Time Holes: 13

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Time Holes: 13 Page 6

by Chris Tinniswood


  Chapter 5

  Too Late

  Thursday 4th November 2010

  When Austin’s parents had arrived at the school, they’d disappeared into the Head’s office, whilst Austin waited outside. Mr Jones waited with him. He let out several long sighs, and when Austin looked up at him, he saw that he was stroking his chin with his hand, and had a far away look in his eye. His tutor glanced down at him, and Austin quickly averted his gaze, afraid should he see that pitiful look again.

  ‘I’m sorry, Austin,’ he said.

  Austin looked back up at his tutor in surprise.

  ‘I’ve failed you,’ he said. ‘You came to me and asked for help, and I didn’t see what was going on. I blame myself.’

  Austin knew that he meant well, but this only made him feel worse.

  ‘All that time travel stuff, it was you trying to tell me something, wasn’t it?’

  Yes, thought Austin, it was. I was trying to tell you that I time-travelled!

  ‘I should’ve seen it,’ continued Mr Jones, ‘I should’ve known. I should’ve realised that you were being bullied by Jordan. That’s why you turned up so early the other day, wasn’t it? So you could avoid meeting him on the way to school.’

  Was it? thought Austin, did I imagine the time travel?

  ‘I should’ve known it when you made up such a weird reason,’ continued Mr Jones, more to himself than to Austin. ‘I’m so sorry, Austin, I really am.’

  No you’re not, thought Austin. You just want me to forgive you.

  ‘In future, Austin, I promise to listen to you. I promise to try and figure things out.’

  At least I’ve got a future, thought Austin. Not like Jordan.

  At that moment, his parents came out of the Head’s office, and his mum gently held him by the shoulders, and looked at him.

  ‘Why didn’t you come to us, love?’ she asked, ‘instead of keeping it all bottled up? Now it’s an almighty mess, and whatever this Jordan’s done, he didn’t deserve this, did he?’

  Austin shrugged and looked down at his shoes.

  ‘Come on, lad, let’s go home,’ said his dad, walking towards the front entrance lobby. Austin held his mum’s hand, not caring who would see him anymore, and she led him to the car.

  His dad drove out of the school grounds and took a left turn. It wasn’t until they had rounded the corner that Austin realised where they were. His dad slowed down to look across the road at where the abandoned house had stood until this morning. There were several police cars parked outside, as well as three bulldozers and a wrecking ball. A crowd of people had gathered, and the police were vainly trying to keep them back from the rubble.

  They were too late, thought Austin, as he looked through the back window at the receding scene. What have I done?

  Right Day, Wrong Year

  Friday 3rd November 2023

  Jordan stood, mouth open, disbelieving the sight in front of him. Two days ago, in this exact spot, he saw the grey-bricked facade of his school in front of him. He saw the flat tarred roof of the science block and the large chimney which never seemed to smoke. He saw the CCTV cameras watching everyone. He saw the elm trees swaying in the breeze.

  Today, all that had been replaced with a housing estate. Instead of grey bricks he saw red. He saw sloping tiled roofs, and no chimneys whatsoever. The elm trees were gone, too. Only grass verges remained.

  Panic welled up in Jordan’s stomach. His mind was in turmoil now, trying to comprehend the impossible. Two days ago, he thought, there was a school here. Now there’s not. Nobody could replace a school in two days. Nobody. So I have to have been away for longer. Much longer. Then he thought about what the other Austin had said to him. ‘You were there 13 years ago.’

  Jordan backed away slowly, shaking his head. This isn’t happening. He screwed his eyes shut and willed everything to turn back to normal. But when he opened them again, everything was still the same, except blurred through the tears that came streaming down his cheeks.

  He heard the sound of an approaching car behind him, and when he turned he saw that it was the other Austin and the younger woman from the abandoned house. They had followed him here. Jordan wiped his eyes once again, clearing his vision. He wiped his nose on the arm of his blazer as the car drew up beside him, the passenger’s window winding down.

  ‘Are you okay, Jordan?’ asked the woman, leaning her head out of the window to speak to him.

  ‘Leave me alone,’ he answered.

  ‘Jordan,’ said Austin, as he stopped the engine and opened the door to step out, ‘we’re not here to hurt you. Can you just listen to what I have to say?’

  ‘I ain’t supposed to talk to strangers.’

  ‘Jordan, I’m not a stranger. Listen, catch your breath, and then come and sit down on that bench over there.’

