The Reluctant Time Traveller (15 page)

The box lid sprang open and there they were – old documents wrapped in red ribbons and stating, so Agnes read in a trembling voice:

The mansion house known as Yew Tree House by Eshiels Bank, Peebles, in the county of Peebleshire, in the country of Scotland, and the land of one acre surrounding it, is the sole property of Mr John Hogg and in the event of his death the said property will pass to the next male heir – by Scots Law.

Signed by witnesses

Dr Gray and Messrs Strachan

Peebles, Michaelmas, 1874

“We’ve done it,” Agnes murmured, gazing round at our very own wild and fabulous garden. “We’ve actually done it.” The deeds shook in her hand. “My dad is the next male heir. We’ve saved the den!”

Agnes was right about her dad. He said it gave him unspeakable delight to send these money-grabbing property developers packing. He said it was enough that his only daughter had lost her mother, she didn’t need to lose her childhood too. And children, he said, need places to play.
Wild and wonderful places! Me, Will and Robbie put our pocket money together and bought Agnes’s dad a huge box of chocolates and he said we were the best pals Agnes could wish for.

The story got out that we had found the buried title deeds and there was even a bit about it in the local paper.

Thankfully we didn’t have swarms of photographers nosing around the den. The bulldozers turned round and trundled off. The luxury homes developers looked for some other piece of land to build on, and things went back to normal. We climbed trees, played hide and seek, swung on the rope swing, made fires and munched on toasted marshmallows.

During one game of cards we were chatting about doing a bit of artwork in the den. “Funny, isn’t it?” Robbie said, gazing about, “that this den is in way better nick than the ruined house.”

“I’ve been wondering that too,” Agnes said, flicking down an ace of spades and trumping us. “So – I did a bit of research.”

I felt my heart sink. “And?” She had told me she was going to the museum. She had asked me if I wanted to go with her. She had told me she was going to read all the names on the war memorial. But I had said I didn’t feel like going. “Reluctant, Saul?” she had said, winking at me. But it wasn’t that. I just wanted to keep them all young. Sometimes when I woke in the middle of the night they were there, Frank and Elsie. Frank would be laughing, maybe nicking a piece of cake, and Elsie would be playing snap, and I didn’t want to change that.

Agnes scooped up the cards and told us what she had found
out. “Jack Lamb, a retired gardener and hermit, lived in this hut alone until 1964. He was eighty-five years old when the authorities found him and decided to move him into a home where he died three days later.” We all looked about our den as if the ghost of Jack Lamb might suddenly appear. I noticed things about our den I hadn’t seen before; like places where wood had been added, and holes patched up. “It said in the obituary I read,” Agnes went on, “that Mr Lamb took good care of the few things he had. He lived by trapping rabbits, catching pheasants and growing fruit and vegetables.”

“Thanks very much, Mr Jack,” Robbie said, nodding appreciatively to our surroundings.

“And – I found out other stuff,” Agnes said, shuffling the cards.

I shot a glance at my watch. “But you know what,” I blurted out. “I was supposed to be home five minutes ago to pack for France.”

“France!” Will and Robbie cheered.

“
Demain,”
said Agnes, jumping to her feet and grinning, “
nous allons à Paris!”

“We’ll climb the Eiffel Tower,” Will yelled as we all wriggled through the hole in the wall and set off over the field.

“And go on all the rides at Disneyland,” Robbie cheered.

“And don’t forget the art galleries,” Agnes chirped.

In all our cheering and laughing, not one of us mentioned the trip to the war graves in northern France. The teacher, Mrs Johnston, had said it was fitting at this time to spend half a day there and no one dared complain. She said how we would visit the Gardens of Remembrance and cast our minds back one hundred years. Agnes and I had shot each other a look across the classroom. We had more memories than Mrs Johnston could ever imagine.

We did the Eiffel Tower which was really high and from the top you had this terrific view of the whole of Paris, and we went on a boat down the river Seine. I didn’t need to get worried about frog’s legs because in France we ate pretty much the same food as in Scotland, just with more bread and cheese. Agnes made us all practise our French until we were fluent in, “
Bonjour – nous sommes Eccossais.”
Very loudly. And we did go to the Louvre art gallery, even though we had to queue for a whole hour to get in. When we eventually got in Agnes led us straight to the Mona Lisa, and Robbie said it was tiny and she said small can be powerful and beautiful, and the woman in the painting smiled at us, like she knew secrets about us all. Robbie and Will went off to spend five euros on a hot chocolate and, with the Mona Lisa’s eyes still following me, Agnes led me off to see another famous painting – of sunflowers in a vase.

