Masterminders

by Tara Basi

  Suddenly they were paying attention. Even though I had no idea what Bobby was talking about, I was fascinated. A Gold Frog, now that was impressive.

  “I am required by law to warn you that your returns may be far greater than I have indicated. However, strict regulation by the Banks R Us Financial Services’ Authority demands that you first consult an Independent Financial Advisor before I can accept any investment,” Bobby solemnly concluded.

  “Did someone mention the need for a fully qualified IFA,” I blurted as I jumped out from behind the bins hoping I wouldn’t muck up my lines.

  “As a neutral IFA from Banks R Us Advisory Services I can highly recommend the Hedge Chip fund for attractive and intelligent investors who want to make lots of money. It is completely unsuitable for ugly stupid people with money they would rather leave on the bus or give to nuns for missionary work. Thank you and that will be a pound,” I said as authoritatively as I could.

  “Let’s get this right, we give chicken face here one pound to advise us that we should give bat bum one pound to buy shares in Hedge Chips which will double our money every day,” Tony slowly summarised.

  “If it’s such a great deal how come you two aren’t loaded?” George questioned with undisguised suspicion.

  “It’s like the nuns and sex, bankers and IFA’s are not allowed to make money, but they are authorised to talk about it,” Bobby replied.

  “So tomorrow you’ll give us two pounds back,” Margaret ominously declared.

  “Less of course our trifling management fee of 10% which is used to fund much needed charity work for distressed bankers trying to get in touch with their giving side, so it’ll be £1.80p which is still a massive return on your investment,” Bobby gently explained as he handed over the impressive looking share certificates he’d printed up the night before.

  “What fee, what’s that for?” Madge asked looking unconvinced that a fee was entirely necessary.

  “Normally we don’t charge a fee. For this one time offer we’ve made an exception. You see, without our 10% fee you would have to pay 40% tax on your capital gains which we pay on your behalf. So, you see, our fee is actually a huge saving of 30%,” Bobby explained very slowly.

  Tony and George were persuaded, only Madge still squinted at Bobby distrustfully but eventually they parted with their pound coins and wandered off.

  “See you tomorrow bat bum and you’d better have our money,” was Tony’s final over-the-shoulder comment as the Power Three strode away.

  “My god Bobby, we’re multi-oneaires, six quids!”

  “Calm yourself Terry, this is only the first step, we must speculate to accumulate. We still have more shares in Hedge Chips to dispose of.”

  Not everyone was so easily convinced of the merits of our Hedge Chip fund.

  “My dad says banks steal people’s money, their call centres are staffed by demons and bankers should be burned alive,” was little Timmy’s initial reaction to our approach.

  “Your dad is a noble and wise man. We will have nothing to do with the wickedness of banks. That’s why we’re an offshore investment trust derivative of a financial institution,” Bobby explained.

  “You’re called Banks R Us,” Timmy pointed out thinking he’d found a fatal flaw in Bobby’s logic. Poor deluded little urchin.

  “That’s just the name, a draconian requirement of the regulators who are no doubt in league with the pure evil that is banking,” was Bobby’s lightning reposte.

  “That’s OK then. I’ll take one,” Timmy concluded, all doubts dispelled.

  After a few more sales the word soon spread. By late afternoon we were besieged by sweaty outstretched hands clutching pound coins, demanding an IFA and Hedge Chip shares. Within minutes we were sold out!

  “Multi-tenaires! I’ve never seen so much money, we’re rich beyond the dreams of the Becks,” I babbled.

  “Not quite Terry, tomorrow we have to pay back everything we’ve made, including your fees as interest, less of course the bank’s 10%. I reckon we’ll still make 20p on every 2 pounds, around £4, once all the calculations are done,” Bobby explained.

