There Ain't Gonna Be No World War Three, Chapter 10

10. The Way Out to the Spectacular View

In one of the rear seats, now that the coach was slowing down for Spitzenburg Castle, Ant could see two of the components of Operation Spoon being hoisted into place. He and Armand slid down their seats accordingly, so that their heads were not visible from the front of the coach.

The coach wheezed to a halt in the layby opposite the castle entrance. The doors at the front opened, and cold air flooded in like water into a submarine. Girls shivered. Boys attempted to stoically ignore it.

Fräulein Meinck raised the whistle to let everyone know it was there and could be blown at any time. “COME NOW, TSCHILDREN. VE HÄFF Ä TREAT FOR YOU ZISS MORNINK.”

”Sure you do”, grumbled Ant. “A half mile walk through the freezing cold.”

Everybody filed out of the bus – everyone, that was, apart from Ant and Armand, who remained hunkered down behind the backs of their seats. Every single Year Nine who filed past saw them, but every single Year Nine, at the sight of Armand urgently holding his finger to his lips, said nothing in accordance with the Schoolboys’ Unwritten Code of Not Saying Anything If Someone Holds a Finger To His Lips. At the front of the coach, Herr Riemann and Fräulein Meinck were counting heads. They were distracted by Cubic Zirc loudly complaining that Someone Had Stole Her Tampons, which made Herr Riemann’s cheeks shine like iron in a furnace. They were also interrupted by Porsh vomiting violently and extravagantly over three of the Year Eights; then, they lost count when Narinder lost her belly ring under one of the front seats. By the time Sukhbir was insisting it was time to get out her mat and pray to Allah, Fräulein Meinck had begun to get suspicious.

“How mäny off zem häff left ze cöach?” she said to the driver.

“Me an Herr Riemann’ve counted out the full thirty”, said the driver. Herr Riemann nodded in confirmation.

“Vhere are Cleöpätra Schäkespeare änd Änthony Stevens?”

“Complainy Luggage Girl’s over there with Team Three, an I can just see Anthony on the edge of Team One over there”, said the driver. “Know is dad. Eats down the Super Sausage. Drives an HGV."

"Also gut", said Fräulein Meinck. "COME NOW, TSCHILDREN! FOLLOW ME! CÄRE IN CROSSINK ZE RÖAT!"

As Fräulein Meinck stepped down from the bus, Ant and Armand poked their heads back up over the back of the seat. The driver was already sitting reading a novel at the front of the bus. The novel was entitled TOM CLANCY'S SILENT DEATH NINJA. A Country and Western CD was in the player, singing about a man who had a Burning Ring Of Fire.

"What now, Teds?" said Armand.

"Now we go out the side exit", said Ant. "By the toilet."

Surprisingly, Armand shook his head. "Soide exit sets off an alarm", he said. "Wakes up the droiver."

Sighing, Ant pulled out the thing he'd hoped he wouldn't have to use.

"WOW", said Armand. "It's a, it's a, it's a GUN."

"It's the Essential Mission Equipment", said Ant. While Armand hadn't been looking, he had wound masking tape round the dial that read HAPPY SAD ANGRY FRIT SEXY, hoping that this would prevent Armand from realizing he'd been shot on FRIT earlier. Unfortunately, this also meant that Ant was not sure what setting the Orgonizer was currently on.

"But that en't borin. It's a GUN. A really big GUN." Armand's eyes were gleaming. He wanted the gun. He wanted it more than anything else in the world.

"It's er, really boring as guns go. A sort of Star Trek phaser set on permanent stun."

"Ken I use it? Ken I ken I ken I?"

Ant could see the future in horrible detail, but realized he had little choice. "Careful. Don't use it more than once, the, er, battery runs down. Our lives may depend on it later." He handed Armand the Orgonizer. "This is the safety catch, this is the trigger. When it's in this position, it's armed. It's safe now. When you arm it, be careful, the trigger is sensitive."

Armand saluted, took the gun, and set off down the centre aisle of the coach on all fours like a Red Indian sneaking up on a buffalo. Every time the driver looked up at the road, Armand froze, one hand in mid-air like a stalking cat. It seemed to take him an eternity to get right up to the driver's seat, where he stood up, pointed the gun directly at the driver's head and pulled the trigger to no effect whatsoever. The driver continued to read his novel, oblivious.

