Nicholas Nettle's Curious Trip to Nowhere - An Original Middle Grade Fantasy Adventure - Chapter Three

Chapter Three

After surviving yet another week of school, Nicholas and Emma made their way off the bus near their homes. There were only three houses on the road where they both lived. Emma and her mother lived in the one closest to the intersection. A little further down, the middle home belonged to the Buckleys. They were a sweet old couple who had been married for over sixty years and were quite proud to let anyone and everyone know about it. Finally, at the end of the dead end road, and by far the furthest from the bus stop, stood the Nettle home. It was a lovely old two story house which sat just a few hundred yards from Walker creek.

“Finally! Two whole days of freedom!” Emma shouted as she and Nicholas walked down the road. “Whatcha wanna do first?”

“Emma, I told you I couldn’t do anything after school today. I promised mom I’d clean out the attic as soon as I got home, remember?”

“What? When did you tell me that?”

“Um, literally like ten minutes ago when you were throwing grapes at the back of Nelson’s head on the bus.”

Emma grinned. “Oh… I guess I was a little preoccupied.”

“It’s okay. At this point I’m pretty use to people not listening when I say something.”

“Oh stop being so grumpy,” Emma said as she rolled her eyes.

As they reached the front steps to Emma’s house, she stopped and turned toward him. “So, you want some help with the whole attic thing or what?”

“Why would you want to help me clean an attic?” Nicholas asked with a puzzled look on his face. “It’s not exactly a fun way to spend a Friday afternoon.”

“Duh… because you’re my best friend you dork. Besides, it’s not like I have anything better to do. I hang out with you too much to have a social life, remember?” She stuck out her tongue to make sure he knew she was only teasing.

“Well, okay… if you really want to. I guess it wouldn’t make much sense for me to turn down free help.”

“Oh I never said it was gonna be free. You’re totally gonna owe me one,” she replied with a smile. “Give me a couple minutes. I’ll go tell mom I’m going to your house.”

Nicholas sat down on the steps and waited patiently for her return. As he watched the autumn leaves falling from a large tree in her front yard, his tongue located a rogue piece of carrot that had been trapped in his braces since lunch. With a little bit of effort it was set free from its tiny metal prison. I’m free! I’m free!, he imagined the tiny piece of carrot shouting, right before he crushed its dreams of a new life and swallowed it down without the slightest bit of mercy.

After a few more minutes Emma came back outside. “Okay, all set.”

They began to walk down the road toward Nicholas’s house when Emma apparently decided she was bored with walking.

“Hey, I’ve got an idea,”she said.

“What?”

“Race you to your house!”

Catching Nicholas completely by surprise, she bolted down the road, leaving a small cloud of dust in his face. He paused for a brief moment before reluctantly racing after her, reaching the front porch to his house only a few yards behind her.

“Hey, not bad,” she said as she tried to catch her breath. “I think you’re actually getting faster.”

“You know,” he replied as he bent over clutching his sides, “I think I’ve had just about enough running for one day, besides, you always cheat and get a head start.”

“Yeah, yeah. Nobody likes a sore loser, Nicholas.” She stuck her tongue out, followed by a giggle.

Nicholas rolled his eyes and smiled as he walked up the stairs and opened the front door for her.

“Nicholas, is that you?” a voice shouted from upstairs as they entered the house.

“Me and Emma, mom!”

They both headed straight for the kitchen. He tossed his backpack onto the ground near the doorway before taking a seat at the kitchen table. Emma opened up the fridge to look for a snack, making herself completely at home as usual. After a couple of minutes, Mrs. Nettle came downstairs and joined them in the kitchen. She was tiny woman, not much taller than Emma who was now looking through the pantry, still searching for something to munch on.

“Looking for something, Emma?”

Emma quickly closed the pantry door and turned around as her cheeks turned red. “Oh, I’m sorry, Mrs. Nettle. I’m just kinda hungry.”

