The Timekeeper Read online

  Also by Emily Rodda

  Finders Keepers

  The Wizard of Rondo

  The Key to Rondo

  Deltora Quest series

  Rowan of Rin

  Rowan and the Travellers

  Rowan and the Keeper of the Crystal

  Rowan and the Zebak

  Rowan of the Bukshah

  Crumbs!

  Dog Tales

  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Emily Rodda

  Title Page

  Notes on Finders Keepers

  1 Time Out

  2 Shut Down

  3 Three’s a Crowd

  4 Contact

  5 Behind the Barrier

  6 Ban the Finders!

  7 Fast Forward

  8 “This Isn’t a Game!”

  9 The Split

  10 The Timekeeper

  11 Rescue

  12 The Finder

  13 A Meeting

  14 Disappearing Acts

  15 Losers Weepers

  16 Two Out of Three

  17 Hide-and-Seek

  18 Countdown

  19 Zero Hour

  20 Game’s End

  The Author

  Copyright

  Notes on

  Finders Keepers

  By Max Treweek, Chief Computer Engineer and creator of the Finders Keepers TV show, Channel 8, beyond the Barrier

  As a child, though my first love was computers, I was always fascinated by the mystery of the Barrier, the invisible “wall” that divides our time stream from the neighbouring one. At that time no living creature had been able to pass through the Barrier, though objects could slip through a tear or break easily enough.

  From the objects that fell through the Barrier from the Other Side, it was clear that the people there were very like us, except for one thing. They were, it seemed, quite uninterested in possessions, and took no care to keep them clear of the danger the Barrier presented. Many precious objects fell through to our side each time there was a Barrier break. Even with Guards patrolling the Barrier’s weak spots, and pushing things back whenever a break occurred, some “treasures” were always left after the break was mended. Barrier-combers (sometimes called “scavengers”) would gather these up for sale.

  I found all this very curious. Why did the people on the Other Side not keep their possessions away from the Barrier as we tried to do? And why, when our things did slip through the Barrier, were they never returned?

  Years later, working (with computers, naturally) at Channel 8, the country’s largest TV station, I got the idea that perhaps a computer could penetrate the Barrier and make contact with the Other Side. I experimented in my free time for years, and finally, after countless failures, I managed to create a computer that could do the job. I discovered, also, that by creating a link between my computer and a TV set on the other side of the Barrier I could actually bring people from that side through to this one, and send them back, as often as I wished.

  The Channel 8 bosses jumped at my invention, when they heard about it. They needed a new, high-rating quiz program. Something different. And so the Finders Keepers game was born.

  The idea was simple. Three viewers who’d lost something through the Barrier were chosen each week to be Seekers. Using the computer I would bring a Finder, a contestant from the Other Side, to meet the Seekers, and appear to our audience. Then I’d send the Finder back to find each missing object in turn, and win a prize.

  The show was extremely successful. It was compered by Lucky Lamont, a standard quizmaster-model robot. His minder, Boopie Cupid, proved very popular. She happened to be the sister of our canteen manager, Estelle Blacker.

  The Finders answered many of my childhood questions. The most startling thing I learned was that people on the Other Side don’t know the Barrier exists! There, it seems, the Barrier isn’t a smooth “wall”. It’s broken up, and impossible to see. When objects disappear through it, they’re simply regarded as “lost”. If they reappear, as they do if a Barrier Guard throws them back, people assume they simply didn’t notice them the first time they looked. Hard to believe, but true!

  I didn’t have long with each Finder, because I realised fairly early on that it was dangerous for them to spend too much time on our side of the Barrier. They became weak and forgetful after a few weeks, and began “fading away”. This condition became known as the Trans Barrier Effect (TBE).

  Our recent trouble began some months ago, when Boopie was showing her sister the Finders Keepers computer, which I’d stupidly left running in my absence. Somehow Boopie activated the program, and Estelle vanished to the other side of the Barrier, with no way to return or contact us. I’d always known that though people from the Other Side could move to and fro through the Barrier, this couldn’t be done with safety by people from our side. And so it proved. The computer was severely damaged, and Estelle was lost.

