“Sure,” said Hannah. “My brother and Brandon found it.”
“Oh, I had no idea!” exclaimed the Professor. “All I heard was that a couple of local kids were digging around in the park and found it, but I never thought that it might be the boys. Oh, my. That’s interesting . . . . Hannah, why are you looking at me like that?”
Hannah gave a small smile. “No reason. We just got back ourselves. We were in 1752 . . . .”
The Professor gasped. “Without me? Oh, no . . .”
Hannah nodded and continued, “Yeah. Without you. We were in Georgia, mostly. Balesworth for a little while. So what did you find out? About the skeleton, I mean?”
“Good grief. Aren’t you going to tell me about what happened to you?” asked the Professor.
“I will,” Hannah said firmly. “I just really want you to tell me about the skeleton first. It’s important.”
The Professor cleared her throat. “Let me see what I can tell you. I just had lunch with Sonya Barrett yesterday. She says the skeleton belonged to an elderly woman, probably in her eighties. But the part she can’t figure out is, ah, why the skull had modern dental work. Hannah, did you meet this woman on your travels? Have we found another time-traveler?”
“Yes, we did,” Hannah said carefully. “And she was a good friend.”
“In that case, I am so very sorry,” the Professor said feelingly. “Do you have any idea what happened to her?”
Hannah felt her stomach drop. “Yes,” she said, her voice trembling. “She was murdered. Someone shot her. We saw it happen.”
The Professor, apparently unaware of Hannah’s anguish, kept talking. “I am very sorry to hear that,” she said. “But how fantastic that she was a timetraveler, like us. I want you to tell me everything you know about your timetraveling friend. Time travel being what it is, perhaps we can get in touch with her. She may still be alive in the present.”
Hannah just stared at the floor, the corners of her mouth turned down, and she started to cry.
The Professor offered Hannah a tissue, and then suddenly her eyes widened, and she fell back in her chair. “Wait a minute . . . . Dear, are you trying to tell me that she . . . She is me?”
Hannah nodded miserably. “Yes, only old. You were, like, eighty-five next birthday.”
The Professor let out a long sigh. Then, to Hannah’s amazement she smiled and yelped, “Hah!”
She started rubbing her head with her fingertips, as she sometimes did while she was thinking. “So that’s how it all ends . . . . Gosh . . . well, at least I live to a good old age. And I literally go out with a bang, don’t I?” She laughed again.
“That’s sick,” Hannah said, laughing despite herself. It felt odd to reproach the Professor for joking about her own death, and yet it was a relief to discover that she didn’t seem too bothered by the news.
The Professor patted her hand, and spoke soothingly. “Look, don’t worry, Hannah. The older I get, the less death frightens me. To be honest, I’m not as weirded out by this news as I am by the fact that I didn’t know I was going to end up in Georgia in 1752. I’ll check my research, but I don’t think there is any record of my being there, if that makes sense. Oh, dear, I’m babbling.”
Hannah was confused, too. But then she remembered what the Professor of 1752 had told her. She had to give information to “her” Professor in the twenty-first century, so she would know for the future.
“There’s something else,” she said hesitantly. “You had a husband . . . .”
“Yes, I do know that, of course,” the Professor said impatiently.
Hannah was taken aback. “How could you possibly know that?” she sputtered. “You met him there, in the eighteenth century. He was a black guy, an escaped slave called Fred.”
Now the Professor looked worried. “Are you sure? Yes, of course you’re sure. But I don’t understand. Why would I get married again?”
You’re already married? Hannah thought. This was the first she’d heard of it. The Professor had never mentioned a husband before. “You told me you were stuck there,” she said. “Like, you arrived, and you didn’t know how to leave. So you didn’t. You were in the eighteenth century for a lot of years.”
There was a long silence, and now the Professor looked somber. She almost seemed to withdraw into herself. Then she said, “Thank you for telling me, Hannah. That’s very helpful. Is there anything else?”
