by Humza Arshad
‘Thanks,’ said Umer, beaming at the compliment. ‘We’ve got to get hold of it!’
‘Are you sure we’re allowed? I mean, it is still staff property,’ said Umer, sounding nervous.
‘Of course I’m sure! It’s what Mr Turnbull would want. He knows we were on the brink of stardom. Do you think he’d want us to lose everything just cos he lost his marbles?’
‘I guess not,’ agreed Umer.
‘Exactly. Which is why we need to steal it. And that’s gonna call for a diversion.’
Thankfully, I had just the thing …
Half an hour later the nursery music lesson was in full swing. The kids were making a horrible din with their kazoos. It sounded like a rave in a beehive. I flung open the door with as much drama as possible and leapt into the classroom. The horrible noise came to a sudden stop, as every kid in the room turned to face me.
‘Miss!’ I shouted. ‘We need to evacuate the school! There’s a … g-g-ghost!’
I’ve got to admit, it was a pretty good performance. I’m kind of a natural, actually. After I’ve won all the music awards going, I must remember to make time to pick up an Oscar.
Anyway, nobody moved an inch, though a few of the youngest kids began to look a bit nervous.
‘What is this about?’ demanded Mrs Jahib. ‘Get out of this classroom and stop wasting our time!’
I knew there might be resistance at first; I’d planned for it. That’s when phase two of the plan kicked in. It started as a terrifying howl …
‘Ooo-oohhhhhhhhh …’ came a voice from beyond the door.
Everybody turned to look. I took a step into the room … a step closer to the laptop.
‘Woo-ooohhhhh … Waa-aaahhhh!’ moaned the voice, louder and closer with every moment.
‘Is it a ghost?’ asked a little girl with blonde pigtails, tears beginning to well up in her eyes.
‘Uh … yeah,’ I replied, feeling just a tiny bit bad for the first time.
Maybe this wasn’t the ideal plan after all. I didn’t want to give a bunch of five-year-olds nightmares. Oh well, it was too late for that now. And that’s when it appeared!
‘Woo-ooooo!’ cried Umer, stepping into the room. He had a sheet hanging over him, which we’d nicked from Nurse Sue’s room, and he was holding his hands out wide, classic ghost style. I knew that when the screaming started I’d have my chance to grab the laptop.
But the screaming never came. Instead, the little girl with the watery eyes began to giggle. And then she started to laugh. Then they all started to laugh. Thirty little five-year-olds began to crack up at the terrifying spectacle of Umer with a sheet on his head.
‘Woo?’ said Umer, starting to sound a bit less sure of himself. The kids began to jump up from their seats and run over to him, tugging on his sheet, laughing and shouting.
‘Aargh! Get off!’ shouted Umer, but they wouldn’t let go.
‘What are you doing?’ cried Mrs Jahib. ‘Get out of my classroom, this instant!’
But no one was listening. They were all tugging at Umer, pulling him this way and that. One little boy was trying to climb on him; another was kicking him in the shin. Poor Umer was screaming now. He couldn’t see a thing.
‘Get off me!’ he shouted. ‘I’ve made a mistake! I’m not a ghost! Aargh!’
But the kids didn’t care. They were loving it. Nursery school kids are basically no different from maximum security prisoners. All it takes is one little spark and you’ve got a riot on your hands.
For just a moment Umer managed to pull free from most of the group. Still blinded by the sheet, he dived for the door, missed it and crashed into a wall. The shelving above him collapsed. Books and musical instruments rained down on him, hitting him over the head and knocking him off balance.
And that’s when the top shelf came loose, spilling its contents everywhere. Mr Turnbull’s laptop was sent flying into the air. Everything went into slow motion. If I didn’t reach it in the next second, that computer was gonna be scrap metal.
I dived, leaping over the heads of a dozen screaming five-year-olds, bouncing off a tiny chair and throwing myself in the direction of the delicate little machine that held the key to my whole future …
An inch from the floor, my fingers wrapped around it, tugging it away from impact. I pulled it to my chest, turned my body so that my shoulder slammed into the ground, and tumbled out the door and into the corridor. When I stood up, I couldn’t believe that the laptop and I were both in one piece. Sadly, the same couldn’t be said of Umer. He was lying in a heap on the floor, covered in books, recorders and ukuleles, with two dozen kids jumping on him and pulling his hair.
