The Ministry of SUITs (19 page)

Scientist:
SO WHEN YOU RATTLE YOUR TAIL, YOU'RE TRYING TO SCARE PEOPLE OFF?

Snake:
WHAT?

Scientist:
IF YOU SEE A HUMAN OR SOMETHING, YOU GET AGGRESSIVE AND RATTLE YOUR TAIL TO THREATEN THEM.

Snake:
MY TAIL RATTLES? I NEVER KNEW THAT. THAT'S A BIT ODD. I WONDER WHY IT DOES THAT?

Scientist:
BUT THEN WHY DO YOU SHAKE IT WHEN A HUMAN FINDS YOU?

Snake:
I DON'T DO IT DELIBERATELY. I'M JUST SCARED OF HUMANS. SO WHEN I SEE ONE I START TO SHIVER AND TREMBLE. THAT'S PROBABLY WHAT CAUSES THE RATTLING SOUND. IT'S ALL BEEN A BIT OF A MISUNDERSTANDING.

Scientist:
YES. JUST OUT OF INTEREST, WHY ARE YOU SO SCARED OF HUMANS?

Snake:
BECAUSE THEY KILLED ALL THE REST OF MY FAMILY AND TURNED THEM INTO SHOES AND HANDBAGS.

Scientist:
ACTUALLY, NOW THAT YOU SAY THAT, I COULD DO WITH A NEW PAIR OF LOAFERS.

The scientist who invented the system for interpreting animals' thoughts as words was clearly a genius. Although it is interesting to note that although he had an IQ of over 200, he still hadn't figured out how to switch off the caps lock function on his keyboard.

Unfortunately the technology to speak to animals no longer exists. This is made worse by the fact that the scientist who created it is no longer around to reinvent it. Shortly after finishing the above conversation he died of sixteen snakebites to the face.

 

28

RUN!

 

Jack sprinted out onto the balcony, which led to more doors and more corridors. He was hoping to find the historical weapons section. He wasn't too worried about the creatures following him. They were quick, but not quick enough to catch him as long as he was using The Speed.

Running through the first door he reached, Jack found himself standing in a room that was full of rocks, fossils, and stones. It was enormously disappointing. Apart from anything else he thought that rocks and stones were stupid things to have in a museum. The cards underneath the pieces of stone claimed they were very old stone. But of course they were! All stone was very old, as old as the earth itself. It made sense—after all, no one was making new rocks or stones.
53
So, therefore, they were all the same age as the Earth was when it was made.

Jack thought back to Monday, when he had been in the museum. He knew that while wandering around he had seen a collection of swords and daggers. But where had they been? The problem with museums was that they were incredibly confusing places. Normally when you were thinking of directions there were street names and buildings to help you. It was much harder orienting yourself when you were surrounded by dozens of strange and exotic objects from a variety of time periods.

He knew that to get to the weapons he had to first go past the silver shrine of St. Patrick's hand—but then did he turn right or left at the Fairy Fountain?

Jack wished he'd paid more attention during previous school visits to the museum instead of spending almost all his time in the museum store trying to figure out which plastic dinosaur he would buy.
54
If only he'd paid more attention he would have known where the weapons were kept in the museum.

Jack ran onward to a door marked “Living World.” But, yet again, he found no weapons. Just stuffed animals.

For a minute he considered the damage he could do to the snake-creature if he hit it with a stuffed weasel. He thought that although it would be funny, it was unlikely to knock the snake unconscious.

Jack looked around for the next door and his heart sank when he realized that this room was a dead end. He turned toward the door he had come in, but it was too late. The creatures had just entered.

Jack raised his fists and took up a fighting stance. The creatures fanned out from the door. They were taking no chances this time. One bluebottle approached him from the right, one from the left, and the snake-creature came straight ahead.

Jack blurred into action, his foot connecting with the snake-creature's groin, and at the same time he smacked one of the bluebottles with a fist.

