mother put up a hand and clutched her jetty black hair. “Oh Great Time! Are the Lees back already then? I meant to air Lee House first!”
“No, she’s on her own. Viv and Inga sent her back because World War Two has just started,” Jonathan explained.
And here am I standing here letting him lie! Vivian thought uncomfortably. But she had to join in the lying after that, because Jonathan’s mother turned to her with a worried smile. “Of course! That war comes up about a third of the way through Twenty Century, doesn’t it? Has it turned out worse than they expected?”
“Much worse,” said Vivian. “London’s been bombed quite a bit already. They think there’s going to be gas-attacks and an invasion soon.” Though all this was quite true, it somehow amounted to a lie. Jonathan’s mother turned pale. “They’re sending all the children away from London,” Vivian said, hoping that would make her feel better.
“You poor child! And my poor brother!” Jonathan’s mother said. “Why does everything have to happen at once? Of course you must stay here with us until your parents are recalled. And we’ll find you some proper clothes. I suppose you’ve nothing but those awful things you’ve got on.”
Vivian looked down at her coat and her best skirt rather indignantly, but she did not need to say anything. Jonathan’s mother turned back to the telephone-thing and pressed a knob in the wall beside it. “Elio,” she said. “I need you at once. Can you come to the hall?” She said over her shoulder to Jonathan, “Will you take care of Vivian today, my love – and show her around and so on? She’s bound to feel very strange after five years in history. I’ve got a crisis on in Agelong. Someone’s sent out the New Australian Grammar to Malaya nearly a century before it was invented and I’m going to be all day sorting it out.”
“I always have to do your dirty work!” Jonathan said, pretending to be annoyed. “You’re never here at all!”
“I know, my love,” his mother said, looking more worried than ever. “I’ll try to get the day off tomorrow, I—”
But here a door slammed open across the room and a tall anguished-looking man came storming out in a swirl of grey robes. He was followed by a pale respectful-looking man in sober fawn-coloured pyjamas. Jonathan’s mother instantly turned more worried yet.
“What’s this? What’s going on?” asked the storming man. “You can’t take Elio away now! I need him.” He glared at the pale man, who looked at the floor respectfully. He glared at Jonathan, who looked back as if he was used to it. Then he came right up to Vivian and glared at her. “What in Time’s name is this?” he said. His pepper-coloured hair was scraped into a knob on top of his head, and his eyes stared out of deep hollow sockets, looking agonised. He was so alarming that Vivian backed away.
“It’s little Vivian Lee, Ranjit,” Jonathan’s mother said in a guilty, soothing way. “Your niece. The Lees have had to send her home because Twenty Century seems to be getting quite dangerous, and she’ll have to stay with us. Their house is shut up, remember? I wanted Elio to see about a room and some clothes for her.”
“But she’s too big!” the anguished man said, still glaring at Vivian. “This girl is not the right size!”
Vivian stood limply, looking at the floor like the pale man. It was almost a relief that he had realised she was not the right Vivian. Now she would not need to lie any more. But she was very scared about what they would do to her now they knew.
“She was six when she went away, Father,” Jonathan said. He did not seem in the least alarmed. “That was nearly six years ago. Think how much I’ve changed since then.”
“So you have,” said this alarming man, turning his glare on Jonathan as if he did not think the change was for the better. “I see,” he said. “She grew.” And to Vivian’s great surprise, he turned to her again with his anguished face relaxed into a charming smile. The hint of anguish still there in his hollow eyes only seemed to make the smile more charming. He held out a long, knobby hand for Vivian to shake. “I believe that to be Twenty Century custom,” he said. “How do you do, my dear?”
“Very well, thank you,” Vivian managed to say. Relief seemed to have taken her voice away at first. No wonder Jonathan thought I’d better have breakfast before I met his father! she thought. I might have fainted without.
Jonathan’s father turned round, saying, “I need Elio back in five minutes exactly,” and went away in the same storming way that he had come, with his robes streaming, and banged the door behind him. Jonathan’s mother took pale Elio aside and began telling him what she needed. She seemed quite flustered, but Elio nodded calmly. He had a little square thing in his hand and punched buttons on it respectfully as Jonathan’s mother talked. It must have been a way of taking notes.
“What do I call them?” Vivian whispered urgently to Jonathan while his mother talked.
“Call who what?” said Jonathan.
“Your parents. Auntie what? Uncle which?” Vivian whispered.
“Oh, I see!” Jonathan whispered. “Her name’s Jenny Lee Walker. You’d better say Jenny. He’s called Ranjit Walker. Most people call him Sempitern, but you’re supposed to be a Lee, so you could call him Ranjit.”
Ranjit, Vivian tried out to herself. Uncle Ranjit. It was no good. She just could not imagine herself calling that alarming man anything. Jenny was better. She could manage that. But she did wonder if Jonathan was very brave, or just mad, to think of deceiving either of them.
Jonathan’s mother – Jenny, Vivian told herself – turned back to them, smiling. “That’s all seen to then!” she said. “Leave your coat and hat and your luggage here, Vivian dear, for Elio to see to, and run off and enjoy Time City with Jonathan – Or—” She looked worried again. “Do you need anything to eat?”
“No thanks,” Vivian said, and once more found herself lying by telling the truth. “I had – I had sandwiches to take on the train.”
Then they were free to go back along the coloured marble floor. Vivian went feeling rather shaky, but Jonathan walked with a bouncing, lordly stride, smiling broadly. “There! We got away with it!” he said. “I knew we would. This way.”
He swung towards the line of pointed windows. They clearly were doors. One in the middle flapped aside to let them out, as if it knew they were coming – or Vivian thought it was opening for them, until she saw that two people, a man and a woman, were coming in from the square outside. Vivian stopped politely to let them come in first. But, to her astonishment, Jonathan took no notice of them at all. He went on walking through the opening as if the two people did not exist. And to Vivian’s utter horror, he walked straight through both of them, the man first and then the woman, as if they were made of smoke.
“How – who – how did you do that?” she gasped, as the man and woman walked past her through the hall, looking quite whole and undamaged. “Who – who are they?”
“Those? You don’t want to take any notice of those,” Jonathan said. “They’re only time-ghosts.”
Vivian’s still-shaky legs nearly folded under her. “Ghosts!” she squawked.
