Friday Barnes 2 (14 page)

A few minutes later Friday and Chris were crouched in the bushes at the far side of the hockey field from the rose garden, scoping out the scene.

‘The nearest switch for the fire alarm is in the entrance,' said Friday. ‘Miss Priddock is incredibly dim-witted and unobservant, but I think even she would notice if someone pulled the fire alarm directly opposite her desk. You'd be better off looping round
to the far side of the school and grabbing the fire pull at the rear of the boys' dormitory. Boys never notice anything.'

‘Give me your hat,' said Chris as he snatched the green pork-pie hat from Friday's head.

‘Hey,' cried Friday. ‘That's my trademark accessory.'

‘It's about to be my diversion,' said Chris. He opened the petrol cap on the lawnmower, screwed Friday's hat up and jammed it inside.

‘That is going to be terrible for the felt,' cried Friday. ‘I'll never get the smell out.'

Chris pulled out the now petrol-soaked hat. ‘Stay here,' he instructed.

‘That's a bit redundant given I'm still tied to this grass catcher,' said Friday.

Chris scanned the area in each direction, then stepped out of the bushes and calmly walked over to the administration building. As he crossed the shrubbery, Friday saw him bend down and pick up a large rock. He went over to the window of the stationery store and threw the stone through the lowest pane. The window shattered. Then Chris produced a lighter from his pocket and set Friday's hat alight.

‘Nooooo!' cried Friday.

Chris threw the flaming hat through the broken window, then calmly walked back to the bushes where Friday was tied up.

‘How could you?' demanded Friday.

‘I'm sure the school is insured,' said Chris.

‘Not the school, my hat!' wailed Friday.

‘Come on, I'm doing you a favour,' said Chris. ‘That was one ugly hat.' He turned and looked back at the building. Smoke was starting to waft out the broken window. ‘It won't be long now.'

Sure enough, two seconds later the fire alarm started wailing.

They could hear people yelling followed by the general shuffling associated with three hundred people starting to move at once.

Chris climbed back into the driver's seat of the lawnmower. He waited until the noise of people moving had just about died down, then he turned the engine on and sped towards the rose garden, mowing down a whole bed of Lady of Shalott blooms before coming to a stop. He opened up the lawnmower's storage compartment and took out a spade. Then he took something out of his pocket. Friday wasn't sure what it was until he released the safety catch.

‘Secateurs?!' said Friday. ‘What are you going to do? Prune the roses?'

‘Shut up,' said Chris, as he lunged towards her. Friday closed her eyes. If she was going to be stabbed, she would rather not watch. But Chris simply cut the zip tie holding her hands.

‘You're letting me go?' asked Friday.

‘Yes, because I'm secretly a really lovely person,' said Chris, again with his sarcastic voice. ‘No, I'm making you dig the hole, idiot.'

‘You want me to dig a hole two feet deep in under ten minutes?!' asked Friday. ‘Then you're the idiot.'

‘Just do it,' ordered Chris. ‘I need to keep a lookout. It's freshly turned earth. It won't be hard, even for you.'

Friday raised the spade and speared it into the ground. It was a well maintained tool.

‘This is Mr Pilcher's, isn't it?' said Friday. ‘You're the one who staged the bunya-bunya pine attack, just so you could get this spade.'

‘I thought it was an inspired idea,' said Chris. ‘The best thing about using a tree as a patsy is it can't rat you out.'

‘No, Mr Pilcher's hat did,' said Friday.

‘I didn't realise the jogging club were such early birds,' said Chris.

‘Why did you put my DNA on the string?' asked Friday as she kept digging. ‘That was just weird.'

‘It's your own fault for being such a meddler. I had to try to get you out of the way,' said Chris. ‘The plan was to find the string myself and drop you in it with the police. You would've been expelled for sure.'

‘But how did you get my spit?' asked Friday.

‘The science club did a study on oral bacteria,' said Chris. ‘We all had to spit in petri dishes.'

‘You stole my petri dish?!' exclaimed Friday.

‘It's always useful to have a DNA sample handy,' said Chris. ‘If you think you might need to frame someone, that is.'

Friday's spade his something hard. Chris heard the noise. ‘That's it,' he said. ‘Get it out.'

Friday tapped around until she found the edge of the container then she slid in the spade a little deeper and levered it out. Chris took the spade from her while she bent down and pulled up a large white cardboard box. The box had the words ‘Apple Pie' written neatly in the centre.

‘Oh dear,' said Friday. ‘I think I know what this is.'

‘Let me see,' said Chris, snatching the box away from Friday. ‘It can't be a pie.'

‘No, it's something much worse,' said Friday.

Chris opened the box. There was a horrendous smell. ‘A dead cat?!' He gagged.

