The Bloated One
Well-Known Member
All,
Here is the re-write of the beginning to my young Adult fiction novel. I was advised by a well respected author to give far more back story in my opening chapter. The feeling was that it began more like a sequel rather than an opening book.
I have added information where I can, always conscious of trying not to info dump. I have tried to limit information to sensible chunks and make them humorous. Peter Graham suggested using dialogue as a vehicle and where I could i have done so.
Hope you enjoy it! As always, love to have your comments and suggestions. Honesty is much preferred.
The Adventures of Tarquin Seebohm Jenkins
Chapter One
The Canal Boat
Tarquin Seebohm Jenkins could travel five hundred years in a second but fail to keep an appointment a mile from his house. Miss this ‘jump’ and he would have to wait a further month before travelling again.
He looked at his pocket watch.
“Friday 13 and it’s almost four. I am ruddy late. Why today of all days?”
For two years Tarquin had been ahead of time, but today he was chasing it.
He reached the Navigation Inn and scurried along the winding path toward the lock keeper's cottage, tripping over his ill-fitting boots. He pitched forwards, steadied himself, took off his baseball cap and shook his mop of curly, black hair before ploughing on.
“If Lewis Carroll could see me now; talk about life imitating art!”
Out of breath and sweating, he careened past the cottage toward a narrow boat moored by the lock gates.
“Blast your ruddy photos, Eddy Manet!”
His curse sent a moorhen skedaddling across the canal, its feet trailing in the water like orange flames from a rocket.
Tarquin’s love of history had made him late. He couldn’t leave college without correcting his art teacher, Mr Reynolds on Manet’s use of photographs. Advising teachers wasn’t unusual; some found it irksome, others a revelation, but all agreed that Tarquin spoke of historical figures as if he knew them personally.
"No need ta run ‘Seebee’. Times pressin,’ so I picked us another wormhole and moved yer jump back an hour, we ‘ave plenty of time," boomed a voice from the cottage garden. Tarquin tripped and landed in a heap, groaning, just as a hulk of a man emerged from behind an elm hedge, his silhouette blocking out the afternoon sun.
“Jeremiah, I didn’t see you there!" shouted Tarquin, as a paw-sized hand reached over the hedge and grabbed his collar. Tarquin was tall for a fifteen year old, but the man hoisted him effortlessly off the ground, over the hedge and set him on his feet.
“So I am not too late then?”
"Everything’s tickety boo young un,” said Jeremiah, patting Tarquin on the back. “I were just puttin’ some liquid fertilizer on the roses and picking rhubarb for the missus when I heard yer cursing.”
The big man rose to his full height of well over six-feet, gave a resounding belly laugh and shook his head.
“You should nay be frightened of old Cavendish!"
This was easier said than done. Jeremiah Cavendish, Steeple Snoring’s longest serving lock keeper was huge; a professional wrestler by trade, and if you believed his stories, a fine one at that. Sadly, an accident in 1975 left him partially deaf and unemployed. He retired with his Swedish wife, Ingeborg, to run the double lock at Steeple Snoring, spending his free time restoring his beloved narrow boat and raising Tiger worms.
Dusting himself down, Tarquin wiped his brow and ferreted about in his frock coat pockets. He pulled out two crescent shaped objects and grinned. Jeremiah didn’t have his ear trumpet, so Tarquin shouted.
"I got ‘em!" His coal like eyes sparkled in the afternoon sun as he thrust the brown ivory blocks under Jeremiah’s leathery nose. "I ruddy well got ‘em!"
Jeremiah’s walrus moustache bristled with excitement as he eyed the objects in Tarquin's outstretched hand. Putting on a pair of chunky, National Health glasses he peered at the ivory.
"Oh my suffering slugs, you did get them! No time to waste. Let’s get yer to the Silvery Moon."
Jeremiah picked up a dozen stems of rhubarb and strode toward the moored narrow boat. Tarquin followed, taking two strides for each one of Jeremiah’s.
“You okay Seebee, you be sweating a lot?”
“Fine, just rushing here made me hot.”
Under his cream frock coat with its pockets stuffed to overflowing, Tarquin wore a cable knit sweater, scuffed leather trousers and wound around his neck, a bright red scarf the colour of his face. On his head sat a New York Yankees baseball cap, worn backwards. ‘A real babe’ had given it to him —or so he claimed. These were not the clothes to rush about in.
