Morphers, p.12
Morphers, page 12
‘No way, not in the closet?’ Emma interrupted.
Sam rolled his eyes. ‘No. Who would be that stupid?’
‘Soorrrryyyy,’ Emma screwed up her nose at him.
‘They weren’t in the closet,’ Sam continued. ‘So then, I went into the cleaning cupboard and a flicker of light caught my eye. You know how daylight seeps through a crack? Kind of like that.’ He stopped, making sure they were all enthralled and he had their attention. Sam continued, ‘Anyway, I saw light coming from this small hole, about the size of my thumb on the floor of the cupboard.’
‘That’s kind of weird, like it’s hollow,’ Chloe agreed. ‘Where was the light coming from?’
‘An escape route underneath!’ Sam said, with drama. ‘I looked through this hole and I could see the edge of a frame. Like those gold frames around the paintings.’
‘It was a false door in the floor!’ Dan told the girls.
‘It was pretty hard to see so I’m not surprised the police missed it,’ Sam said. ‘Anyway, I pushed on the floor and adjoining wall and nothing happened. I thought maybe a false door would spring open. So then…’
Chloe gasped. ‘That was risky, you could have been caught.’
‘I know but Dan was on watch duty.’
‘Keep going!’ Emma said, with a glance to her watch, ‘We’ve got the walking club in thirty minutes.’
‘Right,’ Sam spoke faster. ‘I put my finger through the hole and there was a clip on the other side. I prised it open and the whole panel just snapped up. I almost toppled over! And there were the five paintings; I recognised them from the newspaper stories. They were just sitting there!’
‘But,’ Emma struggled. ‘That means, whoever took them, removed the five paintings off the wall, stuck them in the fake cupboard or whatever you want to call it and then left them there. Why? When are they coming back for them?’
‘That’s the big question,’ Dan said.
‘Well, they can’t come back until the police tape is cleared, unless they try to sneak in, I guess,’ Chloe suggested. ‘So it has to be someone with access to the school.’
‘Exactly!’ Dan agreed with Chloe. ‘Someone who wouldn’t look out of place in that room.’
‘It makes sense,’ Sam said. ‘Remember I overhead that discussion with Mr Stoker and that strange guy? The guy said he could get all five out while the guards were still there and no one would be any the wiser but Mr Stoker wanted to be more cautious… I think that is what he said. I reckon that was their plan all along… to steal them and leave them hidden until it had all died down. Maybe even until school holidays when half the school is not here.’
‘Or Award Night next month,’ Dan said, ‘when everyone in the school is over in the hall.’
‘That’s a good plan,’ Emma agreed, impressed by Dan’s sneaky thought. ‘We have to tell someone.’
‘How?’ Sam asked. ‘I’m not supposed to have overheard a discussion.’
‘How did you hear it again?’ Chloe asked.
Dan jumped in. ‘You know Sam, always in the right place at the wrong time,’ he said, and grinned. ‘But we still should say something. We can do it anonymously.’
‘Yes!’ Chloe agreed. ‘We need to write an email and send it to the detective heading the investigation. You know, the one who interviewed us all.’
‘Peasley,’ Emma said, with a nod, ‘that was his surname.’
‘How would you remember that?’ Sam frowned, studying her.
Emma shrugged. ‘I read his badge while he was reading the questions.’
‘So Peasley,’ Dan continued. ‘We need to write down everything we know, but don’t sign it.’
‘Maybe we can sign it The Sleuths or The Insiders!’ Sam raised his eyebrows.
‘Uh huh,’ Dan looked at him. ‘So, are you going to write it?’
‘Me! Why me?’ Sam asked. They all stopped talking as a few students went by outside their library room, and then Dan continued.
‘Well, you overheard the conversation and found the hidden area,’ Dan reminded him.
‘Oh, yeah, okay,’ Sam said reluctantly.
‘Better make it quick in case they come back for the paintings sooner than we thought,’ Dan said. ‘We need to send it ASAP.’
‘I’ll help you write it,’ Emma offered. ‘We can set up a false email account and send it right away.’
Sam brightened. ‘Sure, let’s do it.’
