A short ring of the bell resounded through the corridors of the school, signifying lunchtime.

Aaron didn’t like lunchtime; it was a boring gap in the day. There was nothing at all to do except eat. Somehow, thanks to the incompetence of the school canteen, that could end up taking the whole hour anyway. But otherwise it was a time when he was unsure what to do with himself.

Usually he went off on his own for a while to think and daydream hopefully without bothering anyone. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anywhere you could really go without somehow arousing suspicion in somebody.

You could sit indoors, in the Technology and Humanities block. They had comfy seats, computers that were almost good enough for a cheap internet café and, because the sixth-formers used it so much, it even had a vending machine. However, only sixth-formers were actually allowed to stay inside during breaks. If a teacher saw him, he’d be told to ‘Go outside and get some sunshine, lad’.

You could, providing you didn’t mind standing up the whole time, hang around the back of the bike sheds. But you’d almost certainly catch the evil gaze of Headmaster Knightsbridge—well, not evil as such. He was just overly suspicious of children; an unfortunate but seemingly necessary outlook for a headmaster. Knightsbridge chose an office in clear view of the rear of the bike sheds, to openly counter common high school lore that the most outrageous events will occur there. For some reason, he never suspected the students would figure this out and treat the secluded Gym Block as the new back-of-the-bike-sheds.

If all else fails, you could sit on the benches outside where you’re meant to sit at break. But then nosy girls would come up and ask you why you’re sitting by yourself.

‘I’m waiting for Moley.’ Aaron replied, feeling less intruded on than usual as he sort of had a reason for doing nothing. Most people seemed to need a reason for doing nothing.

The tall girl shrugged. ‘Can we sit here then?’

‘Uh- I suppose so,’ he glanced about. The tall, Hispanic girl talking to him was Bonita Menéndez. She had a bit of a reputation as a looker, most likely because her Spanish skin enhanced her looks in a sea of Saxon faces. To her side was Hannah Richardson, clutching her mobile and wearing an expression of utter indifference. And the trio were never quite complete without the slightly shy Candice ‘Deesy’ Doncaster, who sat playing with her long hair absently.

Aaron tried to deny the nervous sensation in his gut, as the three girls sat down at the far end of his otherwise empty table. He wanted to make himself look busy by delving into his backpack, but there was nothing he could really distract himself with. Just his Science report, his pencil set from Art earlier that morning and his exercise book for History. None of which were at all interesting.

‘Hey Aaron, what did you do in science that pissed off Ms Ulster?’ Hannah asked him.

‘Uh, just y’know… wrote about Sticktion,’ he replied.

‘What?’ She asked, in a way that was really more of a ‘so what?’

‘Um. Tiny forces that try to keep things as they are. I guess.’

‘Oh right.’ She looked back at her phone.

Candice murmured something.

‘He’s just fucking about Deesy,’ Bonita laughed. ‘You don’t need to take it seriously or anything.’

The conversation quickly excluded him, so he simply sat awkwardly avoiding eye contact and waiting for Moley to turn up. When he finally did, Aaron felt as though he’d been sat for hours.

‘Hey there, ladies man,’ Moley laughed as he came up to them.

‘About time.’ Aaron said, tapping his finger on the table.

The three girls exchanged glances and stood in unison. Aaron made a mental note of it as further evidence that girls are secretly telepathic.

‘Lunchtime’s almost ended,’ Hannah said, tapping away on her mobile.

‘Laters,’ Bonita nodded. Candice gave a vague nodding goodbye before following them.

Moley watched them going. ‘What, do I smell or something?’ he grinned.

Aaron back-slapped Moley on the shoulder irritably. ‘Where have you been all lunch? You said you’d help me out with this homework. If I had’ve known, I would at least have tried to do it myself in the library.’

‘Mate, sorry, I’ve just been dead busy. You remember Stacey, right-’

‘Moley, I’m trying to pass something here. You know, History, the only thing I have a chance of doing well at. I screwed up and I need your help.’

‘Alright, alright. So, what’s the homework?’

‘You tell me. It’s for History in about twelve minutes.’

Moley reeled. ‘We don’t have any homework for History. Who told you that?’

