The Case of the Exploding Loo
Read The Case of the Exploding Loo Online
Authors: Rachel Hamilton
Rachel Hamilton studied at Oxford and Cambridge and has put her education to good use working in an ad agency, a comprehensive school, a building site and a men’s
prison. Her interests are books, films, stand-up comedy and cake, and she loves to make people laugh, especially when it’s intentional rather than accidental.
The Case of the Exploding
Loo
is her first novel, and she is currently working on a second.
www.rachel-hamilton.com
First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Simon and Schuster UK Ltd
A CBS COMPANY
Copyright © 2014 Rachel Hamilton
Illustration © 2014 The Boy Fitz Hammond
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
All rights reserved.
The right of Rachel Hamilton and The Boy Fitz Hammond to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and
78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
1
st
Floor, 222 Gray’s Inn Road
London
WC1X 8HB
Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney
Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-47112-131-9
EBOOK ISBN 978-1-47112-132-6
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
www.simonandschuster.co.uk
www.simonandschuster.com.au
For my family, who put up with a lot
1 WACKY SCIENTIST WIPED OUT BY TOILET BLAST!
36 What Was Supposed To Happen?
WACKY SCIENTIST WIPED OUT BY TOILET BLAST!
I collapse on to the sofa and stare at the newspaper headline.
Wiped out?
WIPED OUT?
Dad hasn’t been “wiped out”. He’s gone missing, that’s all. The reporter changed the facts to make a toilet-paper joke. That’s just rude.
No wonder everyone thinks something horrible has happened to Dad. The newspapers have been yelling about his disappearance in SHOUTY CAPITAL LETTERS ever since the portaloo exploded forty-eight
hours ago.
I screw up the article and throw it across the room. But it’s too late; it’s already been copied and pasted in my brain. (I’m like Dad’s all-in-one printer that way. If I
scan something once, it’s stored in my memory forever. Dad says it’s because I have a photographic memory. Smokin’ Joe Slater and the School Toilet Trolls say it’s because
I’m a mutant freak girl. I prefer Dad’s theory.)
Controversial scientist and renowned TV personality, Professor Brian “Big Brain” Hawkins, vanished when an unexplained portaloo explosion shook Lindon’s
annual Christmas market yesterday afternoon. The top neurologist’s smoking shoes were all that remained after the blast rocked the temporary toilet facilities in Lindon town centre . .
.
Mum stamps on the novelty Christmas rug, pounding Santa’s face underfoot, screaming, “I want to see those shoes NOOOOOW!!!”
Policeman Number PC2746 tries to calm her down. “I’ll look into that for you, madam,” he says.
But Mum’s not listening.
I decide not to listen to him either. Mainly because he’s still asking the same dumb questions about what Dad was doing in the toilet in the first place. Um, hello?
I cover my ears against Mum’s screams and join my stroppy big sister by the Christmas tree. I’m careful not to stand too close, because Holly’s response to Dad’s
disappearance is to kick everything within reach. That’s fine when it’s not me she’s kicking. But it usually is.
For the moment, she’s taking out her fury on the wall beneath the fake-snow-covered bay window. With each kick, she scowls more ferociously at the pack of photographers outside churning up
mud in the front garden.
Dad will be mad when he sees the mess they’ve made of the lines in the lawn. He only mowed it last week. No one else on the street keeps on mowing through Christmas. Dad says it’s
all about “standards”. Holly says it’s all about being obsessed with stripy grass.
“We have to do something, Know-All.” Holly gives the wall an extra-violent kick. Her voice sounds muffled. My hands are still over my ears.
“The name’s
Noelle.
” I protest out of habit but I don’t hate my nickname. It’s definitely better than Mutant Freak Girl. Although Dad says it’s good
to be a freak when normal people are idiots.
The provocative Professor is best known for his public declaration, “Stupidity is a sickness that should be treated”. Only last week, the wacky scientist
claimed to have discovered a cure.
