The Reluctant Time Traveller

by Janis Mackay

  39

  On the last day of the school trip we went to the Gardens of Remembrance. Our coach stopped at a place called Thiepval at the Somme in Northern France. We all gathered round a massive monument, which was to the memory of the missing, lost in the battle of the Somme. There was a soldier playing a bugle. The teacher said he was playing a tune called ‘The Last Post’. There were 74,000 names written on that monument, and one of them was Frank Noble’s. Behind it were rows and rows of small white marble crosses. This garden was one of the cemeteries of the war dead, the teacher told us, in a very hushed voice. She said that many were buried where they fell and many were never found. And this is just one cemetery, she told us, with 7,000 graves. There were many more.

  Mrs Johnston said we should walk around a bit and remember. And though there were loads of people milling around it was eerily quiet. No one was talking. Some of the graves marked by white crosses had names on them. Most didn’t. But they all said:

  A soldier of the Great

  War Known unto God

  Me and Agnes wandered off to the edge of a field and sat for a while – remembering Frank. We walked back to the coach in silence. The teacher was ushering pupils back into the bus and still everybody was quiet. When we were all in our seats the teacher stood up in the front of the bus. “Before we leave,” she said, “and head for Calais and Scotland, I would like to recite a short poem. It was written by Lawrence Binyon in August 1914, when this terrible war had only just begun.” Agnes and I glanced at each other.

  “They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old:

  Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

  At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

  We will remember them.”

  The coach took us on to the ferry at Calais. It was only when the boat left France and the bobbing waves were under us that we started chatting. Leaning over the rails we waved to France. Then we went in to get chips smothered in mayonnaise and Robbie got out the red scarf he had bought for his mum. I showed everyone the black French beret I got for my dad and Agnes passed round the silvery Eiffel Tower statue she had bought for her gran. She said she also bought one to put up in the den and we all cheered, and suddenly I couldn’t wait to get home and see my mum and dad, the twins – and the den! It was our den. It was saved, and we planned to hang out in it all summer long.

  Then we all ran out onto the deck and Agnes shouted that she could see the white cliffs of Dover in the distance.

  “A few more hours and we’ll be in Scotland,” I yelled.

  This reluctant time traveller was going home.

  AFTERWORD

  Carl Hans Lody was one of the most famous spies of the First World War. Posing as Mr Charles A. Inglis from New York, with a false American passport, he was in fact a German secret agent. He made his way to Scotland at the outbreak of the First World War, to spy on the naval bases there. He spent one night in The County Hotel in Peebles, before setting off by bicycle the next morning for the naval base at Leith, near Edinburgh, in the Firth of Forth. His coding letters, sent to Sweden, were eventually intercepted by code breakers, but not before many had died because of his spying. His codes were found to be fairly simple to break. They were similar to the description in this book. On arrest, a German coin was found on Lody’s person, along with a German dry-cleaning stub. He was arrested and executed by firing squad at dawn at the Tower of London on November 6th, 1914.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The Reluctant Time Traveller is a work of fiction, though some of the story is informed by fact. For these facts of early twentieth-century history and the First World War, my thanks go to Peebles Museum for information about Peebles, and to a number of authors who have written about the First World War, most notably Theresa Breslin in Remembrance and Olivia Dent in A Volunteer Nurse on the Western Front. Thanks also to Nicola Wright, storyteller and tour guide, for information about the Gardens of Remembrance at Thiepval in northern France. For images of service and the life of servants, thanks to my own grandmother, who was ‘in service,’; and to Downton Abbey, plus many books on the subject. For talking with me about Peebles, education and history, thanks to the teachers of Kingsland Primary School. For knowledge on how to tamper with a 1914 bike, thanks to my dad, Ramsay Mackay. For his poem ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’, thanks to Wilfred Owen. For his poem ‘They shall not grow old’, thanks to Lawrence Binyon.

  And to the enduring memory of those who did not grow old in the First World War.

