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“Good night.”
“Good night, sweetie. I love you.”
“Love you too, Mum.”
When I’d closed my bedroom door behind me and climbed into bed, I felt guilty. I should have told my mother all about it. But what she said had made me think. Yeah, sure, I did have a big imagination, but daydreaming is one thing. Imagining you’re traveling through time is quite another.
People who imagined that kind of thing got psychiatric treatment. And they should, if you asked me. Maybe I was like those weirdos who claim to have been abducted by aliens. Completely out of my mind.
I switched off my bedside lamp and snuggled down under the duvet. Which was worse? Being crazy or actually traveling back in time?
Probably the second, I thought. Maybe you could take tablets for the first.
In the dark my fears came back. Once again I was wondering how far I would fall from here to the ground floor. So I switched the bedside light on again and turned my face to the wall. Hoping to get to sleep, I tried thinking of something harmless and soothing, but I just couldn’t do it. In the end I counted backward from a thousand.
I must have fallen asleep at some point, because I’d been dreaming of a big bird when I woke and sat up in bed, heart pounding.
There it was again, that horrible dizzy sensation in my stomach. I jumped out of bed in a panic and ran to Mum’s room as fast as my trembling legs would carry me. I didn’t care if she thought I was crazy—I just wanted it to stop. And I did not want to fall three floors down and land in a swamp!
I got no farther than the passage before I was swept off my feet. Convinced that my last hour had come, I squeezed my eyes shut. But I only fell on my knees with a bump, and the floor felt just like the familiar wooden floorboards. Cautiously, I opened my eyes. It was lighter now, as if the sun had risen in the last second. For a moment I hoped that nothing had happened. Then I saw that I had indeed landed in our corridor, but it looked different. The walls were painted dark olive green, and there were no ceiling lights.
I heard voices coming from Nick’s room. Female voices.
I stood up quickly. If anyone saw me now … how was I going to explain where I’d suddenly come from? In my Hello Kitty pajamas.
“I’m so tired of getting up at the crack of dawn,” one voice was saying. “Walter can sleep until nine in the morning. Not us! I should’ve stayed on the farm milking cows.”
“Walter’s on duty half the night, Clarrie. Your cap’s crooked,” said the second voice. “Tuck your hair neatly under it, or Mrs. Mason will be cross.”
“She’s always cross anyway,” grumbled the first voice.
“There are much stricter housekeepers, Clarrie dear. Come on, or we’ll be late. Mary went downstairs fifteen minutes ago.”
“Yes, and she made her bed first. Always busy, always neat, just the way Mrs. Mason likes her housemaids. Mary does it on purpose. Have you felt her blanket? It’s ever so soft. That’s not fair!”
I had to get out of here, fast. But where could I go? Good thing I knew my way around the house.
“I’ve been given a horrid scratchy blanket,” Clarrie’s voice complained.
“You’ll be glad of it in winter. Come along.”
The door handle was pressed down. I raced over to the built-in cupboard, flung the door open, and shut it again after me, just as the door of Nick’s room opened.
“I don’t see why I have to have a scratchy blanket and Mary gets a nice soft one,” Clarrie’s voice went on. “It’s so unfair. Betty can go out into the country with Lady Montrose, and we have to spend all summer in the stuffy city air.”
“You really should try not to complain so much, Clarrie.”
I agreed with the other woman. This girl Clarrie was a real Moaning Minnie.
I heard the two of them go downstairs and breathed a sigh of relief. That was a close one! But now what? Should I just wait in the cupboard until I traveled back again? That was probably the safest thing to do. Sighing, I crossed my arms.
Behind me in the darkness, someone grunted.
I froze with horror. What, for heaven’s sake, was that?
“Is that you, Clarrie?” asked a voice from the shelf where the clean sheets were stacked. It was a male voice. “Did I oversleep?”
Heavens above! Someone actually slept in this cupboard! What a way to treat a person!
