“There’s no such place,” Lewis objected.
“Of course there is,” said Greg. “You should pay more attention in geography.”
Susie chuckled. “Oh, Greg, the things you say.”
Lewis shook his head. “Where are we going?”
“Do you not remember when Dad took us all here for lunch? There’s a back door we can use. Just in case Loki has a snowman hanging about out front.”
As they emerged from the back of the hotel they faced the full blast of the icy wind sweeping across the golf course from the sea.
“See, there’s the Swilken Bridge there,” said Greg pointing a gloved finger. The bridge was just an arch of snow now surrounded by more snow.
“That’s where Dad says Loki found his magic box,” said Lewis. “But what was it doing there in the first place?”
“Beats me,” said Greg, striking out past a row of golf shops.
Lewis and Susie fell in behind him. “Should we not call the government or the army?” asked Susie as they turned the corner into North Street.
“And tell them what?” said Greg. “That there are gods or aliens or monsters on the streets of St Andrews and they’re the ones that are making it snow?”
“I see your point,” said Susie. “It’s at times like this you wish you had Dr Who’s phone number.”
“If only we knew what Loki was up to,” said Lewis.
“Last time he was here he was pretty much trying to take over the world,” Greg recalled.
“That’s standard for aliens, taking over the world,” said Susie grimly. “Their own planet’s always dying or something.”
“We need to come up with a plan,” said Greg.
“That’s going to be hard seeing as we’ve no idea what we’re doing,” said Lewis.
“That’s the point, Lewis. Once we have a plan we’ll know what we’re doing. Try to be positive.”
Lewis frowned in thought. “Well, I suppose, once we get home I could look through those books of Norse mythology I’ve got. And maybe we can find out something about Larry O’Keefe on the internet.”
“Now you’re thinking like a boss,” Greg complimented him. “I’ll see if I can rig up a flamethrower to take care of any ice monsters.”
“A flamethrower?” said Susie sceptically. “Greg, you nearly blew yourself up fiddling with your mum’s coffee maker.”
“This is different,” said Greg. “I’m in war mode now.”
“Maybe we can shelve the flamethrower until things get desperate,” suggested Lewis.
“At this rate,” said Susie, slogging through the snow, “it’s going to take us all day to get back to your place.”
“You’re right,” Lewis agreed. “This is a nightmare. And it doesn’t seem to slow Loki down at all.”
“He probably comes from an ice planet,” said Susie. “That would explain a lot.”
She broke off short as up ahead a pair of headlights stabbed through the gloom and a 4x4 Land Rover came into view.
“That’s my dad!” exclaimed Susie. She waved her hockey stick over her head and yelled, “Hey, Dad! Over here!”
The vehicle pulled up and the passenger door swung open. Susie dived into the front and the boys got in back. Mr Spinetti had the heater on and it was a relief to be in the warm.
“What are you doing here?” Susie asked.
“Looking for you,” answered Mr Spinetti as the car started moving again. “We tried phoning but the network’s all messed up.”
Greg slipped out his phone and confirmed that it wasn’t working.
“You were supposed to be chucking snowballs around on Bannock Street,” Mr Spinetti continued. “What are you doing down here?”
“We got carried away,” said Susie. “You know what it’s like.”
“I don’t mind losing my kids in the Amazon jungle,” said Mr Spinetti, shifting gears, “but losing them in St Andrews would be embarrassing.”
Susie chortled. “You’ll not lose me that easy, Dad.”
“This weather is ludicrous,” said Mr Spinetti. “Most of the roads out of St Andrews are blocked already.”
“I suppose hockey camp will be cancelled,” said Susie glumly.
“Keep your fingers crossed,” said her dad. “Maybe it’ll all clear up by tomorrow.”
They passed a council snowplough, its yellow lights flashing as it struggled through the drifts. Nearby, some hardly soul was trying to clear his front path with a shovel. When they pulled up in front the McBride house in Bannock Street, the boys saw there was a layer of snow a foot deep on the roof and the windows glinted with frost. Because it was so dark outside, all the lights were switched on.
