Forward is Sometimes Backward

At the foot of the escalator that was normally the 'down' escalator from the third floor to the second, she stopped me. “Why?”

I sought to keep her quiet. “I'm hoping to confuse them,” I whispered.

“It's already working on me,” she noted. However, she did head up the steps once she'd thrown my hand back to me.

Once upstairs, I confused her further by heading towards Morocco. She stopped me when we were barely in Africa. “Look, I appreciate your help but I don't know why I should be following you right now. Or at all.”

I put on my friendliest smile and extended my hand in greeting. “Patrick Thompson, volunteer and trouble-getter-into-er.”

She looked at my hand, apparently uninterested in touching it again. “Diana Chapman. I'm a curator in the Egyptology department.” She gave me a stern look made more effective by the fact that we were in the light and I could see it. “I'd have more confidence if you identified yourself as someone who gets out of trouble rather than into it.”

“Point well made,” I agreed. “Consider it changed.”

I turned towards Morocco again but this caused further speech. “Where are you going?” she demanded.

Before I could answer, Harry came from around the corner, looking rather cross. “Could you two please be quiet? You are affecting our equipment.”

His appearance made Diana no happier. “Who is this now?”

Harry put on the charm again. “Harold Norville at your service, ma'am.” Upon hearing of Diana's role at the Museum, he grew quite nervous, fumbling with the buttons on his shirt. Chuckling nervously, he noted “We were just leaving you know. Nearly done with our readings. Plenty of numbers to crunch.”

Larry now joined us, also looking quite cross. “Can you keep it down? If we're going to be here all night, I need to rest.” Having made his statement, Larry walked off. Harry winced before smiling and trying to chuckle this away.

It didn't work.