The Monster's Daughter

by Paul Gamble

  Trudy snorted with derision. “That’s crazy. When you find a spider in the bath, it’s there because it’s fallen down the slippery sides and can’t climb out again.”

  Grey was about to correct Trudy, but Jack got in ahead of him. “Trudy, can you walk on the ceiling?”

  “Well … not without using The Speed … no.”

  “Right, and can you climb out of a bath?”

  “Of course I can.”

  “And yet you’re saying that a spider who can climb a wall and walk on a ceiling can’t climb out of a bathtub? How do you think it got in there in the first place? Slipped on the soap, maybe?”

  Trudy looked as though she wanted to hit Jack on the shoulder. Jack was too excited with his train of thought to even notice.

  “I’m right, Grey, aren’t I?”

  “Perfectly. And is there anything else about bath design that makes them suitable for spiders to live under?”

  Jack racked his brain back to the enormous spider he had seen on Monday. Its six eyes staring at him …

  “The eyes!”

  Grey nodded, encouraging Jack to go on. “The spider from the other day had six eyes on the front of its body all closely grouped together. And the plug hole in our bath is split into six little segments.”

  “Exactly, plug holes are designed so that a spider can put its eye up against them and look out without anyone even realizing that they’re there. Spiders’ eyes are pitch black, so they just look like a hole. Different-shaped plug holes are designed to suit different types of spiders with different eye configurations.”

  Trudy shuddered. “I’m not sure that I like the thought that there’s a giant spider living underneath my bath. Why do they live there anyway?”

  “Well, actually that has to do with the Ministry,” said Grey.

  “That’s a surprise,” said Trudy sarcastically.

  “A long time ago there were no mobile phones. In fact, there were no phones at all. But that didn’t stop Ministry operatives from needing to get messages across the country quickly.”

  “Are you going to tell us that you used carrier spiders instead of carrier pigeons?”

  “No—that’s the point, Jack—any kind of creature traveling across the ground could have been easily captured by enemies. Which is why the Ministry invented plumbing.”

  “I thought the Romans invented plumbing,” Trudy interrupted.

  “They did,” agreed Grey. “Roman members of the Ministry. Anyway, plumbing was just a clever way to get piping into people’s houses. The plumbing was used by Ministry operatives to send messages in Morse code to each other. They would hammer on the pipes and the sound would carry along the length of the pipe to someone listening miles away. Have you ever really listened closely to plumbing? Pipes and radiators make banging and rattling noises occasionally. Which is just crazy if they were only filled with water. Water never makes a banging noise.”

  Jack thought that it did if you dropped an explosive bath bomb into it, but he didn’t want to interrupt.

  “The banging noise is just a spider sending a Morse code message.”

  “But if the pipes are just about sending Morse code, then why fill them with water at all?”

  Grey smiled. “Well, that was the genius of the plumbing idea. The Ministry would never have had a large enough budget to install a network of pipes across the country. So instead they convinced the world that it was a great idea to have water piped into your house. That way the rest of the world paid for our communications system.”

  Jack still wanted to know more. “But why spiders?”

  “Primarily because they work cheaply,” Grey said. “But as well as that, they’re quite happy living under baths. Spiders like dark, cramped areas. They get plenty of water and skin flakes to eat. And if you get a small child getting nits washed out of their hair—well that’s like an all-you-can-eat buffet to a spider.…”

  “Ugh … gross,” complained Trudy.

  “And the best thing about a spider is that it can bang Morse code out on a pipe like nobody’s business. By using all eight legs working individually they put the best human Morse code operators to shame.”

  Jack smiled. “You really do learn something new every day in this job, don’t you.”

  Trudy brought both Jack and Grey back down to earth with a bump. “Yes, you do, although a lot of it isn’t useful. So the spider was just a useless coincidence?”

  “That still leaves a lot of clues,” said Jack. “Which should we focus on?”

