The Time Traveller and the Tiger by Tania Unsworth

Author:Tania Unsworth [Unsworth, Tania]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788541695
Publisher: Head of Zeus

Elsie felt better after her meal, despite its peculiarity, although as the bearer led them up the wooden staircase to meet Sowerby, she couldn’t avoid a creeping sense of dread. Part of it was not knowing what had happened to Mandeep, and part of it was the unease on John’s face. But mostly it was the silence.

No noise came from the outside. All she could hear was the slap of the bearer’s shoes on the floorboards and the sigh of the overhead fan, one of its blades slightly crooked, making a pah-pah sound as it beat the still air.

They reached the top of the stairs and found themselves on a wide landing, with doors to rooms either side, and a huge, empty space in the middle, surrounded by a wooden railing. Elsie peered over, saw a long table beneath, and guessed she was looking down at the dining room on the floor below.

The bearer stopped at a pair of double doors. He tapped softly, and bent his head, listening. Then he opened the door and they stepped inside.

Elsie’s first thought was that it was the most cluttered room she had ever seen. It was so crammed with objects that it was impossible to focus on anything in particular. Yet she had the sense that there was something vaguely wrong about everything there. As if each item – from the ornate pieces of furniture to the hundreds of ornaments crowding every surface – was shaped a little oddly. But she didn’t have time to work it out. All her attention was drawn to the man sitting in the centre of the room.

Mr Gordon had described Sowerby as imposing, and now Elsie understood why. At school the previous year, she’d learned about tectonic plates. They lay beneath the surface of the earth’s crust and when they shifted, the force of the impact made canyons split and mountains rise. Sowerby had the same look. As if vast, subterranean forces had formed his features, from his jutting chin and stone-slabbed forehead to the high, lonely ridge of his nose.

He stared at the children, although it was impossible to read any expression in his eyes, buried beneath his overhanging brows. All Elsie could see was that they were black and utterly unblinking, despite the grey thread of smoke rising from a cigarette smouldering beside him.

‘John Lassiter,’ John said, advancing a little uncertainly. ‘And this is Kelsie…’

‘Corvette,’ Elsie muttered, following him.

Beneath her feet she felt an unfamiliar texture. At first glance, she’d thought the floor was covered with rugs. But they weren’t rugs. They were animal skins; deer, zebra, lion, leopard and bear; so many that they overlapped, flattened legs spread, as if reaching for each other. Elsie drew a sharp breath. A musky odour filled the air, mingling with the cigarette smoke.

‘Gordon tells me he picked up the pair of you on his way here,’ Sowerby said. He took a drag on his cigarette, his eyes not leaving John’s face, then tapped the ash in a bowl at his elbow.

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