"Yeah, that one," said Lyra, and pretended to listen carefully as the woman gave her instructions.
Two police officers were strolling toward them, a man and a woman on the beat, in their white summer shirtsleeves, with their radios and their batons and their suspicious eyes. Before they reached the bench, Lyra was on her feet and speaking to them.
"No, because I didnt ask."
He woke when he heard the clatter of seats as people moved out, and blinked in the light. His watch showed a quarter past eight. Lyra came away reluctantly.
"You could have asked me instead of that thing. Did it say whether my father was alive or dead?"
"Good."
So they went to the next cinema, a few hundred yards away around the corner, and did it again.
They were quarreling passionately, but in subdued voices, because of the quiet in the square and the people who were wandering past nearby. When she said this, though, Will stopped altogether.
"Im hungry," Lyra said.
"We cant go back through the window till much later," he said. "We shouldnt have come through in daylight anyway. We cant risk anyone seeing. And now weve got to hang around for hours...."
"The alethiometer, of course."
"What do you know about my father?" he said very quietly.
Will nodded grimly. He was so tired, and there was not the slightest possibility of sleep in this world. Lyra wasnt usually so perceptive, but something in his manner made her think: Hes afraid, but hes mastering his fear, like lorek Byrnison said we had to do; like I did by the fish house at the frozenlake.
And she sat down on the stone curb around the grass in the middle of the square and bent her head over the golden instrument and began to turn the hands, her fingers moving almost too quickly to see, and then pausing for several seconds while the slender needle whipped around the dial, flicking to a stop here and there, and then turning the hands to new positions just as quickly.
But eventually they reached the ring road, and the hornbeam trees. There was very little traffic now: a car every minute or so, no more than that. And there was the window. Will felt himself smiling. It was going to be all right.
"You werent looking," she said. "You mustve been thinking about something else. Its a good thing I found you. Look, its easy to fool people. Watch."
"Yeah!"
Will couldnt even remember what the film had been. It was still light outside, and the streets were busy.
"All right, shut up," said Will. "Thats enough. Youve got no right to look into my life like that.
It took a moment for him to remember what she meant. And then he looked so angry and suspicious that she took it out of her rucksack and said, "All right, Ill show you."
"Well," he said finally, "I suppose well have to trust each other."
As they walked up the Banbury Road, she told him about the night she hid in the wardrobe and watched Lord Asriel show the Jordan Scholars the severed head of Stanislaus Grumman in the vacuum flask. And since Will was such a good audience, she went on and told him the rest of her story, from the time she escaped from Mrs. Coulters flat to the horrible moment when she realized shed led Roger to his death on the icy cliffs of Svalbard. Will listened without comment, but attentively, with sympathy. Her account of a voyage in a balloon, of armored bears and witches, of a vengeful arm of the Church, seemed all of a piece with his own fantastic dream of a beautiful city on the sea, empty and silent and safe: it couldnt be true, it was as simple as that.
"And, Will," she added, "I wont give you away, not to anyone. I promise."
"The what?”
"Will," said Lyra.
Will looked around carefully, but there was no one near to see; a group of tourists looked up at
Lyra was entranced. She had seen projected photograms, but nothing in her world had prepared her for the cinema. She wolfed down the hot dog and the popcorn, gulped the Coca-Cola, and gasped and laughed with delight at the characters on the screen. Luckily it was a noisy audience, full of children, and her excitement wasnt conspicuous. Will closed his eyes at once and went to sleep.
"Theres so many ways this place is different. The traffic, for one. I dont like it. I like the cinema, though, and hamburgers. I like them a lot. And that Scholar, Dr. Malone, shes going to make that engine use words. I just know she is. Ill go back there tomorrow and see how shes getting on. I bet I could help her. I could probably get the Scholars to give her the money she wants, too. You know how my father did it? Lord Asriel? He played a trick on them...."
"Asked who?"
"We always sit down to eat. I never seen people just walking along eating before," she told him.
And a moment later he was on the grass under the palm trees, and a second or two afterward Lyra followed.
"If you speak to people, you just attract their attention," he said, with a shaking voice. "You should just keep quiet and still and they overlook you. Ive been doing it all my life. I know how to do it. Your way, you just—you make yourself visible. You shouldnt do that. You shouldnt play at it. Youre not being serious."
He had to lean against the college wall beside him. The color had left his face.