"Try the safety catch", said Ant.

Armand swore and fell to examining the gun. The driver turned another page in his book, still unaware of Armand standing right behind him.

"On the back of the handle", hissed Ant.

Armand located the safety catch, took it off, made a thumbs-up to Ant, and with his tongue in the centre of his mouth, sighted up on the driver's head again and squeezed the trigger three times in rapid succession. The gun flared green and purple. The driver sat bolt upright in his seat.

"MINT", said Armand.

The driver's entire body was shivering if he'd been standing too close to a lightning conductor. Armand shot him five more times to make sure.

Zombie-like, the driver began removing his seatbelt; then, he staggered down from his seat onto the pavement. A broad grin had spread across his face, and drool was leaking from it. He had loosened his tie. He was spitting into his hand to smooth down his little remaining hair. He was looking at a group of little old German ladies across the road in a way that was both meaningful and unsettling.

"I only used it wunce, loike", said Armand, watching eagerly, "loike you said. But e dun't stun easy."

"He looks pretty stunned to me", said Ant. "Erm - would you say he's looking Happy right now, or Sexy?"

***

"Oh, no", said Armand, looking out of the window without really wanting to. "Oh, man, that's wrong."

From outside the coach came sounds of German outrage and handbag slapping.

"Never mind that", said Ant. "We've a long hard day ahead of us. We've got to get to Regensburg, and that means hitch hiking."

Armand looked out of the massive front window at the open road. "But we got a bus ere. Why don't we use that?"

Ant looked the controls over. He wiggled the gear lever experimentally. The keys were still in the ignition.

It wasn't too different from his dad's truck. It wouldn't bend properly in the middle - he'd have to watch out for that. But on the plus side, no need to worry about jackknifing...

But stealing buses was the sort of thing kids like - well, Armand did.

The steering wheel was the size of a sofa seat. The driver's seat was surrounded by rows of important-looking lights and buttons, just like on a Hawker Harridan A1.

He bit his lip.

"I dunno", he said.

***

"ÄND ZISS ISS ZE BEAUTIFUL SPITZENBURG CÄSTLE, PARTS OFF VHICH DÄTE BÄCK TO ZE DARK ÄGES -" Fräulein Meinck was strutting around the castle courtyard, quoting bits from the guidebook. Tamora, Porsh, Cubic Zirc, Sukhbir, Narinder and Harjit, meanwhile, were scanning the grey, forbidding windows for extraterrestrials they had no idea how to identify. Oddly, Cleo seemed to have woken up, and was standing in front of a stone arch that had been blocked off, stroking the brickwork, deep in thought.

"Is the castle Roman, Miss?" said Glynn, putting up a hand.

"Nö, Glynn, it is Tscherman", said Fräulein Meinck firmly. "But ze Tschermans learned how to build cästles from ze Romans, änd ziss cästle voss built by ä Tscherman varlord, Wolfram von Spitzenburg, who defeated ze Huns at ze Bättle off Hunnenfeld. Ze cästle voss originälly mäde off vood. It iss säid zät Wolfram häd a mägical shield zät mäde him Invincible in Bättle."

"It says here he had a few thousand other Germans with him, mind, miss", said Harjit, reading her guidebook.

"That's got to have helped ", agreed Tamora.

"That's useful, that, bein invincible in battle", said Porsh.

"Yeah, no-one'd be able to see yer", said Cubic Zirc.

Spitzenburg castle was not beautiful. It was grey. Made of massive stone blocks that sucked heat from a hand placed on them, its walls towered so high above its courtyard that they strangled the light. In more recent years, someone seemed to have tried to turn the massive central keep into a house by adding extra storeys and sinking in larger windows, but this had only succeeded in turning the building into a slightly friendlier version of Castle Frankenstein.

"Er - which particular fairytale was this castle in, miss?" said someone.

High above, crumbling towers closed off by signs saying VORSICHT! LEBENSGEFAHR! guarded the walls.

"What does VORSICHT! LEBENSGEFAHR! mean?" said Sukhbir.

"Well, VORSICHT is something to do with looking out", said Harjit knowledgeably, "and an Ausfahrt is an exit road, so I'd imagine that's the way out to the spectacular view."

"It's got an exclamation mark after it", said Narinder nervously.

"Everything's got an exclamation mark after it in German", said Harjit. "That's the way German works."

