Scam on the Cam Page 5

  Julius & Gwen guilty. Poison in St. Cats. Rob not guilty. Do not accept marriage proposal from JH. He’s a filthy criminal and will be hanged high and short, leaving you widowed and publicly shamed. xx

  Then I realized I was about to collapse with exhaustion, and almost did, but Peter Mortimer started licking my ankles with a tongue that was slightly more unpleasant than a cheese grater, so I moved to bed and fell instantly asleep.

  “Bonjour, hungover parents! How’s the head?”

  “We are not at all hungover,” said Mum curtly, spreading jam on her toast. Dad was idly pretending to read the Telegraph. “We remember everything that happened yesterday evening.”

  Both of them were sporting impressively dark half-circles under their eyes, making them look like a couple of giant, cuddly raccoons.

  “Like when I was away for an hour at the end of the dinner?”

  “Very funny,” said Dad. “Here’s your porridge. Sugar? Honey?”

  And he pushed a jar of honey toward me, as well as an open bag of . . .

  I froze.

  “That’s not sugar,” I said.

  They didn’t reply, so I said more loudly, “That’s not sugar.”

  “What isn’t, my dear?” asked Mum, who was now reading the centerpiece of the Telegraph, which Dad had shared with her.

  “That bag. Bad powder. N-n-not sugar,” I stammered, having suddenly lost the ability to use verbs.

  “Yes, it is,” said Mum, stirring a spoonful of the substance into her cup of coffee, and then drinking it.

  “No no, no no no, no no, no no,” I choked. “Don’t drink it!”

  “It’s my second cup,” said Mum, laughing. “What’s wrong with you, Sophie?”

  “It’s not sugar,” I said. “It’s a bag of . . . something . . . that I left here on the table yesterday. By mistake.”

  Mum rolled her eyes and tucked into her newspaper again.

  Being faced with two Telegraph-shaped walls, I looked at the transparent plastic bag. Sure enough, there was writing on it, small enough that I hadn’t noticed it the night before. It said Fine White Sugar (500g).

  “But it can’t be,” I murmured. “It makes no sense. Why hide sugar in a pirate chest?”

  “What are you mumbling?” inquired Dad from behind the Telegraph wall.

  “Are you feeling well?” I asked. “No nausea?”

  “Seriously, Sophie,” said Dad, “we’re not hungover at all. It was just a little bit of wine.”

  “Any rumbling and fizzling in your stomach? Any urgent urges to be violently sick?”

  “Really, Sophie, you are infernal,” said Mum. “We don’t need to hear such disgusting things at the breakfast table. Finish your porridge, you’re going to be late for school.”

  And when I left the house, half an hour later, neither Mum nor Dad was projectile-vomiting into the purple curtains.

  It was incomprehensible.

  While all the other kids were at school doing algebra, Gemma, Toby and I were on a small motorboat on the river in Ely.

  “Sometimes I love being your sidekick, Sesame,” said Toby.

  The motorboat was steered by Gwendoline, who was shouting orders at the top of her voice to the university rowboat next to us. The boat was coxed by Will, who was adding more orders to the wild rumpus. It sounded like this:

  “Come on, boys! Oxford won’t be waiting for you to catch up at the first corner!”

  “And push for ten! One! Two! Three! . . .”

  “Up one, down one!”

  “Going up to thirty-eight now! Thirty-six at the moment!”

  I was trying quite hard not to stare at the boat, as I had to look at Gwendoline’s hands and pretend to be fabulously stupid, but it wasn’t an easy task.

  “Don’t forget we’re on a mission,” I whispered to Gemma and Toby. “We have to figure out why Gwen and Julius are hiding bags of sugar in that chest.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t just sugar,” said Toby, looking into the screen of his camera. “Maybe the bag you took was sugar, but the rest was poison.”

  “Maybe,” I admitted.

  “You’re both mental,” snapped Gemma. “There’s no reason why Julius and Gwendoline would poison their own team. I’m sure there’s a perfectly rational explanation to this pirate chest mystery. It’s obviously Rob—he poisoned enough people to get into the first crew, that’s all.”

