“Right.” His gaze went to the baby and he smiled. “When is Chrissy going to send Stetson to the future?” I shrugged. Every minute that ticked by made me worry a little more. Perhaps she hadn’t come because Stetson no longer existed in the future. Had I changed things that much?
From the living room, Dad called out, “Tansy, how are we supposed to move this?”
Oh. The diaper bag. I went to go talk to him. When I reached the family room, Dad and Nick were fingering through the bag. Dad took out a bright gold bottle. “Why did you change this stuff? The police are going to wonder why we have golden baby toys, diapers, and wet wipes in a place thieves just left.”
“I gave the enchantment back to Chrissy,” I said. “But I wanted to have some gold first. I didn’t know the police would be checking it.
Sorry.”
335/356
Dad stared at me in surprise. “After all the trouble you went through to get the enchantment, you gave it back to Chrissy? Why?”
“It put all of us in danger during the Middle Ages,” I said. “I didn’t know if the danger would stop once we got back home. Chrissy said that kings, giants, and pirates come after you if you can produce gold.
Besides, the enchantment was never meant for humans, so it hurt my heart. And,” I added more quietly, “I traded it for something Hudson needed.”
“Ahh,” Nick said, like the last sentence explained everything.
My father sighed and turned the gold bottle over in his hands.
“You’re probably right. Unending wealth might have its downsides. All those servants getting in the way. The car insurance rates on our Ca-dillacs.” He let out another sigh. “I sure hope Hudson appreciates whatever you got him.”
“I hope so too,” I said.
Nick picked up a gold pacifier. “Gold is worth thousands of dollars a pound. We still have a pretty good fortune here.”
“The bag is too heavy to move,” Dad said. “We’ll have to take it piece by piece to the safe in my closet. That way, the police won’t see it.”
I helped Dad and Nick move a few of the lighter items. It was hard for me to carry much while I was toting around a baby.
When I went to check on Hudson, he was done with his haircut and was on the phone. I didn’t have to listen for long to figure out it was someone at the police station. He was giving a description of our cars and their destination.
Which meant the police would be here soon and I would have even less of a chance of speaking to Hudson privately.
When he hung up, I said, “I need to talk to you about something.” 336/356
“Right. In a minute.” He walked toward the family room. “Where is everybody? We need to go over our story to make sure we get it straight.”
“They’re moving gold from the diaper bag into my dad’s safe.”
“What?” he asked, but we reached the family room and he saw what was happening. He went to help, shaking his head at me as he did. “You know, if you could have waited until after the police left to create ducky-shaped treasures, it would have made things easier.” I followed after him. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Gold?” he asked, and the way he said it sounded like it was the last thing he wanted to talk about.
“Not gold specifically. I want to tell you what happened after you guys came back home.”
“Oh, Robin Hood then.” He sounded even less thrilled by this subject.
“No, not Robin Hood either.”
Hudson picked up the last of the gold items, a pair of booties, and headed toward my father’s room with everybody else. He motioned for me to come with them. “We can talk later; we need to go over our story before the police get here.” Loudly enough for everybody to hear, he said, “Okay, last night while your parents made dinner, Nick and I were sitting at the table doing homework. The doorbell rang and you went and opened the door without looking through the peephole first.”
“Oh, I get to be an idiot.”
“No, you’re just the trusting sort. The medieval bandits pushed their way inside with their swords drawn. They made us change clothes, then held us at sword-point in the kitchen while they robbed your house. We already know what Robin Hood and the Merry Men look like, so we shouldn’t have any problems giving descriptions.” 337/356
We had reached the closet. While my dad tried to make everything fit into the safe, Hudson went on describing details of our night. He ended with, “Stetson will be Sandra’s nephew that she’s babysitting. We have to hope he doesn’t vanish during the investiga-tion, because, yeah, there’s no good way to explain that.” I looked at Hudson impatiently. “Now can we talk for a minute?”