The remaining bluebottle cracked a pincer into his face, making him stumble backward and fall. The blow had caught him just above the eye and Jack could feel it stinging. Blood streamed down his face, blurring his vision.

The three creatures crowded around him. One kicked his leg and Jack twisted in pain. He scrabbled backward on his hands and feet until he bumped into something. He turned his head to see that his escape was blocked by an enormous stuffed polar bear. The bluebottles and the snake-creature advanced on Jack. They stretched out their arms, ready to tear him apart.

Jack was without hope. But seconds before the creatures laid their claws on him, he had an idea. Potentially the best idea he had ever had.

MINISTRY
OF
S.U.I.T.S
HANDBOOK

FOSSILS

E
FFECT
ON
L
ASAGNA

Fossils are created when many layers of rocks are placed over objects. If enough layers of rock press down on an object, it will eventually turn into a fossil fuel.

Applying this geological knowledge to the realm of culinary arts, this explains why you should never make a lasagna with more than six layers of pasta. If you do, there is a grave risk that the bottom layer of beef will spontaneously transmute into coal.

 

29

KILLING WITH HIS BEAR HANDS

 

Jack remembered that the polar bear behind him wasn't stuffed at all. All the animals in the museum were actually live animals who had been told they were playing musical statues. That was why there was no background music in museums.

He looked above him and saw the massive polar bear. Then he looked in front of him and saw three horrible, hybrid creatures closing in on him. The snake-creature hissed and a forked tongue flicked out of its mouth.

Jack had one chance, but it involved him doing something he really didn't like doing: singing in public.

Jack actually had quite a nice voice, but that was what made it worse. At every opportunity his mother would tell people what a great singer Jack was. She would then proceed to nag, poke, and prod him until he agreed to sing a few verses for whoever happened to be in the vicinity. It was excruciatingly embarrassing, and Jack had sworn to himself that if he ever found he had any other talents, he would carefully conceal them from his mother in case she started making him juggle or stilt-walk every time they went to the supermarket.

Jack started singing. He chose one of the songs that his father used to play at Christmas. He started patting the floor to get a rhythm going for himself.

“I ain't got nobody…”

The creatures stopped. They were curious as to why Jack would start singing. Didn't he realize how much danger he was in?

Of course Jack realized exactly how much danger he was in—that's why he was singing.
“And nobody cares for me…”

At that moment Jack felt a large globule of drool fall onto the top of his head. Because the polar bear could hear music, it stopped playing musical statues and started moving. It had been standing still all day, so it reared up to stretch its back muscles. Jack rolled backward through the bear's legs and curled himself up behind it. There was now a nine-hundred-pound polar bear between him and the three creatures. The obstacle of the bear made Jack feel safe. It was like when he had been younger and he had worried there had been monsters in his bedroom. He had felt safer by pulling the covers over his head. For some reason he had always felt that even if there had been a werewolf attacking him, it would have never managed to claw its way through a warm, snuggly duvet.
55

A polar bear makes a very effective duvet. Potentially it would have a tog rating of over fifteen.

Jack was still singing, hoping he could remember all the words. The bear had stopped stretching and was looking around the room. The three hybrid creatures stood in front of it. Although the creatures were grotesque and violent, they weren't desperately bright. They were still going to try and attack Jack. That meant they would have to attack the polar bear first. Given that the bear was nearly ten feet tall when standing on its back legs Jack really didn't fancy their chances.

One of the bluebottles advanced first, and it was met with the swipe of an enormous, shaggy paw. The blow contacted the side of the creature's head, but had an effect on its entire body. The bluebottle lifted off the ground, flew sideways through the air, and crashed into a wall where it crumpled and fell to the ground.

Jack watched with satisfaction and continued singing.

That's why I'm so sad and lonely, baby,

Won't somebody take a chance with me.

Jack knew that he had to keep singing so that the polar bear did not go back to playing musical statues. And so he moved seamlessly from verse to chorus.

