STUCK IN TIME (Stuck (time-travel adventure stories)) Read online

  STUCK (IN TIME)

  DAVE JOHNSON

  Copyright © 2020 Dave Johnson All rights reserved

  STUCK (IN TIME), is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and events are products of the author's imagination and any resemblance to actual events, places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Cover art by Jessica Bell

  Illustrations by Elizabeth Newsham

  ISBN: 9798651755233

  For grandchildren everywhere, especially for my own:

  Jake, Billy, Charlie, Amelie & Bertie.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Lucy, Robert and James Baxter were all packed up and ready to leave school for the Easter holidays. Normally they would spend the Easter break at their boarding school, Greystones, and then visit their grandparents in Scotland during the summer holiday. It had been three years since their parents, celebrated historians and explorers, had disappeared on an expedition in South America. Now the children had settled into their new life; the routines and traditions of the school gave them a reassuring sense of security, but this holiday they were ready for a change. This time it was going to be different; they were going to stay with Uncle Archie. They had met him several times over the years but had never been to visit. Uncle Archie used to work for the government doing something very secret. They knew he ran a small private museum in Cambridge and had an apartment in the same building, and they knew that he was late!

  Lucy looked at her watch for the tenth time in as many minutes.

  'I can't stand it when people are late. Our Easter holiday should have started twenty minutes ago, and here we are… still here!'

  She looked over at her two older brothers. No one would guess that they were twins. Robert was tall and sporty, with dark curly hair, whereas James was smaller, with a shock of unruly red hair. Normally, James was energetic, mischievous and noisy and always getting into trouble at school for playing tricks during lessons. However, today James was not his usual self.

  'I feel peculiar,' he moaned as he curled himself up on the window seat in the school's reception area.

  'You do look a little off-colour,' said Robert, 'Mr Pasty face!' pinching James on the cheek. Usually, James would respond with a similar jibe, calling him 'Beanpole', or 'Stick Insect', or something similar, but today he just brushed James's hand away and carried on looking out of the window.

  'Shush,' whispered Lucy with a worried look towards the receptionist, 'They might stop us going if they think you're ill.' All the other children going home for Easter had already left, and the receptionist, Mary Rodgers, was trying to look as though she was doing some work on the computer, but secretly she was comparing prices of handbags on the internet and was not paying much attention to Lucy, Robert and James. She frowned as the door seemed to blow open in the wind but returned to her computer as it closed again.

  Robert gazed out of the window. The reception room was in one of the buildings bordering a square they all referred to as 'the Quad'.

  At the far end of the Quad, he could see a rectangle of green in the space between two of the buildings; the school playing fields. He would much rather be there instead of cooped up in this room. His attention was grabbed by the sight of someone he didn't recognise, wearing a tracksuit in the school colours, running on the field. What seemed unusual was that, rather than running around the perimeter of the field, as the students usually did when training, this person was running in a straight line towards the edge of the field.

  Just then, a taxi drew up outside. The children had been hoping that Uncle Archie would be arriving in his vintage sports car, but there were no other passengers in the taxi. Even so, to relieve the tedium of waiting, they positioned themselves so they could watch the taxi driver as he strode towards the receptionist, presented his identification card, and handed her an envelope. It was a very official-looking envelope, with a red wax seal on the back, so Mary studied it for a few moments before opening it. Inside there was a letter, which the receptionist read, and another envelope. Then Mary consulted her computer screen before nodding to the Taxi driver and beckoning towards the children.

  'Right, you Baxter children,' she said, 'This letter is from your Uncle. He had already warned us by letter that if he was delayed, he would send this taxi service to collect you. It's on our system.' She pointed to the computer screen. 'So it means you can go now… Oh, and this other envelope is for you.'

  Finally, the taxi passed through the school gates, drove through the town and headed in the direction of Cambridge. Lucy, sitting between her two brothers, studied the envelope. Like the first envelope, it had a red wax seal on the back, and this time they could see that the initials A.B. had been pressed into the seal whilst it was still wet.

