Chapter 6
The Deal
Monday 8th November 2010
The weekend was awkward for Austin. He still felt angry at his mum for not having faith in him, and he also had mixed feelings about going back to school on Monday. On the one hand, he was excited that Mr Jones had done some research; it made him feel vindicated, if only a little bit. On the other hand, what would people say about him on his return? Would they stare at him and blame him for Jordan’s disappearance? Would he now have ten times more bullies at his throat?
Monday morning came, and Austin appeared for breakfast. His mum had made him boiled egg and toasted soldiers; his favourite. She had placed a small serviette next to it, and a glass of apple juice sat waiting for him, too. She stood beside the table, still in her dressing gown, and smiled nervously at him. Austin looked up at her, and noticed that her eyes were red-rimmed. She had been crying again. He looked down at the feast awaiting him. Part of him wanted to say to her, ‘I’m not hungry,’ and walk out the door without saying goodbye, but the better half of him suddenly felt very sorry and rather guilty at the way he’s treated her over the past few days. She’s the only mum you’ve got, he thought, and Jordan didn’t have one at all, remember? So he looked back up at his mum, and smiled. She placed a hand over her mouth, and tears welled up in her eyes again, and she laughed nervously through her fingers. It was too much for Austin. He couldn’t bear it any longer, and rushed into her waiting arms.
‘I’m sorry, mum,’ he said, and heard his words echoed over and over again from her mouth.
Austin was driven to school that morning by his dad, who walked with him through the school gates and into reception, a gentle guiding hand on his shoulder. It gave Austin the extra nerve he needed to walk the gauntlet of staring children that awaited his arrival. Nobody said anything to him, nobody called out anything to him. They just stared. Some were obvious about it, and some glanced away quickly, only to sneak another look out of the corner of their eyes. This is worse than being called names, he thought, as he waited in reception to be called through to the Head’s office. His dad tried making jokes, but gave up after Austin gave him a withering look.
Presently, Mr Jones came through the double doors that led into the main school corridor. Austin’s dad stood up and shook Mr Jones’s hand.
‘Good to see you again, Mr Baker,’ said his tutor, ‘it’s a shame its under these circumstances.’
‘Is there any news about Jordan?’ asked his dad.
Austin held his breath, awaiting the answer.
‘I’m afraid not, Mr Baker. There’s just no trace of him.’
‘What a world we live in,’ said his dad, shaking his head.
Mr Jones nodded in agreement, then looked at Austin.
‘Well, then, Austin, I think it was very brave of you to come in this morning. Well done.’
Austin gathered his bag and coat and stood up.
‘Bye dad,’ he said.
‘Oh,’ said his dad, looking surprised, ‘well, goodbye then… Austin.’
Don’t look so surprised, dad, thought Austin, as he followed Mr Jones through the double doors, what’d you expect me to do, kiss you? I am 13, you know. As the door closed behind him, Austin could just make out his dad waving to him, and then the door closed, leaving him alone with his tutor.
‘Okay, Austin,’ he said, as they walked down the corridor towards their tutor base, ‘I want to make a deal with you.’
Austin stopped walking. ‘What do you mean?’ he said, suddenly suspicious.
Mr Jones stopped walking too, and turned to look at his student. He was frowning slightly, and Austin didn’t like it at all. ‘If I agree to research the possibilities of time travel with you, I need you to promise me that you’ll talk to my sister.’
Of all the things that Austin had expected his tutor to say, this was not one of them.
‘Your sister?’ said Austin. ‘But why?’
‘Because she’s a child psychologist, and you’ve been through a terrible ordeal, what with Jordan’s disappearance and all.’
Austin thought for a moment. I wonder if that’s the real reason, or does he think I’m crazy or something?
‘Well? Will you?’ said Mr Jones. ‘She’s very good. I talked with her at the weekend, and she’s very keen to meet you.’
‘Okay,’ said Austin, ‘but I’ll have to ask my mum and dad first.’
‘Absolutely,’ said his tutor, ‘I wouldn’t have it any other way. Now, the bell will go for tutor time in a minute or two, so we don’t have time to do any research now. Anyway, I think its important for you to face your peers straight away, so they get over the awkwardness of the whole thing. Don’t you agree?’
Austin nodded reluctantly. He saw the logic of his tutor’s words, but wasn’t looking forward to it, especially since what had happened on his way in.
