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covering its thin lips. The woman was wearing a floor-length, shiny black leather trench coat, which was unbuttoned, thus revealing the cause of both the grating, squeaking noise and her speed. She had a wooden leg and on the end of her wooden leg she wore a roller skate that was obviously in need of a little oil. With her other foot she kicked herself towards them, stopping all of a sudden, glaring down at them and saying in a voice so hoarse and whispery that it sounded like wind whistling through an old shack, “You’re in the wrong place, kids. Out you go.”
    Lisa lunged for the door in fear, both because of the woman’s unpleasant appearance and because of her breath, which reeked of rotten meat and stinky socks. Nilly, on the other hand, stood his ground, gazing at the woman in the leather jacket with curiosity.
    “Why is that clock running backwards?” he asked, pointing over her shoulder.

    The woman replied without turning around, “It’s counting down to the end of time. And for you, that’s now. Out!”
    “What about that one?” Nilly said, pointing to one of the other clocks. “It’s not running at all. Are you selling broken clocks?
    “Sea spray!” she replied. “That’s just a clock that claims that time is standing still. And who knows? – maybe it’s right.”
    “Time can’t just stand still,” said Lisa, who had regained her composure.
    The woman stared at her. “You obviously don’t know anything about time, you stupid little girl, so you ought to keep your ugly mouth shut. Everything in history happens simultaneously, all the time, over and over and over again. But most people have such small brains that they can’t perceive everything all at the same time, so they believe things happen consecutively one after the other. Tick tock, tick tock, I don’t have any more time for clock talk, so quick: walk!” She spun round on her roller skate and raised her other foot to push off.
    “You’re contradicting yourself,” Nilly said. “If time is standing still, then you have all the time in the world.”
    The woman slowly turned back around. “Hm, maybe this dwarf doesn’t have a dwarf brain. But all the same, you have to leave now.”
    “We have a stamp to sell,” Nilly said.
    “Not interested. Out.”
    “It’s from 1888,” Lisa said. “And it looks almost new.”
    “New, you say?” The woman raised her eyebrows, which looked like they’d been drawn in over her eyes with a black, and very sharp, pencil. “Let me see.”
    Lisa held out her hand with the stamp.
    The woman fished a magnifying glass out of her pocket and leaned over Lisa’s hand.
    “Hm,” she said. “Felix Faure. Where’d you get this?”
    “That’s a secret,” Lisa said.
    The woman raised her other, equally thin eyebrow. “A secret?”
    “Of course,” Nilly said.
    “It looks like it’s got wet,” the hoarse, whispering voice said. “And there’s a whitish coating here along the edge of the stamp. Did you put this stamp in soapy water?”
    “No,” said Nilly, who didn’t notice the warning look Lisa was giving him.
    The woman stretched out her index finger and scraped a long, red-lacquered fingernail across the stamp. Then she stuck the fingernail in her mouth, which was just a narrow crack in her taut face. She smacked her lips. And then both her eyebrows shot up.
    “Well, shiver my timbers,” she whispered.
    “Huh?” Nilly said.
    “I’ll buy it. How much do you want for it?”
    “Not much,” Nilly said. “Just enough for the plane tickets to . . . Ouch!”
    He shot an irritated look at Lisa, who had kicked him in the shin.
    “Four thousand kroner,” Lisa said.
    “You cat-o’-nine-tails!” the woman shouted in outrage. “Four thousand for a stamp with a picture of a dreary, dead French president?”
    “Okay, three thou—” Nilly started, but yelped as he was kicked in the shin yet again.
    “Four thousand, right now. Otherwise we’re leaving,” Lisa said.
    “Three