Jennie and Stevie go Time Travelling by Flora Selwyn

Stevie had his nose pressed to the window. “What’s Dad doing?” he asked. “Bringing up bricks to build a new shed,” said Mum. She went into the kitchen. Outside, Dad was wheeling a barrow full of red bricks up the garden path.

“What are bricks made of?” asked Jenny, who always wanted to know everything. “I don’t know. Dad buys them.” Jenny thought a minute. “Maybe someone digs them up, like coal,” she suggested.

At that moment there was a sound behind them. “Ahem! Ahem!” “Did you say something?” Stevie asked. “No,” said Jenny. “Ahem!” There it was again.

The children turned round. On the wall there were bookshelves from floor to ceiling. Each shelf was crammed with books; fat books, thin books, big books, little books. Some were standing up, some lying down, and some were leaning against each other. “Ahem! Ahem!” It definitely came from the shelves. “Look!” said Stevie suddenly. He pointed. There, on the third shelf up a blue, middling-sized book was bobbing up and down. It reminded the children of school and how people bobbed up and down for Miss to see them. Then the book spoke. “Take me down, Young People,” it said, “and I will show you how bricks are made.” Jenny and Stevie stared. Whoever heard of a book that talked? “Go on!” said the book. “Don’t be afraid. Take me down!”

The children went on staring. Stevie began to raise his arm, slowly. Then he made up his mind all at once and reached for the book. Everything changed. The children found themselves by a river. They were standing on bare, brown earth. Reeds were waving along the river’s bank. A little way off they could see some huts under trees. “Phew!” said Stevie, “I’m hot!” “So am I,” said Jenny. “Where are we? And why are those people wearing such funny clothes?” “We’ve travelled through time,” said Book, who was standing beside the children. “Travelled through time?” said Stevie and Jenny together. “Yes,” said Book, “we are now in Ancient Mesopotamia. We have travelled 7,000 years into the past.” Jenny pinched Stevie. “Ouch!” he yelled, “why did you do that?” “We are awake after all!” said Jenny. Book interrupted, “Look!” he said.

Some men had come down to the river. “What are they going to do?” asked Jenny. “Watch,” said Book. One man began to scoop up mud from the river. Another man began to cut reeds. Then a third man began to mix the mud and the reeds very carefully. Jenny giggled. “He’s going to make a mud pie,” she said, “he thinks he’s at the seaside!” The man piled the mud and reed mixture on to a sort of wooden sledge that the children hadn’t noticed. When he had made a huge pile on the sledge he called out. More men came. They began to pull the sledge along with ropes. They started to sing a song with a strong rhythm. “Why are they singing?” Stevie wanted to know. “So they can all pull together,” said Book. “Let’s follow them and see what happens.”

Slowly, for the sledge was heavy with the wet mud and reeds, the men made their way to where the huts were. Now the children could see it was a village. Women and children and animals were everywhere. The men stopped at an open space. Other men came. Together they took the wet mud and reeds and started to pile it up to make a wall. “They are making a mud pie!” said Jenny, happily. As the wall got higher the men pressed it firmly into place. “The hot sun will soon dry the mud” said Book. “Then they will make a roof with wood and more mud and more reeds. But take my hands. I want to show you something else.” Stevie and Jenny took a hand each. The scene vanished.

In front of the children there was a high wall. It was dark brown. Yet it seemed to be made out of bricks. There were houses, too, all made out of the same dark bricks. Jenny looked at Book. “We’ve come 2,000 years nearer our own time,” he said, smiling. “Let’s go and see what those people are doing.” It was morning, but the sun was very hot. On the ground there were a lot of wooden shapes. They looked like boxes. “They haven’t any lids,” said Stevie. A man pushed a barrow past them. It was full of wet mud. Other men came to fill the boxes with the mud. They pressed it down hard to put as much mud in as they could. When they had filled all the boxes they went away with the barrow to get more mud.

Stevie went to have a look. “It’s got bits of straw in it,” he said, ” and it smells horrible! Pooh! ” He wrinkled his nose. “Why have they left all this mud in boxes?” asked Jenny. “The people are making bricks,” said Book. “They use these boxes – the same way that your mother uses baking tins – to shape the mud. The sun will dry the mud until it’s hard. Straw and manure mixed with the mud make it nice and strong. All the houses you see are built with this mud brick.” Book went into a little dream. “You know, these bricks will last for thousands of years,” he said. “Thousands of years?” said Stevie. “How do you know?”

“Well, in our own time there are people who dig in the ground to try to find things left behind by ancient men. They’ve found lots of these bricks and sometimes even walls as well. The people who look for these things are called archeologists and they study the past to try and understand it.” Just then the men returned. This time they went to the boxes and looked at them very carefully. One of them said something. Then they began to lift the boxes up slowly, leaving the mud bricks behind. Some younger men then came. They picked up the bricks and stacked them with plenty of spaces between them. “The sun and breezes will go on drying them until they are very hard,” said Book.