  How did the time time travel trouble begin? Read on for more time-twisting adventures in

  THE ACCIDENTAL TIME TRAVELLER…

  1

  It was Saturday, 15th December, 2012, and it was quarter to ten in the morning. I know it sounds weird to be so exact about it, but this story’s got a lot to do with time. That was when Mum sent me along to the corner shop to buy her newspaper, a packet of Jaffa Cakes and something for myself costing no more than 30p. She called it A Mission of Trust. Thing is, I’d been grounded three times that month for sneaking out when I was supposed to be in my room doing homework. But for three days I had behaved, meaning I’d stayed in. With the doors and windows locked I didn’t have much choice.

  I have a den and that’s where I usually hung out when I wasn’t grounded, but Mum didn’t know about the den. Nobody knew about it, except Will and Robbie who are in my gang. The den is a shed no one uses now in a big, old abandoned garden, and it’s our gang hut. It’s the best and I’ll tell you more about it but, like I said, for three days I stayed away, lounging about in my room, dreaming about the seriously cool bike I wanted for Christmas.

  When Mum popped her head round the door, carrying a twin on each hip, and said, “Right, Saul, I’m letting you go round to the shop,” I could feel this major whine coming on. Like I really wanted to go round to the shop. I didn’t. I was cosy, sprawled out on my blue beanbag seat and leafing through my BMX magazines, circling the bike I wanted and the helmet and stickers and stuff. Plus it was cold outside – in fact the man on the telly said there was a good chance of snow that night. A trip to the den, maybe. Getting stuff for Mum at the shop, no thanks. The twins started crying and pulling at Mum’s hair. “I’m trusting you, Saul,” she said, yanking her hair back. “And you’ve to come straight home.” I was ready to moan till I remembered Christmas was just ten days away. I thought about the BMX and all the extras I wanted and decided I needed to look good right now. I jumped up, fell back, then struggled out of my beanbag and chirped, “Yeah, ok Mum.”

  Mum parked the twins on my bed, sighing like it was all too much for her. Boy, could they howl! She shoved my old hat down over my ears and handed me the exact money, because occasionally I’ve helped myself to some spare change. “Thirty pence for you,” she said. I could feel another moan coming on but held it in. You might as well chuck 30p in the river and make a wish. A Milky Way’s about all you can buy with 30p, and that’s over in two bites. Then I thought maybe I would chuck my 30p in the river and wish for a BMX, because with my parents and their lack of money – specially now I had two baby sisters, who “need clothes and food and prams and nappies galore,” I couldn’t be too sure all the presents on my list would show up, no matter how chirpy I was. Never mind the bike; I wasn’t sure I’d get anything on my list! Mum picked up the twins and steered me out of my room, along the hallway and out the front door. “Remember Saul,” she shouted so the whole street could hear, “I’m trusting you.”

  Once I’d got going, it felt great to be out on my own. I slowed down, wanting this freedom to last. I was already spinning stories to tell mum when I got back – how there was a huge queue in the shop and I had to wait aaaaages! And how the ice made me walk really slow. The sky looked dark and heavy, like it might snow. The few folks I met along the street thought so too.

  “Hi Saul. Good to see you. With a bit of luck we’ll have a white Christmas, eh?”

  “Hey Saul, not seen you about for a wee while. It’s
going to snow. I swear it is. You can build a snowman.”

  I am well known in the street cause I always say hi to everybody. Except Crow, the town bully and the one person in the world I was scared of. Like, really scared. His real name is Colin Rowe, but everybody calls him Crow. Even his name is scary. Crow is in second year, and he’s seriously hard. If I spotted him, I crossed the street or backtracked into the house. But Crow wasn’t prowling around that Saturday morning, 15th December. Crow probably hated getting cold. Crow hated lots of things – including me. But I didn’t want to spoil this little freedom trip thinking about him too much.

  I liked looking at Christmas trees in people’s windows, especially ones with flashing lights, so I hung about doing that for a while. I counted nine of them, but as I wandered past the laundrette, I was itching to nip up the lane behind it, bolt along the cuddy, clamber over the wall, race across the overgrown wasteland, wriggle through the gap in the hedge and zip into my den. Some other gang might have claimed it while I’d been stuck in at home. Crow might have wrecked it!

