by Paul Gamble
“Who’s going to help us, Jack? All the people who work in this factory work for Ms. Maris.” Trudy was very slowly trying to get to her feet.
“I’m going to call for someone I saw in the gift shop.”
David was about to say something, but slipped again and winded himself. Trudy spoke instead. “Jack, we’re halfway across a huge warehouse, the door is closed, and people are no doubt chattering in the gift shop. No matter how loudly you shout, they aren’t going to hear you.”
Jack look determined. “I’ve got a hunch, and if I’m right, I won’t even need to raise my voice.”
* * *
MINISTRY OF S.U.I.T.S HANDBOOK
FALLING OVER CONSTANTLY
THE YIPTAH TRIBE
As previously mentioned (see Spiders: The Reason They Have Eight Legs), the Yiptah tribe are a group of humans who lived in Indonesia and had eight legs. At first this seems like a brilliant advantage, but in reality it made them incredibly clumsy. It also meant that they had a lot of difficulty hunting animals for food. Every time the Yiptahs saw an interesting animal they might have had for dinner, they started to lace up their hunting shoes. However, by the time they had finally tied the fourth pair, their lunch had become bored and wandered off to do something else.
However, one day a particularly smart Yiptah tribeswoman decided to unlace all her shoes and make a lasso out of the laces. This allowed the Yiptah to capture animals without ever having to move at all. Soon the Yiptah, despite having eight legs, never moved from the tree stumps they were sitting on. They had become so skillful with a lasso that they would not move to get something, but would instead simply lasso it and pull it toward them.
As you can imagine, the lack of exercise made the Yiptah get very fat indeed. In fact, at one stage, if you had put them on a trampoline they would have been self-cleaning.
The Yiptah, however, eventually died out. One day the animals that were their prey figured out how to avoid getting captured by the Yiptah. They just started standing slightly farther away.
* * *
28
TAKE MY CARD
Jack didn’t have much time left; the forklift’s engine was revving and the huge shelving unit was beginning to rock backward and forward, ready to topple.
He tried standing, but predictably he slipped and fell, banging his elbow. Then he said the words. He did not say the words particularly loudly or quietly. He simply spoke them in a normal voice. The words had an amazing effect.
“I’ve just had a slip or fall in a workplace and it wasn’t my fault.”
Trudy and David looked perplexed. After all, no one could have heard Jack—he hadn’t screamed or shouted. He had just spoken in his normal voice.
There was the sound of a scuffle. Behind the door that the children had used to get into the warehouse there was the sound of raised voices. One of the voices was insisting that the door was not the normal exit. The other voice was insisting that it didn’t matter. There was a loud thumping sound, and the owner of the first voice came tumbling through the doorway. It was hard to tell from a distance, but his face seemed to bear the imprint of the combination lock off a briefcase.
The owner of the second voice came barreling through the door, adjusting his waistcoat. “Hello!” he called across the room.
Trudy shook her head in disbelief. “How on earth did you do that?” Trudy was even more amazed than normal.
Jack smiled. “I saw him in the gift shop and I thought he looked like a…”
The man in the three-piece coat strode over to the edge of the soap patch, carrying his briefcase. “Lawyer. My name’s Dexter O’Neill.”53
Jack heard the engine of the forklift truck being switched off. Clearly the factory workers wanted no witnesses to the children’s “accident.” Dexter O’Neill regarded the slippery patch of soap. “Take off your blazer and throw me the sleeve.”
David took off his blazer and threw the sleeve at Dexter. The sleeve hit Dexter in the face, followed by the rest of the blazer. “Okay, you”—Dexter pointed at Trudy—“do the same thing, but this time hold on to the other sleeve of the blazer.”
