Muck and Mr. Dillinger would meet them again at Marble Arch.
No one made a crack about Muck not running. There wasn’t a player on the team that didn’t know the story about Muck’s bad leg and how, but for the break, he would have gone on to the National Hockey League. And as for Mr. Dillinger, well, he was simply too heavy to run farther than the corner where the Edgware Road began, let alone all the way down to the park and back.
With Travis and Sarah in charge, the team loped down the street at an easy pace, careful not to forget the traffic wasn’t going the way they were used to, and equally careful not to bother any of the pedestrians, many of whom were young mothers pushing baby carriages.
They ran easily, and soon burst up out of the underpass into a park still green and lush with late-season growth.
Travis sucked in the smells, revelling in a sense of the outdoors he never expected in such a huge city. He felt as if he were running in Tamarack, heading toward the school and the arena. As far as he could see was green, green grass. The huge trees with their yellowing leaves blocked any view of the city, and as they turned down toward the ponds it seemed they weren’t in a city at all.
Sarah led for a while and then Travis. Dmitri, the best runner on the Owls, took over after a time. He stepped up the pace, and Nish and Sam dropped back, talking together as they ran.
Travis, who had turned to run backwards for a bit, took note of this and wondered how it was that Nish and Sam could act like they hated each other’s guts and yet at rare times like this seem the greatest of friends.
He already knew he would never understand his best friend. He figured he would never understand Sam, either.
Travis turned back to concentrate on his running. Data had a theory that running was like a computer double-tasking. You could have a computer printing something at the same time you were surfing the Internet for new information, and it sometimes seemed as if the computer was doing two complicated things at once with neither job being aware of the other.
“Your brain is the best computer the world has ever known,” Data would say. “Well, perhaps not Nish’s. But the human brain can do things when we’re not even aware of it. You run and think of running, and the next thing you know your brain is coughing out an answer to a question you didn’t even realize you were thinking of.”
Travis wondered how Data’s mind worked. He marvelled at Data’s enormous grasp of information and complicated tasks. The accident with the car that winter had put him in a wheelchair and taken all but partial movement from him, but it sometimes seemed as if Data’s terrific brain had stepped in to make up for all the other shortcomings.
Travis had started to count his own steps – “61 … 62 … 63 … 64 … 65 … 66 …” when a thought suddenly popped into his brain as surely as if his tongue had reached up and put it there.
Fox.
He ran a little farther.
“67 … 68 … 69 … 70 …”
Wolf!
“71 … 72 … 73 …”
Fox?
He started thinking about the phone call he had overheard down by the Serpentine that day after the first match with the Young Lions. He had thought Mr. Wolfe referred to himself as “Fox” out of absent-mindedness.
But what if it was a play on words – or a code name?
What if bumbling Mr. Wolfe was really sly as a fox?
Travis’s mind suddenly exploded with connections.
Fox! Fawkes!
Fawkes! Fox!
Guy Fawkes!
Travis felt a sharp pain in his side. A stitch.
He couldn’t go on. He stopped and bent over to ease the pain.
Sarah held up the rest of the Owls, most of them anxious anyway for an excuse to slow down or stop.
“You okay, Trav?”
Travis didn’t answer. He was in too much pain from the stitch, and his brain was reeling with something. It was something important – something terrifying – but he wasn’t quite sure what.
He tried breathing deeply, letting the thoughts sort themselves out. Mr. Wolfe had called himself “Fox” when he was on his cellphone, when he thought he was all alone down by the Serpentine. He had said something about the helmets, something about how everything had gone according to plan.
Mr. Wolfe had been the one who handed out the helmets after that first match, special prizes for a game that hadn’t even been serious.
Mr. Wolfe had been the one who made sure – heck, insisted – that Nish bring along his helmet to the Tower of London for the sleepover.
Mr. Wolfe had asked Edward Rose to make sure he brought his helmet along, too, saying the BBC would be there to shoot a short feature on the two in-line teams – but the BBC had never shown up. Maybe they never were going to show up.
Nish’s helmet had mysteriously gone missing. Edward Rose’s helmet had mysteriously gone missing.
Both helmets had mysteriously been returned to their original place.
Something was wrong with both helmets. Neither one fit any longer. They were too big.
Travis slapped his own head. He couldn’t fit it all together! The computer wasn’t working properly. There was information here, but he couldn’t process it fast enough!
Travis remained bent over, gasping for breath, his mind racing.
“Trav?” Sarah asked again, with growing concern in her voice. “You okay?”
Travis waved her off, afraid to speak for fear it would stop his mind from processing all this material.
Today was Guy Fawkes Day. Today the royal family was off to the Tower of London to celebrate the Crown Jewels.
Mr. Wolfe – Mr. Fox … Mr. Fawkes? – had spent the night in the Tower with the kids. Travis shook his head. It couldn’t be. Could it?
“Trav?” Sarah asked, putting her hand gently on his back.
Travis sucked in his wind. He could hardly speak. “We have to get back!” he said.
“But Muck and Mr. Dillinger are meeting us at Marble Arch.”
Travis shook his head. “No time – let’s go!”
