‘Get him!’ Billy cried as he, Scarlet and Alfie ran forward and dived on top of the thief. This was all apart from Merlin who strolled casually along the path of the hedge maze as if he had all the time in the world, which no doubt he had.
Twenty minutes later they were standing in the Clock Courtyard under the great astronomical clock. Billy was conscious that for a person, however big or small, it mattered not how big or small the clock was in their world, because it still recorded time exactly the same way, and if the clock was working properly, at the same rate. Billy imagined a clock race in the Clock Courtyard, putting all the clocks in the world in this imaginary race against time to see which one would cross the line first. In theory they should all cross the line at the same time, but then theory and reality did not abide by the same laws.
‘I wondered where you had got to,’ Scarlet said, now cool, calm and collected as the dragonfly landed upon her left shoulder.
‘Time flies,’ two little voices piped up as one.
‘Yes, I suppose it does,’ Scarlet replied winking at Aviatrix First Class Tippy Handle and Aviator First Class Wilbur Wigglesworth.
An hour later as time flew by in the blinking of an eye the Time Team of Billy, Alfie, Scarlet, Tippy and Wilbur had arrived at the thief’s home in Knightsbridge, with him in cuffs, but Merlin the Time Alchemist was nowhere to be seen.
‘What happened to Merlin?’ Billy asked looking all about him.
‘Which one?’ Scarlet smiled knowingly.
‘That’s a question I have a feeling I will never find the answer to!’ Billy quipped deciding some things were best left unexplained and best left in the storybooks, for why spoil a good or even a bad story with trifling little things like the facts?!
Billy and the other time horologists were privileged to look upon a series of the greatest timepieces ever assembled in one place, even if that place was not the Royal Greenwich Observatory but the home of a common thief. The thief did not think he was common, no, he imagined he was the Time Thief, destined in his own mind at least to become the greatest and most written about thief in the history of time itself. Two hours later for the thief time was no longer his own as he sat in the Clink, the famous – or at least infamous – jail in London.
The most valuable timepieces from history had been recovered by three children, or two children and one teenage boy, who got a reward for their efforts in both chasing down and capturing the thief without any help from the long arm of the law. It seemed the law could not stretch their forces through time and space, or so The Times newspaper was to report at the time. Perhaps if the long arm of the law had a police box at their disposal they may well have been able to chase down the Time Thief? If this story had mentioned travelling in time or contained such luminaries as Merlin the Magician and John Joseph Merlin, Harry Houdini and Sir Isaac Newton and folk who lived in a fob watch called the Clock People their story would have been labelled a fiction, as wildly absurd and devoid of facts as Alice in Wonderland and the Time Machine, although to H.G. Wells’ eternal credit he did try and throw in some science to make the story less unbelievable, whereas Lewis Carroll, the logician, did not even try. Despite the disparity between fact and fiction in these two tales of wonder, both of these stories will be read time and time again by young and old alike. And each time the reader will be transported to a world where time slows down or speeds up or disappears completely as if by magic.
Another unbelievable fact in this story was Scarlet and Alfie Potts’ parents hadn’t even noticed they were gone. When they arrived home their parents were still working, so engrossed in the task of running the shop they had no idea what the time was until it had passed and Big Ben had chimed five times.
For Scarlet and Alfie time appeared to have passed without passing, but that was time for you: an illusion, the ultimate sleight of hand trick, the hands of time.
The moon rotated around the earth like the small hand around a clock and in turn the earth rotated around the sun like the big hand of a clock. The time clock ran the universe like clockwork. It was both beautifully simple and yet unbelievable complex like the alchemy of time itself, of which Merlin the Magician was an exponent, being known to Scarlet, Billy, Alfie, Horace H. Humdinger and John Joseph Merlin as a time alchemist. The giant Earth Clock continued to run like clockwork as did the Universal Clock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick…
The end. But thankfully not the end of time, not just yet. At least still time to make the unbelievable believable and the impossible possible as the old quantum wonder tale goes. Everything you can imagine happening will happen given the passing of that little thing we humans call TIME!
