Time-Travel Bath Bomb (20 page)

“You’re not hearing what I’m saying, you stupid girl,” Raspa said, letting her black made-up eyelids slide down over her enormous eyeballs and lowering her voice. “Death is the exception. Only if you die can you change history. Because then you yourself disappear into time and never come back. And, see? It’s about to happen now. Victor is about to die, to disappear forever, which will change history.” Her eyes were open wide, and there was an icy laughter in her voice: “It will all be mine and only mine!”

Lisa had managed to tug her arm halfway free, but couldn’t get it any further.

“What do you mean
it will all be yours
?”

“If Victor Proctor dies in 1793, who do you think will patent the time-travelling bath? Who will become the greatest inventor in the world?”

Up on the stage Bloodbath stopped reading. He skimmed down the rest of the page and then shouted over the increasing chorus of boos, “All right, people, there’s a bunch of other stuff here, but it’s pretty much the same as all the others. So I suggest that we get on with it.”

Enthusiastic cheering.

Raspa tilted her head back and laughed an absolutely gruesome laugh.

Lisa seized this opportunity to try one final, vigorous tug. She got one hand free from Raspa’s grasp.

“Hey, you miserable landlubber—” Raspa began, but didn’t make it any further. A trumpet hit her on the head and the towering spectacle of a woman listed to the side and then capsized.

Lisa hurried, sneaking under the arms of the guards who were stationed on either side of the stairs, and ran up the steps onto the stage. There she jumped up onto the back of Bloodbath, who was already holding the cord preparing to release the knife blade.

“Stop!” she screamed. “Doctor Proctor is innocent! You’re making a mistake!”

Bloodbath twitched his back, as if what had landed on him wasn’t much more than a fly. “Guards!” he yelled.

“We’re coming!” a voice responded.

“Forgive us, Mr Bloodbath,” another voice said.

And immediately thereafter Lisa felt strong arms ripping her off Bloodbath’s back and holding on to her tightly. There were three faces in front of her:

A blotchy face with a Fu Manchu moustache.

An equally blotchy face with a handlebar moustache.

And one that wasn’t a face at all but a black mask with holes for the eyes.

“You are trying to stop a beheading,” growled Bloodbath, pointing a trembling finger at her. “I accuse you and demand that you be beheaded. Does the accused have anything to say?”

Lisa gasped. “I, uh . . . the professor, uh . . . we’re innocent!”

“And what does the jury have to say?” Bloodbath growled, staring at Handlebar and Fu Manchu.

“I, uh . . . I . . .” stammered Handlebar. “She’s just a little girl.”

“Just a little girl, yes,” Fu Manchu said. “So I, as far as I’m concerned, uh . . .”

Bloodbath stared at them. “Is there anyone else here who wants to try to stop a beheading?” he growled in a deep voice.

“She’s guilty!” yelled Handlebar.

“Guilty!” yelled Fu Manchu.

Bloodbath walked over to the guillotine and opened the pillory holding Doctor Proctor in place.

“There’s room for one more. Get her over here. Let’s make it a double-header!”

The guards pushed her head down next to Proctor’s. Then the pillory slammed back into place over their necks and they were locked in.

“Hi, Professor,” Lisa said. “Nice to see you again.” She craned her neck struggling to look sideways, but it was quite difficult since her head was locked in.

“Hi, Lisa,” Doctor Proctor said. “I’m sorry I got you into this mess. Really very sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s not that important,” Lisa said, tilting her head back so she could look up and see a little of the sky over the crowd. And up above, a few metres over them, the sun gleamed on a very shiny, very sharp knife blade.

“Then give me a CHOP!” shouted Bloodbath, holding on to the cord. “Ready, everyone?”

“OUI!”
the answer rang out from the Place de la Révolution.

“Give me a
C
!” Bloodbath cried.

“C!”
the crowd shouted.

“Give me an
H
!”

“H!”

“I’m supposed to say hi to you from a bunch of people,” Lisa said. “Anna from Innebrède, Gustave Eiffel and Juliette, of course.”

“Oh, Juliette,” Proctor whispered, tearing up and closing his eyes. “I’ve failed Juliette . . .”

Lisa’s eyes welled up too. And maybe that’s why she thought she saw what she saw, as she looked out over the crowd and caught sight of Raspa’s face there in the second row. Because it really looked like Raspa had tears in her eyes too.

“Give me an
O
!”

“O!”

“Give me a
P
!” Bloodbath shouted.

“P!”

Behind her, Lisa heard Bloodbath hurriedly ask the guards in a whisper: “Is there only one
P
in ‘chop’ or two?”

“I’m going to go with one,” Handlebar whispered.

“I think it’s obviously two,” Fu Manchu said.

Lisa blinked away a tear. So this was how it would end. The sun was shining, the air smelled of jasmine and freshly baked bread and she could hear birds singing and pigs oinking in the distance. Her eyes filled with tears again. Was she really never going to see her mother or father or Nilly again? She blinked two more times. Something was dancing over the top of people’s heads out there, maybe a butterfly.

“Give me another half a
P
!” Bloodbath shouted.

“P!”

A blue butterfly. With white trousers. And a three-cornered hat that was on backwards. And it was heading this way.

“What does that spell?” Bloodbath shouted.

“CHOP(P)!”

“I can’t quite hear you.”

“CHOP(P)!”

The butterfly was getting bigger. It was getting clearer. Lisa could tell now that it wasn’t flying, but jumping from one person’s head to another’s, making its way over the top of the crowd. And it had . . . freckles?

“What do we do now?” roared Bloodbath.

