Casper Candlewacks in the Attack of the Brainiacs! (11 page)

He trailed off because he didn't know the words to the second verse. But if his theory was correct, the rest of the villagers would know it all too well.

Lamp piped up. “
Five nine two six
,” he sang, “
five three five eight nine seven
…”

Audrey Snugglepuss joined in as well as two bearded women near the front, “
nine three two three eight four
,” smiling at each other as if sharing a private joke. Now half the room was chanting along – even Clemmie Answorth from her heap on the floor. Lamp stood up from his chair, hand clutching his heart, and sang the numbers with gusto. “
SIX TWO SIX FOUR THREE THREE—
”

Casper shuffled backwards. So he was right
after all. The whole room was standing proudly, singing together with delight filling their eyes, fire filling their hearts and the first million digits of pi filling their brains. Everyone, that is, apart from Jean-Claude. He stood cross-armed, his lips curled wryly and his eyes glinting. He turned, flicked the stub of his cigarette at Casper and strolled back into the kitchen with a little wave over his shoulder.

Casper's brain spun. Reeling, he staggered backwards through the door and scrabbled over to The Battered Cod, the sound of chanting filling the square with its eerie tunefulness.

Julius was standing just where Casper had left him. “OK. This is weird.”

“What is?”

“The villagers, they've gone all…” Casper
shook his head. It must be some mistake.

“They've gone all
what
?”

At that very moment the crowd burst out into the square in a conga line, each with their hands on the hips of the villager in front.

“They've gone all
clever
, Dad.”

“
ONE FIVE ONE ONE SIX OH NINE
,” they cheered, kicking out their legs and punching the air.

Julius frowned. “Impossible.”

“But there it is,” muttered Casper. First Lamp had grown a brain, now the whole village. This was getting weirder and weirder. “That's pi, they're reciting.”

“What's pi?” asked Julius.

Ah well, maybe not the
whole
village.

Here are some things you'll always see every Wednesday morning in Corne-on-the-Kobb:

Today was Wednesday. Only a fool or a wrongly printed calendar would deny that, but as Casper made his bewildered way to the bus, he saw quite a different picture from the normal.

Casper had given himself the night to think it over, but now he was sure. Somehow, in the last
two days, Corne-on-the-Kobb had become a village of brainiacs. The villagers had danced round the square singing ‘The Pi Song' long into the night, but nobody had returned to The Battered Cod. He clambered up the steps to the train carriage and sat down next to Lamp without a word.

“Hullo, Casper. Want to know what I'm inventing?”

Casper looked down at the blueprint on the table – no more than a dizzying swarm of pencil lead. “No,” he said. Then after a short pause, he added, “You said you'd stop helping Jean-Claude.”

“I did, though.”

Casper laughed drily. “What about your lecture?”

“But that was for everybody, not just Jean-Claude. Every human deserves to know about North-East Vietnamese tidal patterns, Casper. Don't you think?”

“You drew customers away from The Battered Cod!” cried Casper. “Again! You have to stop doing this. Do you want me to be banished from Corne-on-the-Kobb?”

“No,” said Lamp. “I don't want that.” Blushing, he pulled a boiled egg from his blazer pocket and poured all his concentration into unpeeling it. “This is the only one today. The hens are being silly.”

Whatever was happening to the village, it was happening even more intensely to Lamp. And whatever it was, Casper didn't like it. Lamp's forehead was beaded with sweat, his
face furrowed into a frown. He'd glomped the egg down in one and turned back to his invention. But even that was wrong. A week ago, Lamp would never
plan
an invention. He'd just start bolting things together until they went
bing
. “Plans, Casper?” he used to say. “Plans are for people who can spell.” Something had changed Lamp and Casper was determined to find out what.

“Casper, will you please stop thinking so loudly?” tutted Lamp. “I'm working.”

“Sorry.”

Casper let his eyes wander around the bus. It was much quieter even than yesterday. The Mollyband twins, Milly and Milly, were locked in a silent game of chess (and thinking so many moves ahead that neither had started yet).
Eventually, Milly moved a pawn, prompting Milly to smile knowingly and resign. Samson Jansen had filled up the other side of his pencil case with a full piano concerto and now, with a new pencil case, was three-quarters of the way to solving maths.

Anemonie Blight had noticed the change too. “What you doing?” she yelled at Ted Treadington, who had just completed his tenth Rubik's Cube of the morning and stacked it with the others on his table. “Gimme one.”

Terrified, Ted passed Anemonie another cube from his bag. “You have to—”

“I know what you have to do, idiot!” yelled Anemonie, gnawing on her lip in concentration. “If you can do it, then I can. It's easy.”

Five minutes later Ted had built a scale model
of the Great Pyramid at Giza with his finished cubes, and Anemonie had ripped hers to pieces and sunk deep into her seat in a ferocious grump. She didn't move until they passed through the wrought-iron gates of St Simian's School for Seniors and into its heaving playground.

The first thing Casper saw was little Snivel dashing towards the bus and waving his arms.

