Frozen in Time (9 page)

Freddy shrugged. ‘Not me. Some of the town boys do, but Father says they’re working men’s trousers. I think they’re all right, actually. Wouldn’t mind some. The Americans wear them all the time, according to Poll. She wants some.’

‘Do you think she’ll be OK?’ said Ben. Polly seemed very young compared to Rachel, even though he now knew they were about the same age.

‘What, Poll? Certainly. She’s tough as old boots, that girl. She’ll stop the blubbing soon and start having fun. She’s just worried about Father.’

‘Aren’t you?’ asked Ben. He knew he would have been blubbing worse than Polly if
his
father had vanished without trace and was wanted for murder. Freddy stood up straight and shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his grey flannel shorts.

‘As I see it, this is a mystery,’ he said. ‘Nobody knows anything for sure, so what’s the point of blubbing about it? I want to find out what’s happened to him, of course.’

‘B-but, even if he’s still alive he’d be … what … ninety—a hundred?’

‘Ninety-one,’ said Freddy. ‘And he is still alive. I’m certain of it. I’ll get a good night’s sleep and some decent food in me—that’s if you still
have
decent food in 2009—and then I’m going to search for him. First thing in the morning. Until I find him. Emersons don’t give up. That’s what Father always said and that’s why he did such amazing things. You wait, Ben—you’ll see. I’ll find him. Emersons don’t give up.’

Ben nodded, impressed. ‘You’re not really like a teenager, are you?’ he said, folding his arms and peering at Freddy.

‘What’s a teenager supposed to be like?’ asked Freddy.

Ben opened his mouth to answer, but then he was silenced by the door being bashed open violently, and Polly hurtling in, followed by a confused looking Rachel.

‘FREDDY!!!’ yelled Polly, in panic. ‘FREDDY! We’ve got to go back down! Now! Oh, Freddy! WE FORGOT BESS!’

Freddy looked stricken.

‘Oh no! Poor Bess! We left her down there.’

‘Who’s Bess?’ asked Ben and Rachel, at the same moment.

‘Oh, how dreadful we’ve been!’ whimpered Polly. ‘So selfish and caught up about ourselves that we left her down there, all frozen, on her own!’

‘Well, come on then!’ Freddy propelled her back through the door and soon all four of them were racing down the stairs, slithering through the garden and splashing across the stream to get back to the hatch. It was hugely different from their first trip. Now, instead of fearful, Ben and Rachel were utterly intrigued by it and thrilled beyond measure that someone
else
was about to be defrosted, before their very eyes.

Uncle Jerome had been down there for the past fifteen minutes, while they’d been showing Freddy and Polly their rooms. They found him in a state of absolute rapture.

‘It’s perfect! Just perfect!’ he gasped as soon as they ran into the sitting room. He’d been rifling through some of the supplies boxes. ‘It’s a 1950s time capsule! Imagine! Untouched for fifty-three years, until today!’

‘Yes, yes … amazing!’ said Freddy as they all flew past him and straight through the next door. By the time they reached the torpedoes chamber Uncle Jerome was right behind them, demanding to know what was going on.

‘Come right in,’ ordered Freddy. ‘We have to seal the room again first.’ He ignored Uncle Jerome’s urgent questions in a way which hugely impressed Ben and Rachel, while he went to the console and punched the red button which Rachel had first hit that morning. Once again there was the hissing noise, followed by the mechanical workings noise, and the door locked itself.

‘That’s what happened the first time,’ Rachel whispered to Uncle Jerome. ‘We thought we were sealed in like Egyptian mummies, for ever.’

‘It has to seal, to equalize the air pressure before the chamber can be opened,’ said Freddy.

‘You mean to tell me there’s someone
else
in here?’ gasped Uncle Jerome. ‘But I looked in them all. The end one is shut, of course, and I couldn’t open it, but I could see through the glass—there’s nobody else in it!’

