Chapter 24

All Is Revealed

Half an hour later Friday, Ian, Chris, Melanie, Vice Principal Dean and Malcolm were all sitting in the Headmaster’s office. Ian and Malcolm had tied Chris to a chair using the Headmaster’s sticky tape.

‘What on earth is going on?’ demanded the Headmaster.

‘I want Ian and Malcolm arrested for assault,’ demanded Chris.

‘They should all be expelled for being troublemakers,’ declared Vice Principal Dean.

‘No, Chris needs to be arrested for theft,’ accused Ian.

‘Actually, Chris never left the premises with any stolen property,’ said Friday. ‘It would be hard to make the charges stick. The main reason Chris should be arrested is because he’s a prison escapee.’

‘What?’ exclaimed everyone in the room, except for Malcolm.

‘You knew?’ asked Malcolm.

‘I knew Chris had been in jail since the first time I met him,’ said Friday. ‘The five symmetrical dots on his wrist are a common prison tattoo. They represent a person inside four walls.’

‘Really?’ said Melanie. ‘It sounds like a symbol of someone who doesn’t have the courage to get a proper tattoo.’

‘Why didn’t you report him immediately?’ demanded the Headmaster.

‘I thought you knew,’ said Friday. ‘I assumed he had spent some time in a juvenile detention facility. Goodness knows, more of the privileged children at this school should be locked up. I didn’t see any need to make a fuss. If he’d done his time, he deserved a second chance.’

‘I’ve had a hardened criminal enrolled in the school for two months,’ said the Headmaster, shaking his head.

‘The P&C is not going to be happy about this,’ said the Vice Principal smugly.

‘Then there was the fact that Chris was so good at climbing,’ said Friday. ‘The way he climbed that oak tree was seriously impressive. He found finger and toe holds none of us could see. At the time, I assumed he had spent his holidays rock climbing. But when he threatened to break my arm and I realised he was in fact a violent sociopath, I recalled that the escaped prisoner had broken out of jail by climbing the prison wall.’

‘It’s a good thing you were so observant of his impressive finger strength,’ said Melanie.

‘The police thought Malcolm was the escapee,’ continued Friday, ‘until they discovered that the prisoner was short, brown-haired and very young. The opposite of Malcolm. But the exact description of Chris.’

‘But why would he want to enrol in school?’ asked  Ian. ‘We’re only here because we have to be. Aren’t prison escapees meant to run away to Brazil or somewhere exotic with beaches?’

‘It’s quite a coincidence one prisoner being released on the same day another prisoner escapes,’ continued Friday. ‘Then they both come to the same place – here. There had to be something drawing them here.’

‘Like what?’ asked the Headmaster.

‘The 1987 time capsule,’ said Friday.

‘Why?’ asked Ian. ‘Did they put gold bullion in it or something?’

‘In a way, yes,’ said Friday. ‘Let’s have a look.’

Friday picked up the time capsule and inspected the lock.

Ian sighed. ‘Do we have to watch while you show off your lock-picking skills?’

‘No,’ said Friday. ‘It’s rusted shut. That wouldn’t work.’ She picked up her school bag and rifled around inside until she drew out a ballpein hammer. ‘This will do the trick.’

Friday smashed the hammer hard into the lock three times. The rusty metal collapsed. She lifted the lid and pulled out a thick pile of paper. There was lined notepaper, art paper, even printed worksheets, but they were all covered in scrawling handwriting. ‘What is this?’ asked the Headmaster. ‘Some kind of assignment?’

‘No,’ said Friday. ‘It’s a priceless handwritten manuscript.’

‘It is?’ said the Headmaster.

‘The last chapter in the final book of The Curse of the Pirate King series by E.M. Dowell,’ revealed Friday.

Everyone gasped.

‘He was a student here in 1987,’ said Friday. ‘He was already working on his stories of pirates.’

‘Wow,’ said Ian, peering at the manuscript.

‘Isn’t that right, Malcolm?’ said Friday. ‘Or should I call you E.M.?’

‘What?!’ exclaimed Ian.

‘Malcolm is E.M. Dowell,’ said Friday.

‘No way,’ said Ian.

‘How did you figure it out?’ asked Malcolm.

‘When the Headmaster sprained his ankle, you started for the infirmary. You knew your way around,’ said Friday. ‘And when the Vice Principal saw you he was genuinely shocked. Not because you were a scary-looking vagrant carrying his employer, but because he recognised you. You were the year above him at school. It all fit that you could be the author. You weren’t in jail because you’d committed a crime. You were there to research your next book.’

‘What does the “E” stand for?’ asked Melanie. ‘Edward? Evan? Earnest?’

‘Worse,’ said Malcolm. ‘Ebenezer.’

‘You poor man,’ sympathised Melanie. ‘I know how you feel. My middle name is Alice and I’ve never been able to forgive my parents.’

‘So how did Chris know about it?’ asked the Headmaster.

