A Time Travel Story

 

The Door that led to Where by Sally Gardner is a young adult mystery novel about sixteen- year-old AJ Flynn who has to go back in time to make sense of the present. Flynn has only one GCSE, his future is looking far from rosy. He is not happy at home as his mother finds him a disappointment and is critical of him. He does not enjoy school for he feels that he is forced to learn subjects that he lacks interest in. He goes to the library after school to read the classics such as Dickens and that explains why he has scored A* for English Lit. His mother gets him an interview at a London law firm and he is offered a junior clerk position at the firm. His life is about to change as he starts working at Baldwin and Gray as a trainee clerk. One day at the firm, AJ  is asked to tidy up the archive and there he comes across an old key, mysteriously labelled with his name and date of birth 2nd October 1996. He thus becomes determined to find the door that fits the key. He meets an old professor who asks him to look for a lintel in an old wall. Based on a map found in a file, he finds himself walking through a waste ground that used to be a car park. He then begins an amazing journey to the streets of Clerkenwell in 1830, where the streets are replaced with cobbles and carts, and the law can be twisted to suit a villain’s means. Life in 1830 is tough but not unlike the present days.

In 1830, AJ and his friends, Slim and Leon quickly find that their own lives have much more value. They’ve gone from sad and hopeless youth statistics to young men with purpose – and they find themselves adjusting to life without smart phone and modern amenities. AJ is an avid reader and he is knowledgeable about what happens in history so he advise those in 1830 not to worry much about certain outbreak . AJ finds out that it was his grandfather, old Jobey who first went through the door and he discovered that one could profit handsomely by trading with the future. He took a partner , a Mr Samuel Dalton and started to break every rule.

‘There are rules ?’

‘Every game has its rules, Mr Jobey,’said Mr Stone.’And it is a rule of time travel that you do not do business with the future. It is forbidden.’

‘Who by?’ asked AJ.

‘By gravity, by the laws of physics.The future has, by tis very nature, to remain unwritten, always to be a blank page. When your grandfather handed the key to your father, Lucas, it was already too late. His fate and the fate of his family were sealed. And there lies the sorrow.’

-The Door that led to Where , Sally Gardner

AJ is told that his father was murdered and an innocent girl was sent to the gallows for killing the Jobey family. The story is fast paced and there are many characters as the story spans between 1830 and the present day. As the story progresses, there lies a crime only AJ and his friends can solve. The Door that led to Where is a delightful read. Its author, Sally Gardner is a multi-award-winning novelist whose work has been translated into more than twenty-two languages. She lives in North London, an area that features in the story. Gardner‘s writing is described as genre-defying. She lives in North London, an area that features in the book. Thanks to the Internet, I understand that the author ‘grew up amongst the drama of London’s law courts, as both her parents were lawyers. Having been branded ‘unteachable’ by some and sent to various schools, Sally was eventually diagnosed at the age of twelve as being severely dyslexic. Sally is now an avid spokesperson for dyslexia; she sees it a gift, not a disability, and is passionately trying to change how dyslexics are perceived by society.’

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London 31st December 2014