2 2When I opened my eyes, I was sitting on a dusty road that ran between two fields. Tilly was sitting next to me, using one hand to rub her eyes and the other to cling on to Saturn. Tilly’s schoolbag was on her back, but there was no sign of mine. I had a horrible feeling that it was still on the grass in front of our house.
I stood up and looked around. For as far as I could see, there were only fields and more fields – but they weren’t fields like I’m used to. These were cracked, dry, yellow fields, and when I stared at them I thought I could see the air above them shimmering in the heat.
‘Where are we?’ whispered Tilly.
‘I have no idea,’ I whispered back, wondering why we both felt the need to be so quiet.
‘And how did we get here?’
I had the benefit of experience. I pointed at Saturn, who was lazily licking his lips.
‘I’m thinking that Saturn brought us here. I told you he has magical powers.’
‘But you made all that stuff up. You even admitted that it was just a story.’
I ignored her.
‘Saturn’s probably brought us back in time,’ I said.
‘Time travel is impossible,’ said Tilly. ‘I accept that something strange has happened, and we don’t seem to be sitting in front of your house any more, but there has to be a logical explanation.’
I looked around and tried to figure things out. We were in the middle of the countryside, with no buildings to guide us, but still I was fairly sure that we weren’t in the twenty-first century.
‘This has to be the past,’ I said in the end. ‘There are no telephone lines and no electrical masts. There’s no sound of cars or any other kind of engines. Look up, Tilly. Why are there no planes, or white jet trails in the sky?’
‘Maybe because we’re in the future? Maybe we’ve skipped forward to the twenty-fifth century and all the telephone lines are invisible. Maybe cars are so fast we can’t see or hear them, and jets don’t leave trails in the sky any more.’
‘Wow! Do you really think so?’
She made a face. ‘No, Lauren, I don’t think so. Like I said, time travel doesn’t make any sense. It’s impossible. I don’t know where exactly we are, but I know it’s still Friday. And the date is still the same as the one I wrote at the top of my homework diary half an hour ago.’
Then I thought of something else.
‘Look at my phone,’ I said, reaching for my schoolbag. Then I remembered that my phone and my schoolbag were still on the grass at home.
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I think my phone might be very far away from here. Have you got yours?’
Tilly opened her schoolbag and took out her phone.
‘Try calling someone,’ I said.
Tilly shook her head. ‘I can’t. I don’t seem to have a signal.’
‘You see,’ I said. ‘That proves it. We’ve gone back in time.’
Tilly shook her head. ‘All that proves is that we seem to be somewhere remote – very remote.’
I sighed. ‘Why can’t you just believe me, Tilly? It’s like I told you. Saturn can go back in time. Last time he brought me, and this time he’s brought both of us. I know it’s scary but –’
‘It’s not scary because it’s not true,’ Tilly interrupted. ‘Like I said before, there has to be a logical explanation. We seem to be in some faraway place, and we need to find someone who can give us a lift home, that’s all.’
I felt a sudden burst of anger.
‘When I last travelled back in time, I was scared at first because I was on my own,’ I said. ‘But with you here, everything could be different. This could be an amazing adventure for the two of us, but you’re spoiling it because you won’t believe what’s happening right in front of you.’
As I spoke, I could feel my eyes filling up with tears.
Tilly stood up and hugged me, squashing Saturn between us. ‘I don’t want to fight with you, Lauren,’ she said. ‘But you’re not a baby. I can’t pretend to believe something just to keep you happy.’
‘Don’t believe it to make me happy,’ I said. ‘Believe it because it’s true.’
She hesitated. ‘How about you believe what you want, and I’ll believe what I want, and then we’ll see what happens?’
I wiped my eyes and nodded. I knew she’d believe me in the end. It was only a matter of time.
Just then, Saturn jumped out of Tilly’s arms and began to walk along the road.
‘Should we follow him?’ asked Tilly.
I shrugged. ‘I don’t really know.’
‘Well, you’re supposed to be the expert. What did you do the last time you time-travelled?’
She used her fingers to mime quotation marks round time-travelled.
‘I know you’re mocking me, Tilly,’ I said. ‘And I don’t care. And, for your information, last time I did follow Saturn.’
‘And?’
‘And I ended up on the Titanic.’
‘That sounds like fun,’ said Tilly, giggling. ‘Ending up on a ship that’s about to sink into the icy ocean.’
I had to giggle too. ‘Well, it wasn’t exactly fun at first, but it all turned out OK in the end.’
‘So we follow Saturn, that’s the rule?’
