Julius and the Watchmaker (10 page)

Julius looked up at the clouds. The orange light beam seemed to be doing the trick. The clouds were slowing and settling into more normal, albeit amber, clouds once more.

‘I think that should do it,' said the professor, and he tapped the pocketwatch. The light faded and the drawers folded themselves up and slipped back into the body of the watch. He took hold of the control-arm and moved it again to the left. The gyroflyer lurched and dived and Julius's stomach somersaulted.

‘We'll find some open ground to land and then it's back to our realm to sort out this Jack Springheel cove,' said the professor, as they sped above the sharp rooves of the Grackack city. ‘Do you see any clear space, gentlemen?'

Julius's eyes were darting back and forth from the rapidly descending dial to the rapidly approaching ground below. There were only narrow streets and tall chimneys belching out black smoke.

‘Over there, Professor,' said Mr Flynn, pointing to a main thoroughfare. It was too early in the morning to be crowded and it looked just wide enough for the gyroflyer's blades.

‘Excellent, Danny,' said the professor, dipping the flying contraption in that direction. ‘Hold on tight. Landing a gyroflyer is not a skill I have completely mastered.'

The few Grackacks on the street scattered as the gyroflyer plunged towards them. It hit the ground with such force that it bounced into the air again, sending Julius's carpetbag catapulting from his lap. The professor slumped forward like a rag doll. With the wind knocked out of him Julius braced himself as well as he could as he watched the ground coming closer a second time. Moments later the gyroflyer connected with the street once more. This time it did not bounce as much but the blades hit a building on the side of the street. The force of the collision sent brick, wood and glass scattering as the flying machine turned to the right and embedded itself in a shop window.

Julius's hands were trembling too violently to unbuckle the straps holding him in. As the dust around the crashed craft began to settle, he saw what he took to be the shop's proprietor, wearing a white apron and holding a sweeping brush, staring at the flying machine where his window display should have been. Strange looking fruits and vegetables were strewn everywhere and a upturned barrel of pickles was oozing its contents across the floor.
Just be thankful he can't see you, Higgins. An apology probably wouldn't go down very well.

Mr Flynn expertly unbuckled his straps. ‘Let's be off before we cause any more mayhem.' He then leaned across the dazed professor to undo Julius's strap. ‘We'll have to make a quick exit, as they say in the music hall.'

‘How? Where to?'

‘We'll do a bit of temporal travelling.'

‘What?'

‘A time-jump, Julius. Just a small one.'

CHAPTER 10

Thursday 6th July, 1837
5:03 AM

‘Did you say
time-jump,
Mr Flynn?' said Julius.

‘That I did,' said Mr Flynn, shaking the professor gently by the shoulders. ‘The professor's out for the count. We'll have to jump to home base and then decide what to do.'

The Grackack shopkeeper leapt out of the puddle of pickles forming around his feet and let out a cry of anger and despair. He kicked the gyroflyer so hard that Julius felt the jolt. Other Grackacks were arriving at the scene, getting in the shopkeeper's way. One was surreptitiously pocketing vegetables. The watch remained in the air, an arm's length from Julius—its blue light protecting them from the Grackack vibration field, for the time being.

‘What's home base, Mr Flynn?' asked Julius to distract himself from the
time-jump
question.

‘Best not worry about that, for now. I'll explain it when we get there. Just don't panic…no matter what happens next. I'd like to have the time to explain it, but I don't so…here goes…'

‘But, hang on, wait—'

Mr Flynn held the professor's hand out as if it were a rag doll's and tapped his finger twice against the side of the pocketwatch.

‘Here we go. Hold hands like you're playing Ring-a-Ring-a-Rosy. And remember, don't panic.'

‘What?'

‘Quickly now, hold hands, and whatever happens don't let go. What shouldn't you do?'

‘Let go?'

Julius felt Mr Flynn take his right hand and he held onto the professor's with his left. The ticking of the clock was growing louder and faster.

Julius was beginning to panic now. Being told not to panic was a clear instruction to panic in his book. He stared at the pocketwatch, waiting for whatever was going to happen next.

