by Paul Gamble
“What I meant was…” Jack trailed off when he realized that (a) he wasn’t really sure what he meant and (b) even if he had been sure what he meant, now was not the time to start an argument about it.
“Has Grey arrived yet?”
Jack looked over at the thundering herd of dinosaurs. Blackbeard Junior had placed himself between the dinosaurs and the enormous cannon. The other pirates had decided that their best option was running and screaming and occasionally getting trampled by a dinosaur.
The dinosaurs kept on running. Jack could now see that Grey was riding on the back of a particularly large purple Brontosaurus, urging it onward with his umbrella.90 Grey also seemed to be carrying an iPhone connected to a set of Sonos speakers out of which was blasting Wagner’s “The Ride of the Valkyries.”
“I think you could most definitely say that Grey has arrived.”
“Your plan worked, then?” Trudy smiled.
“It seems so. Obviously Cthulhu agreed to use his evil powers to destroy the stalagmites at Marble Arch caves. Grey seems to have managed to have the dinosaurs stampede quite effectively.”
“And the map?” asked Trudy.
Jack shrugged. “I think they might have gotten a little lost. But I managed to get a message to them using this.” Jack held up Mr. Rackham’s chalkboard.
“But you don’t even have any chalk,” said Trudy, confused.
Jack thought about trying to explain to Trudy how he had remembered Grey saying that a dinosaur mating cry was a high shrieking noise. But then he thought better of it, and decided there would be time later for full explanations.
* * *
The dinosaurs were almost directly in front of Blackbeard Junior now—the other pirates had fled long ago. Blackbeard Junior threw his hands up in the air and roared at the dinosaurs to stop. It was a ridiculous thing to do. For a start, dinosaurs, as has previously been stated, don’t respond well to instruction. Once they had started stampeding they clearly weren’t going to stop until they came to something they couldn’t trample. Additionally, even if they had understood what Blackbeard had been saying, they were moving so quickly that they wouldn’t have been able to stop if they had wanted to.
The knee of a Diplodocus crashed into Blackbeard Junior’s chest and sent him sailing through the air. He smacked into the ground but then was almost immediately hit by a Tyrannosaurus’s tail as it ran past him. That sent him spinning and twirling until he was trampled by a dozen Velociraptors, their claws tearing his flesh. For a second it looked like he was trying to get to his feet, but a passing Stegosaurus knocked him over. As he fell his hook hand caught on its spiked tail. It hooked tight and Blackbeard Junior was dragged along as the Stegosaurus ran into the distance.
Blackbeard Junior was not the only thing to suffer from the dinosaur’s trampling. The enormous cannon named Queen Anne’s Revenge had been stamped and smashed into flat little pieces. Even if the fuse was still alight somewhere, it certainly wasn’t attached to the cannon anymore.
As the dinosaurs passed where Trudy and Jack were, Grey stood up on the back of his purple Brontosaurus, paused for a few seconds, and then leapt off, performing a double somersault before landing neatly.
“Dinosaur surfing,” said Grey. “I imagine it’ll be all the rage at the next Olympics.”
“That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen,” said Jack.
Grey raised one eyebrow. “Keep in mind that it’s only your first week on the job. It will get weirder.”
Jack laughed.
“But Blackbeard Junior got away.” Trudy frowned.
Grey put a reassuring hand on Trudy’s good shoulder. “Sometimes the bad guys do get away. The important thing is that we foiled his plan. Everyone is safe. The cannon is destroyed and the prisoners freed.”
“But won’t he be back?” asked Trudy.
Grey shrugged. “Blackbeard Junior? Yes. Or someone like him. There’ll always be some maniac planning to do something awful and spoil the world for the rest of us. But we’ll be here waiting.”
“The Ministry of Strange, Unusual, and Impossible Things.”
“The Men in Suits,” agreed Jack.
“And women!” Trudy pointed out.
“Quite,” said Grey. “But now I think we ought to get you to a hospital. You appear to have a shard of bone sticking out of your shoulder. It looks painful.”
“It does look painful. About the same level of pain that I experience when you punch me in the shoulder,” agreed Jack.
Trudy looked at Jack and balled her fist. She raised herself up to punch him in the shoulder, but luckily the pain of movement caused her to pass out. Jack looked at her unconscious form. “Sometimes I wish she could be like this all the time.”
Grey carefully put his hands under Trudy’s shoulders and nodded for Jack to take her feet. “We’ll take her to the Ministry and get the medics to fix her up.”
Jack remembered Nurse Nufty with a leg where her arm should have been. “Grey, how about we just take her to a regular hospital instead.”
“A very sensible suggestion, Jack. A very sensible suggestion indeed.”
* * *
MINISTRY OF S.U.I.T.S HANDBOOK
OBJECTS
EASE OF BEING TRAMPLED BY DINOSAURS
Objects generally fall into two categories. Category A is objects that can be trampled by a dinosaur. Category B is objects that can’t be trampled by a dinosaur. There are very few objects which fall into Category B (jumbo jets, skyscrapers, etc.)
