The Unlikely Time Traveller (12 page)

We left the tin in the tree house cause we reckoned work time alongside loads of other folk was not the moment to hand over our present. We tucked it under the blankets and set off. I didn’t need to use the disc; I actually knew my way about.

When we got there, Ness spotted us right away. “You arrive in good time to gather brambles,” she said, handing us large baskets. She led us to bushes that ran along our side of the field. “They are best eaten close to picking,” she told us. “Then for the party we will mash them with cream. When the community power supply switches on at dawn, they will go into the ice chest to make ice-cream.” She picked a fat berry and held it up. “Purple jewel ice-cream!” She licked her lips. “Muckle delicious.” Robbie brightened up at the mention of ice-cream. He plucked a bramble and tossed it into his basket.

“Totally muckle delicious,” he whispered in my ear, doing a pretty convincing imitation of Ness.

As we picked brambles, Robbie sidled up to Ness. I heard him going on to her about getting him an I-band. She, I saw, just shrugged, saying perhaps for the kind of travellers we were it wouldn’t matter. “For I-bands are not suits of armour,” she said, laughing. We were halfway down the line of bramble bushes when she explained,
glancing about and making sure no one else would hear her saying something so obvious, how I-bands worked. “It uses knowledge from Chinese medicine,” she whispered.

“What’s that?” Robbie whispered back.

Ness grinned. “The energy health flow of the body. The I-band blends this with our DNA.”

Before Robbie – or me – had a chance to say ‘And what’s that?’, she told us. “DNA is the code in each of us that does tell our cells how to grow, and also the science of the nerves in our bodies. We do learn the healing arts in the Bacca. In the hospitals the I-band makers use the wisdom to protect and mend. Some people say the ‘I’ stands for immunity. Others say it means I.” She pointed to herself. “For it helps us remember ourself. Not in a selfish way, more to remember who we really are, and why we are here. I-band does remind each of your cells who they are meant to be.”

“Wow!” That was me and Robbie at the same time.

“That’s incredible,” Robbie said, staring at her I-band. Ness laughed and imitated us.

“Yes incredible,” she said. “And wow! But of course we become used to what is incredible when it is with us all the time. So, you do understand, we are shocked to see a person lacking an I-band.”

Robbie nodded like he understood. It was hard to tell with Robbie. He wasn’t all daft. Sometimes he got really good marks in school. “But you don’t need a band round your head to remember who you are,” he said, plucking at brambles and dropping them into his basket.

“True,” Ness said, “you don’t. The jewels around the I-band align with the body’s vibrations, and the tweed fabric is woven with sphagnum moss, which gives protection against many diseases. But you speak true, Robbie, you don’t need one. And they are almost
impossible to replace. When we reach the age of nine we are told about the green guardianship and the healing arts. Then we do learn to help make our I-band.”

“How come I got this?” I pointed to my head.

A sadness shadowed Ness’s face. “We have a spare I-band, my mother’s earlier one. Mother became ill after drinking contaminated water. There are places where earth does suffer, after much mining, and water from these places carries illness. Mother was hiking in such a landscape. Now she does grow tired, and flustered. Also her muscles are weak. With the help of the hospital students she was able to create a new I-band, with more strength.” Ness shrugged and dropped a handful of berries into her basket. “Yet the I-bands are not able to cure everything.” She looked up at me and smiled. “Ma’s DNA was removed from that band, worry not. It is head style you sport, but with mickle protection. Anyway,” she smiled at us both, “if I may carry off a fine speech tomorrow Ma will be better.” Ness sighed, like she was none too hopeful about making a fine speech. “Aye, tomorrow is the harvest festival.” She managed a smile. “Fine speech or not, we are going to eat ice-cream!”

Now that she seemed happy to talk, I asked her about flying wheelchairs.

“Yes, ones struggling to walk, they with the free-chair licence, are permitted to travel low-level sky space. They fought long for this right. Too many accidents with horses, and too many bumpy walkways.” She popped a berry into her basket.

Then she looked over at Robbie. He had given up picking brambles and was busy studying the sky for wheelchairs. I watched as Ness, with a mischievous look on her face, picked a fat bramble. “Robbie!” she called. He swung round just as she flicked it and it landed –
SPLAT!
– on the end of his nose!

“Good shot,” I cheered.

Robbie looked stunned. He licked off the bramble with his tongue, but didn’t flick one back. I knew Robbie; he wasn’t a great shot.

“I could not resist.” She laughed like it was the biggest joke ever. The way her shoulders heaved, I got the sense that a muck-about was a great tonic for Miss Green Guardian, hard worker, high-honours taker, worrier, carer of old horses and picker of veg and plums.

