Between the Trees E-Book

Ayn O'Reilly Walters

• Herausgeber: Grosvenor House Publishing
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 315

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Twelve year old Isabel Pritchard lives with her sixteen year old brother, William, and their mother. Behind Isabel's home is a small park and when Isabel finds herself late home from school one afternoon she decides to take a short cut through the park, knowing that her mother has forbidden her to enter the park. It's a decision that changes her life as she uncovers family secrets that go back five hundred years, all the way to the birth of Queen Elizabeth the First.

Leseprobe

IN THIS SERIES

Between the Trees

The Amulet’s Curse

The Chest of Spells

The Stone of Destiny

PROLOGUE

A jewel of gold

the passage of time

in two hands

doth break the line.

CONTENTS

In This Series

Prologue

Part 1 - 2013

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Part 2 - 1533

Chapter 27

Part 3 - 2019

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Copyright

PART 1 - 2013

CHAPTER 1

Isabel Pritchard was a regular twelve-year-old girl. She went to school and rather liked it. In the evenings, she did all of her homework, ate all of her dinner (well, most of it) and happily helped out with her chores around the house. On the other hand, her brother, William, was a moody sixteen-year-old who didn’t want to spend any time with his sister. He preferred spending his evenings in his bedroom all by himself and only ventured out when dinner was ready. It was fair to say that Isabel and William didn’t get along. However, one day would change all that. It was a day that would change their lives forever.

On that particular day, Isabel woke at seven o’clock in the morning. She opened her bleary eyes, sat up in bed, stretched out her arms and remembered today was school sports day. Getting dressed, the smell of breakfast floated down the hallway. It smelled good and she realised how hungry she was.

Isabel traipsed into the kitchen and sat at the small breakfast table. William didn’t acknowledge her as he was too busy stuffing his face with pancakes topped with peanut butter.

“Oh, William!” cried Isabel as she scraped butter on her toast.

William, with his mouth full of food, looked up and replied, “Better than your sourdough. Sour-dough. Sums it up perfectly.”

“You’ll die of a heart attack with all the rubbish you eat.”

“Why can’t you just get along?” Mother asked as she stood at the sink pouring her second cup of coffee. “You only have each other so be nice. That’s all I ask of you both.”

Although William spent much of his time alone in his room, he was very intelligent. He began playing chess with his father at three and at eight would drag his mother to the local library and borrow all of the history books. He was fascinated with the world and its origins. While most of his friends played football on a Saturday morning, William preferred to read books on anatomy and medicine as he had aspirations of becoming a doctor after finishing school. He had his life mapped out. He would complete his medical degree at a top university and work in a prominent hospital in London. Isabel, however, wasn’t so sure about her future. She loved animals and thought of becoming a vet. She still had plenty of time to decide. Right now, she just wanted to get through her final year of primary school.

“It’s Daddy’s birthday on Sunday,” whispered Mother. Neither Isabel or William responded. They ate silently as Mother squeezed their hands then began clearing the breakfast dishes.

“Has it been four years already?” Isabel asked.

“Yes, four years, my darling,” replied Mother.

“I miss him so much, Mum.”

“We all do.” Mother looked over at William, waiting for him to say something. Instead, he swiftly got up, said a quick ‘bye’ and was gone.

Since their father died, Mother had to take a second job to pay the school fees and make the house payments. No longer could they afford to go on holidays during the summer and school holidays didn’t feel the same anymore. The house was empty when Isabel came home from school every afternoon and when William got home he would go straight to his room and stay there for most of the evening. Mother often arrived home after dark and it was up to Isabel and William to do their homework, prepare their dinner and get ready for bed.

When Isabel arrived at school that day, she made her way straight to class as sports day meant there were no lessons all day. The school bell rang and, soon enough, the corridors emptied out as children dashed into their classrooms. Jess was Isabel’s best friend and they sat next to each other every day. “Hey, Isabel, want to come to my house after school on Friday? Mum said you can come for dinner.”

“Sure. I’ll ask Mum to pick me up on her way home from work which means we can watch telly ’til late.”

“And skip our homework,” giggled Jess.

