Paul was concentrating on the queasy feeling inside him and working out how far it still was to the bank, but all the same, the significance of those words seeped into his mind, and he stopped again.
Lucy nudged him in the ribs. “Quick!” she whispered, breaking into a run herself. “We have only a few seconds left!”
Feeling weak at the knees, Paul started off again, and as he ran and the nearby bank began to blur before his eyes, he heard a terrible if muffled scream from inside the coach, followed by a gasp of “you devil!” And then all was deathly quiet.
Today, at 1500 hours, Lucy and Paul were sent to elapse to the year 1948. When they returned at 1900 hours, they landed in the rose bed outside the window of the Dragon Hall, wearing early seventeenth-century costume and drenched to the skin.
They seemed to be very upset; they were talking wildly, and therefore, much against their will, I informed Lord Montrose and Falk de Villiers. However, there turned out to be a simple explanation for the whole affair. Lord Montrose said he still had a vivid recollection of the fancy-dress party held in the garden here in 1948, during which several guests, evidently including Lucy and Paul, had unfortunately landed in the goldfish pool after the excessive consumption of alcohol.
Lord Montrose had taken responsibility for this incident and promised to replace the two rosebushes they had ruined, “Ferdinand Pichard” and “Mrs. John Laing.” Lucy and Paul were strictly instructed to abstain from alcoholic beverages in future, no matter what the period.
F
ROM
T
HE
A
NNALS OF THE
G
UARDIANS
18
D
ECEMBER 1992
R
EPORT:
J. M
OUNTJOY,
A
DEPT 2ND
D
EGREE
ONE
“YOUNG PEOPLE,
this is a church! No kissing allowed here!”
Startled, I opened my eyes and hastily sat up straight, expecting to see some old-fashioned priest hurrying indignantly toward me with his cassock billowing, all set to deliver a stern lecture. But it wasn’t the priest of this parish church who had disturbed our kiss. It wasn’t a human being at all. The speaker was a small gargoyle crouching in the pew right next to the confessional, as surprised to see me as I was to see him.
Although that was hardly possible. Because basically my state of mind couldn’t be called mere surprise. To be honest, my powers of thought had switched off entirely.
It had all begun with that kiss.
Gideon de Villiers had kissed me—me, Gwyneth Shepherd.
Of course I should have wondered why the idea came into his head so suddenly—in a confessional in a church somewhere in Belgravia in the year 1912—just after we’d been running full tilt in headlong flight, and my close-fitting, ankle-length dress with its silly sailor collar kept getting in the way.
I could have made analytical comparisons with kisses I’d had from other boys, trying to work out just why Gideon did it so much better. I might also have stopped to remember that there was a wall between us, and a confessional window through which Gideon had squeezed his head and arms, and these were not the ideal conditions for kissing. Quite apart from the fact that I could do without any more chaos in my life, after discovering only two days ago that I’d inherited my family’s time-traveling gene.
The fact was, however, that I hadn’t been thinking anything at all, except maybe
oh
and
hmm
and
more!
That’s why I hadn’t noticed the flip-flop sensation inside me, and only now, when the little gargoyle folded his arms and flashed his eyes at me from his pew, only when I saw the confessional curtain—brown, although it had been green velvet a moment ago—did I work it out that meanwhile we’d traveled back to the present.
“Hell!” Gideon moved back to his side of the confessional and rubbed the back of his head.
Hell?
I came down from cloud nine with a bump and forgot the gargoyle.
“Oh, I didn’t think it was that bad,” I said, trying to sound as casual as possible. Unfortunately, I was rather breathless, which tended to spoil the effect. I couldn’t look Gideon in the eye, so instead I kept staring at the brown polyester curtain in the confessional.
Good heavens! I’d traveled nearly a hundred years through time without noticing because that kiss had so totally and absolutely … well, surprised me. I mean, one minute here’s this guy grousing away at you, the next you’re in the middle of a wild chase to get away from men armed with pistols, and suddenly—like, out of nowhere—he’s telling you you’re something special and kissing you. And, wow, could Gideon kiss! I instantly felt green with jealousy of all the girls he’d learnt to do it with.
“No one in sight.” Gideon took a cautious look out of the confessional and then emerged into the church. “Good. We’ll catch the bus back to the Temple. Come on, they’ll be expecting us.”