‘I don’t know anything about rules. It’s just that if we lose Saturn, I have a funny feeling that we’ll never get back home.’
‘So what are we waiting for?’ said Tilly as she started to run. ‘Come on, Lauren. Last one to Saturn is a dirty rotten time traveller.’
We soon caught up with Saturn and for a while we walked slowly along the road after him. The sun was shining and it was really hot. I wished I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt instead of my warm, scratchy school uniform.
‘I am so thirsty,’ said Tilly for the hundredth time. ‘I hope we come to a shop or a restaurant soon.’
I sighed. ‘We have no idea where or when we are. Maybe shops don’t exist in this time and place.’
Tilly rolled her eyes and didn’t reply.
Much later, we were sitting in the shade of a tree. Saturn was perfectly relaxed, curled up in a ball beside us. I was just about to drop off to sleep when I heard the distant sound of horses’ hooves. Tilly jumped to her feet.
‘At last!’ she said. ‘We’re rescued. We’ll be back home before we know it.’
Suddenly I felt uneasy.
‘Tilly?’
‘What?’
‘What if the people here aren’t nice? What if we’ve landed in a place where everyone is mean and vicious?’
‘Saturn wouldn’t bring us to a place like that, would you, Saturn?’
Saturn looked up at the sound of his name and stared at us for a minute. Then he rested his head on his paws and closed his eyes.
As the sound of the hooves came closer, my heart started to beat faster.
Tilly picked up her schoolbag and dusted off her clothes. I wondered why she wasn’t scared. Was she incredibly brave? Or incredibly foolish?
‘Maybe we should hide,’ I said, but it was too late. Round the bend came two huge horses pulling a big chariot-like thing behind them. On the chariot were two men and a boy of about fifteen. All three were wearing knee-length dresses, which might have looked funny, except that I was in no mood for laughing.
Saturn gave a whimper and scuttled up to the top of the tree. If it had been a stronger-looking tree, I think I’d have followed him.
‘OMIGOD!’ whispered Tilly. ‘Please say these people are on their way to a very elaborate fancy-dress party.’
‘Would you believe me if I did?’
‘I’d really want to,’ she whispered.
But I knew this was no fancy-dress party. I’d been right all along – we had gone back in time.
Usually, being right is nice, but at that moment I very much wished that I had been wrong. This whole thing was starting to get a bit scary.
The chariot stopped and the three people jumped down. The boy held the horses’ heads while the two men walked slowly towards us.
For a minute, the only sound was of the horses’ stamping feet and the rattle of their harnesses.
One man pointed at our school uniforms and they both laughed. Then the other man spoke in a language I’d never heard before.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Tilly bravely. ‘We don’t speak … well, whatever language you’re speaking, we don’t speak it. You don’t happen to speak English, do you?’
The men stared at her, then one man pointed at me.
‘I think they want you to say something,’ said Tilly.
‘Er … my friend and I are a bit thirsty,’ I said. ‘Do you know if there’s anywhere around here where we can get something to drink?’
Now the men said lots more stuff, but none of it made any sense to me.
Then one of them grabbed Tilly’s schoolbag and threw it into the back of the chariot.
‘Hey!’ said Tilly. ‘My schoolbooks are in there and, trust me, you wouldn’t do that if you knew my teacher.’
The man didn’t look like he was afraid of anything – not even our totally scary teacher. He said something else, and then he pointed at us and then pointed at the chariot. You didn’t need to be a genius to understand what he was saying.
‘What are we going to do? I really want to get my schoolbag back, but I’m so not going into that filthy chariot,’ whispered Tilly.
‘No offence, but our parents told us we should never take lifts from strangers,’ I said loudly, trying to sound brave and polite at the same time.
The man slowly reached down and pulled a sword from its holder at his side. He pointed it in our direction.
I gulped. I knew we were in trouble – double trouble now that Tilly was with me.
Tilly grabbed my arm. ‘Say something,’ she said.
‘Do you believe in time travel now?’ I whispered.
Tilly had gone pale. ‘Yes. I’m sorry, Lauren, for not believing you before. But I sooo believe you now.’
The man waved the sword in the air and it glinted dangerously in the bright sunlight.
‘If we die here, do we just find ourselves back at home, like nothing happened?’ whispered Tilly.
‘I don’t know,’ I whispered back. ‘Maybe if we die here, we’re just … you know … dead.’
‘I don’t really want to find out the hard way, do you?’
I shook my head.
Then, holding hands, the two of us walked slowly towards the chariot.