Frozen in Time (12 page)

‘Yes, we ate around one, I should say,’ said Freddy, glancing over Uncle Jerome’s shoulder at the spinning time code numbers. ‘So I reckon we’d be down in the chamber about now. Maybe … maybe we’ll see Father going off somewhere … do you think?’

Ben eyed the spool on the side that was getting smaller and smaller as the tape wound on. There wasn’t much of it left. He really hoped they would see
something
else before the tape ran out completely, but as it went on shrinking, there was nothing else but the lane and the blossom blowing in the wind and the occasional bird flitting in and out of the hedgerows.

‘Not much more now,’ sighed Uncle Jerome. ‘Sorry.’ But even as he said this a shadow was thrown across the lane at the top right corner of the screen. A young man walked into view. He was wearing a jacket and tie and a trilby hat. He paused at the gate, leaning on it while he did something with his shoe— pulled a stone out of it, Ben thought—and then glanced down the driveway before walking on up the hill. Something tugged at Ben’s memory, but this was clearly just his imagination. He didn’t know the man. This was forty years before he was born!

Now the tape was clicking and whirring on the spool, filling up to almost full. Uncle Jerome prepared to stop it.

‘Wait!’ said Rachel, just as he went to stop the tape. ‘Look!’

As soon as she said this the tape ran out, flicking madly like a whippet’s tail as the spools spun on at speed and then began to gradually slow. ‘There was something else! Something dark came in. Look—you have to look again!’

Uncle Jerome stopped the spools, re-threaded the tape and wound it back slowly. Just as the tape began to flicker, where it was a little squashed from being threaded at one end, something dark
did
come in. The bonnet of a car. A black car, gliding up to the gate. Only the first glimpse of windscreen rolled into view before the tape ended.

Freddy and Polly looked at each other wide-eyed. ‘A car!’ gasped Polly. Freddy nodded.

‘So? A car! Whose car? Could be anyone’s,’ said Ben, exasperated and disappointed. ‘What does
that
tell us?’

‘You don’t understand, Benedict,’ said Uncle Jerome. ‘Cars were not that common an occurrence in 1956. Even on through roads, and Darkwood Lane only goes up to the woods and downs. Anything other than the delivery van was very rare. Someone came along that day—almost certainly for a reason.’

‘But who?’ said Polly. ‘Who drove up to us? Can’t we see something?’

Uncle Jerome held the image of the car steady on the screen. It had a high black bonnet and a metal grille like long teeth between two round headlights. The number plate was only partially in view, obscured by part of the five-bar gate.

‘The man before,’ said Polly. ‘He would have seen it, wouldn’t he? He can’t have been that far on—just seconds on from it, don’t you think? He would know!’

‘Yes—brilliant, old girl!’ snapped Freddy. ‘All we need to do is put a notice in the local newspaper asking for anyone who might remember seeing a black car while he was passing in 1956! Easy!’

Polly gave him a furious look and turned on her heel and walked out of the room.

‘Come on,’ said Ben. ‘It’s really late. You need to get some sleep. We all do.’

‘Quite right,’ muttered Uncle Jerome. ‘Off you go now. Early to bed! Off to sleep!’ Ben knew he was desperate to get rid of them so he could examine the Ampex undisturbed.

‘We’ve slept a lifetime!’ grumbled Freddy, but he
was
looking very tired.

Ben patted his shoulder. ‘Come on, mate. Honestly—it’ll all seem a lot better in the morning.’

He steered Freddy and Rachel out and Uncle Jerome stared up at the screen for a long time. He wound back the tape a little way and squinted at the man with something in his shoe. Then he looked at the car again. Then the man again.

Then his mouth fell open and his hand went to his temple. ‘No,’ he breathed. ‘No … it
can’t
be.’

The next day began sunny. With screaming.

Rachel was hurtled out of sleep by the sound of Polly waking up and realizing that yesterday
hadn’t
been a dream after all.

