying Martha, Jess opened her desk and found that inside was a notebook with her name on it. Her thoughts immediately turned to how strange it was that she and Nadia were known to the teachers and even listed on the register. It seemed they were a part of this school no matter what time zone they found themselves in.

  She took out the notebook and leant down to reach into her bag, fishing out her pencil case. She put it inside the desk and took out a pen.

  “What’s that?” Martha said.

  “This pen?” Jess whispered back. “You know, what you write with?” She moved her wrist, pretending to write in the air.

  “You have to use these otherwise you’ll get told off,” Martha said. She pointed to a pot of ink hidden in a hole at the edge of the desk.

  Jess had wondered what those holes were for when she’d seen desks like these before. In it was a wooden stick and when she picked it up, she saw it was like a fountain pen. She put her own pen away and turned her attention to the task ahead, trying to play it down, but at the same time thinking it was quite exciting to be doing something so different. That novelty soon wore off though.

  At first, it was fun to dip the nib in and out of the ink, but, after a while, it became completely frustrating. Each time Jess used it, the ink would go from blotchy to faint, by which time the nib was scratching across the page making it almost impossible to write anything. Her work didn’t look neat at all and she worried about being told off. She also kept accidentally catching the side of her hand on the paper, covering it in ink and smudging the writing.

  All she could think about was break time and getting out of there, as well as the urge to hurl the pen across the room or stamp on it until it was nothing more than a broken twig.

  Break time never came though and the maths lesson dragged on. Afterwards, they moved on to English. The girls were reading Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, which was strange because Jess and Nadia were reading that in their normal English lessons. They were even on the same page.

  Jess loved English so was happy to read along and listen to the discussion. The other girls had the same ideas they’d been discussing and she forgot about being stuck in another time zone. They were simply a group of girls talking about a play by a famous author.

  By now, Jess’s stomach was rumbling uncontrollably, as if it had a mind of its own. It was so loud it caused her to clutch it in embarrassment and it was hard to imagine how some of the others must have felt having not had any breakfast that morning. At least she’d had a few snacks, even if it was on the run. Jess realised she had no lunch with her and wondered what she would do about that, especially if food was as scarce as Martha had suggested.

  As Jess looked around the room, she was reminded of what Mrs Kennedy had said in their history lesson about how children before them had sat in the same classroom. It struck her that she was currently sat among some of those very children, and their lessons, although different in some ways, were not so unfamiliar.

  The environment in which they were learning was much stricter though. The children seemed genuinely wary of the teacher as if they were scared of what she might do. Martha had mentioned how Miss Jennings would use the cane on them, something that they luckily didn’t have to endure in their own lives.

  Miss Jennings set the girls to work writing about how love and romance are depicted in the play. Although Jess had ideas, she found it hard to write them down because of the pen and ink situation. Normally a fast writer, so as not to forget what was in her head, she found working with the quill torture. It was a long morning and by the time the bell rang, Jess was uncomfortable and stiff all over.

  “See you later. I’ve got to go and get my little sister,” Martha said, jumping up and shrugging on her duffle coat.

  Jess tried not to look at the worn patches and holes at the elbows and pockets and thankfully, Martha didn’t seem to notice. She was in too much of a hurry to get away. Jess stayed in her seat watching the others file out of the room until there was only her and Nadia left. She got up and went over to Nadia.

  “That was such a long morning, my brain hurts,” Jess said, flopping over Nadia’s desk.

  “I know! What happened to break time? I’m starving. We were supposed to find Tomma and Ash too. I wonder how they got on.” Nadia let out a low, long sigh as she began to put her things away. She waved the notebook at Jess. “What’s this all about? A book with our name on it. We don’t even come to this school!” She threw the book in the desk and stood up to put her jacket on.

  “We do, technically, even if it’s not in this time,” Jess said.

  “Well, you know what I mean. How weird does that sound, though? We need to find out what’s happening here,” Nadia said. “I don’t like the way she picked on me as well. It was so unfair.”

  Jess linked arms with her and pulled her close. “I know, but you did amazing. You should be proud. Let’s go see if we can find the others now. Do you think we’ll be allowed in the boys’ yard?”

  “Probably not, but unless that teacher is there, I’m going in anyway. You coming?”

  Chapter 8

  Digging For Victory

  Nadia swung her bag over her shoulder as Jess followed her out of the classroom towards the yard they had arrived in that morning. They peered through the door. “It’s empty,” Nadia said, looking puzzled. There wasn’t a soul out there, as if no one attended the school and they’d imagined all those strangely dressed boys kicking footballs and running around there earlier in the day. They were about to turn around and go back in again when Tomma and Ash appeared behind them.

  “We were just looking for you,” Ash said. “What a freakish morning, eh?”

  “Are you both okay?” Tomma said. He was looking particularly at Jess. “This is all seriously weird. It’s like we’ve come back to another time zone and I can’t understand it at all. How could this even happen?”

  “I wouldn’t even know where to begin explaining this,” Nadia said. “I was only half-joking when I said it to Jess earlier. I thought we would get to class and it would all be a big mistake, but when we got there, we didn’t know anyone and it was a different teacher. It’s completely blown my mind.”

  “I know what you mean. You should have seen what we had to do all morning. Come on, you’ve got to see this,” Tomma said. “You won’t believe it.”

  Tomma led them out of the yard and away from the school. Separated from the main building was an area where all the sports activities usually took place. Normally, there were tennis courts at the far end and a hockey pitch in the central area, which in summer served as an athletics arena, but in their place was something completely different.

  Jess
and Nadia both stood with open mouths as they looked around the vast space. It was completely dug over—not in the slightest sports-related, but split into sections, each cordoned off with small wire fences or netting. Jess knew straight away it was an allotment, as she’d been many times to visit her grandad’s plot. She shook her head in disbelief as she looked around.

  Being November, there wasn’t much to see, mostly patches of dirt. Jess guessed that either nothing was growing at that time of year or whatever was growing there was hiding underground, cosy and warm in the soil. There were tools scattered around, wheelbarrows and trugs, spades, forks and even a shed.

  “Is this where you’ve been all morning?” Jess said, incredulous at the idea the boys had been outside whilst they’d been in a never-ending lesson of maths and English.

  “Yep. We walked back into our form room and Crawford—that’s the teacher you met this morning—said we had to go straight outside. We had to do our bit for the war effort. He kept going on about digging for victory,” Tomma said. “After that assembly, the alarm bells were already ringing, but this just made it worse.”

  “We didn’t know what he was talking about, so we had no choice but to follow the others and they led us up here,” Ash said. “Crawford told us to roll up our sleeves and start digging up potatoes over there.” He pointed to an area on the near right. Ash was chuckling. “We didn’t have a clue, but you know, we knew potatoes grew underground, we’re not that stupid, so we just started digging with these long forks he gave us.”

  “Yeah and when idiot here found one, he only went and shouted it out to everyone, like he’d struck gold or something. Crawford was well impressed with that,” Tomma said, shaking his head at Ash and giving him a shove.

  “I think the other lads thought we were a bit crazy,” Ash said. “But it was fine in the end. Until we started getting hungry and realised we weren’t having a break time.”