Horological Time-Log
But that wasn’t quite the end, for the Time Thief would have his day in court, the Court of Time.
The judge was an old irascible grandfather clock and the jury an assortment of every clock under the sun, although there was no sun or moondials on the jury.
‘Clocks of the jury, have you made your decision?’ the grandfather clock tocked.
‘We have, My Lord,’ ticked the chairman of the jury handing the judge an envelope.
‘The judgment passed down upon you by this court is you will do your time within the mechanism of Big Ben. The sentence will be complete the day you clock off for the last time. I would just like to say it’s people like you that give the human machines a bad name. Time and time again you took the anti-clockwise path when you should have taken the clockwise path. You will have plenty of time to think about this fact in the housing of Big Ben, which is where you will serve your time. I hope you like the chimes of Big Ben’s bells, for you are going to hear a lot of them in future, that’s of course until you go stone deaf like the sun and the moondials. Please take him away and may the Clock God have mercy upon his poor misguided soul,’ the grandfather clock tocked ticking the thief off.
‘I will return, clocks are a waste of time, you’re all slaves and Old Father Time is the biggest time waster out there!’ the thief spat defiantly as he was dragged from the dock and taken down to the cells.
‘No spitting in court, can’t you read the sign? Double the sentence!’ tocked the grandfather clock pointing at the sign with his hands at twelve o’clock.
Time passed and so did the thief, or the Time Thief as he became known in all the literature and rags of the day. The Times newspaper ran a short obituary on the thief when he clocked off for the last time and was buried in an old grandfather clock in an undisclosed cemetery in the middle of nowhere.
More time passed…
‘I thought that automaton moved. I hope there’s not a ghost in the machine,’ the night watchman said to his partner looking nervously at the automaton in the corner of the Merlin Mechanical Museum.
‘You and your overactive imagination. If you will read old Penny Dreadfuls what do you expect?’ his partner sneered trying hard not to laugh.
Had the spirit of the Time Thief made an untimely return like he had threatened to do? I would imagine not but then again my imagination needs a little oiling after this unbelievable caper.
The Clock People moved into the model village just outside London and as time passed the story spread, only amongst clock folk, you understand, as they wanted their little village to remain a secret. Soon the Clock People were joined by other little folk who lived in clocks and watches and so the model village was renamed Clock Town, or at least it was by one little boy, a boy named Alfie Reginald Potts Engineer First Class. The Clock People lived the life of Riley in mansion-like houses rather than the dark and dingy clocks they were living in before. However, some of the Elders still preferred the safety of the watch. The Clock People, however, did have to learn to be discrete and careful about what time they left their houses in case the giants were in town. The clocks and watches were then only used as town clocks on a street named Clock Street, although to the Clock People they all looked li
ke the mechanical giant, Big Ben.
You may well ask how did the timepieces manage to find their way to the model village? Well, Alfie Potts showed he was quite a good time-keeper in this respect, as well as a good pickpocket. It seemed our Alfred had learnt a thing or two from watching the thief at work.
The other participants in the Clock Theatre, well, this is the story I imagined for them, although I could just as easily have made this bit up to pass the time! If you’re expecting the truth from a storyteller, let’s face it you’ll probably be waiting an awfully long time!
Tippy Handle became the Mayoress of Clock Town, and Wilbur Wigglesworth the Mayor and clock repairer of this curious town – and still hates to be called a fairy. The position of Clock Town I cannot divulge for I swore to protect the privacy of the little people, but every time you visit a model village may I suggest you bring a magnifying glass with you just in case.
Alfie Potts did not become an inventor, as the silly boy hid in a grandfather clock while playing a game of hide and seek and suffocated to death – a grim ending indeed. Still, at least Alfie had his adventure before he clocked off and he was thirty-nine at the time of this misadventure, so let’s not get all misty-eyed about the boy wonder. Furthermore, in the Greenwich Mean Time that passed before his unfortunate passing, Alfie Reginald Potts was as happy as a sandboy working as a night watchman at Merlin’s Mechanical Museum.
