Frozen in Time (8 page)

Freddy gave her a hug. ‘Come on, old girl,’ he said. ‘It’ll be all right. It’ll be all right … I mean, at least we’ve still got family, eh? Even if one of them
is
the oldest nephew in living history …’

Uncle Jerome followed Ben and Rachel into the tight, leafy cave, hanging awkwardly from a slippery green branch. ‘Yes, quite right too, Freddy. You and Polly will be fine with us. You’ll stay here with us and we’ll look after you. And I promise you, I’ll do everything I can to find out what happened to your father. And imagine! You’re fifty-three years in the future— all kinds of things for you to see and experience! Ben and Rachel will be your guides and keep you safe. What an amazing thing! What a challenge!’

‘Yes—that’s right. It’s a challenge,’ said Freddy, briskly, as Polly wiped her eyes, sniffed and nodded. He nodded too and added, robustly: ‘Eat my shorts!’

‘I hope you don’t mind sharing,’ said Rachel as she showed Polly into her bedroom, which was at the front of Darkwood House, overlooking the driveway and the five-bar gate that led out onto the lane. ‘There are other rooms but they’re a bit dusty and old. There’s a spare bed that comes out from under mine—it’s really nice,’ she explained, pulling out the red mattress on a low frame on little wheels. ‘I’ve used it for sleep-overs and it’s comfy.’

Polly gazed all around her. She said nothing. Rachel’s heart suddenly thudded with realization. ‘Oh … was this
your
room, before?’

‘Yes,’ whispered Polly.

‘I’m sorry. It must be really weird seeing all my stuff in it.’ Rachel glanced around at her books and stuffed toys and clothes and teen dolls, all mixed up with magazines and CDs for her mini sound system, her digital camera, the fibre optic lamp in the corner and the yellow bead blinds that hung over the high sash window, matching the lemon paint on her walls and the duvet cover on her high pine cabin bed. She saw it with different eyes now. ‘What was it like in nineteen—I mean—yesterday?’

‘It was green,’ said Polly, softly, her eyes travelling the walls. ‘Wavy green leaves on the wallpaper and cream paint on the ceiling.’ She glanced up to the white ceiling which had yellow and orange stars randomly painted on it, at the yellow glass bead lamp-shade over the light, and then across to the window. ‘With a dressing table there—by the sash—a glass topped one. I had a silver-backed brush and comb set on it and a mirror on a stand. And a pot of Yardley’s face cream. There was an oak tallboy near the door. My bed was where yours is—but a proper iron-framed bed with a lace counterpane on the eiderdown. I had my dolls on a shelf. Miss Rosebud used to sit on my bed. She’s my favourite doll. Of course, I’m a bit old for dolls now, really, and Freddy laughs at me—but I do love her.’

‘Oh—I love dolls too!’ said Rachel, cheerfully, although it wasn’t strictly true. She quite
liked
dolls, but certainly didn’t love them—she’d pretty much grown out of them a year or more ago. She seized one now, though, to show to Polly. It was Ritzy—a Chatz Doll—one of a collection of funky teenage figures with oversized eyes, glossy pouting lips, and dreadlocked hair. This one wore hotpants and a crop top and leather-look boots. The designers had given her a navel with its own piercing and she came with a choice of bellybutton rings and studs.

Polly took the doll in her hands, eyes wide. ‘She doesn’t look like a little girl at all. She’s got a … a bosom! Oh! And someone’s stuck a pin in her tummy! How horrid!’

‘No—that’s …’ Rachel tailed off. Polly didn’t even have pierced ears, she could see. This was going to take a while to explain. She changed the subject. ‘I’m sure we’ve got lots in common!’ she chirruped. ‘What’s your school like … er …
was
it like? I bet you had a horrible maths teacher. Every school has a horrible maths teacher!’

‘We went to boarding school,’ said Polly. ‘So Father could concentrate on his work. We didn’t mind. Grange Court was all right. The girls were mostly quite decent although you had to fag for the older ones and that was jolly hard work when I first went.’

‘Fag?’ Rachel queried.