One by one Dexter hauled them off the slippery soap patch, using the blazer as an improvised rope. When they were all safe he gave each of them a business card. “We’re the biggest law firm in Ireland. Now this is a dangerous patch of soap with no Slippery When Wet signs up. That’s definitely actionable—so we can sue the factory for your injuries. You guys get your parents to call me when you get home. All right?” Dexter smiled at them kindly. Then his face took on the cunning of a fox. He leaned close to them and whispered, “And try to limp a bit on your way out; I think they’ve got security cameras on the exit.”
Jack’s natural curiosity got the better of him. Just because someone saved your life, it didn’t mean that you couldn’t ask them questions. “What’s a lawyer doing in a soap factory anyway?”
Dexter looked around to check that no one was listening. “Well, between me and three potential future clients, I got a phone call from a Mrs. Pearse today, who said that her bathroom had been blown up by a bath bomb. I reckon there’s a big lawsuit in it.”
Jack’s eyebrows shot up so rapidly they almost left his forehead. Jack had realized that although a lawyer might not be able to hear a pin drop at fifty paces, he would certainly be able to hear someone falling with a potential to sue—this had been why he’d said the magic legal words. However, the only reason that the lawyer had even been in the soap factory was that Jack’s mother had contacted him. Jack’s mother had inadvertently saved his life. He made a mental note to inadvertently thank her when he got home.
“Anyway, that’s a different case. You guys have had bad falls. Make sure your parents call.”
“Um, couldn’t you just hang out with us for a bit?” asked David, clearly not happy to be left alone in the warehouse.
The lawyer considered this. “Well, I don’t really have anything else to do.…” Suddenly, Dexter’s ears pricked up and he did possibly the best impression of a meerkat that Jack had ever seen. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” asked Trudy.
Dexter pointed back through the gift shop door. “Someone in a café three hundred meters that way has just said that they’ve found a cockroach in their chips. I have to go.”
Dexter sprinted back toward the gift shop while pulling a business card out of his pocket ready to hand it to his next client.
“That was brilliant,” Trudy said to Jack. Jack smiled at Trudy’s praise.
David brought them both crashing back to earth. “Don’t want to rain on your parade, guys, but we’re still in a warehouse with a man in a forklift truck who wants to kill us.” As if on cue, the engine of the forklift revved up again. There was a grinding metal creak as it pushed one more time against the enormous shelving unit, causing it to rock and then tumble. Jack and Trudy each grabbed one of David’s arms and pulled him backward. The shelving unit fell, creating an avalanche of soap in front of them. A fountain of soap and bath salts was thrown into the air.
It had missed them by mere inches. They dusted themselves off.
“Let’s get out of here,” said David, choosing exactly the right time to start making sense.
“Gift shop?” suggested Trudy.
Unfortunately, the factory worker who had been slightly concussed by Dexter’s briefcase had managed to rouse himself and had locked the door to the gift shop behind him.
“We’re still okay,” said Jack. “I mean, there are only two of them. With The Speed we can probably…”
Jack’s optimism was short-lived. The forklift truck had driven out from behind the shelving unit. Jack noticed that the two prongs that stuck out from its front were made of gleaming, shiny metal. Worse than that, they had been sharpened into deadly points.
“Oh, come on,” complained Jack. “That isn’t even practical.”
“We can do this, Jack,” said Trudy. “No forklift truck will ever be able to g
et us with The Speed.”
“Umm. What about me?” asked David.
“Whoops,” admitted Trudy. “I hadn’t thought about that.”
“It’s going to be a problem, isn’t it?” asked Jack.
Trudy ruminated on this. “That depends, Jack. How would you feel about being best friends with a shish kebab?”
The driver of the forklift truck pushed his foot on the accelerator and gained speed as he drove directly toward them.
Jack saw a sad look come over Trudy’s eyes before The Speed descended on her and she ran straight toward the forklift. At the last second she dodged to the right. The driver tried to hit her by wrenching the wheel violently, but Trudy easily avoided this and jumped across the metal prongs.
