The Case of the Exploding Loo (16 page)

It’s the same mechanised voice from the talking shoes.

Before I have time to process what I’ve heard, I’m distracted by a movement in the garden.
Tim Berners-Lee!
Someone must have seen us and called the troops
– Fake Insurance Man, Ug and Thug are edging along the front path towards the house.

Wallop! Ug batters down the front door.

Crunch! Thug smashes through the living room, thrusting furniture aside as he heads for the sofa.

Holly and I pull Porter to his feet – well, foot – and we stumble across the room in a five-legged panic, keeping the tinsel-covered coffee table between ourselves and our attackers
and leaving Mum to sleep through the invasion.

With a savage grunt, Thug swings an ape-like arm across the table. His fat fist brushes close to Holly’s cheek. She ducks, twirls, seizes one of the Indian takeaway cartons and throws
leftover pilau rice in his eyes. Holly whispers something in Porter’s ear and he grabs a handful of broken poppadoms to use as cover fire while Holly slides across the coffee table and drops
a carton of chopped red chillies down Thug’s trousers.

Thug goes down.

As Holly races towards the front window, Ug powers after her, his boots battering the floorboards while Porter and I pelt him with poppadoms. When he sees Holly reaching for the
window lock, Ug throws himself across the room in an attempt to get there first.

Holly hits the floor.

Ug sails over her head and crashes through the window onto the front lawn, leaving a large, henchman-sized hole in the splintered glass, neatly framed by Christmas lights and fake snow.

Holly jams a sofa cushion over the sharp edges and flings herself out of the house, using Ug’s crumpled body as a springboard to jump, run, leap, turn . . . and then stop.

When we reach the window, she mouths “NOW!” at Porter before launching into a sprint. She only manages a few steps before she comes crashing down. I’d swear she paused before
diving to the ground and when Fake Insurance Man bundles her into the van she wails in a way that’s completely out of character. The Holly I know would be kicking, biting and clawing his eyes
out. I swivel to ask Porter what he thinks, but he’s fiddling with his phone.

Ug clambers to his feet and Porter raises his hands in surrender, giving me a sharp nudge with his elbow, which I take to mean I should do the same. I lift my arms, happy that surrender now
feels strategic rather than cowardly.

Fake Insurance Man stares at Mum, who’s still sleep-dribbling on the sofa, and jabs at the screen of his mobile phone. After a brief conversation, he shoves Porter and me towards the van
and leaves Mum where she is. The person on the other end of the phone obviously doesn’t consider her a threat; nor do they consider her worth saving from the negative brain ray.

We’re halfway down the front path when Mum stirs. She gazes around the room in confusion – it must be odd to wake up without earphones for the first time in weeks. As Porter and I
are pushed towards the van, Mum picks up a photo of me from the table by the sofa and hugs it to her chest. I sniff. Must be allergic to something in the van.

“Wait!” I protest. “I want to talk to Mum.”

Fake Insurance Man doesn’t wait. But just before he bundles us into the van with Holly, I’m convinced I see Mum roll off the sofa and grab the loo roll letter Porter dropped
earlier.

When the van stops outside LOSERS, I shove Ug and Thug out the way and storm towards the building. The Grimm Reaper is waiting by the door, perfectly positioned to rip me into
bite-sized pieces, but I’m too angry to be scared.

“I want my audience with the Great Leader. And I want it now!”

“I was about to suggest the same thing,” Ms Grimm says, which is annoying because it leaves me with nothing to shout about.

As we travel through the turquoise maze of corridors, Ms Grimm confuses me further with niceness and reminds me how well she’s treated me since my arrival. Apparently this is the kind of
thing I should mention during my audience with the Great Leader.

Her fidgeting is contagious.

As we enter the Great Office, I smooth my hair and fiddle with the buttons on my top. This is more than nerves about meeting someone new. My brain is still in hyperactive shock mode and clues
dance in front of my eyes:

Part of me knows who I’m going to find in that room, even before the door swings open.

But it’s still a shock to see him there, in the flesh and very much alive.

The Great Leader . . .

My dad!

Dad rises from behind his desk, an impressive vision in black velvet until he spoils the effect by tripping over his robes. On closer inspection, the heavy cloak¸ strange
goatee beard and exaggerated hand movements make him look like an ageing stage magician – the kind who pulls rabbits out of hats and sticks knives in his assistants. I wonder what Dad would
call himself if he became a magician.

The Great Hawkini? The Incredible Hawk? The Professor?

“Know-All?”

I can’t avoid his eyes forever. Why am I even trying? I’ve been dreaming of this moment for months and when it comes all I can do is gaze into space and make up magician names.

Breathtaking “Big Brain” Brian? Exploding Toilet Man?

I stare at the floor.

Dad’s feet turn in Ms Grimm’s direction. “Can I have a moment alone with my daughter?”

Ms Grimm taps her ugly left boot in annoyance, but she does as he asks and leaves – probably to watch us on the Bat Screen.

I still can’t look at Dad.

“KNOW-ALL!”

I snap to attention and raise my eyes.

Dad holds his arms out towards me. A hug? He can’t seriously expect me to give him a hug?

When it becomes obvious I’m not planning to move, Dad makes a big show of stretching and scratching his nose. He pulls out the chair opposite his desk before taking his own seat.

“It’s good to see you, Know-All. It’s been too long.”

“Whose fault’s that?”

