Why on earth was this man following me and then trying to shoot me at the top of a tree? Even I found that hard to explain. But I knew it had to do with the people who wanted to stop me and the others. The people who wanted to control time for their own ends.
“Sarge,” said a female voice from within the kitchen, “it does look like there’s been a robbery. Someone’s searched through this house methodically, starting at the top. All the drawers are open and stuffs on the floor.” A young policewoman came out and offered us a “Good evening.”
“Hmm,” grunted the sergeant, “seems like you were lucky to be up the tree, young man. PC Templeton here will take a statement, and perhaps you, sir, can give a statement to PC Fleming.” Dad nodded.
When PC Templeton had finished with me, I went back to the tree to rescue my phone. It lay by the base informing me I’d one text message. This proved to be from the police service saying I’d called them. The carpet of tiny twigs on the ground had saved both my phone and my would-be assassin’s neck.
I slipped back into the house. Dad was still talking to the police in the dining room. I returned to the sitting room across the hall, and up-ended the Toby Jug. Nothing came out except one desiccated fly. I shook the jug but it held no key.
I flopped onto the settee feeling as though every elastic band in my body had snapped all at once. The commode loomed in the corner, with its hidden drawer locked. My ancestor’s journal, that surely must explain what was happening to me, lay tucked away inside.
“Come on, Rhory, we need to go. I’ve spoken to your mum and explained we’ll be quite late.”
I levered myself out of the chair.
“Go to the bathroom and clean yourself up. You’re absolutely filthy. I’ve no idea why you felt the need to climb the tree. Mind you –” Dad paused and scratched his head – “it stopped you confronting a professional burglar, which I expect is a good thing.”
About three hours later we were nearly home. We’d stopped and had a quick fry-up at a Little Chef restaurant and told the girls at home to eat without us. A road sign said Hammerford four Miles.
“Ah. I’ve remembered,” said Dad, grinning and nodding. “Yep, it always comes back in time. I’ve remembered what Aunt Bridget wanted me to tell you, though why, I’ve no idea. Can you explain why?”
“Explain what, Dad? You’ve not told me anything yet.”
“Oh, right. Well, when I went back to get the keys, she told me various things. She said I was to say to you to look carefully at the boy in the front garden and that you would know what she meant. I think maybe her mind was beginning to wander at that point. Perhaps one of the neighbours has a little boy or something.”
“Thanks, Dad. I’ll think about that, see if I can work out what she meant.”
I knew exactly what she meant. If my forgetful and dozy dad had told me before we went to Quickly Lane, I would’ve found the key which she’d obviously decided to hide outside. Bridget could also move through time a bit and maybe foresaw the robbery. She’d hidden the key in a less obvious place, under the statue in the front garden. If I’d found the key I could now have my ancestor’s journal and might get more of a clue how to proceed and why people were trying to kill me.
“Can we go back to Auntie’s house, Dad?”
“What? Why on earth would you want to go back? To climb more trees? Well, clearly not tonight.” Dad paused and sighed.
“But if she doesn’t make it out of hospital then some of us will have to go and tidy the house up, so there may be a chance.”
A few minutes later Mum and Juliette were demanding all the details about my narrow squeak with the burglar.
The Bishop’s Car
Rain splished and splattered on my brolly as I strode towards school. Dad had left early for a meeting and Mum drove Juliette as usual, as her school lay on the way to Mum’s work. I drew the short straw and had to brave the elements. The knot hadn’t left my stomach since yesterday. Someone had tried to kill me or at the very least use me for target practice. The same someone – the man in the dark-green coat – had followed Juliette and me to the well.
At breakfast Mum had asked if I was okay.
“Look, you’re shaking,” Juliette had said.
“I always shake a bit,” I responded, “we all do on Mum’s side of things. So do you for that matter, Jules.”
“Yeah, but not like a leaf.”
“You’re a bit pale,” said Mum. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to just stay at home, treasure? I’ll call the school and tell them.”
“No. I’m just tired after yesterday. I’ll be okay. I can go to bed early tonight.”
