The Clock People

by Mark Roland Langdale

  Tippy drew a large breath and climbed back into the watch through the pinhole in the top of the winding mechanism. There she would be in the relative safety of the clock face under the glass dome and where she would rest before climbing back into the watch and facing the music. She heard the chiming of the clock face – music to her ears. This made her smile. She hoped the Clock People would be smiling when they saw her again. ‘Listen to yourself, Tippy Handle, you’re making it sound like you’re going to prison rather than escaping from the giant!’ she said chastising herself. The truth was that once the genie was out of the bottle that once to him seemed like a glass palace, he didn’t want to return to the bottle which now he saw as a glass prison. Freedom was a mighty powerful thing. Tippy wondered if she was doing the right thing. Perhaps instead of returning home she should try and find Wilbur? No, she knew she needed to return home even if that home became a prison that she would never be able to escape from. Here Tippy imagines she is Rapunzel trapped in the tower, then she imagines being trapped in a book of fairytales as the large wooden covers of the book creak then close and her story is at an end… ‘Tick tick, everything’s tickety boo!’ cried the ghost as it snuck out of the storybook unnoticed…

  29

  The Further Misadventures of the Time Wasters

  ‘Alfie, get up, get up!’ cried Scarlet shaking her brother from his slumbers as the clock restarted on The Further Misadventures of the Time Wasters.

  ‘Get up, but I’ve just gone to bed! Is this a nightmare? I specifically recall asking the Sandman for a dream not a nightmare,’ Alfie grunted turning back over and trying to get back off to sleep.

  ‘We need to go and rescue Tippy and the little people. Look, Wilbur’s here!’ Scarlet exclaimed holding out her hand as if doing a magic trick as Wilbur appeared in the palm of her hand. ‘Come on, Alfie, the adventure’s back on!’ Wilbur cried, although Alfie couldn’t hear a word he was yelling. Scarlet feared she may need the help of Big Ben ringing in her brother’s ears to wake him from his slumbers. Scarlet tried hard not to imagine her brother in a glass coffin like Snow White, as she didn’t want to tempt fate or tempt the gods.

  ‘Come on, sleepy head, heroes don’t have time for little things like sleep!’ Scarlet yelled poking her brother with an umbrella.

  ‘In that case I’ll be a sleepwalking hero, how’s that for a turn up for the old storybooks? Now why don’t you use that umbrella as a way of breaking your fall when I get out of this bed and throw you out the window!’ Alfie growled pretending to talk in his sleep.

  ‘That’s it, Alfie, good to see you haven’t lost your sense of humour, little brother, now up and at ’em, as they say!’

  ‘No, I haven’t lost that yet but give it time and lack of sleep and I’m sure I soon will!’ Alfie groaned as he sat up like a zombie and stumbled out of bed.

  The Three would-be Musketeers sneaked out of the house and onto the street. The lamplighters had snuffed out most of the gaslights on the street, but as luck would have it the giant lamplighter, the Man in the Moon, was on duty to save the day, sorry, night.

  ‘I hope night doesn’t fall on our heads. Night is always falling in storybooks, it’s just a minor miracle nobody’s been hurt yet, well, all apart from Chicken Little and he always was a big chicken!’ Alfie said trying to raise a smile as he rubbed his sore eyes.

  Suddenly a young man ran their way followed by a constable. Scarlet could see by the look on the young man’s face he was petrified. She didn’t know why, perhaps it was a woman’s intuition, but she thought the boy had a kindly face and wasn’t the kind to get into trouble and she had plenty of experience of trouble dealing with her troublesome brother, Young Raffles – Young Rascal more like!

  ‘Quick, quick, in here!’ cried Scarlet manhandling the boy into the alleyway in a rough manner.

  The boy did not argue or think the Ripper was at hand, pressing his back up against the wall as the constable thundered by, his big thudding concrete boots echoing along the street. By the shadow he cast upon the wall of the rows of houses it looked as if he really was a giant and not a friendly or a gentle giant by the grim look upon his face.

  ‘Thanks, miss, you saved my bacon,’ the young man puffed trying to stand upright.

  ‘Think nothing of it, I’m used to saving people’s bacon,’ Scarlet replied looking at Alfie with a quizzical eye.

