by Paul Gamble
“I understand,” said Jack solemnly.
“I don’t think you do.” David shook his head. “Corner stores are dangerous. My Uncle Cecil was once almost crushed to death by a delivery of the Sunday papers.”
* * *
MINISTRY OF S.U.I.T.S HANDBOOK
EVIL SCIENTISTS
CAREER PATH
If you want to be an evil scientist, it’s worthwhile consulting your school’s career adviser or guidance counselor. You will need to study all the sciences and achieve good grades in them.
The only other qualification that you need is the ability to look sinister and evil while stroking a white Persian cat that is wearing a diamond collar.
* * *
Sadly the careers of many evil scientists have been ruined before they even properly got started due to a cat-hair allergy.
* * *
21
BACK DOOR AND BLACK DOOR
At the end of the day Trudy was standing outside the front gates waiting. Jack had just called his parents to tell them he was going to Trudy’s for tea and would be home late.
“What are we doing tonight, then?” asked Jack.
“Training.” Trudy smiled. “Tonight I take you to the Misery.”
“The Misery? I don’t really like the sound of that.”
Jack had a suspicion that training was going to be hard. But he hadn’t expected it to be miserable.
“Look, I’m sure training’s important and everything, but the reason I joined up with the Ministry was to try and find out if the box of spares is caused by odd kids going missing. I just want to make sure that David doesn’t end up … missing.”
“Okay, well, we could go out and try and find out if someone is kidnapping the missing kids.”
“Great!”
“Of course, then we’d have to stop them somehow. Do you feel strong enough to fight a gang of sinister kidnappers?”
Jack admitted that he wasn’t exactly ready for that eventuality.
“And that’s why tonight you’re going to get trained,” Trudy said, ramming her point home.
The Ministry car had pulled up outside the school. Jack held his breath and clambered into the back of the smelly car.
When they reached the museum Jack headed for the elevator. Trudy caught his arm. “Not that way.”
“But I thought this was the way in? I mean, the stone giants and…”
Trudy shook her head. “Kevin and Barry are all right, but it’s a lot quicker to sneak in the back entrance.”
Trudy led Jack up a flight of stairs and into the mummy exhibit.
Jack had visited this room before on a school trip. It held the remains of the Lady Takabuti, an ancient blackened mummy. Her skin was dark, withered, and leathery. But that was understandable considering she was more than two and a half thousand years old and had been born in an era before moisturizer. She lay beside her intricate sarchophagus, which was covered in tiny hieroglyphics.
“She gives me the creeps,” said Jack, leaning over the glass case and looking into the empty eye sockets of the ancient, bandaged corpse.
Trudy shot a disapproving look at Jack. “Don’t say that, Jack. She might hear you.”
Jack looked startled. “What, you mean she’s alive?”
Trudy laughed at Jack. “Don’t be ridiculous. She’s been dead for more than two thousand years.”
“I knew that,” Jack said, pretending to be considerably braver than he felt.
“But she still might hear you.”
Jack stood quietly. “She can still hear even if she’s dead?”
“Yeah, mummies. You’ve seen the movies. Part alive, mostly dead, wander around attacking people.”
Jack thought that was all make-believe, but from his recent experience with the Ministry he knew that was not the right thing to say.
“Don’t worry about her now, though; generally she’s asleep during the day. She only gets up when the museum’s closed. She’s kind of like the night-watch-woman.”
Jack didn’t want to think about that. “So you were going to show me a back door?”
Trudy looked around and confirmed that they were the only visitors in the mummy display. She reached over to a gray stone object—an enormous sculpture of a hand, which presumably had broken off of a much larger statue. She pressed three of the fingernails40 in a rapid sequence. There was a brief sliding noise and the glass case that had surrounded Takabuti and her sarcophagus lifted upward.
Jack silently prayed that he wasn’t going to have to move the blackened corpse to get to the back door.
