Don't Know Where, Don't Know When (The Snipesville Chronicles Book 1)

by Annette Laing

  Hannah walked determinedly to the end of the hallway. Finding the Professor’s door wide open, she walked in without knocking.

  The Professor was working at her computer, with her back to the door. The office was desperately untidy. Piles of papers and cardboard boxes were heaped on the floors. Books were stacked two deep in the bookcases. The desk seemed to be divided into geologic layers, and it was littered with old Starbucks cups, some of which still had coffee in them, covered in thick layers of mould. Various dust-covered objects were strewn about, and Hannah recognized some of them from England. Among them were a gas mask, an old black telephone, and she saw, with a great pang of sadness, a WVS hat just like Mrs. Devenish’s.

  But Hannah had not come to admire the Professor’s office, or the Professor herself.

  “So, what gives?” Hannah said bluntly.

  “Hmm?” The Professor did not stop typing on the keyboard.

  “Are you a witch, or what?” said Hannah.

  Finally, the Professor turned toward her, and laughed incredulously. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, as if it were the most absurd thing she had ever heard.

  “Well, what are you then?”

  The Professor seemed bewildered. “You know perfectly well what I am. I’m an historian.”

  Hannah sighed heavily. “Yes, but, like, time travel?”

  “Oh, that! Well, so far as I understand these things, the past is an odd thing.It never really goes away, I think. It’s a bit like energy, you know, it can’t be created or destroyed. At least, that’s an interesting idea…Can’t prove it of course, I’m not a scientist.”

  Hannah spoke scathingly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, and you didn’t answer my question. Are you a time traveler?”

  “Well, obviously, and so are you, and so are the boys. But really, Hannah, I mean, all these labels! Witch? Time traveler? Do you really find labels helpful? I find the minute I sum up something give it a name, and put it in a box, I’ve stopped trying to understand it, and that will never do….”

  Hannah picked her way through all the stuff lying on the floor, removed a pile of papers from a chair, and sat down. She tried again. “Okay, so you won’t tell me that. So how about you tell me this. What’s the history lesson?”

  “Lesson?” The Professor looked puzzled.

  Hannah rephrased her question, as though talking to someone slow. “Yeah. What’s the history lesson we’re supposed to have learned? I mean, what’s your point? I’m guessing you have one. Is there a test? Do we have to fill out a worksheet? Am I supposed to have learned something about myself?”

  The Professor smiled. “That assumes that you have had a history lesson, that I gave it, and that I had a point in giving it. Tell me, Hannah, in your view, does everything have to have a creator and a point?”

  Hannah hesitated. She didn’t even know how to begin to answer that.

  The Professor continued, “Really, isn’t the experience itself the point?”

  “If any of it really happened,” said Hannah, as she slumped back in her chair and stared at the ceiling.

  “Let me show you something,” said the Professor, reaching into her briefcase. She pulled out a clear plastic sleeve containing a yellowed newspaper clipping, and handed it to Hannah. It was the photo of Brandon with Winston Churchill. Next she gave Hannah a stapled wad of photocopies. On the top sheet was the image of the patterned exterior of a small notebook.

  “What’s this?” Hannah asked.

  “Turn the page,” instructed the Professor.

  Hannah did so and gasped. There, in a neat, beautiful hand, were the words, “Elizabeth Devenish, 1940.” She was holding a copy of Mrs. Devenish’s diary.

  “Verity deposited it at an archive in Hertfordshire,” said the Professor, quietly. “That’s where I found it, while I was on a research trip. I’m not psychic, you know. Together with books and other papers from the period, it helped me piece together what your Mrs. Devenish had on her mind while you were there.”

  Hannah was already slowly leafing through the packet. She found the entry for September 15, 1940:

  Hannah and Alexander Day, two new evacuees, came to the house today. Eric enjoyed Alexander very much. It was good for him to have the company of a boy of his own age. Hannah is a bright girl and, I believe, at heart a good child, although something of a handful. They had been on a walk, but had not eaten the picnic their foster mother had given them because they found the food unfamiliar, and so we added a few ingredients from larder and greenhouse. The results were apparently satisfactory, because not a crumb was left after tea. I invited the children to Verity’s birthday party, and they have accepted.

