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And then he told me a bit more about this girl we were going to collect, and of course the whole time I knew exactly who he was talking about. He said she was great, and he went on about how she had this dark curly hair and a face as pale as eggshell.

“Sounds as if you quite like her,” I said, which was obviously the understatement of the entire century.

I asked him why hadn't he gone to get her before now, and he said he already had, but her parents had sent him away because he'd turned up on his own out of the blue
on a horse, with no documentation or advance warning or anything.

“Stop me if I'm wrong,” I said, “but isn't that exactly what we're doing again now?”

He grinned and said there was one crucial difference this time. And the crucial difference was me. Me and the cart.

No one ever went into service in Blackbrick, or “the big house,” which is what everyone called it, without hearing formally from the owner or one of his representatives. The Blackbrick cart was always sent, not a wild local boy riding bareback on a horse. If the cart wasn't sent, then nobody could be sure the arrangement was above board. That's why the last time he'd gone to get her, they hadn't allowed her to go.

My chancer of a granddad was trying to smuggle her in. And this was his second attempt.

Then he told me that I was going to have to pretend to be the nephew of Lord Corporamore. I wished he'd let me know about that a bit sooner than three minutes before we were due to arrive.

He told me that he was going to hide behind the cart and that I was to tell them my name was Cyril, which apparently he thought was a pretty realistic name for Corporamore's nephew to have.

I didn't argue, although I'd have preferred a nonstupid name for once in my life, even if it was only for a few minutes.

Kevin handed me the reins. He said if I kept on being this good, he'd let me drive on the way back, too. The cart was rattly, and Ross's and Somerville's hooves clopped in a lovely way, making an uplifting kind of sound on the ground beneath, and the wind blew, fresh and energetic and whistly, and there was only one thing I kept thinking about.

Very soon I'd be seeing her.

It was a tiny little house in the middle of a row of other houses. I went to the door.

A load of kids stood very still, staring at me with serious faces. When I said that my name was Cyril Corporamore, I thought I saw a couple of compassionate looks, but I might have been imagining that.

I shook her parents' hands and I studied their faces while at the same time trying to act as if I had no special connection to them at all.

“Hello,” I said.

They both said, “How do you do, sir?” as if I was someone important.

I said that I'd been sent by George Corporamore, even though being an imposter like that is something that can get you into quite a lot of trouble. I showed them the Blackbrick cart, which Kevin was now crouching behind, and I said that I was there to inform them that the whole plan about their daughter coming to the big house was a hundred percent genuine.

I went on to say that I was sorry about the previous mix-up when Kevin had come on his own, and that of course we should have notified them in advance and how when I thought about it—ha, ha, ha—they must have been very suspicious about the whole arrangement.

And they said they hadn't meant to be uncooperative but that Kevin's late-night arrival had seemed a little strange, and we all exchanged these friendly knowing looks with one another. I was more or less brilliant the way I lied about everything.

They asked me if I had a letter, and by then I'd had a major crash course in thinking on my feet, so I said we'd arrange to have that sent on, and they nodded their heads as if they thought that was totally grand.

Everyone in the house was rustling about and there were screeches and cries and other noises mingled together—a mixture of excitement and worry. The kids clustered around, still staring, making me feel kind of edgy.

I did it, though. I pulled it off. It was stressful because of the pressure that comes from being a massive liar. For a while I thought the thudding in my head was never going to stop. But then she came to the door and it did stop. Everything did.

I wondered why nobody had ever told me how ridiculously good-looking my gran was. I also wondered why she'd never told me about the squillion brothers and sisters she had. I must have had all these old relatives that she'd never
said anything about as long as I'd known her, which is my whole life. When she was old, Granny Deedee was forever going on about how important family is, and how you need to stay close to your loved ones. So it seemed strange that she'd never said a single word about this whole gang-load of brothers and sisters and I was only finding out about them now.

