Prologue
“Pluto!”
There was no answer: no bark, no white-tipped flag of a tail visible anywhere in the field of grass before her. The little girl was in a heap in the middle of a dusty road, tears of frustration and anger running down her cheeks, her Sunday-best dress covered in blotches of dirt.
In all her five-and-a-half years, this was a definite low. Her neighbour’s 10-month-old beagle pup had dragged her down this strange road, pulled loose from his leash and taken off in rapturous pursuit of a rabbit.
“Dumb dog!” she yelled after him, pointlessly.
Her mind was racing, Now I’ll never be allowed a dog of my own! Already she could see her parents’ (and her neighbour’s) stern faces, and hear her father’s voice: “You can’t even take Mrs. Harrop’s beagle pup for a walk without losing him. All you’ve done is provide evidence that supports our concern that you are too young to have a dog, so … don’t give us that look. That’s the last word on the subject. No dog until further notice.”
Until further notice is an awfully long time.
She looked down at her muddied knees that were probably skinned and bleeding under all that dirt. There she sat, absolutely miserable, yelling “PLUTO!” plaintively, one last time.
But this time there was a response, although not a howl or a bark or a white-flag tail.
WORRRP, WORRRP, WORRRP.
Then there was the distinct sensation of being lifted up, not by hands and arms, but by an odd and noisy room taking shape around her.
It was a somewhat roundish and darkened room, lit in part by circles of blue light around orange-lighted centres on the walls that encompassed the room, in the centre of which was what seemed like a large and noisy merry-go-round, with a central column (also brightly lit) noisily pumping up and down within a large glass-encased tube. But Instead of a collection of brightly painted animals to ride on, there were three light-blue circular panels overhead, with round abstract patterns painted on them in dark blue, the central panel rotating clockwise and the two others moving counter-clockwise around the top of the column and it’s attendant counter/desk-like base.
Had she been kidnapped by a flying carousel? I must be losing my mind!
Towering above her was a tall man with a shock of shaggy grey-and-white hair. He was very thin, very intense, dressed in a wine-red velvet jacket with a glowing red satin lining, and was staring down at her as she remained in the same position she’d been in the road when the floor had appeared beneath her had scooped her up in mid-shout.
“Hello…” the man said in a surprisingly friendly voice, especially for a…what WAS he? A ringmaster? A skinny Santa? A fancy-dressed scarecrow? But before the she could ask her question, he finished what he was saying and it answered her question…sort of, “… I’m the Doctor.”
There was no answer: no bark, no white-tipped flag of a tail visible anywhere in the field of grass before her. The little girl was in a heap in the middle of a dusty road, tears of frustration and anger running down her cheeks, her Sunday-best dress covered in blotches of dirt.
In all her five-and-a-half years, this was a definite low. Her neighbour’s 10-month-old beagle pup had dragged her down this strange road, pulled loose from his leash and taken off in rapturous pursuit of a rabbit.
“Dumb dog!” she yelled after him, pointlessly.
Her mind was racing, Now I’ll never be allowed a dog of my own! Already she could see her parents’ (and her neighbour’s) stern faces, and hear her father’s voice: “You can’t even take Mrs. Harrop’s beagle pup for a walk without losing him. All you’ve done is provide evidence that supports our concern that you are too young to have a dog, so … don’t give us that look. That’s the last word on the subject. No dog until further notice.”
Until further notice is an awfully long time.
She looked down at her muddied knees that were probably skinned and bleeding under all that dirt. There she sat, absolutely miserable, yelling “PLUTO!” plaintively, one last time.
But this time there was a response, although not a howl or a bark or a white-flag tail.
WORRRP, WORRRP, WORRRP.
Then there was the distinct sensation of being lifted up, not by hands and arms, but by an odd and noisy room taking shape around her.
It was a somewhat roundish and darkened room, lit in part by circles of blue light around orange-lighted centres on the walls that encompassed the room, in the centre of which was what seemed like a large and noisy merry-go-round, with a central column (also brightly lit) noisily pumping up and down within a large glass-encased tube. But Instead of a collection of brightly painted animals to ride on, there were three light-blue circular panels overhead, with round abstract patterns painted on them in dark blue, the central panel rotating clockwise and the two others moving counter-clockwise around the top of the column and it’s attendant counter/desk-like base.
Had she been kidnapped by a flying carousel? I must be losing my mind!
Towering above her was a tall man with a shock of shaggy grey-and-white hair. He was very thin, very intense, dressed in a wine-red velvet jacket with a glowing red satin lining, and was staring down at her as she remained in the same position she’d been in the road when the floor had appeared beneath her had scooped her up in mid-shout.
“Hello…” the man said in a surprisingly friendly voice, especially for a…what WAS he? A ringmaster? A skinny Santa? A fancy-dressed scarecrow? But before the she could ask her question, he finished what he was saying and it answered her question…sort of, “… I’m the Doctor.”
LITTLE GIRL LOST
BY CLARA LAURINDA
The TARDIS Console Room
“Hello!” he said again with a big smile, and gracefully sat down on the floor next to her, talking non-stop in her silence. She was, for once in her short life so far, completely without words.
“What’s all this shouting about Pluto? Looking for a dwarf planet, the Roman god of the underworld or a Disney character? Or are you just… lost?”
She wasn’t sure what he meant by a dwarf planet, but she did know that the 9th planet, Pluto, had been discovered just a year ago, on February 18th, 1930 and was named after the Roman god of the afterlife, but the mention of a Disney character had her baffled because all she knew was a cartoon mouse named Mickey and a duck named Donald. She also knew that Mrs. Harrop had named her beagle pup after said planet, and that the silly pup was now missing.
“I’m looking for a dog. My neighbour’s dog. His name is Pluto…. after the ninth planet that was discovered last year. I don’t know what a dwarf planet is. But the Pluto that is lost is Mrs. Harrop’s dog.
“Well, you won’t find him in here.” He said bluntly, but still with that smile.
“I wasn’t looking for him HERE.” She was starting to get irritated. “What is “here” anyway?
“My TARDIS.”
“Your tardis? A flying merry-go-round?”
The TARDIS made another odd sound like a moan, and the Doctor looked crestfallen at what he took for an insult.
“Nooo,” he said. It’s not a merry-go-round, it’s a special ship that travels through time and space. TARDIS is an acronym that stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space.”
“You’ve made that up.”
“Well actually it was my grand daughter Susan that “made up” the acronym but what the ship does it is actually based on aspects of science.”
“Well” she added. ”I’ve never heard of the word ‘acronym’ but by what you’ve just said, TARDIS is a word made up of the first letter of each of the words in its full name, like a person’s initials? But…are you saying this is a ship that involves more than one…dimension…, that it flies through space, like among the stars and planets and things?
He was impressed with this child’s knowledge and her way of reasoning out the meaning of a word she’d never heard of before, and her over all confidence with with words for such a young child.
“You are very articulate…well spoken for such a young….”
“…child? Well, I am old enough to know what “articulate” means without a definition following. And… I know the next word you’re going to say too…”
“Annoying?”
“Precocious. Most people call me precocious, because they think I know way too much for my age, that I’m always correcting people or that I ask way too many questions.”
“You do.”
“That’s how I learn. I’m curious. And I’ve been reading since I was 4 years old, and listening carefully to others reading before that, and I remember a lot of what I read and hear. Anyway…. I know the dog isn’t in here. I know the Roman God isn’t here either or the planet. I wasn’t looking in here. YOU picked me up out of nowhere right in the middle…”
“No, I didn’t. Unless… she did it for some reason,” he said, nodding towards the central column that was still pumping up and down and whorrp-worrping “…. She does that sometimes. A lot, actually.”
“She?”
“My TARDIS. My…my vehicle. She sometimes, well, often takes me where I’m needed instead of where I meant to go.”
“I don’t need you…I…never asked for help…”
“That doesn’t stop her though,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“I’m not supposed to talk to strangers and you certainly are...”
“Strange?” he laughed. “It’s a matter of perspective. I could say the same of you,” and there was another smile. “My name is the Doctor”
“That’s not a name.”
“It’s what I call myself, what I’m called by others.”
“The Doctor is your name? Really?”
“Yes.”
“Well then, I am the Child”.
She’s quick and… strong willed, he noted.
“How old are you?” he asked.
“That’s rather personal,” she responded, sitting herself up as tall as she could, trying to appear older, but instead of answering him, she asked another question. “How old are YOU?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Well tell me and we’ll see, and then I’ll tell you.”
“Over 2000 years.”
Silence. As silly as his answer seemed, she was fascinated because he didn’t say it in a bragging way, just in a matter-of-fact way, as if it were the truth. Then she asked another question without a hint of impatience or sarcasm and with more than a little awe.
“Are you Methuselah? That’s the longest-living human being I know of…” She stopped for a second. “Or… are you… not human?” Her big dark eyes widened in expectation as she looked into his blue eyes and waited for an answer.
“No… I am not Methusaleh, although I’ve actually met him. Charming chap, for his age.” He winked. “As for your second question, look around you, look closely….
The Doctor remained silent because the Child was figuring it out for herself.
“You aren’t human or you would have answered me right away, with ‘Of course I am.’ So, you aren’t.”
But before he responded she finally answered one of his questions. “I’m 5-and-a-half.”
“Where do you live, Child?”
“Not telling. You’re a stranger, remember?” She paused for a minute. Filling up with curiosity. “You said something about this being your time, your space, your vehicle. That’s very odd. What did you mean? Do you live here? Where are you from?”
“Look I need to take you home, you can’t stay here. People are probably already missing you. They’ll be worried. I need to know where you live, where you come from because of that. I am not trying to pry or to trick you into telling me where you live so I can take you home and tell your parents how rude you are,” he said with remarkable patience, another wink, and another smile.
“I’m precocious. Not rude’ she said and then laughed at herself.
The Doctor sighed. “Look…why don’t you sit on that chair up there, up those stairs, near the book shelves on the second level. I’ll bring my other chair up there and join you. You say you read books. You can sit down and rest a bit. Maybe something on the shelf will interest you.”
The Child climbed up the short stairway leading to level 2 and the bookcase, and sat down. Her dress pulled up slightly to reveal two red-caked knees, and the Doctor came rushing up the stairs with his sonic in hand, set for a med scan, scaring her!