  We told no one. I worked secretly night and day to try to find Estelle and bring her back. But my every effort failed, and as time went by we became desperate. We knew that the Trans Barrier Effect would be damaging her. But in the meantime, of course, the show had to go on. And even that was difficult, because though I’d managed to repair the worst damage, the computer had become unreliable.

  Then we had an amazing stroke of luck. A new Finder – a boy named Patrick Minter. His Seekers were Clyde O’Brien, a rather nasty fellow who’d lost a book in which a will had been hidden; Eleanor Doon, a rich old miser who had lost a ring; and a local Barrier Guard, Wendy Minelli, who’d pushed her boss’s lucky toy rabbit through the Barrier by mistake.

  Patrick was a champion Finder. He found O’Brien’s book, and brought it back. He then went after Eleanor Doon’s ring and discovered that it had been found by his family’s babysitter, who adored it. Patrick was fond of this woman. And he was worried about her, because she was pale, vague and increasingly forgetful. He was right to be worried, of course, because the babysitter was in fact none other than our Estelle, who had by now forgotten about her past life, but who clung without knowing why to the ring that was part of home.

  Patrick’s a smart lad. Though he knew nothing of our loss of Estelle, he knew about the Trans Barrier Effect. He suddenly worked out, because of Estelle’s condition and her love of the ring, that she must belong across the Barrier. And when he returned to Finders Keepers for the third time, he pulled her through with him.

  So Estelle was returned to us. Boopie nearly went crazy with joy. But the effect on the computer, and on the whole Channel 8 power supply, was disastrous. Lucky Lamont blew up – on camera, unfortunately. The game was abandoned, and Patrick had to go home immediately, without the prize computer he’d been promised.

  But that isn’t the end of the story.

  A couple of days ago Patrick found Wendy Minelli’s lost toy and got it back to us through a Barrier break he discovered when his father “lost” his car keys. Boopie, Estelle and Wendy insisted we try to push his computer through to him after that, and this, to my great surprise, we managed to do, with the help of an old rogue of a Barrier-comber, Ruby. I supplied a special contact disk with the equipment, so that we could “talk” with Patrick through the computer. This was a better idea than any of us knew, as it turns out. In fact, I’m beginning to think it might be the answer to everything …

  1

  Time Out

  When you’re somewhere you don’t want to be, a day can seem like a year. And four days can seem like an eternity. And Patrick really didn’t want to be at his friend Michael’s place, going home with him after school, sleeping in the top bunk in his room. He wanted to be home.

  Normally Patrick wouldn’t have minded staying with Michael. He wouldn’t have minded at all. Michael was an
only child, so at his place there was no little brother to pester you or big sister to complain at you and boss you. You could watch whatever you wanted on TV, without bothering whose turn it was to choose the channel, because Michael’s parents had a set in their bedroom. Michael’s house was big and new-looking, and very neat and clean. And Michael’s mother always made a proper dessert for dinner – a pie or a pudding or something.

  Most of all Patrick would have liked staying with Michael because of Michael’s computer, and all the computer games they could play on it.

  Yes, a holiday at Michael’s place would have seemed like heaven not so long ago.

  But it didn’t seem like heaven now. Because now Patrick had a computer of his own. It had come into his life on Monday, after school. He’d used it exactly twice, just long enough to find out that it wasn’t an ordinary computer. And then he’d had to go to bed. On Tuesday morning a grader working on the road near their house had broken a water main. There was water everywhere, flooding the road, pouring down the gutters – great! Patrick had gone to school laughing at all the people standing round looking, and the grader man explaining over and over again what had happened. He’d hoped it would still be going on when he came home. What a joke!

