The day had not started well, for me.

Before the end of first period I had already spent a couple of singularly unpleasant minutes draped face-down across Allie's lap, getting my butt spanked and being lectured about the importance of paying attention in class.

Alright, I had not been paying attention properly, I am going to admit that. But Mr Haskins had been talking about the British Empire in his lesson and, truth be told, with decolonization in rapid progress, the British Empire had, for all intents and purposes, been dead for some time already, even in the 1960s.

Okay, so probably it had been a mistake on my part to to try and explain that to our history teacher when he had accused me of not paying attention. In any case, he had promptly filled out one of the dreaded yellow slips of paper, handed it to me and ordered me to pay a visit to my tutor.

At least this time around I had known what lay ahead. The short-haired girl from the other Upper Fifth  sitting on a bench in front of Allie's office had taken one look at my face and commented: "Getting your ass beaten, huh?"

I had nodded glumly. There had been little doubt in my mind that this was exactly what was going to happen.

All too soon, my tutor had arrived on the scene.

"You're here to talk about your schedule, aren't you, Phoebe?" Allie had asked the other girl, after briefly glancing at the slip of paper Mr Haskins had given me. "I am afraid you will have to wait until I am done with Cathy here."

She had ushered me into her office. Sure enough, I had ended up across her knee. To her credit, Allie had been very matter of fact about it. When I had left Allie's office a couple of minutes later, the girl Phoebe had cast me a pitying look.

Now, almost seven hours later, I was in our dorm room, arguing with my roommate in a last-ditch attempt to prevent her from doing something phenomenally stupid.

"You can't do that. It's too dangerous."

It must have been the third or fourth time I repeated this.

Unfortunately, Natty would not listen to reason.

"This could be my only chance ever to learn anything about my family. I am not going to let you ruin that for me."

Apparently, a few days ago, a girl at our school had been approached by a man while she and her friends were visiting the nearby town of Arlesten. That guy had given her some money and asked her to deliver a message to Natty: if she was interested in learning about her family, she should meet him in a public cafe in Arlesten, at some specified day and time. The specified day was today, and the time 5:30 p.m.

I had attempted everything I could think of to dissuade Natty from meeting with the stranger. I had even told her what I had learned from Lena about the incident involving the mysterious man who had visited St. Albert's a few months ago, introducing himself as a representative of the Chochet Foundation and requesting to talk to Natty, alone. The school secretary, Sandra Bale, had been quite smitten with the man's looks, referring to him as a 'ruggedly handsome devil'. But Headmistress Stuart, ever suspicious, had asked for his ID and called up the Chochet Foundation, who had promptly told her that they had never sent any emissary to St. Albert's. Stuart had informed the police, but when they had finally arrived on the scene the man had been gone, leaving behind his fake ID.

I had even mentioned our headmistress's suspicion that the stranger might have been attempting to kidnap Natty.

All to no avail.

"How can he kidnap or abduct me in the middle of a public cafe, with tourists all around?" Natty had inquired, not unreasonably.

"Alright. In  that case, I shall accompany you," I declared.

"Don't do that. You are only going to scare him away", Natty whined.

"I sincerely doubt that. Anyway, I could sit nearby at another table, with him none the wiser."

My roommate reluctantly agreed on this arrangement.

Thus, at a quarter past five, Natty was sitting alone at a small outside table of the specified Arlesten cafe. I was sitting at a table nearby, pretending to read a newspaper, watching her.

After a few minutes, a man showed up and sat down at Natty's table.

A wiry guy, not bad-looking. He wore his raven-black hair a bit too long. His face bore the rakish features of an outlaw, a pirate or a bandit from popular movies. I could not prove it, but there was no doubt in my mind that this man was none other than Sandra's ruggedly handsome devil.

I watched the guy and Natty talk for twenty minutes or so. The man had ordered a cup of coffee for himself, and a huge bowl of ice cream and a glass of lemonade for Natty. Unfortunately, from where I was sitting I could not hear what they were talking about.