‘So when can we do it, Sir?’
Mr Jones unlocked the classroom door and held it open for Austin. He beckoned with a quick flick of his head for Austin to go in.
‘Lunchtime will do,’ he said. ‘We can get stuck in then.’
Water, Water Everywhere
Monday 3rd November 2036
13 years gone by in an instant. A breath ago, a blink ago, Jordan had been in 2023. Now he hoped to be back in 2010, but this wasn’t a good start. The room he had left in 2010 had not been flooded with water, unless that dripping tap had suddenly burst into life. Jordan was face down in the stuff. It was cold. Icy cold. It was also soaking through his blazer.
He’d felt the dizziness as he went through the time hole. He’d felt his stomach tie up in knots. He’d felt that piercing hotness on his temples. His muscles had become taught and then relaxed, and he had fallen forward. Everything had gone as expected. But the splash and the sudden cold wetness had made him cry out in alarm. As a result, he had received a mouthful of dirty, stale water. He lifted his head and spat it out in disgust, then coughed and retched. The water made the wind-chill factor much worse. It stung his ears as it whistled past him.
Hold on a moment, thought Jordan, you don’t get wind inside a house! He struggled to his feet and blinked rapidly. His vision was still blurred from the journey, however brief it had been. He could make out vague shapes, and a lot of open space. Then he felt spots of wetness on his head. It was raining!
Things slowly came into focus, and Jordan did not like what he saw. The walls of the kitchen had crumbled, and the doors had fallen off their hinges. The floor was completely under water, and it didn’t stop there. The house now looked like the ruined castle he had visited whilst on holiday with his dad in Cornwall. He looked up to see a grey, washed out sky with ugly, dark clouds above him. There’s no ceiling. Jordan clasped his hand to his face but no tears came. It was as if the sky was crying for him. He walked towards the entrance to the ruined house, stepping over bits of rubble, and splinters of wood. The place looked like one of those war zones Jordan had seen on the news. He reached the front door, or at least the gap where the front door had once been. He looked out at Oak Road.
You can’t really call it a road anymore, thought Jordan, it’s Oak River. As far as his eyes could see, there was water. Jutting out of it at various intervals were old pylons, or half a streetlight. A signpost stood precariously at an angle, warning the water to give way. Some hope, thought Jordan. Thousands of droplets appeared and dissipated on the water’s surface. Jordan was standing on the doorstep, but was too nervous to walk any further. He wasn’t sure how deep the water was; it was too murky to see.
Then, a voice called out. It was far away, almost out of ear-shot. Jordan strained to see where it was coming from. It was misty in the distance, but emerging out of it was a small, wooden boat. A rowing boat. As it came nearer, he could make out the figure of a man, and he could hear the splash of the oars as he rowed. Jordan had been numb to his feelings since he had arrived, but now they surfaced again. Who is he, and why is nobody else around? And why is the pla
ce flooded? Nothing made sense again.
‘Jordan!’ said a familiar voice over the water. ‘Is that you, Jordan?’
That voice. He had spoken to the man with that voice only minutes ago, but with rising dread he realised what must have happened. I haven’t gone back in time, he thought. I’ve gone forward in time. Again.
He watched, too tired to move, and too frightened to call out. His feet felt frozen, and he noticed that he had started to shiver. Jordan had never felt more helpless than at this moment.
‘Jordan?’ said the voice from the boat. ‘It is you. Thank God.’
The side of the boat hit a streetlight and made a hollow metallic sound. The man inside grabbed a hold of the post and stopped the boat. He took a rope and swiftly tied it around the pole. He had obviously done it many times before. Jordan looked at his face and recognised him immediately.
It was Austin... and he was older.
Spacetime
Monday 8th November 2010
Mr Jones lifted the lid of his laptop and waited patiently for the machine to wake up. He and Austin were sitting in his science classroom at one of the tables, perched on stools.
It had been a long morning, not least because Austin had been counting every minute until this moment, but also because his peers had collectively ‘sent him to coventry’, as his mum called it. Even some of his teachers gave him a wide berth. He was used to students ignoring him. Most of the time, he was quite happy not to talk to anyone. It allowed him to learn. That is what I’m here for, he frequently thought to himself. But this morning, Coventry felt different; it no longer felt comfortable being on his own, because it was no longer his choice.
