by Paul Gamble
Jack wondered if this was a trick question. “The fast-food ones?”
“Exactly. How do you think the food gets served so much more quickly in fast-food restaurants? In an ordinary restaurant it can take twenty minutes to get a burger. Yet in fast-food places it’ll be there in two minutes. How do you think they do that?”
“I’d always just assumed it was because they were really well organized and used some kind of assembly line.”
“Jack, they’re building a burger, not a laptop. How much of an assembly line would you need? Burger-bun bottom. Meat patty, throw some salad at it. Mayonnaise. Burger-bun top. That’s it. How would an assembly line speed that up?”
“So how do they do it?”
“The Speed, Jack. The Speed. The staff they employ are high schoolers. You know that all high schoolers are desperate to be cool. So the fast-food restaurants make them dress up in ridiculous costumes, often with cardboard hats, they put them in garish-looking plastic restaurants, and then they make them look after groups of screaming six-year-olds. The high schoolers who work in those places are miserable. So time around them slows down to the extent that when they’re making a burger it takes two minutes instead of twenty to cook it.”
“Should we do something about it?”
“Meh,” said Trudy. “I don’t really like sixth formers.”
“Me neither … So if I make myself unhappy now, I could run really fast like you. Could I do the backflips and things?”
“I’ve been training for longer than you, Jack, and the gymnastics helps a lot. But if you keep practicing it is possible to outrun gravity. Have you ever noticed that when you knock something off a table it seems to hang in the air for a few seconds before it falls? That’s just gravity taking a second to catch up. So if you run really, really, really fast you can defy gravity.”
Jack had an idea. He started focusing on his time with the Misery and how unhappy he had been. He could feel himself becoming sadder. And as that happened the world around him started to slow down. He started running down the corridor at an incredible rate. Then he put one foot followed by a second on the wall. He was running sideways along the wall, moving slowly toward the ceiling. Instead of stepping onto the ceiling he made a leap and landed with both feet on the ceiling at the same time. His legs were frantically pumping as he ran along the ceiling. It felt like nothing he had ever experienced before. He let out a yell of happiness and exhilaration. A huge smile spread across his face.
And that was when he fell off the ceiling and landed on the floor.
Jack had learned an important lesson. No matter how happy you felt about running on the ceiling, it still hurt a lot when you fell off the ceiling and landed on the floor.
He was a crumpled mess and in quite a lot of pain. He started untangling himself and noticed that Trudy was standing above him.
“Did you hurt yourself?”
“I fell off the ceiling. Of course I hurt myself.” Jack had never thought that this was the kind of sentence that he would ever find himself saying. “What went wrong?”
“What do you think? You have to keep the unhappy frame of mind to move faster than normal. You got excited about being able to run on the ceiling and forgot to keep the unhappy feelings in the front of your mind. You became happy and time started moving at the proper speed. And that was when gravity caught up with you and beat you down.”
Jack rubbed an elbow and thought about how mean gravity was. “That’s an important lesson.”
Trudy held out a hand and helped Jack up. “Don’t worry about it. We all do it the first time. Now I’ll see if I can get the Ministry car to give us a lift home.”
* * *
MINISTRY OF S.U.I.T.S HANDBOOK
THE SPEED
USE IN SCHOOLS
Of course, it should be noted that The Speed is used in all sorts of situations without people noticing. Teachers have known about The Speed for many years and use it to try and get children to study for longer. This is why they insist on ties being tied up tight and all shirts being tucked in. Why would a teacher care how neat pupils’ uniforms are?
The answer is, of course, that teachers do not care about clothes at all—just look at the way they dress. But they do know that a tight tie and a restricting collar button will make a pupil slightly uncomfortable. And a slightly uncomfortable pupil will be slightly unhappy. And that unhappiness, however slight, will cause time to slow down a little bit. And so the pupil will have longer to study. This effect can be observed in real life by the fact that children whose parents make them do their homework before getting changed out of their school uniform always get better marks. It is also the reason the very best private schools have the most ridiculous uniforms (generally anything with a straw boater, gown, or a bow tie) and therefore get the best results.
* * *
24
EVERYTHING CHANGES
WEDNESDAY
The next day on the school bus Jack could tell that David had something he wanted to say. Rather ironically, Jack knew that David wanted to say something because he wasn’t saying anything. He sat with his arms folded and his mouth pressed tightly shut.
“Anything you want to say, David?”
David shook his head.
“Sure?”
David said absolutely nothing. Jack sighed and looked out the window.
After a few minutes David spoke. “Okay, okay, if you aren’t going to stop badgering me about it, I’ll tell you…”
“What?”
“It’s about Trudy.”
“What about her?”
“Is she going to be your new best friend?”
Jack laughed out loud. “What do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean.”
“I really don’t.”
“We all know the way it works. A slightly popular kid always has a slightly strange kid as their best friend. You’re slightly popular, I mean, people like you.”
“David. People like you too.”
