And now here he was!
The Prime Minister himself strode in, hands clasped together over his head like a champion boxer, ready to take his seat.
Hamish studied him. Big, bushy, billowy, bristly beard like a Santa who’d just woken up. Little round glasses which made his eyes look even smaller than they were. The top of his head as round and pointy and bald as a pigeon’s egg.
‘He’s so handsome!’ cooed Madame Cous Cous.
The Prime Minister sat down. He was wearing a blue pinstriped suit and a bright green badge that read PM OK! (Everyone called him ‘PM’, which he thought was short for Prime Minister. In fact, they called him ‘PM’ because he never got up before noon.)
Hamish knew that Ernst Ding-Batt was a Prime Minister who was very keen for everybody to know just how brilliant his achievements were.
‘I am the tallest Prime Minister in fifty years!’ he’d tell anyone who’d listen, sometimes while banging his fist on a table. ‘I am the only Prime Minister in the history of this country to own a poodle!’
‘That’s very impressive,’ the people he kept around him would say, nodding to each other. ‘We’ve definitely got the right chap here.’
‘I can lift sixteen cans of Fanta at once!’ he’d continue, pointing importantly in the air. ‘I can say “excuse me, whose uncle is this?” in six different accents! I once fixed a broken pen using just my mind!’
That last one was his absolute favourite. It had been used a lot on posters when he was running for election.
We need a country in which pens can sometimes be mended just by thinking about how it would be better if they were mended
Anyway, it turned out that he didn’t actually fix that pen – someone had just replaced it with one that worked and forgot to tell him. But no one minded much because he was still pretty tall and could lift all that Fanta.
But the PM didn’t think any of this was odd at all. He treated his accomplishments as deadly serious. He was not one to laugh and joke around. What’s more, he’d never travel anywhere without Mysterio, his personal life coach and executive assistant.
The most mysterious thing about Mysterio was how he got that job.
No, actually, the most mysterious thing about Mysterio was probably his accent. It was absolutely impossible to tell where Mysterio was from, even though he’d shout everything he said really loudly.
‘AY-A AHM . . . MYSTERIO!’ he’d yell, and people would think . . . Italy maybe?
‘EET EEZ A NICE DAY!’ he’d continue, and people would think . . . France? Belgium?
‘UND NOW VEE MUST GO!’ he’d finish, and people would think . . . Germany? Sweden? Pluto?
Mysterio’s job was to walk around in a purple suit with little silver stars on it, looking wise and mysterious, and then whispering in Mr Ding-Batt’s ear. The only time he wasn’t shouting was when he was whispering. It was like his volume control only had two settings: CHURCH BELL LOUD and little old lady quiet. Everyone assumed that when he whispered he was giving the Prime Minister excellent political advice. In reality, he was just whispering things he’d read off a motivational calendar he’d bought from a garage. ‘Zee future eez now!’ he’d say, which is weird, isn’t it? Because most people agree that the future’s actually in a bit. ‘Ownly by looging inzide yowself can you trulee zee inzide yowself!’ he’d whisper, and the Prime Minister would close his eyes and breathe deeply and nod slowly.
‘Right!’ said Elydia Exma. ‘Cue the music!’
The theme tune began. The programme was starting!
But no one could have guessed that this would be the exact moment that something far more sinister started too.
Wait, What Just Happened?!
‘Good evening and welcome to the programme, which this week comes from the hall of Winterbourne School in the small town of Starkley,’ said Elydia Exma, her nose high in the air, but her beady little eyes fixed on the camera.
‘Yes – Starkley,’ continued Elydia, who managed to make everything she said sound like she was disgusted by it. It was as if she’d just found a sweaty sock in her minestrone soup, when she’d specifically asked for soup without one. ‘Now Starkley is, of course, already a famous town . . .’
Proudly, Mr Longblather nudged PE teacher Tyrus Quinn in his enormous belly, which made Tyrus Quinn rumble and burp.
‘It was the scene of a great triumph against some particularly evil monsters very recently,’ said Elydia. ‘But tonight we’ll be talking about a new potato-recycling scheme instead.’
