There Ain't Gonna Be No World War Three, Chapter 4

4. The Wheels on the Bus Go Round And Round

The coach looked like most coaches hired by the school; cramped, with only one easily blocked chemical toilet, down by the emergency door on the right hand side, and beautiful blue-and-orange tartan upholstery. Cleo had every confidence that the seats would itch like wire brushes after only a mile, and that the air conditioning system would reek of molten plastic. The coach would be their prison for the next ten hours.

"You're - OOF - absolutely sure we're - OOF - stopping at South Mims", she said to the driver as she struggled up the steps with two enormous suitcases.

"That's the third time I've told you now", said the driver. "What's so special about South Mims?"

"I like South Mims. It is the queen of service stations. My grandfather designed it. He is buried on the premises."

"Well, you can't take two suitcases full of luggage in here. You'll need to put one in the baggage compartment."

Cleo looked blankly at the driver. "I've only got one suitcase full of luggage. I've had to be very strict with myself. It has been very harrowing."

The driver looked meaningfully at the one suitcase, then at the other.

"Oh, luggage!" Cleo's eyes boggled desperately. "This suitcase! Yes! This isn't luggage as such, no. It's more, more..."

She gestured with a hand to give a clear and accurate picture of what might be in the suitcase.

"...more?" said the driver.

"OKAY, IT'S SEVEN THOUSAND POUNDS IN ILLEGAL CASH, ARE YOU HAPPY NOW???"

The driver looked coolly back at Cleo.

"If French customs get on board at Calais, my duck", he said, "do us a favour and don't try that one on them, there's a love. Now if you could just take one of those two cases back down the steps, everyone else will be able to get back on."

"Yeah", came a voice from the long line of pupils behind Cleo. "We all got our cases loaded already."

Cleo threw a haughty glance at the driver, then tossed her head in disgust and struggled back down the steps with both suitcases. Herr Riemann, the German assistant, scuttled forward to take them and transfer them to the baggage space. Herr Riemann was a sad, depressed-looking young man who had had the prospect of a happy teaching career in England shattered by the fact that his name, when read out to English schoolchildren, sounded like 'Hairy Man'. Cleo let Herr Riemann have one suitcase. She held on to the other as if it contained her mother's ashes. Herr Riemann, wisely, let her keep it.

"Very well done, sister", said Tamora from behind her. "You concealed your awful secret really well back there."

"Silence, vermin", said Cleo. "Now I have to get back into the queue. Rats, and worse than rats."

"If you didn't continually insult those around you, they might save you places in queues", said Tamora from her place in the queue.

"Over here", said Ant.

"Hey", objected a pair of Year Nines from behind Ant. Cleo ignored them. She had been attacked by hostile mind-controlling amoebas besides which Year Nines presented a significantly less impressive threat. She slid into place behind Ant, as smoothly as a donkey walking backwards. Knees were bumped by her enormous suitcase, which had no smooth child-safe corners.

"Why are you so interested in South Mims?" said Ant.

"Watch and learn", said Cleo. "You're going to have to lift this up into the overhead rack for me. My arms are too slender and beautiful to contain muscles. All those American Gold Eagle coins are simply - OOF - too heavy to lift." She hefted the suitcase one pace into the bus, resting its weight on the bottom step.

"What's a Gold Eagle coin?" said Ant.

"I've made far more money out of all this than those fools on Gondolin suspected - OOF. They've been hoarding this money for a long time. Some of it's really rare. Look at this -" she held up a large green banknote with a portrait of a woman looking very much like the Queen, only younger.

"What is it?" said Ant.

"It's a 1970 pound note, stupid. And this is a German Ostmark, pre-unification, a very rare 1964 print - OOF - where Karl Marx was accidentally given red staring demon eyes. I believe the printer was sent to Siberia. And this is a South Vietnamese Dong -"

"You seem to know a lot about this."

"I've been reading up on it. There's a potential goldmine up there for a discerning numismatist." Cleo pushed the case another step up into the coach, up to the driver. "OOF. Okay, Mr. Bus Driver, can I come on board now?"

***

South Mims was a car park filled with screaming children and bordered by massive blocks of stone to stop gypsies parking on the grass. It had toilets. But the toilets only had so many cubicles, and the coach's in-flight chemical toilet had already been blocked by the school's least sane Year Eleven, Armand Jeffries, who had expressed a desire to his classmates to "see the aisle run yeller wiv a river of wee". There were long lines for both the girls' and boys' toilets. As Ant walked out, Fräulein Meinck was standing next to the door ticking off names on a register. She was tapping her pen against her clipboard, watching the girls' toilet entrance like a hawk.

