CHAPTER 14

EAR SHOT

If you’re hoping for a quiet night of misery, there’s nothing worse than a bee buzzing encouragement in your ear. Especially one that recharges every time you turn your head on the pillow. After an hour of tossing and turning, all Brian’s efforts to look on the downside had been ruined.

‘OK, we got there too late,’ Dulcie chirped, ‘but at least it backs up your hunch about teacher’s pets. That’s the only thing that links Alec and Tracy and Pete.’

‘We don’t know that,’ said Brian. ‘What if they meet outside school? What if they all go to dance classes, or Scouts on Fridays, or Tiddlywinks Club?’ Rolling grumpily onto his back, however, he couldn’t quite picture Alec doing Zumba or Tracy sleeping under canvas or Pete winking tiddles. Surely three such different people were unlikely to hang out together. Which is good news and bad, he thought, staring into the darkness. Good because it meant that school was the best place to start looking. Bad because no way would it open tomorrow. After all, what sort of principal would put her precious pupils at risk?

Hmm, that’s a hard one. Let’s see now …

‘Closure,’ barked Florrie on the local radio news next morning, ‘spells failure.’

‘Really?’ Dad’s coffee cup paused at his mouth. ‘I thought they began with different letters.’ Was that a bad joke or bad spelling? You couldn’t tell with Dad.

‘At an emergency staff meeting yesterday,’ the teacher’s voice continued, ‘we at Tullybun Primary resolved not to be defeated.’

You mean you resolved. Brian nibbled his toast. And everyone else was defeated.

‘Let me assure parents,’ Brian pictured her tongue licking her teeth, ‘that school is the safest place to be. Pupils must be delivered to and from the gates, where there will be a heavy police presence.’

The heavy police presence was high-fiving children as Dad dropped Brian at school. Ignoring Sergeant Poggarty’s smile, Brian hurried through the gates. He bowed his head to hide the blush that would announce his crime, the greatest ever committed – and yet to be discovered – in Tullybun. Perhaps the judge would shave a few years off his sentence if he found the missing children.

But how? Crossing the yard into school, Brian discovered how hard it is to find a clue when you haven’t a clue what is a clue. Could it be that furry tennis ball stuck behind a drainpipe? Or the apple core rusting in the corner of the cloakroom? How about the drawing pin upturned on the corridor floor?

By lunch time he’d narrowed it down to three:

1. the spot on Clodna Cloot’s chin – it definitely wasn’t there yesterday;
2. the Dairy Milk wrapper under Kevin’s desk – ditto;
3. Gary’s new elephant pencil sharpener that pooped shavings when you twisted the trunk.

Which all added up to … Brian chewed his pen and did some complicated Maths … three red herrings. Sighing, he took out his lunch box and went to the yard. Children were crowding round Sergeant Poggarty, trying on his hat and blowing his whistle. Brian slipped past them and ran across the lawn to his favourite spot. Sitting with his back to the rockery, he took out a sandwich.

A fly landed on the crust. It jerked across the bread like a badly made cartoon. Brian waited for it to stuff its tiny face then brushed it gently away. ‘My turn.’ He bit into rubbery cheese. Then he pulled down his left sleeve and rubbed the earring. ‘Nothing,’ he sighed. ‘We’re getting nowhere.’ He took another bite and gazed ahead at the row of cypresses. They rose in a dark green screen, protectors of privacy and goodness knows what secrets.

Hang on. He stopped chewing. That’s where they went in the other day, before they all disappeared. And where – he swallowed – Mrs Muttock came out. She hated children. She didn’t seem too keen on grown-ups either, or smiling or jokes or sunny days or Fridays, or any day, come to think of it. A chill fizzed across his shoulders. Could she have done something to them in there?

‘I don’t see how,’ said Dulcie when he shared his suspicion. ‘She came out just after they went in, remember? And from the other side. They were on the left; she came out on the right. She didn’t have time to do anything.’

Relief and disappointment swilled through Brian. Dulcie was probably right.

Probably. A string vest of a word: not tight-fitting like definitely, but full of holes and dangling threads. Probably left room for doubt. And besides, whatever Mrs Muttock did or didn’t do in the trees, she was still the sneakiest snooper in school. She reeked of sneak, she stank of snoop, as she crept round eavesdropping on private conversations and oozing out of corners when you least expected her. She was certainly worth investigating.

Five minutes later he was in front of the cleaner’s storeroom. He knocked softly on the door. No answer. He glanced up and down the corridor. Then he turned the handle.

It was more of a cupboard than a room. Sweet and harsh smells crashed up his nostrils: lemon floor polish and bleach, pine air freshener and cigarette smoke. The shelves on his left were stacked with bottles and sprays of Dettol, Windolene and Mr Sheen. Mops and brushes leaned against the right-hand wall. In front of him was a chest of drawers. Brian opened the top drawer. Inside was a packet of cigarettes and an ashtray. In the next drawer lay a pair of rubber gloves and–

‘Oy!’ Fingernails bit into the top of his arm. ‘Get outta there! Whaddyou think you’re doin’? I’m reportin’ you to the principal.’

