Sherlock Sam and the Quantum Pair in Queenstown

by A. J. Low

  “I got it! I know what happened!” I said, holding my fork in the air. “Dad! We need to head back to your office immediately!”

  “What? Now?” Dad asked, his spoonful of gravy halfway up to his mouth.

  “Yes! Okay, wait! Right after we’ve finished our mee siam!”

  CHAPTER TEN

  We piled back into the minivan and Dad drove us straight to his office.

  “What do you hope to find in my office, Sam?” Dad asked.

  “A bit of proof for my theory, Dad,” I said. “And maybe eat a Red Vine or two.”

  “We’ll discuss the Red Vines later,” Dad said, “but what kind of proof are you looking for?”

  “To confirm who Uncle Baad really is,” I said. “And prove that Uncle Saad and Tall Auntie Wendy are innocent.”

  Once Dad had parked, we stepped out and got into the lift.

  “We should probably call Officer Siva and let him know,” Mom said. “Maybe he can bring Saad and Tall Wendy here with him.”

  “I’ll do it from the office phone,” Dad said. “The reception on my handphone is always terrible at the office for some reason.”

  The lift reached Dad’s floor and we stepped out. We walked down the hall to the office door. Dad took out his key card and was about to swipe it, but stopped. He looked through the window in the door, and stepped back.

  “There’s something moving in there,” he whispered.

  We stepped away from the door.

  “We have to call Officer Siva,” Nazhar said.

  “That would be the most prudent course of action, Master Dad,” Moran said.

  Dad took out his mobile phone and showed us the screen. “No bars. I don’t have any reception.”

  Mom and Eliza checked their phones too, but they also didn’t have any reception.

  “I know,” Jimmy said. “Why doesn’t Watson use his Wi-Fi?”

  “Watson has Wi-Fi now?” Wendy asked.

  “I-do-not-have-Wi-Fi,” Watson said.

  “You said you did last night,” I said accusingly.

  “I-said-I-was-4G-enabled,” Watson said.

  “Semantics,” I said, getting frustrated. “The point is you can message Officer Siva and let him know to get here as quickly as he can.”

  “I-cannot-do-that-for-two-reasons,” Watson said.

  This should be really good, I thought.

  Mom was occasionally peeking through the window to see what was going on inside.

  “Number-one-I-am-not-a-smartphone-sodonot-have-any-apps.”

  Okay, that one actually made sense.

  “Number-two-even-if-I-did-have-amessagingapp-I-would-not-be-able-to-use-ituntilI-got-a-SIM-card.”

  “You…you enabled yourself for 4G, but only when you had a SIM-card installed?” Wendy asked. “How does that make any sense?”

  “We can discuss that later,” Dad said, “but for now, why don’t I just lend you my SIMcard?”

  “That-could-work,” Watson said.

  “Great, who has a paper clip?” Dad asked.

  “A paper clip?” Nazhar asked.

  “You have to poke the little hole on Uncle’s phone with something thin like a paper clip to make the SIM-card come out,” Eliza explained.

  Dad looked around, but nobody had any paper clips.

  Jimmy reached into his pocket and pulled out 50 bobby pins of different sizes. “Would these work?” he asked.

  “Why do you have so many bobby pins?” Wendy asked.

  “Master Jimmy has four sisters,” Moran said.

  “They like to put things in my hair,” Jimmy added.

  “Yes, that’s perfect,” Dad said, taking the slimmest bobby pin from Jimmy’s pile.

  He got his SIM-card out and gave it to Watson.

  “May-I-borrow-the-bobby-pin?” Watson asked.

  “Wait, you made your SIM-card tray accessible only via a paper clip?” Eliza asked.

  “You see what I have to deal with?” I asked. “He does these kinds of things on purpose, you know.”

  “I-have-to-make-sure-thieves-are-deterredfromtrying-to-take-my-SIM-cards,” Watson said.

  “The fact that the SIM-card is inside of you isn’t deterrent enough?” Nazhar asked.

  “That-is-a-fair-point,” Watson said. “I-willrethinkthe-design-of-the-SIM-card-accesspoint.”

