by A. J. Low
“But son, I thought you wanted to keep the police out of this because they would stop us from investigating?”
“But Officer Siva is the only one who can save us, Dad. I don’t have a choice!”
Dad frowned but handed me his phone. I quickly dialled Officer Siva and put him on speaker. “Deputy Superintendent Siva speaking,” he said in a brisk, professional voice.
“Officer Siva!” I said. “I need you to read some Chinese words for me!”
Dad started to grin. I could see that he had figured out my crafty plan.
“What? Sherlock? Is that you?” Officer Siva replied.
“Yes it is, Officer Siva,” I said. “You have the best Chinese skills of anyone I know and I need your help!”
“Is this about Wendy’s Chinese homework again, Sherlock?” Officer Siva asked. “Because I told your mom before that I didn’t have time to tutor Wendy, but I could recommend a friend—”
“You were going to get me Chinese tuition?” Wendy whispered accusingly at Mom. “What happened to our no-tuition pact, Mom?!”
Mom cringed and shrugged. “I was just sending out feelers...”
Wendy continued to glare at Mom. Eliza was doing her best not to snicker and Nazhar was staring at his shoes with a suspicious amount of concentration. Jimmy said he was hungry and wanted to eat spaghetti.
“What does, er...xīng...hé...something mean?” I said, trying my best to read the clue.
“What?” Officer Siva replied.
“I can’t read that last word!” I said, waving the piece of paper frantically at the Supper Club, who all took a step back. I decided there and then that once I got Watson back, I would immediately install a translation program in my robot.
“The next one is, er...tiān something something,” I muttered into the telephone. Dad winced. He leaned closer to Mom and I heard him whisper something about maybe reconsidering the whole no-tuition pact we made just for Chinese.
“Samuel, you’re with your dad, right? Since you’re using his phone, maybe you could have him take a photo of the homework and send it to me?”
“Hang on, Officer Siva,” I said. “I’ll get Dad to send you a photo via text message. I’m going to hang up now!”
“Sure, it’s not like I’m busy at work or anything,” Officer Siva replied dryly as I hung up.
“Dad! Take a picture of just the Chinese text and then—”
“I heard the conversation, Sam,” Dad said, taking his phone from me and snapping a photograph of the clue. “Hmm...should I send it to him in black and white or my favourite sepia?”
“DAD!” I cried out.
“What? Oh! Right, right. Focus,” Dad replied sheepishly. “Luckily, my photograph is also in focus so Officer Siva should have no problem reading it!” With a few taps on his screen, Dad sent the image to Officer Siva.
“While we’re waiting for Officer Siva to reply, I think we should talk about this whole horrible plot to get me Chinese tuition,” Wendy said, crossing her arms across her chest and glaring at Mom and Dad.
Just then, Dad’s phone beeped.
“Saved by the beep! I mean, boy, Officer Siva sure is quick!” Dad said. He pointedly avoided looking at Wendy, who sighed deeply.
“Star And Garden. Sky Mirror Court or Pavilion. No Cup Door,” I said, reading Dad’s phone. “Though Officer Siva says that he’s doing a literal translation of the characters and that these sound more like names of places. He would also like to remind us that he is a skilled investigator and should be called upon for issues relating to investigating rather than translating.”
“I’ll text him a big thank you,” Dad said, his fingers flying across his phone. “We don’t want to tell him anything more yet, do we, son?”
I shook my head. Fortunately, we had not found any more of Watson’s parts so we didn’t need to involve Officer Siva just yet. “We need a little more time,” I said.
Dad nodded and sent the message. I was super grateful that my dad trusted me again and that we were working together!
“Those are weird names, Sherlock, especially the ‘No Cup Door’. What could that mean?” Nazhar said. “But since Officer Siva said that they might be names of places, maybe it’s somewhere that’s somehow related to Chinese culture? That’s what I think of when I think of pavilions.”
“That’s a good point, Nazhar,” I said, thinking. “But James might also be devious enough to translate names of regular places into Chinese because he knows that’s an area where we’re weak. But Officer Siva also said it might be ‘court’. Maybe the ‘Sky Mirror Court’ is at the Supreme Court?”