  Very bad news from London. Hundreds of Luftwaffe planes, and tremendous damage. I spoke with Millie Cooke at WVS HQ, and everyone is trying to keep spirits up. It cannot be long now before Hitler launches his invasion plans, and then may God help us all.

  Hannah read and re-read this entry several times, running her finger along the words “at heart a good child.” She felt inexpressibly happy and sad, all at once. Mrs. D. had never spoken of her fears about the war, but of course, she wouldn’t, would she? Not to the children.

  “I’m not sure you ought to read any more,” said the Professor. “It’s too soon, and you’re too young. Hand it over, please.” Hannah felt she had been insulted, but she reluctantly returned the packet. “However, you should have this. Give it to Brandon from me.” The Professor handed over George Braithwaite’s identity card, which was in another acrylic sleeve. Hannah shoved it into her purse. “Oh,” the Professor said, “and he may want this, too.” Reaching into a drawer, she pulled out what looked like an enormous old English penny, several inches wide. Hannah saw that it was a bronze medallion. At its center was an embossed relief of a woman wearing a helmet and carrying a spear, with a lion at her feet.

  “Is that Lady Liberty?” asked Hannah.

  “No,” said the Professor, “but I expect Lady Liberty began with her. This is Britannia, symbol of Britain.” Hannah read the words He Died for Freedom and Honour, which were embossed around the coin’s edge. The name James Robert Gordon was embossed near the center. Hannah asked the Professor about the small nail hole in the medallion.

  “Mrs. Gordon nailed it to the front door, as a memorial to her son. The family of every British soldier who died in the First World War received one of these after the war ended. By then, Mr. Gordon was also dead. He was a victim of the flu epidemic after the war. The poor woman seems to have left Balesworth after that, and I have no idea what became of her.”

  Thoughtfully, Hannah turned the medallion in her hands. “One for every dead soldier. That’s a lot of work. They must have had to make a couple of thousand of these, huh?” said Hannah.

  “More like three-quarter of a million.”

  Hannah’s eyes grew wide. “And one of them was Mrs. D.’s husband, right?”

  “Right.”

  There was a long silence.

  “What about all that stuff with finding George? So we found him, big whoop.”

  “It was a big whoop for him, wasn’t it?” said the Professor.

  “Whatever,” Hannah said. “I just don’t know what it had to do with us.”

  “Everything. You found the card, and you changed his life.”

  “No, you know it’s not that simple.”

  “Isn’t it? I told you, I’m an historian. Historians record and interpret the past, don’t we? We don’t create it.”

  Hannah looked at her skeptically. Something about what the Professor had said irritated her, but she wasn’t sure what. Come to think of it, all of their conversations had been that way.

  “Anyway, you still haven’t told me. Why us? I mean, what does George have to do with us or this place?”

  The Professor leaned down and picked up a copy of the local phone book from the corner where it had been thrown thoughtlessly, next to a dusty unused coffeepot and a box piled high with books. She riffled thr
ough it, and then ran her finger down a page. Silently, she turned the book around to face Hannah, and pointed to something.

  Hannah leaned forward and took the phone book from her. “What am I supposed to be looking…” She stopped, and stared at the book, and then at the Professor. “Are you serious?”

  “Am I?” asked the Professor, raising an eyebrow.

  Hannah looked again to be sure, but there it was: George Braithwaite, M.D.

  “I think you and the boys might want to visit with Dr. Braithwaite,” the Professor said, as Hannah continued to stare at the page in the directory. “And I,” she paused and took a paper from the pile balanced precariously on her desk. “I have books to read, classes to plan, papers to critique, meetings to attend, programs to organize, students to advise, and lots and lots of very stupid paperwork devised by stupid people to waste my time. I’m going to have to throw you out now.”