David shook his head. “No, they don’t.”
Jack was about to argue, but David held up a finger to silence him and then turned around to speak to the two kids behind them on the bus.
“Guys, do you like me?”
They were both kids from their class, Alex and James.
James spoke first. “Not really. I mean, I don’t hate you, but … well, I probably just dislike you. You can be irritating.”
Jack leapt to his friend’s defense. “He isn’t irritating!”
David silenced Jack again. “James has a point—I am irritating. I’ve just asked two boys in our class if they like me and it isn’t even nine o’clock yet. I mean, that’s very irritating.”
“Exactly,” James said, nodding. “I mean, that’d be an irritating question to ask someone even if they actually liked you. And as we discussed … I don’t really like you.”
“Thank you for your honesty,” said David. “What about you, Alex?”
Alex took a deep breath. “I don’t really have strong feelings one way or the other. I mean, we hardly ever talk. So it’s kind of hard for me to say whether I like you or not. But going on a gut instinct I’m willing to dislike you at this stage. Because if I start disliking you now I think it’ll probably save me time later on.”
“Thanks, guys. That was very helpful.” David sat back down in his seat. “You see, Jack, people don’t like me.”
“They might like you slightly better if you didn’t ask them stupid questions on the school bus.”
“They might, Jack. They might, but even them liking me slightly better isn’t going to make me popular. Every loser needs a more popular friend.”
Jack shook his head. “I’m not that popular.”
“Ask Alex and James if they like you.”
Jack laughed. “No!”
“And it’s precisely because you don’t do stupid things like that, that you’re so popular!”
Jack sighed.
“And now
you’ve got another loser kid as a friend.”
“Trudy isn’t a loser,” snapped Jack.
James from the seat behind poked his head through the gap in the seats. “Moody Trudy? She is too a loser! She doesn’t have any friends.”
Jack put his hand on James’s forehead and pushed him back into his own seat. “Yes, thank you for your contribution, James. You aren’t helping.”
“But he’s right,” agreed David. “Jack, I know you like Trudy. That’s fine, but she’s clearly a loser. You like losers.”
“How do you figure that one out?”
“Who’s your best friend?”
“Well, you are.”
“Exactly! And I’m a loser! Proof positive!”
Jack realized it was hard to argue with David on this one. He decided to take a different approach. “So what? I like Trudy and I’m going to be friends with her. But I’ll still be friends with you.”
Now it was David’s turn to laugh. “Be friends with me and Trudy? Two losers? Jack, you’re popular, but you aren’t popular enough to have two loser friends!”
Although Jack was slightly hurt by this, he decided to ignore the insult. “David, we will always be friends. And you know what—maybe I’m not popular enough to have two loser friends.”
David shook his head sadly.
“But that’s okay, because if I’m not popular enough to have two loser friends, then by definition I’ll become a loser too. And we can be three losers together.”
David’s eyes widened for a second as he looked at Jack. “Jack … Jack, that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
Jack and David smiled at each other for a minute. They both realized what good friends they actually were. It would have been a beautiful moment if it hadn’t been spoiled by James pushing his head between the seats and pointing out that maybe that wouldn’t have been the nicest thing that anyone had ever said to David if he’d been a bit more popular.
Jack gestured at James. “You. You really aren’t helping.”
Jack’s lecture on how unhelpful James was being was cut short by a series of gasps from around them. All the kids had rushed over to the windows on one side of the bus.
“What’s going on?” Jack and David pushed their way through the crowd and squashed their faces against the windows. “I really hope it isn’t another bear.”
A series of enormous trucks were outside the school unloading mobile classrooms. There were six classrooms in all. They looked like oversized mushroom-cream-colored house bricks, and one by one they were being lifted by a crane and put into the back playground. The trucks had the words Chapeau Noir Enterprises plastered over the sides in green lettering.
“Now Mr. Teach is giving us mobile classrooms? Did we really need any more classrooms?” asked Jack, but no one was listening to him. Mostly the children were praying that the crane would drop one of the mobile classrooms on the teacher’s parking lot.
Jack had barely exited the school bus when Trudy caught him by the arm. “I need to speak to you.”
Jack felt nervous. Given the conversation that he’d just had with David he was worried that Trudy’s sudden appearance might make him jealous.
However, as usual, David was being mercurial and unreliable. “Trudy!” David smiled so broadly at her, Jack thought his face was in danger of cracking open. “We’re all going to be losers together!” Then, incredibly, he leaned forward and hugged Trudy. “I expect you guys have some Ministry business to chat about. I’ll catch up with you at roll call, Jack!”
Trudy looked stunned and took several seconds before she could express what she was thinking. “I don’t think anyone has ever hugged me who wasn’t a member of my family.”
Jack chuckled. “You really are a loser!”
Trudy punched Jack hard in the shoulder. Jack had made the critical error of forgetting that Trudy was a loser with a pretty mean right hook. “Why am I a loser?” Trudy asked.
