‘He knows something.’
‘Who?’ I say.
‘MC2. Don’t lose your hat, paint the trees red. He’s giving us a message.’
‘He saw Big Ben wearing the red hat last night,’ I said. ‘He was freestyling. When you’re freestyling you say the first thing that comes into your head.’
‘No, Elle. He said sunny day night. He meant Sunday, code for Kwesi. He must have known Kwesi. He—’
‘He didn’t finish his poem.’
They both look at me and I look away.
‘Le Temps started clapping but he hadn’t finished. It was a bad poem. It was all mixed up with no proper ending.’
Ama stops in the middle of the room. Her eyes go the biggest I’ve ever seen eyes.
‘Yes! Le Temps stopped him. Thought it was odd. The way he clapped like crazy when the poem was . . . you know.’
GMT sits up in bed. Her hair’s frizzy and wild, like she hasn’t combed it for days. She claws her fingers and combs it back from her face.
‘We may be reading too much into this, guys, but,’ she says, ‘I’ve known MC for light years. Brother speaks rhyme or code or rhymecode.’
‘He’s not brother to you,’ says Ama.
‘Near as,’ says GMT. She begins to climb down the ladder. ‘Something’s happening here. MC’s giving you clues, Elle. Has a sixth sense when he’s ’stylin’. It must link with the Predictive. How did the tale end?’
‘Gretel throws the witch into the oven,’ I say.
‘I mean MC’s mix. Something about a phoenix?’
‘No. It was fee-fi-fo but he never got to fum. Le Temps started clapping. That’s Jack and the Beanstalk not Hansel and Gretel.’
GMT starts pacing the room. Ama’s pacing the room. It’s not a very big room. I look away. I don’t want to witness a crash. GMT stops pacing and Ama walks straight into her. Ama swears but she doesn’t sit down. She just keeps on walking. GMT pulls her hair back hard till she looks like a boy again.
‘Guys,’ she says, ‘MC’s on to something. The tales, don’t you see? They’re all about—’
‘MC this, MC that! You’re obsessed.’ Ama rolls her eyes anticlockwise. ‘Maybe Season’s in on it. She runs The Beanstalk. Maybe SHE’S the wicked witch. Maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s Elle. Maybe it’s YOU! How will this help find Kwesi?’ She runs out of the chalet.
But I’m not listening to them shouting any more. I’m thinking about MC2’s rap with too much remixing and no end. Why did Le Temps stop him? Does Le Temps hate fairy tales because he’s a witchcraft himself? Maybe this has something to do with the Predictive. MC2 called me maestro, which means I’m good at storytelling. He wasn’t able to finish his story but I could. I wouldn’t speak in riddles and rhymes. It wouldn’t be fairy tales, it would be real. I have to find out what SOS L means. It’s up to me to finish the story. MY story.
Chapter 14:00
THE LAW OF THE JUNGLE
Noon returned to our chalet in the middle of the night and this morning says she has a stomach cramp. She certainly SOUNDS different, not that she talks very much. Mrs C Eckler comes in to make sure she’s OK then leaves. I guess since Noon’s 4-leap she must be treated like a grown-up. She didn’t come here with a school. But she’s not telling the whole truth. Her not feeling well has something to do with the time she returned to the chalet. 4 a.m.! Then she spent a whole hour tapping into her phone. Obsessed with texting, that girl. At least she’s not wearing that horrible Chanel No. 5!
I’m scared this morning because we have a workshop with Le Temps who might be a witchcraft. But I’m not going to be like Noon and pretend I’m ill. I have to attend because Big Ben will be there and he hates Le Temps. I don’t want him to get angry and have a meltdown. If he throws a chair, he might get excluded from Leap 2048. So I won’t tell Big Ben that Le Temps is a witchcraft. That can wait till later.
The workshop’s taking place in The Round, same as last night. When I tell Noon she’ll be sad she missed it. She loves The Round. Thankfully, the seats carved out of cut-down trees are rooted to the ground, so Big Ben won’t be able to wrench one out and throw it. We sit in a circle like before. Big Ben’s on my left, Ama’s on my right. She squeezes my hand hard when we sit down. I don’t mind, as I know she’s sad about Kwesi. Le Temps clears his throat like people do before they make an important announcement and want you to listen extra carefully.
