by Paul Gamble
Mr. Teach threw his head back and laughed like a bad actor. “You haven’t fathomed my plan yet, have you?”
“Um, no,” Jack admitted. “If you haven’t already figured this out by the fact that I’m tied to a chair, I’m not desperately good at any of this stuff.”
“Then, let me explain,” Mr. Teach gloated.
For some reason villains could never just tell you what they were planning. They had to go into the whole back-story. And it was the same with Mr. Teach. He explained that he was directly descended from the original Blackbeard, who had been called Edward Teach. The original Edward Teach/Blackbeard had been a P.E. teacher.80 Unfortunately in the American colonies there had been limited opportunities for gaining a job in physical education. The original Blackbeard had sat down and thought to himself what his skills were. Being a P.E. teacher, he was good at shouting at people, physical activities, and acts of random cruelty. Apart from as a P.E. teacher, the only other area where these skills would be useful was clearly piracy. And so the P.E. teacher had turned pirate.
Eventually the people of the colonies had gotten fed up with pirates and called in the Ministry. After a number of fraught years and many exciting sea battles, all the pirates were caught and locked up safely in Piratoriums. But Blackbeard refused to accept his fate and, with the help of an Irish pirate called Grace O’Malley,81 he managed to escape from the Piratorium. Their escape was not noticed for several days as they had left behind some dummies in their place. It should be noted that normally dummies of this sort are noticed immediately, given that arms and legs made of artificial materials aren’t very realistic. However, dummies of pirates are much harder to spot given the fact that frequently the real pirates also have arms and legs made of artificial materials.
Blackbeard and Grace settled down, found work as P.E. teachers, and had themselves a family. However, with each generation they passed down their knowledge of piracy, in the hope that one day, one of their descendants would take to the high seas again to rob and plunder.
Since then there had been many generations of pirates born. They always decided to become P.E. teachers. It kept them fit and strong and gave them the opportunity to continue practicing shouting orders and indulging in acts of random cruelty. All the things that pirates delighted in.
Then one day one of the pirates had a brilliant idea. He was the great, great, great, great, et cetera, grandson of the original Edward Teach.
“And that pirate was me,” gloated Mr. Teach. “You see, Jack, we’re digging under and around Northern Ireland so it can float free.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense,” said Jack.
“Oh, but it does. All the wind turbines we’ve placed around the coast aren’t for electric power at all. We’re going to use them to drive the country around like a hovercraft. Northern Ireland will become the world’s largest pirate ship.”
“So why did you need to kidnap the children?”
“Can you imagine how many people it takes to crew a ship the size of a small country? You’ve already met some of my compatriots. The old lady who followed you to the museum is a descendant of Grace O’Malley and Blackbeard too. And we use buried treasure to hire ourselves help like werecreatures or giant moles. But that’s only a short-term measure. Even with all the buried treasure dear old great, great, great, great, great, et cetera, grandfather left us we can’t afford to hire a complete crew for a country-sized frigate. And so we’ve been kidnapping misfit children and training them to be pirates. Most of the kids we take are losers who are made fun of by their friends. They’re normally glad to feel a sense of belonging again. Being a pirate gives them a family. Of course some of them object to having their hands or legs cut off, but after the operation they normally fall in line. If they don’t, we can always threaten to cut off a few more limbs.”
“The people in Northern Ireland won’t stand for this!”
“You could be right, Jack, but that’s why I’ve also been building an ‘enforcer.’ If the people don’t fall into line, either my pirates will make them walk the plank or they’ll be destroyed by my enforcer.”
“You’re insane.”
“Maybe,” smiled Teach, flashing a mouth of golden fillings, “but at least I’m not unconscious.”
“That doesn’t make any…”
Before Jack could finish his sentence Teach smacked Jack across the face with his ebony cane. The world went black again.
