CHAPTER ELEVEN

Terrible, Terrible, Terrible!

Breakfast was ridiculous. My mum must have been up half the night cooking. And it wasn’t just breakfast foods – it was everything. Yeah, there were eggs and toast and cereal and pastries and all of that. But on top of that there were like six different curries, rice, pakora, samosas, laddoo, gulab jamun. I swear, the table legs were bowing under the weight of it all.

Mum watched me the whole time I was eating; that weird smile, those mad eyes. Eventually I told her I was full and was going to be late for school.

‘Oh, they won’t mind if you are a few minutes late,’ she replied. ‘Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. And so is lunch. And dinner. And snacks.’

I nodded and took one more small bite of the sugary pastry I’d been eating.

‘I gotta run,’ I said.

‘I will be preparing you an extra-special dinner tonight,’ she said, smiling down at me, ‘to make up for your difficult day yesterday. Won’t that be nice, hmm?’

‘Uh, yeah, great,’ I said, grabbing my school bag. ‘Can’t wait.’

This was bad. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. It might have taken me a while to spot it with Auntie Uzma, but I could tell with my eyes shut that this thing wasn’t my mum. No wonder Grandpa had figured it out so quick. I guess it’s the people closest to you that are the easiest to spot.

Umer and Wendy were already waiting at the school gates when I arrived.

‘Are you OK?’ said Wendy.

‘They got my mum,’ I told her.

‘What?’ they both gasped at once.

‘She went out last night and when she got home she was different. She’s one of them.’

‘Are you sure?’ asked Umer.

‘Positive. One minute she wanted to kill me, the next she was feeding me deep-fried sugar. She’s one of them.’

‘Oh, man,’ said Umer.

‘This is bad,’ added Wendy.

‘Tell me about it,’ I replied. ‘Without the track, we’re done for.’

‘But there must be a way,’ said Wendy. ‘There must be a way we can convince someone we’re telling the truth.’

‘Who?’ I replied. ‘Who can we trust for sure? Even if we could guarantee that person wasn’t a slug, how do we know they wouldn’t go talk to my mum? She’d just say I was just making it up, and then they’d be on to us.’

The others went quiet as they thought about this.

‘Our only shot was to expose them and it didn’t work,’ I said. ‘I was wrong. Hell, I should have never even been up there. I ain’t no rapper. I’ve ruined everything.’

‘Of course you haven’t, Humza,’ said Umer, putting a hand on my shoulder. ‘The track didn’t do what we thought it was gonna do. Nothing happened. That’s not your fault.’

‘Umer’s right,’ said Wendy. ‘The reaction can’t have been caused by the bassline frequency, as I initially thought, because it had no effect on them. It must have been something else.’

She was right. Why hadn’t it happened this time? Maybe it was never the track. Maybe it was something completely different that had caused the reaction in Mrs Masood.

‘Humza,’ said Wendy a moment later. ‘When it happened before, in the library, you said it started as soon as you began playing the track, right?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Tell me again,’ said Wendy.

‘I was sat on the floor. I hit PLAY, the bass and the beat all started playing. I was just thinking that my lyrics were actually pretty good, when bang! – a book hit me on the head. That’s when I looked up and saw Mrs Farooqi freaking out.’

‘Your vocal –’ said Wendy, ‘does it come in right at the start of the song?’

‘No,’ I replied. ‘There’s, like, ten seconds of instrumental first.’

Wendy was quiet for a moment. Her mouth fell open.

‘It’s not just the bass …’ she said. ‘It’s not just the music. It’s you!’

‘Me? What you talking about?’

‘I thought it was the frequency of the music, of Mr Turnbull’s unusual bassline, but it’s the whole song! And you’re part of the song! Your voice is part of that frequency!’

‘You mean, it needed me to work?’ I asked.

‘Exactly! It wasn’t until your voice came in that the frequency was just right. There must be something in the unusual high-pitched tone of your voice that mixes with that bassline to cause the reaction.’

‘What you talking about, “unusual high-pitched tone”?’ I replied.

‘You do have kind of a weird voice,’ agreed Umer. ‘Especially when you rap.’

‘What? No I don’t!’

‘It’s sort of like a cartoon,’ continued Umer. ‘But, you know, in a good way. It’s unique.’

A cartoon? What the hell was he talking about? What kind of rapper sounds like a cartoon? Man, I was an embarrassment. This was terrible.

Wendy had been quiet for a while, but then she lifted her eyes to stare at us. She looked like she might cry.

‘That’s the answer. The frequency of your voice. Because I removed the vocals yesterday the reaction never happened. That’s why it didn’t work. It’s my fault!’

