Time-Travel Bath Bomb by Jo Nesbø Read Free Book Online

comforting pat on the cheek and chirped that she hoped Lisa would have a lovely weekend in Paris. Lisa walked down a long corridor, stood on a long escalator, waited in a long passport line, and exchanged the rest of her old Norwegian money for new French money. She was completely worn out by the time she found herself outside the terminal building, sliding her bags into the back seat of a taxi and climbing in after them.
    “Ooh allay-vooh??” the cab driver asked.
    Now, although Lisa could not speak a single word of French, she assumed that the first thing a cab driver would ask was where she wanted to go. Unfortunately, she also realised that in her confusion she couldn’t remember the name of the hotel, all she remembered was that it had something to do with potatoes.
    “Hotel Potato,” she tried, holding on to her bags tightl.
    “Keska vooh zaavay dee??” the driver said. His tone of voice made it sound like a question, and he was looking at her in the rear-view mirror.
    “Uh . . .” Lisa said. “The Roast Potato Inn?”
    The driver turned round to face her and again asked, “Ooh?” but louder now. And his voice definitely sounded irritated.
    Lisa’s head, in which everything was usually right where it was supposed to be, was one big chaotic jumbled mess right now. “King Edward’s?” she tried and could feel in her throat that she was about to cry.
    The driver shook his head.
    “Hotel Mashed Potato?”
    The driver spat out a couple of angry French words that probably weren’t expressions of politeness. Then he leaned over to the rear door next to her, pushed it open and yelled, “Out!” pointing firmly to the street.
    “Frainche-Fraille!” came from the back of the cab.
    The driver stiffened and stared at her. Probably because the voice that had just said “Frainche-Fraille” did not sound anything like the voice the little girl had had a moment ago. And it also hadn’t sounded like it came from her, but from one of the pieces of luggage she was clutching on to.
    “Aha,” said the driver, lighting up. “L’Hôtel Frainche-Fraille?”
    Lisa nodded, quickly and eagerly. “Yes, Hotel French Fry.”
    With a grunt, the driver shut the door again, started the cab and began driving.
    Lisa sat back in the seat and exhaled in relief.
    Then she heard a whispered voice next to her: “Psst! What about letting me out now?”
    Lisa opened the lock on the front of the bag and pulled open the top of the bag. And then a tiny boy with enormous freckles and a red Elvis hairdo jumped out.
    “Oh, delicious taste of freedom, CO2 and dust particles wafting in the air,” Nilly said, sitting down contentedly next to Lisa with his hands clasped behind his head. Lisa noticed that her best friend appeared a little wrinkled, but otherwise he seemed like he was in great shape. “Now then, my dear Lisa, were you very worried about me during the flight?”
    “Actually, no,” Lisa said. “I slept. What did you do?”
    “I read Animals You Wish Didn’t Exist until the battery on my pocket torch ran out. Actually, now that you mention sleep, there was a section in there about the Congolese tse-tse elephant.”
    “Tse-tse elephant?” Lisa asked, but regretted it the second it came out of her mouth.

    “It’s as big as a house and suffers from narcolepsy,” Nilly explained. “Which means that it’ll just suddenly, without any advance warning, fall asleep and tip over. So, if you don’t keep a safe distance, you risk having an eighteen-tonne Congolese tse-tse elephant flop down on your head at any time. Several years ago, someone tricked a circus into buying a gigantonormous elephant from a little pet shop in Lillesand. What they didn’t know was that it was a—”
    “Congolese tse-tse elephant.” Lisa finished Nilly’s sentence, sighed and looked out the window, resigned.
    “Exactly,” Nilly said. “The elephant fell asleep right in the middle of his first performance and they had to dig three