by Erika McGann
‘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?’
‘Veto,’ said Nicholas.
‘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!’
C
hapter Four
We stood in the front garden of Rowan Tree Manor with all the other teams. I was still cringing at our terrible team name.
Puzzle Pals. Ugh!
Most of the teams were made up of primary school kids, but there were two teams of teenagers. The oldest team didn’t seem to be taking it seriously – I think they were a bit embarrassed that all the other players were younger kids. Two of them wore old-looking t-shirts with the names of bands on them, and the third one had an earring in the top of his ear, and a nose ring as well (he had a cold because he was sniffing a lot, and I wondered if he was avoiding blowing his nose cos he was afraid the ring would get caught in his hanky). They made lots of noise teasing other teams and yelling out jokey rhymes like they were the clues, but they weren’t. After a while they were already looking bored and I figured they’d drop out of the game early on. The oldest team weren’t a threat.
The second teen team had Bianca on it (Bianca lives on my street, and she thinks she’s the bee’s knees. She’s definitely not a genius detective, like me, but she is pretty fast). It also had Arnie’s older brother on it. Arnie was playing too, but on a different team (which included Carol from school and two other kids I didn’t know). Arnie is funny, but he’s not very brainy and he’s not that fast.
I decided Bianca’s team were our main problem.
And also the Na-Sa-Ji Club. I hated to admit it, but they were a threat.
The Na-Sa-Ji Club are a (not very secret) secret club. They’re made up of Nathan and his two best friends, Sasha Noonan and Jim Brick (Na-Sa-Ji comes from first two letters of each of their names – so unimaginative). Me, Lex and Nicholas accidentally found out about their secret club when we were investigating who had been invading our clubhouse (it was actually Lex’s granny and her poker-loving mates, but that’s old news now). In trying to find out who had been invading our clubhouse, we accidentally dug up the Na-Sa-Ji Club’s club-box (which was full of secret Na-Sa-Ji Club stuff). We reburied the box and never let on that we found it. Even though I don’t like them, I still feel a bit weird and guilty for invading their privacy.
Nathan is definitely not a genius, but he’s an okay runner. Sasha’s fast and pretty smart – she gets the same grades as Nicholas at school – and I had a feeling Jim might be a bit of a dark horse when it came to solving riddles. He doesn’t get great marks at school, but he has street smarts.
Definition of a dark horse: someone who is good at something, but nobody knows they’re good at it until they do the thing in front of everyone, and then everyone’s surprised. Not sure where it came from – maybe there was a horse who was good at something unusual, like knitting or something, but it didn’t want people to know so it hid in a cupboard. But then one day someone opened the cupboard door and it was all dark inside, and then they saw the horse knitting and they were like, ‘Oh, it’s dark, horse. And you’re good at knitting? I never knew!’ and it became a thing.
Mr McCall stood in the porch of the mansion. I don’t think I’d ever seen him that close before. He had a round face with rosy cheeks, and he wore a v-neck jumper over a polo shirt. He looked like he was about to play golf. And he didn’t look happy that his garden was filled with loud kids scraping the gravel and flattening the grass.
‘Can I have everyone’s attention, please!’ a voice called above the crowd. A thin man with blonde hair was walking through the groups, handing out envelopes. ‘My name is Graham, and I want to welcome you all to Rowan Tree Manor’s first ever Scarecrow Scavenger Hunt!’
There was lots of cheering and clapping.
Graham is Mr McCall’s boyfriend (and way friendlier than Mr McCall – nobody would have cheered for him). He used to live on the other side of the country where he was in charge of an arts festival or something. When he moved to our town he had to give up his job, and that’s when he set up the Pumpkin Festival at Rowan Tree Manor – probably so he wouldn’t get bored.
‘I’m giving each team a sealed envelope,’ Graham said loudly as he walked through the crowd. ‘Do not open it until I say so. Inside are the scavenger hunt clues. Now you all got the rules when you registered, but just to recap; you can solve the clues in any order you like; you’ll need to take a photo of each answer – only one photo per answer, no hedging your bets by taking pics of every single thing you see.’ There was some giggling from the crowd – I bet that’s what a few teams had been planning to do. Graham went on. ‘You need to submit the photos via the app as you go. When you’ve solved all the clues, and submitted all your photos, you need to get back to the starting point and click FINISH. The team with the most correct answers wins. If two or more teams have the same score, then the team with the fastest time wins. That all clear?’
‘Yeah!’ a few people yelled.
‘I didn’t hear everyone there.’ Graham put his hand to his ear. ‘I said, is that all clear?’