‘It's Purrcy,' explained Friday.

‘That's disgusting,' said Chris. ‘Is this the time capsule?'

‘No, this is just some lazy home economics students' attempt to hide evidence,' said Friday. ‘The time capsule will be deeper down, two feet under.' She kept digging until her spade hit something else. Something more solid. She levered out a dirty copper box with the number 87 etched clearly on the top.

‘At last,' said Chris.

‘What now?' asked Friday.

‘Open it,' said Chris.

Friday crouched down with her back to Chris and started to jiggle the rust-encrusted latches. ‘The lock is rusty,' said Friday. ‘It would be quicker to use a …'

‘Watch out!' cried Ian.

Friday spun around to see Chris swinging the flat of the spade towards her head. She ducked and closed
her eyes, then heard a thud. It took a second for her to realise it was not a thud against her skull. It was the thud of Chris hitting the ground. Ian had knocked him over and they were wrestling amongst the rosebushes.

‘Ow!' cried Chris. ‘I've got thorns in my back.'

‘You'll have my fist in your front in a minute,' said Ian.

‘Don't!' cried Friday. ‘He's got secateurs.'

‘Thank you,' said Chris. ‘I forgot about that.' He whipped out the pruning shears.

‘Didn't your mother ever tell you not to play with gardening tools?' asked Ian.

‘I think there are a lot of moral lessons Chris failed to learn from a parental figure,' said Friday.

Ian backed away from him.

‘What do you know,' said Chris. ‘The two smartest kids in school, but you're not smart enough to outwit a pair of pruning shears, are you?'

‘Well, secateurs are an inanimate object,' said Friday. ‘They have no intelligence, unless you are anthropomorphising it, in which case I don't follow the gist of your analogy.'

‘Shut up,' said Ian and Chris in unison. They started circling each other.

‘Don't be a hero, Ian,' Friday warned.

‘Don't you mean, don't be
any more
of a hero?' asked Ian. ‘I did just crash-tackle a guy who was about to hit you in the head with a spade.'

‘I just don't want you to get hurt,' said Friday. ‘If secateurs can cut through a rose stem, I hate to think what they could do to a blood vessel.'

‘You've really got tickets on yourself, haven't you?' accused Ian. ‘That you think there is even a possibility that I might risk injury for you.'

‘Well, I am standing in a rose garden watching two boys fight over me,' said Friday. ‘My self-esteem is on the upswing.'

All this time Chris was edging away. He climbed back up on the lawnmower. ‘You stuck-up rich kids make me sick,' said Chris.

‘Actually, we're the two poorest kids in school,' said Friday. ‘Ian is the scholarship student and I pay my way because my parents earn barely enough to keep themselves in biros and notebooks.'

‘Just shut up,' said Chris, ‘before I give up trying to make a getaway and come back to snip you.' He put the lawnmower in gear and took off, lumbering back across the rugby field and towards the forest.

‘He's getting away,' said Friday.

‘Good,' said Ian. ‘The nasty upstart. I never want to see him again.'

‘But he's got the time capsule!' said Friday.

‘I feel sorry for a boy who is prepared to commit serious assault just to steal a twenty-year-old school assignment,' said Ian.

‘You don't understand,' said Friday. ‘What's in that time capsule is worth thousands.'

‘Of dollars?' asked Ian. ‘Yes,' said Friday.

Ian didn't respond. He took off sprinting after the lawnmower.

‘Try not to get hurt,' urged Friday. She ran after him, going as fast as she could, but Friday's run was less effective than most people's jog.

Chris was steadily gaining speed as he approached the edge of the sports field. There was no way Ian was going to catch up with him. Friday racked her brain, trying to think of some way she could stop Chris. If she'd had her rocket, she could've aimed that at the petrol tank and blown the lawnmower out from under him. But her spare rocket was back in her room. It would take a miracle to stop Chris now.

And then a miracle did appear, in the form of Malcolm. He burst out of the bushes at the edge of the forest and came sprinting down the slope towards the lawnmower. Chris did not see him because Malcolm was coming in from the side. But he certainly felt him, as Malcolm launched his entire six-foot-five and one-hundred-and-ten-kilos of brawn at Chris and knocked him off the machine. The lawnmower continued, unpiloted, into the forest. Malcolm and Chris rolled on the ground. Malcolm pivoted himself up on top and raised his fist to deliver a blow.

‘Stop!' cried Friday. ‘You don't want to go back inside for manslaughter, do you?'

Malcolm clearly needed a minute to consider this. But then he decided Friday was right because instead of hitting Chris, he rolled him over, twisted his arm in a painful lock and sat on him.

