LISA STOOD AS if frozen. She’d seen this before, in a painting, in a book, a history book.
The flames were licking up around a central stake to which a figure in a white dress was tied.
A man in a priest’s robe was standing in front of the bonfire, holding up a cross at her. The people in the square were quiet, all you could hear was the roar of the flames and another priest shouting Latin words up into the night sky. And now Lisa understood everything: why she’d thought Joan of Arc had looked like Juliette Margarine in that painting in her history book. Lisa shuddered. Because she also realized that this could mean only one thing: that what was happening had already happened, that in a mix-up Juliette was going to be burned at the stake today, May 30, 1431, instead of Joan of Arc. That no matter what they did now, it didn’t matter. She’d already seen the picture of Juliette in her history book. It was carved in stone. It couldn’t be changed.
“It’s too late …,” Lisa whispered. “It’s been too late this whole time.”
She whispered it so softly that the professor, Nilly, and Joan didn’t hear it. But Raspa must have heard it, because she leaned over to Lisa and her desert voice blew right by Lisa’s ear:
“Maybe so, Lisa. Maybe so. But there’s still one thing that can save her.”
“Death,” Lisa whispered. “You said that a person who was willing to die could change history.”
“Correct.”
“Doctor Proctor,” Lisa said slowly. “He said that he would rather die than lose her.”
“He did,” Raspa replied. “But it would have to happen before Juliette dies herself.”
Lisa bit her lower lip. Juliette’s dress had caught fire. Doctor Proctor sank to his knees, sobbing.
“Elementary!” Lisa suddenly exclaimed. “Nilly, do you still have the fartonaut powder?”
But Nilly didn’t hear her. He was staring at the bonfire, mesmerized. Lisa stuck her hands down into both pockets of his uniform and pulled out a little plastic sack.
“Is that time soap?” Raspa asked.
“No,” Lisa said. “This is an even bigger invention. One of Doctor Proctor’s.” Then she tipped her head back, opened her mouth wide, and poured in a good mouthful of the light blue fartonaut powder.
“What are you doing?” Raspa asked.
“Changing history,” Lisa said. “Eight! Tell Doctor Proctor that he should get ready to go take Juliette’s place. Seven!”
“What?”
“Six! Five!”
Nilly, Joan, and the professor turned toward Lisa and Raspa.
“Nilly and Joan,” Lisa yelled, bending over and aiming her rear end at the bonfire. “Hold on to me tight! Four! Three!”
Nilly understood what his best friend meant right away. As Raspa whispered something in Doctor Proctor’s ear, Nilly darted over, grabbed Lisa by one arm, and waved to Joan to grab the other.
“Two! One! Zer—”
The noise was so loud that Nilly’s ears curled up in gleeful pain, Doctor Proctor felt his skull crunch, and Raspa’s eyelashes flew off. The flagpoles in the square bent, people toppled over, and the priests did somersaults with their robes and adornments flapping around their necks. When they finally recovered their senses, they coughed and blinked their burning, watering eyes, but couldn’t see anything. Because the bonfire and all the torches had been blown out, and the smoke lay thick over the marketplace in the nighttime darkness.
“Nilly!” Lisa yelled in the darkness, coughing.
“Joan!” Nilly yelled in the darkness, coughing.
“Doctor Proctor!” Joan yelled in the darkness, coughing.
But there was no response from Doctor Proctor. Instead they heard voices from the square shouting:
“Light the bonfire again!”
Nilly’s hand found another hand.
“Is that you, Lisa?” he yelled. “Talk to me, Lisa!”
A voice very close to his ear whispered, “So girls can’t fart, huh? You owe me a ton of sticky caramels.”
“Lisa!”
“Come on, let’s find Joan.”
They fumbled around in the smoke and darkness until Nilly’s hands touched a head that then suddenly pulled away from him.
“You’re messing up my hair!” a voice complained.
“Joan!” Lisa said. “Let’s hold hands so we don’t lose each other.”
But that turned out not to be necessary because the smoke had already started to clear up, and they could see the first torches in the square being lit again. And hear voices yelling, “There were some strange people over there and one of them fired off a cannon from his backside. I saw them!”
“Witches and wizards! Get them.”
“Get them into the bonfire with that other witch!”
“I think it’s about time for us to be going,” Nilly said.
“But … what about Juliette?” Joan asked.
“And Raspa,” Lisa said. “Raspa?”
“Look!” Nilly said, pointing. “Someone’s coming.”