* * *
MINISTRY OF S.U.I.T.S HANDBOOK
BURIED TREASURE
DIFFICULTY IN FINDING IT
Technically it is impossible to find buried treasure. When it is underground you can’t find it. However, when you dig it up it is no longer buried. Therefore you have not found buried treasure—you have found until-recently buried treasure. Which is a very different thing.
* * *
43
PILLOW FIGHTS
FRIDAY
Jack had no idea how much time had passed when he came around again. He decided that he really didn’t like being rendered unconscious and he would make a positive effort to avoid having it happen again.
He stood up and looked around him. He was in a small round room with dark, dolerite stone walls. The room was six feet across and was almost completely empty. He had been left lying on the floor with only a small pillow under his head and a woolen blanket thrown over him.
The door looked solid, with a small viewing hatch about five feet off the ground. There was a window in the corner of the room, but it had been boarded up with wooden planks. Jack went over and grabbed one of the planks but he couldn’t budge it so much as an inch. He even tried putting both his feet against the wall and pulling with all of his might, but nothing seemed to work.
The hatch on the door opened. An ugly face with a black eye patch leered in at him.
“Let me out,” said Jack.
“No.”
To be fair, Jack hadn’t expected it to be as easy at that.
“Please let me out.” Jack tried a slightly different, and yet largely similar approach.
“I’m afraid you’re going to be locked in there for quite a while. We’ll bring you two meals a day. But no knives, no forks, only paper plates and cups. Mr. Teach was very clear on that. Nothing that you could use to escape.”
Jack sighed. He had failed.
The pirate at the door spoke again. “So if you want anything, please feel free to let me know. I’ll be sure not to bring it to you.”
The hatch in the door closed and Jack was alone again.
He looked around the room. There had to be something, however small, that he could use to escape. He had a blanket and a pillow. Perhaps if he had been a black belt in pillow fights he could have lured the guard inside and clobbered him with it.
But the guard clearly had very strict instructions and Jack had no doubt that they included not walking inside the cell.
He could have taken the pillow out of its case and filled it with bricks. Then he might have been able to swing it at the door and batter it open. This would have been a good plan if only he had had access to some bricks.
Anyone watching Jack at that precise moment would have thought that he had decided to despair. But he wasn’t despairing. He’d had an idea. He went over to the corner and lay down on the floor. He picked up the pillow and used it to cover his head and face.
Jack had no idea how long it would take to be effective but it was only a few minutes before he heard noises outside his cell.
Jack leapt up and pressed his ear to the cell door. There were two voices. One of them was the pirate guard. The other voice was deeper and more threatening.
“How did you even get in here?”
“You never mind that now. Are you going to get out of my way or not?”
“I can’t allow you in there.”
“Oh, can’t you?” Jack heard the sound of knuckles cracking. “I know my rights. Now you’ve got until I count three. ONE…”
“I
’ve got a baseball bat here and I’m not afraid to use it.”
There was the sound of a brief scuffle and then wood splintering. “You can still use your baseball bat if you want,” said the second voice. “Although if you use it now, it’ll pretty much have to be for firewood or chopsticks.”
“You snapped it in two!”
“Yeah, I did. Which reminds me. TWO…”
“You can’t frighten me,” lied the pirate. He wasn’t fooling anyone.
“THREE.”
There was a sound like a wet fish being hit by an anvil. Jack gasped when the door splintered into a thousand pieces as the pirate came crashing through it. The pirate was clearly unconscious, which had to be considered a good thing, for if he had been awake he would have been in a lot of pain. A LOT of pain.
Jack looked at the guard’s face. It was red and swollen, and Jack would have sworn the nose was in a slightly different position than it had been before.
Suddenly Jack thought that there had been a total eclipse of the sun. Of course it wasn’t a total eclipse. It was an enormous man standing in the doorway blocking out light from the corridor.
The man had to hold his head at an angle to avoid hitting the top of the door frame. He was six and a half feet tall and two and a half feet wide with arms that looked like socks stuffed with cannonballs.