“One thing,” Hannah said falteringly. “She, I mean you, you told us before you died what happened in the end to the other people we knew in 1752, you know, later in their lives. And you told me that you learned about them from us, that’s how you knew. So she, I mean, you have to help us figure out about them. So we can tell you what happens to them, and then, when you’re old, you would know to tell us.”
“How very confusing,” said the Professor. “But yes . . . yes, of course I understand. Very well. First, I suggest you get together with Alex and Brandon, and start writing down everything you can tell me about the people you knew in 1752.”
“Okaaay,” Hannah said slowly. “But what kind of stuff do you want to know?”
“Let’s see,” said the Professor, ticking off thoughts on her fingers. “Their names, of course, how old they were, who their friends were, where they were from, any records they kept, like diaries or letters . . . .”
Hannah rolled her eyes. “I’m sorry, but that would take, like, forever. Isn’t there a faster way?”
The Professor chuckled. “I wish,” she said. “But what I’m asking you to do is the easy part, believe it or not. After we have exhausted what you guys know, unless any of these people have had books written about them, which I doubt, it’s needle-in-a-haystack time. We have to start going through the archives.”
We? thought Hannah anxiously. “You’ll do that for us, right?” she asked the Professor.
“Yes, I will,” said the Professor with a twinkle in her eye that Hannah didn’t like the look of. “Although I think you would enjoy visiting an archive with me more than you would think.”
Then the Professor gave her a kindly smile. “Hannah, thank you for coming to see me. There’s something I must tell you, and I hope it will cheer you up. What happened to me, and to you, may not stay that way. There is always the possibility that the past could change. And we won’t be any the wiser when it does. Do you understand?”
“Not really,” sighed Hannah. “Honestly? I’m just exhausted by all this.”
What she had said to the Professor hadn’t been entirely true, Hannah thought as she opened her locker at Snipes Academy and started hunting for her social studies textbook. She wasn’t exhausted by her adventures. When she time traveled, even when she was afraid or miserable, she at least felt alive. In Snipesville, she always felt. . . Hannah couldn’t find the words. But she knew that her normal life in Snipesville didn’t feel like living. Existing, but not living. Come to think of it, she had felt the same way in San Francisco.
Just then, she heard giggling behind her. She turned around to see Natalie Marshburn and Ashlee Bragg. They tried to act like they hadn’t been laughing at her, but Hannah wasn’t stupid. And she also wasn’t in the mood for their nonsense.
“Can I help you?” she asked them with a heavy sigh.
Ashlee said, “So where’s your friend today?”
Hannah stared at her, and Natalie stepped in.
“I thought you were best friends with Tara Thompson?” she said. The two girls glanced at each other, rolled their eyes, and started giggling again.
“What’s it to you?” said Hannah coldly. She didn’t wait for an answer, but spoke slowly and deliberately so they would know she wasn’t just losing her temper. “You’re both snobs and racists, but you know the worst thing? You’re stupid and boring. Tara looks weird, but at least she’s a real person. Ten years from now, when you’re both stuck in Snipesville with your boring husbands and snot-nosed kids, guess what? Tara and me will be far away from this dump, having inte
resting lives.”
In no hurry, Hannah locked her locker, hoisted her bag on her shoulder, and turned back to the dumbstruck girls, who were opening and closing their mouths like goldfish. “And in case you’re thinking of messing with me, don’t even think about it. I’ve done things you can only dream about, and I’m not taking any more crap from you. See you later, losers.”
To Hannah’s astonishment, Ashlee and Natalie, after exchanging less-than confident eye rolls, slunk away.
Now a voice behind her made her jump.
“That was really brave. Or really stupid. Or maybe both.”
Tara was giving her a lopsided smile. They both watched the other girls leave through the double doors that led to Snipes Academy’s cafeteria. “I don’t care,” Hannah said adamantly. “I could take both of them on, and win.”
“What, you think they’re gonna jump you?” Tara was incredulous. “Hannah, like I told you, you got a lot to learn about living in a little bitty town in the South. Lesson number one: They won’t come after you when you expect it, or how you expect it. They’ll come after you sneaky, like. See Ashlee? Her dad is Mr. Bragg, the social studies teacher. Hope you don’t end up in his class anytime soon, because Ashlee is daddy’s girl. And isn’t Natalie Marshburn’s dad your dad’s boss?”
