The case of the fishy de.., p.1
The Case of the Fishy Detective, page 1
First published in the United Kingdom by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2022
Published in this ebook edition in 2022
HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,
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Text copyright © Iona Rangeley 2022
Illustrations copyright © David Tazzyman 2022
Cover illustrations copyright © David Tazzyman 2022
Cover design copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2022
All rights reserved
Iona Rangeley and David Tazzyman assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of the work respectively.
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Source ISBN: 9780008476007
Ebook Edition © October 2022 ISBN: 9780008476014
Version: 2022-09-22
To Patrick and Molly
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One: Back to London
Chapter Two: Return to the Zoo
Chapter Three: A Plan Begins
Chapter Four: An Apology
Chapter Five: Einstein Returns
Chapter Six: The National Gallery
Chapter Seven: Disaster Strikes
Chapter Eight: A Confiscation
Chapter Nine: Einstein’s Prison
Chapter Ten: Bill Hunter Comes to Visit
Chapter Eleven: The Notebook Heist
Chapter Twelve: Accomplices
Chapter Thirteen: Operation Einstein
Chapter Fourteen: Caught Red-handed
Chapter Fifteen: Einstein Intervenes
Chapter Sixteen: Imogen’s Birthday
Epilogue
Keep Reading …
Books by Iona Rangeley
About the Publisher
Imogen was walking home from school by herself.
Normally she walked with Arthur, but Arthur had gone over to Theo’s house, and normally they would get the bus, but today she had missed it – and anyway she was feeling brave.
I must look very grown up, she thought to herself, walking along a pavement without anyone else.
And, of course, she was very grown up when you thought about it. In three weeks’ time she’d be eleven, and that was an impressive sort of age. Ten was double figures too, but not in such a tidy way as eleven. Eleven did double figures properly.
Imogen imagined that once she was eleven she would look and feel quite different. She would be taller and cleverer, and adults would ask her opinion on things and take her responses seriously at last. Walking home alone was simply practice for what was to come.
It was early March, and none of the trees had bothered to grow any leaves yet, so that when the wind blew the branches looked like they were scratching the sky with their claws. But it was warm for March, and Imogen didn’t mind the grey: grey was probably a sensible colour, the kind of colour she would appreciate once she was eleven.
She tucked her hands into her pockets and thought about the maths test that she had on Monday, and whether she was going to get an invite to Amy Diggory’s birthday party. She didn’t like the idea of not being invited, but she didn’t much like the idea of going, either. It was all rather confusing to think about. And, while she’d done pretty well in her last maths test, this week Mr Smith had started putting letters into their sums, and Imogen wasn’t sure whether she’d understood everything. She didn’t see why numbers and letters couldn’t be kept separately: when they sat next to each other like that everything went wobbly.
Still – those were problems for next week, thought Imogen, as she opened the garden gate and walked up the path towards her house. And right now it was Friday, which happened to be her favourite day of any day at all.
‘It’s Friday!’ said Imogen, as she burst into the kitchen.
Mrs Stewart was just unpacking her work things, and Mr Stewart – who’d had the day off – was sitting with his feet up in front of the telly.
‘So it is,’ said Mr Stewart. ‘Did they teach you that at school?’
‘Can I borrow your laptop to check if the email’s here?’ Imogen dropped her school bag on to the floor and went to grab a biscuit from the biscuit tin.
‘Just one!’ said Mrs Stewart. ‘And don’t you want to wait until Arthur’s home? He’ll get upset if you open the email without him.’
‘Oh,’ said Imogen disappointedly. ‘But what if it’s important? What if Einstein’s had some sort of accident, and we won’t know about it because we haven’t checked?’
‘Those emails from Australia are the same every week,’ said Mr Stewart. ‘Einstein’s eaten another fish and been swimming. I’m sure it can wait an hour until your brother’s home.’
‘It might be different this time,’ said Imogen, though she didn’t really mind waiting – she just liked having the last word.
‘You mean he might have eaten a pilchard rather than an anchovy? Whatever will we do!’ said Mr Stewart, and Imogen bounded over to the sofa to thump him with a cushion, then ran upstairs to find a book.
‘Still reading about detectives?’ said Mrs Stewart when she returned a moment later.
Imogen flopped down on to the sofa and sighed. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Detectives are a bit babyish, I think.’
‘Surely not!’ said Mrs Stewart, aghast. ‘You can’t mean that.’
Imogen made a sort of mumbling noise and buried her face in her book. She didn’t mean it – not really. She’d loved being a detective, and for months she’d carried her notebook with her at all times, keeping a constant eye out for things that might need investigating. But the truth was that ever since Einstein had left there hadn’t been any more mysteries. Or there had – but they weren’t the proper kind of mystery, the kind with heroes and villains. There were only boring mysteries: things like how to say ‘hello’ in French, and why Arthur never wiped his toothpaste up off the basin.