  Grey considered for a moment before speaking. “Clues don’t actually ever do anything. Clues don’t commit crimes, come up with plans, or attack people. So what you need to do is figure out who is behind the clues.”

  “We’ve only come across a few people so far,” Trudy said. “Jack saw the strange old woman at the aquarium who walked into the sea. She seemed to know my name.”

  Jack nodded. “And then there was the woman who gave me the exploding bath bomb. She looked like a much younger version of that older woman.”

  Trudy looked at Jack. “Could they have been mother and daughter?”

  Jack considered. “Maybe.… They did look almost identical apart from the difference in age.”

  Grey nodded. “Then I suggest you find those women. If they were behind the crab at the museum and the exploding bath bomb, they may well hold the key to all the mysteries. Including the fish jailbreak.”

  “Did they recapture any of the fish?” asked Trudy.

  “Some of them—but most of the fish swam out of the overflow vent before we could get them. We lost almost all of the hammerhead sharks and sawfish.”

  Jack considered what kind of sea creature would be smart enough to plot mankind’s demise. “Maybe it’s something to do with a plot by dolphins. I mean, dolphins live in the sea and they’re pretty intelligent.”

  Trudy shook her head. “Evil dolphins? I wouldn’t have thought so—I mean, they’re always so nice to humans. They’ve even rescued people from shipwrecks and things. Anyway, not everything has been about the sea—what about the Minotaur and the maze?”

  “Well, we know that the Minotaur was from a mad scientist—although I’m not sure that helps us, really.”

  “Maybe it helps us a little,” Trudy disagreed. “Look, the Minotaur is meant to be out of Greek mythology. So maybe we’re looking for someone else who could be found in Greek mythology. They’d hardly pick a minotaur at random, would they?”

  Jack agreed it was a good point. “And as for the name of the shop—Neptune was a Greek god of the sea or something, wasn’t he? And so was Poseidon—the name of the drilling company. Greek or Roman or something…” Jack said, trying to remember his mythology. “So two names that have stuff to do with water. They have to all be working together.”

  Trudy couldn’t figure it out either. “We need to find out more about the woman who gave you the exploding bath bomb. If she wants to kill you, then we should probably try and stop her.”

  Jack smiled. It was the nicest thing she’d said in a while. Which was disturbing in its own way.

  Grey smiled. “It seems like you’re beginning to put it all together. Anyway, it’s getting late and if you don’t go home, your parents will become suspicious. I suggest you sleep on the problem and think about it again tomorrow with a clear head.”

  * * *

  MINISTRY OF S.U.I.T.S HANDBOOK

  SPIDERS

  THE REASON THEY HAVE EIGHT LEGS

  Having eight legs is generally a bad thing. You might think it would help you run faster, jump higher, or walk for longer, but it would do none of these things. In fact, it would make it harder to run, jump, or walk. If you’ve ever tripped over your own feet, you’ll know that even having two feet can make life complicated enough. This is why people in three-legged races are generally considerably slower than those adopting a two-legged approach.

  (There have, of course, been humans in the past who have had eight legs, such as the Yiptah
tribe, who live in some of the deepest forests of Indonesia. However, we shall not consider their tragic fate at this time.)

  Clearly, having eight legs makes getting around in life difficult, so why would spiders have so many? If you ever find yourself face-to-face with a spider, the reason will become immediately apparent to you. Spiders, like snakes, have no ears.

  Therefore spiders mainly communicate by sign language. (Obviously spiders can lip-read what humans are saying, but this doesn’t work with other spiders, as spiders don’t actually have lips.)

  The very first spiders had only three legs. The problem with this was that every time a spider had to sign a word that required two legs it fell over. This happened so often that in the original spider sign language the signs for OUCH and FULL STOP are exactly the same.

  In order to be able to have more interesting conversations and still remain vertical, over the years spiders developed more legs until they arrived at the current allotment of eight. This means they can hold three or four conversations at the same time. If you want to imagine what that is like, try watching a DVD with the director’s commentary and the soundtrack turned up at the same time. (Spiders manage to have these conversations by having not only many legs but also many eyes.)