Aaron sighed. ‘You did.’ Moley was also a pain in the ass for forgetting when he’d said something.

‘Nah, see, I was probably talking about Geography. We’ve got Geography for tomorrow.’ He asserted.

‘Yeah, I know that. The thing about the Shinkansen.’

‘The what?’

‘The Japanese Bullet Train.’

‘Yeah, that.’ Moley looked around. The field around the outdoor tables was beginning to clear. ‘Common’, let’s get to registration.’

---

David Burrows was born in early October, so was older than many people in their school year. He also had a surname right near the beginning of the alphabet, so was one of the first people on the register. Aaron Sellafield, by contrast, was a young mid-July birth and pretty far down on the surname list. Groups were most often split by surname along either side of ‘K’ and ’L’, so he and Moley frequently ended up in different groups. For the same reason he was also one of the last few people to be called up in the class for a presentation, and during exams he was allocated the ‘extra space’ part of the hall with the wobbly temporary desks for children with alphabetically extravagant surnames.

Aaron sat curiously considering the various effects on his life exacted merely by his surname and birthday. Meanwhile his Form tutor, Miss Lane, plodded on through the register with her usual impeccable politeness. As she did so, he noted there were plenty more unfortunate than he; with surnames like Cockburn, Bong and Gayleigh passing by. Perhaps sharing a name with a nuclear power station wasn’t so bad after all.

Thoughts about the embarrassment in science kept returning to him. Stradleigh High School was rather old-fashioned; they would rarely consider anything more radical than a new colour for the walls. Even if it hadn’t been Ms Ulster marking his science report, he was pretty sure it would have gone down like a concrete plane.

It was just too radical for her, that’s what it was. Too weird. And weirdness is just uncomfortable for most; even the ones that see the benefit usually feel unnerved by odd thinking.

True enough, science hones in on the simplest solution. But it’s also fuelled by imagination and free thinking. He’d once read that Albert Einstein’s greatest asset, the thing that put him ahead of his contemporaries, was the fact he had a vivid imagination to go with his superb logical understanding. It still fascinated Aaron that nearly all modern vehicles were propelled by a very quick succession of small explosions of flammable liquid. He doubted anyone a few hundred years ago would’ve believed that, nor thought it a good idea.

The school bell demanded an end to registration and the Form made their way out to their classes.

Moley pulled him out of his thoughts. ‘So Aaron, you wanna come round later? Me an’ me dad built some jumps for the bikes on Saturday. You could have a go if you like.’

Aaron nodded. Moley’s house was pretty big, but it was the sort of messy kind of rich house with tyres and junk all over an ill-kept garden and random pets sleeping wherever they felt like. He couldn’t figure out where their money came from, although the wealth might’ve just been the impression he got from Moley’s carefree attitude with money.

The two of them walked down the corridor to History, went into the classroom and sat down. Most of the rest of the class were still making their way over, as Aaron and Moley’s own Form was closest to the History department.

As they continued talking, their teacher walked by and sat on the side of Aaron’s desk.

‘Hey lads.’

Aaron nodded back. ‘Hi sir.’

‘Hey Matt,’ Moley responded casually. They knew that calling Mr Kaufman by his first name was school taboo, but still did it as a kind of banter because Mr. Kaufman let it slide most of the time. He was just that kind of teacher. When they did a case-study on the Coventry Blitz in World War II, he had personally organised a trip to go to Coventry and see the ruins of St. Michael’s Cathedral. Primarily it was to get a close-up look, but it was also because he didn’t think they were getting enough school trips this year.

‘There wasn’t any homework for today was there, sir?’ Aaron ventured.

‘No. Although there will be for next lesson. All about the Russian Revolution and how it affected the Great War; fascinating stuff I’m sure you’ll agree.’ Mr Kaufman said.

‘Russians eh?’ Moley said. ‘I’ve got a book on those.’ Moley claimed he had a book on just about everything.

‘So how’s the experiment going?’ Mr. Kaufman enquired.

Aaron looked to Moley. ‘Oh… that.’

---

It had been a few weeks ago. They had been participating in a debate during one of their history classes, which had gone a little off topic. Somehow or other—Aaron could not recall—the class discussion encroached on the subject of time-travel.

