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Slowly, I shook my head.
“Then be good enough to stop trying my patience!” said Mr. Whitman, and for the first time, I heard him lose control over his voice. It no longer sounded either gentle or ironic, but almost hysterical. “Because if you keep me waiting any longer, I shall have to give you further incentives to end your own life! I’ll kill them all, one by one: your mother, your irritating friend Lesley, your brother, your cute little sister … believe me, I won’t spare a single one of them.”
With trembling hands, I took the little box. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Dr. White clutching the edge of the desk and hauling himself laboriously up. He was dripping wet.
Thank heavens, Mr. Whitman had eyes only for me. “That’s a good girl,” he said. “Maybe I’ll catch my flight yet. And once I am in Brazil I will—” But he never got around to saying what he would do in Brazil, because Dr. White brought the butt of the pistol down on the back of his head. It made an ugly, dull thud, and then Mr. Whitman fell to the floor like a felled oak tree.
“Yes!” crowed Xemerius. “Good work! Show the bastard there’s life in the old doctor yet.” But the effort had been too much for Dr. White. With a horrified look at all the blood, he collapsed again with a soft sigh, and lay on the floor beside Mr. Whitman.
So only Xemerius, little Robert, and I saw Gideon suddenly cough and sit up. His face was still as pale as death, but his eyes were bright and full of life. A smile slowly spread over his face. “Is that over?” he asked.
“The cunning so-and-so!” said Xemerius. In his astonishment, he’d suddenly lowered his voice. “How on earth did he do that?”
“Yes, it’s all over, Gideon!” I flung myself into his arms, taking no notice of his wounds. “It was Mr. Whitman, and I can’t think how we failed to recognize him!”
“Mr. Whitman?”
I nodded, and clung closer to him. “I was so afraid you might not have done it. Because Mr. Whitman was perfectly right about one thing. I don’t want to live without you, not for a single day!”
“I love you, Gwenny!” Gideon hugged me so hard that I was left breathless. “And of course I did it. Well, what option did I have with Paul and Lucy standing over me? They dissolved the stuff in a glass of water and made sure I drank it down to the very last drop.”
“Now I get it!” cried Xemerius. “So that was your brilliant plan! Gideon’s been feeding his face with the philosopher’s stone, and now he’s immortal as well! Not a bad idea, particularly when you think that otherwise Gwenny might get to feel rather lonely one of these days.”
Little Robert had lowered his hands from his face and was looking at us wide-eyed. “It’s going to be all right, Robert dear,” I told him. What a shame there weren’t any psychotherapists for traumatized ghosts yet. That was a real gap in the market, well worth investigating. “Your father will be better soon. And he’s a hero.”
“Who are you talking to?” asked Gideon.
“A brave little friend,” I said, smiling at Robert. He hesitantly smiled back.
“Uh-oh, I think he’s coming to his senses,” said Xemerius.
Gideon had spotted it, too. He let go of me, stood up, and looked down at Mr. Whitman. “I guess I’d better tie him up,” he said with a sigh. “And Dr. White needs a dressing on that injury.”
“Yes, and then we must let the others out of the chronograph room,” I said. “But first we’d better think what we’re going to tell them.”
“And before that, I absolutely have to kiss you,” said Gideon, taking me in his arms again.
Xemerius groaned. “Oh, really! As if you two didn’t have all eternity ahead for that kind of thing!”
* * *
AT SCHOOL ON MONDAY, everything was the same as usual. Well, almost everything.
In spite of the springlike temperature, Cynthia had a thick scarf around her neck, and she crossed the foyer inside the entrance to the building fast, without looking either to right or to left.
Gordon Gelderman was close on her heels. “Oh, come on, Cynthia!” he growled in a bass voice. “I’m sorry, but you can’t hold it against me forever. And I wasn’t the only one who thought your party could do with … well, something to liven it up. I distinctly saw Madison Gardener’s boyfriend pouring another bottle of vodka into the punch. And Sarah finally admitted that the green dessert was up to ninety percent her grandmother’s homemade gooseberry spirit.”
“Go away!” said Cynthia, trying hard to ignore a group of giggling Year Eight kids who were pointing at her and giggling. “You … you’ve made me a laughing-stock in front of the whole school! I’ll never forgive you!”
“And to think I missed that party!” said Xemerius. He was sitting on the bust of William Shakespeare. A piece of the poet’s nose had gone missing during “an unfortunate little accident,” as Mr. Gilles the principal had put it after Gordon’s father gave the school a generous donation to renovate the gym. Before that the principal had called the accident “willful destruction of a valuable part of our cultural heritage.”
“Cyn, this is nonsense!” squeaked Gordon. He was probably never going to get through the breaking of his voice and come out the other side. “No one’s interested in what you were doing necking with that fourteen-year-old, the love bites will be gone by next week, and anyway they’re very sexy—ouch!” The flat of Cynthia’s hand had landed on Gordon’s cheek with a loud slap. “That hurt!”
“Poor Cynthia!” I whispered. “Once she knows that her beloved Mr. Whitman has left his job, she’s going to be devastated.”
“Yes, it’ll be odd without Mr. Squirrel. Could be we’ll even find ourselves enjoying English and history.” Lesley linked arms with me as we went toward the stairs. “Although let’s be fair. I never could stand him—my good sound instincts, I guess—but his classes weren’t so bad.”
“That’s not surprising. He’d seen it all live,” I said. Xemerius was flying along after us. On the way upstairs, I found myself feeling more and more melancholy.