“See when we’ve filled the baskets,” I said to her, “could we take a boat down the river?”

“So much work yet,” she said, but twitched her nose. I could tell she wanted to.

“Yeah, but,” whined Robbie, cottoning on and always up for fun stuff, “we could just go for a bit. Pleeeeease. It’ll be awesome. Back in our time we don’t have any boats on the river. It’s sooooo boring. We don’t have anything.”

“Really?” She stared from him to me. “Nothing?”

“That is so not true, Robbie.” Somebody had to stick up for 2015.

“Is true,” he snapped back, then did his list thing. “No high-speed train. No train at all come to that. No outdoor swimming pool. No diving boards. No skate park. No multiplex cinema. No flying wheelchairs. None of these speak-and-seek disc things. No boardwalks. No I-bands. No boats on the river. No amazing intelligent clothing!”

“Yeah, but you’ve got a phone,” I reminded him, “and a bike, a car – no, your parents have got two cars – and you’ve got a Playstation, TV, laptop, iPad, crisps, chocolate and sweets.”

“You forgot something,” he said.

Ness looked from me to him, like she was at a ping-pong
match.

“What?”

“Cluedo!”

Robbie can be so random sometimes.

Ness laughed. “Half an hour on a boat,” she said, “no longer.” Then, unbelievably, she added, “We have Cluedo also. Ma and Pa love Cluedo!”

We were so stunned we didn’t speak.

She laughed at our falling jaws. “And we have sweets!” she told us proudly, though I doubted her sweets were anything like ours. I doubted the promised ice-cream would even have sugar in it. Because that was something major I had worked out about the future – folk ate food from near where they lived. Mrs Flynn back in school was right about her clothes-label thing. From what I had seen of 2115 people didn’t transport stuff halfway across the world. So sugar, in the future, was a thing of the past!

Ness was grinning at me and looking excited about a little boating escape.

“Ness,” I said, lowering my voice, “something else. We’ve got a present for you!”

“Present?” She shook her head. “I do not understand.”

“You know…” I rummaged around in my brain for another word, “a gift.”

Her eyes lit up. “And remember I also have something for you to return to your time. You must not forget it when you go.”

I was going to ask what it was, when there was a call from the field for the last break of the day. Our baskets were nearly full.

While everyone else drifted off home or to shady trees nearby, Robbie, Ness and I grabbed some chunks of cornbread and cheese and slipped through town to the river.

Being by the water was nice and cool after our hours of picking. We jumped into a boat. “Let’s go!” I yelled. And for the next half hour Robbie and I did what we are good at: we cracked jokes, Robbie shouting out random stuff like “Fish and chips!” and creasing up laughing trying to tell Ness about deep-fried Mars Bars. She didn’t understand, even when I showed her the wrapper I had picked up, but she thought it was funny anyway. We all took turns at rowing. Me and Robbie made out like we were seasick, then flicked water at each other.

“This is
awesome
,” Ness said, dipping her hand over the side of the rowing boat and flicking water straight into Robbie’s face. Robbie used my ripped T-shirt to wipe it off.

“Oi, Robbie!” I yelled. “You can’t do that with an I-band!”

“Seeing as it’s only a bit of your hundred-year-old T-shirt,” he said, flicking water at me, “I can do what I like.”

I knew me and Robbie were hamming it up, putting on a show for Ness, but it was also a relief being out on the River Tweed and not having to pretend to fit in, just for a while. And Ness looked more chilled than I had seen her. This speech-giving ceremony was really chewing her up. Hopefully the contents of the tin would give her plenty to talk about. “Tell me, time travellers,” she asked, shaking
back her long hair and laughing, “is it always so
awesome
back in your time?”

“Yeah, all the time,” Robbie said, changing his tune after just saying how our time was totally boring.

I thought of Agnes helping her gran. I thought of Agnes not having a mum, and since she and I went back to 1914, not even having the necklace that was given to her by her mum. Agnes didn’t even have a proper house. I thought of Will cutting the grass, and me looking after the twins, and the twins crying and Mum saying how she was exhausted and Dad always driving his taxi, and how school definitely wasn’t always awesome. Max bullying Robbie wasn’t exactly great either. But by the look of Robbie, whooping and rowing down the river, he had forgotten all about Max. He had forgotten he had ever been dough-ball Robbie.

“It isn’t always awesome,” I said to Ness, “but lots of the time it is.”

“Then perhaps one day,” she said, “I will find out.”

“Yeah,” Robbie piped up, “you should come and visit, Ness. It’s actually pretty easy to time travel.”

