Five Seconds to Doomsday

by Simon Cheshire

  All three of us yelped with fright. I almost dropped the phone. 1 Message flashed on its screen. I didn’t recognise the mobile number.

  Nice text, Smart. So full of news. Here’s the final round, you giant gherkin. The box is under the Head’s conference table. Hurry up, not long now. Bye.

  Izzy went pale. I think she nearly went ‘Wuaaahh’ too, but she stopped herself in time. ‘The box is in the middle of the Head’s conference of teachers?’ she cried. There’s no way we can get to it there!’

  ‘We’ll just have to gatecrash,’ said Muddy sternly.

  ‘This is another Harry Lovecraft trick, isn’t it?’ cried Izzy. ‘We can’t disarm the timer without gatecrashing the conference. And if we gatecrash the conference, we’ll be in all kinds of trouble! That’s why he’s been playing this game with us! He’s made sure he can’t lose, either way!’

  I was only half-listening to what Izzy was saying. Something had just struck me about the text message from Harry. Something very, very important.

  My eyes almost popped out and rolled across the carpet. A simple deduction based on two things in the text sent me spinning around, looking wildly in all directions.

  Have you worked it out too?

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Izzy.

  ‘He’s right here,’ I gasped. ‘Harry’s here in the school too – he can see us.’

  ‘Can’t see him,’ said Muddy peering out of the staff room window. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘He called me a giant gherkin, just like you two did,’ I said. ‘So he’s seen me. And he knew it was me who’d texted, even though I used Muddy’s phone. I tell you, he’s watching us! I bet he’s been hiding around here all along!’

  ‘Wherever he is,’ cried Izzy, ‘we’ve got four and a half minutes before the timer goes off!’

  I took one last lightning look around. Where was Harry watching us from? He was probably some distance away because he wouldn’t want to get too close and risk us catching him. From the staff room window, I could see a multitude of places where someone might be able to observe us. Wait! Was that low-down rat in one of the classrooms on the other side of the playground? Was that a glint of light I could see, like a reflection, perhaps off —

  ‘Come on!’ cried Izzy, dragging at my arm.

  The three of us ran out of the staff room and back the way we had come. We skidded to a halt (as quietly as it’s possible to skid to a halt) when we saw that the caretaker was now laying out a load of plumbing tools and copper pipes in the corridor outside the girls’ toilets, his back towards us. It was sheer chance that he hadn’t already seen us, but our route to the main hall was now blocked.

  Panic froze my brain for a moment, but then I bounded over to the nearest window. ‘Out this way,’ I said. ‘We’ll have to circle the building from outside.’

  One by one, we tumbled out on to the tarmac. The rain fell in a curtain of droplets from a broken section of guttering up above us. Water giggled and gurgled along the covered drains beneath our feet.

  We splashed our way around the perimeter of the building, keeping below window level as much as we could. For some peculiar reason, I kept thinking about the maths lessons we’d done on calculating circumferences and areas. I suppose I was trying to work out how much more time this longer route would take us, but my brain wouldn’t co-operate.

  ‘This longer route will take us at least two minutes more,’ said Izzy, above the noise of the rain. ‘Anyone come up with an idea yet for gatecrashing that conference without giving the Head a screaming fit?’

  ‘Nope,’ said Muddy and I together.

  ‘Me neither,’ muttered Izzy sadly.

  Two minutes, nineteen seconds . . .

  We got back into the building through the door marked Exit Only. We were right beside the short building-to-building corridor, the one we’d had to avoid being seen from when we were back in the car park.

  Our footsteps echoed off the corridor’s sides. I suddenly stopped.

  ‘Izzy,’ I cried. ‘Stay right here! Don’t move off this spot!’

  ‘What? Why?’ she asked.

  ‘Remember, you can see both gates from here,’ I said. ‘Watch for Harry! Don’t let him get away!’

  ‘For crying out loud, Saxby,’ grumbled Izzy, ‘haven’t we got more important things to think about? We’re at two minutes exactly!’

  ‘Please! Just stay there!’ I told her.

  Muddy and I dashed ahead. The distance from the corridor, past the school office, to the big double doors of the main hall, was only about ten or fifteen metres.

