Grk Undercover

Max showed his ticket and his passport, then took his seat on the train. There was a woman sitting opposite him. She smiled and he smiled back, but they didn’t exchange a single word.

Tomorrow, he thought, she will have a story to tell.

Tomorrow, she will see my face on the news.

“I sat opposite him on the train,” she will be able to say to her friends, enjoying their astonishment. “He looked so quiet and normal. I never imagined he would do anything like that.”

Today, she didn’t know who Max was or what he was planning to do, so she took no notice of him. She just read her newspaper, then did some work on her computer, hardly even glancing at the boy opposite her.

Max didn’t care. He didn’t want to talk to her. He was happy to spend the journey staring out of the window and thinking his own thoughts. He had a lot to think about.

The train sped through southern England, plunged into the tunnel and emerged in northern France. The sun was shining. The sky was clear and blue. Max watched the countryside flash past and remembered the promise that he had made.

He had been waiting for a long time. And now his chance had come. He was going to confront the man who killed his parents. He was going to look into his eyes. And then …

The journey was short. The train soon arrived in Paris.

As Max walked down the platform, he thought he might be stopped or questioned by the French police, but no one even asked to see his passport. No one wanted to know what he was doing. No one seemed to care.

He walked out of the station.

He didn’t know exactly where he was going, but he knew what he was looking for. He would walk until he found it.

Tim loved his bed.

He had traveled round the world. He had walked on white beaches and trekked through thick jungles. He had swum through raging waterfalls and sailed round tropical islands. He had seen the Taj Mahal and the Sugar Loaf Mountain and the Empire State Building. But he wouldn’t have swapped any of them for his own bed.

His duvet was warm and cozy. His room was quiet and comfortable. He could stretch out his arm and pick up a book, a comic, a game, a computer or a phone. What more could he possibly want?

In the school holidays, Tim often stayed in bed till lunchtime.

If he felt hungry, he went downstairs to grab a bowl of cereal or some toast, but he always came back upstairs again and ate his breakfast in bed. Then he read a book or played a game or just dozed.

This morning was different.

This morning, Tim was sleeping quietly, dreaming of this or that, when a hand pushed his shoulder and a voice demanded, “Wake up!”

“Don’t want to.”

“Come on! Wake up! You have to! It’s important.”

“Sleep is important,” said Tim. “Good night.”

He rolled over and snuggled deeper in his duvet.

He couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to wake him up. It was the school holidays. He had nothing to do and nowhere to go. He just wanted to carry on dreaming.

But he wasn’t allowed to.

He had barely settled his head on his pillow when the hand returned. And this time the hand didn’t simply push his shoulder. No, it did something much, much worse. Without a word of warning, the hand grabbed Tim’s duvet and pulled it off, exposing his head, neck and shoulders to the cold air.

Tim groaned. “What are you doing?”

“I have to talk to you,” said the voice. “Please, Tim. It really is important! You’ve got to wake up! I need your help!”

Tim groaned again. He knew who owned that voice. And he also knew that she wasn’t the type of person who would take pity on a poor boy and let him stay in bed till lunchtime. He sat up, rubbing sleep dust from his eyes, and stared angrily at Natascha. “What do you want?”

“Have you seen Max?”

“Not since last night,” said Tim. He leaned forward and peered at the other bed on the opposite side of the room. It was empty. He said, “Have you looked in the loo?”

“He’s not there,” said Natascha.

“Then he’s probably downstairs having breakfast.”

“He isn’t. He’s gone.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know,” said Natascha. She sounded panicky and frightened. She reached into the pocket of her bathrobe and pulled out a sheet of paper covered with writing. “I found this on my pillow. Max must have tiptoed into my room and left it there in the middle of the night.”

Tim glanced at the paper. “What does it say?”

“Read it.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“It’s in Stanislavian.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Natascha, shaking her head. “I’m so worried, I can’t think straight. Move up and let me sit down. I’ll read it to you.”

Tim shifted sideways, making room on the edge of the bed for Natascha. She sat cross-legged and read the letter aloud, translating from Stanislavian into English as she went along.

This is what the letter said:

Natascha put down the letter and looked at Tim. “You see?”

“Do you think it’s true?” said Tim.

“Max doesn’t lie.”

“He might be joking.”

“He would never make a joke about something like that.”

“I guess not,” said Tim. “So you really think he’s serious? I mean, do you think he’d actually kill someone?”

“Of course he would.”

“But he’s only a boy.”

“That doesn’t matter to Max,” said Natascha. “He swore to take revenge on Colonel Zinfandel and he won’t stop till he’s done it. You have to remember, Tim, he’s not like you. He doesn’t believe in
forgiveness. He believes in revenge. You know what they say in the Bible? ‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.’ Do you know what that means?”

“Of course I do,” said Tim, trying to sound more sure of himself than he actually felt. “So what are you going to do about it?”

“Find him,” said Natascha.

“But he said in his letter—”

“I don’t care what he said,” interrupted Natascha. “If we don’t find him, he’s going to get himself killed. And I don’t want my brother to die.”

As you probably know, Stanislavia is a small, mountainous country in the part of Eastern Europe that is closest to Russia.