All Imogen had now to remind herself that she’d ever been a detective before were the newspaper clippings Mrs Stewart had insisted on pinning to the fridge:
They were very good newspaper clippings, to be fair, and Imogen still felt a surge of pride whenever she looked at them. But it had been a whole year now – more than a year, in fact. It was only sensible to assume her detective days were behind her.
When Theo’s mum dropped Arthur off outside the house, he was so eager to run up the path that he almost forgot to say goodbye. But he stopped himself.
‘Thank you for having me!’ he blurted. ‘And I’ll see you on Monday, Theo.’
‘Are you in a rush?’ Theo’s mother asked.
‘Oh, no,’ said Arthur, going a little pink. ‘But Fridays are when Ted emails us. He’s the zookeeper from Sydney.’
‘Ah, of course,’ she said, raising her eyebrows a little. ‘Silly me – how could I forget?’
Theo’s mum had never actually met Einstein, and she still looked bemused whenever he was mentioned, like she didn’t quite believe any of it had really happened.
‘Don’t worry, Mum. You’ll meet Einstein next time he comes to visit,’ said Theo.
‘Oh, he’s coming back, is he?’
‘No … I don’t know,’ Arthur admitted. ‘I hope so.’
‘Well, tell your parents I said hello,’ said Theo’s mum. She’d become distracted by Theo’s little sister, Sophia, who had started crying in the back seat.
Arthur waved one last time before hurrying up the garden path towards the front door.
‘Imogen!’ cried Arthur, as he crashed into the house and threw his school bag down on top of a pile of old trainers. ‘It’s Friday!’
‘So it is!’ called Mr Stewart. ‘Did they teach you that at school?’
‘That wasn’t funny the first time, Dad,’ said Imogen. ‘Can we use the laptop now? Please?’
‘Yes, yes, I demand that you use the laptop!’ said Mr Stewart. ‘Why haven’t you used it already? This week might be the week that everything changes!’
‘You’re still not funny!’ said Imogen, but she was already halfway up the stairs.
Dear Imogen and Arthur,
Thank you so much for your email last week! I passed everything you said on to Einstein, and he gave a very big squawk when he heard how well Arthur had done in his maths test.
This week Einstein has done a lot of swimming and has shown a preference for pilchards over anchovies. Here’s a picture of him hanging out on a rock with his new friend Steve. They’d just made up after a brief incident this morning when Einstein stole Steve’s fish at feeding time. I think he mostly did it because some tourists were watching. Einstein always wants to be in front of a
Best,
Ted
Mr Stewart had been right: it was pretty much the same as normal. But sometimes, Imogen told herself, normal was nice. It was nice knowing that Einstein was safe, and happy, and making friends with other penguins. Nine-year-old Imogen might have felt selfishly about it, and hoped for another adventure, but this Imogen – who was, after all, not so far off eleven – knew that as long as Einstein was safe everything was really all right. She smiled at the photo and started to turn away from the computer.
‘Imogen, wait!’ said Arthur.
‘What?’
‘He just sent us another message! He wants to do a video call!’
Imogen spun round. Video calls to Sydney only happened very occasionally.
Just then the desktop started to ring, and Ted’s profile picture appeared above the keyboard in front of them.
Imogen rushed to click ACCEPT and the picture expanded to fill the whole screen – only now Ted’s face was moving too.
‘Hi!’ Ted waved, peering into the webcam.
He looked blurry at first, but eventually crackled into real time. He appeared to be in an office – the same one he’d been in last time they had spoken, in fact. Imogen couldn’t remember when that was. Three weeks ago? Four?
‘Can you hear me?’ said Ted.
‘What did he say?’ whispered Arthur.
‘Yes, we can hear you!’ said Imogen. ‘Can you see us?’
‘Our camera’s turned off,’ said Arthur, and he elbowed Imogen out of the way to change the setting.
‘Ah, there you are!’ said Ted. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Good,’ said Imogen, resting her head awkwardly on her elbow. She always felt oddly shy in video calls, which was unlike her. Seeing her own miniature face in the corner made her self-conscious.
‘Well, it’s very late here, but I’m on the night shift so I thought I might as well let Einstein say hello.’
Arthur barged his way on to the edge of the desk chair in order to see better. Imogen was hogging it again. ‘Where is he?’ he asked.
‘Shh,’ whispered Imogen. ‘Ted’s getting him.’
They watched Ted lean down and scoop something up off the floor, and a few seconds later Einstein appeared, his feet paddling in mid-air as if he hadn’t quite noticed where he was yet. Ted placed him down on the desk in front of the computer.
‘Look who’s here, Einstein!’ said Ted.
Einstein glanced up at the screen and squawked excitedly.
‘Hi, Einstein!’ said Imogen.
He stretched his flippers back into the air and bounced up and down on his little feet.
‘We miss you!’ said Arthur. ‘When are you coming back to London?’
Einstein squawked again and shrugged his flippers, then made several frantic attempts to peck the screen.
