“Faster!” the marshal cried. “We’ve got eight minutes. As for you, son, get out of the way. A life’s at stake and I haven’t —”
“What’s the model?” Lewis repeated. “Is it an XPJ or a High-Fusion Special?”
“Huh?” the marshal snorted in confusion.
“Please. What model are you dealing with?”
“It’s an XPJ, the 2000 series …”
“In that case,” Lewis declared, “I’ll need a paper clip, wire, and a stick of chewing gum.”
“Chewing gum?” Stephens bellowed. “Look, kid, this is a serious business!”
“This is Lewis Castorman,” Alfonse piped up. “He’s an experienced locksmith.”
“And my mother designed the XPJ,” Lewis explained. “Please, sir, I can open that vault.”
Stephens studied Lewis closely. At that moment two firemen passed with a crate whose sides bore a skull and crossbones. The sight of the TNT made the marshal grimace. “Sam! Will!” he called to his men. “Drop the crate and find me a paper clip, wire, and … and …”
“A stick of chewing gum,” Lewis added.
Muttering to himself that he must be crazy, Stephens escorted the boys into the bank, brushing aside the reporter in black who was lurking like a wolf beside the front entrance. At the back of the bank, behind a long marble counter, a heavy door with metal bars stood open. Two clerks were guarding it and talking to each other. One was betting fifty bucks that the guy would die of oxygen starvation, while his friend was arguing the TNT would kill him. Both were wearing buttons that read: GRUMPEL’S: SERVICE WITH A CHEMICAL SMILE.
“You’re both wrong!” Alfonse yelled. “Lewis will save him!”
“That’s telling ’em, kid,” Stephens growled as the trio passed the metal door and descended a spiral flight of stairs. They wound up in a corridor with walls of naked concrete, harsh, fluorescent lighting overhead, and a temperature so low they could see their breath. Far ahead, at the corridor’s end, the bank manager was standing before a wall of gleaming metal. The XPJ.
“Fire Marshal Stephens!” the manager cried, brushing an imaginary speck from his jacket. “I hate to remind you, but we’re running out of time. We have five minutes left.”
“Five minutes and nineteen seconds,” Stephens corrected. He nodded at Lewis. “All right, son, you’ve got your equipment. Now hop to it!”
“What … what do you mean?” the manager sputtered. “Don’t tell me you’re relying on this … this boy to do your job. Are you out of your mind?”
Ignoring the man’s chatter, Lewis crouched beside the vault. It was an intimidating sight to say the least. Seven feet tall, three feet thick, and constructed from the latest space-age metal — for sure, the vault was impossible to open. He remembered when his mother displayed the blueprints and caused his dad to whistle in amazement.
Lewis shook himself free of these thoughts. Taking out his leather pouch, he selected the “bow and arrow” pick, a length of steel with a diamond-wedge tip. Using it to probe the base of the vault’s handle — it looked a bit like a telephone receiver — he found a hairline crack in its surface and inserted the pick into this fissure. He rotated the tool clockwise until, whoops, the facing on the handle’s base popped open. A hole appeared, no larger than a nickel.
“Whoa!” Alfonse and Stephens cried together.
Taking out his “dumbbell” pick, a shaft that ended in a metal ball, Lewis directed it into the hole until the ball came up against a hidden spring. There was a click as a metal “plug” gave way and revealed, below the handle, a two-inch “drain.”
“Three more minutes,” the manager announced. “I hope you’re satisfied, Marshal Stephens. A man will die because of you. As for this boy —” he glared at Lewis “— I’ll see to it personally that the police are informed.”
“Ignore him, kid,” Stephens whispered. “You’re doing great.”
Lewis tapped Alfonse. His friend deftly slipped him the wire, the paper clip, and a wad of chewed-up gum. Securing the gum to the wire’s end, Lewis bent the clip into a thirty-degree angle, pressed it into the heart of the gum, and produced a makeshift fishing rod. That done, he pressed his ear against the door and steered the wire into the drain.
The manager groaned. “What will Mr. Grumpel say? Or our clients for that matter?”
“Please!” Lewis pleaded. “I need absolute quiet!”
