Free The Reluctant Time Traveller by Janis Mackay Page A

relief to talk to my diary.
     
    Dear diary
    It is 1914. I now know for sure it is the 2nd August 1914. Britain declares war on Germany in two days’ time. I happen to know that. Some people here might guess it is coming, but from what I could see in the town high street, most folk don’t. At least, they’re not expecting anything bad is about to happen. They seem quite happy going about their business.
    We didn’t get to have a really good look around before that funny little servant girl found poor Saul. By the way she was coughing I think her days are numbered, which makes me feel
sorry for her, even though she is annoying. Anyway, the war is coming and lots of these people’s days are numbered, though of course they don’t know it. I saw a calendar in the butcher’s shop window. It was called an ‘Almanac’ and it said the date, which is how I know. And Saul is prisoner. And I am like a bird in a tree. These are my options:
    1. Go back into town and try to find my great-great-great-great aunt. She looks the kind of person who might help us out.
    2. Walk boldly up to the back door of the big house, ring the bell and ask for a job. If I managed to get one, Saul and I would both be in there together.
    3. Go back to town and find out what I can about this house.
    Plan number 3 feels like the best thing to do, at least for starters. I don’t know what time it is. Somewhere in the afternoon, I think. Oh diary, I hope so much that Saul is ok. This whole thing was my idea. I know I forced him into it, kind of. I just get so excited about doing important things. Now I wonder what is happening to him? I hope he gets good food to eat. I hope they don’t make him work too hard, because I don’t think he is used to it, like I am. But he’s the gang leader and clever. He will be ok, I think. I will stop writing now because I have reached the bottom of this page.
     
    I wondered about the rucksack. People did look at it funny so I decided to leave it hidden in this tree. I parted the branches to check the coast was clear, then jumped down, and headed back over the field. Half the houses I know in Peebles are not built yet. It looks a smaller place. And lots of the trees I know haven’t grown yet. When I walked over the bridge I noticed it hadshrunk. It was narrower and I had to get out of the way when a horse and cart clip-clopped and rumbled past. I couldn’t help but stand and stare. Especially when I saw there was a pile of bones heaped onto the back of the cart. The hills were the same. The steeples were the same. But the people walked slower and the women were wearing long skirts. The mills down by the river puffed out thick smoke from their chimneys. This is my town, I kept telling myself. This is Peebles in the past.
    I saw strange old-fashioned shops called ‘drapers’ and ‘glovers’, a rag store and a temperance hotel. (I’ve read about temperance. It’s people not getting drunk.) I tried not to look too astonished at everything because I needed to fit in. There were sheep and cows, even as close in as the bank of the river. I saw folk going about their business. Most of them looked like they worked in the mills. The men wore flat cloth caps and sometimes they doffed them to me and said “good day”. Which I thought was very polite and friendly. I also noticed how a few men whistled as they walked along the street. I never heard anyone in the twenty-first century whistle tunes on the street. There was a woman with a cart full of fish, she was crying out, “Herring, caller herring.” There were young children playing marbles and hopscotch. Their word for hopscotch was ‘peevers’.
    Down on the green I could see some women hanging out washing and chatting together. Maybe I could find some things out by talking to them? The women had big baskets of washing and were pegging-up sheets and even big baggy pants for all the town to see. My gran would call a sunny and breezy day like this “a good drying