  ‘No, I think a lot of it. My name’s Billy, although not the outlaw Billy the Kid. I’m not a thief, I swear, just in the wrong place at the wrong time. A brick was thrown through a goldsmith’s window and I just happened to be walking along when it happened. Talk about bad luck. If I didn’t have bad luck, miss, I wouldn’t have any luck at all!’ bemoaned the young man looking downcast.

  ‘What are you doing out at this time of night? Shouldn’t you be tucked up in bed?’ Scarlet enquired resting her hand on the young man’s arm as if she were imagining she was Florence Nightingale and the boy a wounded soldier.

  ‘Yes I should!’ spat Alfie nodding his head theatrically.

  ‘It’s a long story,’ the young man replied sounding world-weary.

  ‘I like stories,’ Scarlet said telling the truth.

  ‘Well, here goes, my life story in short. It’s not a sweet one, I’m afraid. I was an apprentice watchmaker at Goldsworth and Goldsworth, a family firm of jewellers that have been in London since the dawn of time or so I’d imagine. I got the sack for stealing a watch but I never did it, I tell you, I was framed,’ the young man said pleading his case.

  ‘A watchmaker, that’s fortunate and quite a coincidence,’ Scarlet mused.

  Scarlet then proceeded to tell the young man her story and that of the people of the clock as she watched the wonder in his face grow with every tick of the giant clock that stood nearby – that of Big Ben.

  ‘That’s quite some tall story, mind you, it’s better than some of the old Penny Dreadfuls I’ve read under the bedsheets at night, the bedsheets in my unfortunate case being discarded newspapers as now I sleep on the streets since I lost my job!’

  ‘Look, I know we don’t know you very well but I trust you – that and we desperately need your help, someone who is streetwise and older than us. So I’m going to show you something, something you won’t believe,’ Scarlet continued.

  ‘Not much point showing him if he’s not going to believe it,’ Alfie sniffed, not being able to help himself. Scarlet just ignored him and reaching into her pocket she produced a snuffbox and rested it in the palm of her hand.

  ‘Street magic. I like magic. Once saw Harry Houdini at the Empire Theatre, never seen nothing like it since.’

  ‘Well, I think this might even beat the Great Harry Houdini’s act. Now look closely, very closely,’ said Scarlet using the patter of an experienced stage magician as she stepped out of the shadows into the moonlight. Ever so slowly she opened the lid of the snuffbox and, as if by the magic of the moonlight, Wilbur appeared like a cross between a jack-in-the-box and a genie in a bottle. As the lid opened a little tune could be heard from the magic box which wafted around the ears of the young man as if it were a lullaby sending him into a state of bliss. That was until the bliss was shattered as the young man gazed at what to him looked like an insect.

  ‘A spider, no, no, that’s a beetle!’ exclaimed Billy squinting at the object, whatever it may be, in a curious manner.

  ‘Think you’re going to need this,’ Alfie piped up producing a pair of watchmaker’s scopical glasses out of his pocket and handing them to Billy.

  ‘Crikey, a fairy, and we’re nowhere near Kew Gardens!’ Billy exclaimed almost falling backwards in amazement.

  ‘I wish people wouldn’t keep calling us fairies. I’ve got nothing against fairies, it’s just I’m not one of them!’ sighed Wilbur shaking his head theatrically as if he were on stage rather than in the palm of a child’s hand. Actually he was beginning to feel like an
exhibit, a new species in a glass cabinet at a meeting of the Zoological Society in London.

  ‘Did it speak?’ muttered Billy, a look of wonder on his face.

  ‘Oh it spoke alright. What it said is anyone’s guess. My guess, for what it’s worth, is not worth repeating unless you don’t mind a bit of cussing!’ joked Alfie playing the role of the court jester, a role he was born to play.

  ‘I, I can’t believe my eyes, they must be playing tricks on me, they must be. I can’t imagine this is real. I must be under a spell, in fact I think I may need a spell on Sigmund Freud’s couch after this,’ cried Billy babbling like a raving lunatic.

  ‘That’s what I said practically word for word,’ Alfie muttered lying through his teeth. Billy just stood there mouth agape, shaking his head, his eyes as wide as saucers as if to show he didn’t believe what he was seeing.

