In Search of the Time and Space Mach (7 page)

As Max and Linden left the building in Cricklebury Lane, Max took out her notebook and scribbled a few lines.

‘This is what we've got so far. Francis did live in that apartment but was taken away by men in suits in a sudden and very suspicious departure that the neighbours are too afraid to talk about. We need to find out what has made them so scared. Who were the men in suits? Where did they take him and why? And finally, where is he now?'

Linden took a mint from his pocket and started sucking it. He had a theory.

‘My guess is whatever is going on, it's big and involves some very important people. It may even go all the way to the top.'

He felt like a spy from a 007 film.

Max was impressed.

‘I think you're right,' she said.

‘Thanks,' said Linden. ‘Want one?'

Linden offered Max a mint.

‘Thanks.'

The Department of Science and New Technologies was a tall, marble building with statues and carvings in the walls of great scientists throughout history.

As Max and Linden stood in front of it, they
felt like they were somewhere very important. Max patted down her hair and straightened her jacket.

‘If people are scared to talk we have to be careful how we handle this and we have to look and act respectable, so don't do anything that will attract attention.'

Max watched Linden try to control his wild curls.

‘Well try and look as respectable as you can,' she sighed.

‘Whatever you say, boss,' said Linden.

‘And don't call me boss,' Max snapped.

‘Right boss,' said Linden, trying not to smile.

Max shot him a quick stare and walked up the long stairs of the building. She pushed through the heavy revolving door into the foyer and stood on the polished marble floor. Linden walked in and stood next to her.

‘Wow! This is some classy building,' he said.

Linden had hardly been out of Mindawarra in all his life and being in London with all its old buildings and statues was like being in another world.

The front foyer was full of paintings, big carpets and shiny brass everywhere, from door handles to railings to flash name plates on long polished desks. There were people in suits hurrying all around
them, like they were all late for important meetings. Two of them nearly trampled Max and Linden as they stared at the high, super-white ceilings that were covered in great dangling chandeliers.

In the centre of the foyer was a man with a small headset on a glued-to-perfection hairstyle and a smile that seemed to have been permanently fixed to his face. He was sitting at a solid round marble desk frantically answering phones, redirecting calls and saying ‘Have a nice day' more often than your average human could have managed in a year. When there was a break in answering phones, Max spoke up.

‘Excuse me, we were wondering …'

‘Good morning, how can I help you?' he asked sharply.

‘We're looking for a Professor Valerie Liebstrom,' Max said.

The receptionist's smile fell to the floor in howling crash.

‘Who?' he asked, not sure he'd heard right.

‘Professor Valerie Liebstrom,' Max said a little shakily.

‘That's what I thought you said,' said the receptionist in a clipped voice, with one eyebrow
climbing high up his forehead to show how annoyed he was at her question.

The man looked around him then leant forward, his voice changing from ‘How can I help you?' to ‘I'm having a bad day and you two are only making it worse'.

‘Listen kids, Ms Liebstrom hasn't worked here for quite some time and if you want to stay out of trouble, you'll have nothing to do with her.'

The man answered a few more calls and was irritated to look down and see Max and Linden still standing there.

They weren't taking no for an answer and Max wanted him to know it.

‘Look mister, I've had a really bad day so if you don't want me to scream at the top of my voice until I break every one of those expensive-looking chandeliers, then you'll hand over the information I'm looking for.'

Linden leant over the desk.

‘I'd do it if I were you. She's won competitions back home for this sort of thing.'

‘Surely you can't be serious,' the receptionist sneered. ‘Now get out of here before I call security.'

Max folded her arms.

‘I'll give you five seconds. Linden?'

Linden started counting.

‘This isn't going to be pretty,' he warned. ‘Five, four, three …'

The receptionist was getting worried. These two kids were starting to attract a lot of attention.

‘Two …'

All around them, people in suits stopped to stare.

‘One!'

Max started screaming. A loud, ear-crushing, eye-popping scream. People in the foyer covered their ears. Chandeliers started trembling and clinking overhead.

One of the chandeliers burst into a million pieces, bouncing off the marble floor and sending the suits running everywhere. The receptionist couldn't take it any more.

‘Okay! Okay! Make her stop. I'll give you what you want.'

Max stopped screaming.

The receptionist took a handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his brow and wrote on a piece of paper.

‘Last I heard she could be found at this address, but don't tell anyone I told you.'

Max took the paper and shook the receptionist's shaking, sweaty hand.

‘Thank you for your help,' said Max in her
best sugary voice. ‘And have a nice day.' She smiled.

As Max and Linden walked out of the building, stepping over the crouching suits who were still holding their ears, a man in a long jacket stood at the top of the stairs and watched them go. He was surrounded by other men, who were bigger than him, wore dark glasses and looked like they'd never smiled in their whole lives.

The man in the long jacket turned to one of the men and whispered, ‘Follow them and find out who they are and what they're up to.'