“Yes,” said Hannah, puzzled. “But what does that have to do with anything?”
“It has everything to do with everything,” said Tara, giving Hannah a pitying look. “Family comes first here, and you’re outsiders. I don’t know why Mr. Marshburn hired a guy called Dias from California, but I bet your dad wasn’t his first choice. They like to keep good jobs in the family round here. Don’t be surprised if your dad gets picked on because you had a little fight with Natalie.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Hannah said. But now she was worried.
Dr. Braithwaite had been over-optimistic about Verity’s confidence with computers, and it turned out that, no, she didn’t know how to use Skype. When he called, she promised him that next time her daughter Lizzie or son Mark visited, she would have them help her learn to make video calls.
That was why the kids had to call her on the landline. “Verity?” Hannah said into the phone. “I’m here with Brandon and my brother. We know who’s in the portrait. Do you mind me putting you on speaker?”
“Not at all,” said Verity excitedly. “My goodness, it is a very clear connection we get to America these days, isn’t it? Hello, boys!”
The boys shyly mumbled their greetings, and Alex, forgetting that he wasn’t on Skype, raised a hand.
Hannah brought the portrait up on the computer screen.
“Okay,” she said. “The woman who looks like you and Mrs. D., she’s called Mrs. Jenkins, and she owns . . . owned the Balesworth Arms with her husband. He’s not in the picture, and because she looks older and stuff, I think he must have been dead by the time this was painted.”
“So he was out of the picture, so to speak?” quipped Verity.
“Yeah,” said Brandon with a smile. Now he couldn’t wait to tell Verity his news. “The man in the wig, that’s Mr. Osborn,” he said. “He’s . . .”
“No first name?” interrupted Verity.
Brandon had to think about that. He had never heard anyone call Mr. Osborn by his first name, not even Mrs. Osborn. “No. I don’t know his first name,” he said. “But I can tell you he was the curate in Balesworth, and some time before this picture was painted, he spent time in St. Swithin’s Parish, Georgia, what’s Snipes County today.”
Alex leaned forward. He wanted to contribute, too. “The girl isn’t Hannah, like we thought. She’s called Jane.”
Hannah tried to stomp on his foot. “Shut up, Alex, I wanted to be the one who told her that!”
“One at a time, kids, please,” Verity chided them. “I can’t hear when you all speak at once. Now, Hannah, what is it that you want to tell me?”
Hannah studied the picture. “Jane was Mrs. Jenkins’s daughter,” she said, “and she was Mr. Osborn’s second wife.” As an aside, she said in a low voice to Brandon and Alex. “Wow, we’re like twins, huh? I didn’t realize at the time that we looked that much like each other.”
“She didn’t look so much like you then,” Brandon observed. “I guess her hair got darker as she got older, and she kind of changed . . . . Man, how strange.”
There was silence. Then Verity said quietly, “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
The kids looked at each other expectantly, but she didn’t explain. “Now, I must go,” she said suddenly. “It was lovely of you to ring me, but I cannot imagine what your father’s phone bill will be like. Goodbye now. See you soon.”
“It’s okay . . . it’s cheap . . . .” Hannah said, trying to stop her from hanging up. But the phone had gone dead.
“She was in a hurry to go, wasn’t she?” Brandon said. “Did we offend her?”
“I don’t think so,” said Hannah, perplexed. “And what did she mean, ‘see you soon’?”
“That’s funny,” said Alex. “When Dr. Braithwaite called, he said something to me that I didn’t get. About us seeing Verity here.”
“Duh,” said Hannah, affectionately slapping her brother’s arm. “She must be coming here! That is so exciting. I hope it’s soon. And this reminds me, the Professor wants us to write down everything we remember about everyone in 1752. She says it’s important.”
Brandon’s dad had just picked him up from Hannah and Alex’s house when Mr. Dias returned from the office. For once, he wanted to speak with his children, and he called them downstairs.