‘It’s OK—it’s OK!’ She grabbed Polly’s arm, still dealing with her own sense of unreality. ‘You’re all right! You’re safe!’

Polly stared at her and then shut her eyes. When she opened them again she looked more composed. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Oh gosh—I’m
really
sorry! Bess has wet the bed. And—oh no—she’s eaten a bit of Ritzy!’

Rachel winced. Her Chatz doll was still pouting and smirking despite having her left leg gnawed off at the knee. And being covered in puppy drool. Bess thumped her tail and looked very proud.

‘I think we’ll have to get her a basket and lay down some newspapers in the kitchen or something,’ suggested Polly, looking very guilty.

‘Yes—we can do that today. Don’t worry about it,’ said Rachel. She lay back in bed and felt her brain stretching and flipping like a mad gymnast as she tried, all over again, to believe that she was sharing a bedroom with a girl—and a puppy—from 1956.

A second later the door burst open, with only a hint at a knock beforehand, and Freddy and Ben spilled in. ‘The sun’s out again!’ said Ben. ‘And I think we might be able to go out on bikes—all of us!’

‘We’ve only got two bikes!’ pointed out Rachel. She couldn’t imagine Polly doing a doubler, somehow.

‘No! We’ve got four!’ beamed Ben. ‘Freddy and I have been right through to the back of the old garage and guess what? Their bikes are still there!’

‘Really? After fifty-three years? Aren’t they just a heap of rust?’

‘No,’ said Freddy. ‘They’ve been under a heap of old sacking, so they’ve stayed quite dry. Just need a bit of oil and a pump up! Come on, you two lazybones! Stir your stumps! We’ve already had breakfast.’

Half an hour later, after eating boiled eggs and toast, with cups of tea (which Polly had insisted on neatly laying out on the table once more), and feeding Bess with some food scraps, the girls were outside by the garage, helping Ben and Freddy work on the old bikes. It was utterly weird, thought Rachel, seeing the very same bike that Freddy had ridden across the old video screen before their eyes only hours before—still here fifty-three years later. The bike had
not
worn as well as its rider. In spite of the sacking over it there was a fair bit of rust on its wheels and the basket was mouldy. Rachel poked at it with a revolted finger. ‘We’ll have to chuck this away.’

Polly looked appalled. ‘Why on earth would we throw it away? All it needs is a good clean.’

‘It’s mouldy!’ protested Rachel.

‘It’ll be perfectly all right after we’ve given it a wipe down with carbolic,’ maintained Polly. ‘You do
have
carbolic these days, I suppose?’

‘What’s carbolic?’ asked Ben.

‘Soap, you dolt!’ laughed Freddy, pistoning the old black bicycle pump with vigour.

‘Well—we’ve got antibacterial cleaning sprays,’ said Rachel. ‘I’ll go and get one from under the sink— and some hot water and cloths.’

She expected Polly to be unimpressed, but in fact, as soon as she’d got the hang of it, she was quite pleased with the spray. ‘It really cleans ninety-five per cent of all known bacteria …
dead
?’ she marvelled. ‘That’s jolly good!’ And she was right; the mould on the basket was only a thin layer and after they’d sprayed and scrubbed at it for a few minutes it looked fine. ‘See,’ said Polly. ‘Good as new! Waste not, want not! Oh, Bessie!
Don’t
try to drink the dirty water, you silly goose!’

Polly’s bike was smaller than Freddy’s but very similar in shape, also with a basket on the front. It creaked and groaned as they wheeled it out from under all the junk at the back of the garage, but after they’d all set to work again, pumping up the tyres, oiling and cleaning, it too was in good working order.

‘I’m amazed the tyres haven’t crumbled away,’ said Ben. ‘But they seem OK. We’ll probably need to replace them soon, though.’

Their own bikes didn’t need so much attention. Just a quick wipe down and pump up. Polly and Freddy stood back in awe as Ben wheeled out his black and red
Volcano
mountain bike, with its twenty-one gears, shock absorbers, and chunky all-terrain tyres. Rachel’s was a bright green
Lizard
with eighteen gears, shock absorbers, and glistening discs set into the spokes of each wheel, which glittered and spun wildly as she pedalled.