I stared blankly past the curtain at him. Did that mean that now he was carrying on as if nothing had happened? After a kiss (or before a kiss would really be better, but it was too late for that), you’d think a few basic questions might be cleared up, wouldn’t you? Was the kiss some kind of declaration of love? Or had we just been snogging a little because we had nothing better to do?
“I’m not going on a bus in this dress,” I said firmly, getting to my feet with as much dignity as possible. I’d sooner have bitten off my tongue than ask any of the questions that had just been going through my head.
The dress was white, with sky-blue satin bows at the waist and the collar, probably the latest fashion in the year 1912, but not quite right for wearing on public transport in the twenty-first century. “Let’s take a taxi,” I added.
Gideon turned to me, but he didn’t object. In that early twentieth-century coat, and with those neat trouser creases, he seemed to feel he wasn’t necessarily dressed for a bus ride either. Although he did look really good in the costume of the time, particularly now that his hair wasn’t combed right back behind his ears like two hours ago. Locks of it were falling untidily over his forehead.
I stepped out into the nave of the church to join him and shivered. It was icy cold in here. Was that because I’d had almost no sleep over the last three days? Or because of what had just happened?
I guessed my body had manufactured more adrenaline in those three days than in all my sixteen years of life before. So much had happened, and I’d had so little time to think about it. My head felt like it was bursting with new information and emotions. If I’d been a character in a strip cartoon, I’d have had a thought bubble with a huge question mark in it hovering over me. And maybe a couple of death’s-heads as well.
I gave myself a little shake. So if Gideon was carrying on as if nothing had happened—well, thanks a lot, I could do the same. “Okay, let’s get out of here,” I said brightly. “I’m cold.”
I tried to push past him, but he took hold of my arm and stopped me. “Listen, about all that just now…” He stopped, probably hoping I was going to interrupt him.
Which of course I wasn’t. I was only too keen to hear what he had to say. I also found breathing difficult when he was standing so close to me.
“That kiss … I didn’t mean…” Once again it was only half a sentence. But I immediately finished it in my mind.
I didn’t mean it that way.
Well, obviously, but then he shouldn’t have done it, should he? It was like setting fire to a curtain and then wondering why the whole house burned down. (Okay, silly comparison.) I wasn’t going to make it any easier for him. I looked at him coolly and expectantly. That is, I
tried
to look at him coolly and expectantly, but I probably really had an expression on my face saying,
Oh, I’m cute little Bambi, please don’t shoot me!
There was nothing I could do about that. All I needed was for my lower lip to start trembling.
I didn’t mean it that way! Go on, say it!
But Gideon didn’t say anything. He took a hairpin out of my untidy hair (by now my complicated arrangement of strands must have looked as if a couple of birds had been nesting in it), took one strand, and wound it around his finger. With his other hand, he began stroking my face, and then he bent down and kissed me again, this time very cautiously. I closed my eyes—and the same thing happened as before: my brain suffered that delicious break in transmission. (Well, all it was transmitting was
oh, hmm
, and
more!
)
But that lasted only about ten seconds, because then a voice right beside us said, irritated, “Not starting that stuff up again, are you?”
Startled, I pushed Gideon slightly away and stared right into the face of the little gargoyle, who was now hanging upside down from the gallery under which we were standing. To be precise, he was the ghost of a gargoyle.
Gideon had let go of my hair and had a neutral expression on his face. Oh, God! What must he think of me now? I could read nothing in his green eyes, or at the most I saw slight surprise there—and annoyance?
“I … I thought I heard something,” I murmured.
“Okay,” he said, slowly but in a perfectly friendly tone.
“You heard
me
,” said the gargoyle. “You
heard
me, you did!” He was about the size of a cat, and he had a catlike face, except that as well as his big, pointed, lynxlike ears, he had two round horns, little wings on his back, and a long, scaly, lizard tail ending in a triangular point. He was lashing the tail back and forth in excitement. “You can see me too!”
I didn’t reply.
“We’d better go,” said Gideon.
“You can see me and hear me!” cried the little gargoyle, delighted. He dropped from the gallery to one of the pews and hopped up and down on it. He had a husky voice, like a child with a cold. “I spotted that right away!”