"Häff you seen Cleopätra, Änthöny? I äm missink her on my list."

"No", said Ant. "She did get off the coach", he added. "I saw her go into the café."
Fräulein Meinck pulled a mobile phone from her sleeve where it was jammed in among handkerchiefs, speed-dialled a number, and spoke rapidly into the phone.
"Im Café. Ja. Einer von den Jungen hat sie gesehen."

Ant hurried away. The coach was beginning to fill up with pupils again - mostly boys, as the girls' toilets were still jammed solid with girls doing whatever girls did in toilets. Ant, in a momentary flash of panic, scanned the car park for familiar vehicles, and immediately saw, right next to the exit, a large black Mercedes, the driver looking straight back at him. The driver grinned and winked.

Ant whirled round and ran to the café. He spent over a minute scanning every face in it - red-faced screeching toddlers, long-suffering mums, tired-looking pensioners, wet-looking motorcyclists. But no Cleo. He ran in and up to the girl on the checkout, elbowing past a soaking wet lady motorcyclist and an old lady who was mumbling absent-mindedly to herself whilst choosing a cake with more care than many voters chose governments. The old lady had dirty grey hair scrunched up into a hat that resembled a church hassock, almond-shaped spectacles, and a trouser suit that had been in fashion for several minutes one afternoon in the summer of 1965.

"Have you seen a black girl, just a little bit shorter than me? Did she come in here?"

The checkout girl shook her head blankly, as checkout girls did. The lady biker, however, said: "A black girl did come in here a couple of minutes back. She was quite pretty, lugging a really big suitcase, was that her?"

Ant considered the subject of Cleo being pretty, and shrugged.

"Well, she sort of hid behind that pillar there, then went out again. As fast as the suitcase would let her. She looked like she was waving to someone outside."

Ant ran out, just as Herr Riemann ran in, talking excitedly on his mobile phone in German. "Ich denke, sie sei nicht hier, aber ich suche -" The old lady, who seemed to have lost interest in cake, was nearly bowled over by him as she drifted out of the café as aimlessly as thistledown in a blizzard.

Fräulein Meinck blew her whistle; Ant saw Herr Riemann recoil from his phone in shock as the sound of it hurt his ear. The whistle was the signal for the girls to stop swapping lipstick in the toilets and move back to the bus.

"Qvickly please efferybody. For you, ze pit stop iss över." She ticked several more names off on her clipboard and looked across at Ant. "Änthöny, I am still vone Cleopätra schort off a full load."

Ant's mobile phone rang. He ripped it out of his pocket.

"Hello?"

"This will be a very short telephone call. You must tell Fräulein Meinck that I have met up with a friend and will rejoin the coach at Dover."

"You'll do WHAT? The coach is going straight there -"

"The coach will stop at least twice more for toilet breaks, and is being driven at a pathetic seventy miles per hour -"

"Seventy miles per hour is the national speed limit, Cleo."

"I, meanwhile, am being driven in the fastest vehicle on the British road."

Ant's imagination ran riot. "A Lamborghini Murcielago?"

"No. A small white van being driven by a Polish plumber."

A voice yelled in the background. "HELLO ANTHONY MY FRIEND!" Ant heard a horn and a squeal of brakes. "YOU GET OUT OF SLOW LANE, YOU HOG OF ROAD!"

Comprehension dawned painfully. "Prawo Jazdy?"

"Yes. He gave us his business card, remember? But only I had the forethought to hold on to it. Prawo is taking me to a location which must remain secret, in return for a very reasonable sum of money. And now, because I'm absolutely sure Alastair will be trying to trace this call, I must ring off."

The line went dead. Fräulein Meinck was frantically counting and recounting the heads in the bus through the windows. Being German, and despite the fact that she was looking for Cleo, she was being very careful to pay no attention whatsoever to the colour of the students. This made the job very hard for her, as she was having to count sixty black, white, yellow and brown heads rather than simply count the number of black faces on the bus, which was ten.

Ant put his hand up, slowly and without really wanting to.

"Ah... Fräulein? I think I have something to tell you."

***

"She said she was going to do WHAT?"