“What is THAT!? What are you doing?” She pulled dress over her knees and pulled her knees up to her chest and stared in horror at the Doctor with his whirring blue crystalline instrument.
“It’s my sonic screwdriver….”
“You put that screwdriver AWAY! You’re frightening me. What’s that noise???”
“It’s not an actual screwdriver. It uses sound waves in many different ways to do many different things, hence the word sonic, as in sound. I’ve set it to work like a medical instrument to tell me what’s wrong with your knees.”
“It’s mud. Red clay, dirt. The roads are full of it and it’s really hard to get off….” She went silent as the dirt fell away from her knees like leaves off a tree. All that was left were her own knees, bruised but not scraped at all and not bleeding… Oh! Thank you. That does feel better.”
Silence. “You know, Doctor, you could warn me when you are going to do something like that...”
“I’m sorry. But you’re right. No injury except for a bit of bruising. The red was the dirt not your blood.”
He sat down beside he in the chair he had forgotten he was carrying in his other hand. No wonder Child had been taken aback with a madman like me coming at her with a chair and a screwdriver!
“I’m sorry about scaring you.” He sat down, not too close to the shaken Child.
“Are you trying to distract me?”
“Distract you from what? I’m trying to help.”
“Distract me…from what happened out there in the road. From my need to find Pluto! From my fear of Pluto running around out there on his own dragging his leash and maybe getting caught up somewhere …and injured…and all we are doing is wasting time! I really do need to find him. I promised to take care of him to show my parents I am old enough to take care of a dog so they will let me have my own and now I’ve lost him and he could even be dead. I really wanted a dog…” She took a deep breath and a large tear rolled down her right cheek.
The Doctor was oddly relieved by her torrent of words and emotion.
At last she was acting like the little girl she was pretending she wasn’t.
And the Doctor himself quietened down. He’d had had his own fears too, but they’d remained unspoken. Fears such as whether this exceptional Child was for real, or whether someone from the time of his 11th incarnation had created this extraordinary being as a means of prying his name from him so the Time Lords could return from their exile through that crack in the fabric of time and space that had sat so long in the basement of a tower on Trenzalore.
But now there was something about Child that was calming his fears although he wasn’t sure why. He would give her a chance. Besides, she was extraordinary.
He snapped out of his reverie, pulled a book off the shelf next to him and handed it to her. “How well do you read? Ever heard of H.G. Wells?”
She took the book and read the title on the binding. “The Time Machine. I read very well, thank you. I’ve heard of this book. Brother told me about it. He’s promised to find a copy of it for me. We don’t have a library in town”.
“Brother?”
“My brother Edwin. But we call him Brother. He’s 10.”
“I’ve met H.G. Wells.”
“Just like you’ve met Methuselah? You do get around. Wait…are you trying to tell me something? With this book?
“Yes, I am”.
“Are you a time…”
“… traveller. Yes. I travel in both space and time.”
“Well….” Long pause. “Maybe I do need you…after all…maybe you COULD help me find Pluto, and then,,,I’ll tell you my name and you can take us home,” As an afterthought she added, “Please?”
“Yes, I could….” He said this with certainty but he had some misgivings. He flicked a switch and the console screen came on, showing where they were. It was a dusty red road, with a few puddles, with tall grass mixed with reeds on either side. Earth. The WHEN and specific WHERE weren’t clear. The Child’s clothes didn’t reveal much. Scuffed shoes, white “Sunday Best” dress. Nothing cried out any specific time period or location. And for some reason, the TARDIS wasn’t helping. No text indicating time or location. Did she really not know where she’d landed?
However, with Child’s sudden shift in mood, he suspected he knew what was coming next, and he was right.
“We could go back in time before I lost him! And before I messed up my dress and knees,” she stated rather than asked.
“Well…that could be dangerous.”
“WHY?”
“You might see yourself. “
“I see myself all the time in mirrors and windows…” The Doctor believed she was being deliberately evasive. He could tell she sensed what he was getting at and was pretending she didn’t know.
“Yes, but this is different. And I think you know that. I mean, if your present self meets your past self, even if it’s only a few minutes in the past, you could endanger your own timeline and everyone and every event connected with it, and that could change the future with possibly very serious consequences. And since I don’t know who you are or where you’ve come from and who you might become….”
“But just rescuing a dog on a late summer afternoon isn’t going to cause any disaster in time if I promise NOT to meet myself?”
“That doesn’t mean that something unexpected won’t happen, beyond your control… Right, so having said that…here’s my plan: we go back to just before the dog….”
“Pluto”
“Yes, before Pluto takes off after the rabbit, and then I take you and him back home without incident and you show you can take care of a dog and hopefully no ripples in time occur that alter the future of humankind.”
“OK”
“I should warn you that my plans almost never go as planned…. But…. I usually get there in the end.”
Silence, and then a slightly less confident “OK” from Child.
“First things first, you need a change of clothes. Your dress isn’t the best thing to go tracking in.”
“I know. It didn’t start out as a search. I’ve already got red dust and smudges all over it and they might give me away if I go home that way…”
“No worries. I have a sonic dry-cleaning set-up in the wardrobe room, so leave it hanging in the special CLEANUP area, after you choose what you think you’d like to wear.”
“You have a wardrobe room?”
“Yes, it has just about anything anyone would need. Easy to find. First door on the left, second right, under the stairs, past the bins (garbage cans in your language) first door on the left.”
Silence.
“Well, get going. Why are you looking at me like that? Are you laughing?”
“Well they are funny, aren’t they! Those are your directions for someone who just got lost in their own town?”
“Well…”
She reached out and took hold of his left hand, but his hand was so much bigger than hers, with long slender fingers, that she ended up holding onto to his ring finger and little finger instead. “Why don’t you just take me there?”
“OK. But here’s a thought: Do you need to use the…toilet? Because that’s a whole other set of directions!” Now he was laughing.
“No, I am OK.” She smiled. “One set of directions at a time.”
And together they walked towards the first door on the left.
A TARDIS Corridor
“What’s this ring? It’s beautiful,” Child said as she looked more closely at the unusual ring she’d accidently touched when she first took his hand. “Does it have a special meaning?”
“Yes.”
“Are you married?”
“Well that’s a very personal question to ask a stranger,” he replied gently mocking her previous remarks about not telling strangers anything personal.
She picked up on that and added, “Well, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. I still think your ring is beautiful.”
“Yes.”
“Yes what?”
“I am married. Anything else?”
“Children?”
“Yes. A long time ago.”
“I can tell. You are very kind and…patient.”
“It’s just a front. An illusion. Makes it easier to get along.”
But his wink and her experience of him thus far, convinced her this wasn’t true.
“Here we are,” he said as they arrived at a door labelled Wardrobe, which he swung open with his right hand.
Silence. And then, “It’s bigger than the biggest store I’ve ever seen!” whooped Child and she ran off into the rows and rows of hanging clothes, with the Doctor in pursuit, taking a deep breath and reminding himself how very kind and patient he was….
The Far End of the TARDIS Wardrobe Room
‘Wow!”
She was standing in front of the only section of the wardrobe room that had a row or two of clothing on racks she could reach, and she was already holding a worn pair of overalls and a white shirt, just her size, or close.
“This is what I usually wear when I am not in school or going to church. I wear Brother’s hand-me-down overalls! Do these belong to anyone?”
“Well, no, I’ve never seen those before, actually, which is not unusual. I don’t know half the stuff in this room. The TARDIS is in charge here.” She’s in charge pretty much everywhere and over everything he thought to himself. “The change room is over there, so go right on in and when you’ve changed, give me your dress for cleaning.”
Moments later, on their way out of the room, they passed the CLEAN UP sign above what looked like a sort of stand alone hat stand, with a hanger dangling empty. The Doctor slid Child’s dress onto the hanger and pressed a nearby button, and a tiny hum could be heard as tiny bits of red dirt began falling off the dress and into a special catchall tray below. The Doctor had to drag the wide-eyed Child away from the sight and out the door.
The TARDIS Console Room, a Few Minutes Later
Perhaps in retrospect, the Doctor might have considered rethinking these next few moments when he allowed his fledgling trust of Child to cause him to leave this little loose canon alone in the console room for 5 or 10 minutes while he went to retrieve some items in preparation for their dog hunt, but at the time he simply brought her back to the console room, sat her in his chair nearby and left with a hurried few words over his shoulder: “I’ll be back in just a mo! Sit down in that chair and DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING, I’ll be right back!”
So, there she sat, Miss Queen of Curiosity, alone near the console, a figurative red flag just having been waved in her face as if in she were an approaching bull.
It didn’t take long for her to get down to business. Up on her feet, mere seconds after the Doctor’s departure, she moved swiftly towards the console.
“Ermm… Miss? MissTARDIS? Are you listening?”
There was a soft hum, over and above all the other TARDIS noises, almost like someone was saying “hmmmm?”
Whispering, as she moved closer, she added, “Do YOU know his name?”
“Hmmmmmmm Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh” was the audible response, the last part sounding not only like a hiss of air, but also like a gentle warning.
“Not telling, then.”
This time, instead of a noise, the console’s all-purpose scanner/screen/information terminal came to life so suddenly, that Child stepped back a bit, and watched in awe, even from her low vantage point, as it filled itself with images and explanatory headings and text revealing the Doctor’ home planet of Gallifrey, a brief history of Time Lords, a series of images and basic concepts on realities of regeneration, including images of all the Doctors incarnations thus far and a list and series of images and written biographical details about his “companions” over the centuries. But when Child saw her own image and the start of her own biographical history-- “First Encounter: Dirt road, Earth, Sunday, August 30th, 1931; Second Encounter: Schoolyard, Earth, Late Spring, 1932 -- she recoiled in shock and the screen went dark.
Unknown to her, this had been an exceptional few moments, with the TARDIS doing something she had never done before and would likely never do again. The why was never clear, even when the Doctor would ask the TARDIS many times when they were alone once again.
Before Child could do or say anything, the Doctor was back in the room and very upset, having re-entered the room few seconds earlier, and noticed the flicker of the screen’s light on Child’s face as it shut down.
