The Reluctant Time Traveller (16 page)

I felt trapped. The weird girl didn’t let go of my ankles. A shiver shot up my legs. I laughed, I couldn’t help it. Sometimes I laugh when I’m nervous. Then I tried to wriggle free but this girl was seriously strong. She clung on, like she was drowning and I was a lifeguard. So I tried talking. “Hey, are you on your way to a fancy dress party?” Though it was kind of early in the day for a party. She stared up at me, all baffled, like I was talking Chinese. “Christmas party maybe?” I went on, smiling down at her awkwardly. But all she did was stare, wide-eyed and terrified looking. She still had her long fingers locked around my ankles. My heart raced. What if she was mad? “Oh, well,” I chirped, “never mind about parties.” I tried to sound chilled but inside my panic level was rising fast. “Right then, I better get going.” Except I couldn’t move. So I tried smiling to make her relax. “Good that you’re ok. Umm, see you then. And you better look where you’re going next time you cross the road.” It felt like she was going to let me go, but at that moment another car drove past. She shrieked and gripped my ankles even tighter. “Hey! Excuse me!” I shouted at her. I was getting pretty freaked out. “Could you let me go?”

She must have understood because she loosened her grip. I nodded and showed her my open hands like they do in films. It worked: she let go. “Thanks,” I said, though it felt like a dumb thing to say. She should have said sorry. I took a step back, pretty fast. My ankles throbbed. She sat up and wiped her tears with her sleeve.

That’s when I really saw her clothes. She wore a long brown dress with a ruffled collar and frilly bits around the sleeves. Over the brown dress she had on another sleeveless dress that was cream coloured. She looked totally old fashioned. Even her face with her lips like a doll’s and her upturned nose seemed old fashioned. “Party?” she said, sitting on the pavement and gazing up at me, jittery and confused, like she had just come out of a nightmare. She twisted her long hair round her fingers and I could see tears welling up in her eyes. “Forgive me but I dinna understand.”

She’s got something wrong with her, I thought, taking another step back. I wondered if I should run and get a grown up? Everything about her was weird and her voice had the funniest accent I ever heard. The next second I thought, it’s a joke – I’ll be on YouTube with the title “Pranked!” Maybe Crow had set this up? I glanced round but nobody was on the street. There were no cameras. Nothing. The snow was falling seriously now. Part of me thought I should just get on to the shop and leave this funny girl kneeling on the pavement for somebody else to deal with but she gazed up at me with such helpless eyes. It was too awkward to walk on and just leave her. She didn’t seem to know where to go. “Where. Do. You. Live?” I spoke slowly in
case she was foreign or didn’t understand things very well. “Live?” I repeated, louder, “
Where do you live?
”

She pointed to the corner shop. “There,” she said.

I wondered if Mr and Mrs Singh had adopted a girl. “Right,” I went on, “do you want me to take you into the shop, I mean, into your house?”

She nodded. Then she clutched at my hoodie and hoisted herself up to her feet. She gasped and wobbled for a moment like she was going to keel over. I felt her hands hold my arms. She was skinny but I couldn’t believe how strong she was. “I’m Saul and I’m twelve,” I lied.

“My name is Miss Agatha Black,” she said. She took a deep breath then slowly let go of my arms. Next thing she held out a trembling hand for me to shake. “And I am eleven years and six months old.”

Same as me! I shook her hand, which was very slim and cold. I felt a bit foolish shaking hands. I mean, it’s not something I do. I had shaken hands three times before but always with adults, never with someone my own age. She curtsied slightly, then it dawned on me: she must be an actress. I laughed out loud, half relieved, half embarrassed. “Are you in a film?”

“A film of snow and confusion,” she replied lifting her hand to catch a snowflake. I thought that was a weird title for a film, but everything about this girl was weird. I was going to say more about films when she started crying again. Pointing to the shop she sobbed, “It was here. Aye, I am utterly convinced. This time he has made a grand blunder. My life. My home. It has all gone.” She wrung her pale hands together and looked totally miserable. “I was to look about me and take
note, but for a moment,” she said, as though I knew what she was on about. “A moment – that was all.”

I needed things to get back to normal. “So, like, haha, what’s the joke, Agatha?”

