Head Spinners (2 page)

‘And what time do you have to get up tomorrow?'

‘Seven-fifteen!' I blurted.

Mum glanced at me from the sink but she didn't say anything.

‘Alrighty.' Uncle Owen stabbed away and a small 23 aug lit up – tomorrow's date. ‘Oh yeah . . . I almost forgot.' He pushed another button. recur lit up on the display and the date disappeared. ‘Push that so the alarm goes off on recurring Wednesdays, okay, Squirt? Otherwise it'll just go off tomorrow and you'll have to set it again next Wednesday.'

‘Alright, thanks, Uncle Owen,' I said quickly.
Very interesting
. Up until now the alarm had been set for today's date and no other. Was that why I'd been stuck in the same day over and over?

The rest of the day was . . . well, the same as the day before. It was eerie and weird and even a little bit lonely – stuff happened around me that I'd seen before and I couldn't talk to anyone about it. For everyone else, life was  completely normal.

At least the maths test was a piece of cake, because we'd gone through all the answers in class after the test on Tuesday Take Two. So by Tuesday Take Three, I was able to do it all the right way. I even showed the working-out properly.

I didn't really think much of it until Mrs O'Connor came over to say well done.

‘You've improved so much, Sam,' she said. ‘On the test two weeks ago you only managed fifty-three per cent, so to make a hundred today is a real improvement. It just shows what you can do if you put your mind to it. Yes?'

‘Yeah, I guess,' I said. Teachers were always telling me dumb stuff like that.

Not that I'd mind making it to another maths test. The way things were going, I wasn't even sure I'd make it to Wednesday. I still had four long days until my birthday!

When I got home, I went straight for the clock. Something about the new setting was making me nervous. If the clock really was causing all the drama, I didn't want to take any chances and set it wrong.

I thought I was pretty clear on how it all worked. I hit alarm set and cleared the alarm for Tuesday altogether. Then I cleared the recur setting for Wednesday's alarm. When I'd finished, the alarm was set for 7:15 on wed 23 aug – just that date, and no other.

I wasn't sure what to hope for. I definitely didn't want to keep living through Tuesday over and over. But to wake up on Wednesday after changing the clock like I just had . . . well, that would freak me out for a whole new reason.

It would mean that Uncle Owen's clock was a time machine.

As soon as I woke up, I knew it was Wednesday. For a start, the new birthday clock stood beside my bed, just where I'd left it.

The display said 07:15 wed with a small 23 aug in the corner. Thank goodness!
Hello, Wednesday. Here I am, at last . . .

I picked up the clock. Wow. How awesomely amazing was this! My very own time machine.

It hadn't been any fun getting stuck in a series of Tuesdays, but now that I knew how the clock worked . . . 

I licked my lips.

I sure didn't want to get stuck on a series of Wednesdays, so I hit alarm set and chose the next day's date: 07:30 thur 24 aug. I put the clock down.

The pale green display glowed steadily. All that power. At my fingertips. Just waiting for me to push the button.

I picked up the clock again. For a moment, my finger hovered over the alarm set button.

I pushed it: 07:30 fri 25 aug.

I held my breath, and pushed one more time to reach 07:30 sat 26 aug. My birthday. I half-expected the clock to explode, or the world to go into a time warp. But the clock just kept humming faintly with the alarm set on my birthday . . .

When it was time for bed, I double-checked the alarm setting. Maybe it wouldn't even work. For all I knew it might not be possible to travel into the future. Somehow, going back a day made more sense than travelling to a time that hadn't happened yet.

I put the clock beside my bed and lay down, staring at the pale green glow. In the morning, I'd find out.

Slowly I became aware of things around me – the warmth of my pillow, shrill tweets from outside my window. Even before I opened my eyes I sensed more light in my room than usual.

That was because the blind was up. Strange. The blind had been down when I went to sleep.

Then I realised. If today was Saturday then anything could have happened in the two days since I went to sleep.

My heart raced as I sat up. Could it have worked? Could today be my birthday?

Feeling a whole lot excited and a little bit nervous, I tiptoed up the hall. I wasn't sure why. Tiptoeing just seemed the right thing for a time traveller to do.

I peeked into the kitchen, and for a moment thought that maybe I'd whizzed back three years to when Dad still lived with us. There he was, sitting at the table with his back to me and sipping from a coffee cup.

Maybe he'd dropped round early for my birthday . . .

‘Dad!' I cried.

The cup clattered to the table, a brown puddle spilling from it. Dad didn't stop to clean it up. He turned in his seat and gasped. Then with one great spring he was out of the chair and hugging me.

Wow. Birthdays always make me feel loved.

Dad pulled out of the hug and cupped my face in his rough hands, looking into my eyes as if checking for clues to some mystery.

‘Rachel!' he called, still peering at me. His voice was croaky, as if he'd stayed up late the night before.

