Read Frozen in Time for Free Online Page B

through the bathroom with both. Before she reached it, the door at the other end opened, and Freddy and Polly staggered through, Ben behind them, shrugging at her and shaking his head. ‘I couldn’t stop them,’ he said.
    She and Ben had both realized that the sight of the dust all over the things in the living areas would provide the clue that they had been left, hearts stopped, for a bit longer than a week. As Freddy and Polly moved through the bathroom and into the kitchen, they were already beginning to slow down and sweep horrified glances from one side of the room to the other. In the chamber with the torpedoes the dust had not been so obvious, somehow. Everything in there was pale and grey-looking anyway. But here, on the blue and cream kitchen furniture, across the draining board of the sink, over the curved metal toaster and the pale lemon biscuit tins, the layer of dust was mournfully obvious.
    Rachel pulled out two low stools from beside the sink. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Sit down and drink this. You really, really need it.’ Dazed, they both sat and accepted a bottle. They drank a little, and then pulled faces. ‘Flat,’ said Freddy.
    ‘Drink it anyway,’ said Ben. ‘You need the sugar.’
    Freddy took a long drink and then sat up, looking levelly at Ben. ‘All right. Don’t try to fudge us. You’d better tell it to us straight. How many months have we been down here? And what’s happened to our father?’
    Ben winced. Months. They still thought it was only months. But then—why not? Dust like this could build up in months … maybe. And it wasn’t as if he and Rachel had arrived in shiny silver cat-suits, waving ray guns, like anyone after the year 2000 was supposed to have looked like to people living back in the old days. They wore jeans and sweatshirts, and many kids in 1956 probably wore something similar. ‘Look—I don’t know what happened to your father,’ said Ben, as kindly as he could. ‘But you ought to know this. It’s going to be a bit of a shock. This isn’t 1956 any more.’
    They stared at him from round blue eyes—desperately unprepared for what he was about to say.
    ‘Freddy … Polly … This is 2009.’

 
    There was an incredibly long pause. Then Freddy let out a shuddering breath and his shoulders started to hitch and his head dropped and he rubbed his eyes. When he looked up his face was pink and he was shaking his head. He was in fits of laughter. Polly was staring at him, a shaky smile beginning to dawn on her face.
    ‘You—you—you must have thought we were born yesterday!’ hooted Freddy, slapping his thigh like someone in a pantomime. ‘Honestly—I—I really, nearly … you nearly had me! That was good—that was … I have to say … really the tops! The tops!’
    Ben and Rachel looked at each other, aghast. Now what?
    ‘We’re not joking,’ said Ben, but now Polly was laughing too. ‘We’re not!’ he shouted. ‘Look—look— have you seen anything like this in 1956?’ He pulled up his sleeve and showed them the watch he’d got for Christmas. It was a gleaming dial of digital numbers, the liquid crystal display twinkling with blue-green light, offering up the time of day, the date, a stopwatch function and even a calendar and calculator if you wanted it. It kept exact time, as it was connected to a global satellite, and it was sleek and fantastic and totally twenty-first century.
    Freddy grabbed hold of his wrist and stared at it. ‘Wizard!’ he said, respectfully. ‘I’ve heard you can get those in America.’
    ‘Oh come on ! In 1956? Not on your life!’ Ben began to flick through the different modes of the watch, like a desperate timepiece salesman, urging Freddy to believe the unbelievable. ‘See—it can do that and that and …’
    ‘Stop it,’ said Rachel. ‘They’ll know soon enough. We need to take them back up the ladder. Back to the house. That’ll settle it.’
    ‘You bet your life it will! Father will soon sort you