“We can blow the vault still,” the manager continued. “It’s not too late!”
“Marshal Stephens,” Lewis murmured, “I have to hear the timing mechanism. Can you keep this man quiet for the next sixty seconds?”
Stephens grinned. “My pleasure, kid.”
“Now look here —” the manager began, only to fall silent as Stephens pressed a hand against his mouth.
“Here’s the tricky bit,” Lewis muttered, shoving the “fishing rod” into the depths of the vault. As he wiggled the wire, he “tickled” the X in the XPJ logo with his “scalpel” pick. Without warning a high-pitched whine broke out. “That noise means the chronometer has been neutralized. Now if I can wedge the paper clip into the stabilizing sensor …”
“I don’t mean to hurry you, kid,” Stephens grunted, “but this had better work soon.”
“There!” Lewis cried as a grinding sound erupted. “Try pulling the handle.”
Throwing Lewis a look of disbelief, Stephens released the manager and gave the handle a yank. When the metal yielded easily, he snorted in amazement.
“Hurray!” Alfonse shouted.
“Huh?” the marshal said.
“Free at last!” a man gasped from inside, then collapsed onto the floor. His hands were swollen from banging them against the door and his face was purple. A canvas bag, bursting with hundred-dollar bills, lay at his feet.
There were suddenly lots of people in the hallway. Two medics were feeding oxygen to the thief, three cops were placing him under arrest, the clerks from upstairs were handling the money, and spectators were taking the confusion in. The fire marshal wanted to congratulate Lewis, but the manager told him that if he didn’t deal with the crowd he would be held responsible if a single dollar went missing.
Lewis put his picks away. As soon as the pouch was in his pocket, he and Alfonse made their way to the staircase, dodging in and out of everyone. They were just about to mount the stairs when a light engulfed them and a microphone appeared.
“What’s your name?” the reporter asked, even as her crew filmed the proceedings.
“Uh, Lewis Castorman.”
“How old are you, Lewis?”
“I just turned twelve.”
“Is it true you opened a vault with a paper clip, wire, and a stick of chewing gum?”
“Yes, but it was no big deal.”
“Where did you learn to pick locks like that?”
“My dad’s a locksmith. He taught me lots of stuff.”
“I see. Tell me, Lewis —”
Sensing his friend’s nervousness, Alfonse yelled, “Excuse us, please, we’re late for school!” That said, he shoved the reporter aside and practically hauled Lewis up the stairs, through the lobby, and into the fresh spring air.
No one noticed as they hurried from the scene. They rushed down Grumpel Way and turned right on Grumpel Boulevard as Alfonse kept repeating how great Lewis had been, how the bank would reward him, and how they could use the money to buy stacks and stacks of comics.
Lewis smiled weakly. Although pleased his friend was impressed with his talents, he kept picturing the thief inside the vault. The man’s face had been a ghastly shade of blue, his hands had been swollen, broken maybe, and his eyes had betrayed such intense desperation. Maybe Lewis’s father was in a similar bind, only there wasn’t anyone to rescue him.
His mind was made up. Lewis would phone the police as soon as he got home.
CHAPTER 3
When they entered their school, sweating hard and out of breath, Lewis and Alfonse debated their best course of action.
They could go to the office where, because they were late, a secretary would mark them down for “Grumpel Service.” This service was performed at nine each morning and required students who had done something wrong to compose a speech in praise of Ernst K. Grumpel, the founder and president-for-life of the school. Because the idea of singing his praises sickened them both, they decided to wait until the school broke for recess, at which point they would mix with the rest of the students and pretend they had been attending classes all along. In the meantime they would hide and read Radiation Stories, Alfonse’s latest comic book purchase.
As they moved off to the boiler room, who should spy them but Frederick Winbag?
Mr. Winbag was their principal. Lewis had often wondered why this man was working in a school of all places. The qualities you would expect of a great principal — patience, kindness, a willingness to listen — were exactly the virtues Mr. Winbag lacked. Lewis suspected he had been a sergeant in his youth, whose job had been to break the spirits of the people beneath him.