  Austin went over to the bench and sat down. The woman stepped out of the car. She came over to Jordan and stood there, smiling. Then she held out her hand and said, ‘Hi, Jordan. I’m Zoë.’

  Jordan wiped a hand on his trousers, and then shook her hand, standing up straight as he did so. He thought how pretty she was. She had long, brown hair, beautiful hazel eyes, a petite nose, and her smile reassured him, calming him down. She gestured to the bench where Austin was sitting, and together they went over to him. She sat down next to Austin and Jordan sat on the other side of her.

  ‘Jordan,’ said Austin, ‘do you remember chasing Austin the other day?’

  ‘Yeah, so?’

  ‘Do you remember him going right instead of left, and then getting to school before you?’

  How did he know about that? Thought Jordan. I hadn’t told anyone. Austin must’ve told him. Maybe this guy had given him a lift?

  ‘Whatever,’ he replied, trying to act as nonchalant as he could.

  ‘How about today?’ Austin asked. ‘You chased him into the house, didn’t you?’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Did you get a weird sensation when you went through the kitchen doorway?’

  Whatever composure Jordan had mustered, he lost it now. How did he even know about that? Only he knew that!

  ‘Yeah, I did,’ he said, in a small voice.

  ‘Did the kitchen look different afterwards?’

  ‘Yeah. So what?’

  ‘How can you explain that?’

  ‘I don’t know. You tell me.’

  ‘When you went through the kitchen doorway, I was hiding in the toilet, cos I didn’t want you to catch me. When I came out, you were gone. Nobody ever saw you again, Jordan. We all thought you were dead.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Jordan. What was he doing hiding in the toilet? Only Austin had been in that building. The young Austin. The one I was chasing.

  ‘Do you know how I got to school before you the other day?’ he asked.

  Jordan shook his head.

  ‘I went through that kitchen doorway, too. I felt dizzy and had stomach cramps and fell onto the floor, and then I went straight to school. But when I arrived there was nobody there, so I checked the time. I had got to school 13 minutes before I’d left my house!’

  His mind was beginning to give in against the rising tide of evidence to support Austin’s outrageous story. Outwardly, though, Jordan just shrugged.

  ‘What’s the date? The full date. Year and everything?’

  ‘It’s Wednesday, 3rd November, 2010,’ Jordan said. What was he, stupid? Everyone knows the date!

  ‘I’m afraid it isn’t,’ replied Austin. ‘It’s Friday, 3rd November, 2023.’

  The Truth is a Lie

  Thursday 4th November 2010

  Austin didn’t feel much like eating that evening. He sat in his room, curled up in his Nan’s old armchair, arms folded over his bended knees. He stared into the distance at nothing in particular, but although his body had appeared to shut down, his mind was alive with activity. He went over and over the last few days events, until the images in his head became confused and inar
ticulate. He tried re-arranging events: He confronted Jordan, and told him not to bother him anymore. He challenged him to a game of football and amazed Jordan with his sensational soccer skills. He rushed out of the toilet door and grabbed Jordan just before he went through the kitchen door, pulling him back from whatever abyss he was about to enter. He convinced his tutor that he had time travelled, and together they won a nobel prize for science. He rushed through the time hole after Jordan and together they faced the dangers on the other side.

  But each time he imagined an alternative, his logical mind forced things back to the way they were. He wouldn’t let himself off the hook that easily. Austin had always taken things to heart, and these events laid particularly heavily on him. He forced himself to remember each time he’d met Jordan, and concluded that it was his fault that Jordan didn’t like him. That moment at the school playground, he thought, that’s when it started. If only I’d just played football with him, then everything would have been all right.

  ‘Austin?’ called his father from the bottom of the stairs, ‘come quick, it’s about Jordan.’

  Austin scrambled off the armchair and raced down the stairs. His heart was palpitating. He imagined seeing Jordan standing at the front door; shaken, but not hurt. But the front door was shut, and Austin made his way into the living room to see what was going on.

  ‘It’s on the news,’ said his mum, who was sitting with his dad on the sofa. ‘Listen.’

  Austin looked at the television screen, and saw a reporter standing in front of the rubble that had once been the abandoned house. Behind her, yellow and black striped Police tape flapped in the evening wind. At the bottom of the screen, her name appeared on a red banner, with the headline WHERE IS JORDAN?