The top and bottom of the watch extended into cone shapes, and on the next tick of the second hand everything went black and silent, deathly silent.

The clearest thing Julius could see was the pocket-watch. It was illuminated from within. Then it began to grow in size before his eyes.
Or maybe you're shrinking, Higgins. You're going to shrink to nothing and disappear. The incredible shrinking boy!

Julius looked to his left and saw the professor floating in the black void a long, long way away, but he was still holding his hand. Their arms were stretched like India rubber across the void. Julius let out a scream, but there was no sound. He looked to his right and saw Mr Flynn floating in space and still holding hands with him too. Millions of stars moved around them. Looking back at the pocketwatch, which was now as big as a city, Julius realised that they were spinning through space, in a giant game of Ring-a-Ring-a-Rosy.

It did not make any sense. Not the spinning in space with a giant pocketwatch part—that was clear enough. It was the part concerning his senses that made no sense. By his reckoning, looking at the size of the watch, Mr Flynn and Professor Fox were hundreds of miles apart, but not only was he holding their hands, but he could see them clearly. His arms were miles long but they felt as if they were their normal length. Julius could see the markings on the side of the watch as large as valleys and the cogs were like vast brass interlocking continents. A second seemed to take forever as the teeth of each cog bit into place and moved on a notch, causing the universe to quake at the end of each tick. The watch ticked five seconds and a thousand years seemed to have passed.

You're going mad
, Julius thought as he floated through the vastness of space.

Then the pocketwatch started to shrink, and Julius felt himself falling into its orbit. Everything went black. The next moment a rush of wind and his own scream filled Julius's ears. The hard earth, when his body collided with it, was a welcome surprise. Julius rolled over and saw blue sky above. Pain coursed through his body.
Pain is good. You're back where things make sense, Higgins.

Julius pulled himself to his feet and looked around. In front of him was the mouth of a cave. To one side of it he saw the oriental man who had given him the piece of paper and the key and saved him from the urchins in Warwick Lane. Another large and burly looking oriental man was helping him to sit down.

‘We made it, young fella,' said the burly Chinaman in Mr Flynn's Irish accent.

‘Aaaaaahhhh!' screamed Julius. Now it was time to panic.

He ran to the top of the hill and looked around.
What have you gotten yourself into now, Higgins?
Above him the sky was a vast blue dome. All round him were hills and valleys of brown earth, strewn with rocks and scrub. In one of the valleys was a large lake, its surface as still and blue as the sky. The air was crisp on his skin, but he could also feel the radiance of the sun. He turned this way and that, looking for something he could recognise.
Which part of London is this, then?

Julius's legs gave way and he sat in a heap on the barren hilltop. There was nothing, no sign of civilisation. No roads, no buildings, no carriages, no people. He lifted a handful of dry earth and watched it sift through his fingers. Then he saw something that made him catch his breath. It was his feet. They were not as he remembered them. The feet on the end of these legs were brown and wearing
sandals
. He looked at his hands—they were brown too. His hands clutched his clothes. He was wearing a series of bed-sheets and blankets as far as he could tell.
Cripes, Higgins. That does it. They've turned you into a Chinaman!

Julius sprang to his feet and looked around. He did a full scan of the horizon, still nothing. Not a sound, not a movement, not even any smells. He yearned for the pong of the Thames and the cacophony and chaos of the London streets.

Nothing for it, Higgins, you'll have to go down and talk to the Chinamen.
Drawing a resolute breath, he trudged down the hillside, his knees weak from trembling.

At the cave entrance the older of the two men was not to be seen but the burly looking one was sitting on a rock watching Julius approach. He wore a sheepskin waistcoat, a length of cloth wrapped around his head and a sturdy pair of knee-high boots. There was a long, curved knife tucked into his belt. The man saw Julius's eyes fall on the blade. ‘Lots of bandits around, young fella,' he said.

‘Yes…um…You speak remarkably good English, sir,' said Julius, trying to steer the conversation away from sharp objects.

‘No, I don't. I'm not speaking a word of it.'

He's trying to start an argument with you, Higgins. He's looking for an excuse to slice you open with that knife.

‘Oh, I see. My mistake, eh…sir.'

