‘Tippy, Tippy, what on earth are you doing?!’ Wilbur shouted as Tippy pulled herself up onto the paper wing and shakily tried to stand upright.
‘Keep her steady, Navigator Wigglesworth, no wiggling of the wings now,’ Tippy said daring to look down as the plane floated on a pocket of hot air. Wilbur was thinking his colleague was full of hot air as she attempted this foolhardy manoeuvre. He hoped she wasn’t thinking of doing a pirouette on the wing as if dancing on top of a music box.
‘Look, look, the thief, the thief!’ Tippy yelled with glee in her voice until that glee turned to horror as she slipped and fell.
‘Tippy!’ Wilbur cried as Tippy disappeared over the edge of the wing of the paper plane.
The ground wasn’t that far away and it would have been fine if Tippy had a parachute like one of the giants’ handkerchiefs, for instance, or a cocktail stick shaped like a parasol, but sadly she did not have either to hand. Tippy looked down then closed her eyes, as she felt certain she had come to the end of her short life story. Then a strange kind of calm came over her, a kind of acceptance as in her mind’s eye she saw herself flying with the angels in heaven and she was smiling. Wilbur was having a slightly different imagining as he was imagining Tippy with a pair of steam-powered angel’s wings that kept her airborne as she flew over the houses in London as everybody pointed up at the miracle of flight.
‘Look, the plane!’ Scarlet cried running into the street and pointing upwards.
‘Something fell from the paper plane!’ Alfie said screwing up his eyes.
‘No, no, please God, no!’ Scarlet exclaimed fearing the worst.
‘Hold on, no they’re alright, they’ve landed on top of the thief’s head,’ Alfie said blowing out his red cheeks.
‘The plane, it’s going to crash!’ shouted Scarlet running and pointing at the same time. Then she bumped into a man on the pavement and promptly fell flat on her face.
‘Come on, Aviator Wigglesworth, you can fly this rust bucket. Gently now, gently pull back on the stick, lower the nose slowly, here comes the ground, hold tight, hold tight!’ Wilbur grunted as the paper plane dove towards the ground. But then something unexpected happened: the wind changed, followed by a short sharp uplift of air which propelled the paper plane upwards. The next thing Wilbur knew he was heading in the direction of the River Thames. ‘I think I may have pulled the stick the wrong way!’
‘Suffering Jets, Scarlet, it seems, like your sisters, you can’t help throwing yourself in front of something or other just to make a point,’ Alfie laughed then added as he picked his sister up off the pavement, ‘Pride comes before a fall!’
‘Thanks for the sympathy,’ Scarlet replied rubbing her sore knees.
‘No time for sympathy or tea for that matter, quick update on the story for those who had their heads in a book or were face down in the street. Tippy is safe for the moment on top of the thief’s head who’s heading in the direction of the River Thames, which is quite a coincidence because that’s where Wilbur is heading too, although by the looks of it he’s taking the shortcut. It seems the wind’s got up a good head of steam and so has the paper plane. I don’t think Father’s barometer in the hall is working. It said it was going to snow today. I thought the Thames may freeze over and we could go skating later,’ smiled Alfie pointing in two directions at once like a clock, one arm pointing at the thief and one pointing at the paper plane which by now was sailing over the houses and showing no signs of coming back down to earth anytime soon.
‘If he goes much higher he’ll crash land on the moon. How’s that for a story? Wish I was up there with him. I’m with him in spirit though!’ Alfie grinned gazing up at the paper plane with both envy and pride.
‘I hope he doesn’t land in the river or he’ll be sunk, literally. I’ll follow the thief, Alfie, and you follow the paper plane and we’ll meet somewhere along the Thames. If the thief is going home at least we’ll know where he lives then we can come back another time and rescue Tippy,’ Scarlet panted.
‘Don’t worry about Tippy, she’ll figure something out. That girl’s got her head screwed on right, it’s Wilbur I’m more worried about. He’s only got five minutes’ flying time under his belt and paper areoplanes are no more seaworthy than paper boats!’ snorted Alfie showing he wasn’t quite the monster Scarlet, his teachers, his parents and grandparents and the neighbours along the street had made him out to be… tick tock, tick tock, the hands so tired they almost fell off the clock!