"Why don't you go up there and find the spectacular view?" said Cleo pleasantly.

"Welcome to the land of the living, Stevens", said Harjit. "Where are all the flying saucers?"

"I imagine they're off mutilating the local cattle", smiled Cleo.

"Cleo", said Tamora, "cattle are warm and fuzzy and you're a vegetarian."

"Hitler", said Cleo, "was also a vegetarian. How many team members do we have?"

"Seven including you. Now what about that proof you were talking about?"

"You'll see proof. I can promise you you'll see proof. Now", Cleo held up her hands and spread them thirty centimetres apart , "we're looking for a thing about yay big, circular, nonmetallic, more like a sort of ceramic. It has a spiral patterned surface, like an ammonite. It may be worked into the boss of a mediaeval shield, or it may have been removed from it."

"Would that be a shield", said Tamora, "that makes you invincible?"

"Smart girl. Are you sure we're not related? Two of us will distract the old man and his grandson in the café - the best-looking ones, which will be Porsh and myself..."

"Now just a minute -" said Tamora angrily.

"- whilst five of us, meanwhile, break in via the door to the servants' quarters over yonder. It hasn't been replaced in sixty years - it will kick in easily. Then they will spread out, one in the guest bedrooms, one in the servants', one in the library, one in the cellars -"

Narinder's eyebrows rose. "One in the cellars?"

"Don't worry, the rats are very friendly. You will communicate with me by text; I will coordinate your activity. It is imperative we find the device before anyone else does. If you find the device you will inform me immediately. Any questions?"

"I'm not searching any grotty old cellar", said Narinder, wrinkling her nose.

"Then you will take the library, and Tamora will take the cellar."

"I WILL NOT -"

"Do as you are told, sister. I will be in the café if you need me, eating cake."

Tamora was left speechless in the middle of the courtyard as Cleo swept off towards the café with the main group. Fräulein Meinck was telling everyone how Spitzenburg castle had been besieged by the Swedes, Spaniards, Saxons, Hessians, Transylvanians, Prussians and Bavarians during the Thirty Years' War.

"Something is very wrong", said Tamora to Harjit.

Harjit nodded, looking darkly at Cleo's retreating back. "I think I will be one of the good looking girls today. I ought to know what it feels like once in my life. Porsh - to me. Put your stoopid face on, but stay smart under it. Shakespeare Minor - you're in charge till we get back from the caff."

Harjit and Porsh moved in the direction of the café, after Cleo. Tamora turned to what remained of Team Bacon.

"Are we really believing this?" said Sukhbir.

"I mean, it's burglary", said Narinder. "Actual breaking and entering."

"She's getting us to take risks while she don’t take any", said Sukhbir.

"Yeah, an she moight just be a fruit loop", said Cubic Zirc, folding her doughy arms defiantly.

Tamora sighed. Her sister was, as always, difficult to defend.

***

"BLOODY HELL, he turned into that street RIGHT ACROSS US -"

The coach's brakes worked, but were alarmingly slow to do so. So far Ant had stalled the engine twelve times, ten times because Germans kept turning left into side streets across his path, as if they expected him to notice them doing it and slow down. Turning into side streets himself was a terrifying manoeuvre which involved occupying the entire road and chipping bits off buildings.

"I think I may have bitten off more than I can chew", admitted Ant. His hands were shaking on the wheel.

"D'you want me to drive?" said Armand eagerly.

"Erm. Maybe I'll carry on driving for a bit", said Ant, with horrific visions of the sort of road carnage Armand would cause in control of an intercity coach. A junction loomed up. "What's the right road for Regensburg?"

Armand flipped through the driver's AA Big European Book Of The Road madly. "Whass Germany look loike?"

Ant went the wrong way round a roundabout. Drivers hooted angrily at him. Oops! He would have to watch that. Luckily the roundabout was a large one and he was still able to leave it on a road marked REGENSBURG with a minimum of pavement-mounting.

"Germany", said Ant, "looks like a big square blob with another square blob missing on one corner. The missing blob is called The Czech Republic."

"I got a big square country ere on page twenny-noine", said Armand, showing Ant as helpfully as possible by holding the atlas directly in front of Ant's face while he was trying to drive.

"That's Spain", said Ant, ducking the atlas. "You want the country where all the place names end in BURG, STEIN and AMMERGAU."

"I got wun ere on page foive where everythin ends in AU."

