The Case of the Exploding Brains (9 page)

Perfect. The computer is now Aggressive Policeman free. Even better, everyone is watching the strange little dance snaking through the station. Best of all, the computer’s still logged on.
It doesn’t take long to locate the footage and load it on to my USB drive.

Pocketing the drive, I wave across at Holly, who looks ready to throw up. I’m not surprised, with Smokin’ Joe kissing her ear. Urgh. Unpeeling him, she wriggles free and we race
towards reception.

“Wait,” Smokin’ Joe calls after Holly. “Where you going?”

“Sorry, Schnookums,” Holly calls back. “It’s been fabulous, but I think we should take a break.”

“Take a break?” Smokin’ Joe lumbers after her. “You have to start something before you can take a break from it! Come back ’ere.”

“Over my dead body,” Holly mutters and we sprint for the door.

I look at Joe and feel a twinge of sympathy. Everyone’s been using him recently and it doesn’t seem fair. I shrug apologetically. He makes kissy faces in response. My sympathetic
feelings wear off pretty quickly.

“Enjoying your tour so far?” PC Eric appears behind us, blocking Smokin’ Joe’s approach and giving Aggressive Policeman a chance to catch him.

“Great,” I stop to tell him. “I managed to . . .”

PC Eric covers his ears. “I don’t think I want to hear what you managed to do. Just keep moving. Your sister seems keen to leave and I can’t say I blame her.”

Smokin’ Joe waggles his tongue at Holly. Ugh. Double Ugh. He only stops when Aggressive Policeman slaps a hand on his collar.

“Gotcha, scumbag.”

“Come on, girls,” PC Eric says. “I’ll take you home.”

“Can we put the siren on?”

“No.”

“Oh go on, PC Eric. Just for a minute? Pleeeeease?”

“Can I save time by explaining that ‘no’ means ‘no’. ‘No’ does not mean ‘if you beg and whine and whinge and wail I’ll make it a
yes’.”

“But—”

“But nothing.” PC Eric checks his mirror and indicates left. “One more word about sirens and you can get out and walk – making all the siren noises you like.”

“No siren,” Holly murmurs sorrowfully.

“No siren,” PC Eric agrees. His words are hard but his eyes are smiling, so I risk another question.

“What will happen to Smokin’ Joe now?”

“I’ve entered his iPod into evidence,” PC Eric replies, changing gear to turn the corner. “So, I imagine they’ll speak to Alexander West and decide how to proceed
after that.”

“Remarkable Student Alexander is a snake,” I say. “You should have seen what he was like in the museum. The police believed everything he said.”

“We need to get to him first,” Holly says.

“I didn’t hear that.” PC Eric puts his foot on the brake as we reach our road.

“We need to scare him into telling us the truth.”

“Definitely didn’t hear that.”

“Dad’s chainsaw’s still in the garage,” Holly adds.

“I’ve suddenly gone completely deaf.” PC Eric pulls into the kerb. “Just don’t do anything stupid. You won’t be able to solve anything if you’re hauled
down to the station.”

“We need a way to intimidate Alexander without getting ourselves into trouble,” Holly tells me as we clamber out of the patrol car.

“We need Porter.” I miss our third head.

“No we don’t.” Holly almost sounds like she means it. “You’re the one with the Sherlock brain. Use it.”

I try to think, but a loud, rhythmic smashing sound on the other side of the street keeps breaking my concentration. “
Tim Berners Lee!
What is that noise?”

“It’s Ma Slater.” Holly giggles. “She’s frying-panning the big tree in her yard.”

“If the tree falls, it’ll crush her house. That woman’s as mad as an armadillo,” I say. “She scares me.”

“She scares everyone.” Holly says. “Oooh . . .”

A metaphorical light bulb appears in the air between us. As one, we march across the road. PC Eric rolls down the car window and calls after us. “Remember. Nothing stupid?”

Okay, this plan definitely comes under ‘stupid’, but it has to be worth a try. We reach the Slaters’ front yard and I look across at Holly. She looks back at me. Ma Slater
spots us while we’re trying to glare each other into speaking first.

“Want some of this?” She waves the frying pan at us.

“Er, no thank you. We just wanted to let you know how Joe’s doing.”

“You seen my boy?” She rests the frying pan against the tree.

I nod, keeping my eyes on the pan. “We know who’s been making him do all these crazy things – a boy called Alexander West.”

