Chapter 6 CHAPTER THREE: A CHILDREN'S WORLD-2

When Lyra came down, clean and wet, they left to look for some clothes for her. They found a department store, shabby like everywhere else, with clothes in styles that looked a little oldfashioned to Wills eye, but they found Lyra a tartan skirt and a green sleeveless blouse with a pocket for Pantalaimon. She refused to wear jeans, refused even to believe Will when he told her that most girls did. "Theyre trousers," she said. "Im a girl. Dont be stupid." He shrugged; the tartan skirt looked unremarkable, which was the main thing. Before they left, Will dropped some coins in the till behind the counter.

"What you doing?" she said. "Paying. You have to pay for things. Don't they pay for things in your world?" "They dont in this one! I bet those other kids ent paying for a thing." "They might not, but I do." "If you start behaving like a grownup, the Specters11 get you," she said, but she didn't know whether she could tease him yet or whether she should be afraid of him. In the daylight, Will could see how ancient the buildings in the heart of the city were, and how near to ruin some of them had come. Holes in the road had not been repaired; windows were broken; had once been a beauty and grandeur about this place.

Through carved archways they could see spacious courtyards filled with greenery, and there were great buildings that looked like palaces, for all that the steps were cracked and the doorframes loose from the walls. It looked as if rather than knock a building down and build a new one, the citizens of Cigazze preferred to patch it up indefinitely. At one point they came to a tower standing on its own in a little square. It was the oldest building theyd seen: a simple battlemented tower four stories high. Something about its stillness in the bright sun was intriguing, and both Will and Lyra felt drawn to the half-open door at the top of the broad steps; but they didnt speak of it, and they went on, a bit reluctantly.

When they reached the broad boulevard with the palm trees, he told her to look for a little cafe on a corner, with green-painted metal tables on the pavement outside. They found it within a minute. It looked smaller and shabbier by daylight, but it was the same place, with the zinctopped bar, the espresso machine, and the half-finished plate of risotto, now beginning to smell bad in the warm air. "Is it in here?" she said. "No. Its in the middle of the road. Make sure theres no other kids around." But they were alone. Will took her to the grassy median under the palm trees, and looked around to get his bearings.

"I think it was about here," he said. "When I came through, I could just about see that big hill behind the white house up there, and looking this way there was the cafe there, and..." "What's it look like? I can't see anything." "You won't mistake it. It doesn't look like anything you've ever seen." He cast up and down. Had it vanished? Had it closed? He couldn't see it anywhere. And then suddenly he had it. He moved back and forth, watching the edge. Just as hed found the night before, on the Oxford side of it, you could only see it at all from one side: when you moved behind it, it was invisible. And the sun on the grass beyond it was just like the sun on the grass on this side, except unaccountably different.

"Here it is," he said when he was sure. "Ah! I see it!" She was agog, she looked as astounded as hed looked himself to hear Pantalaimon talk. Her dcemon, unable to remain inside her pocket, had come out to be a wasp, and he buzzed up to the hole and back several times, while she rubbed her still slightly wet hair into spikes. "Keep to one side," he told her. "If you stand in front of it peopled just see a pair of legs, and that would make em curious. I don't want anyone noticing." "What's that noise?" "Traffic. Its a part of the Oxford ring road. Its bound to be busy. Get down and look at it from the side. Its the wrong time of day to go through, really; theres far too many people about. But itd be hard to find somewhere to go if we went in the middle of the night. At least once were through we can blend in easy. You go first. Just duck through quickly and move out of the way."

She had a little blue rucksack that shed been carrying since they left the cafe, and she unslung it and held it in her arms before crouching to look through. "Ah!" She gasped. "And thats your world? That dont look like any part of Oxford. You sure you was in Oxford?" "Course Im sure. When you go through, you'll see a road right in front of you. Go to the left, and then a little farther along you take the road that goes down to the right. That leads to the city center. Make sure you can see where this window is, and remember, all right? Its the only way back."

"Right," she said. "I won't forget." Taking her rucksack in her arms, she ducked through the window in the air and vanished. Will crouched down to see where she went. And there she was, standing on the grass in his Oxford with Pan still as a wasp on her shoulder, and no one, as far as he could tell, had seen her appear. Cars and trucks raced past a few feet beyond, and no driver, at this busy junction, would have time to gaze sideways at an odd-looking bit of air, even if they could see it, and the traffic screened the window from anyone looking across from the far side.

There was a squeal of brakes, a shout, a bang. He flung himself down to look. Lyra was lying on the grass. A car had braked so hard that a van had struck it from behind, and knocked the car forward anyway, and there was Lyra, lying still— Will darted through after her. No one saw him come; eyes were on the car, the crumpled bumper, the van driver getting out, and on the little girl. "I couldn't help it! She ran out in front," said the car driver, a middle-aged woman. "You were too close," she said, turning toward the van driver. "Never mind that," he said. "How's the kid?"

The van driver was addressing Will, who was on his knees beside Lyra. Will looked up and around, but there was nothing for it; he was responsible. On the grass next to him, Lyra was moving her head about, blinking hard. Will saw the wasp Pan-talaimon crawling dazedly up a grass stem beside her. "You all right?" Will said. "Move your legs and arms." "Stupid!" said the woman from the car. "Just ran out in front. Didnt look once. What am I supposed to do?" "You still there, love?" said the van driver. "Yeah," muttered Lyra. "Everything working?"