  Dad gave the bobby pin to Watson, who used it to poke the side of his head. A little tray popped out, and Dad put his SIM-card in it. Watson pushed the tray back into his head and then waited a bit.

  “Please-wait-for-a-moment,” Watson said. “My-systems-are-accessing-the-SIM-card.”

  We waited for a moment while Watson’s systems whirred.

  “There-seems-to-be-an-overall-data-chargeforone-hundred-and-eighty-four-dollars-and-thirteen-cents-on-this-SIM-card,” Watson said.

  “What?” Mom said from the door. “We’ll talk about this later, Michael.”

  “Can you call Officer Siva now, please,” Dad said sheepishly.

  “I-do-not-have-any-reception,” Watson said.

  A string of facepalms went around. Even Moran joined in.

  We suddenly heard a crash from inside.

  “Oh, and Tall Wendy just finished cleaning, too,” Mom said.

  “My Red Vines!” Dad said as he rushed through the door.

  We rushed in behind him and saw a man shrouded in shadows stuffing papers in a shredder.

  “Unhand my Red Vines!” Dad shouted.

  “He’s nowhere near your Red Vines, Uncle Mike,” Nazhar said.

  “Oh. Then unhand those papers!” Dad shouted.

  Mom turned on the office lights, and we saw the man that looked like Uncle Saad!

  “Uncle Saad?!” Eliza shouted. “What are you doing?”

  “That’s not Uncle Saad!” Jimmy said. “That’s Uncle Baad!”

  “He’s right!” I said. “Uncle Saad is with Officer Siva and Tall Auntie Wendy!”

  Uncle Baad looked like a deer caught in headlights. I was sure being shouted at by an adult worried about his candy and a bunch of children calling him an odd name didn’t help his confusion one bit. But he did realise he had been caught red-handed at some point, because he tried to run past us.

  “Stop him!” Mom shouted.

  Dad tried to cut off his main avenue of escape with his body, while Nazhar and Eliza pushed desks around to block his other escape routes. Watson took to the air while Moran used his rocket skates to chase him around the office.

  I was getting ready to help Jimmy throw some of his bobby pins as a sort of trap when out of nowhere, Wendy shouted, “Sweep the leg!” She jumped in front of Uncle Baad, who must have been even more confused at this point. She was in a Wing Chun starting stance and used her foot to sweep Uncle Baad off his feet, sending him crashing to the floor.

  “You finally did it!” Eliza shouted. “She’s been trying to pull that off in Wing Chun class for ages! Though maybe don’t shout ‘sweep the leg’ next time.”

  “Unless you can do it in Mandarin,” I said.

  “No one asked you, Cher Lock,” Wendy said, clearly very proud of herself.

  Dad quickly tied the dazed Uncle Baad to a chair while Mom called Officer Siva on the office phone.

  We waited for Officer Siva for a very tense 10 minutes, as we all stared at Uncle Baad while he stared back at us. The only sound that could be heard was the sound of our heavy breathing.

  I heard the lift ding and then Officer Siva’s voice. “Is everybody okay?”

  “We’re okay, Siva,” Mom said.

  Officer Siva entered the office with Uncle Saad and Tall Auntie Wendy behind him.

  “Argh, I just cleaned this place,” Tall Auntie Wendy said as she surveyed the mess caused by Uncle Baad and his escape attempt.

  “Oh my gosh, he really does look exactly like me,” Uncle Saad said, staring at Uncle Baad’s face.

  “So, what, uh, what universe is he from?” Officer Siva asked with some trepidation.

  “T
his one,” I replied.

  “Oh, that’s fantastic,” Officer Siva said, visibly relieved. “I really did not want to have to write ‘Alternate Universe Saad’ on my arrest report.”

  “Uncle Saad,” I said, “if I’m not mistaken, this is your twin brother. Or at least a sibling that looks a lot like you whose name I’m sure is not Baad.”

  Uncle Baad looked surprised at what I had said.

  “What? What do you mean? I already told you I don’t have any siblings, much less a twin, Sherlock,” Uncle Saad said. “I’m an only child.”