  ‘It was early this morning that Robert Kindleman and his team came with their bulldozers and wrecking balls to demolish this old house to make way for a new development of modern family homes. Imagine their horror, then, when Police cars came speeding up to this demolition site and told them that a 13-year-old boy was inside.’

  Austin felt sick, and yet he could not take his eyes off the screen. He felt his parents glancing between him and the television, and so he took a deep breath. I’ve got to hold it together.

  ‘Fearing that it would be too late, the men set about clearing the rubble for signs of the boy, who had apparently wandered in the day before, and had not been seen since. Four hours later, and there is still no sign of Jordan Baxter. Although the police cannot release any more details about the incident, it is believed another child has been questioned about Jordan’s disappearance.’

  ‘Oh my gosh,’ said Austin’s mum, clapping her hand to her mouth. Her husband placed a comforting hand on her thigh, and her other hand clutched it tightly. Austin continued watching, transfixed. A school photograph of Jordan appeared. He grinned at Austin from the thirty inch plasma screen, and the reporter continued.

  ‘Jordan Baxter was a happy-go-lucky boy with a bright future ahead of him. Why he entered this house, which had been boarded up for a number of months, remains a mystery. The house number, as one local resident pointed out to me earlier, was 13, and that number has proved unlucky for one 13-year-old boy. This is Dana Miles reporting for Channel Six News.’

  The newsreader continued the story back in the studio. ‘The whereabouts of Jordan Baxter remain unknown, but a few minutes ago, his father, Ron Baxter, a widower, gave this heartfelt plea for his son…’

  The picture went to a small room filled to the brim with reporters talking, cameras flashing and papers rustling. At the front of the room was a small stage, and behind a hastily assembled trestle table sat Jordan’s father. He spoke tearfully into the microphones pointed at him.

  ‘Please,’ he began, ‘wherever you are, Jordan, just phone home to let me know you’re okay. If you have Jordan, I implore you to let him go. He’s the only thing I’ve got left in the world. Please let my boy come home safely.’

  The newsreader began to read the next item, but as far as Austin was concerned, it could have been in Anglo-Saxon, because he didn’t hear a word of it. He can’t be under the rubble, he thought, he can’t be. He must have travelled in time. But where?

  Austin felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked up to see his father in front of him.

  ‘Austin, come and sit down.’

  Austin did as he was told, and sat down next to his mum, whilst his dad sat on the coffee table in front of their sofa and rested his forearms on his thighs, clasping his hands together in earnest.

  ‘Austin, we want you to know that we love you, no matter what happens.’

  Austin just stared at his dad’s hands. He watched him rub his thumbs together nervously. He was too numb to speak.

  ‘Now please,’ continued his dad, ‘tell us what happened.’

  Austin looked up slowly until he was looking at his dad’s face, and blinked several times. He couldn’t look his dad in the eyes, so instead he stared through and past him, as if he wasn’t there.

  ‘Austin, we’re your parents; we need to know the truth.’

  For a few moments, all three of the Bakers sat there in their living room, the newsreader now talking mutely to nobody in particular, until Austin summoned up the energy to mumble something.

  ‘I don’t know what the truth is,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked his mum. ‘You must know.’

  Austin turned to look at his mum beside him, and saw how worried she was.

  ‘But the truth is a lie. It can’t have happened.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Austin,’ said his dad, ‘the truth can’t be a lie. That’s an oxymoron.’

  ‘You’ll think it is if I told you,’ he replied.

  ‘Try us,’ said mum.

  Austin took a deep breath, and told them what had happened. He left out nothing, but he could see by their expressions that they couldn’t bring themselves to believe him. When he’d finished, there was a silence in the room that spoke louder than any words they could say to him. Eventually, his dad spoke.

  ‘Well, that’s quite a story, Austin.’

  His mum nodded, tears in her eyes.

  ‘We believe that you believe it,’ she said.

  But that just wasn’t enough.

  Jordan Goes Home

  Friday 3rd November 2023

  Jordan looked at Zoë. He wanted her to tell him that Austin was just joking. It can’t be 2023, he thought, but she merely nodded her head in agreement.

  ‘No, it ain’t!’ he argued, and rose from the bench. ‘This is a wind-up! Austin told you to say all this!’

  ‘Think about it,’ said Zoë, ‘that can’t be true, can it? What about the kitchen changing, and the school not being there anymore?’

  Jordan suddenly felt very dizzy, so he sat down again. All he wanted to do now was run home and see his Dad. He would tell him it was okay. He started to rock, but this time it didn’t make him feel better at all.

