EXHIBIT A
Animal hair; short, orangey-white, and there’s loads of it
The clubhouse was still being invaded. The next Saturday afternoon we arrived to find three of Nicholas’s dad’s flapjacks missing (there were just a few oaty crumbs left) and some orangey-white hair on the ground. I picked it up and examined it with a magnifying glass.
‘Almost certainly animal,’ I said.
I’m a detective, I know these things.
‘What kind of animal?’ asked Lex.
‘Almost certainly cat, or almost certainly dog.’
I wasn’t sure, but I figured I couldn’t go wrong with cat or dog.
‘It could be a ferret,’ said Nicholas.
‘It’s not a ferret.’
‘Ferrets are wild, aren’t they? There could be some living around here.’
‘Impossible,’ I said, ‘there are no ferrets in this part of the country.’
I didn’t really know what a ferret was.
‘So there’s a cat or a dog sneaking in and stealing our snacks?’ said Lex.
‘Mmm,’ I said, narrowing my eyes. ‘And I think I know exactly which cat or dog it is.’
Mr Dixon’s cat is very fat. At least I think it is. It’s a huge big ball of orange and white fur, and it’s hard to tell how much of the fur is cat and how much of the fur is just fur. The cat’s name is Bless (I know, ridiculous name for a cat) and Lex told me it was a him so I’ll call it a him from now on.
You can probably tell that I don’t like Mr Dixon’s cat very much. Bless (ugh, I can’t get past that terrible name) is the laziest, most confrontational cat ever. It was my mum who called him confrontational. She called him that because he has this habit of sitting in the middle of the path, right where you’re headed, and refusing to move. He just sits there with his lazy eyes half-closed as if he’s saying, ‘Just go around me, human. I’m far too important to move out of your way.’
But you don’t want to go around him because he’s just a cat and he should move instead of sitting in the middle of the path in your way. So you stay on course. You walk closer and closer, refusing to go around him. And he just sits there and sits there and refuses to move. It’s like a really slow game of chicken. Which you always lose.
Bless never moves. He watches you out of the corner of his half-closed eyes as you walk around him, and I’d swear he’s smiling when he does it.
Well, on the Saturday the Bubble Street Gang came looking for him, Bless’s number was up. I was sure it was him who was scoffing our muffins and flapjacks (it’s easy to believe he’s greedy as well as lazy) and I was going to prove it by getting a sample of his fur.
We went back to Berbel Street, and there he was, sitting in the middle of the path outside Mr Dixon’s house. So predictable.
‘When we get close enough,’ I said, ‘you guys grab him so I can pluck a few hairs.’
‘He’ll run away before we get close enough,’ Nicholas said. He’d started tiptoeing.
‘No, he won’t. He’ll sit right there, right in the middle of the path, expecting us to go around him. Well, not today. Today, Mr Bless, your bad manners are going to be your downfall.’
‘What if he scratches?’ Lex said. She was tiptoeing too, and her hands were shaking a little.
‘He won’t scratch.’
‘What if he bites?’
‘He won’t bite.’
‘What if–?’
‘Just grab him, Lex, and I’ll do the rest.’
We got a bit closer. The half-closed eyes watched as if the cat was bored. We got closer again and the tail twitched, but the cat didn’t move. We inched closer and closer and I’d swear the cat was smirking. We were nearly there, just a few more steps, Nicholas and Lex reached out their hands, gently grabbed the giant ball of fur and – ‘YEOWWWW!’
It was like an orange and white tornado suddenly sprang from the ground. There were claws and teeth and horrible screeching sounds, and then the orange and white thing darted down the wall to the side of Mr Dixon’s house and vanished out the back.
‘Huh,’ I said, catching my breath, ‘that didn’t go very well.’
Lex and Nicholas stared at me – they both had scratches all over their hands and arms, I had none. I tried to be upbeat about it.
‘Plan B,’ I said. ‘And don’t worry, this one will be far less dangerous.’
I have this claw thing that my uncle gave me for my birthday. It’s about half a metre long with a handle at one end and a two-fingered claw at the other. You squeeze the handle and you can pick up stuff with the claw; something that might be too high to reach, for example, or something that’s unexpectedly vicious and you’d prefer not to get too close to. With the claw, my friends and I could now safely collect a sample of Bless’s fur from a distance … a bit of a distance anyway.
We sat on the wall at the end of Mr Dixon’s back garden. Bless sat in the middle of the grass, twitching his tail, laughing at us (probably). There was a large willow tree on one side of the garden, with branches that drooped nearly all the way to the grass.
‘Lex,’ I said, acting casual, ‘could I get onto that tree from the wall?’
‘Yeah, sure,’ she replied. ‘Just walk this wall, turn onto the side wall, and hop onto one of the branches.’
‘Which branch?’
‘Em, that one there, look. That would do.’
‘Wouldn’t I fall off the branch?’
‘No, no, just remember to keep your balance. And you can always hold on to the one above it if you start to wobble.’
‘Hmm, I’m wearing kind of slippery shoes. What if my feet slip?’
‘Oh, then I guess just keep a hold of the top branch so you don’t fall off.’
Nicholas interrupted by sighing loudly. ‘She wants you to hop onto the tree and get the fur sample, Lex.’
I was hoping Lex would offer to do it if I kept on asking questions. Nicholas ruined it. I scowled at him.
‘Really?’ said Lex.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I don’t mind doing it, but I’m much more likely to fall. I mean, I don’t mind.’
Lex gave a sad sigh like she was about to walk the plank. ‘All right, I’ll do it. Give me the claw.’
‘Thanks, Lex.’
The walk down the wall went fine, and the hop to the tree went fine, and the dangling from the tree upside down while holding the claw went fine. It was all going fine, and as Lex reached down with the claw even the cat looked fine about it. Then there was a sudden bang and lots of screaming.
I should have mentioned earlier that Mr Dixon is about as likeable as his cat. He doesn’t like anyone going near his garden, and he especially doesn’t like anyone sneaking into his garden. He sprang from the back door swinging a golf club like a golf-clubwielding maniac, screaming his head off.
‘Brutes!’ he yelled. ‘Get off my wall, get out of my tree, leave my cat alone!’
He had a point about all of the above, but he could have just asked. Screaming and swinging a golf club made us all immediately terrified. Nicholas fell off the wall, Lex fell out of the tree and sprinted down the grass, and it was only because I am so cool in a crisis that I was able to keep my balance long enough to grab Lex’s hand and pull her out of the garden.
We ran down the green behind the houses until we couldn’t hear Mr Dixon screaming anymore.
‘I think my heart nearly stopped!’ Nicholas said, wheezing. ‘That was scary.’
‘And pointless,’ I said. ‘We didn’t get a sample of that horrible cat’s fur.’
‘Oh, didn’t we?’
Lex was grinning, holding up the claw. There, pinched between the two plastic fingers were a few strands of orange and white hair.
‘Lex,’ I said, ‘you’re a legend.’
‘I know.’