Come to think of it, I
had
seen him before. In that church back in 1912. If I put a foot wrong now, I’d never be rid of him. I deliberately let my eyes wander over the pews with total indifference as I walked to the church door. Gideon held it open for me.
“Thanks, very kind of you!” said the gargoyle, slipping through onto the church porch with us.
Out on the pavement, I looked up at the sky. It was cloudy, so the sun wasn’t in sight, but at a guess, I thought it must be early evening.
“Wait for me, wait for me!” cried the gargoyle, plucking at the skirt of my dress. “We have to talk! It’s urgent! Hey, you’re treading on my toes.… Don’t pretend you can’t see me. I know you can.” A little water shot out of his mouth and formed a tiny puddle around my buttoned boots. “Oops, ’scuse me. Only happens when I get overexcited.”
I looked up at the church façade. I guessed it was Victorian architecture, with stained-glass windows and two elaborate, pretty towers. Brickwork alternated with cream-colored plaster, making a pattern of stripes. But however high I looked, I couldn’t see a single statue on the entire building, let alone another gargoyle. Odd that the ghost was haunting it all the same.
“Here I am!” called the gargoyle, clinging to the masonry right in front of my nose. He could climb like a lizard, of course—they all can. I stared at the brick next to his head for a second and turned away.
The gargoyle wasn’t so sure that I really could see him now. “Oh,
please
,” he said. “It would be so nice to talk to someone else for once, not just the ghost of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.”
Quite ingenious of him, but I wasn’t falling for that one. I did feel sorry for him, but I knew what a nuisance those little pests could be. What’s more, he’d disturbed me in mid-kiss, and all because of him, Gideon now probably thought I was a silly girl who didn’t know her own mind.
“Please, please, pleeeeease!” begged the gargoyle.
I went on ignoring him as hard as I could. As if I didn’t have enough problems already!
Gideon had gone to the edge of the pavement and was looking out for a taxi to hail. Of course a free one came along at once. Some people have all the luck. Or call it something like natural authority. My grandmother Lady Arista, for instance. She only had to stand at the roadside looking stern, and taxi drivers squealed to a halt right away.
“Coming, Gwyneth?”
“You can’t just walk away like that!” The hoarse, childlike voice sounded tearful, heartrending. “When we’ve only just this minute found each other.”
Very likely if we’d been on our own, I’d have let him persuade me to talk to him. In spite of his pointed fangs and clawlike feet, he was kind of cute, and he probably didn’t get much company. (I’d bet the ghost of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had more interesting things to do than talk to gargoyles. What was Sir Arthur’s ghost up to in London anyway?) But if you start talking to ghosts and so on in front of other people, they think you’re a liar or just showing off. That’s if you’re lucky. If you aren’t, which is most of the time, they think you’re totally crazy. Besides, the last gargoyle I talked to had been so affectionate and clinging that I could hardly even go to the toilet alone.
So I got into the taxi with a stony expression and stared straight ahead as we set off, with Gideon sitting next to me and looking out of the window. The taxi driver raised his eyebrows as he examined our costumes in the rearview mirror, but much to his credit, he made no comment.
“It’s nearly six thirty,” said Gideon, obviously trying to strike up a normal conversation. “No wonder I’m dying of starvation.”
Once he’d said it, I realized that I felt the same. I’d hardly managed to get half my breakfast down because of the edgy atmosphere around the family breakfast table, and as usual school lunch had been inedible. I thought rather wistfully of the appetizing sandwiches and scones on Lady Tilney’s tea table. We’d missed out on them as well.
Lady Tilney! Only now did it strike me that Gideon and I had better discuss our adventures in the year 1912. After all, our visit to her had gone wildly off course, and I had no idea what the Guardians, who considered time travel no joking matter, were going to think of that. Gideon and I had traveled back to 1912 on a mission to read Lady Tilney into the chronograph. (To be honest, I still didn’t entirely understand the reasons for that, but the whole thing seemed to be enormously important. As far as I could make it out, the safety of the world itself was at stake, at the very least.) But before we could do anything about that my cousin Lucy and Paul de Villiers came barging in. They were the villains of the piece, or anyway that’s how Gideon’s family and Gideon himself saw it. Apparently Lucy and Paul had stolen the other chronograph and hidden in the past with it. No one had heard of them for years—until they turned up at Lady Tilney’s house and wrecked our little tea party.