The Unlikely Time Traveller by Janis Mackay

Author:Janis Mackay [Janis Mackay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782502753
Publisher: Floris Books
Published: 2016-08-23T04:00:00+00:00

24

“You have a story perhaps from your land?” Ness’s dad said, after supper. He was helping his wife into a comfier chair. Ness cleared away the soup bowls. “A story of magic, perhaps? Or adventure? It would do us muckle good to hear a traveller’s tale.”

Ness returned and took a seat too. The room was dim, glowing with pale pink light from the glass. “We hope you don’t mind this low light,” said Ness. “We are saving the power allocation for the festival. It is not always so.”

“I don’t mind,” I said, wondering what ‘power allocation’ meant. Maybe Ness saw I was confused.

“The sun and wind store us power,” she told me in a quiet voice, “and each community is allowed to use only so much. We save it up for special occasions. We are using less now so our festive party will be truly bright!”

“Come! A story,” her mum said, looking excited like a little kid.

They were all staring at me. Maybe it was the custom for visitors to repay their hosts with a story.

I racked my brains. “Well…” I took a deep breath. “This happened a long time ago.”

“I do love the stories from long ago,” Ness said. “Please, Saul, go on.”

“It was Saturday, the fifteenth of December, 2012,” I said, remembering it like it was yesterday, “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 a boy was sent along to the corner shop.”

“Corner shop,” whispered Ness’s mum. “What a sweet notion.”

“Go on,” urged Ness. “Ma, please, let him tell.”

“Well, he had to walk to the corner shop to buy a newspaper and a packet of biscuits.”

“A what?”

“Ma, let him tell the story. It is set in history, remember. You know they once had newspaper. A printout of world events.”

“Anyway,” I went on, “this boy was allowed to buy something for himself costing no more than thirty pence.”

“Is that a lot?” Ness’s mother asked.

I shook my head. “No, you could only buy a Milky Way for thirty pence, and that’s over in two bites. But that was the deal, thirty pence. You see, the boy had been grounded three times that month for sneaking out when he was supposed to be in his room doing his homework. But then for three days he had behaved, meaning he had stayed in. (With the doors and windows locked he didn’t have much choice.) He had a den, this boy. That’s where he usually hung out when he wasn’t grounded, but his mum didn’t know about the den.”

I paused and glanced over at Ness. In the pinkish glow her eyes grew wide as saucers.

“He lived back in the time when the streets were full of cars and vans, and everybody was on their phones, and played on computers, though this boy did adventurous stuff too, like travel.” As I said this I looked straight at Ness. She nodded like she understood I was telling her about me.

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