Free Tempus Fugitive by Nicola Rhodes Page B

for wandering lunatics.’ 
    ‘Why do we care so much?’ wondered Denny.
    ‘Let’s go and find a newspaper stand,’ said Tamar, ignoring this, since she had no answer for it. 
    ‘Where’s the fun in that?’ asked Denny, thereby answering his own question if he had but realised it.  ‘If we do that, we might as well ask somebody.  I thought we were trying to work it out.  It’s a pretty poor show, if we can’t figure it out between us, don’t you think?’ 
    ‘Oh, who cares?’ said Tamar suddenly tired of the whole thing.  ‘That bastard isn’t here anyway, let’s just go.’
    At that moment, the clock across the street struck the half-hour, causing them to automatically look at it. 
    ‘Well, at least we know what time it is,’ observed Denny.  ‘And it’s 1985,’ he added. 
    Tamar thought this was a gambit to draw her back into the guessing game, and she was not to be drawn. She shrugged.  ‘If you say so,’ she said,  ‘let’s go.’
    ‘No, it really is. I saw …’ the rest of his words were drowned out by a clamorous ringing which echoed over the street. 
    ‘School’s out,’ said Denny dryly.  ‘Who would have thought the bell would sound so loud out here?  We’d better go,’ he added, ‘or else we’ll be drowned in a sea of hormones. And I wouldn’t like to answer for the effect you might have on a hormonal sixteen year old boy –specially looking like that .’
    ‘Like what?’
    ‘Like what.’ snorted Denny.  ‘You know very well, like what.’
    ‘I just look like I always do,’ she protested.
    ‘That’s what I mean.  Look out they’re coming.’ 
    There was indeed a steady stream of scrofulous sweaty humanity headed their way making a noise like a flock of seagulls, and some of them had hairstyles to match. 
    There was no time to get away.  Tamar, referring to age old instincts of blending in with her surroundings, instantly and without stopping to think, manufactured uniforms to match the ones the kids were wearing, just as they were caught up with the tide. 
    Denny was surprised to suddenly find himself chewing something, and, before he knew what he was doing, he blew a large pink bubble which popped all over his face. 
    He gave Tamar a baleful look, especially as she was, quite naturally, choking on a laugh that had bubbled to the surface.
    ‘Whoops,’ she giggled. 
    Denny was so intent on giving Tamar a dirty look that he ran into a group of large boys, almost knocking one of them over.  He apologised, but he knew it was a waste of time, these were rough boys, and Denny looked even less impressive than usual at the moment, what with the bubblegum and the school uniform.  Tamar had not even bothered to make it scruffy like it should be. 
    The boys rounded on him; Denny sighed internally.  He had no desire to hurt children, which, despite their size, was what they were.  He would have to let the boy beat him up – a little anyway. At least he knew it would not really hurt.  Not like it used to.
    A smaller boy with what looked suspiciously like make-up on, suddenly called out ‘Phillpot!’ mysteriously enough to Tamar, although Denny got the point immediately.  Evidently some fearsome, ogrerish member of the faculty was on the warpath.  Denny understood it to be a reprieve, and was proved right when all the boys ran including himself.  Tamar shrugged and followed. It should be pointed out here, that the inevitability of  an ensuing fight had been completely lost on her, so that, when the boy in question Mark –somebody caught up with them in the park that Denny had headed for – for privacy in order to close the file, she was surprised by his vehement attitude and also his bad language. 
    ‘All right puke breath,’ was this savant’s opening line. ‘Now you’re going to get it.’
    ‘I thought as much,’ said Denny resignedly.  ‘Come on then, I haven’t got all day.’
    ‘Are you trying to be funny?’ snarled Mark –