The Lost Track of Time

by Paige Britt

this time.” He raised the watch in the air and let it sway back and forth. “Let’s

  pick up where we left off, shall we? Tell me what time it is, Penelope.” His voice

  was soft and beckoning.

  The watch tugged at Penelope, but she looked away.

  “Tell me what time it is,” repeated Chronos. Now there was an unpleasant

  edge to the words.

  “Just a moment,” Penelope pleaded. She knew that if she looked at the

  watch and listened to its ticking, she would become a Clockworker. If she

  didn’t, Dill would be pressed for time. The situation was impossible!

  Nothing is impossible, she told herself. She’d seen that with her own

  eyes. If nothing is impossible, then there must be a way out. But what is it?

  “Penelope . . .” Chronos’s voice was downright threatening.

  “Five minutes,” said Penelope. “Just give me five minutes.”

  Chronos’s eyes narrowed and he smiled a tight little smile. “I’ll give you

  thirty seconds.” He nodded curtly at the pocket watch. “The clock is ticking.”

  Penelope sat down on the floor and closed her eyes. She rested her head in

  her hands and placed her fingers over her ears, blocking out the sound of the

  watch. What time is it?

  The watch would tell her a number. But what did that number really

  mean? To the Timekeeper, time was categorized by type — good time, bad

  time, borrowed time, and due time. To the Coo-Coo, time was the song of life.

  To Dill, time was what made mushrooms grow. But what was time to her?

  Penelope’s thoughts drifted this way and that until they ran their course

  and disappeared. At that moment, a soft sound, like a tiny silver bell, rang inside

  her head. Penelope forgot everything and listened. The sound danced and leapt,

  and everywhere it touched thoughts fell away until there was, for the briefest

  moment, a warm, white nothing.

  At that moment, Penelope heard the voice of the Great Moodler: The only

  time you can spend is the time you have right now. And the time you have right now is all

  the time in the world. Time isn’t precious, Penelope. You are. As long as you remember that,

  you’re sure to use it wisely.

  “Stop that this instant!” screamed Chronos. “You will not moodle under

  my watch!”

  Penelope opened her eyes. She looked up at the watch swaying back and

  forth and a word popped out of her mouth. She didn’t remember thinking the

  word. It was just there, waiting to be said.

  “Now.”

  A look of horror crossed Chronos’s face. “What did you say?”

  Penelope got to her feet. “I said, the time is Now.”

  The pocket watch stopped swaying and its hands began to spin at a mad-

  dening speed. Chronos snatched the watch back and tapped furiously at its glass

  face. “What have you done?” he screamed at Penelope. He tried to wind the

  watch, moving the crown back and forth in a desperate attempt to stop the run-

  away hands. But they only went faster until there was a loud crack! — and the

  pocket watch shattered. Tiny wheels, screws, and bits of glass spilled every-

  where. Chronos fell to his knees. “Nooooo . . .” His hands swept the floor,

  trying desperately to salvage

  the broken bits of

  his masterpiece.

  At that moment, the air filled with frantic dinging, donging, buzzing,

  chiming, and ringing as every clock on every wall of the Manor went off at

  once. The clocks in the tower joined in, their stately peals replaced by a rapid

  gongongong.

  The Timely Manor shook as if struck by an earthquake, and the

  lights along the floor blinked on and off. The grandfather clocks began to sway

  ominously. Their wooden bones moaned and shuddered before another quake

  sent them toppling to the floor. Dill’s clock, however, remained upright even

  though a large crack had appeared in a seam along its side. Penelope rushed

  over, stuck her fingers into the crack, and pulled as hard as she could.

  Walls were shaking and clocks were crashing all around her. The ceiling

  started to collapse and chunks of plaster fell to the floor. Fear coursed through

  Penelope’s body, and she used its energy to yank the crack wide open until there

  was a space just big enough for Dill to squeeze through.

  Penelope reached inside and grabbed Dill’s hand. To her relief, his hand

  grabbed back. Carefully he extracted himself from the horrible contraption.

  First his legs, then his torso, then finally his head and shoulders until there he

  was, standing before her, a dazed look on his face.

  “Are you all right?” Penelope asked in a rush.

  Dill stared at her. “What?”

  Penelope gave his arm a desperate shake. “Are you all right? Can

  you walk?”

  But Dill just looked confused, as if Penelope were speaking gibberish.

  He isn’t all right, thought Penelope. I was too late! He’ll never be the same again!

  Just then Dill laughed. “I almost forgot.” He fiddled with his ears, pulling

  something out of each one and putting it in his pocket. “Now then, what did

  you say?”

  “Can you walk?” Penelope asked again, articulating each word carefully.

  “Of course I can! I’m fit as a fiddle.”

  Relief flooded through Penelope, clearing her mind and bringing the

  danger around them back into focus. “Then let’s go!”