‘Boo!’ shouted a person in the audience. ‘Down with potatoes!’
‘With me on the panel,’ continued Elydia, ‘is local MP Shepton Mallet . . .’
‘Hello!’ grinned Shepton Mallet, looking into the wrong camera.
‘We also have the Prime Minister, Ernst Ding-Batt . . .’
‘Aloha!’ said the Prime Minister very seriously. ‘That’s Hawaiian for hello.’
‘ . . . and the Prime Minister’s special adviser, er . . . Mr Mysterio.’
‘GREETINKS!’ said Mysterio, and everyone in the audience thought, Russia?
Hamish felt another little quiver of excitement in his tummy. This was pretty cool.
‘Prime Minister,’ said Elydia, ‘if I could start with you . . .’
‘Well, first of all let me first say that I own a poodle,’ said the Prime Minister. ‘And I am in fact the only Prime Minister in the history of this country to actually own a poodle. And I think that’s something I should just say from the very beginning.’
Someone started to applaud this, but then stopped quite quickly.
‘Yes,’ said Elydia, ‘But about this potato-recycling scheme—’
‘And what’s more!’ said the Prime Minister, standing up and making eye contact with the viewers at home. ‘I once fixed a broken pen with the power of thought alone!’
‘It was a different pen!’ shouted someone in the audience.
‘And, on the matter of this potato-recycling scheme, let me be absolutely clear,’ continued Mr Ding-Batt. ‘I am more than six feet tall in height!’
He paused, dramatically, then sat back down again. Lots of people applauded and said, ‘That’s true, yes, he is.’
Elydia tapped her chin. She wasn’t quite sure that he’d answered the question.
‘Yes, but what do you think about the potato-recycling scheme?’ she said.
The Prime Minister looked annoyed. Wasn’t it enough that he was more than six feet tall in height?
Mysterio slid the Prime Minister a piece of paper, on which was written ‘HERE EEZ WHAT TO SAY ABOOT THE POTATO-RECYCLING SCHEME’. The Prime Minister stood up again and put on his most serious face.
‘My thoughts on the potato-recycling scheme are as follows . . .’
Hamish had been listening quite intently up until that point. It was pretty cool seeing the Prime Minister up close. Normally, you only saw him on the news, standing in front of Big Ben, using words like ‘economy’, ‘framework’ and, of course, ‘poodle’. But Hamish had been slightly distracted by something.
Because what was that he’d just felt? A slight judder? A slight creak in the room? He looked around to see if anyone else had noticed, but they were all just listening to the Prime Minister.
‘Now look – potatoes are very important,’ he was saying, very sincerely, but Hamish was distracted again. The spotlights had dimmed just a little. An electrician standing by a satellite dish looked up and scratched his head.
‘. . . I myself enjoy potatoes,’ said the PM.
‘He’s just like us!’ whispered an old man to his wife.
‘. . . whether mashed, roasted, in chip form or even just eating one raw, like one would an onion.’
Wait – was that another judder? Hamish could swear he felt the room rumble under his feet. He glanced at his friends, but they just stared straight ahead, listening to the Prime Minister’s important words.
‘I remember, as a child, I ate a potato,’ said the PM, getting misty
-eyed. ‘These days I can eat up to eleven potatoes in one sitting.’
One thing was for certain: the Prime Minister was on fire! He had the audience in the palm of his hand. You could tell he was building up to something big.
‘Which means that, on the matter of potato-recycling schemes, let me be absolutely clear . . .’
Everyone, including Elydia Exma, leaned forward to hear what the Prime Minister was about to say.
Everyone except Hamish, that is, because something just wasn’t right with those lights. They weren’t dimming any more . . . it was like they were slowly pulsating . . . getting brighter . . .
And brighter . . .
‘And, just to be clear,’ said the Prime Minister, enjoying the limelight, ‘when I say I want to be absolutely clear, I clearly mean that I want to be absolutely clear when I say . . .’
PFZZZZZZZ-POP
A spotlight popped.