“Follow me,” commanded Trudy as she walked over to the display. She reached out a hand, and for a minute Jack thought she was going to touch the mummy. Instead she had grabbed ahold of the front of the sarcophagus. It was sitting beside the actual mummy, looking much friendlier with a pleasant, painted face.41 Trudy moved the lid and Jack was shocked to see that it was secured to the display by hinges. Trudy jumped up on the display. She started walking down stairs and into a hole that had been hidden underneath the lid of the smiling sarcophagus.
“Hurry up!” insisted Trudy. “The whole setup is on a timer switch. In about thirty seconds the sarcophagus lid snaps shut and the glass display pops back up.”
Jack followed her quickly.
“It doesn’t pay to dawdle when you’re using the back entrance. One time I was slow and got trapped underneath the glass display. No one came and got me out for thirty minutes. Let me tell you, it isn’t fun having school trips of primary school children pointing at you and saying that you don’t look particularly Egyptian.”
After the first fifteen or twenty meters the stairs started curving to the right and spiraling downward.
Trudy and Jack walked along one of the Ministry’s corridors until they came to a door made of rotten timber. At one stage it had been painted black, but the paint had clearly grown tired and was starting to flake off.
Trudy knocked on the door. Instead of hearing a rap, there was a dull echo. “I’d say try and enjoy yourself, but it really won’t be possible.”
“What’s going to make the training so miserable?”
“What makes it so miserable is the Misery,” said Trudy.
Jack opened the door.
* * *
MINISTRY OF S.U.I.T.S HANDBOOK
MUMMIES
THE WEARING OF BANDAGES
Over the years many people have wondered why the ancient Egyptians covered their dead in bandages. Given even a minute’s thought, the answer is obvious. When people were unwell in Ancient Egypt they would go to the doctor. Ancient Egyptian doctors had no penicillin, they had no X-ray machines, and they had no vaccines or antibiotics.
What they did have was a lot of bandages.
Therefore, when you went to the doctor in Egypt you generally got covered in bandages. Many people who did get sick went on to die. They were then buried in the bandages they already had on … because … who wants to use a bandage that has been used on a corpse?
It is also interesting to note that many archaeologists now believe that the number-one cause of death in Ancient Egypt was “Accidental Smothering Due to Excessive Bandages.” The number-two cause was crocodile bite.42
* * *
22
THE MISERY
Jack looked inside the room and saw a slouched figure wearing a pair of black jeans and a large, black, baggy, hand-knitted sweater with the letter M in white on the front. Initially he couldn’t see the figure’s face at all because its head was facing toward the floor. All that was visible was a mop of black, greasy, tangled hair.
“Jack Pearse, meet the Misery,” said Trudy.
The head of the Misery snapped up as it heard its name. It was a he. He looked to be about fourteen, but it was hard to tell in the gloom. The Misery looked at Trudy and Jack in the same way you would look at dog poo that you had just stepped in. He sighed.
Jack held out a hand to be shaken. The Misery stared at Jack’s h
and as if he had never seen one before. Jack put his hand back down by his side.
“We’re here for training, Misery.”
The Misery sighed. “I was just getting myself ready to go out.” The Misery sighed again. “And now … this?”
“Afraid so,” said Trudy.
“… I suppose we’d better begin.”
Jack wasn’t actually sure how large the Misery’s room was, because all he could see was an infinity of darkness. Walls could have been just out of view, or they might not have existed at all. The Misery slouched off into the gloom and returned with six glass bottles filled with water. He put them at Jack’s feet.
“These are bottles.” The Misery pointed at the bottles.
“Bottles,” agreed Jack. So far the training was turning out to be easier than he thought it would be.
The Misery picked up one of the bottles and walked ten paces away from Jack. Jack looked over his shoulder—Trudy was smiling. That made Jack nervous.
Still slouching, the Misery stretched one arm out. “Now, Jack Pearse, catch the bottle.”
The Misery let go of the bottle. It fell to the ground and shattered before Jack could take a single step.