  “You were raised an only child,” I said. “But that’s not the same thing. While eating Auntie Kim Lian’s mee siam again this morning, Mom reminded me of Auntie’s sister, who had been given up for adoption,” I continued. “It made me realise that it was entirely possible that you had a sibling that you didn’t know about. And since he looks exactly like you, there’s a very decent chance he is your twin. You also said earlier that your family was very poor when you were growing up so I deduced that your parents might have had no choice but to give one of you up for adoption. They couldn’t afford to raise both of you. They could barely afford to raise one of you.”

  “My family was very poor for most of my life, it’s true,” Uncle Saad said. “But they never—”

  “Poor?” Uncle Baad shouted. “You expect me to believe that? I was raised in an orphanage, thinking I had no family because surely they wouldn’t have let me fend for myself all those years. And then I saw you and your parents on TV five years ago, when you opened this office. You were clearly alive, and you were so happy with your lives and you must have had money to open this place.”

  “It’s true Saad is comfortable now, but he had to work for it,” Tall Auntie Wendy said. “We all did.”

  “That’s right,” Uncle Saad said. “I didn’t own any new clothes until I was in secondary school. I wore hand-me-downs given by some of my parents’ friends.”

  “No, I looked you up,” Uncle Baad said. “I learnt everything I could about you. How you were an engineer, how your parents—how our parents had sent you to university. I couldn’t afford university, not an orphan with no money or family connections.”

  “I couldn’t afford it either,” Uncle Saad said. “I got a scholarship. It wasn’t until after I graduated that I started to make enough money to help my parents and give us all a good life.”

  Uncle Baad had nothing to say to that.

  “To have pulled off everything you did, the holograms and the augmented reality screen and the hacking of Mike’s Walk-Man, you’re clearly a genius,” Uncle Saad said. “I didn’t even know you existed. Why waste it on this?”

  “Because he wanted revenge,” I said. “He tried to tear your life apart. Attacking the office and destroying your projects and shredding your papers, and attacking the heritage trail, something you clearly love to do as well. From his vantage point, you had a great life, and he didn’t, and that had happened because you had been chosen, and he had been cast aside, isn’t that right, Uncle Baad?”

  “My name is David, and I would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn’t been for you kaypoh kids.”

  Officer Siva untied Uncle David from the chair and handcuffed him. He took him outside and waited for the lift.

  “I’m sorry, Uncle Saad,” I said. “It must be tough to find out you have family this way.”

  “My whole life, I wanted a sibling,” Uncle Saad said. “And now I have one. Don’t worry about me, Sherlock. I’ll be fine. Especially once I get to know David better.”

  Uncle Saad ran to catch up with Officer Siva and Uncle David.

  “I was sure he was from an alternate universe,” Dad said.

  “So was I,” I said. “Until Mom reminded me of Auntie Kim Lian’s story.”

  “Does this mean Mama is now Singapore’s Greatest Kid Detective?” Jimmy asked.

  “Madam Mama is not a kid, Master Jimmy,” Moran said.

  “Oh, phew,” Jimmy said. “That means Sherlock is still Singapore’s Greatest Kid Detective!”

  “Even-while-clearly-suffering-from-delusionsinduced-by-lack-of-sleep,” Watson said.

  “They weren’t delusions,” I said, “but yes, we all definitely need some sleep.”

  Dad yawned very loudly.

  “I agree,” Mom said, poking Dad in the ribs. “I’ll drive us home.”

  We walked to the lift and waited for it to come up.

  “You’re making me clean this place up by myself again?!” Tall Auntie Wendy yelled from the office.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  After a few weeks, Dad, Tall Auntie Wendy and Uncle Saad were able to rebuild, recreate and replace everything Uncle David had destroyed, so their business didn’t suffer any lasting repercussions. Dad had even started working on teleportation technology again, especially since his precious Red Vines had survived the office break-ins.

  Uncle David’s attempts to get people to stop coming on the Queenstown heritage trail had actually had the opposite effect, as a lot more people wanted to follow the trail after hearing about the Lim Ban Lim “ghost” that appeared one night.

  Uncle David had gone to prison, but because Uncle Saad and Tall Auntie Wendy (who had forgiven Uncle David for tying her up) had both spoken up for Uncle David at his trial, he received a reduced sentence. Uncle Saad visited him every week, and he told me that they talked about science and engineering.