Most disturbingly of all, he was wearing a pink tutu.
He stepped into the room so he could stand upright again. “I’m the Tooth Fairy,” he growled. “We’ve met before.”
Jack’s plan had been simple. He’d put his head under the pillow knowing that any teeth left under a pillow belonged to the Tooth Fairy. He remembered that was how the Minister had lost his teeth.
He had expected the Tooth Fairy to turn up, but hadn’t expected it to turn out this well. Originally he had just hoped the Tooth Fairy would have taken a message for him to the outside world. The fact that the pirate had ended up in a crumpled heap was a bonus. Jack decided he would never antagonize the Tooth Fairy.
“Hello, Mr. Tooth Fairy.”
“Those teeth were under the pillow. They belong to me now.” The Tooth Fairy pointed at Jack’s mouth.
Jack’s plan had been brilliant, but only up to a point. The pirate and the door had been the two barriers to his escape. Both had been easily dealt with. The problem was that Jack had not figured out how he was going to avoid giving the Tooth Fairy his teeth.
“Umm, about that. It was just a mistake.”
The Tooth Fairy gave Jack a hard look. “Mistakes don’t matter.” The Tooth Fairy produced a pair of pincers seemingly from nowhere.82 “Now, open wide.”
This was not going to be pleasant. “Wait a minute,” said Jack. “Can we at least put this off until later?”
“I’m a busy man. Why should I wait?”
Jack racked his brains for a convincing reason. “Look, I can’t imagine you care about the fate of the people of Northern Ireland…”
The Tooth Fairy snorted to indicate that he really didn’t.
“But I’ve just discovered that Chapeau Noir Enterprises and Mr. Teach have a plan to turn the entire country into a floating ship. And if they do that, think of how hard it would be to keep track of where the country was. And if you didn’t know where the country was, how would you be able to catch people to take their teeth?”
The Tooth Fairy thought about this for a moment. “And you’re going to stop him?”
Jack nodded. “I’m going to try.”
The Tooth Fairy took a minute to think. “How about this: I come back for your teeth next week. For now I let you go.”
“That would be appreciated,” said Jack with relief.
“But just keep in mind. I’m coming back.…” He waved the pincers menacingly.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to forget. And if I do forget, I’ll probably remember in my nightmares.”
“Until later.”
The Tooth Fairy turned to walk out the door. Jack was amazed by how hairy the Tooth Fairy’s shoulders were. A tutu definitely wasn’t a good look for a man of his size.
“Um, one more thing, before you go, I don’t suppose you could give me a lift back to the Ministry.”
The Tooth Fairy turned and growled at him.
Jack smiled persuasively.
“Don’t go wasting all your smiles. Those teeth belong to me now.”
Jack stopped smiling and made a whimpering noise.
* * *
MINISTRY OF S.U.I.T.S HANDBOOK
TUTUS
SELECTION OF COLORS
Tutus, of course, come in many different colors, not just pink. Many people have wondered why the Tooth Fairy’s was pink.
* * *
The answer, of course, was simple. He thought he would have looked stupid in a white one.
* * *
44
WHAT’S IN THE GLOVE BOX?
Jack bounded down a long spiral staircase. He was astonished to realize that he had been imprisoned inside Scrabo Tower. It was something of a local tourist attraction. A large tower on top of a hill in the middle of the countryside. It looked a bit like the kind of tower that Rapunzel would have been put in if the evil witch who had imprisoned her hadn’t liked pink so much and had been working on a very tight budget.
Once outside, the Tooth Fairy pointed to a black, rusty Ford Cortina parked on the edge of the hill. Jack was fairly sure that you were meant to park at the bottom of the hill and walk up. But who would have been brave enough to tell the Tooth Fairy that?
The Tooth Fairy took a key ring out of his pocket. It was made from the tooth of a tiger, covered in solid gold. He spun the key around his finger and opened the car’s doors. “Jump in, kid. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have time to waste.”
