It could have been mere coincidence, of course, that Jack had this story on a hook in his toilet. And statistically, a one-off would have been acceptable. But the fact was this: all four sheets that Ralph was holding carried reports of the missing boffin.
Four out of four is not coincidence.
Two things were clear to Ralph from this: one, Jack Bilt was fascinated by this story; and two, he liked to wipe his bottom on it.
Grounded
‘OH, LOOK AT THE STATE OF YOU.’
The words flew out of Penny’s mouth like bullets. Peeang. Pnow. Ralph Aubrey Perfect, boy adventurer, you’re dead.
‘I thought you were searching for your roller blades, not digging a tunnel to the centre of the earth?’
Ralph shrugged. ‘They were right in the corner,’ he offered.
His mother raised a simmering eyebrow. ‘You’re grounded,’ she said, pointing a finger. ‘No skating – or tunnelling – of any kind tonight. Bath, then your room, then early to bed. No TV. No music. No complaints.’
Ralph turned away with a sullen grimace.
‘And don’t grimace,’ said his mother.
Ralph stuck out his tongue.
And though she couldn’t possibly have seen this act of cheek, Mrs Perfect added spookily, ‘And don’t stick your tongue out, either, young man.’
‘Young man’. How Ralph hated that. He clumped upstairs, making sure he left dusty footprints everywhere, pleased to hear his mother tutting and clucking and reaching for the vacuum cleaner long before he’d started dumping clothes in the wash basket.
While he waited for the bath to fill, he sat on the bathroom floor in his dressing gown, his back against the fins of the wurgling radiator. One by one, he looked through the articles he’d snatched from the hook in Jack Bilt’s loo. The first showed a photo of the missing professor, sitting in an easy chair surrounded by books. A gaunt and elderly man, he was, with deep-set, hawkish eyes and a slackness in the jaw that left his lower lip cowering away from his teeth. This is what Ralph read about him:
South Thames Police are still baffled by the mysterious disappearance of theoretical physicist Professor Ambrose Collonges (sixty-two) from his home on the outskirts of Ledlow Wood. Professor Collonges, the world’s leading authority on matter to anti-matter transgeneration, was last seen by a neighbour walking his dog. Police have ruled out abduction by force, and are investigating claims that the scientist may have defected to a foreign power, taking his controversial theories with him…
Ralph raised his eyes. Transgeneration? What did that mean? He picked up the second bit of limping newsprint, holding its torn edges carefully together. It reported, roughly, the same news as the first. The third one, likewise, added little more. But the fourth made Ralph sit up with a start. Taps raged and bubble monsters foamed beside him, but he only had eyes for those columns of words. He didn’t understand half the language used, but certain phrases leapt out like sparks, especially in the paragraph which explained the concept of transgeneration…
…atoms contained within a primary shell, electromagnetically stimulated by buffering radionic plexus covariants, undergo significant particle displacement activity. By selectively adjusting the bipolar energy, it is hypothetically possible, Collonges argues, to reduce or expand matter or move it through time and space in a manner roughly akin to the transporter popularised on the TV show Star Trek.
Ralph steadied his hands and read that chunk again. Particle displacement. Reduce matter. Star Trek.
Jack’s watch.
Kyle’s ‘dive’ into the privet hedge.
The tiny white van.
The oak tree in the bell jar.
Knocker’s shrivelled leg.
Matter.
Displaced.
Ralph’s eyes became a wide barometer of terror. The warmth began to drain from his tingling skin as a tidal wave of fear surged through his veins. Strangely, the sensation didn’t last long as a real tidal wave of overflowing bathwater simultaneously splattered the floor by his ankle. He leapt to his feet and screwed down the taps, being careful not to get the articles wet. Only now did he realise the ‘thimbleful’ of bubble bath he’d thrown into the water was really more like a plant pot-ful. A huge, popping, lava bed of foam was jellying its way towards the ceiling. Leaving the articles on top of the laundry basket, he pillow-punched through it and reached for the plug. The water level gurgled down. When the tub was a sensible three-quarters full, he jammed the plug back, scraped the glistening candyfloss aside, stepped through the puddle on the floor and got in.