‘Good morning, fellow survivors. Welcome to Law of the Jungle. Please take out your phones.’
We all fumble in our bags. I take out my Chronophone but keep the TwentyTwenty in my bag. I don’t want Le Temps to offer to look after it for me. He looks around the circle.
‘Turn them off,’ he says in his buttery voice. He looks around the circle again and smiles. It’s a strange smile, not sure whether it’s happy or angry. ‘How does it feel with your phone switched off? Anyone?’
You can always count on Jake to say something.
‘We can’t communicate.’
‘Good. Anyone else?’
‘We don’t know what time it is. Or where we are.’ That was Martin Aston aka Aston Martin.
‘Exactly. Without your phones, you’re lost. Literally. Metaphorically. You don’t know what time it is or where you are. You feel cut off from reality. You don’t know who you are any more. Without your phone, you cease to exist.’
He looks straight at me and I feel scared. Maybe he knows I kept my phone in my bag.
‘This morning, I’m going to teach you survival skills.
‘Do you know what time of day it is by looking at the shadows? What time of night by looking at the stars? In the summer? In the autumn. Winter. Spring?
‘Do you know the difference between the sun and the moon? What they do? That’s why I’m called Le Temps. I understand the weather and time. You all know what climate change is?’ We nod. ‘I’ve noted changes over the years. How Mother Nature works. It’s all in here and in here.’ He thumps his bald head, his large chest. ‘Not in here.’ He pulls out his Chronophone.
‘When I was your age, I kept my brain in my phone. I didn’t even know my own number. Turn off my phone, I was a ruddy mess.’
To teach at Leap 2048 you have to pass a swearing test.
Though Le Temps is a witchcraft, I like the first half of the workshop because he makes us look at the sky and the clouds and the trees. It’s better than being indoors. One of the exercises, he makes us run in different directions for five minutes and we have to take mental note of landmarks like unusual trees, mushroom clusters, so we can find our way back. It’s a bit like Hansel and Gretel leaving a bread trail so they can find their way home, except we don’t leave lumps of bread.
We go in pairs and I go with Big Ben. There’s no longer a cordon across the steps up to the cow field. Without saying anything to each other, we run up the steps and back to the place we found Kwesi’s red hat. A minute later, Ama comes up behind us.
‘You’re supposed to be with GMT,’ I say. ‘You’ll get into trouble.’
She shrugs her shoulders. ‘I needed space. Is this the spot?’
We nod.
There’s nothing on the ground. Apart from that, it hasn’t changed from last time we were there. No footprints. No clues. Time to go back to the group.
We’re back in The Round having the snacks Season gave us this morning, delicious home-made white chocolate chip cookies that melt in the mouth. Le Temps takes out what looks like dried tree bark and starts eating it. I can see it’s difficult to chew. Maybe that’s where he gets his powers from. It’s when I look behind him that I see the tree. ANOTHER tree with the infinity sign. And another. I look back at Le Temps. He looks like his whole brain has gone into eating the tree bark. He doesn’t know about the infinity symbols. Or maybe he does and that’s why he’s sitting under one of them. I look at the signs again and frown. I can remember exactly where I was sitting last night and how the trees looked. There were DEFINITELY only three symbols last night. Now there are
five!
The second half of the workshop, Le Temps kills a rabbit with a gun.
He doesn’t warn us, just pulls out his gun and BANG! I’m not happy he killed the rabbit. He explains that killing wildlife is not the same as cooping up animals in factories, fattening them up just to kill them. It’s OK if it’s organic. I can’t look at the dead rabbit unless I look the other way and squint my eyes. The blood doesn’t look red, it looks black. I don’t want to look and I do want to look. GMT shouts at Le Temps.
‘Murderer! You’re teaching kids it’s cool to—’
‘Bad things happen,’ he says. ‘I don’t shield children from bad things. I prepare them. Law of the Jungle.’
GMT walks out. I’m worried she’s going to get excluded, as she didn’t ask for time-out. Maybe you don’t have to ask for time-out in the future. I’m sad and angry at the same time about the rabbit. When I speak, my voice sounds croaky but I still manage to speak.
