Page 99 of Right Place, Right Time
‘We think someone put him there. Someone who thought they could help him by sending him into the future.’ Ben waits to see if I understand.
‘Dotty …’ I say immediately. ‘It has to be. Do you think Dotty put him in there?’
‘Who else knew the tunnel was there? And I don’t think it was the only time she did it either. When George decided he was going to seal up the tunnel permanently, your grandmother and I weren’t too happy about it. We worried that people might still appear in there on a leap day, and not have a way out. So every twenty-ninth of February after the tunnel was closed, we’d secretly go down and check on and off throughout the day from the antiques shop so George never became suspicious. That’s one of the reasons the portal is more accessible from your shop than Adam’s – it was opened more often and more recently than the other side. The day we found Barney on the twenty-ninth of February 2004 was one of those times. Whoever had left him had also left a note with him.’
‘You’ve still got the note, haven’t you?’ I ask, knowing he will have.
‘Of course.’ Ben pulls an envelope from his inside jacket pocket. ‘I took this from my safe when you and Adam were beginning to make some progress with the portal – or was it when I bumped into you at the entrance to Clockmaker Court …’ He raises his eyebrows mischievously. ‘I can’t quite recall.’ He passes me the note and I open it carefully. It’s handwritten in black ink on yellowing paper.
To whom it may concern.
For whatever reason, I know that you have now closed off the tunnel at your end and I have not been sending anyone to you for some time.
However, this child is different. He deserves a good life and I hope whatever year he arrives in with you, someone can give him a better life than he will have if he stays here in 1908. The boy was orphaned in a house fire and hisinjuries mean he will never walk again. Although things are starting to improve, most handicapped children are still treated badly here and have a very poor quality of life.
I do not know what the future holds for children like him but, even if he only travels as far forward as 1944, I know he will have a better life than he will have in this time.
His name is Barnaby and he is four years old.
Please look after him. I know you will.
‘It’s Dotty’s handwriting,’ I say, looking at Ben. ‘I remember it from the letter we read that was in theDalmatiansbook, and she went missing in 1944, didn’t she, so she would know things were better up to that year.’
Ben nods. ‘It seems that Dotty may have been sending us people all along. Obviously I know my story with her, but some of the others remember a mysterious woman guiding them down the alleyway to the doors. Until Barney – or should I say Barnaby – appeared, though, we never really thought about it being Dotty.’
I consider this for a moment.
‘But some of the others came from much later years than Victorian and Edwardian times, didn’t they?’ I say, thinking out loud. ‘Are you suggesting she was doing this for many years – decades, even?’
‘There seems to be no correlation between when they arrived with us and the year they came from,’ Ben says, remembering. ‘All we know is that they came from leap years and arrived in them, too, every four years. I don’t think Dotty, if it is her, knew what year they would appear in once they went through the portal. But bearing in mind that Harriet came to us from the fifties, one canonly assume that Dotty was trying to help people for a long time after she arrived in 1904 – that’s if she really did stay there. We have no way of truly knowing.’
‘So, you’re saying even if she was guiding them to safety in order at her end, the order they appeared here in Clockmaker Court was random?’
Ben nods. ‘I don’t think the tunnel can be completely controlled. It seems to make its own mind up what year people are deposited in the future. It’s as if it knows what’s going to be best for them.’
‘I can just about cope with the fact we’ve discovered an actual time tunnel, Ben. I really can’t deal with the thought it might have its own mind too!’
‘Fair enough. But you agree it might be Dotty at the other end helping people out of difficult situations?’
‘Yes, I do. It sounds like her style.’ I smile. Dotty is becoming more heroic and more wonderful to me by the minute. ‘I wonder why she’s never tried to come back herself, though?’
‘I’ve wondered that too, many times. But as the time grew closer for both you and Adam to take the helm, I thought I would wait and see what happened.’
‘You were all putting a lot of hope on the two of us working out, weren’t you?’
‘It was always going to work out,’ Ben says, smiling. ‘I had faith in the old oak tree. Every time I wavered and worried for the future, I just looked out of my shop window and saw it standing there, bravely weathering every storm, just waiting patiently for the day it would be proved correct. And here you now are.’
‘Yes, here we are. But Barney,’ I say, watching him come back through the court with Adam, carrying paper bags filled with lunchtime goodies. Adam glances acrossat Ben’s shop and sees me watching him through the window. He mouths silently, ‘You OK?’
I nod at him and then I turn back to Ben. ‘Should I tell Barney he’s from the past now I know?’ I ask. ‘I really don’t like keeping secrets.’
‘I think you’ll know when the time is right,’ Ben says in his usual calm, considered way. ‘You now have a much bigger secret to keep, Eve. A secret that many generations before you have kept hidden. I don’t think you need to be told why it must be kept a secret. Something like this in the wrong hands … well, it could be disastrous.’
‘I have seen theBack to the Futuremovies, Ben. I remember what happened when Biff got theSports Almanac.’ I smile at my joke – somehow making light of all this helps lift the burden a little.
But instead of joining in, Ben looks even more grave. ‘This isn’t a movie, Eve. This is real. You have been given an incredibly important task here, one people have been undertaking for hundreds, possibly thousands of years before you. You and Adam are the new timekeepers. Youmustkeep the portal safe.’
‘Of course,’ I agree earnestly. ‘I do understand, Ben, how important this all is.’
