The Great Gold Robbery (6 page)

“I have the feeling that you’re not telling me the whole truth about these Crunch Brothers,” the king said.

“Oh?” Helge said innocently. “What do you mean by that?”

“I’ve never noticed police officers to smell of cabbage rolls. I think you were lying,” the king said. “So, were you?”

Helge cleared his throat. “Uh, yeah, we might have lied.”

“But just a little,” Hallgeir added.

“We didn’t want to scare those two kids by telling them that no one at Scotland Yard dares to get close to the Crunch Brothers. Or worse yet, close to . . .” Helge lowered his
voice and whispered something.

“What?” the king asked.

Helge whispered again.

“What did he say?” the king asked Hallgeir.

“He said . . .” Then Hallgeir lowered his voice and whispered something.

“Enough of this nonsense!” the king roared. “Who doesn’t Scotland Yard dare to get close to?”

Helge walked all the way over to the king and whispered “Mama” into his ear.

Hallgeir walked over and whispered “Crunch” into the king’s other ear.

“Mama?” the king asked. “Crunch?”

“Shh!” Helge said, looking around cautiously.

“Double shh!” Hallgeir said.

“She’s the Crunch Brothers’ mother,” Helge whispered. “She’s known as the worst thing to have happened to London since the Great Plague of 1665.”

“She sees and hears everything, is impossible to trick, and is so horrible that no one will say her name out loud,” Hallgeir whispered.

“Uh, pardon me for asking,” the bank governor said. “But how horrible can three bank robbers and their mother actually be?”

“They play blood knuckles—you know, the card game—with anyone who tries anything,” Hallgeir said, his eyes rolling halfway back in his head in fear.

The bank governor and the king gasped in unison. “Blood knuckles?” they asked, looking in horror at the two Secret Gourds, who crossed their arms and nodded ominously.

“It’s not really so serious if you only lose four or five rounds,” Hallgeir said. “Then they just hit you on the knuckles a few times with the edge of the deck of cards
and it stings a little and your knuckles get a little red.”

“But if you lose ten thousand rounds . . . ,” Helge said, rolling his eyes back in his skull so only the whites—and a little bit of red—showed.

“What happens then?” the bank governor asked.

“An agent from Scotland Yard once tried to infiltrate the family. Mama Crunch detected him, so they played bloody knuckles with him. He lost a big pot of ten thousand knuckle
blows.”

The Gourds shook their heads in unison.

“What happened?” the bank governor asked.

“Unfortunately, that information is rated NC-17,” Hallgeir said.

“I assure you I’m well over seventeen,” the king said with one eyebrow raised.

“Yes, but what about the people reading this right now?” Hallgeir asked.

“What?” the king said. “Reading what?”

“He didn’t mean anything by that,” Helge said, shooting Hallgeir a stern look. “You know that’s a secret, Hallgeir!”

“Sorry, I forgot,” Hallgeir said sheepishly.

The king puffed out his chest and roared, “This is a royal command: SPIT IT OUT!”

“They sliced the poor guy to bits with that deck of cards. He looked like a pile of shredded Parmesan when they were done with him.”

The king and the bank governor stared speechlessly at the two Secret Gourd members.

“What—what have we gotten them into?” the king moaned.

“Oh, but I’m sure our three will do fine,” Hallgeir said. “They probably won’t get caught.”

“No,” said Helge. “I wouldn’t think so, no.”

“THERE’S AN ART to packing,” Doctor Proctor said as he pulled a worn golf bag off a basement shelf. “What you
don’t
bring is just as
important as what you do bring. Let me hear about how you packed, my friends.”

“I’m bringing this backpack,” Lisa said, pointing to a red hiking backpack. “I’ve got toiletries, six changes of underwear, rain gear, a pocketknife, a pair of wool
socks in case it gets cold, a first aid kit, a small flashlight, and a pair of extra good shoes in case we have to do a lot of walking.”

“Aha!” said Doctor Proctor. “Spoken like a professional traveler who has traveled not only through space, but also through time! What about you, Nilly?”

“Even more professional!” Nilly said. He pointed to a used plastic grocery bag, which he’d set down on the workbench next to a set of test tubes containing something ice blue,
which was bubbling and smoking. “An almost fresh pair of underwear, nail polish remover, Monopoly in case it rains, and a bottle of malaria pills from my grandfather,” Nilly said
proudly.