Outside the Department of Science and New Technologies, Max beamed as she held out the piece of paper the receptionist had given her.

‘This is our next vital clue to finding Francis and the Time and Space Machine. Are we good or what?' she cried.

‘That was awesome. Spies who'd been in the business for twenty years couldn't have done better than you,' Linden cried.

Max smiled and shrugged her shoulders.

‘Yeah. I guess it was pretty good.'

‘Are you kidding, you were great!' shouted Linden.

Max wasn't used to receiving compliments and her face turned bright red. She took out her notebook and started to write down their new findings to hide her embarrassment.

‘Let's just go and find the professor,' she said.

Linden realised his praise was maybe a bit much and his face went red too.

And he hated getting embarrassed.

‘Good idea,' he said, looking away, but as he did, he thought he saw someone disappear behind a building.

‘Max, I don't know what it is, but I've got this feeling we're being watched.'

Max turned around.

‘Linden, there are over nine million people in this city. Why would they be watching us?' she asked.

‘Well, so far, in the short time we've been in London, we've managed to spook the people in Francis's building, freak-out the receptionist in the Department of Science and New Technologies. And when we were leaving there, I got the feeling that someone was looking at us.'

‘You really have seen too many spy films,' said Max. ‘We've got the perfect cover. We're kids. Why would anyone think we were up to anything funny?'

‘I guess you're right,' Linden said, not really convinced. But he told himself Max knew what she was talking about. They were just kids. The perfect cover, like she said.

Max looked down at the address the receptionist had given her: Hartfield School, Salisbury Road, Bleechgrove E7.

‘This must be where she works.'

Linden frowned.

‘But she used to be the head of an important Government department. What would she be doing working at a school?'

Max took the London A-Z from her backpack as they made their way to the nearest Underground station.

‘I don't know, but we're about to find out.'

Alex Crane clung to the roof of the high-speed luxury train and adjusted the earpiece of her Micro Descrambler Watch, listening for what was coming next. Inside was the brilliant Madame Des Arbres, the self-made billionairess, who owned the largest multinational botanical company in the world, and was in the middle of a very secret, high-level meeting with her henchmen regarding the final stages of another evil plan.

Spyforce had uncovered Des Arbres' secret scheme to unleash into the world's forests a virus that would stop trees everywhere from being able to reproduce. Whole countries would be forced to buy her seeds in order to plant more trees, ruining whole economies and making her the richest person in the world.

Alex adjusted the frequency of the Descrambler, which could translate any language in the world, and listened as Des Arbres' French became fluent English.

‘If countries don't buy my seeds, whole
ecosystems will collapse and they will have no one to blame but themselves.'

Alex heard the squeal of arrogant laughter from Des Arbres, as her final detail of dastardly planning was about to be put into place.

‘It will not be long now,' the Descrambler translated for Alex. ‘Everything is in order. All we have to do is begin the launch of the planes to all the major forestry sites of the world and spray our lethal Des Arbres Mist all over them to make them mine.'

Des Arbres launched into another annoying cackle as Alex switched off the Descrambler and put it into her backpack. The wind rushed by her like a cyclone as she made her way carefully along the roof of the speeding silver train, clinging to every protrusion and handle she could find as she made her way to Des Arbres' carriage. She had with her Spyforce's newest invention, the Neuro Reversal Spectron. With one zap of this powerful device, she could reverse the thinking patterns of all who came under its spectrum of influence. All she needed to do was reach Des Arbres' window, aim the Neuro Reversal Spectron at her and her buffoons, and the world's forests would not only be saved, but would have Des Arbres as their most devoted greenie, dedicating the rest of her life to saving the trees.

But just then, Alex's foot slipped. She lost her hold and dangled from the careering train like a leaf in autumn. She tried to regain her foothold but the force of the wind pinned her against the train so she was unable to move. As she looked around for something to hold onto, she saw the narrow mouth of a tunnel ahead, hurtling towards her like a hungry giant. She had about ten seconds to avoid certain doom. Would this be the end of Alex Crane? Would she be able to regain her foothold and avoid her fast-approaching demise? Would the world's forests be wiped out by

The train jerked as it came to a screeching halt. Linden toppled against Max and collapsed into her lap like a rag doll. Max looked down at him.

‘Comfortable down there, are we?' she asked.

Linden pulled himself up and adjusted himself in his seat.

‘Sorry, must be that magnetic personality of yours drawing me in,' said Linden, looking away to hide the smirk creeping onto his face.

‘You know, if you put as much effort into being clever as being funny, you'd be a genius by now,' said Max, hoping to put an end to the conversation.

‘Yeah, but I'd be a bored genius,' said Linden into his sleeve.

‘What did you say?' asked Max.

‘I wonder what the hold-up is,' said Linden, looking around the carriage and pretending to be interested in what had stopped the train.

Max frowned and went back to her notes.