  “Gemma, I’ve already told you it’s not him. Julius made that up after you unequivocally explained to him everything about our mission.”

  “I barely said anything!” protested Gemma. “I was just trying to make conversation. And anyway, maybe Julius is right, but he doesn’t know it. It’s Rob, I’m sure.”

  We passed under a bridge, and the farts and hiccups of the motorboat’s engine scared a lazy-looking heron, which flew away into the distance with an expression of profound disgust on its face.

  “Or maybe it’s as everyone always suspected,” said Toby. “A virus, just a virus.”

  “But my mum said it was a man-made one,” I objected.

  “Precisely,” said Gemma triumphantly. “Gwendoline would never be able to make a virus like that. She did fine art at Oxford. She isn’t a scientist.”

  “Hey, that’s a good point,” I muttered. “Ask Gwendoline what the other rowers on the team do.”

  Gemma cleared her throat and switched to goody-goody mode. “Gwendoline? Sorry to bother you—we’re just thinking that for the article, we’d like to indicate what each of the rowers studies. Would you be able to tell us?”

  “Sure,” said Gwendoline, her eyes still riveted to the rowboat next to us. “Alex at bow does English. Salman and Dan are both engineers. Rob does medieval history. Danny does physics, and so does Andrew, I think . . . Then there’s Joe, an astronomer. And at stroke, Gary, who’s premed. As for Waldo,” she laughed, “he studies frogs for his doctorate.”

  “Frogs!” exclaimed Toby. “Wicked! I love Waldo more and more. I mean, Will.”

  “Gary’s a medical student,” I murmured. “This could be our man.”

  “Gwendoline?” asked Gemma again. “Has Gary been pulled from the reserve crew?”

  “Nope,” she said, “he’s always been in the first crew. He’s . . .”

  But she suddenly stopped talking and cut the engine. Next to us, the rowers had slowed down considerably.

  “What’s going on, boys?” she shouted. “Why are you losing speed?”

  “Gary’s got a problem,” replied Will from the cox’s seat.

  “What’s wrong, Gary?” asked Gwendoline.

  And just as I heard the CLICK! of Toby’s camera near my ear, Gary leaned to his right over the edge of the boat and emptied the (colorful) contents of his stomach into the river.

  “Well,” said Toby to lighten up the atmosphere, “at least the fish got some extra food for tea.”

  But no one seemed to have switched on their sense of humor, so the three of us sat down under a nearby tree and waited as the whole crew disembarked and dragged a semicomatose and very white Gary onto the grass. They rowed back as a seven, leaving Gary with us on the motorboat.

  “Mystery reactivated,” I said. “There’s no reason why Rob should have poisoned someone else—he’s already on the crew. So it can’t be him. It could be the next guy they’ll pull in from the reserve boat, though.”

  “Or,” said Gemma, “it could simply be A Bug! Maybe there’s no mystery at all, Sesame.”

  “If it’s A Bug,” said Toby, “we’ve definitely caught it, having spent twenty minutes with Gary on that tiny boat.”

  The boys were in the changing rooms, and Gwendoline disappeared into the boathouse. Will walked down toward us, looking very concerned.

  “Please don’t publish this article before the race,” he said. “We can’t let Oxford know that we’re six men down.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Gemma in a professional tone, “we know our responsibilities.”

  We walked back to the boat
house. Inside, Rob Dawes came to us with a box of chocolates.

  “Want some, kids?” he said. “If you’re still hungry after all this . . .”

  We were indeed, and helped ourselves copiously. While Gemma was asking him some innocent questions, and while Toby was taking pictures, I spotted Gwendoline’s reflection in a darkened window.

  She was in the kitchenette, at the end of a short corridor, half-hidden from everyone’s sight.

  I crept up the corridor and looked.

  And what I saw made me open up my mouth as wide as Peter Mortimer’s when he’s about to give a squirrel the bite of death.

  For Gwendoline Hawthorne was scooping blue powder from a white bucket into a large jug of juice, and mixing, and mixing, and mixing.

  “It’s you!” I shouted, pointing at her. “You’re the poisoner!”

  “What?” she exclaimed, turning to me. “What’s that about? Oh, it’s you. I didn’t know you could even talk.”