‘Oh heck,’ said Freddy, glancing at his own bike with less appreciation now. ‘We are going to look so … so terribly old-fashioned.’

‘No—no—it’s kind of … cool,’ said Ben, although he had no idea what any other kids in the small town would make of it.

‘Right then,’ said Freddy. ‘Where to?’

Ben considered. He needed to protect these strangers to the twenty-first century. Like Uncle Jerome said, they had to be introduced to it all gradually. ‘I know,’ he said to Rachel. ‘The farm shop. We could go out there and definitely get what we need for Bess— and it’s a nice ride on country lanes. We go up the hill, across a track and onto a really quiet road. We don’t have to go into town just yet.’

‘OK,’ nodded Rachel. ‘Good idea. How long do you think it’ll take to get there, though? I think it’s about five miles away, isn’t it?’ She looked at her handlebars doubtfully.

‘Five miles? Pish! That’s nothing!’ said Freddy. ‘We go twenty miles or more in a day, don’t we, Poll?’

‘Yes—but not without a good picnic,’ said Polly. ‘We can’t go off without our lunch.’ And with that she rested her bike on its little kick-down stand and went back inside, Bess at her heels, to the kitchen.

‘Come on, Rachel,’ she called back. ‘We can’t let the boys starve, can we?’

Ben snorted with laughter and Rachel narrowed her eyes. ‘Don’t think you’ll be getting this kind of treatment for long!’ she muttered at him, while Freddy looked mystified. ‘It’s only while she gets used to things. You can both do the next picnic—and don’t think you’re getting out of it.’ She stomped off after Polly with a toss of her blonde ponytail.

Freddy pulled a face at Ben. ‘What’s up with her?’

Ben shrugged. ‘Um … things are a bit different these days with girls. You can’t go round expecting them to sort out all your food for you and iron your clothes and stuff.’

‘Why not? I fix her bike for her and get spiders out of the bath and all that. Fair trade, I say! And girls are good at cooking and laundry and sewing and all that. They all want a nicely run home, don’t they?’

‘Nope.’ Ben shook his head. ‘Not any more.’

‘Oh lord,’ said Freddy. ‘Things really have gone badly, haven’t they? I say—can I have a crack at your bicycle?’

The sun shone down brightly as the four pedalled vigorously along the lane. Two of them carried backpacks. One had a red-checked cloth tucked across the top of the basket hanging from her handlebars and one had a puppy sitting up in his.

‘Hurrah!’ shouted Polly. ‘How I
love
the hols! Just weeks and weeks without any school! We’re going to have such fun and such adventures!’

‘Stop hurrah-ing and keep pedalling,’ shouted back Freddy. ‘I nearly went into the back of you then. I say—sit down, Bessie! You’re too little to run along with us. You might get squashed!’

‘Oh, won’t it be lovely when she
is
big enough to run along with us?’ sang Polly. ‘She could be our guard dog too, just in case we ever bump into any bad sorts. You’d protect us, wouldn’t you, Bessie?’

Wuff,
said Bessie, and Freddy and Polly laughed.

Ben and Rachel would have laughed too, but they were having difficulty breathing.

‘C-could—could you just—slow—down—a bit?’ gasped Ben, feeling as though someone had dumped a small truck on his chest. He’d never seen any other kid race up Poppycock Hill with such speed and
still
be able to speak. As soon as they’d started out from Darkwell House, Freddy and Polly were away and shooting past old Percy, as he ambled on up the hill after his usual rest on their gate, so fast that his peaked cap blew off. He was still dusting it off and looking shocked when Ben and Rachel strained past, clicking desperately through their many gears.

‘Oh, Ben, don’t be such a girl!’ shouted back Freddy. ‘You’ve only just been going for five minutes and you’re already coming over all queer!’