The Ministry of SUITs (3 page)

“Look, we'd love to stay and chat,” said David, “but we've got to get on the bus and go to school.”

The bus driver beeped his horn and leaned out of his window. “Are you getting back on?”

The man with the umbrella waved the bus driver on. “Carry on, sir; I shall walk these two young gentlemen to school.”

“Right you are,” said the bus driver as he drove off.

“I can't believe you did that,” grumbled David.

“Don't you want to know why you managed to defeat the bear?” asked the man.

Jack's eyes lit up. It was exactly what he wanted to know. “Yes. I'd really like to know that.”

“You are either a very bright or a very lucky boy,” the man said.

“Brave but stupid, I'd say. If it had been me, I would have grabbed that nail gun and tried to shoot the bear,” said David.

“In which case the bear would have eaten you. You see, our young friend here chose the one thing in the vicinity that could save him from a bear attack. A wooden chair. Bears are terrified of wooden chairs.”

Jack thought about when he had grabbed the chair. He had known it was the right thing to do, but he hadn't been sure why. If he hadn't found out why, it would have irritated him all day. “So tell us, then, why are bears afraid of wooden chairs?”
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MINISTRY
OF
S.U.I.T.S
HANDBOOK

BEARS

F
ATALITIES
C
AUSED
BY
N
AIL
G
UNS

There are no records anywhere in the world of a bear being killed after being shot by a nail gun. If you shoot a bear with a nail gun, you aren't going to end up with a dead bear. You're going to end up with a very annoyed bear. Although it will be a very annoyed bear that you'll be able to hang a picture on.

 

4

A DANGEROUS UMBRELLA

 

For the first time Jack really looked at the man in the pin-striped suit. Despite having been recently attacked by a bear he didn't have a hair out of place, and although his shirt was torn it was still neatly tucked into his trousers. His eyes were a steely color and they fixed on Jack, making him feel slightly unnerved. The man looked exactly like a spy would look if he was trying to infiltrate a top-class, Savile Row tailor.

“Normally bears live in the woods,” the man began to explain. “In many ways they are the king of all they survey. There really isn't another animal in the woods that could defeat a bear.”

“What about a lion?” asked David.

“Well, the one time I saw a bear and a lion fight, the bear definitely won. Anyway, as I was saying…”

“Wait a minute,” interrupted Jack. “You saw a lion fight a bear once?”

“Yes, it was an office party that went badly wrong.”

Jack was about to ask another question, but the man headed him off. “Look, do you want to know why bears are afraid of chairs or not?”

“Sorry for interrupting,” said Jack.

“Mmmm. You are a very impetuous boy…” The man waited for Jack to supply his name.

“I'm Jack; this is David.”

The man shook both their hands vigorously. “Very good. My name is Grey. Now, we were discussing bears. In a forest the bear is king. Top dog, or rather top bear. Except for one thing.”

David's eyes lit up. “There's a bigger animal that lives in the forest?”

“Not an animal,” said Grey. “It's a…”

“A tree,” Jack said.

Grey tilted his head to one side and looked at Jack. His eyes narrowed, as if he was looking at a very hard math equation. It made Jack squirm.

“Quite right, Jack. The only thing that the bear isn't king of is the tree. Trees are bigger than bears. Did you know that bears scratch and bite trees with their teeth and claws? Now, biologists
13
will tell you that they're sharpening their claws. But think about it. That's a ridiculous explanation. Have you ever used a knife against a tree? It won't make it sharp, it makes it blunt.”

Jack nodded at this. When he was seven years old he'd tried to make a tree house in the garden. In order to get wood he had tried to cut down a cherry tree with a kitchen knife. His mother had been furious when the knife was returned with an edge that was as dull as a double math class on a sunny day.

Grey continued, “So if they aren't sharpening their claws on the trees, why are they doing it?”

Something popped into Jack's head. “Because they're attacking the trees?”

Grey took a step backward. Jack had read about people taking a step back in surprise, but this was the first time he'd ever actually seen it happen in real life. “How did you know that?” asked Grey.

“Jack's always thinking about things like that. He thinks too much if you ask me,” said David.

“Thinks too much?” Grey mused to himself. “Jack, I think I should speak to you by yourself.”

“And how will you do that?” asked David. “I'm right here.”

Grey opened his black umbrella. “Here, hold this.” He thrust it into David's hands.

“What?” David said. “But it isn't raining.”
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“Oh,” said Grey, “I don't suppose it is, is it?” Grey snapped his fingers and the umbrella abruptly closed up again. Unfortunately as David was holding it, it snapped closed on his head, also half pinning his arms to his sides.

“Mmmmphhhh,” said David as he frantically ran around trying to free himself.

“What have you done?” Jack cried.

“I just want to talk to you without your friend interrupting us.”

David was running up and down the street and making muffled yet indignant noises.

“The umbrella won't hurt him. He's perfectly safe,” Grey reassured Jack.

David chose this point to run slap-bang into a lamppost. The noise of his nose crashing against the metal rang out.

“Perfectly safe?” asked Jack.

“To be fair, I said the
umbrella
wouldn't hurt him. Which is true. It was the lamppost that hurt him. But let's move him away from the traffic just in case.”

Between the two of them they escorted David into a chair outside the café. David sat in it silently.

“There you go,” said Grey, smiling. “He seems to be a lot quieter now … Well, either that or he's concussed.”

“Concussed!”

“He's probably not concussed. It really is a very high-quality umbrella. Thick material, frightfully waterproof.”

Jack thought to himself that wasn't really a recommendation. Most umbrellas were waterproof. It was their role in life to be so. However, relatively few umbrellas were lamppost-proof.

“Okay,” said Grey, “so
why
do you think bears attack trees?”