‘No it ain’t,’ I replied. ‘If I’d been able to perform it would have been fine. So it’s still my fault.’

‘But if I’d just left the track alone you wouldn’t have had to perform at all. It’s definitely my fault.’

‘Trust me, Wendy, it’s more my fault than it is yours.’

‘It isn’t!’

‘It is!’

‘IT ISN’T!’

‘IT IS!’

‘IT’S NO ONE’S FAULT!’ shouted Umer, more forcefully than I’d ever heard him. ‘We’re fighting a bunch of monsters here! We don’t know what we’re doing. We’re making it up as we go along and no one will help us. Of course things are going to go wrong!’

We both stared at him, too surprised to speak.

‘Wendy, you couldn’t have known what part of the track was going to work before now. It’s why you’re so good at science and figuring stuff out – because you always experiment until you do know. Until you understand. And, Humza,’ he continued, turning to me, ‘you’re too hard on yourself. That’s why you couldn’t perform yesterday. You put so much pressure on becoming famous and rich and everyone loving you – of course you’re going to freeze up. You don’t need to be famous to be liked. You’re my best friend. I don’t care if we make music or not. I don’t care if you get famous. I don’t care about any of it. I like you anyway.’

I didn’t know what to say. I just stared at Umer’s big warm face and knew that, somehow, he was right.

‘Me too,’ said Wendy a moment later. ‘I never thought we’d be friends. But I’m glad we are.’

‘Thanks, guys,’ was all I managed to say.

It must have been windy out, because I suddenly realized my eyes were watering a little and I had to blink quite a lot to shift it. (Just to be clear, I ain’t cried since I was six – so don’t even go there.)

Standing at the school gates with my two best friends, I had no idea what we were going to do next. I didn’t know how to fix any of this. All I knew was that it all suddenly felt a bit less scary.

School felt different again that day. There were just as many aunties, just as much food, but the mood had shifted – for us three at least. Yesterday we had a plan, we had a way of resisting them. Today we had nothing. Today the aunties were winning.

Kids didn’t play in the playground any more. They just sat on the floor in little groups, sweating in the sunshine and eating sticky buns and toffee apples. And it was aunties as far as the eye could see. No dinner ladies, no teachers, no caretakers. Just colourful, cuddly aunties. Those mad eyes and weird grins.

Lessons were no better. The three of us just kept our heads down – ate as little as possible, said as little as possible. It was like we were just waiting for the end. Or maybe, just maybe, waiting for them to slip up. Waiting for another opportunity. But I couldn’t see how that was going to happen. They were too crafty. We still had no idea what they were up to. If we couldn’t get to the bottom of it, we were done for.

At the end of the day the three of us trudged out of school in silence. I don’t know what either of the others were thinking – whether they were still trying to work out a solution, or if they were just feeling as stuck as I was. Whatever the case, it was Umer who saw it first.

‘Uh, Humza,’ he said.

I looked up to see what he was staring at. Standing next to his car at the front gate was my dad. His arms were folded, his expression grim – but somewhere in his eyes I could see that little twinkle he gets before dishing out a punishment. Man, this was just what I didn’t need right now.

‘Get in the car,’ he barked.

‘I can just walk home with these guys,’ I replied. ‘I don’t need a lift.’

‘I am not here to give you a lift. We are not going home,’ he said, opening the passenger door.

I turned to the others. They could smell the danger in the air too.

‘Good luck,’ said Umer.

‘Thanks,’ I replied.

‘See you tomorrow?’ said Wendy.

I don’t think she meant it to sound like a question but I guess she couldn’t help it.

‘Yeah, see you tomorrow,’ I answered, then climbed into the car.

Minutes later we screeched to a halt outside a row of shops on the high street. Across the road, in the window of the electrical shop, I could see the video camera. Still on sale. Still twinkling in the light. I shook my head. It all seemed like a long time ago now.

I felt pretty confident my dad hadn’t driven me here on a surprise shopping trip though.

‘Out,’ he said.

I opened my door and stepped out of the car. I looked around the shopfronts, trying to figure out which of these places he was taking me to. The butcher’s to chop me up? The baker’s to incinerate me? The chemist’s to poison me? Turns out it was none of these. It was the last place I’d have guessed.

‘Get inside,’ said Dad, holding open the door of the travel agent’s.

‘Why are we at a travel agent’s?’ I asked him. ‘We ain’t going on holiday.’

‘No – we aren’t,’ he replied, pushing me through the door. ‘You are.’

I could see a familiar-looking woman sitting behind the counter. Mrs Hamid, I think. This was her and her husband’s place. We always came here for our tickets to Pakistan …

Oh no.

