by Jo Nesbo
“I’ve never noticed police officers to smell of cabbage rolls. I think you were lying,” the king said. “So, were you?”
Helge cleared his throat. “Uh, yeah, we might have lied.”
“But just a little,” Hallgeir added.
“We didn’t want to scare those two kids by telling them that no one at Scotland Yard dares to get close to the Crunch Brothers. Or worse yet, close to . . .” Helge lowered his voice and whispered something.
“What?” the king asked.
Helge whispered again.
“What did he say?” the king asked Hallgeir.
“He said . . .” Then Hallgeir lowered his voice and whispered something.
“Enough of this nonsense!” the king roared. “Who doesn’t Scotland Yard dare to get close to?”
Helge walked all the way over to the king and whispered “Mama” into his ear.
Hallgeir walked over and whispered “Crunch” into the king’s other ear.
“Mama?” the king asked. “Crunch?”
“Shh!” Helge said, looking around cautiously.
“Double shh!” Hallgeir said.
“She’s the Crunch Brothers’ mother,” Helge whispered. “She’s known as the worst thing to have happened to London since the Great Plague of 1665.”
“She sees and hears everything, is impossible to trick, and is so horrible that no one will say her name out loud,” Hallgeir whispered.
“Uh, pardon me for asking,” the bank governor said. “But how horrible can three bank robbers and their mother actually be?”
“They play blood knuckles—you know, the card game—with anyone who tries anything,” Hallgeir said, his eyes rolling halfway back in his head in fear.
The bank governor and the king gasped in unison. “Blood knuckles?” they asked, looking in horror at the two Secret Gourds, who crossed their arms and nodded ominously.
“It’s not really so serious if you only lose four or five rounds,” Hallgeir said. “Then they just hit you on the knuckles a few times with the edge of the deck of cards and it stings a little and your knuckles get a little red.”
“But if you lose ten thousand rounds . . . ,” Helge said, rolling his eyes back in his skull so only the whites—and a little bit of red—showed.
“What happens then?” the bank governor asked.
“An agent from Scotland Yard once tried to infiltrate the family. Mama Crunch detected him, so they played bloody knuckles with him. He lost a big pot of ten thousand knuckle blows.”
The Gourds shook their heads in unison.
“What happened?” the bank governor asked.
“Unfortunately, that information is rated NC-17,” Hallgeir said.
“I assure you I’m well over seventeen,” the king said with one eyebrow raised.
“Yes, but what about the people reading this right now?” Hallgeir asked.
“What?” the king said. “Reading what?”
“He didn’t mean anything by that,” Helge said, shooting Hallgeir a stern look. “You know that’s a secret, Hallgeir!”
“Sorry, I forgot,” Hallgeir said sheepishly.
The king puffed out his chest and roared, “This is a royal command: SPIT IT OUT!”
“They sliced the poor guy to bits with that deck of cards. He looked like a pile of shredded Parmesan when they were done with him.”
The king and the bank governor stared speechlessly at the two Secret Gourd members.
“What—what have we gotten them into?” the king moaned.
“Oh, but I’m sure our three will do fine,” Hallgeir said. “They probably won’t get caught.”
“No,” said Helge. “I wouldn’t think so, no.”
The Art of Packing for a Trip—to London, for Example
“THERE’S AN ART to packing,” Doctor Proctor said as he pulled a worn golf bag off a basement shelf. “What you don’t bring is just as important as what you do bring. Let me hear about how you packed, my friends.”
“I’m bringing this backpack,” Lisa said, pointing to a red hiking backpack. “I’ve got toiletries, six changes of underwear, rain gear, a pocketknife, a pair of wool socks in case it gets cold, a first aid kit, a small flashlight, and a pair of extra good shoes in case we have to do a lot of walking.”
“Aha!” said Doctor Proctor. “Spoken like a professional traveler who has traveled not only through space, but also through time! What about you, Nilly?”
“Even more professional!” Nilly said. He pointed to a used plastic grocery bag, which he’d set down on the workbench next to a set of test tubes containing something ice blue, which was bubbling and smoking. “An almost fresh pair of underwear, nail polish remover, Monopoly in case it rains, and a bottle of malaria pills from my grandfather,” Nilly said proudly.