On the way to the sports ground, the girls sat together on the bus and chatted about their upcoming school holidays. They decided to save as much pocket money as they possibly could to spend the lot on sweeties and crisps. Jess and Isabel had been best friends for three years, after Jess’s family moved to London from a small village in Nottingham. It was in the corridor at school when they first met. Jess was lost and couldn’t find her classroom. She walked from door to door, peering into each class, looking for a door labelled ‘Class 3P’. The ‘P’ stood for Mrs Peterson. Isabel was on her way to Class 3P and seeing that Jess was lost, asked if she needed any help. When the girls realised they were in the same class, Isabel showed Jess to their classroom. They sat next to each other that morning and had done ever since.

Sports day dragged on for Isabel. She competed in the relay and 200-metre races and reluctantly participated in the shotput and discus events. It was a tiring day so she walked home slowly and wondered whether William would already be home. It won’t matter if he is, she thought. He’ll just be in his room anyway and I’ll be on my own again. Realising it was getting late, Isabel decided to cut through Bishops Park to halve the journey time. Mother warned William and Isabel not to cut through the park but it was still daylight and Isabel could see the back of her house from the park entrance so she thought it would be okay and she presumed Mother wouldn’t find out anyway.

Isabel picked up her pace and walked briskly through the big iron gates at the park entrance. Her thoughts had turned to the maths homework she had to finish that evening when, halfway through the park, she noticed a bright light that looked like it was coming from a tree. The closer she walked towards the tree, the brighter the light shone. It was an unusual light, not like the glow of the sun or a brightly lit torch but a myriad of colours: purple, pink, blue, gold. They all seemed to blend into each other creating colours she had never seen before. It looked magical and instantly drew her closer to the tree so she stepped away from the path and began walking towards the tree, completely unaware of any danger she might be getting herself into. The colours were mesmerising and she couldn’t stop and return to the path. She didn’t want to return to the path, she didn’t want to go home, not yet, not until she knew why the tree was glowing. She stood at the base of the tree. Slowly she raised her hands, reached out and felt a warmth coming directly from the trunk. When her hands were almost touching the tree, she stopped. What will happen if I touch this? she thought. Will I die? Will I get sick? Will nothing happen at all? It was all so peculiar and the urge to understand why the tree was so warm overwhelmed her. “Do it,” she whispered. She closed her eyes and suddenly the earth beneath her began to shake. Losing her balance, she felt dizzy and started to scream. All of a sudden, a gust of wind rushed up from under her feet and lifted her up into the air. She was only a few centimetres off the ground, yet she felt like she was flying high in the sky, way above the treetops.

Then suddenly everything stopped. The tree stopped glowing and she felt her feet back firmly on the ground. Everything was quiet again. Opening her eyes, she looked around and everything looked exactly the same. She looked up at the big old oak and wondered what had just happened. She felt frightened and ran away, looking for the path to take her home. Scrambling around, she realised it wasn’t there. The path was gone! She became confused and ran as fast as she could to the big iron gates at the park entrance and when she ran through the gates, she got the shock of her life. Gone were the cars screeching around corners on cemented roads. Instead, horses and wagons clopped up and down the muddy street.

Bewildered, Isabel stared in amazement at the scene before her. Men walked slowly up and down the street in their top hats, black coats and knee-length boots, arm in arm with ladies in their colourful bonnets and big billowing dresses that dragged along the mud on the ground. The sound of everyday life could be heard by market stall owners selling fruit and vegetables at the end of the street. Little girls in old tattered clothes walked up and down the street selling bouquets of flowers from their baskets. “Please, sir, please buy my flowers,” said a young girl to an older gentleman. She was probably the same age as Isabel. The young girl was clearly poor, for she was terribly skinny and her dirty blonde hair was long and knotted.

Isabel slowly peered down at her feet. Instead of the trainers she wore to school that day, her feet were tightly fitted in black boots, tied with laces, partially covered with a frilled petticoat. She was wearing a beige coloured dress with buttons from the waist all the way up to her neck. A crimson shawl was wrapped around her shoulders and she realised her clothes were similar to the very people she was observing.