Now I regretted being quite so goody-two shoes. I could be curled up under the duvet watching TV on Juliette’s new iPad. Instead my shoes had already let in a few gallons of water, and the bottoms of my trousers were damp. Cold rain blew straight into my face and every car that went past might carry an assassin.
What would’ve happened if I had told the police the truth? Would they have believed me? The older copper seemed nice enough, but PC Templeton had been keen to get a short statement and leave. She only wanted a description of the man, and where I’d seen him in the house. I doubted she would’ve wished to explore my thoughts about secret societies wanting to control the destinies of nations and the flow of time. She’d accepted he was a burglar, and that was good enough. Burglars burgle, they don’t serve ancient gods. There is nowhere in the police manual for that type of person.
I stopped near the roundabout by Hammerford station. Puke rose right up the back of my throat. My heart raced and the streets around me spun slowly. I sat on the low wall of one of the houses that overlook the park. A car drew to a halt and the smoked window lowered. The driver beeped a couple of times on the horn. This is it. Now he’ll shoot again. The back window lowered revealing a pale face with a mass of curly brown hair.
“Hey, Rhory, d’ya wanna lift?”
One of my classmates. Bishop.
I struggled up, feeling somewhat dizzy, and squidged over the wet grass to the car. Bishop’s dad leaned across and opened the passenger door.
“Hi, Bishop. Hi, Mr… Oh sorry,” I corrected myself. “Hello, Charles, hello, Mr Bishop. Hello…”
“Caroline,” said Charles, “my sister.”
“Hi, Caroline,” I said to a girl similar to Charles, with longer brown hair, large brown doe eyes and full lips.
“Hello, Rhory,” she said. “I know all about you, by the way.”
“Oh. How? I didn’t realise I was…” I trailed off, still too shaky for banter with a pretty girl. I fiddled with the umbrella, getting rainwater all over my hands.
“I’m a friend of Natasha’s. She’s told me all about you. I saw you in the school play last year. You were great as the cow.”
She was winding me up.
“At least I didn’t have to learn any lines.”
“You all right?” said Mr Bishop. “You look about all in. I could run you home if you’re ill, provided you don’t live too far away.”
“That’s kind of you, Mr Bishop, but I need to go to school and I’ll be fine.” My stomach had settled somewhat and the reality of the risk to my life had receded a bit. When we left the car at Scrivener’s School and crossed the road, Caroline lowered her window and waved with her her fingertips I felt sick all over again but this time I smiled.
As I entered the classroom, Calvin came over and said, “Hey, Brucie.”
I nodded. I didn’t like Calvin. His close-cropped hair and arched eyebrows, set in a narrow face, fitted his mean spirit.
He walked behind me as I made my way to my desk, the grin on the face of a couple of the other lads showing me he was mimicking my walk. I dropped my bag and turned. He reached up and swiped his arm around my neck, getting me into a headlock.
“Oh, bloody leave off, Calvin,” I said.
He strengthened his grip and spots appeared in front of my eyes.
“Let go.” I struggled to free myself and b
anged into a couple of desks.
“You’re just a long streak of piss, Brucie, Brucie baby.”
I felt queasy about hitting him or punching him in the tender parts. Being so much taller I would appear the aggressor if a teacher saw us fighting.
He let go.
“Settle down, settle down.” Mr Hawksley strode into the room. He looked over to the desks and chairs all out of neat alignment. “Straighten those up, boys. I have to teach in here after assembly. This is the eight Blue classroom, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir,” said one of those who had been happily watching Calvin throttle me. “Are you teaching us instead of Mr Twitford?”
“Yes. Instead of Mr Twighford,” said Hawksley, correcting the way we pronounced the student teacher’s name.
That night at tea, family Bruce discussed the Easter holidays.
“It falls early this year,” said Dad, “so the snow should still be good.”
“I want to ski in France,” said Juliette. “I could do with polishing my French.”
“The food’s good there,” said Mum. “Better than Croatia, that’s for sure.”