“It’s alright, I know you kids are always hungry after school,” she replied with a smile. “I would have made some snacks for you, but I just got home myself. Busy afternoon at work today.”

“I didn’t know you ever had busy afternoons at the library,” said Nicholas.

Mrs. Nettled chuckled. “Well, I don’t usually, that’s for sure. Just today, old Mr. Tibble decided to make one if his visits just as I was about to close up.”

“Same as usual?” Emma asked.

“Yep, just wanted to look for his ‘lost book’ again. He still won’t tell me exactly what book he’s looking for,” Mrs. Nettle replied. “After about an hour, he asked me to look for something in the newspaper archives for him and when I came back out, he was gone.”

“He just left?” Emma asked.

“Yep, left without saying a word. You know, he’s always strange, but I thought that was kind of rude actually,” she replied. She paused in a moment of thought, twisting a strand of her curly red hair around a finger, then quickly snapped out of it. “Oh well, gave me something to do I suppose.”— she looked over at Emma— “I hope you’re not here to play, Emma. Nicholas has some work to do.”

“Oh I know, Mrs. Nettle. I’m gonna help.”

“Oh really now? Well, as long as your mother knows where you are.”

“Yep, she said I could stay for as long as you’d put up with me.”

Mrs. Nettle laughed. “Well, you know you’re always welcome here,” she said as she put an arm around Emma’s shoulder and gave her a little hug. “How about you two get started on the attic and I’ll make you both a snack in just a little while?”

“Awesome. Thanks.” Emma replied. She grabbed Nicholas by the arm, pulling him out of his chair. “Come on. Sooner we start, sooner we eat!”



Nicholas and Emma bounded up the old wooden stairs and into the hallway on the second floor. Emma jumped up and grabbed hold of the string that was hanging from the attic door and as she pulled it down slowly, the stairs unfolded in front of them. They began to carefully climb upward. Emma let out a little cough as she stepped onto the creaky attic floor. 

“It’s really dusty up here,” she said as she waved her hands in front of her face.

“Hold on, I’ll open the window,” Nicholas said as he pulled himself up into the musty space.

He walked over to a large, circular window which was already letting through plenty of sunlight to illuminate the entire area and propped it open so that it would let in a bit of fresh air as well.

Emma stood still with her hands on her hips and surveyed the room. “So… there’s a lot of junk up here. Where do we even start?”

“Well, mom said to separate everything I think we can throw out or donate from the things we definitely wanna keep,” Nicholas replied, “so… I guess we can put all the stuff to get rid of over here by the stairs so mom can look through it and the stuff we wanna keep by the window.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Emma said. “I’ll start on this side and you start over there and we’ll meet in the middle. We’ll be done in no time.”

They both quickly got to work sorting through all of the dusty boxes and random junk scattered all about and after about half an hour, things were actually beginning to look a bit more organized. Nicholas was busy on one side, dragging boxes full of old clothes out from the corner and over to the stairs, and on the other side, Emma found herself temporarily distracted by a box of old record albums. She really liked one she had found that had a triangle shaped object with light going in one side and a rainbow coming out the other. She held it up and called out to Nicholas. “Hey, what’s this triangle-shaped, rainbow making thingy called again?”

Nicholas glanced briefly at the cover. “A prism.”

“Ah… prism, duh… I totally knew that,” she said as she smacked her own forehead and then went back to looking through the box of albums. 

After a few more minutes, Nicholas was pulling the last large box of clothes out from the corner when something caught his eye.

“Hey Emma. Come here.”

“What’s up?” she asked from across the room.

“Just come here. I think I found something.”

Emma put down the record she was looking at, hopped to her feet and walked across to Nicholas who was now on his knees peering through squinted eyes into a small space between the floorboards. 

“There’s something shiny under there. Do you see it?” he asked.

Emma got down on her hands and knees to have a better look. “Yeah, it does look like there’s something under there. Can you reach it?”

