What We Saw (3 page)

My stomach tingled. ‘Sorry, Donald. I didn’t realise it belonged to anybody.’ I didn’t like upsetting Donald. His face looked serious.

‘We are really, really sorry,’ Adam said, glancing at me. I hoped I hadn’t blown it. Typical for an adult to catch me throwing a rock the one time I had given it a shot.

Donald shook his head. ‘That’s quite okay, Liam. I’m not going to make a fuss. We were all kids once upon a time, as much as us oldies hate to admit it. Just be glad it’s me who caught you and nobody else. Some people have a funny way of sticking their nose where it isn’t wanted, eh?’

We nodded.
Thank God he’s not annoyed with us.
We couldn’t lose him. He was vital to solving our mysteries, and he told exciting stories.

‘Nice den you’ve made, by the way.’

Adam and I turned to each other, eyes wide.
How did he know about our den?

‘Don’t look so scared now, kids. I know about it. I’ve seen you going in and out of it, and I think you’ve done a fine job. But don’t fret. Your secret’s safe with me.’

He tapped the side of his nose. I didn’t know what nose tapping meant last week, but he told me this was how to keep secrets.
Mark it with a tap
. At first I thought he had a really itchy nose.

‘I have a little something for you three, anyway. Just something I found in my garage when I nipped back home. I suppose you could use it more than me these days. If you’re down at the den around three o’clock, I’ll bring it up to you. That’s if you’re okay with an old biddy like me entering, of course.’

I smiled back at him. ‘Nah—that’d be good, Donald. Thanks.’

‘Good to hear it. I’ll see you later in that case. Ah, I see your granddad on the horizon.’

Donald waved goodbye to us and walked away up the hill where my granddad headed down. Carla ran up to him, and Donald fussed over her as she licked his hand. Donald and Granddad patted each other on the back and separated.
Strange
. Granddad didn’t usually act like that with people. He headed toward us. Emily sat perched on the large rock, throwing smaller stones at a bigger one, like a caveman’s version of tiddlywinks.

‘Hope you kids are keeping yourselves out of trouble,’ Granddad said.

Why did he act that way with Donald?
He didn’t know we were friends with him, just that he helped us out with our mysteries sometimes. Donald had an old log cabin that he tended to, which must’ve been full of gardening equipment. He didn’t let us inside, but was keen to make sure we always had somewhere to go.

‘I hope you’re keeping yourself out of trouble, Granddad,’ Adam replied.

Granddad rustled Adam’s hair. ‘I’m off to the beach. Taking Carla for a walk. Your gran wants you back for tea at five. Sprouts tonight, Liam.’ He winked at me.

As he walked off into the distance, Adam nudged me. ‘Told you you’d get sprouts if you hit such a lame shot.’

We walked up the steps and towards Emily’s road. The den sat at the bottom of the road, near the entrance of the woods. It was probably quite easy for a small person to get inside. Luckily, everyone round here either had a bad back or was really tall. Adam led the way and took a glance from side to side as we reached the lower entrance, close to Emily’s caravan. Then, he lifted the door we’d created out of old leaves tied around string. We had fiddled with that for days until we finally broke down and asked Donald for help. He provided us with the string, but we wouldn’t tell him what it was for. Inside, there wasn’t much room to manoeuvre and it was rather cosy—we had a log which we used as a seat, an area in the middle where we could have picnics and work things out, and a small area covered in leaves where Adam kept a bucket for us to piss in.

I looked at my watch: 3:00 pm.

‘Donald should be here soon, Ad,’ I said.

Adam grinned. ‘He’s great isn’t he? Like, he gets stuff that the other adults don’t get. It’s like he’s a big kid, too, really.’

‘I suppose he is pretty great. Anyway, we should keep on lookout. We don’t want Mrs. Barnes asking us why we’re hanging around again.’

‘I wish she’d just let it go, the stupid old hag,’ Adam said, bashing a stick against the tree branch in the middle of the den. ‘Not like it’s her property. It’s our property. What’s her big problem? Just cause we don’t have money to pay doesn’t mean it’s not ours.’

