The Demon Headmaster and The Prime Minister’s Brain (14 page)

‘Dear Mum, I am having a really lovely time in London.’

Ingrid’s sarcastic voice floated up through the darkness of the rubbish chute.
Wedged uncomfortably between the narrow walls, Lloyd looked down and frowned.
‘Ssh!’

But she did not take any notice of him.
Just went on muttering in the same cross voice, still making up her imaginary letter.

‘You will want to know what we have been doing.
Well, we have spent most of our time so far climbing up a dustbin and wriggling up a rubbish chute.
Now we are so high that Lloyd has made us rope ourselves together for safety.
Just
like a holiday in the Alps.’

‘Ingrid
!’
Lloyd hissed.
‘Be quiet!
Someone’s bound to hear.’

‘Huh!’
snorted Ingrid.
‘Fat chance of that.
I don’t think there’s anyone left in the building except us.’

Somewhere even further below, there was a mutter of agreement from Harvey.
They had climbed and squirmed their way so far up the chute that they had lost count of how many floors they had passed, but all they had found was one empty room after another.
Strange, cold rooms, lined with metal cabinets.

‘This can’t
all
be to do with the computer, can it?’
Mandy had muttered after the fourth or fifth floor like that.

But there had been no one to answer her.
The others just grunted and went on climbing, feeling more and more as though they had got tangled up in the workings of a machine.
A spotless, gleaming, huge machine, perfect in every way—and completely inhuman.

They were all getting very tired.
Wriggling their way up and down the chute made them use all kinds of strange muscles and they ached in unexpected places.

It’s dangerous,
Lloyd kept thinking.
He had made them rope themselves together, but even so he could not forget the drop beneath them.
If they went on like this, sooner or later someone was bound to slip, simply from exhaustion.
Already Harvey and Ingrid were getting irritable, and that meant they would be getting careless.

Then, immediately behind him, Mandy sighed.
Lloyd was sure that she had not meant him to hear.
Mandy never complained about being uncomfortable.
But it was a very weary sigh and at the sound of it, Lloyd made up his mind.

‘We’ll climb out of here at the next floor,’ he called softly downwards.
‘Whatever there is there, we’ll stop for a bit, because we all need a rest.
But please
shut up
until then.’

He knew he had made the right decision, because no one attempted to argue.
They all whispered ‘OK’ and went on silently following him up the chute.

It was only another few feet to the next opening.
Lloyd squirmed towards it until his head was level with the flap and then pushed it open a crack, so that he could see what was on the other side.

He was so surprised that he nearly lost his grip and slithered all the way down into the dustbin.
Because there, on the other side of the flap, not ten feet away, was the boy who had shouted and struggled in the storeroom.

He could not shout or struggle now.
He was sitting in a chair, tied round and round with rope so that he could not possibly move.
A tight, painful gag was strained across his mouth and Lloyd could see a red mark where it had rubbed his cheek sore.

But the really strange thing was his eyes.
They were tightly closed, screwed up until they almost disappeared in a tangle of creases.
And his head was twisted sideways, awkwardly and uncomfortably.
Instead of facing forwards—away to Lloyd’s right—he was forcing his neck round so that his face was towards the opening of the rubbish chute.
It was as though he was trying not to look at something.

Lloyd hissed, very very softly, to attract his attention.
Slowly and cautiously, the boy opened his eyes.
And opened them even wider when he saw Lloyd’s face, peering round the edge of the flap.

Lloyd pointed at himself and then out at the room, raising his eyebrows to signal
Can I come in?
Instantly, the boy pulled a sharp warning face and shook his head very slightly.
The message was clear.
It was not safe to come through the flap.

So—what could they all do?
While Lloyd was wondering, hesitating where he was, he heard voices coming from the room.
Even though the speakers were out of sight, he recognized the dull, lifeless sound of the men in white coats.

‘Are both the boys secure?’
said one.

‘They are,’ said another.
‘We can leave them like this.’

‘Very good,’ said the first speaker.
‘Then our instructions are to go off duty, as usual.
The Director does not require any of us here after half past five.’

‘And we report tomorrow, as always, at eight o’clock?’

‘That is correct.’

Feet walked across the room, still out of sight, and then Lloyd heard the sound of the lift doors closing and the hiss of the lift going down.
This time he did not need to signal to the boy who was tied up.
Once the lift was gone, the boy nodded and grunted at him, clearly meaning,
You can come in now.

Gripping the edge of the opening hard with both hands, Lloyd kicked with his feet against the opposite wall of the chute and pushed himself backwards through the flap.
He landed with a bump on the floor, picked himself up and began to hurry over to the strange boy, ready to untie him.

He had only taken a couple of steps when he realized that there was another person in the room.
Another boy, of about the same age.
But he was not tied up.
He was simply sitting in a chair, staring with a blank face straight in front of him.
In the very direction that the other boy seemed to be trying to avoid.