Half an hour later Friday, Ian, Chris, Melanie, Vice Principal Dean and Malcolm were all sitting in the Headmaster's office. Ian and Malcolm had tied Chris to a chair using the Headmaster's sticky tape.

‘What on earth is going on?' demanded the Headmaster.

‘I want Ian and Malcolm arrested for assault,' demanded Chris.

‘They should all be expelled for being troublemakers,' declared Vice Principal Dean.

‘No, Chris needs to be arrested for theft,' accused Ian.

‘Actually, Chris never left the premises with any stolen property,' said Friday. ‘It would be hard to make the charges stick. The main reason Chris should be arrested is because he's a prison escapee.'

‘What?' exclaimed everyone in the room, except for Malcolm.

‘You knew?' asked Malcolm.

‘I knew Chris had been in jail since the first time I met him,' said Friday. ‘The five symmetrical dots on his wrist are a common prison tattoo. They represent a person inside four walls.'

‘Really?' said Melanie. ‘It sounds like a symbol of someone who doesn't have the courage to get a proper tattoo.'

‘Why didn't you report him immediately?' demanded the Headmaster.

‘I thought you knew,' said Friday. ‘I assumed he had spent some time in a juvenile detention facility. Goodness knows, more of the privileged children at this school should be locked up. I didn't see any need
to make a fuss. If he'd done his time, he deserved a second chance.'

‘I've had a hardened criminal enrolled in the school for two months,' said the Headmaster, shaking his head.

‘The P&C is not going to be happy about this,' said the Vice Principal smugly.

‘Then there was the fact that Chris was so good at climbing,' said Friday. ‘The way he climbed that oak tree was seriously impressive. He found finger and toe holds none of us could see. At the time, I assumed he had spent his holidays rock climbing. But when he threatened to break my arm and I realised he was in fact a violent sociopath, I recalled that the escaped prisoner had broken out of jail by climbing the prison wall.'

‘It's a good thing you were so observant of his impressive finger strength,' said Melanie.

‘The police thought Malcolm was the escapee,' continued Friday, ‘until they discovered that the prisoner was short, brown-haired and very young. The opposite of Malcolm. But the exact description of Chris.'

‘But why would he want to enrol in school?' asked  Ian. ‘We're only here because we have to be.
Aren't prison escapees meant to run away to Brazil or somewhere exotic with beaches?'

‘It's quite a coincidence one prisoner being released on the same day another prisoner escapes,' continued Friday. ‘Then they both come to the same place – here. There had to be something drawing them here.'

‘Like what?' asked the Headmaster.

‘The 1987 time capsule,' said Friday.

‘Why?' asked Ian. ‘Did they put gold bullion in it or something?'

‘In a way, yes,' said Friday. ‘Let's have a look.'

Friday picked up the time capsule and inspected the lock.

Ian sighed. ‘Do we have to watch while you show off your lock-picking skills?'

‘No,' said Friday. ‘It's rusted shut. That wouldn't work.' She picked up her school bag and rifled around inside until she drew out a ballpein hammer. ‘This will do the trick.'

Friday smashed the hammer hard into the lock three times. The rusty metal collapsed. She lifted the lid and pulled out a thick pile of paper. There was lined notepaper, art paper, even printed worksheets, but they were all covered in scrawling handwriting.
‘What is this?' asked the Headmaster. ‘Some kind of assignment?'

‘No,' said Friday. ‘It's a priceless handwritten manuscript.'

‘It is?' said the Headmaster.

‘The last chapter in the final book of
The Curse of the Pirate King
series by E.M. Dowell,' revealed Friday.

Everyone gasped.

‘He was a student here in 1987,' said Friday. ‘He was already working on his stories of pirates.'

‘Wow,' said Ian, peering at the manuscript.

‘Isn't that right, Malcolm?' said Friday. ‘Or should I call you E.M.?'

‘What?!' exclaimed Ian.

‘Malcolm is E.M. Dowell,' said Friday.

‘No way,' said Ian.

‘How did you figure it out?' asked Malcolm.

‘When the Headmaster sprained his ankle, you started for the infirmary. You knew your way around,' said Friday. ‘And when the Vice Principal saw you he was genuinely shocked. Not because you were a scary-looking vagrant carrying his employer, but because he recognised you. You were the year above
him at school. It all fit that you could be the author. You weren't in jail because you'd committed a crime. You were there to research your next book.'

‘What does the “E” stand for?' asked Melanie. ‘Edward? Evan? Earnest?'

‘Worse,' said Malcolm. ‘Ebenezer.'

‘You poor man,' sympathised Melanie. ‘I know how you feel. My middle name is Alice and I've never been able to forgive my parents.'

‘So how did Chris know about it?' asked the Headmaster.

