by Paul Gamble
Trudy gave Jack an enormous hug. He still wasn’t used to Trudy’s hugs yet. Although Trudy tried hard to be affectionate when she was hugging, it still felt a little bit more like the beginning of a wrestling move rather than a reassuring gesture. Jack knew she was doing it because they were closer to solving the mystery of what had happened to her mother.
As they were hugging Edwyn walked past them wearing a Static Rules! badge he’d clearly made himself. “Why don’t you two just get married already?”
Trudy turned around and gave Edwyn a smack around his ear. Jack noticed that he was heading along the corridor that led out to the playing fields.
“Where are you going?”
“Haven’t you heard? They’re going to turn on the fracking drill. They’re having a ceremony out back.”
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Jack said. “What if the fracking is the secret to all this? Maybe we should have stopped them before they could turn on the drill.”
“There’s only one way to find out.” Trudy grabbed Jack’s hand and pulled him out the back door toward the playing fields.
* * *
MINISTRY OF S.U.I.T.S HANDBOOK
HUMAN BEINGS
PERCENTAGE OF WATER
It is interesting to note that human beings are actually made up of 65 percent water. Therefore, there is really no need for anyone to ever go on a diet. If you want to lose some weight, just sit under a hair dryer for a couple of hours and you should go down a few clothing sizes.
Alternatively, just go and sit outside in the sun and do a bit of evaporating. This is why people who lie about poolsides in bikinis and small swimming costumes are always so thin. They’re just desiccated.
* * *
36
CARNIVAL
The playing fields were full of children running from stall to stall. It was as if a carnival had been set up overnight. There were ring toss games, cotton candy sellers, even a small Ferris wheel. Right in the center of the carnival the enormous fracking drill stood, surrounded by the corrugated iron maze. Jack shivered a little when he saw it. Even though the gate remained locked there was something scary about knowing that it contained two Minotaurs. Both vain, but one considerably more dangerous than the other.
Jack and Trudy wandered around the stalls trying to find something that was deadly and that would threaten the populace of Northern Ireland. Trudy paid a pound at the stall where you burst balloons with darts to win a prize. With her natural physical skills, she easily won a teddy bear that was almost as big as Jack. Thankfully it was nowhere near as deadly as the cuddly bear that served as the Ministry’s most deadly operative. Trudy shoved the bear into Jack’s arms, not giving him a chance to refuse.
Trudy sniffed the air as she walked away from the stall. “Perfume,” she mouthed silently. Jack nodded. Clearly all the carnival employees were in the employ of Regina Maris.
“What is this all in aid of?” Trudy asked.
Jack had no answer. In one corner of the playing fields a television screen the size of an advertising billboard crackled into life. There was a brief flare of static66 and then an image of a woman’s face appeared. The crowd began to wander toward it.
The face was of Regina Maris. Jack studied her closely. On the enormous screen he could see that although the moisturizers from Neptune’s Den had done a good job, there were still some small telltale signs of wrinkling from all the time she spent underwater. He was certain that his theory was right.
“Welcome to a wonderful day for Poseidon International Drilling Company.” Ms. Maris’s voice boomed out from two huge black speakers that had been placed at either side of the television screen. “All across Northern Ireland we are holding gala events to mark the turning on of our exploration drills. We hope to find large deposits of natural gas across the island. If our efforts are successful the costs of energy will drop dramatically.”
Ms. Maris paused dramatically, expecting applause. Although there may have been applause at other locations, the school playing fields were largely quiet. Generally schoolchildren are fairly unconcerned with the price of energy. Jack was reminded of the pirate Blackbeard Junior, who had been building wind turbines. What was it with evil villains and energy efficiency? Maybe running evil organizations used a lot of power. He wondered if pirate ships were all packed full of fiberglass insulation to save on heat loss and running costs. Still, it was nice to think that you could be a maniacal evil genius, but at the same time be environmentally responsible.
Ms. Maris continued her speech with a dramatic flourish. “So without further ado, we will turn the drills on!”
The image of Ms. Maris’s face disappeared and was replaced with dozens of smaller images of drilling rigs across Northern Ireland. Right at the center of the screen was a live feed of the large drill in the middle of Lough Neagh.
Jack felt as if his body was deflating at the noise of dozens of drills whirling into action at once. He couldn’t help feeling that he and Trudy had failed. Whatever evil purpose the drills had been created for would now be achieved.
After a few minutes the screen crackled with static again and Ms. Maris’s face appeared. “All the drills are active. Our quest for gas has begun!”
Jack raised an eyebrow. This didn’t sound like normal supervillain gloating.
“Of course, the drills move through the earth and dirt slowly, so it will be several days before we have any results to speak of. In the meantime, the giant screens around the country will continue to broadcast live pictures from all our fracking sites so you can follow the excitement.” The screen again switched back to the drilling sites.
Jack and Trudy let out relieved sighs. The drills weren’t immediately effective. They still had some time to stop Ms. Maris’s evil plan … whatever that was.
