by Paul Gamble
Trudy looked at Jack sternly. “I told you not to play with the MP3. See what’s happened now? The Misery is going to kill us.”
Jack wasn’t sure what actually had happened. The dull bass guitar music was still echoing from under the water. “The MP3 player’s still working, though.”
Trudy listened and realized Jack was right. She dived into the water and kicked downward. After a minute she broke the surface and was holding the player, which was even louder above the surface. She pressed the Stop button and set it on one of the hexagonal stepping-stones. “I thought Cthulhu was mad at us for breaking the MP3 player—but that wouldn’t make him run away, would it? I wonder what it was that made Cthulhu so upset?”61
Jack shrugged. “Maybe it was the music. Squid ears probably work differently from ours.” Then a thought occurred to Jack. He carefully hopped from hexagonal stone to stone toward the green island.
“Jack!” Trudy called after him. “I really hope you aren’t doing what I think you’re doing.”
Jack’s mother had often told him that curiosity killed the cat. However, she had never said that “curiosity would inspire the potential wrath of an interdimensional creature of almost impossible evil.” Which was a shame, as that would have been the more accurate advice.
A final bound took Jack sprawling onto the rocky shore. He stood up and looked at Trudy. “Maybe what made him fly into that rage was something he read in the book. Aren’t you a little bit curious about what can make an interdimensional being, composed of equal parts squid and evil, sad?”
“Jack, this is Cthulhu we’re talking about.” Trudy pretended to be weighing two options up in her hands while she talked. “So, while yes, I’m curious as to what he was looking at, on the other hand I’m not curious about what I’d look like with all my internal organs hanging off the outside of my body. Which is what Cthulhu would do to us if he found out we were looking at his stuff.”
Trudy’s colorful turn of phrase almost turned Jack’s stomach.62 But the one thing that Jack couldn’t stand was an unsolved mystery. “Keep a lookout for me—I’m just going to take a quick peek.”
Trudy’s mouth narrowed in anger, but then she bounded over to the splintered door. She stuck her head out of the now-empty doorway, and kept watch down the corridor.
Jack opened the book and flicked through it. The first page he turned to was a photo of a long, thin lake taken from an airplane. Jack had expected it to be a picture of something stomach-churning or a story that was beyond rational human understanding. Confusingly, the photo was neither of those things. Which was annoying, because instead of satisfying his curiosity this had just made it worse.
Jack looked at the next page. It was another photograph of the strange lake. And then another. And then there were some shots of the lake from the ground. There wasn’t anything particularly interesting about the pictures, although a few of them seemed to focus on floating logs, or dark shapes looming out of the water. Unfortunately the photos were all blurred or out of focus, and Jack couldn’t quite make out what the dark objects were.
Jack carefully put the book back where he had found it and then jumped from stepping-stone to stepping-stone until he was standing beside Trudy.
“What was in the book?” she whispered.
“Just photos of some large lake.”
Trudy looked puzzled. “Like Lough Neagh? Where the fracking was? Do you think Cthulhu’s involved in this somehow?”
“Maybe.” Jack shrugged. “But I don’t think we should be expecting Cthulhu to be doing anything that aligns with sanity. He drives people insane for a hobby. Maybe he’s just trying to do a really slow, relaxed job with us.”
* * *
MINISTRY OF S.U.I.T.S HANDBOOK
SQUIDS
THEIR ABILITY TO HEAR AND HOW IT RELATES TO JELLY
As has been previously discussed, squids have no ears and therefore have limited ability to hear. However, this does not mean that they are entirely insensate to the world of noise.
If you have seen squids at aquariums, you will have noticed that they are wobbly and flexible, in many ways like a large bag of be-tentacled Jell-O. (It is worth noting that be-tentacled Jell-O does not actually exist. Although if it did, it would be awesome and terrifying at the same time.) This means that they can sense vibrations through the water. Naturally, they find deep bass sounds most disconcerting indeed, which is why so many of the larger squids live on the ocean floor. The ocean floor, with its freezing water and lack of sunlight, is not a nice place to live. However, many giant squid swim down there purely to get away from the deep booming bass sounds that the engines of ocean liners make.
