The Monster's Daughter

by Paul Gamble

  As everyone knows, you use soap by rubbing and jiggling it all over your body. Therefore, some scientists have conjectured that obese people would be self-cleaning if you put them on a trampoline.

  * * *

  25

  AND WE HAVE A WINNER

  The whole school had emptied out onto the playing fields at the sound of the fire alarm. Trudy wandered over to where Jack and David were standing.

  “What’s that?” Trudy asked, indicating the tub of orange goo in Jack’s hand.

  “We were having a soap-making competition,” said Jack. He explained what had happened—including the fact that Ms. Maris, the woman from Neptune’s Den and the Poseidon drilling company, had been the judge.

  “And do you think you won the competition?”

  Jack looked around at his classmates, most of whom were bruised, battered, or a little bit singed at the edges. “I think we’re in with a good chance—at least partly because no one else bothered to bring their soap out here with them. They were mainly too busy nursing David-related injuries.”

  Dr. Holmes was hobbling across the playing field to where they were standing. Ms. Maris walked along behind him. Dr. Holmes looked at David with a mixture of suspicion and fear. “What on earth were you doing in there, boy?”

  David stared blankly at Dr. Holmes. “Helping. I was helping.”

  “Well, thank you for your help. Thanks to you, if I have a career left, I’ll probably be spending most of it filling in accident report forms.”

  “No problem.” David smiled. “Always happy to help.”

  Jack decided it was a good point in the conversation to jump in. “This is my entry into the soap-making competition.”

  Dr. Holmes looked at Jack in disbelief. “Really? This is your entry?”

  Jack nodded enthusiastically. “And given that no one else seems to have a completed entry, I would guess that means that…”

  “… you win.” Ms. Maris finished his thought. “And perhaps you’d like to bring your friends here on the tour of the soap factory.”

  Dr. Holmes saw an opportunity. “Yes, please! Especially the boy David. Take him as far away from here as possible!”

  Jack felt a brief moment of triumph. And then he realized something. It didn’t matter what had happened. Ms. Maris was always going to name him as the winner. Because this hadn’t been a competition. It had been a trap. And he had walked right into it.

  * * *

  Ms. Maris’s car was a large black Rolls Royce. A chauffeur got out of the car and opened the door for Jack, Trudy, and David to climb in. The back of the car was spacious, with two rows of seats facing each other. It was more like a living room than vehicular transport. It wasn’t as fast as the Ministry cars, but it certainly smelled more fragrant. Jack wondered if things that were fast generally smelled worse. Certainly after he’d been out running, his P.E. clothes smelled worse than clothes he’d just been walking around in.

  Trudy sat down beside Ms. Maris with Jack and David facing them.

  “I think you’ll enjoy the tour,” said Ms. Maris. “We should be at the factory in about forty minutes.”

  The car started and Ms. Maris relaxed back in her seat. In the confined space of the car, the smell of Ms. Maris’s perfume was incredibly strong. Jack pressed the button that rolled the windows down.

  Jack had never been on a more awkward car journey. No one said as much as a word to each other. Jack wondered if they should confront Ms. Maris. Fix her with a stern glare and tell her that they knew what her evil plan was.

  But then again, that was the problem. They didn’t know what her evil plan was. They didn’t have the first clue to what her evil plan was. And Jack didn’t want her to realize that.

  She’d tried to kill Jack with a bath bomb, so she must have thought they were dangerous. But why? And how had she known Trudy’s name? And if she had broken the criminal fish out of the Ministry, what was she using them for? And why had she run so quickly when the sprinklers had gone off in the school?

  * * *

  For most of the journey David lay idly slumped in his seat. The feeling of tension didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest. After about half an hour, David starting whistling tunelessly to himself. Everyone looked at him but he didn’t notice and didn’t miss a single note of his tuneless aria.

  His whistling seemed to annoy Ms. Maris. Jack didn’t mind it at all; he was used to David’s little idiosyncrasies.

