Explosive Adventures (8 page)

“Here,” he said, taking a piece of bubblegum from a tray on his desk. “This is a piece of bubblegum, is it not?”

“Yes,” said Billy, looking at the stick of Gopal’s Best.

“I’d like you to unwrap it,” said Mr Gopal, passing the stick to Billy.
“Then pop it in your mouth and chew hard.”

Billy was rather puzzled, but did as he was told. He slipped the pink stick out of its silver paper and put it into his mouth. Then he began to chew. It tasted fine, and the smell – well, that was exactly the same as it always was.

“Now,” said Mr Gopal. “I’d like you to blow a bubble. Just an ordinary bubble.”

Billy moved the gum around his mouth, getting it to just the right place for blowing a bubble. Then he blew.

He blew hard. Then he blew again. A moment or two later a small bit of gum popped out of his mouth, and a tiny,
almost invisible bubble appeared. Then it burst – with a little pop, like a frog’s hiccup – and was gone.

Billy sucked the gum back in. “I’ll try again,” he said. “That wasn’t very good.”

“Oh dear,” said Mr Gopal, wringing his hands. “It won’t make any difference. You can try and try again, it’ll be the same. You won’t do any better than that.”

Mr Gopal was right. Try as he might, Billy could not blow a proper bubble. There was something very badly wrong with the gum.

“It’s hopeless,” said Mr Gopal. “The gum just isn’t the same as it used to be.”

“But what’s gone wrong?” asked Billy, dropping the useless bubblegum into the bin. “Why won’t it work?”

“It’s a very strange story,” said Mr Gopal. “Would you like me to tell you all about it?”

“Yes,” said Billy, feeling very sorry for the dejected bubblegum manufacturer. “Maybe I can help.”

So Mr Gopal told Billy about what had happened. And it was indeed a very strange tale – stranger than anything Billy had heard before.

2

A Very Strange Story

I got the recipe for my bubblegum from my father,” began Mr Gopal. “He was a very famous bubblegum manufacturer in his time – even more famous than I am. He lived in India, in a town called Bombay, which is a marvellous, exciting place, I can tell you.

“He had a big bubblegum factory where he used to make a bubblegum called Bombay Best Bubbly. His business was a great success, but I’m sorry to say that one day a terrible fire burned the whole factory down – right to the ground. Nobody knew how it started, but it destroyed all my father’s property and he lost just about everything he had in this life. It even burned my father’s moustache off. It had been a wonderful moustache; now it was just a tiny, scorched line.

“So from being a rich man, my father became a poor man. Fortunately, there were one or two possessions which he
kept away from the factory, at home. These included an old black money box with two thousand rupees in it, and a small black book which he always hid under his pillow. That was about all.

“I remember the day after the fire, when my father came back to the house and called me into the front room. He stood there, with his sad moustache, and his eyes all watering from the smoke.

“‘I am an old man,’ he said. ‘And I want to say something very important to you. You are my only child, Walter Alliwallah Pravindar Gopal, and you are all I am going to leave behind in the world. So I just want to say this to you.
Remember that a Gopal is always a brave man – always – and there is nothing he is scared to do. Your grandfather, Sikrit Pal Praviwallah Gopal, was not even frightened of tigers and fought one with his bare hands when it attacked him. He bit its tail so hard that the tiger jumped off his back and retreated into the jungle. That isn’t at all unusual for a Gopal. That is how a Gopal behaves.

“‘The second thing I want to say to you is this. Now that I am a poor man, I cannot leave you great riches on this earth. All I have is this box of a few rupees and this book. Use the rupees to go off and make your fortune, and use what is
in the book to start a great bubblegum factory again. Remember that the Gopals have always been bubblegum people.’

“And with that my father gave me the box and the book. Then he reached out and touched me lightly on the head, went into his room, and put on a simple white robe. After that, he said goodbye to me, shook my hand, and walked out of the house.

“I watched him walk down the path from the house and then off on to the dusty road. People do that in India. When they reach a certain time of life, they sometimes just walk off and become holy men and never come back. That is what my father did.

