I DIDN’T TALK about the mission any more then, because I knew that this was a job for an Elite Force, the best of the best, which probably wouldn’t include The Moan (because of the moaning) or Jamie (because of him being slightly thick).
So my Elite Force was going to be me, Noah, who always said that he wasn’t afraid of snakes, and Jenny, who wasn’t afraid of anything.
At tea time my mum and dad were talking about the mysterious disappearances again. There had been more of them, and it wasn’t only dogs now that had gone missing. A Persian cat called Fatty had vanished from a house on the new estate. And a parrot called Potty had gone too, leaving an empty cage behind.
It was obvious now what was happening. Ray Quasar was working his evil way through all the animals in town, and would soon move on to humans, probably beginning with the babies, before swallowing the children and finishing up with the adults, as a kind of dessert.
By my calculations, within three weeks there would be nothing left alive in town except for one bloated python. Or boa constrictor.
I telephoned Noah after tea.
‘There have been developments. We’re meeting at Declan’s house at nineteen hundred hours o’clock.’
I wouldn’t tell him any more. Then I phoned Jennifer and explained all about Ray Quasar. She was very pleased to have been selected for the mission, especially as her brother, The Moan, hadn’t been.
Declan answered the door.
‘Hello. What do you want?’
‘We’ve come to talk to you,’ I said, trying to sound like a detective or a secret agent. ‘And your snake.’
‘You want to talk to Ray Quasar? I thought it was only Harry Potter who could speak snake language.’
Then Jenny pushed past me. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘we just want to find out some things about your snake. It’s for a project. Can we come and see it?’
‘OK.’
Declan led the way upstairs. ‘Is this for school?’ he asked.
‘Sort of,’ I said.
Declan opened the door to his bedroom. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I thought there might be a giant python (or boa constrictor) coiled around his bed. But the only things on his bed were a duvet, a pillow, and a special display case with his best Yu-Gi-Oh! cards.
Then I saw the fish tank. Well, I suppose you’d have to call it a snake tank, because that’s what was in it.
‘Come over to my vivarium.’
‘Is it safe?’ I asked.
I was worried in case Jennifer had a panic attack.
‘Of course it’s safe,’ said Jennifer.
We gathered round the snake tank – I mean, vivarium. It contained a dried-up branch from a tree, and there was a little wooden house in one corner. Oh, and there was a snake in there.
The snake had green and brown and white blotches in a complicated wiggly pattern on its back. And it kept putting out its tongue, flicker, flicker, flicker.
‘Want to touch it?’
‘No!’ I answered, maybe a bit too quickly. I was speaking on behalf of Jennifer and Noah. I didn’t want them to run out screaming.
‘I’d love to,’ said Jennifer.
Declan reached into the tank and put his hand under Ray Quasar. The snake began to coil around his wrist. He lifted it out. It raised its head and looked me right in the eye – trying to work out if I would taste nice, I expect.
Jennifer stretched out her hand, and Declan touched her fingers and the snake wriggled from him to her.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said. ‘Can I stroke it?’
‘Sure.’
‘Hey, it’s lovely and dry. Not even a bit slimy.’
I was getting annoyed about all this. We’d come here to ask serious questions, not to get all kissy-kissy, lovey-dovey over a dangerous predator who might be busy digesting dogs, cats and parrots even as we spoke.
‘What kind of snake is it?’ I asked. ‘A python?’
‘A boa constrictor.’
‘I thought so. And what does it eat, eh? Warm-blooded animals, I expect. Little furry creatures? Big furry creatures? And other creatures with feathers? Isn’t that right?’
Before Declan could answer Jennifer dragged me to one side, using the hand that wasn’t holding Ray Quasar.
‘You don’t still believe that this cute little snake ate all those other animals?’ she whispered.
‘Yes, well, it might have. Look, I drew some drawings – I meant to show you earlier on.’
I took out the pictures I’d done of the elephant, pig and dog inside the snake.
The one with the elephant fell on the floor. Declan picked it up. He’d been quite well behaved up till then, not acting at all loony, but he made up for that now by running around the room laughing like a maniac.
‘Snakes don’t eat elephants, you idiot,’ he shouted.
‘I know they don’t. And anyway, no elephants have disappeared, not lately. That was just the first picture. But look at these. Snakes eat pigs and dogs, see? And it so happens that some dogs and cats – although not, so far, pigs – have disappeared. And I think we both know where.’
Then I pointed in a dramatic way at Ray Quasar’s tummy.
The dramatic pointing business didn’t have exactly the effect I’d been counting on. I’d been hoping that Declan would break down, sobbing, and admit that Ray Quasar was the murderer and that he was the accomplice.
What happened was more or less the exact opposite of that.
The earlier bout of running around and laughing was nothing compared with this. And when he got bored with running, he tried some jumping up and down on the bed, and then some rolling around on the floor.
It was time I took charge again.
‘Just laughing like a baboon isn’t the same as answering the question.’
‘Did Ray Quasar eat Trixie – that’s Mrs Cake’s Jack Russell terrier – plus two other dogs whose names I can’t remember, plus Catty the fat, er, I mean, Fatty the cat, and Potty the parrot?’
Declan worked hard to get his face under control. Yes, he was very close to cracking. The case was almost closed.
‘Hello, anyone home?’ he said, knocking on my head with his knuckles. ‘Ray Quasar doesn’t eat pigs, or dogs, or cats, or elephants. He’s too small. When he’s fully grown, he’ll be over three metres long and he might eat a little dog, if there was one going. But not now.’
‘What does he eat then?’
I’d noticed that he hadn’t mentioned parrots.
‘Mice.’
‘Mice?’
‘Yes, mice. Baby mice. Want to watch?’
‘Not really.’
‘Yeah, cool.’
That was Jennifer. She was still holding Ray Quasar, although you could equally say that he was holding her. I half hoped that the snake would attack her, and maybe swallow her down to the waist so I could rescue her from the jaws of the beast, like Tarzan. That would show her how brave I was, as well as going a long way to proving the snake’s guilt. After all, if you’d eat a girl like that, then you’d eat anything – dogs, cats, mushy peas, Brussels sprouts, anything.
But sadly he didn’t try to strangulate and swallow her. He just hung on her arm like a handbag and put his nasty tongue out at me.
‘Actually it’s feeding time now. I’ve got some mice defrosting in the fridge next to the yogurt. Hang on here and I’ll get them.’
Then he ran out of the room.
‘How do you think the interrogation’s going?’ I said to my Elite Force, after a pause.
‘Quite good,’ said Noah, looking down at his feet.
‘Rubbish, actually,’ said Jennifer.
Obviously she’d taken over the family role of moaner.
‘How can you say that when we’re about to see Ray Quasar eat a baby mouse?’
‘Well, I admit that will be quite interesting.’
‘One thing, though,’ said Noah. ‘If Ray Quasar eats the mice, can we rule him out of our enquiries?’
I thought for a moment.
‘Well, yes, we can.’
‘Hooray,’ said Jennifer sarcastically.
‘In an investigation you often make an advance by eliminating suspects.’
Four little pink baby mice.
He wrapped himself around them, giving them a good old constrict even though they were already so dead they’d been in the freezer for six months. Then he swallowed them.
It’s a strange world in which eating four little tiny pink baby mice means you are innocent. But we don’t get a choice. This is the only world we have. So I declared Ray Quasar the boa constrictor Not Guilty, and we went home.
But not before Declan gave Jennifer a present – a nasty dried-up old snakeskin that Ray Quasar had grown out of. The way she smiled and blushed you’d have thought it was a diamond ring.