Ahead of his Time by Adrian Cousins (children's books read aloud .txt) 📕

jacket, jeans, t-shirts and underwear in there. Oh yeah, I shoved a few toiletries in there as well.”

Martin’s head shot up. “Underwear … your underwear!”

“It’s clean! I could have brought you some of Jenny’s knickers if you prefer! We’ll get you sorted with clothes later this week, but it will have to do for now.”

As we trod downstairs, I could see the figure of a man approaching the front door through the obscured glass. I pulled it open to let him in before George got a chance to knock.

“Evening, George.”

“Hello lad, well, this is exciting! Gotta say, I’ve been looking forward to this all day,” he chuckled.

“Martin, go and sit at the kitchen table and I’ll be with you in a moment,” I said, grabbing his arm and gently shoving him in the right direction. He staggered on, still in his zombie-like state.

“George, this isn’t a circus act! We’re not the freak show next to the bearded-lady tent, you know!”

“No, sorry lad, you’re right. Come on, let’s have a chat with him.”

As instructed, Martin sat at the kitchen table. With his head down, he’d stretched his hair back with both hands and held that position.

“Martin, this is George. He’s my grandfather and knows everything about me. In fact, he’s the only one who does.”

George took a seat whilst I stuck the kettle on the stove and prepared to make Martin something to eat from what I’d purloined from Don’s pantry.

“Hello, Martin. As Jason said, I’m George.” He outstretched his arm, offering a handshake. Martin looked up but didn’t take the offer.

“Is this madness true?” croaked Martin.

“Oh yes, lad, it is … totally true,” he chuckled. “It’s taken me a while to get my head around it, but yes, lad, you are in 1977.”

Martin sat upright, rolled his eyes and shook his head. “For fuck sake!”

George arched his eyebrow at me as I pulled out the car sales invoice from my jeans pocket and showed it to Martin, “Is that your signature?”

Martin peered at the document. “What the fuck! What … I … what’s going on?”

I filled them both in on the day’s events, having to bring Martin up to speed on previous events so he could keep up with the conversation. Although it was frustrating as he repeatedly threw in ‘What the fuck,’ much to George’s dismay at the language. Although he did shut up for a while whilst he powered his way through the stack of cheese sandwiches I’d prepared. I guess he was starving after not eating all day.

He stopped mid-chew with a mouthful of cheese and bread mulching about in his mouth. “Can you both hear yourselves? You reckon that Cortina is a time machine … it’s not a fricking DeLorean! You’ll be saying it’s got a Flux-Capacitor next!”

George narrowed his eyes at Martin, “A what?”

“George, it’s from a film in the mid ’80s … a kinda time travel film.” Bloody hell, this was going to be a nightmare keeping these two on track.

“Look, what we know at the moment is both Martin and I time-travelled here and ended up in that same car. How it got from Coreys Mill Motors to Cockfosters High Street on Sunday morning, well, who knows. Also, how Martin ended up in it, we’ll probably never know, as we never knew how I ended up in it last August. What we need to concern ourselves with are three things. Firstly … can we get Martin back? Secondly … if we can’t, what do we do with him? As there doesn’t appear to be another Martin Bretton in this world whose life he’s about to take, that’s going to make it tough. And thirdly… how do we keep him a secret from everyone?” I found myself pointing at Martin, who had his mouth open with mushed up food sitting on his tongue – it wasn’t a pleasant sight.

“Evening gents … who are we keeping a secret then?” Don closed the back door and shuffled in.

“Evening Don, come in.” Jesus – now this got more complicated. I shot Martin a look, hoping he’d remembered the rules of what could be said in front of Don.

All four of us looked at each other, eyes darting back and forth – all with our secrets – with me holding all of them and Martin the unpinned hand grenade about to blow up.

Martin stood up, scraping the wooden chair across the linoleum floor. “I need a piss,” he said, padding off down the hallway.

Before anyone else spoke, the back door opened again—

“Daddy … Daddy, look at the picture I’ve made at school today. It’s our snowman!” Christopher bounced in, his blue school cap half-cocked, giving him the Benny Hill look as he waved his painting in my face. Jenny followed him in with Beth in her arms. Oh, for fuck sake, could this get any worse? Jen gave me a kiss and smiled at Don and George. None of us had uttered a word since Don arrived, and now we all stared at Jen.

“Hello boys, are you three having a secret meeting? Is this your den?” she giggled and then instantly frowned as she detected the tension in our faces. She must be wondering why we were in this house and not Don’s.

“Daddy, look. Look at my picture.” I picked Christopher up and studied the picture as he pointed to the snowman.

Christopher gave me a guided tour of his painting as he pointed to each part. “That’s the snowman we made yesterday. That’s me. That’s you. And that’s Mummy with Beth. He’d painted us as stick-men; Jenny had blood-red hair, right down to her ankles, which was precisely where my blood had drained down to. This was a bloody nightmare.

“It’s terrific! Well done, Chris. Very good indeed … aren’t you a clever boy.”

“I knocked on your door, Don, but saw all the lights on in this house, so assumed you must be in here,” Jenny said, as she turned and smiled at everyone again.

Her gorgeous smile evaporated as