The Time Travelers, Volume 2 (40 page)

Hiram Stratton, Sr., shoved the girl aside and demanded of all of them—servant and scholar, expert and passerby, “Find my son. Now.”

The Americans returned to the dig and the tourists got bored. The Egyptians melted away and the British remembered that they were en route to war.

Camilla went to her tent to pack. What would become of her now? Her dream of becoming a great reporter had been silly to start with, but now she had proved herself a liar and a fake, and nobody needed a
reporter with those vices. Her tears soaked into the clothing she was folding.

She had not avenged her father.

She had not done anything, really.

She no longer knew what she had been thinking of—telling Strat to run off into the desert. It was true that great heat caused a lady to hallucinate.

Well, she could do one thing: sail to Spain and talk to Katie, who knew right from wrong, action from apathy and hope from sorrow.

“Miss Matthews?” called Dr. Lightner through the flimsy tent walls. “Might we speak?”

She wiped away her tears. Men were undone by ladies’ weeping and that was not fair. Oh, the scorn Dr. Lightner would face, having been tricked by a mere girl. “Of course, sir. Please come in. I am packing. I shall not abuse your hospitality another hour.”

He entered, stooping of course, because neither he nor she could stand upright in the tents. He pulled up a stool and sat beside her. “You should have told me. I would not have exchanged a syllable with the man had I known that he truly is a beast and a murderer.”

“You believe me?”

“Of course I believe you. You have not forgotten the life and death of your father, nor should you. How proud your father would be, Miss Matthews. Such courage! To become a famous reporter and cross half the world!”

She faced him squarely. “But you know that isn’t true. I am not Camilla Matthews, age thirty and a seasoned
reporter. I am Camilla Mateusz and I am seventeen.” She lifted her chin and told him every detail, those he had heard already in front of witnesses and those she had lacked the courage to state.

When she finished the true narrative of her life, he was staring aghast. She awaited his contempt. But no, he was shouting with laughter. Kissing her!

“Forgive me,” he said. “I was forward. I deeply apologize. But oh, Miss Matthews! I thought you a queen all along. In my thoughts, I compared you to the queens of ancient Egypt. Partly, that was your fine height and straight spine, your carriage and manner. Although of course,” he corrected himself, “the real queens of ancient Egypt, whose mummies I myself have examined, were short and bent. Yet I was correct. You are as royalty. What zest! What courage! Camilla, how proud I am that you trust me with the truth.”

She had to laugh. “I have no royal blood, sir. I am the daughter of Polish immigrants. And I have no idea what is to become of me except that I must leave.”

“Leave? Do not think of such a thing! Might I have the honor of asking you to become Camilla Lightner?” he said. His words tumbled over one another in his excitement. “We will live in Cairo. I will support your family. I promise, no matter how badly I need donations, to accept none from Hiram Stratton. If necessary, I will become a professor of history in some obscure American college attended by dull and unworthy students. I will do anything to support you properly and not compromise your high standards.”

He was a good man.

Was it possible that she could be a good woman?

She thought of Katie, and thought she could hear Katie laughing, saying, of course you can. Goodness is a decision. Make it now.

“Yes,” said Camilla.

“What children we will have!” cried Archibald Lightner, kissing her once more. “How brave and strong they will be!”

“And tall,” said Camilla.

T
he person coming toward her … was he the boy from lunch? Or could it possibly be Strat from another century? He looked like Strat and he didn’t. He wore cargo pants and a navy sweater. Strat in Egypt had worn khaki trousers with frayed hems, red socks inside scratched old boots.

The boy worked his way through a crowd of departing kids, dodging their swinging backpacks. “Here you are!” he said, laughing. “I’ve been looking and looking for you. I don’t know how we got separated. Did you finish the special exhibition without me?”

“Hurry it up, kids,” said the guard. “Take a left out that door, please.”

They took a left out that door and walked like strangers away from the Egyptian Room. So, Time, what are you up to? Annie wanted to know. Flinging me from century to century? Giving me an hour here and a minute there? And who is this? And why isn’t his identity clear?

“I’m taking a train home,” she said to the boy. “I’m walking to the station. It’s a long way on foot, but a
beautiful part of the city.” She framed her next sentence the way Strat would have. “Might I have the pleasure of your company?”