“I should tell you,” continued Book, “that even in our own time bricks are still made like this in some parts of the world. In America, in the hot regions, people are once more using mud bricks in ultra-modern houses because they’re cheap and strong. They’re also good for keeping out the heat – that’s important in a hot country,” Book added, mopping his face. The children watched a while. Then Book said, “Let’s go to another place.”

He took Stevie and Jenny by the hand. Once again everything changed. Sun was streaming through a clearing in a wood. There was some sort of building in the clearing. It had no windows. The door was not very high, but it was wide. “Who lives in that funny house?” asked Stevie. Book laughed. “That’s not a house,” he said. “It’s a kiln. Sh! Someone’s corning.” A horse and cart arrived. It was carrying wood. Two men got down and left the horse to eat the grass. They started to unload the wood and put it into the kiln. Another horse and cart came along. It was carrying bricks like the mud bricks the children had seen before. All the men then began putting the bricks into the kiln. They heaped the wood over the bricks. Then they set fire to it. For a little while the men chatted and laughed. They kept looking into the kiln, then they jumped on to the carts and trundled away.

Stevie and Jenny could feel the heat from the fire. “Are they going to eat bricks for their dinner?” asked Jenny. Book was surprised. “Goodness me, no,” he said. “But those men are baking the bricks,” said Jenny, who had often watched her mother bake cakes. “Yes,” said Book, “you’re right, the bricks are being baked. But no-one’s going to eat them! Baking bricks in a kiln makes them even harder than the sun can make them. It takes a few days to bake them properly. “Have the bricks in our house been baked, too?” Stevie wanted to know. “Oh, yes,” said Book. “The bricks in that kiln are similar to the ones used in our own time. Our bricks are shaped by special machines and the mud is first mixed more carefully. The kilns are a lot bigger and hotter. No-one uses wood any more to make the fires. People have learned a great many things since these olden times.”

While they were talking, Book and the children had been walking towards the edge of the wood. The trees were cool. Only the birds sang in the stillness. “Isn’t it lovely!” said Jenny, chasing a bright yellow butterfly. They came to a field. In the distance they could just make out a small town. Over on the far side of the field men were digging. “Look,” said Book. “That’s where the earth for the bricks comes from.” There were horses and carts, and beside them a pile of finished bricks which the men were beginning to load on a cart. “They’re red!” exclaimed Stevie, “just like the ones Dad’s got.” “Burning bricks changes their colour,” said Book. “Different kinds of earth make different coloured bricks. A hundred years before our own time, when Queen Victoria reigned, builders used coloured bricks to make beautiful patterns on houses.

Let me show you just one more thing before we go home.”

Book reached for the children’s hands, and once more, everything changed. “We’re at the seaside!” shouted Jenny, delighted. It was true. The children and Book were standing above a lovely, sandy beach. “Look out!” said a voice crossly, “you’re in the way. You’re going to spoil my photograph.” The children jumped. “He’s speaking English!” Stevie shouted. “I can understand him!” “Where are we now?” asked Jenny, thoroughly confused. Book laughed; he was enjoying himself. “We’re back in our own time,” he said. “We’ve come to see what archeologists find. Do you remember I told you mud bricks last thousands of years?”

Stevie and Jenny were standing in the middle of a lot of holes in the ground. Heaps of earth lay here and there. Very thin walls divided the holes. “Take great care where you walk.” said Book. “I don’t want you falling into a pit.” Just as he said this, Jenny lost her balance and nearly fell. She caught hold of Book and steadied herself. Book said nothing, and Jenny was much more careful where she put her feet. “These walls look like the ones we saw in that place where they were making mud bricks.” Stevie said, pleased with himself. “That’s right,” said Book. “We’ve come back almost to the same place, only 4000 years later.” There were people everywhere. Some were digging and filling buckets, which they emptied on the heaps of earth. Others were lying on their tummies brushing earth very carefully from something they had found.

There were artists drawing walls and there were photographers taking photos. The children gradually made out lines of ancient streets. Walls formed squares beside the streets. “These used to be houses and shops,” said Book. “The people you saw lived in a place rather like this.” He bent down and picked up a piece of broken pottery. “This is what archeologists look at to tell them about the people who lived here, where they did their shopping, and what happened to them. Slowly, we are learning about what went on a very long time ago.” Book found a bone. “Why,” he said, “we can even tell what people had for dinner. The children wandered about. No-one took any more notice of them. Some of the mud bricks were crumbly; when Stevie poked one it fell to his feet in a shower of fine earth. It made Stevie jump and he didn’t touch anything else.

After a while Book said, “Maybe we should go home now. Take my hands.”

Jenny and Stevie were in their sitting room. Dad was on his way down the garden path to fetch another load of new, red bricks. Mum came into the room. “Will Dad’s shed still be there after thousands of years?” asked Stevie. Mum thought that was very funny. She laughed till the tears ran down her face. “Whatever made you ask that?” she said. “I know all about bricks,” said Stevie. “So do I,” said Jenny. Mum looked surprised. If she had turned round just then she would have been even more surprised – for, on the third shelf up on the bookshelves a blue, middling-sized book definitely winked.