Einstein's Underpants--And How They Saved the World Read Online Free PDF Page A

it?’
    â€˜Seek and you shall find.’
    â€˜And what shall I tell them? I’ll need some kind of proof . . . I mean, no one’s going to believe any of this.’
    â€˜You have my data?’
    â€˜I think so – I took the hard drives out of your—’
    â€˜It’s all there. But remember, time is running out. Act now or it’s the end of humanity. I can’t talk any more.’
    â€˜Are they listening again?’
    â€˜No, my money’s run—’
    And then Otto was cut off.
    It took Alexander a long time to get to sleep that night. His mind churned and toiled. He lay under his duvet, writhing with embarrassment at the very idea of recruiting superheroes to fight some kind of alieninvasion. He knew that the sane thing would be to simply ignore Uncle Otto. But two thoughts nagged and chewed at his brain, like dogs at a bone. What if he was right? What if something really terrible was going to happen to the world, and he was the only one who could save it? And then there was the ludicrous fact that the pants, Einstein’s underpants, had really seemed to give him the power to do his algebra homework.
    It was no good. He got up, attached the hard drives to his laptop, and, after he’d put Einstein’s underpants on his head, delved into the data.
    When he finally drifted to sleep some hours later, he dreamed of monsters again.
    And Admiral Thlugg? He too was dreaming, lying upon his soft and swampy bed in his private quarters.
    And when a Borgia dreams, he dreams of killing.
    Killing slowly.
    Killing deliciously.
    Drawing out the juice, that delicious liquid centre that all living things possessed.
    When he woke up ready for duty, he found that he had eaten his pillow.

CHAPTER 10
    THE BIRTH OF UNLUCKEON
    â€˜ YOU
ARE
KIDDING ?’ exclaimed Melvyn.
    Before Alexander had the opportunity to stress that no, he wasn’t kidding, and yes, he was deadly serious about the need to form a league of superheroes to defeat the forces that were massing to conquer the Earth and eat all its inhabitants, human, animal, vegetable and quite possibly mineral as well, Melvyn managed to walk into a wall, bounce backwards, trip over a passing black cat and land on his backside in the middle of the only puddle on an otherwise utterly bone-dry pavement.
    Alexander and Melvyn had been walking to school together, as they did most days.
    Alexander helped Melvyn back to his feet.
    â€˜I’m going to have a wet bum all morning,’ Melvyn said in a matter-of-fact way. He’d grown used to this sort of thing and it didn’t bother him much any more. ‘I expect everyone will think I’ve had an accident in my trousers.’
    Alexander nodded. It
was
what people would think. The best Melvyn could hope for was that everyone would assume he’d simply wet himself rather than having had some sort of titanic diarrhoea episode in his pants. But, knowing Melvyn’s luck, some other kid in the classroom would let fly with a super stinky fart at exactly the moment everyone noticed the huge stain on his trousers, and two plus two would be put together and inexorably equal the fact that Melvyn had poohed himself.
    â€˜I know it sounds crazy,’ Alexander said, shaking the thoughts of what might or might not happen to Melvyn from his head, ‘but I think that this time Uncle Otto was on to something.’
    â€˜Your uncle Otto is a fruitcake. You told me he believed that he was being followed by specially trained badger assassins.’
    â€˜OK, so the badgers were a bit silly. And even Otto admitted in the end that it wasn’t a disguised badger but an old bucket, and it wasn’t following him but just lying there. And I’m not saying he’s the most sane person in the universe, but that doesn’t mean he’s always wrong. Even a broken watch is right twice a day.’
    Melvyn just shook his head.
    â€˜Think about it,’