" - was going to London to see a friend." Ant was glad a hundred kilometres of England currently separated him from Mrs. Shakespeare, who was in a rage fit to shatter concrete. He held his mobile phone a full arm's length away for the duration of her next sentence.

"Änthöny, I äm very disappointed. I hope you did not häff änythink to do viz ziss?"

Ant was standing outside the service station in the rain, with his mobile phone shrieking into one ear, and Fräulein Meinck clucking disapprovingly into the other. An entire coach full of disgruntled, disapproving faces was staring down at him.

"What friend? Who was she going to see? Anthony, don't you have any sense of responsibility at all?"

"She said she was going to rejoin the coach at Dover", said Ant, in an effort to avoid lying.

"It iss time", said Fräulein Meinck gravely, "to alert ze Police."

"Cleo has never been in trouble with the police", said Mrs. Shakespeare, apparently attempting to talk to someone who could not possibly hear her. "And don't you dare suggest she could be."

"I'm really sorry about this, Mrs. Shakespeare", said Ant. "I honestly had no idea she was going to do it."

"Who has she gone off with?"

"I don't know. At least, I'm not sure how to spell his name. He installs kitchens and bathrooms at very reasonable prices. I'm almost certain he's from some country or other in Eastern Europe."

"You don't even know what COUNTRY he's from???"

"Letitia, Cleo only phoned me up and told me about this five minutes ago." To Ant's left, Fräulein Meinck had taken out her own mobile phone and was dialling a suspiciously short number.

"Don't Letitia me, Anthony, I consider you personally responsible for this. You paid for her to go on this holiday with you -"

"HALLO, POLIZEI BITTE - I mean, I vould like ze police, please."

"I'm telling you, this wasn't part of the plan. Look, this is Cleo we're talking about. I'm sure there will be a reasonable yet suspiciously complex explanation."

There was a long silence at the other end of the phone. Then Mrs. Shakespeare sighed.

"Actually, Anthony, I ought to be more sympathetic. It's quite obvious to me what's happened here, and I think you really do too on some level. Cleo has a boyfriend. Another boyfriend, I mean. One a little older than you are. I'm sorry to have to break the news, but it seems more or less clear to me."

Ant's heart leapt - he now had a way out of Letitia's line of fire - which made it all the more difficult to sound devastated.

"...oh no." The word 'no' seemed to be working, so he repeated it a few more times for effect. "No, no, no." He pounded the phone against his own head for added drama.

"The boyfriend is often the last to realize, Anthony. I'm terribly sorry Cleo has behaved so badly."

Ant put his fingers in his mouth in grief. He had seen people do this on television.

"You must promise to call me if Cleo calls you again", said Mrs. Shakespeare.

"Yes", he said. "But you'll have to get off the line now." He attempted to sound as if talking was becoming difficult for him. "My...my battery's running low. And there's no charger on the coach." He choked off these last words with a sob.

It was a stroke of brilliance. Mrs. Shakespeare now had no option but to get off the phone and leave him alone - otherwise, Cleo might ring again while his battery was exhausted, and he'd be unable to take the call.

He could almost hear Mrs. Shakespeare fighting the logic of it at the other end of the phone.

"All right", she said finally. "But give me the number of that German lady first. She seems like the sort of person who keeps her batteries fully charged at all times."

***

"You told my PARENTS???"

"I had to! Fräulein Meinck phoned them as soon as you went missing!"

Ant was sitting in the middle of a circle of absolute silence, as every Year Seven on the coach strained his or her ears to listen to Ant's private conversation. The deafening volume of Ant's phone speaker meant that they could almost certainly hear Cleo's voice just as well as they could Ant's.

"Ant, my parents will do terrible things to me! They will send me to Christian Retreat until small birds approach me without fear and stigmata appear in my hands and feet! Where are you right now?"

Ant looked up and down the motorway. Looking down into the fast lane, he locked eyes instantly with Hammond Karg, the government agent, who was sitting in the front passenger seat of the black Mercedes. Mr. Karg gave Ant an embarrassed half-smile and made a little wave with his fingers.

Other passengers had also noticed the Mercedes.

"Hey, that's your mum's private eye, Stevens."

"Shouldn't he be taking photos of your Dad when he's out nicking? What's he doing here?"

"No he isn't. He's there to make sure little Anthony goes to bed at the right time and never listens to the Devil's music."