‘He was my cellmate,’ said Malcolm. ‘He asked all these questions about my past: my writing and school. I thought he was just passing the time. But then his questions became more and more specific. I realised he’d read every article about me. He knew all about the story of the hidden final chapter.’

‘This is ridiculous,’ said Chris. ‘It’s all crazy speculation. You can’t believe a word of it, sir.’

‘I’d prefer not to,’ admitted the Headmaster. ‘But I’ve come to know Friday’s crazy speculations are usually unerringly accurate.’

‘You must have thought it would only take a couple of days,’ said Friday. ‘Find the map, dig up the time capsule, sell it online to some foreign super-fan and off you go, to Brazil or Monaco or wherever well-heeled thieves congregate. But you couldn’t find the manuscript and you found yourself stuck here for weeks and weeks.’

‘I’ve got a question for Malcolm,’ said Melanie. ‘Why did you bury the final chapter? It seems like such a strange thing to do.’

‘I did it to irritate Archie,’ said Malcolm with a smile.

‘Who?’ asked Ian.

‘Vice Principal Archibald James Dean,’ said Friday.

‘Archie liked my stories,’ said Malcolm. ‘I found out he had handed one in as his own for English.’

‘Vice Principal!’ exclaimed Melanie. ‘That is so naughty.’

The Vice Principal stared at the floor, pouting.

‘We got in a fistfight over it,’ continued Malcolm.

‘Which is why you were both punished and that was noted in the records,’ said Friday.

‘Yes, but Mrs Cannon backed me up,’ said Malcolm. ‘She said she knew Archie hadn’t written the story himself because he had less imagination than a dead geranium. Anyway, Archie was desperate to find out what happened at the end of the story, so I buried it in a secret location. Someplace I knew he’d never have the imagination to uncover.’

There was a knock at the door.

‘Come in,’ called the Headmaster.

The door opened and Sergeant Crowley walked in. ‘What’s all this then?’

‘I believe this young man may be of interest to you,’ said the Headmaster.

Sergeant Crowley scanned the people in the room. ‘Malcolm? What is it now? Not a sapphire bracelet again, I hope?’

‘Not him,’ said Friday. ‘Him.’ She pointed at Chris.

Sergeant Crowley peered at Chris.

‘Imagine how he would look in a bright orange prison jumpsuit,’ said Friday.

‘Christos Stassinopoulou!’ exclaimed Sergeant Crowley. ‘Half the region’s police force has been tied up in a manhunt looking for you. They’ve been dredging lakes and searching abandoned mineshafts in a fifty-kilometre radius.’

‘Sergeant, before you arrest Chris,’ said Friday, ‘perhaps you could satisfy my curiosity. What crime was he jailed for?’

‘We busted him for fraud,’ said Sergeant Crowley.

‘Really?’ said Melanie. ‘That’s very unromantic. I was hoping cat burglary.’

‘You do realise that cat burglars don’t actually steal cats?’ asked Friday.

‘I refuse to believe that,’ said Melanie.

‘He used his youthful good looks,’ began Sergeant Crowley, ‘and short stature …’

‘Hey!’ protested Chris. ‘Five foot four is average height.’

Ian snorted. ‘For a Peruvian woman, perhaps.’

‘He used his appearance to pass himself off as a minor,’ said Sergeant Crowley. ‘It started out with paying kids’ prices at the movies and buying cheap train tickets, then escalated to him posing as the long-lost grandchild of elderly people and swindling them out of their savings.’

‘How was he caught?’ asked Friday.

‘He tried to trick an 85-year-old lady awaiting hip replacement surgery,’ explained Sergeant Crowley. ‘Little did he realise she was a retired professional wrestler. She hit him over the head with her walking frame, then held him in a leg lock until the police arrived.’

‘She’s the one who should have been doing time for excessive force,’ complained Chris.

Sergeant Crowley tried to pull Chris out of the office chair he was sticky-taped to, but the chair just rolled across the floor. The sergeant considered the problem for a moment before turning to the Headmaster. ‘Can I borrow the chair to wheel him away?’ he asked.

‘Of course, anything to help an officer of the law,’ said the Headmaster.

They all watched Chris get rolled out the door.

‘I’ll get you, Barnes!’ threatened Chris. ‘You haven’t seen the last of me.’

‘I’m afraid it’s hard to take a threat seriously,’ said Friday, ‘when it comes from a man restrained by stationery supplies.’

Ian closed the door on Chris before he could holler any more abuse.

The Headmaster shook his head sadly. ‘I can’t believe he’s been here the whole time. This is going to be terrible for the school’s reputation.’

‘If it’s a comfort to you,’ said Friday, ‘it’s only because the school has such an excellent reputation that Chris has been so safe here. Who would ever think of looking for a jailbird in the country’s most expensive boarding school? And your strict enforcement of the anti-technology rules meant that none of us ever saw his mugshot on the news.’