A Step Through Time

What forgotten treasures would our school time capsule reveal?

DIANA! You need to see this!" I am busy in my workroom, putting the finishing touches to a new greetings card design, and this is the third interruption in the last hour.

I know there's no point in pretending I haven't heard.

Keeping my fingers crossed that Yvette wants to show me an e-mail from her solicitor setting a completion date on the house she's in the process of buying, I go downstairs.

Yvette turns her laptop towards me, and I manage to swallow my disappointment when I realise she is showing me something on the local newspaper's website.

A middle-aged man stands under a tree beside a young boy holding a metal detector.

They both look glum.

The headline reads Mystery Of The Missing Time Capsule.

"Do you remember this?" Yvette says before I've had time to read the article.

She jabs her finger at the man in the photo, who looks vaguely familiar.

"That's Neil Crawley. I used to really fancy him.

He's looking for that time capsule we buried." I sit down at the kitchen table, struggling to share Yvette's excitement.

We were in the same form at school, but we were never friends.

To be honest, we probably wouldn't be friends now if I hadn't married her brother Mark.

I remember Neil Crawley, but not in a good way.

He was the bane of my life when we were teenagers, always ready with what he thought were witty comments about my frizzy hair, unflattering glasses and spotty face.

I start to say this to Yvette, but she isn't listening, too busy e-mailing the newspaper to ask them to put her in touch with him.

Within half an hour they are chatting on the phone.

I leave them to it and go back to my workroom, not wanting to listen to their conversation.