‘Oh, hi, Mr Offalbox!’ I yelled, looking down the corridor.
All the little rioters froze like statues and looked up at me. Even at that age, they knew that Mr Offalbox was an ogre you didn’t mess with.
‘Run!’ I shouted at Umer.
It took Umer a second to realize that there was no Mr Offalbox and that this was just a diversion. But when he did twig he jumped to his feet and tore out of the door with me. We could hear Mrs Jahib shouting after us as we disappeared round the corner, in search of a quiet place to examine our prize.
We were both out of breath when we sat down in the library and opened up the laptop. The screen pinged to life. A little white box appeared, above which was written the word PASSWORD.
‘OK, Umer, what’s his password?’ I asked.
‘What?’ replied Umer. ‘How should I know?’
‘Ah, man!’ I yelled, probably a bit louder than I should have.
‘SHH!’ came an irritable voice from somewhere in the library.
‘I can’t believe we’ve got this far and we don’t have the password!’ I whispered.
‘Maybe we could guess it?’ said Umer.
‘Good idea! OK, what stuff does Mr T like?’ I said.
We stared at each other silently for a moment, thinking it through.
‘Socks and sandals!’ we both shouted at once.
‘SHHHH!’ came that voice again.
We just ignored it and began typing. I finished entering ‘socks and sandals’ into the password box and hit GO.
‘Incorrect password,’ came the response on the screen. ‘Two more attempts.’
‘“Two more attempts”!’ I cried. ‘How we gonna guess it in two more attempts?’
‘SHUUUSSSSSHHHHHHH!’ came the voice for a third time.
‘You shush!’ I shouted back, then turned to Umer. ‘We’ll never guess it in only two goes!’
‘What happens if we get it wrong?’ asked Umer.
‘You get locked out,’ replied Wendy Wang, who’d appeared behind us from out of nowhere.
‘Wendy Wang!’ I said. ‘Are you the one that’s been shushing us?’
‘Well, you are in a library,’ answered Wendy, shaking her head. ‘Some of us are trying to study. It’s not like I can do it in class any more. All we do is eat.’
‘It’s true,’ I replied. ‘Those aunties are obsessed.’
‘Whose laptop is this?’ asked Wendy, looking suspicious.
‘Mr Turnbull’s,’ replied Umer.
‘Shut up, Umer!’ I snapped. ‘Don’t tell Wendy Wang. She’ll get us in trouble.’
‘I don’t just tell on everyone, you know!’ said Wendy, looking offended.
‘You kind of do,’ I replied.
‘Only when they’re breaking the rules,’ she said.
‘Sometimes you gotta break the rules, Wendy. It’s part of being a kid.’
‘And doing the right thing is part of being a grown-up,’ replied Wendy, holding her ground. ‘When are you gonna grow up, Humza?’
‘Ha! Have you ever even met a grown-up?’ I said, laughing. ‘They’re worse than we are! Take these aunties. They act all sweet, bring us nice food, say that they’re helping out with the staff shortage, but there’s something weird going on. I can’t work out what yet, but something ain’t right.’
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�Mmm,’ replied Wendy, sounding like she might have had the same thought. ‘Why have you got Mr Turnbull’s laptop then?’ she asked.
‘Cos he’s gone missing and we need a file off it,’ I replied.
It was too late to lie to Wendy; might as well come clean.
‘Right – well, guessing his password will be next to impossible,’ said Wendy, leaning in to examine the laptop. ‘You’ll need to find a back door into the system. Let me have a look.’
‘What, you mean you actually want to help us?’ I asked, surprised by her sudden turnaround.
‘Not even slightly,’ replied Wendy. ‘I need to check it out for myself. If it ends up helping you, that’s purely a coincidence.’
‘But why do you want to see what’s on Mr Turnbull’s laptop?’ asked Umer.
‘Because he’s one of the ones who’ve gone missing,’ replied Wendy. ‘There’s something very strange going on in this school and I’m going to get to the bottom of it. A staff laptop might provide just the clue.’
