CHAPTER NINE

I was so excited about the rehearsal that time seemed to be going backwards. That wasn’t really helped by having to suffer through double maths with Dr MacDougal. She is small and round with beetley eyebrows and the most flat, droning voice you’ve ever heard. That day her voice seemed flatter and droney-er than ever and I don’t think I took in a single word. When Dr MacDougal asked me to “find x”, I could only stare at her. It was right there next to her on the board. She had just written it down and she needed help finding it? I wondered if she needed glasses and so I tried not to make her feel bad by pretending that I didn’t know where it was either.

Eventually though, and after what felt like several lifetimes had passed, the day of lessons came to an end. We still had an hour before rehearsal so I took the opportunity to give the circus a ring. I knew that I needed to fill them in on the fire, and on being in trouble with Miss Baxter again, but to be honest I wasn’t exactly looking forward to explaining it all. Still, I thought, at least talking to them would take my mind off counting down to the rehearsal – and the phone was in the library, the perfect place to spend a free hour.

Let me describe the Saint Smithen’s library for you, because it is maybe my favourite bit of the whole school. I bet if you saw it in real life you would think the same thing. It’s enormous, and absolutely bursting with books for a start, but at the same time it’s so warm and cosy and inviting. The high ceiling is painted with a mural of the sky, dotted with fat, candyfloss clouds that seem to drift around above your head. The wooden floorboards gleam dark and polished and there are cosy armchairs hidden in various nooks and corners, just crying out for you to curl up in them and lose yourself in one of the thousands of books crowding the walls.

Tucked away in the corner is a wall of old-fashioned pay phones that the students can use to call home, and this was where I was headed. There was no one around except for the librarian, Mr Fipps, who was humming away to himself as he lovingly sorted through piles of returned books. I lifted the phone receiver off the hook and carefully spun the dial around, calling a long number that I knew off by heart. Now I’m going to stick in a transcript of my phone call here for you to read. I like doing the phone conversations this way because it’s like how Dougie Valentine does them in his books. It makes everything feel so important and official. The other reason I like it is because then you and your friends can have great fun reading it out like a script and doing all the voices. (Kip’s Fanella impression is always especially excellent when we do that.)

**Beginning of transcript**

*Phone rings*

*Long silence*

Me: Hello?

Luigi: Ahem. Yes. Ah. Right. (Pause) What ho! The Flying Ferret here, reading you loud and clear. Hotel business and whatnot at your service.

Me: Luigi?

Luigi: I say, that’s jolly good. How on earth did you do that? Psychic powers, I presume? I know someone with the gift myself and she’s rather extraordinary, but I don’t think even she—

Me: Luigi, it’s Poppy!

Luigi: Poppers! Oh, well that explains it then.

Me: Right. But, Luigi – why are you answering the phone? Where’s Leaky Sue?

Luigi: (guilty pause) Who?

Me: What do you mean who?! Leaky Sue, the owner of the hotel; she always answers the phone. Luigi, what have you done with her?

Luigi: (voice gets a bit high and nervous) Now, Pops, no need to overreact! I haven’t done anything with her. She’s absolutely fine. Probably.

Me: What do you mean, probably?

Luigi: (hotly) Well it wasn’t my fault, if that’s what you were thinking. It was all Marvin, and now. . .

**Clunking noises in background and muffled shouts**

Luigi: (Muffled) What do you think you’re doing? I was just talking to Poppy and you can’t. . . OW! Let me go! Let me go!

**Scuffling noises, sound of smashing**

Fanella: Tomato? Is you?

Me: Yes, it’s me. What is going on?!

Fanella: It is Marvin. He keel Leaky Sue.

Marvin: (shouting in the distance) I DID NOT KILL LEAKY SUE. OF COURSE I DIDN’T. DON’T TELL PEOPLE THAT.

Fanella: OK, OK, keep your shirts on.Tomato, he only PROBABLY keel her.

**More clunking**

Marvin: (panting) Don’t listen to that madwoman, Poppy. Of course I didn’t kill Leaky Sue. . . I have just . . . temporarily misplaced her.

