There was an awkward silence. No one wanted to be the first to go onto the stage. So obviously, who else should be the first to step forward but Alice, who only five minutes before had sworn up and down that she would behave herself.

“Alice!” I shouted. “Get back down here!”

“Oh don’t be alarmed.” The Institute Head said. “Nothing at all will happen to the child.”

“Nothing’s going to happen to me, Papa!” Alice said happily.

The people in the hall began to laugh, heads turned in my direction, in search of the strict father.

I tried to appear nothing of the sort.

The Institute’s Head put a belt around Alice’s waist and attached something like earmuffs to her head.

“And this is all there is.” He said. “Now the person is ready to travel through time. All he has to do is enter the time cabinet here and he will appear in the year One Thousand Nine Hundred and Seventy-Five…”

What has he said!? The panicky thought exploded through my head. If Alice was listening….

But it was too late. Of course she was going to take advantage of the opportunity.

“Little girl, what are you doing? Stop!” The Institute’s director shouted.

But Alice had already climbed into the Time Cabinet and, in the eyes of everyone, vanished. The hall gasped in chorus.

The Temporal Institute’s director, white as a sheet, waved his arms back and forth, trying to lower the din. And, seeing that I had started to run toward him down the aisle, started to speak, bent over the microphone so he could be heard over the other noise:

“Nothing at all will happen to the child. After three minutes she will re-appear in this very hall. I give you my word that the apparatus is completely reliable and tested! Don’t worry a bit!