The overwhelming panic he’d felt had now given way to a node of deep suspicion. ‘Particle displacement’. The words chimed like a bell. That was the very phrase Jack had used when Ralph had asked him about the watch. Was it possible the builder was telling the truth? Playing a wicked double bluff? That the flashing device on his bony wrist really could shrink you to the size of half a thumb – as well as display the accurate time?
Ralph dipped his head below the surface of the water and let his fringe float amongst the islands of bubbles. Supposing it was true. Supposing Jack did have such a device. How had he obtained it? And how could a thick-sliced loaf like him be skilled enough to use it? He’d struggle to programme a video recorder, let alone work out a matter transporter. What connection could he have to the missing professor?
And then it struck him – no, not the loofah or his mum’s rubber duck or the spider crawling across the ceiling high above – but a detail he’d missed in one of the reports. He dried his hands on a towel and snatched them up, finding the picture of Collonges again. The professor was sitting with his back to a window. Beyond the window was a criss-crossing pattern of dark-grey lines. They were poles. Metal scaffolding poles. Ralph put the articles aside.
The professor had been having some building work done when this photograph was taken.
That was the connection.
A bar of soap shot out of Ralph’s grasp (skittling a cluster of shampoo bottles). It was clear to him now what must have happened…
One day, Jack had been up on the scaffolding, repairing a window or pointing a wall, when he’d casually peered into the professor’s study and seen the old man carrying out transgeneration experiments. The builder, never slow to spot an opportunity, had eased up the window and slipped into the room. From a safe distance, he’d watched the professor displacing a pen or a paperclip or something, and evil had gripped his undernourished heart. He’d made a sound. The professor had turned, demanding to know what the devil Jack was up to. Jack had lunged and gripped him by the throat. And while the old man gurgled and his eyes began to bulge, Jack had reached for that thing he cheatingly called a watch and told the professor in acid-filled spittle that if he didn’t explain how to use the gadget, he’d stretch his neck into the shape of an egg timer. The professor had nodded and Jack had eased off. But then the scientist had staggered backwards, desperately trying to destroy his equipment with huge frantic sweeps of his arm and at the same time calling to his faithful dog…Bengy. Bengy had raced in, yapping fiercely. Jack, having no other weapon to hand, had turned the transgenerator on the hound, pressing one of the pyramids at random. A radionic, bipolar, electro-magnetic discharge had beamed across the room and struck poor Bengy in his left hind leg, immediately shrinking it to the size of half a thumb!
Ralph panted hard and sat up fast, displacing more water onto the floor. He could see it. He could see it. Bengy, yelping, collapsing in fear, his head turning back to his cruelly-shrivelled leg. By now, the professor would have reached his desk. He’d have a cigarette lighter in his fist, holding the flame to the brittle corners of a dog-eared manuscript; his life’s work; thirty-five years of particle physics, about to transgenerate up in smoke…until Jack aims the device at him. The old man staggers back and drops his notes in panic. Jack presses the pyramid again.
At the age of sixty-two, Professor Ambrose Collonges appears to disappear, but has actually been shrunk to the size of
his terrier’s withered leg. And what does the builder do with him now? Does he lift up the carpet and wedge the midget genius between two floorboards? Does he feed him to the snake in the cage in the corner? Does he flick him into the upturned light shade, turn on the light and watch the miniature man frazzle?
Or does he bind him in a leaf of threadbare sandpaper, pop him in a matchbox and carry him around like some specimen, some trophy?
‘Agh!’ screamed Ralph as the bathroom door opened.
‘Oh, stop it,’ said his mother, breezing in. ‘I’ve seen everything you’ve got, Ralph Perfect.’ She opened the bathroom cabinet and took out a pair of nail clippers.
Nails. What if the nails in the cellar weren’t Jack’s? What if he lured people into his house, shrank them and stole their fingernails?
Then removed any trace of their visit.
Ralph thought again about the van he’d found, with its miniature replica lunchbox and newspaper. If he’d checked in the back, what else would he have seen? Tools, copper piping, u-bends, taps? He looked at his mother with a face as white as the bar of soap.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.
Ralph shuddered and slid down into the bath, seeking the warmth of the water on his shoulders. ‘You won’t believe me, Mum.’