Me: Oh no, Marvin you didn’t—

Marvin: Disappear her? Afraid so, Poppy. Of course it was an accident. But . . . I was distracted and I thought she was a lamp.

Me: A lamp? Well, can’t you, you know, bring her back? Say the magic word?

Marvin: (miserably) That’s the thing, you see, I’ve—

Fanella: (in background) HE FORGET, TOMATO! HE IS SILLY GOAT! HE FORGET HIS MAGIC WORD! HE STAND HERE SHOUTING “TURNIP! TURNIP! PARSNIP!” BUT NOTHING HAPPEN.

Marvin: I’m sure it’s a word in the vegetable family. Anyway, I haven’t forgotten! I’ve just . . . temporarily misplaced . . . err . . . beetroot! Carrot! ASPARAGUS!

**Sound of door slamming open**

**Sound of phone being dropped**

Leaky Sue: WAIT TIL I GET MY ’ANDS ON YOU, MARVIN!

Marvin: Leaky Sue! You’re back!

Leaky Sue: BACK?! Yes, I bloomin’ well am. Marvin: Leaky Sue, I’m very sorry. You see.

I mistook you for a lamp—

Leaky Sue: A LAMP?!

**Dangerous pause**

Leaky Sue: I WILL ’AVE YOU KNOW THAT THIS IS A VERY EXPENSIVE AND FASHIONABLE HAT, LIKE WHAT THEY ARE WEARIN’ IN PARIS AND THE LIKE. I LOOK LIKE ONE OF THEM TOP MODELS.

Marvin: (nervously) Yes, yes of course you do. I see that now. It’s just, you know, the shape of it . . . and that fringe around the bottom . . . it’s a bit . . . lamp shadey.

**Another dangerous pause**

**A piercing howl**

**Smashing sounds**

Pym: Poppy, love?

Me: Pym!

Pym: FANELLA! PUT THAT LAMPSHADE DOWN!

**Loud shrieking**

Pym: Right, right, sorry, Leaky Sue. It’s very . . . fetching. I’m so sorry, Poppy, I think I’d better go and sort them all out. Was there anything you needed to tell me?

Me: (pause) Nope. Nothing at all.

Pym: Are you sure? I thought—

**Smashing noises**

Leaky Sue: I’LL DISAPPEAR YOU IN A MINUTE! Luigi: Oh, I say, that’s a good one! YOU’LL disappear HIM! Haha! I see what you did there!

Leaky Sue: PIPE DOWN, LION BOY, OR YOU’RE NEXT! I don’t like the cut of your moustache!

*Gasping noise*

Luigi: How DARE you!

**More scuffling**

Pym: OK, I really do have to go now! I’m so sorry, Poppy, but at least we will see you at Parents’ Weekend. Say goodbye to Poppy, everyone. . .

**scuffling and smashing noises stop**

Everyone: Byyyyyye, Poppy!

**scuffling and smashing noises start again**

*End of transcript*

I put the phone down with a big pang of homesickness. It was hard being away from the fun of the circus – you never knew what crazy scheme my family would come up with next and it was one of the things I loved the most about them. I was also feeling a bit guilty that I hadn’t told Pym about the fire and about getting into trouble . . . again. I didn’t usually keep things a secret from Pym – well, with her visions it was pretty tough to keep secrets from her even if you wanted to – but she sounded like she had her hands full already and I didn’t want to worry her, plus a part of me didn’t think my circus family would really understand the world of Saint Smithen’s, or why rescuing a cat from a burning building would get you in trouble in the first place. It was a strange feeling to be doing something that was so separate from my family, and to feel like I was changing so that I could fit in at Saint Smithen’s. Did that mean I was different from them? Did I still fit in as perfectly as I always had?

I’d tell Pym all about it when they turned up for Parents’ Weekend, I decided, and I pushed any bad feelings that I had down to the bottom of my wriggling toes.

After all, I had a mystery to focus on!