“I’m not sure I could explain it even if I wanted to,” lamented Jack. “I think the outcome of it was that David is happy we’re friends as long as we’re all losers together.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s ‘David thinking,’” said Jack. “No one really understands it except David. Forget about it. You wanted to speak to me?”
“I did! It’s about kids going missing. You were right. There’s something very sinister going on.”
* * *
MINISTRY OF S.U.I.T.S HANDBOOK
POPULARITY
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING TRUE TO YOURSELF
The world is full of movies, books, and songs that will tell you that it isn’t important to be liked or popular. It is more important to be true to yourself and to be an individual.
This, of course, is simply not true. The reason for the books, movies, and songs saying otherwise, is that all writers are losers. Popular kids don’t have time to write novels or films. They’re out going to parties, spending time with their friends, and going on dates.
The people who write books and other things are generally sad loners who spend hours sitting in front of a computer screen wearing a Star Wars dressing gown, surrounded by piles of books.44 Their best friends are generally fictional ones from books they have read. And that really is stretching the definition of “friend.” After all, the chances of getting a tweet from Bertie Wooster inviting you out to a party on a Friday night are fairly minimal.45
* * *
25
THE MISSING KIDS
“I think you’re right about the box of spares,” said Trudy.
When Jack had first mentioned the idea that the spare kit might be a sign that kids were going missing, he had believed it. However, when someone else said it, it sounded … well … kind of stupid.
“It doesn’t sound very likely,” he found himself saying.
“And that’s how we know that it’s probably true!”
“What?”
“Think about it—do you believe in gravity?”
Jack looked down and was reassured to see his feet were still sticking to the ground. “Well, yeah. I mean the whole gravity thing seems to be still working fairly effectively to me.”46
“But think about gravity! The idea that the Earth is round but you won’t fall off if you’re on the bottom—then why doesn’t your foot stick to a ball when you kick it? Or what about the sun! It’s a big ball of gas that’s on fire. But when you set fire to gas it just explodes! So why hasn’t the sun exploded? I mean, do any of those things sound likely to you? So—things that don’t sound likely are normally true.”
When Jack thought about it, a lot of things he took as facts seemed to be peculiar. “Okay, so tell me why you’re convinced about the kids going missing?”
Trudy set down her backpack and took several packages of paper out of it. “I did some research last night.” She handed Jack sheet after sheet, pointing out figures to him. “I went on the Internet and found stories about kids that have gone missing in the last thirty years.”
“And? Was there a pattern?”
“Well, yes. I was mostly working from online newspaper reports about kids going missing. The stories rarely mentioned what the kids’ gym kits were like. But I did find these photos.”
Trudy showed Jack a series of black-and-white photos of kids who had gone missing decades ago. In a few of them the children were outside playing in sports clothes. Jack grimaced at the P.E. kits they were wearing. “That is the worst P.E. kit I have ever seen.”
“I know, that’s what makes me think you’re right. These kids were picked because they had bad gym kits. Because they were oddballs in school who would be less likely to be missed.”
“And are there any other common links?”
“All the schools where children went missing were sponsored by Chapeau Noir Enterprises.”
“So Mr. Teach is…?”
“We don’t know what Mr. Teach is or what he’s doing, but he’s definitely involved somehow
. There’s something sinister about his company Chapeau Noir.”
“And I bet there’s something fishy about the mobile classrooms.”
“In what way?”
“Have you ever noticed how there are always empty seats in class?”
“So?”
“So clearly we don’t need any more classrooms.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“I think we need to go and look at the mobile classrooms.”
Before they were halfway to the back playground the bell rang, signaling that it was time to go to class.
Jack realized he’d missed roll call. “Trudy … we need to get to class.”
“Jack, someone’s been kidnapping kids. What’s more important?”
Jack knew that Trudy was right, but he still muttered underneath his breath that while saving lives was generally a good idea, he didn’t see why he had to end up in detention because of it. His muttering cost him another punch on the shoulder.
The corridors were full of pupils going to their first class of the day. Jack noticed David heading in the opposite direction. David was going to geography—which was where Jack should have been. Trudy was still pulling Jack by the hand and he barely had time to yell, “Missing class—saving lives—cover for me!” before Trudy had dragged him out the door into the back playground. Jack looked over his shoulder at David before the door shut. David was smiling and gave Jack a thumbs-up.
* * *
“This is very strange.” Outside the school Jack and Trudy were surprised to find how eerily quiet the back playground was. No pupils, no teachers, not even a caretaker in sight. Whatever the mobile classrooms were being used for, it wasn’t lessons.
“So, what do we do?” asked Trudy.
“I don’t know,” said Jack. “You’ve been doing all the thinking up until now. I thought I was just here to be the muscle.”
Trudy bunched her fist. Even before she struck, Jack winced slightly. “Do you mind hitting me on the left shoulder this time? I’d like to give the bruises on the right one some time to heal.”
