The Clock People

by Mark Roland Langdale

The watch seemed to hiccup or stutter as if the machine had really sprung to life and, realising it was alive, did not know what it should be doing, as before it had done everything automatically, without thinking, like all machines were supposed to do, even automatons. But of course this was all in the mind of the imaginer Wilbur Wigglesworth who undoubtedly was first class in that department.

  Then Wilbur was blinded by a light, a light so hot he felt if he didn’t move he would melt like a candle, until he was nothing but hot slimy wax which would then solidify so he looked like a creature out of one of his own nightmares. Perhaps this was a nightmare and he was still in bed asleep? More likely it was a giant candle or a candle clock placed next to the watch by the inhabitants of the house.

  Wilbur Wigglesworth shielded his eyes as the big hand of the watch came into view. Instinctively he ran up an incline and crouched under the hand. The hand of the watch protected him from the light and the heat of that light, but as he tried to climb higher he felt himself slowly slipping down so he had to pull himself back up. It was the incline he was on that was pulling him back, as well as gravity doing what gravity does best, or worst in this curious case.

  Wilbur had been told stories of Sir Isaac Newton and the apple falling from the tree onto his head. There weren’t many trees in the mechanism, just a few window and dwarf boxes and plant pots. For a split second Wilbur saw the apple fall then stop in mid-air as if by magic, then instead of falling onto Sir Isaac Newton’s head it rose as if on invisible threads returning to the tree. Then the image went blank as if the magic lantern in his head had no more slides to show of this particular magical moment in time.

  What a curious thought, but then he was a curious sort of boy, everyone said, so he was surprised he had even been chosen as an apprentice. ‘The apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree. His father is a dreamer as was his grandfather as is he,’ or so said the foreman Carbuncle Codswallop or one of the Clock Elders, not knowing what it meant until Mr Cole explained it to him. ‘Don’t worry, Wilbur, the foreman and the Elders are nothing if not talkers of codswallop,’ so said Mr Cole as he went back to the drawing board to design a new type of ratchet for the mechanism. Hopefully this ratchet Wilbur could bury in the heads of the Elders and old man Carbuncle!

  Wilbur occasionally got glimpses of time, fragments of future time as he imagined them to be. It was as if he had a magic lantern in his head. He saw pictures of events that as yet had not taken place, like Nostradamus, the great seer, but if Sir Isaac Newton was right this did not mean he could change the future in any way. Everything was already written. It was as if Wilbur was a page ahead of most people who were reading the book on Time. Of course that was nonsense but the thought pleased him. It made him feel special like he had a crystal ball in his head as well as a magic lantern. Maybe he could even stop time, reverse it or speed it up.

  Now he really was talking nonsense or, in this curious case, thinking and imagining nonsense. And all these curious thoughts came and went in the blinking of a magical dragonfly’s eye.

  Suddenly the bright light disappeared. ‘I must take a look, I must,’ mumbled Wilbur under his breath as curiosity overcame his fear and he ventured out from under the giant hand of the fob watch. At first his eyes were blurry like a photo that hadn’t been developed properly then gradually they became accustomed to the half light, so he was able to see a giant face peering back at him. He presumed this was the face of the giant he had seen two nights previous. Then he saw other objects, strange objects the likes of which he had never seen before. It was as if he were looking through a kaleidoscope, twisting it one way then the other trying to make out the patterns.

  ‘Seven o’clock in the morning, I shall be at work bright and early, although more bushed that bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,’ sighed the man gently as he put the fob watch back in his coat pocket, not even seeing Wilbur, but then sometimes the human eye cannot see what is right in front of it, even when it looks closely at that object.

  Then for Wilbur everything went as black as a black satin jeweller’s cloth, one wrapped in thousands of sparkling diamonds. The boy’s mind was working overtime like a clock that was running fast. ‘I, I think that was the world above the world of the giants. It appeared the bright light was not a candle but the sun waxing,’ the bewildered boy muttered. Unable to contain his excitement and wanting to share it with someone he immediately thought of Apprentice Handle.

  ‘Wakey wakey, rise and shine!’ whispered Wilbur shaking his partner in time, grime and crime until she awoke.