“Thanks for the ride, Mr Spinetti,” said Lewis and Greg as they climbed out.
Susie threw open her door as well. “I’ll stay here with the boys,” she said. “We could get back to our game of Star Blaster 3.”
“I told your mum I’d bring you home,” said Mr Spinetti.
“You don’t want me sitting around our house being bored, do you?” Susie challenged him.
Lewis saw the side of her dad’s mouth twitch as though at an unpleasant memory. “No, I definitely don’t want that. You’ll stay put at the McBrides’ though?”
“Where else can I go in this?” said Susie, gesturing at the weather.
Inside, the heating was on full blast and it was as warm as toast. They all stripped off their coats and hats and trooped up to Lewis’ room.
“I’ll handle the online search,” said Susie, plonking herself down at the desk. There was a bar of chocolate next to the mouse mat. She pounced on it and wolfed it down while the computer started up.
Greg stood over her, watching the screen. “You might have shared that,” he complained.
“Too slow, Greg, too slow.” Susie grabbed the mouse and clicked on an icon. She clicked again and again then shoved the mouse aside with a grunt. “It’s no use. Your broadband’s down.”
She swivelled the chair round to face Lewis, who was sitting on the bed leafing through a book of Norse legends.
“You’re wasting your time with those fairy stories,” she told him.
“There’s a lot of truth in these old myths,” Lewis insisted, without looking up.
“He’s right,” Greg agreed. “We’ve seen it with our own eyes.”
“Honestly, you two are that gullible,” scoffed Susie. “I mean, ask yourselves which is more likely: that this guy with the ginger beard is a magical god from some ancient fantasy land or that he’s an alien using a superior technology? Like when they ran into Apollo on that episode of Star Trek.”
“At the end of the day, it doesn’t make much difference,” said Greg. “We need to get an edge. Let’s go talk to Dad again. Maybe Loki let something slip while they were playing golf.”
Downstairs, they found Mum in the living room watching the news.
“The BBC news is the only channel that’s not breaking up,” she said. “It looks like I’m going to miss tonight’s episode of The Inspector Golightly Mysteries.”
On the TV a reporter was talking to the camera. The caption below said he was in Strathkinness, just outside St Andrews. Behind him was a swirling cloud of white where St Andrews should have been.
“All roads in and out of the town are now completely blocked,” the reporter said, “and all efforts by the emergency services to break through have failed. With me here is the climatologist Dr Oscar Blintz, author of the book Climate Change and the Way We Live.”
Even as they watched, the picture began to flicker and break up into tiny squares.
“Where’s Dad?” asked Greg.
“Oh he’s out back with our visitor,” Mum replied.
Lewis felt a tingle of dread. “Visitor? It’s not Larry O’Keefe, is it?”
“No,” said Mum, “His name is Spanner or something.”
“Spanner?” said Greg.
“Or Screwdriver, something like that,” said Mum. She tossed the remote co
ntrol aside. “This is hopeless. Tell you what, Susie, why don’t we have a mug of hot chocolate and watch a DVD?”
“That would be brilliant, Mrs Mac,” Susie replied. “Have you got any chocolate digestives? I’m starved.”
While Mum and Susie disappeared into the kitchen, Lewis and Greg grabbed their coats and hats from the hallway. They pulled them on as they went out through the back garden where Dad was standing in his overcoat and his old tweed bonnet, puffing on his pipe. The garage door was wide open. Inside, a broad-shouldered stranger was rummaging around among the tools and piles of old furniture.
“This is Mr Sven Mallet,” Dad explained. “He says we have something that belongs to him. Mr Mallet, these are my two sons, Greg and Lewis.”
Mallet waved an acknowledgment without looking round. He had long blond hair and was dressed in jeans and a leather vest. He was barely more than five feet tall but he was nearly that broad with muscles that bulged as he heaved the big lawnmower out of the garage. He set it aside as if it weighed nothing.
“He must have a screw loose, walking around in a blizzard dressed like that,” Greg muttered aside to Lewis.
“Aren’t you getting kind of chilly in that outfit, Mr Mallet?” Lewis asked their visitor.