They reached the boat and Jeremiah put one foot onboard, offering Tarquin his hand.
"Take care young un, I’ve just polished the old girl."
Tarquin took off his cap and wiping his brow with the back of his hand, stared lovingly at the restored blue and gold narrow boat. It appeared to be a normal boat, but Tarquin knew its secret. He took a deep breath, kissed a small gold cricket bat on a chain around his neck and took Jeremiah’s hand before stepping aboard.
“You make me laugh with your funny ways,” said Jeremiah chuckling as he opened the topside door. “I’ll be with you in a tick, got to give her majesty the rhubarb.”
Jeremiah hurried from the boat, down the winding path toward his cottage, the stems of rhubarb held high like a vast bouquet of flowers. Tarquin smiled. Jeremiah proudly wore his love for Ingeborg on his sleeve.
Descending the boat’s steps the familiar smells of beeswax, engine oil, horse liniment and Hai-Karate after-shave hugged him like an old friend. He never got used to the boat’s size; so much bigger on the inside. Jeremiah called it the ‘appliance of science’. All Tarquin understood was that on the outside it was a canal boat but on the inside it was the size of a ferry.
He looked around. Little had changed since October. With its eclectic mix of diodes, anodes, cathodes, transformers, coloured glass balls and two lines of brass levers on the portside, the room was a strange mix of the innards of a 1950’s television set, a diesel submarine and pawnbroker’s shop. On the starboard wall of Elvis memorabilia hung several new items; framed pictures of Jeremiah in his heyday as the ‘Singing Silo from Somerset, the Hay Maker.' He wore a baggy yellow costume and a red Batman style hood and grappled with past paragons of the wrestling world. Tarquin was both delighted and surprised to see them. It had taken a lot of persuading to get Jeremiah to display them.
He walked to the centre of the room and sat down in Jeremiah’s battered leather swivel chair. He swung the chair around and looked out of the portside window toward the quaint Lock keepers Cottage, shaking his head. Despite two years of jumping, it was still hard to comprehend that his friend Jeremiah guarded time and his picture postcard cottage and narrow boat were at the epicentre of converging wormholes that cut through the past, present and future. To explain this, Jeremiah had showed him a map similar to the London Underground, but this was much bigger and far more complicated. Dozens of intersecting coloured lines and hundreds of odd sounding station names swam before his eyes. He thought it more a picture of spaghetti and alphabet soup than a map of wormholes until Jeremiah pointed to a dogleg bend on a line of green. There, beautifully drawn was his cottage on the Grand Union Canal at Steeple Snoring. Time Guardian, Jeremiah. P. Cavendish.
His eyes settled on a gaudy, gold gilt frame just below the window.
This Commission confirms that Jeremiah Pharaoh Cavendish is a Member of the Ancient & Venerable Corps of Lock and Folly Keepers.
It was Jeremiah’s time guarding commission, proudly displayed above his writing desk. Jeremiah once let slip that a visiting British Waterway’s official had queried its authenticity and was ‘elped off’ the boat as Jeremiah put it, from the starboard side.
Tarquin swung himself around in the chair and lifted his feet off the ground. A newspaper cutting, disturbed by the movement floated from Jeremiah’s desk. Tarquin saw it, stopped the chair and picked it up.
Bears Invade Steeple Snoring Tea rooms, Friday 3 October 2008.
Tarquin chuckled, “The day it all started!” He shook his head, “Who’d have believed it.”
“Believe what Seebee?” said Jeremiah coming down the steps, his brass ear trumpet pointing toward Tarquin, secured to the left ear cup of a bright red rugby helmet. Heath Robinson would have been impressed.
“Time travel. Who’d have believed a meeting with you and Jules in the Tea Rooms on my thirteenth birthday back in 2008 would lead to me jumping.”
Jeremiah pulled at the helmet’s chin-strap, “Don’t recall it?”
“Hah!” said Tarquin, clapping his hands and launching the chair in another fast spin before stopping in front of Jeremiah. “Yes you do, your playing with me. You were both drinking milk shakes through bendy straws and wearing those ridiculous bear costumes!”
“Oh that birthday,” said Jeremiah, picking up a book from the sideboard and waving it at Tarquin.
“You done your reading?” Tarquin puffed out his cheeks and pulled at a lock of his hair.
“We promised your parents we’d to take you on when you reached your thirteenth birthday, but—”
“I know, I know, if I am to become a Rigsworth Time Travelling Tour Guide I need to do my homework.”