“Maybe the ‘No Cup Door’ is the Nantah Arch?” Mom said.
“Oh, maybe!” Nazhar said. “Nanyang University was the first tertiary institution in Singapore. It was built using money donated by the Chinese community after World War II and taught most of its classes in Chinese.”
“Then I’m certainly not going to that university,” Wendy said. “I would fail all my classes.”
I snickered and Wendy glowered at me.
“Nanyang University doesn’t actually exist any more. It merged with the University of Singapore in the seventies to form NUS. NTU is now where Nanyang University used to be, and it teaches its classes in English, Wendy,” Nazhar said. “But there are two Nantah Arches: the original one on Jurong West Avenue 93, and the replica inside NTU, in Yunnan Garden.”
I was thoroughly impressed with Nazhar’s knowledge of history!
“Maybe we should go to Yunnan Garden, since Officer Siva said the first line means ‘Star and Garden’?” Jimmy asked.
We all got into the Space Wagon, and Mom drove us to Nanyang Technological University. We reached the Yunnan Garden in about ten minutes and immediately found the arch. It was a large, imposing arch, with “” and “1955” written on it. Nazhar explained that “1955” referred to when Nanyang University first opened.
“The characters on the arch don’t match the ones we found,” Eliza said.
“Does Yunnan mean ‘star’ or anything close to star?” Nazhar asked.
“It’s a province in China with diverse plant life,” Dad said, “but I don’t know that it means anything else.”
“We might not be in the right place, guys,” Wendy said, her hands on her hips.
I heard the My Little Pony theme song playing again. I was getting really annoyed with James’s taunting phone calls. Eliza passed me the phone and I saw only James’s name on her screen. It seems Eliza had really deleted the photos.
Eliza put the call on speaker and James said, “My, my, my, Sherlock. You are not as good as I thought. Perhaps Watson was the actual genius all along, and you were just his comic relief?”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to lose my temper in front of Mom and Dad.
“Oh, I know,” he said. “You’re probably worried about your robot and it’s affecting your investigative skills. Tell you what. I promise I won’t harm it further. At least not yet. However, at the end of this exercise, Eliza had better delete all those photographs, or I will disassemble Watson into all his component pieces.”
Eliza was about to say something, but I quickly put my finger to my mouth.
“That’s a deal,” I said.
“Good,” James replied. “You can look at them for a little while longer. I know lesser people like to have a good laugh about such things. By the way, you’re in the wrong place. You were much closer at your last location.”
James hung up.
“Why doesn’t he know I deleted the photos already?” Eliza said. “He’s clearly been watching us this whole time.”
“Because he can see us, but he can’t hear us,” I said, looking around yet again, although I knew that there was only a slim chance of spotting James.
“We were closer at our last location?” Wendy asked. “Does this mean we have to go back to the Science Centre?”
“There’s no Chinese-themed garden there,” Nazhar said.
&
nbsp; “Mama took us to the Chinese Gardens to play with lanterns during the Mooncake festival last year. She said we should learn more about the Chinese side of our family,” Jimmy said. “I burnt my lantern because my candle fell over. I didn’t see any cups, but there were lots of doors though. I had my water bottle with me so I didn’t need any cups.”
“Jimmy’s right!” I said. “We should head to the Chinese Gardens. They’re much closer to the Science Centre than NTU is. That might be our best bet.”
“I’m right?” Jimmy replied, looking confused. “What was the question again?”
“I’ve got it!” Eliza shouted.
Everyone turned to look at her. She had been silently tapping on her smartphone for a while now.
“You were really close, Samuel,” Eliza said. “But you forgot that the Japanese language also uses characters from Chinese.” She held out her phone for us to see.
“I took ‘Star and Garden’ and keyed it into this translation program and it came up with . Then I took and keyed it into a search engine and it came up with Japanese Gardens!”
“So...we didn’t actually need Officer Siva? Just Google?” Wendy asked. I suspected Wendy was plotting to see if she could use Google to do all her Chinese homework.
