Nothing O'Clock by Neil Gaiman

Author:Neil Gaiman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group
Published: 2013-10-22T16:00:00+00:00

6

Amy kept pace with the Doctor, and panted out questions as they ran.

‘You think she’s in the house?’

‘I’m afraid she is. Yes. I’ve got a sort of an idea. Something I heard when I was a boy. A sort of a cautionary tale. Look, Amy, don’t let anyone persuade you to ask them what the time is. And if they do, don’t answer them. Safer that way.’

‘You mean it?’

‘I’m afraid so. And watch out for masks.’

‘Right. So these are dangerous aliens we’re dealing with? They wear masks and want you to ask what time it is?’

‘It sounds like them. Yes. But my people dealt with them so long ago. It’s almost inconceivable …’ He looked worried.

They stopped running as they reached Claversham Row.

‘And if it is who I think it is, what I think it – they – it – are … there is only one sensible thing we should be doing.’ The worried expression vanished as rapidly as it had appeared on his face, replaced by an easy grin.

‘What’s that?’

‘Running away,’ said the Doctor, as he rang the doorbell.

A moment’s silence, then the door opened and a girl looked up at them. She could not have been more than eleven, and her hair was in pigtails. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘My name is Polly Browning. What’re your names?’

‘Polly!’ said Amy. ‘Your parents are worried sick about you.’

‘I just came to get my diary back,’ said the girl. ‘It was under a loose floorboard in my old bedroom.’

‘Your parents have been looking for you all day!’ said Amy. She wondered why the Doctor didn’t say anything.

The little girl – Polly – looked at her wristwatch. ‘That’s weird. It says I’ve only been here for five minutes. I got here at ten this morning.’

Amy knew it was somewhere late in the afternoon. Without thinking, she said, ‘What time is it now?’

Polly looked up, delighted. This time Amy thought there was something strange about the girl’s face. Something flat. Something almost mask-like …

‘Time for you to come into my house,’ said the girl.

Amy blinked. It seemed to her that, without having moved, she and the Doctor were now standing in the entry hall. The girl was standing on the stairs facing them. Her face was level with theirs.

‘What are you?’ asked Amy.

‘We are the Kin,’ said the girl, who was not a girl. Her voice was deeper, darker and more guttural. She seemed to Amy like something crouching, something huge that wore a paper mask with the face of a girl crudely scrawled on it. Amy could not understand how she could ever have been fooled into thinking it was a real face.

‘I have heard of you,’ said the Doctor. ‘My people thought you were –’

‘An abomination,’ said the crouching thing with the paper mask. ‘And a violation of all the laws of time. They sectioned us off from the rest of Creation. But I escaped, and thus we escaped. And we are ready to begin again. Already we have started to purchase this world –’

‘You’re recycling money through time,’ said the Doctor.

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