Casper Candlewacks in the Attack of the Brainiacs! (6 page)

Then Casper heard it – that hideous wheezing and the wobbly rattle that could only mean one thing. “Lamp!”

The kitchen doors burst open again as Renée emerged with another two plates. Behind him, in an otherwise empty kitchen, were Lamp and the Omelette Gun. One was making omelettes while the other did a highland fling.

“What are you doing?” Casper yelled, pushing through the kitchen doors.

Lamp grinned at his friend. “Renée wanted me to show him my Omlit Gun. He's got loads of eggs too. It's brill!” He cracked three more eggs into the mouthpiece from a huge crate of the things and bounced off again for another dance.

Shouting broke out in the restaurant as Julius started knocking omelettes to the floor.

“Lamp, turn that thing off.”

“Why?”

“Just do it, OK?”

Lamp pulled a glum face and tapped ‘0' into the calculator.

“Right, come with me.” Casper dragged him out of the kitchen, finding the restaurant in a state of panic as Julius and Renée wrestled over
a plate of omelette.

Casper hadn't a clue what was going on, but there'd be time to understand later. For now, what was needed was action.

“No more omelette!” announced Casper. “Sorry, we're all out.”

Disappointed sighs came from the villagers who'd not had one, and from Mayor Rattsbulge, who'd only had six.

“
Non!
” roared Renée. “There is many more of zem!”

But the villagers had got up again and were making their way back to The Battered Cod.

“That's right!” said Julius, running along the cobbles beside them. “Fish and chips, pie and peas – proper English grub.”

“Omelette wiz 'erbs!” Renée hadn't given up.
“For free! I give you!”

Many of the villagers turned back.

“Spotted dick and custard!”

“Ze butter, ze eggs, ze beautiful 'erbs!”

The villagers were spinning in circles now.

“FRENCH FOOD IS POISONOUS!”

“ZE ENGLISH FOOD IS BLAND!”

Both chefs tugged at a blubbery arm of Mayor Rattsbulge, trying to gain control of the village's biggest customer. In the middle, the fat mayor was growing ever more angry and ever more stretched. “STOP IT!” he roared. “STOP IT OR I'LL BEHEAD YOU BOTH!”

Julius and Renée dropped the mayor's arms, standing back, embarrassed.

Mayor Rattsbulge smoothed down his robes and took a bite of his emergency sausage. “Now, listen
here. I'm all for the idea of eating two dinners,” he said through his sausage, looking from one chef to the other, “but this two-restaurant business is taking away valuable dining time. Why, while you stand out here squabbling, I could've stripped bare three racks of ribs. I just won't have it. I won't!” He broke the sausage over his knee, throwing the two pieces to the ground. There were tears in the mayor's eyes. “Now look what you've done. I've gone and lost my appetite! No, this just won't do. There can only be one restaurant in Corne-on-the-Kobb.”

“Thank you, Mr Mayor,” began Julius, bowing apologetically. “That's exactly what I—”

“We'll have a cook-off. Here in the square on Friday night. We'll all vote, and the chef with the best food wins. The loser must leave the village for
good. Simple as that.”

The villagers cheered.

“Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a sausage to eat.” And he stomped back to his mayoral lodge (the one with the extra-wide door), wobbling as he went.

Silence fell as the two chefs met each other's stares.

“What are you doing here, Jean-Claude?” Julius demanded.

A broad grin spread on to Renée's face, breaking into a gritty old laugh that shook the ash from his cigarette and the hat from his head.

The villagers started giggling too.

“Dad,” rasped Casper, blushing. “He's called Renée.”

“
Non
, your fazzer is right.” Renée's smile
dropped suddenly. He plucked the stub of his cigarette from his lips with three grubby fingers, tossed it to the cobbles and ground it under his foot. “Renée is not my name, ze cheese shop is not my, 'ow you say, game. I am 'ere to do only one thing – to
ruin you
. On Friday, I will finally be 'aving my revenge. And you,” – he prodded a dirty finger on Julius's nose – “you can do nussing. NUSSING. HA!”

