A Stitch in Time Read Online Free PDF Page A

happen unexpectedly and you’ll just have to cope the best you can … Also, there’s no guarantee that you will pick the right person, and even if you do … no guarantee that you can save them. It’s all part of a test to see if you’re up to the job, I think.’
    ‘Oh, this just gets better and sodding better.’
    John ignored her. ‘Anyway, other Stitches have told me that everything generally falls into place when they get there. So, Sarah,’ he stood up and moved to the hallway, ‘I’ll bid you good evening. I need to check that everything is as it should be at the market garden. I have two staff, Roy and Helen, that lock up for me. They run the small shop that’s attached to it too, but I always like to check everything.’
    Sarah jumped up and followed him to the door. ‘You’re a manager of a market garden?’
    ‘No, I own it. It doesn’t really feel like a job; I love it,’ he said, grinning. ‘I don’t really like this Time-Needling stuff, but as I said, I was born to it and can’t do anything about it – awful really, so much responsibility.’ John opened the door and stepped out.
    Sarah shook her head. What kind of an imagination must she have?
    John said goodbye and crunched a few steps along her drive. He hesitated and turned round. ‘Oh, and don’t mention anything about the future to anyone from the past. That would be problematic.’
    ‘Yes, right, I can see how it would be. See you!’ she called, quickly shutting the door.
    Bewildered, Sarah walked round the house locking the doors and stacking plates and glasses in the dishwasher. Neil and Karen had a lot to answer for. She wondered if they would feel a tiny bit guilty when the men in white coats showed up at her front door with a nice strappy jacket. She poured a glass of water and opened her telephone/address book at the ‘D’ for doctor page, placing it by the phone. Snapping the hall light off, and the house into darkness, she trudged up the stairs to bed.
    Ten minutes later, John stepped into the hallway. He flicked on a small torch and tiptoed to the bottom of the stairs. Reassured by thunderous snoring from upstairs, he carefully opened Sarah’s schoolbag and slipped an envelope into it. He dropped Sarah’s spare key, which he’d snatched earlier, back into his pocket, extinguished the torch and then quietly let himself out of the house.

Chapter Three
    That cannot possibly be the right time!
Sarah held the alarm clock an inch from her nose, trying to force her bleary eyes wide as the morning light seeped through her curtains. Yes, no doubt about it, the clock definitely said 6.30 a.m. Jeez Louise, it only felt like a few hours since she had flopped into bed!
    The first coherent thought of the day flitted across her consciousness like a nervous sparrow. It eventually alighted and pecked painfully at her sense of wellbeing.
Tuesday
 …
ouch
 …
lesson one, 9CM
 …
Ouch, ouch
 …
9CM means Danny Jakes
 …
OUCH, OUCH!
    Groaning, she pushed her face into the pillow and tried to dislodge the hammering beak with an image of a graceful swan, coming to land on the half-term holiday next week. Just as the swan touched down, stretching its beautiful neck of freedom, John’s face and last night suddenly surfaced, throwing the swan into a flurry of flapping wings and mad panic.
    Sarah leapt out of bed as if she’d been scalded. The awful prospect of teaching Danny Jakes suddenly seemed like a walk in the park compared to the experience she’d had the previous night.
    Hurrying over to the window and peeping through the curtains, she half-expected to see John outside, clipboard in hand, looking back up at her. He wasn’t there, thank goodness. No, everything was as it should be for a Sheffield suburban Tuesday morning in May.
    The milk float hummed, the birds sang in the trees, and next door’s cat prepared to take another poo in her flower bed. Sarah was so relieved to see life unchanged that she couldn’t be