Austin gazed at the laptop as his tutor keyed in his password and the screen came to life. He noticed immediately that Mr Jones had pre-prepared his web browser. There were multiple tabs open; their titles read tantalisingly: Time Travel, The Big Question, Einstein, Wormhole - the list seemed endless. Finally, he thought, some answers.
‘Right,’ said Mr Jones, knitting his fingers together and turning the palms outwards, ‘time travel. Time travel. Time travel. Well, now, it seems there are a lot of people out there who think that time travel is possible…’
‘Really?’ said Austin. I told you so.
‘Yes, really, and I know what you’re thinking… I told you so, right?’
Austin smiled sheepishly. Smart-arse.
‘Well, be that as it may, the answers are not necessarily what you might like to hear…’
Austin frowned. How can that be?
His tutor clicked on the first tab, and said, ‘these sites are just to jog my mind. I’ve sent you an email of links which you can read afterwards, if you like. So…’
Get on with it, thought Austin.
‘Have you heard of Einstein?’
‘Yeah,’ said Austin, nodding. ‘He created the atomic bomb.’
‘Not quite,’ said his tutor, ‘but that’s another matter. Einstein created the theory of relativity.’
‘I’ve heard of it,’ said Austin, already unsure whether he was going to understand all that he was about to hear.
‘Good,’ said Mr Jones. ‘I’ll give you an example. Imagine you have a twin, and that twin goes into space for a year and then comes back. How old would he be?’
‘Easy,’ said Austin, ‘the same age as me, ‘cos we’re twins.’
‘Not according to Einstein. He’ll be younger than you.’
‘What?’ said Austin. ‘How?’
‘Well, this is the difficult bit,’ said Mr Jones. ‘Although time seems to pass at the same rate for you and your twin, time is actually passing at a slower rate for him, because he’s moving away from you. It’s all to do with gravity, you see. Gravity causes time dilation. It’s called the twin paradox. Your twin is moving away from you very, very quickly. The faster he travels, the slower he ages.’
‘But time seems to travel at the same speed for both of them?’
‘Yes. That’s the relative bit. If they synchronised their watches before leaving, they could prove it.’
‘But that’s not really time travel, is it?’
‘Yes, it is. There’s a russian astronaut who travelled into the future.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. But… only 20 milliseconds.’
Austin laughed. ‘That’s nothing!’ he exclaimed.
Mr Jones shrugged. ‘I know, I know, but it proves it’s possible.’
‘But I didn’t go anywhere,’ said Austin, ‘so that’s not what happened to me.’
‘True,’ said his tutor, ‘so we can discount that theory.’
Austin smiled. We’re getting somewhere. ‘So what other theories are there?’
‘Well, there’s wormholes.’
‘Wormholes?’
‘Yup. We’re back to Einstein again. He said that we exist in four dimensions.’
‘Oh, I know this!’ said Austin. ‘Length, breadth, depth… and time!’
‘Very good. Someone’s been paying attention in lessons. Now Einstein said that space and time were not separate. He called it spacetime. If you think of spacetime as a flat rubber sheet, then small objects can move about it in straight lines. Okay? But what happens if you put a heavy object, like the sun for instance, on it?’
‘Well, it would sink into it, and make it bend.’
‘Exactly. And the sheet, or spacetime would then be ‘warped’, wouldn’t it?’
‘I suppose,’ said Austin.
‘What would the earth do if you put it near the sun on this rubber sheet?’
‘It would roll towards it?’
‘Bingo! It would roll into the ‘dip’ as it went by.’
‘Isn’t that gravity?’
‘Sure. But what I’m trying to say here, Austin, is that spacetime is curved.’
‘I don’t get it. How does that give us time travel?’
‘Okay,’ said Mr Jones. He rose from his stool and picked up a piece of paper from his printer. Then he withdrew a pencil from his jacket pocket and drew one circle on the far left and another circle on the far right. ‘Now, imagine this is spacetime. We are here,’ he said, pointing to the left circle, ‘and we want to go here,’ he continued, pointing to the right circle. ‘How do we get from one to the other?’
‘We travel across the paper,’ said Austin.
‘But that’s millions of light years away. We’d never get there in a million lifetimes. We need to travel through time and not space, don’t we?’