“CHOP!”

It was . . . it couldn’t be . . . but it was . . . IT WAS NILLY!

How wonderful! Oh, and how awful! Because it was too late. Lisa heard Bloodbath yank on the cord; the birds stopped singing and the pigs stopped oinking. The only thing you could hear now was the whistle of the blade on its way down.

A NOTE SANG out in the air, and that note was the sound of the edge of a freshly released knife blade racing towards Lisa’s and Doctor Proctor’s necks. Soon it would separate their heads from their bodies and history would be changed. No girl named Lisa would ever live in the red house in Cannon Avenue and no Doctor Proctor would ever live in the blue one. Fart powder, fartonaut powder and French nose clips would never be invented. And the time-travelling bath would be invented by someone else, specifically Proctor’s rather evil assistant, Raspa. True, Nilly was on his way towards the stage, but he was too late. Bloodbath had already released the guillotine blade.

Future prospects were – in other words – rather bleak.

Lisa closed her eyes.

Then the knife was there, and the whistling stopped with a loud clang.

Lisa was dead. Of course she was dead, she’d just been decapitated and besides she was surrounded by a deathly silence. True, it was a little weird that the sound the blade had made when it hit her was
clang!
instead of
chop!
but so what? When she thought about it, it was a little weird that she had heard any sound at all since she didn’t have a head anymore. Actually it was weird that she was thinking all this stuff what with being headless and all. Lisa hesitantly opened her eyes, half expecting to see the inside of a woven basket and – above her – her own headless body. Instead she was looking out at the crowd, which was staring at her and the professor, speechless, their mouths open, looks of disbelief on their faces.

Then she heard a familiar voice:

“Dear citizens of Paris! The day of liberty has arrived! Just as my sabre has saved these two innocent children of the revolution, it will liberate you, yes, YOU, from tyranny, exploitation, corrosion and other miseries!”

Lisa turned her head. Just above her own and the professor’s necks, she saw a sabre blade with its tip jammed into the guillotine. The sabre had obviously stopped the guillotine blade at the last possible nanosecond before they’d both become headless. Or bodyless. Depending on how you looked at it. Next to her she heard the professor moan quietly, “Are we still alive?”

“Yup,” Lisa whispered, her eyes following the blade of the sabre out to its handle, to the small hand holding on to the sabre and to the little guy in the blue uniform who was addressing the crowd while gesticulating wildly with his free hand: “I promise to lower all conceivable kinds of taxes and fees on tobacco, petrol, toys and holiday cruises!”

“Nilly!” Lisa hissed quietly. “What are you doing?”

Nilly stopped and whispered, “Shh! I’m good at this. I recently convinced seventy thousand guys with rifles to go home. Just listen . . .”

Nilly cleared his throat and raised his voice again. “I will do away with toothaches, PE lessons and that slushy, sticky snow that’s no good for skiing on. And I will do away with the death penalty. Especially for nutty professors and quarrelsome girls. If you will agree with me on this, everyone will get a PlayStation for Christmas!”

He lowered his voice again and whispered, “You see? They’re nodding. I’m winning them over.”

“Not quite, I’m afraid,” Doctor Proctor said.

And the professor appeared to be right. An irritated murmur was spreading through the crowd. A few people were shaking their fists at the stage.

“We want a beheading!” a voice screamed from somewhere in the crowd.

“We want to see this little guy’s head chopped off too!” someone else yelled.

Behind him on the stage Bloodbath had recovered from the shock of seeing a little boy come swooping in, jabbing his sabre into the guillotine to stop the blade and – even worse – possibly dulling the blade so that it would have to be sharpened yet again. But this little boy was obviously a raving lunatic, so Bloodbath and the two guards approached him from behind with the greatest of care.

“But my dear countrymen.” Nilly laughed good-naturedly. “Aren’t you listening? I’m going to do away with rain on Sundays!”

A slice of bread with brie on it came sailing out of the crowd and was about to strike Nilly. He turned to avoid it and caught sight of Bloodbath and the two guards, who had their swords drawn.

“And a raise for everyone!” Nilly cried, but he didn’t look that confident anymore. “Especially . . . uh, executioners and guards with moustaches. What do you guys say to that?”

But no one said anything to that. Bloodbath and the guards just continued to slowly close in on him, as did the crowd, its threatening murmur getting louder and louder.

“Darn it! I don’t get it,” Nilly mumbled. “This worked so well at Waterloo!”

“You’d better think of something else,” Doctor Proctor said. “And fast. They’re going to rip us to shreds.”

“Well, like what?” Nilly whispered. “I’ve already promised them everything! What do these people actually like?”

“I think,” Lisa said, “they like . . . music.”

“Music?” Nilly asked dubiously.

“Behead the little guy twice!” someone bellowed and several others said, “
Oui!
”

Nilly looked around in despair. He knew the game was almost up. Soon, but not quite yet. Because wasn’t he a resourceful little guy who knew a thing or two? Maybe. He could run fast, he could lie so well that even he believed himself and he could play the trumpet so that even the birds would weep with joy, and—

The trumpet!

He looked at the brass instrument that Lisa was still holding in her hand. And the next second he let go of his sabre, hopped down from the guillotine, ducked under the guards’ arms and snatched the trumpet. He put it right to his lips and blew.

The first two notes rose up towards the blue sky and just like that the larks and warblers stopped singing and the bees and blowflies stopped buzzing. As the third and fourth notes surged out of the trumpet, the threatening murmurs fell silent as well. Because unlike the Norwegian national anthem, this song was one everyone in the crowd had heard before.