Two of the Year Sevens appeared to have replaced Jake Moss as class comedians. Ant marked their names down for later. Sometimes bullying his smaller and weaker classmates was a grim necessity.

"I dunno where we are", said Ant. "Oh, hang on. I can see oast houses. We're in Kent."

"Can you be more specific? Ordinary people use large blue things called road signs."

"Look, we came down off the Dartford Bridge and took a left. We're in Kent. Where are you?"

Cleo's voice, on the other end of the line, could only be heard over the sound of a small diesel engine shrieking in pain. Her voice grew fainter. "Uh - Mr. Jazdy - where are we now, exactly?"

"WE STILL IN ENGLAND BUT ONLY JUST. I HAVE TO BRAKE HARD SOON OR END UP IN HOW YOU SAY ENGLISH CHANNEL."

Cleo returned to the phone. "I think we're in Dover."

"DOVER??? I HAVE THOUGHT YOU HAVE SAID FOLKESTONE!!!" There was a sound of tyres squealing as a small diesel vehicle skidded through one hundred and eighty degrees accompanied by a fanfare of horns.

"Tell me you are not on a motorway", said Ant.

"Uh, it's all right", said Cleo, sounding confused and seasick. "It's just a dual carriageway."

"SITUATION IS UNDER CONTROL. I GET YOU TO DOVER QUICKER THAN NEW BALL VALVE CAN BE INSTALLED BY TRAINED OPERATOR! YOU PASS NEARSIDE TO NEARSIDE, LUNATIC IDIOT KAMIKAZE MAN! YOU PUT HEAD IN BACK PART OF PIG AND SAY 'HELLO, BACK PART OF PIG, I COSY AND TICKETTY-BOO IN HERE, I STAY HERE TILL CHRISTMAS -!'"

"Cleo, listen carefully. You've got to get Prawo to stop his van well short of the ferry terminal. The police will be looking for him. And don't go into Dover on any of the main roads."

"No need to worry", said Cleo, who appeared to be talking through gritted teeth, "I don't think we'll actually live that long."

The phone went dead.

Tamora leaned over the back of the seat, grinning like a medicated beaver.

"That was excellent", she said. "Are you going to phone mum and tell her everything you just said, or shall I?"

***

The coach rumbled down the empty dual carriageway leading to the ferry terminal. It was still an hour before dawn. The streets were deserted. High above the town, the castle loomed, illuminated for the benefit of tourists, asylum seekers, and economic migrants. Far in the distance, the ferries themselves, gigantic white shapes the size of Revere class cruisers, lay at anchor, waiting to gobble up cars and coaches. The sea was showing its teeth, white daggers of foam on the tops of the waves, even in the relatively enclosed waters of the harbour. Ant could see no sign of Prawo Jazdy's van. That was either very, very good, or very, very bad. It either meant Cleo had taken Ant's advice and ditched the van, or that Cleo had been arrested by Special Operations, Alastair Drague's security force who, in terms of the unacceptable use of extreme violence, were rumoured to be to the police what the police were to lollipop ladies.

In the absence of Cleo, Ant was sitting next to Glynn. This was because nobody else wanted to sit next to Glynn. Glynn often wore the same shirt several days running, and picked his nose while talking to others. Oddly, he didn't seem to pick his nose while he wasn't talking. Glynn was very interested in tabletop wargaming with lead figurines, and had already informed Ant of the fearsome capabilities of his army of Chaos Elves. "They're like Death Elves", he'd confided, "only more chaotic."

Apparently Death Elves were capable of maintaining skirmish formation even over rough ground.

Behind the coach, well out of throwing range, cruised the Special Operations Mercedes, like a giant pilot fish following a shark. Hammond Karg was dozing in the front passenger seat.

Glynn was also reading a horror novel entitled WORM!, which had a picture of a human skull with worms crawling out of the eyesockets on the front cover. A review of WORM! on the back of the book read: "Squirming intestinal horror...TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT."

"Where is Cleo, Ant?" said Tamora from the seat behind as the coach cruised through the service buildings at the terminal's outskirts. "This is not funny, Ant. What have you done with my beautiful sister?"

"I haven't done anything with your beautiful sister", said Ant, and this was perhaps even truer than Tamora realized. "I swear that I did not know this would happen before today."

"He swears that he did not know this would happen before today", relayed Tamora faithfully into her own mobile phone. "Yes. Yes, he does look worried." She leaned over the seat again to Ant. "My mum says you should look worried, Ant. She is trying to contact your dad."

