The Secret Five and the Stunt Nun Legacy (20 page)

The others edged away from Daniel. Betty, being a caring sister, took the precaution of kicking his shin before she edged away. ‘Honestly, Daniel!’ she scolded. ‘If it isn’t your stupid urban street talk, it’s all this talking to you-know-who! You’ve got to get a grip. You’re supposed to set an example to a younger sibling!’

‘But . . .’ said Daniel, rubbing his shin.

‘Children!’ snapped Uncle Quagmire. ‘Enough! Pay attention instantly!’

Heavily influenced by all the snapping, they instantly paid attention. Uncle Quagmire held up the book at page 125 and said, ‘Let me read something from page 125 to you, then you’ll understand. Or, from bitter experience, you may not.’

‘This is so exciting!’ exclaimed another inquisitive hotel guest. Daniel glared at him, then decided that his best strategy would be to look quite grumpy for a while.

‘You know,’ said Uncle Quagmire, ‘that Sampson de Lylow wrote in his autobiography that he was conceived in Salzburg and that his mother is Clarissa and his father was a fellow named Bartle, whom you’ve already met.’

Amy started to ask a question but Uncle Quagmire held up his hand to stop her. ‘Amy! Shush! Defer your incisive questioning, and let me read what he wrote about an incident that happened to him in 1980. Now, just to warn you, he writes in a rather modernist style, with a surfeit of temporal juxtapositions and parenthetical statements, which I’m sure you children will notice straight away. Nevertheless, Sampson writes:
Until that fateful day in 1980, which I am about to relate, the sun shone on my life as the sun shines on a waiting nocturnal flower in the desert or on a colourful humming bird in the light-trimmed foliage of a jungle treetop . . .
’

Uncle Quagmire paused. ‘I forgot to mention that the writing is not only modernist in its style but it’s downright crass as well. Personally I prefer Blyton at her best. But I shall continue, as he goes on –
and on that day a vast cloud from an indifferent world came and blotted the sun [silencing my natural humanity and kindness] which emptied my agreeable soul to make room for the person I am today, an idealist, a man driven into the arms of the Devil himself, a man whose conscience is heavy with the deeds that I feel obliged to perpetrate against the evils of Mankind and against the seemingly endless buy-one-get-one-free offers on shower-gel at Tesco . . .
’

There were murmurings amongst the inquisitive hotel guests, and a couple of them disappeared in search of the nearest Tesco store. The children, however, looked positively bewildered, yet again. Whatshisname sat nodding his head, obviously deeply moved by the emotional narrative, the Kafkaesque evocation of a world in which personal viewpoints often fail, and the complex
ontological notion that Chappie Variety 10-Pouch Packs might be on a BOGOF offer at Tesco as well.

Uncle Quagmire went on: ‘
It all seems so inconsequential now. So, so absurd. So deeply absurd. How foolish I was . . .
’

‘Excuse me, Uncle Quagmire, but is that
you
talking, or are you still reading?’ asked Ricky.

‘I’m reading!’ snapped Uncle Quagmire, quite irritably, before continuing reading: ‘
How foolish I was . . .
’

‘I don’t think he
is
reading it,’ whispered Ricky to Betty.

Uncle Quagmire slammed the book down onto his lap, making the children frown quite suddenly and, as a side effect, making himself wince.

‘Look,’ he squeaked, wiping a tear from his eye, ‘to make it easier, I tell you what. I’ll summapsulate what Sampson says in words you can
all
understand. Okay?’

They all thought that was a good idea, except one inquisitive lady hotel guest who said she wanted Uncle Quagmire to read on, as she was quite taken with the way in which the narrative conveyed a sense of spiritual crisis caused by a failure of conventional values and the way that Uncle Quagmire sucked on his moustache at every punctuation mark.

‘Sampson de Lylow,’ continued Uncle Quagmire, ‘was a normal teenager until 1980. He was troubled, impetuous, dissolute, self-indulgent . . .’

‘Is that what
we’re
like?’ asked Amy.

Uncle Quagmire ignored her and continued. ‘. . . not to mention headstrong, wayward, hedonistic . . .’

‘It certainly sounds like us,’ said Betty.

