We needed to find George as quickly as possible. Before we set off, I asked Jenny where she had searched already. She told me that she had already searched everywhere.
Well, that was a shame.
That meant George was nowhere and would therefore be impossible to find.
Before I called off the search and gave up on finding George, I decided to check a couple of things with Jenny.
First, I asked her if she had been travelling at the speed of light while she was checking everywhere, because if she hadn’t, then firstly it would have taken her an improbably long time to check everywhere, and secondly there was always the possibility that George was also moving, thereby meaning he could have moved to a location Jenny had already checked.
When I asked her about the speed-of-light thing, Jenny told me that no, she hadn’t been travelling at the speed of light.
Then I asked her my second question.
Had she really meant everywhere when she said everywhere?
Because I’ve found on occasion that people don’t always say exactly what they mean.
She said that no, she hadn’t actually checked everywhere.
Just lots of places.
Aha!
We had a clue.
There were still places in the world that Jenny hadn’t checked.
I grabbed my ChargeMark and started writing out the list of places she had checked.
There was one place I had been wondering about for a while that wasn’t on Jenny’s list.
Jenny had checked George’s house, George’s office, Zargoid 5’s mine and my mine...
But...
Hold on...
“Jenny, when you first came to inspect my mine, you mentioned that you had visited another mine that was deeper than my mine. I had thought it was Zargoid 5’s mine, but actually Zargoid 5 was behind me... so it couldn’t have been. Whose mine was it, Jenny?”
Jenny thought for a moment and said that I was probably thinking of George’s old abandoned mine.
Jenny hadn’t bothered to check there because why would he still be using that mine when he had just accidentally bought mine?
But she agreed that, given she’d checked practically everywhere else George could be, it might be worth a quick look.
If we were going to visit somebody else’s mine, especially if it was abandoned, I knew exactly what I needed to bring with me...
BrushShovel.
The BrushShovel is the ultimate tool for this exact situation.
Of course, its excellent shovelling action allows you to move bits of sand and rock out of the way if they have been abandoned in an inconvenient location—for example, trapping a person called George who had accidentally bought your mine.
And the brush is ideal for ensuring you look your best while meeting people who actually turn out to be at their abandoned mine.
You’ve got to make the right impression.
The only drawback with the BrushShovel is that sometimes, while brushing your hair, some of the sand or rock you have recently been shovelling can fall onto your head.
We travelled as quickly as we could… which was fast, but not actually at the speed of light… to George’s mine.
As we approached, we realised it didn’t look very abandoned at all.
In fact...
It looked like the fanciest and most sophisticated mine I had ever seen.
I decided to ring the doorbell.
Note to self: In future, don’t stop telling a story just when it is getting really interesting.