“We explained it to you, remember? A time guide apprentice is hard work.”
Tarquin certainly did remember. Meeting for the first time in the Steeple Snoring Tea Rooms, Tarquin had found their talk of tour guiding simple, straightforward and incredibly boring. That was until Jules mentioned time travel, alien technologies and his parents had been jumpers and wanted him to be an apprentice.
“Okay, we have an hour before the jump so plenty of time for a cuppa and a lesson," said Jeremiah, going to the open plan galley at the end of the room. He ducked his baldhead under a crystal chandelier and squeezed into a faded leather armchair.
"Chinese green, or that lapdog sushie-doobrie stuff you like?" He opened a drawer and took out a small canvas bag and a box of lapsang souchong tea.
"I kept the bag from your second trip, remember?"
Tarquin grinned. "Wen Cheng," he said, sighing and unwinding the scarf from around his neck, “My Tibetan Princess!”
Jeremiah laughed. “That lassie smittened you, I sees it!” he said, getting up to fetch cups and plates.
Tarquin leaned back and thought of his Tibetan adventure. Without Wen’s intervention he would still be there. After a while Tarquin sat up.
"Chinese please!"
“With your usual?”
“Mmmm, absolutely.”
“If you’d done your reading, you’d have known to look for an earlier wormhole.”
“That’s unfair,” said Tarquin, “It was only my second trip.”
“And nearly yer last!”
Jeremiah was right. If he had done his homework, escaping 651 would not have been by the skin of his teeth.
“When will I get a chance to go to 2341 and visit Mr Rigsworth’s Guide School?” asked Tarquin.
“When we think your ready.”
Tarquin huffed. He wanted to see the future.
Turandot’s aria, Nessun Dorma rang through the boat. Jeremiah was happy, he was singing. In the world of wrestling, Jeremiah Cavendish singing arias was the precursor for a forearm smash, a full nelson double chicken wing and a submission. His warbling voice brought many a chill to a wrestler’s spine. His classy rendition of Figaro on the other hand, was kept only for fighting his nemeses, Giant Haystacks and Big Daddy, during their head to head battles on ITV’s programme, the World of Sport.
Soon the smell of toasted peanut butter and jam sandwiches wafted from the galley.
"Teas ready," said Jeremiah. Tarquin left the chair and joined Jeremiah at the galley table. Two steaming mugs of tea and a plate of cheese and ham toasties sat on the table between them.
“Thanks,” said Tarquin, taking a drink of tea and looking up at Jeremiah.
“Why couldn’t I see you before today?”
Jeremiah looked surprised and shuffled uneasily on his seat. “You remember! I told you, Inga and me were booked on a month’s worlds cruise.” He smiled weakly, “anyways, young un you’re here, ready an raring.”
Tarquin knew when Jeremiah was hiding something because his words got muddled up and his English took on a peculiar mix of Somerset, Swedish and Northamptonshire accents.
“And, why don’t I ever arrive back in there?” He pointed to the steel door ahead of him, ”why a different part of Cretins Copse each time?” Jeremiah took a deep breath and pointed like an evangelist at the roof of the boat.
“It’s the reliance on science!” he said, flourishing his hands above his head. This was Jeremiah’s response to anything he didn’t understand.
“Science?”
“Absolutely, Seebee. You clearly haven’t done your reading. Worm holes don’t end back where they start, oh, be nobodies no! Remember those Apollo looney landings in the 60’s—“
“You mean, lunar landings?”
“Same thing. They left from land and landed back in the sea.” With a swirl of his arms Jeremiah continued, “‘Cause they couldn’t land the same place they took off.” Jeremiah shook his head, “Too difficult.” Then he beamed at Tarquin, “Same principles.”
Tarquin thought it better to change the subject.
“Did you get the chair back, I pushed the red button.”
Jeremiah slurped a mouthful of tea. “Yep, I found it in the hedgerow next to lane end of copse.” He grinned, leant across the table and ruffled Tarquin’s hair. “Now, if Master Tarquin, Seebee Jenkins has finished with his twenty questions, let’s be having another look at them."
Tarquin put the crescent shaped objects on the table. Jeremiah picked up the pieces and rolled them around before putting one on top of the other, and centering them.
"You did well Seebee, can’t deny it was job well done."
