Scam on the Cam Read online

  “Thank you,” said the artist. “Ah, Gemma’s here!”

  And indeed, Gemma, freshly disembarked from her mum’s car, was walking up the alley to Toby’s house. Toby’s house, due to his parents being the caretaker and the cook at Goodall, is right behind Goodall, near the sports field. From his bedroom window we could see our class playing mixed netball. Mr. Halitosis, hopping among them breathlessly like an asthmatic kangaroo, was shouting, “Come on, come on, a bit more energy! I feel like I’m watching a whole team of Sophie Seades!”

  “I’m super honoured that Halitosis thinks of me even when I’m not there,” I said. “Right, team: we’ve still got a mystery to solve. Who’s poisoning everyone? And what’s in Gwendoline’s pirate chest?”

  “I’ve had some time to think about it while painting eggshells,” said Toby. “I think Rob is the one who’s doing it.”

  “It makes no sense,” I said. “He’s already on the team.”

  “I know. But listen. I have a hypotenuse.”

  “Hypothesis,” I rectified. “Unless you’re a right-angled triangle.”

  “Shut it, Sesame. So—Rob designs a little virus with the help of someone. He puts it in chocolates, which he gives to people on the team until he can get in. But then he forgets which chocolates have the viruses, and keeps giving them to people accidentally. Remember those chocolates he gave us the other day? They’re the ones that were full of viruses.”

  I whistled. “I’d forgotten about those chocolates. The virus could have been in there, it’s true.”

  “See,” said Toby, “my hypothermia was completely right.”

  “Hypothesis. But no, I’m afraid it can’t be right, Toby. If someone’s clever enough to think up a plan like that, they’re not going to forget where they’ve put the deadly bug. But of course, Rob could well have another reason to want to poison everyone—a reason that’s got nothing to do with being on the first crew.”

  “Maybe he’s an evil mastermind,” suggested Gemma, “just doing it for fun and out of pure malevolence. Or an international terrorist employed by Lapland to destroy Cambridge.”

  “Yes. Somehow, I’m not convinced.”

  “Well, do you have another hypochondria?” asked Toby.

  “Hypothesis. Yes, I do. I think there’s something we haven’t yet thought about. And to find out what it is, we have to go back to the boathouse and investigate.”

  So we escaped through the kitchen window, having checked that Mr. and Mrs. Appleyard were busy doing something else (she was telling him that one and a half buckets of goose fat and six packs of butter was quite enough fat for today’s school lunch). Since Gemma didn’t have her scooter with her, she sat on the back of Toby’s bike, and after he’d finished complaining about how heavy she was (heavier than a blue whale who’s swallowed an elephant who’s pregnant with twins, apparently), we crossed town and stopped at the university boathouse.

  Which was, unsurprisingly, locked and empty. So close to the race, the team must be spending most of the day in Ely, rowing on the river and doing gym sessions to wind down before eating kilos of pasta.

  ‘They’ve left the changing room window open again!” I said as we reached the little balcony, having climbed up the wooden beam.

  We slithered inside, and immediately switched to supersleuth-and-sidekicks mode. My supersleuth radar, which is a sort of sixth sense you get when the stellar connections in your brain are particularly good at detecting criminal action, was on full blare.

  “Here are Rob’s chocolates!” called Gemma from the other side of the changing rooms. She read the label on the box. “An assortment of drop-dead delicious fondants and lip-lickingly luscious ganaches.”

  “Drop-dead, I bet,” Toby sniggered.

  “Bag them all,” I said. “We’ll analyze them later.”

  “I don’t have a bag,” remarked Gemma.

  We looked everywhere for an appropriate bag, but of one there was no sign.

  “Just put them in that silly woolly hat,” I said, pointing at the red-and-white hat we’d seen last time, and which was lying under a bench.

  Toby dived under the bench to pick it up. “It’s full,” he said.

  “Of what? Lice? Dandruff? Brains? It’s funny, it reminds me of—”

  “Oh wow,” he interrupted, looking inside it. “Not . . . quite. Look at that.”

  And he emptied it on the floor.

  And it went cling-a-ling!

  Ding-a-ding-a-cling-a-ling!

  And showered us and the room with light.

  Glitters.

  Glimmers.

  Shimmers.

  For that woolly, silly, stripey red-and-white hat had been full of golden, silvery, diamondy, pearly . . .

  “Jewelry!’” gasped Gemma. “Geez! Since when has that been here?”

  Since when do you say ‘geez’?” asked Toby.

  “The thieves,” I whispered. “Gemz—the thieves that the pirate was talking about!”

  “What thieves?”

  “The zieves!”

  “Ah, yes, the zieves. What about them?”

  “They’re here! In the boathouse! Stealing from barges, burgling them! All that in order to . . .”

  All the neurons in my brain lined themselves up into a nice little hypothermia. I mean, hypothesis.

  “. . . in order to pay for the poison! Yes, that’s it! Since they can’t make it themselves, they’re paying someone else to make it for them!”

  “Who?” asked Toby. “Rob?”

  “No,” I said. “Not Rob. Julius and Gwendoline Hawthorne.”

  “Ah, no!” protested Gemma. “Stop it with that stupid idea. You humiliated us enough last time. How many times will I need to tell you? They’ve got nothing to do with that!”

  “I have clues, this time,” I said. “Remember what the pirate told me? That the silhouette of the thief that they’d seen was a short, small man. Why short and small? Because he’s eleven years old! Gwen sends him stealing from the barges. It can’t possibly have been Rob; he’s huge.”

  “I refuse to believe it,” said Gemma. “They want Cambridge to win. They wouldn’t poison anyone.”

  “Refuse to believe it all you like,” I said, “as long as you lend me your phone. I need to call Jeremy and I’ve run out of credit.”

  She agreed reluctantly, and I dialed Susie’s number.

  “Hello?” said Jeremy’s voice on the other end of the line.

  “Hello, boss. Sesame Seade speaking.”

  “What’s up, Sess?”

  “I’ve found enough clues to frame Gwendoline Hawthorne and her brother Julius.”

  “Excellent news. Can you write it all down in an e-mail?”

  “No, you have to come over. I’m at the university boathouse.”

  “I can’t possibly. I’ve got an essay crisis. And my foot’s hurting a bit, and also I’m going out for coffee with some girl later . . .”

  “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!”

  VIII

  “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 j
ust 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, e
specially 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.

  “Calm it down,” I said, “or it’ll go faster than light and create a black hole in your bathtub that will swallow up the entire Earth, and I want to know the end of this story before that can happen.”

  “That’s what I mean,” said Toby. “It’s hugely fast.”

  “So what?”

  “So,” said Toby, “I was just wondering if they’re hugely fast because of something they’re eating around the university boathouse.”

  And suddenly all the neurons in my brain started to whisper things to one another.

  Whisper whisper, blah-di-blah, and don’t you think, and maybe it could be, and possibly, and why not this, oh, surely not, but perhaps yes, and suddenly all the cogs slotted into place and . . .

  “GENIUS! Toby, you’re a GENIUS!”

  “I know,” he said modestly.

  “This is EXACTLY what we’ve ALL been waiting for!”

  “I know,” he said. “Once we’ve figured out what it is that makes the frogs so fast, all the frog collectors in the world will want it. We’ll be rich!”