‘Tonight, in study break, I’ll bring the laptop,’ Emma said.
‘Done!’ Sam announced. He glanced at Dan. Being a Morpher had its advantages! And then everything changed.
‘Exciting news,’ Chloe announced, ‘Siggy is coming to visit!’
‘Siggy! The school owner?’ Dan’s mouth dropped open.
‘Yes, I can’t wait to see him in person. I hope we get to meet him,’ Emma said.
Sam and Dan exchanged a glance. Was Siggy coming to find his missing spell book?
Chapter 27
As quick as lightning, the science teacher, Mr Rowe, snatched the piece of paper off the table and put it back into his coat pocket. He glared at the man next to him in a floor-length, wool black coat – his brother, Elliot.
‘I wasn’t going to keep it,’ Elliot proclaimed.
‘That’s right,’ Mr Rowe said. ‘You weren’t going to keep it. Whether or not it works, this is my formula, the kids gave it to me and it stays with me.’
‘And what are you going to do about it?’ Elliot asked. ‘You haven’t taught a class since you got that piece of paper. You’ve tried every possible formula combination and all you’ve done is poison yourself and get attacked by crows!’ he laughed. ‘You’ll lose your job next, Jack, then that will be that! You’ll be out on the street. Just get back to class and put this ridiculous idea behind you!’
‘Shut up, Elliot!’ Mr Rowe strode to the window in the small lab he had rented for a month at the college. It was dark outside and he could see his reflection in the window and that of his younger brother. They were matched in height but that’s where the similarities ended.
‘You need to chill, Jack,’ Mr Rowe’s brother said. ‘You were always too uptight.’ Elliot breathed out and softened a little, as he watched his stressed big brother pace. ‘We’ll get the rest of it, I’ll help you.’
‘This is all there is, Elliot,’ Mr Rowe shook with anger. ‘Unless they duped me, but I don’t think they are smart enough for that. I scared that kid bad. I locked him in a cage, but he stuck to his story and insisted that this was the only formula he knew.’
‘They are kids!’ Elliot reminded him. ‘They will do whatever it takes to protect their butts; we did it when we were kids.’
Mr Rowe thought about this.
Elliot continued. ‘There has to be something missing from it.’
Mr Rowe took a deep breath and turned away from his reflection to face his brother. ‘Maybe you are right. Maybe I should go back to school and talk to them again. If they’ve duped me…’ he banged his hand on a table.
‘Just take it easy, Jack, we’ll get it out of them,’ Elliot said.
Mr Rowe snapped to look at his brother. ‘I may be uptight, but you were always too relaxed, Elliot, that’s why you achieve nothing and never finish anything. You have no discipline.’
Elliot rolled his eyes. ‘You sound like Dad now.’
Mr Rowe reached into his pocket and pulled out the piece of paper again. ‘This formula,’ he held it up, ‘this could change history.’ He paced. ‘Have you any idea of how important this is?’
Elliot scoffed. ‘Would I be here if I didn’t know? I’m not hanging around to enjoy your scintillating company!’
‘Then stop wasting my time,’ Mr Rowe said. ‘I need to return to school and get the rest of that formula.’
‘And if they are telling you the truth, if there is no rest of the formula?’ Elliot asked.
‘Then I need to watch Sam and Dan. I need to watch everything they do and work it out. Either way, I am going to get it.’
*****
Sam and Emma finished the email for the police. Sam stopped typing and sat back. Dan and Chloe were sitting nearby in the study area and on seeing Sam sit back, Dan shuffled closer.
‘Okay, we’ve documented everything I could think of about the robbery to Detective Peasley,’ Sam said in a hushed voice. ‘I’ve included the trekking assignment with Mr Stoker and how we were required to mark the most efficient routes out of the school; the discussion I overheard with Mr Stoker and that other man; and finally, finding the artworks in the cupboard. Is that it?’ Sam said, and Emma turned the laptop to face Chloe and Dan. They read through it.
‘That’s pretty much it,’ Dan agreed as he finished reading it. ‘I don’t think we should email it. Even with a false email account, police technology experts might be able to trace it.’
