The Great Brain Robbery (14 page)

Deep in the forest, Frankie and his gang sat silently around an old radio listening to reports of the rampages in high streets up and down the country. Rain had started to pour
down and large globs of water were splashing through the holes in the roof and on to Frankie’s head. Frankie had never felt glummer. He felt like he had failed. That it was all his fault.
They hadn’t managed to find Wes and Dr Gore had turned children everywhere into zombies. It was a catastrophe. Frankie felt a hand squeeze his knee.

‘Patience, little cabbage,’ said Alphonsine, looking at him like a concerned sheep-dog. ‘We will find a way.’ Frankie looked at her and shrugged. He really couldn’t
see it. What could they do? Wes was their only hope of defeating Dr Gore, but they didn’t have the first idea where he was. The whole country had gone Marvella-mad, and all they could do was
watch.

‘Yes, Frankie!’ Alphonsine insisted. ‘Zere is
always
a way. Sometimes you cannot see it. Sometimes it is hidden like a mole in a hole. But often, ze answer, it is
right there under your schnozzle.’

Suddenly, something seemed to click into place in Frankie’s brain.

‘What did you just say, Alfie?’ he asked.

‘Right under your schnozz!’ she smiled.

‘No, just before that,’ Frankie replied.

‘Umm . . . I said that ze answer is often hidden, invisible – but it is always there!’

Frankie’s eyes lit up.

‘You know,’ he said with a grin, ‘I think you might be right!’

Frankie snatched Wes’s postcard off the worktop and ran outside, where the rain was falling most heavily.

‘What are you doing, Frankie?’ asked Neet, confused. Colette barked with excitement as Frankie held the postcard out under the falling rain. As the raindrops splashed across the
card, a transformation took place. Wesley’s handwriting started to wash away, but as the ink dripped off the surface another, fainter message began to appear.

‘Invisible ink!’ smiled Frankie. ‘That’s why Wes kept going on about the rain. Look!’

The gang held their breath as the letters slowly sharpened before their eyes.

It was an address. Alphonsine gasped in surprise. ‘I know that place,’ she whispered.

‘Marvella’s Elves: Children’s Home,’ Frankie read aloud. ‘How do you know it, Alfie?’

‘I worked at that address many moonshines ago,’ Alphonsine replied, stroking her chin. ‘I was a carer there, before I became a nanny. But it was just a normal children’s
home back then. Nothing to do with that horrid Marvella.’

‘What’s a children’s home?’ asked Neet.

‘It is a place for kiddlers who have no family to look after zem,’ Alphonsine explained. ‘The children’s home looks after zem instead.’

‘That must be how Wes ended up there,’ said Frankie. ‘His parents went missing on safari, didn’t they?’

‘But what is Marvella doing getting mixed up in children’s homes?’ Neet frowned.

Alphonsine raised two suspicious eyebrows. ‘A tip-top question, Neety,’ she said. ‘It is fishier than a crabcake!’

The rain was sloshing down in buckets so the team went back inside to plot their next move.

‘We need to get Wes out of there,’ said Frankie, shaking his head. He dreaded to think what could be happening to his friend. ‘Straight away!’

‘Right!’ said Neet, grabbing her motorcycle helmet. ‘I’m ready! Let’s go!’

Colette howled and pawed at the door.

‘Not so speedy, Neety,’ warned Alphonsine. ‘First we must make plans. The children’s home is not so easy to break into. The walls are very high and the gate is locked and
bolted at night.’

‘Maybe we could squeeze through the gates,’ said Frankie.

‘Not on your nelly,’ Alphonsine replied, solemnly shaking her head. ‘If you could squeeze in, then the children could squeeze out. No, no, it is shut tight as an
oyster.’

The team put their thinking caps on. Neet wondered if Colette could dig a tunnel under the wall. But it would have taken far too long. Eddie thought they might pull the gates off with the
motorbike. But they couldn’t risk waking anyone inside. They had to get in and out as quickly and quietly as thieves. Frankie wandered round the workshop racking his brains as the others
tossed ideas back and forth. The workbenches were littered with sawn-off chunks of wood and rusty old tools. But nothing looked especially helpful. He touched a saw with the tip of his finger and
leapt back in alarm – ouch! It was still as sharp as a razor. As he leapt backwards he startled a noisy family of sparrows nesting in an open drawer.

‘Shhh, Frankie!’ called Neet. ‘We’re trying to think!’

‘Sorry,’ Frankie replied, sucking lightly on his bleeding finger. Then, as he watched the sparrows disappearing through the roof, his eyes were drawn to a very odd-looking
contraption suspended from the rafters. He stepped towards it to get a closer look. It looked like a cross between a bird and a bicycle. There were wheels and pedals attached to what looked like
two large, broken umbrella frames covered with oily feathers. Frankie had seen something like this in a book he read about famous inventors from long ago. His gaze travelled across the ceiling of
the workshop. Dozens of bizarre-looking contraptions dangled from the beams like bats in a cave.

‘Hey!’ Frankie called to his friends, pointing at the strange inventions that hovered over them. ‘Look!’

‘Ooooooooh!’ cooed Neet, springing to her feet. She immediately saw what they were. ‘Flying-machines!’

‘Of course,’ said Eddie, shuffling over to take a look. ‘These must be the contraptions Mr Whittle was working on before that unfortunate journey to Valkrania.’
Alphonsine whipped her spanner from her apron, sprang up on to the workbench and began to inspect.

‘But the trouble is,’ sighed Eddie, ‘Mr Whittle never did manage to make a success of it. These are all failures, I’m afraid.’

‘But Alfie can fix them up, can’t you, Alfie?’ said Neet hopefully. She couldn’t think of anything better than learning to fly.