Freddy went to the first chamber and peered into the glass. He gave a grin and said: ‘You didn’t look hard enough.’ As the hissing noise eased off there was a click and the glass window smoothly rose up, as it must have done for Freddy and Polly earlier, only Ben and Rachel had been too hysterical to notice. Polly ran to Freddy’s side and gasped ‘Bess! Oh, Bessie! Are you all right?’ Then Freddy leaned over, reached right down into the chamber, to where his feet would have lain had he been in it, and pulled something out. Something sneezed. Something snuffled. Polly took the something from him and cuddled it with a sigh. ‘She’s all right! She’s waking up!’ And she turned to face them, delight all over her face, and a puppy in her arms.

‘Good lord!’ said Uncle Jerome, while Ben and Rachel just groaned with delight. The puppy was a brown Labrador with liquid eyes and shining fur, floppy ears, and big paws which dangled sleepily from Polly’s arms as she hugged it to her. ‘A fifty-three-year-old puppy!’ added Uncle Jerome. ‘Astonishing! Truly astonishing!’

‘We only got her a week before we got frozen,’ said Polly. ‘We came home from school and found that Father had already frozen her six times. She’s actually six months old, but she’s spent half that time frozen, so she’s only three months really … if you know what I mean.’

‘He froze a
puppy
! How
could
he?’ said Rachel— even more shocked about puppy-freezing than child-freezing.

‘Well, it doesn’t hurt her,’ said Freddy. ‘Any more than it hurts us! Don’t make him out to be some kind of monster. He’s not. He’s a genius!’

‘I know, I know,’ said Rachel, playing with Bess’s silky brown ears as the dog nuzzled into Ben’s palm. ‘And, actually, I’m really glad he did. We’ve never had a puppy!’

‘Well, she’ll be very useful,’ said Uncle Jerome. ‘We can test her—see how she’s holding up biologically and physiologically after such a long time in stasis. We’ll have to test you two, as well. Just make sure the extended suspension hasn’t caused any damage. Don’t want you going over too fast, like frozen strawberries. They never last an afternoon after they’ve been defrosted!’

‘
Uncle!
’ Rachel shoved his arm and glared at him and whispered, ‘
Don’t! You’ll scare them!
’

Uncle Jerome nodded and tapped his nose. ‘Yes, good point,’ he muttered and went to run his hands over the cryonic machinery, his face a picture of reverence. Ben thought it was a bit like watching a pilgrim arrive at a holy shrine. ‘So,’ breathed Uncle Jerome, ‘the liquid nitrogen—I
assume
—must pass through these pipes and circulate around the interior of the chamber … cold enough to chill you into suspension, but not making actual bodily contact, thereby not burning your skin off or leading to a nasty multiple-fracture situation when you go to move again … Oh! This is magnificent! How does it feel? When you’re suspended?’

‘Um—I don’t know really,’ said Freddy. ‘We just go to sleep.’

‘Ah yes, of course, yes. Are there any special preparations beforehand? Do you have to eat or drink anything specific or …?’

‘Not really. We just get in. Although Polly always makes a point of going to the lavatory first. Don’t know why. I’ve told her enough times, her bladder’s just as suspended as the rest of her. You know what girls are, though. Bess just snuggles down in the bottom bit where your feet go. She likes it there—that’s why you couldn’t see her.’

‘And when you wake up again? Do you feel odd?’

‘Pretty queer sometimes,’ said Freddy, now stepping over and joining in the puppy petting. ‘Usually a bit foggy for a minute or so. But it doesn’t last. Of course
this
time it was worse, because our joints didn’t work too well for a bit. I suppose fifty-three years in cryonic suspension’s going to give anyone a bit of a dead leg.’

‘So how is it all powered?’ Uncle Jerome was pondering now. ‘Your father must have laid power down deep underground somehow. What would it have been connected to? Maybe there’s a generator somewhere here. Maybe it leads off the power from the house? Or—or solar energy panels somewhere. Or hydro-electric from the stream. I don’t know. So much to study—so much to find out! I must get the department out—I must get this properly recorded and studied, and—’

‘NO!’ Freddy shouted so loudly that Bess whined and Polly glared at him.

