What a Trip! by Tony Abbott Page A

couldn’t go on. She went to sleep. Soon, so did Passepartout, still in shock at how things had ended up.
    â€œNow what?” I said. “What does the book say?”
    â€œNot much,” said Frankie. “We still have about fifteen pages left, but they’re so blurry I can’t read them. But I don’t even want to. When we saw the gates at the train station, it was our last chance to get back before that guy fixed them back at the library.”
    â€œYeah, and now we’re fixed. Fixed for good.”
    â€œWe’re as stuck as stuck can be.”
    I looked around. “So, do we just start living in 1872 now? I mean, what is there to do around now?”
    She shrugged. I shrugged. Lots of shrugging going on, but no answers. Mostly, though, after eighty days on the road, Frankie and I were tired.
    We found our rooms and went to sleep.
    The next morning Fogg called for Passepartout with a message for Aouda. We helped him deliver it.
    â€œPrincess,” said Passepartout, “Mr. Fogg will remain alone all day, but he wishes to see you in the evening.”
    â€œProbably to send you to your cousin in Holland,” I grumbled.
    â€œWe shall see,” said Aouda, becoming suddenly thoughtful. She didn’t say much after that.
    All through Sunday the house was pretty quiet. Fogg didn’t go to the Reform Club as usual. There was no point. Since he had not appeared the night before—Saturday, December 21, at 8:45 P.M. —he had lost the wager. There was no reason for him to see his friends.
    At seven thirty that night, Mr. Fogg went to see Aouda. Passepartout, Frankie, and I snuck up to her room and peeked through a crack in the door.
    Fogg was seated in a chair near the fireplace. Aouda sat in another chair facing him. Waiting a few minutes before saying anything, Fogg finally spoke.
    â€œWill you pardon me for bringing you to England?”
    You could see that Aouda was astonished by the question. “I, Mr. Fogg?” she said. “But I—”
    â€œPlease let me finish,” he went on. “When I decided to bring you far away from your country, I was rich, and I intended to give you some of my fortune so that you would be free and happy. But now I am ruined.”
    She looked at him with those laky eyes. “I ask you to forgive me for having followed you and delayed you. Perhaps it is my fault you are ruined.”
    â€œI could not let you be hurt,” he said. “But that is the past. Now I wish to give you whatever little I have left. It is yours.”
    â€œBut what will become of you, Mr. Fogg?” she asked. “Surely, your friends—”
    â€œI have no real friends at the Reform Club,” he said. “Or family, either.”
    She took a deep breath. “Solitude is a sad thing with no one to confide in. They say that two people might bear much more together.”
    â€œIndeed,” said Fogg. “They do say so.”
    â€œMr. Fogg,” said Aouda, rising and taking his hand, “do you wish to have a friend and a family member at the same time? What I mean is, will you have me for your wife?”
    There was a strange look in Fogg’s eyes that we’d never seen before. He shut them for an instant, then popped them open, and said, “Yes. I do love you, Aouda, and I will be your husband!”
    That’s when Passepartout crashed through the door and started leaping around the room. But Fogg was too busy gazing into Aouda’s incredible eyes to notice.
    Yeah, yeah, it was romantic goop, all right. But I sort of liked it. Frankie, of course, thought it was the best thing ever. I could tell just by looking at her wet cheeks.
    Passepartout hugged Aouda, then Mr. Fogg, then both of them, then Frankie and me. Lots of hugging going on and lots of bouncing around.
    â€œPassepartout,” Fogg said finally, “it is now five minutes past eight P.M. on this quite special Sunday. Please notify the