My second day as a proper detective. I fly down from my perch in the wardrobe and land on the end of the bed. Olive is still asleep. Her phone is nowhere to be seen.
She was unhappy last night, so I decide to let her sleep in this morning.
5.35 AM
That should be enough extra sleep. I hop up onto the pillow and let her share First Squawk.
‘Aaaaargh!’ she screams, and falls out of bed.
The extra sleep has not made her any happier. ‘Go away, Clara,’ she says. ‘Leave me alone!’
She snatches up the phone so I can’t answer her, climbs back into bed, and pulls the covers over her head. I hurry outside for Proper Dawn.
6.20 AM
Egg O’Clock. I settle under the same bush as yesterday and spend a pleasant half-hour daydreaming about the time when I will have my own television show.
Then I have an early Scratch O’Clock, followed by a quick Dust Bath.
Today I will go to school and watch Jubilee Crystal Simpson more closely. And when she leaves school I will follow her to her secret hide-out.
8.20 AM
Constable Dad has gone to work and Olive is in the kitchen eating beans and toast. To my dismay, she says, ‘You can’t come to school with me today, Clara. You should be outside doing – um – chook things. I’ll see you this afternoon.’
I argue, but she will not change her mind.
8.35 AM
How did she know I was hiding in her schoolbag again? She is smarter than I thought.
8.38 AM
How did she know I had sneaked up onto the back of her bicycle? She is much smarter than I thought.
8.40 AM
I try to follow Olive’s bike, so I can collect more information on Jubilee Crystal Simpson. But she goes too fast and leaves me behind.
If Amelia X was here, she would hail a taxi and cry, ‘Follow that bicycle!’ But although I wait and wait, not a single taxi goes past.
I decide that it is time to have a proper talk with Constable Dad. Perhaps he already knows the location of the master criminal’s secret hide-out.
10.00 AM
Little Dismal does not have traffic lights. And although I have walked the length of the main street, I have not seen a single shootout. Or a drug raid. Apart from that, it is just like the city where Inspector Garcia lives. It has cars. It has shops. It has humans. But none of them appear to be dangerous criminals, which is disappointing.
I find the police station easily enough, near the end of the main street. Constable Dad’s hat is on his desk, but Constable Dad is nowhere to be seen.
I flutter up onto his desk, looking for information about Jubilee Crystal Simpson. But all I can find is reports on stock thefts.
I know all about stock. It is a type of soup. The Boss makes chicken stock (which is soup for chickens) and beef stock (which is soup for beefs). I have no idea why Constable Dad is so worried about someone stealing soup. When he comes back, I will suggest he work on more important matters.
To amuse myself while I wait, I decide to try on his police hat. I lift the edge of it with my beak, and crawl underneath. The hat falls around me.
And suddenly it is nighttime!
I have never known darkness to come so early in the day. Usually it waits until the end of the afternoon.
I have also never known it to come so quickly. Usually it is a slow thing, with time to snap up one last earwig, then wander back to the coop behind my sisters. Usually there are Last Murmurs and Pushing-and-Shoving and You’re-not-allowed-on-this-perch-Clara, and Rufus and Grandmother Polly still bossing us around as the sun goes down.
But things are clearly different in Little Dismal.
I should have expected it.
I do my own Last Murmurs, and settle down to sleep. But I’ve barely closed my eyes when I hear footsteps. They do not sound like Constable Dad’s footsteps, but who else would visit a police station at night?
The mysterious visitor walks around to the other side of the desk and shuffles through the information on stock thefts. (Apparently Constable Dad is not the only one interested in soup.) Then they leave.
I close my eyes and go to sleep.
(I THINK)
Someone picks up the hat – and it is morning already! Even though I have only slept for a few minutes.
What a strange place this is.
I do First Squawk all on my own. (It is not nearly as enjoyable as usual. For the first time since I left the farm, I miss my sisters, even the nastiest ones.)
A voice above me says, ‘Another chook? Or are you the same one? Well, it’s a fairly harmless hallucination, I suppose.’