25
The Shadow Time
Scarlet followed the thief, making sure she didn’t get too close, trying to remain in the shadows in case he saw her. Once or twice he stopped and looked nervously around as if he felt somebody was watching him. It was not so easy to remain in the shadows, as the Shadow Time was still hours away, the time when night replaced day, the moondial replaced the sundial.
The thief walked on. He had an uneasy feeling that somebody was following him, but he’d only seen one person acting a little suspiciously and that was a child, and a girl at that. Now if it had been a boy he would have been concerned, as there were a lot of waifs and strays on the streets of London, many adept at picking pockets. Once upon a grim time he had been one of those boys, so he knew how cunning they could be. Tick tock, tick tock, the mind of the thief ran like clockwork as a quote from a Shelley poem sprang to mind like a cuckoo out of a cuckoo clock: ‘And here like some weird Archimage sit I, Plotting dark spells and devilish enginery, The self-impelling steam-wheels of the mind’. The thief pulled a face. What on earth made him think of a quote by the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley? How was it that all of a sudden he was a lover of poetry, a patron of the arts? Was it simply because he had gone up in the world and was playing the part of a well-to-do gentleman of leisure?
Every time the thief looked around Scarlet turned to look in a shop window or asked somebody for the time as if she knew them and was simply passing the time of day. Once she ducked down an alleyway, as she was sure he was staring right at her, his black eyes burning into her soul. Another time she bent down and tied her shoelaces, even though her shoes had buckles on them. The thief was used to shaking people off his tail, constables who thought they could outwit him, but he knew all the shortcuts, all the alleyways and twittens which make up the maze that is London. It was far easier to get lost in the mazy labyrinthine streets of London than it was to get lost in Hampton Court Maze and it was even easier to get lost in the maze of the mind.
Scarlet imagined the thief would want to give the Clink jail, the Tower of London and Scotland Yard as wide a berth as possible. Scarlet hoped he didn’t live too far away as she might have to make her way home at night – that and her parents might start to wonder if she’d been kidnapped and sold into the white slave trade!
Scarlet had followed the thief along Ironmonger Lane and into Cheapside. Being a thief she imagined he lived on the seamier side of the street in the East End of London, in Lambeth, or around the area that was known as the Elephant and Castle. So Scarlet was somewhat taken aback to see him go into a nice Victorian house in Knightsbridge.
Meanwhile, Alfie was getting into deep trouble, no, scratch that, he was getting into even deeper trouble. Following the flight of the paper plane he’d seen it land on the riverbank. So hurriedly he climbed down the steps of the embankment on the Thames and waded into a sea of mud where the paper plane was now sinking fast. But poor old Alfie, being almost as heavy as a heavier-than-air machine, was sinking faster! Wilbur had climbed onto the wing of the paper plane hoping it would buy him a little more time. Alfie was staring back at him wild-eyed, trying to free his feet from the glue-like mud he was trapped in. The trouble was, the more he struggled the deeper he sank. It was like being in quicksand.
‘Help, somebody, help me, I’m drowning!’ Alfie cried at the top of his voice, hoping his calls would be heard, but it was hard to hear anything over the tugboats on the river and the traffic ab
ove.
Scarlet saw the thief walk up a short flight of steps, as casual as you like, into the house she presumed he lived in, unless he was on a job hoping to steal some priceless jewels from a couple on their holidays. She hoped Tippy was alright but hope was not prayer. A wing and a prayer was what Tippy and Wilbur had been sailing upon, no thanks to Alfie Potts who clearly was potty! All this time Tippy had been unaware of her perilous predicament as she was spark out sleeping like a baby. In truth the thief’s hair made a nice comfortable bed. Normally his hair was as greasy as a stoker in the boiler room of an old steamship and was full of ticks, but since going up in the world he had taken to washing his thick locks on a fairly regular basis. Tippy didn’t mind sharing her new abode with a few bed bugs but ticks she could not abide, as she’d seen and heard enough ticks working in the mechanism to last several lifetimes!
