by Martin Dukes
Alex returned home to find a most unwelcome development. This had arrived through the letterbox in the superficially innocent form of a brown envelope but it might have been a letter bomb for its explosive impact on Alex’s day. It contained his school report. The grim set of mum’s jaw and the glint of steel in her eyes when Alex walked in to the kitchen signalled danger ahead. Alarm bells were dinning away insistently by the time the brown envelope was brandished in his face.
“This,” she said, tapping him on the head with it for emphasis, “is your report.” She paused to let Alex dwell on this prospect. “It does not make good reading….Let me see.” She snatched up her glasses and whipped the report out to read. “Mathematics.…3C….English ….2C….Design Technology, get this…4D.” She read through the whole list in a voice trembling with outrage. “And here’s the grand finale,” she said, shaking the page. “The considered opinion of your form teacher. Do you want to hear what Mr Burbage has to say about you?”
Alex had absolutely no desire to hear this now, or indeed ever, but he recognised there was no point in saying so. A display of submissive behaviour seemed in order. He hung his head. “Alex is undoubtedly an intelligent pupil with a bright future, should he choose to exert himself,” she read. “Get that?…Should he choose to exert himself.”
Her face came worryingly close to Alex’s as she stressed this last part. He was conscious of a little drop of her saliva on his chin, at first warm, now suddenly cold.
She carried on reading, jabbing a trembling finger at Alex’s chest for additional emphasis. “Unfortunately Alex seems content to spend his time in lessons daydreaming. Until such time as he makes the decision to engage fully with his studies he is unlikely to fulfil his potential.”
“There!” she said, throwing the paper in the vicinity of his left ear. “What do you have to say to that?”
“It’s only a grade report,” he tried, after a moment’s silent contemplation. “I mean it’s not a full report or anything.”
“What difference does it make?” demanded Mum, ratcheting up the volume a couple of notches. “This is pretty much exactly what it said in your last full report. You promised me.” she clenched her fists into tight, white knuckled balls that Alex regarded warily. “You promised me you’d change! Didn’t you? Didn’t you?” she screamed.
There was a great deal more of this kind of thing, much of it wearisomely repetitive in nature but there was no mistaking his mum’s sincerity. In a manner that even he had to concede was all too familiar he heard himself offering up apologies and earnest assurances of future good behaviour. He was sincere (so he told himself), he was contrite; he sat at the kitchen table with his head in his hands whilst Mum sat opposite, suddenly deflated, all the rage ebbing away from her. She looked old, tired and defeated. The skin hung loose around her jaw and her eyes were puffy, red rimmed. Was she going to cry? Alex felt a catch in his throat. There was a frailty about her that affected Alex far more than her fury.
“I’ll try,” he said, reaching across to squeeze her hand. “I really will.”
“You know your father’ll blame me,” she said quietly, reaching for a tissue and dabbing at her nose.
Alex’s parents were separated. Three years ago his dad had walked out on Mum and set up house with a considerably younger and more attractive woman. Since that time this woman had in turn left Alex’s father for a younger and more attractive man; which struck Alex as a delicious kind of irony. Dad worked for an international plumbing supply company and so was out of the country for a good part of the year. As a thoroughly practical, down to earth sort of man with a passion for sport manifestly lacking in his youngest son he tended to take a dim view of Alex. He also took the view that Mum was far too indulgent of him, far too lax in her supervision. Dad would be getting a copy of the report too.
“It’s not your fault,” Alex said. “I’ll tell him it’s all me.”
He would too. Alex felt suddenly fiercely protective of his mum and a great surge of guilt washed over him. He stood up and put his arm around her shoulders, whereupon she began to sob. Alex blinked back his own tears.
“I’ll be better,” he said, forcing the words through a throat that felt strangely congested.
