Erik and Ola discover an old pocket watch in Grandpa's study and are swept into Warsaw in 1880, where a strange boy gives them one chance to get home.
Erik liked Grandpa's study best when the rain tapped against the windows. Dust floated in the sunlight, books leaned in crooked stacks, and every shelf seemed to hide a secret. Ola thought so too. They had barely stepped inside that Saturday before both of them started looking around for the next impossible thing.
Grandpa noticed at once. He smiled, reached into the drawer of his heavy desk, and drew out a small gold pocket watch. It gleamed softly in his palm, warm as if it had just been taken out of someone else's pocket.
"This one is different," he said. "You may open it, but only if you promise to be careful."
Erik took the watch. It felt far too light for something so old. He pressed the tiny latch. Click.
The lid sprang open, and the watch hands began to whirl so fast they blurred into silver rings. A wind rushed through the room. Papers lifted off the desk. The lamp flickered. Ola gasped and grabbed Erik's sleeve just as a pale green glow burst outward from the watch face.
The floor vanished.
When Erik blinked, he was no longer standing in Grandpa's study. He and Ola were on a narrow cobbled street, shoulder to shoulder, with dark brick houses pressed close on either side. Carriages rattled past. A woman in a long dress hurried by with a basket on her arm. A boy in a flat cap shouted something to a horse driver. Above them, painted on a hanging sign, were the words: WARSAW, 1880.
Ola stared at the street, then at Erik. "Tell me this is a trick."
Erik squeezed the watch hard enough to hurt his palm. "I think we'd better get back before Grandpa notices we're gone."
He turned the crown the way the hands had moved, but the watch answered with a sharp hiss. The glow flickered once and died. The lid snapped shut.
At the end of the street, a boy about their age was watching them. He wore a baseball cap that looked completely wrong against his worn coat, and under one arm he carried a rolled paper tied with string, like a telegram. His eyes narrowed.
"You're not from here," he said quietly. "Good. Then you might still be in time. Come with me. If you want to get home, you'd better hurry - before midnight."
He spun around and vanished into a dark alley, and Erik and Ola stood frozen, the silent watch burning in Erik's hand as the bells somewhere deep in the city began to ring.