“I don’t much feel the cold,” Mallet answered in a thick foreign accent. He turned just enough for them to glimpse a round, ruddy face with a short cropped beard before he returned to his search.
“What kind of an accent is that?” asked Greg. “Russian?”
“Scandinavian, I think,” said Lewis.
Greg leaned close to Dad and said, “Where did he come from? He looks like he’s lost his motor bike.”
“He just turned up at the front door,” said Dad. “Said he’d lost something around here and could he have a look in the garage.”
“That’s a bit odd, isn’t it?” said Lewis.
Dad shrugged. “He seems harmless enough, and I didn’t like to turn somebody away in this weather. Any luck yet, Mr Mallet?” he asked raising his voice.
At that point a gust of wind caused the garage door to swing down and clang shut with the visitor inside. Greg caught hold of the handle and tried to swing the door open, but it wouldn’t budge.
“It’s jammed again,” he said.
“Are you all right in there, Mr Mallet?” Dad called out.
The answer was a heavy blow from inside that made the heavy metal door shiver.
“Boys, I think we’d better stand back,” Dad advised.
The three of them beat a hasty retreat just in time. The next instant a powerful blow sent the door flying up with a clang. Sven Mallet stepped out, his round face alight. “Ja! Ja! Here it is!” he exclaimed excitedly.
In his hand he held a large metal hammer. Lewis saw it was inlaid with Norse runes. Mallet heaved the hammer into the air and declared, “At last Mjolnir is mine again!”
“I’ve never seen that before,” said Dad, bemused.
Mallet tossed the hammer back and forth from hand to hand, beaming joyfully.
Lewis swallowed hard. “I think I know who this guy is,” he said.
“Let me take a guess,” said Greg. “Rumpelstiltskin?”
“He’s Thor,” said Lewis, “the god of thunder.”
“Oh great,” said Greg. “As if the weather wasn’t bad enough!”
4. Your own Personal Avalanche
“What’s that, son?” Dad queried. “Thor, you say?”
“What I mean, Dad, is that he looks like a picture of Thor in one of my mythology books,” Lewis explained hastily.
“I expect half the engineers in Norway look like that,” said Dad. “You did say you were from Norway, didn’t you, Mr Mallet?”
“Something like that,” said the newcomer. “And call me Sven.”
“Dad, why don’t we take Sven inside for a cup of tea,” Greg suggested.
“Good idea,” Dad agreed. “You take care of that while I have a few more puffs on the old pipe.”
There was no smoking allowed in the house, so Dad was always glad of an excuse to step outside with his pipe, even on a day like this.
“Come on, Sven,” said Lewis, leading the blond-haired man inside. “I’ll make some tea.”
“Have you any foodstuffs?” Mallet asked. “A whole roast boar I could eat.”
“We can probably manage some sandwiches,” said Greg.
They could hear Mum and Susie laughing over their hot chocolate in the front room. They were watching one of the Ice Age films. Greg directed their visitor upstairs. “Head up to the first room on the left. That’s mine. We’ll be up shortly.”
The stranger marched up the steps, swinging his hammer at his side. Greg and Lewis took off their coats and hats and went into the kitchen.
“Are you sure he’s Thor?” asked Greg as he rummaged in the fridge for cheeses and slices of cold meat. “Another Norse god? You’d think he’d be taller.”
“Just because somebody’s important, it doesn’t mean they have to be tall,” said Lewis, who was a little sensitive about his own height. “Didn’t you see how short Garth Makepeace was in that photo?”
“I can’t say I paid him much mind once I’d spotted Loki.”
Susie bustled in to mix herself a fresh mug of chocolate. “So how’s it going, boys?” she asked. “Have you dug up anything new?”
“We’re working on it,” said Lewis evasively.
Susie stirred her chocolate and took a sip. “You know, I’ve been giving this business some thought, and it may not be as big a deal as you make out.”
“Is that so?” said Greg.
“Susie, there’s a packet of bourbon creams in the cupboard,” Mum called through from the other room.
