Free Sabrina Fludde by Pauline Fisk

Millennium’.
    Abren didn’t know what he was talking about, and Phaze II looked at her as if she’d landed from another planet.
    â€˜Where have you been?’ he asked. ‘Everybody’s on about it. A once-in-a-thousand-years experience! The moving-on of time from one age to another! The biggest global party since the Big Bang!’
    Abren felt sick again. She leant over the girder and heaved into the river. Afterwards she felt weak enough to drop, and Phaze II had to hold on to her.
    â€˜That’ll be the last of it,’ he said, with an air of expertise. ‘You’ve emptied out your stomach. You’ll be all right now.’
    Abren leant against him – a tall gangling boy in a flapping coat, who was the nearest she had to a friend. Suddenly all the questions came out again. The ones she’d asked Old Sabrina, and a few new ones too.
    â€˜Why Phaze II?’ she asked. ‘What sort of name is that? Did Old Sabrina give it to you? Is she your grandmother? And if not, who
is
she? What’s she doing here? How did you ever find this place? And how did she?’
    Out it poured in an endless stream. In the end Phaze II held up his hands, crying for mercy. He couldn’t possibly answer all those questions, he said, but he could tell her that Old Sabrina wasn’t his grandmother, and that she hadn’t given him his name.
    â€˜But she
did
give me a home,’ he said. ‘And I’ll never forget her for it. She mightn’t have much else to give, but in the empty kingdom of the railway bridge she’s made me her crown prince!’
    He laughed and, just for a moment, a faraway expression appeared on his face as if there was a story here, but he wasn’t telling it. Abren shivered. She wanted to ask so much more, but suddenly the town erupted. Cheers and shouts burst out across the night, starting in the Quarry Park and quickly spreading along the old town walls. What was going on? A cannon thundered in the castle garden and the town’s bells started ringing. Fireworks shot into the sky ingolden chrysanthemums, red star sprays, fountains of phutting violet and rainbow rockets which whooshed through the dark. Klaxons whirred, sirens wailed and whistles shrieked.
    Phaze II produced a can of lager from his black coat. He ripped it open, took a swig and offered some to Abren.
    â€˜
This is it!’ he said. ‘Twelve midnight! The twenty-first century arrives – and will it be different from all the other ones? Will it really? What do
you
think?’
    Abren didn’t answer. She didn’t know what he was on about. The cheers grew louder, and the town’s bells rang on and on. She took a small sip of lager, then a bigger one. The world began to whirl around her in a mass of yet more fireworks and laser lights. The air was alive with cheers and chimes, the sky so bright that she imagined it never turning dark again. Even the river was brilliant with light – a golden river reflecting all those fireworks as it disappeared beneath the railway bridge, out of sight.
    Abren tried to hold herself upright. The whirling world was making her giddy. She’d stop that river if she could. Stop it flowing and keep the moment steady. Freeze the fireworks in the sky. Stop the midnight clock. Make the celebration calm down. Stop time moving on and make it stand still.
    â€˜This could be a dream,’ Phaze II said. ‘Not one that wakes you in a panic, but one that makes you never want to wake at all. A perfect dream, which you want to keep for ever. What do you think?’
    â€˜I think you got it wrong about my stomach being empty!’ Abren said, leaning forward to be sick.

Remembering
    Time moved on, flowing like the river out of sight. The days passed like a dream. Not Phaze II’s perfect dream, but one that was impossible to keep for ever. Occasionally the days brought wonders with them – snow on rooftops and frost on the