He leaned forwards, adjusting his ear trumpet until it was inches from Tarquin’s face. Their eyes locked, and Jeremiah's thick brows meshed into one silver brush. He felt like ‘Nipper’ the RCA dog.
“What else you take?”
Tarquin looked shocked.
“Come on, let’s have a look,” said Jeremiah, pointing to one of Tarquin’s large overflowing pockets, “I knows you pilfer things when you go jumping.” He wagged his finger. “Doesn’t help our plans for you to be a tour guide if you nick things.”
“It was lying on a George’s kitchen table,” said Tarquin, offering up a gold pocket watch.
Jeremiah shook his head, “You be careful Seebee, one day you’ll take something really special and cause us all a problem.”
Tarquin nodded, contritely.
"Now,“ said Jeremiah, looking at the teeth. “How’d you get them, eh?"
"Well, I landed in New York as planned. On my last day, I got into the house through the back door—“
"Getting in were that simple?" Tarquin nodded and continued. “Mr Washington and his wife were asleep, so I looked around and found the teeth on the bedside cabinet."
“That’s magic young un!” said Jeremiah, sitting back in his chair and chuckling.
Tarquin smiled. "Yep! It were that simple.”
With a glint in his steely blue eyes, Jeremiah picked up the teeth and jammed them into his wide mouth.
"Howdy all, I’m the Presi. . ." Balanced precariously on Jeremiah’s own teeth, the two crescents of hippo ivory shifted and flew across the room.
“Jeepers, creepers, what did George have for dinner last night?” said Jeremiah, as if he had bitten into a sharp lemon. Tarquin scrambled after the teeth trying not to laugh.
"Why did you want George Washington’s false teeth?" asked Tarquin, placing them back on the table.
"A test for you Seebee, but enough of that." Jeremiah took the teeth and put them on a shelf above his head before looking at Tarquin.
“Who was the first time traveller?”
“Isabella Mary Mayson,” said Tarquin smugly.
“Okay clever clogs, tell me all about her theories.”
Tarquin explained that Mrs Beeton, the mother of all time travellers wasn’t a simple Edwardian housewife with a unique lifestyle plan. Somehow she understood that wormholes spread through time and space and by their very nature are constant, and in certain circumstances, form a repeating pattern. After logging their appearance, she made a jump calendar that followed a ten-year cycle and cleverly disguised the information and other travellers’ nuggets amidst her needlework, recipes and housekeeping recommendations. Her two books, though old were the definitive Time Travellers' companions and are still used today.
“Very good Seebee, anything else?”
Tarquin grinned. “Her book on household management also holds your three favourite meals: broiled pheasant, jugged rabbit and potted chicken.”
“How do you know that?” said Jeremiah with a look of puzzlement.
“Ingeborg told me.” Tarquin sat up and grinned. “What happened at Trotters Petting Farm last year?”
“Misunderstanding, nowt to it,” mumbled Jeremiah, pulling at his sausage-sized fingers.
Tarquin raised his eyebrows, “Misunderstanding? She took your gun away and made you promise never to go there again!”
“Well, it were dark and I didn’t see the sign.” Tarquin saw his embarrassment and patted his arm.
“Okay,” said Jeremiah, with a look of contrition. “It were a misunderstanding.” He looked at Tarquin and smiled. “Where you want to be going today?"
"I narrowed it to two choices. To write a thesis on Napoleon and Wellington—"
Jeremiah sucked in air, shook his head and growled.
"Not so sure young un, remember what happened the last time you met old Boney?" He pointed at Tarquin’s cream frock coat. "You might not be so lucky next time."
Tarquin looked pensive. Jeremiah had a point. Acquiring Napoleon’s coat at Waterloo had been spur of the moment—and dangerous. He wouldn’t wish to be stuck in nineteenth century Belgium again.
“I knows you normally get to choose where you go, but I was wondering," Jeremiah paused. “Wondering, as I found another wormhole whether you was wanting to go on an adventure with me today?”
Tarquin sat up in his chair. He couldn’t believe his ears. Jeremiah was asking to join him on a jump!
“Yes, of course!”
“Okay,” said Jeremiah, excitedly, springing from his chair and clattering his head into the chandelier.
"Jumping Johonses, if I don’t sort that out, it will be the death of me!" He groaned, swatting at the chandelier. "We need to pick our clothes, follow me."
“Where we going?” asked Tarquin.
“There’s a wormhole opening up in London, Saturday evening, September 1, 1666.”