‘Whoa! Check you out, Miss Rule Breaker,’ I said, patting her on the back.
‘I’m not a rule breaker,’ snapped Wendy. ‘I’m a concerned citizen. When all this is resolved, I shall be informing the headmaster of my actions and will accept any punishment he deems suitable.’
‘Yeah, OK, but maybe don’t mention us. Me and Umer are on pretty thin ice with Offalbox as it is.’
‘Not my concern,’ replied Wendy.
‘Right. Course not. What was I thinking?’ I said, shaking my head.
Wendy snapped shut the laptop and slid it into her bag.
‘I’ll need to take this home with me,’ she said.
‘Handling stolen goods, Wendy? That’s a felony, you know?’ I said, grinning at her.
‘We don’t have felonies in this country,’ replied Wendy, walking away. ‘You watch too much television.’
And then she was gone.
‘Do you think we can trust her?’ I asked Umer as we made our way out of school that afternoon.
‘Who, Wendy?’ he replied. ‘Yeah, I reckon. I mean, if she was going to stitch us up, wouldn’t she have done it already?’
‘I guess. She definitely ain’t a fan of these aunties.’
‘Hi, Auntie,’ said Umer, out of nowhere.
‘Eh?’ I replied, before I realized he wasn’t talking to me.
‘Ooooooh! My little Umer-bear!’ said a great big lady in a turquoise shalwar kameez, as she bent down and gave Umer an enormous cuddle.
‘Hey, I know you,’ I said to her. ‘You’re always at Umer’s birthdays.’
‘This is my Auntie Parveen,’ said Umer, wriggling his way out of the powerful bear hug.
‘Uh-uh-uh!’ she said with a big grin. ‘Not just Auntie Parveen. Now school nurse Parveen also!’
‘What, you work here too?’ I said. ‘Damn, man. Soon there ain’t gonna be no real staff left.’
‘Ah, you must be Humza?’ said the auntie nurse. ‘I know your mother.’
‘Yeah, you aunties all seem to know each other. It’s kinda creepy.’
‘I will call round and see her later. Bring her some delicious nihari. That poor woman is so thin.’
‘Yeah, great, you do that,’ I told her, keen to get away.
‘See you soon, Auntie,’ said Umer, as I dragged him down the hall. ‘Thanks again for the bee.’
‘Huh?’ I said as we rounded the corner. ‘What do you mean, thanks for the bee?’
‘Mustafa,’ replied Umer, like it was obvious.
‘Mustafa?’
‘Yeah, Auntie Parveen gave him to me as a present. Said I should take him in for show and tell.’
‘Wait, so you didn’t catch that bee yourself?’
‘No.’
‘And bringing it to school wasn’t even your idea?’
‘No, it was Auntie Parveen’s,’ replied Umer.
Without even noticing it, I had come to a stop. You could almost hear the cogs in my brain crunching as they processed this new bit of information. Clunk-crunch-CLICK!
‘She knew …’ I gasped.
‘Huh?’ said Umer, clearly confused.
‘She knew about Miss Crumble’s allergy when she gave you that bee. She must have!’
‘What? You think Auntie Parveen knew Miss Crumble would have an allergic reaction? Don’t be daft – it’s just a coincidence.’
Maybe Umer was right. Maybe I was being daft. Maybe it was all just a coincidence. But something in me was screaming otherwise. All these missing teachers – could the aunties be behind it? Could they be arranging every one of these accidents and injuries, just to take volunteer jobs at the school? It didn’t make any sense.
And then, for the first time in days, I thought of Grandpa. I remembered what he’d said about Auntie Uzma. About how convinced he’d been that something wasn’t right.
All of a sudden I was certain. Grandpa was on to something. These aunties were up to no good.
‘Grandpa!’ I shouted as I burst through the front door at his place. ‘It’s me! Come out from wherever you’re hiding. We gotta talk!’
A moment later Grandpa’s head appeared at the top of the stairs, leaning out from round the corner. David Chesterton’s face popped into view a few feet below.
‘I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you,’ I told him. ‘You were right – there is something going on.’
He stared at me a moment.
‘Come,’ he said, then disappeared back round the corner, followed closely by his cat.