“Malaria pills?” Doctor Proctor asked. “There aren’t any malaria mosquitoes in London, Nilly.”
“Ah, so they finally exterminated the London Malaria Mosquito? Well, good, because truth be told, I wasn’t sure about the expiration date on those pills. It says 3/12/25, but I wasn’t sure if that was 2025. I think it might be 1925.”
“What are you going to do with the nail polish remover?” Lisa asked. “You don’t wear nail polish.”
“Exactly,” Nilly said. “So if I should happen to get some on me, I’d like to get it off as soon as possible.”
“What about a toothbrush and more than one change of underwear?” Lisa said.
“My toothbrush is in my back pocket. I’ll borrow toothpaste from you. And a professional traveler never wastes underwear. Besides, I’m an optimist.”
“What do you mean?” Lisa asked.
“I figure we’ll solve the case before I need to change my underwear more than once.”
“Well, a good attitude is a good thing to take on a trip too,” Doctor Proctor said. “What do you guys think I ought to bring along besides the usual necessities? Do you remember the language nose clips I invented so we could speak French? I’ve invented something even better now. It’s a multilingual pill that makes it so we can speak and understand English for fourteen days. And they taste like raspberries!”
“Nilly definitely needs one of those,” Lisa said. They were in the same English as a Foreign Language class in school.
“Hallo, jeg kan engelsk!” Nilly replied indignantly, in Norwegian. Then he corrected himself, saying, “I mean, I can English!” in some kind of Norwenglish.
Nilly stared at Lisa stiffly for a few seconds before he ultimately gave the tip of his freckled, upturned nose a slight, uncomfortable tug. “Okay, fine. One tiny little multilingual pill for me, then. Do you have any other new inventions, Doctor Proctor?”
“I have this wood-chopping shoe, which I made in your size, Nilly!” Doctor Proctor said.
“Yippee!” Nilly said, snatching the tiny shoe.
“I was planning to give it to you as a homecoming present, along with this,” said Doctor Proctor, holding out an equally tiny mitten.
“What’s that?” Nilly asked.
“What does it look like? Obviously, it’s an aiming mitten for right-handed people,” Doctor Proctor said.
“Oh, right, of course,” Nilly said, and put it on.
“What’s an . . . aiming mitten?” Lisa asked.
“Don’t you even know that?” Nilly said, boxing at the air in front of him with the mitten.
“No,” Lisa said. “What is it?”
“It’s . . . a really nice mitten that keeps your right hand warm if your left hand isn’t cold. And you can wear it for air-boxing to keep from getting a draft on your fingers, which would cause arthritis, so you’d have to hold the silverware with your left hand or your toes when you were eating in the old folks’ home,” Nilly explained.
“Well,” Doctor Proctor said, smiling faintly. “First and foremost it’s a mitten that you can throw these three darts with.” He held up three small darts: one yellow, one orange, and one black. “And within a radius of ten meters,
they’ll hit within a millimeter of where you’re aiming.”
“Well, yeah, that too, of course,” Nilly said, and kept air-boxing to make sure no one had any doubt the mitten was also particularly well suited to that. “Do you have anything else new?”
“Hmm,” Doctor Proctor said, looking around. “In addition to an app that plays rock-scissors-paper, I did invent an antifreeze.”
“Hasn’t that already been invented?” Lisa asked.
“Not one like this,” Doctor Proctor said, holding up one of the test tubes containing the bubbling, ice-blue substance. “If you drink this, it will react with the acid in your stomach and kidneys so that when you pee, whatever you pee on will immediately freeze and turn into ice, which can be shattered. No matter what it’s made of.”
“No way!” Nilly exclaimed, clapping his hands with glee.
“As long as you don’t pee on your own shoes,” Lisa said dryly.
“I’ll bring along a tiny bottle,” Doctor Proctor said. “But then I guess that’s it.”
“You didn’t invent anything for me?” Lisa asked.
The other two looked at her.
