The Lost Track of Time
Page 12
Penelope looked away from the clock and watched the scenery instead. By
now the highway had turned into a twenty-lane expressway. All the cars they
passed were either black or white, depending on their size. Officer X merged
into a special lane reserved for police, and soon they were moving at high speed,
leaving the traffic behind in a blur. Penelope read the billboards whizzing past.
IDLENESS IS THE GREATEST PRODIGALITY.
LOST TIME IS NEVER FOUND AGAIN.
ALL THINGS ARE EASY TO INDUSTRY,
ALL THINGS DIFFICULT TO SLOTH.
Oh, shut up, thought Penelope. There was something irritatingly familiar
about these sayings. She glanced back up at the clock tower. Just to check the time,
she told herself. Penelope could only see one clock face, but it seemed to be
staring right at her. The second hand . . .
22 . . . 23 . . . 24 . . .
moved beautifully around . . .
25 . . . 26 . . . 27 . . .
and around.
Penelope scrunched her eyes and gave her head a quick shake. She leaned
back in the seat and tried to erase the image of the clock tower from her mind.
Dill had said staring at the tower would reset her internal clock. But what
exactly was an internal clock? She remembered a painting she had seen in a
book. There was a clock that looked like it was made of Silly Putty. It hung
draped over a tree limb, almost ready to slide off onto the ground. Is that what
my internal clock looks like? she wondered. Penelope didn’t think so. Her clock had
wings, she decided. Instead of a nasty beeping alarm, it tickled her when it was
time to go somewhere.
Just then Dill put his hand on her shoulder. “We’re here,” he whispered.
Something about the way he said “here” made Penelope’s throat constrict.
Before she could take a good look out the window, the car came to an abrupt
halt and Officer X hopped out. “Let’s go!” he snapped.
Dill and Penelope stepped out of the car and into a dark terminal. The
terminal had a low concrete ceiling and concrete walls to match. On each wall
a large metal clock chipped away the time, filling the air with its ticking.
Everywhere Penelope looked, she saw men and women in identical blue
coveralls and hats moving stiffly in and out of dark gray doors.
“Where are we?” she asked.
Officer X turned to look at her, a menacing glare in his eyes. “We’re in the
clock tower, young lady. It’s time for you to get busy.”
Officer X escorted Dill and Penelope to a counter at the far end of the terminal.
A few people stopped to stare at them and Dill smiled and nodded politely. “For
goodness’ sake, stop that!” scolded Officer X. “This isn’t a parade.” He tried to
glare up at Dill, but he was too short. He ended up glaring at Dill’s belt buckle,
which didn’t do much to improve his mood.
At the counter, Officer X was officially assigned to Dill and Penelope’s
case and given a stack of forms to fill out. After each one
was properly signed, stamped, and filed, Officer X
turned and pointed to a set of double doors to
their right. “March!”
Penelope didn’t feel the least bit
like marching, but she followed Dill’s
lead and marched all the same.
chapter thirteen
Dill’s legs were so long he reached the doors first. “Stop!” Officer X
screamed at him and ran to catch up. He arrived with a red face and his shirt
untucked. “Forget marching.” He rearranged his uniform and badge and then
pushed past Dill. He brought out a large set of keys, found the right one, and
the doors opened with a groan.
Inside was a long, dimly lit hallway filled with doors. Each door was
exactly like the others except for the sign posted above it. “Crime Units!”
declared Officer X, pointing at the signs. “Dawdling, Dillydallying, Feet
Dragging, Frittering, Lollygagging, and Puttering. Never forget,” he said, fix-
ing them both with a stare, “the Clockworkers of the Realm are everywhere,
protecting the populace against the evils of time wasters.”
One of the doors swung open and Penelope caught a glimpse inside.
Rows and rows of desks filled a long room. Men and women dressed in identical
blue coveralls sat upright at the desks. They looked exactly like the people
Penelope had seen in the terminal. They were all typing in unison. Click-clack.
Click-clack. Click-clack. They struck each key at precisely the same time. How
did they do that? Penelope wondered, before the door closed and the scene
vanished.
At the end of the hall, another set of double doors waited for them.
As they approached, the doors slid open with a hiss to reveal a cavernous
courtroom. Low fixtures dropped yellow pools of light on a massive podium
at the far end of the room. Two figures sat expectantly at the podium. Their
nameplates read
judge just right and judge just so. An enormous 60-second
stopwatch hung on the wall behind the judges. Under the stopwatch a sign
declared:
justice in under a minute.
The judges perked up at the sight of the new arrivals. “Don’t just stand
there, we don’t have all day,” screeched Judge Just So.
“Time’s a-wasting,” shrieked Judge Just Right, motioning Dill and
Penelope to approach.
Once they were standing in front of the judges, Dill spoke up. “Your
Honors . . .”
