TRAVELLING IN TIME

11-14 group - 16 attending
15-18 group - 8 attending

This week, we were building on our time travel scenarios which we began last week, sending our time traveller characters off on their first adventure!

Inspired by the description of time travel from H. G. Wells' The Time Machine, we thought about what our character might be able to see, hear, or feel as they travelled through time - would the experience be pleasant or unpleasant?! And where would they end up?

We then looked at an extract from Susan Cooper's King of Shadows, to look at how we could describe the moment of arrival for our time traveller - what would they notice first? Would they even realise they had travelled in time at first? Would they have ended up where they had wanted to, if they were even in control of the experience?

With some pictures of what time travel might look like, and the Doctor Who theme tune, for inspiration, the young writers set to work developing their time travel descriptions...

Here are some brilliant descriptions from the groups:

The universe picked me up by my shirt’s collar. My arms flailed uselessly as the universe held me up to their face. They looked at me through every eye ever evolved then threw me upwards, my stomach flipped and I thought I was going to throw up, I fell back down and met the universe’s foot: it hurtled towards me at thousands of times less normal than comprehensible speed. I was shot backwards by the universe, I saw nothing and I heard nothing. Yet there were patterns screaming at me, wanting liberation from the existence of blank documents: spewing out errors into systems that weren’t built yet. I saw someone else, they turned and looked at me, confused. They opened their mouth but no sound hit my ears. They mimed as we hurtled through nothing, index fingers pointing up around a meter apart and they moved one finger to another and flicked their hands into a thumbs up. I sent a thumbs up back to them, moments before they hit a brick wall that didn’t exist. I turned in the direction I was heading and was shocked to find a wooden door.I turned around and found I was in a family’s living room, no longer moving. A group of confused partygoers looked at me in shock. I pulled a weak smile and stumbled out the door. By George

I took a sip of the drink. My head started to spin and I grabbed the floating table next to me. I could feel the ground drop beneath me. As I fell, I tried to think of the time period I wanted to visit; that's hard though, especially when you're falling at 100 miles per hour! I tried to scream but there was no time. Suddenly, I felt something hit my back and I slowed. It was a controlled fall and now I had time to look around. It appeared I was in some sort of tunnel. The tunnel had white, marble walls that felt cool against my hand. They hurt my eyes to look at. A wardrobe floated past me and then a… tortoise? The take-away coffee cup floated out of my hand. I must have looked funny as I doggie-paddled after it. It was my key home.

I almost crashed into a floating library and, as I bounced away, my back struck into a tree. Leaves rained down on me. I landed in a heap on the floor of a… bright and colourful coffee shop? Well, I can tell you it worked!! There was colour! I had never seen colour before, only white, greys and blacks. I love colour! “Ah! I see my granddaughter has sent me a time traveller,” a friendly voice cheered and I could see an old lady peering down at me. By Erin

Caliburn, the black raven from another world, was watching the yellow-maze city with scared, tired eyes. the city had been taken over by vicious cyborg dogs, they were originally created to catch criminals. however something went wrong, and the dogs had grown minds of their own. Caliburn was perched on a tall, blackened tree surrounded by dark hills and thick mist. Planet 4,345,890 was not a nice place.

Caliburn silently flew down through the white mist. soon the maze-city was in view. he saw shadows moving along the walls and loud barks echoed around the long corridors. he quickly spotted a small child, the poor thing looked lost. a growling shadow was following it...it got closer and closer. without stopping to think, Caliburn dived down and began dive-bombing the dog. with a startled howl, the dog scrambled away over the dusty floor. By Jasmine

The world was quiet and yet deafening I could hear screaming and shouting and also waves lapping on the shore of a warm beach on a summers morning. The universe felt still and yet I still had the sensation of falling haunting me like a bad taste or smell lingering in the air, the light hung to my body as if that is the only thing keeping me alive like a blanket of warmth or the universes soft whisper of reassuring comments in a rough sea of darkness and cruelty it felt as if every pair of judgemental and scornful eyes that have crossed path were staring at me , I could feel them bore into my soul like maggots tunneling through my dead body. Darkness washed over me and seeped into my pores, it took power over my thoughts and its hands cupped my chin and moulded over my jaw lifting me up from everything and nothing they thrust me forwards in a blast of light like sun hitting glass at just the right angle and I was there , and nowhere because how can you be there if you don’t know where you are. By Martha

To time travel, they enter a time station, but not physically. Their mind travels into the time station and sees a selection of doors. Each door leads to 100 other doors, all in the same century sector. Each of those doors leads to 12 doors for each month of that year. Each door leads to 28-31 other doors: one for each day. There is a dial on the door with 24 sections, with one for each hour. The Book of Time can only travel to the start of a specific hour but no sooner or later.

The process takes 1 hour, which leads to the 1 hour delay. They disappear and reappear thousands of metres above where they will land. They then fall and become invisible when they reach 10,000 m or before whenever people could see them. Then they land, become visible but are hidden behind a large object.

The process is mainly painless, apart from the muted thud when they hit the ground. Then they open the clasp to signal that they had got to their location. The only problem they have is that they have no idea where in the world they travel to until they land and read their mission. Their mission is implanted at the time station by the Time Travelling Team, or the Triple T. The doors are adjusted so that they only travel to the specific location.

