Midnight visitors

I couldn’t sleep in hospital, there was too much to think about and too many strange noises – the constant whirring of equipment, the doctors whispering, the clatter of pans and the almighty clatter of a bed being wheeled into the ward, who knew hospital beds were so loud? The night sister kept checking on me and telling me I should sleep so I hunched down under the covers and pretended to sleep.
“Danny,” I heard a familiar voice say. At first I thought it must have been a dream – it was Kaz. And he was with two other people, future people.
“We’ve come to apologise,” he whispered, “It was awful – we’re truly sorry.”

Nearly dying isn’t something you forgive easily. I sat up and said, “How did things go so wrong?” trying not put any friendly emotion in my voice. He didn’t explain, but introduced the woman next to him, Professor Aurelia Dobbs. The professor stepped forward and spoke with a soft voice, she had emerald-green eyes that drew me in as I listened, but I hung on to the anger, thinking of how upset Jenny was and how I could have died.

Aurelia pushed forward the third person in their group, Phoebe, to explain: she was a teenage girl; she looked funky and confident but seemed scared and nervous. She explained that she was a student shadowing Kaz and thought that because other students were handling xrosmonauts (time travellers) on their own, it would be ok for her to take over my case on her own. Except all the other time travellers were from their time – I’m the only one from my era. I couldn’t believe it, the only one! Kaz was a ball of rage, shouting at Phoebe and telling her how she’d blown her chances. I almost felt sorry for her; Kaz was really laying into her.

“Look, Kaz, if anyone’s entiltled to be cross it’s me, so let Phoebe continue explaining.” I wasn’t sure if I cut him off because I felt sorry for Phoebe or because Kaz was stealing my anger.

But what I really wanted to know was how they got me back…

In hospital

I woke up in hospital the next day with a big plastic tube stuck in my hand.

“It’s a drip,” the nurse said, “so don’t try to pull it out.”

Luckily no one could work out what caused my black out and ‘unaccountable loss of body heat’, but apparently I’d been chanting the word ‘cheddar’ in my sleep – oops! I felt really bad for worrying my family so much, but that was being overtaken by anger – what were SHARP playing at sending me without any warning? Jenny spent most of her visiting time teasing me about the lovely food they’d been eating at Aunt Mabel’s, whilst I wasn’ t supposed to be eating anything. When they all left she said something really odd:

“Another thing to add to the mystery surrounding my brother,” and gave me a knowing smile. Ever since the last time I went back into the past, it felt like Jenny knew there was something going on and that she knew more than she was letting on.

Hypothermia

It was so embarrassing: I was shivering on that damn cathedral floor with everyone crowding around me and I couldn’t stop crying. I wasn’t even sad, I was just glad to be backing the 21^st century – apparently it’s your body’s reaction to the shock. Great!

Poor Jenny had to look after me until Dad came and she stayed with me when they took me to hospital. I bet it would’ve been fun with all the flashing lights and sirens and what not, but she said she was too worried at the time.

Something went seriously wrong

Kaz managed to get in touch. He was really vague about all of these technical problems, and said he didn’t understand it all. I’m not sure if I believe him right now and I’ll tell you why…

When he first got in touch, he gave me some awesome news – I got letters after my name! Like people with degrees and stuff get, like my dad has MA after his name and uses it when he wants to sound important. My letters are XR, which is short for xrosmonaut – that’s SHARP’s name for a successful time traveller – how cool is that? Well I spose it would be cooler if it meant anything in the year 2012.

Anyway, I text Kaz to say thank you and ask him about this new time traveller they were thinking of using, a girl. I really hope they find someone else from my time and then I can meet them and share my experiences with someone who understands. So, he text back: he didn’t seem too interested in the girl, but asked me if the word Lichfield rang a bell. Lichfield – that’s where my aunt lives. I wonder what they want to find out about there?

My mum was well surprised when I asked when we were next going to Aunt Mabel’s. I was well excited about time travelling again, even after the last scare I had. I know Kaz said time travelling might be addictive, but I didn’t realise just what a buzz I’d get from it.

Once we were into the town of Lichfield, I automatically got a text from sharp about my next mission, but it cut out after

<Time zone> January…

Once at Aunt Mabel’s, Dad found every excuse to be out of the house – he couldn’t stand Aunt Mabel. I could understand, she is kinda annoying. He spent most of his time researching stuff for the university a Lichfield Cathedral – boring!

Even worse luck, after a couple of days we had to go with Dad to the cathedral while Mum went into town with Aunt Mabel. Dad went to work and me and Jenny went of to explore the cathedral. A woman showed us around the place and gave us these silly cloaks that pilgrims used to wear to try on. Then all of a sudden I heard that familiar whirring, it got louder and louder until it filled my ears. I tried to block it out, but it was like it was taking over my body. I lurched forward, clinging onto the cloak for support.