"I know when to stop asking," she said. "See, the alethio-meters like a person, almost. I sort of know when its going to be cross or when theres things it doesnt want me to know. I kind of feel it. But when you come out of nowhere yesterday, I had to ask it who you were, or I might not have been safe. I had to. And it said ..." She lowered her voice even more. "It said you was a murderer, and I thought, Good, thats all right, hes someone I can trust. But I didnt ask more than that till just now, and if you dont want me to ask any more, I promise I wont. This ent like a private peep show. If I done nothing but spy on people, itd stop working. I know that as well as I know my own Oxford."
The policeman looked at Will, and Will, containing his anger, shrugged as if to say, "Shes right, were lost, isnt it silly." The man smiled. The woman said: "Which museum? The Ashmolean?"
"Thats the best thing I ever saw in my whole life," she said. "I dunno why they never invented this in my world. We got some things better than you, but this was better than anything we got."
And youre looking for your father, and—"
"I done that before. I betrayed someone. And it was the worst thing I ever did. I thought I was saving his life actually, only I was taking him right to the most dangerous place there could be. I hated myself for that, for being so stupid. So Ill try very hard not to be careless or forget and betray you."
She finally became aware of Wills feelings and said, "Whats the matter?"
He said nothing. His heart was thumping with rage. They walked along toward a round building with a great leaden dome, set in a square bounded by honey-colored stone college buildings and a church and wide-crowned trees above high garden walls. The afternoon sun drew the warmest tones out of it all, and the air felt rich with it, almost the color itself of heavy golden wine. All the leaves were still, and in this little square even the traffic noise was hushed.
"Ill show you. We can get some food there too."
"See?" she said. "If they were looking for you, I put em off. Cause they wont be looking for someone with a sister. I better stay with you from now on," she went on scoldingly once theyd gone around the corner. "You ent safe on your own."
"I found my Scholar! Shes called Dr. Malone. And shes got an engine that can see Dust, and shes going to make it talk—"
Somewhere in the little streets beyond the cafe, something was screaming.
Will got up and said, "Thanks," and he and Lyra moved away together. They didnt look back, but the police had already lost interest.
"If Im not serious, what am I doing hanging about waiting for you when I could be miles away? Or hiding out of sight, safe in that other city? Ive got my own things to do, but Im hanging about here so I can help you. Dont tell me Im not serious."
Dont ever do that again. Thats just spying."
the domed building, an ice cream vendor wheeled his cart along the pavement, but their attention was elsewhere.
Then he said, "I know! We can go to the cinema!"
When they came out this time, it was nearly eleven oclock—much better.
"Your mothers ill," she said quietly. "But shes safe. Theres this lady looking after her. And you took some letters and ran away. And there was a man, I think he was a thief, and you killed him.
She replied in the same tone. "I dont know anything. All I know is youre looking for him. Thats all I asked about."
"You think so?" she said, and her anger flashed. "You think I dont know about lying and that? Im the best liar there ever was. But I ent lying to you, and I never will, I swear it. Youre in danger, and if I hadnt done that just then, youdve been caught. Didnt you see em looking at you? Cause they were. You ent careful enough. If you want my opinion, its you that ent serious."
She spoke quietly, but he was startled all the same. She was sitting on the bench beside him and he hadnt even noticed.
They were both sitting by this time. Will put his head in his handswith weariness.
"Please, could you tell me where the museum is?" she said. "Me and my brother was supposed to meet our parents there and we got lost."
Lyra settled down with her feet on the seat, hugging her knees, and Will let his mind go blank.
Lyra was hungry again, so they bought hamburgers from a cart and ate them as they walked along, something else new to her.
"Dyou want to see another one?"
And then Lyra gripped his arm. In the same second he heard what had made her do it.
"You had to come through," she said, furious. No one should speak to her like this. She was an aristocrat. She was Lyra. "You had to, else youd never find out anything about your father. You done it for yourself, not for me."
"I didnt see you coming."
"Where did you come from?"
"Wait till theres no cars coming," he said. "Im going through now."
They felt as if they were home again. The wide warm night, and the scent of flowers and the sea, and the silence, bathed them like soothing water.
"Thats all right. I trust you."
Lyra stretched and yawned, and Will felt a great weight lift off his shoulders. He had been carrying it all day, and he hadnt noticed how it had nearly pressed him into the ground; but now he felt light and free and at peace.
Lyra blinked and sighed, as if she were waking after a sleep.
He said nothing. He rubbed his eyes and blinked hard to try and wake himself up.
There was a cinema near the city center, ten minutes walk away. Will paid for both of them to get in, and bought hot dogs and popcorn and Coke, and they carried the food inside and sat down just as the film was beginning.
