12. DANGEROUS PICNICS

‘Fascinating stuff,’ Glen Mower remarked having read just the first few.

‘You haven’t got that from me,’ Kai responded. ‘They’ll let you read it in due course, you’ll need it to fulfil your brief. I’m giving you a head start.’ The baffled history buff guessed that Diamonde’s light-fingers had been at work again.

‘So these are copies of the originals held, I assume, at the UN Security Council in New York City?’ As his former fellow student provided a cursory affirmative nod from behind the driving wheel, it belatedly hit Glen that the files weren’t the only thing the Che Guevara sporting dude had stolen. ‘You didn’t arrive in this car! What am I doing? My head’s all over the place. What have I agreed to and whatever it is I’m withdrawing?’

‘You have agreed for me to take you a couple of places, so things can become clearer in that bewildered nut of yours, Matey, before you take up the position at the History Maintenance Commission HQ you’ve been earmarked for.’

‘What! I thought you just wanted the strange phenomenon and my signature to keep it all hushed up?’

‘We’ve got your strange phenomenon, Matey. It was under the floorboards. I got it while you were getting my water. It’s in the boot. And you’re in the passenger seat and now we are all on our way to HQ where you’re wanted just as much as that is.’

But just as Glen was getting his head around travelling to the UN Security Council and all he thought it would entail something more pressing alarmed him. As they drove through the Kent countryside, heading for the capital, Mower seen a couple holding a blanket open on the brow of a hill.

‘That’s it, turn back please. I am not getting on any airplane now!’

‘What?’

‘Bollox to all that. You must think I came down with the last shower,’ Mower exclaimed raising his voice and shuffling in his seat as if preparing himself, like a driving examiner does before giving the order to execute an emergency stop. ‘I remember the Newton gravity precautions, don’t forget. You’ve got another alert out this time being that the Wright Brothers are going to un-invent aircraft hence the people out with blankets held open ready to catch passengers currently airborne and falling out of the air when the planes suddenly vanish.’

Kai Diamonde laughed heartily, so vigorously in fact that it required several flicks of his fringe to return it to its favoured mooring.

‘You have a vivid imagination, Matey, but no, the Wright Brothers are currently safe. No alerts involving their contribution to history being messed with. That couple holding out the blanket I dare say were preparing for a picnic. They had a basket next to them. Bit like me, only mine’s a basket case!’

‘Well,’ Mower scoffed, ‘I am still not boarding any plane.’

‘Just as well, Matey, as we won’t be doing any flying. Although I will be tempted to launch you skywards with a kick to your arse if you don’t stop complaining. Just enjoy what we have to show you and thank your stars that you have been selected to save the world.’