The Accidental Time Traveller

by Janis Mackay

  “Yes, poor Father,” she said, “He needed help from someone. My first time-travel experiment took place when I was eleven years old.” She sighed and her whole body shuddered. I felt more than a bit spooked.

  9

  Agatha sat on the pillow and gazed into the orange embers. She was, I noticed, still wearing her 1812 black lace-up boots but, considering they were 200 years old, they were quite like boots you’d find in shops today. She looked pretty cool, except that she still had the hoodie on the wrong way.

  She turned to me and sighed again. “Yes, Saul,” she said, “the first experiment was last summer, six months ago.”

  “You mean two hundred years and six months ago?”

  Agatha frowned. “I suppose so. Well, in any case, in our house, Father has a study. I have a fondness for the place. It is full of clocks and contraptions for measuring time. He also has vials for water. Father allows me to wander into his study, even when he isna there. He knows I adore playing with the water.”

  I felt a pang of pity for her. The essay kicked off in my head.

  Children two hundred years ago didn’t have anything like as many toys as us. They played with water.

  Agatha wrinkled her nose and laughed, again spookily reading my thoughts. “You see little joy in water? Ach, Saul, it is wondrous great. Especially the water lovingly collected from the river Tweed and now kept in Father’s study. I see many grand images on its surface.”

  She’s mad. That’s what shot through my mind. She’s off her head.

  Agatha went on, growing excited. “Aye, water is a happy pastime. Even better is playing with my monkey, or teaching him new tricks.” Agatha paused and smiled fondly into the distance. “Dearest Pug. I miss him so.”

  “Right. Um, Agatha, I was going to ask you about that. Are you serious? You’ve actually got a pet monkey?”

  “Indeed I have. Pug can be a rogue at times. Ach, he will be searching high and low for me now. On busy market days, Pug and his antics bring in a good shilling or even two. Oh Saul, yea should see his tricks. He can smoke a pipe!”

  “Really?”

  “Aye, a clay pipe. He puffs away, quite the thing. The folks love it. They throw farthings and I scoop them up and gather them in my pocket.”

  I laughed, trying to imagine what they’d say about a smoking pet in our health and wellbeing lessons at school. “Well, it must be pretty amazing to have a monkey,” I said. “You’re lucky. I don’t even have a guinea pig. We had a goldfish once, but it died.”

  Agatha looked as if she might burst into tears. I don’t know if she was sad at my dead goldfish, or if she was missing her monkey. “Anyway,” I hurried on, “you didn’t do the time travel experiment on Pug.”

  “Heavens no!” Agatha frowned. “On no account is my monkey allowed in Father’s study. Yea see, there are many candles burning in there. Father is afeart Pug could start a fire.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Hand on my heart, Saul. It is true.”

  The stupid giggles had taken hold of me, though a burning house and burning monkey weren’t exactly a laughing matter. Agatha, who thankfully seemed to have a sense of humour, laughed too. “Then where would I be, Saul?” she said, her face all flushed with mirth. “If the house were to burn down together with all Father’s contraptions, I would surely never return!”

  “You could hang out here, I suppose?”

  But Agatha shook her head. “No Saul. I must return. I have my life to live. I will tell yea what I understand of time travel. If yea are to help return me to 1812, yea will need to learn something of this abnormal art. Yea will become the apprentice!”

  “You, Agatha. I told you. It’s you, not yea.”

  Agatha knitted her brows then smiled. “Beg your pardon: you,” she said. “You heed well. Father calls upon the elements. There are seven of them. And they must all be in harmony. So in the study Father collects earth and water, air and fire. And I – the experiment – must be surrounded by these elements.”

  This was getting interesting and scientific. She went on, growing excited. “You see, Saul, the air element must be turned to vapour. Father has been experimenting with different kinds of vapours.”

  I frowned. “Steam,” she explained, “and Father can colour the vapours blue and red.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “He suspends a glass globe by the one small window in the study. It catches the sunlight. The colour glances off the glass and colours the vapours. Then there is the element of gold. This, alas, is costly and father scrimps on this. But, so he tells me, the vibration of gold will protect me as I travel through time.” Agatha laughed sadly and shook her head. “The fleck he gave me was that small I couldna even feel it.”

