The Wells Bequest by Polly Shulman

Author:Polly Shulman
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2013-05-15T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Jaya Stops Time

Time stopped.

For a split second—or maybe forever, I couldn’t quite tell—the world vanished. My heart pounded. There was nothing but me and Jaya and the kiss. Despite a strange, sharp pain in my left shin, I felt like I might explode with joy.

The sharp pain in my left shin got sharper. It was Jaya kicking me.

The reason the world had vanished, I discovered, was that I had closed my eyes. I opened them. Right in front of me, at waist height, something shimmered, complex and brassy. The time machine!

Like a frog snapping a fly out of the air, I reached out, grabbed the lever, and pulled it upright.

My movement broke the spell. Jaya let go of me, the kiss ended, time started up again, and the tiny time machine thudded onto my toes.

“Leo!” hissed Jaya. “You were supposed to catch it! Is it broken?”

“I hope not!”

I handed it to Jaya. She bundled it into the Fortnum & Mason bag.

The saleswoman had heard the thump and turned around. “Did you drop something?” she asked.

“My gram’s clock,” said Jaya. “We’re taking it to be repaired.” She pulled down the plastic so that the top of the time machine peeked out. It did look like a clock. “Are you done yet, Auntie?”

“Almost. I think I will take those florals, please. Two hundred fifty grams,” said Auntie Shanti.

The woman filled a box with brown lumps. “Will that be all?”

“Yes, I think so—or no, shall we get some rose creams for your mum, Jaya?”

“I think she’d like the ginger better,” said Jaya. She muttered to me, “I know I would.”

“Two hundred fifty grams of the chocolate ginger as well, then. And that’s the lot,” said Auntie Shanti.

• • •

I walked down the front steps to the pavement, twitching and zinging with excitement. Jaya had kissed me! I’d found the time machine!

Auntie Shanti paused at the bottom of the steps. “How did you manage it? Stopping time, I mean,” she asked.

Jaya looked embarrassed. “I used the subjective startle effect,” she said a little stiffly. “I induced a moment of emotional anomaly, altering Leo’s experience of relative temporality.”

“Emotional anomaly?” Auntie Shanti sounded puzzled. Then comprehension washed across her face. “You didn’t! Little Jaya! Don’t tell me you—”

She broke off and looked at me. I blushed.

“Well,” said Auntie Shanti with a laugh, “whatever works!”

“Jaya!” called a voice on the street behind us.

I whipped around. There stood Simon FitzHenry in all his reddish-blond hatefulness.

“Simon!” I growled. “Are you following us?”

He ignored me. “What are you doing here, Jaya?” he asked.

“Visiting my aunt, like I told you. Buying chocolate. What are you doing here?”

“You’re buying chocolate? At the Time Traveller’s house?” His voice dripped with incredulity.

“Oh, is this the Time Traveller’s house?” Jaya sounded almost innocent. “We came for chocolate.”

“You know perfectly well it is. What are you up to?”

“Buying chocolate, like I just said. What are you doing here? Are you buying chocolate too, or is this just another really unlikely coincidence?”

“I’ve been tracking your movements with the Burton’s people finder,” said Simon.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.