I lifted my eyes up to look at where I was going to pinch Hils. I thought about pinching her on the cheek but it occurred to me that she would be expecting that because that’s where she had pinched me. Then it occurred to me that she would know I would think that and maybe she would be thinking that I was going to pinch her somewhere other than the cheek because she had just pinched me on the cheek. So would pinching her on the cheek be more of a surprise than pinching her somewhere else?

  I decided I was going to pinch her on the ear. It is close enough to the cheek that Hils might think I was going to pinch her on the cheek but then get taken by surprise when I actually pinched her ear.

  My hand – fingers ready to pinch – was halfway between her cheek and ear when the next thing I knew I was lying on the ground with my hand up behind my back and Hils was standing over the top of me.

  Hils didn’t seem to understand that really awful things are meant to happen to you in slow motion. She just went in really fast motion.

  ‘That’s how you defend yourself against someone who is trying to pinch you.’

  ‘Ouch,’ I said.

  ‘Do you need me to show you again?’

  ‘Ouch,’ I said.

  I had no idea what Hils had done and I had no idea how to defend myself against someone who was trying to pinch me, but I did not want her to show me again.

  22

  THE TEETH

  ‘Are those false teeth?’ I said as Hils took what looked a lot like a bunch of false teeth out of her backpack.

  ‘Affirmative.’

  ‘Where did you get them?’

  ‘Evan’s Everything Emporium.’

  ‘Why did you get them?’

  ‘They’re part of our training,’ said Hils. ‘They’re one of the weapons the Stinkly Wrinklys will use against us.’

  Something occurred to me.

  ‘How do you know so much about the weapons the Stinkly Wrinklys are going to use against us?’

  ‘I read a book called Grannies At War! It seems Stinkly Wrinklys have been involved in a lot of wars – going right back to the days of ancient Mesopotamia.’

  ‘I had no idea we were going to start a war against some Stinkly Wrinklys who knew a lot about war. Especially from the days of ancient Mesopotamia.’

  Hils then took something else out of her backpack. It looked like a really little fishing net.

  ‘What’s that?’ I said.

  ‘It’s a hairnet.’

  ‘What’s a hairnet for?’

  ‘Stinkly Wrinklys put it over their hair.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘When you get old, does your hair try and run off your head and you have to try and keep it from escaping with a net?’

  ‘I have no intel on that.’

  That’s the army way of saying, ‘No idea’.

  ‘There wasn’t anything about hairnets in the Grannies At War! book?’

  ‘There wasn’t anything about why they wear them on their heads. What was in the Grannies At War! book was this.’

  Hils took all the false teeth and dropped them into the hairnet. She tied the open end of the false-teeth-filled hairnet in a knot.

  ‘That looks like it could really hurt someone,’ I said.

  ‘Affirmative. It’s called a “gnashing gnet”.’

  ‘What do you do with it?’ I said.

  ‘What do you think you do with it?’ said Hils.

  ‘I think you grab the end with the knot in it and swing it round and round above your head until it’s going really fast and then you hit someone with it and it really, really, really hurts.’

  I was right.

  Hils grabbed the end with the knot in it and swung the gnashing gnet round and round above her head.

  Then she hit me with it.

  I was exactly right.

  It really, really, really hurt.

  23

  THE HANDKERCHIEF

  ‘You’re probably wondering,’ said Hils, ‘why I have brought you to the middle of a really big park for the next phase of our training?’

  ‘I’ve spent the whole walk over here trying not to wonder that,’ I said.

  ‘It’s because of this.’