In the next two minutes Jack found it hard to continue singing. Even though the hybrid creatures had been trying to kill him, it was difficult not to feel sympathy for anything that was being so comprehensively mauled by a polar bear. Occasionally when the bear did something particularly unpleasant Jack found himself wincing and hitting the wrong note.

At the same time, it was marvelous to feel safe and watch his enemies being destroyed. Jack managed to find enough joy in this to cause him to waltz around the fight between the polar bear and the creatures.

'Cause I sing sweet love songs

all the time,

Won't you come and be,

my sweet baby-mine.

The remaining bluebottle and its reptilian friend were stomped, clawed, bitten, and generally thrown around the room until they were piles of bruised and battered flesh.

Jack suspected that the polar bear had merely been playing with the creatures and could have finished them off in a few seconds. Instead it had wasted time picking them up in its maw and shaking them like a dog with a chew toy.

The creatures now lay motionless on the ground and the polar bear turned toward Jack. It took Jack a second to realize that he should now be terrified. Up until this moment Jack had looked upon the polar bear as a comrade, an ally. Now he realized that the polar bear had merely been doing what came naturally to it. It had attacked creatures that it saw as a threat.

Previously Jack had been endangered because he was being attacked by three hybrid creatures. Now he was in trouble because he was about to be attacked by a polar bear. His situation hadn't been substantially improved. In fact, if anything, it had gotten slightly worse.

The bear stalked toward Jack and raised an enormous bloodied paw in the air. Every muscle in Jack's body tensed, his eyes closed, and his teeth clamped shut as he waited for the impact to come.

And he waited. And waited.

Nothing happened.

Jack opened his eyes and looked at the polar bear above him. Its paw was still in the air poised to strike, but it wasn't moving. Then it struck Jack.
56
Of course, the polar bear had stopped moving. When he had tensed his body for the impact he had stopped singing! And once he stopped singing the polar bear returned to the game of musical statues.

Jack was so happy he felt like singing. Which he didn't do. Because that would have made the polar bear start moving again. And it would have hit him. And then he wouldn't have felt like singing anymore.

Jack stood still for a moment, wondering what he should do next, then—“Trudy!”

*   *   *

Jack raced back toward the art gallery. He hoped that the old lady hadn't done anything to his friend. But before he made it as far as the door, Grey appeared. He was helping a limping Trudy walk.

“We saw the attack on security cameras down in the Ministry,” explained Grey. “I ran up here as quickly as I could, but the old lady had already gone.”

“Is everything okay?” asked Jack, looking at Trudy for signs of a serious injury.

“Well, there are a few broken bones,” said Grey.

Jack gasped.

“But they're mainly in the dinosaur display, so we won't worry too much about that.”

“I meant, how is
she
?” asked Jack.

“
She
…” said Trudy testily, “… has a name. And
she
is fine.”

Jack was so happy that he felt like hugging Trudy. However, he refrained from taking this course of action as he was quite badly bruised and didn't want to have to suffer an additional punched shoulder.

“What happened with the old lady?”

“I think she panicked when the other creatures didn't return. One of the dog creatures revived and went with her. For some reason they stole a number of dinosaur bones when they were escaping, but we have no idea why.”

“Well, at least they didn't get us,” said Jack brightly.

Trudy stepped away from Grey and wandered over to the mangled hybrid creatures that had attacked Jack.

“Ewwww,” Trudy said. “I can't believe you did this, Jack. You could have shown some self-restraint.”

“I didn't do that. The polar bear did,” said Jack.

Trudy looked as if she didn't believe him. “A stuffed polar bear?”

“I'll explain later.”

Trudy nudged the body with her feet. “You know the snake-creature has actually been torn into two separate parts, don't you?”

Jack looked slightly squeamish. Trudy was right—the creature had been ripped apart. “Well, don't worry: If it's in two parts, they'll both grow into new snakes, won't they?”

“That isn't snakes you're thinking of,” said Trudy. “That's earthworms.”