Free The Unlikely Time Traveller by Janis Mackay

to laugh.
    “Scosha is the true Eastern Moves wonder,” she said. “She represented Scotland in the junior Olympics. She’s telling.” On cue, Scosha turned up, shaking out her long damp hair and grinning. She now had on the same onesie suit with the hipster belt. As she approached us she ran her finger over parts of her sleeves and immediately the material opened up, making little air vents.
    “That’s impressive too,” I muttered, nudging Robbie. Or telling. That’s what Ness would say. No one needed zips, that was for sure.
    “One of those is gonna look great on me.” Robbiegrinned.
    “Dream on, pal,” I said.
    Me and Robbie were like two-year-olds, gazing round at the new world in wonder. The outdoor juice bar – Wish Quench – was cool. It was near the old wishing well, which was still there. I guessed that was how it got its name. People were sitting on long circular benches that went around the café bit in the middle. Outside the tables ran a circle of palm trees. I kept thinking I was in some exotic place – not Peebles!
    I saw how people gazed at Robbie. Me too, but not so much. At least I had an I-band. I yanked at my T-shirt. I heard a ripping sound as a bit came away in my hand, long enough to fit round Robbie’s head. I tied a knot in it then nudged him. “Psst! You need to put this on. And stop gaping around, ok?”
    Robbie threw me a pout, like what was I getting all het up about. “Chill, Saul.” Then he looked down at the homemade I-band I was shoving towards him and scowled. “I want a proper one.”
    Too many people were looking at us.
    “Robbie,” I hissed under my breath, “just put this on now and maybe we’ll find a proper one later, ok?”
    “Whatever,” he said, reluctantly tying the T-shirt headband around his head. Then he sidled up to me and whispered in my ear, “Do they know?”
    I shook my head. “They think we’re travellers,” I hissed back. “Try and fit in, and quit doing totally nutcase stuff.”
    Ness was waving us over, patting a bench next to her. Scosha was up at the serving bar collecting four glasses of apple juice.
    Robbie and I slid in next to Ness. “We must not take the cherry juice. It is saved for the great celebration,” shetold us, looking half-excited and half-worried.
    Scosha returned and handed round the drinks. “Why not come to the celebration?” she asked, smiling. “Two more suns only. Can you travellers bide till then?” She bowed at us. “It would be a muckle honour.”
    “Sure,” Robbie piped up.
    I glared at him. I needed to get Robbie back to our time as soon as possible. He was getting everything too wrong too often. If it was just me, I might stay for a bit. I’d have a look at the future, and I’d search for our time-capsule tin, see whether it was still there in the ground. But having Robbie messing everything up was too much to deal with. He was, as my mum would say, a liability. I had done what I needed to do and found him. In my pocket, next to his litter, I had his mum’s gold bracelet. Soon as I had drunk this juice I wanted to find our way back to the yew tree, and go. My mind raced. Maybe we could light a small fire there, if the horses were up the other end of the garden. We’d have to find some glass to make the rainbows.
    “We’d love to stay,” Robbie said to Ness and Scosha, with this big grin on his face. “Wouldn’t we, Saul?”

18
    I didn’t say anything, just picked up the glass of cloudy apple juice and sipped it. It was tasty, but sour.
    “To the life-saving act of friendship,” said Scosha, lifting her glass in the air and winking at us. Then she shook back her long hair and laughed. “Welcome back to solid ground,” she said to Robbie, and drank her juice. Her accent, like Ness’s, was a bit rolling and strange.
    I glanced over at Robbie who shrugged, like he hadn’t understood a word. “She means,” I hissed, “that jumping about like a lunatic on the super-high diving board was a