  ‘Jordan,’ said Austin, ‘I know it’s hard to believe, but you’ve travelled in time. When I went through the doorway, I travelled back in time 13 minutes. You travelled forward in time 13 years!’

  ‘You’re lying!’ he shouted, but in his gut he knew Austin was telling the truth. It was the only explanation. ‘I want to see my dad!’

  Zoë put a hand on his shoulder. It calmed him down immediately. Jordan felt a connection to her. She speaks softly, he thought, like Mum used to, before she died.

  ‘We’ll take you home, okay?’ she said. He nodded, grateful that he wouldn’t have to find his own way home. He sat in the back seat of their car and smiled weakly at Zoë as she shut the passenger door. Austin sat back in the driver’s seat and turned his head to smile at Jordan. Jordan scowled back, still not trusting him. If he was Austin, only 13 years older, he would probably want to get his revenge on him.

  He made a point of giving Zoë directions instead of Austin. She smiled at Austin as he turned the car round and started back the way he’d come.
Austin put a hand on her knee and rubbed it gently. She smiled at him. Jordan screwed up his nose in disgust. How could she let him touch her? He’s well creepy!

  The journey only lasted a few minutes, but it passed in silence. Then Jordan saw familiar territory, and began to hope that when he saw his dad, everything would go back to normal. He wound the window down and peered out at the houses as they passed him by. He felt the breeze on his face, and began to feel better. Then, they turned into the cul-de-sac where he lived, and his smile quickly faded.

  Jordan opened the passenger door and stepped out in disbelief. His house had been painted blue when he had left for school this morning. Now it was white. He looked at the windows. They were white PVC double glazed windows. His dad could never afford to have them fitted in a million years. Not even in 13, he thought ruefully. Even the front door, which had scratches on it where Jordan had used his dad’s Stanley knife one Saturday afternoon for a spot of vandalism, had gone. It had been replaced by a white PVC door. Instead of a small patch of grass and a rose bush there was now just concrete and a potted shrub.

  Jordan started to panic again. His breathing grew laboured, like the air was being stolen from him. He ran up to the door and knocked on it hard with his fist.

  ‘Dad?’ he shouted. ‘Open up, it’s me, Jordan!’

  He waited for a few moments, and then heard a key enter the lock. It turned and the door slowly opened a few inches. A face peered out from the crack, but it wasn’t his dad. It was an old woman, her face wrinkled with age and too much sun, her eyes larger than life beneath the strong lenses of her glasses. She looked frightened.

  ‘Please go away, young man,’ she said.

  ‘Where’s my dad?’ shouted Jordan.

  The old woman backed away, shutting the door in Jordan’s face. He banged his fist on the door, until he felt Zoë’s hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Come away, Jordan,’ she said, ‘come away.’

  Jordan turned to face her and screamed, ‘where have you put my dad?’

  Zoë just held him close until he was sobbing in her arms. She led him back to the car and opened the door for him. He climbed in and curled up into a ball on the back seat. He pulled his blazer up over his head and buried himself in it.

  Jordan heard Zoë sit back in her seat and close the door. He listened as they talked about his predicament.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ said Zoë.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Austin replied. ‘I’ve been thinking about it, but for the life of me I don’t know.’

  ‘We’ve got to do something,’ Zoë said. ‘Poor kid. We can’t just leave him like this.’

  ‘Don’t you think I know that?’ replied Austin. ‘I’ve lain awake countless nights thinking about this very thing.’

  ‘And what did you come up with?’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t quite this scenario, but it could still apply, I suppose.’

  Jordan came out from beneath his blazer to look at them both. His eyes were still red-rimmed from crying, and he had muddy streaks down his cheeks.

  ‘Well?’ asked Zoë.

  ‘We’re going to drive back to Number 13,’ said Austin, and buckled his seatbelt. Zoë did the same and they drove off. Jordan sat up slowly and looked in the rear-view mirror. He could see Austin’s eyes reflected in it. He sensed him looking and met his gaze through the mirror. The corners of his eyes wrinkled, and Jordan guessed that he was smiling at him. Zoë noticed this, and turned to look at Jordan.

  ‘How’re you doing?’ she asked.

  Jordan shrugged. He looked back at Austin’s eyes reflected in the mirror, and saw the boy in the man. It is Austin, he thought, that is so weird!

