I recognise the route the taxi’s taking. We used to come this way with Mum all the time. Her favourite shoe shop is on the right as we pull up outside the castle walls next to a large grey stone building.
I buzz down the window and stare at the sign above the double doors.
Lindon-based Opportunities for the Superior
Education of Remarkable Students
I nod in approval and wonder why Holly’s giggling.
“You’re sure this is the right place?”
“Positive.” The cabbie points at the petrol station across the road. “That’s where I cleaned up the blood. Couldn’t get it all out, mind. You can see the stain on the carpets.”
“Nice.” Holly doesn’t even glance down.
But I’m mesmerised by the faded proof that Dad might have sat here and may still be close.
“Come on.” Holly shoves me from behind. “Out!”
I open the car door and I’m hit by a blast of cold air.
“Holly, are you sure it was Dad?” I ask, clinging to the warmth of the taxi.
“Who else would be wandering around the Christmas market without any shoes, looking like an older, blokeier version of you?”
Holly has a point. So does her elbow, which she uses to force me out on to the pavement. I stumble into Porter, who’s frozen in place like a videogame avatar that’s had its last action cancelled.
Side-stepping to avoid him, I bump into the ugliest statue I’ve ever seen – a misshapen, yet oddly familiar, grey-stone woman with lopsided features, bulgy eyes and a tiny, angry mouth that makes her look like she has just sat on a wasp. The statue is new. There’s no way we could have missed something this hideous when we came here with Mum.
I study the plaque at the bottom:
Pythagoras!
CLUE 16
An ugly concrete version of my maths teacher is perched on a plinth in the place where Dad was last seen.
This must be the other school where Ms Grimm teaches. PC Eric didn’t explain she’d founded it as well. Strange that it’s beside Mum’s favourite shoe shop. Stranger still that it’s in the exact spot Dad may have been dropped off after the explosion. Strangest of all that Porter and I were picked up by the same driver who dropped Dad off.
What are the chances?
My brain tingles. There’s something about the plaque. Something I should be noticing. I just need a minute. It’ll come to me.
“Hawkins?” A familiar voice grates across my thoughts. “What are you doing here?”
Ms Grimm! In the flesh, lurking behind her grey-stone twin.
I look at my feet. I look at the sky. I look at the gloomy, grey school for the gifted. I look everywhere except at Ms Grimm, which is how I spot the silhouette at a second-floor school window. I’m too far away to see clearly, but it looks like a male figure signalling to someone, or something, over my shoulder. Then, just as suddenly, he’s gone, vanishing behind a curtain as Ms Grimm whirls to see what caught my attention.
I check whether Holly or Porter saw the mysterious figure. No. Holly’s too busy watching me and Porter is nowhere to be seen. He’s slipped away into the shadows, vanishing as hastily as the face in the window. The taxi driver has disappeared too. Ms Grimm seems to have that effect on people.
“Hawkins? I’m talking to you,” Ms Grimm snaps. “What are you doing here?”
“Um. Sightseeing?”
“You don’t sound very sure.”
“This is a lovely statue,” I blurt in desperation. “What an honour for you.”
“Ah, well . . .” The hard line of Ms Grimm’s mouth softens. “The school’s financial backers thought it would be a good idea.”
“And you founded a school for remarkable students. How amazing!”
Ms Grimm purrs.
“And you called it LOSERS?” Holly sniggers.
The purr becomes a growl. Ms Grimm points to the sign on the grey stone building. “No. I called it ‘Lindon-based Opportunities for the Superior Education of Remarkable Students’.”
“L . . . O . . . S . . . E . . . R . . . S . . . LOSERS.” Holly grins. “What’s so remarkable about your students, anyway? I bet they’re the usual top-set types – freaks and robots.”
“Oi!” I protest. “I’m in top set. So what does that make me? A freak? Or a robot?”
Until yesterday I’d have gone with popular opinion and said freak, but I can’t get the hissing shoes out of my mind. What if I’m a robot, programmed to behave in a particular way?
Perhaps the answer is a Venn diagram with the set of freaks in one circle, the set of robots in the other and me in the overlapping bit in the middle. Noelle Hawkins – freak and robot.
I don’t get a chance to share my theory with Holly because Ms Grimm’s growl has become a roar. She grabs Holly by the collar and forces her into the back of a nearby black Honda Civic.
I dive in behind my sister, worried Ms Grimm is going to shout her to death and then dump the body in a dark alley. I glance around for Porter. Still no sign.
“Insolent child,” Ms Grimm screeches, slamming into the driver’s seat and accelerating away from the kerb. “I’m taking you home.”
“Home?” That’s it? No dark alleys. My heart rate slows slightly. But only slightly. How would Ms Grimm react if I asked her, politely, to look at the road instead of glaring at Holly?
“You need taking in hand.” Ms Grimm pokes Holly with a witchy finger that should definitely be on the steering wheel. “I’ll be speaking to your mother about grounding you, and making sure the head keeps you in at breaks and lunchtimes.”
“You can’t do that,” Holly protests, but she doesn’t sound certain.
“You would not believe the things I can do.”
I would. I would totally believe the terrible things Ms Grimm can do. I shudder as she turns her attention to me. But she’s calmer now.
“You, Hawkins, are a different story. Easily led astray, but a brilliant mind. I am delighted to see you showing such an interest in my organisation—”
“Cyclist,” I squeak. “Watch out for the cyclist.”
Ms Grimm swerves sharply, nearly hitting a lamp post.
“She’s going to invite you to join her freak show,” Holly hisses in my ear while Ms Grimm is distracted. “You have to say yes!”
“Where was I?” Ms Grimm says.
“You were wrapping us around a lamp post,” Holly replies.
Ms Grimm ignores her. “Ah yes, Hawkins, we were discussing your interest in LOSERS. I’ve been considering this for a while and I have decided to enrol you in my school. You will need to be ready for collection at two p.m. on Sunday – Bah! Idiot!”
I flinch. Then I realise she’s shouting at a pedestrian who’s been foolish enough to stand on the pavement she’s just mounted.
Holly hisses in my ear, “This is the perfect opportunity for us to get inside the LOSERS building.”
Hmmm. What’s all this “us” business? This isn’t us, this is me, and that is not how I imagined the investigation going. I pictured Holly doing most of the brave bits with me taking more of a desk-based-investigator role.
“You have three days to gather your things,” Ms Grimm says, hitting a signpost with her wing mirror. “You must be terribly excited.”
I must? Then why do I feel so sick?