“He's happy to see us,” said Lamp with a smile.

“Not sure that's a greeting,” replied Casper. “Come on.” He grabbed his bag of Cuddles and hurried out to meet Snivel.

“G-get back on!” squeaked Snivel. “G-get your d-driver to d-drive away!”

“Why? What's wrong?”

“My b-brothers are after you. Normally they forget but—”

KABOOSH!
The big front door of the school slammed back on its hinges as Bash Brewster strode into the playground towards Casper. Bash's right arm was bound in plaster, slung in a sling and thrust in a large pocket on the front of his blazer marked Injerys.

“LUNCH MUNNY!” roared Bash, but Casper was sure he wanted more than that.

“That big boy looks angry, Casper,” said Lamp. “Do you think he needs a hug?”

Casper's tongue felt dry. “Stay behind me, Lamp. No hugging anyone unless I tell you.”

“Aww.”

Spit and Clobber appeared from each side of the large school building, scattering smaller children like skittles in their wake.

By this point Anemonie had jumped off the
carriage behind Casper and Lamp, searching for a quick exit. Sandy Landscape saw the oncoming brute stampede from the top of his tractor, yelped, then drove off in a panic, taking the rest of the class with him. But in the absence of the carriage, Casper could see Pinchnurse striding towards him from the only empty corner of the playground.

Casper's heart sank. “We're surrounded.”

“I t-tried to warn you,” whispered Snivel.

Anemonie's squinty eyes shifted from place to place. “Candlewacks, please tell me you brought your…
thing
.”

“If you mean my sister, then yes. She's here.” Casper unzipped his bag and let Cuddles's head pop out.

Bash Brewster let out a yodelling
grunt and stopped in his tracks. The other Brewsters did the same.

“They're sc-scared of her,” whispered Snivel.

Cuddles growled at the surrounding brutes, rolling back her lips to reveal two sets of eleven-month-old fangs.

Pinchnurse did a sort of trembling whinny.

“Right, guys, listen up,” ordered Casper. “We're safe here while we've got Cuddles, and at least this time we're on open ground. Everyone just stay alert.”

So Casper, Lamp, Anemonie and Snivel sat in a circle on the cold tarmac, facing outwards, passing Cuddles round to thrust at any advancing Brewsters. When the bell rang for class, all the other kids trotted inside, but just as before, the Brewsters didn't move.

Casper sighed. “This morning was food tech. Thought I could learn some tricks. The only lesson that'd be any use this week and I'm stuck in the playground.”

“Fine by me,” snarled Anemonie. “Cooking's for plebs.”

“M-maybe your f-friend can teach us fings.” Snivel nodded at Lamp. “He seems p-pretty clever.”

“It's weird, though,” said Casper. “Before Monday, Lamp could barely walk and talk at the same time. Now look at him.”

“Hmm?” Lamp's face was buried in a book, while with his free hand he drew out yet another blueprint on a pad of paper balanced on his lap. The book was called
????? ? ????
which was Russian for
War and Peace
, apparently. It had two
thousand yellow pages and it smelt mustier than a grandmother.

“How can you invent stuff without even looking?”

Lamp barely glanced at his friend. “It's easy. That's a steam-powered casserole.” He grunted and flipped the pad to a blank page, still without looking, and began to scribble again. “Now, a
Crème Brûlée
burner.”

“Can we have these for The Battered Cod?”

Lamp shrugged, his attention fully on the book.

“Stop being so brainy,” snapped Anemonie. “You're driving me mad.”

“Shh, everybody, this is the war bit.” Owing to his lack of free fingers, Lamp turned a page with his nose. “It's way better than all the peace stuff.”

The thing that disturbed Casper most about Lamp and the villagers' boosted brains was that there seemed no reason for it. Casper thought it over once more as he fed shreds of his geography exercise book to Cuddles. Judging by last night, Jean-Claude had seen the change too; he hadn't looked shocked when they all sang ‘The Pi Song'. And then the lecture… Well, Casper couldn't truly blame Lamp for that. If Jean-Claude knew about the brainiacs, then he knew that a dull old lecture would draw the punters in like Sandy Landscape to a spade sale. Casper's cloth-eared friend was innocent to a fault, and he certainly didn't mean any harm. Jean-Claude, however…

Then Cuddles stiffened and gave a demonic screech, ripping Casper from his thoughts.

“What's up?” Casper followed her wide eyes upwards to the overhanging branch of a large oak tree in the corner of the playground. A large tabby cat stared back with gold-flecked eyes. “Oh no.”

“TAT!” screamed Cuddles.

“Wh-what's she doing?” Snivel shuddered.

Casper tightened his grip on his feral sister. “She likes cats.”

“M-me too.”

“TATAT!”

“Not like this, you don't.” Cuddles wriggled, but Casper held firm. “As long as the cat stays put, we're fine.”

“TATATATATATAT!”

The cat bolted. All of a sudden, things started happening awfully fast indeed…