The Ministry of SUITs (6 page)

9

MULTITASKING WITH AN UMBRELLA

 

It was the end of the school day and Jack waved as David got on the bus home. Then he realized that waving at someone on a bus made him look stupid and stopped.

Jack liked buses because they reminded him of dinosaurs. Any time someone was describing a dinosaur they would never tell you that it stood thirty feet high, or weighed fifteen tons. Instead they always told you how big it was compared to a double-decker bus. Jack knew that a
Triceratops
was the size of a double-decker bus, a
Tyrannosaurus rex
was taller than a double-decker bus, and a
Brontosaurus
weighed the equivalent of fifteen double-decker buses.

Jack had no idea why dinosaurs were always compared to double-decker buses. It seemed odd to compare one to the other as they didn't seem to come in contact. Generally speaking, dinosaurs rarely used public transport.

Jack wasn't riding the bus today. He'd decided to take Grey up on his offer. Although Jack hadn't said it in so many words to David, he was more than a little nervous. If Jack was right about the box of spares, it meant his best friend could be in danger. If odd kids were being kidnapped, it would only be a matter of time before David disappeared. And there was no way that Jack was going to let that happen. He would find Grey and figure out what was happening with the box of spares.

Jack had one clue as to where Grey might possibly work. Grey had said that he had seen a lion fight a bear at an office party and there was only one place in town where you could find both a lion and a bear together.

A lot of people would have assumed the zoo. But there were two problems with that theory. The first was that it was hard to see how zoo animals could get out of the cages. The entire point of zoos was to keep animals separated from each other and the general public. The second problem was that zoos were pretty open-plan. There weren't “offices” to have parties in.

So where was the one place in town where you could find a bear, a lion, and some office space?

The museum.

Of course a lot of people might have pointed out to Jack that the animals in the museum were stuffed. But with the strange things that had been going on today, Jack wasn't going to let an explanation like that stop him.

The nearest museum to where Jack lived was the Ulster Museum, right in the center of the city. He'd already phoned his parents and told them he'd be late for tea as he was joining the school choir. They'd been surprised and he knew he would be quizzed on this when he got home, but he could think about that later.

The museum was an enormous building that sat on top of a small hillock in the city's botanical gardens. The entrance was an old mansion house with enormous white pillars and large cross-latticed windows. It had been expanded years ago and the extension was made up of a series of large concrete rectangles. From the outside it looked confusing—just like every good museum should.

Jack walked through the sliding entrance doors and up to the information desk. Sadly no one there seemed to have heard of a man called Grey who wore a business suit and carried an umbrella. Jack wandered past Viking longboats, native American teepees, and historical flags while wondering what to do next.

Grey had been wearing a suit. That meant that if he did work at the museum, he didn't work on the floor with the exhibits. People who wore suits worked in back rooms and offices. Jack ran to the elevator and looked at the buttons. He had expected to see a button marked “Private” or “Staff Only,” but there was nothing like that.

The buttons showed there were two basement levels (marked B and LB) and three ordinary floors. Then out of the corner of his eye he noted a button that was right up near the roof of the elevator. It didn't have a number or a letter on it but instead was marked with a tiny symbol that looked like a suit jacket and tie.

Normally elevator buttons would be within easy reach. Why would someone put one so far out of reach?

Jack realized it wasn't the button that he needed to think about. Buttons were inanimate objects. What he really wanted to think about was the person who pressed them. Once more Jack found himself thinking about what he knew about Grey.

Grey was a very strange man. A pin-striped suit, a sharp side part, and a furled umbrella. Jack could still see Grey in his mind's eye. Standing there. With the sun just over the horizon, beaming out of a cloudless sky. A cloudless sky …
a cloudless sky
!

Jack cursed himself for being so stupid and started rummaging around in his schoolbag until he found a ruler. Grey had been wandering around on a bright and sunny day with an umbrella in his hand. There hadn't been a cloud in the sky. Why would someone carry an umbrella when it clearly wasn't going to rain?