  “Oh yes, I can,” I sniggered. “I can talk very well, and also deduce things from what I see. You’re slowly poisoning your own team so Oxford can win. Pathetic!”

  She burst out laughing. “That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard,” she said.

  “I know where you hide your powder,” I said. “I don’t know how you made that virus, but I know where it is now—in the cellars of St. Catharine’s College!”

  She suddenly went as white as Toby’s frog’s belly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. But I suggest you and your friends get out of here right now. Waldo!”

  “Yes?” said Will, who was walking up to us with Gemma and Toby.

  “Send the baby journalists home right now.”

  “Em . . . okeydoke,” said Will. “But why?”

  “Why?” I repeated. “Because she wants some peace and quiet to poison the whole team with that virus!”

  There was a long, very long silence, so long that I wondered if I’d accidentally hit the pause button of Life.

  But then Will murmured, “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “It’s quite simple,” said Gwendoline. “This ridiculous child is accusing me of trying to poison everyone.”

  “Poison? Why poison?” laughed Will, looking at me. “It’s a virus that people are getting, you know, not poison.”

  “It is a virus,” I said, “but a man-made one. Someone is deliberately giving it to the rowers. And that someone is her, with the help of her brother.”

  “You’re an idiot,” said Gwendoline. “This, my dear, is a protein shake, which I make every day for the guys in the crew.”

  Toby and Gemma slapped their foreheads, and I slouched a little. Gwendoline had poured herself a glass of the weird mixture, and downed it in one.

  “See? I’m not throwing up anytime soon. Because it’s just extra protein to make them stronger. Maybe you’ll learn that at school someday. In the meantime, get out of here. Waldo, drive them home. I’ve had enough of those kids, we’re not taking them back in the van.”

  So we got out of there, under the sarcastic glances of the seven remaining boys, and Will’s concerned look.

  “Sorry about that,” he said to us as we squeezed into his tiny, rusty car. “It’s not a good time to get people on the crew angry. We’re all a bit stressed about all the losses. That bug . . . It’s ruining our chances, you know. And for most of the guys on the team, it’s the opportunity of a lifetime. They’ve been dreaming of the boat race for years.”

  “But Will,” I said, “you’ve got to believe us, there’s something dodgy about that bug. We really think someone is feeding it to the rowers. Maybe someone who’s trying to get into the first crew, we don’t know, but . . .”

  Will was shaking from head to foot. “It’s a horrible thought,” he said. “I don’t know what makes you think that, but I’m sure you’re wrong—it’s just a bug, probably in the river. Have some antibacterial gel, by the way. Wouldn’t want you to fall ill too. What a dreadful epidemic.”

  He pointed at the tube of gel in the glove compartment, and we helped ourselves.

  “But don’t you find it weird that Gwendoline is from Oxford and coaching the Cambridge team?” I asked.

  “Not at all,” he said, “the Hawthornes have lived in Cambridge for generations. Gwen went to Oxford because she wanted to do fine art, which you can’t do in Cambridge. Seriously, kids, don’t look any further. Everyone wants us to win—everyone except the river and the bug in it.”

  He dropped us off in the city center in Cambridge, and we had to admit it had been another very bad day for sleuthing.

  I gloomily passed by the gate of Christ’s College. It was very hot, I thought, even though it was apparently raining. And I was very tired, even though it was only five o’clock. The river air, probably.

  “Good evening, Sophie.”

  “Evening, parents.”

  “How was the outing? How’s the article going?”

  “Not great.”

  “You’re not very chatty tonight.”

  “No.”

  That’s when I fell onto the armrest of the armchair, bounced off it, landed on the floor, was even more colorfully sick than Gary and then all I remember is

  VII

  “Enough, Mother! A week of carrots is enough for anyone. I am not a bunny! Je ne suis pas un bunny! No soy un bunny! I don’t want to see or smell another carrot in my life. I wish carrots would disappear from the surface of the planet. In fact they probably are disappearing, since you’re feeding them all to me.”

  “The problem with Sophie is that she’s a dramatic little Sarah Bernhardt,” sighed Mum. “Eat your carrot puree.”