  Out of her backpack Hils took a square-something wrapped in a heavy brown cloth. She laid it on the ground and slowly removed the cloth. Sitting in the middle of the cloth was a square of white . . . stuff. Actually, it wasn’t really white at all. It was the sort-of-white that white things become after they’ve been used for a whole lot of stuff that white things shouldn’t be used for. Some bits of the sort-of-white thing were flat, some were bumpy. There were sticky-outie bits, there were sticky-downy bits.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘All Stinkly Wrinklys carry handkerchiefs,’ said Hils. ‘They’re always using their handkerchiefs to wipe their noses. Their handkerchiefs get covered in Stinkly Wrinkly snot. The snot dries. The handkerchiefs become rock hard. They transform from hankies into rock-hard, super-sharp-edged throwing weapons.’

  Hils picked up the rock-hard-super-sharp-edged-throwing-hankie. It looked dangerous. Rock-hard-super-sharp-edged-throwing dangerous.

  ‘Where did you find out about these?’

  ‘You don’t want to know,’ said Hils.

  She was wrong. I did want to know. I really did want to know. I also really didn’t want to know.

  The really-didn’t-want-to-know bit won.

  ‘You’re right. I don’t want to know.’

  Hils moved the rock-hard-throwing-hankie back and forth and it flashed in the sun.

  ‘That looks very dangerous.’

  ‘See that tree at the other end of the park?’ said Hils.

  I had never felt sorry for a tree before. I did now.

  ‘Watch this,’ said Hils.

  She slowly pulled her arm back and then whipped it forward and threw the rock-hard-super-sharp-edged-throwing-hankie straight at the tree. The throwing-hankie sliced through the air like a cross between an arrow and a frisbee but with none of the fun parts of a frisbee and all the sticking-into-you-and-you-dying parts of an arrow.

  The throwing-hankie hit the tree.

  Well, I think it hit the tree. The tree was such a long way away that it was difficult to tell.

  Hils and I walked over to the tree.

  We reached the tree. There was the throwing-hankie. Stuck right into the tree. Deep into the tree.

  ‘If it can do that to a tree, imagine what it could do to you.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I will not imagine that.’

  24

  THE INFORMATION

  It was lunchtime. Hils was talking to me about training. I didn’t want Hils to be talking to me about training.

  Luckily for me Hils was distracted by Simon Bolivar screaming as he fell off the climbing frame. Simon always screamed whenever he fell off the climbing frame. Actually, Simon screamed when pretty much anything happened to him.

  If Simon got hit by a ball, he screamed.

  If Simon failed a test, he screamed.

  If Simon got sandwiches he didn’t like, he screamed.

  ‘I wonder if he’s broken his leg again?’ I said to Hils.

  We turned to see. Last time Simon broke his leg you could see the bone sticking out.

  It didn’t look like he had broken his leg.

  When we turned back to start talking again there was The Lurker standing right between us.

  ‘You should leave, Duncan,’ said The Lurker. ‘Hils and I have very important business to discuss.’

  I didn’t like The Lurker but it made me feel bad that he clearly didn’t like me either. Why was I worried that someone I didn’t like didn’t like me?

  I confused me sometimes.

  ‘Don’t worry about him,’ Hils said, pointing at me. ‘He’s cleared to hear anything you have to say.’

  The Lurker frowned.

  ‘That thing you wanted me to find,’ said The Lurker. ‘I found it. Obviously.’

  ‘You don’t have to call it “that thing”,’ I said. ‘I know you’re talking about the Stinkly Wrinklys’ headquarters.’

  ‘Maybe I am. Maybe I’m not,’ said The Lurker.

  ‘You are,’ I said.

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  ‘Yes, you are.’

  ‘No, I’m not!’

  ‘What are you talking about then?’

  ‘I’m talking about a big pile of poo,’ said The Lurker. ‘That looked exactly like your face.’

  ‘Guess what?’ I said.

  ‘What?’ said The Lurker.

  ‘I saw a squished donut with maggots all over it that a dog had peed on after a cat had been sick on it and it looked exactly like your face except that the maggoty, stinky, sick-covered donut looked better.’

  ‘Well guess what?’ said The Lurker.

  ‘HALT,’ said Hils. ‘Mission accomplished, Leon. Well done.’