‘It’s not a jungle, it’s a country park.’
‘WAS,’ he says. ‘This is my land now.’
‘The rabbit didn’t deserve to die. It wasn’t attacking you.’
‘Hare, actually. Totally different species. Welcome to my Garden of Eden.’
He sticks out his tongue and quickly puts it back into his mouth. It’s not a very good impersonation of a snake. He did the same thing on the introductory film, only faster. It was so fast you almost couldn’t see it. I play the film back in my head. The camera zooms in on the grass and the trees and shows a bald man chopping wood. Then the letters like flies make me dizzy again until they become the caption, ‘LE TEMPS, Eco-landscaper’, and then Le Temps is a talking head. He says, ‘I plan the land.’ And something’s not quite right, something’s out of synch, but I don’t know what it is. It reminds me of something. I have that feeling again. I play the film over and over till my head aches.
Le Temps skins the hare, cooks it on a campfire and offers it around. What Le Temps did was bad but the hare smells nice. Most of the children don’t eat it but Big Ben does. So do Jake and Martin Aston. Typical. If Big Ben knew Le Temps was a witchcraft I don’t think he’d eat it, but I can’t tell him anything at the moment about Le Temps or the infinity signs or the film. There’s too much going on in my head.
I don’t eat much lunch, although Season’s made yam fritters. Her mouth goes into a minus sign. But everyone’s being different today. GMT’s still angry Le Temps killed the rabbit that was a hare so she’s not speaking to anyone. Ama’s not speaking to GMT because GMT called MC2 ‘brother’. Noon is pretending to have a stomach ache and I’m cross with Big Ben for eating the hare so I’m not speaking to him. I don’t want to sit in The Beanstalk any more.
There’s half an hour before the afternoon workshop begins with MC2. I go back to Hive 1 to dry my hair. It was a bit damp outside and my hair never dries on its own. Afro hair’s like that. After drying it, I go upstairs for my comb. Noon’s sitting up in front of the mirror. I look at her reflection, not at her. She looks ever so slightly different. Everyone looks different in the mirror. No one’s totally symmetrical. She turns round to face me and I stare. I know what’s changed. Her face looks thinner, you can see her cheekbones. She wouldn’t have got thinner overnight.
‘You must be Elle,’ she says, and I think, of course I’m Elle. You know that. We’ve been sharing a chalet for two days. Then comes the Oops. It’s not a totally bad Oops but it’s not a good Oops either. Something’s topsy-turvy. She stands up and I notice she’s wearing the beige-cream two-tone shoes with a strap across the middle and heels shaped like an hourglass. But she’s shrunk by two inches. She’s shorter than me in her shoes.
‘I’m not Noon. I’m Eve,’ she says, ‘Noon’s twin sister. I’ve come to find her.’
Chapter 15:00
EVE
‘Wow,’ I say. ‘Noon and Eve.’ ‘Yes, Mama went for the bissex names. Noon came first, so she got to be “midday”. I arrived so late, Mama thought I’d be an Annual. Imagine. Twins born on different days.’
She sits down on the edge of the bed. It’s my bed but I don’t mind because I love her name.
‘How fast can you run the 100 metres?’
‘Run?’ she says. ‘I can barely walk after the leap. First time I’ve done an interdecade. Sick as a dog.’
‘Was it you in bed this morning? Where’s Noon?’ I say.
‘Yes. Sorry for the French farce. Had to stand in, in case they raised the alarm. Another missing leap. I guess she’s with Kwesi. We have an agreement, Noon and I: if she stops texting . . .’
‘Why did you say ANOTHER? Do you know about Kwesi?’
‘Yes! He told us about leaps going missing. 2100 was a Black Hole.’
That’s what GMT said. So there IS something weird about 2100. It must link to SOS L.
‘His sister’s here. She’s called Ama. She’s here to find Kwesi but we don’t know where to look.’ I’ve forgotten about my hair. This is much more exciting. ‘When did you meet him?’
‘Paris, ’24.’
I’m impressed. Not many people can leap across time to another country! I wonder if he went there to watch the Paris Olympics.