The second factory worker advanced on her and swung a punch. Trudy ducked and threw a single punch at him with her good arm; it caught him square in the stomach and he fell to the ground. Jack winced. He knew just how hard those punches of Trudy’s could be.
The forklift driver wheeled his truck around and was heading straight for Trudy.
“Don’t they give you any weapons in the Ministry?” David shouted at Trudy.
“Are you kidding?” Trudy laughed bitterly as she dodged another attack from the forklift. “Equipment is in short supply. I had to go to a hospital to even get this!” Trudy held up her damaged arm, showing the sling that held it in place. It was then that Trudy had an idea.
* * *
MINISTRY OF S.U.I.T.S HANDBOOK
LAWYERS
THEIR HEARING CAPABILITIES
Many people think that lawyers spend years learning how to deal with the rules of courts, procedure, and other legal matters. Of course this is clearly untrue. After all, the law is a relatively simple matter—the rules are written down and you simply follow them. People don’t have to spend years learning rules—otherwise games of Monopoly would be even longer.
The reason that lawyers spend so much time studying at university is that they are practicing at improving their hearing. This is why they study in old libraries—they sit quietly and try very hard to hear things that other people would never notice—the sound of insects scurrying, the sound of paint drying, the sound of hair growing. This means they eventually get to the stage where they can hear distant accidents and then offer to sue.
Even when their hearing improves to the level where they can hear a pin drop at fifty feet, they still try to practice every day. If you ever go to court, you will notice this as occasionally the judge will bang his gavel and shout “Silence in the court!” This is so all the lawyers present can have a few moments of listening practice in the middle of their otherwise busy day.
* * *
29
SURPRISINGLY ACCURATE
Trudy ran over to where the shelving unit had toppled and picked out a few large, square bars of soap.
Jack shook his head. “Trudy, now is not the time to be stealing soap.”
A confused David looked at Jack. “Surely if there was going to be time specifically allotted to stealing soap, it would have been back in the gift shop? You aren’t making any sense, Jack. I don’t want to be critical, but you have quite poor planning skills.”
The forklift driver had skidded to a halt and was turning around. He turned the forklift so the shiny metal skewers were pointing at Trudy again.
Trudy slipped her sling over her head. She flexed her injured arm once or twice and sucked in air at the pain. It seemed to be working relatively well.
“What is she doing?” muttered Jack.
Trudy carefully put one of the bars of soap into the divot in the sling that had been made by her elbow.
“I’m not sure that now is the time Trudy should be doing her laundry,” observed David.
Trudy had grabbed the sling by the thin piece of fabric that had gone around her neck. Then she began swinging it around her head. The penny dropped for Jack. “She’s made a sling out of her sling.”
David looked at Jack. “That doesn’t make any sense. That’s just the same thing.”
“David! Can’t you see? She’s made a sling out of her sling.”
David stared blankly at Jack. “Now you’re making no sense out of no sense.”
As David and Jack squabbled amongst themselves, Trudy swung the sling faster. The forklift driver pushed his foot hard on the accelerator and was bearing down on Trudy. Trudy’s eyes narrowed and she patiently waited as the forklift closed in on her.
Suddenly, Trudy let go of one end of the sling and the bar of soap zoomed out of it like a rocket. Being a square block, it lacked something in terms of being aerodynamic. It tumbled through the air in exactly the same way a clumsy tightrope walker would. And then BANG! It hit the forklift truck driver square between the eyes. A loud crack, a searing pain, the smell of strawberries and cream, and he was unconscious. He slumped over the wheel of the forklift and it swung abruptly to the right before encountering a pile of soap and toppling over.
Jack cheered and clapped. David tapped him on the shoulder. “Jack, she was making a sling out of a sling.”
Jack was confused. “Yes, I know.”
“Well, why didn’t you just say that?”
Jack was about to start arguing with David; however, he was stopped by Trudy, who pointed out that they had more important things to do. “Come on, guys; we’ve got to get out of here.”
