Chapter Ten: Theories

Mhsofps has hit double figure chapters! And is longer than every single other story I have on my computer! Hurrah! I'm so proud of myself. This is the moment that will be ruined when chapter eleven takes three months to complete, or is never completed at all...
Since my two faithful readers (my only readers...) were so keen on Theo's sister when she turned up for a brief cameo earlier on, here's a chapter for her. If you think 'Jane' near the end is stupid, that's because it is. It's placefiller until I can either think up something better or at least integrate Jane into the narrative better.
If anyone greatly objects to the skipping at the beginning of this chapter, I can always write another one of the 'Theo learns stuff that the author knows nothing about' chapters...
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Over the next four weeks, Theo learned a lot, and found he could fit more into a day than seemed possible. His instruction in horse riding proceeded apace; by the end of the second week he was piloting Susie by himself, without the lead rein, and beginning to learn how to deal with some of her more…irritating behaviours, although she still beat him regularly. He found out just as soon as other horses started sharing the school with him that she was an inveterate follower; she seemed to regard her place in life to be behind whatever other rider was around, and was not above dirty tricks to get herself there. His first introduction to canter was when the horse in front began to canter away and Susie decided to follow, suddenly. Theo fell off. But despite this he got fonder and fonder of the stocky bay mare, and she in turn didn’t lay her ears back at him quite so much as she used to. Mr Aldobrandino had allowed him to handle more swords than just the rapier and sabre, and although he found the broadswords gleefully exciting if only for their length and sharp edges, he was forced to admit that he still preferred the sabre. Rowena grudgingly admitted he was ‘getting a bit better’ at throwing spears, and taught him how to use an atlatl, which was basically a length of wood used to give the spear more oomph. It turned out she was supposed to teach him how to use bows and arrows as well, which she dutifully did although it was obvious she far preferred the spears; Theo himself, on the other hand, liked the bow a lot better and had a lot more natural skill at it, although crossbows confounded him a little at first. He also began his instruction in such exotic weaponry as throwing stars, battleaxes and throwing axes, daggers, maces, clubs, slings and war hammers; the majority of these were taught by the same two instructors called Mr Mace and Miss Aella, who while they were generally friendly and had quite the sense of humour, also possessed an almost unholy enthusiasm for this varied and sharp arsenal of the medieval. Theo enjoyed his lessons, especially as he began to get fitter and actually develop muscles (he was very pleased with them; Sashi laughed at him for that); but he also enjoyed the sessions in the library, where he devoured books on the mythical and revelled in the fact that almost everything he had previously longed to be real actually was. Although he still hadn’t found anything to explain the manifest impossibility of a huge secret complex located underneath Paddington Station.
At the same time, quite a long way away from the secret complex underneath Paddington Station and even further removed from what Theo was studying, a fifteen-year-old girl named Kimi Hunt was on the internet.
Ever since her brother had left home to take this mysterious job with the ‘MyHunt Society’, Kimi had been absolutely certain that there was something odd about it. Of course, Kimi was also certain that there was a terrible ancient conspiracy behind the Burger King fast-food chain, but that was mainly to keep herself amused. This time, her certainty was rock-solid. Her mother had looked up the Society’s website and been satisfied; Kimi, who had followed her onto it, spotted every single instance of unnecessarily vague terminology and then started cross-referencing every single company or organisation that it claimed to be affiliated to. This yielded nothing; to all intents and purposes the Society was exactly what it claimed to be in the eyes of its connections; so she resorted to Google, and hit gold.
There was a conspiracy theory website about it.
Kimi, experienced in such things, swiftly discarded all the generic ‘death cult’ and ‘secret ancient conspiracy ruling the world’ stories, and focussed on the more unusual ones. One poster, who went by the name of ‘mythicalreality76’, was particularly intriguing, as he claimed to have proof that the Society was actually dedicated to hiding the existence of mythical creatures. This was definitely interesting, although even Kimi found it a little far-fetched. It was, however, something her brother would have been interested in, considering his large collection of all things fantasy and that silly toy dragon he slept with. Perhaps it was actually a cult which lured impressionable young fantasy enthusiasts in with promises of meeting real mythical creatures and then performed terrible experiments on them…
Unfortunately, her attempts to discover the possible whereabouts of the Society’s HQ turned up so many wildly varying locations that narrowing them down to any one possibility was impossible. Scuppered; she slumped back in her chair and scowled-and had an idea. Sloping into the kitchen, she found her mother washing up tin cans for recycling.
