In Search of the Time and Space Mach (8 page)

Linden screwed up his face.

‘Kids really go to school in a place like this?'

Max checked the address again.

‘I guess they do,' she said.

Suddenly, an old man grabbed them by the shoulders. Max and Linden screamed.

‘So you thought you'd get away with it, did you? Sticking your noses in where they're not welcome. Well I'll fix that,' he growled.

Max and Linden shook with fright. Maybe they
were
being followed. Maybe someone
really
didn't want them to find Francis. The man looked about a hundred years old and had the meanest face they'd ever seen. And from the way he grabbed their shoulders, it seemed he meant business.

Max and Linden struggled under the tight grip of the old man. Whatever it was he thought they'd done, he was really angry.

‘I'm sick of you kids thinking you can do as you please. I'm going to teach you a lesson you'll never forget,' he threatened.

What was he talking about? Where was he taking them? Max was scared but she was also furious at being handled like this.

And she wasn't going to take any more.

She gave Linden a wink and with a quick turn, sank her teeth into the old man's arm. He let out a scream loud enough to bring down the crumbling school buildings.

Linden followed Max's lead and bit into the man's other arm. His grip loosened and they twisted away, leaving him to nurse his two injured arms.

‘Bloody kids. When are you going to learn that you're the ones missing out when you skip class?'

Max looked at him.

‘We don't go to this school,' she said. ‘We're from Australia.'

The old man looked confused and Max couldn't help herself.

‘Australia, it's a big island down south,' she explained.

‘I know where it is,' the old man said grumpily. ‘I'm the Geography teacher.'

He rubbed his sore arms and mumbled, ‘I guess I made a mistake. Sorry. What are you doing here?'

Linden straightened his jumper.

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

The old man started to laugh.

‘That's rich. So you think she's a professor, do you?'

He kept laughing.

Max was losing her patience.

‘Can you just tell us where she is?' she said curtly.

‘I'd do it if I were you, mister,' Linden warned. ‘Back home she's known as Jaws.'

Max shot Linden a look that told him to stop. Linden tried to cover his smirk but didn't do very well.

The old man stopped laughing and pointed to one of the buildings.

‘She's in there. End of the corridor. Turn right.'

As they walked away they heard the voice of the old man behind them.

‘Professor. That's rich. That's really rich.'

Max and Linden had to use all their force to open the heavy, creaking door of the building
where they were supposed to find Professor Liebstrom. Max turned to Linden.

‘Jaws?' she asked.

Linden could see Max wasn't happy.

‘It was a joke,' he explained. ‘That's something funny that people laugh at.'

‘I know what a joke is,' Max snapped, looking down at her watch. ‘We just don't have time for joking.'

Linden frowned. When was having a laugh a waste of time? Max was really in need of an injection of humour.

It had been almost three hours since they had arrived in London. With only seven hours left, they needed to work really fast to try and complete their mission.

Inside the building they could hear the muffled echo of kids talking. There was one light flickering overhead and blackened paint peeling off the walls of the corridor like giant strips of licorice.

Linden was spooked.

‘And that old man was wondering why kids skip class,' he said.

Max squinted through the darkness. She could just make out the shape of a door.

‘That must be it.' She pointed.

Just then, the loud clanging of a bell swept through the corridor. Max and Linden covered their ears as doors burst open and kids came flying at them from everywhere. They fought their way through a sea of faces to the door at the end of the corridor. It was partly open and a dusty stream of light spilled out of what looked like a science lab.

‘Dr Frankenstein would have felt right at home here,' said Linden.

Max frowned.

‘Okay, okay. No jokes,' Linden said. ‘But it's not going to be easy.'

Max knocked and pushed the door open wider. Inside was a small woman in a long white coat, walking between lab benches and gathering beakers, test tubes and Bunsen burners onto a metal trolley.

‘Excuse me, are you Professor Liebstrom?' she asked.

The woman looked up and smiled.

‘No one's called me that in a long time. And who might you be?'

Linden and Max were relieved. This was the first person in London who hadn't freaked out when they asked a question.

‘I'm Max and this is Linden. We're from Australia and we're looking for Francis Williams.'

The woman's smile dropped.

Max froze. Maybe the professor
would
freak out after all, now she knew who they were looking for. Valerie Liebstrom was their last real lead and time was running out if they were going to get back to Australia before Ben and Eleanor woke up. They couldn't blow it now.

Linden knew this too and tried to think of something to convince Valerie it was okay to talk to them.

‘We don't want to get you into any trouble,' he began. ‘Max's uncle is his brother and we're trying …'

‘You know Ben?' she asked.

Max and Linden were wary.

‘Yeah,' they both said slowly.

Valerie smiled and a faraway look came into her eyes like she was remembering something from a long time ago.

‘Ben and Eleanor,' she whispered. ‘How about that?'

Then she snapped out of her reverie and looked worried.

‘Has something happened to them?' she asked.

‘No, they're fine,' Max burst out. ‘Ben has created a Matter Transporter and knows that
Francis has been working on creating a Time and Space Machine. We know that you once worked with the three of them and Ben and Francis had a fight and don't see each other any more. But Ben really misses his brother so we've come to find him.'

Valerie's eyes brightened.

‘And you used the Matter Transporter to get here?' she asked excitedly.

‘Yeah. It works!' Linden cried. ‘It's not perfect yet, but Ben's close.'

Valerie had that dreamy look in her eyes again.

‘So he did it,' she said quietly.

Max looked at her watch.