  'Archie Baxter!' exclaimed Lucy. She carefully opened it and read out the hand-written letter:

  'My dearest children, please accept my utmost apologies for not being there in person to meet you. The fact that you are reading this means that, unfortunately, I have been delayed by circumstances beyond my control. I feared this might happen and therefore have made arrangements. I hope to be with you as soon as possible, but in the meantime, my housekeeper, Mrs Simpson, will be there to meet you in Cambridge. I am sure that you will have all that you need. Once again, my humble apologies, your Uncle Archie.'

  ◆◆◆

  After what seemed an age, the children finally clambered out of the taxi. James had slept most of the way. Robert had attempted to do some homework, not caring if his handwriting was nothing more than a scrawl. He didn't want to waste his Easter holiday doing homework, so thought he might be able to get it out of the way on the journey. Lucy would never have handed in homework that looked as scruffy as Robert's and passed the time working on a crossword puzzle that she had saved specifically for the journey. Although the youngest of the three, she was by far the cleverest of them, and she loved all kinds of puzzles. In fact, she had bought two puzzle books for her holiday and, although she was sure that she had them both with her in the School Reception, she could only find one now. She suspected that James had hidden it somewhere, but he denied it with such conviction that she almost believed him!

  Finally, the taxi wove its way through the Cambridge traffic and pulled into Huskisson Street. They looked up at the brass plaque on the wall of the tall, elegant Georgian townhouse before them.

  'The Baxter Museum of Curious Antiquities (Open by Appointment).'

  The taxi driver slammed the boot door shut after lifting out the children's bags and muttered to no one in particular:

  'Thanks for your help!'

  Just then, the door to the museum opened, and Mrs Simpson, the housekeeper, rushed down the steps.

  'Welcome,' she beamed, 'You must be Lucy, Robert and James. Come on up.'

  'I haven't actually seen Mr Baxter for a few days,' said Mrs Simpson later, as she handed round a plate of sandwiches, 'but that's nothing unusual. I see him going off to the office at the back of the museum, and then I might not see him again for days. He doesn't like me to clean in there, so I don't know what he gets up to – labelling all his precious antiques, I suppose! The museum isn't open to the general public; people have to make an appointment. Generally, it's just dusty old professors who come; some of them look older than the exhibits!' Mrs Simpson laughed and then almos
t choked as she tried to eat a sandwich and laugh at the same time. 'Anyway, your rooms are ready; help yourself to anything from the fridge. I've got a flat on the top floor so if there is anything you need just give me a shout. I'll be back down to cook a meal this evening. If you want to go out, don't forget to take the key.' She pointed to a large bunch of keys hanging on the back of the kitchen door. 'Or if you want, whilst you wait for Mr Baxter, you might like to explore the museum. It's all on the floor below.'

  Half an hour later, they had unpacked and were wandering around the museum. It consisted of three large rooms, with glass display cases fixed to the walls and dark polished oak cabinets below, each containing a dozen drawers, labelled with an unlikely set of topics.

  'Dentistry!' exclaimed Robert, pulling out one of the drawers. Then as he saw rows of tools, from pliers and pincers to tiny saws, he shuddered and quickly pushed it back.

  'Noses!' laughed Lucy, and she pulled out a drawer to reveal a collection of false noses, from realistic medical ones to big red clown noses.

  Eventually, the children found themselves in the third room. Like the other two rooms, it was lined with display cases, but this time the window had become part of the display; the floor-to-ceiling window looked over a small, walled back garden but was partly obscured by dozens of kites which were suspended from the ceiling, and which appeared to dance before their eyes.

  'Indian Fighting Kite,' read James. 'This one's from Korea, and that big one's from Japan! 'On the side wall, there was a door marked 'Private'.