And Constable Dad sits down and starts to shuffle through the reports.
I look around for his phone, so I can ask him about Jubilee Crystal Simpson’s hide-out. But I can’t find it. I try Morse code instead, tapping out my message on the desk.
‘Are you hungry, chook?’ he asks, without looking up from his papers. ‘Go out the back, I’m sure there are worms in the garden.’
(I am reminded of Episode 10 of Amelia X, in which she and Jock travelled to a remote part of China. Amelia speaks Chinese, of course, but these people spoke a different sort of Chinese, and she couldn’t make herself understood until she found someone who knew the International Code of Signals.)
I search for a bit of charcoal, but all I can find is a pen. It is harder to use than charcoal, but I pick it up in my beak and prepare to write my message on the corner of Constable Dad’s report.
The pen slips, and a black mark zips right across the middle of the paper.
Constable Dad looks up, frowning. ‘Hallucination or not, you have to go,’ he says. And without even asking my permission, he picks me up, carries me through the police station, and tosses me out into the garden. I try to rush back inside, but he shuts the door in my face.
‘Is this any way to treat a detective?’ I squawk.
He doesn’t answer.
I’m just wondering if I should do Proper Dawn (a.k.a. Worm Hunt) while I’m out here, when I notice the position of the sun.
It is completely wrong. The shadows are wrong, too. It is not Proper Dawn at all. It is – I check the sun again and make some quick calculations. It is …
It is 12.30 PM already!
I have no idea where the earlier parts of the day went. Perhaps time works differently in Little Dismal. Perhaps the nights are only a few minutes long, and dawn is missed out entirely.
I hurry around to the front of the police station and go in through the door. Constable Dad is talking to himself on the phone.
No, wait. I used a phone to talk to Olive. So maybe that’s what Constable Dad is doing. Talking to someone else!
‘Yes, sir,’ he says. ‘No, sir, not yet … I’m pretty sure they’re the same people who were stealing stock in northern New South Wales last year … No, I can’t prove it, sir.’
I peer around the office, but there’s no sign of Sir. Could he be inside the phone?
Constable Dad pulls a face. ‘Yes, sir, it is taking me longer than expected to make an arrest. If you could just sign off on those CCTV cameras, sir … Yes, sir, I understand there’s no money, but … Yes, sir, I know other stations are doing it tough … Hard for all of us, yes, sir, but if I could just have a few cameras, sir …’
He sits bolt upright. ‘What? I mean, no, sir, there’s absolutely no need to replace me, I’m doing everything that can be done … No, I’m sure another person wouldn’t get a result any quicker, sir … Pressure from above, yes, sir, I understand you’re in a difficult position, but no one else knows this area like I do, sir … No, sir, I don’t need a holiday … Yes, sir, I’ll do without the cameras … Yes, I’m sure I’ll make an arrest soon, sir … I hope so, too. Thank you, sir.’
He puts the phone down. Then he leans forward, rests his head on the desk and groans.
12.40 PM
This is disturbing news. If Constable Dad is replaced, he will leave town, and Olive will leave with him.
I will have nowhere to live. I might even have to go back to the farm.
The mere thought of it makes my feathers twitch. I decide to spend the rest of the day searching the town for the missing soup.
3.30 PM
I don’t find it.
Olive is lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling. I hop up beside her and peck out a message on her phone.
‘CONSTABLE DAD IS IN TROUBLE,’ I write.
Olive reads the message and sits up. ‘What do you mean?’
‘SIR WANTS TO REPLACE HIM BECAUSE HE CAN’T SOLVE THE STOCK THEFTS.’
‘What? How do you know?’
‘I HEARD HIM TALKING TO HIS PHONE AT THE POLICE STATION. CAN HE SOLVE THE STOCK THEFTS?’
‘Of course he can,’ says Olive. ‘It takes a while, that’s all, because the farms are so spread out. And the thieves are really clever. But Dad’ll get there, especially once they give him the cameras he asked for.’