  ‘Wake up, why would I want to do that? It’s still the middle of the night!’ Tippy exclaimed, tired of being woken in the middle of the night by a boy and one in truth who appeared to be something of a magnet for trouble.

  ‘No it’s not, I altered all the clocks so folk only think that is the case. I’ve already ventured outside. It’s morning, it’s just we’re in the jacket pocket of the giant,’ Wilbur replied almost fit to burst, this time not hiding the truth from his colleague.

  ‘But we were told if we ventured outside the mechanism one more time we would wish we hadn’t been born and that is a wish I do not want to come true!’ exclaimed Tippy, sitting up in bed and wiping the sleep out of her tired eyes for the umpteenth time. In truth Tippy was getting fed up to the back teeth of exclaiming things, as it was beginning to give her a sore throat. She wanted to give wilful Wilbur Wigglesworth a piece of her mind but she feared her mind wasn’t worth giving away. It was fair to say Tippy was close to tipping point but if anybody could handle it, it was Tippy Handle, who imagined she could handle whatever life threw at her! It appeared not, as Wilbur threw her clothes and her boots at her as if to say ‘get a move on’.

  ‘Ow, those boots are heavy!’ Tippy shouted.

  ‘Keep it down, do you want to wake the whole clock up?!’ Wilbur shouted back.

  ‘You can talk!’ spat Tippy, for which she would be fined heavily on the spot if caught in the act of spitting in the mechanism. Too much spit could gum up the works and not enough polish could gum down the works!

  ‘Sorry!’ the two apprentices both said as if one single-celled organism or if you prefer, as they did, Siamese twins separated in a clock hospital!

  ‘I still think we should do what we’re told, at least from time to time,’ Tippy whispered, quickly putting on her clothes and her boots but on the wrong feet so she nearly tripped over and went head over heels.

  ‘We are told not to do a lot of things and I don’t know about you but most of these things fill me with wonder and curiosity that won’t be cured unless I quell that wonder and curiosity.’

  ‘My grandfather says once the cabinet of curiosity in one’s head is opened it cannot be closed,’ grunted Tippy haughtily as she staggered to her feet, this time with her boots on the right feet. ‘Just give me a minute, I’ve got to brush my teeth and hair and not with the same brush. I want to look my best for the outside world. I know boys are quite happy to look their worst at any time of the day or night but we girls do not.’ Wilbur was imagining Tippy as Princess Victoria then as Queen Victoria, not as real-life figures but as waxwork figures like the ones in Madame Tussauds, and waxwork figures in a dolls’ house at that. And as both had waxy smiles upon their faces that was about right, which was marginally better than being about wrong! Or perhaps these two imaginary figures were not smiling at all but grimacing? It appeared these imaginary figures were no more amused than Tippy Handle was at this moment in time, who, it has to be said, was not an imaginary figure, even though at times the men and Clock Elders in the mechanism made her feel as if she was.

  ‘Close the cabinet of curiosity? Who wants to close it? I’ll close it when I’ve finally clocked off for the last time,’ Wilbur replied with a grin on his face as wide as the Cheshire Cat’s. ‘Come on, come with me, Tippy, let’s give curiosity a run for its money.’

  ‘I don’t know why but I feel compelled
to come with you, it’s almost as if you have me under your spell, and that’s what I will say to the Elders if we get caught, either that or I was sleepwalking!’ Tippy grunted, finally getting her mind into some sort of order from the disorder caused by lack of sleep.

  Just before they left the mechanism they saw a flash of light, which stopped them dead in their tracks.

  ‘A light!’ squeaked Tippy as her heart caught in her mouth.

  ‘Is it one of the night watchers in the basement?’ Wilbur hissed, looking down through moonstone floor at his feet and through the wheels, follets, cogs and hammers of the mechanism to the basement below.

  ‘No, it’s only the static lanterns shining upon the diamond bearings in the mechanism, come on,’ whispered Tippy, making it sound like there was a lighthouse in the clock which there was not, not unless this clock was in a bottle along with a ship!

  Wilbur fumbled in his pocket for a tiny fob watch no bigger than a hairpin so as to see exactly what time it was. You would imagine that living in a watch you would never have to carry a timepiece around with you. ‘No!’ Wilbur cried, a horrified look crossing his dial as a click-clackety sound echoed through the mechanism as the watch fell, hitting everything it could find to hit on the way down to the bottom of the mechanism where it shattered into a thousand tiny pieces.

