Chapter 23

The Diversion

A few minutes later Friday and Chris were crouched in the bushes at the far side of the hockey field from the rose garden, scoping out the scene.

‘The nearest switch for the fire alarm is in the entrance,’ said Friday. ‘Miss Priddock is incredibly dim-witted and unobservant, but I think even she would notice if someone pulled the fire alarm directly opposite her desk. You’d be better off looping round to the far side of the school and grabbing the fire pull at the rear of the boys’ dormitory. Boys never notice anything.’

‘Give me your hat,’ said Chris as he snatched the green pork-pie hat from Friday’s head.

‘Hey,’ cried Friday. ‘That’s my trademark accessory.’

‘It’s about to be my diversion,’ said Chris. He opened the petrol cap on the lawnmower, screwed Friday’s hat up and jammed it inside.

‘That is going to be terrible for the felt,’ cried Friday. ‘I’ll never get the smell out.’

Chris pulled out the now petrol-soaked hat. ‘Stay here,’ he instructed.

‘That’s a bit redundant given I’m still tied to this grass catcher,’ said Friday.

Chris scanned the area in each direction, then stepped out of the bushes and calmly walked over to the administration building. As he crossed the shrubbery, Friday saw him bend down and pick up a large rock. He went over to the window of the stationery store and threw the stone through the lowest pane. The window shattered. Then Chris produced a lighter from his pocket and set Friday’s hat alight.

‘Nooooo!’ cried Friday.

Chris threw the flaming hat through the broken window, then calmly walked back to the bushes where Friday was tied up.

‘How could you?’ demanded Friday.

‘I’m sure the school is insured,’ said Chris.

‘Not the school, my hat!’ wailed Friday.

‘Come on, I’m doing you a favour,’ said Chris. ‘That was one ugly hat.’ He turned and looked back at the building. Smoke was starting to waft out the broken window. ‘It won’t be long now.’

Sure enough, two seconds later the fire alarm started wailing.

They could hear people yelling followed by the general shuffling associated with three hundred people starting to move at once.

Chris climbed back into the driver’s seat of the lawnmower. He waited until the noise of people moving had just about died down, then he turned the engine on and sped towards the rose garden, mowing down a whole bed of Lady of Shalott blooms before coming to a stop. He opened up the lawnmower’s storage compartment and took out a spade. Then he took something out of his pocket. Friday wasn’t sure what it was until he released the safety catch.

‘Secateurs?!’ said Friday. ‘What are you going to do? Prune the roses?’

‘Shut up,’ said Chris, as he lunged towards her. Friday closed her eyes. If she was going to be stabbed, she would rather not watch. But Chris simply cut the zip tie holding her hands.

‘You’re letting me go?’ asked Friday.

‘Yes, because I’m secretly a really lovely person,’ said Chris, again with his sarcastic voice. ‘No, I’m making you dig the hole, idiot.’

‘You want me to dig a hole two feet deep in under ten minutes?!’ asked Friday. ‘Then you’re the idiot.’

‘Just do it,’ ordered Chris. ‘I need to keep a lookout. It’s freshly turned earth. It won’t be hard, even for you.’

Friday raised the spade and speared it into the ground. It was a well maintained tool.

‘This is Mr Pilcher’s, isn’t it?’ said Friday. ‘You’re the one who staged the bunya-bunya pine attack, just so you could get this spade.’

‘I thought it was an inspired idea,’ said Chris. ‘The best thing about using a tree as a patsy is it can’t rat you out.’

‘No, Mr Pilcher’s hat did,’ said Friday.

‘I didn’t realise the jogging club were such early birds,’ said Chris.

‘Why did you put my DNA on the string?’ asked Friday as she kept digging. ‘That was just weird.’

‘It’s your own fault for being such a meddler. I had to try to get you out of the way,’ said Chris. ‘The plan was to find the string myself and drop you in it with the police. You would’ve been expelled for sure.’

‘But how did you get my spit?’ asked Friday.

‘The science club did a study on oral bacteria,’ said Chris. ‘We all had to spit in petri dishes.’

‘You stole my petri dish?!’ exclaimed Friday.

‘It’s always useful to have a DNA sample handy,’ said Chris. ‘If you think you might need to frame someone, that is.’

Friday’s spade his something hard. Chris heard the noise. ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘Get it out.’

Friday tapped around until she found the edge of the container then she slid in the spade a little deeper and levered it out. Chris took the spade from her while she bent down and pulled up a large white cardboard box. The box had the words ‘Apple Pie’ written neatly in the centre.

‘Oh dear,’ said Friday. ‘I think I know what this is.’

‘Let me see,’ said Chris, snatching the box away from Friday. ‘It can’t be a pie.’

‘No, it’s something much worse,’ said Friday.