‘It’s obviously impossible,’ said a voice to Aaron’s left; Edward Rochester. He glanced back at Aaron as he looked over, somehow conveying a loathing sense of superiority as he did so.

‘No way man,’ came Jay’s relaxed retort. ‘It’s gotta be real, cause time is totally, like, Einstein’s bitch-’

‘What proof is there?’ Edward interrupted rhetorically. Edward had been using rhetoric longer than he’d been using deodorant.

‘Whuh? How could there be proof?’ Katie Pike wrinkled her stubby nose. ‘It hasn’t even been invented.’

Edward sighed. It was a heavy, impatient kind of sigh.

‘Well the reasoning is,’ Mr. Kaufman interjected, ‘that if anyone has invented time travel at some point in the future, we should have seen them visiting us at some point.’

‘It’s like aliens!’ shouted Mick Huang, an artistic maverick that had been done three times for graffiti on school property. He spent most of his classes doodling incredible robots on his workbook. This class was no exception, although he’d gradually been suckered in by the interest of the subject matter, causing the mechanoid on his textbook to have various time-travelling appendages.

‘Sort of like Aliens,’ Moley said, in an unusually thoughtful moment. ‘But it’s like saying evolution is all toss because we can’t find every fossil.’

Aaron suddenly had a thought. He wasn’t sure how to put it. He wasn’t even sure if he should voice it at all.

‘Interesting,’ Mr. Kaufman said. ‘It does seem to beg the question, doesn’t it? Why don’t we see people from the future? Perhaps they can just disguise themselves very well?’

‘Hardly.’ Edward snorted. ‘Sooner or later they’d get caught out, some evidence would turn up. Like ghosts; same thing. That’s why aliens aren’t real either-’

‘They are too!’ Mick shot a stern look at Edward, who glared back.

‘Okay lads, we’re not getting into that discussion again,’ Mr. Kaufman held up a hand.

Aaron inhaled. ‘It could,’ he began, noticing that people had turned to look at him. The boy that rarely talked. He realised he wasn’t quite sure how he was going to finish that sentence. ‘I mean, they might not be able to come back because… because they don’t have the information.’

‘How do you mean, Aaron?’ Mr. Kaufman said, his curiosity deepening.

‘Well I mean… you’d need some pretty accurate data to travel to a different time. It’s not just time that changes: space does too. The Earth moves, land shifts, things are built and knocked down, stuff comes and goes so what’s to stop you appearing in the past half-stuck inside a mountain? Or a person? What if you need to use the matter at your destination in some way? Where do you find records of the exact positions of everything in a given time and place; down to the second, including where people stood?’

Mr. Kaufman nodded. Aaron was gathering momentum, forgetting that everyone was looking at him. ‘You’d need to know the exact details of your target zone, when it is, where it is, what’s in there – cause at the very least it’ll contain air – and you need the people in the past to have recorded that information. But the people in the past don’t know to write it down so they won’t start doing it until time travel is invented, which is why you can’t go back to before it was invented.’ He took a breath after he’d finished, suddenly self-conscious of how ridiculous the idea sounded.

‘What’s he talking about?’ Edward said with a frown.

‘That is an interesting hypothesis Aaron.’ Mr. Kaufman nodded slowly. ‘A little fantastic, yes. But it does adhere to logic.’

‘Wait- that would suck, cause then you’d never get to see the dinosaurs and stuff…’ Mick said. ‘Unless I s’pose they made them… info things…’

‘Dinosaurs don’t have opposable thumbs!’ Edward bemoaned.

‘You could always resurrect them;’ Gilly Wallace, an outspoken dark-haired girl, chipped in. ‘Like in this old film I saw once where they used dinosaur’s DNA to bring them back to life…’

‘Rubbish!’

‘It’s not, it worked on the telly!’

‘Okay class, let’s get back on track,’ Mr. Kaufman said. He didn’t like to interrupt a class discussion, but there was a point where work had to be done and he resumed the lecture.

At the end of the class, Aaron and Moley began talking to him as the rest of the students left.

‘I think you should test this theory of yours,’ Mr. Kaufman told them.

Aaron hummed. ‘If the future needed the past to record certain information, how could we know what that info is? And how can we get it to them?’