The Misery sighed and shook his head in despair. “Too slow. You moron. You absolute moron.”
“How on earth was I meant to…?” But before he could complete his sentence the Misery had pressed his face right into Jack’s. The Misery had moved the ten paces in a fraction of a second.
“Jack Pearse doesn’t get to talk until he catches a bottle. Jack Pearse is a moron. Jack Pearse has no friends.”
“Now, wait a minute…,” said Jack.
“I could wait a minute; I could wait an hour. But it doesn’t really matter, does it? Jack Pearse isn’t going to get any smarter, or faster, or better-looking.”
Before Jack could complain further, the Misery picked up another bottle and walked ten paces away. He held the bottle out in front of himself. “Catch the bottle, Jack Pearse.”
The Misery dropped the bottle. Jack almost managed half a step before the bottle shattered on the floor.
The Misery stared at Trudy. “Couldn’t you have brought me a monkey instead of Jack Pearse? You can train monkeys. I can’t train”—the Misery looked at Jack with disdain—“I can’t train whatever this is.”
“I didn’t come here to be insulted,” said Jack.
Once more the Misery had moved fast and was leering directly into Jack’s face. “No? Where do you normally go to be insulted? I hope you don’t pay them too much to insult you. It’s very easy to do. I have rarely seen a creature more ugly than you.”
Jack balled up a fist and swung it at the Misery’s head, but the Misery ducked under it as if it was moving in slow motion. Before Jack could react, the Misery was standing behind him. As Jack turned around to meet him, the Misery shouted at the top of his voice, “What makes you think you could ever hit me!” Little pieces of saliva flew out of the Misery’s mouth as he bellowed.
The Misery picked up another bottle and walked across the room, talking as he went. “You are such a dull person. A slow person. A boring person. A person who can’t even catch a bottle!”
The Misery dropped the bottle. Jack didn’t even manage a half step this time. The bottle shattered and the Misery sighed.
“I’m never going to be able to catch the bottles!” Jack shouted. “So let’s get this over with.” He picked up the three remaining bottles that were left at his feet and threw them across the room in different directions. He smiled at the Misery. “Game over.”
The Misery shook his head and then blurred into action. He moved faster than anything Jack had ever seen in his life. He ran toward the bottle that Jack had thrown first and jumped into the air, spinning. A hand snapped out of the black rotating mass and grabbed the bottle. Then, quick as a flash, the Misery landed in a crouching position and sprinted toward the second bottle Jack had thrown. The second bottle was closer to the ground but the Misery caught it with two feet to spare.
There was one bottle left, but it was too close to the ground for the Misery to catch. Wasn’t it? The Misery launched himself so quickly it looked like he was flying horizontally along the ground. Before he got to the bottle he tucked his head and went into a forward roll. One of the Misery’s pale, bony hands shot out and caught the bottle. As the bottle had been falling it had turned on its side and several droplets of water had fallen out. The Misery’s hand moved the bottle so expertly and quickly that all the drops of water fell back into the bottle instead of hitting the ground.
Holding all three bottles, the Misery walked back, moving at an ordinary pace. He set two of the bottles down in front of Jack. The third he took ten paces away.
Jack gulped. “Okay, we’ll do these last three bottles. You can shout at me all you want. But after we’ve done three bottles that’s it, right?”
For the first time there was a hint of a smile playing around the Misery’s lips. The smile lingered briefly before it realized that there had to be a better place for it to be. “Trudy?”
“Yes, Misery?”
“There’s another crate of bottles in the back there.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, indicating a direction in the darkness. “Go and fetch it for me.”
Trudy wandered off into the darkness. Although he couldn’t see her, Jack heard her huffing and straining with effort as she picked something up that rattled annoyingly.
The Misery’s hand snapped out. The single word “catch” escaped his lips and another bottle dropped to the ground.
Jack felt like crying. Was he going to be stuck in a dark room with this maniac forever?