‘Yes,’ said Austin, shuffling a bit on his stool. ‘But how can we -’ And then the lights went on in Austin’s brain. Of course! It’s so obvious! He jumped off his stool and grabbed the piece of paper from his tutor’s hand and folded it in two. Then he picked up the pencil and stabbed it through the left circle.
Mr Jones smiled. He raised his eyebrows at Austin, who opened up the paper again to reveal a hole through both circles. Austin beamed a smile of triumph. His tutor clapped once, slowly, then again, and then once more.
‘Very good, Austin. Very good indeed.’
For a few moments, Austin felt as if the mystery had been solved. A weight seemed to lift from him. At last, an answer! But then his smile faded, and he frowned again.
‘What is it, Austin?’ said Mr Jones.
‘That’s not right,’ he said. ‘All that did was travel through space, not time. And I travelled through time, not space!’
‘Not quite right. Remember, it’s not space, but spacetime we’re talking about, so you travelled through space and time. Space because you moved from one circle to the other, and time because you took a short cut through the wormhole.’
‘But that’s still not what happened to me.’
‘Okay,’ said Mr Jones, ‘watch this.’ He took the piece of paper and bent it round again until the holes were overlapping, making a circular tube. ‘If spacetime curves, it could be circular, like this, in which case…’
Austin nodded, his smile returning. ‘�
��In which case the two holes become the same place in space, but not the same place in time!’
‘Well done!’ said his tutor. ‘There’s only one flaw to this theory.’
Austin’s smile fell from his face. ‘What?’
‘Wormholes - if they exist - could only work in the vacuum of space.’
‘Oh,’ said Austin, and placed his head in his hands, elbows resting on the desk in front of them. ‘Are there any other theories?’
‘Not serious ones,’ said Mr Jones. ‘So you see, whatever happened to you, I don’t think it was time travel.’
‘But it was!’ said Austin, jumping off his chair, ‘you’ve got to believe me!’
‘I’m afraid I’m a scientist, Austin,’ said Mr Jones, ‘and we scientists need proof. Otherwise, it’s all just theory.’
‘Of course!’ said Austin, ‘why didn’t I think of that?’
‘Think of what?’
‘I’ll show you!’
‘Show me?’
‘Yes! Like I did with myself!’
‘Hold on, Austin, I’m losing you. What do you mean, like I did with myself?’
‘I proved that I time travelled by going through the timehole and then phoning myself.’
‘Austin…’
‘No wait, it could work…’
‘But the house has been demolished, and what with Jordan going missing, I’m pretty sure they’ll have the site sewn up tightly…’
‘So? I bet the timehole’s still there.’
‘I can’t let you go there,’ said Mr Jones, ‘it’s not safe!’
‘You don’t want to believe it, do you?’ said Austin.
‘It’s not a case of wanting or not wanting, Austin. I can’t let you go there. I’d get the sack!’
‘Not if nobody found out,’ said Austin. ‘You’ve gotta let me, Sir. Please! I’ll go mad if nobody believes me!’
‘Wait,’ said Mr Jones. ‘Wait a second. I’m not saying I will and I’m not saying I won’t, but if, and I mean if, I let you do this…how would it work?’
Austin took a deep breath. Don’t screw this one up, he thought to himself. He exhaled slowly, trying to remain calm. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘this is how it’s gonna go. It’s quarter past one now, right?’
‘Yes…’
‘So if I leave here at one twenty, I can be at the timehole in five minutes…’
‘Which makes it one twenty-five…’
‘Exactly. I go through the timehole and travel back in time 13 minutes…’
‘Twelve minutes past one…’
‘Exactly. It’ll take me five minutes to get back here, so I’ll get here at seventeen minutes past, providing I don’t get stopped along the way.’
Austin looked at Mr Jones expectantly. He’s got a weird look on his face, he thought. Mr Jones stroked his chin thoughtfully, then looked at the classroom clock. Austin’s eyes followed his gaze. Nearly sixteen minutes past one, he thought.
‘Well?’ said Austin.
‘Are you telling me you’ll arrive here before you leave?’
Austin nodded. ‘So it’ll look like I never left!’
‘So there’ll be two of you?’
Austin nodded again.
‘You haven’t got an identical twin, have you?’ said Mr Jones.
‘No, Sir,’ said Austin. What’s it going to take to convince you? Then it came to him. Of course!
