When The Clocks Turn Back

Mariam Muslim

Daastan Publishing 2023

First Published in Pakistan by Daastan PVT LTD

House # A-41, Madni Street, Lala Rukh, Wah Cantt, Punjab 47040

www.daastan.com

www.meraqissa.com

Text copyrights © Mariam Muslim

Book Design copyright © Mariam Muslim

Edited by: Mariam Rizvi

The moral rights of the writer, illustrator, and editor have been asserted.

All rights reserved.

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or distributed in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN 978-969-696-800-9

To my parents who’ve always helped me and supported me through thick and thin. Thank you.

PREFACE

History, specifically Egypt’s, has always intrigued me. Reading and learning about people who lived thousands of years ago, their culture, art, and such has always been intriguing to me. Before I began writing this book, there had been an alternate plot that I’d already begun to write. It too had time travel. Why did I change it? Because a thought clouded my mind. What if…there was a story about a period in time, about someone, and something related to time travel. It could have been about World War II, or maybe the French Revolution; who knows. But, for some reason, it was Egypt that caught my eye.

I read A LOT of trivial facts about Egypt, Tutankhamun, like what he did, why he was famous, who acquired the throne after him, and after him and after him, blah blah blah; all of which had literally nothing to do with the storyline, it was all part of the process. I have never written a book before, and this is my attempt at writing something that I think I might’ve liked reading, or watching (maybe like an animated series?) as a kid.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter One.

Chapter Two.

Chapter Three.

Chapter Four

Chapter Five.

Chapter Six.

Chapter Seven.

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine.

Chapter Ten.

Chapter Eleven.

Chapter Twelve.

Chapter Thirteen.

Chapter Fourteen.

Chapter Fifteen.

Chapter Sixteen.

Chapter Seventeen.

Chapter Eighteen.

Chapter Nineteen.

Chapter Twenty.

When The Clocks Turn Back

CHAPTER ONE

‘How much longer now???’ Read the neon blue sticky note in front of me, passed on to me by none other than my twin brother, Levi. For what felt like the hundredth time, I discreetly scribbled down the time and passed the note on to Amara, who huffed in annoyance yet passed it on to Levi. He gave me a grin, which I presumed said thank you, and then he opened the note. His face shifted to one of horror. This was immensely exaggerated. There were only five minutes left of school, anyway, AND....it was the last day of school before the summer holidays.

Mrs. Klinton, our history teacher, was thus assigning us a history project that was to be done during the duration of our summer holidays. Sometimes it felt like she was this alien who had somehow landed on earth and was asking us for translations in Egyptian hieroglyphics- wait Hieroglyphics?

“…Tutankhamun.”

“Mrs. Klinton, what did you say about Tuta-something?” I asked with my brows furrowed. That can’t be right, there’s no such thing as Tuta-something.

As I was pondering, Mrs. Klinton sighed, and while organizing her notes, she briskly replied, “Sage, if you had been paying any attention, like your twin brother, you would know that we have been discussing the summer project. About your Tuta-something, it’s Tutankhamun, the thirteenth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt.” I looked at her in a confused way.

From the corner of my eye, I could see Levi smirking and Amara engrossed in her work. I then jerked my head to where Mrs. Klinton was. When I couldn’t find her, I turned my head around to find her right behind me. I shrieked a bit, but quickly recovered and adjusted my posture.

“Sage, please try to pay attention in class. The topic for your summer vacation project is: Egypt, and the sub-topics are ‘Queen Cleopatra’ and ‘Tutankhamun’. You can do the work individually, or in groups of three, and it’s your choice whether you’d like to choose Tutankhamun, Queen Cleopatra, or even both. After returning from summer break, everyone will be presenting their projects, which will be graded, with those grades being a part of your finals. You with me so far?” I gulped, shaking my head.

Mrs. Klinton said something under her breath, and huffed in annoyance, “Just ask Amara and Levi, but know that there will be consequences if you don’t submit your project, this time.” With that, Mrs. Klinton exited the room, leaving me alone in the classroom with my thoughts. I didn’t notice that everyone had already left. I hastily grabbed my things, thrusted them into my bag, swung it over my left shoulder, and rushed out of the vacant corridors.