  'Oh, this won't mean us,' said James, who, even though he wasn't feeling well, hadn't lost his inquisitive nature, 'we are family. This must be Uncle Archie's office.' He turned the handle and swung the door open. The office was smaller than the children had expected. It was dark, as there wasn't a window, and it was dusty, presumably because Mrs Simpson wasn't allowed to clean it. There was a single desk piled high with cardboard boxes, and at the far end of the room, there was a bookcase stacked floor to ceiling with ancient leather-bound books. Lucy wrinkled her nose.

  'I can't see why anyone would want to spend time in here,' she said. 'Come on, let's go.'

  'I'm sure Mr Baxter will be back in time for dinner,' said Mrs Simpson as she lifted pan lids, checking on the progress of her cooking. Lucy was standing at the bay window looking up and down the street. From her position, she had a clear view of the front door. James and Robert were sprawled in front of the TV, taking full advantage of the fact that they were alone and could decide which channel they wanted to watch without the arguments that would break out whenever anyone tried to change channels on the TV at school. Suddenly, the door burst open and there stood Uncle Archie, arms outstretched, with a wide grin on his face.

  'Uncle Archie,' squealed Lucy, 'I didn't see you arrive.' She rushed over to him just as James and Robert arrived. Archie clasped them all to him, he was a big, dishevelled looking man, and he easily wrapped his arms around all three of them.

  'You're here! You're here!'

  Later, after Archie had apologised for the umpteenth time for not being able to meet them at the school, they were all sitting around the dining table catching up with their news.

  'There's not a lot to tell,' said Robert, 'it's just school! I made the school rugby team, though. We've only lost one match, and our coach said I should do well in the athletics season next term. I'm one of the fastest runners in the year, and I came second in the County cross-country running competition. Oh, and I'm captain of the cricket team.'

  'Well, that's great news,' said Archie, 'and James, are you a sportsman too?' James shook his head.

  'Oh, I'm not bad,' said James 'I can hold my own, but it's drama that I really like. I had the leading part in a Shakespeare play, Hamlet, last term. You'll have to come and see me next term. We're putting on Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas.'

  Archie nodded.

  'I will certainly try my best; I've just got to finish a project that I am working on…' His voice trailed off for a moment, and a worried look flashed across his face, then just as quickly, it was gone, replaced with the big grin and twinkling eyes that they had come to expect from Uncle Archie. 'Lucy!' he exclaimed, 'how about you?'

  'Well,' replied Lucy, 'I'm not the sporty type, and I don't think I'll ever make a good actress, but I'm doing well with my lessons, especially Maths, and I'm in the Chess club.'

  'She's always doing puzzles,' chipped in James.

  'Well, that's good,' replied Archie, 'I can't tell you any details because it's all hush hush top secret, but when I worked for the government, I was a Code Breaker. Do you know what that is?' James shook his head.

  'Well, when one spy wants to leave a message for another, they write it in a way that looks like gobbledygook. Each letter or number is substituted for another.' He thought for a moment, then scribbled something down on a piece of paper. 'See if you can crack that. In the meantime, I've got something to finish off in my office. I'll be back up in a couple of hours.'

  It didn't take long for Robert and James to lose interest, but Lucy took the piece of paper over to a seat by the window and stared intently at it, chewing a pencil as she tried to puzzle it out.

  ARCHIE

  BAXTER

  DPYN-5773

  ORLIZ - 5778

  EKAIEH – 5778

  An hour later, Lucy marched triumphantly into the lounge, waving the piece of paper in the air.

  'Got it!' she exclaimed, 'Well, not all of it, but enough to get the general idea. See, I wondered why Uncle Archie had written his name at the top, and then it dawned on me. That's the code. You substitute the letters in the second line for those in the top line. So an A becomes a B, and an R becomes an A and a C becomes an X. Then I looked at the three lines below and substituted the letters I knew, and after that it was easy!'

  'Yeah, yeah, easy!' chorused her brothers. They were trying to peer around her so as not to miss any of the football match they were watching on the TV.

