I did as he said. The car lurched forward and stalled.
‘It’s getting hot in here,’ I said, feeling my face flush with embarrassment. I rolled down my window.
‘Cassie, Ben and I all had to teach ourselves,’ he said, laughing. ‘We had the cars delivered here to the house. We kept stalling too. In fact, we nearly sent them back to the manufacturer because we thought they were faulty.’
‘What am I doing wrong?’
‘Nothing. It takes a while to get a feel for how to release the clutch. Just keep trying.’
By the third attempt, I managed to get the car moving. Within seconds the engine was screaming.
‘Take your right foot off the gas pedal, dip the clutch and we’ll move up into second,’ Ryan shouted above the noise of the engine.
I lurched forward again.
By the time I had driven to the end of the driveway and reversed back ten times, I was feeling pretty confident.
‘I think it’s time for you to take us out on the road,’ said Ryan.
‘What if someone sees me?’ I said.
‘I’ve been driving along the coast road for months without anyone noticing,’ said Ryan. ‘I’ve never seen a cop car. Miranda and Travis will both be at work.’
‘OK,’ I said shakily.
I drove up the lane from the farmhouse to the village in second gear, leaning forward over the steering wheel, terrified that I would meet a car coming in the opposite direction and have to brake suddenly, or worse, reverse. Once in the village, Ryan directed me round the roundabout. Several roads radiated off the roundabout like the spokes of a wheel. I took the last exit, the coast road. The road my parents had driven along the night they died.
‘Maybe it’s time to try third,’ Ryan suggested, when the engine started roaring again.
He helped me ease the car up through the gears until we were cruising along the coast road in fifth gear, at a leisurely thirty miles per hour. He was right. It was empty. Most people used the bypass these days, unless they were visiting one of the few farms or cottages along the road.
My internal organs rearranged themselves and my knuckles whitened as we approached the cliff top above Lucky Cove. The road turned back on itself in a sharp hairpin bend. I changed down to third and took the corner slowly.
‘You’re doing great,’ said Ryan. ‘You’re really good at this.’
I could feel him looking at me, but I was concentrating too hard on the road ahead to meet his eyes. The road snaked wildly, following the curve of every hill, rising and dipping with the contours of the land. It wasn’t difficult to imagine a driver losing control. I couldn’t fail to notice the cheery yellow gorse flowers lining the road, or the glimmering blue sky above us.
As we approached Perran, I began to panic. I hadn’t passed a single vehicle on the coast road, but Perran would be busy.
‘I can’t drive through town,’ I said.
‘Yes, you can. Don’t lose control. Just drive. I’ll talk you through it.’
‘What if Miranda sees me? Or Travis?’
‘They won’t expect to see you driving a car. Just relax and keep doing what you’ve been doing.’
I slowed down to twenty miles an hour and tried to avoid hitting the brake every time a car approached me.
‘Shift down to second,’ said Ryan, as we came close to the harbour car park.
He talked me through the gear changes, indicating and pulling into a parking space. It wasn’t until I switched off the engine that I realised my hands were shaking.
‘That was fun!’ I said, secretly pleased with myself.
‘You deserve an ice cream. You did great.’
Ryan reached for my hand. I wanted to squeeze it tight, but I knew that my hand was sweaty with nerves and I didn’t want to gross him out.
‘It doesn’t look like there are any clouds coming our way,’ I said, as we sat on the edge of the wall with our 99 flakes.
‘It will cloud over,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow night will be the only clear night during the transit of Eden.’
‘What’s the first thing you’re going to do when you get home?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know. Check out our apple tree and our time capsule?’
‘And then what?’
‘See my family. Find out what has changed. Things could be very different when I get back. Our time here in the past will have changed the future. Who knows what I’ll find when I get home.’ He smiled at me. ‘A healthy planet with lots of trees, I hope.’
‘I wish I could come with you. I would love to meet your family and friends.’
‘I wish you could too.’ He squinted out to sea. ‘I’ll tell them all about you.’ He sighed. ‘Not everything of course. In the old timeline they’d be fascinated to hear about the girl who Eden was named for. But they can’t know that now.’
‘What will you tell them? Won’t they wonder why you travelled to the past? Won’t they wonder what your mission was?’
‘We have a cover story. About preventing the extinction of the chicken.’
I giggled. ‘You’re kidding?’
He shook his head. ‘No.’
‘Why chickens?’
‘If we went back and told them the real reason for our mission, it would defeat the whole purpose of the mission! Most time missions have to have cover stories. I’m not sure you can understand the value of a chicken’s egg in my time. You have more than enough protein and farm-raised animals are plentiful. When I come from, chicken eggs are considered the ultimate luxury protein food.’ He shrugged. ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time.’
‘I can’t imagine you living your life in the future.’
Ryan looked at me. ‘I can’t either. Being so distant from you. One of the first things I’m going to do when I get home is find out how you’ve lived your life. I’ll be checking into everything. I want to find out you’ve led a brilliant, exciting life. Learnt to drive, gone to university, travelled the world. Gotten out of Penpol Cove.’
‘What’s wrong with Penpol Cove?’
‘Nothing. It’s wonderful. But you need to experience the rest of the world as well. Get out there and explore the possibilities.’
‘I have to consider Miranda. I’m all she’s got.’
‘But you still have your own lives to live. Maybe when you leave home she’ll go back to college and train as a lawyer. You can’t hold each other back. You’re made for more than Penpol Cove.’
I bit my lip. He was right. ‘How will you find out about my life?’
‘We all leave a trail behind us,’ he said. ‘Marriage certificate, children, social-networking pages, newspaper articles. Maybe I’ll visit your descendants.’
‘That thought makes me feel so sad,’ I said.
Out on the horizon, a thick band of sea fog was rolling slowly towards the shore.
As soon as I pulled into the driveway, I knew that Ben and Cassie were home. Their cars were parked side by side on the block paving by the house.
‘Did they give you a hard time last night?’ I asked.
Ryan shrugged and unclicked his seat belt. ‘They freaked out a bit. Reminded me of my mission objectives. Lectured me on the Temporal Laws. The most frustrating thing is they don’t believe that we’re just friends. The number of times Cass went on about too much testosterone and me having poor self-control.’
‘I wish you’d exercised a little less self-control,’ I said, because time was running out for us and anything that was to be said needed to be said now.