"That's Wales", said Ant.

"St. Petersburg!" said Armand triumphantly.

"Russia", said Ant. "What do all these signs with yellow diamonds on mean, I wonder? Make that policeman sexy, Armand, he's flashing his lights at us."

Armand drew the Orgonizer with what was, by now, almost bored automatic ease and fired over his shoulder at the police car. Policemen were still able to drive when sexy, it seemed, but immediately lost interest in fourteen-year-olds driving coaches. The highway patrolman did a handbrake turn in the road just after an attractive blonde, and was lost in their rear view mirrors.

Ant made a turning off a roundabout down a gentle onramp onto a dual carriageway. "There, that should do it. The compass says we're going exactly towards Regensburg. I wonder what VERBOT DER EINFAHRT means?"

***

An old man was polishing glasses behind the counter in the café when the school crowd poured in. He looked at Cleo sternly through half-moon spectacles, as if he already knew her. Harjit and Porsh, meanwhile, might as well not have existed for him.

Fräulein Meinck took a deep breath, then exhaled: "ZISS ISS ZE CÄFÉ, VHICH VOSS NOT A CÄFÉ IN MEDIAEVAL TIMES, VHEN IT VOSS A STÄBLE -"

"Actually", said the old man without looking up, "it was a hayloft. The stable is on the other side of the castle." He swatted at a spider with his polishing cloth.

"You speak English very well", said Fräulein Meinck, taken aback.

"I read Philosophy at Oxford", said the old man without smiling. "My father was fond of England. He wanted both his sons to grow up as perfect English gentlemen." He started polishing the counter top, which did not need polishing.

"Did your brother go to Oxford too?" said Fräulein Meinck.

The old man shook his head. "I had the best of both worlds. I went to school in my own country, and then spent my time at Oxford punting and reading poetry on the lawn. My brother, meanwhile, was the only German boy at an English public school - Hey, Fritz, Hey, Sausage Eater, Hey, Dummkopf and so forth - and then went on to a Burschenschaft at the University of Heidelberg where students passed the time slashing at each other's faces with fencing sabres."

"Oh je". Fräulein Meinck made a face.

"Quite. But today, he is doing far better than I. He has aged very well by comparison. Would you like a coffee?"

"Bitte", said Fräulein Meinck.

The old man nodded. "Sie sind'ne Schwäbin, oder?"

Fräulein Meinck nodded. "Böblingen."

"Schöne Panzerkaserne in Böblingen. War da unterrichtet - hallo!"

Herr Riemann had burst into the café, red-faced with anger, dragging two bundles of rags duct taped to floormops. The floormops had been taped into crosses, like scarecrows, and were wearing coats, mittens and hats. The hats had been taped to papier-mâché heads of the sort primary school kids made by covering balloons with paper and glue and then collapsing the balloon. One of the shells had been painted a lurid fleshy pink; the other was slightly more suntanned. Behind Herr Riemann, two Year Nines, who had been told to hold the scarecrows at the back of the crowd while Herr Riemann counted heads, stood looking very, very guilty.

"I believe I recognize the pink one", said the old man, peering at the papier-mâché. "He came in yesterday. That other fellow I do not know."

"Two off our students", said Herr Riemann, "are missink."

***

The coach veered sharply off the autobahn, and Ant breathed a sigh of relief.

"So many of em", said Armand in indignant disbelief. "Dunt they know what soide to droive on? They just kept comin at us, tootin their orns, flashin their loights." He tapped the stereo, which he'd accidentally tuned to a German channel in search of what he'd referred to as bangin choons. "An wot does Geisterfahrer mean? They was sayin it a lot onna radio."

Ant gulped down five minutes of sheer terror with difficulty. In the rear view mirror, his face was the same colour as his knuckles on the wheel.

"I think it may mean 'person who is driving eight kilometres down a motorway in the wrong direction'. Possibly", he added, "in a coach." At the top of the offramp - which was, Ant was acutely aware, actually an onramp - the roundabout was thankfully deserted.

"We've got to ditch the coach", said Ant.

"Smart", said Armand. "We gunna set foire to it?"

"NO WE ARE NOT GOING TO SET FIRE TO IT. We are borrowing it. Not destroying it."

"No, you godda set foire to it, Ted", said Armand. "To get rid of fingerprints."

It had never occurred to Ant that this might be the reason why joyriders set fire to cars.