‘Yeah!’ everyone chimed in this time, giggling.
‘Are you ready?’
‘Yeah!’
‘Set!’
There was scuffling as people got ready to open their envelopes and run. I squeezed my mum’s phone in my hand while Nicholas tucked his thumb under the seal of the envelope.
‘SspplzzZZZZZZZZzzzzz.’
We all jumped as Graham made a loud duck noise with a plastic whistle-thing, then we giggled, then we all got serious and ripped open the clues to the scavenger hunt.
Nicholas held the sheet of paper out for me and Lex to read. I tried to speed read down the clues, but my heart was beating so hard it made me dizzy. I blinked a few times and reread the first clue:
Find me standing, tall and proud
Fit to burst, but never loud
I wear a glass so I can see
The feathered beasts that I make flee
I was trying to think, but some teams were already running and it made my head go scatty.
‘Feathered beasts,’ Nicholas was saying. ‘Beasts with feathers – that’s got to be birds, right? Like the crows. It makes them flee, like run away … It’s got to be one of the scarecrows, right? Cass? Cass!’
‘It’s one of the scarecrows,’ I said, my brain suddenly kicking into action. ‘Come on!’
Lex took the phone as we ran around the house and through the archway to the pumpkin patch. There were already several teams in there, picking through the pumpkins and arguing with each other. I could see Alanna Mitchell from our street – she had Dev Bahl on her team (which made sense, cos he’s fast), but also her little brother, Barry (he is not fast – bet her dad made her include him).
‘It’s a scarecrow,’ she was hissing at Barry. ‘Just take a picture and let’s go!’
She’s wrong, I thought, it’s not any old scarecrow.
Find me standing, tall and proud. Some of the scarecrows were taller than others.
Fit to burst, but never loud. Some of them had bellies stuffed full of straw, and some were skinnier.
I wear a glass so I can see.
‘Wear a glass so I can see…’ I mumbled.
‘Hmm?’ said Lex.
‘Not glasses,’ I said, still thinking, ‘glass. Like just one. What’s that called, Nicholas? The thing they used to wear in olden days, with top hats and stuff.’
‘A monocle?’
Trust Nicholas to know something so random.
I glanced quickly around the patch, spying the scarecrows with fancy, old-fashioned costumes.
‘There!’ I said, spotting a top hat. I ran to face the scarecrow and cried out, ‘There! He’s got a monocle!’
Lex ran up to me and took a photo of the scarecrow.
‘That one!’ Alanna pointed in my direction. ‘Don’t send the photo yet, it’s that one!’
‘Urggh,’ Nicholas growled as every team in the pumpkin patch ran towards us. ‘We’re gonna have to be more stealthy if we want to win. No more giving the answers away, Cass.’
‘Sorry.’
I meant it. That was a rookie mistake. One I wouldn’t
make twice.
Chapter Five
I could lie and say I’m cold,
Empty, dark and full of mould
But there is no point, you see
Everyone can see through me
Me, Lex and Nicholas were hunkered down on the far edge of the hedge maze. We couldn’t afford to give any more answers away.
‘I could lie and say I’m cold,’ I read from the clue list. ‘So, if they’re lying that means they’re not cold. They’re warm.’
‘Then they’re also lying about being empty and dark and full of mould,’ said Nicholas. ‘So that means they’re … full and light. And not mouldy.’
‘I don’t get it,’ said Lex.
I didn’t either.
‘Skip to the next bit,’ Nicholas said. ‘There’s no point in them lying, cos everyone can see through them. Hmm.’
‘See through them,’ I said. ‘They’re see-through! Like a window. You can see through a window.’
Nicholas looked up at the house. ‘There’s a million windows around here. Which one?’
I tuned out the other two as I thought about it.
Warm, lots of light, glass …
‘It’s the greenhouse!’ I cried.
‘Shh,’ said Lex.
‘Oh yeah, sorry.’ I lowered my voice. ‘It’s made of glass so all the light gets in, it’s hot inside and it’s full of plants!’
‘Brilliant, Cass.’ Nicholas was smiling.
We ran around the hedge maze, past the pumpkin patch and down the rock garden to the big greenhouse.
As Lex took the photo and sent it through the app, I saw movement in the bushes at the top of the garden. Alanna peeked her head over the leaves and pointed at us.
‘No!’ I said. ‘We’re being followed.’
‘They’re going to steal all our answers,’ said Nicholas.
‘That’s cheating!’ cried Lex.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’ve got an idea.’
Four legs good, two legs bad