Time-Travel Bath Bomb (22 page)

THE HORSE-DRAWN CARRIAGE jostled back and forth over the streets of Paris. Lisa, Nilly and Doctor Proctor sat inside it, staring at their strange travelling companion.

“So that’s it?” a hoarse voice grumbled from under the rim of the top hat. “So that’s why you wanted me back, Victor? To make more time soap bath bomb for you and these brats?”

As the top hat was pushed up onto the top of the passenger’s head, Raspa’s searing eyes emerged to glare at Doctor Proctor.

“Yes, of course,” Doctor Proctor said.

“Yes, of course!” hissed Raspa, throwing her top hat to the floor. “Because that’s all I ever was to you, isn’t it, Victor? A lousy soap maker!”

“Quite the contrary,” the professor said, taken aback. “You were a brilliant soap maker. The best, actually.”

“But a soap maker all the same. Never . . . never . . .” Raspa’s voice quivered a little. “Never anything more.”

“What do you mean, Raspa?”

She stared at Doctor Proctor, her chest rising and falling.

“Nothing,” she said, suddenly sounding as if she had a cold. “And now, Victor, now you think she’s there at the Hôtel Frainche-Fraille waiting for you, that . . . that . . .” She waved her hand dismissively and spat out the name, “Juliette Margarine!”

Nilly looked from Raspa to Doctor Proctor. He didn’t understand what was going on and it looked like the professor – who usually understood so much – was also clueless.

Only Lisa appeared to be keeping up with the situation. At any rate, she leaned over towards Raspa and asked, “Where’s Juliette?”

The woman with all the black eye make-up laughed like a croaking crow. “And why should I tell you that?”

“Now you listen here, Raspa—” Doctor Proctor started threateningly, but was interrupted.

“Don’t worry, Victor. Let’s just say that she’s getting what she deserves. Forget about that woman. She was never the one for you anyway, that witch.”

“Witch . . . ? Ouch!” The professor had stood up in the carriage, smacking his head on the roof. “No one calls the woman I love a witch!”

“Victor, please,” Raspa laughed. “A man of your age shouldn’t be getting worked up like this. Think about your heart.”

“At least I have a heart,” the professor snarled. “While you . . . you . . .” Big professor tears welled up in his eyes. “You just have a big, cold brain!”

“Raspa,
where
is Juliette?” Lisa repeated. “She travelled somewhere in time, didn’t she? You tracked her using the soap residue, didn’t you?”

Raspa sighed deeply. “I don’t know how much time soap bath bomb you have left, but if you have any I suggest you use it to get back to your own time. That’s where I’m planning on going anyway.” She leaned back in her seat, crossing her foot over her wooden leg.

“Raspa . . .” whispered a tearful Doctor Proctor as a humongous, gigantic professor tear rolled down his cheek. “Please! Just tell me what you want in exchange for telling me where Juliette is and I’ll give it to you.”

Raspa raised an eyebrow. “Anything?”

“Anything! Don’t you understand? If I can’t have Juliette, I might as well be dead.”

Raspa shivered at his words, as if they’d stung her like peas from a slingshot.

“Oh really?” she said sharply, lifting her chin. “Well then draw out the plans for the time-travelling bath and give them to me. Ha!”

“Sure thing!” cried Doctor Proctor, smiling. “You can have the whole invention to yourself. And all the other inventions I’ve come up with, actually. They’re all yours!”

Raspa’s mouth opened, but at first nothing came out. She closed it again, opened it and tried again. “Do you mean . . .” she whispered. “Do you mean that you would give me everything just for . . . that woman?”

“Yes, I do,” Doctor Proctor said quickly. “You have my word. No matter what you think of me otherwise, you know I always keep my word.”

Raspa stared at him, her mouth gaping.

“Well?” the professor said.

“It’s a deal,” Raspa said, barely audibly. “So . . .”

She took a breath, and the only thing you could hear in the carriage was the clopping of horse feet, cows mooing in the distance and a sound that almost sounded like snoring. “When I managed to break open the door to the room you guys were staying in at the Hôtel Frainche-Fraille, the little girl and boy had already left via the bath. But Juliette was still there. I threatened her with my old, but completely functional, pistol. I ordered her into the bath, then grabbed hold of her hair, submerged my own head, concentrated, and sent her to where she is now. The same way you sent your postcard, Victor.”

“Hm,” the professor concurred. “And where did you send her?”

“Someplace where she couldn’t run away or be found, of course. After all, she was all I had . . . how should I put this . . . to negotiate with.”

Doctor Proctor gulped. “Where? Out with it.”

“To a jail cell. In the city of Rouen. On May thirtieth. In the year 1431.”

Doctor Proctor looked puzzled. “Why there? Why then?”

“I know,” Lisa said.

“Oh?” Doctor Proctor said, and looked at her.

“Mrs Strobe just covered that in history class. Joan of Arc was burned at the stake in the Old Market Square in Rouen on that date.”

“Is that true?” the professor asked, looking at Raspa.

Raspa shrugged. “It was the first thing I thought of.”

“Something tells me our troubles aren’t over yet,” Doctor Proctor said.

Just then the carriage stopped and they heard the driver’s voice call from the roof, “The Pastille, Mademoiselle Raspa!”

“So this is where you were going too?” Doctor Proctor asked.

“Of course,” Raspa said. “My bath is here. In the pigsty, to be precise.”

“You followed me,” Lisa said.

“Yes. I realised that one over there was never going to lead me to Victor,” Raspa said, nodding towards Nilly, who you’re probably thinking has been quiet for quite a while now, which is pretty unlike him. Nilly was lying slumped down in the seat, and the sound that almost sounded like snoring actually was just that: snoring.