‘Yeah, but we don't have long before we have to leave. Can you help us find him?'

‘I can try,' she said.

‘Mum, are you ready to go?' asked a voice behind them.

Linden's eyes widened when he turned and saw a girl standing at the door. She had dark, curly hair and big brown eyes that looked out at him through a pair of pink glasses. He straightened his jumper and walked over to her.

‘Hi, I'm Linden.'

Max felt a strange twinge as she watched Linden speak to the girl.

‘This is my daughter Ella,' smiled Valerie. ‘And this is Max and Linden from Australia. They know Ben, Eleanor and Francis.'

‘Australia? How cool. I've always wanted to go to Australia,' said Ella.

Linden's smile reached so far up his face it nearly crashed into his ears.

‘Yeah, me too.'

He blushed as red as raspberry cordial.

‘I mean, yeah, it's a really cool place.'

Max was going to be sick. Since when did Linden say ‘cool'?

‘We'd better get going,' said Valerie, grabbing her bag. ‘I know where Francis used to live just a few months ago. We can try there and talk on the way.'

Walking to the car, Max couldn't help feeling a little weird when she saw Linden and Ella together. Linden was laughing like Ella was telling the funniest jokes in the world. Valerie had given them all some fruit from her bag and they were sharing theirs as they walked. Max ate hers in silence.

In the car, Valerie told them the story of how Francis and Ben fell out.

‘Ben and Francis were working on a top-secret project for the Government, which was being supervised by me. They were going to make a Time
and Space Machine like Ben told you. They were close too, until Mr Blue came on the scene.'

Max frowned.

‘Who's Mr Blue?' she asked.

‘A very suave man the Government hired to be in charge of that project and others Ben and Francis were working on. He was supposed to sell the machine overseas and make sure England was the first country to succeed in creating it because there were other countries working on it too.'

Linden leant forward from the back seat.

‘What happened?' he asked.

‘It turns out Mr Blue didn't have the best interests of the country at heart. He told Ben and Francis that the machine and the money they made from it would be used to help people in England and in other countries less fortunate than ours, but he really wanted the money to go into his own private funds and some dubious nuclear projects.'

‘Not only that,' Ella added, ‘Mr Blue was making lots of money for himself from selling Government secrets all over the world and was planning to sell the secret of the Time and Space Machine when it was finished.'

‘Does he still work for the Government?' Linden asked.

‘He has one of the highest positions in the country next to the Prime Minister,' Ella explained.

‘He is also very clever at covering his tracks,' said Valerie. ‘We've been trying to expose him for years, but he's not only clever at planning evil schemes, he's also brilliant at hiding any evidence that they exist. But when Ben found out about Mr Blue's lies, he quit and asked Francis to come with him.'

‘And Francis didn't go?' Max guessed.

‘Francis is a scientist and wanted more than anything to continue working on the Time and Space Machine. He didn't want to believe Mr Blue had lied to them and thought Ben was overreacting.'

‘That was when Ben and Eleanor came to Australia?' Linden asked.

‘They left as soon as they could,' Valerie added with sadness in her voice.

‘And Francis stayed?' asked Max.

‘Not for long. He discovered Mr Blue had lied and he confronted him. Mr Blue told Francis that if he refused to work with him, he'd make sure he never worked in the field of science again. Francis was shocked. He thought what he was doing was good but instead he was just part of Mr Blue's
terrible plan. By then he was far away from the two people he loved most, Ben and Eleanor.'

‘And that's when he disappeared,' Ella added. ‘Without a word.'

‘With the help of a few men in suits,' said Linden to Max, remembering what the old lady had told them.

Max and Linden felt sad about the story of Francis and Ben's split. Max really wanted to find Francis now so she could tell him how much Ben and Eleanor wanted to see him.

‘And what about you?' Linden asked.

Valerie sighed like it was really hard for her to tell them.

‘Soon after Francis left I found out everything. I resigned and told Mr Blue I was going to tell the whole world about what he was doing, but before I could, he ruined my career and credibility. He had drawn up some scientific results that were full of flawed work and told the papers and the TV that I was misusing Government money and science for my own advantage. He invented a whole lot of evidence against me. He then called me a disgrace to the scientific community and they believed him. After that, no one would listen to anything I had to say.'

Ella looked sad as her mum told the story and Linden took her hand. Ella smiled and blinked a tear from her eye.

‘I was kicked out of the department,' Valerie said, ‘and stripped of my credentials. Nobody believed me when I tried to tell the truth. Mr Blue was very thorough and the only job I could get was as a lab assistant at Hartfield School.'

Max looked at her.

‘Well, we believe you and we're going to make sure the world knows the truth about Mr Blue,' she said.

Valerie smiled as she parked the car.

‘Here we are,' she said.

Max and Linden looked out the window and stared in surprise at the scene around them. The street was full of potholes and lined on either side were grey, crumbling apartment buildings surrounded by broken brick fences overgrown with weeds and bins overflowing with rubbish.

‘It looks a little more run down than when I saw it last,' said Valerie.

Max and Linden looked at the building she pointed to. It stood among the others like a tired old man, worn out with the effort of trying to stand up.

‘Let's go in and see if we can find Francis,' said Valerie, trying to fill her voice with a positive note.

As they got out of the car, a black BMW pulled up in silence nearby. Behind its heavily tinted windows sat two men wearing dark glasses and black jackets. One of the men whispered into his mobile phone.

‘We've found them, boss. It won't be long now until you have what you want.'