Ivan Brett - Casper Candlewacks in the Time Travelling Toaster

Then… SPRUNGG!

Something popped up. The cacophony ceased, the flames died and the smoke began to thin. Through Casper’s watery eyes he could see Lamp plucking something from the toaster’s tray and blowing it out with sharp puffs. Little cinders still burnt at the corners, so he threw it to the floor and gave it a good stamp.

“You can have that slice,” said Casper, straightening up and rubbing the ash from his eyes. “Not a big fan of stamped toast.”

Lamp picked it up and gasped. “But, Casper, this isn’t toast!”

“More like charcoal.”

“No, no, look. This is writing! It says…” He scratched his nose, leaving a black smudge. “Casper, can I read?”

“Not often, no. Give it here.”

The oily boy was right. He held out a charred strip of paper, yellow and curled and peppered with cinder holes. Most of the blackened bottom half melted away into ash as Casper took it, but some words at the top were still visible through the soot. A title, an author and a date.

Casper’s brain twisted the wrong way up. “What? But…” He read the paper again. And again. He rubbed his eyes. He looked at the date, and the name, and the title. Then he pinched himself. He asked Lamp to pinch him. He asked Lamp to punch him. He asked Lamp to stop punching him now, because six times was quite enough.

“What’s it say, then?”

Whichever way Casper read the paper, the words written on it were impossible. Firstly, it seemed to be an article written… written… by Lamp. This in itself was beyond belief. Only once in his life had Lamp spelt a word correctly. (He wrote ‘fish’, which is more of an achievement when you don’t know that it took him a week and he was trying to spell the word ‘the’.)

But more importantly, the date said 18 November 2112. That would make Lamp 111 years old when he wrote it. Now, Betty Woons was 107 and going strong, but she didn’t get blown up nearly as often as Lamp. And anyway, Betty was probably lying about her age. She’d been 107 for as long as Casper had known her. Sure, she was old, but in all likelihood she’d lost count at around 80 and just picked her favourite number.

And even if Lamp had grown to 111 years old and learnt to write, why would he discredit his own time machine, of all things? It was Lamp’s ultimate goal! With this toaster he was halfway there! Why ever would he criticise something like that?

“I think your machine’s broken, Lamp.”

“Can’t be. If it was broken then this light would come on.” He pointed to a green bottle cap on the top of the alarm clock marked BROKKIN.

“But this is written by you, in the future, and it says the Time Toaster should never have been invented.”

“Don’t be silly,” chuckled Lamp. “I can’t write.”

“Well, that’s what I thought.”

“So what’s that writing mean, then?”

“I haven’t a clue.” Casper chewed his lip, but that didn’t help at all.

Lamp thought for a minute, then snorted. “We should go and find out!”

“To the future?” Casper’s heart beat faster. “But how?”

“All we’ve got to do is climb into the Time Toaster. Then the me in the future will pull the switch.” Lamp was already trying to force his foot into the tray. “Gimme a push, Casper.”

“Lamp, you’ll never fit!” Casper gave his friend a shove, but his toes barely passed the lip of the toaster. “You’re just not toast-shaped.”

“I could be,” Lamp piped up. “As long as I bring some glue with me, I could travel in slices.”

“Not sure that’s wise.”

“But I want to go time travelling, Casper! I could be a knight, and a spaceman, and – ooh! – I could be a postman!”

“You could be a postman now.”

“Not a proper postman, Casper. In the olden days they rode horses and fired guns at deserts.”

“That’s a cowboy.”

A gasp came from the garage doorway.

Both boys spun round and one squeaked. There stood Anemonie Blight, her greedy eyes wide. She pointed a black-nailed finger at the Time Toaster. “Wassat, then?”

“Nothing,” snapped Casper. “Go away.”

“Not until you tell me what it does,” the girl smirked. “Fly, does it? Will it do yer homework?”

“It’s not finished,” lied Casper, “and even if it was, it still wouldn’t do anything.”

“Actually –” Lamp stepped forward proudly, clasping his hands together and closing his eyes like a museum curator describing Picasso’s bogey – “it’s a time machine.”

Anemonie’s ears pricked up.

Casper’s heart leapt.

Lamp’s tummy rumbled, so he took a bite of toast.

“Time machine, is it?” Anemonie’s body had tensed, her eyebrows raised.

“No!” cried Casper. “You heard him wrong. He said… erm… prime gravel. That’s it! It makes gravel for your garden path, that’s all.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Lamp frowned. “It makes time travel.”

Casper winced. He jabbed his friend twice with an elbow, to the rhythm of Shut up, but by the look on Anemonie’s face, he knew it was too late.

“The things I could do with a time machine,” the girl murmured, inching forward with a wild look in her eyes. “Go back and buy last week’s winning lottery tickets; take a telly back in time and pretend I invented it…” She giggled. “Or I could just sell the time machine. Reckon it’s worth a hundred pounds at least.”

“A hundred pounds?” chuckled Lamp, shaking his head. “Not likely. My Time Toaster’s more valuable than all the money in all the piggy banks in all the world.”

That was enough. Pound signs flashed in Anemonie’s eyes and she launched at the boys, fingernails first.

Lamp spun protectively and grabbed the Time Toaster while Casper stepped forward to block Anemonie’s path. She deftly dodged him, leaping to one side and bouncing at Lamp. Turning away just in time, Lamp found himself holding the Time Toaster at arm’s length as Anemonie pushed into him, screaming with envy.

“Lamp! Over here!” Casper was unmarked at the entrance to the garage, and he’d played enough rugby to know this was a good thing. “Chuck it!”

Anemonie lunged, but not in time to deflect Lamp’s mighty lob as the Time Toaster soared into the air…

…and landed with a CRASH! about fifty centimetres in front of Lamp’s feet.

“You broke it.” Anemonie sneered with disdain at the crumpled heap on the floor. “How’m I gonna sell a big lump of broken metal?” With a huff, she stomped from the garage, spitting on the floor as she left.

Once Anemonie’s steel-toed footsteps had faded far into the distance, Casper began to pick up the shattered pieces of what used to be Lamp’s Time Toaster, and place them on the central workbench. “So… how bad is it?”

Lamp hadn’t spoken yet. In fact, he hadn’t even moved. He was still in the same stretched position as he had been when he threw the Time Toaster, like a statue of the world’s worst ballerina. Slowly, he let his arms drop and his gaze fix on the pile of scrap. At the top of the pile, a single green light was flashing: the bottle cap marked BROKKIN.

Lamp smiled weakly. “At least that bit’s still working.”

And so the boys began the painstaking task of fitting the Time Toaster’s pieces back together. Casper had to pop over to Mrs Trimble’s shop to buy two more pots of glue and a yo-yo. By the time he came back, the queue at the bus stop had mostly filtered away. Sandy Landscape, the village gardener, who’d joined at the very back, was now taking his turn to sniff the brand-new seats and knock on the glass walls. Happy all was in order, he murmured some words of approval and strolled back up the street.