Toby Jones and the Mystery of the Time Travel Tour by Michael Panckridge

Author:Michael Panckridge [Michael Panckridge]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780730444893
Publisher: HarperCollins

12

Who’s Pixie?

Thursday—evening

AFTER tea I went up and stared at the computer. I desperately wanted to go back and look at the secret Father Time site, but was worried about what Ben had said.

It wouldn’t hurt to go to the main Scorpions page, I thought, opening it in my browser. I scrolled down and left the cursor hovering over the blank area, as Ben had done the previous evening.

And anyway, my IP address was different to Ben’s, so there was nothing to worry about as far as tracing the computer went, I tried to tell myself.

The new blank screen appeared and I scrolled down to the faint watermark of Father Time.

My hand paused on the mouse. I stared at the image, its ghostly lines almost invisible on the white background. Then, before I could change my mind, I clicked on the picture.

When the new page appeared I quickly punched in the username and password, then spun around to check that no one was at the half-open door. I hurried over and kicked it shut. My heart was racing.

‘Toby!’ Mum called from downstairs. ‘Phone!’

I looked back at the screen, the page only half loaded. I sighed and closed the browser.

‘Coming!’ I met Mum on the stairs and headed back up to my room with the phone.

‘Toby, it’s me, Ally,’ came the breathless voice on the other end.

‘Ally?’

‘I’m in. I’ve confirmed that I’m the fifth person and—’

‘Ally!’ I screamed. ‘You’ve what?’

There was silence. Her voice was a lot quieter. ‘I…um, you know, I went into the site and wrote in that text box up at the top, saying…’

‘Saying?’ I tried to make my voice sound calm. I guess I shouldn’t be sounding so high and mighty—after all, what had I been about to do? Though maybe I wouldn’t have had the courage to do what Ally had just done…or was it stupidity?

‘I’ve stuffed up, haven’t I?’ she said.

‘Not yet,’ I told her, trying to sound confident. ‘Smale doesn’t know who you are, does he?’

‘Nope.’

‘And I’m not sure he’s smart enough to work out all that IP stuff Ben was talking about.’ Silence. ‘And even if he did, well, what have you done wrong by going into a website? I mean, you haven’t broken any law, have you?’

‘Exactly,’ Ally said, not sounding reassured at all.

‘So, what happened?’ I asked.

‘Well, nothing. Nothing at all. I just wrote that I was making contact. You know, that I was the fifth person.’

‘Did you say who you were?’

‘Of course not, you idiot. I used your name.’

‘WHAT?!?’

‘I’m joking,’ she giggled. There was another pause. ‘So what happens now?’

‘How long ago did you do it?’ I asked, wondering whether there might be a change on the website.

‘An hour, maybe an hour and a half. Why?’

‘I’m going to check the site. Don’t do anything. I’ll call you back soon, okay?’

‘Okay, Tobler, whatever,’ she sighed.

I tossed the phone onto my bed and logged back in, scrolling down to the bottom of the page.

Once again I was interrupted, this time by a gentle tapping on the door.

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