‘I don’t … understand,’ Becky said shakily. ‘What’s happened, Chris?’
‘Dunno,’ he said. ‘Makes no sense.’
Only Tan appeared unaffected, and just wanted to play.
‘Finish, Tan,’ Chris ordered, to stop her barking. ‘Quiet!’
Tan whimpered a protest or two and then lay in the long grass, tongue lolling out of the side of her mouth. Becky sat down next to her, feeling a little dizzy. She stroked Tan’s smooth black coat and white neck frill, as much to seek some reassurance for herself as to comfort the dog. She needed to know that this was for real and not a dream – or a nightmare.
‘Good girl,’ she said. ‘It’s OK.’
‘It’s not OK,’ Chris grunted. ‘It’s not even close to OK. We’re supposed to be in the village, not in the middle of a field!’
Becky looked at the watch. ‘Last thing I remember doing was pressing this red button…’
‘Well don’t do it again,’ said Chris, fearing that she might. ‘Give it to me.’ He reached out for the watch, but Becky refused to hand it over.
‘By a click of the clock,’ she murmured, repeating the first part of the inscription, ‘you can go in reverse…’
Chris shrugged. ‘So?’
‘So that’s what we seem to have done – gone backwards in time,’ said Becky, her eyes wide. ‘And here we are by the river again.’
Chris stared into the distance towards the clock on the church tower.
‘It’s only half-past three,’ he pointed out. ‘And we heard it strike four earlier, remember?’
‘You mean later,’ Becky corrected him. ‘It hasn’t actually happened yet.’
Chris slumped to the ground beside his twin. This was all too much to take in. Tan immediately came to try and lick his face, but he pushed her away. ‘Daft dog! Get down.’
‘Don’t take it out on Tan,’ said Becky. ‘She’s only wanting some fuss. She doesn’t know what’s going on.’
‘Well that makes three of us, then.’
‘We must have slipped back about an hour,’ said Becky, ‘but things are not exactly the same, are they? For a start, we weren’t having this conversation before.’
‘No, and I wasn’t getting a wet bum, sitting in this grass,’ Chris replied, standing up and wiping the seat of his jeans. ‘C’mon, let’s go.’
Becky didn’t budge. She was examining the watch again and had noticed a separate dial in the lower left quarter of the face. Inside was a little gold arrow that was glowing – and slowly on the move. ‘Look at this,’ she said, holding out the watch for her brother to take. ‘There’s a tiny extra hand – and I bet it’s ticking off the past hour.’
Chris held the watch to his ear. ‘Can’t hear any ticking.’
‘You know what I mean. That red button must have set it off.’
‘Guess you’re right,’ he conceded. ‘So what do we do now?’
Becky considered the situation for a few moments. ‘Well, first thing we should do is go back to the market and return this watch. It’s not ours.’
‘No, not yet – but it will be.’
‘How?’
‘We’ll buy it.’
‘Oh no we won’t,’ Becky protested, jumping to her feet in alarm. ‘I think it’s too dangerous…’
‘Rubbish!’ he snorted, refusing to listen to her concerns.
Chris strode away towards the village, keen to reach the market before Luke appeared. He had no idea how this whole time-slip business worked, but he did know one thing for sure. He wanted that watch.
‘Hold on! Hold on!’ Becky cried, jogging along with Tan to catch him up.
‘What’s the matter now?’ he said sharply.
‘Have you really thought this through?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What I mean is, how can you buy something that isn’t there?’ she reasoned. ‘The chap probably doesn’t even know it’s missing yet.’
That made Chris stop and think, ruffling his hair in agitation.
‘Well, guess we’ll just have to smuggle it back onto his stall first,’ he replied, ‘and then buy it.’
Against her better judgement, Becky agreed to play her part in Chris’s ruse, distracting the stallholder with a question about one of the items for sale while Chris pretended to lift the watch from out of a box.
‘Er … how much is this?’ he asked.
‘’ow much you got, kid?’
Chris fished into the pocket of his jeans to see what was left of his pocket money and produced a two-pound coin.
‘Is that enough?’ he asked hopefully.
The man shook his head. ‘But make it three and it’s yours.’
Chris looked pleadingly towards Becky, who sighed and gave him the extra pound.
‘That’s only a loan,’ she insisted. ‘I want it back next week.’
‘Thanks, sis,’ he grinned. ‘You won’t regret it.’
‘Huh!’ she grunted. ‘Famous last words.’
Chris paid the money and dragged his twin and Tan away from the stall before the man could change his mind.
‘What a bargain!’ Chris giggled. ‘He obviously hasn’t got a clue what this watch can do!’
‘No, and nor have we,’ Becky argued. ‘We don’t know what we might be messing with.’
‘Yes, messing with Time – with a capital T,’ she told him. ‘It’s asking for Trouble. And that’s got a capital T too!’