The Demon Headmaster and The Prime Minister’s Brain (7 page)

‘Are we going to stand here for
ever
?’
moaned Ingrid.
‘All you’ve done, ever since Dinah went in, is talk, talk, talk.
And now you’ve even stopped talking.
I’m bored.’

‘Be quiet,’ muttered Lloyd.
‘I’m trying to think.’

‘No you’re not,’ Harvey said.
‘You’re just hoping an answer will float into your head.
We can’t wait for that.
We’ve got to
do
something.’

‘Well, you tell me what, then!’
snapped Lloyd, losing his temper.
‘If you’re so clever.’
Why did people never understand how hard it was to have ideas?

‘Boys,
boys
,’ murmured Ian soothingly, ‘I know you’re enjoying your little quarrel, but why don’t you stop it and help the rest of us decide what to do?
Are we going to try and get into the Sentinel Tower?’

‘We
must
’
said Lloyd.
‘We promised we would.
And Dinah’s not an idiot.
If she thinks there’s something peculiar about all this, I bet she’s right.’

‘OK then.’
Ian glanced round at the other four.
‘So—what are we going to do?
We’ve tried everything we can think of to get through this door and it’s hopeless.’

‘Why not look for another way in?’
That was Ingrid.
She was sitting sulkily on the ground, with her back against the metal door.
‘I know you’re all older than me and cleverer than me, but you’re being really
thick.
It’s no good trying to fool our way in through this door, but there might be another one.
Why don’t we go and look?’

That’s what I was going to say,
thought Lloyd crossly.
He took charge at once, before things could get out of hand.
‘Well done, Ing.
That’s what we’ll do.
I’ll go this way round the building, with Ian.
Mandy, you take Ingrid and Harvey and go the other way.
Got your SPLAT notebook?’

‘Of course.’
Mandy took it out of her pocket and waved it.

‘Good.’
Lloyd nodded.
‘Well, write down everything you see that could be a way in.
Even locked doors and tiny windows.
Everything.
I’ll do the same and then, when we meet at the back, we’ll make a plan.
Come on, Ian.’

It did not take very long.
Because there was nothing to write down.
Lloyd and Ian walked off to the left and down the side of the building without seeing anything that broke the sweep of the huge mirror panes.
Not a single window or door.
Not even an air vent.

As they came round the corner to the back of the building, they saw the others appear from the far side.
Lloyd waved his empty notebook at Mandy and turned his thumb down to show how useless it was.
Mandy did the same.
Nothing on her side either.

At that very moment they saw it.
All together.
Not a door, but a wide opening.
It led on to a ramp sloping down under the building.
They charged towards it and met in the middle, peering down into darkness.

‘Of
course
!’
breathed Mandy.
‘It’s the car park.
Do you think there’s a door into the building from down there?’

‘Could be,’ Ian said.
‘Shall we risk the terrible darkness and the shadows that lurk in the corners?’
He pulled a horror-comic face.
‘I’ve brought the SPLAT torch.’

He produced a little plastic flashlight from his pocket and pressed the switch.
Nothing happened.

‘Should have brought the SPLAT batteries as well,’ murmured Ingrid nastily.

‘Oh, give it to
me.
I bet I can work it.’
Harvey snatched the torch from Ian and began to fiddle with it.
After a few seconds, it gave out a pale, feeble light.
‘Told you so.’

‘Right then,’ Lloyd said briskly.
‘Here we go.
Try not to make too much noise, everyone.
I should think there’s a terrible echo in there.’

It was like going down into a giant cave.
As they walked down the ramp, light faded round them and the car park stretched away into the darkness, a vast, empty expanse with a few cars dotted round it.

‘We’ll go all the way round the edge,’ Lloyd decided.
‘Then if there’s a lift door or something we’ll be sure to find it.’

They began a long, slow trek round the dark car park.
Their feet echoed loudly on the chilly concrete floor and their whispering voices floated eerily through the shadows, as Harvey swept the torch beam up and down the walls.
But there was no sign of any door.

Then, when they were about three quarters of the way round, they saw a dark hump in front of them, huddled in the next corner.
Harvey shone the light towards it and picked out a rounded glass body set on two spindly legs with skis at the bottom.
The rotors at the very top sent strange elongated shadows up the wall and the torchlight glinted back off the glass.

‘
A helicopter!
’ said Harvey.
He was so surprised that he spoke in a loud squeak that made everyone jump.
‘Look.
What a weird thing to find down here.’

Without waiting for the others, he darted forward at a run.
Ingrid followed him and before Lloyd could gather his wits the two of them were pulling themselves up into the helicopter’s cockpit.
There was no door to keep them out and they squashed together into the single pilot’s seat, chattering in excited whispers.

‘Lloyd!’
Mandy hissed, sounding shocked.
‘You can’t let them do that.
Suppose they
break
something?
You’ve got to get them out.’

‘Of course I’m going to get them out,’ Lloyd said irritably.
Why was everyone so busy telling him how to organize things?
Even Mandy was getting bossy now.
He marched across to the helicopter, feeling his way along the wall with his fingertips.
‘Harvey!
Ingrid!
Get out of there!’