‘Getting it to them should be simple. All things travel through time in one direction, naturally speaking,’ his teacher said. ‘To reach the future, it only has to be preserved. But finding out what they want… that’s a little tougher.’

‘Trial and Error,’ Moley said, almost to himself.

‘Would be the only way,’ Mr. Kaufman confirmed.

Aaron nodded, slowly. He had the feeling both his friend and his teacher knew what would come next, but were waiting for him to say it so to be sure he was keeping up. ‘So we know when we get the info right, because something turns up, yeah?’

‘Well, I guess that would clinch it,’ Mr. Kaufman chuckled slightly. He had a craggy but friendly face, trim dark hair and a glint of intrigue in his eye. He seemed genuinely taken by the idea, if only for a bit of fun.

‘It wouldn’t really though… would it?’ Moley said. ‘I mean, I’ll bet someone’s tried this before somewhere? What are the chances?’

‘Hard to say,’ Mr. Kaufman replied non-chalant. ‘But it isn’t the most difficult thing to do; just record some details of a time and space then keep them. Easy enough, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Doesn’t that sort of information exist elsewhere?’ Moley asked.

Mr. Kaufman shrugged. ‘Not that I know of, with all the details you mentioned. As Aaron said, where people stand is important. You wouldn’t want to inadvertently land on your grandmother’s grandmother.’

‘Besides,’ Aaron hypothesized, ‘they might need to know stuff we wouldn’t normally think of writing down.’

‘That would mean they wouldn’t use any records from anything generic.’ Moley agreed. ‘But then they might not use ours either, seeing as we have no real idea what we’re doing.’

‘Only one way to find out,’ Mr. Kaufman said, stroking his stubbled chin.

Aaron’s mind was already off the starting line. ‘Yeah. Why not? I got a few ideas of what they might need to know.’

‘That’s the spirit,’ Mr Kaufman said. With a deep breath, the history teacher leant back against his desk thoughtfully. ‘I’ll have a word with a friend of mine, a historian who works for the National Archives. He might be able to get your data somewhere that’ll stick around for a while.’

‘Really?’ Aaron exclaimed.

The teacher nodded. ‘I’m sure he’ll be up for entertaining the notion.’

‘What about the internet?’ Moley said. ‘Wouldn’t that be easier? That’s not going anywhere.’

‘As an entity, yes, it may stand for a long time. But the individual pages come and go like the kebab shops on Wigan Road,’ Mr. Kaufman replied.

‘True,’ Moley nodded.

‘Thanks Mr. Kaufman,’ Aaron slung his bag over one shoulder, ‘we’d better be off home now.’

‘Okay. Take care, lads.’ Mr. Kaufman turned to pack away his desk. Aaron and Moley left the empty classroom and headed outside to the bike sheds. The buzz of the normal quarter-to-four rush out of school grounds had mostly died down, leaving instead a businesslike shuffle of diligent young adults; like some youthful parody of the evening commute. Aaron and Moley unlocked their bikes and rode off to Aaron’s house.

Almost as soon as they walked in, Aaron’s mum had offered them both a drink of cola and a biscuit.

‘Cheers mum,’ Aaron said, stuffing the biscuit into his mouth ravenously.

‘Thankyou very much, Mrs. Sellafield,’ Moley took the refreshments like an ambassador accepting a royal gift. His manners around anyone’s parents were always flawless, even though he swore loudly and made boob jokes throughout much of the school day. The duality was the same in almost everyone, including Aaron, but with Moley it just seemed to be accentuated.

‘How was your day honey?’ Aaron’s mum asked him.

‘Ok.’

‘Did you get your maths homework in alright?’

‘Yes mum.’ A tedious tone began to seep into Aaron’s voice, which made him feel bad because she was his mother and she’d want to know these things.

‘Alright. I’ll leave you be, but before I do, can you do me a quick favour?’ Mrs. Sellafield asked. ‘If you’re not too busy.’

‘Uh, yep,’ Aaron said cautiously. ‘We’re going to do a science experiment.’

‘An experiment?’ She exclaimed. ‘That sounds lovely, dear. Hope it’s not too messy.’

‘No, mum.’

