The Wee Time Traveller

By Alexander Hawksville

This book is the story of Lara who wants to reunite her divorced parents. Her father is a scientist and one of his friends makes a time machine. Lara tries to change the past then ends up in the far future where she meets the Eloi and Morlocks and encounters the Eloi liberation front. Lara joins in the battle with gusto and is helped by her own self from another time...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alexander Hawksville
• Release date: Oct 6, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465761675

Alexander Hawksville

I live in Scotland where I appreciate the beauty of my rural surroundings. Landscape and how it influences people is a large part of my work. I have been involved in many different areas of the performing arts. On a regular basis I travel to 'the big city' and perform in Poems and Pints nights. I write and self-publish poetry. I also do this for other writers.In the past I was with Borderline Theatre where I took part in, and wrote plays for their Community Outreach project.Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror are my favourite genres, and my books on these subjects feature on SmashwordsWriting is a hobby and a passion and has allowed me to meet and perform alongside a lot of people I would never have encountered otherwise. I am part of a community and that has been the most valuable part of the writing experience for me.

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The Wee Time Traveller

Published by Alexander Hawksville at Smashwords

Copyright A. Hawksville 2011

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The Wee Time Traveller

Chapter One

Lara shouted mother from the bottom of the stairs.

I struggled to get my head out from under the covers. I'd been playing - sorry, working - until late at night on my computer, so I wasn't exactly eager to get out of bed. Mother didn't help either. Let me tell you about my mother: she was brisk and efficient unlike her fourteen-year-old daughter, (me,) and it was most annoying to be trailing out of the house with a slice of toast in my mouth and my hair all untidy when she had been up at seven getting her housework done, preparing herself for work and answering letters.

Lara! This time her tone was laced with that wee edge of annoyance.

But then mother didn't like staying up late. She always said that as a working single mum, divorced four years earlier from one Richard Myers, that is, my dad, she had to show a good example to her daughter, and this she certainly did.

Mother was already at the breakfast table when I arrived at the foot of the stairs having performed my ablutions as they say in Victorian novels, in the upstairs bathroom. My hair as usual was a mess and my skirt had a marmalade stain on it where some of the stuff had marked it when I was scoffing sandwiches the previous afternoon at school.

She was drinking black coffee and looked at me disapprovingly as I heaped three teaspoons of sugar into my tea. But there you are, us Scots have a sweet tooth and who was I to fight against the trend?

Sorry, I said, catching a glimpse of the clock on the wall, which said accusingly '8.45.'

It's lucky the school is just along the road, said mother. She was not that annoyed with me. To a certain extent she accepted me as I was.

I balked at the patent breakfast cereal she had put out for me. This was a healthy concoction with loads of fibre and the consistency of wet cardboard. Instead I helped myself to a fruit bar from the store cupboard and a packet of crisps, hedgehog flavoured. Before you animal protestors start, I must point out these were animal free and tasted more like pork scratchings than anything else.

I have a bit of news for you, Lara, said mother as she cleared up the breakfast things and washed them in a few seconds flurry at the roomy sink.

Talking about sinks, this is what my heart did.

I'm seeing Julio tonight.

Cool name, eh? Julio was a gentleman from some outlandish part of South America who had come over as an exchange student. He worked with mother on placement as part of the Portland Square medical practice where she was a Locum Tenens (or GP to laymen like you and me.) He was over six feet tall with gorgeous brown skin and a devastating smile he used to good effect when we met. I fancied him like mad and so did most of the girls from school, but I had a feeling mother was about to tell me some bad news.

We've always been more like sisters than mother and daughter, haven't we?

This was so patently untrue I nearly choked on my last hedgehog crisp. Not only was she, like, a control freak, but the list of things I had been forbidden to do from off piste skiing to slumber parties still rankled faintly. This cosy 'sister' stuff was being used to soften me up.

Julio will have to leave Scotland in the next couple of months.

Yes?

Unless he marries.

But who would he...? I trailed off in horror as the full import of her words struck me. Now don't get me wrong. As I say, Julio was one hunk of manhood and I liked him a lot more than I'm prepared to say here. But the thought of having him as my new father was loathsome beyond belief. For one thing he was a 'macho man' type who would just have to be boss in his own home. I wouldn't like that after being able to wrap my own father around my little finger from the age of two months. For another, he was far too young for mother.

You cannae do it, I protested. I have a 'polite' Scots accent but in times of stress I like to burst into the vernacular. The Scots tongue is particularly laden with descriptive words that have much greater impact than their English counterparts. Besides, instead of being frowned upon, it was fashionable to use your own slang.

Now don't start making a scene, said mother. She was the calm, controlled type, or thought she was but in actual fact she was already stressed out. A double frown line had appeared between her eyes and she was tapping the fingers of her left hand on the wooden table, a sure sign she would rather be making hand-to-face contact with my jaw being the facial area in question.

You always say that when you don't want me to give my opinion, I said.

You're shouting, said Mother.

No I'm not.

Yes you are. I deliberately lowered my voice. This accusatory stance was another of her ploys. She would put me off balance then sneak up behind me like a lioness ready for the kill. Well, I wasn't about to give her the chance.

You see this stuff was and is important to me. As I've said, I didn't mind the boyfriend in his place but I most emphatically didn't want him to become an important part of my social circle. For instance I couldn't imagine him coming to the school concert to watch me play the flute as mother sometimes did, nor could I see him nursing me through mumps and measles like father once took time off to do.