‘You know—do all their chores for them! Because I was in the first year, of course. It’s to teach you your place! And how to shine shoes and sew and all that. Just because we’re at boarding, it doesn’t mean we all have butlers, you know. We don’t have anyone at home except Mrs M and she only comes in three times a week. But you’re right—mathematics is ghastly! I detest it. Mr Bullford is
awful
whenever I get my times tables wrong and I’m wrong a
lot.
Freddy’s good at maths, of course—and sport and all that boy stuff— but I’m a total clot when it comes to that kind of thing. I’m good at English though, and Domestic Science. I can make hotpot and neck of lamb and all sorts.’

Rachel noticed how Polly kept saying ‘is’ instead of ‘was’ and ‘have’ instead of ‘had’. Maybe she still thought it was all a bad dream and she’d wake up tomorrow, back in 1956, in time to go to Hilary’s party after all.

‘Ooh! I’ve read this! I just
love
this!’ Polly pulled a dusty red book off Rachel’s shelf, beaming. It was
Five Go To Smuggler’s Top
. ‘I’m in the Famous Five fan club! Are you? I’ve got the badge—it costs a shilling to join and you get special letter and your badge. Enid Blyton is just super! I mean—gosh—to think! You’ve got
this
book after all this time! It’s just like the one I had—it’s—’ She paused, opening the cover, and then gasped. ‘It
is
mine!’ She showed Rachel the neat, rounded writing, in blue ink, on the first page. ‘
This book belongs to Pauline Emerson.
’

‘Wow,’ said Rachel. ‘I never thought I’d get to meet the girl who first got that book!’

‘Do you have any more?’ asked Polly, looking eager and bright for the first time.

‘Yes—I think so—downstairs mostly. I’ve kind of moved on from Enid Blyton now,’ confessed Rachel. ‘More into mags really.’

‘Mags? Who’s Mags? She can’t be better than Enid!’

‘No,’ laughed Rachel, ‘magazines … like this.’ She handed
SWEET
over to Polly—a flimsy cluster of luridly coloured pages, all about the latest music in the charts, pop groups, girl bands, boy bands, film stars, and celebrity stuff. The front cover featured a sulky looking pop starlet, her tanned arms around the neck of a boy band star who was wearing only jeans. Polly stared at it, her mouth dropping open in shock, and went crimson. Next to the photo were the words:
JAMIE RICE—HOW SNOGGABLE IS
HE?!
Polly read the words, mouthing them silently, and then stared up at Rachel.

‘Does your father
let
you read this?’ She looked absolutely appalled and Rachel began to shuffle, embarrassed, on her wood-effect flooring. Listed down the front page she could see further shocks in store for poor Polly.
STEP IN TO SEXY SUMMER SWIMSUITS
had Polly’s hand flying to her mouth and
DOES MY BUM LOOK BIG IN THIS?
had her eyes ready to pop out of their sockets.

‘Um—didn’t you have magazines like this?’ she asked, feeling peculiarly self-conscious.

‘Well—I get
Girl
, of course,’ said Polly, still staring at
SWEET
as if it was the work of the devil. ‘But that’s
nothing
like this!’

‘What
is
it like?’ asked Rachel, taking
SWEET
out of Polly’s hands and tucking it hurriedly under her bed with
MISSS
and
JJEM
and other shocking publications.

‘It’s super! Full of adventures stories, like “Wendy & Jinx” and “Belle of the Ballet”. They have the most amazing things happen to them—and they certainly don’t worry about the size of their backsides! I love them. I always wanted to have adventures and amazing things happening to me …’ She tailed off, gulping, and her round blue eyes fixed upon Rachel with a wet glitter. ‘And now I’ve got my wish.’

‘This used to be Father’s room,’ said Freddy, as soon as he stepped into Ben’s bedroom. It was a wide room with a double sash window which overlooked the wild garden and the woods beyond. Ben slept in the top of a metal bunk bed. The floor was covered in blue carpet and drifts of Star Wars Lego, and luminous ‘glow-inthe-dark’ planets were stuck all over the ceiling. Ben kept meaning to take them down—he was thirteen now, after all, and they’d gone up when he was six— but he still liked the way they glowed gently in the night.

‘This must be really weird for you,’ said Ben. ‘What did it look like?’