‘Have you got something with you that only you could have?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ said Mr Jones, fishing through his jacket pockets. He brought out a small, purple Mp3 player. ‘Ah! This will do!’ he said.
‘Give it to me, and I’ll take it with me.’
‘Okay,’ said Mr Jones. ‘Be careful with it. My wife gave it to me for my birthday. If you look on the back, it’s got an inscription engraved on it.’
Austin took the player and turned to read the inscription. To my huggy-bear, he read, from your Shnooky-lumps. Austin looked up at Mr Jones, who had blushed spectacularly.
‘Don’t ask,’ said his tutor.
‘Don’t worry, I won’t!’ said Austin, and put the player in his jacket pocket.
They both looked at the clock again. Seventeen minutes past one, thought Austin. What if I’m wrong?
But then there was no more time to wonder, for at that moment, the door opened.
The Big Melt
Monday 3rd November 2036
‘It didn’t work, did it?’ said Jordan. ‘You were wrong.’
‘Yes. I was,’ said Austin, as he stepped out of the boat into the water. He was wearing thigh-length galoshes and wore a heavy-looking leather jacket. As he came towards Jordan, he could see the crow’s feet lining Austin’s eyes, and the weather-beaten skin. His hair had thinned considerably, and he was unshaven.
‘What year is it?’ he asked, as Austin reached the doorstep.
‘It’s 2036,’ Austin replied, as he clambered up. He sounded so matter-of-fact, as if he was telling him the time of day. Jordan stepped back to allow him through the doorway, or what was left of it. ‘I guess you’d like to know what the hell happened.’
Jordan nodded. Austin extended his hand again, as he had done only minutes ago. It was strange shaking his hand so soon after the last time, but Jordan reminded himself that for Austin it had been 13 years.
‘I’m sorry, Jordan,’ he said. ‘As you’ve probably guessed, it appears you can only go forwards in time, no matter which way you enter the time hole. Of course, that means you’re now twenty-six years into the future, so I think another trip through would not be a good thing.’
‘You think,’ said Jordan.
Austin laughed. ‘Ha!’ he said, ‘at least you’ve still got a sense of humour.’
Jordan tried to summon a smile, but it was half-hearted to say the least. Austin put a hand on his arm. Jordan wanted to shrug it off, but he didn’t have the strength anymore. He just wanted to be at home again, playing on his game console whilst his dad cooked his tea.
‘Dad,’ he murmured.
‘Did you say dad?’ asked Austin. ‘Would you like to see him?’
Jordan looked at Austin, hope trembling in his chest. ‘Do you know where he is?’
‘Yes. Yes I do.’ Austin climbed down into the water again. He beckoned Jordan to climb on his back. ‘Come on, Jordan, mate, I’ll carry you to the boat.’
And so, Jordan clambered onto Austin’s back and they made their way slowly over. The current was quite strong, and once or twice they almost fell, but eventually they made it. Jordan felt very odd, being carried by the boy he had towered over only hours ago. Of course, that was when they were the same age. Now, Austin was thirty-nine, and Jordan was still 13.
Austin turned round and let Jordan step off his back onto the boat. It swayed dangerously, and Jordan almost lost his balance, but Austin turned and held the boat still whilst Jordan sat down at the bow. When he was safely sat down, Austin clambered into the boat himself, and took up the oars. Jordan watched him row the boat with practiced ease. They floated past debris of all kinds: a doll’s head, a dead rat; the flotsam and jetsam from a thousand flooded sewers.
Eventually, Jordan could stand it no more. He had to know.
‘Austin... what happened here?’ he asked.
Austin didn’t reply, so Jordan repeated his question a little louder. Austin had obviously been daydreaming, as he suddenly looked up at him, as if noticing him for the first time.
‘Sorry, Jordan,’ he said, ‘I was miles away. What did you say?’
‘Why is everywhere flooded and that?’
‘Oh, this. Yes.’ Austin cleared his throat and fell silent again. Jordan looked about him at the crumbling walls and the rusted husks of cars. A gaggle of geese flew overhead in strict formation, the leader emitting a slow, measured honk to keep his feathered squadron in line.
‘They warned us,’ said Austin, ‘but we ignored them. We called them panic-mongers, and worry-warts. We couldn’t see beyond th
e ends of our noses, so we didn’t take heed. Let the next generation worry about it, we said. And then it happened.’
