Page 57 of Ruby Red (The Ruby Red Trilogy 1)

“What’s the time?” I was looking around for Lesley.

“Do I look like a grandfather clock?” James was indignant. “You ought to know me well enough by now to be aware that time means nothing to me.”

“How true.” I went around the corner to take a look at the big clock at the end of the corridor. James followed me.

“I’ve only been gone twenty minutes,” I said.

“Gone where?”

“Oh, James! I think I was in your father’s town house. It was really lovely there. Gold all over the place. And the candlelight—it was so soft and glowing.”

“Yes, not dismal and tasteless like all this,” said James, with a gesture that took in the mainly gray corridor. I suddenly felt very sorry for him. He wasn’t all that much older than me, and his life was already over.

“James, have you ever kissed a girl?”

“What?”

“I asked if you’d ever kissed a girl.”

“It’s not done to talk about such things, Miss Gwyneth.”

“So you’ve never kissed anyone?”

“I’m a man,” said James.

“What kind of answer is that?” I couldn’t help laughing at James’s expression. “Do you know when you were born?”

“Are you trying to insult me? Of course I know my own birthday. It’s on the thirty-first of March.”

“What year?”

“1762.” James thrust out his chin challengingly. “I was twenty-one three weeks ago. I celebrated at length with my friends in White’s Club, and my father paid all my gaming debts in honor of the day and gave me a beautiful bay mare. And then I had to get that stupid fever and go to bed. Only to find everything different when I woke up, and a pert minx telling me I’m a ghost.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “You probably died of the fever.”

“Nonsense! It was only a slight indisposition,” said James, but there was a look of uncertainty in his eyes. “Dr. Barrow said it was not very likely that I’d have caught the smallpox at Lord Stanhope’s.”

“Hm,” I said. I’d have to Google smallpox to find out more about it.

“Hm? What do you mean, hm?” James looked offended.

“Oh, there you are!” Lesley came running out of the girls’ toilets and flung her arms around my neck. “I’ve been dying a thousand deaths.”

“Nothing too bad happened. I did end up in Mrs. Counter’s classroom when I came back, but there was no one there.”

“Year Six are visiting Greenwich Observatory today,” said Lesley. “My God, am I glad to see you! I told Mr. Whitman you were puking your guts up in the girls’ toilets, and he said I should go back to you so I could hold your hair out of your face.”

“Disgusting,” said James, holding his handkerchief to his nose. “Tell your freckled friend that a lady doesn’t talk about such things.”

I took no notice of this. “Lesley, something kind of funny’s happened … something that I can’t explain.”

“I believe you.” Lesley held my mobile out to me. “Here. I took it out of your locker. Call your mother now, right away.”

“Lesley, she’s at work. I can’t just—”

“Call her! You’ve gone back into the past three times now, and I saw you do it with my own eyes the third time. All of a sudden you simply weren’t there! It was really terrible! You must tell your mum, this minute, so that nothing else awful will happen to you. Please.” Did Lesley actually have tears in her eyes?

“That freckled girl is in a dramatic mood today,” commented James.

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