by Lena Jones
The professor just sits there for a long moment, clearly taking it all in. I glance at Liam, who is staring at me with his mouth open. I have no idea where this burst of anger came from, but it isn’t going away.
‘So, seeing as you won’t be handing us in to the authorities, would you mind telling us what you know about the water crisis?’
‘Why should I tell you anything, Miss Oddlow?’ Professor D’Oliveira says, closing the book that has been lying in front of her.
Apparently the interview is over. The professor presses a buzzer and calls an escort of guards to show us out of Guild HQ. We are handed bikes by the guards, each in a dark uniform. Liam is given a plain black bike by the female guard. The man holds out a red mountain bike to me.
‘That’s not my bike,’ I yell at him.
He looks confused. ‘I was given this bike for you.’
‘Well, I want my own bike, please.’ I put my hands on my hips.
‘Here in the Guild we take what we’re given,’ he says.
‘How nice for you. Well, I don’t. And I want my own bike back, please. It’s light blue with a basket on the handlebars.’
‘Is there a problem?’ The professor has caught up, leaning on her stick.
‘Yes. I want my bike back, please. Mum’s bike,’ I say.
She smiles for the first time in a while. ‘Your bike? All of the bikes here belong to the Guild.’
I feel panic set in. ‘What have you done with my mum’s bike? I have so little of hers …’
‘And what would you say to your father?’ she asks. ‘How would you explain the reappearance of your mother’s bike, after all these years?’
I say nothing. She has a point.
‘If we let you have the bike to ride back to the entrance, will you promise to leave it in the rack, where you found it?’
I nod, not trusting my own voice.
‘Very good. Please bring Miss Oddlow the blue bike with the basket.’ She turns back to me. ‘The bike will remain with us, for your sole use.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Well, go on, then,’ she says to the guard.
The guard is staring at me. ‘Miss … Oddlow?’ He looks at the professor as if she’d claimed she could see Father Christmas or the Abominable Snowman.
‘Yes, Nelson,’ she says impatiently. ‘This is Clara’s daughter, Agatha.’
He turns back to me, mouth open.
‘Well – get the bike, then,’ says the professor.
‘Of course!’ He hurries to an anteroom and comes back, a moment later, with the bike. Passing it to me, he whispers, ‘Your mother was a legend around here.’
Again, a lump rises in my throat and I can’t seem to think of anything to say in reply, so I just nod stiffly. We’re shown back out into the tunnel. The guard points along it.
‘Up that way, then right at the fork and take the brick tunnel that curves to the left,’ he says casually, as though he’s giving directions to the corner shop. Then he goes back inside and shuts the door.
We stand there, dumbfounded. Then Liam hugs me for the second time that day. ‘What on earth was going on back there? All that stuff about your mum.’
I shrug and release him before getting on the bike and starting to pedal. ‘I don’t know, but I’m going to find out what really happened to her.’
‘We both will.’
Following the directions, we cycle until we reach the end of a tunnel that has no branches, just a cast-iron staircase spiralling up. Liam gets off his bike.
‘Look –’ he points to the words daubed on the wall of the tunnel – ‘Hyde Park. Maybe we should take a look?’
I get off my bike too, and walk the short distance to the staircase. It curves round tightly, as though there was very little space to work with. We climb and climb, so that I’m panting by the time we reach the top. Finally, we come to a small red-painted door. I take the Guild key from my pocket and try it in the lock. The door clicks open, and we step out on to a balcony. Warm air whips around me.
‘Where …?’ says Liam.
‘You’re kidding,’ I whisper in awe.
Beneath us is a carpet of trees, and off on the horizon I can see the London Eye and the Houses of Parliament. I know this view, but for a moment I can’t place it. I look up, over my shoulder, and see a huge bronze angel, wings spread over us.
‘We’re on the Wellington Arch!’
