Justin Richards

Time Runners: Freeze-Framed

Chapter 1
Let me tell you about the day my life ended. I remember it as if it was yesterday, which maybe it was. Or perhaps it will be tomorrow.  I lose track.  After all, it was a long time ago.
  Rewind: I need to start a day or two before that.  When I first saw Anna, and when Midnight came looking for me.
  It was after the end of school rush. I always waited for most of the other kids to leave. I’d go to the library or my form base and get my homework done. Easier than trying to do it at home with my little sister Ellie making a racket and Mum and Dad on my case. Easier to say: ‘Yeah, I’ve done it.’ And it meant I didn’t have to leave school with everyone else – the walkers and the bus children, upper school, teachers, the lot. I’d rather be on my own.
  There were still a few other kids about and I recognized some of them.  But it was a huge school. There were more children in my year than there were in the whole of my old school.  I was the only one who went up from my Primary School to Oakridge that year, but we’d moved into the middle of town and it was just down the road so I could walk. New home, new school.
  ‘You’ll soon settle in,’ Mum kept saying. ‘You’ll soon make friends and join clubs. You’ll soon know loads of people.
  ‘It’s OK,’ I told her. ‘I’m fine.’ Though of course I hated it. Funny, that – you never appreciate things till they’re taken away from you.
  So there I am (or was, or will be), just coming out of the main block and starting along the drive.  And that girl with the crooked, nervous smile is Anna – waiting.  Certain it will do no good to speak to me, but knowing she has to try.

11th October
I thought she was just another school kid. She looked about that age, a year or two above me.  Fourteen perhaps, maybe fifteen.  But she wasn’t wearing a purple school jumper or dark blazer. Someone’s sister?  I didn’t really think about it. I didn’t really notice what she was wearing – the pale blouse and loose skirt both held tight at the waist by a big belt.
  I suppose it looked a bit out of place. Especially her watch.  A flat black disc with a thin black strap. I noticed that, poking out the end of her sleeve.  It looked kind of neat and cool and I guess it didn’t really seem to fit with the rest of her image.  But when you’re twelve and you hate your school and wish your parents would leave you in peace and someone else would adopt your kid sister, you really don’t think too much about fashion.
  ‘Jamie!’ 
  I actually turned right round.  Must have looked daft, staring in the wrong direction.
  ‘It’s me,’ she said. ‘Anna.  Only…’ She sighed and pouted and shook her head. ‘This is a waste of time.’
  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Do I know you?’ Some older sister of a friend of Ellie’s I thought.
  ‘You will. Unless you listen to me.’
  Which sounded odd, and I probably laughed. I looked at my watch – I remember clearly that it was four minutes past four.  The second hand was just grazing the number one. I barely glanced at it though, just making the point I wasn’t going to hang around. 
  ‘I don’t have much time,’ I said.  And she laughed, though I had no idea why she thought it was funny. Not then… And it annoyed me, so I said: ‘Yes. I’ve got homework to do. Need to check stuff out on the internet.’
  She frowned, the smile gone. ‘Internet?’
  ‘My computer. Well, my dad’s.’
  ‘You have a computer?’ She seemed astonished. ‘At home?’
  ‘I really have to go.’ But I didn’t move, just watched her.
  She glanced over her shoulder, towards the science  block, and suddenly her face was set and hard, like she was trying to stay calm. Like she’d just been asked about homework she hadn’t done and was going to bluff it out.  Her eyes were cat-green, and her nose curled up ever so slightly at the end, finishing with a tiny flat bit. Her fair hair looked like it had been scaffolded into place with enough spray to withstand a hurricane. She was quite pretty really, I suppose.
  ‘You’re in danger,’ she said, voice level and low. I must have looked like I really was about to leg it, because she added: ‘Not from me, you twerp.’
  I’d never been called a twerp before, and I blinked in surprise. ‘What?’
  ‘Danger,’ she repeated. ‘Midnight is after you. I didn’t think you were that important, but he does. Look, we don’t have long.’  She glanced over her shoulder again, and I saw someone looking back, from the shadows beside the science block.  Just a shape, a silhouette. But it unsettled me.
  ‘What are you on about?’ I demanded.
  ‘You said you had no time. Do you…’ she frowned, trying to decide what to say and how to say it. ‘Have you any idea what time actually is, or how it works. Where it comes from, and where it goes? How you can travel through it as if you’re on a journey? How it behaves and…’ She paused, swallowed.  ‘And what lives inside it?’
  ‘I’ve really got to go,’ I told her.  I started to walk away, but she grabbed the strap of my rucksack and pulled me back.  She was slight and slim, but a bit taller than me, and stronger than she looked.  She almost pulled me over. ‘Lay off!’  I dragged myself free. ‘Go and hassle someone else.’
  ‘No, wait.’ She sounded afraid more than anything, and that frightened me. ‘Listen, please – you must, or you’ll be lost.’
  I shook my head, turned, and hurried away. 
  ‘Be kind to Ellie!’ she shouted. ‘You’ll need her.’
  I probably flinched at that. But I didn’t stop. She was still calling after me, but I didn’t listen any more, didn’t look back. Didn’t look at anything or anyone – the world could have been frozen around me as I marched head down out of school, away from the crazy girl.
  When I got to the gate, I risked a look back.  She was still watching me, but she turned away as I looked, and walked slowly towards the science block and whoever was there.  I looked at my watch, not because I was wondering how long I’d been talking to her, but because I always checked the time when I got to the gate. 
  Four minutes past four. The second hand was just grazing the number three.  I didn’t think about that, I didn’t really take it in.  I looked back towards the science block, in time to see the girl talking with someone in the shadows.  They were hidden partly behind a laurel tree.  But I could see it was a boy.  I only saw his silhouette, but he looked slightly shorter than her, younger… In a strange way, he reminded me of myself.  The two of them, talking – that must have been how she and I had looked just a minute ago. 
  The boy glanced up, and saw me.  I still couldn’t make him out.  But I knew he’d seen me because he turned and walked quickly away, behind the building.  The girl stared at me for a moment longer, then she followed. 

Time Runners: Freeze-framed © Justin Richards, 2007.  Published by Simon & Schuster Publishing.