But as time progressed I noticed that Natty became more and more agitated. Finally, I could not bear it anymore to just sit there and wait.

I walked over to them and nodded to Natty.

"How is it going?"

The man looked at me in annoyance. "Who is she?" he asked Natty.

"A friend." Natty smiled pleasantly at me. "Why don't you sit with us, Cathy?"

"If you insist." There was one free chair at their table. I sat down on it.

The man scowled.

"Relax. Cathy knows about everything about this," Natty told him. "But, to come back to your request. My answer is no. I will not come with you so that you can provide me with additional information."

The man's scowl deepened. I was glad to observe that this did not appear to impress Natty in the least.

"Look, so far you have told me absolutely nothing about my family," she told him. "Like, zero. Zilch. In short, you have failed to deliver. So why should I believe you?"

The man sighed. "You are not safe anymore at that school, now that they have found out where you live."

"And who are 'they'?" Natty continued. "My parents' enemies? The mafia? Some kind of international syndicate? And, more importantly, why would they want to hurt me, as you claim? How could I be a threat to anybody? I am literally nobody. A schoolgirl. I am not important at all."

The man laughed. "You have no idea."

I froze.

Both Natty and the man noticed my reaction.

"What's wrong?" Natty asked.

"Nothing," I replied. "Just thought I heard the voice of somebody I know, nearby."

The man eyed me suspiciously. I smiled innocently at him. If my own suspicions were correct, it was imperative that I did not give away who and what I was.

"I'd rather that you come with me willingly," the man told Natty.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she demanded angrily.

I could see that Natty had moved to the edge of her chair, preparing to run.

The man noticed that too. He shrugged. "My car is parked over there." He indicated a blue sedan parked on the sidewalk not far from where we were sitting. "I could drag you into the car, giving people the impression that you are my daughter. We would be gone in less than a minute without anybody being the wiser."

Natty blanched.

"You can't do that," I told him. "I would tell the people in this cafe that it is a lie, that you are kidnapping her. They would come to our help."

The man looked around the cafe. He smiled grimly. "Those people here? They could not stop me. Not unless at least one of them is heavily armed."

Looking at him, I tended to believe him. The guy looked like a fighter. Like a member of some sort of special forces. Heck, he probably was just that.

"You would not get far," I told him. "The police would be out searching for you all over the county, in no time at all. They have your fake ID, with a photo of you or at least one that resembles you. After that stunt you tried to pull a few months ago, masquerading as an emissary of the Chochet Foundation."

The man glared at me. If looks could kill, I would have been dead at that point.

His gaze went from me to Natty. With a sinking feeling, I realized that he was about to grab her and pull her into his car, anyway.

Frantically, I tried to remember whatever it was that they had tried to teach me in those hated Defense classes. I knew it would be useless against him, anyhow.

There was one last thing I could do to thwart him. It would be risky, though. And it meant that I had to reveal to him what I was.

"You won't succeed, anyway," I told him, looking him in the eye. "Natalie will complete another full term here at St. Albert's. Whatever you do, you can't change a known fact. Cartridge's rule, remember?"

I was bluffing, of course. Quoting one of the most basic laws of Temporal Physics. Pretending to have access to additional information about Natty's future, information supposedly incompatible with any successful attempt at kidnapping her, at this point.

The man's eyes had widened.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"She is my friend," Natty cut in. "Though I don't know what the heck you are talking about, Cathy."

The man ignored her. "It is possible that you know more than I do," he told me. "But the two of you are playing a dangerous game. I shall leave you alone, for now. But I will be back."

With that, he got up from his chair. Dropping a few bills on the table, he walked to his car.

Without looking back, he got into the sedan and drove off.

"Phew," Natty said. "What a crazy person. What did he want from me, I wonder?"

I sighed. "I have no idea."

For the most part, that was not even a lie.

**************************************************

A / N : Thank you for taking the time to read this. As always, I am very much interested in your comments, opinions and suggestions. You can also contact me via a PM if you prefer that.