Tanglewreck Read Online Free PDF Page A

and water and all that.’
    ‘Very interesting,’ said Mrs Rokabye, who was bored rigid,but Silver thought it
was
very interesting, and she decided that if she had to spend two days with Abel Darkwater she would find out all she could about Time. After all, if she knew a bit more about Time, she might get to know something about the Timekeeper.
    Suddenly they drove into a huge crowd of people waving banners.
    ‘What’s all this?’ demanded Mrs Rokabye.
    ‘Demonstrations against the Time Tornadoes an’ all that. People want the Government to do something – but it says there’s nothing it
can
do. Time is like the weather, you can’t control it, can you?’
    ‘There was an item on last night’s news,’ said Mrs Rokabye. ‘Very worrying for all of you, I’m sure. Look out!’
    The taxi had slid to a stop in front of a woman on a bicycle waving a banner that said, ‘Time is not Money.’
    ‘Ridiculous!’ snorted Mrs Rokabye, who would have sold all the time in the world if only she owned it.
    ‘Civil unrest,’ said the cabbie. ‘We’re heading for big trouble, I tell you.’
    Silver watched out of the window as the taxi moved through the modern streets and into an older part of the city where the houses were tall, with square-paned windows.
    ‘Spitalfields,’ said the cabbie. ‘Old part of town, this, used to be outside the City walls in the days when London had walls all the way round it. Leper colony used to be here, and mad houses and slums and rats the size of Scottie dogs and just as black.’
    Mrs Rokabye was not looking impressed. Nobody in her
Beautiful Homes
magazine lived anywhere like this.
    ‘Here we are, then,’ said the cabbie, as they pulled up outside an old brown shop, its windows full of clocks and watches.
    ‘Tempus Fugit,’ read Silver, looking at the peeling sign over the door. ‘And in the window there’s a golden chariot with wings, and there is –’
    Her heart sank because she didn’t like him.
    There was Abel Darkwater standing in the doorway waiting to greet them.

Tempus Fugit
    A bel Darkwater was a round man.
    He had a round face, and a round body, and round rings on his round fingers. The gold loops of his pocket-watch chain were round, and when he drew out his watch, which he did as the taxi pulled up at his door, his watch was round and fat and gold.
    ‘Early,’ he observed.
    ‘It was the train,’ said Mrs Rokabye. ‘First it hardly moved at all, then it shot down here at the speed of light.’
    ‘Are you speaking loosely or accurately?’ asked Darkwater. ‘Did you actually travel at 300,000 kilometres per second?’
    ‘No,’ said Silver, ‘but we didn’t get any older – the guard said so.’
    ‘He was a ridiculous man,’ said Mrs Rokabye. ‘I am quite exhausted.’
    ‘And then there was a demonstration in the street,’ said Silver.
    ‘Yes, indeed,’ said Abel Darkwater, ‘and this is only the beginning.’
    The beginning of what?
thought Silver, but Mrs Rokabye was dragging the bags out of the taxi and complaining about her trials.
    ‘Come in, come in,’ said Abel Darkwater. ‘This is a treat, an outing, an expedition, no one shall be exhausted, we shall all be happy, oh yes.’
    The house was a tall wide house with a broad doorway into the hall, and a flight of stairs at the far end of the hall. The way into the shop was off this hallway, and Abel Darkwater’s private apartments were upstairs. The shop was lit by electric light, and looked bright and welcoming, but as the four of them went slowly up the stairs into the house, the only light was from an oil lamp burning on the window ledge. The other rooms were lit with candles.
    Mrs Rokabye did not look at all pleased; she had hoped for central heating and plasma-screen TV and thick carpets and leather sofas and one of those fridges that beeped when you were out of milk. Abel Darkwater was very rich, so why did he live in a house that didn’t even have electricity?
    ‘I haven’t done