‘Dad, please don’t do this,’ I begged him.

He wasn’t listening.

‘Your mother says I cannot send you to Pakistan in a shipping container, even though it is excellent value. She is mad. But she cannot argue with aeroplane. Now sit down while I speak to Mrs Hamid.’

‘Dad!’ I cried, but it was no good.

‘Silence!’ he said, and he pushed me into one of the seats beside the door, before turning to the woman at the desk.

Fantastic. On top of everything, I was now about to be sent to live in Pakistan (probably the one place in the world where there were more Pakistani aunties than at my school). What was the point in even protesting? You never had any say as a kid. Life was just something that happened to you. You just tried to survive for as long as you could.

I sat there feeling numb to it all, staring at the pictures on the wall. No pictures of Pakistan, unsurprisingly. They were all the kinds of holiday destinations people might actually want to go to – big full-size wall prints of mountains, waterfalls and canyons.

Mountains …

Waterfalls …

Canyons …

I knew these pictures from somewhere. I got up and read the captions:

MOUNT FUJI

NIAGARA FALLS

THE GRAND CANYON

My jaw fell open so hard it nearly came off. The last thing Grandpa said. The teachers’ holidays. It all made sense. How could I have missed it? This was the answer! This was the link!

I was out the door and running down the street before my dad could even get to his feet. I heard him shouting after me.

‘You cannot stop this, boy! You are going to Pakistan! Pakistaaaaan!’

The words followed me round the corner and echoed in my head for at least three blocks. But it didn’t matter now. I had something. I had proof!

If I was quick I could still catch Umer and Wendy on their walk home. The two of them went the same way as far as Tunnoch Street, before splitting off in the direction of their own homes. That’s where I could intercept them. I ran like the wind (if the wind was a bit chubby from eating badly and not getting that much exercise).

I got there just in time to see them turning away from one another.

‘Wait!’ I shouted.

They stopped dead, turning to face me at the same time. I sprinted over, out of breath but desperate to explain.

‘Pictures …’ I gasped ‘Fake! … Holidays … teachers … Not real!’ I added.

They both looked at me, puzzled.

‘Are you OK?’ said Wendy.

‘What did your dad do to you?’ asked Umer.

‘He took me …’ I managed to say, ‘to the travel agent’s.’

‘Travel agent’s?’ said Wendy. ‘Why?’

‘Doesn’t matter … Pakistan … Not the point,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Grandpa’s last words … about the holidays … he figured it out …’

‘Figured what out?’ said Umer.

‘They faked the holiday photos …’ I explained, my breath beginning to come back. ‘They used the photos at the travel agent’s … Mrs Hamid must be in on it … They used the big photos on the wall there … Made it look like the teachers are on holiday … But it’s all a lie … The online pictures are fake!’

‘That’s interesting,’ said Wendy, ‘but how does it help us?’

‘Don’t you see? It’s proof. Proof there’s a plot,’ I replied.

Neither of them looked convinced.

‘I know it doesn’t seem big, not compared to giant slugs or whatever, but now we know how they’re covering it up. We can use it against them!’

‘How?’ asked Umer.

‘We can catch them in the act,’ I replied. ‘When they next take someone there to fake a photo we’ll be there to watch them do it.’

‘Stake out the travel agent’s?’ said Wendy.

‘Exactly!’ I replied.

‘But how does that help us?’ asked Umer. ‘Because we can follow them,’ I replied. ‘Find out where they’re taking everyone. Find their base. Find Grandpa!’

‘But we don’t know if they even have a base,’ said Umer. ‘What if they’re just eating everyone?’

‘Yeah, well hopefully they ain’t just eating ’em. But if they are, we can find out where they’re eating ’em. That’s got to be proof enough to get the police involved.’

The others thought about it. Wendy was nodding.

‘We can do it,’ she said. ‘We’ll all need to be there in case we have to take breaks for the bathroom or whatever. And it could take a long time. We’ll need an excuse. A reason to be out so long.’

‘Can we say we’re eating at yours?’ I asked her. ‘We can say we’re watching a movie afterwards.’

‘Uh … sure,’ said Wendy, smiling.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘Nothing,’ she replied. ‘I just don’t usually have friends over for dinner.’

‘This sounds kind of fun,’ said Umer. He was smiling too.

‘It could be dangerous,’ I said. ‘If they catch us, who knows what they’ll do.’

They were both quiet for a time.

‘But you still want to do it, right?’ said Wendy.

‘Course I do!’ I said, grinning. ‘One way or another, we’re gonna take these aunties down!’