"Move your feet and hands," Will insisted. She did. There was nothing broken. "Shes all right," said Will. "Ill look after her. Shes fine." "Dyou know her?" said the truck driver. "Shes my sister," said Will. "Its all right. We just live around the corner. Ill take her home." Lyra was sitting up now, and as she was obviously not badly hurt, the woman turned her attention back to the car. The rest of the traffic was moving around the two stationary vehicles, and as they went past, the drivers looked curiously at the little scene, as people always do. Will helped Lyra up; the sooner they moved away, the better. The woman and the van driver had realized that their argument ought to be handled by then-insurance companies and were exchanging addresses when the woman saw Will helping Lyra to limp away. "Wait!" she called. "You'll be witnesses. I need your name and address." "Im Mark Ransom," said Will, turning back, "and my sisters Lisa. We live at twenty-six Bourne Close." "Postcode?" "I can never remember," he said. "Look, I want to get her home." "Hop in the cab," said the van driver, "and Ill take you round." "No, its no trouble. It's quicker to walk, honest." Lyra wasn't limping badly. She walked away with Will, back along the grass under the hornbeam trees, and turned at the first corner they came to. They sat on a low garden wall. "You hurt?" Will said. "Banged me leg. And when I fell down, it shook me head," she said. But she was more concerned about what was in the rucksack. She felt inside it, brought out a heavy little bundle wrapped in black velvet, and unfolded it. Wills eyes widened to see the alethiometer; hands, the questing needle, the heavy richness of the case took his breath away. "What's that?" he said. "Its my alethiometer. Its a truth teller. A symbol reader. I hope it ent broken...." But it was unharmed. Even in her trembling hands the long needle swung steadily. She put it away and said, "I never seen so many carts and things. I never guessed they was going so fast." "They don't have cars and vans in your Oxford?" "Not so many. Not like these ones. I wasn't used to it. But Im all right now." "Well, be careful from now on. If you go and walk under a bus or get lost or something, they'll realize you're not from this world and start looking for the way through...." He was far more angry than he needed to be. Finally he said, "All right, look. If you pretend youre my sister, thatll be a disguise for me, because the person theyre looking for hasn't got a sister. And if Im with you, I can show you how to cross roads without getting killed." "All right," she said humbly. "And money. I bet you havent—-well, how could you have any money? How are you going to get around and eat and so on?" "I have got money," she said, and shook some gold coins out of her purse. Will looked at them incredibly. "Is that gold? It is, isn't it? Well, that would get people asking questions, and no mistake. Youre just not safe. Ill give you some money. Put those coins away and keep them out of sight. And remember—youre my sister, and your names Lisa Ransom." "Lizzie. I pretended to call myself Lizzie before. I can remember that." "All right, Lizzie then. And Im Mark. Don't forget." "All right," she said peacefully. Her leg was going to be painful; already it was red and swollen where the car had struck it, and a dark, massive bruise was forming. What with the bruise on her cheek where he struck her the night before, she looked as if shed been badly treated, and that worried him too—suppose some police officer should become curious? He tried to put it out of his mind, and they set off together, crossing at the traffic lights and casting just one glance back at the window under the hornbeam trees. They couldn't see it at all. It was quite invisible, and the traffic was flowing again. In Summertown, ten minutes walk down the Banbury Road, Will stopped in front of a bank. "What are you doing?" said Lyra. "I'm going to get some money. I probably better not do it too often, but they wont register it till the end of the working day, I shouldn't think." He put his mothers bank card into the automatic teller and tapped out her PIN number. Nothing seemed to be going wrong, so he withdrew a hundred pounds, and the machine gave it up without a hitch. Lyra watched open-mouthed. a twenty-pound note. "Use that later," he said. "Buy something and get some change. Lets find a bus into town." Lyra let him deal with the bus. She sat very quietly, watching the houses and gardens of the city that was hers and not hers. It was like being in someone elses dream. They got off in the city center next to an old stone church , which she did know, opposite a big department store, which she didn't. "Its all changed," she said. "Like ... That ent the Corn-market? And this is the Broad. Theres Balliol. And Bodleys Library, down there. But wheres Jordan?" Now she was trembling badly. It might have been delayed reaction from the accident, or present shock from finding an entirely different building in place of the Jordan College she knew as home. "That ent right," she said. She spoke quietly, because Will had told her to stop pointing out so loudly the things that were wrong. "This is a different Oxford." "Well, we knew that," he said. He wasn't prepared for Lyras wide-eyed helplessness. He couldn't know how much of her childhood had been spent running about streets almost identical with these, and how proud shed been of belonging to Jordan College, whose Scholars were the cleverest, whose coffers the richest , whose beauty the most splendid of all. And now it simply wasn't there, and she wasn't Lyra of Jordan anymore; she was a lost little girl in a strange world, belonging nowhere. "Well," she said shakily. "If it ent here..." It was going to take longer than shed thought, that was all.