I stand on the top of Wellington Arch for a long time, trying to refocus. There’s a light breeze ruffling my hair. It’s nice up here – I want to stay. But I have to go down the steps and re-enter the real world of Hyde Park, of heat and dryness and thirst. The tunnels were a distraction. Hiding underground was only delaying the inevitable – I have a job to do.
My mind wanders back to the man who attacked me outside the RGS. He terrified me, plain and simple. I look up again at the sculpture of the Angel of Peace, steering her chariot of war pulled by four stallions. Courage against adversity, I think, as Liam and I climb down the stone steps into the park. Whatever needs facing, there is no point in putting it off. I say goodbye to Liam and march home.
As I open the front door, I’m greeted by a pitiful Oliver, draped in what looks – and smells – like dead pondweed. It seems as though he must have got up on to the surface and knocked one of the containers over himself.
‘Oliver, you stink! Don’t come near me!’ I push him away with the toe of my shoe. The last thing I need is slime on my jeans – with the water shortage, washing clothes has become a luxury. ‘What have you been doing?’
He mewls and looks up at me with baleful eyes. I crouch, holding him at arm’s length so I can study the stuff clinging to him.
I sigh – I really don’t want to look at the state of the kitchen. It’s bad enough that we can’t wash up now we’ve run out of bottled water. I’ve been eating all my meals off paper plates. The contents of Dad’s rainwater butts are OK for some jobs, but aren’t fit for human consumption. I walk towards the kitchen. Through the open door, I can smell familiar fumes – the stench of the algae.
I step further into the room and see the fish tank Dad opened this morning to show me its withered contents. The bag of sugar that Dad keeps on the side – for the three sugars that he stirs into every mug of tea – is upended in the tank. The algae are foaming their way upwards and out of the tank, over the worktop, down the cabinets, and across the floor.
They squirm.
Oliver hisses loudly and runs towards the algae as if to challenge them, then mewls again as his paws slide on the damp floor. He races behind me. I take a step back too – it’s hard not to feel that this slimy, writhing thing wants to hurt us.
‘Come on, Oliver.’
I scoop him up and we go through to the living room, where I hold my nose and begrudgingly try to calm him on my lap, but he keeps clawing threads out of my jeans.
‘Ow, Oliver – you’re hurting me.’ I let go and he jumps from my knees, then runs under an armchair. Clearly, he thinks this is my fault and nothing to do with him knocking over the sugar bag. But I’m piecing things together at last. All the foods that Dad tried, from the meat to the vegetable peelings, were missing one ingredient – refined sugar. That had to be the secret power source for the slime clogging London’s arteries. But how was it getting into the Ring Main?
I roll up my sleeves and head to the kitchen, throwing open windows and rolling up my jeans. The algae have stopped growing, just frothing a little, air popping like bubble gum on its surface.
Right – say goodnight, slime!
Dad gets home just as I’m putting cheese sandwiches together to toast under the grill.
‘What’s been going on here?’ he asks, kissing me on the cheek and walking over to the now-empty tank.
‘Oliver upturned your bag of sugar,’ I say casually. ‘And it turns out the algae have a really sweet tooth.’
‘Sugar?’ Dad sits down on a chair. ‘I never thought of that.’ He seems dazed, but he qui
ckly comes to his senses. ‘I need to tell someone – I need to let the authorities know!’
‘Yes, you should.’
He looks frantically around the kitchen for the cordless telephone, which is always getting lost. ‘Sugar? But how on earth is it getting into the water supply?’
‘I don’t know.’ I don’t add the word ‘yet’, though I’m thinking it. I’m determined to discover exactly what is going on – and to stop it.
The next morning is Tuesday. I wake from another nightmare – red slime, people drowning, dark caverns under the earth. Unlike last time, I don’t jump up. The weight of the dream pins me to the bed. My breath is shallow and I’m drenched with sweat. I don’t want to open my eyes. How could something so horrible have come from inside my own head? I remember when I used to enjoy my dreams – when they took me away to a case needing solving in a remote country house, or on a train trapped in the Siberian snows. I remember those dreams of old and feel betrayed.
