‘Yesterday upon the stair

I met a man who wasn’t there.’

(Antigonish; William Hughes Mearns)

 

 

Andrew Roberts, Maths teacher at Pankhurst Comprehensive, bolted past the staffroom at lunchtime to avoid Matthew Derrican, the new Geography teacher, and drove five miles to the Merry Maidens stone circle to find inner serenity. When he returned to the school in the afternoon Derrican had vanished. Andrew was glad to be rid of the jerk but he couldn’t understand why nobody else remembered him.

 

He became aware of the aberration when he was on his way to introduce Year Seven to Pythagoras. Jason Budd, the Media Studies teacher, who considered himself the school wit, accosted him in the corridor, “Whoa, Robbo. Where you been? Scuttling off to the ‘Dagger and Duck’ for a Jägerbomb?”

 

“That’s your boat-floater. I was just steering clear of Derrican.”

 

“Who?”

 

“What d’ya mean, who? Only the sarcastic lout whose been making my life a misery for weeks.”

 

Jason blustered, “That’s a Jägerbomb talkin’ mate.” He sauntered into the toilets shaking his head.

 

Andrew took a deep breath in an attempt to quash his uneasiness. He spotted the dinner lady making her way home and called to her, “Hi Janet. Have you seen Mr Derrican this afternoon?”

 

She shook her head. “Sorry. Mr Roberts. I don’t know him. Is he new?”

 

“Yes. Never mind. Have a nice day.”  Ridiculous or what?

 

After bewildering the Year Seven innocents for an hour with the square on the hypotenuse, Andrew sped to the geography room where Derrican was scheduled to be enlightening the Year Eleven reprobates on the intricacies of rock formations in Bolivia. He peered through the windowed door. Old Gordon Copple stood pointing to a map of South America. The reprobates’ faces expressed indifference to high altitude geology. One or two were stifling yawns. This was impossible. Gordon had died in a traffic accident two months ago.

 

Fighting down rising panic, Andrew stepped back from the classroom door and collided with Silver Ravenscroft, the history teacher. “Sorry, Silver,” he said. “I’m having a bad day.”

 

“I can see that,” she said. “You’re not yourself.”

 

Coming from anyone else that would have seemed a commonplace remark, but Silver wasn’t anyone else. She was different. Her skirts were ankle length, her nail varnish was black and her tangled mass of auburn curls reached to her waist. The Year Eight founts of wisdom whispered that she was a witch, the more sceptical scoffed that she was bonkers, but she always meant exactly what she said. Andrew knew she wouldn’t lie.

 

He asked, “What’s happened to Matthew Derrican?”

 

“I don’t know. I’ve never heard of him. Why were you watching Gordon Copple being boring?”

 

“What would you think if I told you that two months ago, Gordon tried to stop his car at a junction but apparently the brakes failed, he skidded into the side of a juggernaut and was killed?”

 

She placed her hand on his arm. “I think that after school we should head for Starbucks and get on the outside of a couple of cappuccinos. Then you should tell me everything I need to know.”

 

She was waiting for him at the school gates when the ‘home time’ bell sent a horde of the country’s future redeemers onto the streets of Penzance. She offered him a mint humbug. An adolescent voice sniggered, “Robbo’s pulled the witch.”

 

In the sanctuary of the coffee shop she stirred two sugars into her cup and said, “Tell me what happened after you believe Gordon shuffled off his mortal coil.”

 

Andrew tried to stop his voice from trembling. “Derrican was his replacement. He took an instant dislike to me, mocked my clothes and my hair, said the kids thought I was a fool and a useless teacher, and made me feel stupid and pathetic.” He looked into Silver’s strange green eyes. “Why couldn’t I stand up to him? If he tried that with Year Eleven a pack of them would be waiting for him on a dark night to give him a good kicking. Why am I so weak?”

 

She gripped his hand. “You’re not weak, Andrew, but you’re not self-assertive. Bullies spot that and they hone in on it. We can fix it, but first we have to deal with the present problem.”

 

Her assurance calmed him and he felt more hopeful than he had since he first encountered Derrican. “What exactly is the present problem, Silver? What’s going on?”

 

She sipped her coffee and smiled. “I believe what we have here is a parallel universe situation.”

 

“What the hell…?”

 

“Every time a decision needs to be made, for example, a juggernaut driver gets a phone call and has to decide whether to stop and take the call or carry on driving while he answers it, reality splits into two and he does both.”

 

Andrew’s hand shook and he spilled his cappuccino down his tie. “Are you saying I’ve slipped out of a parallel universe, where Gordon collided with the juggernaut, and if so, where’s the ‘me’ who should be in this one?”

 

She shrugged. “Probably in the one you were in until this afternoon. Like I said, you’re not yourself.” She handed him a tissue to wipe his tie. “Where did you go at lunchtime?”