  The Lurker blushed.

  He really did look like a maggoty, stinky, sick-covered donut. Only worse.

  ‘You’ll find your fee in the usual place,’ said Hils.

  The Lurker nodded.

  Hils smiled.

  The Lurker blushed.

  I felt sick.

  The Lurker left.

  ‘You like him,’ I said.

  ‘Negative,’ said Hils. ‘What I am doing is called “manipulating an intelligence asset”.’

  ‘You do like him. Stop liking him. He’s creepy. Stop manipulating him. He’s not even a very good asset. He didn’t even tell us where the Stinkly Wrinklys’ HQ was. I don’t think he even knows.’

  ‘He knows. He also knows that you never reveal important intelligence if there is a chance someone might overhear it. He’ll leave the pertinent information at our secret drop-off.’

  Hils and The Lurker have a secret drop-off.

  She does like him.

  ‘You do like him.’

  ‘Negative. It’s just business.’

  Simon Bolivar walked past. His nose was bleeding.

  I wished The Lurker’s nose was bleeding.

  I wished I had been the one who made it bleed.

  I know that’s not a nice thing to think. Even so, I kept on thinking it.

  All day.

  25

  THE MAP

  ‘I found it!’ I shouted to Hils. ‘It’s definitely an old barbecue.’

  I was kind of lying when I said what I had found looked ‘definitely’ like an old barbecue. What I had found didn’t look ‘definitely’ like anything at all.

  It was definitely rusty.

  It was definitely dented.

  It was definitely charred.

  It was definitely rotten.

  It was definitely something.

  Something that looked enough like a barbecue to make it okay to tell Hils it was ‘definitely’ an old barbecue.

  ‘I’ve found the possum skeleton,’ shouted Hils from behind a heavily graffitied recycling bin.

  ‘What’s next?’ I said.

  ‘A wig,’ said Hils. ‘We have to find a wig.’

  The Lurker had given Hils a map of how to find the Stinkly Wrinklys’ HQ. The first thing we had to find was a secret door. A secret door down an alley, behind a café, east of an old barbecue, just near a possum skeleton and behind a wig.

  We found the café. We found the behind-the-café. We found the barbecue. (I think.) We found the possum skeleton.

  Now all we had to find was the wig and the secret door.

  I had never looked for a secret door before.

  I had always wanted to look for a secret door.

  At night – when I’m lying in bed, getting ready to go to sleep – I like to plan what I am going to dream about that night. Lots of nights I plan to dream about finding a secret door and all the dangers I have to avoid and puzzles I have to solve before I can open it.

  I should have been really, very, super happy that I was looking for a secret door. With my best friend. Who had a secret map to help us find the secret door. (A secret map to find a secret door makes it a double-secret situation. Not many people get to be in a double-secret situation. There is no such thing as a triple-secret situation. There just isn’t.)

  But I wasn’t happy that I was with my best friend in a double-secret situation. I wasn’t happy because we were in a double-secret situation because of The Lurker.

  The Lurker had wrecked my-best-friend-double-secret situation.

  Even when The Lurker wasn’t around he was around.

  Wrecking everything.

  I joined Hils behind the recycling bin.

  She was standing next to the possum skeleton.

  We started to look around for the wig.

  ‘I bet there’s no wig,’ I said. ‘I bet The Lurker’s got it wrong. I bet there’s not even really a secret door.’

  ‘There is a wig and there is a secret door,’ said Hils. ‘You might not like him but The Lurker is the best at finding things.’

  I bet he isn’t the best. There are a lot of billions of people in the world and I bet one of them is the actual best at finding secret wigs and secret doors.

  ‘Here it is,’ said Hils. ‘The wig.’

  There it was. The wig. A ladies’ wig. It looked like it used to be blonde coloured. Now it was alley coloured.

  But it was definitely a wig.

  The wig was right in front of a wall that had so many plants growing out of it that it looked like a garden had stood up and not been able to work out what to do next so had decided to lean against the wall.