Nicholas reached down and tried to squeeze his hand into the small gap between the boards, but couldn’t quite reach the object. As he pulled his hand back out, he noticed that one of the floorboards was a little loose. He grabbed the corner and tried to lift it. “It’s too hard. I can’t lift it enough.”

“Just try a little harder,” Emma replied.

“I can’t do it. It’s too hard.”

“Oh good grief. Here, let me pull the board up and you reach in and grab whatever’s under there,” Emma said.

“Okay, just don’t let it slam down on my hand.”

“Stop worrying so much,” she replied as she gripped the corner of the board and pulled with all her might. “Hurry up and grab it.”

After a moment of hesitation, Nicholas reached down into the gap and grabbed hold of the object. He pulled it out from under the floorboard just as Emma lost her grip and it snapped violently back into place. Emma and Nicholas both fell backward and found themselves sitting on the dusty floor.

“Did you get it?” she asked. “What is it? What is it?”

Nicholas held the object up. “It’s… a box.”  

Emma scooted a little closer in order to get a better look.

Nicholas held in his hand a very plain, dark wooden box which was only slightly larger than the hand it was sitting in. On the top of the lid, there was a small brass plate attached. The letters ‘WT’ were crudely scratched into the metal.

“Whoa, that looks really old, doesn’t it?” Emma said. “What’s WT?”

“I have no idea.” Nicholas replied.

He looked over the box carefully, turning it in every direction and finding nothing else particularly interesting about it. He then stopped moving and his eyes widened. “Wait. Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Emma replied.

Nicholas slowly lifted the box to her ear. “It’s ticking.”

“Well open it up and see what it is.”

“But… what if it’s something, you know… dangerous?”

“Seriously, Nicholas? You really think someone sneaked into your house and secretly planted a bomb in your attic just waiting for the day you would randomly find it under the floorboard?”

“Well, you never know,” he answered.

“You have got to be kidding me. Would you please stop being such a wimp for five seconds and just open it?”

Nicholas looked at Emma with a scowl on his face, then looked back to the box. “Okay… fine, but if it blows up, I’m holding you personally responsible.”

Emma’s eyes rolled almost completely out the top of her head. “Just open it!”

Nicholas gripped the lid and slowly began to lift it, turning his face away from the box as he did so. Luckily for the both of them, there was no explosion and in fact, the lid came off quite easily, revealing what was inside.

“Oh cool,” Emma said, “it’s a pocket watch.”

Nicholas, now convinced that his life was no longer in danger, turned his head back toward the box and carefully removed the watch from its case. He held it up in his hands so they could both get a better look at it. It appeared to be made of silver, although the surface was worn and tarnished considerably. There was a small loop of metal at the top of the watch with a short silver chain attached to it. There was a hinge at the bottom which allowed it to be opened up not entirely unlike a clamshell. Nicholas turned the watch over in his hand and found there was an inscription engraved beautifully into the surface. 

Time leads to Nowhere

“Time leads to nowhere?” Nicholas said. “What’s that suppose to mean?”

“Beats me,” Emma replied. “Open it up.”

Nicholas complied and slowly opened the watch, revealing an unusual interior. When opened, the watch divided into two symmetrical halves, each containing its own face. The bottom face was exactly as you would expect to see on any watch. There were three hands and the usual numbers, all at their usual positions. Although they could clearly hear the watch ticking, it didn’t appear to be working at all. The three hands were completely still and all of them were pointing precisely at the number six.

The top face, however, was quite odd and didn’t seem to serve any purpose whatsoever. There were only eight numbers on this face. The eight was was where the twelve should be, the six was where the three should be, the four was where the six should be, and so on. This pattern continued around the entire face. There was only a single, lonely hand, not moving at all, and pointed directly at the number eight.