“Got you, Mrs Mac,” Susie replied. She turned back to Greg. “Look, this O’Keefe might only be here on a scouting expedition. Maybe he’ll just nose around town for a while, then fly back to Pluto.”
“If he’s only scouting,” said Lewis, “then why all the snow?”
Susie rolled her eyes. “I already told you, he’s from an ice planet. Don’t you listen? He’s adapted the environment to suit his alien metabolism, that’s all.”
She grabbed the bourbon creams out of the cupboard and headed back to the TV. “Let me know if anything turns up,” she said as the kitchen door closed behind her.
“It worries me that she sounds more sensible than we do,” Lewis muttered.
“That’s only because she doesn’t understand what’s really going on,” said Greg.
Lewis collected a big bottle of Irn-Bru and three plastic tumblers while Greg threw together an assortment of sandwiches. They took them upstairs on a tray and found Thor asleep on Greg’s bed. The rune-carved hammer lay on the floor at his side.
As Lewis cleared space on the desk to set the tray down, Greg took the hammer by its handle and tried to lift it. It wouldn’t budge. “It weighs a ton,” he grunted. “What did he call it?”
“Mjolnir,” said Lewis. “That was the name of Thor’s hammer in the Norse myths.”
Greg gave up and left the hammer on the carpet. “And what exactly was it doing in our garage?” he asked.
“I suppose we could ask him,” Lewis suggested.
“Mr Mallet, time to wake up,” Greg said. When there was no response he raised his voice. “Yo, Thor! Wakey wakey!”
The visitor sat straight up and blinked at the boys. “Call me Sven,” he yawned. He swung his short, heavily muscled legs around so he was sitting on the edge of the bed.
“But you are Thor, right? The god of thunder?” Lewis asked.
“I sure am. But usually it’s a bad idea to go around telling folk that.”
Greg presented Thor with the plate of sandwiches. The god of thunder took two cheese and pickle and munched on them hungrily.
“You were quick to spot who I am,” he said between bites. “Most people don’t have belief in the old gods.”
“You’re not the first god we’ve met,” said L
ewis.
“A few months ago we had a run in with Loki,” said Greg as he poured them each a tumbler of Irn-Bru.
“Loki! That wormbag!” Anger flashed in Thor’s eyes. He crammed the rest of his sandwiches into his mouth, chewed furiously, then washed them down with a swallow of Irn-Bru.
Lewis took a bite of his sandwich and almost gagged. “Ugh! There are sardines in this! You know I can’t stand sardines.”
“I didn’t force you take that one,” said Greg, biting into a ham and tomato. “You should be more careful.”
“I’ll have that if you’re done with it,” offered Thor.
Lewis passed him the sandwich and watched it disappear. He took a sip from his tumbler and said, “Loki told us he was tossed out of Asgard and exiled on Earth. He said the other gods disappeared or fell asleep or something.”
“He didn’t tell the whole story, then,” said Thor. “For vengeance, Loki went to his cousin Surtur, the fire demon, and persuaded him to steal the Treasures of Asgard. Mjolnir was one of those treasures.”
He tapped a forefinger against the handle of his hammer. “Surtur brought the treasures to Midgard – what you call Earth – and hid them in secret locations all over the world. My father Odin and I and the rest of the gods pursued Surtur and slew him… but in the battle, the Bifrost was destroyed.”
“The beef roast?” said Greg. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“The Bifrost,” Lewis explained. “It was the rainbow bridge that connected Asgard, the home of the gods, with Earth.”
“Ja,” said Thor, nodding. “With the Bifrost destroyed we were cut off from Asgard, which is the source of our power. Trapped on Earth, we became like normal folk, except that we live on for centuries.”
“Are you all housemates or something?” asked Greg.
“No, we have scattered all over,” said Thor. “The last I heard of any of them, Heimdall was working as a security guard and Freya had opened a bakery.”
“What about the treasures?” asked Lewis.
“They too lost their power,” said Thor, “and slept on in their hidden places. But a few months ago, all of a sudden I became aware that the power of the treasures had been restored and that they had been all pulled together into one place.”
Thor Is Locked in My Garage! Page 3