“There’s something I need to discuss with you two,” he said as he sat on the sofa. “Alex, I’ve heard you’ve been saying that the Marshburns’ ancestors were drunks. What is that about?”
Alex felt himself go cold. It took him a moment to remember the conversation he had had at Snipes Academy, because for him, that conversation had taken place months ago. And when he did remember, he almost told his dad that what he had said was true, because it was true, at least of the ancestor whom Alex had actually met in 1851. But there was no point in telling his father any such thing, and so he sat silently.
Mr. Dias took his son’s silence for a confession of guilt, and giving him a glare, he snapped, “I don’t want to be embarrassed like that ever again, you got me? It’s tough enough in this town for a guy from California called Dias without my kids spreading lies about my boss’s family. Got that?”
Alex nodded miserably. Now Mr. Dias looked at his daughter. “And Hannah, what’s this about you saying rude things about Natalie Marshburn?”
“She’s a bully,” Hannah said flatly. “She and her friend were making fun of me, and I scared them off.”
For a moment, Mr. Dias’s anger wavered. He sighed heavily, and ran a hand through his hair. “Just remember that you’re newcomers,” he said calmly. “Maybe we can move on in a year or two, but the banking business isn’t too good right now, and I need to do a good job here, okay? Help me out. Try to fit in. Try not to tick off the Marshburn kids. I mean, I would put you in public school to get away from them, but the public schools are really bad here.”
“Brandon likes his school okay,” Alex pointed out.
“That’s great,” said Mr. Dias in an insincere voice. “But what’s good for Brandon and his family may not be so good for ours.”
“Why?” said Alex passionately, “Because he’s black? Don’t black kids deserve a good education?”
Mr. Dias said in a deadly quiet tone, “Don’t call me a racist, Alex. Just don’t.”
Hannah and Alex sat sullenly, waiting for their father to calm down. But they no longer had his attention. He had his hand under his chin, and he was looking into the middle distance. “Go to your rooms,” he said in a resigned voice.
Hannah heard a gentle tapping at her bedroom door. At first, she thought her dad had come to talk with her, but it was her brother, and he was waving a brown manila envelope. When he held it out to
her, she saw the Snipesville State College return address.
“Hannah,” Alex said, stepping inside as she took the envelope from him. “It came in the mail. Bet I know who it’s from.”
After each adventure, the Professor sent pictures of themselves, for the souvenir albums she had given each of them.
This time, in Hannah’s photo, she was lying on the bed in the Professor’s cabin, in a malaria-induced stupor.
“Huh, how flattering. Not,” she said, grimacing. “Happy times. Here’s yours.”
Alex looked glumly at the photo of himself as a black kid, standing in a field with some brown cattle, Tony in the background.
“Hard to see this as me,” he said, shrugging, picking up the envelope and looking into it hopefully, as though a picture of the real him might suddenly appear.
“If we didn’t have these pictures, I might not believe that these things happen to us,” Hannah said. “But you know what? They do happen, and I want to know why.”
Then she gasped. “Wait. How could she have sent us these pictures if she didn’t know what happened?”
“Hey, there’s a letter in here,” said Alex, pulling it out from the envelope. His sister snatched the paper from him, and began to read.
Dear Hannah, it said,
I found these photos in the college museum, of all places, stuffed into an old
envelope. I remembered the curator telling me just last year that he had these
weird color photographs of people in eighteenth century costume, re-enactors
apparently, but that they came with a note from the very first museum curator
more than a hundred years ago. He had wanted me to take a look, but I was
very busy then, and it completely slipped my mind until now. Hope you enjoy
them.
Hannah showed the letter to Alex. “You know what? She does know where to look for stuff about our time travel. She must know something about how to control it. Alex, I want us to decide where and when we go. And I’m starting to think that it’s not a skill anyone can really teach me, not even That Woman. It’s more like something inside me I never knew existed before. I just have to learn to recognize it and control it.”
Look Ahead, Look Back (The Snipesville Chronicles Book 3) Page 32