People are almost always Category A objects unless they are really very fat indeed.
* * *
EPILOGUE
TIDYING UP
Despite the fact that Northern Ireland had come close to destruction, Jack was amazed at how easy it was to tidy up the loose ends.
* * *
Jack and Grey had managed to get Trudy up the rope ladder and found David waiting for them. “Are we all saved?”
“Pretty much.”
“Did you capture that pirate bloke?”
“No, he got caught up on a dinosaur and was dragged away. No idea where he is now.”
“Dinosaurs?” asked David.
Jack thought that finally curiosity had gotten the better of David.
“There was a really good documentary on dinosaurs last weekend on BBC. Did you see it?”
Jack decided not to react to how calm David was about everything that happened. No matter how strange things got, David was always going to be a little stranger.
The freed children all went back to their families. Of course no one was told that they had been kidnapped as part of a plot to try and create a floating Northern Ireland. The Ministry ensured that a story was spread that it had been an illegal gold mine. Missing hands and legs were explained away as mining accidents. The story was preposterous, but it was more believable than the truth. People would believe the most ridiculous things as long as you didn’t ask them to think too much about it.
Of course some people asked awkward questions about why the kidnappers had all continually talked about “pieces of eight” and why their children had been forced to learn sea shanties. But in the end they stopped asking questions. After all, the idea that there were pirates in the world was … strange, unusual and, well … impossible. Most of the stories the kidnapped children told were passed off as post-traumatic stress disorder.
The next day in the paper a story appeared saying that Mr. Teach, the chief executive of Chapeau Noir Enterprises, had gone missing while flying his personal jet. Jack had a feeling that Blackbeard Junior would be back. A man capable of cutting an island in two wouldn’t be defeated so easily by a runaway dinosaur.91
Trudy got her shoulder fixed at the Ulster Hospital. The doctor was a friend of Grey’s and agreed to write up the operation as being due to a dog bite. Trudy’s arm would be sore for months afterward, but she quite liked the scar. “Scars are your body’s way of letting people know that you have interesting stories to tell
,” she told Jack.
Trudy seemed to enjoy coming to school in a sling. Rumors about what had happened to her abounded. Some people said she had gotten into a fight with an Olympic medal–winning boxer. Other people said that she had crashed a stolen car.
Jack and Trudy were summoned to the Minister’s office and both awarded medals at the Ministry for foiling Blackbeard Junior’s plot.
“You both deserve these,” said the Minister as he placed the gold medals around their necks. “But keep in mind the work of the Ministry is best kept mostly secret. Don’t go around showing these medals to everyone.”
Jack frowned. “What’s the point in having a medal if you can’t boast about it?” he asked.
Grey took the medal from Jack and unwrapped it. It was just chocolate covered in tinfoil. He took a bite of the medal and handed it back to Jack.
“Really? Chocolate? Like the gold coins you get at Christmas.”
The Minister nodded. “Interestingly enough they based the idea for those coins on our medals, not the other way round.”
“Chocolate medals. That’s a bit of a swizz.”
The Minister shook his head. “Not at all. They taste lovely. If you need to hide them in a hurry, you can just eat them. Makes perfect sense.”
“Do you have any medals?” Trudy asked Grey.
“In the past I got a few. Maybe a dozen or so. Hard to keep count when you just eat them.”
* * *
The next week at school Jack and Trudy sat together on a wall.
“The weekend seemed really quiet,” Jack observed.
“Quiet’s nice sometimes,” said Trudy as she looked down at her sling.
David walked across the playground and said hello. “Hey, Jack, there’s a guy in the school office looking for you.”
“Oh yeah? Who?”
“Didn’t catch his name,” said David. “Big man, wore a tutu, was carrying a pair of pincers.”
Jack’s face turned white.
But that’s another story.…
* * *
MINISTRY OF S.U.I.T.S HANDBOOK
CHOCOLATE MEDALS
RECORD FOR WINNING MOST MINISTRY MEDALS
The bravest man in the Ministry won over thirty thousand medals. He was one of the best-ever operatives.
Unfortunately he was forced to retire as he got too fat to work in the field after eating all his medals.
* * *
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’d like to thank Gemma92 and Holly,93 the best work colleagues I’ve never met.
* * *
THANK YOU FOR READING THIS FEIWEL AND FRIENDS BOOK.
The Friends who made
THE MINISTRY OF SUITS
possible are:
JEAN FEIWEL, Publisher
LIZ SZABLA, Editor in Chief
RICH DEAS, Senior Creative Director
HOLLY WEST, Editor
DAVE BARRETT, Executive Managing Editor
KIM WAYMER, Production Manager
ANNA ROBERTO, Editor
CHRISTINE BARCELLONA, Associate Editor
EMILY SETTLE, Administrative Assistant
ANNA POON, Editorial Assistant
Follow us on Facebook or visit us online at mackids.com.
