Doctor Who_ Time and Relative - Kim Newman [15]
If we get hauled back to School, it'll be worse than Detention.
There's one last rule Grandfather hasn't broken. A big one, a defining rule that is written into his (my?) brain, like the impulses that keep the lungs breathing and the hearts pumping. The primary rule says we mustn't meddle. We live outside time and space, looking in, observing, noting, taking an academic interest. But we do not meddle. The theory is that it is all none of our business. We accept no blame or credit. We know everything but affect nothing.
Here, I can admit this: I am a rebel. Like Arthur Seaton. Like Lawrence of Arabia.
I don't think I believe in rules at all. Even – especially – the primary rule.
I think meddling is an obligation.
I want to be a part of time and space. When we left Home, machines in the Box came to life: clocks, to tick away the seconds; odometers, to measure the miles. Grandfather put those devices there, though they had no purpose until we ran away. Home isn't a place where anything happens. Space there is like it is inside the Box – if you're measuring all the dimension in the universe, the space of Home doesn't count. When we left, we winked into existence, entering the steady stream that runs from past to the future, emerging from the Box to become dimensional. Before that, I don't even know if we qualified as being alive.
I worry that Grandfather has the primary rule still in his head, that running away from Home hasn't helped him run away from his conditioning. In the Box, we may always have Home with us.
(Maybe the Box is still at Home; what we stole might only be the Door.)
I have the no-meddling rule in my head too, but because I'm young (only on my first face), it hasn't taken root. Something always tells me not to interfere, but I can argue against it. Even at the cost of losing memories, I can resist the School's discipline.
I think this is why Grandfather took me with him.
There are things I can do that he can't.
Monday, April 1st, 1963
April Fools' Day. Stupid jokes at School. A sign up on the notice board promised champagne and chips for the first twenty pupils who ask the dinner ladies for the 'special menu'. Mr Chesterton sent Little Titch out of the classroom to fetch a 'left-handed blackboard rubber' from the supplies cupboard. Year One kids ran about, attacking each other and then chanting 'pinch, punch, first of the month, no return of any kind.' What's the point of that? Does saying 'no return of any kind' really oblige someone who's been pinched and punched not to retaliate?
Spring is supposed to be here. No fear of that.
Later –
Gillian sat next to me in English as usual, and chatted as if nothing bad happened between us on Saturday night. If she's chosen to forget, then I will too.
It doesn't matter that she called me a 'sad clown'.
She's my friend. I'll hang on to that. All my doubts and fears were wasted. I should be used to it.
People are changeable. Their lives are so brief and busy that they have to crowd all the emotions they could possibly feel into a short time, like a thirsty man drinking in a pub after last orders have been called. It explains a lot about the way human beings have run the Earth.
Besides, I'm more concerned with what happened afterwards, with the presence in the ice.
The thing Grandfather was talking with.
Now, I feel it at School, on the street, everywhere. It's less obvious when the sun's out, but it's still there.
I have become afraid of the snow.
Later –
At morning break, there was a