  It took a while for me to understand the banking concept of giving people their money back but in the end we’d still make a fortune. I was deliriously happy and already planning exactly how I’d spend my £2. I’d invite Madge out for a Mr Singh special chocolate-chip-double-chocolate ice-cream and cake with extra peanut butter. And afterwards we’d share a packet of luxury wine gums made with real wine. It had all been so simple and for once nothing had gone wrong.

  “What do you mean you don’t want your £1.80p?” Bobby nervously questioned George the next day.

  This was unbelievable, the Power Three were going to let us keep their money, all of it. Vast numbers of pounds beyond human understanding would be ours. Bobby was even more of a genius than Bobby thought he was. The same madness spread through all of our shareholders, they didn’t want their money back. Finally I understood why bankers were so rich, people really did just throw their money at them and wanted nothing in return except for a nicely printed piece of paper.

  “Why are you crying Bobby?” I asked when I’d stopped jumping up and down with glee and finally noticed the chairman of Banks R Us sitting on the floor, head in his hands, gently sobbing.

  “We’ve been undone by the market,” Bobby wailed.

  “There’s no market on Wednesdays, only the first Thursday in every month, what are you talking about,” I quizzed.

  “We promised their investment would double every day, tomorrow they’ll be expecting £3.60. Each! We’re ruined,” Bobby sobbed.

  “Why would they want their money back tomorrow if they don’t want it today?”

  The sudden redness in Bobby’s face and the clenching of his fists suggested he was about to say something that I would probably not like, when just as suddenly his grimace was replaced by a sly smile.

  “Indeed, my little financial wizard, why would they want £3.60 tomorrow when this time next week they can have £460.80p!”

  “What,” I squealed, “that’s ridiculous. Where are we going to get £460!”

  “It’s £460 for each shareholder, we have 20 of them, so that’s….”

  “Stop”, I screamed, “don’t say anymore, it’s too horrible,” I hissed starting to feel faint. Images of being hung, drawn and quartered skidded around the inside of my head.

  “Bobby, how can you smile? I may have to sell my liver!”

  “Breathe deeply and stay calm, Terry. All we need to do is demand they take their money back. It will give us at least till next week to figure something out.”

  It worked.

  “No way bat bum. I’m saving for an XBOX, get lost! See you next week.” George’s rebuff was pretty much echoed by every one of our stakeholders, though some had even higher spending ambitions: top of the buying list was a Bugatti.

  Having something work out had never felt so bad.

  “We’re doomed, worse than doomed, we’re dead,” I sobbed as we left school on Thursday.

  Bobby ignored me and stared into space. I knew that look. He was scheming. I just hoped that he was scheming faster than our debts were accumulating. It hadn’t helped that I’d spent the morning doubling £1.80, over and over. It didn’t take that long for my super-sized Spiderman calculator to run out of zeros and finally give up with a last pitiful E! We would owe more money than I could even say. In a month it would be zillions and zillions!

  “If you want to live debt free bring a dead rat and a half-eaten raw potato to school tomorrow,” Bobby mysteriously ordered.

  Bobby had cracked under the strain but even a completely loopy Bobby was my only hope. Perhaps I should humour him for now; but where was I going to find a dead rat? Mum kept the house pretty clean. I sneaked out of my bedroom window and down the drainpipe just after midnight armed with my Star Wars Laser flashlight. At least it was going to be clear dry night and not too cold.

  Shortly after climbi
ng over the back wall the thunderstorm broke, drenching me in a curious mix of hailstones and giant rain drops. I headed down the lane into the freezing night determined to follow the white dashes till I found a dead rat, or road kill that at least resembled a rat. After trudging for hours through the darkness, dodging the odd oncoming lorry, all I had to show for it was an utterly flat spread-eagled squirrel. If my boots hadn’t been full of water and sunrise wasn’t just visible through the black storm clouds, I might have tried to find something more rat-like. But there was no time left and I still had to get home and chew that potato before heading off for school.

  Feeling more and more like one of those African countries with a mountain of un-forgiving debt, I wearily trudged through the gates of the school wondering if I should write to Saint Bob or his holiness U2 and beg for cash.