  I could see tears well up in Agatha’s blue eyes. She rubbed them with the back of her hand, took another deep breath then carried on. “As I understand it, all these elements – earth, vapours, water, fire and gold – are set in motion by the sixth element. This, Saul, is an antique song. The song causes a shudder in the air.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Shudder?”

  “A crack in the atmosphere. Through which I slip, alas.” She buried her face in her hands.

  “It’s ok, Agatha,” I said chirpily. “I’ll help. But you said there were seven elements. What’s the seventh?”

  “Yew. The yew tree.” Agatha gazed at me to make sure I understood. I nodded, impatiently. Sure, I knew about yew trees. You got them in graveyards and they looked witchy. “I press my feet upon wood hewn from the ancient yew,” she went on. “I gaze at the almanac on the study wall. On this first occasion, it said July 18, 1812. Throughout the ritual, Father chanted his ancient tune. Then, well, the only way I can faithfully describe the next part is to say it was like someone in the far distance calling my name. I found myself rushing down a long black tunnel towards them. Then suddenly the voice stopped.”

  Annoyingly Agatha stopped too and stared into the glowing embers. “Don’t stop there!” I said, practically biting her head off, “Tell me what happened next!”

  “To be frank, not a great deal. I blinked several times, to rid myself of the buzzing in my head – like a bee it was. Coming to, I found myself in the same place and Father was still there, though the contraptions were not. His beard was bushier. His waistcoat, I noted, had two buttons missing. I felt bewildered. I saw the almanac on the wall behind him. It was turned to July 18, 1813. The room was the same, and yet not the same. I had faded in 1812 and in the twinkling of an eye had reappeared one year into the future. Then instantly I felt my head spin.

  “The song called me back again. I felt a great rushing force pull me down that black tunnel. And once more I was in what Father calls ‘current time’. He was punching the air for joy. The buttons were back on his waistcoat. The almanac said July 18, 1812. Sun streamed through the window.

  “’Success!’ shouted Father, beaming from ear to ear, as if he had a feather in his cap. ‘Aye, dear child. What you behold before yea is nothing less than majestic success!’

  “I wandered upstairs to my chamber, though I felt somewhat shaken up. Through the morning, I could hear Father shouting, ‘Yes! Yes! I have broken down the doors of time! YES! I am famous at last! I am…’”

  “But Agatha,” I interrupted, “if he managed to get you back then, why didn’t he get you back this time?”

  Agatha wrung her hands and chewed her lip. “Vaulting ambition,” she murmured. And before I could ask what that meant she went on. “It is like a swelling of the head. From that day forth, Father grew blind with ambition. He thought he could achieve anything he set his mind to. And though time travel frightened me, it also fascinated me. And yea know, I so wanted Father to be skilled at something. He had succeeded in transporting me a year hence. I believed in him. But after that successful experiment he was not content with small time transportations. Ach no. ‘One year is small fry, Agatha,’ he said, puffing out his chest. So he locked himself in his study, intent on fryin
g the biggest fish. Strange noises and smells came from that place. Sometimes, while I was busy in the kitchen, scrubbing potatoes or cleaning the floor, Father would hasten to me and say, ‘I am close, Agatha. So close to the biggest time-shifting experiment the world has ever known. It succeeded before. It will succeed again. But this time, child – if yea agree to help me in my work – yea will travel far into the future. Ach, the sights yea will see. The changes yea will behold. No more scrubbing tatties. Yea’ll be a great explorer. Say yea agree, Agatha!’”

  “And?” I was perched on the edge of my stone seat. Of course, I knew the answer.

  “Certainly I was much agitated. I would have been content being a normal child, playing with my pet monkey, saying my prayers, sewing, dancing, reading, but…”

  “But what?”

