Chapter 10
It was obvious that something had gone terribly wrong. We looked though the house and there was no sign of any of my things. Nothing. No clothes or shoes or even my schoolbag. No dollshouse or roller skates. There were no old fairy tale books lying at the back of the bookshelf and Eddie appeared to have a heap of stuff that nether of us had ever seen before. He was very taken with a flash computer which was obviously new and I had great difficulty in dragging his attention away from it. I think if I’d let him he would have happily played computer games and forgot I even existed. We even looked though the photograph albums, at least, Eddie looked though them while I peered over his shoulder.
‘I’m not in them,’ I wailed.
‘I didn’t think you would be,’ Eddie said calmly. ‘You don’t seem to exist here at all.’
‘Well don’t sound so pleased about it,’ I screamed at him.
‘I’m not pleased. It’s just that it’s a bit odd having you hanging around drooping over my shoulder. You feel like a cold patch in the air,’ Eddie explained.
‘You’d feel cold too if you were a ghost,’ I sulked.
Eddie frowned, and started to say something, but just then Mum called him to tea and when we walked into the dining room there were only three places set.
‘What about me?’ I said indignantly. Mum and Dad totally ignored me, and I mean, totally.
‘What about Poppy?’ Eddie asked.
‘No dear, I haven’t put poppy seeds on the buns. I know you don’t like them much,’ Mum answered.
‘No, not seeds. Poppy. She’s a girl.’
‘Who is Poppy? Is it a new friend you have made at school?’ Dad asked him.
‘Did you want to ask her to tea some time?’ Mum added.
‘He means me,’ I shouted. The smell of the food was making my mouth water and I was terribly unhappy.
Mum and Dad ignored me. I tried going up and waving my hands in their faces but they didn’t even know I was there. I tried pulling Mum’s arm but my hand went into it with a squirmy warm feeling, which made me shudder.
‘This is all your fault. You chucked that rubbish away and it changed things. I hate you. I’m going to my bedroom,’ I shrieked at Eddie, and walked clean though the closed door. That really freaked me out and by the time Eddie finished tea and came to the room I was nearly out of my tree.
‘Calm down, Poppy. There must be a mistake. I can’t believe you are a ghost. We must have done something wrong when we came back. A lollipop wrapper wouldn’t have done this,’ Eddie said soothingly when I had finished having hysterics.
‘I don’t like this,’ I bellowed. I didn’t want to be calm and reasonable. I wanted to have my parents recognise me and to sleep in my own bed. It didn’t even seem to exist anymore and I was feeling more and more panic-stricken by the minute.
‘Let’s think about it logically,’ Eddie said. ‘We made the right note and sniffed the thyme and Mum and I came though the crack okay. So what was different with you?’
‘I don’t know. Nothing.’
‘There must have been something,’ Eddie insisted.
‘I can’t think of anything,’ I wailed.
Eddie spent a few minutes calming me down again. ‘There must have been something different, Poppy. Now think, what happened to you when we came through the split.’
‘The robot grabbed my jacket,’ I sniffed.
Eddie looked at my back and gave a cry of surprise. ‘That’s it. The back of your jacket is missing. There is a small misty piece on your back. I bet that you are anchored in the future by it and until you get it back you will be stuck half here. Can you see the future place at all?’
I looked at him aghast. ‘I don’t think so,’ I muttered.
‘Try,’ urged Eddie.
I sighed and decided to humour him. I had nothing to lose anyway and no better idea of what to do. I found that if I concentrated and half shut my eyes I could see a sort of shadow of the robot and the kitchen.
‘I can see it, but it’s all a bit misty.’
‘That’s it,’ said Eddie excitedly. ‘Now all you need to do is go back and get that piece of jacket and you will be able to come back properly.’
‘I can’t go back there, I can’t.’ I started shaking. Eddie tried to pat my back but his hand went right through me, which freaked both of us out.
‘Maybe if you took the jacket off that would work instead,’ Eddie said hopefully. That sounded a much better scheme to me. I started to pull off my jacket but as soon as I tugged it there was an agonising pain in my back as if someone had stuck a red hot knife in it. I shrieked and lay down, or rather sort of hovered above the bed, while Eddie went pale and watched me with concern.
‘Are you okay?’ he said, when my moans had died down.
‘Of course I’m not okay. Half of me is in the future,’ I said bitterly. ‘And now I have to go back there.’
‘I’ll come back too,’ Eddie said bravely.
‘No.’ I shook my head. I could see that what we had done in the future had somehow affected the present and there was no place for me here any more. ‘I have to do it myself. Anyway, I need you to be here so if something goes wrong you can come and rescue me.’
‘We will make sure it works properly then,’ Eddie told me sensibly. We went down to the swinging seat and Eddie picked a bunch of thyme, which he laid on the seat beside me. It was easy to find this time as the garden was all neat and tidy. I couldn’t pick it up but I could lean over and smell it. I had to concentrate to keep sitting on the seat in the right place as it was easy to drift through it to the ground and it must have looked really spooky.
‘When you get to the misty place the thyme should be real for you,’ Eddie said encouragingly. ‘If it’s not, you’d better come straight back and I’ll go with you.’