Then another one! Tiny pieces of glass rained down on to the stage and tinkled about on the floor. But no one paid any attention. The room was silent. Hamish seemed to be the only person in Starkley not entranced by the Prime Minister’s potato-based words. Everyone else was on the edge of their seats.
But Ernst Ding-Batt just stood there, suddenly seeming a little confused.
Had he forgotten his lines?
Mysterio pushed his little piece of paper forward with one finger again and coughed.
‘Yes, Prime Minister?’ said Elydia. ‘What do you want to be absolutely clear about?’
The Prime Minister blinked, once.
What great words of wisdom was he about to impart?
And finally he said . . .
‘I really like my little blue pants.’
No one said anything for a bit.
‘I said I REALLY LIKE MY LITTLE BLUE PANTS!’ yelled the PM. ‘They’re new!’
That was a bit of an odd thing to say. Especially on live TV when you’re supposed to be a serious Prime Minister.
‘You . . . you really like your new pants?’ said Elydia, struggling to believe her ears.
‘Yes,’ said the Prime Minister. ‘I really like my new pants. They’re proper comfy-womfy.’
Someone in the audience applauded this, confused.
‘But . . . but I was asking you about potato recycling . . .’ said Elydia, checking her notes. There were definitely no questions on there about the Prime Minister’s pants.
‘What do you mean potato?’ asked the Prime Minister, scratching his beard. ‘What’s a potato?’
‘What’s a potato?’ said Elydia, and then for no apparent reason the Prime Minister broke into a little dance.
‘Here!’ he shouted. ‘Film this! Film me doing my New Pants Dance!’
Outside, ten minutes later, Hamish watched in quiet confusion as the Prime Minister was rushed into a big black Range Rover with tinted windows.
‘EE’S A NOT FEELING LIKE A CHITCHATTYING!’ yelled Mysterio, slamming the door of the car, and at least four people in the crowd thought, Maybe he’s Mexican?
They’d stopped Question Me Silly early, saying the Prime Minister had been suddenly taken unwell, and put on an episode of Life’s a Dream with Vapidia Sheen instead. They’d done it just in time. The Prime Minister had already done his New Pants Dance, then tried to eat a raw potato and finally dropped his trousers so he could show everyone just how proud he was of his brand-new undies. A tall man in a soldier’s uniform and shiny black boots had immediately rushed him out of the school.
Mysterio had spotted Hamish looking up at him.
‘Oh, yerz . . . Hamish,’ he’d said, as he climbed into the front seat of the Range Rover. ‘Sorry for no chitty-chat. Er, I zuppose you could let us know if you’re ever in London . . .’
He handed over a business card with his telephone number on one side. On the other, it said:
The car moved away, lit by the flash-flash-flash of cameras, and, as it passed Hamish, he found himself locking eyes with the Prime Minister . . . and shuddering.
There was something very creepy about the Prime Minister now.
His eyes were wide, but it was like he wasn’t looking at anything.
It was like his eyes were blank.
Well, That Was Weird
The next morning, Hamish woke bright and early.
Like everyone else in Starkley, he didn’t really have a choice.
One nice thing about his town was that lots of people still had milk delivered in the morning. Most places don’t have milk floats going door to door any more.
Even in Starkley, things were changing as some people bought their milk from Shop Til You Pop or had it delivered in a big van by the giant out-of-town supermarket, Foodface. Jimmy called it ‘the relentless onslaught of commerce’, but not even Jimmy knew what that meant.
But every morning, in the wee small hours, tiny Margarine Crinkle would clamber into her battered electric milk float and pootle it right the way through Starkley, stopping to deliver glass bottles of milk on every street, like a sort of calcium fairy.
It sounds magical, doesn’t it? Such an old-fashioned and wonderful way of life! So simple, and so lovely! One woman, against the elements, early in the morning, delivering bottles!
In fact, it was really annoying.
Margarine Crinkle was about ninety-five years old and she was a terrible driver. Just the worst.
Every morning at 5 a.m., the people of Starkley would be jolted from their sleep by the sound of her milk float hitting a lamp post, or knocking off the wing mirrors of all the parked cars on the street and setting off their alarms.
