Free Horten's Miraculous Mechanisms by Lissa Evans Page A

brain.
    A metal box.
    A metal box fixed to the front of the chimney.
    He stepped back to the fireplace and looked at the framed poster that hung above it.
    The photograph of Great-Uncle Tony seemed to stare at him. Stuart gripped the bottom of the frame with one hand and lifted it up. There, behind the picture, was the closed door of a small safe inset into the chimney, firmly cemented into place. It had a little dial on the front, with the numbers one to twenty-nine printed around it. And beneath the dial were the words:
    THE MINI HERCULES HOME SAFE
    MANUFACTURED BY
    HORTEN’S MIRACULOUS MECHANISMS
    Stuart had seen safecracking done in films. He turned the wheel, first clockwise, then counterclockwise, then clockwise again. Nothing happened: no clicks, no clacks, no hidden springs. And he knew from films that nothing would happen unless he had exactly the right three-number combination.
    He was just about to have another go when he heard footsteps coming back down the stairs, and he hastily lowered the picture and ran for the kitchen. The back door was still open so he galloped out and across the backyard, using the junk stepping stones that he’d first used only a week ago. As he vaulted from the old grill over the fence and into the neighbor’s compost heap, someone shouted, “Hey, you!” but by that time Stuart knew he was safe.
    It wasn’t until he reached his bicycle that he realized that he’d left his great-uncle’s back-door key sticking out of the lock.
    And it wasn’t until he arrived home and saw April Kingley looking out of the upstairs window of her house, the sun flashing off her glasses, and then saw her mouth drop open with shock, that he realized that he wasn’t looking quite the same as when he’d left the house. The bathroom mirror confirmed it. He was completely coated with soot, and it took half an hour and most of his mother’s Fruit ’n’ Herb X-plozion shower gel, before he was acceptably clean again.

    “That’s a pleasant odor, if a trifle pungent,” said his father, over a late breakfast. “Quince and tarragon?”
    “Strawberry ’n’ mint,” said Stuart, between mouthfuls of cereal. “Dad, say you were a safecracker, and there was a safe with the numbers one to twenty-nine on the dial, and you didn’t know the right combination. How long would it take you to try all of them?”
    “Ah, a problem in probability,” said his father. “Mathematical conundrums would be more your mother’s area, I feel, but I seem to remember from my hours in the classroom that the number of combinations would be twenty-nine to the power of three.”
    “So that’s twenty-nine times twenty-nine times twenty-nine,” said Stuart. There was a pause while he fetched a calculator and tapped in the sum. “Twenty-four thousand, three hundred and eighty-nine possible combinations,” he said, horrified.
    Trying them all would be impossible, even if he actually managed to get back into the house again. No, his next task was obviously to find the correct three numbers.
    Somehow.
    His father crunched a piece of toast. “Do you have any plans for the matutinal hours?” he asked. “By which I mean, of, or related to, or occurring in the morning.”
    Stuart nodded. “Yes, I have. I’m going to …”
    His voice tailed away as he looked at his dad. His father had such a nice face—never suspicious, never angry, never more than pleasantly puzzled—and Stuart was beginning to feel really bad about how many lies he’d told him over the last few days. On the other hand, if he said, Yes, I have. I’m going to meet the blind sister of your missing uncle’s fiancée in a bingo hall, it wouldn’t sound remotely believable.
    “I’m going to go on another bike ride,” he said.

CHAPTER 16
    He reached the Gala Bingo Hall at ten to eleven. There was a sign on the sidewalk outside that read EARLY-BIRD SENIOR-CITIZEN SESSION 11 A.M. The doors were already open, and the foyer was heaving with old ladies.