“No, we needed Officer Siva to tell us what the words meant in English or I wouldn’t have been able to find the Chinese characters online for me to copy and paste,” Eliza replied with a smirk. “Also, apparently means ‘harmony’ in Japanese.”
“So Star Harmony Garden means Japanese Gardens?” Jimmy asked. “But that’s weird. It’s right next to the Chinese Gardens though! Mama said so!”
“You couldn’t have typed this in before this ridiculous detour, Eliza?” I asked. “We wasted valuable time.”
“I’m sorry, it just occurred to me,” Eliza said.
“It just occurred to you?” I asked. “Are you sure it didn’t just occur to you after you and James had your little laugh at my misery?”
“Sam!” Mom said.
I walked past all of them to get back to the Space Wagon. We didn’t have any time to waste.
Mom screeched to a halt right at the entrance of the Japanese Gardens, startling an elderly couple who seemed to be there for a quiet walk. They stared at us as we leapt out of the car and raced into the gardens. Mom quickly drove into a nearby car park to park the car.
Once we were inside, we immediately stopped running. The gardens were quite tranquil. Time seemed to slow down once we entered; it was somewhat surreal. Even if we were in a rush, we couldn’t help but stop and stare at the beautiful greenery around us. Also, the gardens were fairly deserted, with only a few people strolling about and a couple of joggers jogging at a somewhat leisurely pace. I also spotted a cosplayer dressed as Inuyasha, posing for a photographer. I asked Wendy and Dad to come close and whispered in their ears. They looked at each other, then nodded.
“What were the two other clues again?” Dad whispered.
“Why are you whispering, Dad?” Wendy whispered back.
“It’s so quiet here,” Nazhar added.
“The next two clues are ‘Sky Mirror Court or Pavilion’ and ‘No Cup Door’,” I said in a low voice.
I looked at Eliza, who nearly rolled her eyes, but stopped herself and gave a self-conscious smile instead.
“I see a butterfly!” Jimmy shouted, shocking the rest of us with his loud voice. It made Wendy trip over a non-existent stone. Jimmy then ran off in the direction of the fluttering butterfly.
I coughed and spoke again in a normal voice, “Perhaps we should find a map. If these are in fact locations within the Japanese Gardens, a map would help us.”
“There’s a map right there, Sherlock,” Nazhar said, pointing to a signboard on our left.
We ran towards the map but it was written in English. However, it did say that the Japanese Gardens had a Rest House, a Guest House and a Stone Lantern Valley, which sounded really cool. Dad was typing something on his phone.
“Okay. Officer Siva said that the Chinese characters could be names of places, so it would be reasonable that they could be names of the Rest House, the Guest House or the Stone Lantern Valley, correct?” I said.
Everyone nodded. Mom had just joined us and asked where Jimmy was. We spotted him in the distance waving at us and jumping up and down. The same elderly couple whom Mom had startled at the entrance was once again alarmed by Jimmy’s antics. We dashed towards him. I saw Wendy whispering something in Eliza’s ear.
“Sherlock! Look! I found a place with Chinese characters that I can’t read!” Jimmy said excitedly.
“That’s great, Jimmy,” Eliza said. “You’re a genius.”
“You know what, Eliza? Just stop,” I said. “Stop pretending you’re here to help find Watson, stop pretending you’re not just here to keep an eye on us and stop pretending to be our friend.”
Eliza looked taken aback. “I’m sorry, Samuel, you know I am. I know I hurt you—”
“Hurt us? You betrayed us, Eliza,” I said angrily. “All your apologies are fake and you’re just setting us up for another betrayal! But I won’t fall for it again, Eliza!”
Eliza’s face crumpled and she ran off. Wendy just stared at me for a second before running after her.
“We’ll talk about this later, young man,” Mom said, before chasing after the girls.
“What was that, Sherlock?” Nazhar asked. “She was helping us.”
“So was James,” I said. “They’re both playing with us.”
“I am very disappointed in me!” Dad said loudly.
