Doctor Who: Nothing O'Clock: Eleventh Doctor: 50th Anniversary

PUFFIN

About Neil Gaiman

Books by Neil Gaiman

NOTHING O’CLOCK

Neil Gaiman is the bestselling author of more than
twenty books for adults and children, including the novels
Neverwhere
,
Stardust
,
American Gods
,
Anansi Boys
,
Coraline
and
The Graveyard Book
, the Sandman series of graphic novels, and two episodes of
Doctor Who
(‘The Doctor’s Wife’ and ‘Nightmare in Silver’). He has received
numerous literary honours including the Locus and Hugo Awards and the Newbery and Carnegie
Medals. Almost two million people follow him on Twitter:
@neilhimself
.

Born and raised in England, he now lives in the
USA, with his wife, the rock star Amanda Palmer. He is Professor of the Arts at Bard
University. His hair is ridiculous.

For
children

Chu’s Day

Coraline

The Dangerous
Alphabet

The Day I Swapped My
Dad for Two Goldfish

Fortunately, the Milk
…

The Graveyard
Book

M is for Magic

Odd and the Frost
Giants

The Wolves in the
Walls

For adults

American Gods

Anansi Boys

Don’t Panic

Fragile Things

Good Omens (with Terry
Pratchett)

Neverwhere

Smoke and
Mirrors

Stardust

The Time Lords built a Prison.
They built it in a time and place that are both unimaginable to
any entity who has never left the solar system in which it was
spawned, or who has only experienced the journey through time,
second by second, and that only going forward. It was built just
for the Kin. It was impregnable: a complex of small rooms (for
they were not monsters, the Time Lords – they could be merciful,
when it suited them), out of temporal phase with the rest of the
Universe.

There were, in that place, only
those rooms: the gulf between microseconds was one that could
not be crossed. In effect, those rooms became a universe in
themselves, one that borrowed light and heat and gravity from
the rest of Creation, always a fraction of a moment away.

The Kin prowled its rooms, patient
and deathless, and always waiting.

It was waiting for a question. It
could wait until the end of time. (But even then, when Time
Ended, the Kin would miss it, imprisoned in the micro-moment
away from time.)

The Time Lords maintained the
Prison with huge engines they built in the hearts of black
holes, unreachable: no one would be able to get to the engines,
save the Time Lords themselves. The multiple engines were a
fail-safe. Nothing could ever go wrong.

As long as the Time Lords existed,
the Kin would be in their Prison, and the rest of the Universe
would be safe. That was how it was, and how it always would
be.

And if anything went wrong, then
the Time Lords would know. Even if, unthinkably, any of the
engines failed, then emergency signals would sound on Gallifrey
long before the Prison of the Kin returned to our time and our
universe. The Time Lords had planned for everything.

They had planned for everything
except the possibility that one day there would be no Time
Lords, and no Gallifrey. No Time Lords in the Universe, except
for one.

So when the Prison shook and
crashed, as if in an earthquake, throwing the Kin down; and when
the Kin looked up from its Prison to see the light of galaxies
and suns above it, unmediated and unfiltered, and it knew that
it had returned to the Universe, it knew it would only be a
matter of time until the question would be asked once
more.

And, because the Kin was careful,
it took stock of the Universe they found themselves in. It did
not think of revenge: that was not in its nature. It wanted what
it had always wanted. And besides …

There was still a Time Lord in the
Universe.

The Kin needed to do something
about that.

On Wednesday, eleven-year-old
Polly Browning put her head round her father’s office door.
‘Dad, there’s a man at the front door in a rabbit mask who says
he wants to buy the house.’

‘Don’t be silly, Polly.’ Mr
Browning was sitting in the corner of the room he liked to call
his office, and which the estate agent had optimistically listed
as a third bedroom, although it was scarcely big enough for a
filing cabinet and a card-table, upon which rested a brand-new
Amstrad computer. Mr Browning was carefully entering the numbers
from a pile of receipts on to the computer, and wincing. Every
half an hour he would save the work he’d done so far, and the
computer would make a grinding noise for a few minutes as it
saved everything on to a floppy disk.

‘I’m not being silly. He says
he’ll give you seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds for
it.’

‘Now you’re really being silly.
It’s only on sale for fifty thousand pounds.’
And we’d be lucky to get that in
today’s market
, he thought, but did not
say. It was the summer of 1984, and Mr Browning despaired of
finding a buyer for the little house at the end of Claversham
Row.

Polly nodded thoughtfully. ‘I
think you should go and talk to him.’

Mr Browning shrugged. He needed to
save the work he’d done so far anyway. As the computer made its
grumbling sound, Mr Browning went downstairs. Polly, who had
planned to go up to her bedroom to write in her diary, decided
to sit on the stairs and find out what was going to happen
next.

