by Paul Gamble
There was a horrendous screeching noise. Jack’s nerves jangled and the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. Jack looked up to see that Mr. Rackham was signaling for silence by pulling the fingernails on his one remaining hand across the small rectangular chalkboard that he carried with him at all times.
This was further proof, if it was needed, that P.E. teachers were evil. Whereas all other teachers had switched to using computer projectors and modern technology, Mr. Rackham still carried a small chalkboard with him. It was about the same size chalkboard that people used in kitchens to write lists on. He claimed that he used it to keep score in football matches, but that clearly wasn’t the reason—he could have used a clipboard or even a mobile phone to do that. Mr. Rackham clearly just liked making the ghastly nail noise when he wanted the boys’ attention.22
Jack always wondered why he found the sound of nails being dragged across a chalkboard so unpleasant. He wasn’t scared of chalkboards and he wasn’t scared of a person’s nails (no matter how badly they were manicured). Therefore why was the combination of those two things together so nerve-wrenchingly unpleasant? He supposed he would never find out.23
“All right, ladies,”24 said Mr. Rackham. “Today it’s going to be football. I trust you all brought your kits.”
Jack smiled and thanked the heavens he’d remembered his kit. The fate for a boy who forgot his kit was horrific. As Jack pulled up his navy blue socks and began tying his laces he realized the changing room was uncharacteristically silent. He looked up and realized why.
Over in the corner John Andrews had raised his hand.
Rackham noticed the hand and a sadistic smile played across his face, “Yes, Andrews, what is it?”
Andrews gulped. “I’ve … I’ve forgotten my kit, sir.”
“Have you indeed? Well, maybe one of the other boys has brought a spare P.E. kit with them?” Rackham looked around the room at the boys. “No?” Rackham faked astonishment. “How disappointing. And how selfish that none of the boys here thought to bring a spare kit for you.”
Rackham walked back into the little cubbyhole room at the bottom of the changing area that he referred to as his “office.” He came out carrying a cardboard box. A simple brown cardboard box, and yet it struck fear into the hearts of all the boys present. As always in situations like this, Jack felt extremely sorry for Andrews, but also extremely glad that it wasn’t him who had forgotten his kit.
Mr. Rackham smiled so widely you could see every single one of his glistening, brown teeth.
“Looks like you’ll just have to pick your kit out of the box of spares.”
John Andrews looked as if he was going to cry as he slowly crept toward the box. What followed was something horrific … appalling … disgusting. Something that no one wanted to behold …
* * *
David and Jack watched as John Andrews ran around the pitch trying to tackle other players. All the other players passed the ball before they let Andrews get anywhere near them.
The box of spares contained the worst pieces of P.E. kit known to man or boy. Shorts that were too tight, stained T-shirts, socks that smelled of death.25 Few of the boys who had looked inside the box wanted to talk of its contents, but one had claimed that most of the pieces of kit were covered in moss and that he saw something moving at the bottom of it. Something that was a cross between an insect and a snake.26
It was horrifying to watch someone reach inside it. They always reached in as if they were scared that something inside the box of spares was going to bite their hand. The box of spares in its small cardboard heart held as much terror as any medieval torture chamber or modern-day battlefield.
Currently Andrews was running around the pitch wearing a pair of shorts that were far too tight for him. You could see marks around his waist where they bit into his flesh. They also had a rip in the back where his underwear poked through. The T-shirt managed to be too baggy for him, and yet at the same time too short, only covering half of his belly button. Finally, as if that was not embarrassing enough, the T-shirt bore two stains. One on the front and one on the back.
The front stain was a kind of orangeish-red. It was also quite textured and small pieces flaked off it as Andrews ran. The stain on the back was a dull green in color and, thankfully, flatter. For some reason it seemed to be in the shape of an elephant.
Andrews was putting a brave face on having to wear the kit from the box of spares, but David and Jack both knew that inside he would be crying.
It wasn’t just the social embarrassment of the whole thing, although that was bad enough. It was also the possibility of disease. Simon Jenkins had been the last boy who had worn a kit from the box, and he had died of liver failure. They’d held a special assembly for him and the headmaster had said that it was a tragedy that one so young had died. Apparently the doctors had no idea why Simon’s liver had failed at such a young age. However, everyone in his P.E. class had known why—the hateful box. But it wasn’t something you could tell your parents. They would just have laughed.
“I’m glad my parents never bought me a P.E. kit like that,” David said sadly.
“Me too,” Jack agreed. But it made him think. He had never seen any of the other children in his class wearing clothes like those that appeared in the box of spares. So … where exactly did they come from? And for that matter, how did they get left in the changing room?
“You think we should actually try and kick the ball or something?” David asked Jack.
“Yeah, might as well,” agreed Jack.
David ran up the pitch and made it almost all the way to the halfway line before he fell over and managed to get his limbs tangled. From this distance Jack thought that they’d plaited themselves into a reef knot, but it was hard to tell.