  They also talked about their family. Uncle David deeply regretted being so angry for those five years. Instead of seeking revenge, he could have just talked to his family. The thing he regretted the most was having the chance to talk to his parents but not doing it.

  And I studied alternate universes. It’s true we hadn’t had any incursions, but I knew they were theoretically possible, especially as physicists had proven the multiverse did in fact exist. With maths, at least.

  I wondered what my other selves were like. Was I still a detective? Were my friends and family still my friends and family? Would I still love chicken wings?

  I thought about it for a little while.

  Of course I would still love chicken wings. If there was a universe out there with a Sherlock Sam who didn’t love chicken wings, well, he must simply not be Sherlock Sam.

  “Sherlock-there-are-crumbs-in-my-secretcompartmentagain,” Watson said, breaking my train of thought. “Please-remove-them. And-refrain-from-licking-them-out-this-time.”

  Perhaps it was better if we never figured out how to travel to alternate universes. I don’t think I could handle more than one Watson.

  We wrote these comic strips in 2013 for the National Library Board's S.U.R.E. campaign. We were asked to write some funny comics featuring the Supper Club ignoring proper information literacy practices: Source, Understand, Research and Evaluate. They first appeared on NLB's S.U.R.E. website at http://www.nlb.gov.sg/sure/sherlock-sam-comic-series/. These comics likely take place some time before the Fiendish Mastermind trilogy, but no one knows for sure. They might even take place in alternate dimensions! We've also included a blank comic for you to draw your own strip! You can send a photo of your masterpiece to us and we can post it on Instagram (but check with your parents or guardians first)!

  GLOSSARY

  Agak agak—A Malay term meaning “more or less”.

  Augmented reality—A live view of a physical, real-world environment which is enhanced (or supplemented) by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data. The game Pokémon Go is a perfect example of augmented reality.

  Chinese New Year—Also known as the Lunar New Year, this is celebrated by many cultures that follow the lunar calendar. It does not always fall on the same date, but will usually fall within the first two months of the calendar year.

  Doctor Who—The long-running BBC television series which features the Doctor, an alien Timelord and his human companions. The Doctor travels through time and space using his TARDIS, a British police box-shaped time machine. The Weeping An
gels are quantum-locked aliens who attack when their prey isn’t looking at them but are frozen when observed. Don’t blink.

  Doppelgänger—A German term that has entered the English language; it means “double”.

  Gyroscope—A spinning wheel that can rotate freely, but is unaffected by outside movement. In the past, sailors used gyroscopes to maintain their direction. Nowadays, smart phones have tiny gyroscopes so that compass and similar apps always know where north is.

  Hantu—A Malay word meaning “ghost”.

  Hari Raya Puasa—A Muslim holiday marking the end of Ramadan, the fasting month.

  Holodeck—A virtual reality room featured in Star Trek.

  Hologram—A three-dimensional image created by scattering light, which can be seen without 3D glasses.

  Kaypoh—Nosy or meddling. A busybody.

  Keretapi Tanah Melayu Railways—Also known as KTM Railways, this is a railway that started operation in 1903, and serviced the growing tin and rubber industries in Malaya and the port at Keppel. The section in Queenstown is no longer in use.

  Mee siam—A Malay and Peranakan dish made with thin rice vermicelli. Usually served with spicy, sweet and sour gravy, but can also be served dry. Author Felicia’s mother makes the best dry mee siam in all the multiverses.

  Miniaturisation—The trend of creating smaller and smaller mechanical and electronic products and devices. Smart phones are the result of miniaturising computers.

  Multiverse—The idea that an infinite number of universes coexist, including the universe in which we live. Also known as alternate dimensions and parallel universes.

  My Queenstown Heritage Trail—A walking trail in Queenstown. My Community launched the trail in 2010. Sign up for a trail at mycommunity.org.sg, just like Adan and Felicia did.

  Prata—A fried, Indian flatbread made of flour found all over Singapore.

  It can be ordered plain, with savoury fillings (cheese, onion, egg, etc) or sweet fillings (banana, cream, chocolate, etc.). It usually comes with a side of curry.