‘He was my cellmate,' said Malcolm. ‘He asked all these questions about my past: my writing and school. I thought he was just passing the time. But then his questions became more and more specific. I realised he'd read every article about me. He knew all about the story of the hidden final chapter.'

‘This is ridiculous,' said Chris. ‘It's all crazy speculation. You can't believe a word of it, sir.'

‘I'd prefer not to,' admitted the Headmaster. ‘But I've come to know Friday's crazy speculations are usually unerringly accurate.'

‘You must have thought it would only take a couple of days,' said Friday. ‘Find the map, dig up
the time capsule, sell it online to some foreign super-fan and off you go, to Brazil or Monaco or wherever well-heeled thieves congregate. But you couldn't find the manuscript and you found yourself stuck here for weeks and weeks.'

‘I've got a question for Malcolm,' said Melanie. ‘Why did you bury the final chapter? It seems like such a strange thing to do.'

‘I did it to irritate Archie,' said Malcolm with a smile.

‘Who?' asked Ian.

‘Vice Principal Archibald James Dean,' said Friday.

‘Archie liked my stories,' said Malcolm. ‘I found out he had handed one in as his own for English.'

‘Vice Principal!' exclaimed Melanie. ‘That is so naughty.'

The Vice Principal stared at the floor, pouting.

‘We got in a fistfight over it,' continued Malcolm.

‘Which is why you were both punished and that was noted in the records,' said Friday.

‘Yes, but Mrs Cannon backed me up,' said Malcolm. ‘She said she knew Archie hadn't written the story himself because he had less imagination than a dead geranium. Anyway, Archie was desperate
to find out what happened at the end of the story, so I buried it in a secret location. Someplace I knew he'd never have the imagination to uncover.'

There was a knock at the door.

‘Come in,' called the Headmaster.

The door opened and Sergeant Crowley walked in. ‘What's all this then?'

‘I believe this young man may be of interest to you,' said the Headmaster.

Sergeant Crowley scanned the people in the room. ‘Malcolm? What is it now? Not a sapphire bracelet again, I hope?'

‘Not him,' said Friday. ‘Him.' She pointed at Chris.

Sergeant Crowley peered at Chris.

‘Imagine how he would look in a bright orange prison jumpsuit,' said Friday.

‘Christos Stassinopoulou!' exclaimed Sergeant Crowley. ‘Half the region's police force has been tied up in a manhunt looking for you. They've been dredging lakes and searching abandoned mineshafts in a fifty-kilometre radius.'

‘Sergeant, before you arrest Chris,' said Friday, ‘perhaps you could satisfy my curiosity. What crime was he jailed for?'

‘We busted him for fraud,' said Sergeant Crowley.

‘Really?' said Melanie. ‘That's very unromantic. I was hoping cat burglary.'

‘You do realise that cat burglars don't actually steal cats?' asked Friday.

‘I refuse to believe that,' said Melanie.

‘He used his youthful good looks,' began Sergeant Crowley, ‘and short stature …'

‘Hey!' protested Chris. ‘Five foot four is average height.'

Ian snorted. ‘For a Peruvian woman, perhaps.'

‘He used his appearance to pass himself off as a minor,' said Sergeant Crowley. ‘It started out with paying kids' prices at the movies and buying cheap train tickets, then escalated to him posing as the long-lost grandchild of elderly people and swindling them out of their savings.'

‘How was he caught?' asked Friday.

‘He tried to trick an 85-year-old lady awaiting hip replacement surgery,' explained Sergeant Crowley. ‘Little did he realise she was a retired professional wrestler. She hit him over the head with her walking frame, then held him in a leg lock until the police arrived.'

‘She's the one who should have been doing time for excessive force,' complained Chris.

Sergeant Crowley tried to pull Chris out of the office chair he was sticky-taped to, but the chair just rolled across the floor. The sergeant considered the problem for a moment before turning to the Headmaster. ‘Can I borrow the chair to wheel him away?' he asked.

‘Of course, anything to help an officer of the law,' said the Headmaster.

They all watched Chris get rolled out the door.

‘I'll get you, Barnes!' threatened Chris. ‘You haven't seen the last of me.'

‘I'm afraid it's hard to take a threat seriously,' said Friday, ‘when it comes from a man restrained by stationery supplies.'

Ian closed the door on Chris before he could holler any more abuse.

The Headmaster shook his head sadly. ‘I can't believe he's been here the whole time. This is going to be terrible for the school's reputation.'

‘If it's a comfort to you,' said Friday, ‘it's only because the school has such an excellent reputation that Chris has been so safe here. Who would
ever think of looking for a jailbird in the country's most expensive boarding school? And your strict enforcement of the anti-technology rules meant that none of us ever saw his mugshot on the news.'