  A low murmur of voices came from inside the hall. Muddy and I crouched beneath the large glass panels that were set into both the doors and the walls to each side. We glanced back. From here, we could still see Izzy. She egged us on with a silent flapping of hands.

  The glass panels had posters and notices sticky-taped all over them. I edged myself up until I could see into the hall through a slim vertical gap between a couple of handwritten announcements.

  One minute, forty-one seconds . . .

  The hall was packed with people. I could see several St Egbert’s teachers, including Mrs Penzler. Every one of them was sitting at a separate small desk, with a laptop in front of them. At the front of the hall was a long series of tables, covered in spotless white tablecloths. On them were an array of screens, keyboards and other computer equipment. A man in a dark suit was standing up and addressing the audience, a huge diagram of a computer network projected up behind him. The Head was sitting behind the table next to him. Out of sight, under that table, had to be the hidden box.

  ‘How are we going to do this, then?’ whispered Muddy. ‘Just go right in? Try to attract someone’s attention?’

  Now that I’d seen what was going on in the hall, my mind started firing questions at me about everything that had happened so far. Why had Harry set up such a strange and complex revenge? Why lead us here today, to the Head’s conference? Was there a hidden motive behind this game?

  ‘Well?’ whispered Muddy.

  One minute twenty-eight seconds . . .

  My head was so full of questions I couldn’t think straight. One thought kept nagging away at me: that we could win this game, that it was still possible to have this whole situation backfire in Harry’s face.

  And that just didn’t fit! So what was I missing?

  Suddenly, it hit me.

  I realised I might have been looking at this problem from the wrong point of view.

  What if the box was the trap? What if opening the box was what Harry wanted us to do?

  ‘Muddy,’ I said. ‘Tell me again. What did you do after your dad gave you that first note this morning?’

  ‘You what?’ spluttered Muddy.

  ‘Tell me!’

  One minute, nineteen seconds . . .

  ‘I opened the envelope, I read the note, I came straight to your shed! You know that!’

  ‘You didn’t look for Norman?’ I asked. ‘You didn’t search the house?’

  ‘Why would I? I had that photo right in front of me! I came straight to your shed! Come on, we’ve got to get into the hall!’

  I looked straight at Muddy. ‘Phone your dad.’

  ‘Are you taking the mickey?’ gasped Muddy angrily.

  ‘Do it! We have just over a minute! If I’m wrong, we can still get in there and disarm that timer. Call him!’

  Muddy’s face was a shifting storm of anger and confusion. He pressed a couple of buttons on his phone. A couple of seconds later he was saying, ‘Dad? It’s me.’

  ‘Tell him to look under your pillow!’ I hissed. ‘Quick!’

  Muddy stared doubtfully at me. ‘Dad, can you go and look under my pillow? Don’t ask why, please just do it as fast as you can . . . What? . . . Oh . . .’ Muddy turned to me. ‘He says he’s in the car. He’s been to SuperSave. He’s just parked outside our house.’

  ‘Well, tell him to hurry!’ I gasped.

  Muddy went back to t
he phone. ‘Dad, can you hurry? I need you to look under my pillow . . . Yes, I know you’ve got stuff that needs to go in the fridge, but this is urgent . . . Yes, right now . . .’

  Seconds ticked by.

  Twenty-four seconds.

  Twenty-three seconds.

  I peeked into the hall again. The man in the dark suit was still talking.

  ‘Dad? . . . No, you can’t ring me back . . . I’m at school . . . Yeees, I know, it’s a long story, I’ll tell you later, but right now —’

  Izzy’s voice, half whisper and half shout, came from the corridor. ‘What are you doing? Get in there!’

  I signalled for her to hang on.

  ‘Saxby, for Pete’s sake, get to that timer!’ she squeaked. ‘We’ll just have to get into trouble and face the consequences. We can’t let that thing go off!’

  I didn’t know what to do. Should I rush into the hall anyway? What if I was wrong again?

  I needed an answer from Muddy’s dad!

  Fourteen seconds.

  ‘No, Dad,’ said Muddy into his phone, ‘leave the milk for a minute, go upstairs . . . Yes, it’s important, I promise you . . .’

  An icy layer of sweat seemed to have suddenly formed all over me. I judged that five seconds would be just enough. It would take five seconds to burst into the hall, dive under the table and fling open the box. The five-second point was my final deadline. Five seconds to doomsday.