“There’s something wrong with time,” he told himself later. He considered texting this sentiment to Henry but lifted his thumbs after the first character, thinking that it might make him look a bit mad. But there definitely was. He considered the unblinking eye of the clock on the wall above his bed and glared back at it, listening attentively for any sign of faltering in its soft electric pulse. It was ten o clock. He closed the Physics textbook he had set himself to learn by heart by the end of the next week and pushed away the page of scrawled notes. His History homework, four sides of well-presented arguments with carefully chosen references lay complete on top of his printer. A number of abortive attempts, in the form of scrunched up paper balls, lay about on his desk top amongst a scatter of stationery and sweet wrappers. On an impulse he picked one up and threw it at the model Hurricane suspended above his head. It began to sway and spin crazily whilst motes of dislodged dust sparked in the light of his angle poise lamp.
He swivelled in his chair and subjected the clock to the closest of scrutiny. What would it be like to be a chrononaut? Which century would he choose to visit if he had a time machine? He imagined himself caressing the controls of a complex device that could, at the stab of a button, hurl him backwards or forwards through the whirling vortex of the centuries. Ancient Rome would be fascinating of course. What about a trip to the Colosseum to see gladiators in action or a bit of chariot racing in the Hippodrome? “Cool,” he said out loud.
There was something odd. Glancing upwards he noticed that the aircraft had stopped its gentle sway. “Huh!” He lurched back in his chair.
“Lights out now, please,” came Mum’s voice from downstairs.
The Hurricane resumed its motion. Alex felt a vague prickling sensation over his scalp. In which order had those events just occurred? Had he imagined it?
“Alex?” called Mum, when there was no immediate response.
“Okay,” he called. “’Night, Mum.”
“Did you get your report?” asked Henry on the coach the next morning.
“Oh, yeah!” said Alex, with feeling, heaving his bag into the overhead luggage rack.
“Bad was it?”
“You could say that,” said Alex slumping next to Henry.
“Did you get the full working over?”
“Worse than that.”
“Oh my god! You didn’t have the old girl in tears! You bad boy!”
“What about you?” countered Alex, more to move the focus elsewhere than because there was any likelihood that Henry’s report contained bad tidings.”
“I got a 2B,” said Henry with careful neutrality.
“No way! That was your best grade?”
“My worst,” grinned Henry, springing the trap.
The coach was moving by now, having collected Alex and another boy from the last stop before school. Henry had a new phone, the features of which he demonstrated at some length during the journey. Two sixth form girls in the seat in front turned and wrinkled their noses as Henry broke wind ostentatiously in conclusion. Alex began to tell Henry that he thought there might be something wrong with time. He was doing this when there was sudden lurch accompanied by swearing from the driver as the coach pulled up sharply. A car had pulled out suddenly from a side street and a collision had only narrowly been avoided. Hoots and cheers from the children on the coach celebrated the moment. Only Alex remained silent. A glance at his watch revealed that the second hand had stopped moving, unless one counted a vague quivering.
“Time has stopped,” he declared, his voice drowned out by the general hubbub.
Henry had heard, though.
“Huh?” he said, indicating the many unmistakeable signs of activity in the world around them. “In what sense,” he asked, all too reas
onably, “has time stopped? I think you’ll find it’s your watch that’s stopped, mate.”
They both studied the watch, the hands of which remained essentially motionless.
“Doh!” Alex slapped his own forehead.
“You’ve been giving this time thing a lot of thought, haven’t you?”
