Einstein's Underpants--And How They Saved the World (3 page)

The plastic telescope was in its usual place, aiming up through the skylight, and nearby three ancient rubbishy computers stood shoulder to shoulder on a desk made out of an old door propped up on legs made of piles of books. Otto had told Alexander that the computers were networked together, forming the most intelligent supercomputer in the world outside of NASA. He said they
were more powerful than the Death Star. Alexander actually reckoned that the real computing power from the three beige boxes was about equal to his digital watch.

He sat in front of one of the computers, moved the cup of cold tea that stood in the way, and hit the keyboard, waking the machine from sleep.

A box appeared, asking for a password. Alexander typed: EATNOYOGURT. It was what Otto had whispered in his ear.

The screen blinked a couple of times, and then Alexander found himself in the middle of an operating system he'd never even seen before. There were no desktop pictures, no icons, nothing but green letters and numbers on a black background, and a blipping cursor.

Eventually he figured out how to do a system-wide search. Not long after he found a file named: FORALEXTOPSECRET.doc.

His heart thumping, his mouth dry, he hit the return key, and the document appeared on the screen.

CHAPTER 6

UNCLE OTTO'S MESSAGE

My dear Nephew Alexander,

If you are reading this note it means that something tragic has happened. I have probably been captured by the enemies of humankind. They may well be eating me now, taking great big bites out of my legs, buttocks, nose, etc. etc. If they are not eating me, then they will no doubt be performing hideous experiments on me, the nature of which I cannot even begin to describe as you are only a kid and they will give you nightmares, although they probably involve sticking things into me using all available orifices. By the way, if someone else apart from my nephew Alex is reading this, then GO BOIL YOUR HEAD, YOU EVIL SPY. YOU STINK. AND YOUR MUM
STINKS. AND YOUR DAD IS A TOILET CLEANER.

As you (I mean Alexander, not the evil spy whose dad is a TOILET CLEANER) know, for several years I have been monitoring intergalactic radio communications. Most of the millions of messages I have picked up were in code, which delayed me for some time. However, I have now cracked the code, using a decoding device of my own devising. The message is clear.

The invasion has begun.

DO NOT DOUBT THIS.

I have confirmed it with astronomical observations, using my own nuclear telescope, and by studying the behaviour of bats, owls, foxes, wolves and other nocturnal species.

The governments of Earth are too dumb to understand the threat they face, and even if they did understand it, they are too stupid to act decisively. Too stupid or, AS I SUSPECT, already INFILTRATED AND PREPARED FOR BETRAYAL. I, and I alone, have foreseen all this. How? you ask. Me, an ordinary scientist? I'll
tell you. Many years ago I was given a precious gift at an international conference for cosmologists, which for security reasons took place at an institution for the care of the insane. A renowned German physicist called BARON LUDWIG SZCHITOFF gave me a wondrous garment that had once belonged to the greatest of all scientists, ALBERT EINSTEIN. This garment had MAGICAL PROPERTIES. The very soul of Einstein had been INFUSED INTO THE FABRIC. As a consequence, anyone who wears the garment gains a portion of the great man's intelligence. This will turn them into a GENIUS.

Like many things, this item of clothing could be used either for GOOD or EVIL. In the wrong hands (or legs) it has the destructive potential of a thousand thermonuclear weapons. In the right hands (or legs) it will save the world. Probably. Therefore I have concealed this item in a cunning hiding place that you, and you alone (that's Alexander, not the STINKY SPY – didn't I tell you to get lost?) –
where was I? Oh, yes – that you and only you will know about.

When you have found the sacred garment, you must begin the battle. You can fight alone but, as I have discovered, alone you cannot win. To win you must gather about you a confederation of allies, a league of heroes, a round table of valiant knights.

This is all I have to say. I hear the approach of the ENEMIES OF MANKIND.

Goodbye and good luck.

OttoAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGG HHHHHHHHHH . . .