‘And then something happened,’ said Uncle Quagmire, relentlessly. ‘He was the subject of a rejection at school, a rejection so cruel and heartless that it turned him into the man he became instead of the man who . . . erm, the man who . . . he didn’t become.’

Amy looked very confused. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to go back to reading it from the book?’ she asked.

Uncle Quagmire ignored her and continued talking. ‘It was the final straw for Sampson de Lylow. After years of being humiliated and teased mercilessly about his mightily small ears . . .’

‘Just like yours!’ exclaimed Amy. ‘What a coincidence!’

‘. . . he had the chance,’ Uncle Quagmire continued, ‘to make a name for himself on stage. Admittedly it was in a school play but, for the first time in his life, he would be applauded as a soloist in a boy band. Before he could accomplish his castanet solo, however, he was banished from the band and the chance to shine was suddenly whisked away from him in an extremely humiliating and even more extremely public manner.’

‘Gosh!’ said Daniel, unable to think of anything deeply profound to say.

‘Indeed. So your mission, Secret Five, is to go to that school in 1980 and stop that utter humiliation,’ Uncle Quagmire said with a serious expression on some parts of his face.

‘But why can’t you come with us?’ asked Amy.

Uncle Quagmire smiled, then stopped smiling, making it quite a short smile as smiles go. ‘Because,’ he said, ‘you will need to mingle with the schoolchildren, and I’d look silly trying to do that, wouldn’t I? What with my knobbly knees and my disarmingly attractive facial hair.’

‘Excuse me, I have a question,’ said one of the several inquisitive hotel guests, raising his hand.

Daniel looked quite upset. ‘So do I!’ he said, waving his arm in the air. ‘It’s . . . erm . . . erm . . .’

‘My question is,’ continued the hotel guest after waiting a while for Daniel to stop erming, ‘how do the children and their wretch of a dog get to 1980?’

‘That’s it!’ said Daniel. ‘
That
was my question! I should have asked that!’

‘Good question,’ said Uncle Quagmire. ‘Potentially an excelteresting question, Mr. Inquisitive Hotel Guest. In reply, that’s not a problem as long as we’ve got some Brussels sprouts,
something like a wardrobe for a portal, and something like a digital alarm clock.’

The hotel guests were very confused at the mention of digital alarm clocks. The children were also confused, as they didn’t realise that sprouts were a fundamental component in time travel.

‘I didn’t realise that sprouts are a fundamental component in time travel,’ said good old reliable Betty.

‘Woof woof woof,’ said Whatshisname, who did. He also realised their low carbon footprint advantages.

‘Tell me,’ said Uncle Quagmire, ‘when you travelled back to 1964, did you have some Brussels sprouts on your person?’

‘Why yes!’ said Betty. ‘Daniel had some. He pocketed them at Greentiles. I saw him!’

‘I was saving them for Ricky,’ explained Daniel. ‘In case he got hungry at a later stage in the story.’

‘And I had some in my pocket as well,’ added Ricky. ‘I was saving them . . . for me.’

‘Well, there you are,’ said Uncle Quagmire. ‘Time travel can only work with sprouts in the equation, you see. It’s the sulforaphane and the dithiolthiones that react with the glucosinolates to overcome the quantum object’s timeline resistance. But, silly me, everyone knows that, I suppose.’

The children looked at each other. They were about to say that actually they didn’t know that when Bartle de Lylow came wandering through the reception, heading for the exit. He walked slowly and looked tired yet disenchanted in an enchanting sort of way. His bald head looked quite dishevelled.

‘There goes Mr Bartle!’ whispered Amy.

‘Shall I go after him and ask him how the conception went?’ whispered Betty.

‘Good idea!’ said one of the inquisitive hotel guests eagerly.

‘No,’ said Uncle Quagmire quite firmly. ‘It’s not a good idea at all. I’ll go upstairs and question Clarissa about it, to make sure we’re on the right track. I think she trusts me and doesn’t mind my
hand accivertantly brushing her stunt nun’s shapely knee. If deemed necessary, that is.’

‘And she thinks that you’re quite handsome!’ said Amy.