“Malaria pills?” Doctor Proctor asked. “There aren’t any malaria mosquitoes in London, Nilly.”

“Ah, so they finally exterminated the London Malaria Mosquito? Well, good, because truth be told, I wasn’t sure about the expiration date on those pills. It says 3/12/25, but I
wasn’t sure if that was 2025. I think it might be 1925.”

“What are you going to do with the nail polish remover?” Lisa asked. “You don’t wear nail polish.”

“Exactly,” Nilly said. “So if I should happen to get some on me, I’d like to get it off as soon as possible.”

“What about a toothbrush and more than one change of underwear?” Lisa said.

“My toothbrush is in my back pocket. I’ll borrow toothpaste from you. And a professional traveler never wastes underwear. Besides, I’m an optimist.”

“What do you mean?” Lisa asked.

“I figure we’ll solve the case before I need to change my underwear more than once.”

“Well, a good attitude is a good thing to take on a trip too,” Doctor Proctor said. “What do you guys think I ought to bring along besides the usual necessities? Do you
remember the language nose clips I invented so we could speak French? I’ve invented something even better now. It’s a multilingual pill that makes it so we can speak and understand
English for fourteen days. And they taste like raspberries!”

“Nilly definitely needs one of those,” Lisa said. They were in the same English as a Foreign Language class in school.

“Hallo, jeg kan engelsk!” Nilly replied indignantly, in Norwegian. Then he corrected himself, saying, “I mean, I can English!” in some kind of Norwenglish.

Nilly stared at Lisa stiffly for a few seconds before he ultimately gave the tip of his freckled, upturned nose a slight, uncomfortable tug. “Okay, fine.
One
tiny little
multilingual pill for me, then. Do you have any other new inventions, Doctor Proctor?”

“I have this wood-chopping shoe, which I made in your size, Nilly!” Doctor Proctor said.

“Yippee!” Nilly said, snatching the tiny shoe.

“I was planning to give it to you as a homecoming present, along with this,” said Doctor Proctor, holding out an equally tiny mitten.

“What’s that?” Nilly asked.

“What does it look like? Obviously, it’s an aiming mitten for right-handed people,” Doctor Proctor said.

“Oh, right, of course,” Nilly said, and put it on.

“What’s an . . . aiming mitten?” Lisa asked.

“Don’t you even know that?” Nilly said, boxing at the air in front of him with the mitten.

“No,” Lisa said. “What is it?”

“It’s . . . a really nice mitten that keeps your right hand warm if your left hand isn’t cold. And you can wear it for air-boxing to keep from getting a draft on your fingers,
which would cause arthritis, so you’d have to hold the silverware with your left hand or your toes when you were eating in the old folks’ home,” Nilly explained.

“Well,” Doctor Proctor said, smiling faintly. “First and foremost it’s a mitten that you can throw these three darts with.” He held up three small darts: one
yellow, one orange, and one black. “And within a radius of ten meters, they’ll hit within a millimeter of where you’re aiming.”

“Well, yeah, that too, of course,” Nilly said, and kept air-boxing to make sure no one had any doubt the mitten was also particularly well suited to that. “Do you have anything
else new?”

“Hmm,” Doctor Proctor said, looking around. “In addition to an app that plays rock-scissors-paper, I did invent an antifreeze.”

“Hasn’t that already been invented?” Lisa asked.

“Not one like this,” Doctor Proctor said, holding up one of the test tubes containing the bubbling, ice-blue substance. “If you drink this, it will react with the acid in your
stomach and kidneys so that when you pee, whatever you pee on will immediately freeze and turn into ice, which can be shattered. No matter what it’s made of.”

“No way!” Nilly exclaimed, clapping his hands with glee.

“As long as you don’t pee on your own shoes,” Lisa said dryly.

“I’ll bring along a tiny bottle,” Doctor Proctor said. “But then I guess that’s it.”

“You didn’t invent anything for
me
?” Lisa asked.

The other two looked at her.

“Oh, you’re right,” Doctor Proctor said, looking slightly disappointed in himself. “I guess Nilly does always end up getting to test the inventions.”

“That’s not really such a bad thing,” Lisa said, smiling bravely. “After all, he enjoys it more than I would.”