“Oh, you’re right,” Doctor Proctor said, looking slightly disappointed in himself. “I guess Nilly does always end up getting to test the inventions.”
“That’s not really such a bad thing,” Lisa said, smiling bravely. “After all, he enjoys it more than I would.”
“We could bring some fartonaut powder for Lisa,” Nilly said. “And a big can of baked beans. Beans, beans, the magical fruit,” Nilly sang. “The more you eat, the more you toot!”
“No!” Lisa said resolutely. “No beans, no farts. The peeing will be plenty.”
“Just one packet,” Nilly pleaded. “Just think, Lisa, once we’ve found the gold and we’re celebrating with the queen at Buckingham Palace and you’re all dressed up and have been dancing with some prince or other who’s taking you on a romantic, moonlit tour of the gardens, then you can impress him by blowing all the leaves right out of the garden with a single fart.”
“No, thank you!” Lisa said. “Forget I even asked!”
“But Lisa, the queen’s gardener would beg us for the invention!” Nilly said. “Maybe Doctor Proctor could finally make some money off it.”
“Well,” said Doctor Proctor. “Since the Americans don’t want to use the power to send their astronauts into space, I suppose we could bring one packet for the British. It’s not like it takes much room.”
“Jell-O!” Juliette Margarine, Doctor Proctor’s girlfriend, called from the kitchen. Which was perfect timing, because they’d just finished packing.
“Now you guys be careful over there in London,” Juliette said, her face showing her concern as she watched the three of them digging into the Jell-O. “And you promise you’ll take good care of them.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Doctor Proctor said.
“I wasn’t talking to you, Victor, I was talking to Lisa,” Juliette said.
“Yeah, yeah,” Lisa assured her with a smile.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Nilly said, trying in vain to stifle a burp. “These Crunch people aren’t even the worst in the world, just the worst in Great and Small Britain. And we’re three of the cleverest people in all of Cannon Avenue.”
They toasted to that with their favorite pear soda.
Afterward, Juliette gave each of them a hug, and they each went home: Nilly to the yellow house, Lisa to the red one, and Doctor Proctor down into the basement to do the last little bit of fine-tuning on the inventions he was going to bring.
When Nilly walked into the living room, his mother groaned. “You again?” without looking up from the TV.
“I’m happy to see you, too, Mom,” Nilly said.
“Shh!” his sister Eva snarled. “Total Makeover is on.”
“I’ll be out of your hair tomorrow. I’m going to London,” Nilly said, going into the kitchen to pour himself a glass of milk.
“Can you bring me two slices of bread with salami and a cup of tea, and three slices with Nutella for your sister?” his mother yelled. “And hurry it up, we’re starving in here.”
When Nilly came back with the requested items on a tray, his sister Eva handed him a freshly ironed two-hundred-kroner note.
“For me?” Nilly asked, lighting up.
“For you . . . to buy me something in London, you gnome! A cream called Clean Coocoo’s.”
“What kind of cream is it?”
“Zit cream.”
“I thought you already had enough zits,” Nilly said.
“Anti-zit cream then, you rutabaga brain! Just buy it, because if you don’t, you’re not getting your bedroom back. So there.”
“My room?” Nilly asked.
“Oh yeah,” his mother said with her mouth full of salami. “You were gone so long I couldn’t stop her from taking over your room.”
“But—but she already has her own,” Nilly said, puzzled.
“So? Now she has two. So what?” his mother said. “A girl needs space for her clothes. But I’m sure she’ll let you sleep there tonight. Right, Eva?”
“I guess,” Eva sniffed. “But if you touch anything, we’re going to sell you to a traveling circus.”
“Keep your money and your zits!” Nilly said, crumpling up the two-hundred-kroner note and tossing it back to his sister. “I’m not buying you so much as an English tea bag!”
Eva put her hand over her mouth in horror. “Did you hear that, Mommy?! Did you hear what that freak just said to your only daughter?”
“Show your sister some respect, Nilly,” his mother mumbled, turning up the volume on the TV. “And make sure you do the dishes in the kitchen. As you can see, there’s quite a backlog since you’ve been away so long.”
