23

Turns out the Barry Gazette travels farther than we thought

We didn’t pay attention to the weather report, or to the café owner babbling on at us about superheroes and saints and how it proved South Wales was God’s real country. Instead, we sat there staring at each other and trying to figure out how we had ended up in the situation we were in. The blame clearly lay with Charlie’s bowels.

Eventually Charlie said, “Saint Dynod. She thought I was Saint Dynod?”

“More like Saint Dyno-Rod,” Ben said.

It was funny, but I gave him a look to tell him now was not the time.

Charlie pushed his plate away and muttered, “Mom’s right. Ample portions make ample proportions.”

Ben pushed his plate back toward him and said, “TV adds, like, thirty pounds—you’re all good, munch away.”

Charlie smiled and gulped down the last of his pizza side dish.

“Do you think we should talk about what just happened?” I asked.

“Dude, where do we even begin?” Ben said.

I lowered my head onto the table. I suddenly felt really tired. “We haven’t been the best at keeping a low profile. We’ve made the Welsh national news three times.”

“And I’ve been in the Barry Gazette once,” Charlie added cheerfully.

“But, Fred, don’t worry. No one knows it was us,” Ben said. “Everyone thinks there are real superheroes out there and that Three Saints have appeared to a woman called Beryl.”

I realized my cheek was resting on a blob of congealed ketchup. I sat up and wiped my face on a napkin. “But it’s all a lie.”

Ben shrugged. “So?”

I glared at him. “So?”

Charlie sighed. “Yeah, what does it matter? What harm is it doing?”

I couldn’t think of an answer right on the spot. “People should know the facts. We can’t have people thinking miracles are real.”

“Why not?” Ben asked.

“Because.”

“Because?”

I wasn’t going to argue any longer, especially as I didn’t know the answer. So I said, “What if the Gaffer works out it’s us and comes after us to wreak his revenge?”

“How’s he going to do that?”

I thought about it for a moment. Ben was right. There was nothing that could lead the Gaffer to us.

Or so we thought.

Ben mopped up some baked bean juice with his last piece of bread and popped it in his mouth. “There are only two things we need to worry about now: number one, finding Alan Froggley, and number two, keeping our parents sweet. We should call them.”

This made sense. Ben leaned back in his chair and called over to the café owner. “Do you have a pay phone?”

He nodded toward the corner. “Over there.”

Charlie jumped up and his chair screeched across the floor. “I’ll go first.” Ben put a pile of coins into his hands and Charlie fed them into the phone.

“Hello, it’s me, is Mom there?”

There was a long pause.

“Gabriella, it’s Charlie . . . Charlie, your brother . . . Just go and get Mom.” Charlie looked at us and rolled his eyes.

And then his face fell.

“What do you mean, I’m in so much trouble? Who came looking for me?”

It was obvious something was up.

Charlie frowned. “Well, what did he want? Did he give a name?”

Ben and I flashed a look at each other. I tried to hear what Charlie’s sister was saying but I couldn’t make out any actual words from the stream of high-pitched shrieking that was coming out of the receiver.

“But how did he know it was my sock?”

There was more loud squealing.

“Right, okay . . . okay. Okay. Can I speak to Mom now, please?”

Gabriella said something else and Charlie slumped down on a chair.

“Well, tell them I called, and it’s all fine and not to worry and we’ll be back this evening. Can you do that for me?”

There was more squeaking on the phone. Charlie closed his eyes.

“Gabriella . . . Gabriella . . . Gabriella!”

He banged the phone on the table three times then yelled into it, “JUST LISTEN TO ME! Everything is okay. I’m here with Ben and Fred and we’ll be back soon. Make sure they all know that, okay?”

Charlie hung up the phone and looked at me, then Ben. His face had gone white. “So that didn’t go brilliantly.”

A very sick feeling wobbled around in my stomach. “They know, don’t they?”

Charlie spoke slowly. “Gabriella said a man turned up at my house yesterday in a taxi.”

“A taxi?” Ben’s voice was a bit quivery.

“He asked to speak to me to interview me about my onion-eating win in Barry’s annual festival. Obviously, my mom said he was mistaken, but then he showed them my photo and said he knew it was me because my name and address were on the sign-up sheet and I was named in the Barry Gazette.”

“Right.” I felt my chest get tight.

“Gabriella said Mom got hysterical as she thought I was at Fred’s house, not participating in eating competitions in Wales. The man then said to Mom that he was very interested in speaking to me and gave her a sock.”

“A sock? Why did he give her a sock?”

“It was my sock. He said I must have dropped it.”

Charlie wasn’t making any sense. “How did he know it was your sock?”

“It had a label with my name on it. Gabriella said it looked burned.”

I thought about this for a moment. “He found it on his boat, didn’t he—the Gaffer?”

Charlie shifted in his seat. “He must have.”

Everything was unraveling.

I noticed Ben was gripping the table so hard his fingers had turned white.

“He knows who we are. He knows it was us on his boat and he knows we stole his rings.” I said all that very quickly and squeakily and I could tell Charlie and Ben didn’t catch any of it, so I said it again.

“What are we going to do?” Charlie asked. “Our parents are going to kill us.”

“Not if the Gaffer gets to us first,” Ben said.

I swallowed hard. “Should we go home?”

We sat in silence for a while, trying to process everything that had happened in the last half hour. It was a lot to take in.

Then Ben said, “We could go home and tell our parents and the police everything. But I’m also thinking in these new disguises we can make it to St. David’s. If we’re careful. I mean we’ve come this far. What’s one more step?”

I blinked at Ben. “Are you absolutely sure?”

Ben smiled. “Sure.”

I looked at Charlie. “What do you think?”

“My sensible side is telling me we should probably go back. But my sensible side has always been much smaller than my non-sensible side, so I say we keep going. Ben’s right, we’ve got this far.”

“I dunno,” I said. “All the signs seem to be suggesting that we should go back to Andover.”

And then the door to the café was flung open and a freckled boy in a scout’s uniform called over to us. “The bus is leaving for the jamboree in five minutes.”

Ben realized he was talking to us and said, “Where’s the jamboree?”

The boy screwed up his face and said, “St. David’s—duh. You coming or not?”

Ben and Charlie looked at me and Ben said, “I don’t know. Fred, are we?”

And just like that we were on a bus to the final resting place of St. David.

Next stop, Alan Froggley.