“I told you NOT TO TOUCH ANYTHING!” He rushed over and stared at the blank screen, fixedly, as if expecting to the ghosts of what she might have seen.
“I didn’t touch anything.” It was as close to a lie as she had come thus far; a lie of omission, or rather, of carefully chosen words.
The Doctor looked up at the time rotor, touched the console gently and, clearly speaking to the TARDIS, asked in a whisper, “What’s going on? What are you up to?” But there was only an inconclusive hmmmmmmm in response.
The Child now noticed that the Doctor was wearing a pair of sunglasses and had just set down a large whicker basket and was digging in it.
“We aren’t going on a picnic, Doctor, so what’s all this? And why are you wearing sunglasses indoors?”
“Don’t change the subject, Child! What were you doing just now as I came in?!” But he was so excited to share his plan, that he let his pique drop just as suddenly as it had appeared, and launched into his explanation.
“It’s all part of my plan, and these are our tools! I am wearing sonic sunglasses, that function in part as an information retrieval system and scanner, not unlike what you were…just looking at on the console (he stared at her sternly once again). They also work like my sonic screwdriver, using sound to interact with and alter things and, most important in our case…TRACK the heat signature of missing dogs! And… these, are for YOU!”
The Doctor had opened the basket and instead of sandwiches he all too proudly pulled out an almost identical but tiny pair of sonic sunglasses, Child-sized, and placed them on her face, to great ooos and awws from Child as she saw far more than the Doctor through the lenses.
“This… is for you too…” he said, placing the basket, lid down just under another part of the TARDIS console, on the other side.
Silence. But she did follow him around to the other side of the console.
“OK, let me explain. This… is how we are going to find you and Toto…”
“PLUTO!”
“Yes sorry, Pluto…. by using the TARDIS’s telepathic interface to go back along your timeline to the point where he pulled away from you. But, in order to do this, you need to climb up on this basket and put your hands in here…”
Child looked extremely doubtful, but she climbed up with the Doctor’s assistance, and stared at the glowing pinkish, almost flesh-coloured squares of soft…something…that she was expected to stick her hands into. But when the TARDIS emitted a familiar hmmmmmm sound, like encouragement and reassurance, Child got ready, as the Doctor stepped back.
“Now it is important for you to insert your hands carefully and hold on no matter what.”
Child looked at him in mild surprise and concern, wondering what “no matter what” meant.
“And then, once they’re in there, think back to the exact moment today when Toto…Pluto started straining on the leash before he dragged it out of your hands and took off. Think of nothing or no one else. That’s why I’ve stepped back… so I won’t distract you.”
“This is called a what?”
“The TARDIS telepathic interface.”
“I won’t be sticking my hands inside her body, will I?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. She’s a machine…” The TARDIS made a distinctly derisive noise…. “It’s not actual flesh…and you won’t hurt her… except maybe her feelings…sorry,” the Doctor ended in a mumbled apology directed at the TARDIS time rotor. “I mean, no it’s not her body or brain. It’s a flesh-like access point to her circuitry that enables your hands to link your brain and your memory directly to the TARDIS and be able to help her fly us directly to the time and place this all started. OK?”
Her hands went in. “Oh, that feels…warm and squishy…but nice... sort of.”
“Focus, Child. Focus on the moment when Pluto pulled away…”
“Focussing Doctor, hush. You are distracting me,” she winked although he couldn’t see it.
The TARDIS time rotor started to pump and the familiar wheezing worrpp worrpp started up again and then quietened down a bit.
The Doctor was looking at the landscape outside the TARDIS as it appeared on the console screen/scanner/monitor and said softly. “There you are Pluto my boy” and landed the TARDIS not far in front of him. Worrpp worrpp worpp.
“Doctor…”
“Not now Child, I am concentrating.”
“Doctor, can you concentrate on seeing Pluto run away?” she said, as he watched Pluto doing exactly that. “The TARDIS’ worrpp has scared him away,” she noted, drily, “not to mention the sudden appearance of a flying blue box…” Her hands were now out of the TARDIS interface as she too watched the image of a retreating Pluto racing away, deeper into the damp field of grass and reeds.
“Shhhhh, I am trying to keep him in view. You’re right. I wasn’t thinking!” He flipped a switch and all was silent until he shouted, “In stealth mode NOW!”
“Stealth mode?”
“No noise, no visual. We can see him but he can’t see or hear us. OK, Child, I need your help. This little guy is travelling fast, even with his dragging leash, so we need to act quickly. Go over to that wicker-basket-that-isn’t-a-picnic basket and pull out the harness that’s in there and strap it on over your overalls. One size fits all. Child? Why aren’t you moving?”
“I need to know WHY I am doing this Doctor,” she replied, simply.
“Because I am going to open the TARDIS doors as we get closer to him and the harness is on a tether that attaches to that purple hook-thing under the console and it will keep you safe and secure while you look out the door after him as we fly at high speed so you won’t fall out and so can be ready to release your harness and go after him as soon as we land. Keep your sonic sunglasses on and you will be able to follow his heat signature…a coloured blobby image… of him…”
She already had the harness on, securely she hoped, and had just hooked the tether to the purple thing when the TARDIS doors opened. They were skimming rapidly over a field of tall grass and pockets of reeds. She could see Pluto’s white tail-tip without the silly sunglasses which she pushed back on top of her head. The grass was right beneath her, and the swishing sound and the smell of the grass and nearby wildflowers and reeds and mud, was so exhilarating that she wanted to whoooop with joy, but the Doctor anticipated this and whispered loudly, “Remember! STEALTH MODE! That includes you. Shhhhhhh. And me.”
The TARDIS landed, silently and invisibly, about 100 feet in front Pluto’s projected path. Child released the harness and was out the door before the Doctor realized it, calling Pluto’s name.
“The sunglasses have a dog whistle mode if you need it!” he yelled after her, before he saw the abandoned sunglasses lying on the floor, having slid off her head as she left.
A few moments later she called out, “Got him Doctor! He’s licking me all over! But he won’t let me grab his leash so I am going to have to herd him towards the TARDIS. Could you please un-stealth it, so I can see where we’re going?”
“Done,” said the Doctor and the blue box reappeared only 25 feet away from Child and Pluto as they came racing at it.
“Grab his leash when he comes through the door Doctor!”
A flash of brown, white and black sped past him and he grabbed the leash with a feeling of great achievement. Except Pluto chose this moment to slide out of his collar and take off down the TARDIS stairs to the lower level and down one of the halls at full tilt.
Child came running in and looked at the Doctor in exasperation.
“Well….” Said the Doctor sheepishly, “I DID grab the leash. Sorry. Come here Child. At least he’s in the TARDIS and we can track him more easily in here. Yes, it is a huge place, but…if you’ll permit me to make a telepathic link between your mind and my mind, we can split off in two directions and keep in touch through our minds (no shouting to scare the dog), help each other find him and not get lost ourselves!”
Child was standing before him looking concerned. “A telepathic link?” she asked, remembering the link she’d just made with the TARDIS, and clearly worried about what this new link would involve.
“Oh, it’s nothing like linking with the TARDIS telepathic interface. All I do is touch each side of your forehead with my hands, gently, and look into your eyes, then BINGO our minds are linked.”
“Forever?”
“Well no…I’ll make a slight adjustment before I drop you off home…” Luckily there was no link established yet, or she’d know that he was planning to erase her memory of him and this whole experience before he returned her home. Standard procedure, he’d convinced himself.
But his odd wording had the Child eyeing him suspiciously. “What do you mean by ‘make a slight adjustment’? To what? To my mind?”
“Nothing to worry about. I promise. Do you trust me?”
“Well…I…” she looked into his eyes, and sighed.
“Do you TRUST me?” he repeated.
“Yes.”
The Doctor knelt in front of the Child, gently touched her temples, looked into those lively brown eyes, and the link was made. He also handed back her mini sonic sunglasses. “You’ll need these too, to help track the dog’s….
“…’heat signature or coloured blobby image’” she repeated, still unsure of what it meant.
“Yes, exactly! And here, take this too.” He passed her the last thing left in the wicker basket—a second dog collar and leash. “I’ll take the one he left behind,” he added, holding it up, with some residual embarrassment.
“How did you know we would need an extra one?”
“Because experience has taught me that my plans tend to go a little…sideways, and back-up equipment is always a good thing to have.”
“Like the harness…”
“Yes”
They were already headed down the console room stairs during all this banter and when they got to the doorway leading out to the corridors, the Doctor said he was headed off to the kitchen and pool using the hallway on the left and he suggested Child head down to the first corridor on the right in the direction of the macaroon dispenser and the washroom.
“The macaroon dispenser?”
“You can’t miss it!”
Several TARDIS Corridors and Assorted Rooms
Testing. Testing. Can you hear me thinking, Child?
Yes, Doctor. Can you hear ME thinking? WHAT is a macaroon dispenser?
You’ll know it when you see it. OK. Re-focus on the search for the d…Pluto, and, from now on we’ll communicate this way, with thoughts, no talking out loud or especially shouting. Stealth mode, OK.
Shouldn’t we be invisible too?
Very funny, Child. Just stay focussed on Toto…
Pluto.
Sorry, yes. I am heading towards the kitchen now. Where are you?
I’m at the macaroon dispenser, Doctor, as a matter of fact, but no sign of Pluto. You see anything?
I see some strands of grass and an old soggy leaf and one muddy paw print, so he’s been through here. OHHH!
Child jumped at his very loud thought. Doctor! Way too loud! What’s happening?
He’s been in the kitchen, all right. It’s a total wreck… He ate the rest of my breakfast sausage and fried eggs. What he didn’t eat, he smeared on the floor, the table, the walls, the ceiling. How is that possible?And it’s all mixed in with grass and red mud.
Doctor how big was your breakfast? Wait! Pluto just crossed my corridor going to the right, about 20 feet from me,…headed…
To the pool? If you are still at the macaroon dispenser…
I am, Doctor.
Then he’s headed to the pool for sure. Probably thirsty and in need of a bath! The Doctor dashed in the dog’s direction, his sonic sunglasses indicating that Pluto was not far from him but headed away from him and towards the pool.