My walk to school is different this morning. There are no rioters, looters or protesters. The streets are as calm as I’ve ever seen them. The crisis isn’t over – tens of thousands of people still don’t have running water – but London has been pacified by Maxwell’s speech. There are lorries on the road, carrying water through the capital, but now they bear the blue logo of Alpha Aqua. I walk past a huge billboard that shows a bottle of ice-cold water, with ‘ALPHA AQUA’ in person-high letters.
As though reassured by the words of a doctor – ‘You’re not better yet, but you soon will be’ – the capital has got back into bed to wait for the cure.
Maxwell’s cure.
I miss the noise. When there was noise, it was as if London was crying out for help. But the silence is eerie – in the silence, it feels like there’s no hope.
There’s no special assembly at school today, though there are more free bottles of Alpha Aqua water being handed out at the door. Some pupils are refusing to take the water, claiming they’re having Swiss spring water flown in.
‘It sounds disgusting!’ says one boy. ‘I mean, who wants to drink Chloe Simpkins’s recycled wee?’
There is a loud burst of laughter from the kids around him. Chloe is passing by, and I see her turning red. I take her arm and steer her through the crowd.
‘Pay no attention,’ I tell her. I raise my voice, making sure they hear me – ‘Their exclusive spring water is probably filtered through cowpats.’
She smiles wanly as we reach the door to her form room. ‘Thanks, Agatha.’
‘No worries. See you later.’
I go to my own form room, paying no attention to the chatter around me. I take out my biology textbook and put it on my desk, pretending to read, to stop anyone bothering me. My mind is going over the details of the last week, trying to find connections between the facts. But those connections are as hidden as the underground network. Remembering the tunnels, I try to think of anything I might have missed.
I’m about to replay our time whizzing through the tunnels when I’m stopped by someone sitting down next to me. I expect it to be Liam, but it’s Bernie Sipowicz, holding his little black book and looking shady.
Bernie’s father works on the London Stock Exchange, and hopes his son will one day too. But Bernie is more interested in gambling on horse races than the price of crude oil. With the help of ‘the little black book’, he runs the biggest betting ring in St Regis. If you want to put some money on a football match, a reality TV show or the name of the next royal baby, Bernie is your man.
‘Morning, Agatha.’ He’s small and freckled, and wears red braces like his father. Sometimes Bernie gets beaten up when someone loses all of their allowance on a boxing match, but most people respect him as a useful public service.
‘Hey, Bernie. What’s up?’
‘Just wondered if you fancied a flutter on the big game?’
He has a way of speaking out of the side of his mouth so that teachers won’t spot him talking. On the few occasions when a teacher got suspicious and confiscated the black book, they found it full of tiny, cryptic formulas that they couldn’t decipher. Bernie always told them it was for his ‘extra maths tutoring’.
‘Not for me, Bernie, thanks.’
‘Fair enough.’ He starts to get up. Suddenly, I grab his arm and pull him back down. A thought is coming together in my head. ‘Ouch – what is it?’
Mr Laskey looks up from his newspaper at the noise from Bernie, but disappears behind it again when he sees us both apparently studying a biology textbook.
‘Bernie, do you know much about the stock exchange?’
He groans.
‘What don’t I know about the stock exchange? Dad hardly ever shuts up about it.’
‘Well, do you know much about Alpha Aqua?’
‘The water company? Sure, I guess. It was set up by Patrick Maxwell about fifteen years ago …’ He frowns, unsure why I’m quizzing him.
‘And what sort of things do they invest in?’
‘Well, water research, obviously … but the company is owned by a consortium that invests in all sorts of other things – computer companies, tinned food, science research …’
‘They invest in other companies?’
‘Sure.’
‘And if those other companies do well, Alpha Aqua get their money back? Like making a bet?’