Thankfully, I saw Amara and Levi waiting for me by the sidewalk. I was running towards them and raised my hand to wave to them when I tripped over my shoelaces. As much as I like wearing my converse shoes, having to tie them up is quite maddening. Getting up, I found that Levi had already collected the stuff that had spilt out of my bag because of my nasty fall. I then noticed that my jeans were now torn and I had a bruise forming, along with a small cut that was bleeding. Amara helped me carry my stuff to a bench, and sitting down I got my handkerchief out, tore it into two, and tied it around my knee after cleaning it, which somehow stopped the bleeding. I suppose it was not that bad, but it sure did sting a lot.     

Amara and Levi both sat down on the bench on either side of me, Levi on my left and Amara on the right. “I thought summer vacations were supposed to be vacations, not spending time doing stupid history projects,” I groaned.

Amara, while getting out some snacks replied, “Nah,      on the contrary, I think that History is quite interesting, especially Egypt’s, with all those fascinating things like Mummies and pyramids, and…”

“Oh yes, it’s so fascinating, that is if you’re a NERD,” I mocked Amara. Amara gave me a bit of a slap on the shoulder, to which I reacted with a “Hey!” Suddenly, I felt something wet spill over me. It was Levi who somehow managed to spill a bottle of juice over me. Up to this day, I still doubt whether it was intentional or accidental. I gave Levi a murderous glare; if looks could kill, he’d be six feet beneath me, but in all likelihood, they can’t. With this thought in mind, I still kept my pretence up, acting all furious. Levi, whom I still pity, was quite uncomfortable, and to his despair, I believe, he had to do something that I don’t think he ever wanted to do; tell me he’d do anything.

Slyly, I asked him if he’d do anything? Levi replied, whilst narrowing his eyes, “Is this a trap? I have a strong feeling that I will be regretting this, sometime soon,”

“You guessed right, brother,” I gave him a smirk.

“Oh no,” he groaned, face-palming. 

At this point, Amara had purposely started to eat her packet of chips noisily, as if to indicate that she was enjoying this, me and Levi bickering. I raised one of my brows and snatched the packet, and started running, but then I remembered my poor bruised knee. As I slowed down, Amara quickly caught up with me and emptied her bottle full of juice onto me. I guess she regretted doing that because I almost instantly emptied a bottle of hair dye onto her, the second I found her off guard. Why did I have a bottle of hair dye? I do not know. Do I regret it? No. No, I don’t. Would I do it again? Yes. This would be a reminder to Levi, too. Do not EVER mess with me. He who spills juice on me shall bear the consequences. Just as Amara was recovering, I smeared it across her head, and I heard Levi roaring with laughter. Then, he saw me. I smiled at him (a creepy one) and then turned towards him.

“No, don’t come near me, not with that dye you won’t,” he yelled, sprinting home, away from me. “We live in the same house!” I called after him.

Dragging a sulking Amara home, I found Levi on our porch, wearing a helmet and holding one of Dad’s old baseball bats. At that moment, Mum returned home with the groceries. She didn’t notice Amara and me as she walked over to the porch. Instead, she gave Levi a quizzical look. Levi responded, “This is my last resort against your daughter!” pointing towards us. I simply looked the other way, trying my best not to crack up.

As Amara and I entered the house, Dad looked over at us. He scanned me, and observing my dishevelled, drenched-in-orange-juice self, he gave me an odd look. When his eyes caught Amara’s hair, he asked her frowning, “Amara, honey, your hair looks great! It does, it’s just that, did you have to choose such a neon colour?” his face scrunching.

“Um….Uncle Blake, I didn’t plan on having my hair coloured bright pink anytime soon,” Amara answered flatly.

He then saw me with my pink hands. It was like he’d caught me red-handed, without the red, it was pink. Realisation dawned on his face and he let out a hearty laugh.     “Oh, well then, carry on.” He resumed reading his newspaper, chuckling to himself.

Amara huffed in annoyance, and stomped her way into her room, banging the door behind her. At that point, I decided to wash the obnoxious dye off my hands (before it caused any accidents), and get changed out of my now scruffy, torn clothes. Giving my Dad a cheeky grin, I raced up to my room, gathered some fairly decent clothes, (sweatpants, and my favourite hoodie) and got freshened up. One hot shower later, I disposed of my clothes in the washing basket and plopped myself onto my turquoise-coloured bean bag.

