The Case of the Exploding Brains (10 page)

She has become obsessed with watching old
Star Wars
movies. Apparently, she was always a fan of the actor who plays Han Solo and, on her wedding day, Uncle Max gave her special
permission to kiss the Han Solo man if she met him in real life. Aunty Vera is worried she’s becoming too old to take advantage of that deal.

In an attempt to cheer Aunty Vera up, I pointed out that she has
more
chance of getting her kiss now, because Han Solo Man must be at least seventy so he probably can’t run as
fast.

Vigil-Aunty hit me with her handbag.

“Should I ask her, Uncle Max?” Holly is saying. “Should I ask Aunty Vera what you’re up to?”

“Just get in,” he growls. “But next time you pay petrol money.”

“Love you too, Uncle Max.”

Despite Holly badgering him all the way to London (‘badgering’ as in ‘asking something repeatedly’ not ‘digging tunnels and eating earthworms’), Uncle Max
refuses to reveal where he’s going. I tell myself not to care. I have enough mysteries to solve without worrying about what Uncle Max is up to.

Holly and I know the layout of the Science Museum now, so we march straight to the spot in the ‘Exploring Space’ gallery where the security footage showed the brain
ray. How could I have missed it? It’s like they say, ‘the best hiding place is in full view’ (although they should have added ‘wrapped in tin foil’). My hands shake as
we approach the Mars lander. To discover . . . nothing.

“
Hypatia!
What now?” I ask Holly.

Holly kicks the barrier.

“What now, other than kicking things?” I ask. “We’ve got two hours to find the Space Rock, the brain ray
and
the Grimm Reaper. Suggestions?”

“We need to figure this out,” Holly says. “Let’s take it in turns to act out stealing the Space Rock and brain ray to work out how it was done.”

In the end, all we manage to figure out is that the thefts should have been impossible.

“‘
Francis Crick!
This makes no sense,” I say. “We’ve watched the security footage. We would have seen them. There is only one way the Space Rock could have
left this place.”

Holly looks at me expectantly.

“It was stolen by the Invisible Man.”

Holly kicks me.

“Oww! Is that your way of telling me the Space Rock would still be visible even if the Invisible Man wasn’t? Do you think it would become invisible if the Invisible Man ate it? Or
stuffed it up his—”

I’m interrupted by a crash on the other side of ‘Exploring Space’. The distraction is probably a good thing as Holly’s kicking leg is still swinging.

Across by the Apollo lander, the tall security guard I spoke to on my last visit whips back his arm to punch his fellow guard in the face. His aim is good but his colleague has incredible
reflexes and steps back a split second before the fist makes contact, so it just skims his jaw. Stumbling slightly, the second guard lifts his left hand to his face and hits out at Tall Guard with
the right. Tall blocks the move effortlessly as if he knew it was coming.

Grunting in frustration, Other Guard hooks his leg around Tall’s knees in an attempt to bring him to the ground, but he’s not fast enough and Tall steps out of harm’s way. The
two men dart back and forth, aiming and dodging kicks and punches as if the moves have been choreographed beforehand. But they both look too angry to be doing this for show.

Tall jabs at Other, who shifts out of the way milliseconds before Tall’s fist reaches him. They stare at each other intently, circling and matching moves. Tall cracks his knuckles and
Other wipes sweat from his face.

“I’m not saying I want them to beat each other up or anything,” Holly says. “Okay, maybe I do a little bit,” she admits. “But isn’t this the weirdest
fight you’ve ever seen? Where’s the trash talk? And why can’t either of them land a punch?”

“Definitely the weirdest fight,” I agree. “This place gets freakier each time we visit.”

It’s a relief when Holly’s phone buzzes and Uncle Max announces our two hours are up.

Halfway home, Holly realises she’s left her sunglasses behind. Nice ones too: an old designer pair Mum gave away when she stopped leaving the house.

“Come on, Uncle Max,” Holly pleads. “We’re only forty minutes away. I love those sunglasses.”

“No way. Look at this traffic. And LET GO OF MY ARM! Do you want us to crash?”

“But—”

“But nothing.” Uncle Max returns his hands to the ten-to-two position on the steering wheel and stares straight ahead.

“You should call the museum,” I tell her. “They must have a Lost Property department.”

Holly beams. “You
are
a genius, Know-All! Uncle Max, I need your phone because mine’s out of credit.”

Uncle Max grumbles about blackmailers, phone thieves and road accidents waiting to happen, but he hands his mobile over.

“Sorry to bother you,” Holly says to whoever picks up at the other end. “I don’t suppose anyone’s handed in a pair of aviator sunglasses? I think I left them in the
girls’ toilets and— They
have
?” she claps, nearly dropping the phone. “Someone handed them in? Wow! Science Museum people rule! No, I’m in the car on my way
home, so I don’t know when I’ll be able to pick them up, but— You will?” She covers the mouthpiece and hisses, “They’ll post them to me. How cool is
that?”

