38
Time… Magic or Illusion?
‘Where are we?’ Alfie asked trying to unscramble his brains which felt as if somebody had put them in a cocktail shaker and shaken them up violently. ‘We’ve not moved at all, we’re still here!’
‘Yes, we’re still here in a manner of speaking and alive and well thankfully, and you’re right, little brother, in the respect we’re in the same place, not moved a muscle, it’s just we are not in the same time. I’d say the time is 1st December 1761, seven thirty-eight Greenwich Mean Time precisely, as I would imagine does our guide the dragonfly, Mother Nature’s time warper. Historically speaking this is the time of Sir Isaac Newton and Merlin, and I say this as Big Ben cannot as yet speak for itself,’ Scarlet said looking over to Big Ben which she imagined winked at her. Of course it didn’t, because in this time it hadn’t been built, ‘although perhaps one day in the future a giant speaking clock may be possible, oh and that’s the watchmaker John Joseph Merlin and not the magician Merlin, just in case you were letting your imagination carry you even further down the timeline, little brother,’ Scarlet said with clock-like precision, and then she stopped as she watched the real dragonfly spread its four translucent paper-thin wings and disappear off into the night at a speed she imagined to be faster than the speed of light. For an instant she imagined the dragonfly to have translucent wings made of moonstone and perhaps, as it appeared to be magical, that was indeed the curious case.
Scarlet wondered if the dragonfly had gone back to her timeline or whether it was still in this time watching out for them. She also wondered if it was the dragonfly, the Time Warper, that had guided them through time or if a compass had been built into the watch, an invisible one, a time compass. Perhaps this was the case of Cole’s Compendium and Sir Francis Drake had used it to circumnavigate his way through space-time on the back of a giant wave. Here Scarlet was imagining Drake’s vessel as a complicated piece of machinery, a wooden timepiece in the shape of a ship that worked exactly like clockwork. Naturally none of this made even the slightest bit of sense, however Scarlet comforted herself with the fact that nor did the cosmological oceans or the universe!
‘And the next move is?’ Billy said trying to find a new way of saying ‘what next?’ and ‘where do we go from here?’
‘Queen castles the rook with the help of the king and the pawns. I would imagine that is the move the chess-playing Turk would make, or to put it another way, we need to find out where John Joseph Merlin lives, for that is where our Time Thief is heading, either that or he’s heading for the original maker of the antique watch where Wilbur, Tippy and the Clock People live. Perhaps John Joseph Merlin is the original watchmaker or perhaps he knows who is or was and where he lived,’ Scarlet said babbling like a magical brook in an enchanted forest. She appeared to be thinking along the same lines as a dragonfly, as her mind darted here, there and everywhere, cherry-picking scraps of information from her brain along the way. In a way her mind was ticking over like a cross between Charles Babbage’s analytical and difference engines or her heroine Countess Ada Lovelace, the Countess of Computing. Perhaps her heroine Ada Lovelace was an automaton created by Charles Babbage? Now that really was a preposterous notion!
Scarlet imagined she was going through the same metamorphosis a caterpillar did before becoming a butterfly, as here she thinks of the term, ‘the butterfly effect’, except in this case it appears to be ‘the dragonfly effect’. In truth she wouldn’t have minded being cocooned within a warm pod protecting her from the world – that and she badly needed some sleep. Sleep deprivation often played tricks on the mind and her mind needed to be as clear as a crystal ball if she were to catch the Time Thief and return Wilbur, Tippy and the Clock People to the watch’s original owner, or at least the original owner in their time. Scarlet had no idea who the prince and princess were who originally owned the watches. Maybe in time she would. She half imagined they belonged to Czar Nicholas II and Czarina Alexandra of the Romanov family who had been so cruelly assassinated along with their children in the early part of the twentieth century.