‘He misses you too,’ said Ted. ‘Perhaps you kids could visit Sydney sometime.’
‘Maybe,’ said Imogen uncertainly. ‘But we couldn’t come alone. Mum and Dad would have to save up for it and take time off work and everything – and we don’t know when that would be.’
‘Yeah, it’s a long way,’ Ted agreed.
‘We want to, though,’ she added.
‘You’ll still let us know if Einstein ever comes to England, won’t you?’ asked Arthur.
‘Arthur, there’s no one else I would dream of telling first.’
Arthur smiled and sat back in the chair. He liked Ted. Ted always said the right thing.
‘Well, I’m afraid I’m going to have to pack up in a minute, but let’s talk again soon.’ Ted ruffled Einstein’s feathers and handed him a snack.
‘Okay. See you soon, Einstein,’ said Imogen. She brushed her finger against the screen, as if she was stroking Einstein’s feathers too.
‘Bye, Einstein!’ said Arthur.
Einstein squawked so enthusiastically that he dropped the snack he was eating, then hurried to pick it up again and tripped over the keyboard. The picture turned the colour of feathers as Einstein came crashing towards the screen.
Imogen and Arthur heard him squawk once more before he pushed himself up with his flippers and accidentally ended the call with the edge of his beak.
Arthur stared down at the surface of the table and traced his fingers along the woodgrain. It wasn’t a very interesting table, but he wasn’t in the mood to stare at anything else.
He wondered about going to find Imogen, but she was upstairs, reading her book, and Mr Stewart was out at work. The house felt boring and quiet. Arthur thought crossly that there was no point in a weekend that was so boring and quiet: he might as well just go to school and sit by himself in the playground for all the fun he was having.
Across the kitchen, Mrs Stewart was talking loudly in her telephone voice.
‘Yes, yes. Now, I’m afraid, I do have to go …’
Arthur glanced up at her, then over at the photos on the fridge – photos of Einstein, photos of everyone – then gave up and went on staring at the table.
‘What’s the matter?’ said Mrs Stewart a few moments later. She had put the phone down now and pulled a chair out to sit at the table beside him.
‘Nothing,’ said Arthur glumly.
‘You look sad.’
Arthur thought about this. ‘We spoke to Einstein yesterday,’ he said.
He wasn’t sure at what point his happiness had turned to sadness. He supposed it must have happened overnight.
‘Ah,’ said Mrs Stewart knowingly. ‘I see.’ She thought for a moment, and the clock ticked loudly on the wall. ‘Well, how about we go to the zoo again?’
Arthur looked surprised.
‘We could go to see the penguins. It might be fun. They’ll remind you of him!’
Arthur frowned. He supposed it did sound better than sitting around at home. He’d always liked going to the zoo, hadn’t he? Even before Einstein, it had been one of his favourite places in London.
‘Okay,’ he agreed after a moment.
By the time they reached the penguin enclosure at London Zoo that afternoon, Arthur was almost in a good mood. He’d cheered up enough to nag Mrs Stewart for an ice cream – it wasn’t really the weather for ice cream, but that never seemed to matter on a day out – and he rushed ahead to get as close as he could to the glass wall. Mrs Stewart and Imogen followed closely behind him.
For several minutes, Arthur watched the penguins dipping in and out of the water, and waddling about on the rocks. He liked imagining what all their names were, and which penguin was friends with which. One of them even approached him for a moment, and seemed to stare him directly in the eye.
Arthur was just about to shout for Imogen to come and look when it abruptly waddled off again, distracted by another visitor. For some reason, Arthur’s heart sank.
Imogen didn’t seem to care about the penguins. She had watched them with him for a while, and then all of a sudden she’d disappeared to sit on the steps with Mrs Stewart. She’d even taken her book out of her rucksack. Arthur scowled in her general direction, then turned back to the enclosure.
‘Hi, I’m Arthur,’ he found himself saying out loud to a penguin that was waddling by.
A boy standing next to him sniggered.
Arthur felt his chest tighten in embarrassment. He supposed that the boy was right to snigger: the penguin hardly even glanced at him. It just went on waddling, as if there was nothing to say and nothing was the matter.
Arthur wandered back to the steps. He sat down, put his elbows on his knees and rested his chin in his hands.
Many, many miles away, across the world and upside down, a different penguin was looking through the walls of its enclosure.
Einstein appeared to have noticed the brother and sister from a long way off. The girl was holding a notebook, and the boy was clinging nervously to his mother’s arm.
Einstein had spent the whole morning eating fish – rather more than his fair share, in fact – and was feeling far too full to move. For that reason, staring at the approaching family suited him very well.
Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a pigeon fluttering down to land in a nearby tree and turned round to squawk at it. The pigeon cocked its head and blinked at him, and Einstein narrowed his eyes. They stared at each other for a few more seconds, and then Einstein squawked once more – a loud, bossy squawk that came from the bottom of his chest.