It didn’t help that Mr. Winbag seemed … unstable. His legs were like matchsticks, but his torso was massive, with an inflated gut that sagged to his knees. His head was as round as a soccer ball, with two popping eyes, a wet red mouth, and a nose that looked like a hunk of cheese. He also wore heavy glasses, which magnified his bulging eyeballs.
“What’s this?” he now demanded, his claw-like hands descending on their shoulders.
“Good morning, Mr. Winbag,” the boys said together.
“Are you arriving just now?” he asked, cracking their bones.
“There was an accident at the bank, sir,” Alfonse gasped.
“You dare,” Mr. Winbag said in a voice that sounded like a knife being sharpened, “you dare enter Mr. Grumpel’s school forty-three and a half minutes late?”
Alfonse winced. “A man was trapped inside a vault. He would have —”
“Do you know how much you owe Mr. Grumpel?” Winbag rumbled, “He’s built a school and hired teachers so spoiled brats like you can work for him one day.”
“You don’t understand!” Alfonse insisted. “Lewis saved someone’s life this morning!”
“How dare you contradict!” Winbag shrieked. “Come with me!”
Moving quickly despite his clumsy frame, he led the boys down an immaculate hallway and past a seven-foot statue of Ernst K. Grumpel and walls that were covered with framed pictures and clippings. Each picture showed Grumpel shaking hands with politicians and receiving a prize for some chemical discovery. The clippings reported stories about his past, from his days as a pharmacist in Mason Springs to his present job as CEO and president of Grumpel Chemicals.
One clipping had always struck Lewis’s notice. It recounted how, some five years earlier, a meteorite had landed on the chemist’s farm — an ordinary stone according to Grumpel’s reports. Two weeks later he had produced his first invention (a tonic that restored men’s hair), and from that point on his fortunes had been sealed. Lewis had always found it strange that the chemist had met with success so soon after this stone’s appearance.
“Don’t move!” Winbag ordered, standing them in front of the maintenance room. Keeping one popping eye on them, he took a jar of polish and some rags from the closet. “Hold this!” he cried, filling their hands with this stuff. Grabbing them again, he swept them past a door that had been locked for as long as Lewis could remember. It led to a swimming pool that had been drained years earlier. The room was strictly off limits to students.
Lewis frowned as he studied the door. Its chain was hanging at a different angle — a locksmith is trained to notice such details — and that meant someone had recently entered the room. Was Grumpel intending to reopen the pool?
Before Lewis could say a word to Alfonse, Winbag hauled them out the school’s front entrance and deposited them below an enormous sign. ERNST K. GRUMPEL SCHOOL, the gleaming two-foot letters read.
“Take these rags,” the principal said, “and polish each letter until I can see my reflection. Maybe then you’ll learn to appreciate Mr. Grumpel’s generosity.”
These orders given, Winbag returned inside. The boys rubbed their shoulders and exchanged bitter looks. The job was enormous. Some of the letters were within easy reach — the ones that spelled out SCHOOL, for example — but ERNST K. GRUMPEL was six feet off the ground and would be hard to clean without a ladder.
“I’ll stand on your shoulders,” Alfonse suggested. “We’ll switch later on.”
“We have no choice,” Lewis agreed, wondering if his friend would be able to lift him.
“And all because you saved a life,” Alfonse muttered. “Too bad I’m not The Bombardier. With a single proton exhalation, Winbag would catch fire and start begging for mercy.”
“Daydreaming won’t help. Let’s get started.”
For the next two hours they worked on the sign. The letters hadn’t been cleaned in ages, and it took a lot of elbow grease to bring them to a shine. Lewis’s shoulders ached from supporting Alfonse. At one stage, while polishing the G in Grumpel, his friend scrubbed so hard that he pitched Lewis off balance. Both went tumbling into a nearby bush.
“What’s going on?” Winbag demanded, exiting the school just then. “I can’t trust you with a simple job!” He stopped in mid-sentence and bowed to the ground. Surprised, the boys spun on their heels.
They should have known. Striding up the path was Elizabeth Grumpel, the chemist’s daughter. As usual she wasn’t alone: four masked bodyguards had her surrounded, and beside the curb was a sea-green limousine, sleek, sinewy, and like a shark.