Doctor. Don’t they put stuff in pools like chlorine to keep it from germs and green slime?
Not my pool. The water is always clean and clear and doesn’t hurt the eyes and you can drink it in a pinch without harm.
Sonic technology again, Doctor?
Well not entirely, but the automatic drying system that kicks in only as you step out of the pool is sonic.… Wait… I‘m at the pool now, just stepped through the side door. He’s standing on the other side of the pool, drinking like mad. Doesn’t hear me. I am being very quiet…no, wait… sees me and there he goes into the water…. Wow this pup can swim. I think I scared him.
I can’t think why Doctor, since you have such a way with dogs…What’s Pluto doing? I… am…
Lost again?
No… I’m on my way to you. I can read Pluto’s heat signature and yours too. Does the increasingly loud beeping of the sunglasses mean I’m getting closer?
Yes. And Pluto is swimming the full length of the pool, trying to get away from me. Oh, my good…LOOK AT THE MESS HE’S LEAVING IN HIS WAKE…
Doctor, please calm down or your mind-shouting will melt both our brains! What’s wrong?
There is now an island of red clay mud and grass and pieces of egg floating in the centre of the pool and he keeps swimming around and around to get away from it and me. He won’t land. He won’t come out.
Let him swim Doctor, he’ll tire himself and have to climb out…
FLOOP!
What-on-earth was that, Doctor. I heard from here!?
The automatic drying system. He’s out of the pool and the room, dry as a bone and clean as a whistle, and he’s running….
I bet he is, poor Pluto. My way? Yes, he just passed me. I’m following him now... He’s just gone into… you have an observatory? Oh, this is beautiful. A glass-domed observatory … I can see so many stars in the sky…no…space I mean! And look at that telescope!
STAY FOCUSSED… shhhhhh… I mean, stay focussed Child. Where’s Pluto now? And, please, no planet Pluto jokes…
AAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
Child!?
Doctor, that wasn’t me. It was…
Toto?
Yes, Toto…. I give up….
Don’t give… oh! You mean I got it wrong again? I mix up names when I’m excited. Sorry.
Focus Doctor. Pluto just howled at the heavens, the moon, or me, now he’s gone again, out the door, and, I’m out the door after him. He’s headed down this corridor towards a large pair of doors at the end…
The library, Child. According to the TARDIS schematics I’m accessing through my glasses I can see him heading straight for it and the doors are… open. Yes I’m the idiot that left them open, that’s my fault… and it’s one of the most dangerous rooms in the TARDIS. It holds the history, culture and literature of planet in millions of books from throughout the universe and that knowledge is meant to stay there, under my care, and not be shredded by an unstoppable canine force, as cute as he may be!
Hush Doctor. Don’t be so dramatic. He’s just a pup and he’s not an unstoppable force. OK Doctor, I‘m here. At the library doorway. Where are you?
I’m still a few minutes away. Wait for me.
No. Pluto’s climbing upward on one of the spiral staircases. How many floors are there?
Five, but it’s dangerous in there, Child…
He’s at level three and I am going in after him... What an amazing room!
Stay where you are Child. I don’t want you doing anything until I get there.
Silence.
“Child? Child!” the Doctor was now calling out loud.
Hush Doctor. Stealth mode. Don’t scare the dog. I can hear you from here and so can he. He’s just stopped and tilted his head as if trying to figure out what he’s hearing. I am turning off the mind link, so I can think. Trust me, I am going in, Doctor. I am a champion tree climber…
Turning off the telepathic link? How can….no one has ever done that before. Child? A tree climber? USE THE STAIRS!
The TARDIS Library
Child stood in awe for a few seconds, just long enough to get her bearings, after stepping into the library. She looked down the long central aisle dividing the room into two separate banks of what looked like wrought iron shelves, five levels high, floor to ceiling bookshelves, each with an access balcony reachable by a series of connected spiral staircases as well as by ornate iron ladders that, when aligned, climbed straight up from the floor level to ceiling and yet apparently could slide independently along each aisle—the fifth level ladder had been slid out of the line and along the shelves of that floor.
For child, who had never been to a library in her life, this was heaven. Millions and millions of books in all colours and sizes filled the shelves.
She removed her shoes and socks and sonic sunglasses, left them on the floor, and started her climb up the library’s string of ladders. She could climb them faster than chasing up the dizzying spiral staircases and she could see that Pluto was sitting quietly, at least for the moment, on the fourth level, not far from the ladder. Unknown to Child, her every move was being watched, and not by Pluto.
The TARDIS Corridor Leading to the Library
The Doctor was watching Child’s ascent on his sonic sunglasses which he’d used to hack into his own library security cameras. Child’s telepathic link with him was still severed, so he watched in silence as this little hellion climbed with stamina and assurance straight up to the fourth level.
The TARDIS Library
He arrived at the library and entered quietly, disengaged his link to the surveillance system, and set up a perception filter around himself to maintain the all-important Stealth Mode that Child was, quite sensibly, set on him adhering to. He scanned the shelves looking for any sign of Child and the annoying dog, and smiled a bit at his thoughts. I can’t believe I’ve allowed a 5-year old child, cow me into following her orders!
I’m five-and-half years old, Doctor and I am not a cow. Shhh. We are over here! Her mind link was back on.
The Doctor could see their heat signatures in his sunglasses. They were stationary, on the fourth level to the left of the centre aisle. He took off his glasses, put them in his inside jacket pocket and walked towards the main floor shelves below where Child and the dog were sitting. He found Child’s socks, shoes and sonic sunglasses, scooped them up and put them in the same pocket, and then looked up to see Child’s bare feet dangling and swinging comfortably over the edge of the balcony four levels up.
He walked up the nearest spiral staircase in silence, and headed towards the pair. The dog seemed fast asleep, although he wasn’t trusting that little monster for one second, even though a collar was now safely round his neck, the leash held by Child, who’d looped the end around her arm as she sat intently reading Walt Disney’s Pluto, a comic book from 1957.
“Here, you’ll need this,” he said as he handed her Pluto’s actual collar and leash that she’d watched him pull out of his jacket pocket.
“Your pockets are bigger on the inside too?” she asked with a grin, nodding towards his pocket while attempting to jam most of the leash and collar into the pocket of her borrowed overalls. “Not MY pocket, though, eh Doctor?” They both laughed.
“I’ve been reading up on the other two Plutos, Doctor… Disney’s (she lifted up the comic) and the dwarf planet.” She gestured to the book sitting on the floor next to her.
“It’s time to go, Child.”
“May I please take these books with me?”
“No, Child. I am sorry. They are way ahead of your time and could trigger a possibly catastrophic time paradox…or at the very least an undesired anachronism!”
Child’s brown eyes showed some understanding, but also disappointment. “OK, Doctor.”
He stood up and gently picked up the exhausted sleeping pup from the floor. The Child was impressed by the gentleness and care he showed him even though this particular Pluto had caused a lot of trouble in his life. And she had too. But when he turned to walk away, calling her to follow him, she tucked the comic book in the back of her overalls before joining him.
They walked down the spiral staircases, hand in hand, and out the library doors, pausing for the Doctor to close and lock them before they moved down the corridor towards the wardrobe room.
“You’re walking kind of funny, there, Child. Did you hurt yourself?” the Doctor asked with some concern, noticing her gait was a bit off.
“No, I’m fine, Doctor.” And she looked up at him and smiled rather too happy a smile that the Doctor found a little unsettling.
The Far End of the TARDIS Wardrobe Room
“I’ll keep the little sonic sunglasses, but here are your dress, shoes and socks, Child,” he said as he handed them to her one by one just as she entered the change room.
“Thank you, Doctor.”
She was out again, only a few moments later, looking, he hoped, as she had looked when she’d left on her original mission to walk the dog for Mrs. Harrop. Pluto was awake and in his own collar and leash and Child had a firm hold on his leash.
“Doctor, is there any chance we could go back to the Observatory and I could look at Pluto the planet through that enormous telescope, before you take me home?
“I can do better than that.” And he led Child and the dog down the corridor. She was disappointed when it didn’t take them to the Observatory.
The TARDIS Control Room
“Don’t look so sad. Come over to the console beside me,” he reassured her, while he was busily hitting a series of buttons and looking at the console screen.
She went to him, but this time instead of being placed atop the wicker basket, she was held firmly by the waist and lifted up and told, “Pull the lever down hard, Child.” And she did.
Whorrpp whorrpp whorrpp. And then silence.
He opened the doors and there before them was the icy dwarf planet Pluto, looking pretty un-dwarf-like below them, with its largest moon Charon, almost half it’s size, close by its side.
The Doctor relished Child’s wonder as she stood next to him, this time harness free, holding his two ring- hand fingers as she had hours earlier. They looked on in silence, together.
“Did you know it was a young girl named Venetia Burney that suggested calling the planet Pluto after mythological god of the afterlife?”
Silence.
“Erm… that isn’t you, right? That’s not your name, that’s not who you are?”
“No, I’m not Venetia Burney, Doctor. But it’s …”
“It’s what?”
“It’s time to share our names, Doctor. As promised. You first.”
The Doctor thought his name loud and clear and Child apparently had her telepathic connection in the on position because, by her expression, she was suitably surprised.
“Really? That’s it, yes? Oh my,” and she laughed.
“Well?” he said, “Now, how about your name? But first, hand it over, come on. Don’t look so innocent.”
“Close your eyes” she insisted.
“OK,” he replied and closed them firmly.
When he opened them again she’d pulled out the Pluto comic book from somewhere under her dress and was holding it out to him. And in a deep mock-Doctor voice, she said, “A possibly catastrophic time paradox avoided…or at the very least an undesired anachronism prevented!” and laughed, gloriously.
“Thank you, I think…Do I really sound like that?” He smiled.
But Child suddenly grew very serious. She’s been reading his thoughts and now he was reading hers, loud and clear: Doctor I will not let you take anything else from me, not my memories of you and all this. They are mine. You won’t touch them. I thank you for them and the telepathic link… which will also stay with them.
The force of her thoughts was so pronounced that he stepped back, a bit off balance, but then Child spoke out loud in much softer tones.