  ‘In this case no imagination is required, not a gram or an ounce of it. I swear on a stack of bibles what you are seeing is true. This is no cheap magic trick, not even a fantastical trick of the moonlight!’ replied Scarlet holding Wilbur up to the moon as if she were offering the Moon Goddess a sacrifice.

  ‘This is going to take some time to get my head around.’

  ‘Look, try and think of it like this, Billy, there are many different species on this planet, on land, sea and air. And think of how many different species of monkey there are, both large and small, and we originally derived from the apes. Then there’s the universe. How weird and wonderful it is that it makes Alice’s Wonderland no more magical than Hyde Park. Perhaps in time we will grow as large as giants,’ Scarlet added trying to make the extraordinary appear ordinary – a nice trick in the right hands, I’ll be bound. However, in the wrong hands, that of a time thief, well, it didn’t bare dwelling upon for too long.

  ‘When you put it like that, but there are no giants, please tell me you don’t know any giants, gentle or otherwise,’ Billy pleaded.

  ‘Giants are storybook nonsense although of course there are giants way up there,’ Scarlet said pointing into the sky.

  ‘Flying giants?!’ Billy exclaimed looking up nervously.

  ‘Yes, of course, the star giants Orion, Hercules, the Gemini Twins then there is the giant black dragon Draco and the giant sea creature Cetus, and that’s just the tip of the giant iceberg. After all, according to the stargazers like Galileo and Copernicus, this universe is as cold as ice and like the Atlantic Ocean just as black and unforgiving,’ Scarlet added with a star-like twinkle in her eye, as if she imagined London as a giant planetarium. A year on this piece of amusing amusings from a child would make her sound as if she had a crystal ball in her head, as there was a titanic disaster waiting to befall a ship in the black mirror-like waters of earth’s oceans that was said to be unsinkable – Royal Mail steamer Titanic.

  ‘And that’s where I hope they’ll stay, on Star Street in the heavens above and not Star Street in London!’ Billy exclaimed, managing a weak crescent-moon smile, one more watery than silvery or golden.

  ‘Right, we need to move on, time is of the essence!’ Scarlet exclaimed walking quickly on as the others followed. ‘Oh sorry, how rude of me, my name’s Scarlet, this is my brother Alfie and he’s Wilbur. Sorry for talking for you, Wilbur, but it’s easier that way.’

  ‘My name’s William Higginbottom, Billy to my friends,’ William replied, his voice tailing off to almost a whisper as he finished the second part of his surname, which to the ear made it sound as if his name was Billy Higgin and not Higginbottom.

  ‘Well, Billy, pleased to make your acquaintance,’ said Scarlet offering Billy her hand, but not in marriage you understand for she was still too young and too independent-minded. In her strong-willed mind Scarlet was already a member of the Young Suffering-Jet Party.

  ‘Likewise,’ Billy said shaking Scarlet’s hand firmly.

  ‘You see that house over there, Billy, well that’s where the thief is staying and we need to break in. Can you help us?’ Scarlet asked resting her hand on the young man’s arm.

  ‘One good turn deserves another, so yes, I imagine I can.’

  Then just as they were going to cross to the other side of the street to where the thief was staying he came out of the door of the house. Perhaps it had always been written this way in the Moonlight Theatre, perhaps?

  ‘Get back, back, get back, it’s the thief, he’s coming out,’ Scarlet snapped beckoning Alfie and Billy the Kid to go back to the side of the street they had just come from. ‘We’ve got to tail him, come on, but stay in the shadows. If he sees us he’s bound to get suspicious!’

  So with Wilbur tucked up safely in the musical snuffbox and Alfie and Billy by her side Scarlet bravely led them all into the phantom that was the night. By this time the simple thief had become known in the Penny Dreadfuls and Penny Peculiars by the moniker, The Thief, or by the nickname of Jewels. Scarlet, leading from the front, followed the thief through one winding maze-like street after the other, which to all of them at times felt like they were lost in a four-dimensional time maze set in London Town. Eventually, weary and heavy of mind, body and soul, they found themselves outside the Greenwich Royal Observatory… tick tock, tick…

  30

  Whatever Happened to Greenwich Mean Time?!

  ‘What’s he up to?’ muttered Alfie, more than a little short-tempered.

  ‘He’s just hanging around. Perhaps he’s waiting for his accomplice or waiting for a hansom cab,’ Scarlet replied.