Nazhar, Jimmy and I stared at him. He stared back at us, before smacking his head. “I mean, I am disappointed in you, not me! This is not how we handle problems.”
“Can we talk about this later, Dad? We have to find Watson,” I said.
“No, we can’t talk about this later,” Dad said loudly. “You were very mean to Eliza.”
“You really were, Sherlock,” Nazhar said. “It was uncalled-for and you need to apologise.” Jimmy nodded.
“I really don’t want to talk about this right now,” I said. “I want to focus on finding Watson, and Eliza was just a distraction.”
“We will talk about this right now, young man,” Dad said. “No argument.” Dad’s phone beeped. He looked at it and then looked at me. He blinked.
“Fine, let’s go find Watson,” Dad said. “Let’s go to the Stone Lantern Valley.”
Nazhar was bewildered. “Why the Stone Lantern Valley, Uncle Mike?”
“Uh...because the clue said garden, and a valley is a kind of garden,” Dad said.
“I thought that meant the Japanese Gardens?” Jimmy said, scratching his head.
Dad started to sweat a little. “Maybe it does, and maybe it doesn’t. It couldn’t hurt to check.” Dad turned around and started walking. We had no choice but to follow him.
When we reached the Stone Lantern Valley, we saw a lot of traditional Japanese stone lanterns with names like Yukimi-doro, Tachigata and Ikekomi-gata, all in different shapes and sizes. The stone lanterns all had signs that explained what their names meant, but we were in too much of a hurry to stop and read them carefully.
Dad started looking around, and then shouted, “Found it!”
“You found the clue?” Jimmy asked.
“Uh...no,” Dad said. “I was looking for that, yes, but I found something else instead.”
“What did you find?” Nazhar asked.
“Uh...nothing, just a rock,” Dad said. “Everybody keep looking!” Dad hunched over and started looking at the ground again.
“Your dad’s being kind of weird,” Nazhar whispered to me. “Is he okay?”
“We’re all under a lot of stress, Nazhar.”
“Hey!” Dad shouted. “Look at this thing I just found that is completely unrelated to the other thing I found, which was a rock!”
Dad was certainly acting weird.
He handed his find to me, and I immediately recognised t
he My Little Pony charm.
“It’s Eliza’s phone!” Jimmy said.
“She must have dropped it,” Nazhar said. “We should get it back to her.”
“Maybe she’s still nearby,” Jimmy said. “Eliza!” he shouted, shocking that same elderly couple again.
“No,” I said. “We’re not going to give it back to her.”
“What?” Nazhar said, frowning. “Why not?”
“James!” I shouted. “I know you’re watching! This is Eliza’s phone! I’m going to leave it here, and you can take it and delete the photos yourself!”
“What? Wait, wait,” Nazhar said. “Eliza already—”
“Samuel, no!” Dad shouted, putting his hand on his forehead. “That, that is a terrible thing to do to a friend.”
Dad was doing something weird with his voice, putting the stresses on all the wrong words.
“She’s not our friend, Dad. She’s working with—”
“You don’t know that!” Dad said, putting his hands on his hips. It was like he was in a soap opera, but not the good kind that Officer Siva loved watching.
“Dad,” I said, looking him straight in the eye, “Watson is more important than Eliza’s phone.”
“Fine, son!” Dad said, his arms straight down his sides. “You know best.” Then he started to march away (he was literally marching, complete with the stiff arm and leg movements). We looked at each other then trailed after him.
Jimmy came up to me and asked, “Has your dad been a robot this whole time, but now he needs to be fixed? Is that why he’s talking all funny and doing weird things with his arms?”
“No,” I whispered back. “Dad’s just a terrible actor.”
“WE GOT HIM!” I heard Eliza yell. I grinned and spun around. Dad let out a “phew” and turned around too.
We walked back to the Stone Lantern Valley and saw Eliza, Wendy and Mom at the exact place where I had left Eliza’s phone. They had a large blanket over a boy-shaped object.
“It happened just like you planned, Sherlock,” Eliza said. She was smiling.
“What’s happening now?” Nazhar asked.