Nilly went to the bedroom that was no longer his, pulled his toothbrush out of his plastic grocery store bag, brushed his teeth—the ones containing gold and the ones without—got undressed, and crawled into bed.
He lay there for a while with his eyes closed, imagining that he could hear the sounds his friends were making: Doctor Proctor hammering and drilling and boiling down there in his basement, Juliette snoring softly from their bedroom, and Lisa playing her clarinet from the other side of Cannon Avenue. But now she had finished practicing and had crawled into her bed as well.
So Nilly sat down in front of his window as usual and held his fingers up in front of his desk lamp so they cast shadows that turned into figures on his thin curtains. He was almost sure Lisa watched his shadow theater performances. And tonight’s was about three friends who were pursuing three bandits and an entire little tiny country’s gold reserve of one bar of gold. And before Lisa fell asleep, the three heroes got the bandits, the gold, half the kingdom, and at least two princesses.
Madame Tourette’s Wax Museum and the King of Pop
IT WAS EXACTLY noon. It was a typical London day, and a typical London rain was falling over the city. And since it was exactly noon, Big Ben—which is a very precise and biiiig clock in a biiiig tower in the middle of London—started chiming. And as it struck the last of its typical twelve London clock chimes, the door of a hotel room at the Regent Courtyard Badger’s Dingle Bottom Crossing opened.
“Look at this view,” Lisa said, leaving the hotel room door open and racing over to the window. “We can see the Thames, Westminster Bridge, and Big Ben!”
“Dibs on the top bunk!” Nilly shouted, pushing Doctor Proctor aside.
“Ach, laddie, I dunna think they’ve got truckle beds,” Doctor Proctor said in a funny accent. Nilly froze, staring dumbfounded at Doctor Proctor, who seemed to take no notice and continued, “There are beds for you and Lisa in the bedroom. I’ll be sleepin’ out here on the couch bed.”
Nilly made a face and spluttered, “Couch bed? Truckle beds? What on earth are you talking about?”
Doctor Proctor sighed and set his golf bag down on the sofa. “Ach, I only had two language pills for the Queen’s English. So
I let you have them. I took the one for—”
“Scottish,” Nilly said. “But still: truckle bed?”
“Scots English is a wee bit different, Nilly, but I’m sure you’ll be able to ken me.”
“Well, as long as you don’t start wearing a kilt and playing the bagpipes,” Nilly said, darting into the bedroom.
“Hey, you guys,” Lisa said. “We’ve got to get over to Madame Tourette’s Wax Museum. There might be a line to get in, and we have to be on time.”
“Nag, nag, nag,” Nilly called from the bedroom, where he’d spent a little time jumping on one of the beds before moving over to the other one and doing a little jumping there, too. “This one is sproingier,” he announced. “Is it okay if I take the bed by the window, Lisa?”
“Yeah, sure. But what would you have done if I said no?” Lisa said with a sigh.
“Then obviously you could have had the bed by the wall,” Nilly said. “I’m not unreasonable. Hey, I can touch the ceiling!”
“Come on!” Lisa urged.
“I just have to change,” Nilly said.
“Nilly! If we want to make it there—”
“I’m ready!”
Lisa and Doctor Proctor stared. Nilly was standing in the doorway wearing a tweed jacket and a tweed deerstalker cap, which looked at least as ridiculous as the Secret Gourd horsetail-duster hats.
“What’s wrong?” Nilly said. “Real detectives need disguises and secret code names, right? So from now on you guys can call me Sherl.” Nilly stuck a curved pipe into his mouth. “And Lisa, you can be Ockolmes. And Doctor, you can be . . .”
“Doctor Mitten?” Lisa suggested.
Nilly scratched his sideburn. “No, it has to be something Scottish. Doctor MacKaroni.”
“Macaroni?” Lisa said. “Isn’t that Italian?”
“Yeah, about as Italian as MacElangelo or MacO’Polo,” Nilly said. “And it tastes a lot better.”
“Are you guys ready, Sherl? Ockolmes?” Doctor MacKaroni asked. “Because we’ve got to go now.”
SURE ENOUGH, THERE was a line of tourists waiting to get into Madame Tourette’s.