Thief of Time - Classroom Trip

'Correct. Always see what's really there. And I'm supposed to teach you to tell the time with this.' Miss Susan gave it a sneer and tossed it away.

'Shall we try a different way?' she said, and snapped her fingers.

'Yes!' the class chorused, and then it went 'Aah!' as the walls, floor and ceiling dropped away and the desks hovered high over the city.

A few feet away was the huge cracked face of the tower clock of Unseen University.

The children nudged one another excitedly. The fact that their boots were over three hundred feet of fresh air didn't seem to bother them. Oddly, too, they did not seem surprised. This was just an interesting thing. They acted like connoisseurs who had seen other interesting things. You did, when you were in Miss Susan's class.

'Now, Melanie,' said Miss Susan, as a pigeon landed on her desk. 'The big hand is on the twelve and the enormous hand is nearly on the ten, so it's...'

Vincent's hand shot up. 'Ooo, miss, ooo, ooo ...'

'Nearly twelve o'clock,' Melanie managed.

'Well done. But here. . .'

The air blurred. Now the desks, still in perfect formation, were firmly on the cobbles of a plaza in a different city. So was most of the classroom. There were the cupboards, and the Nature Table, and the blackboard. But the walls still lagged behind.

No one in the plaza paid the visitors any attention but, oddly, no one tried to walk into them either. The air was warmer, and smelled of sea and swamp.

'Anyone know where this is?' said Miss Susan.

'Ooo, me, miss, ooo, ooo ...' Vincent could only stretch his body taller if his feet left the ground.

'How about you, Penelope?' said Miss Susan.

'Oh, miss,' said a deflated Vincent. Penelope, who was beautiful, docile and frankly dim, looked around at the thronged square and the whitewashed, awning-hung buildings with an expression close to panic.

'We came here in geography last week,' said Miss Susan. 'City surrounded by swamps. On the Vieux river. Famous cookery. Lots of seafood... ?’

Penelope's exquisite brow creased. The pigeon on Miss Susan's desk fluttered down and joined the pigeon flock prospecting for scraps among the flagstones, cooing gently to the others in pidgin pigeon.

Aware that a lot could happen while people waited for Penelope to complete a thought process, Miss Susan waved at a clock on a shop across the square and said: 'And who can tell me the time here in Genua, please?’

***

The Thief of Time - p27-28