* * *
MINISTRY OF S.U.I.T.S HANDBOOK
THE MISERY
WHAT MAKES HIM SO MISERABLE
SECTION DELETED BY NERVOUS EDITOR43
* * *
23
CATCHING A BOTTLE
Time passed. The Misery had gone through an entire milk crate’s worth of bottles, and Jack had yet to take more than a single step before the bottle hit the ground and shattered. The Misery had started on a second crate. Each time Jack failed the impossible task the Misery shouted at him and called him horrible names. The names fell into one of three categories. There were (i) names that were unfair, (ii) names that might have been unfair as Jack had not known what they meant, and (iii) names that Jack was fairly sure were medically incorrect and used out of context.
Jack had pleaded to be allowed to leave the room. He’d said he would give up working for the Ministry. He’d said that he wouldn’t mention any of this to anyone. And yet the Misery ignored everything he said and kept dropping bottles.
“I hate this. I hate you,” said Jack. “This is the worst day of my life.”
The minute he said those words the Misery looked at him with his head tilted to one side. “Let’s see just how bad,” he sneered. As usual, the Misery’s hand snapped out and he dropped a bottle. Jack couldn’t have felt worse. He took a step toward the bottle. Then another step. He’d taken two steps and yet he hadn’t heard the bottle shatter. Jack took a third step, then a fourth. He looked up. The bottle seemed to be hanging in midair, moving down perhaps, but incredibly slowly. Jack sprinted the final six steps and managed to catch the bottle before it hit the ground. He had stopped it a bare inch before it hit the ground. But he had caught it.
“I caught the bottle!” Jack yelled.
Trudy clapped her hands together with excitement.
For an instant there was a smile on the Misery’s face, but it was quickly replaced with a scowl. “Big deal.”
Jack realized what had been happening. The Misery had made him so unhappy that time seemed to drag, which in turn allowed him to move faster than lightning.
“So I can do what Trudy can do now?” Jack asked.
The Misery snorted with laughter. “Not yet—not even close. You need to practice.”
“Practice what?”
“Well, every time you need
The Speed, you can’t rely on me being there to make you miserable. You need to be able to conjure up that feeling of unhappiness instantly.”
“And how do I do that?”
The Misery shrugged. “Think of something sad. Something that makes you unhappy.”
“And…”
“And I’ve had enough stupid questions for one night,” the Misery said, putting up a hand to silence Jack. “Now get out of here; I’ve got a lot of sweeping up to do.”
“But…” Before Jack could say anything more Trudy put a finger to her lips to keep him silent. As she was leading Jack out of the room he looked back and saw the Misery reach into the darkness and grab a broom.
* * *
Jack and Trudy stood outside the Misery’s room. “Well, that was intense.”
“Yeah, the first training session’s always like that,” said Trudy. “It gets easier from here on in.”
“Well, it couldn’t get any harder, could it? I don’t imagine the Misery has many friends.”
“He doesn’t have any. He’s kind of tragic, really. I feel sorry for him.”
Jack found it difficult to feel sorry for someone who had spent so many hours making him feel deeply unhappy. “I’d better be getting home now. We were in there for ages. My parents will be…” Jack looked at his watch and was shocked to see that only half an hour had passed. He looked at Trudy. “We were only in there thirty minutes! How is that possible?”
“How many times do I have to explain? You were unhappy. When you’re unhappy time slows down.”
“The Misery called it ‘The Speed.’”
“Yeah, I don’t think there’s actually a proper name for it. But that’s what the Misery calls it. And no one wants to argue with him.”
“Shouldn’t we tell people about The Speed? I mean, think how useful it would be to businesses. Think about how productive they could be.”
Trudy laughed. “You think businesses don’t know about this?”
“They do?”
“Of course they do. But no one ever talks about it because it’s immoral to make people miserable to get more work out of them. Think about it, Jack. Think of restaurants. Which ones serve food the fastest?”