  “You’re late, I’ve already spent the morning preparing our fund holders for the worst, but they just scoffed, spat or thumped me, which was a huge relief,” was Bobby’s only acknowledgement of my heroic rat and potato efforts.

  He wasn’t making much sense but then I was hardly awake. The only sleep I’d had was a few minutes face down in my cornflakes before I’d started to drown. Bobby decided the ‘rat’ would have to do.

  “Clamp its jaws on the potato and follow me,” Bobby said as he headed for the railings and Mr Singh’s emporium.

  While Bobby kept Mr Singh subtly distracted by faking a heart attack and then collapsing, I sneaked into the back of the shop and planted our size-zero squirrel amongst the sacks of potatoes.

  “Mr Singh, there’s a rabid rat eating your potatoes,” I shouted just as Mr Singh was about to punch Bobby in the heart one last time.

  “You what? Oh my god, how’d that thing get in here? What is that thing? Did you jump on it? An infestation and a dead schoolboy on the same day, I am bloody ruined.”

  At which point Bobby leapt to his feet, painfully clutching at his chest while declaring his full recovery and offering to report the incident to the health inspector to save Mr Singh the bother.

  They haggled for what seemed like hours. Eventually Bobby shook me awake and we headed back to school. The side of my head bore the perfect impression of the baked bean tin I’d been using as a pillow.

  During the last break of the day Bobby held an emergency meeting of Hedge Chip fund holders under the weak warmth of the spring sun at the bin end of the playground. Thankfully my role was only to hold up various big cards Bobby had drawn. I was too tired to do much else, only the fear of the crowd kept me awake.

  “So to recap, our fund has outperformed all other forms of investment including gold, oil and drugs. Even taking into account inflation, deflation, currency oscillations and the phases of the moon there has been no better time to invest in Chips and your money is perfectly safe and growing at an alarming rate. All of which was absolutely true yesterday. Unfortunately this morning there have been some counter-cyclical imbalance adjustments to the global economic flows resulting in a negative cliff plunge in theoretical valuations. Of course, these events are merely a momentary correction in the upward trajectory of your profits,” Bobby confidently explained and it all sounded wonderful until Madge choose to speak.

  “Enough rubbish talk, give me my £500, now!”

  Of course no one believed Bobby’s excuse for not having the kind of money our investors were expecting; only the offer of a free wine gum for every shareholder and confirmation from Mr Singh’s own lips of the crises delayed our execution. The Power Three unanimously chose themselves to represent investor’s interests and went alone to see Mr Singh. They didn’t look happy when they returned.

  “It’s true, the Chinese have discovered a way of making chips out of tofu and the world chip market has collapsed, we’re all ruined. There’s only one thing left to do, grab those two morons, they’re slush puppies,” Madge informed the shocked shareholders.

  “Wait, wait, Banks R Us did manage to save something, you’ll all get your £1 back and 80p of interest, though our own miniscule fee has been lost in the financial storm,” Bobby shrieked as our 20 irate investors prepared to pummel us into skid marks.

  The offer of £1.80 was just enough to turn the rampaging bloodthirsty throng into a vexed and vengeful mob. As we handed out the money there was the odd punch, kick and nipple grate but nothing too terrible. Indeed I took some perverse pleasure from a rather sexy love bite to the end of my nose by an irate Madge who’d been saving for breast enlargements. As we dragged ourselves away to faint background shrieks of ‘what about my Bugatti,” we marvelled that we had survived relatively unscathed.

  Shortly after Bobby and I wound up Banks R Us and turned our backs on the financial high life forever. Still, despite the bruises, we’d made four quid and wheedled 10 minutes of top-shelf stepladder time out of Mr Singh. I decided that inviting Madge out for one of Mr Singh’s unique ice-cream treats would probably have to wait for a while. Instead I treated my work-weary mum to a big bag of chocolate biscuits. Even Mr Singh found a silver chapatti lining. “Tofu free chips, get them while they last!” was writ large across his shop window for many years to the bemusement of the rest of the island’s chamber of commerce, but Mr Singh did a roaring trade.