The man Casper had known as Renée stormed back to his restaurant. Those villagers who still wanted omelette scuttled after him like pigeons after a gingerbread man, with Lamp galumphing along at the back.

“What a nutcase, eh?” Casper nudged his dad and grinned up at him, but the expression that met his wasn't an amused one. It wasn't even bemused.
It was
de
mused, if anything. Casper had never seen his father's face so white, not even after that time he fell asleep in a bowl of flour. This was bad, and worst of all, Casper had no idea why.

“Come on, then,” Julius said, without gusto or interest or even a capital letter at the beginning of his sentence. He shuffled towards The Battered Cod, the already omeletted half of the village following him.

Ting-a-ling.

The rest of the evening's service went by slowly, with Julius wandering about the kitchen in a dream. There wasn't much more to serve, save for jellied eels and some glasses of English rainwater, but even those went down well with the remaining customers.

Once the diners had all dispersed and the doors
had been locked, Casper found his dad slumped face down on Table 4.

“Wasn't that bad, was it?”

“Sit down, Casper.”

“Oh. All right.” In front of Casper on the table sat a crumpled shoebox marked Tax forms etc. No long-kept secrets hidden in here so there's no point even looking.

“What's in there?” asked Casper, although he probably didn't need to.

Julius looked up. “I think it's time I showed you something. Lift the lid.”

So he did.

Outside, the square was dark, but warm light and the sound of the Omelette Gun wafted from
Bistro D'Escargot.

From the kitchen came much crashing and tinkling as Amanda and Cuddles did the washing-up.

“Be careful, Mum,” called Casper.

“What, even with these frisbees?” Amanda
launched a grubby white plate across the room. It whistled past Casper's head and smashed against the far wall.

“Yes,” groaned Casper. “Especially with those frisbees.” He turned back to his dad and the matter in hand.

Julius's eyes were sullen and far-off. He handed Casper the first yellowed newspaper clipping from his box and motioned for him to read.

“Jean-Claude?” Casper frowned. “But that's the name you called Renée in the square.”

Julius nodded. “Now this.” He unfolded a long strip of newspaper with paragraphs in French, each separated by a single asterisk.

“What are these?” asked Casper.

“His reviews.”

“What about the asterisks?”

“Those are star ratings. He's pretty cruel.”

“Did that last one mean ‘dog food'?”

Julius nodded gravely. “But look.” He pointed at the final review. Below the title there were just three words and three stars.

Casper stared, amazed. “You told me about this. It's your old restaurant. You wanted this review on your gravestone.”

“Yeah.” Julius nibbled on his lip. “What else d'you notice?”

Casper leant closer. “Well, it's the only review above one star. That's good. And it's in English. The rest's French. So…” Then it hit him. Casper felt his jaw drop. “Oh, Dad, you didn't.”

Julius winced and squeezed his eyes shut. “I wrote the review, Casp.”

Casper's head spun. “But how?”

“He came on a Saturday night. The place was packed, but he demanded that everyone must leave so he could taste the food properly. He sat down, ordered everything on the menu and said if the starters didn't arrive in five minutes I'd be getting one star. I tried my best, I really did, but he took one sniff at the food and roared insults that made me glad I couldn't speak French. He repainted the walls with my soup, gave me a facemask of spaghetti and poured my blancmange down the toilet. The only thing he did like was the wine. I'd been keeping a couple of bottles of vintage Bordeaux that your granny gave your mother and me as a wedding present. He knocked the first
glass back in one, gargled and held out his glass, so I poured another. ‘Zis wine, she is like 'ome,' he said, and glugged down more. ‘Is good. More.' I poured him another, then another. He sank down in his chair with a blissful smile. I opened the second bottle. In the end he could hardly string a sentence together, let alone pick up his pen. The pad was sitting right there, so I… I helped him along.”

“You wrote your own review when he was sozzled?” Casper couldn't hold back a chuckle.

“I only gave myself three stars,” Julius said, rubbing his forehead. “Didn't want to give myself away.”

“Dad, that's amazing.”

“It's cheating, Casp.” He rifled through the shoebox again, lifting out a small crumpled newspaper column. “Look what happened.”

