What Was I Thinking? by Ellen Gragg Read Free Book Online

asked, and not all the other

ones it raised.
    “No, nothing I saw there or have studied

precludes time travel. In fact, you could make a case that it’s quite

possible.”
    He sighed and sat back. The pupil had passed

the next test.
    “Is that what you’re working on?”
    “Yes. It’s not fanciful stuff, such as Mr.

Wells and Mr. Twain have described. Quite as interesting, I assure you, but

more mundane.”
    “Mark Twain wrote a time travel book?” The gaps

in my education were appalling. My parents and Mrs. Peacock were right. I

should have taken more humanities, instead of trying to rush through my course

work in record time.
    “Certainly. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Don’t tell me that has fallen out of favor.”
    “It has, I think. You don’t see Mark Twain

mentioned much anymore. But I did read that as a kid. I just forgot it was about

time travel. I remember more about his jokes, like telling a page he was too

small to be more than a paragraph. But I interrupted. Tell me more about your

work.” Now I was the one leaning forward.
    “Let us go to my real laboratory. I trust,

being a modern, uh, woman, you have no objection to visiting my basement

unchaperoned?”
    “No, of course not.” I set down my plate and stood.
    We left the lunch detritus where it was, and

headed downstairs, pausing so Bert could relock the door behind us.
    “We’ll need to avoid Mrs. Peacock,” Bert

whispered. “I told her the basement was unused, and filled with unsavory stuff,

to keep her out of it. I’m sure she’s quite trustworthy, but I had a disturbing

incident early in my research that made me relocate my work and hide even its

existence from others.”
    “So the lock upstairs?”
    “Is just to preserve the

illusion, yes.”
    “It’s good. But it would be much more

convincing with a computer on the desk.”
    “Do you think so?”
    Did I think so? Just when I started to think he was sane, he’d say something so

strange! “Yes, of course. I don’t know any scientist, or historian, for that

matter, who works without a computer. And you obviously email, so the first

thing a visitor notices is that your computer is missing.”
    “Really? No scientist or historian?” he looked, as he would

say, gobsmacked.
    Curiouser and curiouser. “Really. None. I can’t think of any kind of work that would be

done without at least one computer in the office. And everyone—or nearly

everyone has computers in the household.”
    His jaw dropped, and he stopped dead on the

stairs. “Whatever for?”
    I stopped just in time to avoid rear-ending

him. We’d had enough of that for one day.
    “You’re kidding, right? Even if you have your

head in your research most of the time, you must know about obvious things like

that.”
    “Oh. Oh, yes, of course. I wasn’t thinking.

I’ll put a computer prominently on my upstairs desk directly. I just hadn’t

thought. Thank you for the suggestion.”
    I looked at him narrowly. He was behaving

exactly like someone covering something up, but surely—my cell phone rang. It

was the office. Damn.
    “Excuse me. I have to take this.”
    Bert nodded, still looking gobsmacked. That was

a good word. I was going to keep it.
    I answered the call, and was well and truly

back to my normal life. It was Campbell, and he was pissed off. “Where the hell

are you?”
    “I’m at lu —”
    “I don’t care! Don’t waste my time telling me!

Get your fat ass back in here! Who do you think you are, making the whole

project team wait while you just disappear?”
    I looked at the screen. Damn. It was after

three. I had completely lost track of time.
    No wonder he was mad. Not that he had any right

to talk to me that way, but apparently he was convinced that my blow-up at the

party had bought him a lot of range. It hadn’t, but I wasn’t up for a fight,

and I’d just as soon do my job-hunting on my own schedule, not his.
    “I’m sorry. I