The answer was simple. He carried an umbrella because he had to press a button high up on the wall of an elevator. No one could ever have reached the top button in the elevator …
unless
they had an umbrella to poke it with. The fact that the button was so high up on the wall would stop people from pressing it by accident, and therefore Jack assumed it would take him to the most secret part of the museum. A man as mysterious as Grey was bound to work in a secret and strange location.

Standing on his tiptoes and using the ruler he had taken from his schoolbag, Jack just managed to click the button. The doors of the elevator closed and it started rumbling ominously. Jack couldn't tell whether the elevator was going up or down. It might even have been moving sideways. It seemed to be moving at considerable speed, making a “ding-ding-ding” sound as it rattled past floors.

Then, without warning, the elevator shuddered to a stop and the doors slid open. Jack cautiously poked his nose outside the door. In front of him was a long corridor, but it didn't look like he was in the museum anymore. The corridor looked as if it had been tunneled through solid rock. The walls were covered in patches of a greenish mossy substance. Jack suspected that the greenish mossy substance might well be green moss. But unfortunately he hadn't paid enough attention in biology classes to be sure.

Jack took a step out of the elevator and nervously walked down the corridor. Behind him the doors of the elevator
schlicked
closed. Jack turned and panicked—how would he ever get out?

“I'm going to be trapped down here forever. How will I ever…”

Then he realized that this was what elevators always did—you stepped out and the doors closed. Jack pressed a button in the wall beside the elevator doors and they popped open again. “That's handy.”

Feeling reassured that he wasn't trapped, he walked down the long corridor. It was dimly lit; however, Jack couldn't figure out where the light was coming from. He was surrounded by a sort of dull glow.

Jack leaned against the wall to contemplate where the light could be coming from. When his shoulder touched the wall there was a sudden burst of bright light. It was as if his shoulder was suddenly on fire. Jack jumped away from the wall and slapped his shoulder to put it out. He was glad, but curious when he realized that his shoulder wasn't actually on fire. In fact it wasn't even warm. Jack extended his best poking finger and pushed it into a lump of moss. When he poked the moss a bright light shot out from the wall. It wasn't hot and didn't burn him like a lightbulb might have.

Jack realized that the moss was the source of light in the corridor. He slapped a piece of the moss hard and was dazzled as a puff of light exploded outward. Jack wondered how it worked and peeled a piece of it off the wall and put it in his pocket, deciding to think about it later.

The corridor widened into a cave that would have been large enough to fit a cathedral inside. At the far end of the cave was a set of ten-foot-high double doors made of dark brown wood, banded across by rusted, black metal. The doors were flanked by two giant statues with squat arms and legs and crudely carved heads.

There was something quite frightening about the statues. Anybody else might have stopped and turned around, but Jack had come too far now. He
needed
to know what was behind those doors. He needed to find Grey and make sure that David wasn't the next odd kid to go missing.

Jack walked toward the statues and the door. “I know what's going to happen next,” he said to himself.

When Jack was within ten paces of the doors there was a deep grinding sound from the statues and they slowly hauled themselves upright.

One of the statues turned its dark, hollow eye sockets toward Jack and boomed at him in a voice that sounded like the sea rattling up and down against a pebble beach.

“Halt! You are not known. Leave now or we shall crush you.”

“Yeah,” said Jack, his eyes widening with fear, “that's pretty much what I thought was going to happen.”

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

INTERESTING PLANTS

G
OLDMOSS

Goldmoss is often used by the Ministry to light underground passages and caves because it is environmentally friendly and also saves a fortune on the electricity bills.