Standing in the front garden was a
tall man in a rabbit mask. It was not a particularly convincing
mask. It covered his entire face, and two long ears rose above
his head. He held a large brown leather bag, which reminded Mr
Browning of the doctors’ bags of his childhood.

‘Now, see here,’ began Mr
Browning, but the man in the rabbit mask put a gloved finger to
his painted bunny lips, and Mr Browning fell silent.

‘Ask me what time it is,’ said a
quiet voice that came from behind the unmoving muzzle of the
rabbit mask.

Mr Browning said, ‘I understand
you’re interested in the house.’ The
For
Sale
sign by the front gate was grimy and
streaked by the rain.

‘Perhaps. You can call me Mister
Rabbit. Ask me what time it is.’

Mr Browning knew that he ought to
call the police. Ought to do something to make the man go away.
What kind of crazy person wears a rabbit mask anyway?

‘Why are you wearing a rabbit
mask?’

‘That was not the correct
question. But I am wearing the rabbit mask because I am
representing an extremely famous and important person who values
his or her privacy. Ask me what time it is.’

Mr Browning sighed. ‘What time is
it, Mister Rabbit?’ he asked.

The man in the rabbit mask stood
up straighter. His body language was one of joy and delight.
‘Time for you to be the richest man on Claversham Row,’ he said.
‘I’m buying your house, for cash, and for more than ten times
what it’s worth, because it’s just perfect for me now.’ He
opened the brown leather bag, and produced blocks of money, each
block containing five hundred (‘Count them, go on, count them’)
crisp fifty-pound notes, and two plastic supermarket shopping
bags, into which he placed the blocks of currency.

Mr Browning inspected the money.
It appeared to be real.

‘I …’ He hesitated. What did he
need to do? ‘I’ll need a few days. To bank it. Make sure it’s
real. And we’ll need to draw up contracts, obviously.’

‘Contract’s already drawn up,’
said the man in the rabbit mask. ‘Sign here. If the bank says
there’s anything funny about the money, you can keep it and the
house. I will be back on Saturday to take vacant possession. You
can get everything out by then, can’t you?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Mr Browning.
Then: ‘I’m sure I can. I mean,
of
course
.’

‘I’ll be here on Saturday,’ said
the man in the rabbit mask.

‘This is a very unusual way of
doing business,’ said Mr Browning. He was standing at his front
door holding two shopping bags, containing £750,000.

‘Yes,’ agreed the man in the
rabbit mask. ‘It is. See you on Saturday, then.’

He walked away. Mr Browning was
relieved to see him go. He had been seized by the irrational
conviction that, were he to remove the rabbit mask, there would
be nothing underneath.

Polly went upstairs to tell her
diary everything she had seen and heard.

On Thursday, a tall young man
with a tweed jacket and a bow-tie knocked on the door. There was
nobody at home, so nobody answered, and, after walking round the
house, he went away.

On Saturday, Mr Browning stood
in his empty kitchen. He had banked the money successfully,
which had wiped out all his debts. The furniture that they had
wanted to keep had been put into a removals van and sent to Mr
Browning’s uncle, who had an enormous garage he wasn’t
using.

‘What if it’s all a joke?’ asked
Mrs Browning.

‘Not sure what’s funny about
giving someone seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds,’ said Mr
Browning. ‘The bank says it’s real. Not reported stolen. Just a
rich and eccentric person who wants to buy our house for a lot
more than it’s worth.’

They had booked two rooms in a
local hotel, although hotel rooms had proved harder to find than
Mr Browning had expected. Also, he had had to convince Mrs
Browning, who was a nurse, that they could now afford to stay in
a hotel.

‘What happens if he never comes
back?’ asked Polly. She was sitting on the stairs, reading a
book.

Mr Browning said, ‘Now you’re
being silly.’

‘Don’t call your daughter silly,’
said Mrs Browning. ‘She’s got a point. You don’t have a name or
a phone number or anything.’

This was unfair. The contract was
made out, and the buyer’s name was clearly written on it: N. M.
de Plume. There was an address, too, for a firm of London
solicitors, and Mr Browning had phoned them and been told that,
despite the silly name, yes, this was absolutely
legitimate.

‘He’s eccentric,’ said Mr
Browning. ‘An eccentric millionaire.’

‘I bet it’s him behind that rabbit
mask,’ said Polly. ‘The eccentric millionaire.’

The doorbell rang. Mr Browning
went to the front door, his wife and daughter beside him, each
of them hoping to meet the new owner of their house.

‘Hello,’ said the lady in the cat
mask on their doorstep. It was not a very realistic mask. Polly
saw her eyes glinting behind it, though.

‘Are you the new owner?’ asked Mrs
Browning.

‘Either that, or I’m the owner’s
representative.’

‘Where’s … your friend? In the
rabbit mask?’

Despite the cat mask, the young
lady (was she young? – her voice sounded young anyway) seemed
efficient and almost brusque. ‘You have removed all your
possessions? I’m afraid anything left behind will become the
property of the new owner.’