  ‘I hope that wasn’t an antique!’ Tippy grimaced hoping the echoing sound would soon die away.

  ‘I hope so too!’ Wilbur said screwing up his face like a piece of old tinfoil.

  ‘Come on, we’d better hurry!’ Tippy hissed, taking Wilbur by the hand so he couldn’t cause any more hiccups in their not-so-well-oiled plan!

  So the two apprentices sneaked out of the watch into the moonstone face where they had the best seats in the house, except all the lights in the theatre were extinguished. They waited patiently with bated breath but tonight it appeared the film Land of the Giants was not playing at the Peach Pit Picture Palace. Perhaps it was Sunday after all. Sunday did appear to go on longer than any other day of the week, stretching time and space to its limits and beyond, so far beyond it stretched to the fourth and fifth dimensions, or so Wilbur had once imagined.

  Patiently the two apprentices waited for the show to start. It seemed they were sitting in the dark for hours. In actuality only a few minutes had passed. But when you are young and impatient time seems to drag its feet, or at least Old Father Time does. And in the glass theatre the seats were hard, unlike the Georgian theatre with its plush red velvet seats. In truth it was more like sitting in a planetarium than a theatre.

  ‘We can’t wait here much longer, they will wake up and realise we have gone,’ Tippy said fidgeting nervously as she leant back against the metal frame of the watch face.

  ‘Just a few more minutes, only fifteen minutes have passed. I’ve been watching the small hand pass over our heads,’ Wilbur said looking upwards. By now their eyes had adjusted to the darkness, which meant they could just make out the hands of the clock face above them.

  Then, as if by magic, light flooded their eyes… tick tock…

  10

  The Mechanical Mountain

  ‘Eight o’clock precisely,’ mumbled the gentleman looking at the face of the watch with great intensity. Of course the man didn’t see the two tiny figures huddled together under the glass dome of the watch, they were just too tiny – that and his eyes were a little tired from a restless night. The man had a most curious dream about two little people trying to outrun the second hand of a watch around its face. In the end the little people collapsed in a heap unable to continue as the hand continued on, oblivious to the fact it had won the race. It appeared the children had trained for a sprint while the clock had trained for a marathon. On waking the man mused upon the fact that the race of time certainly was more of a marathon than a sprint, after which the dream vanished like the mists of time!

  ‘Wow!’ exclaimed Tippy as she experienced the same things Wilbur had experienced early that morning – a kaleidoscope of light followed by a blast of heat.

  ‘Clouds, why do they always have to spoil a sunny day?’ the gentleman sighed looking upwards. Then he put his fob watch back into his pocket again.

  ‘I was enjoying that!’ exclaimed Tippy blowing out her cheeks in frustration. It was as if the magic lantern had broken down just as it was getting started.

  ‘So was I. Look, I’ve got an idea. You stand on my shoulders and when the small hand comes round grab it, then when it gets to the top jump off onto the big hand. From there you can squeeze through the pinhole, climb up the winding mechanism and by standing on the summit of the mechanical mountain you may be able to see out,’ Wilbur cried, gabbling so fast the words spilled out of his mouth like water from a fountain.

  ‘I’ve got a better idea, you stand on my shoulders. For one you’re taller than me, and two you’re stronger than me and three you’re crazier than me,’ Tippy replied half smiling and half grimacing.

  ‘Okay I’ll report back what I’ve seen. You won’t miss a thing,’ Wilbur replied, his heart racing along with his mind.

  ‘With your passion for telling tales I’d be surprised if I get the whole story. I’ll probably get one full of fairytales, no, make that tall wonder tales in this case,’ giggled Tippy as she bent down and Wilbur climbed up on her shoulders.

  ‘Here it comes… Missed!’ spat Wilbur as they both collapsed upon the face of the watch in a heap.

  ‘Try again,’ grunted Tippy as they both resembled a tiny pyramid as if they were acrobats in a flea circus.

  This time they succeeded as Wilbur grabbed hold of the passing second hand and was propelled upwards at great pace. ‘This is fun!’ Wilbur exclaimed as he whizzed around the clock.

  ‘Let go, let go!’ Tippy shouted, waving her hands above her head as if she were doing semaphore.

