Clock People

Roland Langdale Mark

Description

A highly imaginative fantasy book for children and young adults.Written in the authors' unmistakable style, the book transports readers to a different world.The narrative surrounds the theme of time and follows people who live inside a clock.The Clock Peopleis a wondrous work of mechanical engineering and imagineering that runs both like clockwork and anti-clockwork! The story follows the lives of people who live and work inside an antique golden fob watch to the sound of clicking, ticking, tocking, whirling and whirring.The Clock People lost their home, downsizing to another property in Clock Town. But this is just half of the story, the other half is lost in time, waiting to be discovered...The Clock Peopleis Mark Roland Langdale's fifth Matador children's book, and will appeal to science fiction and fantasy lovers along with fans of his former books."What is time? Scientists who believe in quantum wonder tales would have you believe it does not exist, that it is simply an illusion a clever conjuring trick and nothing more..."

Sujets

• Children's

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 28 août 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781789012064
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2018 Mark Roland Langdale


The moral right of the author has been asserted.


Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.


Matador
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Wistow Road, Kibworth Beauchamp,
Leicestershire. LE8 0RX
Tel: [phone]
Email: [e-mail]
Web: www.troubador.co.uk/matador
Twitter: @matadorbooks


ISBN 978 1789012 064

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.


Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd


Dedicated to Esther Harvey, Salvie and Nick

Thanks to Rosie Lowe and Emily Castledine
Contents
Prologue
1 Illusions
2 Timeslip
3 Nightdreaming
4 Like Clockwork
5 The Moonstone Planetarium
6 Clockwork Guardian Angels
7 A Horological Misadventure
8 An Escapement of Sorts
9 A Clockwork Nightmare
10 The Mechanical Mountain
11 A Most Illuminating Experience
12 Complications
13 Perfect Timing, Like Clockwork In Fact
14 The Time Thief Loses Track of Time
15 The Return of the Time Warper
16 Jack the Flash!
17 Time
18 Oh Brother, You’re Potty!
19 The Miniature Palace
20 The Time Thief Gets Up a Head of Steam
21 The Miniature Magician
22 The Greatest Thief of all Time!
23 The Chronicles of a Chronometer
24 The Plan’s Running Like Clockwork
25 The Shadow Time
26 In Hot Water!
27 The Museum of Miniatures
28 Time to Rewind the Clock
29 The Further Misadventures of the Time Wasters
30 Whatever Happened to Greenwich Mean Time?!
31 Father Time, the Greatest Showman of All Time
32 Merlin’s Mechanical Museum
33 The Time Wasters’ Society
34 It’s Time!
35 I’m No Harry Houdini!
36 A Most Untimely Meeting!
37 Rewind… It’s the Return of the Time Warper!
38 Time… Magic or Illusion?
39 The Battle of the Clock Gods
40 Courting Disaster!
41 The Return of the Clockwork Magician
42 Time Street
43 Two Merlins for a Princely Sum!
44 A Circle of Magic
45 The Art of Tasseography
46 A Real Humdinger of a Tale!
47 The Clock Courtyard Theatre
48 The Merlin Effect
49 A Real Piece of Living Victoriana!
50 The Mechanical Monster
Horological Time-Log
Prologue
Once upon a time long since passed into the Chronicles of Time, there were people who lived in a clock. In all honesty, as a humble abode the clock wasn’t much better than living in a shoe. In fact it was probably worse, as the constant clicking, ticking, tocking, whirling and whirring of the inner workings of the clock were enough to drive anyone kicking and screaming into the kingdom known as Cloud Cuckoo Land. However, over time the Clock People got used to the sound of the mechanism, as it ran like clockwork, but if for any reason it ceased to run like clockwork, the sound of the clock’s mechanism was replaced by the sound of the wheels turning inside the minds of the Clock Elders whose job it was to keep things ticking over.
But that was only half of the story. The other half of the story was lost in time. Some said (storytellers mostly, who in truth cannot always be believed) that the Clock People lost their home (very careless) as they did not pay the peppercorn rent on the property. Either way the people of the clock, now homeless, had no other choice than to downsize. So the Clock People moved into a nice little property in another part of Clock Town. The estate agent selling the property said being an antique it did require some repair work doing to it, which may take some time, but being an antique the property had been built to last so was a sound investment.
Just for the chronological record for all you horologists out there, the property in question was an antique fob watch hanging on a chain from a wooden post. The post was driven into the earth many moons ago by a gentle giant simple of mind but warm of heart, who soon became the protector of the Clock People, even though they were not aware of this little fact. BIG FACT!