‘THEY WON’T GIVE HIM THE CAMERAS.’
‘They won’t?’ says Olive. ‘Well then, he’ll still get there. It might just take a bit longer.’
‘WOULD SOMEONE ELSE GET THERE QUICKER?’
‘No! At least, I don’t think so.’ She chews her thumbnail. ‘This is awful, Clara. He’s working so hard on the stock thefts. How can they even think of replacing him?’
That’s when I decide to ask her the question that has been bothering me all day. ‘WHY IS EVERYONE SO WORRIED ABOUT SOUP?’
‘Soup?’ says Olive, looking puzzled.
‘SOUP,’ I write again.
‘Why are we talking about soup?’ she asks.
My cousin Gladys used to do this. She’d be in the middle of a conversation about earwigs, and she’d suddenly stop and say, ‘Why are we talking about earwigs? Why don’t we discuss something important, like the meaning of life?’
She called herself a philosopher. I think it was because she was dropped on her head soon after she came out of the egg.
‘WERE YOU DROPPED ON YOUR HEAD?’ I write.
‘What?’
‘NEVER MIND. WHY ARE THEY WORRIED ABOUT SOUP?’
‘They’re not. They’re worried about the stock thefts—’ She breaks off. She puts her hand over her mouth.
‘Clara,’ she says carefully. ‘Stock can mean soup. But it also means farm animals. Like sheep.’
Now I’m the one who is puzzled. Sheep are useless animals. They don’t even lay eggs. ‘WHO WOULD STEAL SHEEP?’ I ask.
‘These are valuable sheep,’ says Olive. ‘They’ve been going missing for weeks, and no one knows who’s taking them.’
I have a tingling feeling in my chest. It might be fleas. But it might also be excitement. Disappearing sheep? Disappearing valuable sheep? And no one knows who’s taking them?
At last! Here is a crime worthy of my talents!
What’s more, I’ve already solved it.
‘TAKE ME TO CONSTABLE DAD,’ I write.
‘Why?’
‘I WISH TO TELL HIM WHO IS STEALING THE VALUABLE SHEEP.’
Olive stares at me. ‘But you can’t possibly know. A moment ago, you thought they were soup.’
I sigh. ‘SOMEONE IS STEALING SHEEP?’
Olive nods.
‘AND THAT SOMEONE IS A CRIMINAL?’
Another nod.
‘A MASTER CRIMINAL?’
‘Maybe. Maybe not.’
Of course it is a master criminal. It is always a master criminal. (This is why I am the detective, and Olive is not. I know these things. She doesn’t.)
‘WHO IS THE MASTER CRIMINAL IN LITTLE DISMAL?’
I was hoping she would have worked it out for herself by now. But she hasn’t. So I tell her.
‘JUBILEE CRYSTAL SIMPSON.’
Olive stares at me with her mouth hanging open. (If she was a chook, this would mean she was sick. I’m not sure what it means for humans.)
‘You think Jubilee Crystal …’ She shakes her head. ‘I wish she was a master criminal, so she’d go to jail and leave me alone. But she’s not. She’s just a nasty person. Except I’m the only one who thinks she’s nasty, because she’s really pretty and she’s good at sport and her father bought the Little Dismal pub three months ago to save it from closing. And now Mr Simpson is going to sponsor the footy team. So everyone thinks she’s wonderful.’
‘YOU DO NOT BELIEVE JUBILEE CRYSTAL SIMPSON IS STEALING THE VALUABLE SHEEP?’
‘She’s just a kid,’ says Olive. ‘You need trucks and stuff to steal sheep. It’s adults, not kids.’
Beans on toast again. (Don’t these people know anything about a healthy diet? Where are the snails? Where are the little crunchy spiders? Where are the earwigs?)
Olive looks at her plate and sighs. ‘Dad,’ she says.
Constable Dad has another pile of papers beside his plate, and is scribbling on the top one. ‘Mm?’ he says, without looking up.