  Well, the joke was on him. Mum had turned up at school with a suitcase at lunchtime and told him the water had been cut off to the whole street, and they couldn’t live in their house till it was fixed. She and Dad and Danny, his little brother, were going to Grandma’s. Claire, his older sister, was staying with one of her friends. And Patrick was going to stay at Michael’s house. Till Friday. At least. Mum had said it as though she was giving him a present. She’d thought he’d be pleased.

  He couldn’t believe it. Of all the luck! All his life, practically, he’d wanted a computer of his own. Having turns at school or at Michael’s place was OK. And sneaking into the computer shop up the road when the owner was too busy to bother about him was better than nothing. But a machine of his own! That was something else. And when he’d finally got one, he’d used it for one afternoon and one night, and then had to leave it.

  He stood there in the hot playground and begged and pleaded to be allowed to go home. Said he’d look after himself. He’d keep the door locked. He’d live on breakfast cereal and sandwiches. He didn’t need water. He’d …

  But his mother wouldn’t listen to reason. “Don’t be crazy, Patrick,” she’d laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous! You can’t possibly stay by yourself. And you can’t stay in a house without water, anyway. It’s not just a matter of drinking and washing your hands. The toilet doesn’t work. What are you going to do – wee in a bucket?”

  A couple of kids hanging around listening had giggled behind their hands. Patrick felt his ears get hot. He hated that. He’d stopped arguing then. He could see there was no point. In this mood Mum wouldn’t change her mind.

  So on Tuesday afternoon he went back to Michael’s place. And Wednesday afternoon. And Thursday. Strangely enough, the days that he’d expected to drag had flown by. And now here he was in the top bunk in Michael’s room, lying in the dark on the last night of his exile. Michael’s computer sat on the desk, disks scattered all around it. And his computer was sitting in his room at home, waiting for him. Tomorrow he’d be back to it. Mum had rung tonight and said so. One more little night and one school day to wait.

  At the same moment, not very far away, a nurse was bending over a high, white bed, tucking in the rumpled sheets. “Go to sleep, now, dear,” she said firmly, when she had finished. “It’s very late. And no more shouting, please. You’re disturbing the other patients.” She clicked off the bedside light.

  In the dimness black eyes stared at her, unwinking. “Then help me,” said a frail but determined voice. “I must leave here. I am needed.”

  “Now you know you can’t go, dear,” said the nurse, impatience sharpening her voice. “You’re very ill. You can’t even get out of bed. Remember what happened when you tried before? You fell over, didn’t you? Now please, please try to relax and go to sleep. There’s nothing you have to do that can’t wait. Nothing’s that important.”

  The white head tossed on the pillows. The black eyes closed. The voice grew fretful. “You don’t understand. No one understands. What am I doing here? How could this have happened? I must go! I must!”

  The nurse sighed. Mad as a meat-axe, poor old thing. She turned and tiptoed out of the room, closing the door behind her.

  Patrick lay back, his hands behind his head, and listened to Michael snoring gently below. It would be nice to be back in his own house and his own bed, too. And to see Mum and Dad. And it wouldn’t really be bad to see Danny and Claire again, actually. They were irritating sometimes, but he was sort of used to having them around.

  When he got home tomorrow afternoon he’d go straight to the computer and put in the Finders Keepers disk. Then he’d be able to get a message through to the computer on the other side of the Barrier, to explain why he hadn’t been in touch for so long.

  Finders Keepers. Patrick smiled to himself in the dark. What a secret! What Michael would say if he knew! What they all would say! Mum, Dad, Claire … they’d flip! They knew he’d won the computer in a quiz game called Finders Keepers. But they didn’t have any idea that Finders Keepers was out of this world. Literally! That to play in it he’d had to cross an invisible Barrier, enter another time stream. That over on that side, in front of TV cameras and a cheering studio audience, he’d met three Seekers who’d lost a precious object that had slipped through the Barrier to his world. That he’d had to find these objects. Because he, Patrick Minter, was the Finder. And Finders Keepers was a sort of amazing treasure hunt, across two worlds. It was hard to believe, even for him.

