The Mystery of the Squashed Cockroach

by R. A. Spratt

  ‘Is he glad we’re c-coming?’ asked Joe. At sixteen, he was used to adults letting him down. But he still felt nervous, hoping that it wouldn’t happen.

  ‘I’m sure he will be,’ said Professor Maynard.

  ‘You haven’t told him we’re coming, have you?’ asked Fin.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Professor Maynard. ‘Your father is a wonderful, kind-hearted fellow, but you don’t know him as well as I do. I’m sure he will be delighted to see you. He is, however, the teensiest bit terrified of me. If he knew I was coming, he might have made a run for it.’

  The van pulled up in front of the house and the children got out. Pumpkin bounded forward to pee on a lovely display of flowering daphne. Professor Maynard strode straight up to the front door, the children following her at a cautious distance. The Professor rapped loudly with the knocker.

  ‘Is that a methane generator?’ asked Fin, looking at an unusually shaped piece of machinery sitting by the front door.

  ‘Probably,’ said Professor Maynard, giving it a quick glance. ‘Your dad does love his little toys.’ Professor Maynard rapped on the door again.

  Suddenly they heard a loud clatter, a thud, scuffling noises and the sound of someone pleading to be ‘let go’. Pumpkin started barking excitedly, sensing violence in the air. But April picked him up. She wanted a hug and she was much more comfortable clutching her dog than a person.

  ‘Ah, that’ll be him,’ said Professor Maynard, walking along the verandah to see down the side of the house.

  Eric, the driver, had a man in a painful-looking wristlock and was half-dragging him around to the front of the house. As Eric and his captive drew closer, the children got their first look at their father in eleven years. It was disappointing.

  For a start, their dad was eleven years older than they remembered him being. He had a long, badly trimmed beard, wild uncombed hair and the sort of screwed-up, wrinkly face you only get if you worry a lot and never use moisturiser. The children could have forgiven most of this because they weren’t expecting him to be handsome but, being teenagers, they were acutely conscious of when an adult is embarrassing. And in this, the first glimpse of their father in so many years, he was wearing a long scruffy dressing-gown that clearly showed his naked ankles and hairy calves. It was not a dignified look.

  ‘Harold!’ cried Professor Maynard, completely ignoring the fact that her driver still had him in a wristlock. ‘So wonderful to see you. You’re looking well.’

  ‘What do you want with me?’ moaned their father. ‘Please don’t say I have to be brave. I just haven’t got it in me.’

  ‘Nothing of the kind,’ said Professor Maynard. ‘I’ve got a marvellous surprise for you. I’ve brought you your children! All you have to do is parent them.’

  Dad peered at Professor Maynard. He didn’t have his glasses on, but now he looked closer he noticed three indistinct shapes on the verandah near her. He used his free hand to reach into his dressing-gown pocket, retrieve his glasses and awkwardly put them on his face.

  He wouldn’t have described them as children. Three sullen teenagers were glaring warily back at him.

  ‘A girl and two boys,’ said Dad. ‘I do have a girl and two boys. Are these them?’ He was whispering. He spent so much time dealing with plants that he was used to whispering to himself.

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Professor Maynard. ‘I’m glad you’ve caught up so quickly. I’m afraid Bertha’s got herself in a spot of bother over in Kolektiv-controlled territory, so you are going to have to step up and look after them.’

  ‘They’re to live with me?’ asked Dad in wonder. His face drained of all colour.

  Fin sniffed and stuck his bottom lip out.

  Joe started mentally running through all the things he would have to do if Dad refused to look after them and he had to be in charge. He’d have to drop out of school, get a job, rent a house …

  ‘Have you got a problem with that?’ asked April, a hint of menace in her voice. She was already angry with her mother for secretly being incredibly exciting behind her back, and she was quite ready to take her anger out on the one parent who was actually there.

  ‘No,’ said Dad, shaking his head so his beard quivered. ‘It’s … wonderful!’ Then he burst into tears.

  Joe, Fin and April glanced at each other. They had never known a grown-up to cry so easily. Their mother was never weepy, although in hindsight this may have been because she was a ruthless international operative.

  ‘Eric, be a dear,’ said Professor Maynard. ‘Go and make Mr Peski a nice cup of tea.’

  Eric hurried off to perform this task with the same urgency with which he had passed Professor Maynard the bomb that had blown up the children’s house just the previous day.

  Half an hour later, after several cups of tea, Dad was still struggling to get a hold of himself. Professor Maynard had explained the situation numerous times, and patted him bracingly on the back so often that his shoulder was beginning to bruise.