  ‘Okay Jordan,’ said Austin, as if sensing some kind of truce had been called, ‘this is what we’re going to do...’

  An Email from Mr Jones

  Friday 5th November 2010

  Not surprisingly, Austin couldn’t face going to school the next day. He kept to his room, and only came out to eat. He didn’t utter a word to his parents during the meals, despite their repeated attempts to engage him in some sort of conversation. He only grunted monosyllabic answers to their questions, or shrugged, and he would never look them in the eye.

  Work was emailed home from his school for him to do, and he silently and efficiently worked his way through the subjects, using documents from his school’s Virtual Learning Environment. It was a Friday afternoon. Outside, the leaves had fallen from the trees, and were blowing about in an early November wind. There had been a light shower of rain about an hour earlier, and the air now smelt of earth and the dying year. But Austin was unaware of all this. Whilst the hunt went on for Jordan Baxter, and other children in his neighbourhood finished school for the weekend, and enjoyed fireworks, bonfires, sparklers, and burning effigies of Guy Fawkes, Austin was hidden away in his bedroom, riddled with guilt.

  He sat at his desk and uploaded his last piece of work to his tutor’s drop box. Almost immediately, he received an email from Mr Jones:

  From: [email protected]

  Subject: Time Travel

  Date: 5 Nov 2010 15:13:13

  To: [email protected]

  Hello Austin,

  We all missed you at school today. Thank-you for being so prompt with your work.

  I’ve been thinking about what you said the other day and I fear I may have dismissed you too quickly.

  For a start, it’s totally out of character for you to lie. I’ve been doing a bit of research into time travel.

  Would it be okay if you came into school on Monday and we talked about it?

  Kind Regards,

  Mr Jones

  Teacher of Science

  Elm Tree Secondary School

  Austin’s first reaction was one of elation. At last, he thought, somebody believes me! His heart pounded in his chest, and the sudden rush of adrenaline made him feel a little light headed. He rushed to his bedroom door, opened it, and called to his mum. An immediate answer came from her bedroom just across the landing and moments later she came out of the door, carrying some of Austin’s socks.

  ‘What is it, dear?’ she said, a look of worry on her face, ‘what’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong, mum,’ said Austin, and smiled for the first time in several days. ‘Come and look.’

  Austin took her to his laptop and showed her the email. He watched her as she read the email quickly, mouthing the words as she always did when looking at a computer screen. She never does that if she’s reading a book, he thought.

  ‘Well that’s good, isn’t it?’ she said, and went over to Austin’s chest of drawers to put the socks away.

  ‘Good?’ said Austin, ‘is that all you can say?’

  ‘Well, what should I say, Austin?’ said his mum, slamming shut the sock drawer. It made Austin jump. ‘I mean, by the look on your face, I thought you’d maybe heard something about Jordan?’

  ‘Well, I have… in a way…’

  ‘In a way?’ repeated his mum, arms akimbo. ‘I don’t think you fully realise the seriousness of this situation, Austin.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘A boy has disappeared, and all you can worry about is your bloody time travel fantasies!’

  ‘They’re not fantasies,’ said Austin, his face reddening. ‘I knew you didn’t believe me.’

  ‘Of course I didn’t believe you!’ shouted his mum. ‘This is real life, Austin! People don’t go on little time travel trips in real life. They disappear, or get kidnapped, or get -’

  ‘SHARON!’ said a loud voice from the doorway. Austin and his mum both looked up to see his dad entering the room, a look of fury on his face. ‘THAT’S ENOUGH!’

  Austin had never heard his mild-mannered father shout at his mum like that, and he burst into tears.

  ‘Now look what you’ve done!’ said his dad.

  ‘I’ve done?’ said his mum, ‘that was you!’

  For a moment, they both stared
at each other, breathing hard, whilst Austin sobbed, his face buried in his hands. Then he felt two fatherly hands gathering him into a hug, and he suddenly felt very safe.

  ‘I was just coming upstairs to tell you,’ said his dad, in a far calmer voice, ‘that they’ve finished searching the rubble…’

  ‘And?’ said Austin’s mum.

  ‘And he wasn’t there. Wherever Jordan is, he wasn’t in the house.’

  ‘Oh Thank God!’ said his mum, and sat down on Austin’s bed. Austin dried his eyes and looked at her. She was rubbing both hands through her hair, her eyes puffy with tears of relief. ‘Thank God it wasn’t your fault.’