“Silence,” barked Judge Just So and slammed her gavel on the
podium.
Bam!
“Silence,” repeated Judge Just Right and slammed her gavel.
Bam!
“I said, Silence!” Bam! Bam!
“I said, SILENCE!”
Bam! Bam! Bam!
The two judges shouted and banged until both of their faces were red.
This might have gone on all day if Officer X hadn’t cleared his throat with
a cough.
The banging stopped. The gavels hung in the air.
“Well,” said Judge Just Right, “speak up.”
Officer X stepped forward, his chest outthrust. “These two citizens were
caught idling at an intersection on the outskirts of Chronos City.”
Judge Just Right fixed Dill with a stare. “And what do you have to say for
yourself?”
“Your Honors,” Dill said again, this time with a deep bow, “we were
simply eating breakfast when —”
“Likely story!” screamed Judge Just Right.
Bam! went the gavel.“As for
you, young lady,” she said, pointing at Penelope, “what were you doing idling at
an intersection?”
Before Penelope could say a word, Judge Just So picked up a large
black book from a shelf below her podium. She adjusted her glasses and read
solemnly, “Be always ashamed to catch thyself idle.”
Judge Just Right snatched her own book out. “Trouble springs from
idleness . . .”
“The busy man has few idle visitors,” interrupted Judge Just So.
“TO THE BOILING POT THE FLIES COME NOT!”
Penelope groaned. She had the feeling she had heard all this before.
The judges stopped their squalling and looked at her expectantly.
“Go on,” demanded Ju
dge Just So. “Tell us what you were doing.”
Penelope knew better than to mention their search for the Great Moodler.
Before she could think of the right thing to say, she heard herself answer, “Nothing.”
“GUILTY!” both judges shouted, leaping from their seats and frantically
fighting to start the stopwatch.
Judge Just So hit the button first and began the sentencing. “For idling at
an intersection . . .”
Tick, tick, tick . . .
“And for doing ab-so-lutely nothing,” snarled Judge Just Right.
Tick, tick, tick . . .
“You are hereby sentenced to twenty minutes . . .”
Tick, tick, tick . . .
“Around the clock.”
Brriiing! The sound of the stopwatch filled the room.
“Take them away!”
— — —
That wasn’t so bad, thought Penelope as Officer X ushered them out of the court-
room and into a waiting elevator. They were only sentenced to twenty minutes
around the clock. She wasn’t sure what that meant, but she knew she could put
up with almost anything for twenty minutes.
Once inside the elevator, the doors slid shut and the compartment rushed
soundlessly upward. Penelope watched through a small window as the great
City flashed by. The higher they went, the smaller the City became, until the
buildings looked like toy blocks.
She glanced over at Dill. He raised one eyebrow and tapped his forehead.
She tapped back. See? There was nothing to worry about. They were both
working on their next move.
The elevator lurched to a stop and the doors opened with a cheerless
ding. “This way,” said Officer X, pointing down an empty hallway toward
a thick metal door. The door had a glass-plated window set a few feet from
the floor, exactly the right height for Officer X to peer through. He pressed
his face against the windowpane and gave a satisfied grunt before unlocking
it. He motioned Dill and Penelope inside and flipped a switch. A few lonely
lightbulbs sputtered to life, revealing a long corridor flanked by rows and
rows of bars.
“Welcome to prison,” Officer X said. It was the first time he sounded
happy. “This is the north clock tower, where we keep the most serious
offenders.” He began to stroll down the corridor. “Musty odors, meager
lighting, plenty of bedbugs . . . you should be right at home.”
Penelope shuddered, which seemed to make him even happier.
He continued his list with gusto. “Tasteless meals, creaky noises, not to
mention rock-hard beds.”
Dill stopped to peer through the bars of a cell and waved Penelope over.
The cell was empty except for a bunch of soft, gray fluff balls. But these weren’t
ordinary fluff balls. Each one had a pair of small, bare feet and large, black,
sleepy eyes. Some of them floated lazily in the air, though most of them were
piled in the corner like snowdrifts. A few opened their eyes to look at the new
inmates and then closed them again, falling immediately back to sleep.
“Did you say, your most serious offenders are here?”
asked Dill. “I can’t imagine these dust bunnies are much
of a threat.”
Officer X wheeled around. “Then stop imagining!
It’s illegal.” He shoved them away from the cell and pointed
to a large sign hanging from its door:
danger! do not feed! approach at your own risk!
“I’d mind that if I were you,” he said. “Now keep
moving.”
As they walked down the corridor, Penelope noticed that every cell was
filled with the same creatures and posted with the same warning sign. There
was one empty cell at the end of the
corridor. Officer X quickly unlocked
it. “Home, sweet home,” he said and
pushed them inside with a nasty
snicker before slamming the door
shut. “See you soon,” he called out
and disappeared back down the hall.
