A Tale of Time City

Jonathan and Vivian trotted after him, through narrow stone streets, through time-ghosts, and past numbers of strangely dressed tourists.

“He knows just how to get what he wants,” Jonathan panted irritably.

That’s the pot calling the kettle black, if I ever heard it! Vivian thought. “How old is he?” she asked.

“Eight!” Jonathan said, in a short, disgusted puff of breath. “Sometimes I wish I wasn’t stuck with him. But he’s the only person anywhere near my age in Time Close.”

Sam galloped straight to the glass building in Aeon Square and trotted along an arcade of glass pillars until he came to a place where tables were set out. He dived into a chair at a table with a view between two enormous greenish pillars and sat proudly waiting to be served. Vivian sat beside him watching tourists walk through the square and cluster to look at Faber John’s Stone in the middle. More tourists sat at the other tables or went in and out of the rich-looking shops under the arcade. Vivian had never seen so many peculiar clothes and strange hairstyles in her life. She heard strange languages too, jabbering all round her.

“Time City relies a lot on the tourist trade,” Jonathan said.

“Where do they all come from?” Vivian asked.

“All the Fixed Eras,” Sam said, quite cheerful now. “A hundred thousand years of them.”

“There’s a tour for every ten years of every century, except when there’s a war on,” Jonathan said. “The Time Consuls arrange them. Time Patrol checks everyone who wants to come, but almost anyone can come really.”

“How much does a tour cost?” Vivian asked. But the waitress arrived to take their orders just then. She was a cheerful young lady in frilly pink pyjamas who clearly knew Sam and Jonathan rather well.

“Hallo, you two,” she said. “How many butter-pies this morning?”

“Three, please,” said Jonathan.

“Only three?” said the waitress. “One point five, then. Numbers?”

“I’m not allowed a number,” said Sam.

“I know about you,” the waitress said. “I meant your friends.”

“I’m paying,” said Jonathan, and recited a string of numbers.

“Yes, but are you in credit?” said the waitress. “Show.”

Jonathan pressed one of the buttons on his belt and held his hand out with a row of signs shining on his palm. The waitress looked, nodded, and pressed buttons on the pink matching belt round her pyjamas.

“I must get Elio to give me more credit,” Jonathan said when the waitress had gone. “I shall go broke paying for everything. Sam’s not allowed any credit. When they gave him his first belt, he took it apart and altered the credit-limit. Then he spent a fortune on butter-pies.”

“A thousand units in two days,” Sam said happily.

“How much is a unit?” Vivian asked.

“Um – about two of your pounds,” said Jonathan.

Vivian gasped. “Weren’t you sick?”

“All night,” Sam said cheerfully. “It was worth it. I’m a butter-pie addict.” His face lit up as he saw the waitress coming back. “Here they are! Yummee!”

While they ate and let the hot part trickle into the cold, Jonathan seemed to feel he had to go on showing Vivian Time City. He pointed to the gleaming white building across the square. Vivian was rather embarrassed to find that the tourists’ heads were turning to look at it too. “There’s Time Patrol, where we were last night,” he said. “And there—” He pointed towards the end of the square and tourist heads in strange hairstyles swung that way as well as Vivian’s. “That building’s Duration, where Sam and I go to school. I expect you’ll be going there with us when half-term’s over.” Then he pointed back along the arcade, and once more all the heads turned where he pointed. “That’s Continuum behind us, where all the students are, with Perpetuum and Whilom Tower beyond that…”

Vivian was so embarrassed at the way the tourists were listening in that she stopped attending. Instead she thought: Half-term! It’s their half-term and they were bored with nothing to do. That’s why they thought up this adventure with the Time Lady and saving Time City, to make life exciting. I can just hear them whispering together about V.S.! It’s still not real to them!

“…and opposite Agelong, where my mother works. Those twin domes – those are Erstwhile and Ongoing,” Jonathan was saying. “Then there’s Millennium at the end of—”

“I need another butter-pie,” Sam interrupted.

Jonathan pressed another stud in his belt. A clock-face appeared on the back of his hand. It said a quarter to twelve.

“No time,” he said. “We’ve got to show V.S. the Endless ghost.”

“After that then,” said Sam.

“No,” said Jonathan. “It’s my last credit.”

“You count tomato pips!” Sam said disgustedly as they got up to go.

