paper there was a large label. These labels were the only things that seemed to exercise any kind of order on the messy workings pinned on the wallcharts beneath. From right to left along the wall, the labels for each wallchart could be read in sequence: ‘Timeline Simulation 0103’, ‘Timeline Simulation 0104’, ‘Timeline Simulation 0105’, and so on, all the way up to ‘Timeline Simulation 0109’.
“What is this place?”
“Looks like a kind of control room…” Jack replied.
“Or something out of
“Yeah — all those weird maps, pictures, photos, notes… kind of linked together…”
“And what the hell is a Timeline Simulation?”
“No clue…” Jack looked along the wall at the various sheets. About halfway down the room he noticed that there seemed to be a whole wallchart missing — just the bare wall and plaster remained behind, pockmarked by the Blu-Tack that had been used to attach the sheet to the wall.
“Funny…” Jack said. “Simulation 0107 seems to be missing…”
Angus shrugged. “Come on — let’s take a closer look.”
They rushed down the spiral staircase to the lower level. They had not noticed that a dim light had automatically come on as they entered the library. Soon they were in the midst of the lower room and it felt like they were drowning in a sea of paper, books, diagrams, pictures and notes. It was as if they had entered the brain of some ghostly intellect and caught it in the midst of solving some mind-bendingly difficult puzzle.
Opposite the wallcharts, there was a series of floor-to-ceiling shelves and glass cabinets.
“Look at all this stuff…”
Each shelf and each cabinet seemed to be stuffed full of all sorts of historical paraphernalia. Jack had done enough history with Pendelshape to realise that much of it was military in nature — possibly from the world wars. He spotted a trench telescope, some medals, old maps, at least five different sorts of shell casings, uniforms, plus an array of rusty-looking revolvers and other equipment.
“Amazing, do you think any of it can still be used?” Angus said, hopefully.
Between two of the glass cabinets there was a large easel to which was pinned a map. Jack recognised it immediately from one of Pendelshape’s recent lessons — an old map of the Balkans. Just like the wallcharts opposite, various notes, photographs and diagrams were pinned to it. Some were connected to specific points by hand-drawn lines. The cities of Sarajevo and Belgrade were marked, but most of the other names he could neither recognise nor pronounce. The pictures pinned around the map included some sort of fortress in a town called ‘Doboj’ quite near Sarajevo and a picture of a country church or monastery.
“What about that?” Angus was staring towards the far end of the library, his eyes on sticks. There, in the shadows, was a low steel platform set at about waist height. It was perhaps half a metre across and surrounded by eight curved pieces of metal that looped up from the floor, bulged out around the central platform and then rejoined at the top. The whole thing was encased in a canopy of thick green glass. Around the platform there was an intricate arrangement of metal pipework, cabling and wires. There were two main work areas next to the platform, housing an array of oscilloscopes, tools and old computer equipment, but in terms of the overall arrangement of all this technology, the platform was at the centre of things and therefore seemed in some way important.
They moved over to the laboratory area at the far end of the library. As with the other objects, it was clear that a number of pieces of equipment had been removed. There were large spaces in the control panels where multicoloured wires hung loose, spaghetti-like, from empty metal framing.
“Look at this thing.” Jack was examining the steel platform inside the thick glass canopy. He suddenly realised that a strange metal object had been left on the platform between a set of symmetrical markings etched into the steel surface of the platform. As he peered closer, Jack put out a finger to touch the glass. Suddenly the whole casing swung silently back from the platform. He snatched back his hand.
“Help! It’s moving!”
Soon the canopy had rolled back completely and the boys had a chance to study the object before them. It was a piece of flat shiny metal. One end was pointed. It looked incredibly sharp. The other end was clasped around a narrower splintered piece of cylindrical wood. Angus picked up the object. It was very much heavier than it looked.
“Kind of a spike?” Angus said.
“Here, look, it’s got an inscription…” Jack said.
“What does it say?”
“No idea — the metal has a sort of brown stain on it, too.”
“Lots of history stuff in here — maybe it’s another antique?”
“We should take it to Pendelshape. He’ll know.” Jack placed the object in his pocket.
After a while, Angus said, “Maybe all this is to do with your father, don’t you think? You said he was some sort of scientist, didn’t you? And into history.”
“Yes. But I don’t know why it’s all hidden away down here… And such a mess.” Then he added resentfully, “I don’t know why Mum hasn’t said anything about it before. I’ll go and get her.”
But he didn’t have to. Having heard the commotion, Mrs Christie had arrived on the scene and was on the balcony looking down at them.
“Looks like you’ve made a bit of a discovery.”
“What is all this Mum?” Jack looked up at her expectantly.
His mum shrugged. “It’s your father’s old workshop. When he left he took some things with him, but he wanted the rest left alone and… well, we closed it off.”
“But…”
There was a pause. “Sorry I didn’t say anything,” she sighed. “With your father’s work, it was best not to get involved.”
A Message
Dr Neil Pendelshape slurped from a mug of tea as he inspected the artefact. The mug had a slogan on it that read, ‘Historians do it after the event’. Nobody quite knew how old the head of the history department was — but judging by the crow’s feet around his deep-set eyes and the cropped grey hair, he had to be well into his fifties. He wore a tweed jacket, which struggled to cover a squat, portly frame. Pendelshape didn’t go in for the open neck fashion of the younger teachers. Jack had never seen him without a tie. He would march around the History department as if it was his personal property — always in control. Jack had never heard him raise his voice, let alone lose his temper, yet discipline was never a problem.
Jack proudly presented the artefact to Pendelshape after school. He and Angus had spent quite a bit of time the previous evening exploring his father’s extraordinary library and workshop. To Jack’s dismay, his mum had continued to be coy about the discovery. She had said that she had been “meaning to clear it all out” for some time; and that she “had always meant to tell him that it was there”, but over time, and being so busy, had “kind of forgotten”. Jack did not understand this at all. But as he and Angus had inspected each of the artefacts and the mysterious wallcharts and all the strange equipment in turn, he’d begun to feel a sneaking sense of pride that all of this had once belonged to his own dad.
Pendelshape listened to the boys’ revelations with quiet interest. But as the story unfolded, his brow furrowed. He nodded thoughtfully and looked at the lump of steel more closely, with a magnifying glass taken from his desk. He studied the stem of splintered wood first and then carefully worked his way up to the arrow-shaped tip. He was staring intently, his nose millimetres from the object. His face flushed momentarily and a small bead of sweat slowly formed on his forehead. They had expected Pendelshape to be excited. But instead he looked increasingly… worried.
“So what is it, sir?” Angus asked.
“It’s the tip of a lance.”
Pendelshape thrust the magnifying glass over to Jack and pointed a finger at some lettering on one edge of the arrow-shaped lance head.
“I can see the letters, sir. But I don’t know what they mean.”
