Frozen in Time (20 page)

‘Say “absolutely super”,’ she instructed, in a voice as thick as her finger.

‘I—I beg your pardon?’ said Polly.

‘You ’eard. Say it. Say “absolutely super”. Everyone’s going on about it and I missed it and I don’t like missing things.’

‘Absolutely super,’ muttered Polly.

‘You takin’ the—’

‘Polly just said it!’ cried Rachel in alarm. ‘She just said it—like you asked her to!’

Lorraine Kingsley screwed her block-like face into a suspicious sneer. ‘She didn’t say it proper! She said it sarcastic-like, di’n’t she? She didn’t say it proper.’

Rachel sighed. ‘Polly—please—just say it like you said in class.’

‘Absolutely super,’ said Polly again—this time with more feeling.

‘Again,’ sniggered Lorraine.

‘Absolutely super.’

Lorraine bashed the table so hard that neither Polly nor Rachel could prevent a little scream. ‘Oi! You lot! Get over’ere! She’s doin’ it! She’s doin’ it again!’

A tide of faces arrived around their little table. Rachel felt her skin heat up. This could be nasty.

‘Do it again!’ ordered Lorraine, poking her blunt, gravy spattered knife towards Polly.

Polly narrowed her eyes.

‘Absolutely super,’ she muttered, into the remains of her half-eaten meal.

‘Again!’ chanted Lorraine and a few of the others echoed her.

‘Absolutely super.’

‘AGAIN!’ chanted everyone.

‘Absolutely super.’

‘Louder!’ bawled Lorraine, her small eyes shining.

Polly stood up and took a deep breath as if she meant to project across the whole room this time. Then she picked up her food tray and upended it on Lorraine’s head. ‘Well,
that’s
absolutely super, at any rate,’ she said, with a smart rap to get all the gravy and beef out.

‘
Whizzer
first day!’ said Freddy while the school nurse checked over his ribs one more time. His torso was red and purple. ‘You all right there, old girl?’

From behind a wodge of bloodied tissues Rachel gave a cheerful thumbs up. They all very much hoped her nose would stop bleeding by home time. Polly tried to smile sympathetically, but her split lip was very sore. ‘I know just what to use to get the blood out of your blouse,’ she said, carefully. ‘Cold water and a little salt rubbed in.’

Ben sat on a plastic seat in the corner of the school’s medical room and watched his hand swell up a little more. The knuckles were violet and green already. He grinned. He wasn’t a violent boy by nature, but he still felt a grim satisfaction every time he thought about the way his fist had connected with Roly O’Neal’s chin. Just the once, of course, but even so … He hoped Roly’s chin looked worse than his hand.

Mr Gerard came in and Freddy stood up again, but managed not to say ‘Good afternoon, sir.’ Mr Gerard looked thunderous.

‘Well, this is a fine start to the year, I must say,’ he glowered. ‘And fine thanks for allowing you two in without getting in the full paperwork yet! If your uncle wasn’t a good friend of mine, you can be sure you’d both be out on your ear again by now—all of you, in fact. I’ve never
seen
such a scrum! Two major fights in one lunch hour and
both
of them involving a Robertson! If this is what living in a hippy commune teaches you, then there’s not much hope for any of us!’

‘But it wasn’t their fault!’ protested Rachel, although nobody could really hear her very clearly through the tissues. ‘They were being picked on.’

‘Your cousin has just concussed two boys!’

‘Yes, b-but, sir,’ said Ben, from his corner. The head teacher spun round and glared at him. ‘Ththink about it. It was Roly O’Neal and the P-Pincer twins … and Lorraine Kingsley … I m-mean, honestly … what do you
think
happened?’ Ben felt a rush of nerves and excitement. He had never spoken to a teacher like this before, but he was quite convinced now that he was right to.

Mr Gerard opened his mouth to retort angrily and then closed it. He pondered for a moment. Then, to Ben’s enormous surprise, he said, ‘Well, you have a point, Benedict. Perhaps I will just send a letter home to your uncle this time. But I want you
all
to know that I don’t tolerate stand up fights at Amhill Secondary. I advise you all to keep a low profile for a while!’

