Chapter 13

The TARDIS hovered over its hiding place, and Nita let go of Ace's ladder. She took off the hover skates and spoke to the Doctor on the mobile phone. She could hear the cloister bell ringing in the TARDIS.

"Doctor, is everything all right?"

"I don't know, Nita. The TARDIS doesn't want to land, and there are lights flashing all over the console. Maybe she didn't like all that flying. I'm going to try to dematerialize and then rematerialize. Have you got the book?"

"In my hands Doctor, I got it in my hands!"

"Burn it!"

"Gotcha!"

Nita picked up the hover skates and spotted an old bucket. She put the almanac in the bucket and took out the matchbox she took from Susie's Pleasure Palace. She lit a match and started to burn the book. She then looked at the matchbox. The words were starting to change! Eventually they changed from "Susie's Pleasure Palace" to "Susie's Cleaning Service". Nita then pulled out the mobile phone and brought up the headline that she had downloaded from the TARDIS computer. The headline changed from "Marjorie Llewcots Murdered" to "Marjorie Llewcots Honoured".

Nita spoke into the phone, "Doctor, Doctor, the newspaper changed! Now my mother's alive! That means everything's back to normal, right?"

The Doctor looked at the other newspaper on the TARDIS computer. The headlines changed from "Alien Captured" to "Alien Commended", "Whitlam To Seek 8th Term" to "Hawke To Seek Second Term" and "Susieco To Build New Dioxin Plant" to "Lord Mayor Sallyanne Atkinson responsible for major structural and fiscal reforms in Council".

"Mission accomplished," said the Doctor to himself. To Nita he said, "That's right, Nita! It's the ripple effect, the future should be back. Let's go and check!"

"Right Doctor, let's get back to the future…" The cloister bell rang again. "Doctor, Doctor, are you ok?"

"I don't know what's going on, Nita. The TARDIS is reacting to artron energy!"

"Your other self? Be careful, remember what happened last time. I don't want the TARDIS to leave me behind again-" But it does. The TARDIS spun around and then dematerialized.

"Doctor? Doctor? Doctor, are you there? Doctor, can you hear me? Can you hear me Doctor? Answer me Doctor!" Ace's ladder, which had been hanging out of the TARDIS, landed on the ground. "Oh no!" It started to rain. "He's gone!" In the background, a van was approaching Nita. She didn't notice. "The Doctor's gone!" Nita turned around and saw the van pulling to a halt. A man got out.

"Miss Llewcots?"

"Huh?"

"Is your name Nita Llewcots?"

"Yeah?"

"I've got something for you. A letter."

He pulled the letter out.

"A letter for me? That's impossible." She hid the mobile phone away. "Who the hell are you?"

"Australian Postal Credit Union. Actually a bunch of us guys at the office were kinda hoping maybe you could shed some light on the subject. You see, we've had that envelope in our possession for the past 96 years." Nita started opening the letter. "It was given to us with the explicit instructions that it be delivered to a young woman with your description…" He got his umbrella out. "…answering to the name of Nita, at this exact location, at this exact minute, 12th November 1968. We had a little bet as to whether this Nita would actually be here – looks like I lost!" He laughed.

"Did you say 96 years?"

"Yeah, 96 years, 2 months and 12 days to be exact. Here, sign on line 6 please, here you are."

He gave Nita a clipboard and Nita signed on line 6. She read the bottom of the letter – it said "The Doctor, 1st September, 1872".

The man presented Nita with the Doctor's letter.

"It's from the Doctor!" She started reading: "Dear Nita, if my calculations are correct you will receive this letter immediately after you saw the TARDIS dematerialize. First let me assure you that Ace and I are alive and well. We've been living happily these past eight months in the year 1872. The artron energy-" Nita looked at the date at the bottom of the letter. "1872?! September 1872! Argh!"

"Wait kid, wait a minute, what's all this about?"

"He's alive! The Doctor's alive! He's in the colonial days but he's alive!"

"Tell me kid, are you all right? Do you need any help?"

"There's only one man who can help me."

The Second Doctor was standing outside his TARDIS. He had just taken original Nita back to 1986, and then returned to 1968 to check whether he could still detect any artron energy. Upon his return, his TARDIS did indeed detect a massive surge of artron energy, very close to his location. He went outside to see if he could see what it was. Just then, second Nita came running up to him.

"Doctor! Doctor! Doctor!"

"What?"

"Doctor!"

The Doctor turned and saw Nita.

"Argh! A ghost!"

"Ok, relax Doctor, it's me, it's me, it's Nita!"

"No it can't be you…I just took you back to the future!"

"I know, you did take me back to the future, but I'm back, I'm back from the future!"

"Oh my giddy aunt!"

He fainted, and Nita bent down to tend to him.

"Doctor. C'mon Doctor, wake up…"

TO BE CONTINUED