  * * *

  24

  THE GREAT SOAP-MAKING DISASTER

  WEDNESDAY

  Jack’s first three periods on a Wednesday were single geography followed by double science. Geography was interesting enough, Jack would admit, but he really looked forward to science with his somewhat eccentric teacher, Dr. Holmes.

  Dr. Holmes walked in front of the class, his eyes twinkling and his blond hair waving from side to side as he moved excitedly. “I have great news for you! Today we have a special guest.”

  David leaned over to whisper to Jack, “I hope it’s Katy Perry.”

  Jack almost laughed out loud. He whispered back, “Do you think it’s likely to be Katy Perry?”

  David thought about this for a few minutes. “Well, I think it’s more likely to be Katy Perry than it is to be Albert Einstein or Rudyard Kipling.”

  “And your reasoning behind that is?”

  “Well. They’re both dead, aren’t they? I mean, a teacher’s unlikely to bring corpses into a classroom.”

  “That would be unusual,” Jack conceded.

  “So,” said David, clearly warming to his subject, “out of Albert Einstein, Rudyard Kipling, and Katy Perry, it’s most likely to be Katy Perry. Which means by my calculation we have a better than one-in-three chance of it being Katy Perry.”

  Jack just gazed at David. You couldn’t deny that David had his very own brand of completely flawed and incorrect—but fabulously compelling—logic. This was the reason that other people found David irritating. It was also the same reason that Jack thought he was wonderful.

  Jack thought of David’s mind as being like a sausage. Jack had no idea what went on inside David’s mind in the same way he had no idea what exactly went into a sausage. In many ways he didn’t want to know what went on inside either. He just enjoyed the effects of both of them.

  “You, David, are as wonderful as a sausage.”

  David squinted at Jack. “You say strange things sometimes.”

  Because of their chattering David and Jack had largely missed Dr. Holmes introducing their “special guest.” When Jack looked up he shuddered. It was the woman from Neptune’s Den. Her hair was still pulled back in a severe ponytail, but over the top of her business suit she was wearing a lab coat.

  She was already speaking. “So, as your teacher has said, my name is Ms. Regina Maris.”

  Jack’s jaw dropped. Regina Maris had been the name on the sign warning people to stay away from the fracking operation. Not only had this woman given him an explosive bath bomb, she was also the chief executive of the drilling company.

  Ms. Maris continued. “Now, I own a lot of different businesses, but the one that Dr. Holmes asked me along to talk about is my chain of shops that sells cosmetics, natural sponges, moisturizers, and perfumes.”

  “Neptune’s Den,” Jack said. He had meant to say it quietly to himself, but accidentally said it out loud. Unfortunately, loud enough for Ms. Maris to hear.

  She confidently strode from the front of the class to the back and spoke right into Jack’s face. “What was that?”

  Jack gulped. Ms. Maris was stunningly beautiful, with perfectly smooth skin and angular cheekbones. She didn’t seem to blink as she stared at him; it was quite unnerving. The most striking thing about her, however, was the smell of her perfume. It was so strong as to be almost overpowering. It clouded the air, and Jack felt that he wasn’t so much breathing as swallowing the fragrant air.

  “Umm, I said that the name of the chain you own is ‘Neptune’s Den.’ I’ve used some of your products—they’re very … surprising.”

  Ms. Maris’s nostrils flared as she spoke. “Sometimes I think they’re not surprising enough, sadly.” Ms. Maris turned away and walked back to the front of the class. “Your classmate is indeed right. And in Neptune’s Den we sell every kind of soap known to humankind. So today I’m going to teach you the science of making soap.”

  Ms. Maris pulled a large white sheet off the teacher’s workbench, which had been covering a range of chemicals, powders, and oils. “And these are the ingredients we are going to use.”

  The students were all summoned to the front, and everyone got to choose a range of perfumes and oils with which to personalize their soap. “Be extremely careful with the lye. It is highly caustic and could burn you,” Dr. Holmes cautioned while handing out the chemicals.