Ben hauled Freddy out of school as quickly as possible at the end of the day, and found Rachel shoving Polly along equally fast as he reached the gate. They were both looking fearfully around them. They knew the Pincer twins, Roly O’Neal, and Lorraine Kingsley well enough to expect a second round at any time. Although, thought Rachel, it had been absolutely glorious looking at Lorraine’s astonished, casserole spattered face, and hearing the laughter growing among the crowd. Nobody liked Lorraine, after all, and it was much more fun to see her get a face full of someone’s lunch than to watch the new girl being bullied. In the afternoon classes a couple of other girls had grinned at Polly and three boys at the back made ‘salaaming’ gestures to her as she went to her desk, next to Rachel. Lorraine wasn’t in any of their classes, so they were safe until home time.

‘Oh, do give over, Ben!’ Freddy protested as his great-nephew propelled him along to the bike sheds at great speed. ‘Emersons don’t run away!’

‘No, I’m sure they don’t. They don’t run away. They don’t give up. They don’t have bodyguards, either—and that’s our biggest problem right now.’

Ben looked back over his shoulder, but saw no sign of their enemies yet. They grabbed their bikes fast, just as a shout could be heard behind them. It was Lorraine Kingsley. There were brown spatters down her white blouse and her hair was wet from where she’d had to wash it in the girls’ toilets. She was moving now, gathering pace, head down, like an angry bull. Rachel’s fingers slipped on the combination lock on their bikes.

‘I think you might want to look sharp, Rachel,’ suggested Polly.

‘You do? Really?’ Rachel snapped the lock apart and hauled the chain out from between their wheels just as Roly O’Neal joined Lorraine on the path heading down to the bike sheds.

‘Time to go, I think,’ said Freddy, grabbing his handlebars. They all leaped onto their saddles, bags on their backs, and pedalled away at top speed, narrowly missing a dinner lady with a tray of bread.

‘I’ll getchooo! You wait! I’ll getchoooo!’ bawled Lorraine. Rachel glanced back and saw her punch Roly O’Neal in the stomach. For no apparent reason. Roly was yanking Lorraine’s damp hair in reprisal as she looked back again. Then they were round the bend in the road and cycling as fast as they were able, Polly and Freddy tearing along ahead of them. Rachel’s heart clattered wildly in her chest but she gave a shout of excitement as they made their getaway. Of course, it would feel a lot different when they went back into school tomorrow, but for now—they had won!

Uncle Jerome still wasn’t back when they got home, but a message was blinking on the answerphone and Ben pressed the button while Rachel and Polly made a big fuss of Bessie, who had been left alone in the hallway again for the day—and had managed to poo exactly where she was supposed to, on the newspaper under the stairs. Ben and Freddy held their noses as they listened to the message. It wasn’t from Uncle Jerome.

‘Hello, my lovelies!’ sang out a woman’s voice. ‘It’s me—Mum. I’m sorry—it’s been days and days since we’ve been able to get a decent signal out here. Honestly, with all the ship to shore technology and satellite phones, you’d think it would be easy! Anyway, are you back at school today? I think it’s today you go back—I do hope it’s gone well and you haven’t had any trouble.’ Ben and Freddy snorted. Freddy had got down on his haunches and was peering into the answering machine, wrinkling his brow and trying, Ben guessed, to see a tape reel or something. ‘Anyway, the season’s gone really well and we’ve only got a few more days and we’ll be flying back to you! Oh, I am so looking forward to seeing my little family again.’

They looked at each other, edgily. Mum was going to find out that her little family had grown a bit, thought Rachel. How on earth would she take it?

‘We’re already booked up for next year, and for a short spell at Christmas,’ went on their mother, ‘although we’ve said we won’t go until
after
Christmas Day, you’ll be glad to hear. Everyone especially loved the new fire act this time—although Daddy did lose his eyebrows the first time around … he’s had to put them on with a felt tip pen ever since. Anyway, we hope you’re having a great time and not getting into mischief. See you both soon!’ There was a click and the message was finished.

‘What—what do you think your mother and father will want to do … about us?’ asked Polly, playing anxiously with Bessie’s ears.