  My gang reckons once upon a time the den was somebody’s garden shed. It leans over to the side a bit, so Robbie (who has been to Italy) called it Pisa after some leaning tower there. The den is at the edge of a rambling wild garden with some ancient trees in it. There must have been a fantastic big house there. Officially the garden’s in a demolition site, surrounded by a barbed wire fence then a thick hedge. It’s full of nettles and rubbish and gangly old rhubarb stalks and dead birds. As well as the fence, there’s a sign saying,

  DEMOLITION SITE

  DANGER OF DEATH

  KEEP OUT

  And in case you can’t read, there’s a scary skull and crossbones next to it. But you can get in through a gap in the hedge round the back where the barbed wire is slack. Only me, Will and Robbie knew about that.

  The den is on the edge of town and Robbie said it was like time forgot about it, which was kind of funny considering what happened. The den was a bit creepy when we first found it, but we flicked away the cobwebs, kicked out the two dead mice and the dead rabbit, then put nice things inside to make it cosy. Will brought his old cuddly ewok toy from when he was younger. It’s called Fred and is the den mascot. He guards the place when nobody’s there. Robbie brought a few old chipped ornaments, like a china dog, a blue plastic bowl (for crisps, he said) and a photo of him when he was seven, grinning in a fancy frame. I brought along a stripy blanket and a cushion and some pens to write our names on the wall. There was a wooden box in the shed filled with old gardening magazines, and we hauled in stones and bits of wood to make wee benches. It looked brilliant.

  Anyway, there I was, wandering up the street towards the shop and dreaming about the den. I could see on the church clock that it was five to ten. I was walking so slow I was practically going backwards. I tried to stop dreaming about the den. The thing was, I told Will and Robbie that the gang would have a break for a bit, cause last time we were there, last weekend, it was perishing cold. Will and I were being crims on the run from the police and Robbie was being the policeman who was trying to arrest us, and we were trying to blackmail him with a few thousand quid we had stashed away in the gardening magazines and the game was really good and it was mostly my idea, but suddenly Robbie said he was freezing and he wanted to go home. Then Will piped up and said, actually, he was freezing too. So I said, “Right, fine, we’ll take a break till the weather gets better.”

  We all looked about and were silent for a moment till Robbie said, “Pisa is like our other home, isn’t it?”

  Me and Will nodded. It was.

  It was now one minute to ten. The corner shop came into view. I felt something wet brush my cheek. I looked up. White flecks were swirling through the air and landing on me. I like snow. I opened my mouth to catch a snowflake. One landed on my tongue, which was exactly when the church bells rang for ten o’clock, which was exactly when a car screeched its tyres, blared its horn and someone screamed really loudly.

  I swung round to see a screaming girl in fancy dress standing stock-still in the middle of the road, her arms flung out to the side and her face pale as a ghost. The screeching car swerved round her, and roared off. Her screams turned to whimpers and gasps. She stumbled across the road in a panic, tripped over the kerb and fell at my feet. She buried her face in her hands and started sobbing.

  I looked around for her mum or big sister or someone, but no one was there. So I bent down and patted her on the shoulder, feeling seriously awkward. “Hey,” I said, “are you ok?”

  She pulled her hands away from her face, stopped crying and gazed up at me, like I was some kind of superstar. I got the weirdest feeling, like a million hot needles jabbing up my spine. I’d never seen anyone like her. She had pale blue eyes, totally white, practically see-through skin, a funny shower-cap-style hat on, with long twisty red hair spilling out from it and reaching all the way down her back. She stretched her hands out, then wrapped her long fingers around my ankles.

  “I have become lost,” she sobbed.

  2

  I felt trapped. The weird girl didn’t let go of my ankles. A shiver shot up my legs. I laughed, I couldn’t help it. Sometimes I laugh when I’m nervous. Then I tried to wriggle free but this girl was seriously strong. She clung on, like she was drowning and I was a lifeguard. So I tried talking. “Hey, are you on your way to a fancy dress party?” Though it was kind of early in the day for a party. She stared up at me, all baffled, like I was talking Chinese. “Christmas party maybe?” I went on, smiling down at her awkwardly. But all she did was stare, wide-eyed and terrified looking. She still had her long fingers locked around my ankles. My heart raced. What if she was mad? “Oh, well,” I chirped, “never mind about parties.” I tried to sound chilled but inside my panic level was rising fast. “Right then, I better get going.” Except I couldn’t move. So I tried smiling to make her relax. “Good that you’re ok. Umm, see you then. And you better look where you’re going next time you cross the road.” It felt like she was going to let me go, but at that moment another car drove past. She shrieked and gripped my ankles even tighter. “Hey! Excuse me!” I shouted at her. I was getting pretty freaked out. “Could you let me go?”