Brian slammed the drawer on his finger. ‘Ow!’ The pain made him brave. ‘And I’m reporting you for smoking in school.’

‘Shh!’ She shut the storeroom door. ‘Keep it down. I’ll lose me job if she finds out. Now you better tell me what the blinkers you’re up to.’

Brian backed against the chest of drawers. She was far too close. Her nose was a river delta of veins.

‘What were you up to?’ The words fell out of him. ‘The other day. In the trees.’

‘Eh?’ She scratched her cheek. ‘What are you on about?’

There was no going back now. ‘You came out when they went in. And now they’ve disappeared. If you don’t tell me, I’ll go to Sergeant Pogga– arrghh.’ He shrank against the chest of drawers as Mrs Muttock raised her arm. Cramped as it was, there was room for a strangling.

‘’Ow dare you suggest …?’ Her arm dropped. ‘What d’you think I was doin’? ’Avin’ a fag, of course. Needed some privacy with ’er Majesty on the prowl.’

Is she telling the truth? The disgust that twisted her face at the mention of Florrie suggested she was. ‘What did you see?’ said Brian.

‘Just the three of ’em wanderin’ into the trees.’

‘Did you tell the police?’

‘Eh? Why would I? Friends are always sneakin’ in there together.’

‘But that’s the point.’ Brian pressed his hands against the chest. ‘They’re not friends.’

‘’Ow’m I supposed to know that? I’m your cleaner not your classmate. And they were thick as thieves at the prize-givin’ last week. Smarmin’ up to ’er Majesty. Laughin’ at poor Mr P. when ’e dropped the tray.’

Brian remembered the gardener hurrying out of the hall, oblivious to their taunts but all too aware of Florrie’s fury. He recalled the old man’s look in the entrance hall suggesting that, although he couldn’t hear, he could see more than most.

Brian stood up straight. Perhaps he did. The gardening shed was behind the trees after all.

He glanced at his watch. Ten minutes until the end of break. If he could get out of here, he might have time to find Mr Pottigrew and ask him, slowly and face to face, whether he’d seen Alec, Tracy and Pete in the trees and what they’d been up to.

‘I’d better go,’ he said awkwardly. As he slid past, she gripped his shoulder. ‘Not a word about me smokin’, not a word about your snoopin’. Deal?’

‘Deal,’ he gasped, holding his breath to block out the bitter smell.

Mr Pottigrew wasn’t in the front yard or the back. He wasn’t watering the grass or weeding the rockery. Brian looked across the lawn. Perhaps he was in his shed, safe from the slave-driving eyes of the principal who disapproved of any form of laziness such as having lunch or sitting.

Brian glanced back at the yard. Checking that no one was looking – they were all too busy playing Frisbee with Sergeant Poggarty’s hat – he ran towards the cypress trees. He slipped into a sharp, sweet darkness of silky prickles and soft earth. The sounds of the yard faded. Coming out the other side, it felt as if school had slipped off him like a loud, garish cloak.

The path ran from left to right in front of the wrought-iron fence. Brian flicked a twig from his hair and looked to the right. Flies scribbled above a huddle of dustbins. Beyond them stood the shed. Mr Pottigrew was sitting on a deckchair in front. His head rested against the back and his eyes were closed. Little snores bubbled from his lips.

Brian walked towards him. He didn’t like to wake him, but this was important.

As he passed the dustbins the bell rang. Stuff it. I’ll just have to be late for–

He froze. Then he dived behind the dustbins. He crouched between two green bins, trying to make sense of what he’d just seen.

Mr Pottigrew’s head jerking up at the sound of the bell.

Was that a coincidence?

There was one way to find out. As the gardener rose from his chair, Brian spread his palm on the gravelly ground. His fingers closed round a handful of stones. Don’t make a noise. He peeked round the bin. A stale stink filled his nose – of who-knows-what mouldy lunches, gone-off milk, dried-up glue and other school debris.

Mr Pottigrew had gone into the shed. He must be putting the deckchair inside. Brian’s heart hoofed it round his chest. He’d always been the world’s worst shot. Now he had to be the best. Lifting his arm, he flung the stones towards the shed.

There was a machine-gun rattle. Shot! They’d hit the corrugated iron roof. Brian hunched more tightly.

Mr Pottigrew came out of the shed. He frowned up at the roof then looked both ways along the path.

Silence roared in Brian’s head. Don’t move. Don’t breathe. Don’t exist.

He managed the first two as Mr Pottigrew took a bunch of keys from his pocket and locked the shed. Then the old man turned left along the path, away from Brian – thank goodness – and past a gate in the fence.

Brian darted across the path and into the trees, praying that the not-so-deaf gardener wouldn’t hear the thundering of his heart.