Chloe nodded. ‘I agree with Dan. I read somewhere about how most accounts are easily traced back to a source. We don’t need it being traced here to the library on this date.’
Sam sighed. ‘Well, we need to get this to the detective as soon as we can in case Mr Stoker and his merry thieves come back for those paintings, and then we have no case and why would they believe us if the paintings are gone?’
‘So how are we going to get it to him?’ Emma asked, frustrated. ‘We could post it but I don’t think it will get through the school mail area once they see who it is addressed to, and besides, that will take another day.’
‘We know someone who can deliver it,’ Dan said.
‘Great. Who? When?’ Chloe asked.
Dan looked at Sam.
Sam answered. ‘Um, one of the guys who makes deliveries to the school… he was talking to me the other day about sport. I’m sure he’d drop it off for me and not ask questions.’ Sam embellished the truth.
Chloe frowned. ‘Are you sure he won’t forget or tell the principal?’
Sam shook his head. ‘Nuh. He’s slick, it’ll be fine.’ Slick! He glanced at Dan who he thought would get the joke.
‘Fantastic then,’ Emma said. ‘I can’t bear to think of those paintings sitting there, and the fact that they could be stolen as soon as that police tape is removed!’
‘I can’t bear the thought of Mr Stoker getting away with it,’ Sam said.
‘I’m going to print it but you better go stand next to the printer and grab it right away,’ Emma said to Sam.
‘Remember, not a word,’ Dan said. ‘It’s an anonymous tip-off.’
‘Agreed.’ Emma selected the Wi-Fi printer, pressed the print button and Sam jumped up to retrieve it.
‘Let’s go,’ Chloe said to Emma and stood up. ‘We’ve got to clean our shoes for Irish dancing class tomorrow. Miss Rose-Lily said Siggy was coming to visit, but she didn’t know when, so we have to be prepared just in case.’
Sam rejoined them with the letter in his hand just in time to hear Chloe’s comment. He glanced at Dan… that’s just what they needed, Siggy prodding around looking for his spell book!
*****
Sam whispered to Dan in the hallway.
‘Am I taking the letter or are you doing it?’
‘It will be quicker for me to fly it there,’ Dan said. ‘How far do you think it is to the police station?’
‘It’s just down in the village, near the hardware store, you know… it’s got the statue of the police dog out the front,’ Sam said. ‘It would only be about three kilometres as the… um, as the crow flies.’
‘Funny,’ Dan said, and then grinned.
‘Won’t our fingerprints be all over it now?’ Sam asked.
‘Yes, but they don’t have our fingerprints on file, so they won’t be able to match them. I saw that on TV,’ Dan said. ‘But if they come to school and take our fingerprints, then they will. But that would be a pretty colossal waste of time and they would need parents’ permission,’ Dan concluded. He took the letter from Sam and folded it. ‘I should be able to do this before our first class tomorrow.’
‘What if the police station is closed?’ Sam asked.
Dan thought. ‘I’ll push it under the door with my beak, but it shouldn’t be closed. We’ll be right,’ he said with confidence.
‘Sure,’ Sam agreed. ‘I read that big birds, like crows, can fly more than 15 kilometres in an hour. So, if you are only going about three kilometres, you will have heaps of time.’
‘You are getting into this bird and cat stuff,’ Dan looked surprised. ‘I’m impressed.’
‘I thought it may come in handy. Besides, I want to know what other skills I might inherit; I wouldn’t mind if I became faster on the running track!’ Sam grinned. ‘Olympics, here I come!’
Chapter 28
A shrill scream echoed and bounced off the walls of the police station. It was early morning, usually a quiet time of the day in the village, and only a handful of police officers were in the small building.
‘Bird!’ screamed the young police officer as she dived under the counter. ‘There’s a bird in here!’
The black crow swooped past the desk. It dropped a letter on the counter and made its way to the door.
From behind the crow, an older officer chased the bird away and almost took flight himself as he waved his arms in the air. The crow flew out the door and straight up into the sky. It disappeared in seconds.
‘There, it’s flown out, you can get up,’ the older detective said with a grin, as he leaned over the counter and offered his hand to pull the young officer up.