Trudy ran toward the exit door followed by the two boys. She wrenched at the door handle but it remained stubbornly shut. “RATS!” she shouted.
Jack also tried it but it didn’t move.
“Still shut a second after I tried it, Jack?” said Trudy moodily.
“Yes, that appears to be the case,” Jack admitted sheepishly.
“We could use the forklift truck to crash through the door,” suggested David.
Trudy shook her head. “The forklift’s fallen over. Even the three of us together couldn’t get it back on its wheels. We need something to blow the door open.”
“Well, that wouldn’t be a problem if we had a bath,” said Jack. He took several bath bombs out of his pocket, which he had taken them from the gift shop. “I noticed these right at the back. They’re the same type as the one that exploded in my bath. Add water to these babies and boom!”
“If we could find ourselves a bucket of water, we could lob the bath bombs in from a distance.” Trudy and Jack busied themselves looking for a bucket or indeed some water.
David sighed and grabbed one of the bath bombs out of Jack’s hand. For a second Jack thought he was pretending to be a soldier from an old war film, pulling the pin from a grenade with his teeth before throwing it. And then Jack realized David had licked the bath bomb.
David threw the bath bomb in a curving arc. It had started to fizz slightly where he had licked it. Trudy, David, and Jack dived for cover.
Unsurprisingly, David was not the best shot in the world, and the bath bomb hit a few feet away from the door. However, as it crashed into the ground the chain reaction with David’s saliva sped up and there was an enormous explosion. The wall blackened and the door tilted and fell off its hinges.
Jack, Trudy, and David got up off the ground. “That was amazingly brave,” said Trudy. “How did you know that only a little water would cause a slower reaction?”
David looked at her. “Mieey tunnng hurtez. Eet is unnn firreee.”
Little particles of the bath bomb were fizzing and causing minute explosions on David’s tongue, which had swollen up to twice its normal size. Jack smiled. “That’s the great thing about David—what he lacks in bravery he makes up for in stupidity.”
David gave Jack a very stern look. He would probably have added a withering comment to this look if only his tongue hadn’t been so badly swollen. After a while he stopped even trying to look stern with Jack, as he was mainly concentrating on breathing and not dribbling from the side of his mouth.
Trudy grabbed both of them by their sleeves and pulled them toward the door. “Let’s
get out of here. And possibly find some ice for David.”
The only reason you could tell that David was smiling was that his tongue lolled to one side and slightly more dribble came out. “Thhenkk youb.”
* * *
MINISTRY OF S.U.I.T.S HANDBOOK
LICKING THINGS
THE REASON CATS ARE ALWAYS IN A BAD MOOD
If you have ever owned a cat you will have noticed that they seem to go through their lives appearing slightly grumpy. The reason for this is simply that cats clean themselves using their tongues.
If every meal that you ever had tasted of damp fur, you’d probably be in a fairly bad mood.
Therefore, if you want your cat to have a happy and sunny disposition, it is vital that you give him a line of credit at your local dry cleaner.
* * *
30
ECHOES OF THE PAST
It hadn’t taken them too long to find a bus stop that would take them back to Belfast. David decided to go straight home, as he had had quite enough excitement for one day. More important, he wanted to lick the inside of his parents’ refrigerator until the swelling of his tongue subsided.
* * *
Jack called his parents from the Ministry and told them he was going to go to Chess Club after school. “Well, okay,” his mother agreed, “but try not to be late. We’ve got some news for you.”
As Jack hung up he thought that was strange. His parents never had any news. Parents generally didn’t. Sometimes they thought they did, but they were almost always wrong.
Jack walked over to Trudy, who was speaking to Grey.
“… So you can see there’s something very strange going on here.”
Grey nodded. “Indeed. But knowing that something very strange is going on isn’t enough. You’ve got to figure out what.”
“Isn’t there anything you can tell us to help?” she pleaded. “This is important to me. The aquarium is important to me.”