The Time Twister

A trip to grandma’s that goes a little bit astray…

By Margaret Warrior, age 9

“Milo, Emily! Come on down! You’re going to be late for grandma’s!”

 

“Coming!” they both said in unison. 

Milo and Emily were siblings. Milo, being 16 years old, was in charge of his little sister, Emily who was 9 years old. They were going to visit their grandma who lived in Bracknell because she was ill. 

 

“Have you remembered everything?”

“Yep.” replied Milo, staring into his phone screen.

“Then off you go, and remember, your train is due to arrive at  9:30 am and is going to Bracknell. You will have to stay on the same train for 13 stops.

You got that? 13.” reminded mum.

 

They opened the door and started walking.

 

Past their porch, down their lane, cross the road and they arrived at the bus stop.

“Now, we have to board the bus at 9:00. It will take half an hour to arrive at the station and then we will get on the train.”

 

“Look! The bus is here!” exclaimed Milo.

They bought tickets and went upstairs to sit at the very front of the bus. 

They started moving and the rain started to pitter - patter on the top of the hood of the bus.

After a long, boring, 30 minutes they arrived at their destination, the train station. 

 

“This is our stop, Emily.” Milo said, sounding like a choking frog, as Emily had clearly described. They exited the bus and bought themselves some Mcdonalds. Milo looked up at the timing chart above and the train to Bracknell was due. “We have to hurry, Emily, or then we’ll be late and we’ll miss the train!” said Milo. 

 

They started running and finally reached their train!

 

“Quick, quick lets jump on!”screamed Emily. The doors closed with both of them on the train, safe and sound. Both of them started eating and soon fell asleep.

 

5,10,15,20 stops had passed and neither of them were awake.

20,25,30,35 stops had passed and Milo had suddenly woken up. A stranger was sitting horizontally to them and Milo dreamily asked him “Where are we?” 

 

“We are in Phranse Avenue, the lane of the zombies,” replied the stranger. “My name's Dave Miller. Yours?” he casually asked. 

“I’m M-m-ilo,”replied Milo, stuttering. 

 

“Are you kids alone on this train, because it’s really scary?”asked Dave.

“Why?”Milo had asked Dave, totally not aware of the fact that he looked so scared, as if a fish was about to be caught on a rod.

“It’s called Phranse Avenue, the lane of the zombies. It’s supposed to be scary, I already told you!

“Not trying to get you angry or anything, but does that mean that you’re a zombie?”

“Yes, that does. Farewell,”answered Dave, and just like that, he walked off.

 

By this time Milo was fully awake and Emily had just started waking up, yawning, stretching, basically doing all the things that you would do when you wake up from your snug bed and enchanting dreams that you think are real, but actually aren't. 

 

“Are we there yet?”asked Emily.

“Um, uh, no Emily, we’re not,”Milo stammered .

“I’m going back to sleep,”she said and laid down her head on Milo’s lap, with her plaits dangling down.

 

Suddenly, the walls around them that formed the train dissolved. Luckily, Milo was sitting down, not leaning against anything so he didn’t fall back. Emily woke up at that exact moment and looked around her.

“Where are we?”she asked sleepily.

“Emily, don’t freak, but we’re lost?”said Milo, slowly starting to back away.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”screamed Emily. To Milo, this seemed like it carried on for infinite, but in reality it was only for a few seconds. Milo slapped his hand over Emily’s mouth and everybody stopped to look at him. He gave a thumbs up and a quirky smile, and then lifted Emily, who had just gone back to sleep on his back, and ran off.

 

2 hours later and it was getting dark. Milo was in a jungle looking for somewhere to sleep and something caught his eye. “A treehouse,” he whispered under his breath. He started walking towards it and climbed up a ladder, leading to the first floor. There was a door and a key hanging from the handle. Milo took the key and the door swung up without a single creak. The treehouse looked brand new because there was no moss and the wood which made the ladder hadn’t rot yet, and when Milo opened the door it hadn’t creaked at all, so that was something. It had 3 floors. The first had some chairs, and had a door which led to a balcony. On the second floor, there was a trundle bed and parallel to that was a mirror and a closet. Milo climbed up the ladder which led to the 3rd floor and found a map, some pencils, a sharpener and eraser. He gently climbed down the ladder to the 2 floor, placed Emily in the middle bed, took off his rucksack and placed the picnic basket which he was holding in the top bed. Next, he collected all the things off the floor and checked what there was to eat. Milo looked in the picnic basket and saw 6 full bottles of water, in case of a fire as his mother had told him, 5 sandwiches filled with ham, 4 sandwiches filled with cheese, and 6 more filled with both. He took the keys  and an empty jug which he had found and climbed down the 2 consecutive sets of ladders.

 

Milo started searching for some sticks and flint to make a fire.

Once he had found those, he looked for a river and filled up his jug of water. He poured it over his face and started to head back “home” as he should have started to call it. Once he arrived, he unlocked the door and found Emily munching on half a sandwich.

“Hey.”she said.

“Hi,”

“Here, I saved this for you.”

She offered him half of a ham sandwich and he gratefully took it. 

 

5 minutes later, Milo had set up a fire and with the flint he scratched a stick and a flame appeared. He quickly threw it in the fire and a light came to life. 