 

“To the Merry Maidens. I like the ambience. It’s soothing.”

 

She nodded. “Stone circles affect some people like that. Other people find them disturbing, probably because they contain portals between the parallels. Come on, finish your coffee. We’re going to find out what happened.”

 

She drove them to the Merry Maidens. When the stones came in sight he said, “I remember now. An odd thing occurred when I was here at lunchtime. A mist fell: maybe low cloud, and I thought I saw myself walking towards me. I guessed it was some sort of mirage, and then the mist cleared. It was over in a couple of seconds, and I forgot it.”

 

“You and your parallel self must have come here at the same time. Chance in a million, but it does happen. You walked into the portal together and accidently passed into each other’s universes.”

 

“Well, I like this one better. I’d rather stay here than go back and have to tolerate Derrican.”

 

“Whoopee-doo for you, but what about the Andrew Roberts who belongs here, and is now lumbered with your problem?”

 

“Dunno, but even if you shove me back through the portal how are you going to rescue him?”  

“I’m hoping my parallel self will do that. I’m guessing she’s figured out what’s going on and she’ll bring him back here.” She stopped the car and led him towards the stones. “This place exists in both parallels. The presence of the same person from two universes apparently caused the portal to open when you were here earlier, so, if my parallel’s brought your parallel back it should open now.”

 

They stepped inside the circle. There was a tingle in the air that Andrew sometimes experienced when he was close to an electricity pylon. It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. The mist fell and they saw themselves walk towards them. Silver said, “You’re presumably here for the same reason as we are.”

 

The parallel Silver said, “Yes, I have the other one here.” She turned to the parallel Andrew. “Tell them what happened to you.”

 

The parallel Andrew said, “Jason Budd dragged me off to the ‘Dagger and Duck’ last night. I can’t remember what I drank but I woke up this morning with a mouth like a camel’s crotch and I felt like Meat Loaf and Pavarotti were howling a duet in my brain.  I came to the circle to get my head together, then the mist came down and I saw myself. It freaked me out but I thought I’d imagined it.”

 

Andrew said. “Me too, and I’m still freaking out.”

 

Silver said. “Put the freakery on hold and listen. This could be interesting.”

 

The parallel Andrew continued. “I drove back to the school and outside the staffroom I met a posturing suit with attitude. He smirked and said. ‘What’s up, Andy Pandy? Did Mummy and Daddy stop your pocket money?’ The nerve I’d been working up to tackle Jason about what he brainwashed me into drinking last night powered me into action.” He grinned at the other Andrew. “I grabbed him by his Ralph Lauren lapels and said, ‘Whoever the hell you are, if you speak to me like that again I’ll knock your dental implants down your throat.’ I added an Anglo Saxon expletive or two but they don’t need repeating.”

 

The parallel Silver laughed. “I was watching. Derrican turned a whiter shade of pale, to quote a song my grandmother used to sing. He backed off and fled. He’ll give Andrew no more hassle, but I knew something strange was going on and after we talked I came to the same conclusion as you, so I brought him back here. The Andrews can change places now and we can all go home.”

 

Andrew said, “Must we? I’d rather stay in this universe if it’s all the same to you.”

 

The parallel Andrew said, “Fine by me. I really enjoyed putting that jerk in his place and I’m looking forward to telling Jason to either grow up or find another patsy to poison.”

 

The two Silvers looked at each other, shrugged, and said, “Don’t see why not.” They waved and said simultaneously “Good to meet you. Safe journey.” The portal closed and the mist lifted.

 

Silver was silent as she drove home. Andrew said, “You want me to avoid socialising with Jason, Right?”

 

“No, but take responsibility for your own choices. He’s not going to hold your nose and pour the happy juice down your throat. You do what you like, Andrew, but don’t blame anyone else if your brain hurts next morning.”

 

He laughed. “Your parallel self should tell that to my parallel self.”

 

“Oh, I’m pretty sure she will, and another thing, if Derrican ever shows up you’ll know how to deal with him. Your parallel self did it, so you can too. 

 

“Okay, I can see there’s something else on your mind. What is it?”

 

“Do you consider old Gordon a friend?”

 

“Yes, he’s a decent bloke and I’m glad he’s not dead in this reality.”

 

“In that case persuade him to ditch that rust bucket he’s probably been driving since my granny sang ‘A Lighter Shade of Pale,’ or at least get his brakes checked. The juggernaut at the junction is still a possibility waiting to happen.”

 

“Point taken. I’ll do it. Now can I ask you for something?”

 

“What do you want?”

 

“Another mint humbug.”

 

“Help yourself. They’re in the glove compartment.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

“You’re welcome to share my humbugs anytime, Andrew, as long as you don’t mind the little darlings screaming from the rooftops that Robbo’s pulled the witch.”

 

He smiled. “I’ll risk it if you will.”

​