The Case of the Exploding Loo (3 page)

Holly says it’s because I’m a stalker and the police are fed up with me ringing them five times a day. I prefer to think it’s a switchboard problem. So I call again, and again,
until the phone is picked up by my favourite policeman, PC Eric. PC Eric sounds older than the other officers and sometimes forgets what he’s saying, but he’s obviously important
because whenever I do get through, I’m usually passed on to him.

PC Eric listens to my theories. “I was suspicious of the shoes at first too. But my colleagues found a report about a group of soldiers killed by anti-tank fire in the 1989 Romanian
Revolution, leaving nothing but a pile of ash and several pairs of leather boots.”

“Tell your colleagues they shouldn’t believe everything they read,” I say, “and they
should
investigate Ms Grimm.”

“I’ll pass that on. I’m sure they’ll be grateful.”

I suspect PC Eric is not being completely honest. His voice squeaks in the middle, like Uncle Max’s when he says Aunty Vera’s bum doesn’t look big in her flowery dress. I
decide to spend some of the £84.73 I’ve saved for a graphing calculator (with touchscreen) on a pair of leather shoes so I can set them on fire and prove they couldn’t withstand
an explosion. That should convince the police The Case of the Exploding Loo still requires the attention of their best officers.

We have to find Dad. No one else can help me develop the brain ray we were working on when he vanished. And no one else can out-google Google.

When Uncle Max and Aunty Vera pop round to check on Mum, I ask Uncle Max to buy me a pair of men’s leather shoes. He looks down his nose at the twenty-pound note
I’m offering.

“You won’t get a decent brand of shoe for less than a hundred pounds.”

“I don’t need a decent brand. Dad says people who buy designer labels never have any money.”

“Does he?” Uncle “designer brand” Max huffs. “Well, your Uncle Max says people who blurt out every stupid thing that pops into their head never have any
friends.”

I decide to ask someone else to buy the shoes. Someone who isn’t Uncle Max, or Mum, who ’s still buried beneath Santas, listening to her new turquoise iPod.

This is a clue for three reasons:

The turquoise thing gets even stranger when I spot the turquoise Kazinsky Electronics van parked on the opposite side of the road, facing our house.

Clue or coincidence?

“Hideous,” Aunty Vera says.

“Mmm,” I agree. “Horrible colour.”

Aunty Vera stares at me. “What are you talking about?”

“What are
you
talking about?”

“That painting.” Aunty Vera points at the enormous canvas above the fireplace. It arrived the day Dad vanished with a note saying it was a picture of Dad and should be hung on the
living-room wall.

“Why on earth did you keep it?” Aunty Vera asks.

“Dad always keeps the gifts people send him after his TV appearances. He says it’s important to respect your fans.”

“He had fans?”

I don’t like my aunt’s sarcastic tone, or her use of the word “had”.

“He
has
loads. He calls them the Big Brain Buffs.” I don’t tell her Holly calls them the Doo-lally Daddicts. “Anyway, this is a portrait of Dad. We can’t
throw Dad in the bin.”

Aunty Vera doesn’t look so sure. “Well, I’ve never seen anything so ugly.”

“The note says it’s surrealist.”

“Mad-as-a-badger-ist, more like.”

Aunt Vera reaches for the picture. The minute she lifts it off its hook, Mum starts to scream. She keeps on screaming, not pausing for breath, until Aunty Vera rams it back in place.

As Aunty Vera wipes the sweat from her forehead and Mum relaxes back into the sofa cushions, I try removing the painting again, just for a minute, to see how Mum reacts.

Mum gives the same eardrum-shattering wail. I slam the picture back on the wall.

“Pythagoras!”
I shriek and then snap my mouth shut. Holly says my habit of calling out the names of famous scientists and mathematicians at times of stress is one of the
reasons I have no friends except Meccano Morris. And he’s more a science club partner than a friend.

