Sleuth on Skates (9 page)

“I'm not sure Health and Safety would like that,” I remarked.

“Right. Well,” said the irresponsible father, “I'll just go. Tell Peter we'll settle up later.”

I wanted to leave him a tip, but I only had a tube of Mentos, so I just waved goodbye. Peter came back two minutes later, reeking of sick, with his nostrils squeezed together.

“Dammit, Sesame, what I wouldn't do for you.”

“You've been heroic. Your canoes are inside the hangar.”

I shook his hand, which was sticky, and walked back to the Fitz, where Mr. Halitosis was in fits. Parents were waiting outside to take their pale and shaky children home, and though most of them complained loudly at being disturbed at work they all seemed pretty pleased about it. Toby, of course, wasn't sick—he's had to get through eleven years of Mr. Appleyard's food, after all.

“Success!” I rejoiced aloud to him. “I haven't been sick, which means that for once in a lifetime, my parents won't be around!”

“Wrong,” replied Toby, “your dad's over there.”

Shock horror, he was tragically right. It was Reverend Seade, no doubt about it, chatting with someone in a suit on the other side of the entrance hall.

“Father,” I declared, planting myself in front of him, “leave at once. I am in perfect health and do not require parental assistance.”

“What?” said Dad.

“I am so not sick that I even took a delivery of six canoes and an equal number of paddles and life jackets.”

“Are you crazy? Where will we put them?”

“No, I mean at the pub.”

“Heavens! What were you doing in a pub?”

“The museum staircase was in urgent need of spring-cleaning, so I went to ask for extra mops.”

“I have no idea what you're talking about,” stammered Dad. “I'm not here for you. The problem with Sophie,” he sighed to his mate, “is
that she's a self-centred little Omphalos.” And turning back to me, ‘Sophie, this is Professor Philips, a computer scientist at Trinity College. We're here to have lunch in the museum café.”

“Professor Philips?”I repeated. “But Professor Philips left the museum hours ago. And he certainly didn't look like that!”

“There is no need to point an accusing finger at Professor
Archie
Philips for not looking like his brother, Professor
Ian
Philips,” said Dad.

“Not a problem,” said Professor Ian Philips's brother Professor Archie Philips, shaking my hand. “Nice to meet you, young lady. Your father and I have known each other since we were young men.”

“Nice to meet you, old gentleman,” I replied obligingly. “My father and I have known each other since I was born.”

“Sophie, can you please leave us?” implored Dad, looking a little weary.

I was happy to oblige.

There were eight survivors from the intoxication and we all congratulated each other on our stainless steel stomachs before heading back to school, dragging a comatose Mr. Halitosis by the hand. As we reached the school gate, I said to him, “Isn't it amazing, Mr. Barnes? All these torrents of milk-scented vomit and we didn't even feel slightly queasy! Even with those little bits of undigested bread floating around in it! I call it a victory.”

But then I realized Mr. Halitosis wasn't listening any more: he was too busy being copiously sick into a bush, and the radioactive whiffs were spreading at lightspeed with every retch.

Since it would have been unfair to make us do maths and history while the others were at home being granted all their dearest wishes by their parents, the Head asked Mrs. Appleyard, who has a passion for animals, to come and tell us exciting facts about them. We saw the cruel python swallowing an entire bulldog, and the fearless cheetah running after an antelope, and the incredible gliding squirrel falling from branch to branch with just a square of skin stretched between its arms and legs!

And then we were allowed to go and do cartwheels on the school field, and inside the classrooms the other kids were pretty jealous of our super stomachs.

“Look!” said Toby, dropping a paper boat in the river Cam which runs along the bottom of the school grounds. “It'll end up in Grantchester!”

“No it won't. The river flows the wrong way.”

Rivers are very contrary. We waved goodbye to the scintillating ship on its long journey, and hoped it would discover unexplored lands in the manner of Christopher Columbus.

And then it was time to go home, and I realized I hadn't done anything today which could possibly enable me to find Jenna Jenkins.

This is the moment when the proud supersleuth, faced with defeat, collapses into a podgy armchair and sips on a drink with many ice cubes.

“In the name of all that is holy, Sophie! What's in that glass?”

“Apple juice on the rocks, Maman. It adds to the atmosphere. Look, if I take it in my hands and swirl it around like this, it tinkles. Exactly like a detective film.”

“Your father's just told me he found you and Gemma on the street on your own yesterday afternoon. Didn't I tell you to go straight home?”

“Well, you did say ‘go home,' but there was
no ‘straight' between ‘go' and ‘home'.”

Mum rolled her eyes and sighed. “I didn't know teenage crises started so early.”

“With her, it started at two years old,” Dad commented.

They both recoiled in horror at what I assumed were stressful memories.

“DAD!”

“Goodness me! What is it now, you shrieking gibbon?”

“I completely forgot to ask you about the duck!”

“Was there any need for the Australians to hear that? The duck is safe. It's at Emmanuel College. It's made lots of new friends. Happy?”

One of us wasn't happy, and that was Peter
Mortimer. As he walked into the room I saw he was in a foul mood. His prey had all been removed. This morning the sock, now the duck. Tough luck. I fished the mysterious key out of my pocket.

“Lookity look, kitty darling baby,” I said soothingly, dangling the pompom under Peter Mortimer's nose. “That's almost as good as a pregnant duck!”

He hit it with his paw, glared at me and strutted out of the room, making sure I could see his bum.

I looked at the ruffled pompom. Under the fluff, a thin strip of white fabric had appeared, with numbers on it.
3901
. As I pondered on the meaning of these numbers, Mum shot a suspicious glance at me and said, “What's that?”

“Nothing.”

“It's not nothing, it's a key.”

“And, more interestingly, a pompom.”

“Where did you find it?”

“On the floor.”

“Where on the floor?”

“Can't remember.”

Mum looked at the ceiling as if to beg it to collapse on my skull. “You are impossible!” she exploded. “If by tomorrow you haven't taken that key back to where it belongs, you will be in a lot of trouble! Is that clear?”

“Yes, Mummy.”

“Are you sorry?”

“Yes, Mummy.”

“What do they do to thieves?”

“You don't fool me! I'm too young to go to prison. I'm protected like the Queen's swans.”

“Go to your bedroom and think about your actions!” screamed Dad and Mum in perfect unison, which confirmed what I've always suspected, which is that they got married to form some kind of double act.