  My eyes were glued to my watch.

  Nine seconds.

  Eight seconds.

  I had to make a decision. Now. Was I right? Had I now spotted the truth? Was the box a trap? But if so, how? Or had everything Harry said been true?

  Seven seconds.

  I made my decision.

  What do you think is the right thing to do?

  CHAPTER

  SEVEN

  FOUR SECONDS.

  The deadline had passed. It was now too late to stop the timer. If Harry had told the truth. If I was wrong.

  Polite applause started up in the hall. I peeped up through the glass panel again. The man in the dark suit had sat down. The Head was on her feet.

  Two seconds.

  One second.

  Two o’clock.

  I stared at the white cloth covering the Head’s table. I strained to hear any sound which might be coming from underneath it. The teachers’ clapping subsided as the Head held up a hand.

  No muffled sound of a teddy shredder. No teachers’ phones going off.

  ‘Well, it’s two now,’ said the Head. ‘We’ll have a fifteen-minute break, and then we’ll be hearing about trends in classroom software.’ Dozens of chairs scraped against the hall floor.

  Muddy was still on the phone. ‘Dad? . . . At last! Well? . . . What? . . . Are you sure? . . . No, no, that’s fine. I’ll see you later.’

  He switched the phone off and turned to me with a look of utter astonishment on his face. ‘Norman’s there. Under my pillow. As usual.’

  I almost collapsed on the floor with relief. I suddenly realised I hadn’t taken a breath for about half a minute. My legs started feeling shaky. ‘I was right,’ I said at last. ‘I knew it. Everything Harry told us was a lie. This was all one gigantic con.’

  ‘But . . .’ began Muddy. He stopped, confused. ‘But . . .’ he began again.

  ‘What’s going on?’ called Izzy from the corridor.

  ‘Keep a look-out!’ I called back. ‘Harry could make a run for it! Don’t lose him!’

  ‘But . . .’ said Muddy. ‘How did he get Norman back into my room?’

  ‘He never took Norman,’ I said. ‘He never copied your Whisk-A-Matic, he never altered my podcast, none of it.’

  ‘So, there’s no box under that table?’ asked Muddy.

  ‘Oh, there’s a box all right,’ I said confidently. ‘I just don’t know what’s in it.’

  At that moment, the double doors to the assembly hall swung open and the severe shape of Mrs Penzler was looming over us. ‘Saxby! George!’ she barked. ‘Is that Isobel over there? What’s going on? You three are in very hot water!’

  ‘Could we have a quiet word, Mrs Penzler?’ I said, beaming her my very best lost-puppy-dog smile.

  A few quiet words later, Mrs Penzler was having trouble believing me. I couldn’t say I blamed her. ‘I know you and Harry Lovecraft aren’t exactly best friends, Saxby,’ she said, ‘but you can’t seriously be accusing him of something so . . . peculiar. Not without proof.’

  ‘What about the three printed notes?’ said Muddy.

  ‘That’s not proof, George,’ said Mrs Penzler. ‘Anyone could have composed those. The same goes for the text you received. If you could show me that the phone which sent the text was Harry’s, that would be different. But you can’t, can you? The caller’s ID is simply a mobile number. I still can’t believe anyone would go to so much trouble.’

  ‘Ah, but that’s the point, Mrs Penzler,’ I said. ‘The only definite trouble he’s gone to is that box that’s still under the table.’

  ‘Can I stop watching the gates now?’ called Izzy from the corridor.

  ‘No!’ I cried. ‘He’ll make a run for it as soon as he realises his plan’s gone wrong. That could be any second.’

  I marched into the assembly hall. Most of the teachers, including the Head, had gone off to find coffee and grumble about the government. I went over to the table at which the Head had been sitting and took hold of the lower edge of its long, white tablecloth.

  ‘You do realise, Saxby,’ said Mrs Penzler in a low voice, ‘that if we look under here and there’s no box, I’ll have to conclude that you’ve fabricated this whole story to cover up whatever the real reason is for your unauthorised presence in school today.’

  I smiled weakly at her. With a flourish, and a heart-tearing hope that I wasn’t wrong, I lifted the tablecloth.