  “I’m warning you, if I do end up turning into a rabbit, I’ll leave perfectly round little turds everywhere in the house. Everywhere. That’ll teach you.”

  “Eat your carrot puree.”

  “Bring me a rare, juicy, sinewy leg of lamb.”

  “Eat this and then you can have a banana.”

  “How about food for humans? I demand chicken korma and blackberry crumble.”

  “Not until you are cured.”

  “I am cured! I haven’t thrown up in fifteen hours and twelve minutes. Thirteen now. Can I go to school?”

  “No. Eat.”

  I yawned, and she took advantage of the open mouth to thrust an enormous spoonful of the disgusting orange paste into it.

  “You’re shuch a bad nurshe,” I shpluttered. “Dad ish a mushch better nurshe than you. He’sh all shweet and caring and he shtrokes my head. Where ish he?”

  “At shursh,” said Mum, “I mean church. Eat your carrots, and then shleep. I mean sleep. I’m going to work; have a nice day.”

  She walked out, and I sighed. It was Friday. Toby, Gemma and I had been out of action for a whole week, and the Boat Race was tomorrow.

  In sickness or in health, there was no way I’d let the serial poisoner get away with it.

  As soon as Mum had left the house, I got out my phone and went click-click-click-call.

  “Hello-hello?” said Gemma’s voice at the other end of the line. “Who’s the lucky person who’s got the honor of talking to me?”

  “Sesame,” I said. “But I think you’ll find you’ve got the honor of talking to me.”

  “Hello, Sess! How long since you last threw up?”

  “Fifteen hours and twenty-one minutes. You?”

  “Twelve hours and two minutes.”

  “We’re basically cured.”

  “That’s what I keep telling my parents, but they won’t stop feeding me white rice.”

  “I’d kill for white rice! I’ve had carrot puree thrust down my throat for the past five days in the manner of a turkey being fattened up for Christmas.”

  “I’d kill for carrot puree!” said Gemma. “I’ve eaten so much rice these past five days that I’ve become at least half-Chinese.”

  “You were already half-Chinese,” I pointed out.

  “I must admit that that is true, admitt
edly,” she admitted. “Anyway, I’ve just talked to Toby. He hasn’t thrown up in almost twenty-two hours! And he’s really fed up with eating nothing but hard-boiled eggs. He’s had so many in the past five days that he’s collected enough bits of shell to make a giant mosaic covering a whole wall of his bedroom.”

  I tut-tutted. “Ergo, we are not at all sick anymore. We have to meet up and continue the investigation.”

  “Yes. But how can I get out of Waterbeach?”

  Waterbeach is where Gemma lives, in what looks like a many-turreted castle. It’s got no beach, however, and the only water is that which falls from the sky every time you forget your umbrella. It’s at least twenty-five minutes by car, which makes it one of the farthest places from Cambridge I’ve ever been to. Well, apart from Paris when I was in Mum’s belly, and I couldn’t see the Eiffel Tower very well through her skin and dress, so I slept most of the time.

  “Tell your parents to drive you. Just say that the three of us are meeting up at Toby’s to recover all together and catch up on homework,” I said. “And don’t forget to call Toby to tell him. I’ll be there in ten mins. Running out of credit! See you la—”

  And then the phone went silent, my five pounds of monthly phone credit having been eaten up by that greedy Gemma.

  I leapt out of bed and reached under my desk for my faithful roller skates, which looked extremely bored, having not been used for a week. Thankfully the wheels still seemed to remember how to roll around their little axles. I slid down the big tree and escaped through the back door.

  And then I whooshed through town, perhaps a little bit more wobblily than usual, but readier than ever for some serious supersleuthing.

  “That is one splendid eggshell mosaic, Toby,” I congratulated him. “Three piglets tripping over marbles in a jungle. How original.”

  “It’s not three piglets tripping over marbles in a jungle, it’s you, me and Gemma cycling, skating and scooting through Cambridge.”

  “Oh. I see. Well, it’s very impressionistic. Or something-istic, at least. I think you’ve launched a completely new type of art. It’s properly Tobyfying.”