“I love how you said that. Now I feel like an usher at a wedding.” He put out his arm for her to take. They walked down an aisle strewn with sculpture instead of wedding guests. “This has been the weirdest day,” he confided. “I was trying to find you, since I didn’t want to lose my new Lockwood on the very day we met, and I guess I dozed off in the Egyptian Room. I dreamed I was on the Nile, sailing upstream with a bunch of British soldiers. We didn’t have enough to eat and the tribes were attacking from both banks and what I did have was a camera. On a tripod, isn’t that a kick? I lost it in a swamp. There was a crocodile.”

Annie was trembling. She swallowed hard and asked the important thing. “Was there a girl with you? Did she catch up? Did you have company?”

But he was frowning at his watch, lifting his wrist and tapping on the watch face. “It isn’t working,” he said, completely distracted by not knowing the time.

I don’t know Time very well, either, thought Annie. “Don’t worry about the watch,” she told him. “All it is is Time. We’re going to have enough.”

He smiled at her. “I love how you said that, too. I love people who are sure of things.” He took the watch off and squinted at it to see what was wrong.

Then they were outdoors, the wide magnificent museum steps stretching down to the street. “Two at a time,” he told her, and in the lamplit night, they vaulted
down the wide steps two at a time until they reached the sidewalk below.

It was a beautiful evening. The air was crisp but not cold. New York glittered with early Christmas lights and hundreds of people moved swiftly to their unknown destinations. The whole world seemed eager to get home in time.

The boy balled up his watch and aimed for a trash barrel.

“Don’t throw your watch out,” cried Annie.

“It’s a really cheap one. I shouldn’t have expected it to last. You can’t get this kind of watch fixed, you can only get another.”

“May I keep it for a souvenir?” said Annie quickly, and blushed at his stare. “After all, I don’t meet extra Lockwoods all the time.”

He laughed and gave her the watch. “I’ve noticed,” he said as they walked, “that just about every sentence we’ve said has the word time in it.” He said, “Are you warm enough without gloves?” He took her hand in his. “Listen,” he said, “speaking of time, what are you doing next Saturday?”

Who cares about other times and other worlds when you can dream about next weekend? thought Annie. The best time is always now. “I’m free,” said Annie Lockwood to Lockwood Stratton.

She put the broken watch on her own wrist because she had seen right away why the watch didn’t work.

It was full of sand.

FACTS

The Metropolitan Museum of Art did have an exhibition in November 1999 presenting the tomb artifacts of Hetepheres, mother of Khufu, who built the Great Pyramid. It was a mysterious tomb. Her sarcophagus, although sealed in antiquity, contained no mummy. The tomb, small as a closet, contained much less than a queen should have. George Reisner, who excavated that tomb in real life in 1925, guessed that it was a hurried reburial, possibly after a botched robbery.

The tomb entrance was found during the Reisner dig when the cameraman’s tripod broke some plaster.

That did not happen, however, in 1899, and the cameraman was not Strat.

No Hiram Stratton, Sr., or Hiram Stratton, Jr., existed or made donations to the museum.

Caroline B. Cooney is the author of the following books for young people:
The Lost Songs; Three Black Swans; They Never Came Back; If the Witness Lied; Diamonds in the Shadow; A Friend at Midnight; Hit the Road; Code Orange; The Girl Who Invented Romance; Family Reunion; Goddess of Yesterday
(an ALA-ALSC Notable Children’s Book);
The Ransom of Mercy Carter; Tune In Anytime; Burning Up; The Face on the Milk Carton
(an IRA-CBC Children’s Choice) and its companions,
Whatever Happened to Janie?
and
The Voice on the Radio
(each of them an ALA-YALSA Best Book for Young Adults),
What Janie Found, What Janie Saw
(an ebook original short story), and
Janie Face to Face; What Child Is This?
(an ALA-YALSA Best Book for Young Adults);
Driver’s Ed
(an ALA-YALSA Best Book for Young Adults and a
Booklist
Editors’ Choice);
Among Friends; Twenty Pageants Later;
and the Time Travel Quartet:
Both Sides of Time, Out of Time, Prisoner of Time
, and
For All Time
, which are also available as
The Time Travelers
, Volumes I and II.

Caroline B. Cooney lives in South Carolina.