TBO
Here is the re-write of the beginning to my young Adult fiction novel. I was advised by a well respected author to give far more back story in my opening chapter. The feeling was that it began more like a sequel rather than an opening book.
I have added information where I can, always conscious of trying not to info dump. I have tried to limit information to sensible chunks and make them humorous. Peter Graham suggested using dialogue as a vehicle and where I could i have done so.
Hope you enjoy it! As always, love to have your comments and suggestions. Honesty is much preferred.
The Adventures of Tarquin Seebohm Jenkins
Chapter One
The Canal Boat
Tarquin Seebohm Jenkins could travel five hundred years in a second but fail to keep an appointment a mile from his house. Miss this ‘jump’ and he would have to wait a further month before travelling again.
He looked at his pocket watch.
“Friday 13 and it’s almost four. I am ruddy late. Why today of all days?”
For two years Tarquin had been ahead of time, but today he was chasing it.
He reached the Navigation Inn and scurried along the winding path toward the lock keeper's cottage, tripping over his ill-fitting boots. He pitched forwards, steadied himself, took off his baseball cap and shook his mop of curly, black hair before ploughing on.
“If Lewis Carroll could see me now; talk about life imitating art!”
Out of breath and sweating, he careened past the cottage toward a narrow boat moored by the lock gates.
“Blast your ruddy photos, Eddy Manet!”
His curse sent a moorhen skedaddling across the canal, its feet trailing in the water like orange flames from a rocket.
Tarquin’s love of history had made him late. He couldn’t leave college without correcting his art teacher, Mr Reynolds on Manet’s use of photographs. Advising teachers wasn’t unusual; some found it irksome, others a revelation, but all agreed that Tarquin spoke of historical figures as if he knew them personally.
"No need ta run ‘Seebee’. Times pressin,’ so I picked us another wormhole and moved yer jump back an hour, we ‘ave plenty of time," boomed a voice from the cottage garden. Tarquin tripped and landed in a heap, groaning, just as a hulk of a man emerged from behind an elm hedge, his silhouette blocking out the afternoon sun.
“Jeremiah, I didn’t see you there!" shouted Tarquin, as a paw-sized hand reached over the hedge and grabbed his collar. Tarquin was tall for a fifteen year old, but the man hoisted him effortlessly off the ground, over the hedge and set him on his feet.
“So I am not too late then?”
"Everything’s tickety boo young un,” said Jeremiah, patting Tarquin on the back. “I were just puttin’ some liquid fertilizer on the roses and picking rhubarb for the missus when I heard yer cursing.”
The big man rose to his full height of well over six-feet, gave a resounding belly laugh and shook his head.
“You should nay be frightened of old Cavendish!"
This was easier said than done. Jeremiah Cavendish, Steeple Snoring’s longest serving lock keeper was huge; a professional wrestler by trade, and if you believed his stories, a fine one at that. Sadly, an accident in 1975 left him partially deaf and unemployed. He retired with his Swedish wife, Ingeborg, to run the double lock at Steeple Snoring, spending his free time restoring his beloved narrow boat and raising Tiger worms.
Dusting himself down, Tarquin wiped his brow and ferreted about in his frock coat pockets. He pulled out two crescent shaped objects and grinned. Jeremiah didn’t have his ear trumpet, so Tarquin shouted.
"I got ‘em!" His coal like eyes sparkled in the afternoon sun as he thrust the brown ivory blocks under Jeremiah’s leathery nose. "I ruddy well got ‘em!"
Jeremiah’s walrus moustache bristled with excitement as he eyed the objects in Tarquin's outstretched hand. Putting on a pair of chunky, National Health glasses he peered at the ivory.
"Oh my suffering slugs, you did get them! No time to waste. Let’s get yer to the Silvery Moon."
Jeremiah picked up a dozen stems of rhubarb and strode toward the moored narrow boat. Tarquin followed, taking two strides for each one of Jeremiah’s.
“You okay Seebee, you be sweating a lot?”
“Fine, just rushing here made me hot.”
Under his cream frock coat with its pockets stuffed to overflowing, Tarquin wore a cable knit sweater, scuffed leather trousers and wound around his neck, a bright red scarf the colour of his face. On his head sat a New York Yankees baseball cap, worn backwards. ‘A real babe’ had given it to him —or so he claimed. These were not the clothes to rush about in.
They reached the boat and Jeremiah put one foot onboard, offering Tarquin his hand.