Penny raised an eyebrow and braced herself.
‘I think I know what’s happened to Tom.’
Penny bakes a cake
His mother gave him the kind of look that could toast a slice of bread in three seconds flat. ‘Tom?’ she repeated.
Ralph thought hard. Now he was panicked. It had been, without doubt, a rash choice of words. For he had no irrefutable proof that the plumber, Tom Jenks, had been zapped by a stolen transgenerator. And how could he possibly confess to his mum that he’d sneaked into Jack’s and found a tiny, white van that looked like a toy but probably belonged to the man who’d fixed their tap? How could he prove it? Even if he showed her the newspaper articles, she wouldn’t be convinced about Jack’s ‘watch’, not after the way he’d ‘teased’ them with it last time. Mum was as down to earth as an ant. Particle displacement? Hokum, she’d call it. Mumbo-jumbo. Claptrap. Tosh.
‘Well?’ she prompted. She lowered the loo seat and sat on it.
Ralph opened his mouth. He had to say something. If he couldn’t tell her outright what he knew, maybe he could coax her gently towards it? ‘I think he’s next door,’ he whispered.
Penny dropped her gaze like a car might suddenly dip its headlights. In a voice wobbling with hope she said, ‘He’s come back?’
‘No. I don’t think he ever went.’
Question marks appeared in his mother’s eyes.
Ralph sponged his arm but the skin felt cold. ‘I think Jack’s holding him prisoner, Mum.’
‘Oh, Ralph,’ she tutted, sharply. ‘For a moment there…’
You almost believed me, Ralph thought sadly. She wanted to, for sure. She really had liked Tom.
His mother sighed and made a show of standing up. She was halfway through the door when Ralph blurted out: ‘I keep hearing noises. Scratching sounds.’ He hadn’t, of course, he just needed an excuse to keep her talking. Any further escapades at Number 9 would need to involve a witness, an adult. He had to keep Mum on his side.
Penny half-turned, pinching the neck of her blouse. She looked at the skirting boards and shuddered.
‘It’s not rats,’ said Ralph, trying to reassure her. She didn’t like scuttly things with tails. A mouse had pottered across the kitchen once and his mother had actually stood on a chair. ‘It’s like someone trying to dig. Or send us a message. Like, y’know, the Count of Crusty Minto.’
‘Monte Cristo,’ Penny tutted.
Near enough, Ralph thought.
But his luck was out. His mother raised her hands and flapped away the nonsense. ‘Oh, this is silly. I don’t even know why I’m querying this. Quite apart from the why, how could Mr Bilt have kidnapped or overpowered a man like Tom? Tom’s a whacking great chap.’
Not any more, Ralph thought.
‘Where would he imprison him, for goodness’ sake?’
In his house, Ralph thought. The one beneath the sheeting. The one…hhh! He gasped in disbelief. The missing house. The one stolen in Yorkshire. It was here. Next door. Miniaturised by Jack.
‘Besides, that policeman would have soon sniffed him out.’
Penny turned to her son and waited for an answer. ‘Hello, Planet Ralph, this is ‘M’ calling.’
‘Um?’ he grunted.
‘Policeman. I was saying about the policeman.’
The policeman. Ralph dropped his hands in the water, sending his submarine bobbing towards the taps. The policeman, Bone. He ought to be told. About the van. About the articles. Definitely the articles. And the house. Ralph squeezed his eyes shut and tried to picture the missing property. The paper had shown an inset of it, but that was two weeks past and Ralph couldn’t remember what it had looked like, not enough to know if it matched the one in Jack’s front room. There were ways to find out, though.
‘Mum, after my bath, can I use the internet?’
‘Ralph, which part of ‘grounded’ don’t you understand?’
‘But it’s important. I want to know about that missing house in Yorkshire.’
‘I’m going,’ said Penny, losing patience, ‘before you start to tell me Tom’s been miniaturised and kept in an empty crisp packet or something.’
Ralph opened his eyes very wide.
‘Ralph, that’s horribly cruel,’ she said. ‘Even to think it. That poor man…’ She shook her head, struggling to find the right words.