‘Okay, well if you have a minute I need someone to move the new TV upstairs to my room.’ She indicated the packed box on the floor by the couch. ‘And you’re both strong lads, eh?’

‘You can count on us, Mrs. S.’ Moley said.

Aaron took a swig of cola. ‘Sure, mum.’

‘Thanks honey.’

Once they’d carried the TV upstairs, Aaron and Moley set about creating a plan for their experiment. The first problem was where to isolate. A garage seemed perfect, but Aaron’s was full of junk because they had no space left in the house. Moley suggested a half-empty storage block his dad used for dumping spare cars until he could sell them. They agreed that would be best. It seemed as though it would come together smoothly.

They booted up Aaron’s laptop and began to browse web sites. A quick search found co-ordinates in longitude and latitude for the warehouse’s location. They also managed, after a considerably longer search, to get the closest scientific estimate of the Earth’s position relative to the Sun. Aaron also printed out three copies of a sign for the area. As it slid out of the printer, he held it up to the light. It read:

!! TEMPORAL EXPERIMENT IN PROGRESS !!

Below it was a small discoloured and pixelated picture of Christopher Lloyd, as a particularly startled Doc Brown in the movie Back to the Future, that Moley had added on to try and ‘make things a little more fun’.

They then rode to Moley’s to get the keys for the warehouse from his dad. Moley’s parents were out when they arrived, so he went to his dad’s office and took the keys from a hook by the door.

‘Dude, what would happen if your dad caught you doing that?’ Aaron asked.

‘He’d tell me I’m grounded for a week.’ Moley said. ‘But he’s not here, so it’s cool.’

Aaron decided to take his word for it.

They rode their bikes down Woodgrove Lane, out of the estate and in the direction of Riverside Industrial Park. Originally hyped to be the shopping hub of tomorrow, it was hardly destined for big things in a place like Stradleigh. And besides, with an acronym like RIP, it didn’t surprise Aaron that the Park ended up being an empty assortment of car dumps and storage warehouses, with the occasional DIY or gardening centre thrown in to drag out its demise.

They skidded their bikes to a halt and Moley tapped a six-digit number into the pad that locked the warehouse. It wasn’t exactly an enormous building; no more than a tall double garage really. But for a family-owned commodity, it was hugely impressive to Aaron.

Moley slotted the key into the lock and turned it, resulting in a satisfying buzz followed by the shutters rising slowly upward. The view of the interior was gradually revealed; a single battered-looking old Fiat sat in the corner looking very sorry for itself, and the rest of the spartan workshop was so bare it had the appearance of being burgled.

‘This is good,’ Aaron said. ‘It’s almost empty.’

‘Almost isn’t good enough, though, is it?’ Moley said. ‘We need it to be completely void.’

‘Prob’ly best,’ Aaron said.

‘So lets get shifting.’

‘Where is all this stuff gonna go? And how are we gonna move the car?’

Moley held up his phone. ‘I sent a text to my Dad, asked him to drop by later so he can take this stuff back to ours for a bit.’

‘He’d do that?’

‘Well, yeah. Why not?’

Aaron shrugged. He wasn’t going into the paradox that was the Burrows family. ‘And what about the car?’

‘Dunno. S’a piece o’ shit, doubt he really wants it. Might just leave it out here.’

‘Ohhh-kay.’

They set to work. It didn’t take long at all before all the bits and pieces sat on the ground in front of the warehouse. The car was a little more tricky; Moley had to put one of the wheels back on so they could roll it outside.

Finally the interior of their target space was clear. Aaron was already having doubts. He felt kind of childish; this whole idea made him feel crazy. But somehow it was worth the effort, just on the slim hope that something interesting might happen to spice up the humdrum of reality. And it was oddly fun.

They looked proudly at the empty space before them.

‘Now what?’ Moley said.

Aaron sighed. ‘Why is it you are so smart one minute, then the next minute you’ve lost the plot?’

‘Just tell me, dickface.’

‘We seal it up and record the exact time, date and position of the space,’ Aaron said levely. ‘Ballsucker.’

‘Right, then we go home?’

‘No.’ Aaron said. ‘Then we stay here to make sure it stays isolated. And also in case something turns up!’

