The Time Shifter by Cerberus Jones Page A

then turned and ran up to the hotel.
    Amelia and Charlie knew better than to stand around wondering what to do. Without a word, they hitched up their schoolbags and began to run.
    It was a steep hill up the headland, and Amelia had a stitch in her side by the time they reached the gates to the hotel’s driveway. Grawk barked again, and Amelia saw he was standing beside a hole he’d scratched in the long grass off to the left. His tail was stiff and his ears were flat against his head. He growled again.
    Feeling spooked, and more than a little nervous of the usually friendly Grawk, Amelia slowly approached the hole. Lying in the dirt only a few centimetres below the surface was a bright white sphere about the size of a tennis ball. It gave off a low hum and was shining so intensely that Amelia couldn’t see its edges. Most amazing of all, it appeared – now that she looked more closely – to not be actually resting on the earth, but hovering a millimetre or two above it.
    She crouched down to study it, Grawk still growling beside her.
    ‘Wow!’ said Charlie, who immediately reached down to grab it.
    Amelia slapped his hand away. ‘Careful!’
    ‘Ow!’ Charlie looked at her reproachfully. ‘Grawk brought us here. He wants us to see it.’
    ‘He’s growling. Do you think he wants you to touch it?’

    Charlie ignored her and quite deliberately picked up the sphere. Instantly, his hair stood on end as though charged with static electricity, and currents of blue light swirled over the surface of the globe. The look of delight on Charlie’s face suddenly vanished as he jerked his head over one shoulder and stared behind them. ‘Who was that?’
    Amelia tried to follow his gaze. ‘What? Where?’
    There was nothing to see.
    ‘I thought I saw …’ He frowned. ‘Here, try it for yourself.’
    He tossed the sphere to Amelia, who flinched but instinctively caught it. She’d been afraid it would burn her but it actually felt cool in her hands, and that cool feeling swept up her arms and then through her whole body until even her scalp was tingling. She could tell from Charlie’s smirk that her hair must be puffed out like a dandelion too. She felt deeply peaceful, as though her mind were at one with the universe.
    And then she saw a flash of movement and had the sense that someone was standing right behind her. She dropped the sphere into the hole and scrambled away from it.
    ‘We shouldn’t mess with this,’ she said, flattening her hair with both hands. ‘We should go and get Dad.’
    Charlie nodded.
    ‘Grawk, will you stay? Guard the hole?’
    He sat down obediently, but looked grim about it.
    ‘Good boy,’ said Amelia, reaching out to pat him. ‘Thank –’
    Grawk turned his head away and closed his eyes, growling steadily the whole time.
    ‘Oh.’ Amelia pulled back her hand, hurt. She didn’t have time to deal with it now, though. Until they figured out what the sphere was, who put it there and why, she had to assume it was a bigger issue than Grawk’s attitude problem. ‘Come on, Charlie.’
    Leaving their schoolbags with Grawk, they sprinted the last rise of the headland to the hotel and leapt up the main stairs. Forcing themselves to steady on a bit, they paused and then walked through the double doors into the lobby.
    Just as well. The business was slowly building, and there always seemed to be some new guest just arriving, or wandering around vaguely. More and more humans were coming to stay at the Gateway Hotel, charmed by the thought of a holiday where the natural magnetism of the headland stopped all mobile phones, computers and TV from working. Amelia’s mum and Mary had heard visitors gushing about how refreshing it was to have a ‘digital detox’.
    Right now, Mum was talking with a woman at the reception desk, and it was never a good idea to interrupt.
    ‘What’s that?’ said Charlie, pointing to a large vat by the foot of the stairs to the guest wing.
    Amelia shrugged.