Goldmoss is an unusual plant in that it generates light. Like all plants, goldmoss is afraid of the dark. Anyone who knows anything about botany can tell you that plants are afraid of the dark. During the day daisies, sunflowers, daffodils … all flowers, in fact, are perfectly happy. That's why they look so pretty and turn their faces to the sun. But if you ever look at plants, you will know that at night they close their petals. Some scientists were confused by this and came up with elaborate reasons why. They even went as far as to talk about photosynthesis and how plants can turn light into food. Of course this is patently ridiculous. If you could turn sunlight into food, then people with tans would always be fat. But quite often the opposite is the truth. People with tans tend to be thin. Which is absolute proof that sunlight can't be turned into food.

The real reason that plants close up at night is that they are terrified of the dark. They scrunch themselves up and hide until the morning comes.

Goldmoss is so frightened of the dark that it actually produces its own light. Therefore when you poke it, it panics and lets out a burst of light.

Most plants are afraid all the time. Which is why they never go anywhere. If they were brave, they might go for a walk and see what was around the corner. Generally plants don't do this as they are paralyzed (literally) with fear.

Occasionally a really old tree that has grown very tall will be brave enough to go for a wander. But this rarely happens. When Ministry Operatives notice that a tree has gone for a walk they will put up a sign to warn people, lest they get crushed beneath its enormous roots. You may have occasionally seen these signs—they say “Heavy Plant Crossing.”

 

10

VANITY, THY NAME IS STATUE

 

“I really don't want to leave,” said Jack. “But equally I don't want to be crushed.” Jack knew he had to get past the statues. His curiosity always seemed to get worse when someone wanted to stop him from finding out things. If he had to choose between a hundred pounds or a mystery box, Jack would pick the mystery box every time.

“We are the door guardians,” said one of the statues. “If we allowed people to get through the doors, we wouldn't be doing a very good job, would we?”

“Can we at least talk about it?” pleaded Jack.

“Oh,” said the statue as its hands dropped back to its sides. “I, uhh, I suppose we don't have to smash you straightaway.”

“Yeah,” said the second statue, “didn't we learn something about that in the customer-care seminar the management made us go on?”

“I'd rather not be smashed,” said Jack. “I'd just like to go through the door. That would be excellent customer service.”

“I think that would be a step too far,” said one of the statues.

“Yeah, I mean if door guardians let people through doors, then what use are they?”

Jack pondered this. “Well, you really do make a pair of splendidly beautiful statues.”

The statues laughed. “We know we aren't attractive. Look at our barely carved heads,” one statue pointed out.

The other statue chortled along. “Exactly, and look at our teeth. They're just stalactites and stalagmites.”

Jack felt that flattery was the route to try. “I disagree; in fact the both of you look very noble. Maybe you should forget about guarding the doors and just try looking decorative. That's what most statues do, isn't it?”

The statues looked unconvinced. Jack would have to try harder.

“Look, we're all friends here, aren't we.…” Jack realized that he didn't know what the statues' names were. “Umm, what should I call you?”

“I'm Kevin,” said the second statue. “And that's Barry.”

Jack's eyes widened. “Kevin and Barry? Really?”

“Yeah,” said Kevin. “What's wrong with that?”

Jack shrugged. “I suppose I expected that you'd have names like Rocknar the Destroyer and Grogat the Mighty.”

Barry laughed. “Who has names like that?”

“You'd never get a job as a door guardian if you had a name like that,” said Barry. “I mean if you got a job application from a guy called Rocknar the Destroyer, would you accept him for an interview? Can you imagine interviewing someone like Grogat the Mighty for a job as a cashier in a bank?”

“You have a point,” said Jack, who really wasn't sure whether Barry had a point or not. “Although I suppose I might give a cashier job to someone called Grogat the Destroyer if I were a Viking.”

“Aha,” exclaimed Kevin, “but how many bank managers do you know who are Vikings?”

Jack had to admit that he didn't know any bank managers who were Vikings. Although this doesn't really prove anything. Jack may not have known any bank managers who were Vikings, but as he was only twelve he didn't know any bank managers at all. “Look, if you let me through the door, I can help you look decorative and noble. Then that could be your purpose in life instead of focusing on smashing people.”