TEST DRAFT 3 With LLaregub footnotes The Boy Who Shot Flimzy Bubbletrumpett- macbook 2

I don’t know.
Well, I suppose none of know where we are really going, but most of us think we know where
we are going.
I told him about the disappearance of Dys and all that had happened afterwards – except for
the gun in my bag and the purpose of my mission - hoping that perhaps he might be able
explain things to me in a way I could understand.
When I mentioned Mr Mangabey the man nodded and said, Ah, Mangabey!
You have heard of Mr Mangabey?
I was at university with him. Students said he was the cleverest person alive. That professors
would bring their most difficult problems for him to solve. That he was working on
something huge, amazing, something that would change our lives. It was hard to tell how
much was exaggeration and how much truth. Mangabey was such an odd character, they said
he never attended classes, that he just wandered around in his long coat, that almost touched
the ground, carrying a huge bag that held his books, his computer and his notebooks and
papers, just turning up to any laboratory or lecture room he liked, where he would sit quietly
just taking notes, or fiddling with the equipment, without anyone ever stopping him Anyone
else would have been sent down, thrown out. But the university looked the other way when it
came to Mangabey. So you can imagine how the stories started and how they spread.
I met him because he used to go to a little coffee bar on campus. It opened at seven in the
morning, much earlier than the other places, before most students were up. So usually there
were just a few of the cleaners and one or two early risers in the place at that time. Mangabey
liked to be there just as it opened and have a black coffee and a poached egg on toast. Always
the same thing, poached egg and black coffee, and he would always arrive at exactly seven.
This was such a routine that Alexis, the manager, would already have made his breakfast and
it would be on his table waiting. Always the same table in the corner, set apart from the others.
He would finish his breakfast and leave. never spoke to anyone. I had got into the habit of
taking an early morning walk, I had not been sleeping well and I was not happy at university.
So I would turn up at the café just after it opened, and there would be Mangabey sitting in the
corner eating his egg. Sometimes it was just the two of us in the place. I would sit and observe
Mangabey over a coffee or tea, but he never seemed to notice me staring. In fact he didn’t
seem to be aware that there was anyone else in the café.
Then one morning just as I was finishing my coffee, and was about ready to leave, he got up
and came over to my table. The café was empty and Alexis was somewhere in the back
preparing for the day ahead.
Mangabey was carrying one of those tablet computer things. He sat down opposite, put the
tablet on the table and took a small glass bottle from his pocket. A tiny blue bottle, about the
size of my thumb, sealed with a cork. He uncorked the bottle and passed it to me.
Sniff this, he said.
No Good Mornings, introductions, or explanations. Just ‘sniff this’. That was typical
Mangabey.
So I did. Whatever was inside the bottle smelled of peppermint and ginger and something a
little sharp and harsh on the nose, like bleach. I told him this and he just raised an eyebrow
and said, Really?
Then he switched on the tablet computer and passed it across to me.
Now look at this, he said.
On the screen were some pictures fading from one to another in a continuous loop. I saw a
man sitting at a table looking at a book. A large illustrated book. He was looking at a picture
of a man watching television. This picture faded into the picture of the man watching
television. On the television was a man painting a picture. A big oil painting on an easel. The
painting was of a man sitting at a table drawing something on a page in a large sketch book.
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