  She must have understood because she loosened her grip. I nodded and showed her my open hands like they do in films. It worked: she let go. “Thanks,” I said, though it felt like a dumb thing to say. She should have said sorry. I took a step back, pretty fast. My ankles throbbed. She sat up and wiped her tears with her sleeve.

  That’s when I really saw her clothes. She wore a long brown dress with a ruffled collar and frilly bits around the sleeves. Over the brown dress she had on another sleeveless dress that was cream coloured. She looked totally old fashioned. Even her face with her lips like a doll’s and her upturned nose seemed old fashioned. “Party?” she said, sitting on the pavement and gazing up at me, jittery and confused, like she had just come out of a nightmare. She twisted her long hair round her fingers and I could see tears welling up in her eyes. “Forgive me but I dinna understand.”

  She’s got something wrong with her, I thought, taking another step back. I wondered if I should run and get a grown up? Everything about her was weird and her voice had the funniest accent I ever heard. The next second I thought, it’s a joke – I’ll be on YouTube with the title “Pranked!” Maybe Crow had set this up? I glanced round but nobody was on the street. There were no cameras. Nothing. The snow was falling seriously now. Part of me thought I should just get on to the shop and leave this funny girl kneeling on the pavement for somebody else to deal with but she gazed up at me with such helpless eyes. It was too awkward to walk on and just leave her. She didn’t seem to know where to go. “Where. Do. You. Live?” I spoke slowly in case she was foreign or didn’t understand things very well. “Live?” I repeated, louder, “Where do you live?”

  She pointed to the corner shop. “There,” she said.

  I wondered if Mr and Mrs Singh had adopted a girl. �
��Right,” I went on, “do you want me to take you into the shop, I mean, into your house?”

  She nodded. Then she clutched at my hoodie and hoisted herself up to her feet. She gasped and wobbled for a moment like she was going to keel over. I felt her hands hold my arms. She was skinny but I couldn’t believe how strong she was. “I’m Saul and I’m twelve,” I lied.

  “My name is Miss Agatha Black,” she said. She took a deep breath then slowly let go of my arms. Next thing she held out a trembling hand for me to shake. “And I am eleven years and six months old.”

  Same as me! I shook her hand, which was very slim and cold. I felt a bit foolish shaking hands. I mean, it’s not something I do. I had shaken hands three times before but always with adults, never with someone my own age. She curtsied slightly, then it dawned on me: she must be an actress. I laughed out loud, half relieved, half embarrassed. “Are you in a film?”

  “A film of snow and confusion,” she replied lifting her hand to catch a snowflake. I thought that was a weird title for a film, but everything about this girl was weird. I was going to say more about films when she started crying again. Pointing to the shop she sobbed, “It was here. Aye, I am utterly convinced. This time he has made a grand blunder. My life. My home. It has all gone.” She wrung her pale hands together and looked totally miserable. “I was to look about me and take note, but for a moment,” she said, as though I knew what she was on about. “A moment – that was all.”

  I needed things to get back to normal. “So, like, haha, what’s the joke, Agatha?”

  “This isna a laughing matter, Saul.” She took my hand again and squeezed it tight. “Believe me, I am exceedingly lost and wish sorely to return home directly. The great noise shocked me straight to the core. I was to gaze about me, note the changes then hasten back.” By this time she was pulling at her hair, in a right state. Then I saw her look at the ground like she had lost something. Next thing she was staring at the road. She stepped off the kerb and was about to run in front of another car. I pulled her back, just in time. “Hark! The rumbling carriage!” she squealed. “But the morsel of gold lies buried hereabouts,” she cried, all flustered, not realising I’d just saved her life. I saw the driver shake his fist at us, then he was gone. The girl swung round and clasped my hands in hers. “Please,” she begged, “help me find my way?”