“I’ve been waiting for the right time to tell you,” she whispered while crowds peered over our heads to get a glimpse of the famous sunflowers.

“Tell me what?” I whispered though I had a pretty good idea. She fumbled about in her little bag and drew out a sheet of paper. “I got this from the war records in the museum in Peebles,” she whispered. “You ready?”

I nodded, but kept on staring at the bright golden painted sunflowers while she read out very quietly:

Private Frank Noble was killed in action at the battle of the Somme in Northern France, 1st July 1916. Said to be nineteen, it was later discovered Private Noble was in fact just sixteen years of age. As well as making the great sacrifice while serving his country, Noble will be remembered for the part he played in uncovering the German spy, Herr Loden. Noble was survived by his twin sister, Elspeth Noble of Walkershaugh, Peebles.

Agnes folded up the sheet of paper and put it back in her bag. The sunflowers looked like they wanted to burst out of the vase. They were like trumpets playing a victory song.

“They were twins,” Agnes whispered. “Can you believe it, Saul? Frank and Elsie were twins! Elsie survived. I read how she lived with Jean Burns until 1930 when she flitted to Edinburgh. I read how Elspeth Noble fought for women’s rights to education and decent pay. Good old Elsie. I always knew she was a fighter. Both of them were. And they were only fourteen, back then. When we knew them.”

Back then seemed like a very long time ago. Like another lifetime. We both stared up at the painting and didn’t say anything for a while.

Then Agnes nudged me, held up a ten euro note and whispered, “Hot chocolate?”

“We’ll toast them,” I said, as we walked through the crowded gallery in search of a café. “We’ll drink to the memory of Frank and Elsie.”

“And Jean,” Agnes said.

“And all the soldiers,” I whispered. And as we hurried through the gallery I remembered how Frank had marched right-left, right-left, and how he was itching to join those soldiers, get on a train, wear a uniform and serve his country.

“You know what?” I said to Agnes as we sat down at a café
table, “I think I’ll have a cup of tea instead. Coz you know,” I winked at her, “there’s nothing like a guid cup o’ tea fir pitting the world tae rights.” And when our tea arrived, me and Agnes rose to our feet. “Wet yer whistle on a guid cup o tea, Agnes,” I said, and clinking our teacups together we toasted them: “To Frank! A brave soldier of the First World War! And to Elsie, who also fought for freedom!”

On the last day of the school trip we went to the Gardens of Remembrance. Our coach stopped at a place called Thiepval at the Somme in Northern France. We all gathered round a massive monument, which was to the memory of the missing, lost in the battle of the Somme. There was a soldier playing a bugle. The teacher said he was playing a tune called ‘The Last Post’. There were 74,000 names written on that monument, and one of them was Frank Noble’s. Behind it were rows and rows of small white marble crosses. This garden was one of the cemeteries of the war dead, the teacher told us, in a very hushed voice. She said that many were buried where they fell and many were never found. And this is just one cemetery, she told us, with 7,000 graves. There were many more.

Mrs Johnston said we should walk around a bit and remember. And though there were loads of people milling around it was eerily quiet. No one was talking. Some of the graves marked by white crosses had names on them. Most didn’t. But they all said:

Me and Agnes wandered off to the edge of a field and sat for a while – remembering Frank. We walked back to the coach in silence. The teacher was ushering pupils back into the bus and
still everybody was quiet. When we were all in our seats the teacher stood up in the front of the bus. “Before we leave,” she said, “and head for Calais and Scotland, I would like to recite a short poem. It was written by Lawrence Binyon in August 1914, when this terrible war had only just begun.” Agnes and I glanced at each other.

The coach took us on to the ferry at Calais. It was only when the boat left France and the bobbing waves were under us that we started chatting. Leaning over the rails we waved to France. Then we went in to get chips smothered in mayonnaise and Robbie got out the red scarf he had bought for his mum. I showed everyone the black French beret I got for my dad and Agnes passed round the silvery Eiffel Tower statue she had bought for her gran. She said she also bought one to put up in the den and we all cheered, and suddenly I couldn’t wait to get home and see my mum and dad, the twins – and the den! It was our den. It was saved, and we planned to hang out in it all summer long.

Then we all ran out onto the deck and Agnes shouted that she could see the white cliffs of Dover in the distance.

“A few more hours and we’ll be in Scotland,” I yelled.

This reluctant time traveller was going home.