"Take care young un, I’ve just polished the old girl."
Tarquin took off his cap and wiping his brow with the back of his hand, stared lovingly at the restored blue and gold narrow boat. It appeared to be a normal boat, but Tarquin knew its secret. He took a deep breath, kissed a small gold cricket bat on a chain around his neck and took Jeremiah’s hand before stepping aboard.
“You make me laugh with your funny ways,” said Jeremiah chuckling as he opened the topside door. “I’ll be with you in a tick, got to give her majesty the rhubarb.”
Jeremiah hurried from the boat, down the winding path toward his cottage, the stems of rhubarb held high like a vast bouquet of flowers. Tarquin smiled. Jeremiah proudly wore his love for Ingeborg on his sleeve.
Descending the boat’s steps the familiar smells of beeswax, engine oil, horse liniment and Hai-Karate after-shave hugged him like an old friend. He never got used to the boat’s size; so much bigger on the inside. Jeremiah called it the ‘appliance of science’. All Tarquin understood was that on the outside it was a canal boat but on the inside it was the size of a ferry.
He looked around. Little had changed since October. With its eclectic mix of diodes, anodes, cathodes, transformers, coloured glass balls and two lines of brass levers on the portside, the room was a strange mix of the innards of a 1950’s television set, a diesel submarine and pawnbroker’s shop. On the starboard wall of Elvis memorabilia hung several new items; framed pictures of Jeremiah in his heyday as the ‘Singing Silo from Somerset, the Hay Maker.' He wore a baggy yellow costume and a red Batman style hood and grappled with past paragons of the wrestling world. Tarquin was both delighted and surprised to see them. It had taken a lot of persuading to get Jeremiah to display them.
He walked to the centre of the room and sat down in Jeremiah’s battered leather swivel chair. He swung the chair around and looked out of the portside window toward the quaint Lock keepers Cottage, shaking his head. Despite two years of jumping, it was still hard to comprehend that his friend Jeremiah guarded time and his picture postcard cottage and narrow boat were at the epicentre of converging wormholes that cut through the past, present and future. To explain this, Jeremiah had showed him a map similar to the London Underground, but this was much bigger and far more complicated. Dozens of intersecting coloured lines and hundreds of odd sounding station names swam before his eyes. He thought it more a picture of spaghetti and alphabet soup than a map of wormholes until Jeremiah pointed to a dogleg bend on a line of green. There, beautifully drawn was his cottage on the Grand Union Canal at Steeple Snoring. Time Guardian, Jeremiah. P. Cavendish.
His eyes settled on a gaudy, gold gilt frame just below the window.
This Commission confirms that Jeremiah Pharaoh Cavendish is a Member of the Ancient & Venerable Corps of Lock and Folly Keepers.
It was Jeremiah’s time guarding commission, proudly displayed above his writing desk. Jeremiah once let slip that a visiting British Waterway’s official had queried its authenticity and was ‘elped off’ the boat as Jeremiah put it, from the starboard side.
Tarquin swung himself around in the chair and lifted his feet off the ground. A newspaper cutting, disturbed by the movement floated from Jeremiah’s desk. Tarquin saw it, stopped the chair and picked it up.
Bears Invade Steeple Snoring Tea rooms, Friday 3 October 2008.
Tarquin chuckled, “The day it all started!” He shook his head, “Who’d have believed it.”
“Believe what Seebee?” said Jeremiah coming down the steps, his brass ear trumpet pointing toward Tarquin, secured to the left ear cup of a bright red rugby helmet. Heath Robinson would have been impressed.
“Time travel. Who’d have believed a meeting with you and Jules in the Tea Rooms on my thirteenth birthday back in 2008 would lead to me jumping.”
Jeremiah pulled at the helmet’s chin-strap, “Don’t recall it?”
“Hah!” said Tarquin, clapping his hands and launching the chair in another fast spin before stopping in front of Jeremiah. “Yes you do, your playing with me. You were both drinking milk shakes through bendy straws and wearing those ridiculous bear costumes!”
“Oh that birthday,” said Jeremiah, picking up a book from the sideboard and waving it at Tarquin.
“You done your reading?” Tarquin puffed out his cheeks and pulled at a lock of his hair.
“We promised your parents we’d to take you on when you reached your thirteenth birthday, but—”
“I know, I know, if I am to become a Rigsworth Time Travelling Tour Guide I need to do my homework.”
