for the fact he’d scare the kids with that monobrow.’
Liam laughed. He got the gist of that. ‘Still … I suppose it’s energy like that that makes a poor farmer’s son a president?’
She nodded. ‘I guess so. I’d like to think that –’
The MSNBC news feed flickered. Both of them caught the sudden change out of the corner of their eyes – the news reporter standing outside the White House and reporting on President Bush’s sliding approval ratings had been wearing a pale blue shirt and a black tie … all of a sudden he was now wearing a white shirt with a dark red tie.
‘Did you see that?’ said Maddy.
More than the shirt and tie, a second ago his skin had been a coffee colour, now it was white. The same face, the same dark hair slicked back, but the skin had lightened a tone, as if some studio engineer had adjusted the contrast setting on a camera.
Maddy turned in her chair. ‘Sal … I think we just had another wave. Bigger one, this time.’
Sal was on her feet. ‘I’ll go look outside.’ They’d left the five-dollar note just outside the shutter, hidden beneath a discarded McDonald’s carton. On one side was the Abraham Lincoln image. She wondered if this time wave would have wiped his face off the note and replaced it with another scowling president.
Maddy turned in her seat back to Liam. ‘OK, I think we need to put Abe back pretty fast.’ She winced at the sight of the empty perspex tube. It would take too long filling it up again. ‘You guys are going back dry.’ She looked at Liam, still wearing his morning coat and cravat … and Bob, still dressed like a dock worker. ‘And you’re still all dressed right … so we’re good to go.’
The noise of the shutter cranking up echoed across to them. Sal stepped outside into the evening. ‘Looks the same!’ she called in. ‘Manhattan’s still there!’
Maddy sniffed and wiped her nose. ‘Well, that’s something, then.’
‘Jahulla!’ Sal came rushing back in.
‘What?’
She ran over to the computer desk. ‘Look! See?’ She spread the five-dollar note out on the desk. Lincoln’s face was gone and, just as Maddy had expected, in his place was another elder statesman with mutton-chop whiskers and a joyless frown.
Becks joined them, looking down at the note. ‘Lincoln’s presence has been completely removed from this timeline.’
Maddy nodded. ‘No Lincoln memorial in Washington, then … or –’
‘STOP!’ Bob’s voice suddenly boomed. They all turned just in time to see the heels of Bob’s boots disappear out of sight through the open shutter door and out into the alley. Becks responded immediately and sprinted across the archway to join him.
Liam looked at the armchair where Lincoln had been slumped unconscious just moments ago. ‘He’s only gone and done a bleedin’ runner!’
Lincoln’s long legs carried him swiftly down the cobbled backstreet, the soles of his boots slapping the ground like an audience clapping applause at his death-defying escape into the darkness.
Behind him, two dozen yards and no more, he could hear the heavier footfall of that giant of a man moving with a quite unbelievable agility. Lincoln was a fast runner; as a boy in Coles County, Illinois, he had won every race with his friends – legs like a stallion, his father used to say.
The busy end of the street opened up in front of him. He could see mesmerizing lights of all kinds and all colours: lights on horseless carriages, lights down the sides of buildings, distant winking lights far up in the sky.
He passed a large, barrel-sized bucket of rotting garbage and yanked at it. In his wake he heard it fall, spilling a small avalanche of stinking refuse across the cobblestones. He chanced a glance over his shoulder just in time to see the giant man slip in the rotten mush and lose his footing.
‘Ha haaaa!’ he yelled triumphantly as his pounding feet now found firm tarmac, and instinctively he turned left on to the busier street, resolving not to allow the bewildering sights of the future tempt him to hesitate and lose the hard-earned lead on his pursuer.
But even with his sprinter’s legs carrying him fast and away from those mysterious travellers in time, who quite clearly were intent on taking him back to his hopeless, back-breaking and dead-end life in New Orleans, his mind continued to spin like a yarn wheel at the incredible sights and smells and sounds all around him.
This is the