Interestingly enough, this is also the reason that teenagers stop having Jell-O at birthday parties. Young children tend to enjoy plinky-plonky piano music. However, as they become teenagers they enjoy music with a larger bass range. In the same way that squid find bass sounds uncomfortable, there is a risk that if you play bass music to a Jell-O, it will shake itself to death and splatter everyone in the room.
This can be the only reason why parents stop serving Jell-O at children’s birthday parties. Having said that, the only thing that is more awesome than Jell-O would be a Jell-O that exploded and splattered everyone in the room. However, parents don’t seem to understand this.
* * *
34
FIRST PIECE OF THE PUZZLE
A Ministry car dropped Jack off at home. His parents were just finishing their tea when he went in.
“Good day?” his mother asked.
“Yeah, fun.”
Jack’s father set down a plate of sausages, mash, and beans that had been kept warm in the oven in front of Jack.
“Great, I’m starving.”
Jack reached for a knife and fork and caught a look at his hands. Before they had left the Ministry Jack had been sure to check that his hair was completely dry. Anything else would have been a dead giveaway. Jack had seen the people who went to Chess Club, and he was pretty sure that none of the matches they were involved in were strenuous enough to require a shower afterward.
Therefore Jack was sitting at the table with bone-dry hair. But his hair wasn’t the problem. The problem was his hands. Jack had spent a good few hours splashing around in the water in Cthulhu’s room and, like when he stayed in the bath too long, it had made his hands and fingertips wrinkle up like those of an old man. He looked as though he’d had a hand transplant from someone twice his grandmother’s age.
Jack quickly jammed his hands into his pockets. He then sat there nervously trying to figure out his next move. Jack’s mother was the first to notice that something was wrong. “Aren’t you going to eat anything?”
On hearing Jack’s mother, his father looked up as well. “Yes, I thought you said you were starving.”
Jack looked from one parent to another. He couldn’t think of anything to say. They were waiting for him to make the next move. And then a thought occurred to him.
“Have you hired a lawyer?” he asked.
Jack’s mother and father looked at each other, even more confused. “How did you know about that?”
Jack explained about the trip to the soap factory but didn’t mention how the lawyer had saved his life.
“Nice to see that he’s doing his research.” Jack’s mother looked impressed.
Jack’s father thought briefly and then spoke. “Maybe he’ll get us a really big settlement.”
Jack’s mother nodded. Her eyes glazed over slightly. “… And then we could get the kitchen redone as well as the bathroom.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Jack’s father agreed even though he really wasn’t listening. He was lost in his own dreams of a big monetary settlement. “… And I could get a motorbike.”
“… And we could go to Las Vegas for a holiday.…”
“… And we could get one of those really powerful Dyson vacuum cleaners.…”
Jack’s mother snapped out of her dream for a minute. “A Dyson vacuum clean
er?”
“I like vacuum cleaners,” Jack’s father answered sheepishly.
“Well … okay,” Jack’s mother reluctantly agreed. “And we could get a new car, something really sporty.…”
“… And a…”
When he was sure his parents were far enough buried in their thoughts of millions of pounds, Jack took his hands out of his pockets and picked up his dinner plate. “I’m just going to eat this in my room while I’m doing my homework,” Jack half-lied.
“Whatever…” His father waved him away.
“And we could get a sun parlor like the Smiths next door.”
“We could get one even bigger than the Smiths next door.”
“Great idea … With a hot tub.…”63
Jack left and made his way up to his bedroom without further incident. After he had finished his sausages and mash, he considered going back down to the kitchen to see if there was any dessert in the offing. However, when he looked at his hands they were still wrinkled and white.