16
Travis had never run so far so fast in all his life. He flew up the Edgware Road and onto George Street, heading for the side entrance to the hotel. He ran straight to his room and grabbed Nish’s helmet.
Sarah, Sam, and Dmitri were right behind him, the other Owls still coming along the street, having set off to meet Muck and Mr. Dillinger at Marble Arch and explain.
But explain what? Travis himself did not know. All he was certain of was that there had to be an explanation.
Travis began to yank out the padding of the helmet just as Nish came in, gasping.
“Hey!” Nish shouted. “Don’t make it any worse than it is!”
“There was something here!” Travis said, turning the helmet toward the rest so they could see what he was looking at: nothing.
“What do you mean?” asked Sam. “You’re not making any sense.”
“Something happened to both helmets to make them larger. The only explanation is that someone removed some of the padding.
“Why would they do that?” Dmitri asked.
“I don’t know,” Travis said. “But there’s something going on with these helmets. Do you have Edward Rose’s number?”
He looked at the girls.
Sarah giggled. “Yes, why?”
“Call him. See if his helmet was tampered with under the padding.”
“He’ll think we’re crazy.”
“I don’t care what he thinks,” Travis practically shouted. “Call him!”
“Okay, okay. Don’t get your underwear in a knot.”
“What’s all this about?” asked Nish.
“Is Data still here?” Travis shouted.
“He’s in the lobby,” Fahd said, as he came in puffing for air.
“Let’s go!” Travis said. “You girls make the call to Edward Rose.”
Data was watching the lobby television and fiddling with his laptop. He’d figured out how to surf
the Internet while hooked up to his cellphone, and was now able to go on-line from wherever he happened to be.
Travis wasted little time explaining. Data, of course, wasted no time catching on. “Is there anything you could hide in the padding of a helmet that might be used as an explosive?” Travis asked.
“Give me a minute,” Data said.
Data’s good hand flew over the keyboard. The screen flickered with images as he worked through search engines. He stopped, went back a page, nodded, and then turned the screen toward Travis, Nish, and Fahd.
Data had found something that looked, to Travis, like a piece of squashed Silly Putty on a table. His grandfather had once given him the toy, soft pink plastic that came in an egg. You could roll it in your palm to make different shapes, bounce it, or roll it along a comic book to take a perfect imprint of whatever was on the page.
“Silly Putty?” he said.
“Not Silly Putty,” Data corrected, “C4 – plastique. The most dangerous explosive known to be in the hands of terrorists.”
They were still staring at the screen when Sam and Sarah came bursting out of the elevator.
“We got him!” shouted Sam. “He checked. He says it looks like someone tampered with his, too.”
“Who?” Data asked, his head turning.
“Edward Rose. He’s on his way over here. He says his helmet is the same as Nish’s. Somebody fiddled with the padding.”
“But none of this makes any sense,” said Fahd.
“It makes perfect sense,” Travis said, “if you want to blow up the Queen of England.”
“Why would anyone want to do that?” Fahd asked.
“Guy Fawkes would,” Travis said. “And today is his day.”
Travis wished he had a better mind. He wished he had a processor up there instead of a bunch of brain cells that didn’t seem to have all the right connectors running between them.
He told them about overhearing the cellphone call by the Serpentine. The others thought at first, as Travis had, that Mr. Wolfe calling himself “Fox” was no different from his calling the Screech Owls “Barn Owls” – that he was just another absentminded Englishman – but when Travis suggested it might be code and Wolfe might not be his real name either, they began to follow him.
Mr. Wolfe was using “Fox” as a code name – and today was Guy Fawkes Day.
Guy Fawkes had tried to bring down the British government with explosives, and now the royal family was headed to the Tower of London.
Mr. Wolfe/Fox had spent the night in the Tower with the Owls and the Young Lions.
Mr. Wolfe/Fox/Fawkes? had given out the helmets, and insisted they be taken into the Tower the previous evening.
Both helmets had mysteriously vanished, then reappeared – but someone had tampered with them.
“Oh, my God,” said Sam.
The revolving doors spun round and Edward Rose, his long hair flying and helmet in one hand, came running into the lobby.
“I was at my aunt’s,” he said. “I was only two Tube stops away. What’s going on?”
They explained as best they could, Edward Rose’s eyes growing wider with every unbelievable claim.
“I knew from the start there was something about Mr. Wolfe,” he said. “He seemed to know nothing about in-line skating. And we couldn’t understand why they were going to all this effort.”
“He did it to get access to the Tower,” Sam suggested. “That’s why we’re here. Made it an international ‘event’ and was able to get the Tower for a sleepover because it was just kids from the Commonwealth. You know, a goodwill gesture.”
“Some goodwill,” Travis said, “if he plans to do what I think he’s doing.”
“Call the police,” Fahd said.
“And tell them what?” Travis asked. “That someone’s planning to blow up the Queen with the insides of a hockey helmet? They’d think we were nuts. We have to have some proof!”
“We can test it,” Edward Rose said.
“Test what?” asked Travis.
“Test the helmets for explosives. They have those machines all over. You know, the ones they have at the airport-security lines to check computers and carry-on bags for explosive materials.”
