The Reluctant Time Traveller Read Online Free PDF Page B

round, expecting to see folk in strange clothes cutting the grass with scythes and pruning the rose bushes and smoking pipes. And maybe a few soldiers marching about. Where was Agnes? I heard a crackling sound and glanced over my shoulder, hoping it might be her. But it was a twig crackling in the fire. The fire was still going, still making coloured vapours. It would be a big coincidence if a bonfire happened to be burning in this very spot one hundred years ago. I had to check. I bolted up the garden to the den. It looked exactly like normal. There was that old stone at the door that I had carved SAULS GANG into with a piece of flint. And the bulldozer was still parked up behind the wall. I was not in 1914. I hadn’t time travelled. I’d pressed my hand on a tree and gone nowhere.
    I hovered at the den door wondering how I was going to explain this. Hearing me, Will and Robbie looked up from fiddling with their phones. They were pretty calm about their pals’ time travelling just outside.
    “Back already?” Will asked.
    I shook my head. “Na,” I muttered, “not gone yet.” I didn’t want them to know that Agnes had travelled on her own. “Just need something.” And I hurried back outside. Courage, that’s what I needed. I leaned against the den.
    I had to face it: Agnes had gone and I had not. She was in 1914, trying to save this den, and find out about the war while she was at it. And here I was, the great gang leader, in the plain old twenty-first century. What was she doing? Probably looking for me. She might need me, and I was a hundred years away! The old time-travel formula that I had discovered on the internet was right: you had to fully, one hundred per cent want this to happen.
Sounds simple enough,
so the old scientist had written,
yet in reality almost impossible.
    But leaning against the den, wringing my hands together, something in me changed. My reluctance vanished. I stepped forward. Agnes might really need me. After all, I
was
the gang leader. Maybe we wouldn’t lose the den. I felt this excitement pulse through me. Agnes might get into trouble with the war. I had to help her. I stared at my fingers. If I was going to travel back in time and catch up with Agnes I needed gold.
    Next thing I was speeding over the fields and down the lane. Mum was out with the twins. Dad was out in the taxi. I burst into the house, ran up the stairs two at a time then there I was, in my parent’s bedroom and lifting the little box that contained Mum’s wedding ring. Since having the twins she never wore it. Said her fingers were too swollen. Good thing for me. I told myself this was borrowing for a good cause. She wouldn’t miss it, because I’d be back in no time. I slipped it onto my pinkie, turned and ran.
    Panting like mad, I made it back to the den and down to the yew tree. The fire was getting low, but still going. I just needed to reach up and push the glass globe. It swung out, catching the sun’s rays and flashing rainbows around. The water in the pan was still steaming, enough to make pale vapours. I had earth, water, fire and air. I had coloured vapours and gold. I stood by the tree and glanced down at a patch of moss. I placed my feet on this small cushion, as though that might make a difference,and with my hand pressed against the tree I started to sing. It didn’t sound too bad even though I was making it up as I went along. And this time I had faith. I really, one hundred per cent wanted to travel back in time. I wanted to catch up with Agnes Brown.
    Then I really did get a buzzing in my ears. I kept singing but my voice didn’t sound like my voice. It sounded as though it was coming from a long way off. The ground under my feet felt soft, as if the moss was dissolving and I might slip. The gold ring on my pinkie was burning. The air seemed to turn to gale-force wind and it was scary but still I wanted to time travel… and the buzzing grew louder… and my throat felt squeezed… and I was