“Nonsense!” snarled Dr Wilander.
“Gentlemen,” said Sempitern Walker, loudly and boringly. “We are all agreed that there is a crisis both for Time City and for history, and we are all agreed that we will prevent it if we can. We will not sacrifice the art of the seventies nor deprive the Hundreds of their expansion to the stars…”
He went on talking. Heaviness descended again. The ladies came to take away the second course and give everyone frothy little mountains of sweet stuff. Vivian had just dug a spoon into hers – it smelt as good as butter-pie – when the door crashed aside to let a wide sandy-haired man pounce into the room. Vivian jumped and dropped her spoon.
“What’s this about an update on the moveback?” he said.
He looked like Sam. He was so like Sam in fact that, while Vivian was bending under the table to get her spoon, she could not help taking a look at the man’s feet to see if his shoelaces were trailing. But he was wearing smooth shiny boots.
Everyone talked at once then. When Vivian sat up again, she found the sandy-haired man standing over her as if he meant to arrest her.
“Vivian, you remember Abdul Donegal – Sam’s father – don’t you?” Jenny said. “He’s Chief of Time Patrol now. Tell him what you told us.”
Everything? Vivian wondered wildly. “You mean about war breaking out last Christmas?”
Mr Donegal pulled at his lip and stared at her as if she was a suspect. “You’re telling me Twenty Century’s gone critical then,” he said. “When did you leave it?”
“Last n—yesterday about four o’clock, I think,” Vivian said.
Sam’s father pulled at his lip again and frowned. “And my next batch of Observer reports isn’t due till tomorrow,” he said. “Lucky you came. That means the start of that war’s moved back ten months in two days. Bad. I’ll get everyone on to Amber Emergency right away and we’ll do what we can to stop it sliding back any further.” He gave Vivian a smile with two teeth in it just like Sam’s and banged her on the shoulder. “Drop in and see us soon,” he said. Then he seemed to be going.
“Er – Abdul,” said Sempitern Walker.
“Look here, Donegal!” Mr Enkian called out. His pointed yellow face was red and angry. “What do you mean by letting this moveback escape notice? If it hadn’t been for this child, none of us would have known. Isn’t that a little slack?”
Mr Donegal whirled round and stared at him. “Slack?” he said. “Listen, Enkian, I’m handling an emergency in one of the most unstable centuries in history. I’ve just come from a flood of reports from the eighties threatening World War Three two centuries early. I’ve Patrollers out all over the era. What more can I do? It’s been a week since the Lees’ last report – maybe sending young Vivian was the best they could do – but I’ll send a man to check now, if you’ll let me get back to my job.”
“All the same—” Mr Enkian began.
“Abdul, won’t you sit down and have some of this sweet?” Jenny interrupted quickly.
Mr Donegal’s eyes went to the frothy mounds rather in the way Sam looked at a butter-pie. Then he glanced at Mr Enkian most unlovingly and rubbed at the stomach that sat roundly above his studded belt. “I’d better not, Jenny. My weight’s up again. Besides, I’ve got to get back and contact the Lees, not to speak of having another try at catching that little lady.” And before anyone could say anything else, he went out of the room with the same crash and pounce with which he had come.
“Do you think he has a chance of catching her?” Mr Enkian said.
Dr Wilander grunted into his sweet. “Change the subject,” he growled. “Little pitchers.”
Mr Enkian looked at Vivian and Jonathan and then at Jenny.
“Dears, if you’ve finished your sweet you can run along,” Jenny said. “It’s quite late and Jonathan looks tired.”
Vivian saw that they were being got rid of so that the grown-ups could talk about the Time Lady. Sempitern Walker made that quite clear by leaning back in his chair and fixing them with an agonised stare as they went out. “None of what we said is to go beyond this room,” he said. “I put you both on your honour.”
“Yes, Father,” Jonathan said in a subdued mutter. It was no wonder Jenny had said Jonathan was tired, Vivian thought as they went across the hall. Jonathan was white and his head hung.
“Is something the matter?” she asked.
But Jonathan refused to speak until they had reached his room. Then he flung himself into an empty-frame chair so hard that his pigtail bounded, and threatened to make an emotional scene. “Curse those two time-ghosts!” he almost shrieked. “They made me quite sure you were the Time Lady! But you’re not, are you? I could tell you were a real Twenty Century person with every word you said. Mickey Mouse!” he yelled. “And I’m stuck with you while she’s still out there messing history up!”
“Well, I told you,” Vivian said. A great relief was growing in her. As soon as Jonathan mentioned the time-ghosts, she knew how she was going to get home.
“I hate feeling a fool like this!” Jonathan snarled with his face in his fists and his pigtail draped over his arm.
Vivian took a long happy breath. “I bet I know,” she said, “how you can find the real Time Lady.”
“No, you don’t,” Jonathan said flatly. “My father and Mr Enkian and Sam’s father went to that station in 1939 and she gave them all the slip. And me too, for that matter.”
“Yes, but I know how she did it,” Vivian said.
“Prove it,” said Jonathan.
“All right,” said Vivian. For lack of anywhere better, she sat on the empty-frame table. The nothing creaked a bit, but it held her up. “She was on that train, wasn’t she? That was why you were all there.”
“I don’t know. All I overheard in the Chronologue was the place and the time. I worked the rest out from seeing our time-ghosts,” Jonathan said. “And I got it wrong,” he added morbidly.
“Just listen,” said Vivian. “Everyone else on that train went straight along to the exit to be shared out to homes. And they were all children on that train – I know that for a fact. So she must be quite small – small enough to pass herself off as an evacuee, mustn’t she?”
Jonathan nodded. He had taken his face out of his fists and was trying not to look too hopeful. “All right. She puts her hand trustingly into a farmer’s wife’s hand and off she goes. How do we find out which farmer’s wife?”
“Easy,” said Vivian. “We go and see Cousin Marty. She lives there. It’s a small place and she’ll know everyone. She can tell us who took in which children, and we only have to go round the houses like detectives to find her.”