It was in Mathematics, later that morning, that Alex made a vital discovery. In line with the new spirit of conscientious endeavour that he felt he owed to his mum, Alex had devoted himself whole-heartedly to his studies for the first half of the lesson. Given that he was quite good at Maths he quickly worked through the exercises he had been set to do and there were a few minutes to spare whilst the rest of the class caught up. Inevitably his attention was drawn to the clock, which in this case was hanging lopsidedly so that eleven o clock was at the top of the dial. There were still twenty two minutes until morning break and in the absence of a second hand he found himself counting seconds until the minute hand ticked forward. Why did there have to be sixty seconds in a minute, or sixty minutes in an hour for that matter? Were he Emperor of the world, he might consider decimalising time. Having a hundred seconds in a minute would surely make more sense. It would simplify mathematical calculations involving chaps cycling ‘x’ distance in ten seconds so how far would they go in an hour, supposing they didn’t have to stop at traffic lights or drop in at the newsagents for a bag of crisps. Alex smiled to himself as he considered the meeting of leading scientists he would convene to discuss this revolutionary scheme. Outside, across the quadrangle, a pair of window cleaners was at work on the sports hall. A pigeon was caught in mid-flight, motionless, a few metres from the window. It took several moments for Alex to register this phenomenon. Then he gasped and span round, finding the classroom and everything within it likewise frozen into immobility. His biro slipped from his grasp and it was as though the tiny clatter broke the spell. The world got on with the day; the pigeon resumed its flight, Henry, sitting next to him, continued to change the cartridge in his fountain pen.
“It just happened again,” he whispered.
“What?”
“You know…The time thing.”
“You’re crazy,” Henry told him matter-of-factly, wiping inky fingers on his blazer. “Honestly. You are losing it, mate.”
Chapter Two
But he wasn’t crazy, and more than that, Alex now had a good idea what it took to stop time. He could hardly wait to tell Henry when the class streamed out at the end of the lesson.
“It’s when I daydream,” he said excitedly, grabbing Henry’s shoulder and spinning him round to face him.
“Nuts,” said Henry, tapping his head and making a whistling sound.
“Seriously,” insisted Alex, with a note of pleading in his voice so sincere, Henry was obliged to give it serious consideration.
“Go on then. Explain how you, Alex aka Trophy Trueman of 10B, can single-handedly stop time.”
“I know it sounds a bit unlikely,” Alex was forced to concede.
Henry snorted, pulling a packet of biscuits out of his bag as they settled on a bench in the quadrangle. Spring sunshine was dappling the earth beneath a few struggling trees, the stirring shadows of branches passing across Alex’s wrist as he studied his stopped watch.
“It’s when I daydream,” he said, tapping it thoughtfully on the bench top, where there was an irregular scatter of crisp fragments.
He described the circumstances of the last few occasions that time had appeared to stand still. On each occasion he had been distracted, his mind moving on a plane somewhat distant from reality, in a state that might almost be described as a trance.
“Okay,” nodded Henry,” absently throwing a piece of biscuit to one of several sparrows that were hopping about by the school minibus. “But nothing happened for me. How do you explain that? Time can’t stand still for you and keep on going for me. That doesn’t make sense does it?”
“No,” admitted Alex. “But it really happens. You’ve got to trust me.”
“I’d like to see you prove it,” said Henry, regarding him over his glasses.
And so he did. It happened again on Thursday, although unfortunately not in English, when Mr Keane’s bald head was shining more glossily, more temptingly than ever. It was Maths once more, in the last lesson of the day, when Alex’s concentration resources were stretched as thin as they ever were. Mrs Wade, whose own head had hair cut to resemble a German helmet, was talking about the importance of revision in her crisp home counties voice. Alex though, was setting foot upon Mars, his footprint there the very first, another giant leap for mankind. He gazed around him in wonder at the red and arid canyon, whilst behind him, reflected in the visor of his helmet, others of his crew cautiously descended from the vast and glittering spaceship. Vaguely, he was aware of the action in T16 grinding to a halt. Recalled from the red planet, Alex observed with interest as Mrs Wade froze slowly into immobility, her fingers turning the pages of a textbook. He felt no sense of panic; indeed a sense of exultation was gathering in his breast. It was really happening. He felt the hair rise on the nape of his neck and a pulse throbbed at his temple. His mouth was suddenly dry as he waited for the spell to be broken once more, for time to lurch into action as though nothing had disturbed it. Heart racing, he pushed back his chair, the sound of it loud in the dense silence that had settled upon the room. Everything was quite still, just as it had been before. The clock had stopped at 3.34 pm. For a little while Alex stood stock still himself, waiting to see if anything would happen. Nothing did. Then, increasingly confident, he edged past Henry into the aisle between the desks and had a cautious wander around the classroom. He chuckled to himself as he surveyed his new kingdom. Such possibilities! His eyes darted from place to place as ideas suggested themselves to a mind that raced from project to glorious project. What to do first? At the back of the class sat Gary Payne, his mouth stretched wide in a yawn that revealed a glistening red cavern of opportunity. The notion of colouring in Gary’s tongue was the first idea to come to mind but then Alex noticed that there was a large piece of chewing gum between the thumb and fingertip of the boy’s right hand. It had to be presumed that this was on its way to a final resting place underneath the desk.
