In Search of the Time and Space Mach

by Deborah Abela

  The shed shook, the transporter capsule surrounding them started to smoke and a loud whirring sound filled their ears, just like the sound they heard when they transported the sandwich. Max and Linden held their breath as the crash of sound and light exploded around them.

  Then …

  There was quiet.

  Smoke rose from where the transporter capsule was supposed to be.

  Linden and Max were gone.

  Ralph heard the noise from the yard and crept into the shed. He whined when he saw it was empty.

  When Max opened her eyes she couldn’t see a thing. She shook her head but still she couldn’t see. When she went to move her arms she found they were pasted to her sides but after wriggling them free, she held them up and saw they were covered in … rotten meat!

  Yuck!

  And the smell!

  Where was she? What had happened?

  She thought hard. The Matter Transporter. Ben’s brother. Time and Space Machine.

  She looked around and saw she was up to her neck in baked beans, mouldy fruit, scrapings of old spaghetti, fish and boiled cabbage.

  She’d landed in a giant rubbish bin!

  Great!

  She wiped what was left of a piece of custard pie from her head and felt her body to see if she was okay. Arms, back, legs. Everything seemed fine and the control panel, even though it was covered in tomato sauce and soggy spinach bits, was still with her and bleeping happily.

  She looked over the side of the bin and saw people everywhere. There were street vendors standing over hot iron barrels roasting chestnuts, shoppers in warm coats rushing across streets and just missing being hit by beeping cars, police in funny big hats walking around and sometimes stopping to give directions, and spruikers standing outside shops calling with loud voices, trying to get people to come inside. The roads were clogged with red double-decker buses, old black taxicabs and cyclists with courier bags on their backs dodging in and out of the traffic. And on either side the footpaths were full of glass cabinets displaying slices of pizza, shops with shoes, clothes and TV screens playing the same images on each, stands with postcards, shelves of miniature towers and castles and racks of hats and T-shirts with the British flag plastered all over them.

  They’d made it! They were in London! A little soggy, but in one piece and alive! And when she checked her watch, which had also survived the gross landing, all in a matter of minutes.

  But then she realised something was missing.

  Linden!

  Where was Linden?

  He must be in the bin! Buried underneath all the slime!

  ‘Linden!’ she screamed.

  Max searched frantically, pulling up lumps of beef stew, wading through stale pools of soup and dessert goo, picking through half-eaten shepherd pies and still she couldn’t find him.

  What if something had happened to him? How would she explain it to Ben and Eleanor? And Linden’s father? Maybe this had been a bad idea after all.

  He could be anywhere. Literally. Maybe he really did end up in outer space, or in another country or …

  Max started to panic.

  ‘What am I going to do?’ she said out loud. ‘Linden and I could have been friends. He was a nice guy and the pact we made, even though it was a little corny, was one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me.’ Max’s eyes became teary. ‘And I would have done anything to save him if he was in danger. But now …’

  ‘Hi.’

  Max knew that voice.

  She turned around and saw Linden eating a large apple and frowning.

  ‘They don’t taste any different from the ones at home.’

  Max stared at him and tried to control her voice. He looked warm and dry in his jeans and jumper, and he’d put on a jacket since she had last seen him.

  ‘Where have you been?’ she asked.

  ‘I arrived in the hotel across the street and the guy at the desk gave me this apple on the way out,’ said Linden, smiling.

  ‘The hotel across the street,’ Max said with a shiver, as she started to feel the soggy garbage soak through to her skin.

  ‘Yeah. Lucky ha?’

  Linden stared at Max, like he only just realised where she was.

  ‘What are you doing in that bin?’

  ‘Oh, just waiting for you.’

  ‘Looks to me like you were slimed by one of the Matter Transporter’s ‘hiccups’,’ laughed Linden.

  Max was trying really hard not to lose her temper.

  ‘Just get me out of here,’ she said slowly, feeling like a sizzling firecracker before it explodes.

  Linden helped Max out of the bin as it started to rain.

  ‘Great! That’s all I need,’ she said, looking up at the grey sky.

  ‘At least this way you won’t have to have a shower,’ Linden joked.

  The look on Max’s face told him he should cool it with the jokes if he wanted to reach his next birthday.

  They ran to a public toilet in a small park nearby, dodging through streams of people who frowned at them as they rushed past. Linden waited outside the Ladies with his hands across his chest to keep warm and tried to avoid the drips spilling from the small sheltered alcove above him.

  Max came out of the Ladies in a much better mood now that she had on clean pants and a jacket from her backpack.

  ‘Okay, we’re ready to begin the mission.’

  Max pulled out her notebook and checked the address. The bin she landed in was right next to the building where Francis lived. Cricklebury Lane, London W6.

  ‘That’s the place just over there,’ she said, pointing to the building.

  They made a dash across the park and came to the front door of what they hoped was Francis’s home. There was a security system with a code to enter the building, which meant that Max and Linden had to wait for someone to go in or out before they could sneak in the door before it closed.

  They didn’t have to wait long. An old lady dressed in a long fur coat and holding an even furrier dog walked out.

  ‘Come on, Poochikins. It’s time for your walk, and after that you’re off to the hairdresser for a shampoo and trim.’

