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International Airport and walked into the gigantic departures hall, which was swarming with people. They queued at the Air France ticket counter. While they were standing there, Lisa thought she heard a familiar sound through the murmur of voices, scuffle of shoes and announcements coming over the loudspeakers. The squeaking noise of ungreased wheels. She whirled round, but all she saw was a sea of unfamiliar faces and people hurrying on their way. She sniffed the air for the odour of rotten meat and stinky socks, but didn’t detect it. It was probably the wheels of one of those wheeled suitcases, Lisa thought. And jumped when she suddenly felt a hard finger poke her in the small of her back. She spun round. It was Nilly.
    “Go, go! It’s our turn,” he said.
    They walked over to an unbelievably beautiful woman with unbelievably tanned skin and unbelievably white hair.
    “What can I help you with, ma’am?” she asked.
    “Two tickets to Paris please,” Lisa said.
    “For you and who else?”
    An irritated response came from below the edge of the ticket counter. “Me, obviously!”
    The woman stood up and peered over the counter. “Ah, right. That’ll be three and a half thousand kroner.”
    Lisa put the money on the counter. The woman began to count the notes, but then stopped and raised her eyebrows. “Is this supposed to be a joke?” she asked.
    “A joke?” Lisa said.
    “Yes. Some of these notes are no longer legal tender. They’re from . . .” She looked at them more closely. “From 1905. They should have been taken out of circulation ages ago. Don’t you have any other notes from this century?”
    Lisa shook her head.
    “Sorry, I can only give you one ticket to Paris.”
    “But . . .” Lisa began in desperation. “But . . .”
    “That’s fine,” said the voice from under the edge of the counter. “Give us one ticket.”
    Lisa glanced down at Nilly who was nodding at her encouragingly.
    When she looked up again, the woman already had the ticket ready and was holding it out to her. “ Bon voyage. Have a good trip to Paris. I assume there are some grown-ups there who will be meeting you.”
    “So do I.” Lisa sighed and nodded, eyeing the ticket and Raspa’s old krone notes.
    “What do we do now?” Lisa asked anxiously as she and Nilly walked towards the security checkpoint.
    “Relax,” Nilly said. “I have an idea.”
    “You do? What’s your idea?”
    “For you to go alone,” Nilly said.
    Lisa stared at him, shocked. “A-a-alone?”
    There. Now she was stuttering too.
    AS LISA STEPPED on board the plane, a flight attendant who smelled nice and had very neat lipstick smiled at her and said, “Welcome aboard. Two carry-ons?”
    “Lots of homework,” mumbled Lisa, who was looking a little lost and alone as she stood there.
    “Here, let me help you,” the woman said, grabbing one of the bags, lifting it up and wedging it into the overhead compartment between two wheeled suitcases and then slamming the compartment door shut.
    Lisa found her seat, put on her seat belt and yawned. This day had already been way too exciting and she had hardly slept the night before. She closed her eyes, and when she did, the words of that woman in the Trench Coat Clock Shop started echoing through her head:
    “Only death can change history. Only if you are willing to die can you change what is written.”
    With that, Lisa fell asleep and didn’t wake up until she heard the pilot’s voice instructing them to buckle their seat belts for landing. It had grown dark and thousands of Paris lights twinkled and gleamed below them. Lisa knew that millions of people lived down there. And she was just one, a little girl from Cannon Avenue. Suddenly Lisa felt terribly alone and had to bite her lower lip to get it to stop trembling.
    After they landed at an enormous airport that was named after some dead president named Charles Something-or-Other, the flight attendant helped Lisa get her bags down, gave her a