“I want to go where I can do freestyle jumping,” I said.
“Any of the good French resorts have jumps,” said Juliette, buttering the final crumpet.
I adored skiing and could do some passable acrobatics. I’d learned to back-flip the previous winter, and loved the sensation. Oddly, although I hated cross-country running, I really enjoyed cross-country skiing too. We’d done a lot of that in Norway in previous years. The steady rhythm of it and the silence of the forests appealed to me. Juliette preferred the thrill of fast downhill runs.
Dad offered to do more research on the internet, and we would decide tomorrow to make sure we booked in time.
“You’re a bloody geek you are,” Calvin said, his finger in Charles Bishop’s face.
“Leave me alone, Calvin, you brainless moron,” said Bishop, turning away.
“Who you calling names?”
Calvin shoved Bishop, who dropped the textbooks he was carrying onto the damp playground. Bishop didn’t respond but bent down to pick up his books. Calvin used the sole of his foot to propel Bishop onto his face. As keen on fights as dogs are on bones, students of all years started forming a circle. Morning break meant boredom; this looked interesting.
Bishop stood up, looked at the mud and water on his trousers and a tear in his pocket and went for Calvin, fists flying. He landed a glancing blow. Calvin, his face contorting into a snarl, kneed Bishop in the groin and, as he stumbled, got him in a headlock. The circle of wide-eyed boys started chanting, “Fight. Fight.”
I’d had enough of Calvin’s bullying ways and swung my arm around Calvin’s neck.
“Let him go, Calvin,” I snarled in his ear.
“That’s enough,” barked a voice. Dyer, the head prefect, had appeared from nowhere, the way prefects do. “We’ll not have fights in the playground. Bruce, Calvin, Bishop, see me in the Prefects’ Room. Now!”
Lucian
I had history with Dyer. I’d been instrumental in helping him catch a drug-pushing ring at the school in the Christmas Term. Nevertheless, I felt nervy as we waited in the dim corridor outside the Prefects’ Room. The door opened and we were ushered in, the smell of stale sports kit wafting from the cupboard to our right.
“You were caught fair and square,” said Dyer. “Any reason I shouldn’t send you to the Old Man?”
Many reasons flitted through my mind, not least the inevitable letter sent home and a period of detention on a Saturday morning.
Pete Sheldon, one of Dyer’s rugby-playing friends, cracked his knuckles one by one, looking at each of us in turn as he did so.
“A thousand lines each should do the trick,” he suggested. “Something like ‘I shall not be a prat and fight like that.’ ” He gave his index finger a final pull.
A blond-haired boy with a prefect’s tie turned round from the table by the window. He held cards from a UNO game in his hand. He had the sort of good looks that would make George Clooney look lame. His blue eyes crinkled into a smile.
“Let’s be creative,” he said. “Let’s have some fun. They can write a short essay, two sides of A4, at least 600 words, ending with the phrase … and that’s how a stick of rhubarb saved my life.”
The other prefects chortled and agreed.
As we headed back towards class, Calvin peeled off towards the loos.
“Thanks, mate,” said Bishop. “Sorry to get you into this.”
“No probs. By the way, who was the blond-haired prefect? Is he new?”
“Been around for a bit. Think he joined this year. He’s caused quite a stir in the Girls’ School, according to Caroline.”
Juliette stared into the middle distance, smiling at something or other.
“What are you so pleased with yourself about?” I asked.
“Me? Oh nothing,” she said, putting her tea down and stretching, cat-like. “Did the parents’ division come up with ideas for the skiing holiday this Easter? I’d like to check out possibilities on the Internet.”
“Dad’s picking up some brochures today,” said Mum. “We need to decide with reasonable alacrity, so we don’t miss out.”
My mum’s English is always a little surprising, as she learnt it at school in Norway.
“Can I buy new ski pants, Mum? My old ones are far too small now,” I said.
Mum’s mouth tightened and she offered something halfway between a nod and a quiver of the head. “Let’s get the booking first.”
