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"Where's your car?" Michael asked the Professor.
"What makes you think I own a car?" the Professor
asked Michael.
Lea grabbed the Professor's arm decisively. "Back
door," she said.
Michael tried to help but he found the door locked.
Lea flung open a drawer and fumbled for the key. It
should have been easy to find but it was hard to stay
cool when disaster was so close. At the last moment
she found it under a roll of scotch tape and a duster,
shoved it into the lock, threw open the door, pushed
the Professor and Hector out onto the patio, and then
shut the door, sinking gratefully back against it.
"Do you trust those two to find the back gate?"
Michael enquired.
"Shit!" she said. She flung the door open
again and stepped out. Michael grabbed the garbage bin
from the cupboard beside the sink, took out the liner,
and thrust it into her hands. "Take this. Cover."
He closed the door behind her just as her parents were
opening the front door. He thought carefully but quickly,
then strolled nonchalantly to the fridge. He took out
the peanut butter, the raspberry jam, and a loaf of
bread. He could hear Lea?s parents taking off their
coats and hanging them on the pegs behind the front
door. When they appeared in the kitchen he was making
sandwiches.
"Oh, hi," he said, surprised with his own
calm.
"Hello Mike," said Lea?s father.
"We were making a snack," explained Michael,
trying to look about as guilty as someone who had just
raided his girlfriend's parent's fridge but not as guilty
as someone who had invited a strange old man and a time
traveller into their house to fix the plumbing.
"That's OK," Lea's mother reassured him.
"Help yourselves."
The back door opened and Lea emerged, making 'brrrr'
noises. She remembered Michael?s advice last time they
acted together in a school play. "Never apologise,
never explain."
"It's cold!" she said.
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