‘Maybe I could cook tomorrow night,’ says Olive, poking the beans with her fork.
‘I don’t mind cooking,’ says Constable Dad. He crosses something out and writes over the top of it. ‘You’ve got your homework and your friends. I know you’re busy.’
‘But I could make something different …’ Her voice trails off.
Constable Dad looks up and sees me sitting on the back of Olive’s chair. He blinks. ‘Why am I suddenly seeing chooks all over the place?’
‘Um – this is Clara,’ says Olive.
‘Where did she come from?’ asks Constable Dad.
‘Auntie Gina’s farm.’
‘Does Gina know she’s here?’
‘Probably not.’
‘Then you’d better phone her.’
‘Okay. But Dad, about cooking—’
‘You don’t like beans?’
‘I love them,’ Olive says quickly. ‘It’s just—’
‘That’s all right then,’ says Constable Dad. ‘Don’t forget to phone Gina.’ And he goes back to his work.
9.00 PM
Olive’s eyes are leaking, and she is making strange noises. Even though it is well past Perch O’Clock, I fly out of the wardrobe onto her bed to see if she needs a spanner.
When I land on the pillow beside her, she whispers, ‘What am I going to do, Clara? All Dad thinks about is work, and now that’s going wrong too. I don’t want him to be sent somewhere else. I’ve lived in Little Dismal all my life, and – and Mum’s family are here, Auntie Gina and Auntie Mel and Uncle Tony and the rest of them. And even with Jubilee being so horrible and turning people against me, I couldn’t bear to leave. What am I going to do?’
The answer is obvious. I’m surprised she hasn’t seen it already. ‘WE MUST HELP CONSTABLE DAD SOLVE THE SOUP—’ delete soup ‘—STOCK THEFTS. THEN HE WILL NOT HAVE TO GO AND NEITHER WILL YOU.’
‘But how can we help him? I’m just a kid. And you’re a chook. I mean, you’re a nice chook. But …’
I answer her doubts with a direct quote from Amelia X. ‘WE CAN GO PLACES THE POLICE CANNOT GO. WE CAN SEE THINGS THEY DO NOT SEE. THE CRIMINALS WILL NEVER SUSPECT THAT WE ARE AFTER THEM.’
Olive sniffs a couple of times. ‘Are you serious?’
‘I AM SERIOUS.’
She takes a piece of cloth from under her pillow and blows her nose. ‘Maybe you’re right. I’m sure Dad doesn’t really need help – but maybe three heads are better than one.’
‘SO WE WILL INVESTIGATE?’
‘I guess so.’
‘AND YOU WILL BE MY FAITHFUL SIDEKICK?’
‘Um – okay.’
I feel like running around the room, flapping my wings and squawking with excitement. But Olive interrupts me.
‘Do you think I should tell Dad we’re working on this?’ she asks.
‘NO,’ I write. ‘WE DO NOT GIVE OUT INFORMATION UNLESS SOMEONE GIVES US SOMETHING IN RETURN. IT IS CALLED SQUID NO CROW.’
‘You mean quid pro quo?’
No, it is definitely squid no crow. It refers to the time six months ago when the Boss threw out some leftover squid, and my aunts snatched it all up, and Rufus said he would never crow again unless they gave him some of it.
But I don’t bother explaining this to Olive. A team only needs one real detective. I will lead, and she will follow. I will think, and she will do my bidding.
I wait till she’s asleep, then make a list.
1. Someone is stealing the valuable sheep.
2. Who steals things? Master criminals.
3. Who are master criminals? They are nasty people.
4. Who is a nasty person? Jubilee Crystal Simpson.
5. Therefore, Jubilee Crystal Simpson is stealing the valuable sheep!
This is called scientific thinking, and I am very good at it. Olive is not, but she will learn.
For now, however, I keep my reasoning to myself. I must find proof. Then, like Amelia X in Episode 8, I will line everyone up in the library and tell them how I have solved the crime.
(Note to self: find a library.)