"Good luck with that", said Ant. His father, he knew, was on his way to Boulogne with a cargo of French cheeses that had been made in Gloucestershire.

"My mum wants to know how you know this man Prawo", said Tamora. "She is talking to a police sergeant as we speak. He suspects Cleo might have been kidnapped by white slavers."

"I'm pretty sure they'd realize their mistake quite quickly", said Ant.

"Ant, you are being deliberately obtuse and quite possibly racist. My sister could be in great danger."

A smile began to spread across Ant's face. His eyes were no longer on Tamora.
"You're right. She could. If she looks any more pleased with herself, that smile could go all the way round her and her head will fall off."

On the stern of the ferry nearest them - the very ferry for which their coach was now patiently queueing - stood Cleo, wearing a hoodie that said GOOD GIRLS GO TO HEAVEN - BAD GIRLS GO TO LONDON, and grinning down at the coach like an angry baboon.

"Oh my god", said Tamora. She turned to her mobile phone. "Mum! Mum! The lost sheep has returned to the fold! Repeat: The prodigal daughter has returned! One of our aircraft is no longer missing! The chicken has come home to roost!"

The coach rumbled on to the ramp leading into the ferry; almost immediately, it began to rock up and down unsettlingly on its axles. Cleo moved back from the rail on the upper deck, out of sight.

"No mum, I mean Cleo is back."

***

The ferry was pounding up and down in the grey Channel swell like a bad headache. Occasionally, plates clattered off shelves in the galley and the canteen staff began arguing with one another as if this was the first time such a thing had ever happened on a moving ship.

Ant was sitting at a canteen table. He was sitting opposite Glynn. Glynn was explaining, with the help of M&M's and Polo mints, how a determined unit of Chaos Elves could thwart even a headlong charge by Ninja Were-Bears.

"It's all in the morale bonus", said Glynn. "You get a plus three for standing in close formation." He ate three of the Polo mints to illustrate his point. "Shee how it worksh?"

"Brilliant", said Ant.

"Of course", warned Glynn, "this only works if the Ninja Were-Bears aren't in bear form."

For some reason, this irritated Ant. "Hang on", he said. "What's the point of having a Were-Bear that isn't in bear form? Otherwise it'd just be, you know, a man."

"A ninja man", cautioned Glenn.

Someone tapped Ant on the shoulder. Without turning round, he said:

"I was wondering when you'd turn up. Your mother is going spare."

Cleo slid onto the bench opposite, as if Glynn did not exist. Glynn, who was used to girls acting as if he didn't exist, simply shrugged nonchalantly, budged up a space on the bench and began to eat the remaining M&M's and Polos.

"I couldn't show my face before you'd all gone through Customs", said Cleo. "They might have stopped me going through altogether and sent me back home. In any case, all the Mother trouble will be sorted out by the end of this short sea voyage." She picked up an orange M&M and ate it.

"You just ate Elf Lord Magnolion", said Ant. "His troops will be at a minus one morale bonus for the next three rounds."

"Life's hard for an elf", shrugged Cleo.

"You cannot possibly sort out the level of Mother trouble you are in", said Ant. "You are in thermonuclear Mother trouble. You are in so much Mother trouble it may well spill over to me and become Father trouble."

"Luckily", said Cleo, "I am vulnerable only to green kryptonite and milk chocolate." She looked at the bar of French chocolate Ant had just bought in the canteen, which was sitting on the table in front of them. "That is milk chocolate, isn't it?"

Ant inspected the label. "It claims to be."

Cleo seemed to not so much eat as breathe in the chocolate, somehow arranging for the wrapper to remove itself on the way in to her mouth. "Omigog. Omigog, gat'sh betcher."

"I imagine so."

"I hagn't hag anyfing to ee'all gay."

"How interesting. Tell me more."

"Where are we ngow?"

"I went out on deck a few minutes back. I think we're close to Calais."

"I gon't gnow why we can'go froo ge Channel Chunnel."

"I think it was more expensive."

"And the school would have had to hire coaches at both ends", said Glynn. "You can't put a coach on the Eurostar."

"You're dribbling chocolate, Cleo."

"I gnow. I gneeg a shergiette." Cleo stood up unsteadily on the rocking deck and moved toward the condiments and cutlery.

"Do you know what a shergiette is?" said Glynn.