“Mum?”
“Yes?”
“Is Theo coming back home for my birthday?”
Her mother paused in her washing and smiled.
“I should think so, Kim. Why don’t you phone him up and remind him? The number he gave us is in the phone diary.”
“Okay!” Kimi said chirpily, and dashed off to locate it.
Rather to her surprise, a female voice answered.
“Hello?”
“Um, hi. Is Theodore Hunt there?”
“He’s just come in. Who shall I say it is?”
“His sister. Kimi.”
“All right. Hold on.”
Kimi held on, listening to the faint voices on the other end, and then her brother’s familiar voice came on.
“Kimi?”
“Still here, bro.”
“Nice to hear from you and all, but is there any particular reason you’ve rung?”
He sounded…older, somehow, and also rather tired. She wondered what he’d been doing.
“Just to give you a reminder, brother dearest. It’s my birthday next week. Mum wants you to come back so we can do stuff ‘as a family’. You know how keen she is on that.”
She felt him wince. “Damn. I’d forgotten. No offence, Kim, but do I have to come?”
“I’m pretty sure mum would never forgive you if you didn’t,” Kimi purred, winding the phone cord around her finger. Theo sighed.
“Okay. If I can, I promise I will. And I’ll remember to bring you a present as well.”
“Gee, thanks,” she gushed, with sarcastic enthusiasm. “Try not to make it another t-shirt.”
“I thought you liked that one,” he said, sounding a little hurt. She grinned at the phone.
“It’s nice enough, bro, but not one I’d ever wear in public. Unlike you, I’m not proud of playing Guild Wars.”
“Message received,” he sighed. “Okay, Kim. Nice to hear from you. I’ll try and get there for your birthday. I’ve gotta hop off now though-I’m already late for something. Bye!”
There was a click as he rang off. Kimi replaced the handset and grinned wickedly. He’d turn up…and then she’d follow him. She should be able to get some sort of an idea about where he went from that.
The following Wednesday, Kimi officially turned sixteen at half-past eight in the morning. As promised Theo remembered to turn up, although not until half-past ten; and he brought a friend, a slender tawny-skinned girl who looked rather shy.
“Theo! You look so well!” his mother burbled enthusiastically. “And who’s this?”
“Sashi,” the girl murmured politely, extending a hand. “Nice to meet you, Mrs Hunt.”
“Very nice to meet you too, Sashi. Do call me Alexandra. This is my husband, Howard, and my daughter Kimi, whose birthday it is today.”
As Sashi introduced herself respectfully to Mr Hunt, evidently very embarrassed by his jovial questions about whether she was Theo’s girlfriend (Theo looked pretty uncomfortable as well, come to that), Kimi examined her carefully for any evidence she was a member of a cult going to experiment on Theo. Either she was a very good actor or entirely innocent, however, because all she saw was a diffident young woman, who smiled at her quietly but with warmth.
“Hello Kimi. Happy birthday.”
“Thank you. Uh. Nice to meet you,” Kimi said, in obedience to her mother’s sharp look over the girl’s shoulder. Sashi smiled again, and briefly fluttered one eyelid down in an unmistakable wink before obeying Alexandra Hunt’s effusive invitations to come through to the living room. Kimi grinned despite herself, and turned her attention to her brother.
Unusually for him, he met her eyes directly and smirked a little.
“What’re you plotting, Kim?”
“Just thinking how well you look,” she replied wickedly, mimicking their mother’s tone. “Are those muscles I see? You been working out?”
He stuck his tongue out at her and flexed his bicep. “I admit they do look pretty good, don’t they?”
“I’ve seen better,” she answered cheekily. He feigned shock, and then grinned.
“Well, happy birthday, sis.”
“Thanks very much, bro. Shall we go and rescue your girlfriend from Dad?”
“I think she’ll need it. Come on.”
Following him into the living room, Kimi noted that he hadn’t said Sashi wasn’t his girlfriend.
Her birthday was duly celebrated with cake, candles and a trip to the cinema, although the presence of parents scuppered their chances of seeing any really interesting films. Kimi and Sashi turned out to get on famously, despite Kimi’s continuing determination to unravel the mystery of the Society; however any attempts to steer the conversation in that direction were met with polite blankness and noncommittal replies. They went out for a meal in the evening, and Theo took the opportunity to present his gift.
