Facing the music
Trixie and I appeared behind the jumping castle on the oval. The noise of the time machine was drowned out by the sound of the fan and the big generator that kept the jumping castle inflated. It was the third time I’d travelled through time and I was starting to get used to it. I hadn’t even thrown up. Although it looked like we’d only travelled a few minutes into the future.
‘Harry the magician is about to start,’ Trixie said. ‘You should get a move on.’
I smiled and let out a sigh of relief.
‘We’re definitely safe?’ I said.
‘We’re safe,’ she assured me. ‘Crick is stuck in the sick bay. He can’t get us now.’
The words had barely left her mouth when I felt a hand slam down on my shoulder. I froze and glanced at Trixie. She had a hand on her shoulder too. We both spun around to face two serious figures looming over us. A tall, thin man with a tiny narrow moustache took his hand from my shoulder. Standing next to him was an equally thin but much shorter woman, her hair tied back in a tight bun. Both were dressed in matching black shoes, pants and turtleneck sweaters.
They reached into their pockets. I stepped back, ready to make a run for it, but before I had a chance, they each pulled out a wallet and flicked it open. Inside were badges made of some kind of glass that glowed bright green. Engraved in the glass was an image of a clock, its numbers running backwards around the face, and three little letters: CPA.
Chronological Protection Agency.
The time police. The people who hunted down time travellers and brought them to justice. And they’d just caught Trixie and me red-handed.
The man with the thin moustache cleared his throat and spoke.
‘Do you have any idea how much trouble you have caused?’
‘A lot of trouble,’ the woman with the tight bun answered before we could. ‘That’s how much.’
‘Do you know the punishment for interfering with an ongoing CPA investigation?’ Thin Moustache added.
Again, Tight Bun answered before we had a chance to. ‘Severe. The punishment is severe.’
Thin Moustache went on. ‘You almost caused a singularity. Do you know what a singularity is?’
Tight Bun opened her mouth to answer the question but this time Trixie got in first.
‘Yes, we know what a singularity is!’ Trixie barked. ‘And if you’d done your job properly we wouldn’t have had to risk our lives. Beatrix told you Stubbins Crick was still alive and you didn’t listen to her.’
‘Well,’ Thin Moustache said carefully. ‘She is helping us with our enquiries now.’
‘Helping us with our enquiries’ did not sound good at all. I hoped she wasn’t in trouble.
‘And what about Mr E?’ I said.
The pair looked confused. Thin Moustache’s mouth wiggled testily, making his moustache look like a caterpillar crawling across his upper lip.
‘He means Crick,’ Trixie explained. ‘He calls himself Mr E in this time.’
‘Ah yes, Dr Stubbins Crick,’ Tight Bun said. ‘We have agents fetching him as we speak.’ She turned to Trixie. ‘We need to get you home. Say goodbye to your . . . friend.’
‘And what happens to me now?’ I said.
‘Now?’ Thin Moustache said, confused at the question. ‘You are already in the correct time. You get back to your life and forget you ever saw any of this. You know, everything could have backfired very severely if we hadn’t intervened. You’re lucky the gravitational fluctuations from your little stunt in the sick bay caught our attention. Otherwise we wouldn’t have found you in time.’
‘You didn’t find us in time,’ Trixie exclaimed. The two time cops gave each other an embarrassed look. ‘We did everything ourselves.’
‘Okay, how about this,’ Thin Moustache said, looking at his watch. It was smaller and slicker than the chunky device Beatrix and Trixie had been using. ‘You can deliver him to this magic show he is supposed to attend. Once you’ve made sure he does what he is supposed to do, you go straight home. Okay?’
‘He needs to get his life back on track,’ Tight Bun agreed. ‘We can’t have any more of these changes.’
That was it? It was all over? A few minutes ago I’d been going head to head with a time-travelling megalomaniac from the future. Now I was expected to just go back to how everything had been in the past?
‘Well?’ Thin Moustache said. ‘What are you waiting for?’
Before either of us could respond, Tight Bun answered.
‘The show must go on.’