 

“We should probably go to bed. It is way past our bedtime,”Milo said.

“Okay,”

“Night.”

“Night.”

 

Early next morning Emily woke up first thing in the morning and gently shook Milo.

“Milo, Milo, wake up!”whispered Emily.

“What’s the time Emily?”

“4:30 am.”she said, looking guilty.

Milo gave her the eye and walked out of bed to a sandwich.

“What type of sandwich do you want? We're going to half one.”asked Milo.

“I really want the ham, but I really want the cheese too.”answered Emily, scratching her pretend beard and posing like Albert Einstein.

“Then ham and cheese it is,”replied Milo.

Once they had breakfast they brushed their teeth (they made toothbrushes out of sticks and pieces of hay and then got some toothpaste from their bag that their mom had given them in case of bites) and climbed down the ladders leading to the jungle floor. Fortunately, Emily had a compass-necklace which was given by her great grandmother and was passed on to her. Talking about grandmothers, their grandmother especially had hidden a little secret from them ever since Milo was born. Now this little secret was about a clock. A clock that turned back time, and when people were using the place where the clock’s hands moved and when it’s time ticked, yes, that place became a globe so that the owner of this clock could see who was using it, when they were using it. Now, the name of this clock is called The Time Twister. Every generation of the family had gone on this same adventure followed by 2 little mini ones in-between. Now, going back to Milo and Emily, they had seeked their first little mini adventure. They were walking in the jungle and were stepping on scaly eggs, which they thought were stones. Suddenly, Emily’s foot slipped and cracked open an eggshell. She immediately started panting and then Milo carefully  jumped, hopped and walked all the way back to Emily, lifting her up from the slimey, gooey liquid. Her face showed that she was obviously disgusted. Milo suddenly said “Emily, this is really bad. These aren’t rocks, they’re egg shells, Emily! And where they’re eggs there’s a mother.”

“Oh no!”cried Emily. Milo immediately slapped his hand over her mouth and put his hand to his lip. They started scanning the place looking for anything big and scaly. Milo started shaking violently and pointed to a colossal dragon, about 500 times bigger than a herd of elephants (approximately 12). Luckily the dragon was sleeping. They tiptoed backwards, slowly turning around to find somewhere to hide. This time, Milo slipped but only his foot went into the shell. They both looked at each other, then panicallylooked at the dragon. Its eyes were open. The dragon had red, fiery eyes and razor sharp teeth cutting to the bone if it happened to bite you. Its claws were like sharp knives, slicing everything that came into its sight. On its body, it had scaly skin and a weird texture with standing up zigzags, all the way down from the top of its head to the tip of its tail. But that is not all. Now, the dragon breathed fire and venom when it attacked its predators, it would first breathe fire and then spit venom, sinking its fangs into the dead body. The dragon leaped over the egg shells and came right in front of them, growling and roaring. They started running and soon lost track of the monster.

“Phew, that was so scary!”cried Milo.

“That will haunt me forever!”wailed Emily

“Enough with the talking, we need to find safety.”answered Milo.

 

Unfortunately, the siblings had already walked into their next adventure, a flood. Suddenly, the ground started to shake and break into pieces. Luckily, they were holding hands. The rock that they stood on plunged into the ocean and so did they. Both of them knew how to swim so they kicked down deep and found an old submarine. Milo started pointing to something so Emily looked behind her. Coming towards them was the biggest shark in the world, the whale shark. As it swam it developed speed, twisting and turning, leaping and lurking amongst the darkest and deepest parts of the ocean. The siblings put all their strength into rotating that wheel that led them into the inside of the submarine. Emily pulled a strand of seaweed off the wheel and Milo could twist with ease. They swam inside and while Emily pressed a button which let out all the water Milo screwed the lid shut. They panted and Emily pressed a random button which turned on all the lights inside. The vehicle shook and then started to buzz.

“It’s on!”shouted Milo

“Yay! Bracknell, here we come!”whooped Emily.

They drove the submarine for a bit more than 3 hours and then it switched off.

“All the fuel’s gone!” Milo worriedly whispered. 

“Why don’t we swim outside and see where we are.”

So they did. Milo twisted the lid open and he swam outside of the submarine, followed by Emily who twisted the lid shut. They both swam to the surface of the water and saw sand.

“Where at the beach Emily!”screamed Milo

Emily didn’t answer, she was looking behind them. Once again, they had found a shark. They started swimming, doing front crawl and finally made it to the shore. 

 

“We made it Emily, we’re in Bracknell see!” Milo pointed to a sign which said: ‘Bracknell beach, enjoy the waves and let the sand slip through your fingers.”

Emily jumped up and started dancing, clicking her fingers to a rhythm. Milo stood up and they both started walking. They had both walked 14 steps exactly when they got sucked up in a portal and ended up in their Grandma’s house. 

 

“I have been expecting you for quite some time, dear.”Grandma said. 

“I know the story, though. I’ve been meaning to tell you this but I never found the right time. Anyhow, my great-great-great grandmother passed this on to my great-great grandmother, and so on. Soon it will be passed on to you two.” She finally finished her lecture and Emily broke the silence by saying “Anyways, we need to get home, grandmother, so goodbye, we love you.” 

“You’re not going anywhere. Your family is moving here,”