I’d have loved a private word with him. But the doctor seemed to have forgotten me entirely, he was so deep in his conversation.

“Come along, Gwyneth,” I heard a sympathetic voice saying. Mr. George. “We’ll take you straight off to elapse, and after that, you can go home.”

I nodded.

That sounded like the idea of the day.

A journey back in time with the aid of the chronograph can last for between 120 seconds and 240 minutes. With the Aquamarine, Citrine, Jade, Sapphire, and Ruby, the minimum setting is 121 seconds, the maximum setting 239 minutes. To avoid uncontrolled time travel, the gene carriers have to elapse for 180 minutes every day. If they elapse for less than that time, there can be uncontrolled time travel within the next twenty-four hours (see Records of Time Travel, 6 January 1902, 17 February 1902—Timothy de Villiers).

According to the empirical investigations of Count Saint-Germain in the years 1720 to 1738, a gene carrier can elapse, with the aid of the chronograph, for up to five and a half hours a day, i.e., 330 minutes. If that time is exceeded, gene carriers will suffer headache and sensations of vertigo and weakness, and their faculties of perception and coordination will be severely affected. The de Villiers brothers were able to establish these facts in three parallel experiments on themselves in the year 1902.

FROM THE CHRONICLES OF THE GUARDIANS, VOLUME 3,

CHAPTER I: “THE MYSTERIES OF THE CHRONOGRAPH”

SIX

I’D NEVER BEFORE elapsed in such comfort as I did that afternoon. I’d been given a hamper to take along with me, containing rugs, a thermos flask of hot tea, biscuits (of course), and fruit cut up small in a lunch box. I almost had a guilty conscience as I settled down on the green sofa. I thought briefly of taking the key out of its secret hiding place and setting off upstairs, but that would only mean additional complications and the risk of being caught. I was somewhere in the year 1953. I hadn’t asked the precise date, because I’d had to act the part of a poor feeble invalid with flu.

Once Falk had decided on a change of plan, hectic activity had broken out among the Guardians. In the end, I’d been sent off to the chronograph room with the reluctant Mr. Marley. It was obvious that he didn’t want to be lumbered with me, and would much rather have stayed to join the discussion. So I dared not ask him any questions about Operation Opal; I just looked as grumpy as he did. Our relationship had definitely deteriorated over the last two days, but Mr. Marley was the last person I was bothered about right now.

So in the year 1953, I ate first the fruit, then the biscuits, and finally I nestled down under the rugs and stretched out on the sofa. In spite of the uncomfortable light cast by the naked bulb in the ceiling, it wasn’t five minutes before I was fast asleep. Not even the thought of the headless ghost who was supposed to haunt these cellars could keep me awake. I woke up feeling refreshed, just in time to travel back, which was a good thing, because otherwise I’d have crash-landed at Mr. Marley’s feet flat on my back.

While Mr. Marley, after greeting me with a single nod, was making his entry in the journal (probably something along the lines of Instead of doing her duty, that spoilsport Ruby lounged around in the year 1953, feeding her face with fruit), I asked him whether Dr. White was still in the building. I really did want to know why he hadn’t given me away by telling the others I was only pretending.

“He doesn’t have the time to bother about your little aches and pains … I mean about your flu,” replied Mr. Marley. “At the moment, the others are all setting off to the Ministry of Defense for Operation Opal.” The words And I can’t be there, all because of you hung in the air as clearly as if he had said them out loud.

Ministry of Defense? Why on earth…? I knew it was no use asking Mr. Huffy there just what that was about. In his present mood, he wasn’t about to tell me anything. In fact he seemed to have decided it would be better not to talk to me at all anymore. He blindfolded me, fastidiously using his fingertips, and led me through the labyrinth of corridors in the cellars with one hand on my elbow and the other on my waist. I found this physical contact more unpleasant with every step we took, particularly as his hands were hot and sweaty. I could hardly wait to shake them off when we had finally gone up the spiral staircase to the ground floor. Sighing, I took off the blindfold and said I’d find my own way from there to the limousine.

“I haven’t given you permission yet,” protested Mr. Marley. “Anyway, it’s my duty to escort you to the front door of your house.”

“Oh, stop that!” I hit out at him in annoyance when he tried to put the scarf around my head again. “I know the rest of the way, and if you insist on going to my front door, then you’re definitely not doing it with your hand on my waist.” And I set off again.

Mr. Marley followed me, snorting indignantly. “You’re acting as if I’d touched you improperly!”

“Yes, so I am,” I said, to annoy him.

“That is really—” cried Mr. Marley, but whatever he was going to say was drowned out by excitable shouting in a strong French accent.

“Don’t you dare leave ’ere without zis ruff, young man!” The door to the sewing room flew open, and out came Gideon, closely followed by a furious Madame Rossini. She was waving her hands about in the air, along with the intricately pleated piece of white fabric they were holding. “You stay ’ere! Do you zink I ’ave made you zis ruff just for fun?”