On the pavement, she noticed a man selling newspapers. He wore an old pair of trousers with holes in the knees, worn shoes and no socks. A dark brown shirt hung over his big belly and his face was old and wrinkled. A pile of newspapers were stacked up against a shop window next to him, held together by pieces of string. The man started yelling, “Chronicle! Queen Victoria visits Great Exhibition.” Unbeknown to Isabel, the year was 1851.

CHAPTER 2

Isabel gasped and started shaking. What was happening? Am I in another world? I want to go home, she thought. She turned around and ran back into the park, a place she was familiar with, the way home and a place that felt safe – at least safer than the world she had just seen. Upon seeing the oak tree, she ran faster, puffing and panting. She held out her arms and hugged it so hard that the palms of her hands slapped against the bark with a thud.

Slowly Isabel opened her eyes and looked around. She was at home, tucked up in her bed. Looking up, she saw a familiar face. It was Mother, sitting on the bed, holding her hand.

“Oh, darling, you’re awake,” she said quietly.

“Oh, Mum, what happened? Where’s the girl with the flowers?”

“What girl?” Isabel sat up and looked around at her small bedroom. “Honey,” said Mother, “you were late home from school so William and I went looking for you. We found you in the park lying under a big tree. You must have fainted or fallen asleep. Now lie down and rest and I’ll bring your dinner.”

As Mother stood up and walked towards the door, she hesitated, turned around at looked straight at Isabel. “And stay away from that park,” she said sternly and walked out closing the door behind her.

That night Isabel had trouble sleeping. She woke several times wondering what on earth happened in the park. She just couldn’t figure out why the man was selling newspapers about a queen who died over a hundred years ago. It must have been a bad dream. Next morning she dressed for school and joined William and Mother at the breakfast table but she couldn’t eat. She was too confused to warrant an appetite.

“What happened to you yesterday?” William nudged Isabel with his elbow.

Before Isabel could reply, Mother interrupted. “Forget about it, kids, nothing happened, Isabel just fainted. Probably a bit unwell,” she said, taking a bite of her toast.

“Yeah, unwell alright,” laughed William. Isabel gave him a cold stare.

“Okay, kids, that’s enough,” Mother said sternly. “I’m off to work.” She lent over the table and gave Isabel a quick cuddle and kissed William on the forehead. Then she was gone.

Isabel waited for the front door to close then almost burst out William’s name. “William! Something weird happened in the park. I didn’t faint. I think I went into another time or place.” Isabel spent the next ten minutes describing the lights surrounding the big oak tree and what had happened when she touched it. Realising William was having trouble believing her, she said, “Fine, I’ll show you myself. We’ll go to the park after school and you can see for yourself”.

“Sure,” replied William. “This will be a hoot. See you in the park after school.”

Four o’clock came and Isabel waited patiently for William at the park entrance. All day she had been thinking about what might happen that afternoon and whether they would see the same strange events as the previous day. William eventually showed up and they entered the park together. “All right, where’s this magic tree then,” William asked. “You’d better hurry up, I’ve got an essay due tomorrow.”

“Just up ahead. It’s the big one right there.” Isabel pointed to the big oak.

Unlike the bigger parks in London, such as Hyde Park, Bishops Park was quite small. The main path lead from the front entrance past the big oak tree towards a small pond. On the other side of the pond was a small cottage in which the park caretaker lived. He was a grumpy old man called Mr Brown. Every morning, Mr Brown would hop into his buggy and drive around the park collecting the rubbish that people left behind and at eight o’clock every night he would stand at the park entrance with his big set of keys dangling on a chain, waiting to close the park for the night. He hated animals and didn’t allow them into the park. As a result, not many people ventured into the park and this was how he liked it. It was more or less used as a shortcut for people to get from Windermere Road, where Isabel lived, to the main street where all of the shops were.

As they drew nearer the tree, Isabel noticed there was no light coming from the tree. It seemed odd, but what wasn’t odd about this event? In any case, she told William to slap the trunk and hold his hands there. She did the same and closed her eyes. Nothing happened. The earth didn’t shake. The only sound she heard was William laughing. “Gee, sis, that was funny.”

“It happened, it really did. Just the way I told you this morning.” Isabel began crying.