“This isna a laughing matter, Saul.” She took my hand again and squeezed it tight. “Believe me, I am exceedingly lost and wish sorely to return home directly. The great noise shocked me straight to the core. I was to gaze about me, note the changes then hasten back.” By this time she was pulling at her hair, in a right state. Then I saw her look at the ground like she had lost something. Next thing she was staring at the road. She stepped off the kerb and was about to run in front of another car. I pulled her back, just in time. “Hark! The rumbling carriage!” she squealed. “But the morsel of gold lies buried
hereabouts
,” she cried, all flustered, not realising I’d just saved her life. I saw the driver shake his fist at us, then he was gone. The girl swung round and clasped my hands in hers. “Please,” she begged, “help me find my way?”

I laughed nervously. “Well to start with, stay off the road, ok? Jeez, you gave me a fright.” She nodded, squeezed my hands then stared again at Mrs Singh’s shop. I took a deep breath. “I thought you said this was your home – right here?”

She was creeping me out, but I didn’t mind her holding my hand.

She shook her head. “It is and it isna. It
was
my home. Oh mercy, I need to return back, Saul. It was to be but a brief journey. I imagine yea canna understand. I have to hasten back! And the gold is quite lost.”

Everything was turning quiet, the way it does with
snow. “Back?” I repeated, feeling that shiver up my neck again.

She gazed at me with her pale eyes, nodded her head then said in a low voice, “Aye, Saul, back to 1812.”

I couldn’t help laughing, but it came out kinda squeaky. “He-he-he!” I stared at her. She wasn’t laughing. “So, Agatha, you’re kidding me, right?” She shook her head so her long hair swung. Snowflakes landed on her eyelashes. My heart was beating hard. She kept hold of my hand but said nothing. “You’re s..s..serious?” I stammered.

She nodded.

I gulped. “How… how come?”

She sighed. “Ach Saul, tis an awfa long story.” Lowering her voice to a whisper she said, “Yea see, Saul, I am the dutiful daughter of Mister Albert Black.”

She stared at me like she was waiting for something. For me to nod my head, laugh and say, “Oh, right,
the
Albert Black? Him?” But I didn’t say a word. When it was obvious the name Albert Black meant nothing to me, she cast her eyes down and wrung her small hands together. “He,” she continued, “is a time traveller – or I should say, an ill-starred apprentice, eager to master the hidden art of travelling through time. And I, his sole child, am his assistant!”

I nodded, as though I understood, which of course I didn’t. Maybe I was still on my beanbag, dreaming? But I wasn’t. We were standing on the pavement, in the snow. This was real. Agatha sighed again. “So now Saul, perhaps yea comprehend my predicament? ‘Tis an awfy pickle.”

Miss Agatha Black knew some big words. She talked like an old granny, not a child. She rolled her Rs like a motorbike revving over cobbles. Prrrrrrrrredicament. And what the heck was predicament anyway? “The fact that yea havna heard of Mister Albert Black puts me in the doldrums, Saul,” she said. “It tells me he failed. He was ever thus, born under a halfpenny planet. He didna succeed to shine out in the great books of history as he so desired. He has much to learn regarding the secret art of time travel and, what’s more, he has left me here – an experiment gone horribly wrong, lost in the future.”

And we were left standing in the falling snow outside the shop, me and this strange girl, who had just told me, with her hand on her heart, that she came from two hundred years ago. The snow fell faster and thick flakes swirled around us. I felt a bit embarrassed with her staring helplessly into my eyes, but in a strange way I was excited too, like I’d just landed in a real adventure. Mad as it sounded, and I wasn’t ruling out the possibility that Agatha was totally off the rails, part of me believed her – or wanted to. She seriously sounded old fashioned. She looked the part and didn’t seem to have a clue about the Highway Code. I had to get Mum’s newspaper and Jaffa Cakes, but bumping into a girl from another time was definitely the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me, and I decided to play along with Agatha’s story.

“Wanna see what your house is like now?” I suggested, trying to sound breezy. She nodded, slipped her hand under my elbow and in we went.

If you’d enjoyed this sneak peek of
The Accidental Time Traveller
download your copy from your usual
eBook retailer!