For a moment he was extremely upset that he would be missing pudding. His father made a mean trifle. On the other hand, trifle could be distracting, and Jack wanted to spend some time thinking. He felt as if they had all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle.64 Now they just had to put them together.
* * *
MINISTRY OF S.U.I.T.S HANDBOOK
JIGAW PUZZLES
THE ORIGIN OF THE JIGSAW PUZZLE
Although many people don’t realize it, a great number of popular toys were in fact invented by people who absolutely hated children.
The perfect example of this is the jigsaw. A better name for a jigsaw would be a “broken picture.” However, this would have been an unappealing name and would not have sold well. Therefore the evil scientist who came up with the jigsaw came up with a more fun and friendly name.
But why is the jigsaw an evil toy, you ask? Have you ever noticed that when you make a jigsaw it is incredibly frustrating when the very last piece is missing? And it is always the last piece that is missing, never one of the first pieces. Many people assume that it is a coincidence—but it is not.
The jigsaw was designed by Professor Heinrich Thunderbolt using five-dimensional quantum mathematics. This means that it is always the last piece (instead of the first piece) that will be missing—thus maximizing a child’s frustration. Professor Thunderbolt had a vendetta against children and toys in particular. The cause of Professor Thunderbolt’s frustration is currently unclear.
* * *
35
TWO BUCKETS
THURSDAY
The next morning when Jack’s alarm went off, he jumped out of his bed and bolted for the bathroom. Of course, after the nasty explosion with the bath bomb, it wasn’t in the best shape. His mother had put out two buckets into the bathroom to substitute for the damaged fittings.
One of the buckets had been filled with hot water and was for washing yourself. The other bucket was filled with something that wasn’t hot water and was most definitely not for washing yourself. It was vitally important to remember which one was which.
Jack picked up a sponge and started to wash his face. It was the natural sponge that Trudy had bought him from Neptune’s Den. Thankfully it didn’t seem to have any of the unpleasant effects that the bath bomb had.
And then Jack remembered something strange. He remembered from a science class earlier in the year that they had been studying all the different kinds of life there were on the planet. Amongst all the strange animals they had studied were sponges. This was because the sort of natural sponges you bought in places like Neptune’s Den weren’t inanimate objects—when they were in the sea they had actually been living animals.
The thought freaked Jack out slightly and he dropped the sponge into the wrong bucket. “Well, we won’t be using that sponge again,” Jack muttered to himself.
But the more Jack thought about it the more he realized that there was something very odd indeed about using an animal to clean yourself. You wouldn’t have used a swan’s neck to dry under your armpits. You wouldn’t have used a hedgehog to comb your hair or a bristly caterpillar to brush your teeth.
If Jack had suggested that people start using a chinchilla as a washcloth, he would just have been stared at. And yet sponges, which had once been live animals, were used in this way. Jack looked at the sponge absorbing the “not-water” in the bucket and another thought occurred to him. The realization shocked him and he took a step backward, knocking a tub of his mother’s moisturizer off the edge of what remained of the bathtub.
And then it all came together—the clues connected in his head. Jack grabbed a towel and dried his face as he ran back to his bedroom and pulled on his school uniform.
* * *
As usual, when Jack got on the school bus he made the mistake of trying to explain his thoughts to David. “You’ll never guess what, but there’s a connection between sponges, moisturizer, and wet, wrinkly skin.”
David looked at Jack. “Yes, they’re all things you find in the bathroom.”
Jack considered trying to explain the more sinister connection. Then he thought better of it. He could wait until they got to school and spoke to the more sensible Trudy. “So, David, any good documentaries on television last night?”
“Of course there was.” David smiled. “There was this brilliant one about paper clips.…”
Jack sat back and listened to David as he recounted ten amazing facts about paper clips.65
* * *
The minute Jack and David walked into the school Trudy came over to him. “Jack, I don’t think I can stand this any longer.”
“Stand what?”
“I went home last night and sat with my father, watching TV. Every day since my mother went away we’ve said less and less to each other.”
Jack frowned. “That must be awful.”