I spread my hands to show a large amount of coolness.

“How much will that cost?” Holly asks. “You’re joking! It’s free? Okay, wait a minute. I’ll give you my address . . .”

While Holly tries to remember where we live, it occurs to me that this might be a clue:

I grab the phone.

Humph. I hand the phone back to Holly, who rattles off our address and giggles at something the Lost Property Muppet says.

I grab the phone back.

. . .
Dial tone
. . .

Fine. I don’t want to talk to him either. I have a lot to think about.

Holly kicks Uncle Max’s car door shut, boots our garden gate open, and karate kicks the front door. And Lost Property Man thinks she’s a ‘nice girl’?
Pah!

“I don’t understand why you’re kicking things,” I say. “I thought you were happy they found your sunglasses.”

“I’m multi-emoting. It’s a skill. I can be both happy about the sunglasses
and
mad about the brain ray at the same time. Look!” Holly sticks her thumbs in the
air with a big grin and then lowers her right hand to punch the living-room door. “
And
I can be deeply suspicious about the timing of Porter’s disappearance. What does he know
about the brain ray? It was on the Mars lander. We saw it.”

“Brain ray?” Mum says from the sofa.

Holly and I jump. Mum spends all day watching TV and not saying a word, so it’s easy to forget she’s there. That sounds bad, but I think Mum forgets she’s there herself
sometimes. Maybe it’s a brain-ray thing. After having your mind emptied it must be hard to fill it up again. Occasionally, though, something grabs her attention. Today, that thing is the
brain ray.

“Are you saying someone stole the brain ray from the Science Museum?” she asks.

“We never mentioned the Science Museum.” I take a step back from the sofa. “How do you know it was there?”

Mum speaks slowly as if I’m a bit simple. “I put it there, didn’t I?”

Holly and I gawp at her. Synchronised staring. “
You
put it there?”

“Yes. Your dad asked me to.”

“Dad asked you to?” I echo.

Mum nods. “When he called me after his arrest, I told him I didn’t want that thing sitting in the attic.”

“In the attic?”

“Are you going to repeat everything I say?” Mum asks. “I’m sure I remember conversations being slightly more interesting.”

“But . . . ?” I say.

“But . . . ?” Holly continues.

“Ah, yes, much better.” Mum’s laugh sounds out of practice, reminding me that my conversation skills are being mocked by someone who’s barely spoken since Christmas.

“But . . . I don’t understand.” Holly manages to get a full sentence out. “You’re saying
you
took the brain ray?”

“I borrowed it and no one asked for it back,” Mum replies as if that explains everything.

“You didn’t consider handing it in?”

“I didn’t know who to trust. I did consider giving it to the milkman, but he didn’t seem to want it.”

“So you decided to trust Dad?” Holly asks. “The least trustworthy of the lot.”

“Don’t talk about your father like that,” Mum says. “He’s not a bad man. Well, not a
really
bad man. He hasn’t killed anyone yet.”

Holly snorts. “Oh, well, that’s all right then.”

“He was very helpful about the brain ray. He said it would be safe at the Science Museum if I wrapped it in silver foil and made it part of the space display.”

“Seriously?”

“It worked, didn’t it?” Mum says. “It’s been there for over a month.”

“How did you put it there without setting off the sensor?”

Mum pushes herself up from the sofa, pretends to trip, giggles foolishly and talks to an imaginary museum guard. “Ooops. Clumsy old me. I must have leaned too far over the barrier. So
sorry, I didn’t mean to set off that noisy sensor.”

I can see how the security guards would believe she’d made a harmless mistake.

“You went to all that trouble for Dad?”

“No. For all of us. I couldn’t bring myself to destroy your father’s invention but I didn’t want it in the house. The museum seemed the safest place.”

“Except it wasn’t.”

Mum crashes back down on to the sofa. “Yes, there is that.”

“So, what do we do now?” I ask.

“Find it,” Mum says simply, returning her attention to daytime TV.

Days Left to Save the Earth: 9

‘Find it’? Easy to say, but where to start? It feels odd to be investigating without our third head. Porter’s been missing for two whole days. If it was term
time we’d at least see him at school, but the holidays have started so he could be anywhere. It’s yet another thing to worry about and we’re in danger of losing focus. The brain
ray can’t be our main concern; neither can Porter. Not when we only have nine days left to find the missing Moon(ish) Rock and save the Earth from lunar loonies and exploding brains.

Speaking of loonies, Holly is prancing around the living room in her designer sunglasses, which arrived this morning, less than forty-eight hours after she called the Lost Property Muppet to say
they were missing.