  They ran as best they could, scrambling over fallen clocks and other

  debris. Penelope knew the Passage stretched on for miles and doubted they

  would make it out in time. But for some reason, as soon as they turned the

  first corner, they saw the door a short distance up ahead. It took only a few

  moments before they burst from the Manor and stepped together out into

  the sunshine.

  Penelope stared up into the biggest, bluest sky she’d ever seen. The Shadow of

  Doubt was gone and the garish green lights of the tower destroyed. Sunshine

  poured out over everything, bringing the world alive with color. Even the gray

  concrete of the Manor was radiant in the light of day.

  Penelope felt a slight shudder under her feet and she glanced over at Dill.

  “Did you feel that?”

  He nodded. “Let’s get out of here.” Before they could move, they heard

  a loud groan and a fine cloud of dust suddenly filled the air, followed by a rush

  of falling rocks.

  “Run!” shouted Dill.

  They sprinted across the veranda and took the stairs two at a time

  (three at a time, in Dill’s case), not stopping to look back until they

  reached the ground. The carved clock above the Manor door was gone.

  Instead of

  time and tide wait for no one, the quote now read:

  . . . me and . . . i . . . wait for . . . one.

  “That was close,” said Penelope.

  “Too close,” agreed Dill. “We’d better keep moving.”

  They set off toward the far side of the courtyard where a set of gates led

  chapter twenty-two

  out into the City. Crossing the courtyard, however, was no easy matter. The

  earthquake had destroyed much of the Timely Manor and chunks of concrete

  littered the ground. The wreckage would have been easy to navigate if not

  for the Clockworkers. They were a mass of confusion. Without the tic
king of

  the clock tower to guide them, their steps had lost all rhythm. They turned this

  way and that like broken windup toys. They tripped over the rubble and

  one another, bumping into Dill and Penelope in the process.

  “You-must-ex-cuse-me. I-do-beg-your-par-don,” they repeated over and

  over again to no one in particular.

  “What’s wrong with them?” asked Penelope.

  “They’re lost,” explained Dill. “There aren’t any clocks to dictate their

  movements.”

  “Well, they certainly haven’t lost their manners. Why aren’t they trying

  to stop our escape?”

  “Oh, Clockworkers aren’t so bad,” Dill admitted, neatly sidestepping one

  who was just about to back into him. “Their worst habit is doing what they’re

  told. Without someone to boss them around, they’re harmless.”

  Penelope looked over at Dill. Although he had lost the hat, he was still

  wearing the blue coveralls of a Clockworker. “For a while, I thought . . .

  I thought you were one of them.”

  “Not for a minute!” said Dill with a shake of his head. “That was just a

  trick. Ruse. Clever ploy.”

  “But how did you resist Chronos’s spell?”

  “Mushrooms, of course!” Dill reached into his pocket and brought out two

  very small pink fungi. He held them out for Penelope to see. “I grew them in

  my ears.”

  Penelope remembered the bottle of mushroom spores Dill had shown her

  in prison. She knew that spores were something like seeds, but at the time, she

  couldn’t see how they were the least bit important. She had even gotten

  angry at Dill for thinking they were useful. Now she realized what he had

  done. “You dropped mushroom spores in your ears when we were working

  around the clock!”

  “Precisely!” Dill beamed. “Ears are a perfect place for mushrooms to

  grow — so dark and damp. The spores went right to work and I was completely

  deaf by the time I ended up in the pit underneath the tower. Chronos came

  along and tried to put me under his spell with the pocket watch, but I couldn’t

  hear the ticking.

  “Of course, I could still see the pocket watch, but as mesmerizing as that

  was, it wasn’t enough to turn me into a Clockworker. I just pretended the spell

  had worked so I could bide my time until you returned. And here you are!”

  “You knew I’d come?” said Penelope. A little bubble of pride formed inside

  her chest.

  Dill stopped in the middle of the courtyard to smile at her. “Never doubted

  it for a minute.”

  The bubble grew so big it popped and Penelope began to glow.

  Just then a look of panic crossed Dill’s face. “What’s that?”

  Penelope spun around in time to see a sudden flash of blue barreling

  toward her. She braced herself for impact before — wham! — a huge furry

  creature slammed into her, nearly knocking her down.

  “Is that what I think it is?” said Dill in wonder. He reached out and softly

  touched the Fancy’s fur. “I’d almost forgotten what a real Fancy looked like. It’s

  been so long since I’ve seen one.”

  “I tickled it and it grew!” said Penelope, laughing.

  “It certainly did.”

  “Hop on! They’re easy to fly. We’ll be out of here in minutes.”

  Dill’s face turned pale. “No. Never. Absolutely not. You know I hate

  flying.”

  Penelope gave in and they slowly picked their way across the courtyard,

  with the Fancy bouncing along behind. As they did, Penelope told Dill what

  had happened to her since they were separated in the tower. When she

  got to the part about the Great Moodler, he grabbed her arm. “So you

  found her?”

  “You won’t believe it, but I had an idea where she was all along!” Penelope

  told him the whole story of the the no-time and meeting the Great Moodler in

  the Realm of Impossibility.

