Chapter Five
We were being followed. I only knew this because Vart was tense and sullen. He kept peering anxiously back over his shoulder, sniffing the air and grumbling. I couldn’t see or hear anyone and we had not seen smoke for days. His bad temper and edginess had me feeling as jumpy as a fawn.
We had been on the move all day, circling through an area about ten miles across. Vart reset snares and checked his many food and fuel caches. The whole area was sprinkled with his little supply dumps, in hollow trees and under rocks. Some were just for food – dried fish, and meat, nuts and fruit. Others contained materials - flint, bone, antler, animal skins, wood and cordage. At every river there were fish and eel traps to check. I soon realised how skilled and organised he was. The whole country was his resource, his larder, his rich friend. Not the barren, frightening challenge it seemed to be to me. He was ready for anything and rejoiced in his options.
In all the miles we tramped together he never took me anywhere that was somewhere - you know - a proper place. It was always just another night stop, or cache, a cave, a special tree, or sheltered hollow. We never went to a hut, or village or settlement, never used a well worn track. As far as I could tell, he didn’t have a home, or family or friends.
Stupid neglect bred a large blister on the sole of my left foot. Eventually it burst. It felt as if I was walking with a shoe full of hot gravel. Hobbling painfully behind him, I daren’t slow down or stop. I couldn’t risk losing him, but the pain was getting worse and I was exhausted and hungry.
Vart eats on the move. He never stops. He just jogs, and sniffs, and tastes, and eats all the time. He picks leaves and berries from bushes and trees as he passes by them, sometimes without breaking step. He’s always chewing and spitting out cud or pips.
I’m worried he’s becoming bored with me. I slow him down and mess up his smooth routine. I’m scared he might dump me. The thing is, I need him. I have to keep up. I daren’t lose sight of him for a second. Right now I need food. I’ve still got some chocolate, but I’m keeping that for emergencies. I wish it was TCP. I’ve got a few small Elastoplasts, but they are too small for my foot. Yesterday I put one on Vart’s finger because he cut it on his axe. He looked delighted, then bit it off and ate it.
I’m so hungry I could eat a scabby tramp’s wheelie bin. I try eating from the same plants as Vart, but he’s always so far ahead I often can’t see what he’s picking and I’m scared to risk picking stuff I haven’t seen him eat.
Apparently there are bison on the highest plains. I could eat a whole one. Yesterday we saw a bull Aurochs with three of its cows. They were down below us in a valley. They are as big as bungalows. Why can’t we get one of them? It’s just my luck to get zapped backwards five thousand years and have to team up with the only vegetarian in the Mesolithic.
There was this duck. I ran after it. I threw stuff and chased it, but it just kept flapping away and quacking at me, all sort of smug. I got covered in mud. Vart was disgusted. He didn’t help me, he just sneered. This led to a big row about food. It got pretty serious. We were yelling and pushing and poking each other in the chest. He threw a punch and I flipped him over with a judo throw. Boy that really made him mad. He whacked me with the butt end of his spear. I found myself flat on my back with the flint point pricking blood from my throat. I thought it was curtains. He just glared at me, shaking with fury. I daren’t move, so I made this little quacking noise - you know - like an ice breaker. Thank God he saw the joke. He laughed and threw down his spear beside me. As I was struggling back on to my feet, he performed his impression of me as a duck hunter. I had to endure his antics all afternoon, but it cleared the air, and, then something good happened.
He stood up, took his bow and took stance. He gestured for me to watch him. It was an archery demo. Jabbering at me, like I’m stupid, he positioned an arrow on to the bowline and held it out so I could see its end notch. Speaking softly, he aimed at a duck and drew back the arrow, stamping his feet to show me how I should stand. I waited for him to shoot, but he didn’t. Instead, he relaxed the bow and handed it to me. I took aim. He was moving around me, tweaking my stance here and there, before giving me an approving tap.
Incredibly, the arrow struck home. Grinning like a loony bear, I turned to him triumphant. I could see he was surprised, if not actually impressed. He raised his arms and gyrated his body. I thought he was about to do one of his dopey dances, but no, actually he was miming a judo throw. I realised he wanted me to teach him judo in exchange for the archery lesson.
