Einstein's Underpants--And How They Saved the World (12 page)

‘Of what nature? Remember that we are here to harvest the Earthlings, not to incinerate them – I like my flesh
rare
.'

‘Quite so. Therefore I recommend that we send in a combat team to link up with our surveillance operative. The scientist should be eliminated, and the other individuals returned to the ship for interrogation, study and ultimately—'

‘Consumption. Ha! I like your style, Mr Unguent.'

‘Thank you, my admiral!'

‘Just one more thing, Lieutenant.'

‘Sire?'

And that was the last aroma ever emitted by Lieutenant Unguent, as at that moment he became part of Admiral Thlugg in precisely the same way that your morning boiled egg becomes part of you.

‘I take it you got all that,' Thlugg said to the new vice-admiral, who was called Xchx
(hard to pronounce, I know, but imagine the sound of a mule scratching its rear on the rough bark of an oak tree, or perhaps a hiker's walking boot crunching down on a dry thistle in late August – except in the form of a smell).

‘Of course, highness,' said Xchx, without emotion.

‘Good. Prepare an assault squad. Send your best troops. Utilize our reality distortion field technology. Make a landing by fast shuttle. Apprehend the Earthlings. We shall ascertain of what substance they are made.'

CHAPTER 28

SOME NEW WEAPONS (AND A WEDGIE)

ZING
!
ZING ZING
!

One after the other, the ace of spades, the ace of hearts and the ace of diamonds flew through the air and stuck into the old dartboard on the wall of Melvyn's garage.

‘Cooooooooooool!' said Tortoise Boy, and the others all clapped as Titch took a bow.

‘Isn't that rather dangerous?' said Felicity.

‘
Duh
,' replied Titch.

‘I think what he meant,' said Melvyn, ‘was that they're actually
supposed
to be dangerous. You know, to the bad guys.'

‘Oh.'

It had been a good day for Alexander. At
school Big Mac had seen him walking down the corridor. Usually that would mean Big Mac barging into him, knocking him to the floor, stealing his money, and then probably throwing his bag out of the window. But today, a look of panic crossed his face, and he wobbled off in the other direction. Alexander felt like cheering, but settled for a satisfied smile.

At lunch time the FREAKs all hung out together. They joked and messed about and it was all really good fun. Alexander didn't want to spoil things by hammering home the point that, unless they got their act together, the world was doomed. He thought it could wait until the evening. But he did tell them that they all had to come up with some good new ideas for fighting their enemies by the time of the evening meeting.

Hence Titch's Death Cards. These were thin metal rectangles painted to look like ordinary playing cards.

Next, Really Annoying Girl demonstrated
a new move with her jewel-armoured bag.

It went:

‘I-
bash
-knew-
bash
-you-
bash
-was-
bash
gonna-
bash
-say-
bash
-that-
bash
.'

(It was only a cushion that got bashed in the demonstration, but it still made them all wince.)

Then Alexander got them to learn some elaborate flanking manoeuvres and attack formations he had devised, although it was all rather difficult in the cluttered confines of the garage. One move was called The Wedge, which was intended to cut through closely ranked enemy formations. Unfortunately, when Alexander called out, ‘Wedge attack!' Jamie misunderstood, and gave him the mother of all wedgies, which left him whimpering on the floor like a kicked puppy.

It was as he was writhing on the floor that Alexander saw the face pressed against the window. He tried to speak, but could only emit a strangulated choking sound.

‘What is it?' asked Felicity, alarmed.

Jamie grinned. ‘Good wedgie!'

But then the gang saw what Alexander was staring at. Felicity screamed. Melvyn screamed. The others were frozen in various attitudes indicating shock, horror, outrage.

The face was indeed terrible to behold. Its skin was the rancid pale grey of a reanimated corpse. The eyes were red, surrounded by black circles. The hair stood up in clumps and spikes.

The face disappeared from the window, and the garage door screeched open. The children cowered back. Even Really Annoying Girl looked frightened. Felicity clung to Alexander's hand. Alexander was up off the floor by now, and Felicity tried to hold him back as he advanced towards the gruesome intruder.