“See you in twenty minutes,” Penelope called back and then turned to
Dill. “All right, what’s our plan? What should we do when our time is up and
they let us out?”
Dill looked uncertain. “I’m not sure we will get out. Those judges are
tricky. Cunning. Unmistakably sly. I think it best we start looking for a chance
to escape.” Dill began to pace the length of the cell, tapping on walls and
rattling the bars, checking for possible weaknesses.
“You go right ahead,” said Penelope. “I’ll join you in a minute.” Actually,
she thought to herself, I’ll join you in twenty minutes. Surely Dill was overreacting.
They would soon be free. After all, they had done absolutely nothing.
Penelope glanced around the cell. A rickety wooden table with four chairs
sat in the middle of the room. Two benches that doubled as beds lined the walls
on either side. She was just sitting down on one of the benches when she noticed
a gigantic mass of cobwebs in a nearby corner. She got up and moved to the chair
farthest away.
Dill, on the other hand, went straight up to the cobwebs to get a better
look. He was bending over the mass, just about to prod it with an outstretched
finger, when a small voice interrupted his examination.
“Excuse me, do you have a hankie?”
Penelope nearly fell out of her chair and Dill took a giant step back. After
a moment Dill regained his composure and his manners. “Certainly,” he said
and produced a neatly folded handkerchief from his front pocket. He held it out
toward the cobwebs.
A small hand, matching the small voice, reached out and took the hankie
with a polite “Thank you.”
Penelope eased over to the corner to get a closer look. Another hand
popped out. It was holding a pair of glasses. The first hand began wiping the
glasses clean with Dill’s handkerchief. After the glasses were spotless, the hand
with the hankie began wiping cobwebs off what soon became a face. The face
was covered almost entirely in hair — bushy eyebrows, a monstrously large
mustache, and an ancient, trailing beard. Once he cleaned his face (more or
less), the man offered Dill his hankie back.
Eww, thought Penelope. The hankie was filthy. But Dill didn’t skip a beat.
“It’s yours to keep,” he said with a neat bow.
“Oh, you’re so kind,” said the man, tucking the hankie back into the mess
of cobwebs. “Only the very nicest people come to prison here, if I may say so.”
“You may,” said Dill.
“Thank you, I believe I will.” The strange man cleared his throat and said
again with great feeling, “Only the very nicest people come to prison here.” He
smiled at Dill and Penelope as if they were his dearest friends.
Penelope couldn’t help but smile back.
The man got to his feet and after several moments of dusting and brushing
and straightening his decrepit tie, he took Penelope’s hand and gave it a kiss.
“Allow me to introduce myself. I am the Timekeeper.”
“It’s very nice to meet you,” said Penelope, who was surprised to discover
she meant what she said. Despite his startling appearance, the Timekeeper was
delightful.
Dill, however, looked shocked
. “Mr. Timekeeper,” he said, giving the
man’s hand a vigorous shake, “I never expected to find you here. You have one of
the most powerful jobs in all the Realm.”
Penelope turned to look at Dill and then back at the little man. Him?
Powerful? She didn’t believe it.
“Well,” said the Timekeeper, “you might say I’m taking some time off.
Please,” he said, motioning toward the table, “have a seat. I’ll tell you all about
it.” The three inmates took their seats and the Timekeeper let out a satisfied
sigh. “It’s about time I got up off that floor. I’ve been sitting there forever, give
or take a day.”
“Forever,” replied Penelope. “That’s quite a long while.”
“Now that I think about it,” continued the Timekeeper, “I might have been
there only a few weeks. Actually I have no idea how long I’ve been sitting on that
floor. I’ve completely lost track of time. Which is exactly why I ended up in
prison in the first place.”
“Sounds serious,” said Dill.
“Oh, it is,” he said grimly. “Very serious. I used to be the official
Timekeeper for the entire Realm. Do you have any idea how many different
types of time there are? There’s high time, big time, and fun time. Down time,
prime time, small time, short time, and dark times. There’s time in, time out,
time up, time tables, and time frames.”
Penelope’s head began to swim, but the Timekeeper went on. “There’s
any time and some time, the right time and the wrong time. Good time, bad
time, borrowed time, and due time. I used to keep track of them all! People
would bring their spare time to the clock tower for safekeeping and I would
file it away. Now I couldn’t tell you where the tiniest nanosecond went.”
“But what happened?” asked Dill.
“I tripped and fell on hard times. I had a bump on my head for weeks.” The
Timekeeper absentmindedly rubbed a spot on his head as if remembering
the traumatic event.
“That could happen to anyone,” offered Penelope.
“True,” agreed the Timekeeper. “But unfortunately it happened to