  “But, life was often dreary. I wasna a normal child. I was forced to beg for farthings with Pug on the street. And, as Father said, his experiment in time travel succeeded before, so I trusted it would again.” Then Agatha grinned widely. “And in addition, I am a girl who dearly loves adventures. So I agreed and we shook hands on it. ‘Tis all true,” Agatha said, “each and every word.”

  “Sure,” I replied. She believed it, that was for sure, but I wasn’t discounting the possibility that she was bonkers. I didn’t know what was true and what was false. “Sure,” I said again, not sure of anything.

  10

  Snow began to fall outside. Me and Agatha sat opposite each other, gazing into the glowing embers. I was drawn into another world by Agatha’s story telling. Plus I had loads more for my essay. My head was full of history.

  In 1812, girls learnt about sewing and dancing and if you were rich you had a horse with a saddle, and calendars were called almanacs. Also fire could be a big problem because there were lots of candles, and they probably didn’t have fire engines.

  “Keep going, Agatha,” I said, “tell me more about helping your dad.”

  She gazed above my head, like she was seeing way past me, and whispered, “Blue, red and yellow steam coils about me. I stand motionless in the middle of Father’s cramped, low-ceilinged study. The coloured steam swirls faster. Sweeps by my unblinking eyes. Merges with my coppery hair, turning it red then yellow then blue.”

  Agatha pressed her hand against her chest, then carried on. “At my feet a ring of objects enclose me. From a wooden rafter above the window a glass globe hangs down, catching the low winter sunbeams and flashing them blue, red and yellow into the room.”

  She looked far away. “My right hand, clenched in a fist, trembles.” As she said this I saw she was acting it out. “Perspiration heats my forehead. My hair sticks to my temples. My eyes stare ahead, as though into some longed for future.”

  She was so intense, I was getting freaked. “Hey, Agatha?”

  She shook her head and snapped out of her memories. “Ach, the truth is Saul,” she stared at me through the flames, “ever since Father spoke of the far future I yearned for it. I thought about it often. I wondered if children would be the same. I questioned if the world would be greatly changed. I so longed to travel. I have only journeyed once to Edinburgh town and it was such a wondrous place… But we have no carriage. Not as much as a lame horse do we have. I would so love to behold the very grand cathedral there of Saint Giles. Ach, I have seen so little of the world.”

  “Maybe I could show you around. We could go places. See things.”

  Agatha beamed at me. “I should like that greatly. Thank you.”

  “But you still haven’t said what Albert was doing. Was he singing or something? If I’m the apprentice now, I have to know.”

  Agatha’s pale blue eyes widened again, the way they did when she was remembering her home. “Ah, Saul, if I was a picture of stillness, the one other person in the study, my dear father, couldna keep still. ‘Yes!’ he shouted, punching the air. ‘The time is right, my dear Agatha.’ He laughed and clapped his chubby hands together. ‘I feel it in my bones!’ He fixed his gaze on the hands of the clock that were creeping loudly towards ten. He fell to his knees and nudged the plate of earth closer, then swirled the water in the bowl with a poker. He pushed the yew branch closer so it pressed against my feet. ‘Touch the ancient yew, my dear. Aye, that’s it! That’s it! Let its ageless spirit guide you.’ Then he rose to his feet, wiping his brow with a large handkerchief. He whipped out his pocket watch, swaying restlessly from foot to foot.”

  “And what happened?”

  “By this time the coloured vapours fair filled up the room. ‘All is in place,’ Father announced, clapping again. He placed himself outside the magic circle. ‘Feel the gold. It will protect yea. Surely, it will.’

  “Saul, it was then I did feel the very heart in me jolt. Yea see, I couldna actually feel the gold. The fleck I’d been given was no bigger than a flea. I did try. Oh, I tried so very hard to feel the gold. My fist shook. My palm sweated.

  “’Soon you will be the best travelled young lady in the land,’ Father shouted, heedless of my agitation. “Ah! What scenes you will behold. Take note. Look well around yea, then haste yea back and tell me all. Fare yea well, lassie. Fare yea well.’ Father cleared his throat. The clock whirred. The coloured steam intensified. He pulled at his moustache then with a quavering voice, broke into song.

