Page 23 of Strangers in Time

“Now, don’t take this the wrong way, Miss, but you sound quite educated.”

“Ihavereceived a very good education. And I have also read a great many books, which is like receiving another education in itself.”

“I know a place with lots of books.”

“Where?”

“The Book Keep, down an alley in Covent Garden. It’s got a green awnin’. Man called Ignatius Oliver is the owner. He’s named after a saint that got et up by wild beasts. Least that’s what he says. Bit of a strange bloke, he is. The shop’s over near St. Saviour’s School. Do you know it?”

“I know Covent Garden, of course. We used to do some shopping there.”

“But books won’t help you get home,” he said crisply.

“Do you have another idea?”

Charlie glanced over her shoulder. “That.”

She turned to look at the bicycle leaning against a lamppost.

“What about it?”

“It’s the way you get back home.”

“But it doesn’t belong to me.”

“Oh, we’d just be borrowin’ it. We’ll ride it to your place, see, and then I’ll come back here with it, all in a jiffy.”

“But then how will you get home after that?”

In answer, he pointed at his feet. “With these. Only a few miles. I’ve walked a lot farther’n that.”

“But the bicycle, isn’t that stealing?” she said apprehensively.

“It’s stealin’ only if you don’t brin’ it back. And I figure whoever left it there done it so’s if another fellow comes along and needed a ride somewheres he’d have one. See how it’s not even locked up or nothin’?”

She looked at the bike and back at him. “But how can webothride it? It only has one seat!”

“Me on the pedals and you on the handlebars.”

“The handlebars!” said a shocked Molly. “I’m wearing a dress.”

“Well, okay, you can do the pedals and me on the bars.”

“No, we’d crash. I… I, you see, I never learned to ride a bicycle. Father didn’t think it important, and the family I stayed with didn’t have one.”

“Then better me on the pedals and you on the bars.”

They set off and Charlie kept to the middle of the road and tried his best to avoid the numerous holes so as not to jostle Molly too much.

In what felt like a fairly short period of time they pulled to a stop in front of Molly’s home. His feet planted firmly on the pavement, Charlie clutched the handrail of her front steps and held the bike steady so Molly could safely dismount.

She turned to him and once more held out the coin.

He eyed it again, his top row of teeth clenching over his bottom lip. “Better you hang on to it,” he said at last.

“Why?”

“It might come in handy, even for rich folk like you.”

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