I thought about what Adam said. We didn’t have much money so we’d have to pay for the land our den was on with the mysteries we’d collected. Perhaps we could offer the caravan site a load of unsolved mysteries in return for their services and the den. Maybe they’d upgrade us to a real office, which would really help matters. The den was good, but we never brought our best mystery record books out because we didn’t want to spill mud on them. Or wee from the toilet, in the form of the Thomas the Tank Engine bucket Adam had snatched from the hands of a toddler a few days ago.

Adam sat writing on an old junk pad in pencil, while Emily perched logs against the little tree.

‘It’s way too cramped in here,’ I said. ‘Why don’t we clean the buckets out and use those as seats?’

Adam frowned and curled his face together. ‘And where will we pee if we get rid of our toilet, genius?’

Emily cringed.

‘Um, in a toilet, like normal people,’ I said.

Adam shook his head. ‘Look, I stole it, so I’ll decide what to do with it. If you want one to sit on, go steal one for yourself.’

Emily carried on cringing and squeezed her nostrils between her fingers. ‘It smells gross,’ she said, sticking her tongue out.

The smell reminded me of bedwetting. I’d smelt that bedwetting smell the other night. Gran said it was because Adam was stressed because of what had happened to his parents, and that it was a phase. I’d told Emily about it one day, when he was winding me up, but he’d gotten really upset. He punched me and ran home. I felt guilty at once, but I hated it when he showed me up in front of Emily. He got what he deserved, sometimes.

I heard a rustling in the bush behind us—someone was watching us. We edged ourselves towards the top of the den, ready to cover our evidence no matter what it took.

‘I hope I’m not interrupting anything, kids.’

It was Donald. He crouched as he poked his head through the hedge. The twig and leaf door could still use some work. He had something under his arm, like a large log with a monster’s teethmarks in it.

Adam’s eyes widened. ‘Is that a piece of evidence, Donald? One of the ones you told us about? Is it something from the cave? Something…’

Donald held his hand up and shook his head, a smile invading his face as Adam’s imagination rattled. His crooked nose held his glasses to his head like a magnet. ‘I wish, my boy, it was. But I hope you’ll settle for something I made for you. I couldn’t help but notice that chair you have over there, and, with all due respect, I thought real mystery solvers like yourselves would benefit from a real clue-cracking chair.’

The new chair really was brilliant. It even had a table-like contraption on the front of it, where Donald said we could rest our work so it wouldn’t get covered in mud. I thanked him.

Adam tested it out, and Emily stood with her arms folded.

Donald looked over at Emily. ‘How you doing, Emily? Keeping the boys in check?’

Emily smiled, turning away from Donald. She kept her arms wrapped round her body. She didn’t really reply to Donald but nodded back at him.

Donald shuffled his feet. ‘I’m off anyway, you lot. I hope you’re happy with that. I’ll be seeing you around.’

He pulled his head out of the doorway, before poking it back in a few seconds later. ‘By the way, no self-respecting mystery cracker has a toilet in their office.’ He smiled at us again, before disappearing out the exit for the last time.

Soon after, Emily’s dad showed up to take Emily home. He didn’t spend much time with us. He grunted at us and grabbed Emily’s arm.

‘I’ll see you,’ she said, smiling at us as she left. She always seemed shyer in front of her dad.

He held her arm and walked her away. Maybe she felt embarrassed. I remember before my mum and dad started arguing, I’d act a bit different in front of them. I thought so anyway. I spotted a bruise on her arm above where her dad grabbed her.
I guess it’s not uncommon for kids our age to get bruises.
Adam’s knees were covered in them, like puddles on a field after a rainy evening. I was a bit cleaner in my appearance and didn’t bruise all that easily. Emily walked off past Valerie’s caravan, and rounded the corner past the mouth of the woods before vanishing out of sight.

Chapter Three

A few hours later, Adam and I returned home for tea. It wasn’t sprouts, as Granddad had teased, but fish and chips, which he’d picked up from the chippy on his way back from the local seafront village. I liked it there. It made me think of old times. Looking out over the sea, walking down to the shops. The sort of place I used to live.

The six o’clock news dominated the room. Gordon Burns had an update on the local high school girl who had gone missing.
Suspicious
.

‘Maybe she just got lost,’ I said, as I pulled my trousers up over my swimming trunks.

Adam furrowed his brow. ‘Or maybe she got abducted by aliens.’ He rubbed his chin in front of the telly. Maybe we’d never find out, although I hoped we would. I hated those news stories where there was never an ending. They should get me, Adam, and Emily on the case because they clearly weren’t very good.