‘Damn, wish I’d known, I’d have bought my Ninetron Portable…’ Moley looked around. ‘So, you really think something will come through a wormhole or whatever?’

Aaron didn’t, in all honesty. He wasn’t really sure why he was doing it in the first place; it was almost purely because he’d convinced himself that he was toying with great scientific powers at the mere action of taking measurements, that this was just kinda cool to attempt. On the face of it he wondered if he was just getting carried away.

‘Hope so,’ he said eventually.

‘It’ll be kinda dull just waiting here, don’t you reckon?’ Moley asked.

‘Why don’t you play a game on your phone?’

‘What?’ Moley looked disgusted. ‘Aaron, wash your mouth out.’

Aaron smirked. ‘Well you can borrow my ‘player if you want.’ He pulled the device out of a coat pocket by the headphones.

‘Sure.’

‘Besides,’ Aaron put his hands back in his coat, looking up at the darkening sky, ‘we don’t have to be here long. I mean, if they’re time travellers they shouldn’t need that much spare time, should they? One half-hour slot should do.’

‘It better.’ Moley plugged an earphone in his left ear and took a tape measure from a toolbox that had been inside. They began measuring all the dimensions of the interior space, pinning the tape along the walls and the floor, as accurate as they could.

Moley jotted on a notepad while Aaron shut the doors. They locked the keypad and sellotaped the notices they’d printed off along the segmented metal door.

Moley barely even listened to the ’player. Aaron had begun to suspect that his friend was just hanging around to be out of the house; but then he saw a flash of a grin that told him there was still some inner child in David Burrows.

Both of them shared the collective excitement that it was more than mere delusion. It was like the Lottery; the chances of success were miniscule, but the sheer worth of the outcome made it seem worth a go, thrilling even. Because you can spend days just discussing what could happen.

At half past five, Moley’s dad pulled up in his grey Bentley. With a gentle whir the window came down.

‘What’s all this about, lad?’ he enquired in his thick Sheffield accent, as they walked up to the car. Moley’s family had only moved to Stradleigh a half dozen years back, so they still had the yorkshire twang.

‘School project,’ Moley replied.

‘Right y’are then,’ his dad sounded satisfied. ‘I’ll bung the rest of that stuff in the boot.’

‘Cheers dad,’ Moley replied. ‘What about the car?’ he indicated the worn Fiat.

‘Ah, leave it, son. Driveway’s officially part o’ the lease, so t’int like it’s on public road.’

Moley nodded. ‘You not worried someone’s gonna nick it?’

‘Wish they bloody would,’ he said. ‘Saves me figuring out what t’do with the bastard.’

‘Cool. Ta, dad.’

He parked up the Bentley and the two boys helped him load the back. Moley’s dad was a tall and well-built man, with a receeding hairline and angular face. As they finished, he stood with his arms folded, as though weighing up their performance. ‘So you two finished? If you chuck yer bikes in the back I’ll give you a lift.’ The sky was dimming, a pale early-autumn hue ready to unleash a legion of raindrops.

‘Well, dunno. We done here Aaron?’ Moley asked.

They’d recorded a three-quarter hour interval. Aaron figured that would surely be enough, scribbled down the end time at the end of Moley’s notes and put the paper safely back in his bag. They walked over to the warehouse. It hadn’t made a single sound.

They removed the notices, then Moley tapped the combination into the keypad and carefully turned the key. The door raised slowly, as they looked on with baited breath.

There was nothing there. They stood for a moment in silence. Then the disappointment came; as though it had slipped in behind them when they weren’t looking. Well, what had he been expecting? Transformers? A Terminator? That was it; it was over.

Moley then said quietly: ‘Better luck next time, eh?’

‘Yeah.’ Aaron agreed.

He hadn’t thought to try again, but Moley’s comment had won him over in one blow. With just a few words the unthinkable became the unshakable. It’d take more than one failure to give in. They were the Time Crew! Okay, perhaps they’d work on the name, but they were a team nonetheless.

Moley’s dad drove them back, dropping off Aaron at his house. He spent the rest of the evening sitting at his mum’s desk in the spare room with his laptop, thinking up new things they could add to the data. Air composition? Not sure how to test it. Light levels? None, surely. And thinking about it, could they not work out where the Earth was in the future anyway, making that bit pointless? It seemed there was so much to trial and error their way through.

