Thief of Time

There had been an uneasy meeting with her grandfather. She'd raged that he hadn't told her things. And he'd said, of course he hadn't. If you told humans what the future held, it wouldn't. That made sense. Of course it made sense. It was good logic. The trouble was that Susan was only mostly logical. And so, now, things were back in that uneasy, rather cool state where they spent most of their time, in the tiny little family that ran on dysfunctionality.

Maybe, she thought, that was a normal family state in any case. When push came to shove—thank you, Mrs Ogg, she'd always remember that phrase now—they'd rely on each other automatically, without a thought. Apart from that, they kept out of one another's way.

She hadn't seen the Death of Rats lately. It was too much to hope that he was dead. In any case, it hadn't slowed him down so far.

That thought made her think about the contents of her desk. Susan was very strict about eating in class and took the view that, if there were rules, then they applied to everyone, even her. Otherwise they were merely tyranny. But rules were there to make you think before you broke them.

There was still half a box of Higgs & Meakins' cheapest assortment tucked in there amongst the books and papers.

Opening the lid carefully and slipping her hand in was easy, and so was the maintenance of a suitably teachery face while she did so. Questing fingers found a chocolate in the nest of empty paper cups, and told her that it was a damn nougat. But she was resolute. Life was tough. Sometimes you got nougat.

Then she briskly picked up the keys and walked to the Stationery Cupboard with what she hoped was the purposeful step of someone about to check on the supply of pencils. After all, you never knew, with pencils. They needed watching.

The door clicked behind her, leaving only the dim light through the transom. She put the chocolate in her mouth and shut her eyes.

A faint, cardboardy sound made her open them. The lids were gently lifting on the boxes of stars.

They spilled out and whirled up into the shadows of the cupboard, brilliant against the darkness, a galaxy in miniature, gently spinning.

Susan watched them for a while, and then said, “All right, you have my full attention, whoever you are.”

At least, that was what she meant to say. The peculiar stickiness of the nougat caused it to come out as: “Allite, you ot my fo' a'nen'on, oover ooah.” Damn!

The stars spiralled around her head, and the cupboard's interior darkened into interstellar black.

“If iss is oo, Def o' Raffs—” she began.

“It's me,” said Lobsang.

Tick

Even with nougat, you can have a perfect moment.

The End