“Doctor, I know I didn’t always do what I was told, but I want you to know that you mustn’t worry about leaving me my memories of you and our special link. They are safe with me. I will not abuse them. I will not let you down. I trust you, I respect you. I won’t cause any paradoxes. I give you my word.”
“I understand, Child. Although you haven’t really given me much choice, have you?” he chuckled, “But I’ve noticed that the TARDIS seems to have enormous confidence in you for some reason, and since she trusts you so firmly, then I trust you unreservedly. And if you ever need help of any kind, use the link, OK? And the TARDIS and I will be there.”
The TARDIS hmmmmmmed softly.
“Thank you…” and Child thought the Doctor’s name loudly in her mind and his.
“I prefer Doctor” he replied.
“Goodbye, Doctor. See you next year!”
“What?”
“In 1932. The schoolyard.”
His eyes widened and his eyebrows rose. “Ohhhhh!” Silence. “Your name is N.…
“First things first, you need my address: I live at 216 South Alabama Avenue, Monroeville, Alabama, and it should be noon, Sunday, August 30, 1931… And… yes, my name is Nelle with a silent e.”
The Doctor had been typing this into the TARDIS console feverishly but it wasn’t necessary, since the TARDIS was already on her way and in Stealth Mode, too, landing silently and invisibly a few steps away from the house, 20 minutes after Nelle and Pluto had left.
“Goodbye!” she said again as she blew him a kiss. He’d dodged an earlier hug, but accepted the kiss and returned it with a flourish of his hand as the door closed behind her.
And she was gone, Pluto and all, to something-something Alabama Street, Monroeville, Alabama, 1931…
Deep in thought, Doctor looked at the tiny sonic sunglasses sitting on the console, sighed, and realized he was no longer worried that he hadn’t succeeded in removing the telepathic link or erasing Nelle’s memories of him.
“VERY timey-wimey,” he said and pulled the console lever down hard. “With a smattering of Bootstrap Paradox!”
As the TARDIS took flight, the Doctor patted her console and said softly, “You knew all along, didn’t you? Even when I had forgotten.”
***
Author’s Note: This 12th Doctor adventure takes place after Clara Oswald wiped his memories of her and of his 4.5 billion years trapped in his Confession Dial, and before he spends that long last night on Darillium with River, but it also functions as a prequel to Clara Laurinda’s earlier Eighth Doctor Adventures: EDA Series 4, Episode 3.
“Hello!” he said again with a big smile, and gracefully sat down on the floor next to her, talking non-stop in her silence. She was, for once in her short life so far, completely without words.
“What’s all this shouting about Pluto? Looking for a dwarf planet, the Roman god of the underworld or a Disney character? Or are you just… lost?”
She wasn’t sure what he meant by a dwarf planet, but she did know that the 9th planet, Pluto, had been discovered just a year ago, on February 18th, 1930 and was named after the Roman god of the afterlife, but the mention of a Disney character had her baffled because all she knew was a cartoon mouse named Mickey and a duck named Donald. She also knew that Mrs. Harrop had named her beagle pup after said planet, and that the silly pup was now missing.
“I’m looking for a dog. My neighbour’s dog. His name is Pluto…. after the ninth planet that was discovered last year. I don’t know what a dwarf planet is. But the Pluto that is lost is Mrs. Harrop’s dog.
“Well, you won’t find him in here.” He said bluntly, but still with that smile.
“I wasn’t looking for him HERE.” She was starting to get irritated. “What is “here” anyway?
“My TARDIS.”
“Your tardis? A flying merry-go-round?”
The TARDIS made another odd sound like a moan, and the Doctor looked crestfallen at what he took for an insult.
“Nooo,” he said. It’s not a merry-go-round, it’s a special ship that travels through time and space. TARDIS is an acronym that stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space.”
“You’ve made that up.”
“Well actually it was my grand daughter Susan that “made up” the acronym but what the ship does it is actually based on aspects of science.”
“Well” she added. ”I’ve never heard of the word ‘acronym’ but by what you’ve just said, TARDIS is a word made up of the first letter of each of the words in its full name, like a person’s initials? But…are you saying this is a ship that involves more than one…dimension…, that it flies through space, like among the stars and planets and things?
He was impressed with this child’s knowledge and her way of reasoning out the meaning of a word she’d never heard of before, and her over all confidence with with words for such a young child.
“You are very articulate…well spoken for such a young….”
“…child? Well, I am old enough to know what “articulate” means without a definition following. And… I know the next word you’re going to say too…”
“Annoying?”
“Precocious. Most people call me precocious, because they think I know way too much for my age, that I’m always correcting people or that I ask way too many questions.”
“You do.”
“That’s how I learn. I’m curious. And I’ve been reading since I was 4 years old, and listening carefully to others reading before that, and I remember a lot of what I read and hear. Anyway…. I know the dog isn’t in here. I know the Roman God isn’t here either or the planet. I wasn’t looking in here. YOU picked me up out of nowhere right in the middle…”
“No, I didn’t. Unless… she did it for some reason,” he said, nodding towards the central column that was still pumping up and down and whorrp-worrping “…. She does that sometimes. A lot, actually.”
“She?”
“My TARDIS. My…my vehicle. She sometimes, well, often takes me where I’m needed instead of where I meant to go.”
“I don’t need you…I…never asked for help…”
“That doesn’t stop her though,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“I’m not supposed to talk to strangers and you certainly are...”
“Strange?” he laughed. “It’s a matter of perspective. I could say the same of you,” and there was another smile. “My name is the Doctor”
“That’s not a name.”
“It’s what I call myself, what I’m called by others.”
“The Doctor is your name? Really?”
“Yes.”
“Well then, I am the Child”.
She’s quick and… strong willed, he noted.
“How old are you?” he asked.
“That’s rather personal,” she responded, sitting herself up as tall as she could, trying to appear older, but instead of answering him, she asked another question. “How old are YOU?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Well tell me and we’ll see, and then I’ll tell you.”
“Over 2000 years.”
Silence. As silly as his answer seemed, she was fascinated because he didn’t say it in a bragging way, just in a matter-of-fact way, as if it were the truth. Then she asked another question without a hint of impatience or sarcasm and with more than a little awe.
“Are you Methuselah? That’s the longest-living human being I know of…” She stopped for a second. “Or… are you… not human?” Her big dark eyes widened in expectation as she looked into his blue eyes and waited for an answer.
“No… I am not Methusaleh, although I’ve actually met him. Charming chap, for his age.” He winked. “As for your second question, look around you, look closely….
The Doctor remained silent because the Child was figuring it out for herself.
“You aren’t human or you would have answered me right away, with ‘Of course I am.’ So, you aren’t.”
But before he responded she finally answered one of his questions. “I’m 5-and-a-half.”
“Where do you live, Child?”
“Not telling. You’re a stranger, remember?” She paused for a minute. Filling up with curiosity. “You said something about this being your time, your space, your vehicle. That’s very odd. What did you mean? Do you live here? Where are you from?”
“Look I need to take you home, you can’t stay here. People are probably already missing you. They’ll be worried. I need to know where you live, where you come from because of that. I am not trying to pry or to trick you into telling me where you live so I can take you home and tell your parents how rude you are,” he said with remarkable patience, another wink, and another smile.
“I’m precocious. Not rude’ she said and then laughed at herself.
The Doctor sighed. “Look…why don’t you sit on that chair up there, up those stairs, near the book shelves on the second level. I’ll bring my other chair up there and join you. You say you read books. You can sit down and rest a bit. Maybe something on the shelf will interest you.”
The Child climbed up the short stairway leading to level 2 and the bookcase, and sat down. Her dress pulled up slightly to reveal two red-caked knees, and the Doctor came rushing up the stairs with his sonic in hand, set for a med scan, scaring her!
“What is THAT!? What are you doing?” She pulled dress over her knees and pulled her knees up to her chest and stared in horror at the Doctor with his whirring blue crystalline instrument.
“It’s my sonic screwdriver….”
“You put that screwdriver AWAY! You’re frightening me. What’s that noise???”
“It’s not an actual screwdriver. It uses sound waves in many different ways to do many different things, hence the word sonic, as in sound. I’ve set it to work like a medical instrument to tell me what’s wrong with your knees.”
“It’s mud. Red clay, dirt. The roads are full of it and it’s really hard to get off….” She went silent as the dirt fell away from her knees like leaves off a tree. All that was left were her own knees, bruised but not scraped at all and not bleeding… Oh! Thank you. That does feel better.”
Silence. “You know, Doctor, you could warn me when you are going to do something like that...”
“I’m sorry. But you’re right. No injury except for a bit of bruising. The red was the dirt not your blood.”
He sat down beside he in the chair he had forgotten he was carrying in his other hand. No wonder Child had been taken aback with a madman like me coming at her with a chair and a screwdriver!
“I’m sorry about scaring you.” He sat down, not too close to the shaken Child.
“Are you trying to distract me?”
“Distract you from what? I’m trying to help.”
“Distract me…from what happened out there in the road. From my need to find Pluto! From my fear of Pluto running around out there on his own dragging his leash and maybe getting caught up somewhere …and injured…and all we are doing is wasting time! I really do need to find him. I promised to take care of him to show my parents I am old enough to take care of a dog so they will let me have my own and now I’ve lost him and he could even be dead. I really wanted a dog…” She took a deep breath and a large tear rolled down her right cheek.
The Doctor was oddly relieved by her torrent of words and emotion.
At last she was acting like the little girl she was pretending she wasn’t.
And the Doctor himself quietened down. He’d had had his own fears too, but they’d remained unspoken. Fears such as whether this exceptional Child was for real, or whether someone from the time of his 11th incarnation had created this extraordinary being as a means of prying his name from him so the Time Lords could return from their exile through that crack in the fabric of time and space that had sat so long in the basement of a tower on Trenzalore.
But now there was something about Child that was calming his fears although he wasn’t sure why. He would give her a chance. Besides, she was extraordinary.
He snapped out of his reverie, pulled a book off the shelf next to him and handed it to her. “How well do you read? Ever heard of H.G. Wells?”
She took the book and read the title on the binding. “The Time Machine. I read very well, thank you. I’ve heard of this book. Brother told me about it. He’s promised to find a copy of it for me. We don’t have a library in town”.
“Brother?”