  “But...” said Hannah, as the Professor stood, gently took her arm and smoothly guided her to the door. The door was closed before Hannah could form a sentence.

  Hannah stamped her foot, and leaning close to the door, yelled, “I’m going to find out about you. I’m going to report you to someone.”

  The Professor’s distracted voice came through the door. “Are you, dear? That’s nice…”

  Hannah cried out “AUGHHHHH!!” and marched off to find Brandon and Alex.

  Chapter 15

  Time…and Time Again

  When Kimberly dropped off Hannah and Alex at home, Alex found that he had an email waiting for him. It was from Brandon, who wrote that he had a dentist’s appointment in the morning, so he would miss camp. But after Alex relayed what Hannah had told him, Brandon immediately messaged that he could accompany them to Dr. Braithwaite’s house at 2 p.m.

  Brandon felt foolish when he read what Hannah had learned from the Professor. Dr. Braithwaite did not attend Authentic Original First African Baptist, because he was one of a handful of black Episcopalians in town. But everyone black living in Snipesville knew who he was: He was a Big Shot. Unlike most Big Shots, however, he had moved to Snipesville, not away from it.

  Brandon, who had never met the celebrated doctor, never thought about him, and would have assumed that his first name was “Doctor” if he had, had not connected him with George Braithwaite. He wondered how different things might have been if he had, and decided that they would have been far less interesting.

  He looked in the bathroom mirror, and realized that he didn’t look any different than when he had left. He had spent ten months in Balesworth, growing in height and muscle, especially from the hours spent operating Mr. Gordon’s drill. But now he seemed to have shrunk back to normal size. He was disappointed, but he was also relieved that he would not have to explain to his mother how he had expanded in a matter of hours. Giggling to himself, he thought how she might have assumed a miracle had taken place at baseball camp.

  The next day, Hannah and Alex had their dad pick them up from the house at lunchtime, and drop them off downtown, before he went back to his job at the bank. The kids had lunch in Zappy Burger. Hannah had always loved their MegaBurgers, but, today, although she finished hers, she wasn’t enthusiastic. “I miss real bacon and eggs,” she said sadly.

  “Me, too,” admitted Alex. “The food tasted like food, didn’t it? Not like this stuff.” He looked over the remains of his lunch, and toyed with the idea of throwing the rest away.

  Hannah guessed what he was thinking. “You can toss it if you like,” she said carefully. “I don’t mind.”

  Alex looked up at her mournfully. “I guess,” he said.

  “She wouldn’t mind, either. Not knowing how different things are now.”

  Alex knew who Hannah was talking about, and gave a small laugh. “She bloody would, you know.”

  With half an hour to kill, the two kids visited the tiny park, where pine trees loomed over a sad selection of playground equipment that all looked at least fifty years old. They played on the swings for a while, then on the carousel, and climbed on the jungle gym. Neither of them said much to the other. After a while, they knew it was time to begin the long trek to Brandon’s house in West Snipesville. The journey, Hannah later reflected, was the only part of the day that felt even a little bit normal.

  “So how was the checkup?” Alex asked, as they walked up a long country road out of West Snipesville.

  “Great!” said Brandon enthusiastically. “You should see the new composite fillings he showed me. Plus he has this great acupressure technique for when he gives you the novocaine. And he told me…”

  Hannah interrupted. “Brandon, you are totally obsessing on dentistry. Anyone would think you were there for a year, not two months.”

  Brandon stopped. “I was there for ten months…Weren’t you?”

  It began to dawn on them all how different their experiences had been.

  “So what was the best part?” Alex asked Brandon.

  Brandon looked thoughtful. “I liked the people…Some of them. But you know what I’ll really miss? I mean, it sounds silly, I know, but…but I miss being important. That’s crazy, I wasn’t important at all, I was just an apprentice…But Mr. Gordon counted on me, and he talked to me like I was a real person. I’m gonna miss that. What about you?”

