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suspicion stemmed from an experiment in the university’s chemistry lab in which Proctor and another Norwegian student had almost blown up the entire university.
    Proctor had explained to the policeman that it had just been one of those things that happen when you’re trying to invent travelling powder for a time machine, which is what they had been working on. And that it really had just been “an ever so teensy-weensy gigantic explosion”. Somehow his explanation didn’t help at all and the policeman ordered Proctor up to his room to pack his bags. Proctor was pretty sure Baron Margarine was behind the expulsion, but he didn’t really have much choice.
    So, late one night many years ago, a young man, weighed down by a broken heart, arrived in Oslo and eventually moved into the crooked, secluded house at the end of Cannon Avenue. Mostly because it was cheap, didn’t have a phone and had actually never been visited by anyone. It was perfect for someone who didn’t want to talk to anyone other than himself anymore, and otherwise just spend his time inventing stuff.
    From her own red house, Lisa looked over at the professor’s blue house and wondered if everything that was happening now might actually be her fault. After all, she’d been the one who had insisted that Doctor Proctor go back to Paris to try to find Juliette Margarine, hadn’t she? Yessirree. She had sent him right into trouble, whatever type of trouble it turned out to be.
    Nilly’s finger shadows across the street finished their dance and took a bow. Then they did their normal good-night signal, two rabbit ears that waved up and down, and then the light went out.
    Lisa sighed.
    She didn’t sleep much that night. She lay there thinking about cellars that were much too dark, Peruvian spiders that were much too hairy, cities that were much too big and all the things that would surely go wrong.
    MEANWHILE, ACROSS THE street, Nilly had one of the best nights of sleep he’d ever had, dreaming happily about flying through the air powered by farts, breaking mysterious codes, rescuing brilliant professors and all the things that would most definitely – at least almost definitely – go right. But, most of all, he dreamed that he was dancing the cancan on the stage at the Moulin Rouge in Paris, where an enthusiastic audience and all the dancing girls were clapping to the beat and yelling, “Nil-ly! Nil-ly!”

 

Trench Coat Clock Shop
    MRS STROBE’S EYES peered down her unusually long nose, through her unusually thick glasses that sat on the very tip of her nose and focused on the little beings in front of her in the classroom and latched on to the smallest of them all:
    “Mister Nilly!” Her voice crashed down like a whip.
    “Mrs Strobe!” the response came crashing back from the tiny student. “How can I be of service to you on this unusually beautiful Friday morning, a morning whose beauty is exceeded only, my teacher and supplier of intellectual sustenance, by your own magnificent face?”
    As usual, Nilly’s answer irritated Mrs Strobe. His answers irritated her because they made her feel guilty. And also a tiny bit flattered.
    “First of all, you can stop whistling that ridiculous tune . . .” she began.
    “Not so loud, Mrs Strobe!” Nilly whispered, his eyes wide with shock. “That’s the Marseillaise. Aren’t we studying French history this month? If anyone from their embassy were to hear you call the French national anthem a ridiculous tune, no doubt they would immediately report you to the president, who would declare war on Norway on the spot. French men love to go to war, even though they’re not particularly good at it. For example, have you ever heard of the Hundred Years’ War they fought against England, Mrs Strobe?”
    The whole class laughed while Mrs Strobe drummed her nails against her desk and contemplated the strange little boy who had been in her class since the spring.
    “If you had been paying attention instead