Ralph gave it one last throw. ‘Why don’t you bake him a cake?’
‘Who? Bake who a cake?’
‘Jack. Make a cake. We’ll take it round together. You keep him talking; I’ll look for Tom.’
Mrs Perfect took a slow, conversation-stopping breath. ‘Ralph, will you please stop talking nonsense. This is Midfield Crescent, not a chapter from The Borrowers. People stoop as they age but they do not get shrunk. Now, when you’re done, it’s straight to your room. Do not watch TV. Do not pass ‘GO’. Do not collect any biscuits from the kitchen.’
Ralph heard and understood, but he didn’t obey. He put on his dressing gown and tiptoed down the landing, passing his own room, sneaking in to Mum’s. He sat on the duvet and lifted the phone from the bedside table. Quietly and accurately, he dialled seven sevens: the number of the local police station.
Almost immediately a woman’s voice answered.
‘Hello, could I speak to Mr Bone?’ asked Ralph.
‘Mr Bone?’ she queried, sounding bored.
‘He’s a policeman.’
‘We all are here,’ she said. ‘I think you mean Detective Inspector Bone. What’s it in connection with?’
‘A missing person,’ Ralph said confidently.
The conversation paused. Ralph heard a brushing sound and guessed that the woman had covered the mouthpiece – but not very well, as he clearly heard her say: ‘Frank, got some whispering kid on the line asking for Old Nick.’
There was muttering, then the woman said: ‘Just a moment.’
And the next voice to answer was Bone’s deep syrup. ‘Bone,’ he said bluntly.
‘It’s me,’ said Ralph.
‘And who might you be?’ Bone replied impatiently.
Ralph shivered. He’d never been good with authoritative types. ‘Ralph,’ he said, ‘the boy from Midfield Crescent. You came to my house, looking for a plumber called Tom. Have you found him?’
And he prayed the detective would say, ‘Oh, yes. He’d gone to see his mother in Rhyl.’ Then all fear of Jack would dissolve in an instant.
But Bone said, ‘No,’ in a low suspicious voice, adding, ‘Why?’ in an even more menacing one.
So Ralph told him about the missing professor. And how he’d ‘used’ the downstairs toilet at Jack’s and seen all the articles and noticed the scaffolding.
&nb
sp; Bone made a few quiet humming noises. Then he came out with something odd. ‘Do you know a boy called Kyle Salter?’
‘Yes,’ said Ralph in a squeaky voice.
Bone sniffed. ‘See much of him, do you?’
Ralph chewed his lip. ‘No, not for ages.’
‘Hmm.’ Bone clicked his tongue. ‘Only, Salter and two of his mates have done a runner. Taken off, they have, just like your plumber.’
Ralph almost dropped the phone.
‘You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?’
‘No,’ gulped Ralph. But he did know this. The phone had just gone boomy, the way it does when someone lifts the extension. He slammed it down fast and hurtled to the bathroom. From the foot of the stairs his mother’s voice shouted: ‘Ralph? Were you on the phone just then?’
Ralph leapt into the bath again and prayed she wouldn’t push it.
She didn’t. That evening, Penny Perfect busied herself in her favourite room: the kitchen. Ralph had been in his bedroom for the best part of an hour when the scent of warm baking entered his nostrils. His twitching nose guided him onto the landing, just in time to hear the doorbell ringing.
His mother, wiping her hands on her apron, went to answer the caller. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ Ralph heard her say. ‘Would you like to step inside a moment?’
‘Delighted,’ said Jack, in his snake hiss of a voice.
Ralph’s heart filled up with dread. He sprinted to the top of the stairs, in time to see Jack presenting his mum with a flimsy bunch of weeds. There were only three stalks and they curled over feebly. ‘Picked these from the garden, my dear.’
‘Oh, erm, thank you, Mr Bilt.’
‘Jack,’ he insisted, turning his trilby in tight little circles. On his wrist, the green light gave a wink.
‘This is quite a strange coincidence,’ said Penny. ‘I’ve just, erm, finished baking you a cake.’
Jack raised an eyebrow. So did Ralph. She’d made a cake? So she was planning to go round and look at Jack’s house. Yes!