I found them up in the loft, in the same spot as last time.
‘Damn, you’ve been busy,’ I said, looking around.
And he had been. All the cardboard boxes had been rearranged to create a room full of weird boxy furniture. There was a cardboard armchair for sitting in, a cardboard sofa for stretching out on and a cardboard table for working at.
Most striking of all though was the wall. Taller than me, taller than Grandpa even, stood a wall of boxes, right up to the ceiling. On it, Grandpa had pinned all kinds of photos, drawings, maps and bits of paper. Pieces of red string connected one photo to another, joined sheets of paper to scribbled Post-it notes. It was a spiderweb of auntie-based observations.
Under other circumstances, seeing all this lot would have definitely left me thinking Grandpa had finally gone nuts. But recent events at the school had convinced me otherwise. The aunties were planning something. I was glad to have Grandpa on side.
‘Whoa …’ I said, taking it all in. ‘What is all this?’
‘Investigation,’ replied Grandpa.
‘Investigation? This is some pretty professional-looking detective work, Grandpa. How’d you learn how to do this?’
Grandpa stared at me a moment. He looked like he was about to say something, but then changed his mind.
‘Come,’ he said, turning to the board, ‘See. See.’
He gestured to a grainy photo of Auntie Uzma at the supermarket. It looked like it had been taken from inside a bush. She didn’t seem like she was aware she was being photographed.
‘You been snooping on Auntie Uzma?’ I asked him.
‘Mmm,’ he said, nodding his head. ‘And more, see?’
He gestured around the board. I noticed, for the first time, that not all of the photos were of Auntie Uzma. There were loads of different aunties up there.
‘It ain’t just her, is it?’ I said. ‘They’re all acting weird.’
He nodded again.
‘What’s got into them?’ I asked.
‘Don’t know,’ he muttered. ‘They go out late. Meet in supermarkets. Whisper …’
‘You know, they’ve basically taken over the school?’ I told him.
He nodded.
‘All the teachers just keep vanishing,’ I continued. ‘They get sick or hurt, or accidentally stung by bees … Loads of different things that just look random. But it can’t be random, because after they disappear, every single time, an auntie shows up and takes their place.�
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‘Where are teachers now?’ he asked.
‘Sick leave, most of ’em.’
‘But where? Have you seen them?’
‘What, like in the street? No. I don’t know where they live.’
‘OK, then we find them,’ he said with a sharp little nod.
‘Right, and then what?’
‘When we find missing teachers, we find answers.’
And without another word, he turned and disappeared back down the hatch.
As we stepped out the front door, I noticed Grandpa had something wedged under his arm.
‘What’s that?’ I asked him.
‘Phone book,’ he replied, pulling it out and riffling through the pages.
‘Why’d we need a phone book?’
‘Teachers’ addresses.’
‘Oh yeah, why didn’t I think of that?’
‘Old fool not so foolish, huh?’ he said with a grin. ‘Now, what are the teachers’ full names?’
‘Full name? You mean like their first name as well? How should I know? We just call them Mr So-and-so or Mrs Whatever.’
‘You don’t know Mrs Whatever’s first name?’ he asked, looking perplexed.
‘Huh? Oh, right … no, there is no Mrs Whatever. It was just an example.’
‘Oh,’ said Grandpa. ‘What about Mr So-and-so?’
‘No, ignore those names – they ain’t real. Point is, I don’t know any teacher’s first names. Or any second names when it comes to the dinner ladies. We just call them Moira and Betty and Ada. Stuff like that.’
‘Hmm,’ he said, coming to a stop at the end of the block, ‘then this is useless,’ he added, and he tossed the phone book into one of his neighbour’s bins.
‘Hold on,’ I said, pulling the phone book back out of the bin and dusting it free of some rice. ‘I might have an idea how we can get some names.’
‘You remember?’ he asked, looking hopeful.
‘Nope, but I know someone who might …’
I’d not been round here for ages, so at first I wasn’t sure I had the right house. But when I pressed the buzzer some kind of weird doorbell opera started to play. Definitely the right house. I heard a voice from the other side of the door.
‘What are you doing here, Humza?’ said Wendy Wang. ‘I haven’t finished working on the laptop yet.’