Bubble in the Bathtub by Jo Nesbø Page B

reached up to feel his nose. He’d totally forgotten about the nose clip. Something was slowly starting to dawn on him. He pulled off the nose clip and tried: “And what’s your name, man in the blue bicycling jersey?”
    The man looked at him blankly.
“Keska too ah dee?”
    â€œAha!” Nilly shouted triumphantly. It wasn’t just dawning on him, it was broad daylight inside his head. He understood everything. Well, almost everything.At any rate, he understood why he had understood what the cancan dancer had said, and what Juliette had meant when she’d said a lot would become clear to them if they kept the nose clips on. That was because these really were French nose clips. While you wore them you could understand French and you could speak French. What do you know, another ingenious Proctor invention!
    Nilly was so excited that, as usual, he forgot all about his problems. He put his nose clip on and asked the man what his name was and why in the world he was lying here in the grass when all the other bicyclists he’d seen were riding as if their lives depended on it.
    â€œMy name’s Eddy. And my bike has its third flat of the day.” He pointed over by the road where a racing bike was lying on its side. “I just couldn’t take anymore. The finish line is at the top of that mountain over there.”
    Eddy pointed again and Nilly had to bend his neckback to see the peak of the snow-capped mountain in front of them.
    â€œWhat about you, Nilly?”
    â€œI came from the future,” Nilly said. “I think I came to the right time, but the wrong place. What year is it and what’s the name of this place?”
    Eddy laughed even louder. “Thank you, Nilly. At least you’re cheering me up!”
    â€œI’m not kidding.”
    â€œWell,” Eddy said. “The year is 1969 and we’re in Inndarnit. Where were you supposed to be?”
    â€œInndarnit?” Nilly mumbled, scratching his left sideburn. “I was supposed to be somewhere that started with ‘Inn,’ but I forgot the rest. Lisa must be there now, you know?”
    â€œLisa?”
    â€œYeah, we’re supposed to find Doctor Proctor. Maybe she’s already found him, and now they’re just waiting for me to show up. It’s actually totally crucialthat I find them. Without them I’m going to be stuck here in 1969.”
    â€œThat doesn’t sound good,” Eddy said. He took a little drink from his water bottle and passed it to Nilly. “1969 really sucks.”
    â€œOh?” Nilly asked.
    â€œNothing but flat tires in every single race,” Eddy said. “Just as bad as 1815 was for Napoléon.”
    â€œ1815? Napoléon?”
    â€œDon’t you remember?”
    Nilly thought about it. “I don’t think I was born then.”
    â€œFrom history class, silly! June eighteenth, 1815. That was when Napoléon led his troops …”
    â€œâ€¦ across the Alps?” Nilly tried.
    â€œNo,” Eddy said, waving away a bumblebee. “That was when he took a licking in the Battle of Waterloo. And I know that quite well, because Waterloo is just a few minutes of Eddy-biking from my dad’s bike shopin Belgium. Totally flat country. You know what? Now that I’m giving up biking, I think I’ll go home and see if I can get a job there.”
    â€œGood thinking,” Nilly said, taking a drink from the water bottle. “Because, really, what’s the point of biking up and down all these mountains? They’re way too big.”
    â€œThe point?” Eddy was staring at Nilly as if Nilly had reminded him of something he’d forgotten.
    â€œYeah,” Nilly said, gulping down more water. All this time travel had made him unusually thirsty.
    â€œThis is the Tour de France,” Eddy said. “Whoever wins this mountain stage wins money, gets kissed on the cheek by cute girls, and will be