When I came to I was lying face down on the ground, not the cathedral floor, the actual ground. It felt like winter, I was lying on a bed a crisp leaves and the ground was white with frost. It was so, so cold. I turned on to my back. It was getting dark. Then there was this strange thundering coming up from the ground beneath me. I turned to my left to see a heard of deer coming straight for me. I scrambled to my feet and dove behind a tree. The fear of death seemed to shake some sense into me and I realised I was still clutching onto the cloak. I went to put the cloak on and hoped it would be enough to protect me from the cold. But before I got round to it, my throat began to clench and I got that horrible churning in my stomach – and then I chucked up everywhere. It must have been an effect of the spontaneous time travel. Then I started freaking out, it was freezing cold, there was snow on the tress and hedges, frost on the ground and all I had was this cloak to keep me warm – at least I hadn’t chucked up over the cloak.

I fumbled for my phone, pressing the emergency button over and over, but nothing happened – not even the ‘number not recognised’ message like before.

Looking around I could see a small, dry-stone wall. There were two distinct trails leading up to it, so I crept up to it, seeing if there was somewhere warmer to hide. Then I heard voices coming towards me, chanting words I couldn’t understand – it sounded like, “cheddar.”
I had nowhere to hide – this was going from bad to worse.

But strangely they took no notice of me, and it was because I looked like them, they were all wearing cloaks like mine. My thoughts went back to the cold, my ears were burning, it felt like air was freezing in my lungs and I couldn’t feel my feet anymore. What had SHARP done? I was going to die out here if I didn’t find shelter and warmth.

The chanting men got closer to me and formed a procession. I had no choice but to follow and then, all of a sudden, they dropped to their knees in a circle. I was in the middle, so I couldn’t get away – I copied them. They started performing a strange religious ritual I couldn’t understand, but I could pick up a few English sounding words. What the hell year had a gone back to?

I knew I had to get away before they realised I wasn’t one of them and asked questions I couldn’t answer, but my curiosity overcame my fear for a second. I just had to see the face of the monk who was going around the circle blessing us all. He caught my eye.

“Oh, no,” I thought. He spoke words but I couldn’t make out their meaning, and then the sound came: that high-pitched whirring came closer. No one else seemed to hear it, but it was so intense I had to cover my ears to blot it out, and then…nothing.

When I came round, I was on the floor of the cathedral. I could hear this deep moaning sound and then I realised it was coming from me. My vision was all blurred, but I could make out people leaning over me – panic was in their voices. I felt so, so cold – like I could never possibly be warm again. I heard the voice of a man dressed in green calling for blankets and a stretcher and then it all went blank.

Big problems in the future

Kaz finally got in touch, didn’t even mention the fact I nearly got stuck there, maybe he didn’t know about my little technical problem. He asked about my time slip and I told him about the awful stench in the barn and how it was much better this time. He just replied with, “Good.” I was starting to feel like he was a bit distracted. Then he sent me this weird message, well half a message. It froze on my screen to I took a picture:

It’s a good job these ‘big problems’ didn’t happen when I was back in the past, or maybe they did…? Hopefully he’ll come back soon so I can find out.

Freaking out!

Ok, I’m freaking out now. I’ve just been researching this Little Moreton Hall place I went back to in 1588 and the mill pond isn’t there anymore. I can’t find any reason why, plus I can’t find anything about Tobias Moreton anywhere on the internet. Maybe Edward got really angry and challenged Tobias to a rematch and drowned him. Or maybe the original Tobias drowned and that’s why it was filled in and I just went back to some fake past time in a parallel universe (but what would be the point in that?). Am I being paranoid? I wish I could ask Kaz this stuff, but I can’t seem to get in touch with him. I really hope Tobias was ok.

Why the weird time travel destinations?

After I got back, I started thinking about my last mission. I mean, why did they send me to some random country house? How come I never get to go back to Roman times or when massive world events were happening?

And it just so happened that when I went back to this weirdo mansion that no one cares about, it was at the time of this competition between Edward and Tobias, a competition Tobias was blatantly going to lose. OMG, have I altered the course of history by beating Edward? Maybe SHARP sent me back to beat Edward and my time travel was always part of history, which meant some important stuff for the Moreton family? Perhaps Tobias had a purpose later in his life and Edward would have made him drown in the mill pond if I hadn’t have gone back – like John Connor in Terminator. Awesome! I could be like Arnold Schwarzenegger, going back to save people who are destined to for great things later in life.

Haha, I need some retro 80s sunglasses.

How I got back to the present

Oops, left that on a bit of a cliff edge. So, how did I get back?

I kept dialling the numbers and instead of the usual whirring there was just a flashing message on the screen saying, “number not recognised”. I could hear voices coming nearer to where I was. The thing is, I can’t be certain of this, but I may have misdialled. I tried again, slowing down cos my hands were shaking from the running and the stress and dialled 1-5-7-9-8 and pressed the red button. Finally that eerie high-pitched whine pierced the air and came closer and closer until…

… I was back in my room, and Mum and Jenny still hadn’t come home from shoe-shopping! Bit of an anticlimax, but I’m pretty sure I was pressing the right numbers all along – I’ll have to find out what happened there, something didn’t feel right.