He also put his whistle on the seat and told me to blow that to get the right note for splitting the time window when I came back. I thought that was brilliant and tried to thank him but I was crying fairly hard by then and it was difficult to get the words out.
‘If it doesn’t work I will never see you again,’ I sobbed.
‘I’m sure it will work,’ Eddie said and pushed the seat for me. ‘Otherwise I will come and get you. Now try and stay on as I push you.’
Creak… the seat swung up as Mum called from the house. ‘Come inside, Eddie.’
Creak… ‘In a minute,’ called Eddie. ‘Smell the thyme,’ he urged me.
Creak…I leaned over and breathed in the fragrance as the time split shimmered in front of me. Taking a deep breath I plunged though it and into the future again. I knew that if I stopped to think about it I would never have had the courage.
I found myself in the corridor beside the kitchen, and sent up a silent prayer. I don’t think I could have taken the conveyer belts and machines again. There was no sign of anyone about. I whispered ‘open,’ to the kitchen door and crept in, stuffing the thyme in my pocket and holding the whistle tightly in one hand. I looked around, but the kitchen looked as it always had. There was no sign of the robot or of my piece of jacket. I sank to the floor, feeling weak and wobbly and tried to think what to do next. That’s where the robot found me some time later. It didn’t seem surprised but told me to follow. I trailed after it and surprise, surprise, I was put into the bedroom again and it was back to food tasting.
That lasted about three days before I was taken to the kitchen to cook. With Mum gone, the meals must have been terrible so even the things I could cook would have been an improvement. I spent weeks working in that kitchen and every chance I got I searched for my piece of jacket. I went though all the cupboards and then tried jamming my shoe in the door to my room to leave it open so I could explore further. But the robot was obviously keeping a close eye on me this time and would quickly whip the shoe out and return it to me saying, ‘that is not permitted,;
I was getting very frustrated. I needed that piece of jacket. I hoped that it hadn’t been put
into the rubbish, or the recycling machine, but couldn’t think what else to do. I could have taken the rest of the jacket off and left it there but I was worried that doing this might change the future as well.
‘If I left the jacket behind I might find that Mum and Dad and even Eddie don’t exist when I get back to my own time,’ I reasoned. ‘I have to get the piece of jacket back.’
I refused to change my clothes and I knew they were getting filthy but I didn’t care. They were my only link with home. One morning I woke up and found myself dressed in pyjamas. There was no sign of my clothes anywhere, even though I looked in all the cupboards and even the bathroom. I was absolutely furious and felt cold all over at the thought of the robot taking my clothes off me while I was asleep. The only thing I was thankful for was that I had been in the habit of putting the whistle and by now rather ratty bunch of thyme under my pillow each night.
‘Where are my clothes,’ I demanded, as the robot came to take me to the kitchen.
‘Your attire has been laundered for hygiene reasons,’ the robot answered. ‘It will be returned at a later date.’
I cried and yelled and even swore. I kicked the robot on its shiny silver wheels and I crossed my arms and refused to cook.
‘I’m not working until I get my clothes back,’ I said mutinously.
The robot whined and beeped a bit but eventually gave up and shut me back in my room. I waited there, seething with impatience until a much smaller robot, one that looked a bit like a toaster on wheels, scuttled in and laid the pile of washed and dried clothes on the bed. Now while I had been waiting I’d had a brainwave. If I couldn’t find the piece of jacket, then maybe the robot could. I pounced on the clothes and held up the jacket accusingly. ‘This has a piece torn out,’ I said sternly. ‘Take it away and mend it.’
The little toaster robot beeped at me apologetically and took the jacket as it scuttled out the door. I crossed my fingers and hoped my idea would work. I was congratulating myself on my quick thinking for about the sixteenth time when the toaster robot came back with a cheerful beep a few minutes later. I nearly cheered when I noticed with a gasp of joy that my jacket had been mended perfectly. The original piece was stitched on again with shiny metal thread.
‘Right,’ I said to myself. ‘Tomorrow I get out of here.’
The next day I meekly followed the robot then began to cook. I cooked buns and pies and complicated casseroles while the robot watched. It asked me if I had finished and after the sixth time I said ‘no,’ it wandered away out of the kitchen. This was my chance. I took out the thyme and breathed it in deeply and blew on the whistle so loudly my ears popped. The robot came zooming in from somewhere and screeched towards me with its buttons blinking madly. The air in front of me shimmered into a split and I leapt through, careful not to catch my clothes on anything. With a sigh of relief I saw Eddie standing by the swinging seat.
‘It worked,’ I cried joyfully. ‘At least, did it?’
‘Yep,’ grinned Eddie in relief. You look just like normal. You were quick, though. I’ve only been waiting five minutes.’
‘What do you mean, five minutes? I’ve been away for weeks,’ I said indignantly.
Eddie looked puzzled. ‘Time must go at different speeds sometimes,’ he said wisely. ‘Now let’s go and see if you exist here properly again.’
We walked to the house. Mum glanced up as we came in the door and said, ‘Poppy, I was hoping you would help me. Would you mind bringing in the dry washing, please? I have to stir this for at least ten minutes or it will go lumpy.’
‘That’s fine,’ I said happily, especially as I could see some of my clothes on the washing line. I was obviously real again.