“My brother Edwin. But we call him Brother. He’s 10.”
“I’ve met H.G. Wells.”
“Just like you’ve met Methuselah? You do get around. Wait…are you trying to tell me something? With this book?
“Yes, I am”.
“Are you a time…”
“… traveller. Yes. I travel in both space and time.”
“Well….” Long pause. “Maybe I do need you…after all…maybe you COULD help me find Pluto, and then,,,I’ll tell you my name and you can take us home,” As an afterthought she added, “Please?”
“Yes, I could….” He said this with certainty but he had some misgivings. He flicked a switch and the console screen came on, showing where they were. It was a dusty red road, with a few puddles, with tall grass mixed with reeds on either side. Earth. The WHEN and specific WHERE weren’t clear. The Child’s clothes didn’t reveal much. Scuffed shoes, white “Sunday Best” dress. Nothing cried out any specific time period or location. And for some reason, the TARDIS wasn’t helping. No text indicating time or location. Did she really not know where she’d landed?
However, with Child’s sudden shift in mood, he suspected he knew what was coming next, and he was right.
“We could go back in time before I lost him! And before I messed up my dress and knees,” she stated rather than asked.
“Well…that could be dangerous.”
“WHY?”
“You might see yourself. “
“I see myself all the time in mirrors and windows…” The Doctor believed she was being deliberately evasive. He could tell she sensed what he was getting at and was pretending she didn’t know.
“Yes, but this is different. And I think you know that. I mean, if your present self meets your past self, even if it’s only a few minutes in the past, you could endanger your own timeline and everyone and every event connected with it, and that could change the future with possibly very serious consequences. And since I don’t know who you are or where you’ve come from and who you might become….”
“But just rescuing a dog on a late summer afternoon isn’t going to cause any disaster in time if I promise NOT to meet myself?”
“That doesn’t mean that something unexpected won’t happen, beyond your control… Right, so having said that…here’s my plan: we go back to just before the dog….”
“Pluto”
“Yes, before Pluto takes off after the rabbit, and then I take you and him back home without incident and you show you can take care of a dog and hopefully no ripples in time occur that alter the future of humankind.”
“OK”
“I should warn you that my plans almost never go as planned…. But…. I usually get there in the end.”
Silence, and then a slightly less confident “OK” from Child.
“First things first, you need a change of clothes. Your dress isn’t the best thing to go tracking in.”
“I know. It didn’t start out as a search. I’ve already got red dust and smudges all over it and they might give me away if I go home that way…”
“No worries. I have a sonic dry-cleaning set-up in the wardrobe room, so leave it hanging in the special CLEANUP area, after you choose what you think you’d like to wear.”
“You have a wardrobe room?”
“Yes, it has just about anything anyone would need. Easy to find. First door on the left, second right, under the stairs, past the bins (garbage cans in your language) first door on the left.”
Silence.
“Well, get going. Why are you looking at me like that? Are you laughing?”
“Well they are funny, aren’t they! Those are your directions for someone who just got lost in their own town?”
“Well…”
She reached out and took hold of his left hand, but his hand was so much bigger than hers, with long slender fingers, that she ended up holding onto to his ring finger and little finger instead. “Why don’t you just take me there?”
“OK. But here’s a thought: Do you need to use the…toilet? Because that’s a whole other set of directions!” Now he was laughing.
“No, I am OK.” She smiled. “One set of directions at a time.”
And together they walked towards the first door on the left.
A TARDIS Corridor
“What’s this ring? It’s beautiful,” Child said as she looked more closely at the unusual ring she’d accidently touched when she first took his hand. “Does it have a special meaning?”
“Yes.”
“Are you married?”
“Well that’s a very personal question to ask a stranger,” he replied gently mocking her previous remarks about not telling strangers anything personal.
She picked up on that and added, “Well, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. I still think your ring is beautiful.”
“Yes.”
“Yes what?”
“I am married. Anything else?”
“Children?”
“Yes. A long time ago.”
“I can tell. You are very kind and…patient.”
“It’s just a front. An illusion. Makes it easier to get along.”
But his wink and her experience of him thus far, convinced her this wasn’t true.
“Here we are,” he said as they arrived at a door labelled Wardrobe, which he swung open with his right hand.
Silence. And then, “It’s bigger than the biggest store I’ve ever seen!” whooped Child and she ran off into the rows and rows of hanging clothes, with the Doctor in pursuit, taking a deep breath and reminding himself how very kind and patient he was….
The Far End of the TARDIS Wardrobe Room
‘Wow!”
She was standing in front of the only section of the wardrobe room that had a row or two of clothing on racks she could reach, and she was already holding a worn pair of overalls and a white shirt, just her size, or close.
“This is what I usually wear when I am not in school or going to church. I wear Brother’s hand-me-down overalls! Do these belong to anyone?”
“Well, no, I’ve never seen those before, actually, which is not unusual. I don’t know half the stuff in this room. The TARDIS is in charge here.” She’s in charge pretty much everywhere and over everything he thought to himself. “The change room is over there, so go right on in and when you’ve changed, give me your dress for cleaning.”
Moments later, on their way out of the room, they passed the CLEAN UP sign above what looked like a sort of stand alone hat stand, with a hanger dangling empty. The Doctor slid Child’s dress onto the hanger and pressed a nearby button, and a tiny hum could be heard as tiny bits of red dirt began falling off the dress and into a special catchall tray below. The Doctor had to drag the wide-eyed Child away from the sight and out the door.
The TARDIS Console Room, a Few Minutes Later
Perhaps in retrospect, the Doctor might have considered rethinking these next few moments when he allowed his fledgling trust of Child to cause him to leave this little loose canon alone in the console room for 5 or 10 minutes while he went to retrieve some items in preparation for their dog hunt, but at the time he simply brought her back to the console room, sat her in his chair nearby and left with a hurried few words over his shoulder: “I’ll be back in just a mo! Sit down in that chair and DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING, I’ll be right back!”
So, there she sat, Miss Queen of Curiosity, alone near the console, a figurative red flag just having been waved in her face as if in she were an approaching bull.
It didn’t take long for her to get down to business. Up on her feet, mere seconds after the Doctor’s departure, she moved swiftly towards the console.
“Ermm… Miss? MissTARDIS? Are you listening?”
There was a soft hum, over and above all the other TARDIS noises, almost like someone was saying “hmmmm?”
Whispering, as she moved closer, she added, “Do YOU know his name?”
“Hmmmmmmm Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh” was the audible response, the last part sounding not only like a hiss of air, but also like a gentle warning.
“Not telling, then.”
This time, instead of a noise, the console’s all-purpose scanner/screen/information terminal came to life so suddenly, that Child stepped back a bit, and watched in awe, even from her low vantage point, as it filled itself with images and explanatory headings and text revealing the Doctor’ home planet of Gallifrey, a brief history of Time Lords, a series of images and basic concepts on realities of regeneration, including images of all the Doctors incarnations thus far and a list and series of images and written biographical details about his “companions” over the centuries. But when Child saw her own image and the start of her own biographical history-- “First Encounter: Dirt road, Earth, Sunday, August 30th, 1931; Second Encounter: Schoolyard, Earth, Late Spring, 1932 -- she recoiled in shock and the screen went dark.
Unknown to her, this had been an exceptional few moments, with the TARDIS doing something she had never done before and would likely never do again. The why was never clear, even when the Doctor would ask the TARDIS many times when they were alone once again.
Before Child could do or say anything, the Doctor was back in the room and very upset, having re-entered the room few seconds earlier, and noticed the flicker of the screen’s light on Child’s face as it shut down.
“I told you NOT TO TOUCH ANYTHING!” He rushed over and stared at the blank screen, fixedly, as if expecting to the ghosts of what she might have seen.
“I didn’t touch anything.” It was as close to a lie as she had come thus far; a lie of omission, or rather, of carefully chosen words.
The Doctor looked up at the time rotor, touched the console gently and, clearly speaking to the TARDIS, asked in a whisper, “What’s going on? What are you up to?” But there was only an inconclusive hmmmmmmm in response.
The Child now noticed that the Doctor was wearing a pair of sunglasses and had just set down a large whicker basket and was digging in it.
“We aren’t going on a picnic, Doctor, so what’s all this? And why are you wearing sunglasses indoors?”
“Don’t change the subject, Child! What were you doing just now as I came in?!” But he was so excited to share his plan, that he let his pique drop just as suddenly as it had appeared, and launched into his explanation.
“It’s all part of my plan, and these are our tools! I am wearing sonic sunglasses, that function in part as an information retrieval system and scanner, not unlike what you were…just looking at on the console (he stared at her sternly once again). They also work like my sonic screwdriver, using sound to interact with and alter things and, most important in our case…TRACK the heat signature of missing dogs! And… these, are for YOU!”
The Doctor had opened the basket and instead of sandwiches he all too proudly pulled out an almost identical but tiny pair of sonic sunglasses, Child-sized, and placed them on her face, to great ooos and awws from Child as she saw far more than the Doctor through the lenses.
“This… is for you too…” he said, placing the basket, lid down just under another part of the TARDIS console, on the other side.
Silence. But she did follow him around to the other side of the console.
“OK, let me explain. This… is how we are going to find you and Toto…”
“PLUTO!”
“Yes sorry, Pluto…. by using the TARDIS’s telepathic interface to go back along your timeline to the point where he pulled away from you. But, in order to do this, you need to climb up on this basket and put your hands in here…”
Child looked extremely doubtful, but she climbed up with the Doctor’s assistance, and stared at the glowing pinkish, almost flesh-coloured squares of soft…something…that she was expected to stick her hands into. But when the TARDIS emitted a familiar hmmmmmm sound, like encouragement and reassurance, Child got ready, as the Doctor stepped back.
“Now it is important for you to insert your hands carefully and hold on no matter what.”
Child looked at him in mild surprise and concern, wondering what “no matter what” meant.
“And then, once they’re in there, think back to the exact moment today when Toto…Pluto started straining on the leash before he dragged it out of your hands and took off. Think of nothing or no one else. That’s why I’ve stepped back… so I won’t distract you.”
“This is called a what?”
“The TARDIS telepathic interface.”