  ‘Yes and when his accomplice arrives they are going to break into the Clock Museum in Greenwich. There are hundreds of expensive timepieces in there, literally hundreds,’ Billy grunted crouching down by a tree.

  ‘The rascal, he’s making Raffles look like an amateur,’ Alfie hissed, not far from booing and throwing rotten fruit at the rotten scoundrel as if he were in the pit at the Globe Theatre in Shakespeare’s time.

  ‘Sshhhh,’ spat Scarlet almost as loudly as if she were in a library. Even Scarlet could not imagine London as a vast open-air library, it was far too noisy for that!

  ‘Why does he keep looking up at the moon then down to his feet and what is he holding in his hand?’ Billy muttered looking puzzled.

  ‘Maybe he’s a werewolf or a vampire or the Phantom of Old London Town, a changeling, the Shadow Wind in human form, Spring-Heeled Jack. Pick a villain, any villain!’ cackled Alfie making a blood-curdling cry.

  ‘Let me stop you right there, little brother, before you come to Jack the Ripper, may he rot in hell as my mother says. Sorry for cussing!’ snapped Scarlet putting her hand over Alfie’s big mouth.

  A large dark puffy cobweb-like cloud curtain slowly passed across the face of the moon as if to signal act one in the Luna Theatre had come to a close. The thief wished this curtain would quickly pass by, as if he stood much longer on this spot passers-by would think he was one of the many statues that littered London, as would the pigeons too! Then, as if purely by the power of thought alone, the dark cloud opened revealing a giant luminescent crystal ball hanging in the heavens on invisible threads. The moon’s rays cut through the atmosphere like a lightning bolt, as if directly centering their attention on the glass moonstone face of the fob watch.

  Scarlet reached into her pocket and pulled out the snuffbox so Wilbur could see what was going on – there was nothing worse than being kept in the dark. Alice knew this better than most in her underground world. How long had the White Rabbit kept her in the dark before telling her the time? Frankly it was difficult to tell, as time appeared to have no meaning in Wonderland. How the logician and master magician and illusionist of the written word, Lewis Carroll, would have loved this puzzle. Gazing into the antique silver art deco mirror clock upon the wall he would have mused, ‘Time is infinitely more complex than even the great Leonardo da Vinci’s mind.’ Then the great storyteller climbed into the mirror clock and disappeared into time itself as the mirr
or clock shattered into a million tiny fragments.

  ‘Why is he holding his hand out? Is he feeding the pigeons?’ mumbled Alfie trying to get a better look from behind the tree.

  ‘Alfie, be careful, he may see us,’ Scarlet hissed.

  ‘He’s holding out a watch!’ Billy exclaimed slightly bemused by what was happening before his eyes. It was as if he were trying to work out the trick before it had happened. This prompted Scarlet to take the snuffbox out of her pocket and open up the lid in automaton-like fashion so that Wilbur could see what was going on.

  ‘It’s the watch, my home,’ Wilbur cried as he jumped out of the snuffbox like a jack-in-the-box. But nobody heard a word he said, as his whisper-like voice was literally snuffed out by the musical snuffbox. Wilbur imagined if he had stayed in the box much longer his life would have been snuffed out. Snuff was alright in small doses but too much snuff, well, it was enough to blow your nose right off its hinges!

  Then the thief disappeared into thin air.

  ‘Where did he go? Another trick of the moonlight, each one better than the last!’ exclaimed Billy rubbing his tired eyes.

  ‘He, he disappeared into thin air as, I imagine, has time,’ cried Scarlet standing up and rushing to the spot where the thief had been standing not a moment ago, literally one moment in time, a second not even a second, a split second like splitting the atom. This moment was even beyond Max Planck Time and that was split so many times it almost vanished completely.

  ‘He’s the Invisible Man, it’s not just a story and as for time disappearing, well, I can’t imagine such a thing but if for one minute your wild theory has some merit then I have to ask the question: whatever happened to Greenwich Mean Time?!’ Alfie exclaimed as if in the blinking of an eye he had grown up into a responsible member of the scientific community. This, in all honesty, was immeasurably better than growing up to become a mad scientist. This certainly was fast becoming the adventure to end all adventures, one both man and boy would find hard to replicate!