Ant shook his head.

From the other side of the canteen Fräulein Meinck strutted in like an angry cassowary, lip quivering, fury in her half-moon spectacles, her knuckles white on her handbag strap.

"But I know trouble when I see it", added Ant.

As Fräulein Meinck laid into Cleo in a mixture of English and Westphalian, Ant turned his attention to the table.

"So", he said, "run that elven shield tortoise strategy past me again."

Wordlessly, Glynn shook out another tube of M&M's onto the tabletop.

***

The weather was getting worse. Snow was beginning to drift down out of an icy sky. Despite this, and despite the face-battering wind, Fräulein Meinck had chosen to draw the entire coach party up in lines in the desolate ferry terminal car park. Everyone had their hands in their pockets and their arms drawn up tight against their bodies to resist the cold. Four Year Thirteens, looking very grumpy in three cases and very, very smug in the remaining one, had been selected as Team Leaders. Each one was standing out in front of his or her group as Fräulein Meinck delivered a speech with her whistle held ominously in hand. By now, everyone dreaded the whistle. It was so loud and shrill that Ant was certain it was making some part of the inside of his head bleed.

"PÄY ATTENTION ALL OFF YOU. Now, you vill häff noticed already zät certain off us häff a problem viz followink simple grount rules. I häd expected goot behäfiour from intelligent indifiduals. But instead ve häff seen people who do not cäre who zey make Vörry and Väit. For zis reason, ve now häff Team Leaders. Zese leaders are responsible for your behäfiour. If your behäfiour is bäd, zey vill be punished äs harshly äs you. For zis reason, I häff giffen zem ze power to punish you viz up to vone hundred press-ups or fife hundred vörds on a subject of zeir choosink. Zey are Justin, Serafina, Harjit, and Nigel -"

Nigel, whose hair was very well brushed and centre parted, was the one team leader who was smiling. He was in charge of Ant's and Glynn's team. Ant had a horrible sinking feeling.

"One hundred press-ups?" whispered Cleo. "I can't do one."

"I can, just", whispered Ant. "Do one, I mean."

"Venn ve reach ze place vhere ve vill be stäyink ät, each Team Leader vill be in charge of a dormitöry. Ze dormitöries vill be kept CLEAN. Zey vill be kept TIDY, änd FREE FROM ALL FORBIDDEN MATERIALS. A list of forbidden materials häss been provided to each Team Leader. Zere vill be a röll call at öh-seffen-hundred hours each mornink, anözzer at eighteen hundred hours each efenink, änd özzers ät rändom interfals vhen I feel like zem. Zät iss all. Your Team Leaders vill now distribute ze däily fäct sheets you vill be expected to complete in order to properly enjoy your holidäy, vhich iss NOT A HOLIDÄY BUT A FÄLUABLE LEARNING OPPORTUNITY."

Cleo looked at her watch again. It was a very cheap watch.

"Why do you keep looking at the time?" said Ant.

Cleo did not reply.

The wind howled in from Siberia. Ant felt the intense disappointment he always felt in Calais - that Calais only looked like a slightly Frencher version of Dover. To Ant's mind, foreign countries ought to look different. The sun should have switched off, and a sexier French one switched on, as soon as they'd crossed the border. But Calais was just like Dover - all corrugated metal warehouses, supermarkets and trucks.

"It iss snöwink in Baväria", said Fräulein Meinck with great satisfaction. "Ve shäll be Valkink in a Vinter Vönderländ. Onto ze cöach now, spit spot." Everyone in every team cringed against the aural impact as she blew the whistle a final time.

Cleo's mobile phone rang. Cleo grinned and, without bothering to ask Fräulein Meinck, answered it.

"Oh, hello mum.

"Yes, was it a nice surprise?

"Yes, I'm sorry I had to go to London to get it. Mr. Jazdy had to take me. I had to pick the colours.

"Yes, I'm sorry, it won't happen again. Do you like the colours? When did Mr. Jazdy turn up?

"I love you too mum.

"Bye."

Cleo clicked the phone shut and smiled angelically up at Fräulein Meinck.

"Sorry Fräulein. Please continue."

***

The coach was now approaching Belgium. Belgium looked similar to France. It was flat and green and Belgian. Two seats along, Glynn was busily explaining how an Orcish Banzai Doom Charge worked to Tamora.

"All right", said Ant, his gaze fixed solidly ahead. "I give up. How did you do it?"