  Muddy, Mrs Penzler and I bent down to look under the table. An opaque plastic storage box, about forty centimetres wide and about twenty centimetres deep, was taped to the underside of the table with thick black tape.

  ‘Do you have any scissors, Mrs Penzler?’ I said quietly.

  Blinking with alarm at our discovery, Mrs Penzler scurried to the nearby office. I soon had the box cut free and on the floor of the hall. Its lid was fastened shut with a large flip-up catch.

  Mrs Penzler reached out towards it.

  ‘Nooo!’ I cried. A couple of visiting teachers started giving us funny looks. Mrs Penzler snatched her hand back as if the box was red hot. ‘Don’t open it here, whatever you do! That’s what Harry wanted!’

  I picked up the box carefully. It was quite heavy but I couldn’t feel anything shifting around inside or hear anything rattle.

  I carried it out of the hall, past the office, past a startled-looking Izzy (‘Stay there!’ I reminded her. ‘Keep looking!’), and out into the open air. The rain had eased off a little. I put the box down in the middle of a grassy patch. Mrs Penzler handed me a long twig that had been blown from one of the nearby trees.

  Crouching down, I held the twig at arm’s length and hooked one end of it under the plastic catch. I paused for a moment. I suddenly remembered I had no idea exactly what was going to be inside this box.

  I flipped the catch up.

  Instantly, the lid sprung back like a jack-in-the-box. A spray of firework sparks jetted upwards, but were quickly engulfed by a thick, choking column of black smoke, which erupted into the air like a miniature volcano. The smoke snaked its way in a curling cloud up to roof height.

  ‘What the . . .’ gulped Mrs Penzler. I’d never seen her with her jaw dangling loose before. Not a pretty sight.

  ‘Wow,’ said Muddy. ‘A smoke bomb. Well, a smoke grenade, technically.’

  ‘Where did he get a smoke grenade?’ I said, astonished, watching the black cloud slowly dissipate and dissolve into the rain.

  ‘Oh, you can make them,’ said Muddy cheerily. ‘Yeah, some sugar, baking soda, powdered dye, a few other odds and ends. Not diff
icult.’ The box had stopped gushing now and Muddy peered at what was inside. ‘Mind you, most of this has been bought. Look, those fireworks were hooked up to the spring that blew the lid. Simple, but effective. No timer needed, just open the box and whoosh. No wonder that low-down rat was paying close attention when he came to my laboratory. I don’t understand why he made this thing, though.’

  Suddenly, Izzy’s voice yelled from the corridor. ‘There he is! Heading for the back gate!’

  ‘Right!’ grunted Muddy, leaping to his feet.

  Harry must have seen the smoke and realised his scheme had been foiled. I followed Muddy as fast as I could, back into the corridor and out the other side of the building.

  Muddy was much faster on his feet than me. By the time I was outside again, he was already racing along the path which led away from the building.

  A shadowy figure was rapidly crossing the lawn beside the school’s back gate. With a flying leap, Muddy knocked the figure flat like a bowling ball cannoning into the pins. I heard a scream of anger, followed by a long, howling ‘Eeeuurgghh!’

  The reason for the ‘Eeeuurgghh!’ became clear as soon as Muddy returned. Sure enough, he was hauling Harry Lovecraft along with him, one hand gripping tightly on to the back of that low-down rat’s collar.

  Both of them were – eeeuurgghh – smeared from head to foot in thick, greenish mud. Muddy’s flying tackle had sent the pair of them sprawling across the soaking wet lawn. As readers of my earlier case files will know, no amount of dirt or grime ever worried Muddy. Harry Lovecraft, on the other hand, had other ideas.

  ‘These clothes are ruined!’ he spat. ‘You two are paying to replace them!’

  His expression was as sneering as ever and his voice as slimy as a bucket of greased slugs. The look of disdain in his eyes could still have made a vampire shudder, but the normal gleam of his black hair was streaked with bits of lawn. He was wearing his trademark shiny shoes, and a stripy tie, both splattered in mud. A pair of binoculars hung around his neck.

  ‘So nice to see you again, Harry,’ I said with a smile.

  ‘Drop dead,’ he sneered, as Izzy and Mrs Penzler hurried over to us. Muddy quickly whispered in my ear.