CHAPTER 7

HOT WATER

ALEXANDER WAS STUNNED
. What could he do? There was no clue as to the whereabouts of the mysterious garment. And just what was it, anyway? A cardigan? A vest? A hat? On a whim Alexander went and picked up the purple bobble hat and brought it back to the desk. It didn't look like the kind of thing Einstein would have worn.

This is all just stupid
, he thought, and sent the hat gyrating away like a woolly flying saucer. Uncle Otto was a certified nutcase. The world wasn't in peril, or at least not in the way he thought it was.

He spun round on the swivel chair, ready to leave the smelly flat for the last time. As he twisted, his elbow caught the edge of the
keyboard which, in turn, bashed into the cup of cold tea.

The tea spilled out all over the table.

‘Drat,' said Alexander, thinking what a pain it was going to be to clean it up.

Tea.

The thought triggered something. Something about tea. About Uncle Otto and tea.

Or rather, Uncle Otto and his kettle.

Otto was convinced that people were trying to poison the water in his kettle. To thwart them, he had two kettles – the
dummy
kettle he always left on display when he went out, and the
real
one he actually used to boil his water, which he kept hidden.

And Alexander knew where.

He rushed down the ladder and went into the bathroom. He opened the lid of the toilet bowl, and there was the kettle. Feverishly, he opened the kettle. Then his heart sank. Nothing. The kettle was empty, except for the scummy toilet water.

He sat on the loo, disheartened. And
then,
ping!
It came to him. Otto was convinced that They were spying on him. He'd guess that They knew about his ruse with the kettle. So what would he do? He'd only pretend to use the dummy kettle, while secretly using the
real
kettle. The real one was the dummy, and the dummy one was real.

Alexander rushed back to the kitchen, lifted the kettle lid, and there, nestling in the dark heart of it, he found what he was looking for. He picked the thing out. It was a sort of pale grey colour, smudged with darker hues. Alexander guessed it had once been white. He unfolded it gingerly.

Pants.

Underpants.

Y-fronts.

Big.

Alexander dropped them with a squeal. ‘Yuck.'

Was this really the wondrous garment Uncle Otto had told him about? Einstein's underpants?

What a nutter.

Alexander thought about simply throwing them away. Or just leaving them where they were on the dirty lino of the kitchen floor. They looked like they'd be able to crawl off on their own to die in the corner. Or perhaps they'd mate with a cockroach and have lots of mutant underpant babies, scuttling about like floppy tortoises.

But he couldn't just walk away from the underpants. What if Otto was right? What if it really was down to him to save the world? And what if the only way he could do that was with the help of the grundies?

Alexander found a plastic bag and scooped up the pants, trying hard not to let them touch his skin. Then he returned to Otto's lab, looked around for a screwdriver, opened the cases of the three old computers and removed the hard drives. And then, with his plastic bag of unwashed pants and crazy data slung over his handlebars, he cycled home.

CHAPTER 8

ALGEBRA

ALEXANDER HAD BEEN
sweating blood over algebra. The thing was, he just didn't get it. He was good at maths. He was very good at maths. Give him numbers and he was happy. Adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, percentages – with those he was like a porpoise gambolling in the sea. He loved geometry and trigonometry. He never bothered with a calculator, even when one was allowed – he just found it easier to do it in his head or on paper.

But that all changed when, instead of numbers, letters appeared. He knew his times tables up to 20 x 20, but when he saw even an easy algebra problem – say, if x = 4, y = 6 and z = 9, then solve (x + y) (y + z) –
his brain turned to porridge. Algebra was his kryptonite. He reckoned he must have had some kind of nasty algebra experience when he was a kid. Maybe he'd fallen into a big pot of alphabetti spaghetti or something.

This was bad for Alexander's morale. Being good at maths was important to him, central to the person he was. If he'd been good at loads of other things as well – the shot put, country dancing, basket weaving, whatever – it wouldn't have mattered so much. But being good at maths was pretty well it, for Alexander. And that was partly why he'd disguised his algebraphobia. Hidden it. Lived a lie. If anyone found out that he couldn't do simple algebra, then a big part of his personality would be exposed as a sham. He'd lose the respect of his fellow nerds, and that would be the end of him.