Cleo smiled secretively.

"If the words 'wouldn't you like to know' pass your lips, I will pinch you", said Ant. "We are in an enclosed space and there is no escape."

"Money can accomplish everything, Anthony", said Cleo. "I paid Prawo Jazdy to take me to London, then to Dover, then to go back up to Northampton to install a new bathroom for my mum. She'd been wanting one since before Dad came under investigation from the Union, and she's been impossible to live with since Dad told her she had to wait for one because we didn't have any money. So I bought her one."

Ant was indignant. "You used the Gondoliers' money to buy your parents a bathroom?"

"I used the spare money left over to buy a bathroom, Ant. I told Prawo Jazdy to tell her it was a special free demonstration offer I'd arranged with the showroom. I had to make a sacrifice to please the Mother Goddess, or her wrath would have been terrible to behold. What I really went to London for was to make a cash payment to a bespoke tailor. Gondolin's uniforms will be delivered to a specified location to be picked up by Lieutenant Turpin in a week's time."

"In a week? How can they do that?"

"All the measurements were sent by email weeks ago. I just needed to pay for the order. You will notice I no longer have a suitcase stuffed with foreign cash."

"Ah." Ant was crestfallen. "So you don't have a vast amount of money any more."

"I have some", said Cleo. "Enough to feed you chocolate on a regular basis."

"Ah." Ant brightened. "What colour is the bathroom?"

"Aha, that's the thing. I got to choose for a change. It's bright Barbie pink. Dad hates it."

Snow swooped in from the white sky to die against the heated windows. Behind them in the left hand lane, the Mercedes was still following.

"Mr. Karg's still asleep", said Ant.

"Bless him. The other three look nastier pieces of work. We'll have to lose them once we get to Spitzenburg."

"That one on the left smirked when you said 'nastier pieces of work'."

"And he's not smirking now. That means he can hear what we're saying. One of us is bugged, Ant, and I'm afraid it's you, because you're a boy."

Ant blinked. "Come again?"

"Because they need to make sure that whatever they put the bug in doesn't ever get taken off. And you're a boy. At least three of the things you wear on any one day you wore yesterday too, and you have only one pair of shoes." She leaned far forward, took out a small electronic device with attached headphones from her bag, turned it on, and pressed the headphones against each of Ant's trainers in turn. "Bingo."

The Mercedes began to swerve violently from side to side. One of the men in the back seat, who also had headphones, appeared to be trying to tear them off.

"Your left shoe", said Cleo. "The heel, I think. They've put something in there."

"That's amazing", said Ant.

"No", said Cleo. "That's electronic feedback. I got this widget from Soldier of Death on Kettering Road. The man tried to sell me a hundred pound crossbow and a cruciform bayonet at the same time, but I declined." She moved the headphones all over the rest of Ant, watching the man in the Mercedes as she did so.

"Crossbow wasn't pink, I suppose", said Ant.

"Don't be facetious, Ant. The rest of you is clean, at least in the electronic surveillance sense of the word."

Unfolding a penknife, Ant levered a small electronic device, only slightly larger than one of his more impressive bogeys, out of the heel of his trainer.

"Give me that. We might need it later." Cleo took out her mysterious mobile phone, tore off some of the Bacofoil from it, and wrapped up the bug in the Bacofoil.

"Why are we keeping it?"

"While it's in tinfoil it can't transmit anything. But if we unwrap it again, we can tell them things we want them to hear."

"But they know we've found the bug now."

"It's always nice to have people you can talk to, Anthony", said Cleo, putting the mysterious mobile phone away.

The coach was now approaching a range of hills. Snow was on their tops. Cars coming from the hills still had thick slabs of snow on their roofs and bonnets. The cars had earlier mostly been Peugeots, Renaults and Citroëns. Now there was a scattering of BMWs, Volkswagens and Mercedeses.

"We're getting closer to Germany", said Ant.

Almost immediately, a sign flashed past saying:

A4
AACHEN / AIX-LA-CHAPELLE 1 KM
KÖLN / COLOGNE 63 KM
DŰSSELDORF 78 KM
FRANKFURT 253 KM

"That's spooky, Ant", said Cleo. "You have some weird sort of extra sensory perception."

"What?" said Ant. "Is Frankfurt in Germany?"

"Yes, Ant. Frankfurt is in Germany."

"It sounds like it should be in France."

"If you say so."