“Aah, don’t worry about it, sis, let’s go home. I won’t tell anyone about your silly dream.”

“It wasn’t a dream, I swear. Really, William, you must believe me.”

William collected their school bags from the ground and threw them over his shoulder. “Come on, we’ve got homework to do.”

Walking home, Isabel couldn’t understand why the tree didn’t shake or emit colours or why she didn’t feel the warmth emanating from it. Perhaps it was because William was there, maybe the magic only worked if Isabel was alone. Perhaps it was the wrong time of day, or week. Isabel felt confused and foolish. Foolish for bringing William to the tree. Now he would think she was stupid and, knowing William, he would probably tease her about this for the rest of her life.

As they walked along the cobbled path past Mr Brown’s house Isabel glanced to her left and there it was again! The same lights glowing yet from a different tree. She felt a warm sensation and passing the tree she saw the colours all blending into each other, just like yesterday. Isabel gently tugged William’s jacket and whispered, “Look over there, do you see it?”

William looked over and stopped in his tracks. He was in utter shock. They both stared at the elm, which was much smaller than the oak tree. William began slowly walking towards the tree. Isabel followed. When they reached the tree, they both looked at each other and in silence raised their hands and touched the tree together. Once again, the ground started shaking and William yelled out as loud as his lungs would allow.

“William!” screamed Isabel.

All of a sudden, the ground stopped shaking and the colours disappeared. The children stood there in silence. The park was quiet again. Turning to Isabel, William said, “What just happened?”

“This is it!” squealed Isabel. “This is what I was telling you about. We need to get out of the park to see the horses and wagons and the little girl selling flowers. This way.” Isabel grabbed her brother’s hand and raced back towards the park entrance.

“Oh my Gosh! Look at all this!” William gasped when they stepped into the street. This time, however, not a horse or wagon was in sight. Colourful bunting hung from all of the shop windows. Hundreds of people filled the streets dancing, cheering and waving Union Jack flags. Music could be heard bellowing out of gramophones and children cheekily hung out of the windows of old cars as they drove around the streets.

“You two, over there!” yelled a young man. “Don’t look so glum, why it’s the greatest day on earth! Come on over and dance with us.” The young man was dressed in green combat trousers and jacket with a matching cap. A tan leather belt went all the way around his waist and his matching shoes were shiny and clean, just like the row of medals perched on the pocket of his jacket.

Now it was William’s turn to look around in bewilderment. “Is this for real?”

“You better believe it,” replied Isabel. “I knew I wasn’t going mad.”

“I think we’re both going mad,” said William. “Look at us.” They were wearing different clothing. William had on a brown pair of corduroy shorts, white shirt and a yellow knitted sleeveless vest, while Isabel was wearing a pair of black shoes, short white socks, green pleated tunic and a blue wool cardigan.

“Oh, I forgot to mention that,” Isabel chuckled.

“We must be in another time.”

“Yes! And when we enter that time, we are wearing those clothes,” replied Isabel. “Let’s find out what year it is then.”

“No need,” William said as he gazed at the scene before him. “It’s the end of the war. It must be VE Day, which means we’re in 1945.”

“What do we do now?” asked Isabel. “I don’t want to go back home yet.”

“Nor do I. Let’s explore.” The children stepped into the street and disappeared amongst the crowd.

Walking along the main street, Isabel and William noticed that their local computer store was now an ice cream parlour. Children sat at the window licking ice creams and scooping up their sundaes with big spoons. Isabel watched a little boy licking chocolate ice cream from his hand as it trickled all the way down to his elbow. The next shop, which used to be a health food store, was now a pharmacy. A lady stood near the front window picking up small glass bottles from a shelf and a bell on top of the door rang every time someone entered. Everything was different, all of the shops were different, even the cars were different. At the end of the street, where a roundabout would normally have been, was a grassy embankment. People of all ages sat there on rugs drinking and eating. Children played and babies were pushed around by their mothers in silver prams with big wheels, rocking gently to and fro.

The streets were packed with people and the ground was covered with confetti and Union Jack flags. Everybody looked elated. As Isabel and William walked through the streets, they looked around in sheer amazement. “I just can’t believe it,” William said.