Travis knew exactly what he meant. Travis, after all, had carried Data’s laptop into the Tower for him and had gone through exactly that test.
“Does that make sense, Data?” Fahd asked.
“I think so,” Data said. “Plastique is almost impossible to detect, but those machines would find it if anything could.”
“But it’s gone!” Nish cried out. “Someone’s already taken it out of the helmets. What would be the point?”
“Residue,” Data said. “The machines check for residue. That’s why they wipe them and then check the cloth. They only need the slightest trace to indicate that someone was handling explosives.”
“Where would we find one?” Travis asked.
“We’ll go back to the Tower,” Edward suggested. “We know there’s one there.”
“Hurry!” Travis pleaded with the group. “We haven’t much time!”
17
It was Edward Rose’s idea to take the taxi. The centre of London was thick with crowds gathered to cheer the royal family, and the streets along the procession route had been closed to all traffic.
“If a London cabbie can’t get us close,” he told them, “no one can.”
They had pooled their money and Travis was carrying it. He had no idea how many pounds he had in his hands, but he hoped it would be enough.
Five of them went: Nish and Edward Rose with their helmets, Sam and Sarah and Travis. A full load for a London cab.
The first two taxis parked on the corner of Nutford Place, just outside the hotel, refused to go anywhere near the impossible traffic of central London on the day of a royal parade. The third, however, was intrigued. He was smoking a cigarette when the kids came to his window, and Edward Rose handled the negotiations.
“A hundred quid if you can get us there in twenty minutes or less,” Edward Rose said.
The man blew smoke in Edward Rose’s face. Travis didn’t like the look of the driver and wanted to move on, but Edward Rose stood his ground.
“A hundred quid,” he repeated.
“You ain’t got that kind of cash, sonny,” the man said.
Travis held out his hand. He had no idea if he was holding a hundred pounds, or two hundred, or fifty – he didn’t even know what a quid was.
The driver grabbed his cigarette and tossed it into the road. “Let’s go!”
They piled into the back of the cab, three of them stuffing themselves into the comfortable rear seat, Travis and Sarah pulling out foldaway seats facing backwards. All strapped themselves in with seatbelts.
Travis was glad he was firmly buckled up, and equally glad he couldn’t see. The cabbie drove like a madman. He squealed around corners, flew through red lights, darted down alleys so narrow Travis was convinced the paint was going to be raked off on both sides, tore the wrong way up one-way streets, and almost flew down the bigger roads when he could find an opening.
The twisting and turning was beginning to make them sick. Nish had gone completely white, a colour rarely seen in his big tomato of a face.
Sam was hanging on for life to Edward Rose’s arm – though Travis had the strangest feeling she’d have the same grip on his arm if they were stopped dead in a traffic jam.
Edward Rose called out the landmarks as they hurtled through London toward the Tower.
“Gower Street, good … there’s Lincoln’s Inn Field … Newgate … St. Paul’s Cathedral … We’re almost there, gang.”
“I’m almost gonna hurl …,” Nish said, now beginning to turn a little green.
“Hang on,” Edward Rose said, laughing. “Only a couple more minutes.”
The traffic was snarling. The police were turning back cars. Barriers were up everywhere. The crowds were thronging toward the river and the Tower to get as cl
ose a look as possible at the royal procession.
“Close as I can get yer, mate,” the cabbie said. “I count twenty minutes.”
“Good enough,” said Edward Rose.
“One hundred quid, please,” the man said, lighting a new cigarette.
Edward Rose helped Travis count it out. There was plenty. They jostled out of the cab, Edward Rose turning to thrust the money in at the man.
“There’s your money,” Edward Rose said. “But don’t spend it all on cigarettes – your smoking will kill you faster than your driving will.”
“Ah, get lost,” said the cabbie, wrenching his cab in reverse and pulling away.
“Charming!” Edward Rose said. “But he did his job. We’re here.”
They had to push their way through. A lot of the people, especially the ones who had begun lining up at dawn, resented what they took to be pushy kids trying to make their way closer to the front. They were cursed and called names, but they didn’t dare stop. They apologized as much as possible, though it didn’t always work. One red-faced gentleman even took a swing at Nish, who crouched in the nick of time and duck-walked through a row of tall men just in front.
“There’s security!” Sam called back to them. “It’s just ahead.”
There were barriers ahead to keep people back from the entrance to the Tower, and the crowd was standing six deep behind it.
“We have no choice,” said Travis. “We’ll have to barrel through.”
They dropped their shoulders and began pushing harder, trying to apologize to everyone at the same time. The ruckus caught the attention of the police, who were gathered in a circle around several motorcycles and a horse-mounted police officer, quietly talking while they waited for the procession to begin.
The police hadn’t expected a scene like this. The royal party still hadn’t left Westminster Pier and it would be quite a while yet before the procession reached the Tower. A huge policeman with a curling moustache grabbed Nish by the scruff of his neck and hauled him bodily out of the crowd.
Nish’s helmet slipped from his hand and went skittering across the road. Several people in the crowd laughed.
The Complete Screech Owls, Volume 5 Page 22