‘Yeah, except there are no fixed odds – the more money the company makes, the more money Alpha Aqua make.’
‘So, since they invested in water purification, they must be making a lot of money out of the water crisis?’
‘Oh, yeah!’ Bernie looks enthusiastic for the first time. ‘They hit the jackpot on that one! Every day the crisis goes on, they’re making millions of pounds. And when they expand their operation to supply all of London, well, that’ll make them billions!’
Whether it’s a welterweight boxer or a listed company, Bernie always admires a money-maker.
‘Thanks, Bern.’
‘No sweat. Now, I’ve gotta be off – things to see, people to do.’
He leaves me to my thoughts. There’s something niggling me – right at the back of my mind, but I can’t grasp hold of it yet. It’s like a shy animal – if I try to catch hold of it too quickly, it will bolt. I have to pretend it isn’t there, to let it come closer. I look down at my biology textbook, trying to seem busy so that nobody will distract me. I open the page at random – it’s the chapter on blood sugar. My mind elsewhere, I read –
‘The level or concentration of sugar in the blood is regulated by hormones, including insulin. When the body is unable to regulate blood-sugar levels, this is known as diabetes.’
The bell rings for the end of form time, and my classmates get up and start to make their way to first period. It feels like an alarm bell is ringing in my head.
Unregulated sugar levels.
That’s it!
The door slams, bringing me to my senses with a start. Most people have left the classroom – including Mr Laskey – but someone is still in the room with me. As I stand up, there’s the sound of a key turning in the lock. Two of the three CCs – Sarah Rathbone and Ruth Masters – step away from the door. Sarah, calm and calculating, Ruth her faithful servant, ready to beat the snot out of me.
‘Hello, Agatha,’ Sarah says, smiling thinly.
‘What do you want?’ I ask. Despite the menace in their manner, I’m impatient. This is no time for distraction.
Suddenly, my breath catches.
There are only two CCs in the room, not three. One is missing.
Brianna.
Where is Brianna? She hadn’t joined me on the walk to school. Now she isn’t here, either.
‘What do we want?’ Ruth sing-songs, stepping closer.
‘You’re always asking questions, aren’t you, Agatha?’ Sarah says. ‘Like a child, always asking, why, why, why?’
She takes a step closer.
‘And that’s what we want – to hear no more questions from Agatha Odd
ball.’
My thoughts are reeling, too fast to understand yet. A single question is flashing in my mind.
‘Just listen to me – where is Brianna?’ I ask.
‘There you go again – another question!’ says Sarah.
‘It’s like a disease with her,’ Ruth says.
‘I hope it’s not infectious.’ Sarah looks mock-worried.
‘Do you know where she is?’ I ask again.
Sarah sighs, exasperated. ‘I have no idea, Odd Socks. She hasn’t been answering her phone all morning. Honestly, she’s so touchy – I only posted one silly picture of her!’
I don’t hear anything else that she is saying, because I’m running towards the door.
‘Hey!’ Ruth shouts after me, as I scatter chairs and tables behind me to slow her down. ‘We’re not done with you yet!’
‘Well, I’m done with you,’ I say through gritted teeth. I open the door, grabbing the key from the lock and step through. Just as Ruth catches up, I slam the door in her face. The handle turns, but I’m quick with the key. She throws herself against the door with more venom than I thought could come from her willowy frame. I breathe a sigh of relief, but it’s no time for self-congratulation. Brianna’s wellbeing is more important than me escaping a beating from the CCs.
I do some quick thinking. Form time has ended, so all the school gates will be closed. I don’t have time for any of my normal St Regis escape routes.
It’s time for Plan Z.
It’s first period, so Liam will be in the IT suite. I stride over and knock on the door. ‘Liam Lau is wanted urgently in the office,’ I tell the teacher, with as much authority as I can muster. Luckily, his IT teacher doesn’t know me, so she doesn’t know that we’re friends.