  Chapter Five – Philosophy

  Henry just turned up at school one Monday. He was a skinny, nerdy, nervous and bespectacled little mite. The cursed boy was also a bully magnet. His physical characteristics combined with his expensive clothes and his shiny Fantastic Four lunch box created an irresistible attraction that drew the Power Three right to him, like laser guided cruise missiles heading for Baghdad.

  As a novice in our brutal yard he gravitated to the only people that might help him survive, our Duo. We took in the bruised Henry and taught him the rules of survival. And we relieved him of his ostentatious but now dented lunch box and reserves of excessive money that he had somehow concealed from the Power Three.

  “You can’t be tough on bullying without being tough on the causes of bullying,” Bobby lectured our new half.

  “That’s why, Henry-Half, we must stop you from encouraging bullying by confiscating items which are flagrant provocations. Remember the rules: no eye contact, no sudden movements, stay out of the light, stick to the shadows, keep quiet and always look poor. Are we clear Henry-Half?” Bobby quizzed.

  “I get it alright; protection is expensive and doesn’t buy much. And how come I’m only a half, why not a whole?” Henry rather sourly replied.

  I was a bit shocked and so was Bobby. We had expected Henry to be a little more grateful, compliant and a lot less belligerent.

  “We are the Duo, not the Trio, you will have to look elsewhere if you aspire to fullness. Be grateful that you are a half and not a zero!” Bobby retorted, which made me feel quite proud.

  “What if I’m cleverer than Terry; wouldn’t he become the half?” Henry continued undeterred and suddenly the pride, along with the confidence I’d felt, started draining away.

  “Theoretically, but Terry has been at my side, learning and developing his cerebral capacity for many, many months. You would be no match, that path would only lead to ruin,” Bobby answered.

  “Well, speaking theoretically, what if there was some kind of intellectual test and Terry was to lose to me wouldn’t that mean his automatic demotion?” Henry asked, unwilling to drop the point.

  Suddenly the conversation was not going at all well. Despite the warm spring sun I was feeling ever colder.

  “This is ridiculous, you’ve just arrived, from who knows where, we’ve done the Christian thing and saved you from the Power Three, and all you can think about is uselessly trying to upset the very order that rescued you,” Bobby replied, getting quite irritated by the new boy.

  “So it can be upset, the current order of things?” Henry smugly pressed.

  “Well of course, but that’s extremely unlikely, especially by someone with as few manners as you,” Bobby answered with some anger.

  “Then I chal
lenge Terry to a philosophical debate on the nature of time. If he loses he’s banished from the Duo forever and I take his place. If I lose I’ll accept my half status and won’t mention to the nuns, or the police or to the Power Three that you took the rest of my stuff. I’ll leave you now to consider your limited options and we’ll convene on Friday morning for the debate challenge. By the way, wouldn’t it be great if it was conducted in front of the whole school and the nuns adjudicated? They’ll love the idea, don’t you think?” Henry defiantly concluded as he nonchalantly crept away, keeping to the shadows, head bowed and silent as ninja road-kill. He certainly picked things up fast.

  ‘Is philosophical related to the cheese? And what’s to debate about time, I have a watch?” I nervously asked Bobby who just groaned and held his head.

  “If you’re to best Henry then we have some serious preparation to get through before Friday morning,” was all Bobby would say before it was time to get back to class.

  I didn’t like Bobby’s use of the “if” word. How difficult could it be to out-argue the Henry nerd on such a simple subject? Probably that’s why he’d chosen it, anything really complicated like the weather or crop rotation would have just been beyond him. Anyway we could just tell him to get lost

  The next morning Bobby explained, “We can’t turn down the challenge, he’ll stuff us up with the nuns and everyone else.”