Olive and Tymek visit Professor Pomyłka's strange house and are pulled into a very odd sock mystery that may lead somewhere far stranger than the laundry room.
At the very end of Kociej Street stood the strangest house in town. It belonged to Professor Pomyłka, though everyone called him Professor Mistake, mostly because his inventions worked brilliantly for about three seconds and then did something alarming.
His house looked as if a laboratory, a toy shop, and a thunderstorm had all collided. Cables drooped from the ceiling like vines, little red lights winked in the corners, and somewhere deep inside the walls something kept ticking with the confidence of a thing that should not have been ticking at all.
One rainy afternoon, Olive and Tymek were invited in for tea and jelly biscuits. The invitation had sounded normal enough. The front door did not. The moment Olive stepped inside, she nearly tripped over a mechanical cat that gave a polite meow in Japanese and scuttled away under a side table. Tymek stared after it until the fridge in the kitchen sprang open by itself and played a disco tune so cheerful it felt insulting.
Professor Mistake appeared from behind a tower of beakers, his hair standing up in at least four directions and one sleeve stained bright blue. He beamed at them as if the chaos around him were perfectly ordinary.
"Excellent," he said, clapping his hands once. "You are just in time. I need detectives. Small ones, preferably with quick feet and no fear of laundry."
He led them down the hall to a door marked LAUNDRY ROOM in letters that were peeling off one by one. The room beyond was hotter than it should have been, and it smelled faintly of soap, metal, and something citrusy that Olive did not trust.
On the floor sat a mountain of lonely socks: striped socks, spotted socks, one sock with tiny umbrellas, and one that had an embroidered banana near the toe. Professor Mistake pointed at the pile as if it were a crime scene.
"The socks are disappearing," he whispered.
Tymek blinked. "Isn't that what socks do?"
"Not like this," said the professor. "Yesterday I put seven pairs into the washing machine. Seven. When I opened it, I found one crocodile, three right socks, and half of a treasure map."
"Half a treasure map?" Olive said.
The professor nodded gravely. "The other half vanished with my favourite green sock."
Olive crouched beside the washing machine. Underneath it, in the dusty light, she spotted a shiny trail on the floor, as if something wet had been dragged away in a hurry. Tymek leaned in too close and sneezed.
Professor Mistake produced a torch from behind his ear. It was shaped exactly like a cucumber. He clicked it on and shone the light into the dark gap beneath the machine.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then something inside the drum gave a soft grunt.
The washing machine shuddered.
A tiny paw, covered in a striped sock, reached out from under the door.
And slowly, with a scraping sound like damp cloth on tiles, a small moustached creature stepped into the light and stared straight at them.