Only a Monster(Monsters #1)(32)

But when was now? Suddenly, Joan had to know. She pulled away from Aaron with an almost frantic desperation. She had to find something—anything—with a date.

There was a rubbish bin beside the path. She rifled through it, pushing aside empty crisp packets, the remains of sandwiches. Half a Galaxy bar.

‘Um.’ Aaron sounded mildly horrified. ‘When I said eat something, I didn’t mean other people’s refuse.’

‘Heh,’ Joan said absently. A Coke can. A crumpled Twiglets packet. No newspapers, no magazines. Damn.

‘Is this a human thing?’ Aaron said. ‘Caressing rubbish? I don’t spend much time with humans.’

‘I’m looking for—’ Joan glared at him. ‘No, it’s not a human thing. I’m looking for the date.’

Aaron’s eyebrows lifted. ‘In the bin?’

‘There might be a newspaper in there.’ Joan was starting to feel defensive. ‘In the movies, people always find the date in the newspaper. It happens in Doctor Who all the time. They do it in Back to the Future.’

‘What on earth is Back to the Future?’

Joan bit her lip, but the laugh spluttered out of her, half-hysterical. They’d travelled in time. Now she was here with this ridiculous posh boy who didn’t even watch movies.

‘I fail to see what’s so amusing,’ Aaron said.

‘What in the name of Eton is Back to the Future?’ Joan said. ‘What is it? What is it, old bean?’

‘I don’t— Well, that’s childish. I don’t sound like that.’

‘You sound exactly like that.’

Aaron huffed. ‘Oh, take your hands out of the bin! We don’t need a newspaper to determine the date.’ He gave the picnickers and joggers a look of professional assessment—the kind of look that Ruth might give a lock she was about to pick. ‘It’s 1993,’ he said.

Joan opened her mouth at his audacity. ‘You can’t know that just by looking.’

‘Big hair, but not giant hair,’ Aaron said. ‘And no neon. So we’re not in the eighties. No Rachel haircuts either, so this must be pre-Friends. That’s a window of 1990 to 1994. After that, it’s easy enough to narrow it down. That man’s phone.’ Aaron pointed out the guy, still chatting on his phone. ‘BT Jade—it came out in 1993. So we could be in 1993 or 1994, but look at his watch. Look at his shoes. Brand-new. He likes new things. It’s 1993.’

Joan was impressed in spite of herself. ‘Friends?’ she said. In the back of her mind, though, she was doing the sums.

‘The Rachel haircut is a time marker,’ Aaron said. ‘Like St Paul’s or the new Globe. Why are you making that face?’ He scrunched his mouth. Joan could only assume he was mimicking her own expression.

‘You overshot!’ she said. ‘We were only supposed to travel back twenty years!’

‘So what if I did.’ Aaron folded his arms loftily. ‘You’re lucky we got out at all. You were an utter deadweight.’

‘But—’

‘My point,’ he said, ‘is that you don’t need to rummage through other people’s crisp packets as if you were a rabid squirrel.’

Joan could hardly hear him. She stared at their surroundings. Across the grass, the lake barely rippled. A woman walked by with a pram. The baby would be an adult in Joan’s time. Older than Joan herself. That elderly man might be dead.

And the strangest thing about it all was the absolute solidity of the world. The air smelled of cars and tar; the ground was hard under her feet. This was real. She was undeniably here—in a time before her own birth.

‘What are we going to do?’ she said. ‘We have to stop Nick.’ She felt a strange mix of urgency and helplessness. They were so far away from what had happened. ‘We need to warn everyone about what’s coming.’

And Nick wasn’t here at all, she realised then. Not anywhere in the world in this time. She was surprised by her hollow feeling of loss. He hadn’t been born yet. She could look for him everywhere, and he’d be nowhere.

‘Before we do anything, we need to eat,’ Aaron said. ‘You almost travelled without taking time first. You almost died. Do you understand that? I always knew the Hunts were irresponsible, but failing to educate you in basic safety—’

‘Don’t talk about my family.’ Joan had meant to snap it, but it came out low and dangerous. The secrets that had been kept from her felt like a raw place inside her. Just being with Aaron—seeing how easily he negotiated this world—made her feel even more raw. ‘You of all people.’

‘Yes, me of all people indeed,’ Aaron said. ‘Your family taught you a lot about the monster world, did they?’

‘I know a bit,’ Joan said defensively.

‘Like what? Who can you trust in this time? You have no ID. Where are you going to get it? You have nowhere to sleep tonight, no money. No friends. And the Hunts are impossible to find.’

‘I can take care of myself.’

‘Which family’s territory are we standing in right now? What does that mean? What are the King’s Laws? What happens if you break them?’

Joan pushed down a wave of helplessness. She didn’t want to have to rely on Aaron bloody Oliver. His father had tried to kill her. Aaron would have let it happen. He’d just walked away.