He looked outside across the rooftops that painted the view from the window. Red brick rows with slate roofs and countless aerials punctuated the cluttered ‘two-up-two-down’ terrace, each house an identical block with a small extension at the back for the kitchen.

He delved into scientific journals, flicked through all manner of pages on setting up simple experiments and even glanced at some general time-travel theories. Many he found outright confusing, but some had him reading for hours in fascination. The skies had poured on the way home and the roof tiles reflected the vanishing orange light of the sun. The rattling of rain on the roof and the window, with him cosily behind it, made him feel warm and relaxed. It instilled a strange sense of anticipation within him.

Over the next week they tried everything they could dream of. They took the air pressure with a barometer, gas composition, humidity; they even tried to make a device that detected magnetic fields. It didn’t work, but they continued all the same. Recording different lengths and varying the time of day, they meticulously exhausted any and all types of data and format they could come up with. After a while the waiting got annoying, so they just left the warehouse with notices and warnings urging not to interfere. And each time they had a history lesson, Aaron handed Mr. Kaufman a disc of typed-up data for the National Archives, so they didn’t even have to get anyone else to do it.

Yet still, no success. Every occasion was the same: the door went up, and inside was exactly the same as when the experiment began. They started to feel slightly idiotic. Finally, on the Monday, the pair decided they’d had enough.

Aaron shook his head. ‘We gotta give this a rest.’

‘It was worth a go, eh?’ Moley said.

‘I suppose.’ Aaron admitted glumly. He seemed wistful and melancholy, like he’d lost something grand but he wasn’t really all that mad about it. ‘Shall we put the Fiat back in?’

‘Fuck it.’ Moley groaned. ‘We’ll do it another time.’ He gave a short sigh, then closed the warehouse door one last time.

‘Ah well.’ Aaron tried to sound non-chalant.

‘Woulda been cool.’ Moley said, lifting his bike from the floor and straddling it.

‘…Yeah.’ Aaron did the same, but more slowly and a little uncertain.

They rode home in silence, then parted at Aaron’s with a murmur of goodbye. Aaron went inside then sat in his room, which was downstairs and looked out onto the small garden. He sat at the window, thinking hard about the experiments. There was a distant sound of a car with a motor-boat exhaust, thundering down the adjacent street and setting off the annoyingly sensitive car alarms as it did.

He had to concede he was out of ideas. He decided that in next history lesson on the following Thursday, he would give in the last of their readings.

---

Aaron looked up at Mr. Kaufman. He wasn’t sure how to tell him. It was as though they were letting him down; Mr. Kaufman had shown such support into his theory and now they were just giving up on him, proving how childish and fickle they were. But they really felt like they’d tried everything.

Fortunately, as is often the case, Moley took up the sword on the matter. He was particularly good at sensitive discussion or explanation. Aaron often said that if it were possible to get a job as the guy who has to tell people their dog died, their spouse has left them or they’ve been fired; Moley would be industry standard.

‘We’ve got a final set of results with us.’ Moley told him. ‘And as we’re short on ideas, we won’t have any new data to offer I’m afraid- at least not for the time being. That isn’t to say we’re giving up, only that we’ve… exhausted avenues of research.’

Aaron smiled inwardly. How did he make wimping-out sound so damn professional?

‘That’s a shame.’ Mr. Kaufman replied, but Aaron could see that he didn’t look the least bit surprised. ‘It was good work, though.’

Then Aaron saw it. How could he have been so stupid? Mr Kaufman had been waiting for it to happen! He was still a teacher for heaven’s sake. He didn’t really think they were going to get anything. He probably didn’t even have a friend at the National Archives; he just wanted them to have a fun project and to practice being scientific and inquisitive. Aaron was almost annoyed at the prospect. It basically amounted to the fact Mr. Kaufman had been wasting their time. No point in even bringing that to light either, he’d just deny it completely.

‘We’ll let you know if we think of anything.’ Moley told him, then with a nod the teacher got up and returned to the front of the class. The rabble of the other arriving students were already filling up the room with a tide of chatter.

‘He knew we’d fail.’ Aaron said quietly.