“Awful would be like a holiday. To start off with he was depressed, but he still talked. But slowly, as time has passed he’s said less and less. On Monday when I came home he said ‘Hey there, Trudy.’ Then Tuesday it was just ‘Hey there.’ Yesterday it was just ‘Hey.’ We have to find my mother.”
Jack wondered how he would feel if his parents stopped talking. Okay, for a few weeks it might have been a bit of a relief. But after a while he knew it would make him miserable.
Jack asked David to give them some space. David nodded silently and trotted off to class.
“Jack, this is driving me insane. Waiting isn’t something I’m good at.”
“Well, hopefully you won’t have to wait for much longer. I think I’ve figured some of this out.”
“Tell me.” Trudy’s voice was filled with hope.
Jack started explaining. “You remember the old woman from the aquarium? The one who walked out into the sea.”
Trudy nodded. “The one you said that looked like the grandmother of Regina Maris.”
“Mmm-hmm. The thing is I was completely wrong. That wasn’t any relation of Regina Maris. That was Regina Maris.”
“But you said she was far too old.”
“But think, Trudy. If you swim for an hour in the sea, your skin goes all white, old looking, and wrinkly. Now imagine how much worse the effect would be if you actually lived in the sea.”
“But that makes no sense. When we saw her at the school and at the shop she looked young, pretty, stunning even.”
“And that’s the genius of her plan. Because she spends so much time in the sea she should be permanently wrinkly and old looking. But think about it: If you wanted to appear young, what kind of a shop would you go to? One with row upon row of moisturizers. She’s using all those moisturizers to counteract the wrinkly-skin effect of living under the sea all the time.”
“Neptune’s Den.”
“Exactly. And that’s not all—what’s the most striking thing about Neptune’s Den?”
Trudy thought for a minute. She cast her mind back to the shopping center. Then it occurred to her. “The smell.”
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“Exactly.”
“But it sells perfume, so you’d expect it to smell, wouldn’t you?”
The more Jack spoke the more connections came together in his head. “No! The exact opposite. You’d expect a perfume shop to not smell of anything. Think about it—if you were trying to sell something that smelled nice, you’d want to sell it in a shop that didn’t smell of anything.”
Trudy snapped her fingers, realizing exactly what Jack was getting at. “Because if the shop smells constantly of perfume, how is anyone supposed to tell whether they like the one perfume they’re actually trying on?”
“Exactly, it’d be like a gourmet restaurant making the most delicious and subtle food ever and then insisting on coating everything in KFC gravy.”
“Although that would be amazing,” offered Trudy.
“Well, yes, that would be amazing,” admitted Jack. “But it really isn’t the point.”
“So wait a minute,” Trudy said as she thought through what Jack had said. “Why do shops like Neptune’s Den smell so strongly if they aren’t trying to sell perfume?”
“I think Regina Maris lives in the sea. So think about fish that also live in the sea. What’s the most distinctive thing about them?”
Trudy answered more quickly this time. “The smell.”
“Exactly. Anything that lives in the sea starts to smell when you take it out of the sea and put it on the land. I think Regina Maris and her workers are some kind of undersea race. The smell in Neptune’s Den and those kinds of shops is to try and disguise the fish smell. It also explains the names of Neptune’s Den and Poseidon drilling.”
Trudy exhaled slowly. “It almost all makes sense—and if they’re living under the sea they’ll mainly be eating fish … like the Professor—and remember how he smelled?! But if they live under the sea, then why come onto land at all? And what’s the fracking about?”
Jack’s face fell. “I still can’t figure out those parts yet. But there’s one thing I’m sure of. It involves sponges.” Jack explained to Trudy his revelation about sponges. “For some reason they sell natural sea sponges in those shops. We know that they need the moisturizers to get rid of the wrinkles the water causes. We know that the bath bombs can be turned into weapons. We know that the soap and perfume are there to hide the smell of fish. But I can’t figure out why on earth they’d be selling sponges.”