“My eyes were filled with tears as I watched him go. I knew, though, that this was what he wanted to do – his heart, you see, was broken when his factory burned down. Then, a short while later I set off on my own travels. These eventually brought me here – to this town – where I worked hard, day and night, until I had saved enough money to build the bubblegum factory in which you are sitting right at this very moment.”

Mr Gopal was silent for a moment, and Billy wondered whether he had come to the end of his story. But he had not.

“You will be asking yourself, Billy,
What was in that book?
Well, I shall tell you.

“When I opened the book, I had a great surprise. I don’t know quite what I had expected to find inside, but all that I saw was line after line of writing that made no sense at all. My father, you must realise, had written the whole thing in code, and he had forgotten to give me the key!

“So I sat and looked at the meaningless jumble of letters and tried to make some sense of it. What on earth could
momixaying bomowl
mean? And why did the word
gomum
keep appearing? I was quite at a
loss as to what to do, and so I just carried the little book around with me, tucked away in my inside pocket.

“Then a short while later, on a long train journey from Bombay, I found myself sitting opposite a man who was busy doing a crossword puzzle. It was a hot afternoon, and I was half asleep as the train chugged along on its journey. But then, as my eyes rested on my fellow passenger, I was brought back to wakefulness by the sheer speed with which he was solving the clues. His pencil seemed to dart across the paper like a bird, filling in the letters, and in no time at all he had finished the puzzle.

“I sat bolt upright.

“‘Excuse me, sir,’ I said. ‘I noticed that you were very quick in solving that puzzle. I wonder if you could help me.’

“The other man looked at me over the glasses that were perched on the tip of his nose.

“‘You are addressing Mr P.J. Lal,’ he said, ‘the crossword puzzle champion of all India. If it is a crossword clue that is worrying you, then you are undoubtedly speaking to the right man.’

“I was encouraged by his helpfulness, and I immediately took out my little book and opened it before him.

“‘This was given to me by my father,’ I said. ‘And he did not give me the key to his code. It contains something I am very keen to read.’

“Mr P.J. Lal took the book from me and examined the writing. ‘May I ask you what your father’s name was?’ he said.

“I told him, and he wrote the letters of his name out on a strip of paper. Then the stub of pencil darted about, scribbling other letters underneath and moving them about. I watched in fascination and was very disappointed when, after several minutes, Mr P.J. Lal shook his head.

“‘And what was the name of your grandfather?’ he asked.

“I told him, and on another strip of paper he wrote out, in large letters: SIKRIT PAL PRAVIWALLAH GOPAL. Again there was much scribbling as he juggled with letters. Then he shook his head once more.

“‘May I ask where your father was born?’ he said.

“‘Bombay, of course,’ I replied.

“Mr P.J. Lal looked thoughtful for a few moments, but then he burst out laughing.

“‘Very simple,’ he said. ‘Take the Bs out of Bombay and you get OM and AY, do you not?’

“He did not wait for me to answer.

“‘Put an OM before each vowel – that is before any A, E, I, O or U. Then put an AY before the next vowel, and there you are.’

“I was not sure what he meant, and so he leaned forward and showed me.

“‘
Bubblegum
becomes BOMUBB-LAYEGOMUM,’ he explained. ‘And
these words, MOMIXAYING BOMOWL, are simply mixing bowl. Do you see what I mean?’

“I had to agree. It was quite simple, and now, with a little effort, I could read what my father had written.

“I looked up to thank Mr P.J. Lal, but he was already on his feet, reaching for his suitcase, as we were arriving at a station. He smiled at me, put his hat on his head, and disappeared, and I am always sorry that I could not have rewarded him in some way for what he did. But I had the key to the code now, and for the rest of the journey I sat and read the very strange story which my father had written down.”

3

The Story of the Bubblegummies

“Was it a recipe?” asked Billy.

“Yes,” said Mr Gopal. “There was a recipe. But there was much more besides. My father, you see, not only told me what to put in the bubblegum, but where to get the ingredients.”

Billy was puzzled. “Can’t you just buy them from a supermarket – like anything else?”

“Oh, you can do that if you want to make just any old bubblegum,” said Mr Gopal. “But if you want to make real bubblegum, bubblegum that remains wonderfully chewy for days and days, you have to put something very special in it.” Mr Gopal paused. “Can you keep a secret, Billy?”