‘What happened?’
‘The big melt.’
‘The big what?’
‘The polar ice-caps. They melted. We got flooded. It’s as simple as that.’
Without Needing a Mirror
Monday 8th November 2010
They say that a picture paints a thousand words. It’s a bit of a cliché, until something happens that’s so astounding you start to realise that it is, in fact, an understatement.
Mr Jones’s face seemed to be frozen in a snapshot of shock. If Austin had felt the inclination, he could have taken a photo of his tutor that would have proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that a picture could, and indeed had painted a million words. Austin, however, didn’t have the inclination, because he was also staring at the person who had just entered the classroom. It’s one thing to receive a call from yourself, thought Austin, but another thing altogether when you look at yourself… without needing a mirror. He had mixed emotions about the whole thing. On the one hand, he was supremely excited that he’d proved to Mr Jones that he had time travelled, but on the other hand, he was more than a little spooked at seeing himself come through the door, and just a little bit scared of what might happen next.
‘Hi, me!’ said Austin.
‘Er, yeah…’ said Austin, staring at Austin, ‘hi myself.’
‘Look Mr Jones,’ said Austin, and produced the Mp3 player from his blazer pocket. He turned to Austin and raise his eyebrows at him. ‘Go on,’ he whispered.
Austin frowned for a moment, and then realised what he was trying to tell himself. He reached into his blazer pocket and produced the self-same Mp3 player from his pocket as well.
‘Satisfied?’ said Austin to his tutor.
Mr Jones nodded. The shock had temporarily removed the power of speech from him.
Austin turned to himself and said, ‘you’d better get going if you want to be back here a minute ago.’
Austin laughed. ‘Okay,’ he said, and walked over to the door. He opened it to walk out and turned back to Austin and his tutor.
‘See you earlier, Sir!’ he said and closed the door behind him as he went.
‘That Austin,’ said Austin, shaking his head, ‘what a joker!’
Mr Jones sat down hard on his stool and stared vacantly about him.
‘Are you okay, Sir?’ said Austin, giving his tutor back the Mp3 player.
‘Yes, I think…’
‘That was amazing!’ said Austin. ‘The feeling you get when you see yourself walk into the room. It’s like nothing can harm you. It’s like being everything all at once. It’s incredible!’
‘Really?’ said Mr Jones, recovering at last.
‘Really,’ said Austin. ‘Now, do you still want me to see your sister?’
‘My sister?’
‘Yes, you know… to talk about stuff and that.’
‘Yes,’ replied his tutor. ‘Yes, I think it’s even more important now.’
Austin held out his hand to Mr Jones, who stared at it a moment before extending his and shaking it firmly. ‘I’m sorry, Austin, it’s just such a shock. My mind’s still reeling from the whole thing!’
‘Imagine how I felt when I phoned myself!’
Mr Jones laughed. ‘Bizarre!’ he said. ‘I’m supposed to be the teacher here, but here I am stunned into silence at one of my students undermining the fabric of my universe!’
‘Is that bad?’ asked Austin, not quite sure if he’d understood what his tutor had meant by that last remark.
‘Bad?’ echoed Mr Jones. ‘It’s fundamentally forcing me to question everything I think I know is true!’
‘Oh!’ said Austin, ‘I’m sorry, Sir.’
Mr Jones looked down at Austin for a moment before he answered. ‘It’s not your fault, Austin, but it does raise a few questions that will need answering…’
Mr Jones’s voice trailed off into the distance, and he went back to staring into space again. Austin had an uneasy feeling that he had started something that would change everything, and now there was no way to stop it. He stood there awkwardly for a few moments, but then the bell went for the end of lunch, and this seemed to bring Mr Jones out of his funk.
‘Better get to lessons, Austin,’ said his tutor.
‘Yes, Sir,’ said Austin.
‘And I’ll arrange an appointment with my sister for you, okay?’
‘Yes, Sir. Thanks.’
‘No, thank you, Austin,’ said Mr Jones, ‘Thank you.’
As Austin walked off, he had the uneasy feeling that he would regret this lunch hour for the rest of his life.
Baker’s Dozen
Monday 3rd November 2036
‘Oh, what?’ said Jordan. It was all he could think of to say.