“You guys ready for some snacks?” Mrs Nettle asked as she poked her head into the attic. “Oh wow, it’s already looking much bett—”

“Mom! Look what we found!” Nicholas interrupted. He turned, jumped up and started toward her. As he moved with the watch in hand, the hands on the bottom face began to spin around rapidly. Surprised by this, he stopped, now facing his mother, and so did the hands. This time, all three of them were pointing precisely at the number twelve.

Whoa. Did you see that?” said Emma, who was now standing next to him.

“What do you have there?” asked Mrs. Nettle.

Nicholas handed the old watch to her. As she took it from him, the hands once again began to spin around. Only once she was holding it still did they stop again, this time all pointing to the number ten. “Well that was odd,” she said. “Where did you find this?”

Nicholas explained where he had found the mysterious watch. “Is it yours?… or dad’s?”

“Well, I know I’ve certainly never seen it before, and I’m pretty sure it’s not your father’s.”

“I wonder where it came from then?’ said Emma.

“This is a really old house,” Mrs. Nettle replied as she turned the watch over in her hand. “There’s no telling how long it’s been up here. Doesn’t seem to work too well though. I don’t even see any way to wind it or set the time.”

Neither Nicholas nor Emma had noticed this before, but Mrs. Nettle was right. There didn’t appear to be any way to make any adjustments to the watch at all.

“Well, you two come on down and eat and we’ll ask your father about it when he gets home,” she said as she handed the watch back to Nicholas. Once again, the hands spun around wildly and stopped on the number twelve.

Later that evening, after an unusually long day of work as editor of the local newspaper, Mr. Nettle finally made it home. Nicholas was already getting ready for bed and Emma had returned home hours before. As the front door opened, Nicholas flew down the stairs, full of excitement. 

“Dad! Look what I found in the attic!” he said as he practically fell into his father.

“Whoa, calm down. No need to tackle me.”

“Sorry.”

Mr. Nettle took the watch from Nicholas in order to get a better look. Yet again, the hands on the bottom face continued to spin around every time it was moved with all three of them always coming to a stop on what seemed to be a random number.

Nicholas told his father the entire story of how and where it had been found and Mr. Nettle, after a close inspection of both the watch and the box it was found in, confirmed that he had never seen it before either.

“So, what should I do with it?” Nicholas asked.

“Well, I guess you can do whatever you want with it,” Mr. Nettle replied. “You found it, and I have no idea how to get in touch with whoever lived here before us. As far as I know, the place had been abandoned for years before we bought it and fixed it up.”

“Really? I can really keep it?” Nicholas said as his eyes lit up.

“I don’t see why not. Maybe you can figure out how to get it working again. You’re usually pretty good at that kind of thing.”

“Thanks dad,” he said with a big smile on his face.

“Why don’t you go get some sleep. Remember, everyone is coming over for the cookout tomorrow. I might need your help setting up.”

A few times a month, when the weather permitted, the three families on Nicholas’s road got together and grilled out, always alternating which house would serve as host. Occasionally neighbors from nearby streets would stop by as well. Nicholas generally enjoyed the cookouts, except of course when Nelson and his family would make an appearance. Luckily this wasn’t very often, seeing as how the rest of Nelson’s family was every bit as unpleasant as he was and no one exactly went out of their way to invite them.

“Oh yeah. I forgot about that,” Nicholas said. “Alright, night dad.”

“Sleep tight,” said Mr. Nettle as he fell into his favorite chair for a much needed rest.

As Nicholas sat up in his bed a few minutes later, he held the watch in his hand, looking it over and trying to figure out how to make it work. Some time passed without any progress and his eyelids began to grow heavy. He sat the watch on the nightstand next to his bed as it continued to tick quietly, and switched off the lamp next to it.

As his head hit the pillow and his eyes closed, he thought of the inscription engraved into the back of the watch.

Time leads to Nowhere… Time leads to Nowhere… the words echoed through his mind. I wonder what that means?