Bubble in the Bathtub (20 page)

“Yeth, Litha. That'th what I thaid. Do you need thome help?” Marcel asked.

“How did you know my name?” the girl asked.

“Becauthe you hollered ‘It'th me, Litha' theveral timeth.”

“Oh, right,” Lisa said, smiling, but it wasn't a happy smile, more like an about-to-cry smile.

“Your voithe doethn't carry that well becauthe of
all the noithe from all theeth people,” Marcel said. “If you want thith Doctor Proctor fellow to hear you, you need thomething loud. Thith, for exthample.” Marcel held out his trumpet. “And maybe you ought to take that thtrange clip off your nothe.”

Lisa looked at his instrument. “I can't shout his name with that.”

“No,” Marcel said. “But maybe I could play thomething that would make him underthtand that you're here.”

“What would that be?”

“I don't know. Ithn't there a Doctor Proctor thong? Or a Litha thong?”

Lisa looked discouraged and shook her head.

Marcel cocked his head to the side. “Maybe a thong from the plathe you're from?”

“A Cannon Avenue thong, I mean, song?” Lisa said. “I don't think so.”

“Well, then,” Marcel sighed, thinking for a minute.
“Would you like a thlice of bread with thome brie and pâté?”

Lisa stared at Marcel's trumpet. Imagining is imagining, she thought. And dreaming is just dreaming. Or maybe not.

“Could I borrow your trumpet?” she asked.

Marcel looked first at her and then down at his instrument. He hesitated. But then he nodded and handed her the trumpet. She put her lips to the mouthpiece, concentrated to block out the sound of yet another
swish!
—
chop!
—
hurrah!
Because this was what she had dreamed of. Not that it would happen in a place where people's heads were being chopped off, exactly, but still: playing this song for a large crowd.

She placed her fingers over the keys like Nilly had taught her and then she blew. The first note quivered, hesitant and timid. The second was flat and sounded awful. The third was just wrong. But the fourth was right. Marcel nodded in approval as the sixth note rose,
clear and strong, into the blue afternoon sky over the Place de la Révolution in Paris. It's funny to think about this, but no one other than you and I know that this was the first time in history that anyone in France—and anyone anywhere in the world for that matter—heard a song that wouldn't be written for another sixty-something years, a song that every Norwegian would one day recognize, a song that would go on to become the Norwegian national anthem, “Ja, vi elsker.”

The notes pierced through the noise of the crowd and made everyone turn around to listen. Even the executioner up on the stage, who'd been nicknamed Bloodbath because of his efficiency, stopped his work, cocked his ears under his black executioner's hood, and scratched his naked barrel-shaped torso. He thought it was quite a captivating melody. All it lacked was … well, what was it missing, actually? … an accordion maybe? Bloodbath was roused from his musical contemplations by the fact that the guy with his head currently
locked into the guillotine, a thin beanpole with some weird eyeglasses that looked like they were glued onto his face, started yelling and shouting in some strange foreign language:

“Nilly! Lisa! Here! I'm up here!”

Lisa quit playing and looked around, her heart pounding, because there was no doubt about whose voice that was. He rolled his
R
s like a rusty old lawnmower. It was Doctor Proctor! She jumped up and down, trying to see where his voice was coming from.

“Why don't you thit up on my thoulderth tho you can thee,” Marcel offered.

“Are you sure you're strong enough?” Lisa asked, looking skeptically at the skinny boy.

“Of courth,” Marcel said, kneeling down.

Lisa climbed onto his shoulders and Marcel stood up, staggering and wobbling.

“I'm over here!” Doctor Proctor called. “Quick! The situation is a little, uh … urgent!”

“Oh no …,” Lisa said, losing hope. Up on the stage she saw a thin, bony man with scraggly, disheveled hair over a pair of sooty motorcycle goggles, who was screaming in a language she assumed was Norwegian, as Lisa was still wearing the French nose clips. Doctor Proctor!

“What ith it?” Marcel groaned underneath her.

“Doctor Proctor is in the guillotine! They're going to behead him! We have to save him!”

Lisa swung herself off, slid down Marcel's back, and started running forward, pushing her way through the crowd.

“No!” Marcel shouted. “They behead anyone who trieth to thtop people from being beheaded! Litha!”

But Lisa wasn't listening, she was just forcing her way through.

Bloodbath's gravely, vibrato voice rang out from the stage: “The Revolutionary Court of Paris has sentenced Doctor Victor Proctor to beheading because he tried
to prevent the beheading of this fellow here …”

Bloodbath stuck his hand down into the woven basket, picked up a head by its hair, and held it up to the attentive audience.

“… the recently deceased Count of Monte Crisco!”

The crowd erupted into cheers.

Lisa had almost reached the stage, but was stuck behind a tall person who wouldn't budge. “Please let me through!” Lisa cried loudly, using the trumpet to poke the person in the shoulder.

The person slowly turned to stare at Lisa, smiled broadly, and whispered, in a voice as dry as a desert wind: “Ship ahoy, there you are. Let me give you a hug!”

Lisa felt everything freeze into ice. The blood that ran in her veins, the scream she had on her lips, yes, even time seemed to stop moving as a couple of arms—thin, but as strong as steel wires—coiled around her. The breath hit her at near gale force and reeked of stinky socks.

Bloodbath tossed the Count of Monte Crisco's head back into the basket and put a pair of glasses on over his mask. He started to read aloud from a document.

“The jury had the following to say about the condemned: ‘Doctor Victor Proctor is a funny guy who speaks well for himself. But he chose the wrong tactic and made a nasty mistake when he argued before the court today that he had just invented a time-traveling bathtub that—'”

The audience laughed in delight and Bloodbath had to wait for a moment before he could proceed.