“West?” she screeches. “I know his mother – stuck-up old bat. Thinks her toilets smell of roses. Wait till I tell her what I think of that son of hers.” She seizes
the pan and storms down the road, taking a few practice swings at lampposts.

Holly and I jog along behind her.

“We’ve created a monster,” I murmur.

“Nah. She was already a monster,” Holly says. “We’ve just given the monster a mission!”

Ma Slater stops abruptly outside a smart semi-detached house with perfectly pruned trees and a pathway lined with potted plants. Or, at least, it
was
lined with potted plants. Now Mad
Ma Slater is taking her frying pan to them. After annihilating the pot plants, she starts smashing through the white PVC front door.

The door is dead. I look at Holly in alarm, but she just shrugs and follows Ma Slater into the house. A woman in a checked apron steps out of the kitchen to protest. I stare at
her in astonishment; she looks like an illustration of a mother in an old fairy tale with her rosy cheeks and perfectly groomed hair.

“Hello,” I mumble, rooted to the spot. “We’ve just popped round to see Alexander.”

Holly is already halfway up the stairs and reaches through the bannisters to give me a shake. “Being polite is a good thing, Know-All, but Ma Slater has already smashed their pot plants to
smithereens, battered down their front door and knocked chunks out of their staircase. The politest thing we can do at this point is make sure she doesn’t kill anybody. So GET UP HERE,
NOW!”

I rub my eyes and follow orders. Nothing seems real. It’s the combination of the Wests’ perfectly ordered house and the insane hurricane of Ma Slater’s fury. She’s found
a set of china figurines on the landing and is leaning over the top bannister, crushing them, one by one, in her giant fists. She’s too deep in the crazy zone to hear the voices at the other
end of the landing but Holly and I creep closer to the conversation.

“No one told us the Space Rock could hurt people.” Remarkable Student Shazia’s voice wavers. “I read in the paper that the NASA scientists who were exposed to the
American rock tried to eat each other before their brains exploded.”

Holly shoots me a questioning look. We’ve been competing to find the craziest newspaper story about the effects of the Space Rock. Sounds like we’ve found a winner. I’m pretty
sure most of the stories are made up, but they say there’s no smoke without fire. And if exploding brains are the smoke then I’m not keen to feel the fire.

We have to solve this case quickly and get the Space Rock back where it belongs.

Remarkable Student Shazia is still talking. “We should tell the police what we know.”

“That would be like admitting we’re responsible.” That’s Remarkable Student Omar. “We can’t be held responsible for this.”

“We are not responsible.” Remarkable Student Alexander’s voice contains none of his friends’ panic or uncertainty. “We were just following orders.”

His words freeze me to the spot.

They have the opposite effect on Holly. She blazes into the room. “That’s what the Nazis said!” She pokes Alexander in the chest. “You big, posh Nazi.”

“Holly Hawkins!” He sounds amused. “Here in my home and as charming as ever. I wondered who was causing all the noise. Where are Tweedledum and Tweedledumber? He pokes his head
through the door and grabs me by the hood. “Ha. Here’s one of them. So, where’s the other idiot?”

I wish I knew. Porter should be here. We’re a team. Ma Slater’s a bad substitute – too dangerous and smashy. I stare into Remarkable Student Alexander’s smug face and an
evil idea floats into my head.

“Why don’t you call for him?” I suggest. “You could try yelling, ‘We’re in here, idiot!’ That should do it.”

“It’s not often I follow your advice, Hawkins,” Alexander says, “but this time I just might. Idi-o-t,” he calls as if coaxing a cat. “Where are you? Here,
thicky thicky. Here, thicky thicky.”

He sticks his head round the door.

Big mistake. Seconds later it bounces back into the room with a resounding ‘Thwack!’

“Who you calling ‘thick’, you snotty-nosed brat?” Ma Slater throws her frying pan at him, and I half expect it to fly back to her hand like Thor’s hammer.
“What did you do to my boy?”

Remarkable Student Alexander doesn’t answer. He just bends over and clutches his head.

With a roar of rage, Ma Slater grabs the pan and wallops him from behind, sending him sprawling headfirst on to his bed. Shazia reaches out to pat him sympathetically, but doesn’t get too
close. I guess she’s worried he might mess up her white jeans.

Ma Slater spots her and Omar for the first time. “More snooty kids.” She glowers at them and lifts the frying pan. “Are you part of this?”

