Time Machine & Other Stories

By Melinda Szymanik

What happens when you sleep with a crocodile tooth under your pillow, or the mess under your bed turns into something terrifying? How can a football be a passport, and what does it mean when the contraption in the basement starts to hum and glow? You can be sure the answers will never be boring and almost always take you on an unexpected adventure.

 

Step aboard the time machine and discover new and selected stories by the award-winning author of The Were-Nana, The Song of Kauri and A Winter's Day in 1939.

For readers aged 7–12

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ahoy
• Release date: Aug 29, 2019
• ISBN: 9780995123328

Melinda Szymanik

Melinda Szymanik is an author of picture books, short stories, and novels for children and young adults. Her works have received numerous honors. She lives in Auckland, New Zealand, where she loves watching movies, eating out with her favorite people, and traveling.

Book preview

Now’s Good

Just outside the driveway of Number Four was the bottom of the big hill. The part where the steep incline finally flattened out. Kit couldn’t remember how many times he’d skinned his knees running down that hill. He had scars on top of scars, but he wore them with pride. They marked him as a kid without fear. His little sister, Fi, didn’t have so many scars. But then she never went down the hill too fast.

Ever since they’d moved in four years ago, Kit had been plotting. Two years before he’d found the perfect heavy wooden box left out as rubbish by the side of the road. And then months later Dad had picked up an old-fashioned pram with all its wheels from a secondhand shop. And now, at last, all his plans were coming together.

Kit had just celebrated his tenth birthday. He’d been given a tool kit. A real one. Now he was busy in the garage, building a billy-cart. A billy-cart to go whizzing down the hill. Kit took the wheels off the pram and, with help from his Dad, fitted them to the bottom of the cart. He’d used the handle from a toddler’s wagon for steering, and now he fixed it to the front wheels.

He needed brakes, but the box that made up the body of the cart was long and Kit had had no choice but to put them at the back. But how would he work the brakes when they were so far away? There was nothing for it. This was a cart for two.

‘Hey, Fi. Want to help me with my project?’

‘Depends. Is there colouring-in?,’ asked Fi. ‘Do I get chocolate?’

‘Maybe chocolate. Afterwards.’ He’d have to talk to Mum about that. ‘I need you to help me drive my billy-cart.’

Fi frowned.

‘You’ll be in charge of braking,’ Kit said. She was still frowning. ‘I can’t do it without you, Fi. It’s a really important job. Really, really important.’

Kit had never given her an important job before, ever.

‘Do I need any special clothes?’ Fi asked. ‘Like, in case we crash?’

‘Don’t worry,’ Kit said. ‘Even if you forget to brake, we’ll run out of steam on the flat bit. But helmets are a good idea. And maybe knee pads or something. You can be in charge of our protective clothing.’ He smiled at her and went back to screwing the rudder on under the front part of the cart.

While Kit tied rope to either side of the rudder and oiled up the pram wheels, Fi got busy with her special task. She came back with helmets, Kit’s knee pads, and two pairs of elbow pads from their roller-blading days.

Kit tightened, rubbed, sanded and polished. Fi’s pile of special clothing grew.

The cart was ready.

Kit’s eyebrows rose when he saw his little sister.

‘Are you in there?’ he asked with a grin.

‘Hmmm,’ she’d replied through the pink scarf wrapped tightly around her nose and chin. A red cycle helmet was perched on her head, she wore her purple parka with both sets of elbow pads over the top, and her arms stuck out stiff from her sides. Were those his old jeans she had on? Striped leggings were peeping out the bottom, and her feet were cased in her yellow duck gumboots. Kit was surprised the knee pads could fit over the layers.

‘You look ready,’ Kit said. He placed his own helmet on and did the strap up tightly under his chin.

‘Is that all you’re wearing?’ she asked, but Kit just shrugged. He tested the rudder one last time, then pulled the cart down the drive and onto the footpath. He sniffed the wind, licked his index finger and held it up, then grabbed a handful of leaves off the ground and threw them up into the air.

‘Good,’ he said.