Carl Hans Lody was one of the most famous spies of the First World War. Posing as Mr Charles A. Inglis from New York, with a false American passport, he was in fact a German secret agent. He made his way to Scotland at the outbreak of the First World War, to spy on the naval bases there. He spent one night in The County Hotel in Peebles, before setting off by bicycle the next morning for the naval base at Leith, near Edinburgh, in the Firth of Forth. His coding letters, sent to Sweden, were eventually intercepted by code breakers, but not before many had died because of his spying. His codes were found to be fairly simple to break. They were similar to the description in this book. On arrest, a German coin was found on Lody’s person, along with a German dry-cleaning stub. He was arrested and executed by firing squad at dawn at the Tower of London on November 6
^th
, 1914.

The Reluctant Time Traveller
is a work of fiction, though some of the story is informed by fact. For these facts of early twentieth-century history and the First World War, my thanks go to Peebles Museum for information about Peebles, and to a number of authors who have written about the First World War, most notably Theresa Breslin in
Remembrance
and Olivia Dent in
A Volunteer Nurse on the Western Front.
Thanks also to Nicola Wright, storyteller and tour guide, for information about the Gardens of Remembrance at Thiepval in northern France. For images of service and the life of servants, thanks to my own grandmother, who was ‘in service,’; and to
Downton Abbey,
plus many books on the subject. For talking with me about Peebles, education and history, thanks to the teachers of Kingsland Primary School. For knowledge on how to tamper with a 1914 bike, thanks to my dad, Ramsay Mackay. For his poem ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’, thanks to Wilfred Owen. For his poem ‘They shall not grow old’, thanks to Lawrence Binyon.

And to the enduring memory of those who did not grow old in the First World War.

How did the time time travel trouble begin? Read on for more time-twisting adventures in

THE ACCIDENTAL TIME TRAVELLER…

It was Saturday, 15th December, 2012, and it was quarter to ten in the morning. I know it sounds weird to be so exact about it, but this story’s got a lot to do with time. That was when Mum sent me along to the corner shop to buy her newspaper, a packet of Jaffa Cakes and something for myself costing no more than 30p. She called it A Mission of Trust. Thing is, I’d been grounded three times that month for sneaking out when I was supposed to be in my room doing homework. But for three days I had behaved, meaning I’d stayed in. With the doors and windows locked I didn’t have much choice.

I have a den and that’s where I usually hung out when I wasn’t grounded, but Mum didn’t know about the den. Nobody knew about it, except Will and Robbie who are in my gang. The den is a shed no one uses now in a big, old abandoned garden, and it’s our gang hut. It’s the best and I’ll tell you more about it but, like I said, for three days I stayed away, lounging about in my room, dreaming about the seriously cool bike I wanted for Christmas.

When Mum popped her head round the door, carrying a twin on each hip, and said, “Right, Saul, I’m
letting you go round to the shop,” I could feel this major whine coming on. Like I
really wanted
to go round to the shop. I didn’t. I was cosy, sprawled out on my blue beanbag seat and leafing through my BMX magazines, circling the bike I wanted and the helmet and stickers and stuff. Plus it was cold outside – in fact the man on the telly said there was a good chance of snow that night. A trip to the den, maybe. Getting stuff for Mum at the shop, no thanks. The twins started crying and pulling at Mum’s hair. “I’m trusting you, Saul,” she said, yanking her hair back. “And you’ve to come straight home.” I was ready to moan till I remembered Christmas was just ten days away. I thought about the BMX and all the extras I wanted and decided I needed to look good right now. I jumped up, fell back, then struggled out of my beanbag and chirped, “Yeah, ok Mum.”

Mum parked the twins on my bed, sighing like it was all too much for her. Boy, could they howl! She shoved my old hat down over my ears and handed me the exact money, because occasionally I’ve helped myself to some spare change. “Thirty pence for you,” she said. I could feel another moan coming on but held it in. You might as well chuck 30p in the river and make a wish. A Milky Way’s about all you can buy with 30p, and that’s over in two bites. Then I thought maybe I
would
chuck my 30p in the river and wish for a BMX, because with my parents and their lack of money – specially now I had two baby sisters, who “need clothes and food and prams and nappies galore,” I couldn’t be too sure all the presents on my list would show up, no matter how chirpy I was. Never mind the bike; I wasn’t sure I’d get
anything on my list! Mum picked up the twins and steered me out of my room, along the hallway and out the front door. “Remember Saul,” she shouted so the whole street could hear, “I’m trusting you.”

Once I’d got going, it felt great to be out on my own. I slowed down, wanting this freedom to last. I was already spinning stories to tell mum when I got back – how there was a huge queue in the shop and I had to wait aaaaages! And how the ice made me walk really slow. The sky looked dark and heavy, like it might snow. The few folks I met along the street thought so too.

