frozen within time

chapter eleven

The shop girl stopped chewing and let her mouth hang open for a few seconds while holly squeaked and shruggled to get herself under control.

'Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness!' She breathed.
'You----oh gosh----you've got----you've got something awful stuck in your eyebrow! Oh, Kristen----hurry----look for first aid kit!'

The girl at the till was narrowing her eyes at holly now, and slapping the change down in the counter. in her right eyebrow was a sharp silver stud----the kind that pokes through in either side. Alex and Kristen saw them in peoples faces all the time in town.
Kristen thought they were pretty nasty----especially the lip or tongue ones----but was certainly not shocked by them. Who was, in 2009?

'Iodine! Or germoline----that's what we'll need. And some sticking plaster,' went on holly, grimacing at the offending eyebrow with great concern and sympathy.
The girl curled her lip dangeriously as she thumped a carrier bag of their goods in the counter. 'Are you taking the----'

'Hollys just a bit . . . . Um . . . . Odd,' said Alex, hurriedly picking up his change and propelling holly away, while Kristen snatched up the bag and tanked a gaping Alex along by one arm. Alex made a twirling gesture with his finger at his temple and grinned at the glowering shop girl. 'She doesn't mean any harm.'

He shoved holly out through the door and Kristen dragged Karl swiftly outside too.

'What? What? I just wanted to help that poor girl!' Squarked holly. 'She was horribly injured----didn't you see? It was awful!'

Alex and Kristen looked at each other. There was going to be so much explaining to do.

After the ice cream and coke (the cans also caused great amazement----apparently coke only came in bottles in 1956) they decided to go back up Blackwood hill then off the road, along the winding track to the top, where a small clump of trees offered some shade and a good view of the akhill valley spread out below them. It was just as well to do another bike ride. Karl and holly, even without E numbers in their once cream, had experienced a bit if a sugar rush and were both buzzing with amazement and excitement.

'They want a spike through their skin? They actually want that?' Karl kept repeating as he put jesse back into her basket below his handlebars. 'And through their tongues? Are they lunatics?'

'Girls really get tattooed?' Holly was shaking her head and there was  mint ice cream on her nose----her pupils were wide and glassy. 'Really? Girls?'

'Twenty first century overload,' Alex said to Kristen. 'Ice cream, cars, coke in cans, and piercings----they're freaked. Lets get them cycling again.'

Once again , fuelled by more sugar than they normally consumed in a week, the brother and sister stormed ahead up the road, but Alex and Kristen finally got to be smug when they reached the off road path. While Karl and holly bad to get off and push their bikes almost immediately, Alex and Kristen were able to show off and ride easily up the stoney track for some way in their chunky all terrain tyres. It was lunch time when they reached the little clump of trees and four, plus Jesse, gratefully sank into the tall cool grass beneath the branches.

Alex had to explain that, yes, you really did buy water in bottles these days, as he poured it into the bowl for jesse to drink. She lapped it up eagerly and then scoffed a whole sachet of puppy food while they got out their own lunch.

Holly laid out the checked cloth (Kristen had absutely no idea where she had found such a thing----their mum was more likely to bring bin bags to a picnic than a cloth!) And set out foil wrapped sandwiches of corned beef and pickle. Little wax wrapped round cheese came out with them ('I put those in,' said Kristen) and a plastic tub. Full of diced cucumber and tomato from the fridge ('I didn't put those in,' added Kristen). The Tesco delivery had come earlier that week and the salad stuff hadn't yet gone off.
Anazingly, holly had also managed to find a couple of flasks, which she had washed thoroughly and filled with hot tea----and four tin mugs, which were also strangely clean and shiny.