‘Totally.’ Moley stared ahead.

‘Maybe you’re right, Moley.’ Aaron said. ‘Maybe I should stop trying so hard. Stop resisting and poking and messing with things and just spectate; entertain myself, let life happen. Do what I’m meant to do, and consume the junk food of existence.’

Moley pulled his bag up onto his desk, taking his books and stationary out for the lesson. ‘Christ, I doubt anyone could make living normally sound as depressing as you just did.’

---

That evening, after getting back from Moley’s, Aaron rode up into the small front garden of his house and dismounted his bike. His neighbour, an old lady named Mrs. Pittock, was tending to the small potted plants in her garden and looked over the wall at him oddly.

‘Hello there, Aaron.’ She said.

‘Hi Mrs. Pittock.’ There was a moment’s pause. Aaron didn’t talk to her that often, nice as she was. He usually ran out of things to say, and the usual English reflex of talking about the weather generally got on his nerves.

‘Dearie… you don’t happen to know any… older girls, do you?’ She suddenly looked apologetic. ‘If you pardon my question.’

Aaron tried not to look stunned. What the hell was she talking about? ‘I don’t know what you mean, Mrs. Pittock.’ He said, in an attempt to be diplomatic.

‘Oh my… I don’t mean to pry.’ The old woman looked embarrassed. ‘S’just that, there was a lady here looking for you. Earlier today.’

For him? Now that was weird. ‘A lady?’ Aaron repeated.

‘Yes…’ Mrs. Pittock paused, her memory moving slower than it perhaps once had. ‘She was a pretty little thing, not much older than twenty five I’d say. Your mother was out, of course.’ Mrs. Pittock put her watering-can down and began to pat the soil of her plants. ‘I was out here tendin’ to the garden so I told the lady your mother was at work. But she said that actually, she was looking for you.’

Aaron bit his lip. It was all a little strange and quite unexpected. He tried to think who she might be talking about, but nobody fitted the bill. Anyone who knew him would also know he was in school, surely. Even then they were all boys. And who else could want to see him outside of school?

‘What did she look like?’

Mrs. Pittock squinted. ‘Ooh, I’d say about-a six foot or so, skinny thing she was. Long blonde hair, y’know the kind. Wearing those motorcycle leathers that you kids wear.’

Motorcycle leathers? Aaron felt like the more he asked, the more confused he became. Enough was enough for one day.

‘Thanks, Mrs. Pittock.’ He said deeply, then with an air of disorientation went into the house.

After getting a cup of tea with some biscuits he sat down at his desk to do his Geography homework. But the prevailing mental image of the tall blonde motorbike lady kept distracting him. Maybe Mrs. Pittock was mad. Or maybe the woman had gotten the wrong house.

But then he’d been asked for by name, hadn’t he? Although Mrs. Pittock had not said exactly that. He decided that he’d be better off putting the whole thing out of his mind.

At twenty-to-six his mother came home, with his younger sister and brother in the car. She normally picked them up on the way home from the Primary school, because it was several miles away. After Aaron’s experiences at the awful Stradleigh Primary, his mum had decided that his younger siblings wouldn’t suffer the same.

‘Bloody nightmare!’ Were her first words stumbling through the door. She had three shopping bags in each hand and two whining children in tow. Michael, the older of the two, was fuming about having run out of battery power on his Ninetron Portable. The younger, Haley, was crying because her feet hurt and she was tired and she really wanted the pink wellies they’d seen.

‘Need a hand with the shopping, mum?’ Aaron said as his mother staggered down the hall.

‘Yes please, love.’ She said, and then turned back to the other two to try and quieten them down.

Aaron went to the car outside and retrieved the last three shopping bags, closing the boot awkwardly with his elbow. As he straightened up, he caught sound of a deep resonating hum; artificial like a sine wave or a pure tone. The moment he noticed it, he realised he could no longer hear it. He paused, standing beside the car looking blankly down Evergreen Avenue, to where it disappeared over the crest of a railway bridge.

‘Aaron?’ His mother called from the door.

‘Sorry, mum.’ He apologised, walking back inside. ‘Having a bit of a strange day.’

Next Chapter: 02 - The Novodantis