Ness just shook her head and smiled. Then it was her turn to row. I knew she’d be good with her strong shoulders and big hands. And as the sun got low she rowed and the River Tweed swished, and in the distance the church bell rang, and I realised I liked the future. I wasn’t afraid of it any more.

Too soon we had to row the boat back and moor it. We jumped onto the riverbank and Robbie tied the rope round a bollard. “That was fab,” he said, his face all flushed and still a bit wet. “Maybe we should just stay here forever.”

Ness laughed and raced us along by the river and past
the Aqua Park. “It doesn’t work that way,” she suddenly said, stopping near the juice bar. She had gone serious and quiet. “My grandmother, who told me the stories of time travellers, always ended by saying that we all must live our own life. Some very rare people, like you, are able to visit other times, but none must stay.”

“Yeah, that’s how it goes,” I said, remembering Agatha Black had said exactly the same thing.

Ness wasn’t heading back to the field because she had stuff to sort out for the horses. I asked her to wait just two minutes.

“Remember I said we had a gift? I’ll go and get it for you.”

I ran back to Hay Lodge Park and scaled that tree in seconds, put the time-capsule tin down my top, then, looking really fat, clambered back down. I was beside them again in no time. Ness gazed at my bulge and giggled.

“This is a gift from our gang,” I said, drawing it out from under my hoodie. “From Robbie, me, Agnes and Will, and I was thinking how it might give you something to talk about. In your speech, I mean.” I handed it to her. She cradled it like it was a baby.

“The Edinburgh Castle,” she said, gazing at the side of the biscuit tin.

“That’s just the outside,” Robbie said. “Inside we put things for people of the future to find.”

“I am gladdened to receive this,” she said. “In quiet I will open it.” By this time it was growing dark. My career as an historical tour-guide seemed like ages ago. “But dear travellers,” she said, “I see tiredness wash over you. Is it well in the tree house?”

I suddenly remembered the wolves. Seemed like Robbie did too.

“Are there…” he started.

“Wolves?” I asked.

She laughed, and told us how wolverine would not harm people, and yes, the boardwalk was designed to keep them away from the areas where people wander, as well as being of benefit in the times of flooding. “I do love to hear the wolverine howl,” she said. “Were you warm in your high home? Did the wool blankets keep cold out?”

We both nodded.

“Then may starlight protect you,” she said. “In the morning, come to the community hall in the High Street. Your helping hands will be a gift and for the rest you are my guests. It will be a muckle fine party.”

Before she dashed off, Ness lifted up the tin and bowed. “From my heart I do thank you. Something does tell me I will find a fitting speech in here.” I wanted to explain about us leaving at the end of the party, and how we had to make a fire, and needed a glass globe. I opened my mouth to speak but I was too late. She’d clutched the tin, spun round and run towards her old horses.

Me and Robbie strolled along the boardwalk towards our tree.

“Moon is coming up. Mr Wolf will be prowling about soon,” Robbie joked, sticking out his hands and making claws. “What’s the time, Mister Wolf?” he bellowed into the woods, then he swung round, and punched me on the shoulder, yelling, “Future time! Race you to the tree house, Saul!”

If Robbie could muck about, so could I. I howled at the moon as it rose over the hills, then heard my echo howl back. But maybe the howl in the darkening woods wasn’t an echo… Maybe it was a real wolf! I sprinted so fast I hardly touched the boardwalk.

“Muckle good to be home,” Robbie said, minutes later, when the two of us lay sprawled and breathless, safe up in the tree. Still panting, he wrapped himself in his blanket. “Party tomorrow,” he said, “
and
I get my suit. So can’t wait.”

“Yeah, but remember, soon as Ness has made her speech we leave.”

Robbie just grunted. I knew there was some stuff he didn’t want to go back to.

“You’re not a dough-ball, ok?” I whispered. He didn’t speak. I thought of Max teasing him and how awful that must be. “Know what, Robbie?”

“What?” he mumbled.

“When we get back, I’ll tell everybody how brave you are.”

“Thanks, Saul.” He was silent for a moment then suddenly said, “Imagine them still having Cluedo, eh? Wonder what else they’ve got?”

“Scrabble?”

“Monopoly?”

We lay there in the dark, trying to remember every board game we ever played.

“Ludo?”

“Snakes and Ladders?”

I couldn’t think of any more and was drifting down into sleep. But not Robbie. “Saul?”

“Hmm?” I mumbled. “What?” I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

“Betcha they don’t have Uno. That’s a game that’s just not going to last.”