The newspapers shouldn’t call Dad “wacky”. He’s not wacky, he’s a genius. This is the man who invented “Knife and Fork Fans (For Cooling Hot
Food)” and “Gutter-Powered Water Cannons (For Use against Burglars (Who are Scared of Water))”.
He’s been helping me with my inventions too. And he was once voted “Smartest Man on TV” by
TV WOW!
But people will forget all the good stuff because
they can’t tell the difference between the truth and the news.
I
can. My memory holds a lot of information all at the same time, so I know what’s true and what’s not
true. Even if it’s in the newspaper.
Holly puts up a swear finger at the photographers and yanks the curtains shut.
“What?” she says, tugging my hands away from my ears. “Am I supposed to just stand here and let those paparazzi papa-rat-finks take pictures of Mum screaming at the top of her
lungs?”
“Why do people say that?” I ask. “Why at the
top
of her lungs? Does the air we need for screaming rise? Like hot air? Maybe we could do an experiment to—?
Ow!”
Holly punches my arm, making her knuckles sharp and pointy so it hurts more. Her face is red and damp but she can’t be crying. Holly never cries.
“Stop being so . . . so . . . you.” Holly shoves her hands in her hair and growls when they get stuck in her curls. “Mum’s in bits and you’re planning your next
experiment? You’re as bad as Dad . . .” Her chin quivers and she pulls her right hand free to dead-arm me again. “What’s he playing at, Know-All? You’re his favourite.
He’d have told you if he was going anywhere. Everyone’s saying he’s d—”
“Disappeared,” I interrupt, worried Holly might go for a different “d” word.
Asked about the likelihood of finding Professor Hawkins alive, a spokesman for Lindon Police said: “We haven’t ruled out the chance and will continue to work
towards that end.” However, a source close to the case says, “The police are assuming the Professor was killed in the explosion. They just want to find out how it
happened.”
“Dad’s fine,” I say. “Just missing. You know what he’s like. He’s probably working on some big invention and has forgotten the
time.”
“Forgotten the time? For two whole days?” Holly splutters. “Don’t be daft. What about the leather lace-ups they found in the burnt-out portaloo?”
“What about them? They only prove that Dad’s
shoes
were in the toilet when it blew up, not that Dad was. The shoes are a red herring.”
I know all about red herrings from reading detective stories. Red herrings are fake clues put in place by writers and bad guys to stop you guessing what’s really going on. One of the most
common is the mysterious death with no identifiable body – or, as I call it, the “Dead Herring”.
Dad isn’t dead. This is all part of a cunning plan. He’s a Dead Herring. Dead Herring Dad.
There must be a hundred reasons why a man might leave his shoes in an exploding toilet and then vanish without a trace. I only need to find one.
Three Weeks Later . . .
• Number of theories the police have come up with to explain Dad’s disappearance = 27
• Number of intelligent theories the police have come up with to explain Dad’s disappearance = 0
Our local police are not displaying the dedication to crime-fighting I’ve come to expect from watching
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
on TV. They certainly
don’t solve as many crimes.
The person who’d be best at figuring out what happened during that toilet explosion is the person who disappeared in the middle of it.
Dad.
Dad is famous for finding solutions – often to problems the world doesn’t even know it has. Not everyone agrees with his ideas, but no one can deny he has them.
What everyone
does
agree with is
TV WOW!
’s declaration that Dad is ‘good TV’. Unfortunately, being ‘good TV’ seems to mainly involve winding up
everyone else on the programme until they start yelling at you.
He winds Holly up too.
He doesn’t wind me up though – he’s too busy helping me. That’s why I miss him. With Dad gone, I have to google stuff instead of just asking him for the answer, Mum has
to kidnap the milkman whenever a light bulb needs changing, and Holly has no one left to argue with – except me. And I don’t like it. It’s a painful business arguing with Holly.
I’ve got the bruises to prove it.