“Do you think the trees are magic?” asked Isabel.

“They must be.”

“But it’s strange to think that yesterday there were horses and wagons. And I heard a man yelling something about Queen Victoria.”

“Queen Victoria?” William stopped and firmly held Isabel’s shoulder. “You must have been in the 1800s then. But today we’re in 1945. I have no idea why we’re in a different century.”

“We need to find out,” Isabel said. “It must have something to do with the trees.”

“I guess we could ask Mr Brown about their history.”

“Yep,” said Isabel excitedly. “Let’s ask Mr Brown, he might know something about the two trees we travelled through.”

As William looked around at all the amazing sights in 1945, he noticed it was getting dark. “All right we’d better be getting home now, it’s getting late.”

“Do you think we should tell Mother?”

“Oh gosh, no,” replied William. “She’ll completely freak out. Let’s keep this to ourselves until we find out what on earth is going on here.”

The children made their way back to the park and together placed their hands on the elm. Shortly afterwards they were back in the present day for they could see Mr Brown with his big chain of keys walking towards the front gate of the park. They slipped out through the back gate and returned home. As they walked through their front door, Mother’s car pulled up in the driveway. That was a close one, the children thought.

CHAPTER 3

The following morning, at breakfast, the children had something to smile about. They sat at the table, William chowing down his pancakes and peanut butter and Isabel with her sourdough and marmite. Only this time, they weren’t arguing. There were no sarcastic remarks directed at each other. Instead, they sat happily grinning like Cheshire cats. Mother almost dropped her cup of coffee when she observed William open the fridge and pour two glasses of milk, one for Isabel and one for himself.

“Alright,” Mother said. “What’s going on?”

“Whatever do you mean?” Isabel asked, sarcastically smirking at William.

“Well, for one, William pouring a glass of milk for his little sister is a first and I’ve not witnessed any bickering between the two of you either.”

“I guess you could say I now have time for my little sister,” replied William as they both burst out laughing.

Mother shook her head and rolled her eyes then began stacking the dishes in the sink. She was grateful for the peace and wondered whether her children might finally start getting along now. Maybe it just took some time after their father died for things to get back to normal. Well, as normal as life could be without him.

As soon as Mother left for work, Isabel and William decided to undertake a little detective work surrounding the magic trees in the park. They discussed how they should approach Mr Brown, being such a grump and all, and what questions they would ask him. They realised it was best not to tell him about the trees taking them back in time, after all, who would possibly believe them? They would be laughed at or thought of as just little children playing a silly joke. So they decided to pretend they were doing a school project about their local park and the history of the trees within it.

Mother working long hours during the week was hard on the children, however, it did have its advantages as they had time to visit Mr Brown after school before she came home. During the day, Mother worked as a nurse at the local hospital and in the evenings she worked at a doctors surgery so the children had more than enough time to do their homework and have some time to themselves before bed. It was decided they would go and see Mr Brown immediately after school, well before he closed the park. They met at the entrance to the park once again and excitedly walked along the path towards the cobbled stones. William felt nervous and wondered what questions to ask, while Isabel felt excited and thought about sitting down with Mr Brown having a lovely chat over tea and scones.

When they approached the house it was much larger than it looked from the other side of the pond. The small fence around the perimeter of the house was made of wire with weeds sprouting from wooden posts that held the gate in place. The grass in the small front garden was overgrown and a narrow brick path led to three steps on the front porch. Torn curtains hung from two big windows on either side of the front door. The house was so old it looked as though it was about to fall down. On the porch sat an old rocking chair with worn cushions on the seat. A big black cat had made the chair its home and, curled up on the cushions, didn’t notice the children as they walked up the three steps and stood at the front door. It was only 4.30 in the afternoon yet it felt much later. William nervously knocked on the door and they waited.

“What is it?” bellowed a voice from inside. “What do you want?”

William’s voice trembled. “I’m… Er… William Pritchard and I’m doing a school project on your park…”

“Go away,” yelled the voice.