Uncle Jerome blinked and stood up from examining the base of the nearest chamber.

Freddy stood with his arms folded, lifting his chin. ‘You
can’t
let anyone else in! Father always told us this was
top secret
!’

‘But—but, my dear boy, he worked for the government! They must have known about his research!’

‘Not
this
research!’ insisted Freddy. ‘We know. We were
there
. He didn’t share this with
anyone
at the government. Me and Poll were the only ones who knew about it. He said it was more than his life was worth to let anyone else know about it.’

‘But, Freddy, that was fifty-three years ago,’ said his nephew, taking off his glasses and rubbing them with his handkerchief. ‘The government today is not the same as the government back
then
! They will be astounded by all this. Your father will be a
hero
! Think of it. We could carry on with his research—I—
I
could carry on with it … don’t you think? Don’t you?’

‘And we
could
clear Father’s name,’ said Polly, unexpectedly siding with Uncle Jerome. She gave Rachel the puppy to hold and stepped across to stand next to her brother. ‘It’s beastly that everyone thinks he’s a murderer! It’s not right.’

Freddy frowned. ‘Of course I want to clear Father’s name … but … well, I think we need to wait a bit. It’s only been a few hours since we got defrosted. I don’t like the idea of rushing into anything with governments. Father
did
work for the government and he was jolly proud of it … but he also said he didn’t trust everyone there. That’s why he didn’t do all his research in
their
labs. He didn’t even tell his closest colleagues that he’d done all this—not even Uncle Dick, and he was his best friend. He came to the house sometimes, but Father
never
showed him this.’

‘I suppose Uncle Dick’s long gone too,’ sighed Polly. ‘Or an old man now. He was fun.’

‘Well, he was younger than Father,’ said Freddy. ‘I reckon he’d be about eighty-five … maybe.’

Uncle Jerome sat down opposite Freddy, replaced his glasses, and sighed. He nodded. ‘You’re quite right, Freddy. I was just getting carried away. This is so exciting. But we need to think carefully about this. You need time to get used to the twenty-first century, for one thing, before all this gets out. Once the government knows, there
could
be a leak. Then the tabloids would be chasing you in days.’

‘Tabloids? What are tabloids?’ Polly looked anxious. ‘Are they some kind of—some kind of robot?’

Freddy nudged her. ‘Newspapers, silly. The small ones like the
Daily Sketch
. Not robots!’

Ben laughed. ‘Far worse than robots!’

‘I suppose you must have heaps of robots,’ sighed Polly. ‘Do they really do everything for you—like metal servants? Do they talk? I saw something about them on Hilary’s television set. They said robots would run the world in the future.’

‘Yes—there are robots, Polly,’ said Uncle Jerome. ‘They make cars and so on, and defuse unexploded bombs, even do certain types of surgery—but almost nobody has a robot servant. Robots just aren’t that clever yet. They certainly don’t run the world.’

‘So—these
tabloids
? How are they worse?’ said Polly, looking serious. ‘Do—do they print beastly things?’

‘Only if you’re a footballer’s girlfriend or have boobs the size of China,’ giggled Rachel, and both Uncle Jerome and Polly gave her a reproving look. ‘Well—it’s
true
!’ said Rachel.

‘Tabloids are somewhat worse than they used to be,’ explained Uncle Jerome. ‘They have very tenacious reporters who would be fascinated by your story. They tend to be a little—sensationalist—in their reporting. But you don’t have to worry—no tabloids will come after you, because nobody is going to know about your past.’

‘How, though?’ said Ben. ‘We can’t hide them in the cellar every time someone comes—and what about Mum and Dad? They’ll have to know! They’re back in a couple of weeks! And what about school and stuff? And—well—inoculations! Medical things … I bet they haven’t had an MMR!’