“We explained it to you, remember? A time guide apprentice is hard work.”
Tarquin certainly did remember. Meeting for the first time in the Steeple Snoring Tea Rooms, Tarquin had found their talk of tour guiding simple, straightforward and incredibly boring. That was until Jules mentioned time travel, alien technologies and his parents had been jumpers and wanted him to be an apprentice.
“Okay, we have an hour before the jump so plenty of time for a cuppa and a lesson," said Jeremiah, going to the open plan galley at the end of the room. He ducked his baldhead under a crystal chandelier and squeezed into a faded leather armchair.
"Chinese green, or that lapdog sushie-doobrie stuff you like?" He opened a drawer and took out a small canvas bag and a box of lapsang souchong tea.
"I kept the bag from your second trip, remember?"
Tarquin grinned. "Wen Cheng," he said, sighing and unwinding the scarf from around his neck, “My Tibetan Princess!”
Jeremiah laughed. “That lassie smittened you, I sees it!” he said, getting up to fetch cups and plates.
Tarquin leaned back and thought of his Tibetan adventure. Without Wen’s intervention he would still be there. After a while Tarquin sat up.
"Chinese please!"
“With your usual?”
“Mmmm, absolutely.”
“If you’d done your reading, you’d have known to look for an earlier wormhole.”
“That’s unfair,” said Tarquin, “It was only my second trip.”
“And nearly yer last!”
Jeremiah was right. If he had done his homework, escaping 651 would not have been by the skin of his teeth.
“When will I get a chance to go to 2341 and visit Mr Rigsworth’s Guide School?” asked Tarquin.
“When we think your ready.”
Tarquin huffed. He wanted to see the future.
Turandot’s aria, Nessun Dorma rang through the boat. Jeremiah was happy, he was singing. In the world of wrestling, Jeremiah Cavendish singing arias was the precursor for a forearm smash, a full nelson double chicken wing and a submission. His warbling voice brought many a chill to a wrestler’s spine. His classy rendition of Figaro on the other hand, was kept only for fighting his nemeses, Giant Haystacks and Big Daddy, during their head to head battles on ITV’s programme, the World of Sport.
Soon the smell of toasted peanut butter and jam sandwiches wafted from the galley.
"Teas ready," said Jeremiah. Tarquin left the chair and joined Jeremiah at the galley table. Two steaming mugs of tea and a plate of cheese and ham toasties sat on the table between them.
“Thanks,” said Tarquin, taking a drink of tea and looking up at Jeremiah.
“Why couldn’t I see you before today?”
Jeremiah looked surprised and shuffled uneasily on his seat. “You remember! I told you, Inga and me were booked on a month’s worlds cruise.” He smiled weakly, “anyways, young un you’re here, ready an raring.”
Tarquin knew when Jeremiah was hiding something because his words got muddled up and his English took on a peculiar mix of Somerset, Swedish and Northamptonshire accents.
“And, why don’t I ever arrive back in there?” He pointed to the steel door ahead of him, ”why a different part of Cretins Copse each time?” Jeremiah took a deep breath and pointed like an evangelist at the roof of the boat.
“It’s the reliance on science!” he said, flourishing his hands above his head. This was Jeremiah’s response to anything he didn’t understand.
“Science?”
“Absolutely, Seebee. You clearly haven’t done your reading. Worm holes don’t end back where they start, oh, be nobodies no! Remember those Apollo looney landings in the 60’s—“
“You mean, lunar landings?”
“Same thing. They left from land and landed back in the sea.” With a swirl of his arms Jeremiah continued, “‘Cause they couldn’t land the same place they took off.” Jeremiah shook his head, “Too difficult.” Then he beamed at Tarquin, “Same principles.”
Tarquin thought it better to change the subject.
“Did you get the chair back, I pushed the red button.”
Jeremiah slurped a mouthful of tea. “Yep, I found it in the hedgerow next to lane end of copse.” He grinned, leant across the table and ruffled Tarquin’s hair. “Now, if Master Tarquin, Seebee Jenkins has finished with his twenty questions, let’s be having another look at them."
Tarquin put the crescent shaped objects on the table. Jeremiah picked up the pieces and rolled them around before putting one on top of the other, and centering them.
"You did well Seebee, can’t deny it was job well done."
He leaned forwards, adjusting his ear trumpet until it was inches from Tarquin’s face. Their eyes locked, and Jeremiah's thick brows meshed into one silver brush. He felt like ‘Nipper’ the RCA dog.
