Free Time-Travel Bath Bomb by Jo Nesbø Page A

was dragging along behind the motorcycle. I felt hippo fingers clutching at my back. With the last of my strength, I dived forward, grabbed the corner of Victor’s scarf and held on for my very life as I was pulled away.”
    “But then you were being dragged over the asphalt?”
    “Yup. The asphalt instantly wore holes in the knees of my trousers, and it stung like you wouldn’t believe. So, I scrambled up onto my feet and kept the soles of my shoes against the ground so that I was being pulled along behind the motorcycle, kind of like if I was on water skis.”
    “That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard!”
    “No, that would be this next part,” said Juliette. “Victor still hadn’t noticed what was going on. I was about to lose my grip on the scarf as we came round a bend, heading straight for a bridge. Next to the bridge there was a sign that said ‘Gustav Eiffel’s Bridge’. I realised that this was my last chance to catch Victor. Without letting go, I scooted to the edge of the road and over to the sign. The next instant, the scarf and I starting whipping round the signpost. That’s the fastest carousel ride I’ve ever been on in my whole life. I was so dizzy that I was reeling when I stood up and saw Victor lying in the middle of the bridge. His motor cycle was stopped a little further ahead. I ran over to my beloved Victor. His face was totally blue, poor thing, his eyes were bulging out and he tried to speak, but he couldn’t get a single word out . . .”
    “Was he injured?”
    “No, it was just the scarf squeezing his neck. Once I loosened it and he was able to breathe again, he talked. True, in a very strange voice, kind of like this . . .”
    Juliette mimicked him, speaking in a high, squeaky voice: “Juliette, what happened?”
    Lisa giggled a little. And so did Juliette.
    “I said it was nothing, that now we would go to Rome and get married. Then I took his hand and we ran to the motorcycle. He got it started, but a valve had been damaged and he said we wouldn’t be able to go very fast, that he hoped the priest would wait for a bit. That’s when I saw the wide black limousine coming over the crest of the hill towards the bridge.”
    “A black limousine?” Lisa said. “Hippos!”
    “The limousine was so wide that for a second I hoped the bridge would be too narrow for it. But it just barely managed to manoeuvre its way on to the bridge and was coming straight towards us.”
    “Surely this was the end!”
    “Yes, Lisa. This time it was the end. With a broken valve there was no way we would beat them to Italy. Way down under the bridge there was a river, flowing deep and black. And I knew what the hippos would do if they caught us together.”
    “Yeah,” Lisa said breathlessly. “Fill your pockets with coins and toss you off the bridge.”
    “Victor, yes,” Juliette said. “But not me. They would take me to Paris, put me in a wedding dress and then drive me to a church where Cliché would be waiting, in a tuxedo and braces and that scrawny moustache, waiting for my ‘I do’ so that he could finally call himself a . . . BAROMETER!”
    Juliette slapped the table with her hand so her café au lait sloshed over the side of her cup and then continued in a voice on the verge of tears.
    “But, I also knew that if the hippos caught me, they wouldn’t worry about chasing Victor anymore. He wouldn’t be that important to them once they had me. So I . . . I did what I had to do.” Juliette stuck her hand in her purse and pulled up a handkerchief that was every bit as white and daintily embroidered as one would expect a baronette’s handkerchief to be. She dabbed away a big, glossy tear. “I lied to Victor. I said that it was my father’s limousine, that he must have followed us and that I had to go and talk to him. And that Victor should hurry, drive over the border into Italy and wait for me there. He protested, but I insisted. I pushed him onto the motorcycle, said au revoir –