‘You ready to go, boys?’ Granddad said.

‘Yeah, just a sec,’ said Adam, as he scurried around the room, lifting up the chair cushions.

I bit my lip and tried not to laugh. ‘What’s up, Adam?’ I said.

He carried on frowning and pacing around the room with Carla following closely behind. ‘My trunks, I can’t…’

He looked at Carla and saw them draped across her head. His shoulders drooped to the floor, and he grinned.

I burst out the laughter I’d been holding in.

‘You idiot,’ he said, giggling.

After Adam got dressed, we went down to the pool with Granddad for an evening swim. We took turns throwing ourselves off the ledge into the depths below, covering passers-by with waves and making them tut at us until we were told to stop by the lifeguard. After that, we pretended we were policing the sea. Looking for missing bodies and remains of old ghost ships.

When that got boring, I turned my attention to Adam. I held my breath, submerged myself under water, and grabbed Adam’s toe. He kicked back at me, like I was a shark closing in on my prey. I let go, and he wrapped his hands around my leg. He was much rougher than I was, tugging at my leg until I begged him for air.

Adam always expected me to go light on him, but this time, I’d get my own back. I dove under the water, tugged at his leg, and held him under. At first, I saw his eyes expand, and he was still, looking at me with confusion. Then he started kicking like mad. I smirked—he’d never seen that coming.
Nice joke.
His mouth opened and he began to let out a laugh before kicking me in the face. I let go in surprise and Adam disappeared to the surface of the pool.

I swam up to confront him. He sat on the edge of the pool, dangling his legs into the water.

‘I was only messing, Ad. What was that for?’

Adam sat silent, staring at the ripples in the pool.

I climbed out to sit next to him. ‘Ad, you okay?’

He snapped out of his momentary trance and looked towards me, half-smiling. ‘Yeah, it’s not you. Sorry. It’s just, you know.’

My heart sank as the realisation set in.
How could I have been so stupid?
‘I… I’m sorry, Adam. It just, I dunno. Completely forgot… you know?’ My throat felt croaky.

Adam shook his head and patted me on the shoulder. ‘It’s alright, I get it. Let’s head back now and see if we can get an ice-cream out of Granddad, eh?’

After we had picked up an ice-cream from the shop, we played our Game Boy to see who could get the best scores on Mario Kart. We opened our books upon our return and made a note of our day’s progress. My entry went something like this:

Day 10 – Met Emily in morning. Met Donald, who said he had something for us. Granddad and Donald shared a hug…

I stopped writing for a moment and remembered that embrace. Like old friends who hadn’t seen each other for years.
Warmth
. I hadn’t seen anything like that from Granddad for a long time.

‘Adam, did you see the way Granddad and Donald hugged earlier?’ I asked.

Adam doodled something on his piece of paper. I knew what he was drawing, but I pretended I hadn’t been looking. He would get over things in his own way. ‘What you on about?’ he asked.

‘I just thought it seemed a little strange. Seeing Granddad hug someone like that. Especially Donald. He hardly knows Donald.’

Adam chewed the end of his pen. ‘What are you trying to say? That they know each other better than we think, maybe?’

‘I don’t know. It’s just… I think we should maybe write it down in the mystery book and ask Granddad why he did that. Maybe ask Donald first, though. Because Granddad doesn’t know we’re close friends with Donald and everything.’

We chatted for a little longer before we fell asleep.

*

The next day, Granddad took me, Adam, and Emily—with permission from her parents—onto the beach. Gran stayed at home and did a crossword.

‘You not fancy a walk?’ Granddad asked.

Gran looked up at him and frowned. ‘Don’t be daft.’ She turned her eyes back towards the magazine and tucked into her crossword.

I liked walking on the beach. It was a pity we couldn’t go down on our own. We could sneak down, of course. In fact, we tried it once, but Granddad always seemed to be watching.

Adam and Emily teased one another as I walked behind them. The two of them punched each other. I wondered if this was how Emily got so many bruises. She didn’t seem to mind though.

‘Stop being such a wuss,’ she said to Adam, as she wrapped a strand of seaweed around her neck. It looked revolting but I tried to smile. Instead, she looked back at Adam, who flicked the seaweed into her face.