“Good morning,” Winbag said in his oiliest tone.
“Hi,” she answered dismissively, studying her reflection in the letter H of School. As always, she looked perfect. Tall and athletic, she was dressed in an outfit her father had designed. It was waterproof, wrinkle-proof, dirt-proof, windproof, crease-proof, fireproof, and virtually indestructible. The outfit also changed colour every couple of minutes, as did the chemicals on her nails and hair. Just then she projected a fire-engine red.
“I trust the drive in from your estate was relaxing?” Winbag asked.
“It was awful,” she replied, stroking a silver charm around her neck. “There was a disturbance in the bank, and I was delayed. I stopped off for cocoa to settle my nerves.” She caught sight of Lewis just then. From boredom her expression changed to one of loathing.
Elizabeth Grumpel was a genuine bully. Every day a student would develop a rash, or see things in reverse, or grow hair on his palms, courtesy of potions from her father’s lab. Because Lewis had once put out a fire that had broken out on someone’s shoes — Elizabeth had coated them with a cream called Pyromania — she hated him intensely and was bent on getting even.
“I’m sorry you were delayed,” Winbag said, “and you were wise to get yourself a cup of cocoa. When you see your father next, please send him my regards.”
But Elizabeth had already turned her back on Winbag and was entering the school with her guards in tow. She was eating a candy — a protein cube from Grumpel’s Food Division — and had “accidentally” let the wrapper fall.
“Pick that up!” Winbag yelled at Lewis. “And polish Grumpel before you leave for class — the m and p aren’t shiny enough! And if you’re late again by so much as a second, I’ll make you clean every brick on this building!”
A few minutes later the boys entered their classroom, having to pass the bodyguards who were watching the door. Their teacher, Ms. Widget, eyed them disapprovingly as they quietly took a seat at their desks. Students were reading from their compositions. The topic was “What My Parents Do for a Living.”
Patricia Lagoon was informing everyone how her father was a dentist, only Grumpel Medics owned his practice and helped itself to half his money. “A fair arrangement,” Ms. Widget exclaimed. Patricia’s mother was a gardener, and because Grumpel Greens was the only nursery in town, she happened to work for the chemist, as well.
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p; Lewis wasn’t listening. Instead he was thinking of the boy at the bank and how he had come so close to losing his father, the bank thief. The thought almost made him sick to his stomach.
Bertie Spatula was next. His father was a tailor and dressed the males of Mason Springs. Because he leased his store from Grumpel, he had to pay the chemist a monthly tax. Grumpel also owned his mother’s bookshop and decided the type of books she could sell.
Lewis frowned. He was remembering again the bank thief’s purple complexion and thinking his father needed rescuing, too. Where was he? Where? Why hadn’t he called?
Bill Silver, Jane Trumpet, Sarah Pfisker, John Pumpkin — all of them discussed their parents in turn, describing their positions as mechanics, plumbers, teachers, doctors … All these people worked for Grumpel, and that was why they were paid so poorly and were forced to clock in the most gruelling hours.
Lewis smiled grimly to himself. He had always thought these families were uninteresting, that their jobs were boring and run-of-the-mill, while his parents’ work was challenging and different. But at least these families were intact, whereas his father was absent and —
He started. Elizabeth Grumpel was at the front of the class, stroking her charm and regarding the crowd with a sneer.
“As you know,” she began, her hair and dress a sunny yellow, “your families depend on my father for a living. If he wanted to, he could sack your parents, and it would serve them right, considering their lazy …”
Lewis could sense Alfonse’s mounting anger. It was bad enough he seldom got to see his parents, and all because Grumpel charged a vast sum of rent, but to hear his daughter run them into the ground, well, that was unendurable.
“But never mind that,” she rambled on. “The main point is my father’s products can be found in every house across the globe. Name a recent chemical substance, from cleaners to medicine to special kinds of glue, and you’ll find the name ‘Grumpel’ printed on its label, because my father’s a genius who —”
“A genius who’s running out of steam!” Alfonse yelled, unable to contain himself.
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