Tick Tock

• Adam Fowler, Grade 4, Wideview Public School
• Short Story
• 2015

Finalist in the 'Read Write Repeat 2015' competition

Quickly, hop in, before my invention turns on. (Crazy whirring sounds coming from machine.) We’re are currently warping through a time vortex reader and as it’s quite a bumpy road.
(Another crazy whirring sound.) Flail your arms if you must because I have read that the flailing of the arms helps the blood travel through your watery body, but please be careful of the expensive machinery that you may hit with your slender arms. (Abrupt Stop), you may stop the flailing of your segments n- . Ow, that would be my face which I would like to be kept in prime condition thank you. We have landed on what seemed to be a very dirty, cigarette butted version of cobblestone pavement. Anyway before you leave to get a coffee or are plain bored, my name is George Benn and you have just travelled in the George-Benn-matron which is basically the world’s dodgiest time machine. In fact I set it to 10 years in the past and it could range from 2010 (proposed time) to 1910. This time, though it actually looks like it’s an older version of my home town, in fact there’s the local shop, and that looks like my friend’s house in the distance.
That was when I realised I had left my coffee back at the present, so I dashed back to the time machine to see that my machine was missing. This is when I saw a group of men wheeling into a superb looking facility titled Innovation Quantum Mechanical Labs. I hurriedly dashed after them, well by hurriedly I mean sluggishly moving forward as fast as my 80 year old body would carry me. It seemed like the chase took forever, but when I eventually caught up to them, I felt like it was all worth it until I saw a patrol of guards surrounding the fort which my time machine had been dragged into. I was just about to turn green with rage when a vertically challenged man came out with a pair of expensive-looking glasses on his beady eyes. This man spoke quickly and meaningfully saying that they had put my invention to great use and have converted it into a time warper. I struggled through the guards to show the petite man what happens when you mess with George-Benn and his time machine. I was just about to strike, when massive double doors opened up to show my machine deformed into some monstrous mechanism.
The guards were watching my every move until I slyly slid behind the machine and reluctantly grabbed a hammer and briskly slid it down my pocket when there was a voice over the intercom telling all guards to address the conundrum at the front door. “This is my chance,” I murmured under my breath so none of the nearby guards could hear. I grudgingly swung the hammer high in the air and smashed down on the machine. It all went black…