Scam on the Cam (11 page)

“Come here immediately or I'm handing in my notice.”

“I'll be with you in five minutes.”

I hung up and turned to the sidekicks. “Right, let's go and wait for him outside.”

So we wormed our way out through the window, climbed over the balcony, slid down the wooden beam and jumped to the grou—

“Zis time I've GOT you!”

And as we kicked the air to try to escape the mighty clutch, we heard the terrible, awful, horrible, ignoble, not-good-news-at-all noise of a rain of jewelry on the floor.

And behind us, the voice of the French pirate:

“You see, Patricia? What did I tell you! It's zem! It's ZEM! ZEY ARE ZE ZIEVES!”

“Okay,” I said, “I know what it looks like. But it's a hilarious misunderstanding. Just put us down on the floor and we'll explain, and you'll laugh your head off.”

Marcel put us down on the floor and said, “I'm not laughing yet!”

“Let me explain. It's really funny, because you think we've just stolen all this jewelry.”

“Very funny indeed,” growled Patricia.

“But in fact we haven't. We absolutely haven't.”

“You have,” said Marcel. “Well, in fact,
you
have!” he added, pointing at Toby.

“Me?” exclaimed Toby.

“We've seen you many times! We saw you
again on Monday night!” thundered Marcel. “Jumping away from Fran's barge, having stolen her little gold chain with ze little boat charm on it!”

“She told us she'd been burgled the next morning,” said Patricia. “And we put two and two together. It was you we saw running away from the barge!”

“It can't have been,” I said, “because Toby, Gemma and I have been massively sick for the past week. We've been throwing up every two minutes in the manner of volcanoes erupting.”

“No, I'm almost certain it was him,” said Patricia decidedly. “Short, brown-haired like that . . . Are you going to pretend it was a coincidence again?”

“Yes,” I said. “Complete coincidence, as it happens.”

“And zat?” boomed Marcel. “Zat's a coincidence, perhaps?”

He'd scooped up the pile of jewelry from the floor, and was dangling in front of our eyes a little gold chain with a little boat charm attached to it.

“Yes,” I said. “Funny coincidence, I know.”

“We're taking you to ze police,” said Marcel.

“Yes,” I said, “I was worried you might.”

Gemma and Toby, meanwhile, were absolutely petrified. What is the point, I ask you, of sidekicks who don't kick people's sides when sides are in need of kicking? But Toby was staring longingly at the river like a fish that's just been fished and thrown into a fishing basket, and Gemma was staring forcefully at the pile of jewels as if plunged into a deep
hypnotic state.

“Seriously,” I said, “you've got the absolutely innocent zieves here. We were indeed zieving, but zieving from the zieves. I'm not at all even a tiny bit of a zief. I'm a supersleuth: a world-famous supersleuth on skates. I've got such a strong sense of justice that I'd arrest my own mother. Thinking about it, I
have
arrested my own mother.”

While talking, I was kicking the sides of my sidekicks, hoping to summon some sort of response, but they were still being as reactive as a pair of hibernating marmots.

“My friend is coming with her car to take you to the police station!” announced Patricia, putting her cell phone back into her pocket. “You'll have to explain to them how you thieved from the actual thieves. I'm sure they'll be very interested. And also interested to hear about where the rest of the jewelry is. From what I can tell, this is only what's been gathered in the past two weeks! Where's the watch that you stole a month ago from my barge?”

“I know not,” I admitted politely, “for never in my life have I laid eyes on it.”

“I'm sure they'll make you talk,” said Patricia.

“I wish they'd make Toby and Gemma talk,” I said. “I'm tired of doing all the talking. Toby! Gemma! Anything you'd like to say in our defense?”

“Earrings,” said Gemma.

“Frogs,” said Toby.

“Bother,” I said, “their brains appear to have disappeared.”

“Earrings,” insisted Gemma. “My earrings. There!”

So I looked at what she was looking at, and indeed and undeniably, those were her earrings, emerging from the pile of jewelry that Marcel was still holding.

“Oh, that's where they were!” I said. “You lost them in the boathouse, and then the zief just had to bend down and pick them up. He must have been pretty chuffed.”

“Can I have them back, please?” asked Gemma. “They're mine.”

“No,” said the pirate. “Ah, Patricia's friend is coming! Oh no, it's not Patricia's friend, it's a tramp.”

It wasn't a tramp, in fact; it was Jeremy being his usual stylish self, that is to say, dressed in clothes older than my dad's jokes.

