Bubble in the Bathtub (14 page)

“Hurry up! They're coming!”

The voice didn't sound like Nilly's or Doctor Proctor's. It was a girl's voice. Lisa heard the drone of the engine getting louder and instinctively understood that she should do what the girl said. So she did. She hurried. Lisa ran as fast as she could, as the sound of the engine got louder and louder. When Lisa reached the end of the bridge, she saw that the person was a girl a little younger than herself, with dark hair, brown eyes, and a red poncho. The girl grabbed Lisa's hand and pulled her down to hide in the ditch alongside the road just as a motorcycle came around the corner.

And it was a motorcycle Lisa recognized right away.

It had a sidecar, and the driver was tall and thin and wearing motorcycle goggles, a leather helmet, and a most unusually long wool scarf that stretched straight out behind him and disappeared around the corner. And then, wouldn't you know, the end of the scarf came around the corner, too. A woman was hanging on to it, being pulled as if she were on water skis. The soles of her shoes were emitting black smoke, like from burning rubber. Lisa opened her mouth in disbelief. She knew what was going to happen!

And that was exactly what
did
happen, too. Just much faster than Lisa had pictured it when Juliette had described it: The woman slid along the edge of the road, the scarf coiled around the sign post before the bridge, and partway across the bridge, the driver was yanked off his motorcycle as the scarf tightened around his neck. Meanwhile the woman was spinning around the post in tighter and tighter circles. Sparks sprayed out from around the motorcycle as it slid over the bridge until it finally stopped and silence once again settled between the mountains.

“Juliette!” Lisa yelled to the woman, who had finally released the scarf and was obviously very dizzy after her carousel ride because she staggered out onto the bridge without paying any attention to Lisa's yell.

“Juliette!” Lisa yelled and wanted to run after her. But the girl in the poncho held her back.

“He said we were supposed to stay here,” she said.

“Who said?” Lisa yelled, trying to pull herself free.

“Doctor Proctor,” the girl said.

Lisa stiffened. “Doctor Proctor was here?”

“Yes,” the girl said. “He said that we had to let what happened happen. That trying to stop it could ruin his other plans. Duck, here come the hippos!”

It wasn't until she heard the word “hippo” that Lisa noticed the sound of another engine and knew that they were coming, just like Juliette had described. And sure enough, the black limousine came around the corner.
It drove cautiously onto the bridge, which was only just barely wide enough.

Lisa remained crouched and watched the woman out on the bridge pull the man onto his feet.

“He's going to get on his motorcycle soon and drive off toward Italy,” Lisa whispered. “And she'll turn herself over to the hippos, who will take her back to Claude Cliché in Paris. Whom she'll have to marry.”

“I know,” the girl said, and as Lisa stared at her, wondering how she knew all that, the girl continued: “The professor told me. What time did you come from?”

“The same as Doctor Proctor. How did you know that I'd time-traveled?”

“I saw the bathtub. What's your name?”

“Lisa. Lisa Pedersen. I'm here to find Doctor Proctor. Did you time-travel here, too?”

The girl laughed and shook her head. “I'm just from here and now. My name's Anna. Anna Showli.”

“How funny,” Lisa said. “My best friend's name is Anna, too. She lives in Sarpsborg. In Norway. My parents think I'm there visiting her now.” Lisa felt her eyes suddenly well up at the thought of her mother and father.

Anna smiled and patted Lisa comfortingly on the cheek. Even though Anna looked like she must be at least a year younger than Lisa. On the other hand, if Lisa ever got back to her own time and met Anna then, Anna would be at least as old as her mother.

“Are you alone?” Anna asked.

“So it would seem,” Lisa said. “I'm guessing Nilly forgot where we were going. Occasionally he has trouble concentrating.”

The motorcycle out on the bridge started up and drove away.

“Hey!” Lisa yelled, standing up. “Doctor Proctor! Don't go!”

“Shh,” Anna said, pulling Lisa back down. “That's
the young Doctor Proctor. He wouldn't have had any idea what you were talking about.”

“Huh?” Lisa said. “What happened to the old Doctor Proctor, then?”

Anna sighed. “He left again.”

“But he was here? You met him?”

Anna nodded. “He strolled into Innebrède this morning, wet as a pair of swim trunks. He came over to me, because the Trann cousins had tossed me into Innebrède Creek yet again.”

“The Trann cousins?”

“These two awful boys who live down at the bottom of my street. They had knocked over my bike, dumped out my backpack, and filled my pockets with nails. They're training to be hippos like their fathers, you see.”

“I see,” Lisa sighed.

“Well, I guess his crazy appearance scared them. At least that's what I assume. Plus he was shouting at them in a foreign language and shaking his fist. The Trann
boys ran off, but yelled to me that they were going to go get their fathers. Then the professor helped me gather my books and school supplies. And when he saw that I had a big magic marker, he asked if he could borrow it to write a message on the wall at the gas station.”

“A message?”

“Yeah. He wanted to warn himself, he said. He was going to write a note telling himself not to stop there, to keep going until he got to Italy. He told me the whole story.”

“And you believed him?” Lisa asked, surprised.

“No, no,” Anna laughed. “I thought he was a nice, but very crazy, professor. Even though he showed me the bathtub that he claimed he could travel through time in. It was in with all the junk cars in the Hippo's scrap-metal yard. Then I heard the bell ringing at school off in the distance and explained to him how to get to the gas station without running into the Trann fathers. Then I ran off so I wouldn't be late for class.”

“I see,” Lisa said. “But then, why aren't you at school now?”

