FROM THE ANNALS OF THE GUARDIANS
12 JULY 1851
REPORT: DAVID LOYDE, ADEPT 2ND DEGREE
FIVE
“YOU LOOK WORN OUT,” said Lesley in the school yard at break.
“I feel terrible.”
Lesley patted my arm. “All the same, those dark rings under your eyes kind of suit you,” she said, trying to cheer me up. “They make your eyes look extra blue.”
I smiled. Lesley was so sweet. We were sitting on the bench under the chestnut tree, and we could only talk in whispers, because Cynthia Dale was sitting behind us with a girlfriend, and right beside them Gordon Gelderman was talking about football with two other boys from our class, in a voice somewhere between a duck’s quack and a bear’s growl. I didn’t want them to overhear us. They all thought I was weird enough anyway.
“Oh, Gwen, you really ought to have told your mother.”
“You’ve said that at least fifty times now.”
“Yes, because it’s true. I can’t understand why you didn’t.”
“Because I … no, to be honest, I don’t understand why myself. Somehow or other, I suppose I was hoping it wouldn’t happen again.”
“But that adventure in the night—I mean, just think what could have happened to you! Take your great-aunt’s vision—it has to mean you’re in danger. The clock stands for time travel, the tall tower for danger, and the bird … oh, you shouldn’t have woken her up! It’d probably have gotten really exciting at that point. I’m going to Google the whole thing this afternoon—raven, sapphire, tower, mountain ash tree. I’ve found a Web site about extrasensory phenomena—it tells you lots of stuff. And I’ve looked up loads of books about time travel for us. And films. Back to the Future, parts one to three. Maybe we can find out something from those.…”
I thought about what fun it had always been, sitting on the sofa in Lesley’s house watching DVDs. Sometimes we used to mute the sound and synchronize our own words with the pictures.
“Are you feeling dizzy?”
I shook my head. Now I knew what it had been like for poor Charlotte these last few weeks. Being asked all the time whether I was dizzy really got on my nerves. Particularly when I was always sort of listening to myself and waiting for the dizzy feeling.
“If we only knew when it will happen again,” said Lesley. “I do think it’s unfair. Charlotte has been prepared for this for ages, but you’ve been thrown in at the deep end.”
“I’ve no idea what Charlotte would have done last night if she’d been chased by the man who was sleeping in our built-in cupboard,” I said. “I don’t think the dancing and fencing lessons would have been much use there. No horse in sight for her to ride away on, either.”
I giggled, imagining Charlotte in my place, running all over the house to get away from the angry young man called Walter who slept in the cupboard. Perhaps she’d have snatched a sword off the wall in the salon and slaughtered all the poor servants.
“No, silly, of course those things wouldn’t have done her any good. But they wouldn’t have happened to her, because that chrono-thingy would have sent her somewhere else. Somewhere nice and peaceful. A place where nothing could harm her! But you risk your life instead of telling your family they’ve been teaching the wrong person.”
“Maybe by now Charlotte has traveled in time as well. Then they’ll have what they wanted anyway.”
Lesley sighed and began going through the stack of paper on her lap. She had prepared a file of useful information for me. Well, more or less useful. For instance, she had printed out photos of vintage cars. According to them, the car I’d seen on my first journey through time dated from 1906.
“Jack the Ripper was haunting the East End in 1888. The stupid thing is, no one’s ever found out who he was. All sorts of people have been suspected, but there’s never been any proof. So if you ever lose your way in the East End in 1888, any man you meet is potentially dangerous. The Great Fire of London was in 1666, and there was plague in the city practically all the time, but 1348, 1528, and 1665 were particularly bad years. Then there’s the Blitz in the Second World War. The air raids began in 1940 and left almost all of London in ruins. You’d better find out if your house escaped being hit. If so, you’ll be safe there. Otherwise St. Paul’s Cathedral would be a good place, because it did get hit once, but almost miraculously, it stayed standing. So, you could hide there.”
“It all sounds dreadfully dangerous,” I said.
“Yes, I always thought of time travel as more romantic. I mean, I kind of imagined Charlotte in her own historical films. Dancing with Mr. Darcy at a ball, falling in love with some sexy Highlander. Telling Anne Boleyn it would be a really, really bad idea to marry Henry VIII. That kind of thing.”
“Anne Boleyn’s the one they beheaded?”
Lesley nodded. “There’s a great film with Natalie Portman. I could borrow us the DVD.… Gwen, please promise me you’ll talk to your mum today.”
“I promise. I’ll do it tonight.”
“Where’s Charlotte?” Cynthia craned her neck to look around the tree trunk. “I wanted to copy her Shakespeare essay. Er—I mean I wanted to get a few ideas from it.”
“Charlotte’s not well,” I said.
“What’s the matter with her?”
“Diarrhea,” said Lesley. “Very bad. Spends all her time sitting on the loo.”
“Ew, spare us the details!” said Cynthia. “Can I look at your essays, then, you two?”
“We haven’t finished them yet,” said Lesley. “We’re going to watch Shakespeare in Love again first.”
“You can read my essay,” Gordon Gelderman said in his deepest bass voice. His head appeared on the other side of the tree trunk. “All out of Wikipedia.”
“I might just as well look up Wikipedia for myself,” said Cynthia.
The bell rang, and break was over.
“Double English,” groaned Gordon. “For a man, that’s torture. But I can see Cynthia slobbering already when she thinks of Prince Charming.”
“Shut up, Gordon.”
Everyone knew that Gordon never shut up. “I can’t imagine why you all think Mr. Whitman is so great. I mean, he’s such a poof!”