When we got to the community hall late the next morning, a lot of the work was done. The hall, which I think had been a hotel a hundred years ago, was decorated with greenery and flowers and plants. There was one huge wooden table that ran the length of the vast room. Robbie and I snuck in as about twenty people were draping an enormous white tablecloth over it. It puffed up then floated down like a parachute. They cheered as
the white cloth settled, then they all reached out and smoothed it down. “Good team-work,” I whispered to Robbie, who was gaping about at the bustle and activity.

I scanned the room for Ness. Groups of people were milling everywhere, some putting the finishing touches to the flower arranging, some laying the huge table now the cloth was on. Some were putting up a platform, and in one corner it looked like a band were setting up.

Robbie pointed to a kitchen off the main room. “Bet Miss Hard Worker is in there.” He sniffed the air. “Making baked apples stuffed with raisins.”

“You can smell that?” I was impressed.

Someone hurried into the hall with a tray and on it were tons of baked apples. They passed right under our nose. “They’re only worth eating,” Robbie muttered, “if they’ve got, like, heaps of sugar on them.”

I grabbed at his sleeve and steered him to the kitchen. Ness spotted us right away. Her face lit up and she bowed. With a sharp knife in one hand and a big red apple in the other, she waved us over.

“Ness, I’m really sorry we’re late,” I began.

“Worry not.” She smiled. “Here, you may spoon the diced prunes into the cored apples.” She twitched her nose and licked her lips. “I did say we have sweets. Apruna is my favourite, after bramble ice-cream.”

“It’s prunes,” I muttered to Robbie. “Not raisins!”

Ness worked with us and after we had filled each apple she squeezed some kind of herb juice over it, to stop the apples browning, so she said. Once we’d filled about a hundred, I said to Robbie, “You’re doing great,” because he looked like he was flagging. I don’t know if he’d actually ever done work like this in his life before.

“There’s a lot,” he said. With each apple he got slower.
“Like, there’s millions.”

“Robbie’s not great at maths,” I said to Ness. Using the knife super-fast she sliced up prunes, cutting out the stone then chopping the wrinkled black fruits until they looked like raisins.

“Me neither,” she said, pushing the heap of cut-up pieces towards me. “In the community school I love the poetry. I take the Bacca for French and equine studies. Ecology too. But never maths.”

Someone called for a tray of apples to go into the huge oven. The kitchen was full of cooking smells. “Coming with them now,” Ness called out. I threw the last of the prunes into the remaining two apples, then she lifted up the tray. Someone was by her side in a second and helped her over. I was well impressed with how folk helped each other. Ness was back in no time, with more apples to core and prunes to chop.

“All the community love aprunas,” she told us, still excited about her desserts. “Thinking of food does help me not fear the speaking I must do.”

“Good plan, Ness,” I said.

She leant towards me and winked. “Though your biscuit tin from history has given me food for thought,” she whispered. “Or perhaps I mean it has given a feast for my speech?”

She went off to make more herb juice, saying it would take but a short while. Soon as she was gone, Robbie pulled at my sleeve. “I reckon it’s time to collect my amazing onesie suit! Come with me, Saul. It’s in a workshop place further down the High Street. We’ll be gone, like, five minutes.”

Ness was busy down the far end of the kitchen. So we slipped out.

“Along here.” Robbie was pulling me along, super-keen. We arrived at the clothes workshop and a boy, not much older than us, appeared at the door and looked so gobsmacked I thought he might faint. “That’s the one who took my measurements and stuff,” Robbie told me, then turned and asked, “Is it ready?”

“I did… t-t-try to make contact with you,” the boy stammered, staring at us both like we were ghosts. “I am muckle sorry. The energy field from your fingerprint found no match. No fabric fitted you. I-I-I am sorry. I-I thought you had died!”

“What?” Now it was Robbie turning pale. “Died? And there’s no suit?” I thought he was going to cry.

“You did not respond.” The boy shook his head. “I did try to disc you. We could not make a suit for you, for no match was found.”

“You really thought I had died?”

“Hey, Robbie,” I whispered, pulling at his sleeve, “let’s just go.”

“Wipe my fingerprint from your glass thing,” Robbie had the sense to say, as I dragged him away.

The boy bowed and called out, “It faded away by itself.”

At the door to the big hall Robbie sniffed back tears. “Dead! He thought I was
dead
.”

“We
are
in a way.” It felt weird to even think that. “We’re on borrowed time here, Robbie. Strictly speaking, we don’t exist. And very soon we’re going back where we belong.”

We stood in the entrance to the hall, a great party getting underway in front of us. “I so wanted to take something back, Saul,” Robbie whispered by my side. “I mean, I haven’t even got a photo!”