“How does your belt work?” Vivian asked. “It seems like magic to me!”

She soon wished she had not asked. There were now crowds of tourists in the square. Jonathan said, “Energe functions,” and dived vigorously this way and that among the people, shooting bits of explanation over his shoulder. Vivian followed as best she could, trying to understand, although almost the only parts of it she grasped were words like and and the. “And mine’s made in Hundred-and-two Century so it’s got a low-weight function,” Jonathan said. “Look.” He pressed another stud and took off from beside Vivian in a long, floating leap. He landed, and at once took off in another, and another, floating this way and that among the groups of people.

“He’s gone silly!” Sam said disgustedly. “Come on.”

They dodged among the people, trying to keep Jonathan’s green swooping figure and flying pigtail in sight. It took them between buildings beyond the glass arcade. Vivian had a glimpse of the twin domes Jonathan must have been talking about on one side and, on the other, a most extraordinary place like a lopsided honeycomb that seemed to have stairs zig-zagging dizzily all over it. Then they were at a grand flight of steps. Jonathan’s green figure was bounding down them like a crazy kangaroo. They saw him bound right across the broad crowded road below, where he dropped straight down at the top of a leap and landed with a bump, looking a little cross.

“Good. It’s run down. He’ll have to wait for it to recharge,” said Sam. They ran across the road, where Jonathan was leaning against a stone wall. Below and beyond the wall was open countryside, with a river winding through it. Jonathan was watching a barge unloading at a wharf a long way below.

“The River Time,” he said to Vivian, just as if nothing had happened and she and Sam were not hot and out of breath with trying to keep up. “This road is the Avenue of the Four Ages and it leads to Endless Hill. Look.”

A bit like the Mall, Vivian thought, or perhaps the Embankment, what with the river on one side. And Jonathan is a maddening boy! Worse than Sam!

There were arches over the Avenue made of lacy metalwork, and in some way these arches were made to fly long streamers of light, like flags or scarves, in rainbow colours. It looked very festive, since it was full of crowds and clots of people all hastening towards the hill at the end. There the Avenue led into flights of steps up the round green hill, to the tower at the top. The tower looked old. Very, very old, Vivian thought, and dark, although she could see sky through the windows in it.

“That tower’s called the Gnomon,” said Jonathan. “It has Faber John’s clock in it that only strikes once a day, at midday.”

They began to follow the rest of the people towards Endless Hill, but, before they had gone very far a tremendous bell began to toll. BONG. It buzzed the lacy arches and set the streamers of light fluttering. “Bother! Midday already!” Jonathan said and started to run. They were still quite a way from the hill when the second stroke came. BONG. Again the streamers of light wavered. Arms in the crowd pointed. There came murmurs of “There it is!” from all sides.

Vivian saw a person in green clothes, distantly, on the lowest flight of steps up the hill. He was trying to climb them. He seemed in an awful hurry – she could feel that from here – and he ran and scrambled furiously. But something seemed to be stopping him. BONG! rang the great clock. The man in green staggered and pushed himself upwards. BONG. Vivian could feel the effort it took the man. He was lifting his feet as if they were in lead boots. BONG. He was trying to pull himself up by the balustrade and that was not working either.

“Is it very hard to climb those steps?” she whispered. BONG.

“No. You can run up them,” said Jonathan. “But he’s a time-ghost. A once-ghost. He tries to get up the stairs every day at twelve. Watch.”

BONG, went the clock while Jonathan was speaking. With every stroke, the man in green seemed to find it more difficult to climb. But he did not give up. He laboured upward while the clock struck seven, eight and nine. By the tenth stroke, he was on his hands and knees, crawling. He seemed quite exhausted and he still had two turns of the steps to go before he reached the tower. As he crawled doggedly up the next-to-last flight, Vivian found she was holding her breath. BONG.

Come on, come on! she said inside her head. It seemed the most important thing in the world that the man should reach the top.

And he did not do it. BONG came the twelfth stroke and the green crawling figure was simply not there any more. “O – oh!” said Vivian, and the crowd all round her said “O – oh!” too, in a long groan. “What a pity! What was he doing?” Vivian said.

“Nobody knows. He hasn’t done it yet,” Jonathan said. “He’s a once-ghost, you see, and those happen when whatever they’re doing is so important or so emotional that they leave a mark like the habit-ghosts.”