The Time Shifter Read Online Free Page A

canister. She pressed her spectacular bracelet, and Amelia braced herself for the blinding flash of white light streaked through with blue.

Amelia finished washing her hands at the sink, and shuddered with relief. She and Charlie were safe.
    But no-one at the hotel is , she realised.
    ‘Not again!’ came Charlie’s voice from across the room, loud and careless in his exasperation.
    ‘Hey, Charlie,’ said Sophie T, weaving her way between the tables with her jar of filthy paint-water and the palette of paint. ‘When are you going to stop being such a total weirdo and yelling random stuff?’
    ‘Hey, Sophie T,’ he snapped back. ‘When are you going to stop being such an epic fail and chucking paint everywhere?’
    Amelia held her breath as Ms Slaviero raised a puzzled eyebrow, but Sophie T just gave him a pitying look.
    ‘ Seriously , Charles? Do I look like I’m throwing anything anywhere?’
    Then with a great show of condescension, she stepped right over Charlie’s bag and as far away from him as she could, sighing heavily.
    Charlie couldn’t have cared less. Like Amelia, who by now had grabbed her bag, he just wanted to get back to the hotel.
    The bell rang loudly.
    ‘Yep!’ Charlie said briskly over his shoulder to Ms Slaviero as he and Amelia headed straight for the door. ‘Excursion notes for next week – we’re on it.’
    ‘What do you remember?’ said Amelia as soon as they were past the school gates. They were both walking fast.
    ‘Danger,’ said Charlie. ‘I know something really bad almost happened. Or is it about to happen? I’m not totally sure …’
    ‘Same as me.’ Amelia nodded. ‘I’ve got flashes, but it’s a bit muddled.’
    ‘But we have done this before, right?’
    ‘I think so. And I think we’re getting better at it.’
    They jogged a little faster.
    ‘I remember that woman,’ said Charlie. ‘And that bracelet thing – she’s controlling all this, right? And …’ he fell silent.
    ‘Something like Krskn?’ said Amelia. ‘Yeah, I remember that too.’
    ‘Who could forget?’
    ‘Well, everyone apparently. As far as I can tell, no-one else has a clue we’re stuck in some … loop or whatever.’
    ‘Grawk knows,’ said Charlie, watching as the not-quite-a-dog bounded out from the bushes, his paws covered in dirt.
    Amelia looked at Grawk with apprehension. There was something strange going on with him, and, though she couldn’t remember why, Amelia now felt slightly scared of him. Not because he’d been moody and sour lately, but because she suddenly realised that no-one knew exactly what he was capable of – or what he might become.
    ‘But why us?’ she puzzled. ‘Why do we remember and no-one else?’
    They thought hard for another few steps, then cried out together, ‘The sphere!’ and pelted as fast as they could up the steep hill to the headland.
    Grawk led them to the hotel’s gates and over to the left, but by the time he had stopped at the shallow hole in the grass, Amelia knew exactly what to do.
    She and Charlie bent together to pick up the glowing white sphere, and in their two cupped hands they saw currents of blue light marbling its surface. It made a shrill whining noise, and their hair stood on end as coolness washed over them. Amelia felt a dizzying rush of knowledge, as though she had stepped out of time itself and could see all eternity laid out like a map in front of her.
    Keeping hold of the sphere, she turned to look behind her. Eight figures were walking toward them: two sets of four, walking in single file, one set heading for Amelia, the other for Charlie. The figures were all translucent, so that as Amelia looked at the ones going for Charlie, it was like looking through gauze. But then she saw the ones coming for her, all four lined up, and in overlapping they became substantial enough for her to see properly.
    ‘It’s me !’ she gasped. ‘Oh, and that must be you. It’s like the trace left behind from the other times