Maybe he had been up late, because Mum appeared looking as if she'd slept in her clothes. The skin under her eyes was dark and baggy.

When she saw me she froze. Then her whole body quivered and she burst out crying, rushed to me and pressed my face into her shaking chest. I'd never seen Mum like that before.

It was around about then that I realised I'd made a huge mistake.

‘Where have you been?' Dad asked.

Mum pulled out of the hug for a moment, as if checking it really was me, then grabbed me into her arms again.

I wasn't sure what to say. Not that it was even easy to breathe let alone talk with the way Mum was squeezing my head.

Where
had
I been? It was an eerie feeling, now that I thought about it properly. My parents had been here, wondering where I was, while I'd been
nowhere
. Travelling straight from Wednesday . . . Slipping through time.

I'd been so keen to use the clock to get to my birthday that I hadn't thought what it would be like for the people left to live through Thursday and Friday without me.

‘I'm sorry,' I said into Mum's shoulder. ‘I didn't realise . . . See, I went to sleep and I just—'

‘He must have been drugged,' Dad said over the top of me. ‘I'll call the police.'

‘No! No, call the hospital first,' said Mum.

Dad went for the phone while Mum made me lie down. What a great birthday.

It turned into the longest day of my life, but not in a good way. A doctor came, took samples of my blood and took them away for tests, then a special policewoman came to interview me. I went along with it all, telling them I was fine. I'd just gone to sleep and then woken up on Saturday. Not that anyone believed me.

Through it all, I couldn't stop looking at Mum. I could see from the tightness around her eyes that she was living through her worst nightmare. It didn't seem to matter that I was safe. Something about her had changed.

When I finally made it to the end of the day, I couldn't set the alarm fast enough. Back to the Thursday that I'd skipped past: 24 aug. I double- and triple-checked that I'd set it right then gently placed the clock back in its spot. I didn't want anything to go wrong with the trip backwards in time.

Tomorrow . . . well,
last Thursday
really, it would be as if the nightmare had never happened.

It wasn't until then that I started to imagine all the other things that could have gone wrong with travelling into the future. What would have happened if I'd skipped ahead more than two days . . . like years ahead, to . . . I don't know . . . 2095?

What if everyone had been vaccinated against some new disease that killed me as soon as I woke up? What if there had been a nuclear war and everything was radioactive? What if they'd built an airport where my house was and I got squashed!

Anything could be waiting for me in the future. Until I got there, how would I know?

When I woke up on Thursday morning, the first thing I did was look for Mum. She was in her bedroom, head tilted forwards so she could brush the back of her hair.

I smiled. It was so good to see her . . . well, see the back of her head anyway. ‘Hey, Mum! What's the date today?'

‘Date?' She flipped back her hair, and smiled the way she used to smile. The strange look in her eyes was gone.

‘Well . . .' She began brushing again. ‘It's two days before your birthday, Sam. Thursday the twenty-fourth.'

I wanted to grab her in a hug, but I just said, ‘Thanks, Mum!' and headed back to my room. Everything was back to normal. Almost.

I switched off the clock, pulled out the batteries and crammed everything into my sock drawer. I had to pull out a few socks to make room.

No more time travel for me. Going back into the past was boring and sort of lonely. Going into the future was downright dangerous.

I slid the drawer shut and brushed my hands.

If only I'd left it there.

On Monday after maths, Mrs O'Connor called me over to her desk. I took my time, still floating on the memory of a weekend of surf.

My birthday, second time round, had turned out to be really good. Mum and Dad gave me a surfboard, though I was pretty sure Uncle Owen had helped choose it. It was a real beauty. So I spent the whole weekend down at The Point, catching waves with my two best friends. The conditions were pretty close to perfect. Now,
that's
what I call a good birthday.

‘I've been looking over your marks for the year.' Mrs O'Connor peered at her laptop as she spoke. ‘They're a bit up and down, Sam. Do you know why that might be?'

I shrugged, though I did have an idea. My marks in maths were probably the exact opposite to the weather. Good weather the afternoon before a test meant time at the beach, and a bad mark in maths. That was, unless I'd seen the test already somehow . . .

Mrs O'Connor leaned back in her chair. ‘You know, Sam, you're a smart kid . . .' She trailed off and sighed. For a moment she just looked at me. ‘You remind me of your Uncle Owen, actually. I taught him too. Smart as a tack, but not willing to apply himself.'

I grinned and nodded, feeling proud. ‘Yeah, he's really smart.' Even Uncle Owen didn't know just how smart he actually was.

Mrs O'Connor smiled. ‘Just promise me you'll keep working, okay? That hundred per cent last week has really bumped up your average. It's a pity you did so badly in the test before last. If it wasn't for that, you'd be averaging over eighty.'

‘Alright, I promise. Thanks,' I said, and walked out to lunch feeling weird and a bit of a fraud. I knew I'd sort of, by accident,
cheated
on the last test, but at least after going over it I really had understood the maths properly.