“I won’t be sticking my hands inside her body, will I?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. She’s a machine…” The TARDIS made a distinctly derisive noise…. “It’s not actual flesh…and you won’t hurt her… except maybe her feelings…sorry,” the Doctor ended in a mumbled apology directed at the TARDIS time rotor. “I mean, no it’s not her body or brain. It’s a flesh-like access point to her circuitry that enables your hands to link your brain and your memory directly to the TARDIS and be able to help her fly us directly to the time and place this all started. OK?”
Her hands went in. “Oh, that feels…warm and squishy…but nice... sort of.”
“Focus, Child. Focus on the moment when Pluto pulled away…”
“Focussing Doctor, hush. You are distracting me,” she winked although he couldn’t see it.
The TARDIS time rotor started to pump and the familiar wheezing worrpp worrpp started up again and then quietened down a bit.
The Doctor was looking at the landscape outside the TARDIS as it appeared on the console screen/scanner/monitor and said softly. “There you are Pluto my boy” and landed the TARDIS not far in front of him. Worrpp worrpp worpp.
“Doctor…”
“Not now Child, I am concentrating.”
“Doctor, can you concentrate on seeing Pluto run away?” she said, as he watched Pluto doing exactly that. “The TARDIS’ worrpp has scared him away,” she noted, drily, “not to mention the sudden appearance of a flying blue box…” Her hands were now out of the TARDIS interface as she too watched the image of a retreating Pluto racing away, deeper into the damp field of grass and reeds.
“Shhhhh, I am trying to keep him in view. You’re right. I wasn’t thinking!” He flipped a switch and all was silent until he shouted, “In stealth mode NOW!”
“Stealth mode?”
“No noise, no visual. We can see him but he can’t see or hear us. OK, Child, I need your help. This little guy is travelling fast, even with his dragging leash, so we need to act quickly. Go over to that wicker-basket-that-isn’t-a-picnic basket and pull out the harness that’s in there and strap it on over your overalls. One size fits all. Child? Why aren’t you moving?”
“I need to know WHY I am doing this Doctor,” she replied, simply.
“Because I am going to open the TARDIS doors as we get closer to him and the harness is on a tether that attaches to that purple hook-thing under the console and it will keep you safe and secure while you look out the door after him as we fly at high speed so you won’t fall out and so can be ready to release your harness and go after him as soon as we land. Keep your sonic sunglasses on and you will be able to follow his heat signature…a coloured blobby image… of him…”
She already had the harness on, securely she hoped, and had just hooked the tether to the purple thing when the TARDIS doors opened. They were skimming rapidly over a field of tall grass and pockets of reeds. She could see Pluto’s white tail-tip without the silly sunglasses which she pushed back on top of her head. The grass was right beneath her, and the swishing sound and the smell of the grass and nearby wildflowers and reeds and mud, was so exhilarating that she wanted to whoooop with joy, but the Doctor anticipated this and whispered loudly, “Remember! STEALTH MODE! That includes you. Shhhhhhh. And me.”
The TARDIS landed, silently and invisibly, about 100 feet in front Pluto’s projected path. Child released the harness and was out the door before the Doctor realized it, calling Pluto’s name.
“The sunglasses have a dog whistle mode if you need it!” he yelled after her, before he saw the abandoned sunglasses lying on the floor, having slid off her head as she left.
A few moments later she called out, “Got him Doctor! He’s licking me all over! But he won’t let me grab his leash so I am going to have to herd him towards the TARDIS. Could you please un-stealth it, so I can see where we’re going?”
“Done,” said the Doctor and the blue box reappeared only 25 feet away from Child and Pluto as they came racing at it.
“Grab his leash when he comes through the door Doctor!”
A flash of brown, white and black sped past him and he grabbed the leash with a feeling of great achievement. Except Pluto chose this moment to slide out of his collar and take off down the TARDIS stairs to the lower level and down one of the halls at full tilt.
Child came running in and looked at the Doctor in exasperation.
“Well….” Said the Doctor sheepishly, “I DID grab the leash. Sorry. Come here Child. At least he’s in the TARDIS and we can track him more easily in here. Yes, it is a huge place, but…if you’ll permit me to make a telepathic link between your mind and my mind, we can split off in two directions and keep in touch through our minds (no shouting to scare the dog), help each other find him and not get lost ourselves!”
Child was standing before him looking concerned. “A telepathic link?” she asked, remembering the link she’d just made with the TARDIS, and clearly worried about what this new link would involve.
“Oh, it’s nothing like linking with the TARDIS telepathic interface. All I do is touch each side of your forehead with my hands, gently, and look into your eyes, then BINGO our minds are linked.”
“Forever?”
“Well no…I’ll make a slight adjustment before I drop you off home…” Luckily there was no link established yet, or she’d know that he was planning to erase her memory of him and this whole experience before he returned her home. Standard procedure, he’d convinced himself.
But his odd wording had the Child eyeing him suspiciously. “What do you mean by ‘make a slight adjustment’? To what? To my mind?”
“Nothing to worry about. I promise. Do you trust me?”
“Well…I…” she looked into his eyes, and sighed.
“Do you TRUST me?” he repeated.
“Yes.”
The Doctor knelt in front of the Child, gently touched her temples, looked into those lively brown eyes, and the link was made. He also handed back her mini sonic sunglasses. “You’ll need these too, to help track the dog’s….
“…’heat signature or coloured blobby image’” she repeated, still unsure of what it meant.
“Yes, exactly! And here, take this too.” He passed her the last thing left in the wicker basket—a second dog collar and leash. “I’ll take the one he left behind,” he added, holding it up, with some residual embarrassment.
“How did you know we would need an extra one?”
“Because experience has taught me that my plans tend to go a little…sideways, and back-up equipment is always a good thing to have.”
“Like the harness…”
“Yes”
They were already headed down the console room stairs during all this banter and when they got to the doorway leading out to the corridors, the Doctor said he was headed off to the kitchen and pool using the hallway on the left and he suggested Child head down to the first corridor on the right in the direction of the macaroon dispenser and the washroom.
“The macaroon dispenser?”
“You can’t miss it!”
Several TARDIS Corridors and Assorted Rooms
Testing. Testing. Can you hear me thinking, Child?
Yes, Doctor. Can you hear ME thinking? WHAT is a macaroon dispenser?
You’ll know it when you see it. OK. Re-focus on the search for the d…Pluto, and, from now on we’ll communicate this way, with thoughts, no talking out loud or especially shouting. Stealth mode, OK.
Shouldn’t we be invisible too?
Very funny, Child. Just stay focussed on Toto…
Pluto.
Sorry, yes. I am heading towards the kitchen now. Where are you?
I’m at the macaroon dispenser, Doctor, as a matter of fact, but no sign of Pluto. You see anything?
I see some strands of grass and an old soggy leaf and one muddy paw print, so he’s been through here. OHHH!
Child jumped at his very loud thought. Doctor! Way too loud! What’s happening?
He’s been in the kitchen, all right. It’s a total wreck… He ate the rest of my breakfast sausage and fried eggs. What he didn’t eat, he smeared on the floor, the table, the walls, the ceiling. How is that possible?And it’s all mixed in with grass and red mud.
Doctor how big was your breakfast? Wait! Pluto just crossed my corridor going to the right, about 20 feet from me,…headed…
To the pool? If you are still at the macaroon dispenser…
I am, Doctor.
Then he’s headed to the pool for sure. Probably thirsty and in need of a bath! The Doctor dashed in the dog’s direction, his sonic sunglasses indicating that Pluto was not far from him but headed away from him and towards the pool.
Doctor. Don’t they put stuff in pools like chlorine to keep it from germs and green slime?
Not my pool. The water is always clean and clear and doesn’t hurt the eyes and you can drink it in a pinch without harm.
Sonic technology again, Doctor?
Well not entirely, but the automatic drying system that kicks in only as you step out of the pool is sonic.… Wait… I‘m at the pool now, just stepped through the side door. He’s standing on the other side of the pool, drinking like mad. Doesn’t hear me. I am being very quiet…no, wait… sees me and there he goes into the water…. Wow this pup can swim. I think I scared him.
I can’t think why Doctor, since you have such a way with dogs…What’s Pluto doing? I… am…
Lost again?
No… I’m on my way to you. I can read Pluto’s heat signature and yours too. Does the increasingly loud beeping of the sunglasses mean I’m getting closer?
Yes. And Pluto is swimming the full length of the pool, trying to get away from me. Oh, my good…LOOK AT THE MESS HE’S LEAVING IN HIS WAKE…
Doctor, please calm down or your mind-shouting will melt both our brains! What’s wrong?
There is now an island of red clay mud and grass and pieces of egg floating in the centre of the pool and he keeps swimming around and around to get away from it and me. He won’t land. He won’t come out.
Let him swim Doctor, he’ll tire himself and have to climb out…
FLOOP!
What-on-earth was that, Doctor. I heard from here!?
The automatic drying system. He’s out of the pool and the room, dry as a bone and clean as a whistle, and he’s running….
I bet he is, poor Pluto. My way? Yes, he just passed me. I’m following him now... He’s just gone into… you have an observatory? Oh, this is beautiful. A glass-domed observatory … I can see so many stars in the sky…no…space I mean! And look at that telescope!
STAY FOCUSSED… shhhhhh… I mean, stay focussed Child. Where’s Pluto now? And, please, no planet Pluto jokes…
AAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
Child!?
Doctor, that wasn’t me. It was…
Toto?
Yes, Toto…. I give up….
Don’t give… oh! You mean I got it wrong again? I mix up names when I’m excited. Sorry.
Focus Doctor. Pluto just howled at the heavens, the moon, or me, now he’s gone again, out the door, and, I’m out the door after him. He’s headed down this corridor towards a large pair of doors at the end…
The library, Child. According to the TARDIS schematics I’m accessing through my glasses I can see him heading straight for it and the doors are… open. Yes I’m the idiot that left them open, that’s my fault… and it’s one of the most dangerous rooms in the TARDIS. It holds the history, culture and literature of planet in millions of books from throughout the universe and that knowledge is meant to stay there, under my care, and not be shredded by an unstoppable canine force, as cute as he may be!