“Please… Mr Brown?” William paused. “We love the park and everyone thinks you’ve done an amazing job looking after it, and, well…” Suddenly footsteps approached and the door opened. Mr Brown stood at the threshold and looked the children up and down. He was an odd looking man, not much taller than William. He had a big nose, way too big for his little face, with red cheeks, small brown eyes and big bushy eyebrows. Isabel thought he must be a hundred years old to have eyebrows that long. He was almost completely bald and wore a grey knitted jumper with holes at the elbows and brown corduroy trousers. He stood there, chewing the remains of his meal as he wiped his hands on the front of his jumper.

“Er, as I was saying, I’m William and this is my sister, Isabel.” William motioned to Isabel who was actually starting to feel a little afraid of Mr Brown. Everybody knew he was grumpy but Isabel sensed there was something more sinister to the old caretaker.

William began explaining that he was researching the history of the park and, before he could finish his sentence, Mr Brown took a step back into the house and said in a menacing voice, “There is no ‘istory ‘ere. The park ain’t got no ‘istory and you shouldn’t be pokin’ yer nose around where it don’t belong.” With that, he slammed the door shut. The frightened children quickly turned around, ran down the path through the rickety gate and stopped when they reached the pond, well clear of the old house.

“That went well,” said William, puffing.

“There’s something not right about him, I think he knows something.”

“What do you mean, Izzy?”

“Just the way he spoke. He became so angry when you mentioned the word ‘research’. It was like he didn’t want us to find anything out at all.”

“You’re right. I got that impression too. Well, it looks like we shall have to go it alone then.”

After a few moments, when the children caught their breaths, Isabel said, “William, don’t you think it’s strange that both Mother and Mr Brown are so weird about anything to do with the park? I mean, Mother won’t even let us near it and Mr Brown won’t even talk about it. Don’t you think that’s odd?”

“Perhaps. Maybe Mother just doesn’t like us walking through the park for safety reasons. Maybe she wants to keep us away from Mr Brown because he’s a really nasty person. I guess that’s reason enough. He scared the wits out of me today.”

“Me too.”

“Ha! I’ve got it. We’ll start at the library. Surely they’ll have some historical facts about the park.” William looked at his watch. It was a quarter to five. “Let’s see if the library is open. Come on, we can make it if we run.”

The children ran through the park and headed down the main street. Puffing and panting, they arrived at the library just after 5 o’clock. The glass door of the old brick building slid open and they entered. Rows of books and journals adorned tall shelves on either side of the walls and straight ahead sat a big old desk with stacks of books piled on top of it. Two small chains held a sign at the front of the desk with the words ‘Reception’ in big black letters.

“Over there,” said William as he led the way to the front desk.

When they reached the desk a young woman popped out from behind a shelf. “Can I help you?” she asked.

“Oh, yes please. We are wondering whether you have any history books on Bishops Park. It’s for a school project and any information would greatly help.”

“Well,” said the young woman, “normally I wouldn’t do this but since you put it so politely and it’s almost closing time, pop round to my side and we’ll see what we can find on the computer.”

The trio huddled close together watching the screen as the woman typed away on the keyboard. “Bishops Park,” she muttered. “Hmm, let’s see. Oh! Here we are. All of the village newspapers were recently added to our computer system so if you look right here, you can see an index of every newspaper dating back to 1803. It appears that the 10th December of that year is the first issue of The Finlay Gazette.” The children excitedly looked at each other. “So I’ll leave you to it and be back a bit later on. We close at 6pm sharp.”

“Thank you,” they said together as the young lady wandered off with a handful of books.

“Okay, Izzy, all we need to do is type in ‘Bishops Park’ and see what comes up.” After a few seconds, a headline on the front page of The Finlay Gazette, titled, ‘WINDERMERE WETLANDS TO BECOME TOWN’S NEW PARK’ popped up. It was dated 6 February 1822. “Looks like the park was built after 1822,” whispered William. “Although I can’t find anything written about the oak tree. Now, you travelled to the 1800s, didn’t you? I mean, that newspaper man was selling papers about Queen Victoria. We need to find out what year that was. What exactly did he say?”

“He said something about an exhibition. That’s it! Queen Victoria attends the Great Exhibition.”