  'Yes,' continued Lucy, 'I wondered what the significance of the following lines was, four letters, then five letters, then six, and then I spotted it; they're our names! Now look at the numbers, they must be the years we were born: see, both yours are the same numbers, whereas mine has the last number different because I'm a year younger.'

  'Yeah, yeah, easy!' repeated Robert and James. Lucy looked up from the paper and, seeing Robert and James were not the slightest bit interested in her discovery and were more intent on watching the football, she grabbed a couple of cushions and flung them at her brothers before storming out of the room.

  'You two are impossible!'

  ◆◆◆

  Over the next few days, life at the museum apartment settled into a pattern. Uncle Archie tended to come and go, although he was sometimes there at breakfast time. The children tended not to get up at any regular time, a welcome change from the strict rigours of school life.

  'Are you sure you wouldn't like me to arrange more things for you to do?' Archie had asked one evening, scratching at a newly emerging beard. 'I've got such a lot of work to do at the moment, but I could ask Mrs Simpson to accompany you.'

  'Oh no, we're quite happy just mooching about,' replied Robert.

  'We can find our own way around Cambridge; it's not far to the shops,' said Lucy. 'We are not looking for adventure; a change is as good as a rest!'

  So the children mostly divided their time between watching TV and wandering around the city centre. When the boys turned the television to the sports channel, which was a frequent occurrence, Lucy would curl up on the chair in the bay window with her puzzle book. Sometimes, when the sun was shining, she would sit out in the back garden. It was a little overgrown.

  'It hasn't had its normal spruce-up,' Uncle Archie had explained, 'because Bert the gardener broke his leg, but he'll be back soon.'

  Mrs Simpson cooked them meals at lunchtime and in the evening. One evening Archie came in for dinner clutching a notebook.

  'My, your beard grow
s fast,' said Mrs Simpson as she put the plates on the table. 'If you don't mind me saying so, it looks like you could do with a little trim! Oh, you've cut yourself,' she said, pointing to Archie's cheek, 'well you've certainly not done it shaving,' and that set her off on one of her laughter attacks.

  'Hmmph!' snorted Archie. Then he turned his attention to the children. He spent the whole evening gathering information: 'Just a little research I'm carrying out, statistics and data and such like. Some of this I know, but I just want to check.' It was certainly thorough: from information about the times of day when they were born, through to their current weight and height and even their shoe sizes. He produced a tape measure and recorded the size of their heads, the length of their noses, the distance between their eyes. He even asked them to place both hands on a page in his book, and he drew around their outline. It was all very good-humoured until James let it slip that he hadn't been feeling his usual self.

  'I can't put my finger on it,' said James. 'At first, I felt unwell, kind of weak and sick, but now that's passed, and now I just feel kind of distant.'

  'I had noticed your complexion had changed,' said Lucy 'I mean, you're always paler than the two of us, I think with having red hair, but tonight you look even paler than normal, even translucent.'

  'Yeah, you look like one of those fish at the bottom of a very deep dark ocean that never see the sun,' laughed Robert. Archie's mood instantly changed, and the face that had previously been roaring with laughter now was one of frowning anxiety.

  'Oh, I was worried about this,' he muttered. 'Oh, I've so much to do, so far to go.' With that, he snapped his notebook shut and rushed out of the room, heading to his office in the Museum.

  ◆◆◆

  Lucy began to notice that Archie's behaviour was becoming more and more erratic. She bought a notebook and started to record her thoughts. Things came to a head a few days later, after Lucy had spent the afternoon baking. With expert guidance from Mrs Simpson, she had baked a delicious Victoria Sponge cake. She knew that Uncle Archie would be down in his office because he had rushed upstairs fifteen minutes before the cake was ready to collect something from his room. Lucy cut a slice of cake and went downstairs to the office. When she got there, she found the office door locked and the museum empty. Puzzled, she returned to the kitchen, only to hear, a few moments later, the sound of Uncle Archie's footsteps running up the stairs to his room, then returning downstairs.