* * *
MINISTRY OF S.U.I.T.S HANDBOOK
THINGS THAT ARE HORRIFIC, APPALLING, AND DISGUSTING
THINGS THAT NO ONE WANTS TO BEHOLD
It is interesting to note that, anytime someone says, “No one wanted to see that,” it is something that people always pay close attention to. So, for example, after a car crash, people are always slowing down to see any gore as they pass. Television programs that show particularly gruesome films of medical procedures always have sky-high ratings. People watching these shows always say, “Oh, this is horrible, this is horrific, this is the worst thing I have ever seen” … and then they look around for their Sky Plus or Tivo remote control so they can rewind it and watch it again.
There are a lot of theories as to why we watch such awful things with such absolute joy. However, it is generally accepted that a large part of the reason that we do it is because it is somewhat reassuring to note that in life, worse things do happen to other people.
* * *
8
THE ODD KIDS
Jack spent all morning thinking furiously. He had realized that there was something very odd indeed about the box of spares and tried to explain his ideas to David at lunchtime.
“Okay, I’m really trying to keep up with you here,” said David. “Explain to me again why the fact that there’s a box of spare P.E. kits means that someone is kidnapping children?”
Jack sighed. “It’s simple. Where would clothes like that come from? The ripped clothes? The stained clothes? They’d be thrown out, right? I mean, if your mum bought you a T-shirt that was the wrong color, what would you do?”
David shrugged. “Get her to buy a new one. I’d tell her that I’d get made fun of.”
“Right, but who would keep a T-shirt like that?”
“Well, a weird kid.”
“And what do you mean by a weird kid?”
“Jack, you know exactly what I mean by a weird kid. One with funny hair, who doesn’t have the right schoolbag, or watch the right TV programs. An oddball.”
Jack nodded. “Exactly! All the clothes in the box of spares are the kind of clothes that odd kids wear. What’s the other thing that we know about odd kids?”
“Ummm…”
“Look, we just watched what happens when someone wears a kit from the box of spares—no one talks to them.”
“Well, of course no one talks to the odd kids. There’s a very fine line between talking to an odd kid and having other people start to think that you’re an odd kid.” David shuddered at the thought.
“So, would you notice if an odd kid went missing?”
David thought about this for a minute. “Well … of course I would.”
“Would you? You don’t speak to them. They don’t speak to you. One day they aren’t there; how would you know?”
“Maybe I wouldn’t…”
“So the box of spare kits exists because someone is taking those kids away and leaving their kits behind. No one notices because no one cares if an odd kid goes missing.”
David looked at Jack. “Do you really think odd kids are going missing from our school?”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense of the box of spares. Think about this, David: Who’s the oddest kid in our class?”
David looked around the playground as other members of their class ran by. He ummed and ahhed for a while and then came to a rather unpleasant realization. “I’m the oddest kid in the class, aren’t I?”
Jack put his hand on David’s shoulder. “I’m afraid you are. But you aren’t even that odd. There must have been more odd kids at the start of the term. But they’ve gone missing. Their parents may notice, but no one in the school does.”
David gulped. “You’d notice if I went missing, wouldn’t you?”
“Of course I would,” said Jack. “But if other kids have gone missing, we’ve got to try and track them down.”
“How?” David asked. “And more to the point, why?”
“Aren’t you curious about anything?” Jack asked.
“Not particularly.”
“I’ve got an idea. Remember this morning, that guy Grey? He seemed to be at the center of very odd things. And what we need at the moment is a man with experience in dealing with very odd things indeed. I’m going to try and find him.”
* * *
MINISTRY OF S.U.I.T.S HANDBOOK
ODD KIDS
HOW TO IDENTIFY THEM
Many people have asked if there is a simple way to test whether someone is an odd kid or not.
The test is simple. Ask the kid in question if they have ever wondered if they are an odd kid. If they answer anything other than “No. Never,” then they’re almost certainly a bit of an odd kid.
* * *
In short. Odd kids—you know who you are.
* * *
9
MULTITASKING WITH AN UMBRELLA
It was the end of the school day and Jack waved as David got on the bus home. Then he realized that waving at someone on a bus made him look stupid and stopped.
Jack liked buses because they reminded him of dinosaurs. Any time someone was describing a dinosaur they would never tell you that it stood thirty feet high, or weighed fifteen tons. Instead they always told you how big it was compared to a double-decker bus. Jack knew that a Triceratops was the size of a double-decker bus, a Tyrannosaurus rex was taller than a double-decker bus, and a Brontosaurus weighed the equivalent of fifteen double-decker buses.
Jack had no idea why dinosaurs were always compared to double-decker buses. It seemed odd to compare one to the other as they didn’t seem to come in contact. Generally speaking, dinosaurs rarely used public transport.
Jack wasn’t riding the bus today. He’d decided to take Grey up on his offer. Although Jack hadn’t said it in so many words to David, he was more than a little nervous. If Jack was right about the box of spares, it meant his best friend could be in danger. If odd kids were being kidnapped, it would only be a matter of time before David disappeared. And there was no way that Jack was going to let that happen. He would find Grey and figure out what was happening with the box of spares.