Wendy called her mum to ask if it was OK if her friends came over. Her mum was so happy to hear she had friends she didn’t question it for a minute. I phoned my slug-mum to ask her if I could go to Wendy’s for a ‘cake and ice cream’ party, followed by a movie (and more ice cream). She bought it hook, line and sinker.

‘Oooh!’ she squealed. ‘That sounds like a marvellous idea! It is about time we got some meat on those bones!’

‘Yeah, nice one, Mum,’ I said, and hung up. ‘Man, it is weird talking to that thing. It sounds exactly like her, but it just ain’t.’

‘It’ll be OK,’ said Umer, accepting his phone back. ‘This isn’t over yet.’

I nodded. It felt good to have a plan again. Once Umer had let his mum know, we headed to Wendy’s to get supplies for the stake-out.

Fact. Linda Wang is my new favourite person. No question.

All mums should be Wendy’s mum. She was so nice to us! She wasn’t strait-laced like I thought she would be. She wasn’t like Wendy at all. She was fun.

‘Youuuu!’ she said, tearing the door open as we walked up the path. I thought for a second she was angry, but she wasn’t. She was over the moon. ‘I can’t believe you’ve been keeping your good friends a secret from your mum!’ she said, and grabbed me and Umer, dragging us into a big hug.

‘Mum!’ said Wendy. ‘Less!’

‘Oooh, I’m in trouble with Wendy Wang!’ She laughed, with a fake guilty look on her face.

Ha! Even her mum called her by her full name. I liked Linda Wang immediately.

In the kitchen she put out a snack for us, and at first I was going to refuse out of habit, but when I saw what it was I couldn’t help myself. Celery sticks and a low-fat yoghurt dip. Disgusting, right? I know. A few months ago I’d have run a mile. But now? Now it was amazing! It tasted clean. There was no sugar or fat. It wasn’t deep-fried or dipped in chocolate. It was like a tall glass of water after a trek through the desert. Thank goodness for Linda Wang.

‘So what are you kids going to do, huh?’ asked Linda Wang. ‘Would you like to see a movie or play video games? Or just watch a boring documentary with Wendy?’

‘Mum,’ said Wendy, looking annoyed.

‘Oh, you know you love a boring documentary,’ she said, and laughed.

Me and Umer, we laughed too. Then Wendy laughed.

‘They’re not boring. Not to me,’ she said, smiling. ‘But we’re going out. We’ve got a project to work on.’

‘Oh, so much schoolwork,’ said Linda, shaking her head. ‘You have friends here. Play a game. Run around. You will be old soon. Go and have fun.’

‘I am having fun,’ said Wendy, sounding irritated again. ‘Sort of,’ she added.

‘What sort of project are you doing? Need Mum’s help?’ asked Linda Wang.

‘No, we’re just doing a survey on the high street,’ replied Wendy, who seemed to be running out of patience with her mum.

‘I’ll drive you!’ said Linda.

‘It’s five minutes’ walk from here,’ said Wendy. ‘We’ll be fine.’

‘Hang on, Wendy,’ I said. ‘Maybe a car wouldn’t be a bad idea. It’d be more like a proper stake-out. Give us some cover.’

‘Yeah, but …’ replied Wendy, ‘she …’

‘I’d like to sit in a car,’ said Umer. ‘I don’t mind if your mum comes.’

‘Aww, come on …!’ said Wendy.

‘Then it’s agreed! Mum is part of the team!’ said Linda Wang, and she high-fived Umer and me. Wendy left her mum hanging, but Linda didn’t seem to mind.

Ten minutes later we were parked up outside Hamid’s travel agent’s, watching passers-by come and go. Linda was already bored.

‘I’m bored! I’m going to buy a magazine,’ she said, opening her door. ‘Don’t talk to any strangers,’ she added, ‘unless they seem fun.’

Then she was gone.

‘Why did you invite her along?’ snapped Wendy. ‘How are we meant to do this with my mum here?’

‘She’s OK,’ I said, grinning. ‘I like Linda Wang.’

‘Plus, you’ve got a nice car,’ added Umer, bouncing up and down on the seat.

‘Urgh … Fine,’ said Wendy, her arms folded, ‘but let’s not say too much in front of her. Trust me, we’re better off if she’s not overly involved.’

‘So what happens now?’ said Umer.

‘Now we wait,’ I replied. ‘Watch for anything out of the ordinary. Clusters of aunties, that kind of thing. They’ve got to show up sooner or later.’

‘Right,’ said Wendy, ‘but, if my mum asks, we’re just doing a study on pedestrians. Measuring average height or something. She’ll lose interest fast.’

‘You’re not really like her, are you?’ I said.

‘No,’ she replied quickly. ‘I’m not.’