  When Poochikins and the fur lady left, Max and Linden raced forward and caught the door just before it closed. Linden held it open for Max.

  ‘I’m not helpless. I can do it myself, you know,’ she said.

  Linden looked hurt.

  ‘I didn’t say you were helpless, I was just opening the door for you.’

  ‘Well, you don’t need to. We’ve got a case to solve,’ said Max as she walked into the building.

  Linden stared after her and sighed.

  Max walked to the elevator as Linden stopped and looked around the foyer. He’d never been in such an expensive-looking place.

  ‘You’d have to be really loaded if you wanted to live here,’ he said.

  The elevator doors opened and Max stepped in.

  ‘Come on, let’s go,’ she interrupted Linden’s inspection of the foyer.

  On level nine they found flat 907. Francis’s flat.

  Just as Max was about to knock, Linden stopped her.

  ‘What are you going to say to him?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it yet,’ Max replied.

  ‘Shouldn’t we have a plan?’

  ‘Do you have one?’

  He didn’t.

  ‘Just do it and we’ll take it from there,’ he suggested.

  Max swallowed hard and knocked.

  They could hear the sound of a chair being moved and footsteps walking heavily across the floor. They both took a deep breath.

  The door opened a crack and was stopped by a chain. A pair of beady eyes above a whiskered chin looked down at Max and Linden.

  ‘What do you want?’ the man grumbled.

  Max was hoping this narky old man wasn’t Francis.

  ‘We’re, um, looking for our uncle,’ Max stammered. ‘He lives in this building.’

 
It was obvious the whiskered man didn’t like people knocking on his door.

  ‘What’s his name then?’ he said angrily.

  ‘Francis Williams.’

  The man’s eyes opened wide in fright.

  ‘Never heard of him,’ he snapped, and slammed the door shut.

  Linden looked at Max.

  ‘I guess we said something he didn’t like. Let’s try one of the others.’

  Max knocked on the door of flat 911.

  An old lady opened the door and smiled at them.

  ‘Hello there, what can I do for you?’

  ‘Hello,’ Max said in her best and most polite voice. ‘We were wondering if you wouldn’t mind helping us.’

  ‘I’d be delighted. What can I do for you? Are you selling biscuits or something?’

  ‘No, we’re looking for our uncle. He lives in this building but we’re not sure which flat.’

  ‘I’ve lived here for twenty-five years,’ the old lady said proudly. ‘If anyone knows your uncle it would be me. What’s his name?’

  ‘Francis Williams,’ said Linden.

  You would have thought Max and Linden had set a python loose in her flat the way the old lady’s face twisted up with fear.

  ‘I don’t know him,’ she said, her voice suddenly icy.

  She began to close the door but Max put her foot in the way to stop it.

  ‘Please. You’ve got to help us. We’re from Australia and it’s very important we find him.’

  The old lady looked up and down the corridor to make sure no one was listening. ‘Your uncle got himself into some terrible trouble,’ she whispered. ‘And one day some men in suits came and took him away.’

  ‘Why would they do that?’ asked Linden, frowning.

  A door nearby opened and a man in a suit walked out. He nodded at the old lady and stepped into the elevator. The old lady looked nervous and when the elevator doors were closed she said quickly, ‘All I know is that one day he lived here and the next day he didn’t. I can’t tell you any more. Now please, go away.’

  The old lady closed her door and the sound of ten locks being set echoed around the empty corridor. It was obvious she knew more than she was saying. Finding Francis wasn’t going to be as easy as she thought, but Max wasn’t going to stop until she had done it.

  She turned to Linden.

  ‘Something spooked the old lady and the whiskered man when they heard Francis’s name, and we have to find out what and why.’

  ‘How are we going to do that if they won’t talk to us?’ asked Linden.

  ‘We’re going to visit the Government department where Francis works. And even though I’ve got a feeling we won’t find him there either, maybe we can find someone who isn’t afraid to talk.’

  As Max and Linden waited for the elevator, a door to one of the flats opened a fraction and two spectacled eyes peered out, watching them. Then the elevator doors closed behind them and they were gone.

  As Max and Linden left the building in Cricklebury Lane, Max took out her notebook and scribbled a few lines.

  ‘This is what we’ve got so far. Francis did live in that apartment but was taken away by men in suits in a sudden and very suspicious departure that the neighbours are too afraid to talk about. We need to find out what has made them so scared. Who were the men in suits? Where did they take him and why? And finally, where is he now?’

  Linden took a mint from his pocket and started sucking it. He had a theory.

  ‘My guess is whatever is going on, it’s big and involves some very important people. It may even go all the way to the top.’

  He felt like a spy from a 007 film.

  Max was impressed.

  ‘I think you’re right,’ she said.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Linden. ‘Want one?’

  Linden offered Max a mint.

  ‘Thanks.’

  The Department of Science and New Technologies was a tall, marble building with statues and carvings in the walls of great scientists throughout history.

  As Max and Linden stood in front of it, they felt like they were somewhere very important. Max patted down her hair and straightened her jacket.