  ‘Time flies when you’re having fun!’ hollered Wilbur whooping with joy. Wilbur had heard stories of fairgrounds and imagined this is what it must be like on a giant carousel ride.

  ‘Okay, you’ve had your fun now. Next time the second hand reaches twelve let go and grab hold of the big hand,’ and this time it was Tippy’s time to holler as Wilbur’s flayling feet almost knocked her clean off her feet.

  ‘Sorry, okay, I’m doing as instructed!’ shouted Wilbur, who by now was tiring of hanging onto the hand of the clock and his head was spinning so much he felt like he may throw up at any moment.

  The second hand quickly sped round – six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven…

  ‘Twelve, jump, jump!’ cried Tippy as Wilbur let go of the second hand and grabbed the little hand (the minute hand) with both hands. But horror of horrors his left hand slipped and he swung by one hand for a full ten seconds until he managed to get his left hand back up on the little hand of the watch face. The second hand was quickly moving away from the number twelve at the top of the watch face and if Wilbur didn’t clamber through the tiny pinhole quickly he would have to wait a whole hour for another chance. The truth was the apprentices couldn’t wait another hour. By that time the Clock People would be awake. Their body clocks would wake them if not their alarm clocks, the ones Wilbur and his cohorts, two young apprentices, identical twin sisters with a keen sense of mischief named Clara and Lara Buckles, had sneakily moved back as was done for British Winter Time. A cliffhanger, more like a clock hanger in the film Safety Last! starring Harold Lloyd, a film that hadn’t as yet even been imagined let alone shown at the picture palace.

  Tippy could hardly look. If Wilbur fell he had a long way to fall, a fall that might well end in disaster. She held her breath and said a little prayer to both the gods of time and the gods of the clock.

  Wilbur wished he had the balance of a spiral balance in a clock plus a hairspring, but then he was not an automaton acrobat designed and made by any number of artisan watchmakers and mechanicians who marvelled Georgian society with their
mechanical wonders, of which John Joseph Merlin was one.

  Wilbur swung like a miniature pendulum of a clock until he was able to swing himself towards the pinhole. On the third swing he let go and swandived through the tiny gap, tumbling through the gap like an acrobat. Wilbur righted himself using his own self-righting mechanism, the one the Clock God had been so kind to give him. He then gazed upwards to see what looked like a giant mountain made of gold. This was the winding mechanism grooved on all sides. Wilbur imagined he could use the grooves to climb to the top where he would be able to see the whole world. The climb was a risky one, as once again if he fell it could be disastrous, the end of his timeline, of that he was sure. The thing was, it wasn’t so surprising the boy and girl were like monkeys, for a) they were children and it was said by parents that all children were little monkeys at one time or another, and b) climbing from weight to weight, follet to follet, spring to spring, cog to cog and wheel to wheel inside the fob watch was something all the Clock People were used to doing. They were also used to not getting caught in the many large and small grinding wheels in the mechanism, a horrible end that you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy – well, perhaps your worst enemy you would at a pinch!

  This daring manoeuvre was one of the many hazards of the job. Even the old Clock People were nimble, perhaps not in Harry Houdini’s league but still pretty nimble all the same. So nimble were some of the Clock People they could do a pirouette upon the top of a thimble as if they were a Victorian spinning top or prima ballerina upon the top of a musical snuffbox, or at least Tippy was able to perform this trick. Mind you, once or twice this trick went horribly wrong as the pirouette turned into a dying swan and the person performing the spin snuffed it!

  Wilbur started to climb slowly but surely like a mountain climber on the verge of climbing the biggest mountain on earth. Once or twice he lost his footing, but inch by inch he scaled the iron mountain until he was standing on the top. ‘Made it, piece of cake, a lot of fuss about nothing,’ Wilbur said blowing out his red cheeks as he lost his footing and almost fell. ‘Mother was right, pride does come before a fall!’ Wilbur puffed knowing how close he was to snuffing it. Then he turned around as slowly as he was able before looking down and then waving cheerfully at Tippy. But Tippy was still under the glass moonstone face of the watch and could not see him. However, she could hear him alright, hollering and hooting and making a hullabaloo worthy of such a word as his state of exhilaration and elation returned in great abundance.