Excerpt from THE TIME TIME STOPPED
by Don Gillmor
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When Tristan woke up the next morning, the world had changed.
How could this happen? he wondered. He had stolen two watches (not even really stolen, since they were still at the school in Lump's desk and he was going to give them back), and he had yelled that he hated time. And then it stopped. Was it his fault? Was he to blame for all this?
He got dressed and went downstairs for breakfast. His parents were standing up, eating toast.
"Are we late?" his mother asked nervously.
"I think so," his father said. "I think we're very late."
"Or maybe very early," his mother said.
"Or very, very late."
"Right."
They finished their toast, kissed Tristan and Bella and left for work. Tristan had a bowl of cereal and then he and Bella walked to the bus stop and Bella didn't even worry about being seen with him. They waited for a while but no bus came and they finally just started walking.
"I hope we're not late," Tristan said.
"Of course, we're late."
"How do you know?"
"I just know. I mean, everything's late."
Maybe, Tristan thought, if I yelled out that I loved time, maybe it would reverse things. He suddenly yelled at the top of his lungs: "I LOVE TIME! I WANT IT TO GO ON FOREVER. I . . . JUST . . . LOVE . . . IT!"
Tristan waited expectantly, but nothing happened.
His sister stared at him. "Tristan, you are so weird. No wonder I don't walk with you."
The bus finally pulled up beside them. Bella kept walking, but Tristan got on. Everyone on the bus looked kind of mopey. Except Lump, who looked mopey and mean. He gave Tristan a particularly dark look as he sat down.
"Blueberry," he said. "This, this . . . big nothing. You did it, didn't you? It was you, wasn't it?"
The thing about Lump was, he wasn't very smart, but certain things he kind of understood instinctively. Anything bad, for example. Maybe Tristan was giving off some kind of guilty scent. He had read that dogs could smell fear. Maybe naturally guilty people (and Lump would certainly fall into that group) could smell guilt. And Tristan felt guilty.
"How could it be me?" Tristan said. "I mean, how could a kid stop time? It's not like I have magic powers. I can't just yell, 'I want time to stop!' and it does." Although this is exactly what had happened. He'd yelled and time had stopped. He stared at Lump, trying to look as innocent as possible.
"Stop trying to look innocent, Blueberry."
At school it was chaos. Not many teachers were there, for one thing. Kids were wandering out of their classrooms and eating their lunches in the hallway because they were worried it was lunchtime. The day just kind of dribbled by and Tristan didn't learn anything and after a while everyone was sent home.
On the bus back home, Lump said, "I don't like this. I don't like it one bit. You know why I don't like it, Blueberry?"
Tristan didn't know, and he didn't care, but that wouldn't stop Lump from telling him.
"My day is busy. My day, Blueberry, is filled with . . ." he paused, searching for the right word, "purpose."
It was hard to believe that Lump's day was filled with anything other than confusion and stupidity.
"You think it's easy being a bully, Blueberry? Try it sometime. It's hard. I have a lot of people to see, a lot of people to bully. It's a lot of work."
Tristan nodded. He hadn't really given much thought to the problems associated with bullying.
"But now there isn't enough time to bully everyone. Maybe there isn't any time. All thanks to you. I'll be lucky to get around to half of my customers."
Tristan thought that this might be the only good thing about time having stopped: less bullying.
"And that's where you come in, Blueberry. You're going to help me."
"Help you? Help you what?"
"Help me bully."
"Help you bully?"
"That's right. You're going to bully all those people I don't have time to bully."
"But I'd be a terrible bully," Tristan said. "Anyway, you can't just decide to be a bully."
"Well, it helps to have natural talent," Lump said. "It's true, I've got a gift."
You have a fat head, a potato body, and the brain of a fruit fly, Tristan thought.
"You don't have that gift," Lump said. "But you're the one who got me into this mess and you're the one who's going to get me out of it. Are we clear?"
"But how can I be a bully?" Tristan said. "In order to be a bully, people have to be afraid of you, don't they? And no one's afraid of me."
"They will be, after I make you my deputy. You know in those cowboy movies there's the sheriff and the deputy. Well, you're my deputy."
Tristan couldn't imagine a worse thing. He would now have to go and try to bully people who were bigger than him. A new kid, a new new kid at that, going around bullying people in his new school. They would beat him up, and then he'd go back to Lump and tell him what happened and Lump would beat him up for failing to be a good bully. This was an impossible situation. The worst impossible situation.
"You start tomorrow," Lump said.
"I can't do it."
"Oh, you can do it. You will do it, Blueberry. Because if you don't, I'll get you. You'll be so got that you won't even believe how gotten you're … going to get."
Maybe I can help him with his threats at least, Tristan thought.
"Tomorrow, Deputy Blueberry."
From The Time Time Stopped. Copyright © 2011 by Don Gillmor. All rights reserved.
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