‘Cass and the Diabolical Detectives,’ I said, thinking aloud. ‘No, Cass and the Intrepid Investigators. Wait, Cass and the Devious Daredevils. Ooh! Or what about Cass’s Turbo Team?’
Nicholas’s lip was curling. ‘Nothing with “Cass and the” in it. It’s our team name, remember.’
‘Yeah, I know that. Hmm, how about The Okara Adventurers?’
‘No.’
‘Okey-d’Okara?’
‘Nothing with your second name in it either.’
‘Fine, fine. How about …’ I thought hard. ‘The Original Crazy Amazing Reckless Adventurers?’
Lex nodded. ‘That’s fine with me.’
Nicholas squinted his eyes for a second. ‘Do the first letters make up your second name?’
‘No,’ said Lex. ‘O-C-A-R-A.’
‘I thought we could spell crazy with a “k”,’ I said, ‘to be different.’
‘No!’ said Nicholas. ‘Knock it off, Cass, we’re not just your team.’
‘Okay, okay. How about we all suggest names, and if you don’t like a name you can veto it. We all get one veto each.’
‘Yeah, let’s do that.’
‘Cool!’ said Lex. ‘How about … Puzzle Pals?’
‘Veto,’ I said.
‘Oh.’
‘Sorry, Lex, but it has to be something that’ll intimidate the other scavenger hunt teams. Puzzle Pals is way too nice.’
Definition of intimidate: to scare the pants off everyone by being way better than them at everything.
‘How about,’ said Nicholas, ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and Yorick’s Skull. That sounds pretty scary.’
‘What?’ I said. ‘That’s ridiculous. What does that even mean?’
‘They’re characters from Shakespeare.’
‘No way. Veto.’
‘You already used your veto.’
‘Well I’m using it again.’
‘You can’t,’ said Nicholas. ‘You can only use it once.’
‘Then I’m using it for that one.’
‘So we can go with Puzzle Pals?’ asked Lex.
‘Urgh,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘No way. Veto.’
‘You just used your veto for the Rosie Bildenstern Skull one.’
‘Yeah, because I had to.’
‘So Puzzle Pals is still in.’
I tried a different approach. ‘I haven’t suggested anything yet. How about The Terrible Tenacious Trio?’
‘Why?’
‘Cos it’s terrible.’
Lex clapped her hands. ‘So it’s Puzzle Pals!’
‘Veto!’ I said.
‘You haven’t got any vetoes left, Cass,’ said Nicholas.
‘Do you want to be Puzzle Pals?’
Nicholas shifted his feet and looked away from Lex.
‘No, but …’
‘Look,’ I said, ‘why don’t we leave the team name for a while. It’s just making us all annoyed.’
‘You’re the only one who’s annoyed.’
‘Cos you’re the one who’s being annoying, Nicholas.’
‘Stop, please,’ Lex cut in. ‘I don’t want to fight about it. I don’t mind what name we have.’
‘Let’s just decide later,’ said Nicholas, frowning at me. ‘We have until Saturday to register.’
‘Fine with me,’ I said.
In my head I was already making a new list. If we were going to intimidate the other teams then we needed a name that would scare the pants off them.
I was back in hell (otherwise known as the garden at Shady Oaks).
Mr Freebs finally found a kind of plant that Nathan didn’t hate. They’re called succulents; they normally live in the desert and they have thick, spiky leaves (like a cactus) and you hardly ever have to water them. The only bad thing about them is they don’t like the cold, so we had to plant them in pots that could be taken indoors in wintertime.
‘They’re not like proper plants,’ Nathan said, very happy with himself. ‘They look like they’re made of plastic, and they don’t have flowers.’
I’d snuck in a couple of succulent plants that would grow flowers, but I didn’t tell Nathan that. I also didn’t tell him that I was sick of hearing about all the famous people his mum knew. When he started listing them again, I said, ‘I’m actually gonna have a walk around and check out the other plots. You know, see if there are any cool rocks left that we can add to ours.’
I am probably the most patient and peaceful person I know.