  Dill hung on every word. When he heard about the Fancies lifting

  the Shadow of Doubt, he looked back at the Fancy. “That’s amazing. Out-

  standing. Truly impressive.” The Fancy turned bright pink and then gold

  with pride.

  “There’s nothing a Fancy can’t do,” said Penelope, quoting the Great

  Moodler. “All they needed was a little fattening up.”

  By now they had reached the far side of the tower and the gates to

  Chronos City loomed in front of them. Pushing against the gates, in a useless

  attempt to open them, was the Timekeeper. When he saw Dill and Penelope, a

  huge smile spread across his face. “Hello! Hello!” he cried, waving them

  over. “You’ll never believe what happened. I was having a short nap when the

  clocks in the tower went crazy. They all went off at once. It was a horrible

  racket. The earth began to shake and the tower along with it. I thought

  the tower would collapse, but then the clocks grew silent and I suddenly

  knew what time it was.”

  “You did?” asked Dill and Penelope at once.

  “I did.” The Timekeeper grinned. “I knew exactly what time it was. It was

  time to get out of there!”

  Everyone laughed at this, including the Fancy, who rolled around on its

  back chuckling in midair.

  “My, my, you’ve grown,” said the Timekeeper, giving the Fancy a gentle

  poke. He looked at Penelope. “I don’t suppose you had anything to do with that?”

  “Well, I did have some help from the Great Moodler.”

  “Congratulations,” said the Timekeeper, clapping in delight. “You found

  her! No wonder all the clocks are broken.” He glanced up at the tower and his

  smile faded. The tower was leaning across the courtyard at a precarious angle.

  “Let’s get out of here, shall we?”

  The three of them pushed against the gate until they had a space wide

  enough to step through. Outside the Manor, Chronos City was almost unrecog-

  nizable. The tall gray buildings were bleached white in the light of a brilliant

  sun. The air, once thick with doubt, was now filled with glittering possibilities.

  They drifted down from the clouds and littered the sidewalks. The whizzing

  cars and bustling crowds were still. People sat on curbs, leaned out windows, or

  just stood dumbstruck where they were — each holding a possibility they had

  never considered before.

  “Where did they all come from?” asked Dill, his voice soft

  with awe.

  The Timekeeper pointed up. Dill and Penelope slowly raised their eyes to

  the sky. A giant flock of Fancies was flying overhead. They zoomed in, out, and

  around the buildings. At the head of the flock was the Great Moodler, flying a

  Fancy covered in a spiral of colored stripes. Ideas bubbled from her head and

  burst into flames that immediately turned into beautiful possibilities. After

  each outburst, a cluster of Fancies broke from formation, carrying the possibili-

  ties to the rest of the Realm.

  When the Great Moodler caught sight of Penelope, she waved so hard she

  almost fell off her Fancy. “Penelope, dear!” she called, floating down toward the

  street. When she was a few feet above the ground, she dismounted, landing

  with a neat little hop on the sidewalk. “I’m so glad to see you!” she cried and
/>   flung open her arms.

  Penelope rushed forward. For a split second, she worried that maybe the

  Great Moodler wouldn’t be real — that she might be made of nothing, too. But

  the arms that wrapped around her were solid and strong and smelled slightly

  of tea.

  “I’m sorry I ran off and left you,” Penelope said when the hug was through.

  “I hope I didn’t cause any problems . . . I just had to get to Dill and . . .”

  The Great Moodler waved away her apology. “Looks to me like you made

  good use of your time.”

  Just then, there was a soft cough and the Timekeeper stepped forward. He

  carefully smoothed his beard and adjusted his decrepit tie. Then, taking the

  Great Moodler’s hand in his, he gave it a polite kiss. “It’s been too long,” he said.

  “I haven’t seen you in . . . in . . . at least thirty seconds.”

  The Great Moodler laughed at this, but when she realized that he really

  had no idea how long it had been, she immediately offered to moodle on a cure

  for his condition.

  The Timekeeper declined. “Back when I used to keep track of time, there

  never seemed to be enough,” he explained. “I rushed about like a madman. Now

  I take my time doing whatever I please.”

  Just then a possibility fluttered down from the sky and landed on the

  Timekeeper’s chest. “What’s this?” he said, untangling it from his beard. “Life

  is but a dream,” he read out loud.

  “It’s a possibility,” said the Great Moodler with a sly smile.

  “Hmm ...” said the Timekeeper and wandered over to a bench to

  consider it. Soon he was snoring.

  Next it was Dill’s turn to greet the Great Moodler. “Welcome back,”

  he said with a deep bow. Dill was so tall and the Great Moodler so short

  that he nearly toppled over with the effort. Even so, it was a very solemn

  moment.

  “I do believe we’ve met before,” said the Great Moodler once introduc-

  tions were made.

  Dill blushed with pride. “How kind of you to remember.”

  “Dill’s a great explorer,” interrupted Penelope. “He’s the one who