Gideon had already stopped when he saw us. I had stopped too, but unfortunately not in the same casual way—more like someone turned into a pillar of salt. Not because I was surprised by his peculiar padded jacket, with shoulders that made him look like a wrestler on anabolic steroids, but because whenever we met, I obviously couldn’t do a thing but goggle at him. With my heart thudding.

“As if I would touch you at all of my own free will! I’m doing it only because I have to,” groused Mr. Marley behind me. Gideon raised an eyebrow and gave me a sardonic smile.

I quickly smiled back just as sardonically, letting my glance wander as slowly as possible from the weird jacket down over the comical padded trunk-hose and his stockinged calves, all the way to the buckled shoes he was wearing.

“Auzenticity, young man!” Madame Rossini was still waving the stiff, pleated collar about. “’Ow often do I ’ave to tell you? Ah, ’ere is my leetle swan-necked beauty.” A broad smile spread over her round face. “Bonsoir, ma petite. Tell zat idiot not to make me so angry.”

“Okay, hand the thing over.” Gideon let Madame Rossini put the ruff around his neck. “Although I’m not likely to come face-to-face with anyone—and even if I did, I can’t imagine that people went about day and night wearing starched pie-frills like this.”

“Oh, yes, zey did—at least ze gentlemen at court.”

“I don’t know what’s bothering you. It really suits you,” I said with a mean grin. “Makes your head look like an enormous chocolate in its little paper case.”

“Yes, I know.” Gideon was grinning too. “Good enough to eat. But at least it takes people’s eyes off these trunk-hose. Or so I hope.”

“Zey are very, very sexy,” claimed Madame Rossini. I couldn’t help giggling.

“Glad to see I’ve cheered you up a bit,” said Gideon. “My cloak, please, Madame Rossini.”

I bit my lower lip to keep the giggles back. All I needed now was to be fooling around with this bastard as if nothing had happened! As if we were really friends. But it was too late.

In passing, he caressed my cheek, and it was so quick that I was incapable of any reaction. “Get well soon, Gwen.”

“Ah, zere ’e goes! At least ’e looks right for ’is adventure in ze time of Queen Elizabeth ze First, zat little rebel.” Madame Rossini was grinning. “But I am sure ’e will take ze ruff off on ze way, zat bad boy.”

I was staring after the bad boy myself. Hm … maybe the trunk-hose were just a tiny bit sexy after all.

“Come on, we have to go as well,” said Mr. Marley, taking my elbow and then letting go of it at once, as if it had burnt him. He kept several feet away from me on the way to the car. All the same, I heard him mutter, “Outrageous. She is definitely not my type.”

* * *

MY FEARS that Charlotte might have found the chronograph by now were unfounded. I’d underestimated my family’s ingenuity. When I arrived home, Nick was playing with a yo-yo outside my door.

“Only members allowed into HQ,” he said. “Password?”

“I’m the boss, remember?” I ruffled his red curls. “Yuck, is that chewing gum again?” Nick began to protest indignantly, but I took my chance to slip into my room.

I hardly recognized it. Aunt Maddy, called in by Mr. Bernard, who was probably still chasing from flower shop to flower shop, had spent all day in here, and she had given the room a little of her own special Aunt Maddy touch. I wasn’t exactly untidy, but all the same, my things, for some unknown reason, had a tendency to lie around covering all parts of the floor. Today, for the first time in a long while, you could see the rug again, and the bed was neatly made. Aunt Maddy had conjured up a pretty white bedspread from somewhere. My clothes lay neatly folded on a chair, loose sheets of paper, exercise books, and textbooks had been sorted and stacked on my desk, and even the pot with the dead fern on the windowsill had gone. Instead there was a beautiful flower arrangement there, smelling deliciously of freesias. Even Xemerius wasn’t dangling untidily from the ceiling light, but sitting decoratively on the chest of drawers with his dragon tail coiled around him, right beside a huge dish of candy.

“Gives the room a totally different feeling, doesn’t it?” he said. “I must say, your auntie knows something about feng shui.”

“Don’t worry, I haven’t thrown anything away,” said Aunt Maddy, who was sitting on the bed with a book. “I just cleared up a bit and did some dusting, so that I could make myself comfortable.”

I couldn’t help it, I had to give her a big kiss. “And I was worrying dreadfully all day.”

Xemerius nodded energetically. “You were right to worry. We’d hardly read ten pages—er, I mean, Aunt Maddy had hardly read ten pages, before Charlotte came slinking in,” he said. “She looked really surprised to see your auntie. But she made a quick recovery, claimed she wanted to borrow an eraser.”

Aunt Maddy told the same story. “Since I’d just tidied your desk, I was able to help her. Oh, and I sharpened your crayons and sorted them by color. Later she came back, saying it was to return the eraser. Then Nick and I took turns all afternoon. I had to go to the loo now and then, after all.”

“Five times, to be precise,” said Nick, who had followed me in.

“All that tea I drank,” she said apologetically.

“Oh, thank you, Aunt Maddy. You’ve both been wonderful.” I tousled Nick’s hair again.

Aunt Maddy laughed. “I like to make myself useful. And I told Violet that we’d have to meet in your room tomorrow.”