Mum, I just want something better than what we've got.

Which is why I'm getting married.

I don't want a stepfather.

Why not?

He's too young for you.

Make up your mind. You have two arguments in there. Either you don't want Julio to be a stepfather - specifically Julio because of his age - or you don't want a stepfather at all. It has to be one or the other but it can't be both.

She looked at the clock. Five minutes to nine.

Whatever you want to say, it'll have to keep. Now go out to school. Your hockey stick is behind the front door and I have to be at work soon.

I made as if to stay where I was. Then all the heart went out of me, the way it does when you know you're half-defeated from the very start. Besides I really wanted to be in that game, although judging from my temper that morning by mid-day there would be a few bruised shins on the playing field. I'm not saying hockey players are vicious, but you could let a couple of Rottweillers on to the field with us and they'd be screaming to get off after ten minutes. I pulled on my purple blazer and the scarf with the white and purple bands, picked up my 'Shorn the Sheep' bag and headed out.

But I stopped to kiss her first. As I bent over her, catching that scent of jasmine she always had about her, mother caught my shoulder and kissed me back.

You know you come first, she whispered. And get that look off your face.

What?

You know.

I did too, it was that look like HIM like the unmentioned person hanging over the whole conversation. Father. I was like him in a lot of ways, particularly when my temper was roused.

I went out in silence except for pulling the front door shut a little more sharply than might be expected, surprised as I heard it bang behind me that I wasn't angry at my mother after all, not really. In any case all, it had been four years.

The University looked surprisingly nice in the late spring sunshine. We lived in University Square, just off University Gardens near to the gothic main building which is so large you can't take it all in at one go. Our house was just one of the many identical ones in this area built out of the grey stone they used when creating the main building. We had a set of stairs running up to the main door with a black wrought-iron railing to the left. Almost at the foot of the stairs sat the actual gardens. They took up the middle of the square, a bit like the little park in Eastenders' Albert Square but without the railings.

We even had some so-called wild animals around here, most surprisingly tame, although the way I felt at the moment any unsuspecting squirrel was risking a punt on the end of my big toe, since like my namesake Lara Croft I wasn't famous for being calm in times of stress.

(Let me point out here that I wasn't called after this heroine of the masses. My mother was called Laura, a name she liked, but which she considered a mite old-fashioned, so without giving a thought to the matter she made it more modern by taking out the 'u' and having her offspring christened with the much sharper sounding 'Lara'.)

I was walking along with my head down thinking how much I was like HIM and wondering when we would meet again when a voice said something behind me. I ignored it for the moment. I was concentrating too hard on my own misery (as you do) to bother with stray voices. I could see HIM in my mind's eye and wondered why we didn't spend more time with each other.

Sometimes we want the impossible yet it seems to be around the corner waiting to happen. Look at the things you see in the paper day after day. News is when impossible things happen, like couples being reunited years after they've divorced for some reason which seems just plain pathetic in retrospect.

I was a big girl now but despite it all I needed someone to talk to who wasn't my mother, Julio, or the teachers and girls at school, but who was close enough to understand my moods. I needed someone who was close, yet not clinging. In my head I could picture an individual who could see behind my moods and bring me out of them with a light word or two. I wanted someone who could make me laugh at myself just when the whole world seemed an oddball place, where I was just a bit player and nothing made any sense.

I wanted the impossible.

I just wanted my daddy.

Chapter Two

University Square is posh there’s no doubt about it. Compared with some of the girls at school I'm pretty well off. Not in sheer monetary terms - some of them have parents who could buy and sell mine - but in prestige, and being in the right area with the right connections. I'm not even sure why I'm telling you this except to indicate that I knew - or know- when I'm well off.

To walk out here beside the gothic magnificence of the University is a treat. As someone who dresses as a Goth at weekends I appreciate the total dedication the builders had to making those who viewed this monstrosity become overawed and slightly horrified, (as for the Goth thing, I have just started doing this in total defiance of my mother who now accepts it as harmless dressing up.) I'm in a place I like. It gives me a new thought every day. Besides living in the square you meet such interesting people.

Lara! cried a voice behind me. This time it wasn't mother, to whom I would have made some vague gesture before fleeing to school. It was the firm voice of a youngish man.

It was now crisis point. If I stopped now I would be minutes late for school and earn black marks all round. On the other hand it was one of those days when the things we do seem totally at odds with what others expect us to do.

I turned round.

There at his dark green front door was Andy McDonald. Standing there with a light breeze ruffling his blond hair. Looking at the engaging grin on his face, I suddenly squared my conscience and walked back. I stood below him on the stairs and looked up.

Yes Andy? I said demurely.

Lara, I can't wait. There's something...it's... he seemed at odds with himself, pleased excited and distracted all at the same time. Look, I'm not making any sense here. Can I use you as a sounding board?

I could have reminded him I was supposed to be at school, but I have a feeling Andy is one of those who thinks school is fine, school is great, in the proper time and place and this was neither. Come in, he said turning his back to me.

Let me point out here that I'm not naïve. I know what men are and what they're like. I also know that it doesn't matter whether a man is an academic or a beggar, that man may regard a well-built fourteen-year old as fair game.

This wasn't the case with Andy. For one thing he had his tenure at the University to think of, and for another he and my mother had often had tea together. They were good friends.

Wait, I'm getting all this backwards. Let me tell you about this strange man. Professor Andrew McDonald was a genius. In a world where this phrase is bandied about I mean it literally. He had an IQ