Aunty Vera hits me with her handbag. “What did you do that for?”

“It was an experiment. I wanted to see what Mum would do.”

“Now you know. And know this: any more experiments in my presence and you’ll find yourself hanging above the fireplace, alongside that monstrosity.”

Aunty Vera can be scary. Holly calls her the Vigil-Aunty, which is a funny nickname unless she hears you say it. Then it’s not so funny because she’ll hit you with her handbag. A
vigilante is someone who takes the law into their own hands to avenge a crime. This makes it a good name for Aunty Vera, because if anyone committed a crime against her she’d vigilante them
into small pieces with her Handbag of Mass Destruction.

I gaze up at the picture. “Monstrosity” is a bit harsh, but the surreal Dad picture breaks all the mathematical rules of proportion for drawing a person:

I’m sure it all means something. I just don’t know what.

The background of the picture is equally strange. Behind Surreal Dad are two groups of people. The figures on the left have fuzzy features and it’s hard to tell where one person ends and
another begins. The figures on the right have abnormally large heads and more distinctive features, which show them laughing.

I thought the painting was saying people with big brains are happier until Holly said the big brain people were laughing at the other group. I don’t like that idea. It makes the picture
feel mean.

If you look closely, you can see a tiny figure half-hidden in the trees between the two groups – a girl with a golden crown perched on her extra-large head. Holly thinks she looks like me.
I don’t. I don’t want to be Princess of Mean People with Big Heads.

Surreal Dad’s left hand is holding a piece of paper covered in squares, circles and arrows, with a red cross in the top corner. Above the cross is a word with several letters missing, like
a hangman clue: L _ _ _ _ S.

I made a copy of the diagram to carry in my pocket and I’ve spent all month studying it. But I still don’t know what it means. I stare at the painting a lot. So does
Mum. Maybe because it means we don’t have to look at each other.

I shuffle behind the sofa and make a grab for Mum’s Curry in a Hurry earphones. I’m curious to find out what’s on the iPod because its arrival has meant the end of my one-sided
chats with Mum about electromagnetic waves and I don’t like it.

For one mad moment I think I hear Dad’s voice. Then Mum screams so loudly I can’t hear anything else. I drop the earphones and back away in alarm, covering my ears as I remember what
happened to the songbird in
Shrek
.

Aunty Vera shoves the earphones at Mum and tells Uncle Max to hammer another hook above the fireplace. As I flee from the room, I notice Mum’s nose is bleeding.

Mum’s nosebleeds haven’t stopped and she is steadily being absorbed into the sofa. But I can’t let myself be distracted from my investigation any longer,
especially now I have a suspect. Ms Grimm ticks two important boxes:

However I’m struggling with the most important box of all:

Dad’s views aren’t popular, particularly with Smokin’ Joe and the Toilet Trolls. I can understand their objection to Dad’s declaration that people with
low IQs (which stands for “
I
ntelligence
Q
uotient”, not “Idiotic Questions” like Holly says) should be banned from voting or having
children. But surely there are better ways to protest than setting fire to my textbooks and chucking my shoes into tall trees.

It’s a good job Holly likes climbing.

When I told Dad I was having issues at school, he said, “Many have had their greatness made for them by their enemies.”

That’s a quote from Spanish philosopher, Baltasar Gracian. Easy for Baltasar to say. I bet no one shoved
his
head in the school kitchen wheelie bin, or stuck a Post-it on his back
saying “kick me”.

“It’s your fault for being pathetic,” Holly says as she helps me pull wheelie-bin spaghetti out of my hair on the way home from school a week later. “You need to stand up
to bullies.”

“It’s hard to stand up at all after a wedgie.”

“Aren’t wedgies a boy thing?”

“Smokin’ Joe is an equal opportunities bully,” I say, pulling a wheelie-bin carrot from behind my ear. “I don’t know what to do. I’ve tried ignoring him, like
Dad suggested, but it’s not working.”