‘Uncle Otto, what on earth are you doing here?' he said. ‘Did they let you out of . . . er,
you know
.'

‘
That's
Otto – the great scientist?' said
Titch. ‘He looks like an insane scarecrow.'

Titch was right. Otto was wearing what appeared to be pyjamas (although they were so begrimed and bedraggled and bespattered that it was hard to be sure), and a pair of mud-caked slippers. A long, horny toenail had bored a hole in one of the slippers, and a dirty big toe stuck out, in just the way Cedric popped his head out of his shell. He was carrying a shiny metal case, which didn't at all go with the rest of his outfit.

Otto ignored the others and focused on Alexander. He spoke at a dizzying speed. Frothy white triangles of saliva gathered at the corners of his mouth.

‘Boy, we have no time. I've escaped. Pretended to sleep. Window. Jumped. That's why pyjamas. Ran like the wind. But they are on my trail. They tracked me somehow, despite all my counter-surveillance measures. Things have gone further than even I feared.'

Alexander struggled to take it all in. ‘How did you find us?'

‘Your parents. I popped in there. They offered me tea. It was probably drugged. I spat it out.'

‘But why did you come? You should have stayed in the . . . where you were safe.'

‘I told you, it was
not
safe. Not safe at all. Besides,' he added with a dramatic flourish, holding out the case, ‘I had to bring you these.'

‘What are they?'

‘Weapons.'

‘Excellent,' said Tortoise Boy.

Alexander took the case reverently.

Now they knew who the intruder was, the other FREAKs had lost their fear and begun to gather round to see what was in the case.

‘You have in your hands,' Otto said gravely, his voice echoing in the garage, ‘the weapons with which you will save humanity.'

Suddenly there was silence. Every face was turned to Alexander. Without another word he pressed the polished chromium buttons, releasing the catches on the case.

Click.

Click.

He opened the lid, and then slowly turned the case towards the watchers.

Inside there were three brightly coloured plastic toy ray guns.

The silence lasted another two seconds. Titch was the first to start laughing. The others soon joined in. Jamie snatched up one of the toys and started firing it. It made a terrible electronic racket, a blaring, ever-changing
weearrpingpingzwimming
sort of noise, like a migraine come to life.

‘SILENCE!'

That was Otto, and he was still just about scary enough to be obeyed.

‘Frankly,' he said to Alexander in a deafening whisper, ‘I am not particularly impressed by your team.'

‘I knew you was gonna say that,' said Really Annoying Girl. ‘And the feeling's mutual, you scabby old monkey.'

Otto looked a little taken aback: Really Annoying Girl could have that effect on you. ‘You don't understand,' he said, trying to make himself heard over the laughter. ‘These guns are special. Our enemies – the alien invaders – are acutely sensitive to certain oscillating sound frequencies. Exactly those frequencies, in fact, emitted by this particular make of ray gun, widely available from all good toyshops. My research shows . . .'

But it was no good. The FREAKs weren't listening.

‘This whole thing is a joke,' sneered Titch.

Melvyn and Felicity just looked embarrassed.

Really Annoying Girl delved into her bag and pulled out a lipstick. Alexander thought for a second that she might use
it to stab Uncle Otto, but she just used it in the conventional way, on her lips.

The Hurricane farted Chopin's Funeral March.

Alexander opened his mouth, hoping that something clever would come out, some way of explaining everything, of making the others believe in him and his uncle Otto. But there was nothing.

And at that moment the garage door screeched again. Everyone looked round. There were two policemen, a fat one and a thin one, whom Alexander recognized from the morning they'd taken poor Otto away.

‘Ah, here you are,' said the fat one who, judging by the way he was wiping flakes of greasy pastry from his moustache, had just finished a sausage roll. ‘Let's get you back to the hospital all safe and sound, shall we?'

At the sight of the police, Otto yelled out, ‘Betrayed!' and made a bolt for the garage window. He managed to unlatch it and
crawl halfway out before the thin policeman reached him and began to drag him back inside.

Then Otto's body went rigid. A new kind of sound came out of his throat, a sort of high-pitched keening. ‘They're here,' he cried. ‘Here. Here.'