Chris opened the box. There was a horrendous smell. ‘A dead cat?!’ He gagged.

‘It’s Purrcy,’ explained Friday.

‘That’s disgusting,’ said Chris. ‘Is this the time capsule?’

‘No, this is just some lazy home economics students’ attempt to hide evidence,’ said Friday. ‘The time capsule will be deeper down, two feet under.’ She kept digging until her spade hit something else. Something more solid. She levered out a dirty copper box with the number 87 etched clearly on the top.

‘At last,’ said Chris.

‘What now?’ asked Friday.

‘Open it,’ said Chris.

Friday crouched down with her back to Chris and started to jiggle the rust-encrusted latches. ‘The lock is rusty,’ said Friday. ‘It would be quicker to use a …’

‘Watch out!’ cried Ian.

Friday spun around to see Chris swinging the flat of the spade towards her head. She ducked and closed her eyes, then heard a thud. It took a second for her to realise it was not a thud against her skull. It was the thud of Chris hitting the ground. Ian had knocked him over and they were wrestling amongst the rosebushes.

‘Ow!’ cried Chris. ‘I’ve got thorns in my back.’

‘You’ll have my fist in your front in a minute,’ said Ian.

‘Don’t!’ cried Friday. ‘He’s got secateurs.’

‘Thank you,’ said Chris. ‘I forgot about that.’ He whipped out the pruning shears.

‘Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to play with gardening tools?’ asked Ian.

‘I think there are a lot of moral lessons Chris failed to learn from a parental figure,’ said Friday.

Ian backed away from him.

‘What do you know,’ said Chris. ‘The two smartest kids in school, but you’re not smart enough to outwit a pair of pruning shears, are you?’

‘Well, secateurs are an inanimate object,’ said Friday. ‘They have no intelligence, unless you are anthropomorphising it, in which case I don’t follow the gist of your analogy.’

‘Shut up,’ said Ian and Chris in unison. They started circling each other.

‘Don’t be a hero, Ian,’ Friday warned.

‘Don’t you mean, don’t be any more of a hero?’ asked Ian. ‘I did just crash-tackle a guy who was about to hit you in the head with a spade.’

‘I just don’t want you to get hurt,’ said Friday. ‘If secateurs can cut through a rose stem, I hate to think what they could do to a blood vessel.’

‘You’ve really got tickets on yourself, haven’t you?’ accused Ian. ‘That you think there is even a possibility that I might risk injury for you.’

‘Well, I am standing in a rose garden watching two boys fight over me,’ said Friday. ‘My self-esteem is on the upswing.’

All this time Chris was edging away. He climbed back up on the lawnmower. ‘You stuck-up rich kids make me sick,’ said Chris.

‘Actually, we’re the two poorest kids in school,’ said Friday. ‘Ian is the scholarship student and I pay my way because my parents earn barely enough to keep themselves in biros and notebooks.’

‘Just shut up,’ said Chris, ‘before I give up trying to make a getaway and come back to snip you.’ He put the lawnmower in gear and took off, lumbering back across the rugby field and towards the forest.

‘He’s getting away,’ said Friday.

‘Good,’ said Ian. ‘The nasty upstart. I never want to see him again.’

‘But he’s got the time capsule!’ said Friday.

‘I feel sorry for a boy who is prepared to commit serious assault just to steal a twenty-year-old school assignment,’ said Ian.

‘You don’t understand,’ said Friday. ‘What’s in that time capsule is worth thousands.’

‘Of dollars?’ asked Ian. ‘Yes,’ said Friday.

Ian didn’t respond. He took off sprinting after the lawnmower.

‘Try not to get hurt,’ urged Friday. She ran after him, going as fast as she could, but Friday’s run was less effective than most people’s jog.

Chris was steadily gaining speed as he approached the edge of the sports field. There was no way Ian was going to catch up with him. Friday racked her brain, trying to think of some way she could stop Chris. If she’d had her rocket, she could’ve aimed that at the petrol tank and blown the lawnmower out from under him. But her spare rocket was back in her room. It would take a miracle to stop Chris now.

And then a miracle did appear, in the form of Malcolm. He burst out of the bushes at the edge of the forest and came sprinting down the slope towards the lawnmower. Chris did not see him because Malcolm was coming in from the side. But he certainly felt him, as Malcolm launched his entire six-foot-five and one-hundred-and-ten-kilos of brawn at Chris and knocked him off the machine. The lawnmower continued, unpiloted, into the forest. Malcolm and Chris rolled on the ground. Malcolm pivoted himself up on top and raised his fist to deliver a blow.

‘Stop!’ cried Friday. ‘You don’t want to go back inside for manslaughter, do you?’

Malcolm clearly needed a minute to consider this. But then he decided Friday was right because instead of hitting Chris, he rolled him over, twisted his arm in a painful lock and sat on him.