Alphonsine hummed and hawed and chewed her lip. She was an ace mechanic but this was a challenge.

‘It doesn’t need to be a super-jet,’ said Neet. ‘We just need to get over the wall. Please, Alfie – it’s our only chance of finding Wes!’

‘It is possible,’ said Alphonsine cautiously. ‘But it will be very dangerous! Very tricksy indeed. We do not want any nasty smash-landings!’

Frankie inspected a particularly flimsy-looking contraption and gulped.

‘Oh wow! ’ grinned Neet, clapping her hands together in excitement.

Alphonsine fetched a rickety ladder and hauled a slightly sturdier-looking machine down to the floor. Eddie nodded. This one looked promising. But there was work to be done. Alphonsine dusted
her hands together and got down to business. Frankie and Neet passed her a series of tools as she tweaked and wrenched with her spanner, oiled the joints and glued a clutch of feathers back into
place.

After an hour of sawing, tightening, sanding and taping, Alphonsine stood back and planted her fists firmly on her hips. It was as ready as it could possibly be, but she looked worried.

‘It will fly,’ she said. ‘Short distances. But it is very perilsome. It will take three small children at most – you two and Wes. No more.’ She wrung her hands
tightly.

‘It’ll be fine, Alfie!’ chirruped Neet, already clambering into the pilot’s seat. ‘I can totally see how this thing works, easy-peasy!’ But Frankie
didn’t feel quite so confident. Heights made him queasy, like that time he got stuck on the diving board at the pool. Neet gave him a little nudge. ‘Don’t worry, Frankie,’
she winked. ‘You pedal, I’ll steer. That way you don’t even have to keep your eyes open.’ Frankie breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Now let’s go get Wes!’

‘Right!’ said Alphonsine. ‘Time to put a stop to Dr Gore, once and forever!’

‘Yes,’ said Frankie, feeling braver, ‘once and forever.’

It was past midnight by the time they arrived outside the high walls of the children’s home. An eerie moon floated above them like a huge white fish and, gleaming in its
dim light, was a large steel plaque.

Frankie shivered. ‘Is it how you remember it, Alfie?’ he whispered.

Alphonsine wrinkled her nose and turned down the corners of her mouth, so that she looked like an old stone gargoyle. ‘When I was here,’ she said, pointing at the top of the brick
walls, ‘there was none of
that
nonsense.’

Frankie glanced up and saw that the walls were topped with a dense mesh of barbed wire that glinted meanly under the stars. Frankie and Neet gulped. They had to make sure that the flying-machine
climbed high enough to make a clear sweep over those walls, or else they would both be ripped to ribbons.

Alphonsine declared that they would need a good, long run-up to get off the ground, so Frankie and Neet dragged the machine up the muddy banks of a neighbouring hillside to give themselves the
best chance of making it over the wall without ending up in a deadly tangle of wire. They only had one shot, so it had to be good.

Neet clambered on to the front and took the controls. Alphonsine carefully explained how everything worked while Frankie steadied his feet on the pedals.

‘Have courage, little cabbages!’ urged Alphonsine, as they got ready to push. Then, before Frankie could change his mind, they were off! Eddie and Alphonsine pushed with all their
might, Frankie pressed down hard on the pedals and the machine rushed down the slope like a runaway train. The harder Frankie pedalled the faster the wings flapped – one-two, one-two,
one-two! But the machine didn’t seem to be rising, only hurtling faster and faster towards the high brick wall. The contraption was shaking so violently Frankie thought his bones would pop
out of their sockets.

‘Neet!’ he shouted. ‘Neet! We’re not going to make it! We have to bail out!’

But Neet could feel the front of the machine beginning to lift.

‘Keep pedalling, Frankie!’ she called. ‘Pedaaaal!!’

The machine lurched over a clod of grass then, all of a sudden, the shaking stopped and they were lifted up, up, up into the air.

‘Woooooooooaah!’ Frankie yelled, as the ground disappeared beneath them.

But they weren’t safe yet. Alphonsine may have improved Crispin Whittle’s invention but flying was no easy feat. The machine did not soar like an eagle, rather it fluttered and
flapped like a startled chicken, swerving and lurching in all directions. Neet clung to the controls and pulled the machine up with all the strength she had. But the wall was approaching fast.
Frankie couldn’t look, he closed his eyes and powered his legs round and round as fast as he was able. Neet gave a shrill cry and at that moment Frankie felt something cold and sharp trace a
quick line across his ankle. He gasped in pain but didn’t stop pedalling and pedalling until, suddenly, they were bouncing and skidding to a halt.

Frankie opened his eyes. They were on the flat roof of the children’s home – all in one piece. Well almost. Frankie felt a warm trickle in his sock. He dabbed his ankle with his
fingers. They had skimmed so close to the wire that a sharp barb had left a bleeding slash across his skin. Frankie gulped. If Neet hadn’t steered so carefully they would have come to a very
sticky end indeed. Luckily, the wound was only shallow so Frankie pulled up his sock and climbed, trembling, out of his seat.

‘Nice one, Neety,’ he whispered. Neet was shaking with exhaustion. But she was OK. Now it was time to find Wes.

Frankie and Neet spotted a fire escape on top of the roof and lowered themselves down the steep ladder into the building. Inside, it was as dark as the belly of a whale.

‘I can’t see a thing!’ Neet whispered nervously. ‘Where’s the light switch?’

‘Hang on,’ said Frankie. ‘We don’t want to wake anyone. Have you got the moonglasses?’ Neet rummaged blindly in her rucksack and pulled out two pairs. They slipped
them over their noses and took a look around. The moonglasses allowed them to see through the darkness like a pair of prowling tomcats. And what they saw made them shudder.