Scarlet felt this was the quest she had been born for, this was her time. She smiled to herself. In time she would make a good storyteller. One day she’d tell her story, this story, but she’d hide the truth in plain sight in a storybook of a fantastical nature! She wouldn’t start the story, ‘Once upon a time’, that was too predictable. She’d use the old Brothers Grimm opening, ‘Back in the olden times when wishing was still effective’. It appeared at this moment in time wishing was very effective, very effective indeed!
*
To the Clock People it mattered not where or what time they were in, as, like a child, they lived in their own little world, in a bubble behind a wall of glass seemingly unaffected by either the passing of time or the mechanisms or machinations of the outside world. As long as their own little world ran like clockwork they were as happy as a sandboy. Unlike the giant with its complicated inner mechanism, the minds of the little people were as simple to figure out as was a candle clock to its maker.
39
The Battle of the Clock Gods
‘Tippy, it’s Tippy, we thought you’d been eaten by, by any number of beastly things with long hairy legs, large feelers and great big mouths full to the brim with razor-sharp teeth,’ a young girl cried letting her imagination run wild.
‘Tippy, you’re safe, thank the Clock Gods!’ Mrs Handle exclaimed as tears streamed down her face.
‘Don’t let the Clock God hear you say that, he won’t like competition. Gods are an egotistical bunch at the worst of times!’ Omnigus Prattles exclaimed imagining a royal battle between the Clock Gods. Deep, deep down Omnigus was glad to see his apprentice was intact, mind you, that may well have been because he didn’t have to train up another apprentice, as the whole process was time-consuming in the extreme.
‘Is Wilbur with you, is he?’ pleaded Mrs Wigglesworth, her face twitching like an otter. She looked past Tippy expecting Wilbur to appear from behind his beautiful assistant at any moment, as if in a conjuring trick. Alas he did not.
‘No, I’m sorry he’s not here, he’s—’ Tippy hesitated for a few seconds not sure what she should tell people and what she should not: ‘He’s temporarily indisposed, he’s living in a giant dolls’ house, he’s living in a toy castle.’ However, she didn’t say any of these tall fairytales, preferring to stick to a rough semblance of the truth: ‘He’s out there somewhere and the last time I saw him he was alive and in good health.’
‘When will he be here?’ Mr Wigglesworth pressed for a more in-depth answer as he joined his wife.
‘Never mind all that, my girl, where did you disappear to and why were you absent from your apprentice duties for so long? That’s what I want to know and so do the Elders on the council, I would imagine,’ a red-faced Omnigus Prattles demanded, close to combusting right there on the spot.
‘Now please, no more questions, the girl must be tired from her travels, we should be welcoming her back with open arms not interrogating her,’ snapped an old man not wanting Tippy to turn tail and abscond for the second time and maybe this time she would not return. Not all of the Elders of the clock community thought of the outside world as a bad place. Some had seen the wonders of the outside world, this man was one. When he was young he would have liked to have seen more, but like Tippy he had been warned off travelling to the land of the giants, told stories of how others had been eaten by insects, died horrible deaths, all in a bid to stop him leaving. Now some of these lurid tales had been true, but most were nothing but fairytales and ones of a grim nature at that!
Tippy Handle was taken by her parents to a quiet place through a series of winding labyrinthine tunnels to somewhere deep within the housing of the mechanism, a place only known by the Elders. Here it was said she would get time to rest and recuperate from her terrible ordeal while in the outside world. The truth was it was in th
e bowels of the mechanism that she would have to face the ordeal of the council and the Clock Elders. She was hardly facing a firing squad, something dear little Alfie had told her about and more besides, stories that would make your hair stand on end like fairy sparks and your toes curl, horror stories that would make any sane person run home as fast as their little legs would carry them.
But after a while Tippy realised they were simply stories and there were as many wonder tales as there were tales of horror in the land of the giants. In fact there were far more tales of wonder: Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass, for two. Both of these wonder tales Scarlet had read to Wilbur and Tippy to send them off to sleep, which was far better than the stories Alfie told them which were guaranteed to give you nightmares or your money back!