  He’s alive, thought Austin. So he did go through the kitchen. But where is he?

  ‘I’m sorry I shouted at you,’ said his mum, and beckoned for him to come to her. Austin felt his dad push him towards his mum, and so he went along with it, and let her hug him, but he couldn’t forget that she hadn’t had faith in him. He looked up at his dad, who shrugged his shoulders and mouthed sorry.

  At least someone’s on my side, thought Austin.

  Three Possibilities

  Friday 3rd November 2023

  Jordan gazed out of the window as the car pulled up beside the house. He was almost in a trance. The sound of the handbrake ratchet brought him back into focus, and he opened the car door and stepped out. Austin and Zoë followed him up to the front door of the house he had emerged from not an hour ago. He still found it hard to believe that he had entered a completely different house 13 years previously.

  The front door was still open. The door had not clicked shut behind him; it had stayed ajar. Jordan could see his dad admonishing him now. He was always telling him to shut doors behind him and Jordan was always forgetting. This time, however, it had worked in his favour. He saw the number 13 on the front and it hit him. Number 13. I’m 13, the old house was 13, and so is the new one. I’ve travelled 13 years into the future. Austin had travelled 13 minutes into the past. All 13. But why?

  Jordan cringed as Austin kissed Zoë. Get a room, he thought. She watched as he and Austin entered the house then went back to the car to act as a lookout.

  ‘Where did you arrive?’ asked Austin. ‘The layout’s totally different, isn’t it?’

  Jordan shrugged again. He still didn’t feel like talking. Instead, he led Austin through the living room and into the kitchen. He pointed to where he had arrived. There was a distinct outline where the layer of dust had been disturbed as he fell. There were also palm marks and footprints where he had risen to his feet.

  ‘You must have been quite surprised when you saw how everything had changed,’ said Austin. ‘Especially since the doorway wasn’t in the same place any longer.’

  ‘And the walls are further back,’ Jordan added.

  Austin nodded in agreement. They stood there together in the kitchen for a few moments; Jordan, 13 years out of time, and Austin, who should have been the same age, and yet was double it. Jordan looked at Austin, and remembered all the times he had teased him. For Jordan, it was the recent past, but for Austin 13 years had gone by since Jordan had told him that he looked like somebody beat him with an ugly stick. Jordan still resented him, but was secretly glad that Austin seemed to have forgiven him.

  ‘Okay,’ said Austin, ‘there’s no point in wasting any more time. The sooner you go back through the time hole, the sooner you can get on with your life.’

  ‘But what if it doesn’t work?’ asked Jordan.

  ‘Then you’ll just bump into that wall over there!’ replied Austin. ‘Look, Jordan, it seems to me there’re three possibilities. One: You go the other way through the time hole, or whatever the hell it is, and emerge 13 years into the past. Two: The time hole has disappeared and you just walk into the wall.’

  ‘And three?’

  ‘Well, the third possibility isn’t quite so good.’

  ‘You mean I go 13 more years into the future?’

  ‘It’s entirely possible, but I think it unlikely.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘There’s not a helluva lot of research into these things,’ said Austin, ‘but there have been others. The theory is that they’re two-way. Go one way through and in your case you go 13 years into the future; go the other way through and you go back in time.’

  ‘Has anyone done that?’

  ‘Well, it’s a bit difficult to prove it, you see. If you go forward in time then go back the same amount of time, you’ve never gone through time, have you?’

  ‘S’pose not,’ said Jordan. ‘But what about all the other people that lived here? Shouldn’t they have gone through time as well?’

  ‘Look, Jordan, I don’t know. I just don’t know. I’m not as clever as you think I am, you know. I’m not some scientist or anything. Maybe it was just you and me that this time hole, or whatever it is, affected? I’m just someone who wants to undo a wrong thing that happened a long time ago, okay?’

  Jordan was surprised. Does he feel guilty about what happened? Well, he should, shouldn’t he?

  Austin held out his hand towards Jordan. Jordan looked at it, and hesitated.

  ‘Shake hands like a man,’ said Austin, ‘and let’s get this over with, eh?’

  Jordan reluctantly held out his hand and shook Austin’s, but he couldn’t quite look him in the eye. All of a sudden, it was Jordan feeling guilty and not just Austin. He wondered how it must have been for Austin all those years, not knowing what had happened to him.

  ‘Go on,’ said Austin, ‘don’t think about it; just go.’

  Jordan took a deep breath and walked toward the wall.

 

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