"We could just wipe the fingerprints off", he suggested.

Armand looked hugely disappointed. "Yeah", he sulked. "We could do that. I spose. But our prints're all over the back of the coach", he said.

"They're supposed to be all over the back of the coach. They belong all over the back of the coach. They just don't belong on the gearstick and the steering wheel."

"I spose. We only need to woipe the flat parts, moind. SOCO can't get fingerprints off this leatherette stuff."

Not really wanting to know how Armand knew what a police Scene of Crime Officer could and couldn't get fingerprints off, Ant pulled the coach gently to a halt by the side of the road and opened the doors. He liked opening the doors. There was a button to make them open.

"We've only got another twenty kilometres to go", he said. "We can hitch hike." He had had enough of driving a wall of steel only half a metre narrower than the road.

Armand sauntered up the road and stuck out his thumb - Ant pulled his arm down and shook his head.

"We've got to get away from the coach first. It'll look suspicious."

There was one advantage to driving five miles the wrong way up a motorway - no-one had been fool enough to follow them. Ant hadn't seen the car containing Mr. Karg and his friends anywhere in his rear view mirrors. In fact, he hadn't seen anything in his rear view mirrors that hadn't been travelling in the opposite direction sounding its horn loudly. Or its siren. Three of the cars that had come past had had POLIZEI written on them, and even Ant knew POLIZEI meant POLICE -

Whoah there.

"Just a moment." Ant fished frantically in his pocket and unfolded the scrap of paper that had been left on his chest that morning. He stood close up to one of the coach's huge wing mirrors and held the paper out to one side of his head.

"Oh wow", he said.

"What is it?" Armand was at his side instantly.

"Gibberish", said Ant, disappointed.

He had thought the scribble was English written backwards, but in a mirror, it was still just scribble. It now said:

HELP! DE HALIENS BENWEN GET DE A ME HEAD. ME FI GO NOW. DEM KOM OP YA.

"Dat en't English", said Armand disapprovingly.

"It en't Russian either", said Ant.

"Praps it's German", said Armand. "Dem, dat's a German word."

"Cleo might know what it is", said Ant.

"Let's geddit over to her." Bizarrely, Armand produced a brand new Blackberry pager.

"Armand", said Ant, "you've got one of those, but you've not got a coat."

"Gotta prioritize", said Armand. "Look arfter the important things in loife. Put the big rocks in first. Thass wot my child psychologist used to say."

"And was he right?"

Armand grinned. "Dunno. I it im wiv a big rock."

Ant grinned despite himself and held up the paper. "Copy that onto a text."

"Okay, old still. Wot's er number?"

Ant knew perfectly well that, if Cleo ever found out he'd given Armand Jeffries her phone number, his days would be numbered with a zero and a decimal point in front of them. He reeled off a number, hoping it was right.

I am going to be in so much trouble when we get back to the Heim.

A car was approaching down the road from Regensburg. It was black and white, and moving very slowly.

"We need to get off the road", said Ant.

Armand shook his head. "They've made us."

"They might not have done."

"They're droivin sloweren an Eastbourne fooneral procession. Course they've made us. Toime to make them. Sexy, I mean." He drew the Orgonizer slowly. As he did, the flap of masking tape tore away softly from the top of the weapon, exposing the wheel that read HAPPY SAD ANGRY FRIT SEXY.

He looked down at the wheel. The wheel that had four settings other than SEXY. One of which was FRIT.

"Armand", began Ant, "I'm really, really sorry -"

Behind Armand, two German men were approaching from the police car. Both of them had small sandy-coloured moustaches.

"Grüß Gott, Jungens. Habt ihr den Führer dieses Buses gesehen -"

Armand slid the wheel to HAPPY, turned and shot the nearest policeman.

"- wie eine schöne kleine Pistole. Darf ich eine haben?" The nearest policeman's face beamed so widely Ant was afraid the corners of his face would split. The second policeman's hand whipped down to his holster, far too slowly. Armand turned the wheel to SAD and shot the second policeman, who collapsed sobbing in a heap.

"Ach, es ist alles so sinnlos..."

Armand turned the wheel again and shot the first policeman, who stormed at Armand, whooping like a red indian and drooling. Armand turned the wheel again and shot him again. The policeman stopped short of Armand and began to circle him warily, grinning with bared teeth, trying to work his way round behind him.