  ‘If people are scared to talk we have to be careful how we handle this and we have to look and act respectable, so don’t do anything that will attract attention.’

  Max watched Linden try to control his wild curls.

  ‘Well try and look as respectable as you can,’ she sighed.

  ‘Whatever you say, boss,’ said Linden.

  ‘And don’t call me boss,’ Max snapped.

  ‘Right boss,’ said Linden, trying not to smile.

  Max shot him a quick stare and walked up the long stairs of the building. She pushed through the heavy revolving door into the foyer and stood on the polished marble floor. Linden walked in and stood next to her.

  ‘Wow! This is some classy building,’ he said.

  Linden had hardly been out of Mindawarra in all his life and being in London with all its old buildings and statues was like being in another world.

  The front foyer was full of paintings, big carpets and shiny brass everywhere, from door handles to railings to flash name plates on long polished desks. There were people in suits hurrying all around them, like they were all late for important meetings. Two of them nearly trampled Max and Linden as they stared at the high, super-white ceilings that were covered in great dangling chandeliers.

  In the centre of the foyer was a man with a small headset on a glued-to-perfection hairstyle and a smile that seemed to have been permanently fixed to his face. He was sitting at a solid round marble desk frantically answering phones, redirecting calls and saying ‘Have a nice day’ more often than your average human could have managed in a year. When there was a break in answering phones, Max spoke up.

  ‘Excuse me, we were wondering …’

  ‘Good morning, how can I help you?’ he asked sharply.

  ‘We’re looking for a Professor Valerie Liebstrom,’ Max said.

  The receptionist’s smile fell to the floor in howling crash.

  ‘Who?’ he asked, not sure he’d heard right.

  ‘Professor Valerie Liebstrom,’ Max said a little shakily.

  ‘That’s what I thought you said,’ said the receptionist in a clipped voice, with one eyebrow climbing high up his forehead to show how annoyed he was at her question.

  The man looked around him then leant forward, his voice changing from ‘How can I help you?’ to ‘I’m having a bad day and you two are only making it worse’.

  ‘Listen kids, Ms Liebstrom hasn’t worked here for quite some time and if you want to stay out of trouble, you’ll have nothing to do with her.’

  The man answered a few more calls and was irritated to look down and see Max and Linden still standing there.

  They weren’t taking no for an answer and Max wanted him to know it.

  ‘Look mister, I’ve had a really bad day so if you don’t want me to scream at the top of my voice until I break every one of those expensive-looking chandeliers, then you’ll hand over the information I’m looking for.’

  Linden leant over the desk.

  ‘I’d do it if I were you. She’s won competitions back home for this sort of thing.’

  ‘Surely you can’t be serious,’ the receptionist sneered. ‘Now get out of here before I call security.’

  Max folded her arms.

  ‘I’ll give you five seconds. Linden?’

  Linden started counting.

  ‘This isn’t going to be pretty,’ he warned. ‘Five, four, three …’

  The receptionist was getting worried. These two kids were starting to attract a lot of attention.

  ‘Two …’

  All around them, people in suits stopped to stare.

  ‘One!’

  Max started screaming. A loud, ear-crushing, eye-popping scream. People in the foyer covered their ears. Chandeliers started trembling and clinking overhead.

  One of the chandeli
ers burst into a million pieces, bouncing off the marble floor and sending the suits running everywhere. The receptionist couldn’t take it any more.

  ‘Okay! Okay! Make her stop. I’ll give you what you want.’

  Max stopped screaming.

  The receptionist took a handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his brow and wrote on a piece of paper.

  ‘Last I heard she could be found at this address, but don’t tell anyone I told you.’

  Max took the paper and shook the receptionist’s shaking, sweaty hand.

  ‘Thank you for your help,’ said Max in her best sugary voice. ‘And have a nice day.’ She smiled.

  As Max and Linden walked out of the building, stepping over the crouching suits who were still holding their ears, a man in a long jacket stood at the top of the stairs and watched them go. He was surrounded by other men, who were bigger than him, wore dark glasses and looked like they’d never smiled in their whole lives.

  The man in the long jacket turned to one of the men and whispered, ‘Follow them and find out who they are and what they’re up to.’

  Outside the Department of Science and New Technologies, Max beamed as she held out the piece of paper the receptionist had given her.

  ‘This is our next vital clue to finding Francis and the Time and Space Machine. Are we good or what?’ she cried.

  ‘That was awesome. Spies who’d been in the business for twenty years couldn’t have done better than you,’ Linden cried.

  Max smiled and shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘Yeah. I guess it was pretty good.’

  ‘Are you kidding, you were great!’ shouted Linden.

  Max wasn’t used to receiving compliments and her face turned bright red. She took out her notebook and started to write down their new findings to hide her embarrassment.

  ‘Let’s just go and find the professor,’ she said.

  Linden realised his praise was maybe a bit much and his face went red too.

  And he hated getting embarrassed.

  ‘Good idea,’ he said, looking away, but as he did, he thought he saw someone disappear behind a building.

  ‘Max, I don’t know what it is, but I’ve got this feeling we’re being watched.’

  Max turned around.

  ‘Linden, there are over nine million people in this city. Why would they be watching us?’ she asked.