Meanwhile Lisa squirmed in vain in the tall woman's iron grip.

“Let me go!” she roared, but the woman's arms remained locked tight.

“Calm down, child,” the woman whispered into her ear. “Let's enjoy the conclusion together. After this, the invention will be all mine, don't you see?”

She had the same sharp teeth and black eye makeup
as before, but what made Raspa seem even more terrifying than she had in Lisa's imagination was that frenzied, crazed gleam in her eye.

“Now, Lisa, are you trying to save that poor slob up there?” Raspa asked, nodding toward the guillotine and Doctor Proctor, who was staring out over the crowd in desperation while Bloodbath read the rest of the sentence to occasional jeers from the audience, which was clearly starting to get bored.

“Whatever,” Lisa groaned. “If they cut off his head, I could just travel back in time a few hours and save him then.”

Raspa laughed and shook her head. “It's not as easy to change history as you idiots obviously think it is. Haven't you noticed that? Not even Victor seems to understand that it's impossible to change what's happened without giving up your life. Or have you forgotten what I told you in the shop? History is carved in stone and you can only change what's written if you're willing to die.”

Now Lisa remembered. Was that why they hadn't managed to prevent anything from happening?

“Why do you know more about changing history than Doctor Proctor?” she asked to win herself some time as she tried to wriggle her hand that was holding the trumpet free.

“Because no one has studied or knows more about time than me, my girl. After all, I was the one who invented the time soap.”

“Time soap?” Lisa groaned. She thought about the clocks in the Trench Coat Clock Shop and knew instinctively that Raspa was telling the truth. But she also realized something else at the same time.

“But … but if history is carved in stone, then Doctor Proctor can't die now! If he did, fartonaut powder would never be invented, which would change history. And that's not possible. At least according to you.”

“You're not hearing what I'm saying, you stupid
girl,” Raspa said, letting her black made-up eyelids slide down over her enormous eyeballs and lowering her voice, “Death is the exception. Only if you die can you change history. Because then you yourself disappear into time and never come back. And, see? It's about to happen now. Victor is about to die, to disappear forever, which will change history.” Her eyes were open wide, and there was an icy laughter in her voice: “It will all be mine and only mine!”

Lisa had managed to tug her arm halfway free, but couldn't get it any further.

“What do you mean
it will all be yours
?”

“If Victor Proctor dies in 1793, who do you think will patent the time-traveling bathtub? Who will become the greatest inventor in the world?”

Up on the stage Bloodbath stopped reading. He skimmed down the rest of the page and then shouted over the increasing chorus of boos, “All right, people, there's a bunch of other stuff here, but it's pretty much
the same as all the others. So I suggest that we get on with it.”

Enthusiastic cheering.

Raspa tilted her head back and laughed an absolutely gruesome laugh.

Lisa seized this opportunity to try one final, vigorous tug. She got one hand free from Raspa's grasp.

“Hey, you miserable landlubber—” Raspa began, but didn't make it any further. A trumpet hit her on the head and the towering spectacle of a woman listed to the side and then capsized.

Lisa hurried, sneaking under the arms of the guards who were stationed on either side of the stairs, and ran up the steps onto the stage. There she jumped up onto the back of Bloodbath, who was already holding the cord preparing to release the knife blade.

“Stop!” she screamed. “Doctor Proctor is innocent! You're making a mistake!”

Bloodbath twitched his back, as if what had landed
on him weren't much more than a fly. “Guards!” he yelled.

“We're coming!” a voice responded.

“Forgive us, Mr. Bloodbath,” another voice said.

And immediately thereafter Lisa felt strong arms ripping her off Bloodbath's back and holding on to her tightly. There were three faces in front of her:

A blotchy face with a Fu Manchu mustache.

An equally blotchy face with a handlebar mustache.

And one that wasn't a face at all but a black mask with holes for the eyes.

“You are trying to stop a beheading,” growled Bloodbath, pointing a trembling finger at her. “I accuse you and demand that you be beheaded. Does the accused have anything to say?”

Lisa gasped. “I, uh … the professor, uh … we're innocent!”

“And what does the jury have to say?” Bloodbath growled, staring at Handlebar and Fu Manchu.

“I, uh … I …,” stammered Handlebar. “She's just a little girl.”

“Just a little girl, yes,” Fu Manchu said. “So I, as far as I'm concerned, uh …”

Bloodbath stared at them. “Is there anyone else here who wants to try to stop a beheading?” he growled in a deep voice.

“She's guilty!” yelled Handlebar.

“Guilty!” yelled Fu Manchu.

Bloodbath walked over to the guillotine and opened the pillory holding Doctor Proctor in place.

“There's room for one more. Get her over here. Let's make it a doubleheader!”

The guards pushed her head down next to Proctor's. Then the pillory slammed back into place over their necks and they were locked in.

“Hi, Professor,” Lisa said. “Nice to see you again.” She craned her neck struggling to look sideways, but it was quite difficult since her head was locked in.

“Hi, Lisa,” Doctor Proctor said. “I'm sorry I got you into this mess. Really very sorry.”

“Don't worry about it. It's not that important,” Lisa said, tilting her head back so she could look up and see a little of the sky over the crowd. And up above, a few yards over them, the sun gleamed on a very shiny, very sharp knife blade.

“Then give me a CHOP!” shouted Bloodbath, holding onto the cord. “Ready, everyone?”

“OUI!”
the answer rang out from the Place de la Révolution.

“Give me a
C
!” Bloodbath cried.

“C!”
the crowd shouted.

“Give me an
H
!”

“H!”

“I'm supposed to say hi to you from a bunch of people,” Lisa said. “Anna from Innebrède, Gustave Eiffel, and Juliette, of course.”