"Stop shooting him", said Ant. "You'll kill him."

Armand looked round at Ant as if surprised he was still there.

"The machine that gun was adapted from was designed to kill farmyard animals painlessly", said Ant. "It will kill him if you keep shooting him with it."

Armand shrugged and changed the setting on the gun a final time.

"ARMAND -"

"Well, we got trarnsport now, Ted", said Armand, looking at the police car. "Real farst trarnsport."

Without looking, he lined the gun up on Ant and squeezed the trigger.

***

"We en't bustin no doors in", said Cubic Zirc, "an that's final."

Tamora's first field command was disintegrating around her. It was particularly difficult to object to what Zirc was saying about her sister because she wasn't sure she disagreed. Cleo had been behaving very oddly all morning. She had hardly spoken except to give Harjit orders, a thing she wouldn't have dared do, Tamora was certain, the day before - and she never, ever asked Ant to kiss her. Tamora had long suspected Ant and Cleo were pretending to be an item for some reason known only to themselves. Maybe Ant had asked Cleo to be his fake girlfriend to avoid peer pressure from the other boys. Maybe Ant just wasn't interested in girls.

Suddenly, her mobile phone went off with the factory standard ringtone - always suspicious. She didn't recognize the number.

It was a text in capitals, with an addendum in lower case. The lower case text said:

sum 1 left this msg on stevens bed larst nite may be u cn make mor snse of it thn wot we cn luv rmnd (the a dog)

She looked at the text in capitals. Her eyes widened.

"Oh my god", she said.

Cubic Zirc sensed something was horribly wrong with the world.

"Them aliens is comin for us”, she said. “To eat our faces an that.”

"Worse", said Tamora. "We have to talk to Harjit right away."

***

"I häff nötified Herr Schieß", said Herr Riemann, "zät two off ze boys are äbsent. He häss ordered a full search off ze Grounts."

"The Grounts", repeated Sukhbir.

"Ze Grounts of the Freizeitheim!" said Herr Riemann in annoyance. "He vas möst concerned. It vas necessary for Stefan to giff him a Soozing Bäck Mässage. Howeffer, I suspect zät ze boys are nö longer ät ze Freizeitheim."

"Why?" said Harjit.

"I häff been down to ze main röat. Ze police are zere. Ze cöach iss gone. Ze driver häss been täken to hospital viz full-body händbäg injuries.

"What happened to him?" said Porsh, wide-eyed.

"He made ädwances off an improper chäracter to ä group off Fränciscan nuns", said Fräulein Meinck.

"Those ladies down on the main road were nuns?" said Harjit. "I thought nuns, you know, went in for the Free Willy look."

"Zey vere in pläin clöthes", said Fräulein Meinck severely. "I imägine it voss zeir däy off."

"What, Sunday?" said Harjit.

"I ÄM FINISHED VIZ ZE PUSSYFOOTINK AROUNT ZE SUBJECT. Zere vill be NO MORE MIZZ NICE TEACHER. VHAT ISS GÖINK ON HERE? I äm VÄITINK FOR ÄN EXPLÄNÄTION." Fräulein Riemann stamped her foot and clasped her hand ominously around her whistle.

Eventually, the pressure was too much for Porsh. She shot up a hand.

"Please, Miss, Cleopatra's a fruit loop wot believes aliens've com down to get us, Miss."

Fräulein Meinck stood flabbergasted. Drugs she had been prepared for. Teenage pregnancies she had been prepared for. Interstellar invasion she had not.

"Porsche, you must stop tellink me zese ridiculous lies."

"It's Cleo, Miss! It's Cleo wot's lyin. An it's Porsh", said Porsh. "Loike the car."

Cleo looked up at Fräulein Meinck and shrugged as if to indicate that Porsh had gone several grades of fruit further than bananas.

"Ant an Armand's gone to the Proimary Objective", said Porsh, "wot is a salt pot. An also a town wot begins wiv an R."

"Regensburg?" said the old man helpfully.

"Yeah, that wun. Reggensborough. They probly alf-inched the coach, you know, blagged it. Nicked it."

"Stole it?" said the old man.

"Porsh", hissed Harjit, "you are so dead."

"Arjit's in it an all", said Porsh. "They are all mentalists dedicated to the purpose of mentalism."

"Zey stöle ze cöach?" said Fräulein Meinck.