‘But it’s really interesting—’ began Harvey.

‘Come
down
!’

‘You could just have a look—’ Ingrid sounded quite excited, even good-tempered, but Lloyd did not listen.

‘Come down at once!
How can I organize things if you two just go off and do whatever you want to?’

‘But it’s not like that,’ protested Harvey.
‘We thought this might be important and—’

‘—and we’ve found something ever so odd—’ Ingrid said.

‘—and it wouldn’t take a second if you just—’

‘—scrambled up here and had a
peep
and—’

‘Down
,’ Angrily, Lloyd reached up, grabbed Harvey round the leg and tugged.
‘We’re not here to play games.’

Harvey squealed, caught off balance, and lurched wildly.
For a second the light in his hand swept out towards the centre of the car park, into the darkness.
Then he dropped the torch.
It hit the concrete floor with a crunch and the light went out.

At the same time, Mandy gave a tiny scream and clutched at Lloyd’s arm.

‘What’s the matter?’
Ingrid said sourly.
‘Afraid of the dark?’

‘No,’ whispered Mandy.
‘But I saw
people.
Tall figures.
In the middle there, between the pillars.’

For a moment there was a horrible, cold silence.
Harvey and Ingrid slid out of the helicopter and stood with the others, shivering.
Then Lloyd squared his shoulders.
After all, he
was
the leader.
‘Stay here.
I’m going to investigate.’

Slowly he padded across the floor in the direction Mandy had pointed out.
As his eyes grew used to the dark, he started to make out the shapes that she had seen.
Three of them, very tall and straight and still.

Very
still.
Surely people would not be as still as that?
And people would be thinner.
These shapes were very solid.

Then, as he came up to them, he saw what they were—not people, but tall metal cylinders.
They were about six feet high, on little wheels, and they stood under a sort of overhang like a hood sticking out from the side of the pillar.
Lloyd did not need to wonder what they were for.
His nose told him.

‘It’s all right,’ he called out, trying not to laugh.
‘They’re not people.
They’re
dustbins.
Big ones, like the ones at school.’

He was just turning to go back to the others when suddenly, from above his head, came a loud WHOOSH!
There was a sound of rushing and sliding.
Then, from the overhanging hood, a great mass of peelings and empty packets dropped into one of the dustbins.

And an idea dropped into Lloyd’s head.
A disgusting, repulsive, sick-making,
brilliant
idea.

‘Hey, you lot,’ he shouted.
‘Come over here and have a look.’

‘Why should we?’
Ingrid called sulkily.
‘We’re not here to play games, you know.
You
wouldn’t come up and look at our helicopter, so why should we—’

But Lloyd was feeling so pleased with himself that he did not bother to get angry with her.
‘Oh, shut up, Ingrid, and stop being silly.
You’ve all got to come over here.
I
know how we’re going to get into the building!
’

Ian guessed first.
When he reached the dustbins he saw Lloyd standing close beside them, peering up under the hood, and he pulled a face.

‘Yuck!
You’re joking, of course?’

‘Of course
not
,’ Lloyd said.
‘Here, give me a leg-up.
If I climb on top of this bin, I’ll be able to see better.’

Clambering on to Ian’s shoulders, he gripped the rim of the nearest dustbin and hauled himself up.
For a moment he was balancing on his stomach over the edge.
He caught a horrible whiff of rotting vegetables, potato peelings, and old tea-leaves and for one ghastly second he thought he was going to overbalance and plunge head first into the middle of it all.

Then he had pulled himself up and was sitting on the edge of the bin with his legs dangling and his head up underneath the hood.

‘It’s all right,’ he called down softly.
‘There’s a chute about eighteen inches wide.
I can’t see any light at the top, but it seems to go on a long way.
And there must be an opening
somewhere,
so that people can put the rubbish in.
It should be quite easy to climb if I put my back against one side and walk my legs up the other.’

Ian coughed politely.
‘Were you—er—thinking of making this trip alone?
Or is it going to be a jolly outing for all of us?’

‘Of course you’ve all got to come,’ Lloyd said.
‘We’re SPLAT, aren’t we?
We’ve got to stick together.’

‘You didn’t stick with
us
when we were investigating the helicopter,’ argued Ingrid.
‘You wouldn’t even listen when we tried to tell you about—’

‘Ingrid,’ Lloyd said dangerously, ‘if you don’t shut up about that helicopter, I’ll drag you up here and throw you into the middle of the rubbish!’
The smell from the dustbin was beginning to make him feel peculiar and he wanted to start climbing.
‘Come on, everyone, follow me.’

He turned his back on them all and stood precariously on the rim of the dustbin.
Balancing carefully, he leaned back against the inside of the chute.
Then he lifted one leg and planted his foot firmly against the opposite side.
Right.
Now for the tricky bit.

‘Of course,’ murmured Ingrid innocently, ‘if the walls of the chute are too greasy you’ll fall straight into the bin.’