“Well done, Isabel. So if I type in ‘Queen Victoria Great Exhibition’ let’s see what comes up.” The children waited while the computer scanned through hundreds of newspaper headings.

“There!” said Isabel. “Stop! It’s that exact same newspaper the old man was selling.” It was dated 7 May 1851.

“Gee whiz. Do you know what this could mean, Isabel? If the oak tree in the park is where you took your first journey, it might very well have been planted in 1851.”

“Of course. And when we both went to 1945, it was through another tree. I bet that tree was planted in 1945.”

Standing at the reception desk, the children looked at each other in bewilderment. They had been living right next door to a magical park all their lives and had no idea until now. They wondered why they were able to travel and whether any other people were able to travel too. What if somebody else touched the trees? Would they also travel in time?

The young librarian returned to her desk and told the children it was almost closing time. Realising they hadn’t even thought about their homework, the children decided to catch the bus home so they could get their chores finished before Mother arrived home. They needed everything to look as normal as possible in order not to arouse suspicion. If Mother knew they had been in the park she would be most upset and might even ground them and that would be disastrous, just as they were finding out about the magic trees.

On the bus, William and Isabel decided they would return to the oak tree and go back to 1851 where Isabel’s adventure began. For every question they had there were a hundred more. The only way they could be safe while they travelled, however, would require money, for they didn’t know how long they would be gone. They needed money for food and somewhere to sleep, if necessary. The children didn’t do any homework that evening. Instead they stayed up most of the night sitting on William’s bed, discussing how they would get by financially in 1851, how they would buy food and where they would stay. Realising that currency had changed over the years, today’s currency would be worthless. They may as well have tried to buy food with scraps of newspapers!

If they couldn’t take money they would take the next best thing, something valuable they could sell once they were back in the nineteenth century. William had several trophies, however, being made of brass, they wouldn’t fetch much, if anything, at all. He figured it was worth a try so they bundled up the trophies and anything else they could find in their bedrooms that might be worth selling. They eventually climbed into their beds and fell into a deep sleep. Waking the next morning, they were ready to visit the Great Exhibition of 1851.

CHAPTER 4

After discussing when to travel back, William figured the sooner the better, so they decided the following Monday after school would be the best time to resume their adventure through the oak tree. The week went ever so slowly and when Monday finally arrived, they finished school and met at the entrance of Bishops Park. As they walked briskly over to the oak tree, they felt excited, apprehensive, and a little terrified.

“Let’s do this,” said William and together they placed their hands upon the big oak tree once again. The children felt the dizzy sensation with the earth beneath them shaking. “Hold on!” shouted William. Then silence. Standing still in the park, they knew they had travelled back as Isabel was wearing the same black boots, buttoned up dress and crimson shawl she had worn on her first visit. William wore knickerbockers with a cream shirt tucked into them and a black waistcoat. “Don’t I look the part?” he chuckled as he inspected his new clothing. Isabel spun around, the frills at the bottom of her dress blowing upward in the wind.

The children headed towards the park exit and walked down the embankment alongside the Thames towards Westminster Abbey. Life was quite different for the inhabitants of London in the 1800s. London’s new sewerage system hadn’t been completed so all of the waste from the city ended up in the River Thames. And it stank! Not being used to such living conditions, the children couldn’t bear the smell and decided to walk in the opposite direction, through St James’s Park, until they reached Buckingham Palace. How different it looked. There were no big black iron gates surrounding the palace, in fact there were no gates at all. It looked rather like a big house with grass and trees. People walked past, horses trotted back and forth and everybody went along as though it was just an ordinary house, albeit a very big one. You could walk right up to the front of the building and touch it! Isabel thought it was incredible how the public could get within such proximity to Queen Victoria.

The children kept walking until they reached Hyde Park whereupon they stopped to see an enormous structure made entirely of glass. It was so big that it was impossible to miss. “It’s the Great Exhibition!” William exclaimed. “This is it!” They walked over towards the glass building. As they drew nearer, the building became bigger and bigger until they were standing in front of a big glass dome near the entrance. To the left and right, the glass structure seemed endless. It was several stories tall with a semicircular roof. It was built of nothing but glass.