“I never made it that far. When I came around the corner, the Trann fathers were there waiting for me. They shook me and asked me who he was, that crazy foreigner who'd threatened those dear, sweet boys of theirs. I was so scared, I told them everything. They made such strange faces when I told them about the young professor who was running away with Juliette Margarine by motorcycle. They said something how that must be the guy their boss, Mr. Cliché, was looking for. They asked if I knew where the foreigner was, but I pretended like I didn't know. Then they let me go and started discussing something between themselves. They agreed to warn the other hippos in the village to keep a lookout for suspicious foreigners. And decided it probably made sense to give the gas station a heads-up since that was usually where any foreigners coming to Innebrède went. Then they
jumped into their limousine and drove away.”

“What did you do?”

“I realized right away that maybe there was something to the professor's story after all. So I ran as fast as I could in the same direction I'd told the professor to go.
Moan dyoo
, how I ran! Luckily I caught up to him hiding across from the gas station. I told him what had happened. We watched from his hiding place and saw that the limousine was there already, and that the Trann fathers were talking to the two hippos who work at the gas station.”

“That explains why they were so suspicious when Proctor and Juliette stopped for gas,” Lisa said.

Anna's eyes welled up. “It's all my fault, isn't it?”

“Not at all,” Lisa said, and now she was the one patting Anna's cheek. “There's no way you could have known that Professor Proctor isn't completely insane. To tell the truth, sometimes I wonder myself….”

Anna dried away her tears. “The professor said that
his plan had failed, that he had to come up with something else.”

“Did he say what?” Lisa asked.

“He said you only get one chance to change something in history, so now he had to go to another time and change something there.”

“Where?” Lisa asked. “Where?”

“He said he had a brilliant idea.”

“What idea?” Lisa shouted.

“Duck!” Anna said.

The wide limousine had backed up off the bridge and was now turning around right in front of them. Lisa cautiously peeked over the edge of the ditch and caught a glimpse of a pale face inside behind the dark, tinted windows. It was Juliette. Then the limo accelerated and disappeared in a cloud of dust.

“What kind of idea?” Lisa repeated, coughing.

“The professor wanted to travel back in time to see the engineer who designed this bridge in front of us. To
before he made it. To get him to change the drawings.”

“Change the bridge? Why?”

“Because the limousine that the hippos use is exactly as wide as the American tanks that rolled across the bridge here to liberate France from Hitler during World War Two. You said it yourself that the limousine only just barely fit onto the bridge, right?”

“Yeah,” Lisa said.

“Well the professor said that if he could just get the engineer to draw the bridge a
tiny bit
narrower in 1888, then the limousine wouldn't fit and the hippos would have to give up and stop chasing him and Juliette. And they could just chug along on their way. And live happily ever after …”

“Brilliant!” Lisa exclaimed. “How clever! But … but how did he know who the engineer was and what year he drew the plans?”

“Simple! It's on that sign right there.” Anna pointed and the two girls got up out of the ditch and went
over to the sign that the scarf had gotten caught on.

“Designed by engineer Gustave Eiffel in 1888,” Lisa read. “Completed in 1894. Wait! Eiffel? Isn't he the guy who designed—”

“Yup,” Anna said. “He's the one who designed the Eiffel Tower. And there you have it. The professor decided to go visit Gustave Eiffel in 1888. So he said good-bye, sank down into the bathtub and—voilà!—he was gone! I even felt around in the bathtub for him. And that's when I realized that he might not be that crazy after all. So instead of riding my bike home, I came here to see if what the professor had described to me would happen, would really happen. And it did.”

Anna suddenly looked sad again. “The professor's poor girlfriend, though. Imagine having to marry that scoundrel, Claude Cliché.”

Suddenly she punched the palm of her hand. “I can't believe none of those cowardly judges in Paris have had the courage to throw the book at that hoodlum!
It makes me so mad that everyone just does what he says.”

“Unfortunately there's nothing we can do about guys like Cliché,” Lisa said. “But now I have to go find Proctor. I have the time soap he needs.” Lisa patted her jacket pocket.

Anna followed Lisa, who had gotten a running start. She had jumped over the ditch and was now running through the grass back toward the ledge where the time-traveling bathtub was. When they got there, Lisa was relieved to see that there were still bubbles.

“Thank you for all your help, Anna,” Lisa said, jumping in. “You'll see. What you've done will end up helping save the professor after all.”

“I hope so,” Anna said. “But I hope you're not right about the other thing.”

“What other thing?”

“That there's nothing we can do to stop guys like Claude Cliché.”

“You should try,” Lisa said. “Good luck, Anna Showli.”

“Good luck to you too, Lisa Pedersen. Say hi to the professor from me when you see him.”

“I will, I promise.” Lisa went to plug her nose with her fingers, but discovered that she was still wearing the blue nose clip.

“Hey, the professor said one other thing,” Anna said. “That I should be careful if his old assistant showed up. His assistant is apparently able to track people by reading the time soap residue and can follow people no matter what time they travel to.”

“Yeah, that was my understanding, too, that his assistant was kind of a shady guy,” Lisa said. “Okay, bye!”

“But—” Anna started.

But it was too late, because Lisa had already disappeared into the bubbles.

“—his assistant wasn't a guy,” Anna continued,
mumbling. “The professor told me it was a woman. A very unusual woman …”

Meanwhile, under the water, Lisa was concentrating on Gustave Eiffel's office and a date in 1888. But which date? She chose the first one she thought of: May 17, Norwegian Independence Day. That's as good as any other date, right?

FROM HIS BED in the tower suite at the Hôtel Moe Bla, Nilly was staring into the muzzle of an old-fashioned pistol. And thinking that he would much rather be staring at a plate of bacon and eggs. Not just because he was awfully hungry, but because pistol muzzles are unpleasant things to stare at. A bullet could come shooting out at any time.