“Here. It’s nothing to do with Guild Wars,” he said, passing a floppy package over with a grin. Kimi rolled her eyes at him.
“But it is a t-shirt,” she stated, fingering it. Theo nodded, evidently less than repentant about this.
“Not store-bought, though. I got it off one of those design-your-own t-shirt website things.”
Intrigued despite herself, Kimi shredded the wrapping and drew out the garment.
“Theodore,” she breathed. “It’s great.”
He had evidently had a good memory for her various conspiracy theories, as humorous references to them covered the shirt. The Burger King Conspiracy, the Badger Plot from when she was much younger, the Bayeux Tapestry from the time she was convinced it actually showed evidence of an invasion of aliens who had disguised themselves as knights…on the back was a photograph of Theo in riding clothes sitting atop a stocky brown pony, grinning like a loon, which the words ‘Indisputable Evidence of Conspiracy. What, You Can’t See It?’ printed underneath.
“So, do you like it?”
“I love it,” Kimi said happily. She carefully folded it up and put it in her bag, and then looked across at her brother. “It’s still not something I’d wear in public though!”
Everyone laughed at that.
That night, as Kimi was going to bed, she heard faint voices coming from the wall that adjoined Theo’s bedroom. Scrabbling for the glass she kept for eavesdropping purposes, she pressed her ear against it and listened intently.
“-sister look at everyone like that?”
That was Sashi’s voice. Theo replied, sounding offhand.
“Yeah, it’s nothing personal. I did tell you she sees conspiracies in everything. Don’t take it personally.”
“Do you think she suspects anything about the Society?”
“She certainly thinks it’s more than it seems, but then she thinks Burger King is more than it seems.”
“But what if-”
“Shush,” Theo interrupted suddenly. There was a pause, and then someone knocked on the wall.
“I know you’re listening, Kimi,” Theo said loudly. “Quit it this instant.”
There was the sound of footsteps in the other room, and a door opening. Immediately Kimi shot into bed, thankful she was already in her pyjamas, and feigned sleep. The door to her room creaked open, and then shut again, and footsteps returned to the other room. The minute Theo’s door had opened and shut Kimi was back at the wall with her glass, but Theo and Sashi’s conversation had apparently turned to Monty Python, and nothing more interesting was said.
The next morning, after breakfast, their visitors announced that they had to leave.
“Sorry mum, but we really need to get back early,” Theo apologised. “We’ve got some stuff to do.”
“I understand, sweetheart,” Alexandra said, patting her son’s hand. “It’s been very nice to see you. Come back and visit again soon. And you too, Sashi, it’s been a pleasure to have you around.”
“I will,” Theo promised. Sashi smiled and nodded.
“I will too.”
Kimi, seeing her opportunity, leapt in.
“Hey, Theo, could you take me to the station with you? Jane wants to go shopping and you know how she lives close to the station…”
Jane, her best friend and fellow conspiracy theorist, had been a great help. She did indeed live quite close to Paddington Station, and had agreed to request shopping so Kimi could go theory hunting as long as all subsequent results were shared. The only thing she regretted was that she couldn’t theory hunt too, due to an unfortunate family engagement.
Theo and Sashi glanced at each other. Alexandra clapped her hands.
“What a good idea, Kim! It’ll save me having to run you down there and it means you don’t have to get the bus by yourself.”
“Uh…sure. Okay,” Theo said, with a sigh. “Come on then. You’re paying your own bus fare.”
“Thanks, bro. You know how awfully scary it is for me to go on the bus by myself.”
Theo looked unconvinced.
They arrived at the station without incident, and wandered inside. Kimi made a pretence of looking around.
“I don’t see Jane. I’ll wait out here for her. See ya, big bro. Nice to meet you, Sashi.”
“’Bye, kid. I’ll come back and visit later on,” Theo reassured her, giving her a quick hug. Sashi raised a hand in a brief wave and smiled, and then they walked off into the crowd. Kimi waited until they were nearly out of view before darting after them.
To her surprise they didn’t head towards one of the platforms, but instead paused outside a door with a ‘private’ sign on it, looked around, unlocked it, and went in. From what Kimi could see, hiding behind a corner, it was a broom cupboard.
“…That’s the weirdest thing,” she breathed. “There has got to be something going on with this…”