AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Great-aunt Maddy laughed. “Not Sir Isaac Newton, I’m afraid.”
“Newton worked out the date of Charlotte’s birth?”
“My dear child, I understand your curiosity. When I was your age, I was just the same. But for one thing, it’s sometimes better not to know all the answers, and for another, I really, really would like my sherbet lemons.”
“None of this makes any sense,” I said.
“That’s only how it looks.” Great-aunt Maddy patted my hand. “Even if you’re no wiser now than you were before, this conversation must stay private. If your grandmother finds out all I’ve told you, she’ll be furious. And when she’s furious, she’s even worse than usual.”
“I won’t say anything, Aunt Maddy. And I’ll go and get your sherbet lemons right now.”
“You’re a good child.”
“Just one more question. How long after gene carriers have first traveled in time do they do it again?”
Great-aunt Maddy sighed.
“Please!” I said.
“I don’t think there are any rules,” said Great-aunt Maddy. “Every gene carrier is probably different. But none of them can fix the times for themselves. If the travel is uncontrolled, it can happen every day, sometimes several times a day. That’s why the chronograph is so important. With its help, as I understand, Charlotte won’t be flung around helplessly in time. She can be sent to times that aren’t very dangerous, where nothing can harm her. So don’t worry about your cousin.”
To be honest, I was much more worried about myself.
“Then when a gene carrier is in the past, how long has she been gone in the present?” I asked breathlessly. “And the second time a traveler goes back in time, could it be all the way to the dinosaurs, when there was nothing but swamps around here?”
My great-aunt cut me short. “That’s enough, Gwyneth. I’ve no more idea than you have!”
I got to my feet. “Thanks for answering my questions, anyway,” I said. “You’ve been a great help.”
“I don’t think so. I have a dreadfully guilty conscience. I really shouldn’t be satisfying your curiosity, particularly since I’m not supposed to know about any of it myself. In the old days, when I used to ask my brother—that’s your dear grandfather—about all these secrets, he always told me the same thing. The less you know, he said, the better for your health. Now, are you going to get me my sherbet lemons? And not the sugar-free kind, remember!”
Great-aunt Maddy waved as I left.
How could secrets be bad for anyone’s health? And how much had my grandfather known about it all?
* * *
“SIR ISAAC NEWTON?” repeated Lesley, baffled. “Wasn’t that the force of gravity guy?”
“That’s him, all right. But he also calculated the date of Charlotte’s birth.” I was standing in front of the yogurts in Selfridges Food Hall, holding my mobile to one ear with my right hand and covering the other ear with my left hand. “Only the crazy thing is that no one will believe he made a mistake. Who’d expect Newton to get his sums wrong? But he must have been wrong, Lesley. I was born one day after Charlotte, and I traveled back in time. Not her.”
“That’s more than mysterious. Oh, this stupid thing is taking forever to start up. Come on, will you?” Lesley shouted at her computer.
“Lesley, it was so—so weird! I almost spoke to one of my ancestors! Maybe that fat man on the painting in front of the secret door, Great-great-great-great-great-uncle Hugh, for instance. Well, if it was in his time and not some other period. They could have had me sent off to a loony bin.”
“I hate to think what could have happened to you,” said Lesley. “I still can’t get my mind around this! So much fuss made of Charlotte all these years, and now this happens! Look, you have to tell your mum right away. You’d better go straight back home. It could happen again any moment!”
“Scary, right?”
“Very. Okay, I’m online now. First off I’ll Google Newton. And you just go home! Any idea how long Selfridges has been there in Oxford Street? Could have been a deep pit in the old days, and you’d fall twelve yards down!”
“My grandmother will freak right out when she hears about this,” I said.
“Yes, and then there’s poor Charlotte … well, just think, all these years she’s had to give up everything, and now she gets nothing in return. Ah, here we are. Newton. Born 1643 in Woolsthorpe—where on earth is that?—died 1727 in London. Blah blah blah. Nothing about time travel here, just stuff about infinitesimal calculus—never heard of it, how about you? Transcendence of all spirals.… Quadratics, optics, sky mechanics, blah blah—ah, here we are, here’s the law of gravity.… Tell you what, that bit about transcendental spirals sounds kind of closest to time travel, don’t you think?”
“To be honest, no,” I said.
A couple standing next to me were discussing the yogurt variety they were going to buy at the tops of their voices.