“No!” Shazia quickly withdraws her hand from Alexander’s shoulder.

Omar raises his arms in surrender, angling his fingers so they’re pointing at Alexander. “Nothing to do with us. Just him.”

“I’ve done nothing wrong. Owwwww!” Alexander rolls around on the bed, clutching his head, then his leg, then his head. “I was just following orders from our old
headmistress.”

Wait! What?

Holly and I look at each other. He can’t mean . . .

“Ms Grimm.”

“Goodbye Remarkable Students Alexander, Shazia and Omar,” I say as Holly grabs my hand and drags me out of Alexander’s room.

We bump into Mr and Mrs West on the stairs. Fortunately for us (less so for their son) Remarkable Student Alexander gives another howl of frying-pan-induced pain and they push past us to get to
him, leaving our exit free.

Holly races from the house as if Smokin’ Joe was hot on her heels. “Come on!” she calls. “We need to watch that security footage.”

I follow at more of an asthmatic trot, taking in the aftermath of Ma Slater’s destruction – massacred pot plants, brutalised traffic cones and slightly wonky lampposts. When we reach
home, I head straight for my room and make my way through my to-scale Meccano solar system to insert the USB drive in my computer. Wheezing like a maltreated donkey, I collapse on to my bed.

Less than thirty seconds later, I leap up again.

“Archimedes!”
I stroke Saturn’s rings and stare at the image frozen on screen. “The Remarkable Students were telling the truth. It’s Ms Grimm! The
hair’s different and she’s wearing glasses, but it’s definitely her.”

Ms Grimm. The Grimm Reaper. The Brains behind LOSERS. The monster that stupidified Mum. The criminal who disappeared before the police could question her about child kidnapping and brainwashing.
And now, apparently, Dad’s mysterious museum volunteer.

So she’s no longer ‘missing, whereabouts unknown’. Shame the same can’t be said for Porter. Does he know his mother’s back on the scene? Is she the reason for his
disappearance?

I try his mobile. No answer.

“Trying to call Porter?” Holly fiddles with my Meccano model of Mercury, knowing it annoys me. “He’s probably sitting with the Grimm Reaper, staring at the caller ID,
wondering what we know.”

“I’m wondering the same thing.” I try not to think about Holly’s dirty fingerprints on Mercury. “What
do
we know?”

“We know Porter’s keeping secrets,” Holly says. “We know Ms Grimm’s involved in the Science Museum heist. We know we only have eleven days to find the Moon Rock
before brains start exploding. And we know we should stop calling it the ‘Moon’ Rock because it could come from anywhere . . . Maybe from here.” She touches my Meccano Mars.
“Or here.” She pokes Venus. “Or he—”

“Stop it!” I yell, grabbing her hands.

To be fair, she might be right. Meteorites from Mars were found in the Antarctic, so it’s possible they also hit the moon. And meteorites from Venus might affect the human brain. Being
closer to the sun, Venus lacks Earth’s geomagnetic protection field and its rocks are constantly blasted by high-energy radiation. But that doesn’t mean it’s okay for Holly to
fiddle with my Meccano.

“Touch one more planet and I’ll start poking and prodding
you
. See how you like it.”

“Touchy.” Holly pulls her hands free, restarts the CCTV footage and pretends to reach for Neptune.

“NO touchy!” I smack her hand. “That’s my point!”

But my concern for my Meccano planets is forgotten moments later.
“Fibonacci!”

Holly reaches out to touch the screen. “How did we miss that?”

Good question.

“Another lift to the Science Museum?” Uncle Max grumbles as Holly forces her way into his car. “What do you think I am? Your personal taxi service? And
where’s the lodger?”

“Missing in action. You’re going to London anyway,” Holly says. “I heard you say so on the phone. Surely you can give your two favourite nieces a lift?”

“You’re my
only
nieces.”

“Which means you have plenty of free time to chauffeur us around.”

When Uncle Max looks ready to refuse, Holly smiles with all her teeth. “I’ve been wondering what you
do
on these trips to London, Uncle Max? Perhaps I should ask Aunty
Vera?”

I look up in surprise. Vigil-Aunty doesn’t know about his visits to London? How is that possible? She has eyes everywhere. Although, now I think about it, she hasn’t been her usual
scary self lately. She’ll be fifty at the end of the month and it’s obviously bothering her because she won’t let anyone use the ‘f-word’ (fifty) and insists
she’s turning forty-nine B.