“Hmm,” said Alex to himself. Inspiration struck him. Reaching out he seized the gum between his own finger and thumb. To his surprise it was as hard and cold as a pebble. It was only with the greatest difficulty that he was able to work it loose, and then at last it came free with the same kind of suddenness that a magnet releases a nail. Once in Alex’s hand the gum quickly recovered its soft moist stickiness. Grimacing a little with disgust Alex poked it carefully up Gary’s left nostril, an orifice that was itself as stony as a statue’s. Then, warming to his task, he took a felt tip pen from his pocket and wrote “I am a moron” across Gary’s narrow pimpled brow in neat capital letters.
“Lovely,” Alex, said to himself, stepping back to admire his handiwork and then laughing until his sides ached.
At last, wiping tears from his eyes, he sat on the corner of a desk and considered his options. The bin next to Mrs Wade’s desk proved to contain several used tissues, various bits of orange peel, pencil sharpenings and scrunched up paper. Having prised these free Alex placed a selection of them in Gary’s mouth. It felt as though about five minutes had passed, although of course the world around him remained fixed at 3.34pm. A series of experiments revealed that his other classmates, like Gary, were frozen as hard as stone. Everything was fixed in place by the same mysterious force that resisted attempts to move them. It was only by the greatest of exertions that he was able to free a few exercise books and move them about between desks. Once laboriously freed they reverted to normal book behaviour so that Alex was able to add a few witty inscriptions here and there before setting them down. When released they reverted to stony immobility. At last, thinking that he had done enough for a first attempt, he rubbed his hands together in satisfaction. As an afterthought he crossed to
the whiteboard and rubbed out the homework task that Mrs Wade had just applied there in a green spidery hand. Carefully prising the board marker from her hand he used it to write the words “How much more proof do you need?” in large capital letters. Then he returned the marker to its owner and sauntered back to his place with a broad smile of satisfaction.
It was time to get things moving again. But how? This was an issue that Alex had neglected to consider, dazzled as he was by the possibilities of his new powers. He settled into his seat and blinked his eyes. He dropped his biro a few times without effect. He clicked his fingers. Nothing happened. Or rather nothing continued to happen, much as before. Alex frowned. He snapped his fingers. No result. He cleared his throat. He said Shazzam, Abracadabra and Alleeoop, all with no effect whatsoever. He closed his eyes tight shut and opened them one at a time. He stuck his fingers in his ears and banged his forehead on the desk.
“Jesus!” he said, when this didn’t work either.
He felt a gathering wave of panic. What if he was stuck like this? He gasped. Tears were starting in his eyes when suddenly, after a vigorous shake of his head, the world started moving again. A myriad familiar sounds reached his ears once more, the almost imperceptible creaking of chairs, the click of pen on ruler, the low murmur of illicit conversation. Mrs Wade continued to turn the pages of her book before adding to what she had written on the board, unaware as yet of Alex’s addition to the board behind her.
“.. and if you get time,” she continued to say. “You might try exercise 4a on page 28 and.. let me see..”
Sounds of alarm had been issuing from the rear of the classroom even as she uttered these words, and the last of her musings were drowned out by the sound of Gary Payne lurching to his feet, spitting, swearing loudly and clutching his nose.