CHAPTER ONE
Howard Phillips Lovecraft waited with bated breath for the arrival of the blue box in the garden. Number 452 Angell Street had fallen silent with a preternatural hush as though the whole world were holding its collected breath, waiting for an event that would make grown men shake with terror and amazement.
Howard was a weird kid, to say the least. Spectacled, slim as a rail, with batty ears, wearing the uniform of the local elementary school where he'd just recently been inserted into the fray of "normal school kid life." Which, sadly, included endless jokes about how the skinny new kid's pants were up over his navel, let's put them over his head! And I wonder how far we can flush Phillip's head down the toilet! Will it get sucked into the tubes maybe?
His own true love-the glue that held the binding of his collapsing self together-was the stars. He loved to sit in the garden under the stars and marvel at the beauty and infinite wonder of the universe. He loved the sounds of the crickets and the feathery, fluffy night owls landing in the high, overarching branches of the maple trees. He loved the sound of his hushed breaths, in and out, just himself alone under the expanding sky.
He loved being alone, as weird as that was for a 9 year old kid. Alone with his books and his telescope and mind that probed the farthest reaches of the stars in the sky. He was complete.
That is, until the blue box had arrived two months ago with a whirring, thumping sound that shook the Earth and sent the dirt and pebbles flying. And then the man had tumbled out of it, tall and as skinny as Howard, stumbling around his garden.
Who the hell are you? Phillip had wondered, and his first inclination was to run away. That is, until the man spoke, enthusiastically, holding up his left hand, his right pressed to his knee. First, he took several deep, winded breaths as though he'd been running.
"I'm the Doctor," he'd said.
Howard had made a face at that. Howard was very good at making faces.
"No, you're not."
"And you're not Howard Phillip Lovecraft then, are you?" The man asked. His hair was erratically combed over to the side and his eyes were sunk deeply into his brow, and lit up like stars, like swirling galaxies. He was just so...weird. And that said a lot coming from the garden boy.
"Aunt Lillian!" Howard cried, scrambling off the bench and up as though a crab had sunk it's pincers into his rear end.
A thousand rapid thoughts scrolled across his mind.
The stranger was going to murder him and bury his frail, bleached bones in the garden.
The stranger was one of those creepy, weird molesters that Auntie Lillian was always talking about, who did bad things to little boys.
The stranger was a demon, like the ones he kept dreaming of after his sweet Grandma Whipple's death.
In all three scenarios, terrible, unspeakable things were done to Phillip's frail, sweating body.
Not yet did he consider that this man, this impossible man in his garden, was a spaceman.
A buzzing sound, louder than the crickets, like a symphony of crickets playing out-of-tune violins, erupted from the corner of the garden, near the stone wall. Howard cursed under his breath, and drew breath to scream for Auntie Lillian again. The possibility that the stranger had a stun gun like an alien invader from outer space crossed his thoughts fleetingly. And then...Oh, God...what if he was an alien?
No, oh no oh no.
They probed you with things!
A flash of electric green light illuminated the stranger's face. "I'm sorry. Wrong garden. Wrong time frame. Completely wrong. All my fault. Was looking for Amelia Pond. Nice little Scottish girl. Red hair. You'd like her a lot, Amy Pond." He sighed and sat down heavily on one of the faux rocks near Auntie Lillian's coy pool.
He looked very old and very young simultaneously. Phillip wondered how this could be possible.
"Amy Pond?" He'd found himself saying before he could stop the words from spilling out of his mouth. "The only girl I know on this street is named Clara. And that sounds nothing like Amelia. She's got black hair, by the way."
"What?" The Doctor sat up ramrod straight as though he'd been electrocuted. Phillip wondered if maybe it was that weird, sonicky thing in his hand. Maybe if he crossed the Doctor he would feel the buzz of that thing, and it would a lot less pleasant on his young, pale flesh.
"Nothing. I just said that Clara is nothing like Amelia. She's got black hair."
The Doctor pressed his fingertips to his eyelids and massaged them gently, thoughtfully. When he spoke again, he was addressing the star filled sky and a jet plane that was streaking by above. "Every time I think I understand you, you throw me for a loop. You don't play fair, you know?" He told the Universe.
"Who are you talking to?"
"Good question," said the Doctor, springing to his feet. "Timey-wimey stuff, if you have to know. I wish I understood Her better. My Clara."
"Wait, you know Clara."
"The worms are out of the can," said the Doctor, smiling. "Yes and no. In the future. Hmm. Well. Where were we? Right, I'm the Doctor."
He had been close enough to take the strange man's hand. The Doctor shook hands with Phillip warmly, smiling again. Phillip had a hard time believing the Doctor wanted to stick a probe within ten feet of him. He was just too childlike and innocent somehow.
"And I'm Phillip."
"Right you are!" Said the Doctor, sticking out his balled fist to fist bump with Phillip. He was met with a perplexed stare.
"Oh right. Not cool. Net yet. Well, you see, it gets cool later on, like in the early 90's. Everyone fist pumps and calls each other bro and dude, and it's all very great. Except when the other person has knuckly hands. Then it hurts a bit."
Phillip was staring at him in astonishment. "Who are you?"
"I just told you, I'm the Doctor."
"I mean, no. Really. Who are you?"
"That's a hard question to answer. I wouldn't start a conversation by asking you your favorite book. There'd be so many answers you'd stutter around for a half an hour trying to get it right. And that's kind of how it is when you ask that question, it's like, how can I answer it without stuttering around and maybe causing the destruction of 7 billion human life forms, not to mention entire galaxies."
"Whoa."
"Whoa is right," the Doctor had said.
"Phillip!" A voice had screeched from the sliding back doors. "Phillip, it's past your bed time."
"Well, better go then," said the Doctor. He turned and began to crunch through the weeds and branches fallen down in the storm. His sonic washed the ground with illuminscent green light.
"Wait!" Phillip had hissed.
But the door to the blue box was already swinging open for him, and he darted inside. Before he went, Phillip was pretty sure he heard him say "I'm coming Amy. Be patient."
Then he was gone. The Doctor never stayed long and he hardly ever said good bye.
Alone in his garden, two months after the blue box first landed, Phillip wondered if Amelia Pond was still waiting.