I stood up. “I don’t have any homework tonight so I’m off to Bongo Bongo land.” I didn’t admit I had a damn fool essay to write for the Lucian git.
Up in the bedroom I sat cross-legged on the floor with the bongo drums nestled on my lap. I’d dashed off the punishment essay about a drummer who lost his sticks on the way to a gig, but who passed a patch of rhubarb. I put in plenty of long words and knew it would sound funny when we read it out in the prefects’ room the next day.
I did a few riffs on the drums. Jester, my shadow and my cat, had followed me in and was contorting himself on my bed to clean distant parts of his anatomy. Juliette walked past my room and closed my door none too gently.
I thought back to the African music I’d heard at Aunt Bridget’s house and started tapping out the main rhythms with my index fingers. I closed my eyes and let the beats flow from my memory, using the pads of my fingers to produce the staccato notes and the palm of my right hand on the bigger drum for the bass line. When I played I sensed coloured patterns swirling around and would use this to suggest changes in the rhythm. As I built towards a tympanic climax the doorbell rang.
I kept on playing, sure that Juliette would go or Mum, given that she was downstairs. The bell rang again. Sighing, I put down the bongos, tweaked Jester’s outstretched back leg and thundered down the stairs. The door stuck worse than usual and I had to jerk it open.
The blond-haired boy smiled and nodded at me – the same blond boy who’d set the essay.
“Hello,” he said. “I guess you’re Rhory.”
“Yes,” I mumbled, feeling sort of lopsided in the presence of celebrity good looks.
“I’m Lucian,” he said. “I must ask, was that you playing the drums?”
“Yes.” I nodded inanely.
“You’re good, Rhory. Really good.”
“You could hear them down here?”
“Uh huh.” He smiled, holding my eyes with his. “Anyway, it’s good to meet you.” He held out his hand and I shook it.
We stood looking at each other for a millisecond too long. He cleared his throat.
“Would it be all right if I came in, I would like to see—”
“God, Rhory, are you going to keep Lucian waiting on the doorstep?”
Juliette had made it halfway down the stairs. Her cheeks looked a little flushed and she’d acquired lipstick since having the crumpet earlier.
Lucian came in and
the two of them went into our sitting room at the front of the house and closed the door. I meandered back to my bedroom wondering who on earth this boy was who knew both me and Jules, and whom as far as I could remember I hadn’t seen before today.
An Invitation
“I feel really sad, although I didn’t know her that well, I suppose,” I said.
“She was a sort of bonus grandmother,” said Natasha, my cousin.
I’d called her on my mobile when I learned that Aunt Bridget had died the previous night.
“Mum’s been quite down. When she saw her in hospital she didn’t think it was the final chapter.”
I eased my way up the bed and sat cross-legged.
“Something happened when I saw her, Nat. Well, two things actually, well more…”
“Get on with it.”
“Yes. Well, it’s a little weird. Aunt Bridget sent Dad out of the hospital room and…” I told Natasha about my vision and the message the Egyptian priestess had given me. When I finished Natasha didn’t respond for a while. I waited.
“You still there?” I asked.
“Yes. Yes … I am. It’s as though Aunt Bridget had a connection back to the past herself in some way. Do you think she, I don’t know… Do you think she was actually the Egyptian priestess Ketchup?”
“Katesch,” I said.
“Oh right, sorry. Do you think she was like a reincarnation of the priestess from ancient Egypt?”
“I don’t know. Possibly. I think since she gave me the Time Sphere, and especially since I found the clues as to how to open it, and the objects surfaced in this moment of time.” I scratched a tickle in my ear. “I think that sort of, you know, sort of opened a door for her too, if you know what I mean. She said something like that in the hospital.”
“What do you think is meant by Fire and Ice?”
“I really have no idea. She also said about North and South, which is sort of opposite, isn’t it? Unless you go to the Antarctic.”
Again we sat in silence for a bit. Jester prowled around the room and then flopped on his side.
“What were the other things?”
Time Knot Page 3