  Ms. Maris leaned forward so that her nose was almost touching David’s. She spoke slowly and pointedly. “I can switch the radio on.”

  David seemed to consider this for a minute. He sniffed and then said, “That’s nothing to boast about. I can switch radios on too. And televisions. I think most people can. They normally label the buttons and everything.”

  Ms. Maris was completely flummoxed by David’s reply. Jack had to look out the window and bite his lip to keep himself from laughing.

  What Jack saw out the window surprised him. “What on earth is that?”

  * * *

  MINISTRY OF S.U.I.T.S HANDBOOK

  WHISTLING

  SHEEPDOGS

  Whistling is an extremely useful skill to master, mainly because it can be used to irritate other people. Some people over the years have claimed that it can also be used as a form of communication, as shepherds use it to tell sheepdogs what to do. This is clearly lunacy of the highest order.

  If dogs got instructions to arrange fluffy things from whistling sounds, then your poodle would start plumping your cushions every time the kettle boiled.

  The truth, of course, is that all dogs are highly organized and like things to be neat and tidy. This is why when you throw a stick a dog will bring it back to you at once. Dogs know that sticks shouldn’t be left lying about and will return them so you can put them back in a tree where they belong. No other animal would do this.

  Therefore, when a dog sees a sheep out of a pen, its natural reaction is to get it back to the place it should be.

  You may be asking, if this is true, then why do shepherds whistle at their dogs while they work? The answer is, of course, simple. Looking at sheep will cause anyone to start falling asleep (see section Insomnia: How to Get to Sleep). The only reason the shepherd whistles is so the irritating noise will keep the dog awake so that it will not drift off into a doggy power-nap.

  * * *

  26

  YOU KNOW THE DRILL

  They were driving along the edge of Lough50 Neagh, a huge inland lake right in the center of Northern Ireland. It supplied almost half of the country’s drinking water and was well-known for its eel fishery.

  But Jack wasn’t amazed at Lough Neagh. Rather, he was amazed at what was in the center of it. There was an enormous tower that stretched up into the sky. Jack had to squint his eyes to see its top, which almost disappeared into the clouds. It reminded Jack of the impossibly tall filing cabinets from the quartermaster’s store in the Ministry.

  Jack pointed. “What is that?”

  “Oh, that,” Ms. Maris said casually. “Yes, I suppose it is quite impressive the first time that you see it. It’s an underwater fracking drill—I also own Poseidon International Drilling Company. We’re checking to see if there are any gas reserves under the lough.”

  “Do you need that large a drill?”

  “Oh, yes, it needs to go very far under the water. Very far indeed.”

  David looked at all the clouds and stifled a yawn.

  The car pulled over at the side of a large factory. The door was opened by the chauffeur, and Ms. Maris stepped out. “But let’s not talk about the drilling platform now. You’re here to see the soap factory, aren’t you? You lucky, lucky people.”

  Jack, Trudy, and David followed Ms. Maris as she strode across the car park and into the reception area of the factory. “Now if you wait here, I’ll go and get you some protective clothing for the tour.” Ms. Maris walked over to a door, typed a code into a keylock, and disappeared. Jack, T
rudy, and David sat down on a sofa the receptionist pointed out to them.

  “This is a trap,” said Jack.

  “I know it’s a trap,” said Trudy.

  “But does she know that we know it’s a trap?” asked David.

  “I think so,” said Trudy.

  “And we know that she knows that we know that it’s a trap,” said Jack.

  “But does she know that we know that she knows that we know that it’s a trap?” asked David.

  “I don’t know,” said Jack.

  Trudy stood up from the sofa. “I’m not sure that it matters anyway. We all know, is the point. She brought us here to try and get rid of us. We came here to try and find some evidence of what she’s up to.”

  “Exactly,” agreed Jack, “so we keep our eyes and our ears open on this tour, and if we see anything unusual, we let the others know.”