Before she left her house, she held each of the children's faces and kissed them on the tops of their heads. Standing in the doorway, her dad blew his nose and her mum stroked her hair and buttoned up her thin coat. I tried to assure them that she was in safe hands and that everything was going to be fine, not that you can ever really guarantee anyone anything like that. I did my best to seem like I knew what I was talking about, but I have to admit that I found it difficult to say anything at all. It was mainly because of her face and how beautiful it was.

Kevin was still hiding behind the cart. She walked with me backward down the little scraggy path, waving at her mum and dad and all those kids. I told them that there was no need for them to keep waving us off. I told them to go inside or they'd freeze. Eventually they closed the door. And then Kevin jumped out from his hiding place, and she nearly died. When she'd recovered, he took her by the hand, all gentle and tender. As she climbed up into the cart, her messy hair brushed against my face by accident and I
could feel her breath on my skin, and something inside me started to get warm.

Kevin put the blanket around her, and he kept saying, “How are you?” and she kept saying, “I'm the finest. It's so wonderful to see you.”

They were obviously much too busy talking to each other to think about practical things like driving the cart, so I took the reins, and the horses started trotting back toward the Abbey.

“Kevin, I can't believe it—you came back for me, just as you promised,” she said, and he went on about how he was someone who never broke his promises, as if I weren't even there and as if I hadn't had anything to do with the whole thing.

I thought then would be an excellent moment to unveil the truth. The timing was more or less perfect and I was feeling quite excited. So without waiting for another second I said, “Hey, guess what? I know a whole load of things about you.” And I was feeling all knowledgeable and wise, the way only time travelers can.

“For example,” I continued, looking at her, “I know what your name is.” She looked at Kevin, and then they stared at me in a not-particularly-impressed way.

“Your name's Deedee.”

There was a kind of spooky silence for a while, and I assumed they were absorbing my brilliance.

“Deedee?” they both said then. “Who's Deedee?”

“Don't worry,” Kevin whispered to her, and he tapped his half finger on the side of his head, which I knew for a fact was his way of saying there was a lunatic on board.

They told me that neither of them had ever even heard of anyone called Deedee in their lives.

“This is Maggie,” he said, pointing to her with that finger again. “Maggie McGuire.”

And his voice was as certain and solid as a bullet whistling toward me.

Chapter 9

IT WAS all wrong.

This girl looked like she was about fifteen, maybe even sixteen, and she had a ton of siblings that Granny Deedee never had, as far as I knew. This girl was a different person completely.

Oh no
, I said to myself.
I'm tampering with history here. I'm interfering with the natural order of things
. It wasn't until then that I realized how hazardous the whole thing was. You're not supposed to mess with the past like that.

The point is that if you want to exist, then your grandfather has to marry a very specific person, and in my case that person's name was not Maggie McGuire. And now there was a massive question mark over me and my whole basic future existence.

So I went, “Whoa!” and I pulled the reins, and the horses slowed down and then they came to a total stop.

“Cosmo, what are you doing?” Kevin said. “Keep going! We've got to get back as quickly as we can. This is no time to relax.”

“I'm not relaxed,” I said, which was definitely true.

“Excuse me for a second,” I said to Maggie then, and she looked at me and smiled.

It's very hard to explain what it was like to have Maggie smile at you, even under stressful conditions like the ones I was in. I could supply you with a load of details, like for example that her hair was all messy and her face was all pale and oval and everything, but that still doesn't really give you an idea.

So anyway, I asked Kevin if he wouldn't mind stepping off the cart for a moment, there was something I needed to discuss with him in private, and it was important.

“What the bloody hell, in the name of all that's holy, are you doing?” he asked after we'd both jumped down onto the muddy ground.

“There's something I really need to discuss with you. Something to do with you and this girl. You see, the thing is, she's not who she's supposed to be at all.”

“God almighty,” he whispered, his voice kind of gravelly and grim. “You need to keep out of this. This is none of your business.”

He was only a young boy himself, way too young to be thinking about making a lifelong commitment to somebody, especially someone who he wasn't supposed to end up with anyway.

The other quite big problem was that she was gorgeous. And if he did end up with her like he said he was going to, then I was pretty sure it meant he wouldn't be ending up
with Granny Deedee, and if he didn't do that, then I'd basically never be born.