Hush Doctor. Don’t be so dramatic. He’s just a pup and he’s not an unstoppable force. OK Doctor, I‘m here. At the library doorway. Where are you?
I’m still a few minutes away. Wait for me.
No. Pluto’s climbing upward on one of the spiral staircases. How many floors are there?
Five, but it’s dangerous in there, Child…
He’s at level three and I am going in after him... What an amazing room!
Stay where you are Child. I don’t want you doing anything until I get there.
Silence.
“Child? Child!” the Doctor was now calling out loud.
Hush Doctor. Stealth mode. Don’t scare the dog. I can hear you from here and so can he. He’s just stopped and tilted his head as if trying to figure out what he’s hearing. I am turning off the mind link, so I can think. Trust me, I am going in, Doctor. I am a champion tree climber…
Turning off the telepathic link? How can….no one has ever done that before. Child? A tree climber? USE THE STAIRS!
The TARDIS Library
Child stood in awe for a few seconds, just long enough to get her bearings, after stepping into the library. She looked down the long central aisle dividing the room into two separate banks of what looked like wrought iron shelves, five levels high, floor to ceiling bookshelves, each with an access balcony reachable by a series of connected spiral staircases as well as by ornate iron ladders that, when aligned, climbed straight up from the floor level to ceiling and yet apparently could slide independently along each aisle—the fifth level ladder had been slid out of the line and along the shelves of that floor.
For child, who had never been to a library in her life, this was heaven. Millions and millions of books in all colours and sizes filled the shelves.
She removed her shoes and socks and sonic sunglasses, left them on the floor, and started her climb up the library’s string of ladders. She could climb them faster than chasing up the dizzying spiral staircases and she could see that Pluto was sitting quietly, at least for the moment, on the fourth level, not far from the ladder. Unknown to Child, her every move was being watched, and not by Pluto.
The TARDIS Corridor Leading to the Library
The Doctor was watching Child’s ascent on his sonic sunglasses which he’d used to hack into his own library security cameras. Child’s telepathic link with him was still severed, so he watched in silence as this little hellion climbed with stamina and assurance straight up to the fourth level.
The TARDIS Library
He arrived at the library and entered quietly, disengaged his link to the surveillance system, and set up a perception filter around himself to maintain the all-important Stealth Mode that Child was, quite sensibly, set on him adhering to. He scanned the shelves looking for any sign of Child and the annoying dog, and smiled a bit at his thoughts. I can’t believe I’ve allowed a 5-year old child, cow me into following her orders!
I’m five-and-half years old, Doctor and I am not a cow. Shhh. We are over here! Her mind link was back on.
The Doctor could see their heat signatures in his sunglasses. They were stationary, on the fourth level to the left of the centre aisle. He took off his glasses, put them in his inside jacket pocket and walked towards the main floor shelves below where Child and the dog were sitting. He found Child’s socks, shoes and sonic sunglasses, scooped them up and put them in the same pocket, and then looked up to see Child’s bare feet dangling and swinging comfortably over the edge of the balcony four levels up.
He walked up the nearest spiral staircase in silence, and headed towards the pair. The dog seemed fast asleep, although he wasn’t trusting that little monster for one second, even though a collar was now safely round his neck, the leash held by Child, who’d looped the end around her arm as she sat intently reading Walt Disney’s Pluto, a comic book from 1957.
“Here, you’ll need this,” he said as he handed her Pluto’s actual collar and leash that she’d watched him pull out of his jacket pocket.
“Your pockets are bigger on the inside too?” she asked with a grin, nodding towards his pocket while attempting to jam most of the leash and collar into the pocket of her borrowed overalls. “Not MY pocket, though, eh Doctor?” They both laughed.
“I’ve been reading up on the other two Plutos, Doctor… Disney’s (she lifted up the comic) and the dwarf planet.” She gestured to the book sitting on the floor next to her.
“It’s time to go, Child.”
“May I please take these books with me?”
“No, Child. I am sorry. They are way ahead of your time and could trigger a possibly catastrophic time paradox…or at the very least an undesired anachronism!”
Child’s brown eyes showed some understanding, but also disappointment. “OK, Doctor.”
He stood up and gently picked up the exhausted sleeping pup from the floor. The Child was impressed by the gentleness and care he showed him even though this particular Pluto had caused a lot of trouble in his life. And she had too. But when he turned to walk away, calling her to follow him, she tucked the comic book in the back of her overalls before joining him.
They walked down the spiral staircases, hand in hand, and out the library doors, pausing for the Doctor to close and lock them before they moved down the corridor towards the wardrobe room.
“You’re walking kind of funny, there, Child. Did you hurt yourself?” the Doctor asked with some concern, noticing her gait was a bit off.
“No, I’m fine, Doctor.” And she looked up at him and smiled rather too happy a smile that the Doctor found a little unsettling.
The Far End of the TARDIS Wardrobe Room
“I’ll keep the little sonic sunglasses, but here are your dress, shoes and socks, Child,” he said as he handed them to her one by one just as she entered the change room.
“Thank you, Doctor.”
She was out again, only a few moments later, looking, he hoped, as she had looked when she’d left on her original mission to walk the dog for Mrs. Harrop. Pluto was awake and in his own collar and leash and Child had a firm hold on his leash.
“Doctor, is there any chance we could go back to the Observatory and I could look at Pluto the planet through that enormous telescope, before you take me home?
“I can do better than that.” And he led Child and the dog down the corridor. She was disappointed when it didn’t take them to the Observatory.
The TARDIS Control Room
“Don’t look so sad. Come over to the console beside me,” he reassured her, while he was busily hitting a series of buttons and looking at the console screen.
She went to him, but this time instead of being placed atop the wicker basket, she was held firmly by the waist and lifted up and told, “Pull the lever down hard, Child.” And she did.
Whorrpp whorrpp whorrpp. And then silence.
He opened the doors and there before them was the icy dwarf planet Pluto, looking pretty un-dwarf-like below them, with its largest moon Charon, almost half it’s size, close by its side.
The Doctor relished Child’s wonder as she stood next to him, this time harness free, holding his two ring- hand fingers as she had hours earlier. They looked on in silence, together.
“Did you know it was a young girl named Venetia Burney that suggested calling the planet Pluto after mythological god of the afterlife?”
Silence.
“Erm… that isn’t you, right? That’s not your name, that’s not who you are?”
“No, I’m not Venetia Burney, Doctor. But it’s …”
“It’s what?”
“It’s time to share our names, Doctor. As promised. You first.”
The Doctor thought his name loud and clear and Child apparently had her telepathic connection in the on position because, by her expression, she was suitably surprised.
“Really? That’s it, yes? Oh my,” and she laughed.
“Well?” he said, “Now, how about your name? But first, hand it over, come on. Don’t look so innocent.”
“Close your eyes” she insisted.
“OK,” he replied and closed them firmly.
When he opened them again she’d pulled out the Pluto comic book from somewhere under her dress and was holding it out to him. And in a deep mock-Doctor voice, she said, “A possibly catastrophic time paradox avoided…or at the very least an undesired anachronism prevented!” and laughed, gloriously.
“Thank you, I think…Do I really sound like that?” He smiled.
But Child suddenly grew very serious. She’s been reading his thoughts and now he was reading hers, loud and clear: Doctor I will not let you take anything else from me, not my memories of you and all this. They are mine. You won’t touch them. I thank you for them and the telepathic link… which will also stay with them.
The force of her thoughts was so pronounced that he stepped back, a bit off balance, but then Child spoke out loud in much softer tones.
“Doctor, I know I didn’t always do what I was told, but I want you to know that you mustn’t worry about leaving me my memories of you and our special link. They are safe with me. I will not abuse them. I will not let you down. I trust you, I respect you. I won’t cause any paradoxes. I give you my word.”
“I understand, Child. Although you haven’t really given me much choice, have you?” he chuckled, “But I’ve noticed that the TARDIS seems to have enormous confidence in you for some reason, and since she trusts you so firmly, then I trust you unreservedly. And if you ever need help of any kind, use the link, OK? And the TARDIS and I will be there.”
The TARDIS hmmmmmmed softly.
“Thank you…” and Child thought the Doctor’s name loudly in her mind and his.
“I prefer Doctor” he replied.
“Goodbye, Doctor. See you next year!”
“What?”
“In 1932. The schoolyard.”
His eyes widened and his eyebrows rose. “Ohhhhh!” Silence. “Your name is N.…
“First things first, you need my address: I live at 216 South Alabama Avenue, Monroeville, Alabama, and it should be noon, Sunday, August 30, 1931… And… yes, my name is Nelle with a silent e.”
The Doctor had been typing this into the TARDIS console feverishly but it wasn’t necessary, since the TARDIS was already on her way and in Stealth Mode, too, landing silently and invisibly a few steps away from the house, 20 minutes after Nelle and Pluto had left.
“Goodbye!” she said again as she blew him a kiss. He’d dodged an earlier hug, but accepted the kiss and returned it with a flourish of his hand as the door closed behind her.
And she was gone, Pluto and all, to something-something Alabama Street, Monroeville, Alabama, 1931…
Deep in thought, Doctor looked at the tiny sonic sunglasses sitting on the console, sighed, and realized he was no longer worried that he hadn’t succeeded in removing the telepathic link or erasing Nelle’s memories of him.
“VERY timey-wimey,” he said and pulled the console lever down hard. “With a smattering of Bootstrap Paradox!”
As the TARDIS took flight, the Doctor patted her console and said softly, “You knew all along, didn’t you? Even when I had forgotten.”
***
Author’s Note: This 12th Doctor adventure takes place after Clara Oswald wiped his memories of her and of his 4.5 billion years trapped in his Confession Dial, and before he spends that long last night on Darillium with River, but it also functions as a prequel to Clara Laurinda’s earlier Eighth Doctor Adventures: EDA Series 4, Episode 3.
|
|
writer - CLARA LAURINDA
cover art - JANINE RIVERS
story editors - ZOE LANCE & ED GOUNDREY-SMITH
producer - JANINE RIVERS & ED GOUNDREY-SMITH
cover art - JANINE RIVERS
story editors - ZOE LANCE & ED GOUNDREY-SMITH
producer - JANINE RIVERS & ED GOUNDREY-SMITH