“Hi Saul. Good to see you. With a bit of luck we’ll have a white Christmas, eh?”

“Hey Saul, not seen you about for a wee while. It’s going to snow. I swear it is. You can build a snowman.”

I am well known in the street cause I always say hi to everybody. Except Crow, the town bully and the one person in the world I was scared of. Like, really scared. His real name is Colin Rowe, but everybody calls him Crow. Even his name is scary. Crow is in second year, and he’s seriously hard. If I spotted him, I crossed the street or backtracked into the house. But Crow wasn’t prowling around that Saturday morning, 15th December. Crow probably hated getting cold. Crow hated lots of things – including me. But I didn’t want to spoil this little freedom trip thinking about him too much.

I liked looking at Christmas trees in people’s windows, especially ones with flashing lights, so I hung about doing that for a while. I counted nine of them, but as I wandered past the laundrette, I was itching to nip up the lane behind it, bolt along the cuddy, clamber
over the wall, race across the overgrown wasteland, wriggle through the gap in the hedge and zip into my den. Some other gang might have claimed it while I’d been stuck in at home. Crow might have wrecked it!

My gang reckons once upon a time the den was somebody’s garden shed. It leans over to the side a bit, so Robbie (who has been to Italy) called it Pisa after some leaning tower there. The den is at the edge of a rambling wild garden with some ancient trees in it. There must have been a fantastic big house there. Officially the garden’s in a demolition site, surrounded by a barbed wire fence then a thick hedge. It’s full of nettles and rubbish and gangly old rhubarb stalks and dead birds. As well as the fence, there’s a sign saying,

And in case you can’t read, there’s a scary skull and crossbones next to it. But you can get in through a gap in the hedge round the back where the barbed wire is slack. Only me, Will and Robbie knew about that.

The den is on the edge of town and Robbie said it was like time forgot about it, which was kind of funny considering what happened. The den was a bit creepy when we first found it, but we flicked away the cobwebs, kicked out the two dead mice and the dead rabbit, then put nice things inside to make it cosy. Will brought his old cuddly ewok toy from when he
was younger. It’s called Fred and is the den mascot. He guards the place when nobody’s there. Robbie brought a few old chipped ornaments, like a china dog, a blue plastic bowl (for crisps, he said) and a photo of him when he was seven, grinning in a fancy frame. I brought along a stripy blanket and a cushion and some pens to write our names on the wall. There was a wooden box in the shed filled with old gardening magazines, and we hauled in stones and bits of wood to make wee benches. It looked brilliant.

Anyway, there I was, wandering up the street towards the shop and dreaming about the den. I could see on the church clock that it was five to ten. I was walking so slow I was practically going backwards. I tried to stop dreaming about the den. The thing was, I told Will and Robbie that the gang would have a break for a bit, cause last time we were there, last weekend, it was perishing cold. Will and I were being crims on the run from the police and Robbie was being the policeman who was trying to arrest us, and we were trying to blackmail him with a few thousand quid we had stashed away in the gardening magazines and the game was really good and it was mostly my idea, but suddenly Robbie said he was freezing and he wanted to go home. Then Will piped up and said, actually, he was freezing too. So I said, “Right, fine, we’ll take a break till the weather gets better.”

We all looked about and were silent for a moment till Robbie said, “Pisa is like our other home, isn’t it?”

Me and Will nodded. It was.

It was now one minute to ten. The corner shop
came into view. I felt something wet brush my cheek. I looked up. White flecks were swirling through the air and landing on me. I like snow. I opened my mouth to catch a snowflake. One landed on my tongue, which was exactly when the church bells rang for ten o’clock, which was exactly when a car screeched its tyres, blared its horn and someone screamed really loudly.

I swung round to see a screaming girl in fancy dress standing stock-still in the middle of the road, her arms flung out to the side and her face pale as a ghost. The screeching car swerved round her, and roared off. Her screams turned to whimpers and gasps. She stumbled across the road in a panic, tripped over the kerb and fell at my feet. She buried her face in her hands and started sobbing.

I looked around for her mum or big sister or someone, but no one was there. So I bent down and patted her on the shoulder, feeling seriously awkward. “Hey,” I said, “are you ok?”

She pulled her hands away from her face, stopped crying and gazed up at me, like I was some kind of superstar. I got the weirdest feeling, like a million hot needles jabbing up my spine. I’d never seen anyone like her. She had pale blue eyes, totally white, practically see-through skin, a funny shower-cap-style hat on, with long twisty red hair spilling out from it and reaching all the way down her back. She stretched her hands out, then wrapped her long fingers around my ankles.

“I have become lost,” she sobbed.