Squishy Taylor and the Vase That Wasn't (8 page)

Haunted Harry, Mina and Boring Lady are right behind her. We all stand on the roof, laughing and talking. Dad doesn’t let me go for a long, long time. Even when he stops hugging me, he keeps hold of my hand.

‘How did you find us?’ I ask. ‘Did Boring Lady call you first, or Haunted Harry?’

‘They both got to us pretty quickly,’ Dad says. ‘But you know who called me first?’

I look at him, not sure.

‘
Your mum
,’ he says.

I smile. Now I really, truly don’t feel deserted.

‘The vase,’ I say remembering why we’re there. ‘It came back!’ I try to drag Dad over to look but he doesn’t move, and Alice holds up her hand. ‘Wait a second, Squishy Taylor. First things first. What in heaven’s name are you three doing up here?’

I don’t even know where to start. Vee garbles out the story of the way we got rid of the ghost. Jessie makes sure everyone knows she never believed in the ghost. I interrupt to explain to Mina about being banned from talking to my mum (which Alice tries to explain isn’t exactly true). We all tell Boring Lady how many times we tried to signal her. She’s the only one in daytime clothes, so it’s a raucous rooftop
pyjama party
. The grown-ups are rolling with laughter one minute, and
intrigued
the next.

‘But we still don’t know who edited the security footage?’ Alice asks.

‘
That’s
what I want to know,’ Jessie says. ‘It must have been someone who had access to the footage and wanted the vase.’

I’m struck by something. ‘But we know somebody who had access to the footage, and
really
didn’t want us to look at the video,’ I say.

They wait for me to answer. ‘Mr Hinkenbushel!’ I announce.

‘Squishy!’ Jessie laughs. ‘We
know
Mr Hinkenbushel isn’t the bad guy.’

Mina coughs, looking embarrassed. ‘Actually,’ she says, ‘it was me. I secretly took the vase to be valued, because I
knew
Harry was wrong. In the meantime I thought he’d quite like to be haunted –’

Harry grins. ‘
Loved it
,’ he says. ‘And so, clearly, did these guys.’

‘We sorted it all out with the police on the first day,’ Mina explains. ‘I had no idea there was a whole other
adventure
going on until yesterday,’ she says to the grown-ups. Then she grins at us. ‘I’ll never try to keep a secret from you guys again.’

I can’t tell if I’m disappointed that there’s no ghost, or pleased to be friends with a hacker. I can tell which one Jessie is. She’s already got a
billion questions
for Mina on the tip of her tongue. But there are more important things than that.

‘And now,’ I say, turning to Boring Lady, because I’m sure she will help us, ‘we have to return the stolen vase to China.’

But Mina gets our attention with a shake of her head, half-laughing, half-disappointed. ‘It was a fake. Mum really did buy it from a two-dollar shop in the eighties,’ she says.

Everybody laughs. Our adventure on the roof feels
scary
and
exciting
enough that I don’t even mind.

Boring Lady pulls a huge red scarf from her handbag and passes it to Jessie. ‘From now on,’ she says, ‘any time you guys want to contact me, hang this in your window. I promise to look up at least three times a day.’

Jessie and Vee say excited thank-yous, and Alice tries to tell her she doesn’t need to.

Mina turns to Dad. ‘I can show you how to lock your iPad so it only accesses Skype,’ she says to him, but winking at me. ‘Then Squishy Taylor can call her Mama in private without getting into other kinds of trouble.’

I suddenly realise something. ‘
Where’s Baby?
’ I ask.

Dad and Alice turn to each other in horror.

‘He was asleep,’ Alice says at the same time Dad says, ‘We forgot him.’

We all
bolt
for the stairs, with Alice and Dad leading the charge.

Our apartment door is wide open. Standing in the middle of the kitchen, with Baby
giggling
and trying to
poke
out his eyes, is Mr Hinkenbushel.

Ailsa Wild
is an acrobat, whip cracker and teaching artist who ran away from the circus to become a writer. She taught Squishy all her best bunk-bed tricks.

Ben Wood
started drawing when he was Baby’s age, and happily drew all over his mum and dad’s walls! Since then, he has never stopped drawing. He has an identical twin and they used to play all kinds of pranks on their younger brother.

Squishy Taylor and the Vase that Wasn’t
published in 2016 by
Hardie Grant Egmont
Ground Floor, Building 1, 658 Church Street
Richmond, Victoria 3121, Australia
www.hardiegrantegmont.com.au

This ebook is also available as a print edition in all good bookstores.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers and copyright holders.

A CiP record for this title is available from the National Library of Australia.

eISBN 9781743584026

Text copyright © 2016 Ailsa Wild
Illustrations copyright © 2016 Ben Wood
Series design copyright © 2016 Hardie Grant Egmont

Series design by Stephanie Spartels
Illustrations by Ben Wood

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