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“We can’t leave her out of it, Grace,” said Mr. de Villiers. “She’s part of this business, as you put it. You ought to have realized that earlier. Before you began this stupid game of hide-and-seek.”
“With the result that, thanks to you, the girl is entirely unprepared and ignorant,” said Dr. White. “Which of course will make our mission even more difficult. But I expect that was just what you wanted.”
“What I wanted was to keep Gwyneth out of danger,” said Mum.
“I’ve gone quite a long way on my own,” said Gideon. “I can see this thing through by myself.”
“That’s just what I hoped,” said Mum.
I can see this thing through by myself. Ugh! I only just managed not to giggle. It could have been a line from one of those stupid action films where a hunk with a melancholy expression saves the world by fighting, single-handed, against a combat troop of 120 ninja warriors, a fleet of enemy spaceships, or a whole village of desperadoes armed to the teeth.
“We’ll see what kinds of tasks she may be suitable for,” said Mr. de Villiers.
“We have her blood,” said Gideon. “That’s all we need from her. She can come here and elapse every day as far as I’m concerned, and then everyone will be happy.”
What was that he said? Elapse? It sounded like one of those difficult words Mr. Whitman used to confuse us with in English lessons. “In principle not a bad effort at elapsorating the crux, Gordon, but try for a little more elaboration next time, please.” Or had it been elucidating the crux? Well, anyway, neither Gordon nor I nor anyone else in the class had ever heard of it. Except, of course, for Charlotte.
Mr. George saw how baffled I was looking. “By elapse we mean deliberately tapping your time-travel quota by setting the chronograph to take you back into the past for a couple of hours. That prevents uncontrolled travel.” He turned to the others. “I’m sure that after a little while Gwyneth will surprise us all with her potential. She is—”
“She’s a child!” Gideon interrupted him. “She has no idea about anything.”
I blushed scarlet. What a nerve he had! And the scornful way he was looking at me! That stupid, conceited … polo player!
“That’s not true,” I said. I was not a child! I was sixteen and a half. Exactly the same as Charlotte. At my age, Marie-Antoinette had been married for years. (So I didn’t know that from history lessons, but I knew it from the film with Kirsten Dunst.) And Joan of Arc was only fifteen when she—
“Oh, no?” Gideon’s voice was heavily sarcastic. “Then what, for instance, do you know about history?”
“Enough!” I said. Hadn’t I just gotten an A on a history test?
“Really? Who came to the throne after George I?”
I hadn’t the faintest. “George II?” I said, guessing.
Aha! He looked disappointed. I seemed to have guessed right.
“And which royal house replaced the Stuarts in 1702 and why?”
Dammit. “Er … we haven’t got to that yet,” I said.
“So I see.” Gideon turned to the others. “She doesn’t know anything about history. She can’t even speak appropriately. Wherever we go, she’d stick out like a sore thumb. And she has no idea what’s at stake. She wouldn’t just be totally useless, she’d endanger the entire mission!”
I ask you! So I couldn’t even speak appropriately? Well, I could think of several highly appropriate names I’d have liked to call him.
“I think you’ve made your opinion quite clear, Gideon,” said Mr. de Villiers. “At this point, it would be interesting to find out what the count thinks of these developments.”
“You can’t do that to her!” Mum interrupted. Her voice suddenly sounded all choked up.
“The count will be delighted to meet you, Gwyneth,” said Mr. George, brushing Mum’s concerns aside. “The Ruby, the twelfth, the last in the Circle. It will be a solemn moment when the two of you come face-to-face.”
“No!” said Mum.
Everyone looked at her.
“Grace!” said my grandmother. “Not again!”
“No,” repeated Mum. “Please! There’s no need for him to meet her. Surely it will be enough for him to know that her blood makes the Circle complete.”
“Would have made the Circle complete,” said Dr. White, who was still looking through those files. “If we hadn’t had to start all over again after the theft.”