Lisa rolled her eyes and gave Nilly a kick in the shin so that he opened his eyes. He blinked, smacked his lips, smiled and mumbled a very groggy, but hopeful, “Breakfast?”

They hurried out of the carriage. Luckily the baths were still right where they’d left them. Sure, they had to pull out three pigs, who were enjoying the bathwater, and in the chicken coop the rooster was perched on the edge of the bath pecking at them aggressively. He obviously thought the bath now belonged to him.

Raspa poured some time soap bath bomb into both of the baths and said that she wanted to go to Rouen with them. How else could she be sure that they wouldn’t run off and cheat her of the drawings for the bath?

Doctor Proctor didn’t object and they agreed that he and Nilly would use the bath in the chicken coop and Raspa and Lisa would use the one in the pigsty.

When Lisa and Raspa were alone in the pigsty, stirring the bathwater to make some bubbles, Lisa heard Raspa sniffle. Lisa didn’t say anything. She just waited. Then there was another sniffle. And another.

“You were in love with him,” Lisa said finally. “Weren’t you?”

Raspa sniffled a long, wet, oversized sniffle.

“Victor never noticed,” she said. “He was only ever interested in his inventions.”

Lisa just nodded. She’d suspected this for a long time.

“I would have done anything for him,” Raspa said, sniffling and still stirring. “I would have gladly given him the recipe for the stupid time soap bath bomb if he’d only just asked. I thought he was a little slow, that he just needed a little time to fall in love with me. But I realised that he wasn’t slow at all when one day he came into the laboratory beaming and said that he’d fallen in love with a French girl he’d met on the street.” Massive sniffle. “And you know what?”

“No, what?” Lisa said.

“Back then I was much prettier than that . . . that . . . Juliette Margarine. Just so you know!”

“I see,” Lisa said. “But he fell in love with her. That’s just how it happens sometimes.”

Raspa stopped stirring and cocked her head, looking down at Lisa. “Who died and made you Miss Smarty Pants, if I might ask? You’re just a little snippet of a girl. What do you know?”

“Not that much, maybe,” Lisa said. “But I lost a friend once, and I made a new one.”

Raspa pulled out a handkerchief and blew her nose. “You don’t say,” she said. “A new friend, huh?”

“Yes,” Lisa said. “It’s never too late to make new friends, you know.”

Raspa sniffled contemptuously. “And who does Little Miss Smarty Pants think would want to be friends with an evil old lady with a wooden leg, if I might ask?”

“Well,” Lisa said, looking down at the soap, which was starting to form a nice layer of bubbles, “me, for example.”

“Sea spray!” Raspa spluttered, clearing her throat.

Lisa didn’t respond. They kept stirring in silence, even though there were enough bubbles now for them to go.

Finally Raspa asked, “Do you know what the stupidest thing is?”

“No,” Lisa said.

Raspa laughed a short, hard laugh. “Don’t say anything to Victor, but I’ve known how to make baths that could time-travel the whole time.”

Lisa stopped stirring. “What are you saying?”

Raspa shrugged her shoulders. “That I don’t actually need his drawings. I can make my own time-travelling bath anytime I want.”

“But . . . but why did you follow me and Nilly to Paris if it wasn’t to get your claws on those drawings?”

“Isn’t that what your friend Nilly would call
elementary
?”

Lisa smiled. “You wanted to find Doctor Proctor, not the drawings for his bath.”

Raspa sighed heavily. “I was dumb, I was hoping . . . that maybe there might still be a chance that he would . . .”

“Fall in love with you?”

Raspa laughed a bitter laugh. “Pretty stupid, huh? I mean, can you imagine?
With me?
An old witch of a woman with a wooden leg and bad breath?”

“I don’t know,” Lisa said. “But what I don’t get is why you’re helping Doctor Proctor find Juliette if you don’t actually need his drawings after all.”

“Sometimes,” Raspa said, climbing into the bath, “even witches aren’t sure why they do the things they do. Come on, Lisa. Time for us to head to the Dark Ages.”

AND, INDEED, THE Dark Ages did turn out to be extremely dark: coal-black and jet-black, pitch-black and ink-black. Totally night-time-black, actually. Nilly determined this as he stood in his bath. Now he cried out, “Is anyone here?” His voice echoed.

“I’m here,” a voice next to him said.

“Well, duh, I know that,” Nilly said. “We came in the same bath, didn’t we? I was wondering if anyone else was here. Can you see anything?”

“No,” Doctor Proctor said. “Juliette? Juliette?”

No answer.

“Juliette!” the professor repeated. “Juli . . . Ow!”

“What was that?”

“Something hit me on the head again.”

“What was it?”

“I don’t know, but it felt like a bath.”

“Is there anyone here?” That was Lisa’s voice.

“I’m here,” said a hoarse, desert-dry voice.

“Well, duh, I know that,” Lisa whispered. “We came in the same bath, didn’t we? I was wondering if—”

“We’re all here,” Nilly said. “But where are we? It’s totally impossible to see anything.”

“We’re exactly where we wanted to be,” Doctor Proctor said. “In Joan of Arc’s prison cell.”

Nilly’s eyes started adjusting to the dark, and he could just make out a little window with bars on it very high up in the wall. And the outlines of three white baths scattered about at random.

“Juliette’s been here,” Nilly said. “I can see her bath.”

There was a creaking squeak.

“The door’s closed.” That was Raspa’s voice. Nilly could just make out her outline over by something that looked like an alarmingly solid iron door.

“Um, so we’re locked in and Juliette’s not here?” Lisa said. “What are we going to do? Shh! Did you guys hear that?”

Nilly held his breath and listened. All he could hear was a soft crackling from outside, like the sound of fireworks in the distance. But wait! Now he heard it too. A soft moaning. It was coming from . . . from underneath Juliette’s bath.