Bubble in the Bathtub by Jo Nesbo

Author:Jo Nesbo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aladdin
Published: 2011-03-24T16:00:00+00:00

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TWO SHEEP WERE standing next to each other watching the—to put it mildly—peculiar woman with the boy on her back, who was the same boy who had sped past them the day before going the other way.

“Haven’t we seen that redheaded chap before?” one of the cud-chewing sheep said to the other.

“No idea,” the second cud-chewer replied to the first. “We’re sheep, you know. We don’t remember stuff like that.”

RASPA AND NILLY were almost horizontal by the final curve before the road flattened out and Nilly spotted the flower-filled meadow. And the feet of the upside-down bathtub.

That very instant, the clouds opened up. And boy did it rain! It was as if the biggest raindrops in the whole world had gathered over this specific meadow to hold the world championships in The Last Raindrop to the Ground Is a Rotten Egg.

“Perfect,” Raspa shouted, hopping over the fence and starting to limp through the grass toward the bathtub.

“Pe-rf-ect?” Nilly asked, as he bumped up and down on her back and felt the rain streaming down the back of his neck and in under his jersey.

Raspa was heading straight for the bathtub. She wiggled so Nilly fell off and tumbled down into the grass. Then she grabbed one of the tub’s feet. “Help me right her so we can launch.”

Nilly stood up and did as she asked. They turned the bathtub over so it was right side up and watched the rain hammering against the enameled bottom. Raspa took out a jar, which she opened and poured from. A familiar strawberry-red powder sprinkled down into the tub, where the rain frothed up the soap, which starting forming bubbles right away.

“Now we just have to wait until the tub is full,” she said, climbing in and sitting down at one end. Nilly climbed in and sat down at the other end.

“So how did you find us, anyway?” Nilly asked.

“Easy,” Raspa said. “When I noticed that you came in with a stamp from 1888 that looked brand-new and also had traces of white soap around the edges, I had a suspicion. When it tasted like strawberries, too, I knew that that could only mean one thing: that Proctor had gotten his time-traveling bathtub to work. And you’re not exactly good at keeping a secret, sailor. When you said you guys were going to Paris, I realized that you would lead me right to him.”

“You followed us.”

“I did. I stood watch outside the Hôtel Frainche-Fraille, and when I saw the little girl come back with that awful woman—”

“Juliette Margarine, awful?”

“Don’t say that name!” Raspa snarled. “They went up to the room, and I knew that you must be up there, all four of you. So I knocked—”

“Oh, we thought that was the hippos,” said Nilly, who could feel that the water level had risen a little, but even a downpour takes a while to fill a whole time-traveling bathtub.

“I was trying to knock down the door, but I had to give up. So I ran downstairs, to that little wimp at the reception desk, and politely asked for the room key.

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