She took his hand, coming to her feet and looking sheepish. ‘Thanks, Sarge.’
‘Not scared of bad guys, just birds?’ he asked.
She straightened her uniform. ‘I saw that Hitchcock movie, The Birds, when I was a kid. Scared the hell out of me. Ever since then, I don’t trust them or anything with feathers.’
The sergeant laughed. ‘I trust animals more than I trust people.’ He saw the envelope on the desk.
‘What’s this?’ he asked.
She shrugged. ‘Wasn’t there before? It’s addressed to Detective Peasely.’
‘That’s me, someone looking for me?’ A mature man in a suit said, entering the reception area.
‘Good timing, Detective,’ Sarge said. ‘This was on the counter for you. Can’t say I saw who delivered it.’
‘Me either,’ the young police officer said, with a look of apology. ‘It might have happened while we were chasing a bird out.’
‘Well let’s see what it says,’ Detective Peasley said, and slit open the envelope, looking in. He saw two pages of paper folded with what looked like typed writing. He pulled it out cautiously, looked at the envelope again and saw no markings.
He unfolded the letter and read it aloud, his eyes widening as he learnt the missing five paintings might still be in the rooms of Weatherly Heights! As soon as he finished, he turned to the sergeant.
‘Get your best team together, Sergeant. We’re off to Weatherly Heights.’
*****
‘Why did the Titanic sink?’ Mr Lattimore, the history teacher asked. He looked from one team to the other, hopeful of an answer.
‘Because it didn’t have enough lifeboats on board,’ Ronan McIntosh, a student with a strong Irish accent and dazzling red hair, answered.
Sam turned to look at Ronan. So did everyone else in the class.
Mr Lattimore sighed. ‘That would not make it sink, but that is certainly why everyone wasn’t rescued. Good try, Ronan.’
Ronan smiled as though he just won an award.
Mr Lattimore had an interesting way of teaching. It was Friday and for his last lesson of the week he would play ‘Quiz Show’. Students had to pick teams of four and Mr Lattimore would fire questions to the teams covering all the topics that they had studied so far that year. It was clever revision without actually saying they were revising. He would select someone to keep score on the blackboard and the winning team plus the scorer got no homework for the weekend which was a pretty good incentive to remember what you were taught! Mr Lattimore would move from team to team to ask a question and then at the end, have a buzz in round where the fastest to raise their hand and get the question right won bonus points. He moved along to the next team as it wasn’t buzzing in round yet.
‘Sam, why did the Titanic sink?’ Mr Lattimore asked him the question that Ronan had just blown.
‘Uh, it hit an iceberg which caused damage to the hull that couldn’t be repaired. It was inevitable that the whole ship would fill up like an ice tray and sink,’ Sam said, smugly.
‘Yes, good job,’ Mr Lattimore looked satisfied. He nodded to the scorer and moved to the next team. Sam’s team did a high five; they wanted a no-history-homework weekend.
‘Jason!’ Mr Lattimore continued. Jason Wotherspoon – a Scottish student – jumped with surprise and sat up straight. ‘Why did the Trojans build a timber horse?’
‘Um, because they fought the battle on horses and a timber sheep would look stupid, sir,’ Jason answered.
Mr Lattimore frowned at him. ‘Jason, have you been in my class all year?’
‘Yes sir,’ Jason answered.
‘Well, you must have been asleep that day. Next group… Roberto?’
Roberto looked up as Jonathan Bell nudged him.
‘Do you need me to repeat the question, Roberto?’ Mr Lattimore asked.
‘Uh, no sir,’ Roberto said, and took a deep breath. ‘The Greeks had been fighting the Trojans for about ten years. They built a giant wooden horse and all the Greek warriors piled into it. Then, the rest of the Greek army pretended to leave but hid while a Greek spy talked the Trojans into believing that the horse was a gift. They believed it because in those days, it was a custom for a defeated general to surrender his horse to the winning general. Anyway, the Trojans were celebrating their win and when they were drunk or asleep, the Greek warriors came out of the horse, and opened the city gates to allow the rest of the army to enter. The battle started and they won it,’ Roberto finished.