Uncle Quagmire looked stunned, then he looked quite pleased, then he looked pleasantly stunned. He ran his fingertips over his moustache and straightened some of his hairs. ‘My my,’ he said, ‘I don’t know about that.’

‘No, nor did we,’ said the children.

‘But what do we do while you’re talking with Clarissa?’ asked Daniel.

‘I want you to find an enclosed space that will act as a portal,’ said Uncle Quagmire. ‘And a digital clock. Impossible to find in these times, I know, but just do your best. It’s only critical. Fail and you will probably die. Failure is not in my vocabulary.’

‘Erm . . .’ said Ricky.

‘And, before you erm some more,’ Uncle Quagmire said, ‘evidently it is. But you know what I mean.’

‘Woof woof woof?’ said Whatshisname, who didn’t.

Uncle Quagmire stood up and straightened his tie. He handed Ricky a sheet of paper. ‘These are the instructions for setting up the clock. Use this knowledge wisely, young ones. You may want to look at them later or, just in case an unforeseen event happens, a bit earlier than later. So, I’ll see you back here in ten, er, let’s say twenty minutes. No, make it thirty. And I’ll then tell you if you have to go to 1980.’ He walked towards the lift, pausing only to adjust his nostril hairs in a mirror. The inquisitive hotel guests began to drift away in quite small but manageable drifts, leaving The Secret Five to discuss what to do next.

‘So,’ said Ricky, ‘it seems that we need to find a portal. Urgently! Very urgently!’

The others all nodded and murmured agreement.

‘Anyone got any idea what a portal is?’ Ricky added. ‘I haven’t. Shall we find somewhere to eat first?’

‘No time for that!’ said Betty. ‘It’s portal time. Let’s split up
and find something like a wardrobe that will serve as a portal.’

‘Tell me,’ said Daniel to Betty, ‘are you the only one of us who knows what a portal actually is?’

‘Woof woof woof!!!’ said Whatshisname indignantly.

‘Don’t be rude!’ said Amy. ‘Of course we know. It’s another name for a wardrobe. Silly boy!’

‘She could be right,’ said Ricky. ‘Do you know, sometimes I think Amy is much cleverer than she looks.’

‘Huh?’ said Amy.

‘Let’s spring into action!’ urged Betty. ‘Daniel and Ricky, you go find a handy portal. Amy and I will search for something like a digital clock.’

‘What about me?’ asked an inquisitive pale lady who had missed the cue for all the drifting away.

‘What
about
you?’ asked Daniel, rather firmly yet quite limply.

‘Well,’ said the pale lady, ‘I wondered if I could help you find your portal and something that looks like a digital clock.’

The children looked at each other for about two seconds longer than was necessary. Then Betty spoke.

‘I don’t want to be rude,’ she said, ‘but we are The Secret Five at the critical phase of an important adventure. We are highly motivated and highly trained in this sort of thing, and I’m not sure that you are allowed to help us.’

‘I don’t know why
he
does this to us,’ moaned Daniel, jabbing his thumb skywards. ‘We’re continually being interrupted by complete strangers who want to join our adventure and probably join our secret club as well.’

‘Nonsense!’ the pale lady said. ‘But if you don’t want to hear about the wardrobe in my room . . .’

‘Wardrobe?’ said Amy. ‘In your room?’

‘Yes,’ said the inquisitive pale lady. ‘But I’m afraid that the digital display alarm clock doesn’t get invented until sometime in the future, so you’re out of luck. You’ll have to stay here, in 1964. What a laugh!’

All of a sudden, Betty became quite grumpy, grumpier than she had ever been before, so grumpy that you could almost hear the sound of someone’s typing slowing down uncertainly. She spoke in a really grumpy voice to the others.

‘I’m getting fed up of this. I can fully understand why you walked off, Ricky. Chapter breaks and all that I can put up with, just about, but plot holes are something else. Is there some place we can all go and have a quiet chat without you-know-who listening? Without the dog?’

‘Over there!’ said Daniel, pointing to a handy sidebar nearby. ‘Let’s go in there and talk privately!’

‘Yes, let’s!’ agreed Amy, frowning.

In which several troublesome things happen, and Ricky regrets the lack of HobNobs.