The Slow Stopwatch at the Taxi Rank

Deniz hates the stopwatch. It hangs on a string above the dashboard of his cousin's taxi, and it is always wrong.

Today is the first day of the summer holiday. Deniz sits in the front seat with a bottle of juice. Emre drives the green taxi at the Market Square rank. He lets Deniz come along when there are no passengers. The rank is boring, and two people can be bored together.

"It is not wrong," Emre says for the hundredth time. "It is slow. That is different."

"Slow is wrong," says Deniz.

"Slow is a style." Emre taps the glass. "A clockmaker gave me this stopwatch. She said it counts time the way a cat walks across a room. It gets there, but not in a hurry."

The stopwatch is round and silver, with a crack across the face. Deniz has measured it many times. For every five minutes in the real world, it counts only four. Emre has learned to add a little in his head. Deniz thinks this is a silly way to live.

It is eleven thirty-eight when the girl comes running across the square. She has a bag on her back and dust on her sleeves. She pulls open the back door and almost falls onto the seat.

"The clock tower," she gasps. "Please. As fast as you can."

"Which clock tower?" Emre asks. "We have three."

"The tall one on Hare Street. The noon bell." She holds up a brass key as long as a spoon. "I work for the clockmaker. The old key broke this morning. If this one does not reach the tower before twelve, the bell will not ring."

Deniz turns round. "So? A bell is only a bell."

The girl looks at him as if he has said something terrible. "On Hare Street, it is not only a bell. The stone hares in the square sleep until the noon bell rings. If it stays silent, they wake up and run all over the town. Last time it happened, one of them ate a flower stall."

Emre raises an eyebrow. In this town, everyone knows about the hares, and nobody enjoys talking about them.

"Seat belt," he says. He presses the stopwatch button with his thumb. "We have twenty-two minutes. Easy."

The taxi pulls out of the rank.

Market day is a bad day for driving. The main road is full of delivery vans and cyclists. One very large goat walks in the middle of the street as if it owns the town. Emre drives carefully round the goat. At the first crossroads, the traffic lights freeze and stay that way for ever.

Deniz watches the stopwatch. The second hand moves in a lazy circle. Seven minutes. Eight minutes. The girl in the back seat chews her thumb.

"We are doing well," Emre says. "Stopwatch says nine minutes, so we have thirteen left."

Deniz looks out of the window. Over the roofs, he can see the face of the town hall clock. It shows eleven forty-nine.

He does the sum in his head, and his stomach drops.

"Emre. The stopwatch is slow, remember? You started it at eleven thirty-eight. The town clock says eleven forty-nine. That is eleven real minutes, not nine."

"I add a little in my head," Emre says.

"Do you? Because you just said thirteen left. It is eleven." Deniz points at the girl. "Eleven minutes, and the road ahead is full of vans."

Emre goes quiet. A van in front of them blows its horn for no reason. The girl closes her eyes.

"Can we go another way?" she asks.

"There is no other way," Emre says. "The old bridge is closed. The ring road takes twenty minutes."

Deniz stares at the roofs. He knows this part of town better than anyone in the car. He has walked it every morning for four years, with a heavy school bag. Behind the tower, there is a long wall. Behind the wall is a football pitch. And at the other end of the pitch is a gate that nobody locks on Saturdays.

"My school," he says suddenly. "It is behind the tower. The back gate opens onto Hare Street."

"A taxi cannot drive through a school," Emre says.

"It is a football pitch. There is a service road next to it. I have seen a delivery van on it." Deniz twists in his seat. "It is not a road for cars, but it is a road."

"The gate will be closed."

"The side gate has a code. It is 1-9-5-0. Everyone knows it. The football team uses it."

Emre looks at the clock on the dashboard. He looks at the girl in his mirror. She nods hard, with wet eyes.

"If a teacher shouts at us," he says, "I will say that you told me to."

"That is fine," says Deniz.

Emre turns the wheel hard and goes down a narrow side street. It is the kind of street that has bins on both sides and a sleeping cat. The taxi scrapes past a wall with a hiss of paint. Deniz holds the door handle with both hands.

The school gate appears at the end, tall and grey. Deniz jumps out before the taxi has fully stopped and presses the numbers. The lock clicks. He pulls the gate wide open, and the taxi rolls through.

The service road is narrow, with grass in the middle and a sign that says NO VEHICLES. Emre drives past the sign very slowly, as if it cannot see him. On the left, the football pitch shines in the sun. On the right, a row of bicycles leans on a fence.

"Eleven fifty-six," Deniz reads from his phone. "Four minutes."

At the end of the pitch the road bends round a wall. Then the tower rises above them. It is old and brown, with a white clock face and a small door at the base. Emre brakes hard on the loose stones. The girl is out of the car before the engine stops.

"Thank you!" she shouts. She runs up the back steps two at a time, with the brass key held high.

Deniz and Emre stand next to the taxi. In the square at the front of the tower, the stone hares sit on their benches. Their ears are up and their eyes are closed. Nothing moves. Somewhere inside the tower, a lock turns with a heavy clunk.

Emre looks at the silver stopwatch on its string. Its hands show sixteen minutes, and the glass is still cracked.

"I will never trust that thing again," he says.

"You said that last year," Deniz says.

The big clock on the tower face clicks on to twelve. For one long second everything is still. Then, above their heads, the great bronze bell swings once.

Dong.