effect brought about by the collision of pasta and antipasta. So—”
“Dolly—”
She looked at him. “Goodbye, Pieter,” she said..
“Dolly, I was kidding. The instructions were meant as a joke. What you really need to do is—”
Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz let go of the tray. There was a crash, the sound of splintering crockery –
“Dolly—”
– followed by an ear-splitting roar and a sheet of white flame that blotted out everything.
“Oh,” Theo said, as his head stopped spinning. “It worked.”
He’d felt better. There had been the heat of the flames on his skin, the indescribable sensation of being poured uphill into the mouth of a narrow bottle; and then this. He took a deep breath, staggered, caught himself just in time and subsided, with some degree of control and dignity, on to the carpeted floor.
“Well, of course it worked,” Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz said. “I followed the instructions on the bottle. Not what most men would have done, of course, but I have this strange belief that instructions are put there so you’ll know what to do. Must you sprawl on the floor like that, by the way? It’s so hard to have an intelligent conversation with someone in a different plane.”
Floor. Well, yes, she had a point there. “Sorry,” he said, and tried to stand up, but his knees wouldn’t take his weight. Fortunately, the carpet was deep and springy. “Where is this?” he said.
“Home. Well, sort of. Our reality.”
He had another go. This time, he made it, but only because someone helped him. He swung round to find out who his unseen assistant might be, and –
“Lunchbox.”
The tall, thin young man smiled awkwardly and made a grunting noise that might just possibly have been some sort of articulate speech. Theo yelped and tried to pull away, but Lunchbox’s hand was locked round his elbow. Where he kept his muscles was anybody’s guess, but he quite definitely had some.
“Don’t make a fuss,” Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz said briskly, “you’ll only hurt yourself and it won’t do a bit of good.”
“But that’s not right,” Theo blurted out. “Lunchbox is one of Janine’s goons, surely.”
The look on the young man’s face made him feel desperately guilty, as though he’d just kicked a baby wolf cub. Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz clicked her tongue. “The term you’re groping for is private enquiry agent,” she said. “We don’t use the G-word, it’s not polite. Arthur, dear, you don’t have to grip quite so tightly. Mr Bernstein isn’t going to run away.”
The pressure on his elbow relaxed slightly, allowing a tiny trickle of blood to squeeze down into Theo’s almost completely numb forearm. “Where is this?” Theo repeated. “I don’t recognise it.”
“This is my daughter’s house,” Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz said. “It’ll be your place of work from now on. Sorry, didn’t I tell you? You’re working for me now. After all, someone’s got to keep you on the ball. You’re very bright and a good physicist, but you lack focus.”
“You can’t do that,” Theo yelped. “You can’t just steal me.”
“Why not? Besides, it’s not stealing. You don’t belong to anyone.”
“I belong to me.”
“You don’t count. Also, you want to help. You want to get Max back. He’s your brother.”
They train dogs easily enough. Go about it the right way and you can transform a tail-wagging, face-licking man’s best friend into an implacable killing machine just by saying one word. But you couldn’t do that with humans, surely.
Maybe you could. It would all depend, presumably, on the word. Three letters, proper noun, beginning with M, rhymes with ‘fax’ –
“Screw Max. The hell with Max. I hope they catch him and feed him to the cuddly warthog from The Lion King. May meerkats feast on his decomposing—”
He stopped, but only because Lunchbox had stuck a sandwich in his mouth. It took him three seconds to choke and another two seconds to spit it out, by which time his fury had abated a little, and curiosity had elbowed its way in front of the mic. “What do you care about my useless brother, anyhow? Why is everybody obsessed with that lying, swindling, pathetic—?”
Lunchbox sighed tragically and produced another sandwich. Theo took the hint and lifted his free hand in token of surrender. And noticed something.
Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz was way ahead of him. “It’s back,” she said. “Your invisible hand.”
“No, that’s not—” Theo stared at it, then shook his head. “We’re still in a YouSpace world, aren’t we?” he said. “You’re playing games with me.”
“Wait just a moment. You’ll see.”
Theo’s eyes were still fixed on his hand. Was it just his imagination,