The Demon Headmaster and The Prime Minister’s Brain (3 page)

A week later, the doorbell rang while the Hunters were having breakfast.
Harvey jumped up to answer it.
He loved answering things—telephones, doors, people stopping to ask for directions in the street.
Harvey met them all with a cheerful grin on his round face.

This time it was the postman.
He handed Harvey a fat bundle of letters and nodded at him.
‘Having a piece of toast, were you?’

Harvey grinned wider, brushing the toast crumbs off his T-shirt as he shut the door.
Then he wandered back into the kitchen, sorting through the letters.

‘You’ve got one, Mum, and Dad’s got five.
And—hey, there’s one for you, Di!’

‘Me?’
Dinah sat up, with a small flicker of excitement.
She hardly ever got any letters.
Only a postcard, every now and then, from the housemother at the Children’s Home where she had lived before the Hunters adopted her.
‘A real
letter
?’

Harvey held it out to her.
It was in a long, stiff white envelope, with her name and address typed on the front.
She took it carefully and began to slide her finger under the flap, running it from side to side.

‘Thundering hamburgers!’
Lloyd exploded.
‘You’re not
natural
!
How can you bear to be so slow?
I’d have ripped the envelope off.’

‘And
dropped it on the floor,’ murmured Mrs Hunter.

‘
Mum!
How can you say that?
You know I’m the tidiest person in this family.
Except for Di, of course, and she’s inhuman.
Oh, and you and Dad—’

Dinah grinned to herself at Lloyd’s typical blustering and lifted the flap of the envelope, sliding out what was inside.
It was not a letter.
It was a stiff card, like a birthday card.
She glanced down at it and her eyes opened wider as she saw the patterns snaking across the front.
Twisting, twining tentacles.
Curling and rolling across the card so that they almost seemed to be moving.
Spiralling and twirling and …

Octopus -s-s-s-s!

‘Dinah?’
said Mr Hunter.
It seemed like weeks later.
‘Aren’t you going to
open
the card?
See what it says?’

‘I—what?
Oh yes.’
Blinking and shaking her head from side to side to clear it, Dinah flicked the front of the card back.
‘Oh!
It’s from the Computer Director.
The one who organized that competition.’

‘Eugh!’
Harvey pulled a face and made sick noises into his plate.

Dinah could see Mrs Hunter getting ready to send him out of the room.
Quickly, to save him, she started to read her card out loud.

‘Dear Miss Hunter,

Congratulations on solving
Octopus Dare.
This makes you one of the contestants to qualify for the final round of the Junior Computer Brain of the Year Competition.

The final round will take place in London from August 28th to September 2nd at the Sentinel Tower, North Island—’

‘What a weird address,’ muttered Lloyd.
‘An island?
In the middle of London?’

But Dinah had been skimming on, ahead of what she was reading, and all at once she saw something terrible.
Her voice died away, and she lowered the card, her hands shaking.

‘What’s the matter?’
Mrs Hunter said anxiously.

Dinah breathed hard and stared down at the shiny, twining front of the card.
‘I can’t go to the final.
Not unless I’ve got an S-7 computer.
And I’ve never even
heard
of an
S-7.’

She stopped sharply and clenched her fists.
Because she was beginning to panic inside her head.
She was going to miss the final.
And there would be beautiful octopus patterns there to solve.
She was
sure
of it.
She had to go.
She
had
to.
If she couldn’t go she would scream and scream and scream—

She made herself breathe very slowly, to get back her self-control.
She
never
screamed.
What was she thinking of?
Why had she suddenly started to feel so desperate?
It frightened her, but she could not stop herself.
The very sight of the octopus patterns on the front of the card made her feel that she had to go to the final.
She
had
to go, she
had
to go …

‘
I’ve
heard of S-7s,’ Lloyd said airily.
‘They’re brand new.
Just come on the market.
Ginger Frost says his uncle in Edinburgh has got one.
Cost about a thousand pounds.’

‘Oh, Dinah!’
Mrs Hunter looked upset.
‘I
am
sorry.’

Dinah screwed up her fists.
She wouldn’t cry.
She
wouldn’t.
And she didn’t.
But instead she heard her voice say, very high and loud, ‘Well, you’ll just have to buy me one, that’s all.’

‘What?’
Mr Hunter stared at her.
‘I’m sorry, Di, but we haven’t got a thousand pounds.
Not to spare.’

‘Well, sell the car.’
Dinah was panting.
Gasping for breath.
‘Mortgage the house.
Get a bank loan.
I don’t care what you do, but you’ve got to find the money.
I must go to that final!
’

They were all staring at her.
All four of them.
And she knew why.
She was the person who never asked for things.
Never made a fuss.
Good, quiet little Dinah, who never wanted anything for herself.
Only she
did
want this.
It was senseless.
It was selfish.
But the more she gazed and gazed at the octopus patterns on the card, the more she knew she could not bear to turn down the invitation.
Whatever it cost.

