“How much time don’t we have?” asked Lamp.
“Most of it!”
“Gimme that time machine!” roared Anemonie, her teeth bared hungrily. She was wrinkling her pointy nose, her fists clenched and shaking, her eyes filled with the fire of a thousand suns. “I want it! It’s mine!”
“Hurry, hurry, hurry!” Casper hopped from foot to foot like a cat in a fireplace.
Lamp stood back proudly, wiping oil down the legs of his boiler suit. “There. Now all we need to do is choose a date.” He sucked his finger thoughtfully, looking at all the buttons he could twiddle.
“Anything!” shouted Casper. “Just choose your favourite numbers and let’s go!”
“I don’t know many numbers.”
Lamp licked his lips and turned the dials to 21/10/2112 (he wasn’t a fan of anything past three) shoved down the handle and grinned. “Hey, Casper.”
“What?” He couldn’t keep still. She was metres away now. “What is it?”
“Let’s TIME!”
The Time Toaster churned as it set to work, vibrating through the glass panes of the bus shelter until the whole structure began to hum. It was an odd noise, serene and formless, like a choir of ghosts who’d all forgotten the words.
Anemonie was close now. “Your bus ain’t coming, Candlewacks,” she smirked. “I’m gonna be rich!”
“It’s working!” cried Lamp.
“Not quickly enough! Come on, come on…”
The air was growing cloudy, the glass singing more loudly, but Anemonie had reached the shelter and was barging towards the Time Toaster that was glued to the wall.
“Give it here. Hey, it’s stuck!” Batting away Casper’s protective arms, she tugged with all her might at the Time Toaster, planting one boot on the wall for purchase. “Nnnnngh!” she nnnnnghed, but it didn’t break free.
The bus shelter screamed now, the air thick with the smoke from burning toast.
“It’s doing it!” shouted Lamp over the din. “I told you it would, Casper!”
Casper’s eyes stung. He coughed as the smoke filled his lungs and he backed into a corner.
“Whassit doing?” shrieked Anemonie. She carried on tugging at the Time Toaster, but her head was buried in her jumper to block out the smoke. “Is that you, Candlewacks? Who’s burning?”
As the ground began to rumble, Casper lost his footing and fell on to a plastic seat. “Lamp! Is it broken?”
“We’re travelling through the… which dimension is time again?” Lamp’s voice was coming from the wrong side of Casper’s head and he realised he was on the floor. “Whichever it is, it’s a bumpy dimension,” Lamp added.
“The smoke,” choked Casper. “My eyes sting!”
“It’s the mists of time!” Lamp took a deep breath. “Mmm, toasty.”
Somewhere in the mists of time, Anemonie squealed. “We’d better not be time travelling, Flannigan! If we end up in dinosaur times I’m gonna break your legs off and throw ’em to a T-Rex.”
The bus shelter spun. Casper lost his sense of direction and bonked his head on the floor. Anemonie screamed, Lamp practised his handshake, Casper wished he’d had some lunch so he could throw it up, and then…
SPRUNGG!
The screaming was no more. The ground stopped shuddering and returned to its rightful place. Smoke still filled the air, but now it just hung there. All Casper could hear was his own coughing and the short, determined breaths of Anemonie Blight somewhere nearby.
“Well, I think that was a success,” said Lamp, from somewhere.
Casper groped around on the floor until he found Lamp’s remaining sponge shoe. He pulled himself up blindly, not quite trusting the ground beneath his feet. By the time he was standing, the smoke had thinned a little. He saw Lamp beside him, rubbing the soot from his face with an equally sooty hand.
“Did it… work?” Casper’s eyes still stung and the smoke was thick.
“I thought the future would be less smoky,” said Lamp. “Also, I hope they sell Time Toasters because mine broked.”
Most of the watch faces had fallen off, there was a small fire licking out of one side and the alarm clock on the front had melted. Anemonie was still pulling at the Time Toaster, but the fight and the sense of direction had gone out of her. Dizzily, she tripped backwards, skittered around the smoky shelter, found an exit and fell through it.
“Future? This ain’t the future…” murmured Anemonie. “Ooh, my head.”
“What’re you talking about?” Casper fumbled for the edge of the glass. His fingers found freedom and he staggered, coughing, out into… well… the very same place they had been before. There was Lamp’s street in Corne-on-the-Kobb, the same wonky houses and cabbage patches, the same scruffy hedges and big glass bus shelter, smokier, but in the same place. Casper felt his shoulders droop. “She’s right, Lamp. It didn’t work.”
Lamp bonked against the glass wall, bonked against the other glass wall, bonked against the first glass wall again, then emerged from the bus shelter in a cloud of smoke, rubbing his thrice-bonked nose.
“Oh.”
If a face had ever looked disappointed, it was Lamp’s face right then, all droopy-eyed and slack-lipped.
Casper scoured the scene, hoping to see a hover-car or cyber-donkey or something to prove the Time Toaster had worked, but there really was nothing out of the ordinary.
“Hang on,” Lamp chirped, suddenly brighter. “There is a difference. My nose hurts more in the future!”
“Isn’t that because of all the bashing it’s taken?”
“Oh. You’re too clever for your own good, Casper.” Lamp scuffed his shoes at a pebble, but it didn’t explode, or soar into the distance, it just skittered away like pebbles would do in the present day. What a disappointment.
“Tell you what.” Casper clapped Lamp on the back. “We’ll let the smoke clear, have a biscuit and try inventing something else.”
Lamp smiled weakly. “I like biscuits. Ooh, and water slides. Do we have any water slides?”
“Might do. Let’s have a look in your garage.”
“Wait up!” Anemonie’s screech disturbed the peace. “Please don’t leave… I mean… c’m’ere or I’ll thump ya.”
Casper looked back at the girl stumbling behind with fear in her eyes. But… fear? Anemonie? That was something he’d never seen before. “What’s wrong? Are you scared?”
“Ha! As if I’d be scared!” Anemonie laughed cuttingly, but her eyes darted around as if she was looking for somebody. “It’s just… it’s all quiet. I dunno.”
She was right. Corne-on-the-Kobb was as quiet as a trombone stuffed with socks. The only things Casper could hear were the dim hiss of Lamp’s Time Toaster and Anemonie’s heavy breathing.
But then Corne-on-the-Kobb often was quiet on a Sunday afternoon. Perhaps everyone’s asleep, or at church, thought Casper. Or asleep at church. (That did happen