Using the rope tied to the rudder he pulled the billy-cart up the hill. Up and up. When they stood at the top where the footpath flattened out again, Kit wheeled the billy-cart round. Suddenly the hill looked steeper than it ever had before.

‘Okay,’ Kit turned to Fi. ‘We might be going quite fast when we get to the bottom, so when I say now you pull back on these two sticks.’ He pointed at the two upright pieces of wood, one tucked behind each back wheel. Kit had nailed some rubber along the bottom of the sticks to connect with the back wheels and slow them down. ‘It’s easy,’ he said.

Fi nodded, her head like an oversized lollipop.

Kit took his seat in front, one foot steadying the cart on the footpath, the other tucked in by the right-front wheel. He held the rope firmly in his hands, the rudder dead straight to start off and scooted forward a little as Fi clambered in behind.

Kit twisted around.

‘Ready?’ he asked as Fi fitted a pair of furry, tiger-striped ear muffs over the helmet to cover her ears.

She smiled at her brother. ‘What?’ she said, but Kit was already turning back.

He pushed off and pulled his left foot inside the cart. The cart trundled slowly down the hill.

Round and round the wheels went, faster and faster.

‘Yaaay,’ yelled Kit, the wind in his face.

The wheels made a noise like thunder on the footpath. Fi reached forward and grabbed Kit’s right arm, squeezing it hard, but Kit shook it off. He needed it to pull on the rope to steer the billy-cart through the curve as they dashed down the hill. He yanked hard and slowly the rudder moved, the wheels shuddering on the footpath as they turned. The rope pulled against Kit’s hands. The rudder wanted to follow its own mind. Faster and faster they went, following the curve of the footpath down the steep slope.

Suddenly Kit knew the cart wasn’t his anymore. It was going too fast to obey his instructions.

Too fast to steer the rudder.

The wheels wobbled, the cart shook and Kit shivered. ‘Now!’ he called to his sister behind him.

‘Now!’ Kit yelled as the wobbles grew and the billy-cart seemed to pull against itself. The front wheels didn’t want to stay with the box they’d been attached to, and the back wheels strained to be left behind.

Faster and faster and faster they went.

‘NOW!’ Kit screamed.

Off the footpath they careened. They sped across the driveway of their house. The hedge loomed ahead.

BANG!

CRUNCH!

The wheels spun madly, the billy-cart on its side, Kit lying on his back in the grass breathing hard. Fi stood over him, her ear muffs and helmet askew, one brake stick in each outstretched arm.

‘Now?’ she asked.

Rush

‘What’s the rush, JJ?’ Mr Jackson yells as Jason runs past. ‘Got somewhere important to go?’ Jason turns and shakes his head at Mr Jackson. Nowhere important.

Jason James loves to run. He loves the footpath disappearing beneath his feet. He loves the wind in his hair, the wind he makes by running. He runs everywhere – to school, to the shops for his mum. His dad won’t let him mow the lawn anymore because he wants to push the mower at a run too. ‘A runner needs all his toes to run,’ his dad says.

He runs to football practice and home again. He runs all during practice. Mr Field says he’s the fastest on the team, and he can tackle and shoot goals too. Mr Field jokes he’s going to put Jason in goal.

It’s hard to sit still in class. Whenever there’s a message to be taken to another class or to the office, Mrs White gets Jason to take it. It’s a deal they have. Jason will sit as still as he can in class, but he takes all the messages.

Mrs White is cool. She understands him. This is the first year Jason hasn’t been in trouble with his teacher. Schoolwork is really hard but he wants to give it a go because Mrs White understands him. And he understands that the schoolwork is important to her. But he feels happiest when he’s running.

Dad has bought him a proper pair of running shoes to wear to athletics. Not the ones that look like running shoes, but ones where the shop assistant measures how long and how wide your feet are and then watches which way your feet roll when you walk. Jason loves these shoes so much he will take the best care he can of them.

When he wears his running shoes Jason feels like he is almost flying. He feels like he has wings on the sides of these shoes like that Greek guy – the messenger, Mercury.