‘That's right, we're here,' said the policeman who was tugging at him. ‘And we're taking you back where you belong.'

‘NOT YOU!' said Otto, his voice now a trembling falsetto. His face was ghastly in the dim light. He pointed out of the window, towards the graveyard that backed onto Melvyn's garden. ‘THEM.'

CHAPTER 29

THEM?

AFTER THAT
,
OTTO
collapsed limply. Drooling and mumbling, he allowed himself to be led away by the policemen.

Alexander looked around at the FREAKs. What he saw in their faces was closer to disgust than anger.

‘So,' said Titch, ‘all this stuff about aliens came from him?'

‘Yes.'

‘And those manky old pants?'

Alexander nodded.

‘Right then,' Titch continued in a business-like manner. ‘The first thing to do is make sure no one at school ever finds out about this. None of us would ever live it down. Do you all swear never to mention a
word of this fiasco to another living soul?'

Everyone mumbled their assent – even Alexander, who had no more fight left in him.

It was hopeless. Alexander flopped down heavily on the chair and put his head in his hands. He'd never felt so low. How could he have deceived himself? How could he have thought that there was anything special about him or those stupid pants or his crazy uncle?

‘Great, I'm off,' said Tortoise Boy. ‘Cedric's had enough of this rubbish, haven't you, little fellow? I'm taking the short cut through the churchyard. Anyone else coming?'

‘Bit creepy in there, isn't it?' said Felicity.

‘Only if you're a wuss.'

Jamie, still holding the plastic ray gun, had moved over to the window. He was firing it vaguely out into the darkness, slaying imaginary attackers. But now he paused with the weapon dangling at his side.

‘Them,' he said in a most un-Jamie-like way. ‘Baddies.'

‘What did you say, Jamie?' asked Melvyn.

‘Look –
them
,' said Jamie, gazing out of the window. ‘Sneaky sneaky.'

‘It's nothing, Jamie,' said Melvyn kindly. ‘Alexander's poor uncle didn't really see anything out there. He's not well. There aren't any ghosts in that graveyard.'

Alexander joined them at the window. The light spilling from the house provided some illumination, but it failed to reach the far end, which was lost in the gloom.

‘Can't see much out there,' he said. And yet he felt a spider of apprehension crawl down his spine. ‘Where did you see the baddies, Jamie?' he asked.

Jamie pointed towards the thick line of hedge at the back of the garden. Beyond it lay the big graveyard.

Alexander peered into the darkness. ‘We'd be able to see better if it was darker in here. Hit the lights, someone.'

‘Hit them yourself,' said Really
Annoying Girl. There was an unspoken subtext:
You're not the leader now, so do your own dirty work.

‘I'll do it,' said Felicity.

When the light flicked off, the garden suddenly became clearer. Except that the area by the hedge still seemed oddly dense and vague, like something half remembered from a dream.

Or nightmare.

‘Hurts,' said Jamie, and Alexander knew what he meant. Looking at the area of darkness was giving him a headache.

‘Weird,' said Melvyn.

‘Look, we're all going home,' said Tortoise Boy. ‘And you can stop pretending that there's something there, because we all know there's nothing, and you're just trying to freak us out 'cos you're sick.'

Alexander looked round at them. No one met his eye, not even fierce little Titch. He sensed that they pitied him.

‘I really don't think you should go the
back way,' he said. ‘Otto saw something. So did Jamie.'

‘Sure,' said Titch.

Then he, Tortoise Boy, The Hurricane and Really Annoying Girl headed for the door.

‘With a bit of luck we'll get home in time for
Britain's Got Talent
,' Tortoise Boy was saying. ‘I was thinking about putting Cedric up for it next year.'

‘You two coming?' Titch said over his shoulder to Felicity and Jamie.

‘My mum coming for me in a car,' said Jamie.

Felicity looked at Alexander, as if she expected him to say something. But he had nothing to say.

‘Wait for me,' she said, and left with the others.

Alexander looked for them out of the window, his eyes straining through the gloom. And then something leaped up in front of the window, making him scream.