Jack had one clue as to where Grey might possibly work. Grey had said that he had seen a lion fight a bear at an office party and there was only one place in town where you could find both a lion and a bear together.
A lot of people would have assumed the zoo. But there were two problems with that theory. The first was that it was hard to see how zoo animals could get out of the cages. The entire point of zoos was to keep animals separated from each other and the general public. The second problem was that zoos were pretty open-plan. There weren’t “offices” to have parties in.
So where was the one place in town where you could find a bear, a lion, and some office space?
The museum.
Of course a lot of people might have pointed out to Jack that the animals in the museum were stuffed. But with the strange things that had been going on today, Jack wasn’t going to let an explanation like that stop him.
The nearest museum to where Jack lived was the Ulster Museum, right in the center of the city. He’d already phoned his parents and told them he’d be late for tea as he was joining the school choir. They’d been surprised and he knew he would be quizzed on this when he got home, but he could think about that later.
The museum was an enormous building that sat on top of a small hillock in the city’s botanical gardens. The entrance was an old mansion house with enormous white pillars and large cross-latticed windows. It had been expanded years ago and the extension was made up of a series of large concrete rectangles. From the outside it looked confusing—just like every good museum should.
Jack walked through the sliding entrance doors and up to the information desk. Sadly no one there seemed to have heard of a man called Grey who wore a business suit and carried an umbrella. Jack wandered past Viking longboats, native American teepees, and historical flags while wondering what to do next.
Grey had been wearing a suit. That meant that if he did work at the museum, he didn’t work on the floor with the exhibits. People who wore suits worked in back rooms and offices. Jack ran to the elevator and looked at the buttons. He had expected to see a button marked “Private” or “Staff Only,” but there was nothing like that.
The buttons showed there were two basement levels (marked B and LB) and three ordinary floors. Then out of the corner of his eye he noted a button that was right up near the roof of the elevator. It didn’t have a number or a letter on it but instead was marked with a tiny symbol that looked like a suit jacket and tie.
Normally elevator buttons would be within easy reach. Why would someone put one so far out of reach?
Jack realized it wasn’t the button that he needed to think about. Buttons were inanimate objects. What he really wanted to think about was the person who pressed them. Once more Jack found himself thinking about what he knew about Grey.
Grey was a very strange man. A pin-striped suit, a sharp side part, and a furled umbrella. Jack could still see Grey in his mind’s eye. Standing there. With the sun just over the horizon, beaming out of a cloudless sky. A cloudless sky … a cloudless sky!
Jack cursed himself for being so stupid and started rummaging around in his schoolbag until he found a ruler. Grey had been wandering around on a bright and sunny day with an umbrella in his hand. There hadn’t been a cloud in the sky. Why would someone carry an umbrella when it clearly wasn’t going to rain?
The answer was simple. He carried an umbrella because he had to press a button high up on the wall of an elevator. No one could ever have reached the top button in the elevator … unless they had an umbrella to poke it with. The fact that the button was so high up on the wall would stop people from pressing it by accident, and therefore Jack assumed it would take him to the most secret part of the museum. A man as mysterious as Grey was bound to work in a secret and strange location.
Standing on his tiptoes and using the ruler he had taken from his schoolbag, Jack just managed to click the button. The doors of the elevator closed and it started rumbling ominously. Jack couldn’t tell whether the elevator was going up or down. It might even have been movi
ng sideways. It seemed to be moving at considerable speed, making a “ding-ding-ding” sound as it rattled past floors.
Then, without warning, the elevator shuddered to a stop and the doors slid open. Jack cautiously poked his nose outside the door. In front of him was a long corridor, but it didn’t look like he was in the museum anymore. The corridor looked as if it had been tunneled through solid rock. The walls were covered in patches of a greenish mossy substance. Jack suspected that the greenish mossy substance might well be green moss. But unfortunately he hadn’t paid enough attention in biology classes to be sure.
Jack took a step out of the elevator and nervously walked down the corridor. Behind him the doors of the elevator schlicked closed. Jack turned and panicked—how would he ever get out?
“I’m going to be trapped down here forever. How will I ever…”
Then he realized that this was what elevators always did—you stepped out and the doors closed. Jack pressed a button in the wall beside the elevator doors and they popped open again. “That’s handy.”
Feeling reassured that he wasn’t trapped, he walked down the long corridor. It was dimly lit; however, Jack couldn’t figure out where the light was coming from. He was surrounded by a sort of dull glow.
Jack leaned against the wall to contemplate where the light could be coming from. When his shoulder touched the wall there was a sudden burst of bright light. It was as if his shoulder was suddenly on fire. Jack jumped away from the wall and slapped his shoulder to put it out. He was glad, but curious when he realized that his shoulder wasn’t actually on fire. In fact it wasn’t even warm. Jack extended his best poking finger and pushed it into a lump of moss. When he poked the moss a bright light shot out from the wall. It wasn’t hot and didn’t burn him like a lightbulb might have.