SCREEEEEECH.
Ker-KLATTER-thunk-thunk.
BEEEEEP BEEEEEP BEEEEEP.
Then they’d hear her yelling some really terrible words indeed as she stumbled out of the milk float – which had probably crashed into someone’s hedge by now or might even be rolling down a hill because she hadn’t put the brake on.
Also, her knees hurt. And her ankles. And she was having awful trouble with her wrists. And she’d shout and grumble about these ailments all the way up your garden path and back down again.
And, as they lay there in their beds, eyes wide open, every person on the street would silently count the number of bottles they could hear Margarine Crinkle drop as she walked to their doorstep.
She was the LOUDEST milk lady anyone had ever come across. But, because she was also the last of her kind, everyone knew it was important to let her just carry on.
Hamish stared at the ceiling, thinking about the Prime Minister and trying very hard to concentrate on—
CLATTER!
Ahem. On exactly what could have happened to have made him go all—
CRASH! TINKLE! SMASH!
On precisely what could have—
BEEP! BEEP! VEHICLE REVERSING! VEHICLE REVERSING!
On the exact reasons that—
‘OH, NO! ME VAN’S OFF! COME BACK! COME BACK! OOF! ME POOR OLD KNEES!’
Maybe it was just time to get up.
‘Well, that was weird,’ said Alice, taking off her coat and walking into Hamish’s house. ‘Everyone’s saying it.’
She held up a copy of the Starkley Post.
There was a picture of the Prime Minister in his little blue pants and the headline:
WELL, THAT WAS WEIRD
‘I really don’t think anyone expected the Prime Minister to start showing everyone his pants,’ said Alice. ‘Mum says he’s probably been under a lot of pressure because he was working so hard, but then Dad said that couldn’t be true because he’s a politician.’
‘Maybe it’s normal,’ said Hamish, shrugging. ‘I’ve never seen Question Me Silly before. Maybe he always finishes it with a New Pants Dance.’
‘That would mean an awful lot of new pants, Hamish. I don’t think grown-ups buy new pants. I think they just wear them until they dissolve in puddles of grown-up sweat. Anyway, the Prime Minister is back in London now, and you know what that means.’
Hamish looke
d puzzled. What did that mean?
‘It means we’ve got to go there!’ said Alice. ‘You can’t nearly meet the Prime Minister and then not meet him! So I’ve been looking at bus timetables.’
She pulled out a list of bus times so long it unfurled all the way to her feet.
Well, thought Hamish, the strange Belgian man in the purple suit did say I should let him know if I was ever in London . . . but he didn’t really mean it, did he? He was just being polite, wasn’t he?
‘Now I think we should leave as quickly as possible,’ said Alice, ‘so that we can catch the Prime Minister before he has his tea.’
Hamish thought about it as he picked up a bag of rubbish to take out to the bins.
‘I’m not really sure I’m allowed to go all the way to London on my own,’ he said, opening the door. ‘What with me being ten. You too for that matter.’
‘My uncle could pick us up at the station,’ said Alice, following him out. ‘And we could eat a kebab. And you could meet the Prime Minister. And we could see the big city. And we could eat a kebab. And ride on red buses. While eating kebabs.’
‘You really want a kebab, don’t you?’ said Hamish.
‘But more importantly,’ said Alice, making her most important face, ‘we could go to No. 1 Arcadian Lane and see if we can work out why the blackbird wanted you to go there!’
Hamish thought about it some more as the morning sun warmed his face.
‘I’d have to ask my mum,’ he said.
‘We could be back by the evening,’ said Alice, feeling Hamish’s resolve weakening. ‘And you can tell her my uncle will be with us the whole time.’
But Hamish had a question for Alice. Something that had been troubling him.
‘Did you notice anything . . . strange happening during the TV show last night?’
Alice widened her eyes.
She held up the photo of the PM in his little blue pants again.
‘No – before the New Pants Dance,’ said Hamish. ‘Did you notice a slight rumble?’
‘A rumble?’ she said.
‘A rumble and then a pop?’