‘You don’t think they might call the police, or something, do you?’ asked Freddy.

Ben and Rachel exchanged glances. They had absolutely no idea what their parents might do. Mum and Dad were not normal parents … but maybe that was a good thing. They would not be returning to a normal family.

‘No more messages?’ Rachel asked, to change the subject. No. There was nothing else. ‘I’m getting a bit worried about Uncle J,’ she said. ‘He’s never left us alone for this long before. Where do you reckon he’s got to?’ There was a long silence. ‘I mean … I don’t want to worry anyone, but soon we’re going to be out of food …’ said Rachel. ‘We spent the last of our money today, on school dinners for the week.’

‘Oh don’t worry,’ said Polly. ‘We’ve got heaps and heaps of food down in the vault!’

Ben and Rachel winced. ‘Yeah,’ said Ben, ‘but it’s fifty-three years old!’

‘Well, so are we!’ said Polly. ‘And we’re all right!’

‘Yes, but all the food hasn’t been in a cryonic chamber
with
us, has it?’ pointed out Freddy. ‘Although I vote we go and have a rummage through the tins. They’re meant to last for an age, aren’t they?’

Rachel sighed. Half-a-century-old Spam really did not appeal to her. She went to the kitchen and poked around in the permafrost at the back of the freezer. It gave up five fish fingers and seven individual peas. They were completely out of bread and biscuits and there were only three apples left in the fridge. The tins they had in the larder all seemed to be chilli beans or rhubarb. Even Polly couldn’t make a tasty supper out of
that.

‘We really do need money,’ she said, as the others came in and Polly filled the kettle. ‘It would be just like Uncle J to get caught up in something and forget to come back for a week!’

Ben sat down, straight-faced, at the cleanly scrubbed kitchen table, where Bessie immediately gnawed on his shoelaces. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ve never seen him so excited as he was down in the vault. He couldn’t bear to stay away from it for long. S-something … I th-think something is wrong.’

As soon as the words were out everyone was nodding gravely. They had all felt it but Ben was the first to say it. Where
was
Uncle Jerome? Rachel shivered. ‘How can we find out?’ she asked. ‘We just don’t know where he went. Or if anyone else at all
knows.
And if we go to the police or something, and report him missing … well, they’ll be straight over here and with Mum and Dad away … well, we’ll all get taken into care or something. And then what about Freddy and Polly? They’ll want to know about them too …’

‘He’ll come back,’ said Ben, wishing he felt half as certain as he sounded. ‘And in the meantime we’ll just have to think of a way of getting hold of some money. Is there anything we can sell?’

Rachel thought hard. ‘Our bikes?’

‘No, we need those. What else? Computer games? Books? CDs?’

‘I know,’ said Freddy. ‘Antiques.’ They stared at him. ‘Well, don’t look at me like I’m an idiot! What did JJ say? Our vault is a time capsule! There must be loads of old things in it that the antiques shop in town would buy. What about
our
records and our Dansette and stuff? I bet those would fetch a jolly good sum. And they’re all in tip-top condition … as if they’d only just been bought.’ He smiled, wryly, at Polly.

‘Good idea,’ she said. ‘Let’s go and see what we’ve got.’

Back down in the vault they switched all the lights and power back on as they pushed the inner door, and went to sit down on the chairs and sofa while Freddy slid a box of records out and a large navy-blue case-type thing from inside a sideboard. Dansette was written on it, in silver lettering. Freddy lifted the lid of the case to reveal an old-fashioned record player, with a big rubber turntable and a chunky arm which swung across it, a stubby needle poking out beneath, ready to run along the grooves of an old vinyl record. Ben and Rachel watched in awed silence as Polly flicked through the large square albums and slid them across the carpet, one by one.
Alma Cogan, The Four Aces, Dickie Valentine, Mantovani, Pat Boone, Guy Mitchell, The Crew Cuts, The Stargazers …
Polly chuckled and picked up one sleeve. She plucked out a wide black vinyl disc and carefully put it into the record player. She rested the needle into the groove and all at once the room was filled with the foot-tapping rhythm of Bill Haley & the Comets’ ‘Rock Around The Clock’.