Free The Yoghurt Plot by Fleur Hitchcock Page A

asks Lorna, turning towards me, ‘or have we ended up in, like, 2050? You know, after the end of television and stuff.’
    I look around for anything that’s going to tell us when we are. Inland, sand dunes stretch away towards a line of pylons, and in the distance are storm clouds.
    There’s nothing of any use at all. I wander over to the sign.
    â€˜
Approximate site of the town of Shabbiton. Here, during the heavy rainstorms of the summer of 1969, a small but vital land drain was blocked by litter, undermining the subsoil and destroying the small town. One of the few remaining features of the town is the pier, and at low tide the streets are still visible under the sand. 6,600 people lost their homes
.’
    I can’t actually speak.
    â€˜But that’s impossible,’ says Lorna, taking one of the gerbils out of her pocket. ‘I mean, where’s it gone? Where are all the bricks? All the stuff?’ She looks around frantically. ‘Where’s the shop?’
    I glance in the direction of the shop. It’s not there. Nothing’s there.
    Nothing’s been there for forty-five years. The sea’s slowly taken over the land, piling stones and sand on what was left.
    She goes over to read the sign again. ‘Oh no,’ she says eventually. ‘It was that carrier bag, wasn’t it? I shouldn’t have let it go.’
    I nod. I’m so cross with her I can hardly think. First her gerbils, then theft and now her litter – does she have no understanding of time and consequence? For a few minutes I pace up and down the shingle, grinding it under my shoes. And then I begin to wonder where my family would be. If they don’t live in Shabbiton, where would they have ended up? And if I did find them, do I already exist? How would my parents react to having two Buggs? Would I become twins? Which head would I occupy, or would I flit from one head to the other – or would I actually just melt into myself? I turn back to the fridge. It looks smug, really smug, like it’s taught us a lesson. I open the door. It’s completely empty, except for two foil-topped yoghurts in glass pots.
    â€˜I think,’ I say, ‘that the fridge is giving us another chance.’
    Once again we arrive in the painted kitchen and it’s beginning to feel familiar. A millisecond before the kitchen comes into focus I see myself and Lorna, occupying the same space. There is nothing to do but throw ourselves under the table. We watch ourselves leap out through the door, and also watch me and Dilan examine the kitchen. When we’ve left, we wait for the other Lorna to arrive, examine the kitchen and run out of the back door. I’m terrified that the huge woman will appear, but equally I don’t want to rush into any impossible encounters with ourselves. So we watch the clock crawl around to six o’clock before we follow down the path, keeping out of sight and ducking in and out of the hedgerows.
    â€˜What are we going to do?’ says Lorna. ‘What’s the plan?’
    I look over to her. She’s still got the faintest trace of blood under her nose. That was today. In the now. But we’ve been going back and forth for hours, even though it still looks as if it’s six o’clock. I’m starting to get tired, and irritable, and once we’ve solved the drain thing I AM NOT LETTING HER TIME-TRAVEL AGAIN .
    I am quite sure of that.
    In fact, I’m not letting her or her stupid gerbils anywhere near me. Ever.
    â€˜We,’ I say, ‘are going to wait for the bag to blow over the sea wall. We are going to be on the beach. We are going to follow it, to the land drain, and you are going to stick your hands into the drain and take it out. Understood?’
    Lorna twists her face as if she wants to object, but I refuse to smile, or even meet her eye, so she sighs and shuffles along the track into town. We’re back in the fields with the