And that’s all she said on the subject.

An hour later we’d not seen any aunties. All of us were losing interest, but no one as much as Linda Wang. She’d read her magazine twice and completed the word search in the back.

‘I’m borrrrrred, Wendy,’ she moaned. ‘Let’s go bowling.’

‘You can go bowling if you want. We need to stay here,’ said Wendy through gritted teeth.

‘Ahhhh …’ groaned her mum, and she flipped back to the start of the magazine.

Outside the car, people made their way in and out of shops. I recognized the odd face. No one looked out of place – no weird smiles, no crazy eyes. Just normal people going about their afternoon. Linda Wang was right: this was pretty boring.

Then, out the corner of my eye, I spotted something. A flash of colour, a blur of movement. We all clocked it at once. Aunties. A pack of them. Six at least. They were waddling down the street in a little clump. Blue, yellow, pink, orange – all the colours of the classic Asian auntie, brilliant against the grey concrete of the high street. But most importantly of all they were surrounding something. Something big. There was someone walking between them. And, despite the distance, it was clear in an instant who it was.

‘Mr Offalbox!’ gasped all three of us at once.

‘They finally got him,’ I said.

They were wobbling up the street towards us, taking funny little steps. They looked like a group of pigeons when they try to run away from you without flying. They bumbled and weaved in and out among one another as they shepherded their enormous prize up the street. They were heading in the direction of the travel agent’s. I had my fingers crossed that I was right about all this.

‘Come on … come on …’ I said.

Closer and closer they waddled. Closer and closer to the front door. Closer and closer to our car. We all sank a little in our seats as they drew up, but they didn’t spot us. Instead they came to a stop right outside the travel agent’s. And then, one at a time, they began to file inside.

Mr Offalbox didn’t look himself as he shuffled past us. His eyes were dopey and half closed. It was the same look the teachers had worn in their holiday photos. He was letting himself be led along without any protest. This was definitely it! They were here for the cover-up!

‘You were right!’ said Wendy. ‘You were right!’

‘What’s going on?’ asked Linda.

‘Shh!’ snapped Wendy.

Linda shook her head and went back to her magazine. We sat in silence and watched. It was hard to see what was going on inside. It was just a mess of colour and movement as the aunties shuffled around the place. Then came a bright camera flash, followed by two more. And, a moment after that, the door opened and the aunties began to spill back out.

‘They’ve done it,’ said Wendy. ‘They’ve taken the photos.’

‘Linda Wang,’ I said. ‘Follow those aunties.’

‘Huh?’ replied Linda, looking up.

‘You heard him, Mum,’ snapped Wendy. ‘We need to tail that group of middle-aged Pakistani women.’

There was a short pause as Linda Wang considered this request.

‘OK,’ she said with a smile, and started the engine.

We crawled down the road behind them, keeping a safe distance. The odd car beeped at Linda for driving so slowly, but she just shouted at them out the window.

‘Go round! Go round!’ she yelled. ‘We’re doing homework!’

The aunties never looked back though. Wherever they were heading, they were going there as fast as their stubby little legs could carry them. And the headmaster was still right there at their centre.

We followed them off the high street and along a number of smaller roads. They were the kind of local streets you were sure you’d been down at some point, but couldn’t really remember when. There were fewer shops and houses here. The handful of businesses that remained open looked rough and kind of filthy. One was burned out, another was just an empty lot filled with rubble. It wasn’t the sort of neighbourhood you’d normally expect to find a nice group of aunties in. But that didn’t seem to stop them. They just waddled on like the penguins in that documentary about penguins.

And then they were gone – in through the front door of a big, dirty old warehouse. Linda Wang rolled to a slow stop.

‘That was fun,’ she said, looking round at us. ‘Who shall we follow next?’

‘No one,’ said Wendy. ‘Now we stay here and observe.’

‘Oh, come on!’ said her mum. ‘We’ve been doing that for hours. Let’s go and see a movie.’

‘This is important, Mum!’ said Wendy. ‘We need to see what they do next … for our, uh, homework.’

‘This is weird homework,’ said Linda Wang, shifting her position until she was lower in her seat. ‘I’m going to sleep. You’re boring, Wendy Wang.’

And, with that, she shut her eyes and started to doze off.

‘What do you think it is?’ asked Umer in a whisper.

‘Don’t know,’ I replied. ‘Some sort of headquarters maybe?’

‘Do you suppose this is where they’ve taken all the teachers?’ whispered Wendy.

‘It must be,’ I said.

‘But what for?’ said Umer.

We sat there staring at the big dirty building and imagined what could possibly be going on in there. We knew there was only one way to find out.

We had to get inside.