Johnny Mackintosh and the Spirit of London (2 page)

“Mr. Wilkins, to what do I owe the pleasure?” she asked in a clipped Scottish accent, hardly moving her narrow lips.

“Mrs. Irvine, it's the boy,” said the cook, shifting his enormous bulk from foot to foot with excitement.

“So I see, Mr. Wilkins. But why, as you put it, is ‘the boy' in my office? And so dirty …” Mrs. Irvine looked Johnny up and down with a disapproving stare. He looked down at his socks and concentrated very hard on not spreading any more mud than he could help on the floor.

“Broke into the computer room, didn't he? I came back from the butcher's and followed his filthy mutt's paw prints all the way from main reception.” Johnny knew he shouldn't have let Bentley come inside with him. So that was how he'd been found so quickly. “And then the dog bit me,” continued Mr. Wilkins, holding up his tattered trouser leg.

“That's not true,” shouted Johnny. “Bentley's never bitten anyone.”

Mrs. Irvine turned her large round eyes back to Mr. Wilkins. “Is it true?” she asked.

“Well—he nearly bit me,” said the cook, his face turning red again. “I'm telling you—that mutt's got to go. It's not hygienic.”

“Come, Mr. Wilkins,” said the Manager. “Surely, after all this time, we all have a soft spot for Bentley?”

Johnny let out a long deep breath—Bentley was going to be OK.

“Well the boy should be punished. Breaking in like that.”

Mrs. Irvine leaned forward, staring at Johnny, but then her gaze wandered to the mud on the floor. Johnny couldn't help thinking she seemed more bothered by the dirt than the computer room. After a few seconds, she turned to the cook and asked, “What would you suggest?”

Johnny could picture himself peeling potatoes for the next month. Mr. Wilkins stepped closer to the desk. “No trip for him tomorrow. Let him stay here. My oven could do with a scrub down.”

Tomorrow was the annual Halader House outing. Everyone was going on the train to visit the Tower of London. Johnny had really been looking forward to it.

“Hmmm.” Mrs. Irvine sat back in her chair and sucked her lips together, contemplating Johnny's fate. Then she looked at him and said, “All right—I'm afraid there'll be no visit to the Tower. Jonathan—I expected better of you than using the computer room without permission.” Johnny felt about a foot tall. He hated being told off. “But I can't have you staying here on your own. I had a journalist on the phone this morning sniffing around for another salacious story. Naturally, I got rid of him, but it's started me thinking. When did you last visit your mother?”

“What?” asked Johnny, caught off guard by the question.

“Your mother,” repeated Mrs. Irvine. “Your care plan says you should see her at least twice a year.”

“It's OK,” said Johnny. “I can stay here. I don't mind cleaning the oven.” Although he couldn't go to the Tower, with the others away, at least he'd be able to spend some time in the computer
room undisturbed. He hadn't seen his mum for at least a year now—visiting her had become unbearable. Anything was better than another trip to St. Catharine's Hospital for the Criminally Insane, where she was only kept alive by a collection of hightech machines around her bedside.

“Good idea, Miss. Why don't I take him?” said Mr. Wilkins, his bushy beard twitching with anticipation. “Can't go on his own can he?” Mr. Wilkins never missed an opportunity to inflict misery on the children, but Johnny was his special favorite.

There was a knock on the door and, before anyone could speak, in walked a young woman only a little taller than Johnny. She was slightly out of breath, with red hair cut into a bob and wearing jeans and a T-shirt. She stepped between Johnny and Mr. Wilkins, walked right up to the desk and asked, in an American accent, “Is everything OK, Mrs. Irvine?”

“Miss Harutunian,” replied the Manager. “I am aware that you're new to Ben Halader House and people behave differently where you come from. I, however, am accustomed to members of staff waiting outside my door until I invite them to enter. For your information, everything is fine.” Mrs. Irvine was the only person Johnny knew who used the building's full title. She leaned forward toward Miss Harutunian, who didn't look the least bit embarrassed. “Because Jonathan broke into the computer room earlier, he won't be coming with us to the Tower tomorrow. Instead, Mr. Wilkins has kindly volunteered to take him to see his mother in hospital.”

“But that's awful,” said Miss Harutunian, turning to the cook. “You were busy all afternoon making those packed lunches—you can't
not
go. I'll take Johnny instead.” Johnny could have sworn Miss Harutunian gave him a little wink. She'd only been at Halader House a couple of weeks but already she was his favorite social worker.

“I'm not sure that's such a good idea, missy. You don't know
what he's capable of. Like father like son—that's what I say.” As he spat the words out Mr. Wilkins thrust his beard forward toward Johnny, who felt its bristles brush the top of his head.

Miss Harutunian folded her arms. “Where I come from we judge children by their own actions—not those of their parents.”

“His mum was in on it too—I say it's bad genes.”

“Mr. Wilkins,” said Mrs. Irvine, rising from her chair and walking around the desk. “Miss Harutunian is quite right. And it makes perfect sense for her to accompany Jonathan tomorrow—far better to see for herself than simply read a case file.” The cook looked as though Christmas had just been canceled. “Now if you all don't mind I do have work to be getting on with.” She ushered all three of them out of the office, half closed the door, and then opened it again to add, “Jonathan—if any more journalists start asking questions about your family, I want you to come and tell me at once. Is that clear?”

Johnny nodded. Bentley was waiting for him outside, wagging his tail. Mr. Wilkins pulled Johnny close and whispered in his ear, “I'm short of meat this month, sonny. I'd keep a close eye on that dog if I were you.” Then he pushed Johnny away and stomped off down the corridor.

