The Ministry of SUITs (26 page)

The only thing more dangerous that an angry dinosaur is an amorous dinosaur. Therefore Ministry operatives are advised to run in the opposite direction if they hear a dinosaur mating cry.

If you have never heard a dinosaur mating cry, the sound it most closely resembles is the same sound as fingernails being dragged across a chalkboard.

This is why humans find the sound of fingers on a chalkboard so unpleasant. This was a sound of danger to cavemen versions of us from many years ago—a warning to run and hide. Therefore an ancestral memory, hidden somewhere deep in our subconscious minds, is still terrified when it hears this sound.

*   *   *

This also goes part of the way to explaining why the Ministry had to hide the dinosaurs in the first place. Because the sound of nails on a chalkboard sounds to dinosaurs like a mating cry, many cavemen schools had to be disbanded following a series of fatal squashings.

 

38

THE QUARTERMASTER'S STORE

 

The quartermaster's store was enormous. In fact, it was beyond enormous. With only eight letters, enormous was a ridiculously small word to try and explain just how big the store was.

For a start, the store was impossibly tall. Where the roof should have been there were several banks of fluffy, white clouds. Birds circled high above their heads. Each of the birds had miniature oxygen tanks on their backs and little plastic breathing masks strapped over their beaks.

“Is it safe to breathe the air in here, Grey?” asked Jack, doing his best not to inhale.

“Oh, yes, perfectly. The birds only need to wear the oxygen tanks for when they fly up to the rafters where they build their nests. Up there, the air is so thin that they can't breathe properly.”

“That doesn't make sense,” said Trudy. “Because even if the roof really is that high up, we're still under the museum, aren't we?”

“Yes, it is strange, isn't it?” said Grey. “I've never really figured out how that works.”

There was a deafening crash a couple of feet away from where Jack was standing. Jack leapt into the air and his heart played a paradiddle against his rib cage.

A block of ice had crashed into the floor, causing a crater three feet wide. David and Trudy both looked to Grey for an explanation.

“Yes, perhaps I should have warned you about that.”

“You think?” asked Trudy. “What was it?”

“Well, occasionally a rather stupid bird decides to fly all the way up to the very top of the roof. Up there it's so cold that their wings freeze and they turn into little birdy ice cubes. When that happens they come crashing to the ground. Nasty business. Three people have been killed by falling wildfowl this year.”

“Aren't there any safety precautions we should be taking? Like, wearing some kind of a hat?”

Grey pointed to the crater the ice-covered bird had made when it had crashed into the ground. “The floor is reinforced concrete with cast-iron gratings through it for extra rigidity. The iced bird fell so far and so fast that it made a hole in that. What kind of hat would protect you?”

Jack admitted that it would have to be a pretty big hat to be of any use.

“Hasn't anyone ever done anything to make it more safe?” asked Trudy.

“One of the Ministry scientists tried. He invented a hat that was made of unusually strong metals alloys that could take any impact.”

“And that saved him from falling birds?” Jack asked.

“Well, yes, but unfortunately the hat was so heavy that the first time he strapped it on he broke his neck and killed himself.”

Jack and Trudy both shuddered at this piece of ghoulish information.

“That's him over there,” said Grey, pointing.

Jack turned and saw a skeleton with a hat the size of a caravan strapped onto the skull.

“They didn't even take him away?” asked Jack, feeling queasy.

“No one could figure out how to undo the straps,” said Grey. “And the hat's far too heavy to lift.”

Jack looked up at the clouds and decided that he wanted to get out of the store as soon as possible. He couldn't help feeling that this visit to the quartermaster wasn't going to help them that much in their quest to save David.

In the center of the room there was a wide counter, and behind that there were row upon row upon row of filing cabinets. They seemed to go on forever and stretched up into the clouds.

Grey leaned against the counter in a nonchalant manner and sharply struck a small golden bell that sat on top of it.

At the sound of the
ding
a tiny man popped up from behind the counter.

“Hello, Quartermaster,” said Grey.

“Hello, Grey,” said the tiny man. “I thought you'd retired.”

“Not retired, but not out on as many active missions these days. Anyway, breaking in a few new recruits.” Grey waved his hand at Trudy and Jack. “Trudy … Jack, this is the quartermaster. Quartermaster, this is Jack and Trudy.”

Jack and Trudy took turns leaning over the counter to shake the quartermaster's hand.

Looking over the counter, Jack saw that the quartermaster was standing on a ladder and couldn't have been much more than two and a half feet tall. But despite his height, he really wasn't tiny. Rather, he looked more squashed—like a tall man compressed into a short man.

“So what are you looking for?” the quartermaster asked.

Trudy thought. They needed something that would allow them to rescue the kidnapped children from the mine. “Some kind of grappling hook. One that pulls a rope ladder after it. And it should fire from a gas-propelled gun.”

Jack was impressed by how clear Trudy was about the equipment they needed. The quartermaster didn't bat an eyelid—he had dealt with much more outlandish requests during his time at the Ministry. He nodded his head, climbed down off his ladder, and walked into the ranks of filing cabinets.

Jack turned to Grey; he had a question to ask. “Grey…”

“You want to know why the Quartermaster looks like a tall man squashed?”

“Yes.”

“You know the way that in the Ministry things aren't always what they first appear? In the case of the quartermaster he is exactly what he looks like.”

“He's really a tall man who's been squashed?” said Jack.

“Gradually squashed, yes. When I first came here he was just over three feet tall. The problem is that he keeps falling off the ladders that he uses to get to the top of the filing cabinets.”

“But surely that would kill him?” said Trudy.

“Yes, it should kill him, but it doesn't. The quartermaster figured out a system to avoid dying from such long falls.”