Jack scrambled into the passenger seat and put on his seat belt. The Tooth Fairy nodded his approval. “Seat belt. Smart kid. You know how many kids lose their teeth due to a car braking too quickly?”
Jack was confused. “Your teeth can fall out if a car brakes too quickly?”
“They can if your mouth smacks into the dashboard.”
“Does that really happen often?”
The Tooth Fairy reached over in front of Jack and opened the glove box. Hundreds of teeth spilled out of it, falling onto Jack’s lap. “Happens all the time.”
The Tooth Fairy slammed his foot onto the accelerator. He was not a careful driver. Occasionally they would come across a hiker and the Tooth Fairy would have to spin the wheel and slam on the brakes to screech and skid around them. Jack was very glad that he had worn his seat belt which, no doubt, saved him a substantial amount of dental work.
A man was waving frantically in the distance. He wore a green uniform and cap.
“I think he wants us to stop,” said Jack.
“Yeah, he didn’t want me to park on the hill on the way in either. Seems like he’s not going to get what he wants today.”
The Tooth Fairy pressed the accelerator further and the car raced toward the frantically waving man. Jack wondered at what stage the man in the uniform would stop waving and shouting and realize that his life was in danger from an almost certainly insane man in a pink tutu who was driving a black Ford Cortina.
Suddenly the man in the green cap stopped waving. He realized that the car wasn’t slowing. He took several large steps to the left. The Tooth Fairy adjusted his steering so the front of the car was still pointing toward the man in the cap.
The man in the cap moved to the right. The Tooth Fairy adjusted his steering again.
“You can’t run him down!” Jack shouted.
The Tooth Fairy looked at Jack. “Yes, yes I can.”
“Okay,” said Jack, “I said that wrong; what I meant was you shouldn’t do it.”
“That’s probably true,” agreed the Tooth Fairy. “But he shouted at me when I drove up the hill, and I’ve got a very bad attitude.”
The man was now zigzagging back and forth, but it didn’t do hi
m any good. The Tooth Fairy was an excellent, if psychopathic, driver. No matter where the man in the cap ran, the Tooth Fairy adjusted the wheel so the car remained pointing at him.
Jack got ready to close his eyes. The man with the cap had given up and had stopped running. He had put his hands together and appeared to be praying now.
At the last minute the Tooth Fairy pulled the steering wheel hard to the right. The car spun in a balletic circle and stopped inches before it hit the man. The man looked around. “I’m not dead.”
The Tooth Fairy leaned out the car window and punched him in the face. “Maybe that’ll teach you not to shout at people.”
The man sailed through the air and landed with a thump on the ground.
“You aren’t a very nice person, are you?” said Jack.
“Not particularly,” said the Tooth Fairy.
The Tooth Fairy dropped Jack outside the front of the museum. “Cheers,” said Jack as he leapt out of the car and ran up the steps.
The Tooth Fairy called after him. “Make sure your mum buys some soup and ice cream on her next weekly shopping trip.”
Jack was puzzled. “Why?”
The Tooth Fairy held up the pincers. “Because you’ll want to have food that you can eat with just your gums.”
A shudder passed through Jack’s body. The Tooth Fairy laughed and then roared away in a cloud of black smoke.
* * *
MINISTRY OF S.U.I.T.S HANDBOOK
TIGER’S TEETH
HOW YOU SHOULD REMOVE THEM FROM A TIGER’S MOUTH
Very, very carefully.
* * *
45
“WE MUST DO SOMETHING IMMEDIATELY”
Jack zipped through the museum, headed straight for the Takabuti room. Once there he pressed the three fingernails on the stone hand that caused the sarcophagus to slide open and darted underground.
Jack found Grey in what seemed to be a Ministry common room. The walls were lined with leatherbound books and long velvet curtains. Ruby-red wingback chairs sat spaced across the floor.