“Jeremy!” I greeted him. “So nice to see you. Pray tell this gentleman I'm not a zief.”

“She isn't a zief,” said Jeremy obligingly. “What's a zief?” he added, looking at me.

“Someone who steals zings!” said Marcel. “And who are you? Zeir zief-in-chief?”

“No,” said Jeremy, “I'm a student at Gonville & Caius.”

“You'll have to explain zat to the police,” said the pirate. “We're taking ze kids zere, and we'll happily take you along.”

Jeremy sighed. “Ah. That's not entirely ideal, as I need to finish an essay for yesterday morning and I haven't started thinking about it yet.”

“You'll zink about it at ze police station,” suggested Marcel.

“I would, but I can't for the life of me
remember what the question is. Sesame, can you please explain what's going on?”

“Yes,” I said. ‘We went into the boathouse to steal Rob Dawes's chocolates which we thought were poisonous. But then we found a woolly hat full of stolen jewelry and stole that instead. We were then caught on our way out by Monsieur Marcel here, who is under the wrong but understandable impression that we are the notorious barge-burgling zieves who've been spreading chaos and desolation among the river dwellers of late.”

“I see,” said Jeremy. “Well, not really.”

That's when the university team's van from Ely arrived. Will got off first, and looked immediately terrified.

“Hey, what's going on?” he said, drawing closer to us. “What are you doing here, kids?”

“We've just intercepted these children leaving the boathouse with a bag of jewelry that we know has been stolen from local barges over the past few weeks,” explained Patricia. “We're taking them to the police station.”

Gwen, from the doorstep of the boathouse, called, “What's the matter, Wally? What are the crazy kids doing here
again
?”

“Nothing,” replied Will, “I'm dealing with it! Do the debriefing without me!”

And Gwendoline and the rowers disappeared into the boathouse. Will turned to Marcel and Patricia again. “Are you sure it's them?” he asked hesitantly.

“It's seriously not us at all,” I said, “it's Gwendoline. Or Rob. Or Julius, or someone. But not us.”

Will addressed a reassuring smile to me. “Listen,” he said to our kidnappers, “I really don't think these kids have anything to do with this. They're just would-be journalists. Let me drive you to the police station and we'll talk about it there, okay? But leave the children here. I'm pretty sure it's not their fault. And anyway, they're too young to be arrested.”

“
He
's not too young,” objected Marcel, pointing at Jeremy.

“Well, we'll take him along,” said Will. “Let's go.”

Marcel seemed reluctant, but then he said, “Okay, zen. Patricia, call your friend and tell her we don't need her anymore. You're coming with us,” he said to Jeremy. “As for you, children,” he pointed a menacing finger at our face, “if I see you again . . .”

And the three little dots were more terrifying than any actual threat could ever be.

“I'm so glad I came,” moaned Jeremy, rolling his eyes. “Sesame, you can say goodbye to your salary this month.”

I felt bad, but it's not as if he ever pays me anyway. Marcel and Jeremy squeezed into Will's car and Will drove off, leaving Toby, Gemma, Patricia, the woolly hat and me on the riverbank.

“Sesame,” said Toby, “now they're gone, can I just tell you something that's just struck me as just a little bit strange?”

“What?”

“While you were busy defending us, I was looking at another frog, and really, I mean really, the frogs around here are very, very fast.”

When Toby's got something he wants to do, you have to let him do it. You have to let him do it because otherwise he'll say every two minutes, “Let me do it,” and sing it to the tune of famous nursery rhymes, which is incredibly annoying, especially as he learned the trick from me.

“Okay, Toby!” I exploded. “Organize that frog race if you really want to. It's fine.”

“Yippee! You'll see, it will be grand.”

We were back at Toby's house and waiting to hear from Jeremy about the coziness of the police station and the friendliness of the
police officers. But he hadn't texted yet, which didn't bode particularly well, unless he was busy carving his essay on the walls of his cells with his own fingernails.

“There we go,” said Toby, “it's all ready. Come and watch!”

He took us to the bathroom, where he'd filled the bath with cold water. In little jugs on one end of the bath were his two frogs.

“The green one is the one I found near the university boathouse,” he said. “The brownish one I caught in the pond behind the school. Look at that.”

He turned the two jugs over, and the frogs leapt into the water in a joyous splish-splash.
And then they started to swim around.

Well, the brownish one swam around. The green one was darting to and fro so fast it can't possibly have been called swimming.