Freddy shrugged. ‘Cream and beige. Oak stuff. Ghastly old curtains which must have been there since 1900, I reckon! It’s better now, I can tell you. That bed is whizzer! Can I have the top bunk?’

‘Well,’ Ben shuffled, awkwardly. ‘It’s kind of m-my bed. It’s got all my books and stuff on the shelf.’

Freddy grinned. ‘It’s all right, you clod. I’m just joshing you. I’ll be perfectly happy in the bottom bunk. I say—this is going to be fantastically odd. Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow in
3
009! Maybe
you
will too!’

Ben sat down on the spinning metal seat which went with his white desk unit (also covered in Star Wars Lego) and stared at his great-uncle. ‘You really are something!’ He shook his head. ‘You’re just supercool about this, aren’t you?’

‘Certainly have been,’ said Freddy, opening the built-in wardrobe and eyeing Ben’s clothes and shoes. ‘Super cooling is part of the process. That’s how Father put us to sleep.’

‘Did you ever think that was—a bit—dodgy? Him putting you to sleep like that?’

Freddy shrugged. ‘It was the obvious thing to do. He needed to do research and it’s no good always doing it with rats or dogs. He only did it after he was absolutely certain it was safe. We didn’t mind. He never put us in any danger.’

Ben found it hard to agree. What if those cryonic torpedo things had gone wrong? Freddy and Polly would surely have suffocated. ‘He’d never get away with it today,’ he said. ‘Social Services would be round before you could blink. Mind you—I bet there’s not a parent alive that wouldn’t hope it could work. I mean—my mum and dad often talk about how great it would be to put
us
to sleep. In long car journeys mostly. They say they’d like a glass screen to slide up between the front seats and the back seat, and some kind of gas to pump in, so as soon as we went “Are we nearly—” they could freeze us. Five hours later when the car got to Cornwall they’d just hit the defrost button and we’d go “there yet?”.’

Freddy chuckled. ‘That would be the tops! Imagine—I could freeze Polly and never have to hear her drooling over Miss Rosebud all the way to the seaside! When we find Father, I’m going to get him to invent that! It’d sell like hot cakes! Good grief! Is this
yours
?’ He pulled a hanger out, from which dangled a colourful floral Hawaiian-style shirt, which Ben had worn to a beach barbecue last summer. Freddy was looking at it incredulously. ‘It’s your mother’s, right? In the wrong wardrobe.’

Ben bit his lip. ‘Didn’t you ever see Elvis in that kind of gear?’

Freddy squinted at him. ‘Elvis?’

‘Yeah! Elvis! Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of Elvis Presley!’

Freddy stuffed the shirt back in the wardrobe. ‘Elvis Presley … Oh—
that
Elvis. Yes—I’ve heard of him. He’s an American, isn’t he? I think he’s doing quite well in the popular music charts with his song— top ten, I think. My chum Frankie’s got the record. He thinks it’s whizzer. He does this lunatic dance to it, all hips wiggling and stuff. What’s it called? Something about a hotel, I think.’

‘“Heartbreak Hotel”,’ said Ben, at once. He wasn’t really into Elvis, but his mum had a ‘Best of Elvis’ CD which she sometimes played at parties.

‘Yes—that’s it. Gosh. He must have made it to number one then. Father thought he was dreadful. I thought he was a bit of a peacock, really. He sounds as if he’s being hit in the chest with a road drill. Did he do well then?’

Ben laughed. ‘You have
no idea
!’

‘Well, I can see I’m going to have to go back down the hatch,’ said Freddy, closing the wardrobe door decisively. ‘There’s no way I’m wearing
your
stuff! Honestly! Your clothes are all shiny, like girls’ clothes. I prefer to look like a boy!’

‘With a haircut like
that
?’ retorted Ben. ‘You look like the Prince of Wales. And trust me—that is not a look you
want
in 2009!’ His own hair was a fairly credible mess. In spite of all the drama of the past couple of hours, Freddy’s straight dark brown hair was still neatly parted to one side. ‘Anyway, that’s just party gear. I normally wear T-shirts and jeans. Don’t you have any jeans?’