Yes, it’s under warranty, only two weeks old but how can I make a claim when it simply disappeared?!

Early 2018 the internet was flooded with posts and tweets about the latest jetpacks for those with means and a wicked sense of adventure. The adverts promised a ride like never before with an added mysterious non-specific dimension. I just had to have one.

I’d tried out some jetpacks at an airfield or two. At £2,000 a time the rides were a bargain yet I longed to possess one of my own.

One spring afternoon I found myself in the library with my father. This was my favourite room, all Elizabethan dark wood panelling, four walls of books, all tucked safely away behind glass doors. On one shelf I spotted my beloved and tatty Jane Austen penguin books — a most wonderful writer and I adored her books so much. So very much that one Christmas my parents surprised me with a first edition set of all her sixteen books dating from the start of the eighteenth century. They got it at a very reasonable price, I was told, at just under £200,000.

My father was on the window seat and looked up at me. Even before I said a word he spoke.

‘No, Katy. I told you last night, no way. It is just too much.’

‘Pa,’ I said. He loved it when I called him this and I repeated. ‘Pa, it is just a bit more than my yearly allowance and rumours are you lost this amount just last month. Ma called it pocket change, I heard!’

Admittedly £300,000 was way past pocket change for me even!

There was a hiccup of silence. Yes!

I had him; the famous hiccup tell — he never could work out why he was always losing at the tables.

Father reached over to me, his glittering card stretched to my eager fingers.

‘Take this and just promise me to be careful, bubbles.’

There it was, the reason I would always get what I wanted — bubbles! The nickname made me smile and groan in equal measure. My delight of bubble baths was infamous. The renowned photos of me as a child surrounded by bubbles galore by the world famous photographer Georgias Kerragiannis collectors plastered on our walls … and those of many art galleries. How did he manage to turn such a simple idea into a colourific gaudy prints that took the world by storm? Over and over he merely changed one tiny detail at a time and the buyers kept paying ever more.

Bubbles it was and this bubbles always knew the key to her father’s heart.

My delivery from Amazon arrived promptly the next day; a bemused driver was struck with the image of a jetpack man flying over the mountains on the box. Not subtle and I’d be leaving one of my scathing reviews tomorrow.

Up in my room, I rushed to remove the packaging, sending it flying across the bedroom. I grabbed the jetpack and stepped to my balcony. This couldn’t be difficult, I told myself, convinced the two controllers would be similar to my games. After all, I was an ace at Minecraft and Sims!

The instruction booklet lay tossed on my Egyptian cream sheets, unopened at the front cover of a red brash warning of ‘read before you operate — ignore at your peril’. Blah! Generation X are so molly-coddled! As if I couldn’t fly a simple jetpack.

I stood on the balustrade and pushed the red button, with a shout I stepped off. I was flying! There followed a big dip and near mid-air tumble but I made it just above the manicured lawn below, narrowly missing the ballroom.

Another burst of power and I was up and away, heading straight to the stables about half a mile away. Skimming over the lake, my feet took a quick paddle, the giant puffy mouths of the koi popping up to try and nibble my toes. 

Looking at my right controller I noticed a dial by the thumb. I’d never seen this on my previous jetpack rides. I reached over with my left hand and turned it.

Suddenly the usual quiet of the landscape and stables turned to a maelstrom of people and horses, the shouts, chatter and neighing reaching crescendo levels, each trying to outdo the other above the din and clatter of the horse drawn-carriages on the cobblestones. The men wore the strangest costumes; tall black top hats and colourful ornate suits. What was the cause of this hub of activity? Had a film company unit hired it? It looked a set fit to film the next big Jane Austen blockbuster.

I was drifting down and right underneath me a man, my age, early 20s, looked up with a startled expression. He promptly turned white and fell backwards as I stepped into a neat landing next to him.

Suddenly he woke up and grabbed my arm.

‘What are you? A flying ghost?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I replied. ‘I’m Katy and you are …’

I left the pregnant pause, waiting for an answer as to his identity. His face was set in a priceless expression of utter bewilderment in the silence.

‘What is your name?’ I asked clearly.

This time he understood, stood up quickly, wiping his hands on his trousers before reaching out.

‘Darcy at your service, ma’am!’

I laughed out loud. As if! Who had put on this elaborate joke for me? My very own Darcy, even if dressed in worker garb in rough white shirt, leather brown vest and dainty long black socks and shoes with a buckle. A small black hat flopped over his head. Of course, my Darcy would turn out to be a stable hand but his manners were to be applauded. 

‘Pleased to meet you, Miss Katy. From whence do you hail?’ He stopped abruptly and realised his question. His hands waved vaguely in the direction of the air, which is in fact where I arrived from and in the process his hands, trying to reach for my arm, touched the dial instead.

That was two weeks ago and since then Darcy has enjoyed his sudden introduction to the end of the twenty-first century once he recovered from his many fainting fits. I had immediately grasped the ‘other’ dimension of the new jetpack — time travel!

How could I not fall for my own Darcy, the genuine article from 1797, so he proclaimed. 

There was one small issue; Darcy longed to return home for just a while. He just wouldn’t listen, after all, he was home, here at Streaton Manor with me, just a couple of centuries out. Why was he making all this fuss?

Darcy hadn’t declared his love for me yet; that would come, I was sure. But I just couldn’t take the chance though, could I? These past days he was always on about my flying jacket, wanting to borrow it. How could I risk this most amazing change in my life? Pa already approved of Darcy although Ma muttered he was rather too dishy. For whom, I wondered?

I couldn’t risk it! I just couldn’t. This way was better for us both. A new start.

Standing from behind the jetpack, I reached over and touched the dial before stepping backwards just as the jetpack disappeared.

Whoosh! Not quite the sound rather more of a pfft but the mesmerising disappearance warranted a fanfare, I thought.

Gasping, I laughed and laughed! I’d done it! Sent the jetpack back in time and Darcy and I would be united forever. All I need was some cash for our new life— £300,000 should do it.

Now, where did I put the warranty for the notorious defective disappearing jetpack? 

The End

©Annika Perry