Do not be fooled into thinking this is a fairytale simply from the opening line, but if any story deserves to begin with the words ‘once upon a time’ then a story entitled ‘The Clock People’ involving time and the passage of time surely does.
What is time? Scientists who believe in quantum wonder tales would have you believe it does not exist, that it is simply an illusion, a clever conjuring trick and nothing more. Now perhaps that is true and perhaps not only time will tell, as Old Father Time has neither the time nor the inclination to tell. The Time Thieves, on the other hand, had all the time in the world to steal your precious time from right under your very nose. These stolen moments were times when you were daydreaming, wishing your life away, or moments you had stolen from others. The Time Alchemists who create ‘new time’ were far too busy making up for ‘lost time’, creating ‘new time’ in their cauldrons, all watched over by the master of time himself. Now, that master was not Father Time as you may have expected but Merlin, a man who could himself travel through time. But which Merlin were the travelling storytellers speaking of? Merlin the Magician from the Court of King Arthur or John Joseph Merlin, the clockmaker and maker of automatons?
Well, without further ado let us find out which Merlin the storytellers were speaking of, as the clock is ticking – tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tick, tick, TOCK!
‘That’s better, I find machinery responds best to a damn good old-fashioned kick up the pants!’ snapped Father Time, who had no time for anything mechanical or non-mechanical that held time up.
1
Illusions
‘I see you’re admiring that timepiece, sir. Isn’t she a beauty? And she’s got a great story to tell,’ chuckled a wizened gentleman as he stood behind a dusty-looking counter in an antique emporium conversing with a customer. If one had been peering through the dusty window of the emporium one may have imagined the two men were in a marketplace in Constantinople bartering and haggling over a watch rather than in the backstreets of London Town. The proprietor of the emporium was referring to the fob watch he held delicately in his hand as a ‘she’, as if it were a ship or an old steam engine, or so the customer thought. What a silver tongue this salesman had, it must be made of pure quicksilver! But one must never be too quick to judge a book by its cover or a clock by its face, so thought the customer as he raised a rye smile.
‘A talking timepiece? What will these watchmakers think of next?’ replied the customer poking fun at the antiquarian man. ‘It must be worth a small fortune, and in truth I hope it is a small fortune and not a large one,’ added the gentleman customer under his breath. This was a gentleman of some considerable wealth and a man like Scrooge who knew full well the meaning of the word thrifty. Expensive gifts and unnecessary sparkling trinkets were, by and large, best observed and admired by standing outside the jewellers and goldsmiths’ windows, beyond temptation, although naturally this was not a maxim the jewel thieves of this world adhered to. ‘There is no need to sell me the watch, man, I’ve already made up my mind to buy it!’ grunted the gentleman under his breath.
In truth the gentleman had heard the silver-tongued patter of the salesman a hundred times before and had no time for it. What he wanted was facts not fiction – the steady reliable tick followed closely by the tock, a clock that kept reliable time and not imaginary time. That was what the gentleman expected from a timepiece, nothing more, nothing less. The gentleman certainly did not want a talking fob watch or clock, that was a fiction best left in the storybook. The man imagined if the proprietor stuck out his tongue it would be silver. He had a mind to pay the man in quicksilver and then run for the door as if he were a jewel thief or a time thief. But the man had little imagination so this curious thought did not enter or cross the threshold of his mind, not even for a split second. If it had done so the man would no doubt have thought the clock in his mind needed repairing.
The fob watch was undoubtedly an antique, not a beautifully crafted fake, which at first had crossed the buyer’s mind. It was magnificent, unique, a watchmaker’s dream made of gold, silver and platinum, which swung upon a silver chain like a pendulum of a grandfather clock. The glass face of the watch sparkled in the golden sunlight that shone through the window of the emporium with such brightness one would have thought this was a church and the windows made of stained glass. The watch had a gold cover upon which a coat of arms was engraved.
The fob watch was flipped open by means of a tiny button on the side of the watch, which one may have imagined was turned by a tiny fairy or sprite. The white enamel face of the clock was covered with a low glass dome made of clear moonstone. Black Roman numerals replaced the traditional numbers and the hands were encrusted with tiny diamonds and opals. The back of the watch was decorated in elaborate swirling patterns, flourishes and curlicues, gold entwined with silver which one might have imagined was