"That Armand'd nick is gran's teeth", said Porsh. "If e knew oo is gran were, which e dun't."

"I äm callink ze police", announced Fräulein Meinck. She pulled out a mobile phone.

"Not so fast", said the old man, raising a hand. "I am sure all this is just a misunderstanding. I am sure no blagging or nicking has taken place. I am sure a nice hot cup of coffee and a black forest gâteau will resolve the entire situation." He reached for a bell on the counter, lifted it by its handle, and tinkled it briefly.

Fräulein Meinck looked up from her phone call.

"Ze police are all busy", she said. "Ä cöach driven by two teenäge boys is beink hotly pursued by four separäte police cars, all off whose drivers are missink." She sat down heavily on one of the café seats.

A middle-aged lady came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands, looking questioningly at the old man.

"Kannstu hier fortfahren eine Weile?" said the old man. He scribbled on a piece of notepaper, folded it up, and handed it to her. "Gib dies dem Jungen, wenn er heim kommt. Ich hab' was zu tun."

The lady nodded and replaced the old man behind the counter. The old man left quickly.

"Now", said the lady brightly, "who vants vhat?"

Cleo raised her voice unexpectedly. "I'd like a cake for everyone in here, please. I'll pay. Ich bezahle."

Harjit blinked across the table at Cleo. "Where you getting that sort of money, Shakespeare?"

"I went to sleep with my head under the pillow and woke up with a mouthful of sixpences. Ein Portion Schwarzwälder für alle", she said to the lady behind the counter, who nodded and began cutting up an enormous Black Forest gâteau.

Suddenly, the door to the courtyard banged open, revealing a breathless Tamora, her finger stabbing shakily across the café at Cleo. Cleo looked back at her in dreamy unconcern.

"Hello sister", said Cleo.

"Oh, Cleopätra", sobbed Fräulein Meinck, "you sink you cän bribe me viz Bläck Forest gâteau, vhen all you häff säid änd done for ziss entire holidäy häss been lies, lies, all lies!"

Herr Riemann held Fräulein Meinck's hand tenderly and glared at Cleo.

"That ent a Black Forest gâteau", observed Cubic Zirc. "It ent got no glacé cherries in."

"Yes", said Nigel Devonport, "there are going to be some hard questions for messrs Stevens and Jeffries when they get back from their little jaunt."

"Oh, shut up, Nigel", said Fräulein Meinck.

"It ent that bad, Frowline", said Cubic Zirc, holding Fräulein Meinck's other hand. "There's fluffy bunnies in the world an that."

Tamora, meanwhile, with hawklike intensity, was watching the Black Forest gâteau being cut. There were ten students in the café. The massive cake was sliced expertly into ten. Ten small plates were laid out - each one received a slice of cake.

Cleo rose and walked across the room. "Who wants to be first?" she said. She picked up the first of the plates, and picked up the slice that rested on it with her other hand. "I'll be Mother. Zirc?" She bent to put the crumbly, almost liquid cake, laden with cherries, smelling of chocolate and maraschino and creamy loveliness, to Cubic Zirc's lips. Tamora saw all three of Zirc's chins tremble in anticipation.

"You touched that with your ands", said Zirc; but Tamora knew Zirc would not consider this an insurmountable obstacle. She darted forward, snatched the cake slice out of Cleo's hand and, trying to touch it as little as possible, flew across the room, flung it into the ancient microwave and turned it on.

"Tamora", said Cleo, her mouth open in a barely maintained smile, "what the devil -?"

"That were my cake, that were", complained Zirc.

Tamora stared at the microwave, where the cake was dimly illuminated by the tiny bulb inside. She saw the cake deform, burst open, and spew out a rivulet of bright blue sludge onto the turntable. The blueness seemed to quiver and strain towards the edge of the turntable, exactly as if it were alive. As if it were attempting to escape. Tamora, never one to let a living thing suffer, fought the urge to push the OPEN button and let it out.

Then it began to steam, and shrivel, and finally blacken. The cake around it was completely unaffected.

"I thought you might like your cake warm", said Tamora, opening the oven, removing the turntable and showing it to Zirc. "One alien brain amoeba, deep fried."

Zirc was horrified. "That were gunna goo in my mouth."

"And in your brain shortly afterwards", said Tamora. She looked right and left.

"Where's Cleo?" she said.