Miss Harutunian was kneeling down, stroking the sheepdog. “You get yourself cleaned up,” she said to Johnny, “and I'll take Bentley outside before he gets into any more trouble.”

“OK,” said Johnny. “And thanks.” He gave Bentley a pat on the head and ran off toward the shower room, his bag swinging behind him.

Relatively clean, wearing jeans and a black T-shirt with a faded NASA logo, Johnny entered the common room. He walked straight over to the television, fixed to a bracket on the wall. A
music video was playing, while a few children and adults were scattered around, chatting on the various battered sofas different people had donated to the home. Making sure no one was looking, Johnny took a little box from out of his jeans pocket and quickly hid it behind the old satellite decoder underneath the television. He'd built the box himself—although the satellite subscription had long since lapsed, it caused the picture to change into the buildup for a big football match. At the same time, a blue spark leapt unexpectedly from the decoder and Johnny cried out. Quite a few people looked round and, seeing the football, stayed watching as Johnny moved away from the screen, rubbing his hand. The oldest boy in the room, wearing a hooded top and combat trousers, got up and joined Johnny near the TV. “How'd you do that, Mackintosh?” he asked. “Didn't think we could get the footie.”

“It's easy,” Johnny replied. “They scramble the signal with fractal algorithms. I'll show you some time, Spencer.”

“Nice one,” said Spencer. “You win today?”

“Yeah—three–one,” Johnny replied. “It was one–all most of the game. Then Dave Spedding got a header from my free kick. We scored the last on the break at the end.”

“Nice one,” said Spencer again. He nodded at Johnny and went back to his gang on the settee.

England were playing tonight. And, best of all, Johnny saw Mr. Wilkins was already sitting up, filling one of the sofas on his own and giving the buildup to the match his full attention.

“Over here, Mackintosh,” said Spencer, pushing a ripped leather sofa with lots of foam oozing from its insides, right in front of the television.

“In a minute,” said Johnny. “Just got to get something.” Johnny hated the thought of missing the match—it was a really important game. But it wasn't as important as what he'd seen on the computer screen earlier. The television was getting its signal
from a satellite up in space; what Johnny had programmed the Halader House computers to do was also to search for signals from space—but much further out. They weren't looking for satellite signals—they were after messages from extraterrestrials. He'd hacked into a network of radio telescopes and was busy searching for messages in the background noise while the telescopes themselves scanned the heavens for other things. It seemed he'd found something and he could hardly wait to go and investigate.

All his life Johnny had loved the stars. On some nights when he lay gazing up at them it almost felt as if they were calling out to him, whispering his name across the vastness of space. He knew loads of their names and could easily point to Shedir, Procyon or Betelgeuse, or any of the constellations they helped make up—in their case Cassiopeia, Canis Minor and Orion. He knew how stars evolved, and how they sometimes died. One of the things he loved was that he, like everyone, was made of starstuff. The only place in the universe where heavy atoms could be made was at the center of a star, and only when that star died and then exploded, going nova—sometimes supernova—could those atoms travel across space. Five billion years ago some of that starstuff had come together and formed the Earth. Five billion years later it had come together to form Johnny. And for as long as he could remember Johnny knew he wanted to return to the stars from where he came.

Johnny turned into the computer room corridor and saw someone was already waiting outside the door. It was Bentley. The dog got to his feet and barked the moment Johnny came round the corner. Johnny's legs were now really stiff after the semifinal earlier, but he quickened his stride until he reached his friend. “How did you get back here?” he said to the dog, who barked again. Johnny put a finger to his lips and, this time, the dog fell silent. The card reader must be faulty—it had opened
before. Johnny placed his thumb and forefinger either side, but pulled them sharply away as he felt an electric shock. Still, at least the lock had clicked open. Gingerly, he turned the handle. Bentley shot straight inside and Johnny followed, closing the door quietly. He decided against turning on the lights, walked over to the master computer terminal and sat down.

What happened next would have amazed anyone from Halader House who regularly used the computer room. Instead of the terminal booting up in the normal way, Johnny deftly diverted it into a separate operating system he'd written for it himself that was much more efficient. And a lot more fun.

“Good evening, Johnny,” came a slightly flat mechanical voice from out of the computer's speakers.

“Kovac—volume minimal,” Johnny replied, as though a talking computer was the most normal thing in the world. Kovac was Johnny's special invention and stood for Keyboard Or Voice-Activated Computer, as well as sounding like a Russian footballer which Johnny thought was cool—especially because underneath his bed Johnny kept a box with a few bits and pieces that had belonged to his parents. One was his dad's journal about a trip he'd taken to somewhere in Russia. “Kovac—signal detection reported. Show findings.”

“Data incomplete—partial location vector available,” said Kovac, projecting some complex graphics onto the screen with a stylized Earth at the center.

“Partial? No!” Johnny banged the table in frustration. If there was a signal, maybe even a message, he couldn't pinpoint it properly without more data. He looked at the screen for a little while, thinking. Where could he try?

“Kovac—activate Very Large Array, New Mexico.”

“Unable to comply,” was the computer's response.

“What?” Johnny exclaimed. “Kovac—define ‘unable to comply.'”

“Security codes overridden,” said Kovac.

That had never happened before. Johnny tried again. “Kovac—activate Very Large Array, New Mexico. Full security override.”

“Unable to comply,” said Kovac again.

“Why not?” Johnny said, becoming impatient.

“Warning … warning.” Kovac's screen had switched to a two-dimensional map of the Earth that had a fine red line growing out of New Mexico and heading east across the United States. “Backward trace initiated,” said the computer.

“Kovac—run trace decoy program,” said Johnny quickly, glad he'd coded such a thing without ever expecting to use it. The red line on the computer screen turned north toward Canada and stopped somewhere near Montreal.