A few days later Tippy was escorted to a large poorly illuminated room by two of the Clock Elders dressed in long black robes which made them look like shadows. In the centre of the sparsely decorated room stood a long oak table where ten of the Clock Elders were seated bathed in shadows. At each end of the table behind an Elder two grandfather clocks stood as if keeping a record of the passing of time in the room, as if outside the room time did not exist. Tippy was led to a hard leather-backed chair a few feet from that table and told unceremoniously to sit down and not to speak until spoken to. The old men glared at her not saying a word, then two of the older men whispered to one another before one of the men finally broke the silence.
‘Is your name Apprentice Tippy Handle Second Class?’ enquired an Elder rather abruptly.
‘No, it’s Apprentice Tippy Handle First Class,’ Tippy replied putting on a brave face, as she already felt like she was on trial.
‘Please address the Elders with the respect they deserve, for the time they have put into this community,’ another Elder coughed just as abruptly.
‘How shall I address the Elders? Like the White Queen in the Chronicles of Alice, I suppose,’ Tippy snapped feeling a little braver and, after all, she had faced the outside world and survived. She wondered how many of the Elders had been brave enough to do such a daring thing and she was not much more than a child.
‘We don’t want to hear stories unless they are true. Now please stick to the facts, Apprentice Handle. Why did you leave the clock without permission and where did you spend your time while you were away?’
Tippy wanted to make a joke about being away with the fairies but she could see by the looks upon the Elders’ faces that would simply have fallen on deaf ears, especially as most of them were hard of hearing from spending all their lives in the mechanism. ‘Well, here’s the rub of it,’ Tippy said talking like a market trader in the East End of London, ‘me and my fellow Apprentice Second Class, Wilburforce Wigglesworth Esquire, could not sleep because we heard an aberration, a sound outside the mechanism that made us think we were under attack. So like the dutiful apprentices we are we ventured outside onto the face of the watch protected by the glass dome. So you see we thought no harm would befall us. And here’s where the rub part comes into it,’ said Tippy drawing breath as the Elders looked at her in amazement over their half-moon spectacles. She wanted to laugh out loud at this comical sight but she kept her counsel, as through her eyes all the Elders had turned into owls. These owls were wearing black cloaks and funny-shaped triangular hats with tassles on them as if they were academics at a top public school like Eton or Harrow. ‘Yes, the rub of it,’ Tippy replied firmly feeling the need to rub her aching feet before continuing with the tale. ‘Now where was I? Oh yes, the rub, you see a face of a giant appeared in the glass and picked up our home and shook it so hard we fell out. The next thing we knew we were in a place so big we imagined it must be heaven. Of course it wasn’t, it was the outside world, London, to get the story in some sort of order from the disorder it may well be in due to me falling upon my pretty little head!’
Lots of shaking of heads, shifting of bottoms and ‘Well I nevers!’ filled the dusty room as Tippy began to weave her tale of half truths and complete fabrications. Her father had always told her a lie was best hidden between two truths so right there and then she decided to adapt that saying by hiding the lie – fairytale – between two half truths. It was best for all concerned if she did so. The truth of the matter was the Elders would never believe it if she told them the truth, but then again they would never believe she had been doing nothing all this time. A child doing absolutely nothing, well, it was a wonder tale right out of a storybook and one nobody in their right mind would swallow!
‘Miss Handle, you need to get a grip of yourself, this childish behaviour is not what one expects from an Apprentice Second Class. And furthermore it’s not the sort of behaviour one expects from an Apprentice Third Class let alone Second Class. And furthermore to that furthermore, if you expect to rise to an Apprentice First Class, as you clearly imagine yourself to be, then you had better smarten yourself up!’ one of the Elders muttered, a scornful expression on his haggard-looking dial. None of the Elders appeared to have names and certainly nobody in the mechanism knew them or would recognise them if they bumped into them.
