He tilted his head back and stared up at a single wispy cloud in the bright blue sky. What a lovely day … lovely day … lovely day … Nice weather was something to focus on, to distract yourself with, when all your other thoughts were dangerous.
So, maybe … Jonah dared to glance back at the crowd on the barge. He tried to look past the pus and the pockmarks, the missing teeth and limbs. There was something fake and strangely shallow about the conversation on the barge. As far as Jonah could tell, no one was saying, “What a fine king we’ll be crowning today!” No one said, “Can someone explain why we’re going to a coronation today when the king disappeared last night?”
Jonah looked around. The river was crowded with barges, all headed upriver. And whenever Jonah got a good glimpse of the shore, it looked like people on the streets of London were streaming in the same direction as well. Everyone was going to the coronation. Were people acting so artificially in all the barges, on all the streets?
“Do you see the spires yet?” a man asked his boy as he pointed off into the distance.
“There?” the boy said. “That’s Westminster Abbey?”
“Yes,” the man said. “Kings are always crowned there.” He paused. “It’s fine weather for a coronation, isn’t it?”
The barge docked at another wharf, and people began streaming off toward the church. Chip started to rush forward with the crowd, but Jonah and Alex held him back, keeping him in the barge. Chip struggled against them.
“I must …,” he hissed. “I have to—”
“Shh!” Jonah whispered back. “You can’t walk through that crowd, even invisible. People would freak out if they bumped into you.”
When everyone but the oarsmen had gotten off the boat, the four kids stepped cautiously onto the wood dock. They skirted the edge of the crowd, surging forward, then stumbling back to avoid elbows, shoulders, feet.
“This is impossible!” Katherine whispered. “We’re never going to get anywhere!”
But then soldiers came through the crowd, commanding, “Clear the way! Clear the way! Make way for the king!”
By twisting and diving and dodging, all four kids managed to land in the open area when the crowd parted.
“Sweet!” Alex muttered.
They had a clear path ahead of them, right up to the soaring cathedral.
Chip stood in the exact center of the open space, looking around.
“This is the path I would have taken,” he whispered. “I would have worn cloth of gold, there would have been a silk canopy. …”
Chip sounded calm, but he had a strange expression on his face. He had his eyes narrowed and seemed deep in thought, reminiscing. But he kept clenching his jaw, as though he was fighting some internal struggle. He ran his hand through his short hair, and then something like bafflement spread over his face, as if he’d expected to feel long, flowing curls.
Or as if he’d expected to touch a crown.
Jonah was so busy watching Chip, he failed to notice the hubbub behind him.
A procession was advancing toward them, toward the cathedral. Jonah could see knights in armor on horseback; he could see the peak of a white canopy, probably made out of silk, just as Chip had described. And then Jonah could hear what the crowd around the procession was yelling:
“Long live the king! Long live Richard the Third!”
Those words apparently reached Chip’s ears at the same instant. A change swept over Chip’s face, leaving only one emotion behind: pure fury.
“Usurper! Thief! Murderer!” Chip shouted. “You do not deserve to be king!”
And then he took off running.
SIXTEEN
Jonah could see exactly what Chip planned to do. He planned to dart invisibly past all the knights and horses and nobles. He planned to scream the entire way. And then he planned to tackle the impostor king and take the crown for himself.
Jonah shot a quick glance at Katherine and Alex. Katherine was just standing there, horrified. Alex looked strangely baffled and was mouthing the words, “Richard? Richard the Third? But that’s …”
Jonah decided that if anyone was going to do something, it’d have to be him.
He took off with a burst of speed behind Chip. Back in the twenty-first century Jonah could outrun Chip easily—he did it all the time playing basketball. But this time Chip had a head start.
And maybe an advantage anyway, since he fits in the fifteenth century and I don’t? Jonah wondered.
Jonah fell farther behind.
Then Jonah got lucky.
Chip darted around a horse but skidded in a pile of mud. No, probably horse manure, given that it’s right behind that horse, Jonah thought. Jonah pushed off harder with his big toe, the way his soccer coach had told him to run. He was making up ground now.
But Chip was righting himself, aiming toward the crowd under the canopy, all those people in gleaming clothes. In jerky glances Jonah could see that one of the people under the canopy was carrying a crown on a tasseled pillow. If Chip got under that canopy, near that crown, Jonah wouldn’t be able to stop him.
Jonah lunged.
For a moment Jonah was sure he’d missed. Something squished beneath him—Ugh! Manure!—but his hands wrapped around something solid: Chip’s leg.
Jonah pulled Chip back from the people under the canopy. He rose up so he could shift his grip, grabbing Chip by the waist, then the shoulders. Finally he clapped his hand over Chip’s mouth and hissed in his ear, “This is not the way to do this!”
“You don’t understand!” Chip hissed back. At least he wasn’t shouting anymore. “He’s stealing my throne! That crown belongs on my head!”
“No!” Jonah whispered fiercely. “You belong in the twenty-first century. Here you’re supposed to be dead. Remember?”
At that, the fight went out of Chip. He sagged against the ground, as if he had no intention of ever getting up. Not even if a thousand horses and knights marched over him.
“Come on,” Jonah whispered. “I think I know what you can do to get some revenge. It might even help fix time.”