Jack shrugged. “I don't know … Umm, bears are bullies?”

“Eureka!” yelled Grey, who was doing a little dance around Jack. The dance was frankly ridiculous. Jack felt embarrassed for the both of them. Normally Jack did not feel embarrassed for other people. However, Grey looked as if he was too busy dancing to be embarrassed, so it seemed the polite thing to do.

Grey stopped dancing. “You got it in one—bears are bullies. And bears attack trees because trees are the only thing that's bigger than them in the woods. Of course after attacking half a dozen trees, a bear realizes that a tree is much tougher than he is. Trees don't flinch, don't bleed, don't scream. Trees seem invulnerable to the bears.”

Jack shook his head. “Still not getting it. So why are bears scared of chairs?”

“Easy!” said the still-jubilant Grey. “Bears know that trees are tough. And yet you appeared to the bear as if you were a man who could not only kill a tree, but one who could bend and shape a tree's body into the shape of a wooden chair. You had power over a tree!”

Jack thought about this. It sounded ridiculous, but also completely logical. If the best a bear could do to a tree was leave a few claw marks, it would be terrified of anyone who had taken an enormous piece of timber and turned it into a chair.

“Wow,” said Jack. “So that's why lion tamers use chairs as well.”

“Precisely, most woodland and forest animals are scared of a person holding a chair, because it shows that they can kill trees. Jack, my boy, you are quite brilliant.”

Jack smiled. He had always wondered why lion tamers used chairs. Now he knew. He loved explanations because they made the world slightly more organized, slightly more sensible.

“We could use a boy like you, Jack,” Grey said. “If you're interested, come and visit me at my work.” He walked over to David and, with a flick of his wrist, freed him from the umbrella. David sullenly rubbed his bruised nose as Grey turned sharply on his heel and strode off.

“Wait a minute,” Jack called after him. “You could use me for what? And anyway, how do I know where you work?”

Without breaking stride Grey shouted over his shoulder. “Jack, if you're half the boy I think you are, you'll be able to figure out where I work without much trouble.”

Jack watched as Grey walked into the distance. With most other boys that would have been the last that they saw of Grey, but Jack was far too curious to allow that to happen.

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

JUNGLE AND WOODLAND ANIMALS

F
EAR
OF
C
HAIRS

Anyone with any level of education is clearly aware that most woodland-, forest-, and jungle-dwelling animals are scared of chairs.

However, it is important to state that not all animals are afraid of chairs. Elephants aren't, for example. Elephants are big enough to push over trees and therefore aren't even vaguely scared of them. However, elephants are scared of pianos as they think the white keys are all made of ivory. This is the reason why you never see an elephant at an Elton John concert. Which is a shame, really, because elephants love touching, romantic ballads.

Incidentally, elephants are wrong about the white keys on pianos being made from ivory.

 

5

A GIRL CALLED TRUDY WHO HAS A REPUTATION FOR MOODINESS

 

Jack and David ran through the school gates and sprinted into the main building in a desperate bid to avoid being late. David had been trying to move more quickly than was sensible and ran smack into a girl. They both tumbled to the ground in a flurry of limbs.

Jack started over to help them up, but before he had even completed a single step the girl was already on her feet. She had moved almost impossibly fast, so quickly she almost seemed to blur.

David was on his feet again and he dusted himself off. However, he had barely been on his feet for five seconds when he fell down again and curled himself into a tiny ball.

“Umm, what are you doing?” asked Jack.

David untucked his head from the ball he had curled himself into. He looked rather like a tortoise wearing a school uniform. “I could ask you the same thing.”

“Well, you could,” agreed Jack, “but it wouldn't make any sense.”

David unfurled an arm and pointed at the girl he had run into. For the first time Jack really looked at her. It was Trudy Emerson.

Trudy was about the same height as Jack and was in the same year. She had fair hair, which would have been shoulder length if she didn't always have it pulled back into a tight ponytail. Half a dozen strands of hair at the front were dyed red and had a tendency to fall across her face, obscuring her dark blue eyes.

But Jack wasn't worried about how she looked. He was worried about her reputation. A reputation that had led her to gain the nickname “Moody Trudy.” In Trudy's first year at the school she had already broken several records for detentions, general tellings-off, and suspensions.

What made Trudy really terrifying was that she did all this completely by herself. Most of the bad kids hung around in gangs. By themselves they would have been too scared to break the rules. But nothing seemed to scare Trudy. She didn't
break
rules. She
shattered
them into little, tiny pieces, jumped on the pieces, and then dropped them around a “no littering” sign. Quite possibly hoping that a passing squirrel would try and eat a piece of the rules and then choke.

Jack looked at Trudy and smiled. “Sorry about David; he's just…”

Trudy said nothing. She just stared.

“We'll just be…”

Trudy continued staring.

Jack noticed that a group of kids from his class were walking past and heading into the assembly hall. This was very confusing. Assembly should already have been over. It wasn't that Jack stopped being afraid of Trudy at that moment. It was just that his sense of curiosity needed to know what was going on. If curiosity had been an airborne virus, any cats within a five-hundred-foot radius of Jack would have dropped dead.

“Why is everyone going into the hall?” asked Jack. “Shouldn't assembly be over for the day?”

Trudy stopped staring and snorted. “They're having a special assembly,” she snapped. “Some stupid company coming to sponsor the school or something. Give us free stuff.”

Trudy's fists were curling into balls. If Jack had been a normal boy, he would have thanked Trudy for her time, wished her well in future endeavors, and run away in the opposite direction. However, his curiosity gland was pumping madly.
15

“Why would you be angry about someone giving us stuff? Isn't it good getting stuff?”

Trudy spoke through gritted teeth. “We have P.E. this morning. I was going to use the assembly hall for my gymnastics.”

“Oh. Right.”