  Alex thought a little before answering. “Being in the middle of things, you know, the War. It was neat to know that everything was going to turn out fine for England, but it was still scary and kind of exciting, even if we were in Balesworth. I’ll miss Mrs. D., even though she nagged a lot, because she was…well, she was Mrs. D. She reminds me a little of my Grandma, but she’s kind of unique, too, you know what I mean? I’ve never known anybody like her. And I’ll miss Eric, of course, because we liked a lot of the same things. And Verity, because she was fun. Now I want to go to England and go walking in the countryside again. I bet it’s not the same as it was, though.”

  Brandon looked over at Hannah, who was unusually quiet. “What will you miss most, Hannah?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “I’m glad to be back. I just wish we could have landed in California instead of back here in Armpit, Georgia.”

  Alex was puzzled. “But you’ll miss Verity, right?”

  Hannah walked ahead of the boys, saying nothing, her shoulders hunched.

  As the walk dragged on, Hannah began to lose faith in Brandon’s sense of direction. “So, where is Dr. Braithwaite’s house, again? Are you sure this is the right way?”

  “Of course I am. This time.”

  They were on one of the few hills in Snipesville, traveling along a road that meandered up a gentle slope. At the very top was a very ordinary white ranch house, surrounded by pine trees, with a line of carefully trimmed bushes in front. As the kids drew closer, they spotted an elderly, tall, thin, light-skinned black man with a neat moustache, who was leaving the house through the carport. He was dressed in a short-sleeved shirt and khakis, and smoking a pipe. Under his arm was tucked a set of small garden clippers. He approached a row of rose bushes down the side of the front lawn, and began to snip off the dead flower heads, his back toward the children.

  “That’s him, isn’t it?” said Hannah. Unexpectedly, she found tears welling up in her eyes. Brandon was nervous, and he could see that Alex was, too.

  “Should we do this?” Alex asked, uncertainly.

  “Of course,” said Hannah. “I mean, we gotta give him back his card.” She pulled it out of her purse, and handed it to Brandon. “You do it.”

  “Me? Why me?” said Brandon, “I mean, what if he recognizes us? He might drop dead from the shock.”

  “He won’t,” said Hannah firmly. “After all this time, you think he’s going to know it’s us?”

  The two of them were so busy arguing, they didn’t notice that Alex had already walked halfway up the drive. Hearing his footsteps, Dr. Braithwaite turned, straightening up, and took his pipe from his mouth.

  “And what can I do for you, young man?” he asked
.

  His accent was a little like an aristocratic Southerner might speak, Alex thought: It was kind of American, but kind of English.

  “Are you Dr. Braithwaite?”

  “That’s right.”

  Brandon and Hannah now joined Alex, and Brandon held out the card in its plastic sleeve.

  “We found this, and we found you,” he said.

  Dr. Braithwaite took it from him, stared at it, and said, “What in the world…?”

  Then he looked at the children’s faces, one by one. He dropped the clippers, which fell with a clatter onto the driveway.

  He said, awestruck, “My God…”

  They could not possibly be the same children. It was inconceivable. But Dr. Braithwaite had no other explanation for the appearance of these children than the one his guardian had given him a half-century before: Time travel is real, and time travelers live among us.

  Soon, the kids found themselves seated in Dr. Braithwaite’s small, neat living room. He brought out a tray on which were four glasses filled with ice, and a pitcher of chilled sweet tea.

  “The last time I saw that card,” he said sitting down in an armchair, “was in the summer of 1940. I remember losing it because it disappeared around the time that Smedley brought me to Balesworth. I guess I always assumed he had taken it from me. Mrs. Smith took my ration book, and she changed the name on it to Thomas Smith. Nobody argued if you altered a name. I was always afraid that nobody would ever find me, and that I would never again be able to prove who I really was. Of course, that was little crazy, but it was a little hard for a seven year old boy to think clearly under the circumstances. By the time you kids rescued me, I didn’t trust anyone.”