Extract 4 of 4 - From Chapter Eleven

Frankie and Parr were sat together in isolation at the far end of the fire. Frankie stood out like a sore thumb in her close-fitting rag and mud armour. All the apprentices were seated. Cassandra and Laika were bent down, consulting a map. Then suddenly a wiry man got up. Something collapsed around him as he straightened up, sending him stumbling into the apprentices. They sniggered and pushed him away. Before he leapt up, he had been sitting under a wooden pyramid frame. It was pitched right outside the entrance to House of Mirrors. In one hand he held one of Frankie’s arrows and in the other he held a timepiece. He kept pressing the stopwatch and counting under his breath.

“Pity that stupid thinking frame doesn’t have sides – we could lock him in” chuckled one of the aproned apprentices.

“Cass. Cass” the man said adjusting some extremely thick glasses. “Have you seen these?” he said waving one of Frankie’s arrows.

There were several sniggers from amongst the aproned apprentices. Felix heard “Dizzy Izzy!” whispered several times. Samuel’s voice began a whispered song to the crowd of aproned apprentices.

“Dizzy, Dizzy Izzy, finding colour in white light, kept him very busy”.

Then one of Samuel's side kicks continued. “Dizzy, dizzy Izzy, apples, gravity and all that jazz, makes him very whizzy – on the ‘ead son”.

There was a ripple of laughter, but the man was oblivious. He stood adjusting his sleeves awkwardly. He moved back to the wooden fame and re-erected it, then looked up at Cassandra, his head fidgeting from side to side. He put his timepiece into a breast pocket and tapped it several times just to check that it was still there. He put his hand deep inside his mop of wispy grey curls and then regretted it. His palm was covered in a sticky substance from the arrow, which was now all over his hair.

“Damn” he said in frustration. “I keep forgetting. That’s the third time I’ve done that”.

“Izzy dear. What’s the matter?” asked Cassandra standing in front of him and adjusting his purple velvet jacket and neckerchief. “You’re all of a dither”.

“That’s Sir Isaac” Greta said leaning over to Felix. “A genius of course, but hopeless as a human being. He can hardly tie his own shoelaces! His apprentices walk all over him. They’ve formed their own little clique – the Pioneers. They think they’re gods gift to everything”.

Felix was perplexed. Nothing was making any sense. Now he was even more confused. Were they poking fun at Sir Isaac Newton? Gravity, apples, genius? They couldn’t be. It couldn’t be the Sir Isaac Newton, the scientist, the man who discovered gravity. It couldn’t be him because he died centuries ago. Felix shook his head vigorously to rid himself of the thought. It just wasn’t possible.

“1727” Greta smiled, seeming to be able to read his mind. “That’s when he died”.