‘Did you meet Harold Abrahams?’ Harold Abrahams was a British runner who won the 100-metre dash in 10.6 seconds. Maybe they called it the 100-metre dash in those days because they thought runners ran so fast they looked like a dash: —. But they didn’t run as fast as sprinters do now.
‘No, we met Kwesi in a café in Montmartre. He sold us a Chronophone. Love at first sight for Noon.’
‘He shouldn’t have done that. That’s an Anachronism!’
‘Darling, the world RUNS on Anachronisms. Would we progress otherwise? Who do you think invented the internet? Leaps with The Gift.’
She called me darling. Maybe she’s a bisexual bissextile. She’s prettier than Noon, though they’re identical. I try to imagine Kwesi selling Chronophones in Paris, 1924. I don’t know what he looks like, but I imagine he looks a bit like Ama but with a shorter afro and much longer legs so he can jump 5 metres 90. He must be brilliant at selling if he’s nonverbal.
‘Did he talk in paint?’
‘Paint? Is that some kind of slang? No, my dear, he talked with his hands.’
‘Ama said he was nonverbal.’ ‘Yes. His Chronophone helped things to flow but Noon understood him. She texts him ten times a day. Never stops talking about him. Kwesi this, Kwesi that. Noon’s quiet unless she’s around Kwesi. She’s dying for a rendezvous.’
That’s a French word for a secret date. I like the sound of it on her lips and the way she pouts when she says it. She doesn’t say it the English way. She says it like she’s French.
‘All very innocent. Noon’s never had a beau before. Chaperone day and night meant we couldn’t meet boys. But the Chronophone helped us keep in touch. She only used it for texting.’ She sits down at the mirror. ‘Texted me last night to say she’d been offered a job. Wanted my opinion.’
‘What job?’
‘Eco-something. Noon loves Nature.’
I frown. There’s only one person who would offer such a job. Le Temps. Maybe Noon accepted the job and leapt to work in another year. If she did, why didn’t she text her sister?
Eve smooths down her short, blonde bob and turns her head from side to side.
‘D’you think I’ll pass? For Noon?’
‘You’re too short. Why are you shorter?’
‘I was ill as a child so we ate different food. Noon’s the strong one. No one will notice if I wear these.’ She produces some cream, brown and orange striped platforms.
‘You can’t wear them, they’re GMT’s,’ I say.
‘Darling, she only wears ’68. Noon’s texted me on all of you. These are ’70s fancy dress for Greenwich Mean Time. Anyway, she doesn’t believe in possessions.’
I don’t think GMT would like Eve saying her full name or wearing her shoes. I’m scared about Eve pretending to be Noon because putting on a disguise
is a form of lying. But she’s already put the shoes on. They’re a good fit.
‘Now, I must stop talking,’ she says.
‘Why?’ I want her to keep talking forever. I love the way she talks.
‘I have to make people believe I’m Noon. For the afternoon.’ She smiles at the rhyme. ‘All for a good cause. Will you keep my secret?’
I nod. I hope it’s not lying if I don’t say that Noon is really Eve but I love secrets. Secrets are about not talking. I’m good at that.
Chapter 16:00
MIND OVER MATTER
E=MC2 is projected on the floor of The Igloo. The floor’s transparent so we can see down into the room below. At first, I’m scared I’ll fall through the floor but when no one does I step inside. It looks like walking on ice but doesn’t feel slippery at all. The letters move when we tread on them.
We haven’t had a workshop in here before. The room’s a replica igloo. Even the bricks are large like blocks of snow and the chairs are not chairs but white blocks arranged in a circle. Big Ben would find it hard to throw one of these. We all sit down in our tracksuits. I feel bad that in the excitement I forgot to tell Eve to wear a tracksuit, but one or two of the others have forgotten too, so she doesn’t stand out so much. The windows are a circle of light high up in the ceiling. I like this room. I’ve always wanted to build an igloo but there was never enough snow. You’d have to go to Scotland to find lots and I’ve never been there.
At exactly 2 o’clock, MC2 appears in the middle of the circle. Some of the pupils cheer but I purse my lips. I know he’s going to start talking in riddles.
‘Here is some chatter,
prattle an’ patter,
’nacular natter:
ice will not shatter,
peeps will learn stratta’ —
The Infinite Page 11