“What else you take?”
Tarquin looked shocked.
“Come on, let’s have a look,” said Jeremiah, pointing to one of Tarquin’s large overflowing pockets, “I knows you pilfer things when you go jumping.” He wagged his finger. “Doesn’t help our plans for you to be a tour guide if you nick things.”
“It was lying on a George’s kitchen table,” said Tarquin, offering up a gold pocket watch.
Jeremiah shook his head, “You be careful Seebee, one day you’ll take something really special and cause us all a problem.”
Tarquin nodded, contritely.
"Now,“ said Jeremiah, looking at the teeth. “How’d you get them, eh?"
"Well, I landed in New York as planned. On my last day, I got into the house through the back door—“
"Getting in were that simple?" Tarquin nodded and continued. “Mr Washington and his wife were asleep, so I looked around and found the teeth on the bedside cabinet."
“That’s magic young un!” said Jeremiah, sitting back in his chair and chuckling.
Tarquin smiled. "Yep! It were that simple.”
With a glint in his steely blue eyes, Jeremiah picked up the teeth and jammed them into his wide mouth.
"Howdy all, I’m the Presi. . ." Balanced precariously on Jeremiah’s own teeth, the two crescents of hippo ivory shifted and flew across the room.
“Jeepers, creepers, what did George have for dinner last night?” said Jeremiah, as if he had bitten into a sharp lemon. Tarquin scrambled after the teeth trying not to laugh.
"Why did you want George Washington’s false teeth?" asked Tarquin, placing them back on the table.
"A test for you Seebee, but enough of that." Jeremiah took the teeth and put them on a shelf above his head before looking at Tarquin.
“Who was the first time traveller?”
“Isabella Mary Mayson,” said Tarquin smugly.
“Okay clever clogs, tell me all about her theories.”
Tarquin explained that Mrs Beeton, the mother of all time travellers wasn’t a simple Edwardian housewife with a unique lifestyle plan. Somehow she understood that wormholes spread through time and space and by their very nature are constant, and in certain circumstances, form a repeating pattern. After logging their appearance, she made a jump calendar that followed a ten-year cycle and cleverly disguised the information and other travellers’ nuggets amidst her needlework, recipes and housekeeping recommendations. Her two books, though old were the definitive Time Travellers' companions and are still used today.
“Very good Seebee, anything else?”
Tarquin grinned. “Her book on household management also holds your three favourite meals: broiled pheasant, jugged rabbit and potted chicken.”
“How do you know that?” said Jeremiah with a look of puzzlement.
“Ingeborg told me.” Tarquin sat up and grinned. “What happened at Trotters Petting Farm last year?”
“Misunderstanding, nowt to it,” mumbled Jeremiah, pulling at his sausage-sized fingers.
Tarquin raised his eyebrows, “Misunderstanding? She took your gun away and made you promise never to go there again!”
“Well, it were dark and I didn’t see the sign.” Tarquin saw his embarrassment and patted his arm.
“Okay,” said Jeremiah, with a look of contrition. “It were a misunderstanding.” He looked at Tarquin and smiled. “Where you want to be going today?"
"I narrowed it to two choices. To write a thesis on Napoleon and Wellington—"
Jeremiah sucked in air, shook his head and growled.
"Not so sure young un, remember what happened the last time you met old Boney?" He pointed at Tarquin’s cream frock coat. "You might not be so lucky next time."
Tarquin looked pensive. Jeremiah had a point. Acquiring Napoleon’s coat at Waterloo had been spur of the moment—and dangerous. He wouldn’t wish to be stuck in nineteenth century Belgium again.
“I knows you normally get to choose where you go, but I was wondering," Jeremiah paused. “Wondering, as I found another wormhole whether you was wanting to go on an adventure with me today?”
Tarquin sat up in his chair. He couldn’t believe his ears. Jeremiah was asking to join him on a jump!
“Yes, of course!”
“Okay,” said Jeremiah, excitedly, springing from his chair and clattering his head into the chandelier.
"Jumping Johonses, if I don’t sort that out, it will be the death of me!" He groaned, swatting at the chandelier. "We need to pick our clothes, follow me."
“Where we going?” asked Tarquin.
“There’s a wormhole opening up in London, Saturday evening, September 1, 1666.”
TBO
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oh, one nitpick first...