  But it was all true. The computer was proof of that, Patrick thought happily. He’d been a champion Finder. He’d found all three of his Seekers’ missing objects. And he’d won his prize computer. And he’d made lots of friends.

  Boopie Cupid the quiz show hostess, Max the Finders Keepers computer whiz, Wendy Minelli the Barrier Guard who’d been his favourite Seeker, old Ruby the Barrier-comber … and Boopie’s sister, Estelle. His friends. They’d been through a lot together. He wondered how they were, and what they were doing now.

  Patrick yawned, turned over on his side and snuggled down under the covers. Well, he’d soon find out. In no time at all he’d be reading their messages on his computer screen. Probably they wouldn’t have much news, though. After all, nothing much could happen in four days, could it?

  2

  Shut Down

  The late afternoon sun slanted through Patrick’s window. He bent over and switched on the computer. Outside he could hear Danny chanting some kindergarten song as he played in the backyard with his latest obsession – a golf ball he’d found. Pop music pulsed dimly through the wall from Claire’s room next door. Everything was back to normal.

  The computer hummed expectantly, and Patrick sat down in front of it with a little sigh of pleasure. Carefully he slid in the Finders Keepers disk and listened to the soft beeping noises that meant the computer was working on it. Soon he’d be in contact with the people across the Barrier. Some of them, anyway. Max, for sure, and maybe Boopie Cupid. He waited for their first words to appear on the screen. He bet they’d be: HELLO PATRICK. WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? He’d tell them about the burst water main, and staying at Michael’s place, and …

  SYSTEM ERROR. CANCEL/OK.

  He stared at the words in their black frame. What had happened? He clicked OK and waited. The SYSTEM ERROR notice appeared again. Patrick bounced on his chair in frustration. What was wrong with the silly thing? He cancelled, restarted, and the same thing happened. He ejected the disk, stared at it, put it back. In seconds the dreaded black frame was back on the screen.

  Patrick reached for the instruction book.

  But nothing the book suggested made any difference. He tried everything, twice at least. Then he tested all the other disks in the box. Every o
ne of them worked. He banged his fists on the desk. Somehow the Finders Keepers disk must have been damaged. How could it have happened? He’d been so careful!

  Well, it had happened. That was obvious. Maybe it had been faulty to start with, or Danny had got to it and dropped it and had been scared to tell – something was just wrong with it, anyway. So he couldn’t get through to Max, and that was all there was to it. Patrick stared at the empty screen before him and chewed his bottom lip. His chest ached with disappointment.

  The door behind him opened and Claire came in. “This room’s a pigsty, Patrick,” she announced disdainfully, picking her way through the clothes on the floor.

  “Yours is a hippopotamus-sty,” he retorted automatically, without turning around.

  She moved over to the desk and leaned over his shoulder. “What are you doing?”

  “What does it look like?” Patrick wriggled his shoulders impatiently. “Get off me, Claire.”

  “Picky, picky.” Claire tossed her hair out of her eyes and stared again at the screen. “What’s the matter? Can’t you get it to work? Do you want me to have a go for you?” Her hand reached out.

  “No!” snapped Patrick, and frowned as Claire jumped. He hadn’t meant to be so sharp. “Thanks,” he added quickly. “I’m just having a problem. I’ll work it out by myself.”

  She shrugged. “Have it your own way. Look, I just came in to say I’m going to the shops tomorrow, and do you want to come.”

  Patrick stared at the computer screen. Like I said, I’m having a problem, that’s all, he thought. No point getting upset. I can work it out. “Oh, I don’t know,” he mumbled. “Which shops?”

  “Chestnut Tree Village. Do you want to?”

  “I suppose so.” Patrick drummed his fingertips lightly on the keys in front of him, barely listening. He was thinking hard. The Finders Keepers disk was broken. So, it had to be fixed, or he had to get another copy. And the only person who could do either of those things for him was Max. And Max was on the other side of the Barrier.