Time Guards - The Italian Quest

Chapter III

Oliver Wilson's office was as neat and orderly as he was, which was not very. Viola dodged round the desk that jutted into the middle of the room and stepped over the paper clips that had fallen onto the floor. The filing cabinet stood in the corner, Viola didn't think that she had ever tried to open it; but now she was. There was a small voice in the back of her head that told her to stop and tell her father about what had happened today, he was only two rooms away. But she didn't, instead Viola opened the bottom of his filing cabinet as the other Viola had suggested. Sitting in it was a tiny locked box, the kind Viola had seen people put money in at fetes. She pulled the padlock but it was firmly shut.

She sighed, closed the draw and stepped back. It was one thing to look in a drawer but it was another thing altogether to try and open a locked box. She nearly left the room, nearly. Viola found herself kneeling next to the cabinet. The padlock had a pin code of four numbers so distinctively she turned the little dials to the year she was born. Immediately the padlock clicked and Viola pulled it off the box and opened the lid. Crammed inside was a golden pocket watch with a gold chain. Viola's mind went back to the pocket watch the girl, her, had been holding. She flipped it so it was the right way up, revealing a simply carved lid which bore a rectangle. There was a tiny, clear gem stone on the largest dial which was next to several other smaller ones.

However when Viola picked the watch up, the gem stone changed to a deep blue. She flicked the lid open to reveal the time, date and what looked to be geographical coordinates. It looked very complex, there was even a little window, which looked changeable, which said 'AD'. Viola looked down at the strange object before shoving it in her hoodie pocket and returning the study to how it had been before she entered, except that there was now one curious thing missing.

"Did you find a stapler?' her father, Oliver, asked as she came into the kitchen.

"No, but it's okay. I'll just use a paper clip on my homework, it's nearly the summer holidays anyway. They don't really care anymore."

"Well, that comment leaves me in great reassurance about the education system," he said. Oliver was a fairly short, slim man with hazel hair and eyes. His pale skin was tanned slightly from the trip he took Viola on to Spain, during the last school half term. There he had insisted on wearing a large hat that looked like the one bull fighters wear to his daughter's embarrassment, but now he was wearing a far more refined suit which he wore in his job as a travel agent. Oliver and Viola got discounts from his job and went abroad a lot. Oliver looked into the oven and smiled, "Pizza's nearly ready. You and Kristen can share it."

"Aren't you and Erika going to eat?"

"Later, I'm hoping to go on a walk with her. We need to catch up."

Viola nodded, she guessed that under the circumstances it might seem that Oliver was interested in Erika but Viola knew better. She was about twenty years his senior and they had quite a mother-son relationship going on. Viola guessed that Erika was the closest thing she had to a grandmother. She and Kristen came over every birthday, and most Christmases. Viola understood that Kristen's father had died when he was a baby, a tragic accident. So maybe they all needed a bit more family. She had never been to visit them in Denmark though, something she had always wanted to do but Oliver had told her that their house wasn't really big enough for guests. Still, they could afford the plane tickets.