Squishy Taylor and the Mess-Makers (2 page)

Four, three …

‘No.’

‘Please?’

Two, one …

‘
Waaaaaaah!
’ Baby is super loud when he’s annoyed.

Alice sits back on her heels. ‘I said
no
, Jessie. Can you just get out of my face for a minute?’

Jessie
sulks
off to our room. You’d think Jessie wouldn’t care where Carmeline Clancy was staying, because she never watches the clips with us. She says they’re soooo boring. But Jessie’s into facts. And she’s into being right.

I wonder if I really did see Carmeline Clancy getting out of that taxi.

In our room, Vee is lying on her tummy on the top bunk, looking through the telescope.

‘How’s Boring Lady?’ I ask.

Boring Lady works in the office exactly across from our window and we used to think she was boring. Then we found out she was the Chief of Special Secret Undercover Operations. Now she’s kind of our
own private police officer
. She knows we spy on her and she doesn’t mind. All she does in that office is type, anyway.

‘I’m not looking at Boring Lady,’ Vee says, with a
scrunched-face voice
. I realise the telescope is at a different angle than usual. Vee’s looking down at the street in front of the hotel.

‘Can you see her?’ I ask.

‘Not yet,’ Vee says. We both know we’re talking about Carmeline Clancy without saying her name. Because that’s how much we care.

‘You haven’t seen her because she’s not there,’ Jessie says. Jessie has started putting her things away in neat rows in her drawers.

I do a
Split-Legged-Upside Down-Hoik
up to Vee’s bed and nudge her aside to look through the telescope. Usually I look through the telescope from my bunk, which is in the middle – and means you see directly across to Boring Lady’s office. From Jessie’s bunk on the bottom, the telescope looks up at the stars. Which is perfect because she’s also an
astronomy-head
.

‘How good is that tree?’ Vee says. It’s the tree the puppy hid behind. I’ve never noticed the tree properly, but it’s enormous, with wide, spreading branches, reaching to the hotel wall. I shift the telescope to check out the rest of the tree. It would be a solid tree to climb.

When the telescope reaches the bottom of the trunk, I notice the puppy is back. The telescope is so good, I can see his beautiful eyes and the rib bones under his fur. He looks so
trembly
and sad.

I wonder if Carmeline Clancy will come out again soon. I wonder if the puppy will stay still this time.

I have an idea. ‘Let’s go play hopscotch,’ I say.

We haven’t played hopscotch since we used it as a cover to stake out a diamond smuggler.

Vee grins. ‘
Brilliant.
’

Jessie agrees to come too. I guess practising your violin and tidying your room get boring after a while – even if you’re Jessie. She finds the chalk in a drawer, lined up beside pencils and textas. Vee tells Alice what we’re doing, and we pile out the door.

The puppy is gone again, but maybe it will come back. And maybe we’ll see Carmeline Clancy. We dawdle up the street and draw our hopscotch court as near as we can to the hotel, in the shade of the big tree. One of the Fancy Men out the front glares at us, but we stay far enough away that he can’t say anything.

We play three and a quarter games before Carmeline Clancy steps out of the hotel. It
is
her. At
our
hotel. She’s even wearing that rock-climbing sports top from the overhang video! I grab Vee’s arm and we just stare at her. She’s real. Right there on
our
footpath. My skin feels tingly and my ears buzz.

She’s walking with a woman who’s not her mum. I’ve seen her mum on YouTube. This woman is really tall, with a stiff back and zero smiles. One of the Fancy Men waves down a taxi for them.

I’m all ready to run up and say hello to Carmeline – except my heart is going really fast and for the first time in my whole life, I’m worried about what to say. I push back my shoulders. It doesn’t matter, I’m going over anyway.

The Fancy Man is opening the taxi door. If I’m not quick, Carmeline will be gone and I will have missed my chance. As I walk towards them, the woman turns around and meets my eye.

She gives me a
death look
. It says: ‘Don’t even think about coming one step closer. You are nothing. We don’t want to
think
about you.’

I stumble to a halt. She turns around and follows Carmeline Clancy into the taxi, which drives away.

I stare after it as it disappears up the street. The Fancy Man looks at me a bit strangely, but I don’t care. It’s my street too.

‘Who do you reckon the lady is?’ Vee asks, coming up beside me.

‘I don’t know,’ I say, ‘but she is
scary
.’

I lie on the lounge-room floor to skype my mum before bedtime.

‘Hey there, Squish,’ Mum says. ‘How was rock-climbing?’ Mum remembers everything about my schedule, even though she’s too busy to talk for long.

‘Good. Hey, can a security guard be a lady who’s not in uniform?’

Mum knows things about security people because she works for the UN. Her new job in Geneva has the word ‘security’ in it.

Mum laughs. ‘Absolutely. Got a new career plan, Squisho?’

I shake my head. ‘No. I just figured out who the lady with Carmeline Clancy is.’

‘I should have known this would be about Carmeline Clancy,’ Mum says.

‘She’s staying in the hotel next door,’ I tell her.

It’s not exactly next door, but Mum’s used to me exaggerating. She already knows all about the new film from me skyping her every night.

She gets her
cheekiest grin
and says, ‘Are you gonna figure out a way to meet her?’ Mum never really got over being a
rebel
when she was a kid. She raises her eyebrows. ‘Maybe you can bust into that hotel or something.’

Alice comes over with Baby on her hip. ‘Don’t put
crazy
ideas in their heads, Devika!’ She’s smiling, but she’s got a little bit of a warning tone. Say hello to this guy instead.’ Alice dumps Baby between the screen and me.

Baby tries to eat the screen. It makes us all laugh. Then it’s time for Mum’s next meeting, because it’s daytime in Geneva.

‘Love you, Squishy-sweet,’ Mum says. She looks at Baby and does
soppy-grown-up face
until I hang up.

There’s no news of Carmeline Clancy all day Sunday and Monday. I don’t see the puppy again, either. It’s not until Monday night that Dad turns on the TV news while he’s cooking. I’m sitting at the bench,
sneaking
bits of cheese.

After all the bad bits of news finish, the newsreader puts on a smug, patronising smile and says: ‘
Melbourne is under attack
by one young stormtrooper who has done thousands of dollars worth of damage to her hotel room. Critics say rock-climber-turned-movie-star Carmeline Clancy is a spoiled brat who
…’

The TV is showing images of the hotel on our street, then Carmeline Clancy rock-climbing, then other ones of Carmeline Clancy looking
sulky
. The images flick up quickly, one after the other.

‘
Carmeline Clancy’s Tour Nanny spoke with our reporter
.’ An image of the woman comes up. She looks even taller and
scarier
with her arms crossed, staring down the camera.

‘
This is absolutely out of character for Carmeline
,’ the Nanny begins.

‘Oh, she’s the
Tour Nanny
,’ Vee says. The woman doesn’t look like a nanny to me, but Vee doesn’t seem to notice. ‘Do you reckon Carmeline Clancy came to Australia without her mum?’ Vee’s so busy talking that we don’t hear the last bit of the news.

The newsreader begins handing over to the weather report.

I think about Carmeline Clancy’s awesome YouTube clips. I can’t imagine her destroying a hotel room.

‘It wasn’t her,’ I say.

‘How would you know?’ Jessie asks.

‘I’ve watched her for hours,’ I say. ‘She’s always really careful. And tidy – she’s probably your real twin, swapped with Vee at birth.’ This is a joke, but Jessie doesn’t laugh. ‘Carmeline Clancy definitely didn’t do it.’

‘But you have no
evidence
,’ Jessie says.