Linden looked at the people around them. They carried on reading their books or staring at the ceiling like they hadn't even noticed the train had stopped. Maybe this happened all the time in London and people were used to it.

He turned to Max. She was still scribbling in her notebook.

‘So why are you spending your holidays with Ben and Eleanor?' he asked.

Max had been so caught up in their mission she'd forgotten the whole story about her father cancelling his visit, the explosion of slime at school and the fight with her mum. After all that had happened in the past few days, that stuff seemed like ages ago.

Thinking about it now made Max's shoulders go tense and she turned to Linden with a little more force than she intended.

‘What's it matter to you?' she snapped.

Linden was surprised by Max's anger.

‘It doesn't matter, I was interested, that's all. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to.'

They sat in silence for a few minutes. No one on the train was moving. The only sound that could be heard was the turning of the page of a book or the occasional cough or snore.

Linden stared at the map of the Underground on the carriage wall and Max turned her pen over and over in her fingers, sorry that she'd been so mean to Linden when all he did was ask a question.

The funny thing was, when Max thought about it, she did want to talk. She hadn't had a chance to tell anyone how rotten the whole thing had made her feel. How she felt like no one loved her and everywhere she went she made a fool of herself and how she never had any real friends because she was always moving houses and how lonely that made her feel and how most of the time, no matter what she did, she felt life was against her.

‘There was no one to look after me in Sydney,' Max spoke up.

Linden stopped looking at the map.

‘My dad lives in America and he was supposed to come back home for the holidays but he got this important job and couldn't make it.'

Max looked down at the pen she was turning in her fingers.

‘We had some really great things planned too,' she said sadly.

Linden reached into his pocket for a mint and offered it to her.

‘Who do you live with in Sydney?' he asked.

Max screwed up her face. ‘Ms Popularity.'

Linden was confused. ‘Who?'

‘My mother,' explained Max. ‘She's the head of publicity for a big television network and spends most of her time running after famous personalities at dinners and parties and launches of new TV shows. But if you ask me,' Max said sarcastically, ‘there's not much personality to be found.'

Max had been talking really fast and getting excited. She stopped and let out a small laugh.

‘She probably finds these people more interesting than me,' she said softly.

Linden saw that Max had a tear in her eye.

‘If they all had brain transplants maybe,' he said.

Max laughed but what Linden said made her want to cry more. It was nice. She looked away, not wanting him to see her face. Linden put his hand on her shoulder, but she pulled away from him,
took a handkerchief out of her backpack and blew her nose.

‘I must be getting a cold,' said Max into her hanky.

Max hated crying in front of other people but she did feel better now that she'd said all that. She knew not everything she said was exactly fair but sometimes things her mum did weren't fair either.

The train lurched forward with a jolt as it slowly started up again. The sound of the wheels on the track beneath them resonated throughout the carriage.

‘How about your mum?' Max asked, wanting to change the subject. ‘What's she like?'

Linden looked out the dark window of the train as it rocketed through the Underground tunnel.

‘She died two years ago. Cancer,' he said quietly.

Max froze. She hadn't known. No one had told her. What do you say to someone whose mother has died?

Linden stuck his hands under his legs like he suddenly felt really cold.

‘It's okay. Dad's great. He's more quiet these days than he was before but he's a really good dad.'

Max shifted in her seat. She'd never been told
anything so important in her life and she couldn't think of a thing to say. Not one thing.

‘I miss her. Especially at nights when it's quiet and I can still hear the sound of her voice saying goodnight and telling me to dream of great things.' Linden smiled. ‘She always used to say that.'

Max stared at Linden as he looked at the lights of the tunnel flash by like shooting lasers.

The train slowed down and the squeal of brakes echoed around them.

Linden stood up.

‘This is our stop,' he said.

Max followed him to the door of the carriage and stood by him in silence. She wanted to make him feel better like he'd made her feel better. She remembered the pact they'd made and went to put her hand on his back, but the doors opened and he stepped off the train.

They were quiet all the way to Hartfield School as they walked past streets with boarded-up shops and thick wire fences across dirty window fronts and flashing neon signs saying ‘Fish and Chips'. There was an old, stone church with bars across the stained glass windows and cracks in the footpaths where kids had scribbled with chalk to play hopscotch. They passed high buildings with grey, cement walls and washing
hanging on strings from poky little balconies, and crossed streets at traffic lights where the cars, buses and trucks were piled up against each other in an endless stream. Linden had never seen so busy a place in his whole life and wondered if it ever slowed down.

When they reached the school, they stood in front of the gates with their mouths open. If Valerie did work here it was a long way from the flashy foyer of the Department of Science and New Technologies.

The school was like your worst nightmare: a concrete and brick tangle of buildings that looked like they'd been there for decades and no one had bothered to look after them. Everything was grey and crumbling like it was going to fall down any minute and the really strange thing was that there wasn't a single tree to be seen. Anywhere.