Lex’s fairy village looked brilliant. There were all these teeny, tiny houses tucked into the bushes, but you had to go looking for them. It was like a tiny treasure hunt. I even found a miniature playground that made me feel bad about my sad little rock garden.
Nicholas’s red garden wasn’t looking very red yet, but some of the plants had reddy-coloured leaves, and Mr Freebs showed us pictures of what the other plants would look like when they had flowers. It was going to be epic.
I wandered around to the fountain and found Mr Fox working at a picnic table. Mr Fox is one of the Shady Oaks residents – I don’t know him very well, but I know he’s into arty stuff. Any time I see him he’s painting or drawing or making things out of paper.
He was making a big collage at the picnic table; a picture made by gluing lots of pictures on top of a piece of card.
‘Hi, Mr Fox,’ I said. ‘What are you making?’
Mr Fox looked up at me, not smiling.
‘Catherine, is it?’
‘Cass.’
‘Hmm. I’m making a yellow rose.’
There was no way he was making a yellow rose. There were some yellow pieces of magazine, but loads of them were gold and brown and even black. He wasn’t being very friendly, so I didn’t ask any more questions, but since he didn’t tell me to leave either, I kept watching.
It was weird. The more I watched, the more the picture did become a yellow rose. Kind of.
In the top left-hand corner the picture started out as black, then became brown and bronze and gold, and then finally, in the bottom right-hand corner, it was bright yellow. Even though the pictures were of cars and trees and buildings and things, from far away Mr Fox had made them look like the shape of a rose.
‘That’s brilliant,’ I said.
‘You still here?’ said Mr Fox.
‘Yeah. Your picture’s brilliant. What are you putting on it now?’
‘More glue. It’ll need to dry for a while and then I’ll varnish it. Don’t touch it now.’
‘I won’t. Can you teach me how to do that?’
‘Teach yourself, it’s not difficult.’
‘Okay.’
I made a mental note to ask Mr Freebs if we could make collages next time we did art class. I’d ask my dad to look up a tutorial online before it, and then I’d make the best one. Maybe even better than Mr Fox’s yellow rose.
Finally, the day of the scavenger hunt arrived.
Mr McCall’s gardens were way bigger than I’d thought. The garden right behind the house (that backed onto the horsey field where our clubhouse was) was just one of the gardens. There were much bigger ones to the side of the house, with statues and walls and trees. There was a pond and a great big greenhouse full of exotic looking plants; there was even a hedge maze – though if I stood on my tippy toes I could just about see over it, so it wasn’t a very tall one.
‘There’s a pumpkin patch out through that archway,’ Nicholas said. ‘I heard some other kids talking about it. There are loads of scarecrows in there – it sounds really creepy.’
The pumpkin patch was really creepy. There were about a dozen scarecrows, all with different costumes and faces. Some were messy, with straw poking out of their shirts and under their caps, and some were really neat with old-fashioned dresses and suits with top hats. Big black crows, who didn’t seem at all scared of the scarecrows, picked their way through the pumpkin patch, staring people down and taking off into the air with shiny, black wings.
‘This is so freaky,’ said Nicholas.
Suddenly I jumped and grabbed hold of his arm.
‘Oh my god, I forgot!’ I said. ‘I forgot to tell Mum to register us for the scavenger hunt online. How did I forget?!’
During the week I’d been so distracted with practising running, and making sure Lex and Nicholas did their brain-exercising, that it had totally slipped my mind.
‘It’s alright,’ said Lex, ‘my dad did it. He was buying tickets for my parents and your parents for the gin-making thing, so he told your mum he’d register us for the scavenger hunt too.’
I heaved a sigh of relief. ‘Lex, your dad is the best! Seriously. Thanks so much.’
‘No problem.’ Lex was smiling, but it was kind of a weird smile. ‘We’d better go round to the starting point.’
‘Wait,’ I said as she backed away from me. ‘What name did you pick? Lex, what team name did you pick?’
‘Em,’ Lex called as she jogged away, ‘I couldn’t remember what we decided on, so I just …’
‘What? What name?’
‘Puzzle Pals.’
‘No. Lex, noooooo!’