Scarlet thought there was no point hanging around on the thief. At least she knew the address where he lived. She could go back at a later time to rescue Tippy and the Clock People. Right now she was more worried about Wilbur and Alfie. As she ran back towards the River Thames where the paper plane and her brother were heading for, her imagination started to run as fast as her legs, wild imaginings of what may have happened to them both. Perhaps they had both drowned in the River Thames. She was two years older than Alfie, it was her responsibility to take care of him as her parents always seemed to be working in the shop. Sometimes it seemed to her as if they lived in the hat shop. How mad would that have been to live in a hat shop?! Only the Hatter would have been mad enough to live in a hat shop, she’d once joked. In some way she felt like she was Alfie’s guardian, a job she did not shy away from.
Back in days gone by the rich and famous all had men known as ‘guardians’ who looked after and repaired their expensive timepieces. The Clock Elders and Omnigus Prattles, who some saw or imagined as Father Time, felt they were the guardians of the watch and had made it their job to watch over their people to make sure they came to no harm. The thief was his own guardian, and looked out and cared for nobody but himself and his stolen timepieces.
Scarlet finally arrived at the river tired and out of breath. She scoured the river for any signs of life, hoping and praying Alfie was alive. She could not see the paper plane anywhere and trying to find Wilbur would be near impossible without a telescope or a giant magnifying glass.
As she scoured the landscape a phrase came into her head: ‘I’ve got no time for you, Alfie!’ to which he replied, ‘I’ve got no time for you either!’ The two children then both stormed out of the room in opposite directions. Alfie then came back into the room and shouted, ‘There is no such thing as “no time” and anyone who says there is no time is an idiot!’ Scarlet then stormed back into the room and replied, ‘Then you’re an idiot because you just said “I’ve got no time for you”!’ This little spat continued for quite some time until their mother heard the racket from downstairs in the shop and stormed upstairs to tell them both they needed some time apart to cool down. And until their paths crossed again in their little worlds time had ceased to be. Of course they did have time for each other, it was just wasted time in their eyes.
There was certainly no time to waste as far as Scarlet was concerned and if Alfie was already dead then there would be no time left for them to share ever again. If only Scarlet had the pocket wizard on her person, Merlin the Magician, then she could get him to cast her back in time to stop Alfie dead in his tracks before he made the wrong move. ‘Make time for me, Merlin, make time,’ mumbled Scarlet under her breath, trying some wishful thinking out in the hope someone was listening – God, the Clock God, an unseen magician of unimaginable power. Alfie was wishing he could slow his timeline down while wishing Scarlet’s timeline would speed up, thus giving him more of that precious time which for him was fast running out. If time was an illusion this was in theory possible, but only if one or both of them had the magical timepieces, which appeared to be powered by the moonlight, in their possession. Unfortunately they did not. Perhaps unbeknownst to them both, the magic was in their own heads locked inside a trunk and only they had the key to unlock it!
By this time Scarlet was frantic with worry as she hurried along the embankment stopping every so often to peer over the wall to see if she could see any signs of her brother. Then she spotted him. At first she felt a huge sigh of relief but that quickly evaporated as she saw Alfie was up to his neck in it, ‘it’ being mud and water. The truth was, Alfie was always up to his neck in it but this time the ‘it’ was literal! As Scarlet got closer she could see a tiny piece of crumpled white paper wedged in the mud. It was the paper plane. In truth it looked more like a daddy longlegs on a windowsill, its wings and legs broken in two. Scarlet was still far too far away to see if Wilbur was safe or not. She found the steps that led down to the river bank, climbed down them and rushed to her brother’s aid, crying out her brother’s name as if she were an automaton, which right now was exactly what Alfie needed to pull himself out of the black hole he had put himself in. ‘Alfie, Alfie!’
‘Scarlet, Scarlet, it’s like the storybooks when the hero turns up and saves the heroine just in the nick of time, although it appears we’ve got that back to front. No point reading a book back to front, you’d know the ending before the beginning, although I know the Chinese read backwards,’ gurgled Alfie babbling away as his life threatened to go down the drain.