It is 2:30am on the first day of summer in 1881 and the book has travelled back to the moment before it was made. Now the book has a conscience, a brain, 2 arms, 2 legs, 2 eyes and the ability to write without someone doing it for them. After adjusting to their surroundings and new features, the Book decides to close the clasp but has no idea what will happen to them. They appear in the time station, where they see a pen walking (walking seems wrong so let’s say they hopped towards them.

They hand the Book an envelope with strict instructions not to lose it, open it or read it before landing. The Pen directs the Book to a door with the words ‘Seventeenth century’. They are pushed through to a room with 100 doors with writing above them. The Pen directs them to a door with the words ‘sixteen-forty-two’.

They step through to find 12 doors with writing above them. After stepping through the ‘August’ door, they are greeted with 31 doors with numbers ranging from 1 to 31 above them and a dial on each of them. Now standing in front of door 22 the dial is turned and lines up with the number 0. This mainly due to the uncertainty of when the event started. Whenever this happens, they go for midnight of that day for safety.

After the Book stepped through and reunited with its body, they found that they were thousands of metres above a dark island with a smaller one a bit further west. By Evie

I woke up in the spare room of a New York City penthouse apartment at nine o’clock on a rainy Tuesday morning in 1924.

I live in London, and I have an iPhone in my pocket.

I’m sure that I don’t need to explain to you why I was startled.

Or maybe I do. Perhaps you are a person who, like me, spends their whole life waking up in random people’s beds at various points in time without a clue how you got then and there, and I am just describing an ordinary morning for you.

I suppose that I mustn’t judge. But do see a doctor.

It’s rather inconsiderate of the universe, I think, to not imbue me with appropriate clothes for the time period and the ability to speak in the appropriate way. It’s difficult to find a way to lock yourself inside a grandfather clock and fall asleep so you can get back to your time when you look like a street rat and talk like an alien.

It is difficult to say when exactly I worked out that I could get back to my own time by locking myself inside a grandfather clock, but I believe that it happened when I was fifteen. Before I worked that out, I would simply be stuck in the past for the universe’s predetermined 365 hours, at the end of which I was ripped violently into the here and now again. That experience is thoroughly unpleasant, time travelling while you are awake. Therefore, whenever I am in the past, it is a race against those 365 hours to fall asleep inside a grandfather clock and transfer painlessly back home in my sleep. Or I will get torn violently into my future in a waking state, and it is such a painful process that I am exhausted for days. The grandfather clock is far more bearable.

I discovered that mechanism, as I said, when I was fifteen. I do not exactly remember the time period I had appeared in, but I remember that it was loud and ever-so overwhelming, enough for me to scramble for somewhere to hide and suddenly find myself back at home after dozing off inside a grandfather clock. I decided that it was vastly preferable to being molecularly ripped back to the future, and began seeking out grandfather clocks every time I found myself in the past after that.

It turns out that the grandfather clock was invented in 1680, and so if I end up somewhere before they were invented, I am condemned to whiling away 365 hours until physics (or whatever it is) takes hold and I am back in my bedroom again, usually screaming.

I do not like to think about the why of time travel too much, nor does thinking about the how have any attractive prospects. I am not a particularly scientific person. I don’t understand equations or electrons or electromagnetic waves, and I am quite thankful that I have never had to deal with those things since getting a four on my physics GCSE and swearing to never touch the subject again with a ten foot pole.

However, I do regret whining that my GCSE would never take effect in my real life. Not enough regret to email my physics teacher and apologise, though. By Lily

As Raven and her classmates travelled back in time once more, this time on a more important mission, they kept seeing different parts of history. The feeling of cold came upon them again as they kept going through different countries and even passing through the ice age!

Raven was a little bit scared about stopping as Mr Wilkinson had always stopped the class first. Now she had to stop them going any further or ending up in different parts. Thanks suitcase!

They saw the Romans and soldiers in blue and red fighting each other. They saw the Mona Lisa and what she really looked like in real life! They even saw Tower bridge being constructed which didn’t look safe whatsoever and made them think twice about going on it again.

“Raven, are we there yet?” Will asked, sounding more worried than usual.

Raven didn’t answer. She didn’t really have any idea how to answer. She just stayed concentrated on the task in hand. She finally saw where they were headed.

“Get ready to stop!” Raven called the class.

“How do we do that?” Ella called back.

“No idea.” Raven called again.

The class all took a deep breath in which their teacher had told them. It always made them a little less worried. It didn’t really help the actual landing but it calmed everyone and stopped them talking which always put Raven at ease.

The feeling of cold suddenly became hot as they came into land. Raven put out her hands to land safely. Then she felt weight underneath her hands and then managed to levitate everyone above the ground. However she didn’t have complete control over this and soon sent everyone crashing to the ground.

“What the hell Raven?!” Will said standing up.

“At least we’re here. Thank me later.” Raven said getting about the task in hand.

The class was mostly fine with a few scrapes and bruises here and there but nothing too serious. Oh apparently Ella broke a nail but it wasn't the end of the world even if she didn complain about it for the rest of the day! Pretty good stats for people who hadn’t time travelled alone without a expereicened time traveller before. By Charlotte

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TRAVELLING IN TIME