‘You’re lucky I managed to get here,’ said Austin. ‘This area was completely abandoned. Everyone left for higher ground. Now it’s used for army training... hence the ruined buildings.’
‘You mean they..?’
‘Yep. They’ve bombed this place to hell.’
‘What? You mean we could get bombed and that?’
‘It’s a risk. But unlikely. The army are pretty busy right now.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Never mind. It’s not important. What is important is that we get you to your dad.’
Jordan smiled. He was really looking forward to seeing him. He remembered saying goodbye to him that morning. His dad had been doing the washing up in the kitchen sink, and hadn’t even looked up. Jordan imagined saying goodbye to him again. This time, however, he made sure his dad turned round to say goodbye, and then Jordan realised something terrible.
‘Austin? How old are you?’
‘I’m thirty-nine. Why?’
‘That’s how old my dad was when...’ Jordan’s voice trailed off.
‘When you left this morning?’ said Austin, ‘figures. That’s three times 13.’
‘But that means he’ll be...’
‘...sixty-five, yes. And remember, he hasn’t seen you in twenty-six years.’
Jordan fell silent after that, and buried himself in his blazer. It was still damp and had begun to smell bad, and Jordan realised how cold he had become. He sniffed, and concealed his icy fingers between his thighs to warm them up. A few minutes went by, and Jordan listened to the intermittent splashing sounds the oars made, the lapping of the water against the side of the boat, and the soft pelt of raindrops on the water’s surface. Presently, the rain stopped, but no sun came out from behind the oppressive clouds overhead. Then, he felt a hand on his shoulder and peered out from under the collar of his blazer to see Austin taking off his coat.
‘Here,’ said Austin, laying the coat over Jordan’s prone body, ‘this should help to keep you warm.’
Jordan gratefully received the coat, and managed a smile. Twenty-six years, he thought. Twenty-six years, and he still came back for me. Why?
‘Is that better?’ Austin asked.
Jordan nodded. ‘Thank-you,’ he said.
‘That’s all right,’ replied his saviour, ‘it’s the least I can do.’
‘What do you mean?’
Austin opened his mouth to reply, but the answer never came out, for at that moment a shot rang out across the landscape. It echoed across the water, and Jordan screamed. Austin put a finger to his lips.
‘Ssh!’ he hissed, ‘that was a warning shot.’
‘From a gun?’ Jordan whispered, eyes wide with alarm.
‘Yes, from a gun.’ Austin stopped rowing and put the oars back into the boat. They slowed up, and began to drift with the current. The sound of several engines became audible, and they were getting nearer. ‘Just stay calm, Jordan, and don’t say anything.’
Jordan sat up, pulling the coat tighter round him. He looked out across the ruined landscape. He realised that they had made it as far as the town centre. He could just recognise the public
library on his left. The roof had been blown away, and the walls were crumbling. The library had never been a place that Jordan frequented. But even to him it stood for something reliable and solid, and to see the building so dilapidated was quite shocking.
What was more shocking, however, was what came round the corner of the library at that moment. Jordan gasped as he saw two motorboats emerge, their engines purring noisily, churning out filthy froth behind them. Standing inside the boats were soldiers, wearing camouflage, hard-hat helmets, and carrying SA80 rifles.
Jordan looked up at Austin, and saw him nodding his head, as if he was doing a head count. One of the soldiers had a loudspeaker, and a command issued forth from it.
‘Put your hands in the air!’
Austin slowly raised his hands as the soldiers came nearer, and glared at Jordan to do the same. As Jordan raised his hands, he saw Austin shake his head, and smile.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘There’s six in that boat and seven in the other,’ Austin said, as if it should mean something to him.
‘Yeah...’ said Jordan. He’s lost it. ‘So?’
‘It’s a Baker’s dozen.’
‘It’s a what?’
‘Sorry,’ said Austin. ‘It’s what I call it. I’m Austin Baker, remember?’
Jordan still didn’t understand. He shrugged. Austin sighed. The motors in the army boats cut out as they neared them. The soldiers at the front held them both in their sights.
‘A Baker’s dozen is 13,’ said Austin, and looked meaningfully at Jordan.
The penny finally dropped, and Jordan raised his eyebrows. 13 again. Everything’s 13. But why?
‘This is a restricted area,’ said one soldier, as the first boat came alongside their smaller craft. ‘Give me one good reason why we shouldn’t just shoot you now.’
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