“What is it?” asked Trudy.
72

“When he's falling he only falls part of the way at a time.”

“I'm sorry?” said Jack, who really wasn't in the slightest bit sorry.

“It's like this. Say, he falls off a ladder at a height of ten thousand feet…”

Grey was interrupted by a sudden yell in the distance.

“O-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h, R-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-tsssss.”

The yell sounded as if it was far away but getting closer. Jack guessed, quite correctly, that this was the sound of the Quartermaster falling off a ladder somewhere.

Grey stood still, as if he was waiting for something. Jack and Trudy decided that it was best to do the same. After a few minutes had passed they heard a slight thump. It sounded as if someone had dropped a large shopping bag onto a kitchen floor. Grey seemed reassured when he heard this and carried on with his explanation.

“Now say the quartermaster falls from a height of ten thousand feet—most people would panic and fall all ten thousand feet in one go. But not the clever quartermaster.”

“So what does he do, then?”

“He falls the ten thousand feet by splitting it up into five thousand falls of two feet. Now, if a man falls ten thousand feet, he'll die, right?”

“Right.”

“Now on the other hand, if he falls two feet, five thousand times, he won't die, right?”

“Okay, that makes sense … sort of … But why does he look all squashed?” asked Trudy.

“Well, even a fall of two feet subjects your body to a bit of strain. Now, if you subject your body to that strain five thousand times, then it adds up. In the end all the forces, from all the falls, all add up, and you get ever so slightly shorter—squashed.”

“So every time I fall I get shorter?” asked Jack.

“Well, yes,” said Grey, “but only a really, really
tiny
amount. Have you ever noticed how short old people are? That's because they also tend to fall over a lot.”

“Babies tend to fall over a lot as well,” observed Trudy.

“Well, exactly,” agreed Grey, “and look at how short they are.”

“It's not the strangest thing I've heard in the last few days,” mused Jack as the quartermaster came around the corner.

He was carrying a couple of pink forms in one hand and was using the other hand to rub his bottom. Apparently even a fall of two feet hurt when you fell on your bottom.

“Here are the forms, just fill them out as best you can and then I'll get you the equipment.”

Jack looked at the forms that the quartermaster had put down on the desk and then looked at Grey. Were these the legendary “infinitely long” forms? They were about the size of a notebook page and as far as Jack could tell there were only three or four spaces to fill in.

“They don't look that long,” said Jack.

Grey said nothing and handed Jack his sleek black pen. It only took Jack two minutes to fill in the form requesting the grappling hook. He felt happy that the “infinitely long” form had turned out to be rather short. At the same time, part of him knew that nothing in the Ministry could be as simple as this.

“Finished,” said Jack, handing the form back to the quartermaster. He was keen to get out of the store and back to thinking about how to rescue David.

The quartermaster looked at the form and pointed at something written on the bottom of it in impossibly small writing. Jack had to put his face right up against the paper and squint before he could make out what it said.

In the event of equipment being needed this year please complete supplementary form 125jT. If equipment will be needed next year please complete form 11C1. Thank you for your cooperation.

Jack felt a sinking feeling. “I'll need the equipment this year.”

“That'll be the 125jT, then,” said the quartermaster, handing Jack a second form.

*   *   *

Time passed. A lot of time passed. No matter how many forms Jack filled out, there was always just one more to fill in after that. Jack realized what Grey meant about the forms being infinitely long; this could go on forever. Eventually Jack noticed that he was filling out another form 125jT.

“I've already filled out this form before. Do I have to fill it out again?”

“Afraid so,” said the quartermaster. “There is some duplication, but it's absolutely necessary for the system to work.”

Jack realized, as he had filled out a second 125jT, that he was in a loop. He would eventually fill out another, then some more forms, then another.… There was no way out. He was trapped. He started giggling in a slightly insane way. “Forms, forms, lovely forms.” He sang to himself under his breath as he scrunched them up in his hands.

Trudy went over to Jack and gently took the pen and the forms out of his hands. Jack was shaking slightly, but felt relieved that he was no longer holding any of the forms. Trudy set the paperwork on the desk in front of the quartermaster.

“We've changed our minds,” said Trudy. “That equipment isn't so important after all.”

“You'd be surprised how many people decide that in the end,” the quartermaster said, smiling.

“How many?” asked Jack. He was still rocking backward and forward.

The quartermaster thought. “How many people give up trying to get equipment? That's a request for statistics. In order for me to give you the numbers you want I'll need you to fill in a form AAAs2W.”

“Never mind,” Trudy said quickly. “Grey, let's get Jack out of here.”

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

STATISTICS

A
BILITY
TO
E
XPLAIN
T
HINGS

Statisticians will tell you that statistics are very useful for helping to explain things to people.

Of course this is not even vaguely true. Statistics tend to make things more confusing than they were in the first place. Anyone who has ever watched a children's television show will know that what really helps explain things easily is a conversation between two or more sock puppets. This is why the Ministry of SUITs has only one full-time trained statistician and six full-time trained sock-puppeticians.

 

39

RETURN TO SANITY

 

Once out of the storeroom Jack seemed to regain his grasp on reality.

He hugged Trudy. “Thanks for getting me out of there. I don't think I'd have made it if I'd been on my own.”

Trudy turned to Grey and poked him in the chest with her forefinger. “What was the point in taking us in there? What's the point in having a quartermaster who never actually gives out any equipment?”

Grey sucked his teeth before answering. “It's like this: In every workplace there is a lot of time wasting. Here at the Ministry, rather than letting important people waste their time we actually employ people like the quartermaster to waste their time for them.”

“And that works?” asked Trudy.

“Surprisingly well. After a visit to the quartermaster most people are so relieved to be doing something worthwhile that they work twice as hard as they would have otherwise.”