  “We’re like flies walking into a spider’s web,” David said. Strangely he didn’t seem that unhappy about it.

  “Doesn’t that worry you?” queried Jack.

  “No, I’d love to be able to fly.” David smiled, rather missing the point.

  Ms. Maris arrived back and handed out white coats, safety glasses, and hard hats. Once everyone was suitably attired, the tour began.

  * * *

  As Jack walked around the factory he began thinking that Willy Wonka must have been a very skilled tour guide before he ever became a chocolatier. A tour around a factory was very hard to make interesting—especially when that factory made soap. At least at a chocolate factory you could be pretty sure if they gave you a goody bag at the end it would be full of some pretty delicious things. The goody bag they gave you at the end of the tour of a soap factory would be significantly less exciting.

  However, Jack remained on edge throughout the tour. He suspected that it was all an elaborate trap and they might be attacked at any moment. Jack constantly looked around him to try to see how they would be killed. All the machinery had guardrails and stop buttons. The enormous vats of chemicals were far too high for them to be thrown into. In fact, there was safety equipment everywhere—sprinklers, fire blankets, foam extinguishers. If this was a trap, it was potentially the safest trap that Jack had ever been in.

  There just didn’t seem to be anything particularly unusual about the factory. Not that Jack had anything to compare it to, but it seemed to be a completely ordinary soap factory. The only unusual thing about the factory was the staff. They all seemed to be wearing a lot of perfume, just like Ms. Maris. It wasn’t unpleasant; it was just a lot stronger than Jack was used to. The women all wore perfume. The men all wore aftershave—even the men with large beards were heavily doused in it.

  It was strange to be disappointed that someone hadn’t tried to kill you, and yet that was how Jack felt at the end of the tour.

  “And this is the gift shop. Please feel free to take a few free samples, seeing as how you won the competition.”

  They were in a room with row upon row of containers filled with soap, bath bombs, moisturizers, and perfumes. Other tours of the factory had obviously just finished, as a number of other people were milling about and looking at the wide variety of bath products. Many of the people were clearly tourists, dressed as they were in brightly colored shirts and shorts. However, one man stood out as he was wearing a three-piece suit and carrying a briefcase with him. He seemed to be looking very closely at the bath bombs. There was something strange about the man; every time he looked at something, he then checked his watch and wrote something down in a tiny notebook.

  David went over and smelled some of the containers. He almost instantly started sneezing and backed away without taking anything. At first Jack didn’t touch anything, suspicious that maybe this was finally the trap, but then a thought struck him and he filled his pockets. Ms. Maris watched him making his choices and smiled.

  “And that, I’m afraid, is the end of the tour.”

  Jack, Trudy, and David chorused “Thank you” like the polite little children that they weren’t.

  “Now if you just head out that door through the warehouse, I’ll go and arrange for my car to take you home.” Ms. Maris walked back the way they had come, leaving the children by themselves.

  “So whatever’s going to kill us is through that door,” said Jack.

  “Almost certainly,” agreed Trudy.

  David laughed. “Are you guys are certain about this? I think maybe you’re just paranoid. This place is clearly just a soap factory.”

  David walked over and pushed the door open. Jack and Trudy rushed over but were too late to stop him.

  * * *

  MINISTRY OF S.U.I.T.S HANDBOOK

  SPIDERS

  HOW THEY REALLY CATCH FLIES

  As we all know, flies are deeply musical creatures. Many animals like music, but only flies spend their entire time humming as they fly around. Clever spiders have observed this. Therefore many of them have carefully spun the webs to be like the strings of a guitar. With their eight legs spiders can use the webs to play very high-pitched guitar solos that only flies can hear. Flies, assuming that there is some kind of music festival going on, will fly over to see what is happening, get stuck to a web, and then … well, then it ends very badly.

  The proof of this is that a fly will still land on a web even if there are other flies already caught in it. The reason this happens is that the fly just assumes that the frantic movements of trapped flies are nothing more than flies dancing to the tunes.