Curiously, Lloyd glanced round, to see what there was in that direction.
He was vaguely aware that the first boy was shaking his head and grunting frantically, but he did not take any notice.
After all, he had already been told that the room was safe.
What could be the harm in looking at something?

On the far wall was a big screen, about five feet square.
When he saw it, Lloyd gave a smile of pleasure and recognition.
Because the green designs that swirled across it were very familiar.
Only they were even better than the ones he had seen before.
This time there were
two
octopuses curling and weaving and twining.
That was worth a second look!
In a moment, he would untie the prisoner, but first he must watch the curves and arcs and twists and …

Octopus -s-s-s-s!

By the time Ingrid and Harvey reached the opening, it was almost impossible to get out of the chute.
Lloyd and Mandy and Ian were all standing just by the flap, perfectly still and silent, staring towards the right-hand wall.

Ingrid came first.
She did not waste time arguing.
She simply shoved hard at their legs.

‘Why don’t you shift, you great ugly lumps?
Have you gone blind and deaf as well as thick?’

They didn’t answer her back, which was peculiar.
They simply moved sideways, where she pushed them, and went on staring.
Ingrid scrambled out of the chute, glanced round to see what they were gazing at, and gave a loud sniff.

‘Harvey, you’re never going to believe this,’ she called.
‘Come and see.
It’s
pathetic
.’

Harvey had kept close behind her, because he did not fancy being the only one left in the dark.
As he climbed out and looked where Ingrid was pointing, he shuddered.

‘
More
octopuses!
I don’t like it, Ing.’

‘
I
think it’s stupid,’ Ingrid said firmly.
‘Fancy gawping at them like that, instead of untying that poor boy.
Here, Mandy, what do you think you’re doing?’

‘Mmm?’
Mandy turned towards her with a sweet, vague smile and then turned back to stare at the octopuses before she had time to answer.

‘You see why I don’t like it,’ Harvey said miserably.
‘Those octopuses really make them go peculiar.’

‘Well,
I’m
not putting up with it,’ Ingrid said stoutly.
Marching over to the screen, she bent and switched off the plug underneath it.
The octopus pictures vanished immediately and Lloyd and Ian and Mandy blinked, looking around as though they had just woken from a deep sleep.

‘Wha—at?
Where am I?
How did I get here?’
The boy who had been sitting staring at the screen shook his head from side to side and then stood up, gazing at the others with a dazed expression.
‘What’s going on?’

‘There’s only one person who looks as if he’s got any sense round here,’ Ingrid said.
‘Why don’t we get him untied and ask
him
?’

‘Oh, of
course
!
Oh, you poor
thing
!’
With a horrified gasp, Mandy ran across the room towards the boy who was tied up.
‘How
can
we have been so awful?
Fancy stopping to watch octopuses while you were still roped up.’

‘Not your fault,’ croaked the boy hoarsely, as soon as she had loosened the gag.
‘It’s those octopuses.
All I could do not to look at them myself.
It seems we’re all addicted to them.
I think they must echo our brain patterns in some way.
And the Computer Director is using them to keep people under control.’

‘You
see
?’
Ingrid burst out triumphantly.
‘It’s just what I’ve been telling you all the time.
Ever since we saw—’

‘Ingrid,’ Lloyd said dangerously, ‘if you
mention
that helicopter again, I’ll lynch you.’
He glared at her until she stopped.
It was bad enough having to be rescued by her, without having her going on about how brilliant she was.
When she was quite quiet, he turned back to the boy.
Mandy had untied him completely now and he was rubbing at his sore wrists.
‘Are you one of the Brains?’

‘One of the
what
?’
The boy grinned.
‘Oh, you mean am I in the competition.
Yes.
My name’s Robert Jefferies.’

‘I’m Doug Grant,’ muttered the other boy, still looking dopey and confused.

Lloyd decided that Robert was the only one likely to answer his questions.
‘What’s going on in this building?’
he said urgently.
‘There’s something wrong, isn’t there?
And have you seen our sister, Dinah Hunter?’

‘Oh, you’re
Dinah’s
brother.’
Robert looked surprised.
And then very pleased.
‘Well, if you’re
her
brother,
you
should be able to tell
me
what’s going on.
You probably know more about it than I do.’

‘We don’t know anything about anything,’ murmured Ian.
‘Except the inside of the rubbish chute.
We’re experts on
that
.’

Robert frowned.
‘Well, Dinah seemed to.
She said that she knew the Computer Director before she came here.’

‘Knew
him?’
Lloyd looked puzzled.
‘She never told us that.’

‘I’m sure that’s what she said.
Something about how he used to be your headmaster.’

For a moment there was a frozen, appalled silence.
Then Mandy said, in a shaky voice, ‘The Headmaster?’

‘Well, well, well.’
Ian gave a low whistle.
‘No wonder he’s so good at mesmerizing people with octopuses.
That’s just his sort of thing.’

Harvey shuddered and sidled up to his brother and even Ingrid looked taken aback.
They were all staring at Lloyd, waiting for him to make a plan, to tell them how to deal with this new shock.