‘Please,
please
!’
she shouted.
‘You said you’d buy me a bike.
Well, I don’t want a bike.
That’s some of the money, anyway.
And you must be able to find the rest somehow.’

‘It’s not that simple,’ Mr Hunter said gently.

Dinah was past listening to him.
All she could think of was the octopus, the octopus, the
octopus.
And all she could feel was panic.
Terrible panic that she might be going to miss bigger and better and more complicated octopus patterns, lacing and weaving and curving …

‘An S-7!’
she yelled.
‘You’ve got to buy me an S-7!
I must have one!’

‘Dinah!’
Mrs Hunter stood up, looking very solemn.
‘Please go up to your room until you’ve calmed down.’

‘
I must have an S-7!
’

‘Your room!’
Mr Hunter gripped her shoulders and turned her round towards the door.
‘You’ll hate yourself if you go on shouting at us like that.’

‘I’ll come and see you in a bit,’ Mrs Hunter said.

Still sobbing and gasping for breath, Dinah gave a last scream, flung the card at them and ran out of the room.
As she went, she heard Lloyd give a low, astounded whistle.

‘Wow!’
he said.

‘Ssh!’
muttered Mr Hunter quickly.

Dinah pounded up the stairs, flew into her bedroom and flung herself face down on the bed.

And was quite calm.
Instantly.

It was so peculiar that she sat up and blinked, testing out her feelings just as she might have prodded her arms and legs to see if she had any broken bones.
There was no doubt about it.
She was perfectly cool and controlled.

At once, an embarrassed, miserable shiver ran up her back, when she remembered how she had just been behaving downstairs.
But she squashed it.
No point in wallowing in guilt and self-pity.
Of
course
she had behaved terribly.
She had behaved quite unlike her usual self.
But why?
And how had she managed to get back to normal so quickly?

She slid off the bed and went to look in the mirror.
Her face was still red and blotchy, but the awful screams and sobs seemed a million miles away.
Oh, it was annoying that she was going to miss the final, but she quite understood.
Of course they couldn’t afford to buy her an S-7.
And it didn’t
matter.
Not enough to shout and scream at Mum and Dad who’d been so lovely to her.
Who’d taken her into their home and adopted her.

‘How
could
I have done it?’
she whispered to her reflection in the mirror.

Think,
the reflection seemed to say back.
Think hard.
What started you off?

Dinah stared into the depths of the glass, puzzling.

‘It was when I saw the card.
From the Computer Director.
I was all right before then, and I’m all right now.
But as soon as I started to look at the card I felt—weird.’

But what
about
the card?
said her reflection.

Dinah thought back over what had happened.
She had opened the envelope perfectly calmly, listening to Lloyd bickering with Mum.
She had slid out the card.
And—yes—she had still been all right when she did that.
Then she had looked down and seen—and seen—

She was nearly there, on the verge of understanding it all, when there was a knock on the door.
‘Can I come in?’
said Mrs Hunter’s voice.

Dinah jumped up and opened the door.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said awkwardly.
‘I’m sorry I made such a fuss.’

Mrs Hunter put an arm round her shoulders and led her across to the bed.
‘Sit down beside me, Dinah.
I want to talk to you.’

Meekly Dinah sat down.
She supposed she was going to be told off.
It wouldn’t be nice, but she had deserved it, after all.
She folded her hands and waited.

‘When people start living together,’ Mrs Hunter began slowly, ‘—the way you’ve started living with us—they have to try hard to get used to each other.
Now, you’ve put a lot of effort into getting used to
us,
Dinah, but I’m not sure we’ve understood properly about
you.
You’re not an easy person to find out about, you know.’

Dinah stared at her, utterly bewildered.
‘But you’ve been lovely to me.’

Mrs Hunter smiled, a little sadly.
‘Well, of course we’ve tried.
You’re our daughter now, and we want
all
our children to have what they need to grow up properly.
But—’ she laughed suddenly ‘—we’re not
used
to having a child as clever as you.
Perhaps you need more things than Lloyd and Harvey do.
Or different things, anyway.
Because of the kind of brain you’ve got.’

Dinah had a terrible feeling that she knew what was coming.
‘Mum—’

But Mrs Hunter went straight on talking.
‘After you’d gone, Lloyd explained all about this Junior Computer Brain Competition.
We think it could be a really important chance for you.
You
ought
to be in the final.
And if you have to have an S-7 to do that—well, we’ll just have to buy you an S-7.’

Dinah gasped.
‘But you can’t afford it!
You know you can’t.’

‘Ah.’
Mrs Hunter suddenly looked very pleased with herself.
‘You didn’t know about this, did you?’
She put a hand into one pocket of her big, untidy cardigan and pulled out a long, heavy gold chain set with turquoises.
‘This is my nest-egg.
It belonged to my grandmother.
I’ve never worn it, but I knew I’d need it one day.
And if I sell it, I should get enough to buy your S-7.’