David bounded over to them. His face was covered in cotton candy and he had a toffee apple sticking to his elbow for some reason. “I don’t find this as exciting as some people,” he observed looking around at the other children. “I mean, it’s just pictures of giant drills, which I find boring.”
Trudy and Jack laughed. David just looked at them quizzically. “You made a joke,” said Jack. “Giant drills. Boring. Because they bore holes in the grou—never mind.”
The school bell rang for the first class of the day, and teachers appeared to herd children away from the carnival. It was then that the earthquake struck.
* * *
MINISTRY OF S.U.I.T.S HANDBOOK
EARTHQUAKES
EARTHQUAKE-PROOF BUILDINGS
Earthquakes, scientists have reliably informed us, are caused by plates sliding against one another. This is why dishwashers always have sturdy racks to prevent this from happening halfway through the rinse cycle.
Architects the world over have spent years trying to design earthquake-proof buildings. Some of these are designed so that they wobble and shake, but absorb the energy and don’t actually break apart. Following on from this advice, if you want to try to eat something during an earthquake that won’t cause you any damage, Jell-O is a good idea, peanut brittle—not so much.
As usual, architects are going about this in entirely the wrong way. Rather than trying to design houses that don’t fall down in earthquakes, they should design houses that would fall down, but that could be easily rebuilt.
All houses should therefore be built of LEGOs. Then if your house fell down during an earthquake, it wouldn’t make you sad. In fact, you’d probably be slightly excited while you figured out if you’d rather live in a fire station or a spaceship.
* * *
37
WHOLE LOT OF SHAKING GOING ON
David fell over before the ground even started shaking.67 But after a few seconds everyone was rocked from side to side. Jack would have tumbled too, but Trudy, with her excellent sense of balance, grabbed hold of him and held him upright.
“They’re trying to shake Northern Ireland apart,” Jack said. “I can’t believe we didn’t stop
them. I also can’t believe that evil villains keep trying to move Northern Ireland. It fits quite snugly where it is.” Jack briefly wondered if Google Maps would be annoyed that they’d have to change all their databases if half the island was destroyed.
Trudy didn’t speak to Jack right away. She was looking around and taking in her surroundings. Clearly she was thinking about something.
Jack looked around the crowd—everyone was falling over. Almost everyone was screaming. Interestingly enough, the only person who wasn’t crying out was David. He was used to feeling like an earthquake was going on beneath his feet and falling over. To be honest it was nice for him to see other people fall over for a change.
Trudy finally broke her silence. “You’re wrong, Jack. This earthquake isn’t their plan. This is something different.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Trudy pointed at Ms. Maris’s staff, who were manning the stalls. “Do they look triumphant to you?”
Jack admitted they didn’t. Some were cowering under carts of toffee apples while others were holding on to their stalls for grim life. Trudy rammed her argument home by pointing at the screen. The pictures of the drilling rigs across all of Northern Ireland seemed to be shaking with the tremor of the earthquake. But the one that was shaking more than most, with the metal of its platform distorting and bending, was the drill that had been in the middle of Lough Neagh.
The picture on the big screen distorted into static for a moment, before cutting to a shot of Regina Maris screaming at an assistant. “Find out what this is at once. Our plans will not fail!” Ms. Maris’s face was twenty feet across on the enormous screen. She turned and for a minute Jack felt as though she was looking directly at him. He gulped, but then quickly recognized that Ms. Maris had just realized the camera was still on her. She sneered and then reached out with a gigantic hand to cover the camera lens. The screen went black.
* * *
The tremors had almost completely stopped. Jack reached down with the hand that wasn’t holding the enormous bear and hauled David into an upright position.
“Was that an earthquake?” David asked.
Trudy nodded. “I think so.”
Although it had been terrifying, very few people seemed to have been hurt. Because they had been out on the playing fields, no one was hit by any falling debris.
After a short time one of the caretakers brought the headmaster an enormous megaphone. It made the headmaster look ridiculous. Jack couldn’t help imagining him as one of those dogs that comes home from the vet with a gigantic cone around its neck.
“Please listen up, everyone.” A hush descended. “Now, it doesn’t seem like anyone is hurt; however, we can’t be sure that some kind of structural damage hasn’t been done to the school. Therefore, we are sending you all home for the rest of the day. Those of you who can’t contact your parents will be kept until normal dismissal time and supervised by myself.”
Jack snorted to himself. He was pretty sure that all the children there would make sure they could contact their parents whether they had to use Morse code, smoke signals, or semaphore. No one would want to spend an afternoon on the playing fields being supervised by the headmaster.
* * *
MINISTRY OF S.U.I.T.S HANDBOOK
DOGS RETURNING FROM THE VET
THE CONE—COLLARS PUT AROUND THEIR NECKS
Often people believe that vets put cones around dogs’ necks to stop them from chewing on their stitches when they have had an operation. This is a patently ridiculous suggestion. Dogs would have no interest in stitches unless they were bone-marrow flavored. In fact, dogs have little interest in stitching or in any kind of crafts whatsoever. This is why you will almost never see a dog knitting.
