The Accidental Time Travellers

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Monday morning. Early.

Six o’clock early. He’d forgotten until bedtime last night that he’d agreed to walk Jess round to the Freddie’s so that she could meet the stable girls and get to know the horses.

Quite how he’d forgotten he wasn’t sure, as she had been talking about it all day Sunday. He’d tried to tell her what had happened after breakfast, but he never quite managed to get the words out, nor summon up the courage. After a couple of attempts, when he’d started to tell her, and ended up on completely different subjects, he’d decided to leave it until another day.

Maybe today.

But for now he had the big brother responsibility of taking her through the woods to Freddie’s, as their mum didn’t think she was old enough to go there on her own, especially that early in the morning. Jack had tried to convince her that any potential attackers would be tucked up in bed at that time of day, but she wasn’t having any of it.

So, at ten past six the two of them left the house and made their way to their new friend’s house. Not that he would be there to greet them; he was too sensible to be up at that ungodly hour.

Worse still Anna wouldn’t be there either. According to Freddie she usually arrived around nine o’clock Monday morning, so it would be another three hours before he could see her, and at least another three hours more before lunch and the opportunity to ask her about her weekend and to chat in general.

Sometimes life could be hard.

Jack had expected the stable yard to be buzzing with activity when they got there, but to his surprise (and disappointment, although he would never admit that to Jess) it was empty except for the dog, who was lying down with her back against a wall of one of the stables. As soon as she saw Jess, she got up and trotted over to greet her. “Hello, Jess. Did you miss me?” The two of them spent a few seconds giving each other various strokes, hugs and licks until a head appeared over the half door of one of the stables.

Jack had been expecting a girl of a similar age to Anna, not the older woman who was looking at him now.

“Hello, you must be Jack and Jess. Freddie told me you might be here. I’m his mum.”

“Hello. Pleased to meet you,” Jack said, in his best polite voice.

“And me you. So Jess, I hear you like horses. Come on, I’ll introduce you to Alfie.”

Jess went running into the stables, leaving Jack alone in the yard, wondering what he should call Freddie’s mum. He had no idea what their surname was, so he couldn’t call her ‘Mrs Smith’ or whatever, and Freddie had only ever referred to her as ‘Mummy’.

Well, that was that; he’d done his job and successfully delivered Jess to her destination. What to do now?

He could go back to bed, but he was too excited about seeing Anna later, so that seemed like a pointless thing to do. He could hang around, and even take an interest in the horses, but that also seemed pointless; he had no interest in them, and didn’t want to be dragged in to help muck them out. Not unless he was going to be paid for it, but that seemed to be unlikely.

He could go back home and try the time machine again, but he was still feeling a little nervous about that. Whilst it was something he had dreamed of doing for years, now that it had actually happened he didn’t know what to do.

He’d have to tell the others today, and see what they thought.

With no other ideas of how to pass the next couple of hours, he went into Freddie’s stable to sit in the den. Looking at it now, he realised that Freddie had been right, it wasn’t very good. In his head he had pictured a ranch house, complete with a porch on the outside and a working kitchen on the inside. What he’d built was a few sticks with a curtain for a roof.