“He deserved it,” said Casper.

“I ruined his life, Casp. Nobody deserves that.”

Casper noticed his dad's fingers were shaking as he picked out a small cream envelope. “Two weeks later I got this.”

Inside, a square of paper held a single word.

Revanche

“You probably think it's nonsense. Or some sort of code.” Julius smiled knowingly.

“It's French for ‘revenge',” said Casper.

“Well, no. I looked it up. It's French, you see.”

Casper sighed.

“It means ‘revenge',” his father explained.

“But how long ago did you get that letter?”

“Three years ago,” murmured Julius, staring at the wall. “Took me two years to work out the meaning. That word has haunted my dreams every single night since.
Revenge
. I knew he'd come for me eventually. Looks like he finally has.”

“But hang on, why didn't you recognise him earlier? I mean, if he's haunted your dreams for years…”

“Well, it seems obvious
now
,” Julius snorted. “You'd be surprised what a shave and a change of hat can do to a man. Anyway, I thought all French people looked the same.”

“Not all of them, Dad. Only Jean-Claude and Renée, and that's because they're the same person.
Perhaps if you'd noticed that, we wouldn't be in this hole now.” With a grimace, Casper put the lid on the shoebox and slid it away from them. “So. What do we do?”

“There's only one thing we can do. We close the restaurant, we pack our suitcases and we leave for Africa.”

“Africa? Are you mad?”

“Isn't that far enough? Fine, what's that place with all the penguins? Mexico, that's it. Do the buses go there? We'll start a new life, live in an igloo, eat salted fish. I'll have to take a new name, obviously. I've always liked Rupert. You can be Solomon Junior.”

“No way, Dad.” Casper shoved his chair back and stood tall over his dad. “We're going nowhere. You've put on a whopping spread tonight and
the villagers loved it. What did he do? Omelette. You've got this in the bag, Dad. You're going to win the cook-off on Friday and send Renée packing.”

“Jean-Claude.”

“Yeah, him.”

“Send him packing. Right.” There was no strength behind Julius's voice.

A long stiff pause fell on the room. Feeling a bit silly, Casper sat down again.

Julius sighed. “We're doomed.”

Ting-a-ling.

Lamp tumbled into the restaurant amidst a cloud of herbs. “Casper, Casper! Renée loved my invention! Did you see? Did you?”

“What did you think you were doing over there?” cried Casper.

“Omlits. I was doing omlits.”

“I saw that!” Casper felt let down, betrayed. His best and only friend had been cooking for the enemy, even after Casper had asked him not to. “But why?”

“Renée asked me to show him my Omlit Gun and… I've done something wrong, haven't I? Your face has gone all scrunchy, Casper, and it only does that when I've done something wrong.”

Casper softened as he saw confusion rise in Lamp's face. “Listen to me, Lamp, that man's not what he seems. His name's Jean-Claude, not Renée, he lied about the cheese shop, he's out for revenge against my dad and I think he's using you to help him.”

“No!” cried Lamp, shocked. “His name's not Renée?” All of a sudden his face blushed
plum-red. “But I've been calling him that all this time! How embarrassing.”

“That's the least of it. Did he ask you to make that omelette gun?”

“I'm my own man, Casper Candlewacks.” Lamp prodded a thumb into his own chest and puffed up proudly. “I make what I like and I like what I make. Except for my automatic pillow plumper. That hurt.” He rubbed his head.

“All right. Just keep it that way. If Jean-Claude asks you to invent something, what do you say?”

“No,” Lamp nodded determinedly.

“And if he asks for help, what do you say?”

“No.”

“Got it. Promise you'll practise that for me?”

“No.”

“Is that you doing it now, or—”

“No,” said Lamp, and he turned to leave. “No, no, no, no, yes. I mean no.”

Ting-a-ling.

“Keep an eye on him, Casp,” said Julius. “Jean-Claude doesn't need anyone else on his team.”

“You can count on me,” smiled Casper. “I'll watch him like a hawk. I was going to keep an eye on him, anyway. There was something weird about him today.”

“What, more weird than normal?”

“Way more weird than normal.”