Scarlet Potts, well, she became a best-selling authoress, penning a curious tale about people living in a clock, a clock of all things. The things people dream up at times will make your toes curl and your hair stand on end like fairy sparks!
Scarlet Potts also ran for Parliament, becoming one of the first female MPs, giving the Welsh Wizard, Prime Minister David Lloyd George, a run for his money. However, dragons did not appear in the Houses of Parliament as if by magic where Scarlet fought her many battles with the dark wizards of that giant house of cards. But sparks most certainly did fly between the light and the dark lords, Scarlet slaying many a dragon as this house became illuminated with light. Times changed and the wheels turned as they had a mind to, causing the machinery of the giant political monster to move forward so slowly at times it was as if it wasn’t moving at all!
William Higginbottom designed a clockboat, naming it Big Ben II, taking out the mechanism of a grandfather clock and using it as a boat. William used the pendulum of the clock as an oar. Big Ben II sank on its maiden voyage and William was lost at sea, or if you prefer the truth, lost at river, that river being the River Thames. The body was never found and Scarlet was convinced Billy had faked his own death and travelled back in time to become Merlin’s apprentice – and that was John Joseph Merlin’s apprentice and not Merlin the Magician’s. Before William disappeared off the face of the Time Map his finest hour came when he foiled a plot by a group calling themselves Anarchists Against Time, who, believe it or not, believed time was the devil’s work and planned to blow up Big Ben with a time bomb. The hows, whys and wherefores of this happening I’m afraid are lost to the mists of time, and a good job too!
And Horace H. Humdinger I would imagine is still as cuckoo as a cuckoo clock and living on cloud ninety-nine in Cloud Cuckoo Land, oh and he still hasn’t finished The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens. However, he has finished ‘Master Humphrey’s Clock’ which featured in Dickens’ own periodical magazine and was the inspiration behind The Old Curiosity Shop!
Merlin – which one? Oh, the magician fellow – well, he’s up to his old tricks again travelling back and forth through the maze of time, can’t say where or when though, all terribly hush hush you understand. The great man’s time itinerary is something he keeps close to his chest or up his sleeve, if you want some semblance of the truth. And John Joseph Merlin, I hear you ask, the great clockmaker and maker of fantastical automatons, well he, I would imagine, is still living happily in the seventeenth century with Mrs Merlin and I am sure you, dear reader, are imagining the same.
Harry Houdini’s story is, I was going to say, well read but some people thought he had faked his own death like William Higginbottom! Houdini believed in life after death so perhaps he still haunts the Magic Circle and the London Ghost Club. Fact: Harry Houdini, real name Erich Weiss, died on 31st October – Halloween! Bess, his wife, held a séance every year on his birthday in the hope he would make contact. He never did.
And Princess Victoria, now you’re winding me up!
Oh, and the Clock God who reigns over the Clock Kingdom is still ticking over, just about.
The mechanism of the clockwork storybook spun into action, the wheels, cogs, hammers and follets all running in perfect time, closing the covers of the storybook The Clock People – and that is ‘of’ and not ‘on’. For we all know the Clock People did not live in a four-storey storybook, they lived in the most magical antique timepiece which doubled up as a miniature time machine. Of course the storybook could always be read and reread any time the reader so wished. All they had to do was put the key in the lock, wind the storybook up and it would open like clockwork every single time. Now, reading this story does take some time but I hope you agree any story with an ounce of imagination does.
The End
tick tock, tick tock, tick…
Other tales of a fantastique nature by
Mark Roland Langdale are as follows:
The Time Travellers Club
The (Phantasmagorical) Astrarium Compendium
Professor Doppelganger and the Fantastical Cloud Factory
The Night Maze and the Looking Glass Girl (Nocturne Chronicles)
Hester, Huckleberry and the Sugar House Hauntings
Imaginescape (The Last of the Great Imagineers) – book to follow The Clock People)
The Magic Lantern Theatre (out later)
The Clock People Page 32