The real reason that vets put cones around dogs’ necks is that after they come out of surgery dogs are frequently feeling a bit depressed and lonely—the cone-collar acts as a megaphone, amplifying the dog’s barking so that people pay it more attention than normal.
Cones are incredibly effective and often make a Chihuahua sound like a Great Dane.
* * *
38
CHARADES WITH SEALS
Naturally Jack and Trudy didn’t even try to contact their parents. Instead they phoned the Ministry and asked for a car to be sent to collect them. Many of the other children were impressed when the gleaming luxury car turned up and took them away.
“Lucky they can’t smell the inside of it,” said Jack as he clambered inside, holding his nose. “So what do we do now?”
Trudy thought. “We go to the aquarium. That’s where this all started; it’s where my mother went missing.”
“But what are we trying to find out when we get there?”
“We know that Ms. Maris is behind this all. And we know that she came out of the sea. Wherever she came from that’s the problem. So that’s where we head for.”
* * *
The aquarium was full of people when Jack and Trudy arrived. Jack was pleased. With that many people wandering about, there would be less chance of them being attacked by any kind of aquatic creatures. Trudy marched up to the woman sitting behind the ticket desk. “Free entry, please.”
Jack frowned. Trudy hadn’t mentioned anything about this approach.
The woman at the ticket desk smelled strongly of perfume and moisturizer. “I’m sorry, there isn’t free entry for anyone.”
“Oh, I’m sure there is for us,” Trudy said. “We’re friends of Regina Maris’s.” With that Trudy ceased talking and nimbly jumped over the metal turnstile. Jack realized that this was not going to be a quiet reconnaissance-type mission. This was more a type of Go in, shoot up the place, and blow everything to smithereens mission. Jack couldn’t help thinking that it would have been substantially easier to achieve that kind of outcome if they had brought guns or explosives with them.
Jack smiled apologetically at the woman behind the ticket desk. “Sorry my friend’s a bit rude, but you know, we think you are probably working for the baddies.” Jack sniffed the woman’s heavy perfume. “Yes, you’re almost certainly working for the baddies.” With that Jack tried to jump over the turnstile. He almost made it, but at the last minute his foot caught on the metal bar and he went sprawling across the floor.
He got up and rubbed at his sore knee. The woman at the ticket desk was still looking at him. “We’re the good guys. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but there you are,” Jack added before running off after Trudy.
Trudy had already made her way through the aquarium and to the seal sanctuary. She was crouched down looking through the Plexiglas and had attracted the attention of several seals who were gathering in a semicircle.
“H- … h … have y- … you learned anything f- … from them?” Jack panted as he caught up.
Trudy stared blankly at Jack. “Well, no, because I don’t actually speak seal.”
“Ahhh,” said Jack, “maybe I could try. I can speak starfish and I have a smattering of porpoise. I think they both have a lot of the same vocab, although the grammar is completely different.”
Trudy gave Jack a withering look and then punched him in the arm. It had been a while since she’d punched him in the arm and Jack felt slightly nostalgic. Trudy stood up from the clamoring seals. “Be serious, this could lead us to whoever kidnapped my mother.”
“Right,” Jack agreed. “Serious.”
A large, burly man wearing an aquarium T-shirt was moving toward Jack and Trudy. “Speaking of serious, how are we going to deal with this?”
“I’ll do the rough stuff.” Trudy moved in front of Jack. “You try and communicate with the seals.”
* * *
Jack decided to get as close to the seals as possible. He clambered over the Plexiglas barrier and managed to lower himself gingerly into the concrete tank, sliding down the walls slowly. He sat down cross-legged on the ground so close to the seals that he could feel their fishy breath on his face. But how could you talk to a seal? Unlike the spider he’d
found in his bathroom, the seals were relatively poor at charades, flippers not being amongst the most expressive of appendages.
In the background Jack could hear the noises of a brief scuffle. He jumped slightly when the aquarium employee came falling over the Plexiglas barrier and his head bounced off the ground. The employee moaned once and then lapsed into unconsciousness.
Trudy nimbly leapt over the barrier and landed with a neat forward roll. “Well, that was a bit of an anticlimax.” She ran over to see how Jack was getting on. “So what have the seals told you?”
“How come you defeated that guy so quickly?”
Trudy appeared to be wrestling with a dilemma. “I’ll be honest with you: It’s probably a bit easier to fight when you aren’t helping.”
“Oh,” said Jack, a bit crestfallen.
Trudy tried to cheer Jack up. “But you’re the one with the weird outlook on life. You’re the one who can figure out how to talk to seals.”
Jack looked even more crestfallen.
“So you haven’t figured out how to talk to the seals, then?”
“I appear to be struggling with that.”
The seals were gathered around the pair, barking loudly and insistently. One bit Jack on the ankle. “Ouch—not helping!” he complained. The seal then rushed over to the side of the sanctuary that faced the sea. All the other seals joined it quickly.
“I think they want us to let them out,” Jack observed.