And sure enough two silhouettes shrouded in smoke came scurrying toward them. One was supporting the other, and they didn’t look like priests, bishops, or prison guards.
“Run, kids, run!” It was Juliette’s voice. “They’re right behind us. Back to the cell!”
And so they ran. And as they ran, they heard an unpleasant and now very familiar sound behind them. The crackling sound of firewood burning, the roar of flames devouring wood, the whistle of wind whirling toward the witch’s pyre.
“Don’t look back, kids!” Juliette shouted.
They did as she said. They didn’t look back, just ran. Ran and tried not to think about what was happening to Doctor Proctor on the fire behind them. Ran into the courtyard, through the open door, which they then closed and locked behind them, down the spiral staircase, back down the hallways they’d come through before, and finally back into the dark prison cell. Lisa held the door open until the last two were in and then she pushed it shut again.
The light from the fire was flickering through the window slit high up on the wall above them.
“Terrible …,” Joan whispered.
“I have to look!” Nilly said, clutching on to the tall, skinny, soot-blackened form who had entered the room with Juliette. The form positioned itself against the wall and Nilly clambered up onto its shoulders. It wasn’t hard to spot. The flames lit up her face…. Wait! Her? That … but that was …
Nilly stared in confusion first at the woman on the bonfire, then down at the person whose shoulders he was standing on.
“Doctor Proctor?” Nilly gasped.
“Yes, indeed.” The professor sighed.
“Raspa had just finished helping me untie Juliette in all the smoke and confusion,” the professor said. “I was about to tie myself to the stake when everything went black. After that I’m really not sure what happened.”
“But I am,” Juliette said. “Raspa knocked Victor out with her wooden leg. I have no idea why. I leaned down over Victor and just barely managed to get him to come to, and when I looked up again, Raspa had disappeared in all the smoke. I got Victor back onto his feet and realized I was going to have to drag him back to the prison cell where my bathtub was so that we could get out of here. And then I spotted you guys, my dear children…. You have no idea how relieved I was!”
“Us too,” Lisa said. “What do you see out there, Nilly?”
Nilly was staring out through the bars. The flames were now engulfing her trench coat and wooden leg and her face was glowing red and gold. Nilly wasn’t sure, but it actually looked like she was smiling as she stood there, flashing those sharp teeth of hers. And she was shouting something. It was hard to hear over the roar of the flames, but it sounded like … like: “Give me an L!”
Nilly shouted as loud as he could through the bars, “L!”
Like an echo from far away came, “Give me an I!”
“I!”
But then the flames drowned out the rest, and Raspa was engulfed in flames that stretched up and spluttered sparks like shooting stars into the velvety black, strangely beautiful night sky.
Nilly waited a little longer. Then he slid down from the professor’s shoulders.
“We don’t need to wait for Raspa,” he said, sounding unusually subdued for Nilly.
“What?” Joan and Juliette asked.
But Doctor Proctor and Lisa didn’t say anything. The professor looked at Nilly for a long time. Then he nodded slowly at the bathtub. “Come on, everyone. We have to get out of here before the bubbles are gone.”
“Look,” Lisa said, pointing down at the dirt floor.
It was Raspa’s mason jar of time soap.
“Hm,” Doctor Proctor said, holding up the jar. “This means we have enough powder to take a little vacation. I think we need one. What do you guys say to a couple days on a sunny Caribbean island, long before it was discovered by the tourist industry?”
WHEN THE TWO prison guards yanked open the door to the cell, all they saw was an empty prison cell with three bathtubs in it.
“What is the meaning of this?” the taller of the two said. Under his helmet he was sporting an unbelievably stupid-looking bowl cut and on his upper lip he wore a large handlebar mustache.
“Yes, what is the meaning of this?” the other one said. Under his helmet he had an inconceivably stupid-looking bowl cut and on his upper lip there wasn’t so much as a wisp of hair and no mustache at all.
“Hm,” Handlebar said. “There was only one bathtub in here earlier when we came to get Joan of Arc, not three.”
“You’re right,” No-Mustache said.
“Well,” Handlebar said. “It looks like we’re never going to find whoever fired that cannon. Come on.”
“Hm,” said No-Mustache, who was staring at the wall where something had obviously caught his attention.
“What is it?” Handlebar asked, coming over to see.
“This drawing here,” No-Mustache said. “That is a really great-looking mustache. I’ve never seen a mustache like that before, sort of hanging down on the sides like that. I think maybe I’ll try to grow—”
“Come on,” Handlebar said, pulling No-Mustache out of the cell.