After merely a few minutes, Amara burst into my room and demanded I tell her how long her hair would stay that obnoxious pink colour. I shrugged my shoulders but stopped myself as her hand came aiming for my shoulder. Her blows could be quite painful, which is why most of the time Levi and I stay wary of them. I held up my hands in surrender mumbling, “Okay okay, I’ll tell you! No need for violence- ow.” I got a blow anyways, a slightly less painful one at that, but a blow nonetheless. I rubbed my shoulder, trying to soothe non-existent pain, to which Amara rolled her eyes. Satisfied with my answer, she stood up, gave me a hand to get up, and waited for me to lead the way.

Reaching out under my bed, I retrieved the hair dye’s box, flipped it over, and passed it on to Amara. Reading the contents, her eyes widened. “Two weeks? SAGE!” I slowly tried to back away, and tiptoe out of the room, as they do in those movies, except what I ended up doing was colliding into Levi and an Amara who looked like there might be steam coming out of her ears anytime now.

I gave a guilty chuckle. “Yes Mom? You want me to come down? Okay, just a moment,” and I tried to leave the room but Levi grabbed my arm and said, “Not so fast, sister,” with an evil looking grin on his face.

Amara approached me, step by step, with THAT look on her face. “Oh no, anything but that please,” I squirmed, trying to get out of their reach. Ah, here they came, the tickle attacks. And so ladies and gentleman, that was how I was tortured for the next ten minutes.

Finally, I thought as they stopped with their tickle attack. After what seemed like hours of torture, I finally got out of their grasp. As I started sprinting out of my room without looking, I suddenly collided with the door to my bedroom. Some smart aleck, namely, my brother had locked the door. Scrambling onto my feet, I fumbled with the lock, and just as I was escaping, Amara dumped a weird-smelling glob of something onto my head. ‘Wait, is that- no it can’t be.’ My thoughts were cut off as I saw myself peering in the mirror.     My suspicions were confirmed. It was indeed hair dye, not just any regular hair dye, no, it was the same obnoxious pink coloured dye that I had poured on Amara.

     Standing behind me, Amara and Levi high-fived each other. Levi merely gave me an innocent-looking smile, while Amara smirked. “Revenge is best served cold,” she added. I felt a grin making its way onto my face, I couldn’t help cracking up.

“Did you just quote Metro Man?” Levi choked.

“Well played my friend,” I laughed while putting my hand across her back as if we were the best of friends who hadn’t just dyed each other’s hair a bright pink colour.

“So, we’re good now?” Amara raised her brow, and Levi looked deep in thought. “I don’t know, are we good?” she asked Levi. He just shrugged his shoulders in response. “Of course dummy, I’m just messing with you,” Amara chuckled. I let out a breath of relief that I didn’t even know I was holding.

Amidst this, we heard a large grumbling sound, which seemed to be coming from Levi’s stomach. We all burst into laughter and scrambled down to the kitchen, but Amara reminded me, “Sage, aren’t you forgetting something?” I looked at her in confusion. She sighed and pointed out, “Does hair dye ring a bell?” I smacked my head in realisation and sprinted upstairs, and back into the shower. An hour and a half later, I emerged out of the shower a second time, this time with pink hair.

As I entered the living room, I saw Amara sprawled all over the sofa, groaning. Noticing she exclaimed, “Finally! I’ve been starving to death here.” Amara got up, and together we entered the kitchen once more. Amara grabbed an apple and took a huge bite. I, on the other hand, opened the fridge and hunted for ice cream. When I wasn’t able to find it, I yelled across the kitchen, “MOM, HAVE YOU SEEN MY VANILLA ICE CREAM??” When I got no answer, I huffed and decided to investigate.

I approached Levi first; he tended to eat anything and everything he found. It was like he had a black hole in his stomach, no wonder he was always hungry. He got that trait from Mom. Both of them consume food like it’s oxygen. How do they both not gain any weight is beyond me. Entering his room, I found Levi slumped on his bed. Ah hah! Found the culprit. There he was, in all his glory, with my vanilla ice cream gone and in its place an empty container.

As I walked around his bed, I found a sticky note, which clearly stated, ‘Property of Sage - Do not touch my ice cream!’ I lightly tapped his shoulder, and when he didn't respond I pinched his cheeks. “Oww, what was that for?” He suddenly jerked his head.

“That’s for eating my ice cream, weirdo.”

“I was going to tell you, I swear!”

“Sure, and I’m going to be the next president,” I snort. “Anyways, I wanted to ask you, have you seen Mom? I was looking for her earlier.”