  Sometimes a spider will make an extra-special effort and dress some of the flies up so they look like festivalgoers, giving them little tiny Maroon 5 T-shirts and Wellington boots.

  * * *

  27

  THE WAREHOUSE

  “Nothing dangerous at all,” said David.

  He was right. The door hid nothing more sinister than a warehouse. On the far wall was a door marked Exit. They walked across the warehouse toward it. A number of forklift trucks stood idly by. On one side of the warehouse was an enormous set of shelves, which were stacked with mountains of soap.

  “You guys are beginning to see plots in everything,” said David. “Here’s a good rule of thumb for you both. It you’re investigating something, try putting it into a movie title, and if it sounds ridiculous, then you’re probably barking up the wrong tree.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Trudy.

  “Well, do you think they’d ever make a film called Indiana Jones and the Soap Factory of Doom51 or King Solomon’s Perfume Shops?”

  “No.”

  “There you go,” said David. “That tells you that nothing suspicious is going on here. You guys really should listen to me more. You know…”

  David was interrupted in his impromptu lecture as he suddenly fell over. Trudy and Jack were quite pleased, as they hadn’t really been enjoying being told off by someone as strange as David. However, their enjoyment was quite short-lived as they were interrupted in their smugness by suddenly falling over themselves.

  Jack tried to struggle to his feet but just slipped and slid farther across the floor. Trudy managed to get as far as her knees, but when she tried to stand up she collapsed again.

  “What’s going on?” yelled a panicked Jack.

  “I think we’ve finally found the trap. They’ve covered the floor in some kind of extra-slippery soap. It’s impossible to stand.”

  For a few moments they scrambled about, but the soap that had been used to coat the floor had been carefully chosen. It was the most slippery thing any of them had ever come across. Any effort at standing ended with a collapse, a crash, and a few additional bruises. They gave up and concentrated on lying very still on the floor.

  “I suppose it could be a lot worse,” Jack observed.

  “In what way?”

  “Well, okay, we’re stuck, but being on a slippery floor isn’t exactly fatal.”

  Trudy snorted with derision. “I think you’re missing the point, Jack. This isn’t the fatal part; the fa
tal part is what comes next.”

  There was the sound of a motor starting. Jack tried to roll over and see where the sound was coming from. David spotted it first. “Over there—the forklift.”

  “They’re going to run us over with a forklift!”

  The forklift was being driven by one of the heavily aftershaved men from the factory. However, it wasn’t moving toward them; it was reversing behind the enormous set of shelves that was loaded down with the mountain of soap.

  “It’s so obvious—they couldn’t kill us by throwing us into a vat of chemicals or setting fire to us. That’s far too unusual, and it wouldn’t happen to three people at once.”52

  Trudy followed Jack’s reasoning. “… But if we were crushed to death by a falling shelving unit—well, that’s easy to accept. It would be seen as an unfortunate industrial accident.”

  The forklift truck started to push against the enormous shelving unit. Its engine took on a high-pitched whine as it strained against the weight of the metal and mountains of soap.

  Jack, Trudy, and David struggled to get up or move out of the way, but they just lathered the soapy floor some more. Some nice bubbles floated up from the floor and caught the light, reflecting beautiful blues and purples. However, none of the three friends were really in a position to appreciate that.

  “Jack, right about now we could use one of your oddball ideas.”

  “It’s kind of hard to think clearly when all you have in your head is the prospect of death by soap avalanche.”

  “At least it’ll be a nice clean death.”

  Jack and Trudy groaned. “David!” Jack yelled. “Now is not the time for that kind of stupid joke.”

  David looked confused. “What joke?”

  “Oh right, sorry I forgot it was you.”

  There was a creaking sound as the shelving began to tilt and strain. A few of the soaps at the edge of the shelving began to slide slowly forward.

  Jack slipped, banged his elbow, and then came up with an idea. “Guys, we aren’t going to be able to get out of this one by ourselves. We need to call for help.”