‘I can’t get you out, Alfie, you’re stuck fast in the mud and the tide is rising. I can’t see Wilbur, is he alright?!’ Scarlet exclaimed tugging at Alfie’s legs. But it was useless, she wasn’t strong enough to tug him free, she needed to get help before her feet got trapped as well. Being a hero was all fine and dandy in the comic books and a real-life adventure was fine too when danger was always only a slim possibility. However, when that slim possibility became a reality, the adventure wasn’t quite so fine and dandy and nor was being a hero. Most heroes stumbled upon being a hero. Either it was their job or they were at war. Nobody in their right mind chose to put themselves in danger simply so they could say they were a hero. Heroes never talked about their acts of daring-do, that was another mark of a hero, unless someone was holding a gun to their head and they were forced into it!
‘Wilbur was standing precariously on the edge of the wing of the paper plane that is now more paper than plane but now I can’t see him. I hope he hasn’t been eaten by one of the river monsters,’ grunted Alfie trying to pull his legs out of the thick black treacle-like mud he was stuck in, without any luck.
‘I’m going to get some help, I won’t be long,’ Scarlet shouted as she extracted her feet from the mud and climbed back up the ladder to the embankment.
‘Excuse me, sir, but my brother’s in terrible trouble, he’s stuck in the mud!’ Scarlet exclaimed to a man passing by as she pointed in the direction of the river.
‘I thought you two scallywags were playing a children’s game of stuck in the mud. My children are always playing it in the back garden,’ the man replied raising his bushy eyebrows.
‘This is no game, he’s stuck fast and the tide’s rising. He’s the only brother I’ve got!’ Scarlet replied tugging the man’s arm and his heart strings at the same time.
‘Can’t have you losing your only brother, now can we? I lost my only brother in the war and it feels like I’ve lost an arm,’ the man said as his eyes started to fill with salt water. ‘Come on, my dear, we’ll have him out of the mire in no time at all.’
Within minutes Alfie was free. In truth it had taken some time but not much in this case. The time it took to rescue Alfie Potts really was more valuable than gold.
‘Thank you, mister, you saved my bacon good and proper,’ Alfie spat, talking like a character in one of the books he’d read.
‘Glad to be of service,’ the man replied wiping his brow.
‘My paper plane, I don’t want to lose it,’ Alfie cried pretending to cry real tears
. Scarlet could see they were crocodile tears. Not that you got many crocodiles on the River Thames, you got a few sharks – loan sharks but not crocodiles. The only crocodiles in London were in London Zoo or stuffed in the Museum of Mankind along with the shrunken heads from Africa.
‘It’s only a paper plane, you can always make a new one,’ the man replied trying not to smile.
‘No, this is a historic plane, it’s—’ Alfie then paused trying not to give the game away. ‘It’s the first paper plane to fly across the whole of London without having to refuel and I imagine it will end up in the Aviation Museum.’
‘That boy has some imagination,’ the man laughed.
‘His father made it for him a week before he died in a car crash,’ sobbed Scarlet also turning on the old waterworks.
‘In that case it must be saved at any cost,’ the man replied playing the game of the hero admirably.
‘Quick thinking, sis,’ beamed Alfie as the man waded in and retrieved the crumpled paper plane.
‘When in a tight spot and with a brother like you, Alfie, let’s face it I’m used to making up tales to get us out of any tight spot either one of us could dream up,’ replied Scarlet trying hard not to smile, but it was no use, she couldn’t help smiling although it was as much in relief as anything.
‘She’s flown her last, I’m afraid, but nevertheless we’ve saved her for the history books,’ the man smiled as he passed the paper plane to Alfie. Alfie didn’t want to seem rude, nearly snatching the man’s hand off as he passed it to him. He hoped Wilbur was safe and he hoped the man hadn’t seen him. But the man didn’t bat an eyelid. Alfie thanked the man and quickly turned on his heels so he had his back turned to him, which in the circumstances did seem a little rude. Alfie gently lifted the broken wing of the flying machine and much to his relief there was Wilbur lying down in what was left of the lighter-than-air machine, covered by a damp part of one of the wings. But was he breathing? Even more gently this time, like a jeweller cutting a fine diamond, he picked up a feather from a dry part of the bank and ran it over the little boy. ‘Attishoooo!’ Wilbur cried, a sneeze that even reached Alfie’s thick ears, which were about to get a whole lot thicker when his parents found out what a state he was in!
The Clock People Page 17