OUR BOOKS ARE FRIENDS FOR LIFE
* * *
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Paul Gamble, author of The Ministry of SUITs, was born and brought up in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He currently works in the civil service. His job only occasionally involves working with dinosaurs. You can sign up for email updates here.
Thank you for buying this
Feiwel & Friends ebook.
To receive special offers, bonus content,
and info on new releases and other great reads,
sign up for our newsletters.
Or visit us online at
us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup
For email updates on the author, click here.
CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Prologue
1. A Lonely Shoe
2. An Unexpected Bear
3. The Chair of Destiny
4. A Dangerous Umbrella
5. A Girl Called Trudy Who Has a Reputation for Moodiness
6. Chapeau Noir Enterprises
7. The Box of Spares
8. The Odd Kids
9. Multitasking with an Umbrella
10. Vanity, Thy Name is Statue
11. Weirdest Interview Ever
12. Dinosaurs and Housework
13. A Truly Surprising Partner
14. Porcupods
15. “Go, Trudy!”
16. Time Goes Past So Slowly
17. A Lack of Curiosity
18. A Bona Fide Superhero
19. Static
20. Beaker of Foam
21. Back Door and Black Door
22. The Misery
23. Catching a Bottle
24. Everything Changes
25. The Missing Kids
26. Suspiciously Unsuspicious
27. Just Whistle
28. Run!
29. Killing with His Bear Hands
30. Bandages on My Legs and Arms
31. A Deal Struck
32. A Total Plank
33. A Missing Friend
34. The Tunnel
35. Angel Etiquette
36. We Suspect a Mole
37. Substandard Cavalry
38. The Quartermaster’s Store
39. Return to Sanity
40. Shattered
41. Spin Me Right 'Round
42. A P.E. Teacher’s History Lesson
43. Pillow Fights
44. What’s in the Glove Box?
45. “We Must Do Something Immediately”
46. Reinforcements
47. Escape
48. Steam Power
49. Above Standard Cavalry
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
A Feiwel and Friends Book
An Imprint of Macmillan
THE MINISTRY OF SUITS. Copyright © 2016 by Paul Gamble. All rights reserved. For information, address Feiwel and Friends, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact your local bookseller or the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at (800) 221-7945 ext. 5442 or by e-mail at [email protected].
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-1-250-07682-3 (hardcover) / ISBN 978-1-250-08682-2 (e-book)
Feiwel and Friends logo designed by Filomena Tuosto
First Edition: 2016
mackids.com
eISBN: 9781250086822
1 Generally pirates lose their legs while on board their ships in the heat of battle. While on board a galleon they don’t have access to a full set of modern, plastic, molded prosthetic limbs. Therefore the wooden legs tend to come off the nearest piece of furniture available. And it’s hard to fit a sneaker or a Doc Marten boot on the end of a wooden leg off a Queen Anne sideboard. Therefore pirates generally don’t need two shoes. They just need one shoe. And possibly a caster if they want to go roller-skating.
2 Magically dirty pants are widely regarded as the worst type of dirty pants.
3 For those of you who need to know, Jack and David live in Northern Ireland. It’s the north end of the island of Ireland. For years people argued over who owned Northern Ireland. Jack and David didn’t ever really know why. But it seemed dreadfully important to a lot of people. However, you will be glad to know that politics have nothing to do with our story.…
4 It should be noted that most scarecrows are badly constructed. It’s part of what makes them scarecrows. If they were constructed more adequately, they wouldn’t be scarecrows. They’d be store mannequins.
5 This is
the kind of thing that your parents lie to you about. Danger is fun. You know it. Your parents know it. Politicians know it. It’s just that no one can actually admit it. (At least no one ever admitted it until chapter twelve of this book.)
6 It is hard to drool in a becoming way. In fact, it’s almost impossible to be charming and erudite while drooling. Which is why St. Bernard dogs are so rarely seen being interviewed on the red carpet at the Oscars.
7 People think that Gummy Bears seem happy and jolly, but generally their short, wobbly lives are spent in abject terror of having their limbs ripped off and eaten.
8 This was, of course, assuming that the bear had not already had something to eat for breakfast. If the bear had already eaten, the risk would have been of becoming a bear’s brunch.
9 Jack never wanted a croissant. It was always unclear to Jack why adults, who could eat what they wanted for breakfast, would opt for a croissant over a bacon sandwich. Personally he felt that adults who opted for muesli at breakfast should be locked up in an asylum until they admitted it tasted awful. Bacon tasted wonderful and Jack felt that if pigs did not want to be eaten they wouldn’t make such an effort to taste so nice.
Of course now that Jack was facing the prospect of being eaten by a bear he was concentrating very hard on not tasting nice himself. It felt like it was working, but he couldn’t be sure.
10 Jack made a mental note to check with his English teacher if the word chair could be used as a verb. He knew it was a noun, but he was unsure if the sentence “Just before the bear killed the young boy, the young boy had chaired him,” would be grammatically correct.
11 Many people would wonder why a man would check that his limbs were in the correct sockets. The reason for this and for much else will become clear later on, in chapter thirty.