  “The notes of the haunting tune swirled around me. I felt the hardness of the branch press against the toe caps of my boots. Sight and sound blurred. I was already far gone. No longer could I tell which was steam, which was song. All was a blur. The seven flickering candle flames sputtered and mingled with the rippling water. The clock struck ten. The glass globe swung or was it the earth? Small rainbows slid across the room. The room slid. But where was the gold?

  “The song grew fainter. The light dimmed until I beheld only shadows. My eyelids grew heavy. My chin dropped. I grew weightless. Wind, at first a whistle, then a gale, blew through me. It moved me. It pushed me.

  “Then it started to snow. The great wind ceased. Everything grew white. What peace then! I had come into a white and new world. It was marvellous. I felt filled with excitement and was ready to open my eyes when suddenly a brash noise clattered into the white peace: a thundering, roaring, screeching, terrifying noise! I grew much afeart. Then, dear good Saul, yea found me!” She dropped her head and looked into the glowing embers. “That is my tale. That is how I became transported.”

  Agatha fell silent as if there was nothing left to say. I opened my mouth but shut it again. I stared at her. I had never seen anyone look so lost. Her eyes filled up with tears. We both stared into the embers of the fire. I felt that shiver again. This mysterious girl sitting opposite me in the den really did come from the past. I watched as she went to wind her long hair around her finger. Except, of course, she didn’t have long hair anymore. She frowned then pulled at her earlobe instead.

  “Alas,” she said, breaking the silence, “I found myself in a most dangerous place. Yea saw me. I was standing on the road and there burst in all of a sudden a terrific commotion so that I lost all my concentration. I lost hold of the thread that held me to 1812. I lost the gold.”

  “It was a car, Agatha. You almost got yourself knocked down by a car.”

  “Acar.” She shuddered.

  “No. A. Car. It was heading straight for you. You almost died.” I sat up, thinking I could hear a rustle in the distance. “Hey, Randolph. My gang could show up any minute. Maybe you should turn your hoodie so this hood bit is at the back.”

  “There is so much to learn,” she said, twisting it round. Now that she was properly dressed and her hair was short she looked like a normal boy.

  “So, they’ll be here soon. How are you doing, Randolph?”

  “Fair to middling,” she replied, sniffing away what was left of her tears. “And are yea – begging your pardon, you – are you going to tell your gang the truth about me?”

  Just at that moment the five secret code knocks came rapping on the door. “Dunno,” I mumbled, then
shouted out, “Who goes there?”

  “Gang member Robbie.”

  “Gang member Will.”

  I took a deep breath, flung back my shoulders and shouted out, “Enter!”

  11

  “We haven’t got much time,” Will and Robbie chorused as they stepped into the den. They both spotted Agatha at the same time and jostled for a better view. I sat on the stone, waiting for them to say something. Will, I noticed, looked annoyed. He had wanted his pal Lewis to join the gang but I had said three was a good number for a gang and plus there wasn’t much room in the den. I guessed that was what was bothering him.

  “Thought you said three…”

  Robbie joined in, “…was a good number for a gang?”

  Agatha had flicked up her hood so her face was half in shadow. I could see her eyes flit from Will to Robbie and back again. I stood up and took command. “Look guys, this is an emergency. This is Randolph. Randolph, that’s Will. And that’s Robbie.” Agatha stood up and thrust her hand out to shake hands. Robbie, true to form, laughed, while Will managed to turn the handshake into a high-five.

  “Well, it’s not fair,” whined Robbie, throwing me his best scowl.

  But I didn’t miss a beat. “Fair? You’re off to Winter Wonderland and I’m not. That’s what’s not fair. And don’t forget, I’m the gang leader.”

  Robbie made a big deal of chewing his gum. So far Agatha hadn’t opened her mouth. Will made a little hrrmph noise, like he was in the huff, so I made up my mind there and then not to mention time travel. They weren’t mature enough. And, the thought did rip through my mind that they were better at writing than me, and they might enter the history essay competition – and win!