  “Now, as a special treat, whoever I judge to have made the best soap will get to have the rest of the day off and tour the soap factory that supplies my shops,” Ms. Maris said.

  Jack turned to David. “We have to win that prize—it’s connected with a Ministry case. We think that Ms. Maris might have helped break criminal fish out of jail.” After Jack had finished speaking he realized that his last sentence would sound insane. However, as usual David seemed to accept insanity with nonchalance.

  “Okay, then. So you want me to help you win the soap-making competition?”

  Jack looked serious and put his hand on David’s shoulder. “No, David, I don’t want you to help me. I want you to help everyone else in the class.”

  * * *

  The hour that followed went down in legend. Future chemistry teachers would whisper of the Great Soap-Making Disaster of 2016. Trainee teachers would be scared into learning their lessons by being told of the disaster that could befall them if they didn’t follow health and safety procedures.48

  * * *

  David wasn’t normally allowed to help in Jack’s experiments. In fact, during science lessons they had created their own game called “Statues,” in which David tried to remain as still as he could and not knock anything over. But in this lesson David was set free and wandered amongst his other classmates, offering to help, lighting Bunsen burners, and carrying things.

  Asking for David’s help would be a bit like trying to solve the problem of a lost glove by cutting off one of your hands.49

  Jack concentrated hard on making his soap but was constantly distracted by howls of pain and crashing noises. Jack looked up at the front of the classroom. Ms. Maris was watching him work. She smiled at him. But it wasn’t a nice How are you? smile. It was a sinister I know something you don’t know smile. She kept staring until Jack dropped his gaze and looked back at the experiment.

  At one stage Jack looked up to see David carrying a tray. Jack normally never allowed David to carry trays. For other people a tray was a piece of equipment that enabled you to carry several things at the same time. For David a tray was a piece of equipment that enabled you to drop several things at the same time. Trays greatly increased David’s efficiency at smashing objects.

  As he walked with the tray he stumbled, and it went flying into the air. A beaker of lye landed on the back of a bo
y’s blazer. The boy ripped it off and threw it away. It landed on a Bunsen burner and caught fire. Meanwhile another beaker of water had fallen from David’s tray, causing a girl to slip and clatter onto a stool, smashing it to pieces.

  David backed away from the mess, looking slightly sheepish, and knocked over a beaker on top of a tripod, which spilled a bubbling soap mixture onto the ground. Dr. Holmes rushed over to help, slipped on the liquid soap, and fell over.

  “Someone put the fire out, at least!” groaned Dr. Holmes from the ground.

  Dr. Holmes had made the crucial mistake of not specifying who was to try and put the fire out. David rushed over, grabbed the nearest beaker, and threw it at the fire. Unfortunately, the beaker had contained highly flammable ethanol and the fire leapt up. After a second’s thought, David then grabbed a chemistry textbook and used it to beat at the flames furiously. Naturally, the chemistry book caught fire, causing tendrils of smoke to snake up toward the ceiling. There was a beeping noise from the smoke detectors and the sprinklers exploded into life, showering the room with water.

  Jack looked up and saw Ms. Maris running out the door as if she was afraid of the water. If she was the woman who had walked into the sea, that seemed odd—why would she be frightened of a sprinkler? Did water have some kind of strange effect on her?

  Jack was interrupted in his thoughts as the school’s fire alarm went off, and they all left the room to make their way to the fire assembly point on the playing fields. On the way out Jack tried to help some of the wounded who had been hurt due to David’s help. He felt more than a little responsible.

  * * *

  MINISTRY OF S.U.I.T.S HANDBOOK

  SOAP

  THE CLEANSING PROPERTIES OF

  Many people do not realize that many soaps contain a substantial amount of fat. And not some kind of weird or abstract fat, but pretty much the same kind of fat that you put on if you continue having large breakfasts consisting of piles of sausages, bacon, and poached eggs.