“Here’s your tea,” said Sardius, easing himself back into the armchair. “Now tell me what happened.”
Victoria did, as far as she could, although the violent ending, with the Hammerford Puppy bashing into her alternate self, causing all sorts of dangers for her, had left her memory with a few holes. When she’d finished, Sardius nodded.
“Shame. You were very, very near. Next time we’ll do it. Next time we’ll do it here, now, in England and with the Bruce brat under our direct control. Kids disappear all the time. He’ll just be one more mystery for the Daily Express to get all riled up about.”
Victoria tasted the tea and its sweetness. She never took sugar. She put it down with a sigh.
“Made a right mess of Number 11.”
Victoria looked over at Sardius, her eyebrows asking the silent question.
“Two of the floors cracked right across and will need replacing. The one where you lay and the one where Emerald lay. You were both lucky that you, and the rest of us, didn’t go crashing down in a shower of crystal shards.”
“No one ever said this would be easy or safe.” Victoria decided she would drink the tea, sweet though it was. She needed all the energy she could muster to plan her revenge.
“You’re Alive! Rhory!”
Alexandria – about now
My head felt like a dumper truck had unloaded a mound of hard-core inside my skull, and none too gently at that. As I moved so did the broken bricks, their sharp edges causing more damage. A crashed aeroplane had lodged in the ceiling leaving just its propeller showing. I knew it had crashed because the propeller remained motionless. Nearby, a huge clear weather balloon floated to ward off enemy raiders.
“I think he’s awake,” someone whispered in a trench far away.
I turned towards the sound, and rubble relocated itself, tumbling inside my head. My rifle must be nearby.
“He moved. I’ll call the doctor.”
The cloudy sky above my head solidified into a firm ceiling with a distinct crack and a small stain. The propeller remained a propeller but shrank into a ceiling fan. The weather balloon became the colostomy sack nurses use to put fluid in patients’ arms. I followed the clear tube down and found it ended in the back of my hand. Of my rifle I could see no sign. The paratrooper looming over me had probably taken it.
“Rhory. Rhory. Thank goodness. OMG. You’re alive. Rhory!”
The head shrank to more normal proportions.
“Natash…” My lips were not working quite as they should, owing to being twice their normal size on the right-hand side of my face.
“Wait. Rhory. Don’t go anywhere.” Natasha grinned and sniffed all at the same time. “I’ll get your mum.”
Bricks re-arranged themselves. Small outhouses were constructed. Arc lights came on. Duck boards were laid over the sticky mud oozing through my mind. I followed a thought that danced and pivoted between the bullets and reached dry ground.
“MY MUM?” I tried to sit up. All the outhouses tumbled at once. Silence spread like the brick dust. I felt sick ready to rise up from deep in a shell hole nearby. Then the thought returned. My mum is skiing somewhere in Sweden. No, not Sweden. Switzerland. What is she doing in Alexandria? On a table next to my bed a bottle of Lucozade had Arabic writing. The door swung open and Mum came in, followed by Natasha with a grin the size of a bulldozer, and then Dad. Something really serious must have happened. I wondered what as I fell asleep.
Natasha ate some of my grapes, popping them in her mouth four at a time. At this rate the huge bunch would last approximately ten minutes.
“Mmmm … delish.”
“I know, you’ve told me once. Tell me again. What happened?”
Natasha grinned. “You’re blocking out the story, Rhory. Story Rhory! Ha! It rhymes. You’d gone to bed, remember? You were feeling ill. We’d gone out leaving just the housekeeper behind. You must have got up because you’d carried your clothes into the bathroom. You’d taken off your pyjamas but not yet put on your jeans or jacket. They lay neatly on the edge of the bath. You must have either fainted or slipped. You fell, hitting your forehead on the sink and somehow scraping your cheek really badly. No one knows quite how. That’s how Auntie found you.”
A slow smile crept back over her face. The account she had given re-arranged itself in my mind. Clothes came off but didn’t go back on.
“You mean…”
Natasha nodded, her eyes looking like a contestant about to win a jackpot.
“You mean when Auntie…”
Natasha nodded like the knitters did when French nobility mounted the slick steps to the guillotine.
“You mean I was stark…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. The reality dawning in my mind had an awfulness that shouldn’t be allowed. That positively did not bear thinking about. Dad coming into the hospital room helped me pretend I still did not know quite how Auntie had found me.
“Hullo, Dad,” I croaked.
He held his hand up, smiling. He had something to say, but in his own time of course. I’d been awake now for three days and no longer puked every half hour or so. I’d even managed to keep down some Egyptian food. I’d only been bitten by one mosquito. Things were looking up, although apparently Juliette was seriously peeved her skiing holiday had been reduced to just one day before the family all flew back to the UK. Mum and Dad then flew on to Egypt.
Dad rattled a newspaper. The Daily Mail.
“I know, I know. It’s all they had. And it’s out of date. I found an Asterix Book like you asked for but it was all in Arabic, so I didn’t get it. But listen to this, Rhory.”
He rattled the paper once more to add dramatic emphasis.
“ ‘Did the Egyptians invent the bagpipes?’ That’s the heading. “Bagpipes have been found in a dig in Alexandria in remarkably good condition. Professor something-or-other – a long Egyptian name – says they’re definitely not from World War Two.. They’ve dated them way older than that. They’ve put them at the third or fourth century. It goes on: ‘Bagpipes are characteristic of the Scots. But maybe the Egyptians or the Greeks got there first. These are the oldest ever found. And after all, the Egyptians also wore kilts.’ ”
Dad came over and showed me the picture. I could easily recognise Håkan’s pipes lying on a table. Behind them, without any comment apparently, lay part of a drum. The drum I’d played in with the Sami way back when, with two stick figures and a bear quite clearly painted on it.
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Time Knot Page 37