‘Ah, it's an easy mistake to make under the circumstances.'

To Julius's relief, the older Chinaman emerged from the cave with a smile of greeting on his lips.

‘Ah, Julius, my boy, welcome to Tibet,' he said.

Julius considered running up the hill again, but he knew he would have to come down eventually.

‘Tibet? Where…What…Look, where's Mr Flynn and the professor? What have you done with them?'

‘Done? Nothing. We're right here, Julius,' said the old man, smiling broadly. ‘I will try to explain. Danny, here, tells me we had to do an emergency time-jump to evade some angry Grackack shopkeepers.'

The pieces of the puzzle were beginning to appear. But they were not fitting together yet.

‘So…you're…Professor Fox?'

‘Correct.'

‘But you're a…?'

‘Tibetan monk. That's right.'

‘So he's a Tibetan…?' said Julius, pointing to the large seated man.

‘No, he's still Irish.'

‘You think you're confused now, young fella? Wait 'til the professor explains it to you, then you'll understand the meaning of the word confusion,' said the burly man.

‘So where exactly am I?' said Julius, deciding to begin with the more straightforward questions.

‘Tibet, as I said, about two hundred miles west of Lhasa, as the vulture flies,' said the professor.

‘Of course…Tibet, wherever that is. So…why do we all look like Chinamen?'

‘
Tibetans
, please, Julius. There is a vast terrain of difference.'

‘Very well,
Tibetans…
why?'

‘Well, Julius, I look like a Tibetan for the best reason of all. I am one. The person you see before you is what I look like when I'm not time-travelling in distant lands.'

‘But I'm as Irish as a verdant and rain-soaked sod, young fella. This here is what I look like when I'm visiting,' said the burly Tibetan.

‘So why do
I
look like a China, I mean, a Tibetan?'

‘Well, that is rather complicated, Julius. It's not a simple matter to explain that particular little aspect of time-travel,' said the professor. ‘There is no optimum place to begin so I will just have to leap right in and hope you will be able to follow.'

‘Oh, that he will, Professor. He's razor sharp, this one.'

‘Indeed he is, Danny. Hmm, let us begin with… time itself…No, on second thoughts, let's begin with
consciousness
. Julius, my boy, what is consciousness?'

Julius thought for a moment. The question had never occurred to him before.

‘Consciousness, I can only say, is extraordinary,' said the professor. ‘You could explore it, prod it, poke it, dissect it and still have not the foggiest notion of what it is. You cannot find it and you cannot hide from it. It is always
there
but
where
? Can you point a stick at it? No. Can you describe its appearance? No. In short, it is an enigma waiting patiently to serve you in ways you cannot even begin to comprehend.'

‘Oh.'

‘
Oh
, indeed. Eloquently put, Julius. Now, what can we do with this enigma? Answer: anything we want to do. And how do we do this? We use this pocketwatch,' said the professor, theatrically producing it from the folds in his robes.

‘He's getting to the good part now, Julius,' said the Irish Tibetan.

‘With this little device we can free our consciousness from its usual narrow confines and travel wherever in time and space we choose. You see, consciousness is an occurrence, an uninterrupted flux of experience which arises in dependence upon the conditions around it.'

‘But…'

‘I'm getting to that. How does this simple little pocketwatch do such a phenomenal thing? I'm not really sure, Julius. It has something to do with clockwork and super-light speed, and a few other things. The
timepiece,
as we in the business call these devices, amplifies your imagination—in a way. In your imagination you can go anywhere and do anything, but you are still
here
. Your consciousness usually refuses to go to the imagined places because it is does not realise that it can. The watch uses what we in the time-travel business call
particle entropy theory
to return all the atoms that make up your body to the surrounding area and then to accompany your consciousness to a new time and place and reconstitute a new body from the surrounding material to give you the form you are in now. So…because you have landed in Tibet, the Tibetan soil, air, rocks and plants have given up some of their atoms to wrap a
Tibetan
Julius around your consciousness. We are all speaking in a Tibetan dialect at present, but to your mind it is English because that is what you understand. Danny's accent is from the Western valleys of Tibet but to your ears it is the usual North Dublin lilt.'