Later we had a conversation - if you can call it that. We started out talking about shooting the arrow, but I told him how we shoot guns in the modern world. I got this old stick and pretended it was a gun. I don’t think he understood any of it, but he copied me miming finger pistol pointing and shooting. He soon got the sound effects off too, and they were pretty good. I got him doing the ricochet noise and stuff; peeeeooooww, peeeeooooww. I expect he thinks I’m mad.
I think quite a lot changed that afternoon. As if he finally came to some conclusion about me. Like, how I fitted in, and perhaps even that it was OK for me to be from somewhere else and not to have his skills, but to have different skills instead. From then on he often explained and showed me things. I taught him judo and began an earnest attempt to learn his language. Occasionally we’d shoot each other with our finger pistols. I tried explaining that you don’t get the ricochet sound with every shot, but he still did it anyway. That kills me, old Vart sighting up his finger like Billy the Kid and popping one off at me.
Despite this, I often get a sick feeling when I wonder if I’m giving up. You know, like accepting my fate, my new future with Vart in this strange, harsh world. Am I becoming resigned to never getting back to my real life, my real future?
The thought kept me awake most of that night. I turned it over and over in my mind. It always came back to the same thing, somebody had to have hidden the time wand, that’s what I call the thing now. I am pretty sure it is some sort of a time travel device. I think that someone must have used it to go back to now - my now not yours. When they got here, who knows? Maybe it developed a fault and they couldn’t get back to their own time. If this is not what happened, surely they would never have buried it? They would have used it to escape - wouldn’t they? If it was faulty, or couldn’t be used for some other reason, they’d be trapped here. The only thing they could do was to bury it in some place where they hope their friends will find it in the future, and come back to rescue them. What else could it be? I mean, why would anyone bury it if it worked OK?
When I unearthed it, I bet I messed up their plans. Then it went off for some reason when I carried it through the stone circle. I don’t know why. I wasn’t fiddling with it, or even touching it until I heard it bleeping. It was just lying there in my bag with my torch and binoculars.
I’ve thought about this a lot. I don’t know why it went off. Maybe it was something special about Stonehenge? It could be, you know, like ley-lines or something. I once read about these so-called ley-lines. These guys with dowsing rods who claim they can find water underground, they say lots of these mysterious ley-lines converge at Stonehenge. They are supposed to be magical. I don’t know about that sort of stuff, do you? To be honest I don’t really believe it, but you never know, do you? Something made it go off, I know that much, and it wasn’t me. I’m just the poor fool that got zapped back to the last place it was programmed for, right smack here, right now - my now not yours.
It is freaky to think that whoever buried it could still be around here. The other thing that really wrings me out is this, oh boy this does my head, what if I could find the spot where they buried it? It must still be there. So, if I dig it up, would I have two of them? Or would it mean I could never have found it in the future and therefore, I wouldn’t be here now? D'you get what I mean? This does my loaf, but I keep asking myself if this is one way I could escape back to my future? You know, make it so it never happened. Like I say, t
his really does my loaf.
I don’t know – do you? I don't think it would work because, what has happened has already happened. I’m already here and I came here in my own past. The fact that most of my past is in the future before I came here doesn’t count - I think.
You see? It's doing my head. I need to stop thinking. But I've made a decision. I've decided to look for signs of whoever buried the time wand. Whoever it was must be smarter than me, so we might be able to help each other.
First, I need Vart to guide me back to Stonehenge. In my bag I’ve still got the joining instructions the professor gave us at the dig. It's got a diagram and photos, so I’m pretty sure I can work out where the trench is, the one that Tori is excavating. I am going to bury some sort of message there, something that will survive in the ground for five thousand years. A post-it-note won’t do. The only thing I’ve got that will last that long is my binoculars. The body is aluminium and plastic. That will probably decay and vanish, but the glass lenses should survive. Hopefully, I can scratch a message on to them. When Tori finds it she’ll know that I’m alive and she'll tell the professor.