THE TROUBLE WITH DECEIT

Part 2 Deviation

The four friends, having finished their meals already, left the table and wandered out to the waiting bus. "Whoa look at this thing, unbelievable, and look, it's smoking" Kip excitedly exclaimed. They all clambered onto it, feeling as though they were disrespecting a museum piece. However, they soon realized that is was a surprisingly sturdy construction. At exactly 11 am the bus pulled smoothly away and headed into town, a town called Romford, and chosen because it was large enough to demonstrate massive pollution damage and was yet insignificant enough that it would be easy for them all to blend in. Also, a lot of it was rural and the whole town, even in this bygone age was considered to have ancient origins. After just 15 minutes of traveling the bus arrived and parked. Mr. Howard addressed them all from the front of the bus. "Listen up guys, this is free time, so make the most of it as after today there will be no more! Remember the BTP rules (bygone time projects). Do not under any circumstances interact with anybody apart from to ask for purchasing assistance and secondly nobody must do anything or go anywhere alone. Sort your own lunches out using your cards, you are allowed to ask for assistance to use them if you need to from shop staff in the way I explained to you earlier. We will all meet up back here at 2 30. If you get back early then wait on the bus. Don't get back late! now go! enjoy!"

Pretty soon everybody had wandered away from the bus, either in pairs or larger groups. "So what are we going to do? where to guys?" Rani immediately piped up and said she wanted to look at the shops and maybe buy something as a souvenir. Fey nodded enthusiastically at that suggestion. Kip groaned and said, "cummon guys you can't drag us shopping after we have traveled a hundred years into the past!" The two girls looked at each other and Fey said: "go! do your man thing and meet us back here in one hour ok." Relieved Kip and Dev set off together before the girls had a chance to change their minds. They walked along in silence for awhile, each immersed in their own thoughts and savoring the experience of walking in the most ancient living museum and intermingling with long-dead ghosts. Suddenly a shop door burst open at the very moment they passed it and a young guy hurtled out and collided violently with Kip, sending him crashing to the ground and going sprawling himself also. Rather than apologizing the guy jumped to his feet and grabbed up a packaged shirt, he had dropped. At that moment a man of around 25 ran out of the shop and roughly grabbing hold of him he furiously demanded the shirt, at the same time wrenching it out of hands. "I should call the police! think yourself lucky that I can't face all of the hassles, now scram! oh and you are barred from this shop. Show your face in here again and I will involve them." A ladies voice called out something from inside and the man called back some kind of reassurance.

The fuming man turned to the boys and he bent to help Kip to his feet. "His expression softening completely he said, "you are bleeding! come into the shop and let's fix you up a bit. It was very brave of you to stop him like that, that shirt was expensive." Kip was inherently a modest and honest lad and immediately put the shopkeeper straight. "I didn't stop him, sir, he ran right into me, and I had no idea that he was stealing that shirt." Looking closer at Kip now and with a slight twinkle in his eye, he said: "you aren't from around here are you?" I'm not sir, you are right there" Smiling at them the man said, "in fact, my name is not sir, it's Reece, and you are?" My name is Karl si~ Reece, my friends call me Kip, and this is my friend Dev." Nodding he said,"well I thank you anyway, Kip, you have done me a great service. Now let's see if we can clean that wrist of yours up a bit. Come through to the rear."

They followed Reece through a small archway at the back of the shop and emerged into a small tidy room that was obviously somewhere to clean up or take a break. "Sit down here Kip, by the sink," said Reece, as he took hold of Kip's hand and gently cleaned the nasty bloodied graze he had sustained as he had fallen. "We don't want your good deed to be repaid with an infection now do we!" As the man gently cleaned and applied a large square plaster Kip looked a bit closer at him. Now that the frown was gone he realized that he was probably a bit younger than he had originally guessed, and there was something about his face. Reece suddenly glanced up and caught Kip scrutinizing him. Kip felt himself blushing furiously, caught completely off guard. "Are you ok Kip?" an anxious Dev asked him. "You look flushed," The man handed Kip a glass of water, "here drink this, I think a bit of shock is kicking in!"                                              "I~I feel much better now th~thank you," a flustered Kip said. "We really must go now or we will be late." They hastily left the shop.

Kip glanced back and realized with a start that Reece was standing outside and watching them as they were walking away. As their eyes met he raised his hand in a silent goodbye and Kip almost imperceptibly nodded an acknowledgment. "Kip!" Dev hissed, "we can't let anyone know what happened! you know the rules about interactions, all hell will break loose if they find out! pull that plaster off of your wrist and we can say that you tripped and grazed it, what they don't know won't hurt them."