I sit, but only because my legs are shaking. I don’t know how I’m supposed to react. I’ve imagined being reunited with Dad every minute of every day since he disappeared. Maybe
that’s the problem: those long days, those long hours, every single one of those long minutes. Only to discover he’s not dead, he doesn’t have amnesia, he wasn’t kidnapped.
He just left, to come here and be the Great Leader.

A million questions tie my tongue in knots. A thousand accusations burn the back of my throat. Where to start?

“I hate fish.”

Dad twirls his strange little beard and shrugs apologetically. “Mallory’s in charge of menus.”

Mallory? Ugh. Dad’s on first name terms with Ms Grimm.

“I hate violins.”

“Mallory likes her music.” Dad pulls at his velvet collar. “I’ve found it’s usually best to let her have her own way.”

“Most of all, I hate people who fake explosions so they can abandon their families.”

Dad stiffens. I’ve never spoken to him like this before.

“I didn’t abandon you. You were always with me – in here.” He pats the place where his heart should be. “My daughter. My greatest hope.”

I try to believe him. “So where have you been?”

“Here.” Dad waves his hand around his office, taking in the multi-screen computer on the desk, the large chess board beneath the window and the pictures of him winning scientific
prizes and awards that cover the walls.

Behind him, through a half-open door, is a bedroom furnished with the items Fake Insurance Man took from our house.

“I’ve been working to make the world a better place,” Dad says grandly. Then he adds, “Besides, I can’t leave. People might recognise me.”

“What about
my
world?” I search for a picture of me, Holly or Mum among the images on the wall. Nothing. “You didn’t make that better.”

“You’re approaching this from a very negative angle, Know-All. I thought you’d understand my need to complete my research.”

“I think you’ll find it was
our
research.”

“That’s enough.” Dad adjusts his robes. “No one challenges the Great Leader – Mallory says it’s an important part of the image.”

Image? Has Dad gone mad?

“I’m not challenging the Great Leader. I’m talking to my dad who’s been missing for over two months. It would be weird if I
didn’t
have questions –
like why didn’t you tell us what you’d planned? Or at least let us know you were alive?”

“I did. I left clue after clue. I’ve been disappointed by your failure to work them out.”

He’s
disappointed in
me
? Arrrggghhh!

“Did you consider that losing my father in a freak toilet accident might have affected my ability to think clearly?”

“I built that into my calculations and still expected you here before the end of January.” Dad reaches for a folder on his desk and scans its contents. “It says here you lost a
game of chess on Tuesday.”

I shake my head in disbelief. This reunion is not going the way it did in my dreams.

“I let Aisha win because I didn’t want her to cry again. Sorry.”

“You need to toughen up.” Dad drops the folder back on the desk. “I hoped my disappearance would help with that.”

I squash the urge to pick up the folder and bash Dad over the head with it.

“I thought your disappearance was about making the world a better place,” I tell him. “Now it’s about torturing me into becoming a tougher person?”

Dad moves the folder out of reach. “This may be hard to understand now, but when you’re older you’ll realise this has been a valuable life lesson. I never had to explain myself
to you before. You’ve been spending too much time with your aunt and your sister.”

“Again. Whose fault is that?”

Dad shakes his head sorrowfully. “So much negativity.”

“Me? What about the negative things you and ‘Mallory’ have done? Let’s start with using my calculations to blow up a portaloo and fake your death.”

“I apologise. I should have trusted my own equations.”

“The equations aren’t the part I have a problem with, Dad! But if we’re focusing on calculations, you didn’t mention the portaloo had air vents. Without them, the
explosion would have been far worse.”

“I pointed that out to Mallory.” Dad shuffles things around in his drawer. “She said it was ironic, people being saved by the smell of their own—”

“It’s not ironic,” I interrupt. “It’s horrible. Someone could have been killed.”

“But they weren’t – unless you count the old me.”

“Where did all that blood come from, Dad? It had to be yours – the police tested it – but that much blood can’t have come from a small cut on your foot.”

“I took it with me.”

The glass on the portaloo floor.

“Test tubes!” I realise. “You got one of your laboratory minions to take test tubes of your blood and then you left them in the toilet with the explosives to make the blood
splatter everywhere.”

“Good girl! See? You
can
work things out if you try.”

I shake my head. “All this planning, all this risk. Why?”

“All great scientists take risks for their discoveries,” Dad says. “Marie Curie died as a result of her long-term exposure to radiation during her research.”

“Hardly the same thing, Dad. Marie Curie risked her own life. You’re risking other people’s.”

“No one’s life is as important as the opportunities the brain ray has to offer. I’ll do whatever it takes to develop my invention.”

“It’s not YOUR invention though, is it? It’s OURS.”

“We had taken it as far as we could. Mallory offered me space to work, opportunities for testing and access to great thinkers. All I had to do was cut all ties with my old life. She
promised you would be

looked after.”

“The ‘cut all ties’ part didn’t bother you?”

Dad says nothing, just rubs the half-open desk drawer he’s been fiddling with since he sat down.

I reach across and yank the drawer open, annoyed by Dad’s constant fidgeting. Open-mouthed, I gaze at the contents – hundreds of photos of me. They’re not what I expected to
see. I look at Dad.

“Mallory told me to get rid of them,” he says. “I couldn’t.”

I remember Ms Grimm’s fluttering eyelashes when she discussed the Great Leader. I remember her voice on Gemma’s iPod declaring,
“You will forget my son . .
.”