  Hils looked at the map. She then started pushing bits of wall-plant out of the way.

  ‘The secret door must be here somewhere,’ she said. ‘Come and help me look.’

  Hils was excited. She was right to be excited. This was an exciting double-secret situation. I was trying hard not to be excited. I didn’t want to get excited over anything The Lurker had anything to do with.

  The next thing I knew I was standing next to Hils, pushing wall-plants out of the way.

  ‘This is so exciting,’ I said.

  ‘Affirmative.’

  Hils dug both her hands into a big clump of grass halfway up the wall.

  ‘Owww!’

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘I just hit something hard,’ said Hils.

  We both started grabbing handfuls of grass and tearing them off the wall.

  A few handfuls later there it was.

  A doorknob.

  A secret doorknob.

  A secret doorknob on a secret door.

  The secret doorknob was really old and rusty and didn’t look all that exciting or special but I knew that it was definitely a secret doorknob.

  Even though I had never seen a real secret doorknob before I had read about a lot of secret doorknobs and I knew that secret doorknobs never look that exciting or special. They never look like they’re the way of opening a portal to a secret world. They don’t glow. They don’t glitter. They don’t suddenly grow teeth and try to chew your hand off. Secret doorknobs are always really ordinary looking.

  ‘We’ve found it,’ I said. ‘We’ve found the secret door.’

  Being able to say ‘We’ve found the secret door’ is a really, very, super cool thing to be able to say.

  ‘You should open it,’ said Hils.

  I grabbed hold of the secret doorknob and pulled.

  Nothing happened.

  The secret door didn’t open.

  ‘It doesn’t work,’ I said. ‘It’s not the secret door. See! I told you The Lurker didn’t know anything and couldn’t find secret doors. The Lurker is stupid. Dumb The Lurker.’

  ‘Charlie,’ said Hils. ‘Why don’t you try pushing the secret door, not pulling it?’

  I grabbed hold of the secret doorknob and pushed.

  The secret door opened.

  The Lurker was still dumb though.

  26

  THE HOUSE

  Hils and I walked through the secret door.

  It led into an old house.

  It was the untidiest house I had ever seen. Bits of everything were lying everywhere.

  You know when your parents say, ‘Go and clean up your room this instant it’s a disgusting mess’? Well, imagine they were right. Imagine that even you had to admit that your room was a ‘disgusting mess’.

  Times your actually-disgustingly-messy room by a million and that’s what the house we were standing in was like.

  Only slightly messier.

  And more disgusting.

  There were big, jagged holes in all the walls.

  The ceilings were brown and saggy.

  A broken toilet lay on an old rotted couch. The broken toilet had a cracked aluminium cooking pot sticking out of the bowl. In the cracked cooking pot was a pigeon. The pigeon gave Hils and me an angry stare.

  MESSY THING IN THE DISGUSTINGLY MESSY HOUSE

  MOST LIKELY EXPLANATION FOR THE MESSY THING

  Big, jagged holes in all the walls.

  A giant robot – with a nose that sneezes cannonballs – caught a cold in the house.

  Ceilings all brown and saggy.

  A giant mum ran out of giant nappies for her giant baby. So she used the house as a nappy.

  Broken toilet – with a pigeon-filled cooking pot in the bowl – lying on a rotting couch.

  Two colossal squids had a fight in the house. They threw the toilet, the couch and some pots at each other. They both got badly hurt and had to go to the hospital. While they were in hospital a pigeon moved in.

  Hils checked The Lurker’s map and then walked into the house over to an old bit of string that was hanging from the ceiling. Hils grabbed the string and pulled it three times.

  There was a click.

  Then silence.

  Then nothing happened.

  It was the kind of click-then-silence-then-nothing-happened where you knew that something was going to happen very soon. It’s like the nothing-happened just needed a moment to work out what something-happened it was going to turn into.