There is a little boy, who when digging in an old chest in the attic of his house, discovers a small ring-bound leaf jotter.  Small enough to fit in his pocket.  The house doesn't belong to him, it belongs to an old man, he's just there helping his mother clean it out since he died.  he likes the look of the jotter, and its gold page edging so much, that he just puts it in his pocket along with a gold pencil.  he decides that he's going to use it as a diary or a jotter or a diary for his thoughts.

So sitting down one day he thinks of the first thing he can put in it.  And he says "will I ever become a successful scientist?"  And he thinks about his answer for a little bit, questions his abilities, and when he hears his mother shouting for him to come to dinner, he just leaves the pad and goes down.

That night, when he goes up to bed, he decides to write some more entries in it, but when he opens the jotter, he finds that someone else has scribbled in it underneath his question.  And the answer is there, written for him, that no, he never will be a famous scientist but he will be a famous writer.  he thinks somebody must be playing a joke on him, so he asks his mother and his grandmother if they have been up in his room, drawing in the little jotter.  When his mother asks which one, he's a little bit loathe to say, because he doesn't want to admit he stole it out of the box, so he takes their denial at face value.  he realises he can't push it too fqr, but he is puzzled at who wrote it.

So before he goes to bed, he writes under it, as a joke "How do you know?" and goes off to bed.  Next morning he gets up, and the same scrawly handwriting "Because, I know all about you."  he's a little bit startled.  He still thinks it's a joke though, and it's one of his family members doing it, so underneath he scrawls "How do you know all about me?" but this time he's clever, and locks it in his little treasure chest and takes the key with him and goes down for breakfast.

When he gets back, he opens the chest, and looks, but as he expected, there's no answer.  He throws the book on the bed laughing, and goes to brush his hair in the mirror.  As he's looking in the mirror, he sees the notebook behind him fluttering open, and out of the corner of his eye, he can see text appearing under his question.  He jumps down to the bed, and he reads the answer "Because I read about you in a book. You're famous"

He gets the pencil and writes "Who are you?  Where are you?"  He sits there waiting for the answer to vcome, but it doesn't come.  So he puts the book in his pocket with the pencil, and goes outside.  He tells his friend about it, but the friend is sceptical, even when he shows him the book and the scrawly hand, he still thinks it's somebody having him on, and doesn't believe the story about the letters appearing, the notebook fluttering or anything.  He thinks he should be a writer because he's got such an overactive imagination.

The questions still haven't been answerd by the time he goes for tea, so he puts the book back in the chest and goes downstairs.  At dinner, his mother asks him what's up with him, because he looks a bit pensive, and he starts to ask about the old man who's house they were cleaning up.  The mother says he was an old weird man, who used to collect odd strange things, he was into strange unchristian things like magic, and he shouldnt pay too much attention to all the stories going about, about him being a magician.

He goes back up to the room, and looks at the book again, and inside the book, he reads the words "My name is John.  I'm sitting in my bedroom.  I received this notebook as a present.  it's a very old book, and it was wrapped up a long time ago, but when I opened it I saw your question, I had to answer it. And every time I answer one of your questions, another question appears."  the boy is amazed, realizes he must be talking to someone in the future, so he asks the most obvious question.  "Who gave you the present?"  puts the book in the chest and goes to sleep.

Next morning he gets up and the question has been answered.  "You.  You gave me the present John.  It's been in the family for 200 years, yet it was addressed to me. So i opened it, and it was a notebook."  The boy is amazed, and immediately thinks that the boy knows everything about his life.  So he asks him "What else do you know about me?"  this time the answer was almost immediate.  "I have a book, the book contains your life story.  I've read it from cover to cover, but you never mention talking to somebody from the future.  not even when... but I shouldn't tell you that."

John is worried "You must tell me, I'm about to go out with my mother.  We're going into town to get me new shoes for starting school.  You must tell me."  this time the answer didn't appear, so he put the book into his pocket and went down to meet his mother.  On the short walk into the town, he discussed being a writer with is mother.  She thought it was a fine idea, but that he must study hard at school.  They went into the shoe shop and she bought him a pair of books that should last him a whole year.  While his mother is paying, he pulls the book out and reads the answer under his question "It says in the book that while out shopping for shoes, that your mother falls under the wheels of a truck, and gets killed.   This event changes your life completely.

John panics, and sees that his mother is already leaving the shop and about to wander out onto the road.  He runs after her, and just as she is about to step out onto the road, he pulls her back.  A truck rushes past, and it would have surely killed her.  Back home, John writes in the scrapbook "I saved her, thank you."  The answer comes straight away.  "It still says she dies, in the book. yes it does."  he writes "How can that be?  I saved her!  She's alive!".  The answer appears.  "You must have changed history.  The last thing you said in your book is that if you possibly could, you would like to go back in time and save your mothers life.  Looks like you did.  You must have set this up to get a message to yourself."  
The writing was growing feint, like a pen running out of ink.  He realises he has changed time forever, and no longer on the same time track as the future John.  he wrote "I'm glad you're still there, even if it means we're no longer in the same time."  There was no reply.  he went down to dinner, and when he came back, in the very very feintest of lines, there was a last message "I can hardly read you John, you are so feint.  I hope I helped you.  So long."  

John took the book and the pencil and came back downstairs.  He asked his mother where the boxes where the old man's stuff where, and quietly slipped them down inside. "What was that for?" she asked after he'd hugged her.  "Nothing.  i think I'm going to go write a story."

the End.