Time Stamped

Chapter One

"Can you explain to me, Mr Sine, why you have been sent here to grace me with your presence?" 

I glanced sheepishly at Headmaster Horrace, preparing for the scalding and detention I was bound to receive. As I assumed my fate was already set in stone, I decided it wouldn't do any more damage to respond. "No, sir. I do not know why my presence graces you," I replied in a slightly forced 'posh' accent.  In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have pushed my luck with the little smirk in the corner of my mouth. 

"No, of course you don't. With your brain, I'm surprised you even have the capacity for sarcasm," Mr Horrace drawled, clearly bored of this conversation.

With an overly-dramatic scoff, I said, "Sir! How you wound me with your words!" 

This was the third time I'd been sent to the Headmaster's office this week (it was only Wednesday) and I thought it would be boring to constantly apologise for being - well, for being me - and repeatedly say "yes sir" or "no sir" so banter was my best bet. 

Too bad for me that 'banter' was not in Mr Horrace's vocabulary.

Mr Horrace finally sat up straight and adopted the presence of an authoritative figure. "An hour of detention this afternoon should suffice for the time being. Now, go back to your lesson and meet me here promptly at 3 PM. Do not be late or one hour will turn into two."

Scraping my chair against the floor, I stood up and headed to the door. Just as I opened the door, I turned around and saluted Mr Horrace. I then hurried out the door as he rolled his eyes at me.

The hallway was deserted as everyone else was in class. I decided there was no need to hurry back to maths (gross, am I right?) so I took what I call a 'leisurely stroll' through the corridors, perhaps taking a slight detour to waste some time. I passed my beautiful work of art - the touched up version of Mrs Games' photograph, by which I mean the photo I drew a moustache and smoking pipe onto. I thought the moustache really accentuated the wire-eyness of her hair but I guess she found it offensive or something so she tattled on me to Headmaster Horrace like the snake she is. Not to worry, though - I'd heard from Samantha, who had heard from Chris, that Mrs Games was leaving at the end of term which means there is justice in the world. 

At the end of the corridor my maths class was quickly getting closer, so I thought I may as well go in for the last ten minutes of circle theorems. 

***

"Let me read out the logs," the piercing voice of my form tutor, Ms Patel, exclaimed at the end of the day. "Right. Ben, Carlotta, Daria and, of course, Eli. The rest of you may go."

I groaned as the rest of my form left the artificially lit room. I don't know why, but it kind of annoyed me that Ms Patel was not even the slightest bit surprised that I had detention. I thought to myself then and there that I would strive to be a better pupil, even if only to prove a point. Thinking about this meant I hadn't payed attention to whatever it was that Ms Patel was saying but I caught on just in time to hear her tell me to go to the Headmaster's office for our 'appointment'. 

***

Thanks to my delightful detention with Mr Horrace, I was an hour and fifteen minutes (cheeky bugger kept me in for longer!) late coming home from school. I needed to get home fairly quickly before mum completely lost her temper at me, so I wasn't really paying too much attention to where I was going. That may have been the reason why I accidentally collided with a random citizen.

"Oi. Watch where you're bleedin' goin'," the old man shouted. 

"Oh, um, sorry," was all I could mutter out. I mean, give me a break - he looked murderous he was so angry! Plus I appeared to have made him drop a box full of stamps, some of which were scattered on the concrete pavement. 

"Go on, pick 'em up," the old man barked at me.

I was so baffled that this guy was yelling orders at me that I didn't think twice before crouching down and shoveling stamps back into the old shoe box. That's when one stamp caught my eye. It was old - really old - and it was decorated so delicately with an image depicting a Biblical-looking scene of an angel behind an old man, who held a blade, and covering the eyes of a younger man. It was a beautiful piece of art and as I held it up to the light, it appeared to shine just a little bit. The old man must have noticed because he snatched the stamp out from between my fingers with a jovial laugh.

"You found it! Among all those stamps, you actually found it! I can't believe..." The man's sentence trailed off as he examined the stamp in awe. It was then that he seemed to remember I was there. "You, boy. Follow me, and bring those stamps!" Then he started walking away. 

I shoved the rest of the stamps back into the box and hurried after him. I know, it was a bit sketchy to follow this stranger, but I had a funny feeling I knew him. Or, more accurately, I had a funny feeling my mum knew him. Besides, I could easily take this guy down without breaking a sweat, so I decided to risk it and follow him.

What can I say? I was curious about what was so special about that stamp.