‘Get a grip handle, Handle, get it, you made a joke, give yourself a pat on the back. Now look, I’ve got a very good handle on things, however it appears to me you bunch of grumpy old men are living in the past and have difficulty handling the truth. Times have changed, which living in a watch I would have thought you would have understood and you’re still living in the dark ages. Furthermore you’re forcing us to stay in those dark ages, I mean, look at this room for instance, it’s as black as a vampire’s coffin! It’s medieval, that’s what it is, medieval!’ exclaimed Tippy telling it like it was or at least like she wanted it to be.
‘I fear the child’s mind no longer works like clockwork, in fact it barely works at all, the wheels of her mind are either running fast or slow or both. In time they may well stop altogether. The outside world has broken her mind beyond repair. At best she will be reduced to the most menial work in the mechanism, carrying water and oil to the apprentices as they work. She will not be fit for anything more taxing than that. And at worst, well, I fear the worst for the child, I really do!’ One of the eldest Elders puffed shaking his head in a sorrowful manner.
One Elder turned to another in the room and whispered, ‘I once heard a tale from the world outside many, many moons since passed about a mechanism, a complication they called an automaton, a storytelling machine. You don’t think this is such a machine sent back to spy on us?’
‘Not much of a machine if it doesn’t work like clockwork,’ the second Elder whispered his reply.
‘But what if the maker is so clever, so devious, he had factored that into the mechanism so as to make it seem more human?’ the first Elder replied in an even quieter whisper.
‘Poppycock, it’s probably one of our own stories. We’ve made up so many stories over the years to scare the young into not leaving the mechanism, yes, a story and nothing more,’ the Elder of the two Elders snorted dismissively.
Twenty minutes later both the grandfather clocks in the room agreed it was time for the meeting of the Clock Council to adjourn as they chimed as one, for the time being at least. Tippy agreed wholeheartedly with the old clocks as she quickly wrapped up her story, tying it in a neat imaginary moon bow.
‘And that is the story, the whole story, and nothing but the story, so help me Hans Christian Andersen,’ then under her breath as she sank into the chair she added ‘although I think, in truth, I’m going to need the help of the Clock God by the looks on your sulky wizened old faces, along with the gods too I would imagine. And as for the whole story, you haven’t heard the half of it. Oh and before I clock off, gentlemen, here’s a little humour to lighten the mood: “Can time be weighed?” And you’re supposed to say, “I don’t know, can time be weighed?” To which I reply, and here’s the funny bit, wait for it, wait for it, drum roll, “Of course time can be weighed, wei
ghed on a timescale”, loud crash of the cymbal to punctuate joke with an invisible exclamation mark! Round of applause for Tippy Handle, the funniest girl in the world or at least in the clock which, let’s face it, isn’t saying much,’ cried Tippy clapping herself as she bowed to her captive audience who she imagined were in a graveyard attending a funeral – their own! ‘Now how long that timescale is, well, I think I’d need a little help from Pythagoras, Archimedes or Countess Ada Lovelace to calculate it,’ Tippy added finally finishing her standup routine… as time once more stood still in Tippy Handle’s small world.
40
Courting Disaster!
Tock… ‘Thank you, Apprentice Handle, we will let you know the outcome of this meeting and the punishment you will face for disobeying the orders of the Clock Elders. And perhaps there will be an extra punishment for speaking out of turn and attempting to hold court, as you should have known to do such a foolish thing is courting disaster!’ grunted the Head Elder looking so stern Tippy felt certain she would be hung upside down like a badly hung painting, drawn badly by an artist who would never hang in the Royal Gallery! ‘Hold court, they must be joking. Do they think they are King Henry VIII shacked up at Hampton Court with all his sycophants?!’
Clearly the Elders could not see. They could barely see in front of their own faces and seemed more than happy to cut off their own noses to spite their own wizened faces! The Elders were the judges, the jury and perhaps the executioners as well. Only time would tell on that score!
The Clock People Page 24