Up till now it had worked fine. They hadn't really done any algebra in Year Seven. But now it had arrived. In class he'd
hit on a brilliant ruse. When Mr McHale asked for the answer to the problem he'd written on the board, Alexander shot his hand up, knowing that the teacher would say, ‘OK, Alexander, let's give someone else a chance for a change.'

But there was no escaping this first algebra homework assignment. Asking his mum and dad for help was pointless. May as well ask Umberto, their goldfish. Mum would say, ‘Ask your father,' and his dad would say of course he'd help, then sit next to him huffing and puffing and becoming increasingly frustrated, and then getting in a wild temper with the book – throwing it in the corner and saying it must have been printed wrong or something – and then going back to reading the newspaper.

It was then that Alexander thought of the underpants. They were still in the plastic bag under his bed. He'd hidden them there because he wasn't quite sure how he could explain having an old man's underpants
without making him and Otto sound like total psychos.

But now he was desperate.

He reached under the bed and got out the pants. He held them up to the light. They had obviously been laundered. But that didn't mean they were nice and clean. There was a mottled pattern of stains and blotches so ingrained that they were now just part of the pants, the way the brown liver-spots on his granny's hands were part of her.

No way was he going to put these on under his trousers. That was icky beyond endurance.

He tried pulling them on over his trousers. There was plenty of room for that. Einstein, Alexander concluded, was a bit of a porker. He looked at himself in the mirror. He'd never felt so stupid in his life. He looked like . . . Well, there was nothing really that he looked like except for a kid wearing a pair of old man's underpants over his trousers.

He sat at his desk and, still not quite believing what he was doing, opened his books.

The first question was:

10x – 2 = 7x + 4

Find the value of x.

He stared at it.

It stared back at him.

They were like two animals meeting in the jungle at night, not quite sure what to make of each other.

Alexander waited for the pants to kick in, to send their signal to his brain.

Nothing.

He felt like an idiot for even thinking that the pants might help him with his homework. He pulled them off and threw them in the corner. Tomorrow he'd burn them with the leaves in the garden. Except they would probably give off toxic smoke and gas everyone in the street, and the
police would come and arrest him, and at his trial it would be revealed that not only was he rubbish at algebra but he'd also put on a pair of dead man's underpants. Live that one down at school he certainly wouldn't.

Then Alexander had another thought. Probably a mad one. The underpants, when worn in the conventional area – i.e. covering your bum – were a very long way from the area you used for solving algebra problems – i.e. your brain. Perhaps if they were closer . . .

Worth a shot, now he'd travelled this far on the road to insanity.

He retrieved the pants and, feeling a torrent of emotions, including shame, excitement, humiliation, shame, shame, embarrassment and shame, he put the pants on his head.

He looked at himself in the mirror again. He looked like a kid with a pair of old underpants on his head. He started to laugh.
He laughed so much that he slumped onto the floor.

It was while he was on the floor that something else happened to Alexander. His mind started to whirr. It was most peculiar. Something, he thought at the time, to do with the laughter bringing oxygen to his brain.

He stopped laughing and stood up.

‘Why not have another look at that problem?' he said aloud to himself.

He stared again at the numbers and letters. Then he picked up his pencil and began to write.

10x – 2 = 7x + 4

10x – 2 + 2 = 7x + 4 + 2

10x = 7x + 6

10x – 7x = 7x + 6 – 7x

3x = 6

x = 2

It was easy. Why hadn't he seen it before?

He raced through the other nine problems
in five minutes flat. He felt exultant. He felt . . . extraordinary. He'd cracked algebra. He was . . . he was . . . a genius.

There was a knock at his door, and his mother said, ‘Alexander?'

‘Come—' he began, and in the nick of time remembered to rip the pants off his head.