  Eric had carried the children’s suitcases in and Joe, Fin and April had hurried upstairs to argue over who was going to get the best bedroom.

  It turned out to be a surprisingly short argument. They usually devoted a lot of energy into arguing about everything thoroughly, but on searching the house they found there were four bedrooms. One their father was using, and the other three had no distinguishing merits. They were all full of junk. The only thing the children had to consider when choosing which room they wanted was which pile of junk was going to terrify them the least when they woke up in the middle of the night, or which pile of junk they were least likely to trip over on the way to the bathroom.

  In the end, Joe got the largest room because it had taxidermied animals everywhere. Being the oldest, it was considered he would be the least likely to have nightmares.

  April got the room that had a washbasin because she was a girl and therefore the most inclined to wash. (April was a feminist in every regard, except when it came to maintaining sexist stereotypes like boys not washing enough. Although to be fair, she did have evidence to support this belief, having lived with two boys her entire life.)

  Fin got the room that overlooked the driveway because he owned a telescope, which the agents had managed to pack for him. He was going to enjoy spying on people approaching the house.

  On the whole, the bedrooms were depressing and dusty. But they were separate rooms, so the children were at least pleased that they would each have their own door to slam dramatically when they were fighting.

  They went back downstairs to explore the rest of the house. When they returned to the kitchen they were surprised to find their father on his own and clutching an empty mug in his hands, shaking slightly.

  ‘Where’s the p-p-professor?’ asked Joe.

  ‘Oh, she’s gone,’ said Dad.

  ‘Just like that?’ said April. ‘She didn’t say goodbye. Typical.’ She didn’t particularly like Professor Maynard. The whole blowing up their house thing was a lot to get past.

  ‘No, she doesn’t often do that,’ said Dad.

  They all looked at each other. Dad seemed almost as frightened of his children as he did of Professor Maynard. Pumpkin yanked one of Dad’s slippers right off his foot. It was old and worn and looked like it smelled gross. Pumpkin was delighted with his new chew toy.

  ‘Would you like me to make some b-breakfast?’ asked Joe.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Dad. ‘We should eat. Maintaining traditional customs is important.’

  Joe opened the food cupboard. There wasn’t much to see. Only a lot of tinned food and several enormous boxes of high-fibre breakfast cereal.

  ‘Bran it is then,’ said Joe, grabbing a box and looking about for bowls.

  A movement in the backyard caught Fin’s eye. He went over to the French doors to have a look. ‘Am I having a hallucination?’ asked Fin. ‘Or is there a teenage girl riding a horse in your backyard.’

  They all turned to look out the window. The garde
n at the back of the house was even more impressive than the garden at the front. Huge, exquisitely maintained flowerbeds fanned out between interwoven pathways. It was laid out more like a garden at Versailles than a backyard. And cantering about, weaving among the rainbow of blooms, was an immaculately turned-out chestnut stallion, ridden by a staggeringly beautiful dark-skinned girl with long black hair that swept out behind her in the breeze every time she urged her horse forward to jump over another flowerbed.

  ‘Oh yes, that’s Loretta Viswanathan,’ said Dad. ‘She lives next door.’

  The children watched as Loretta’s horse misjudged a leap and crashed through a magnificent display of dahlias. Loretta threw back her head and laughed before urging her horse forward again. This time to half-leap and half-crash through a trellis of sweet peas.

  ‘Is she allowed to wreck your garden like that?’ asked Joe.

  ‘Well, I’ve asked her not to,’ confessed Dad, ‘but she is always so polite and lovely about it. She does come over here fairly often, particularly when there’s a show jumping competition she’s practising for.’

  ‘But she’s a vandal!’ exclaimed April.

  ‘A very good-looking vandal,’ observed Fin.

  Joe turned to look at Fin. He was shocked. Fin had never noticed a girl before.

  Fin got defensive. ‘What? It’s just an empirical fact.’

  ‘I’ll put a stop to it,’ said April menacingly, as she glared at Loretta through the window.

  ‘No, no, no,’ said Dad. ‘I don’t want a confrontation.’ He almost looked teary at the thought of it.

  ‘It’s not a big deal,’ said Fin. ‘We’ll just go and ask her to stop.’

  ‘But her parents might get upset,’ said Dad. ‘They’re surgeons. Who knows how they might react.’

  ‘What’s the worst-case scenario?’ asked Fin. ‘They take your appendix out?’

  ‘Do you think they would?’ asked Dad, genuinely concerned. He started shaking again.

  ‘We can go over and t-t-talk to her later,’ said Joe reassuringly. ‘Here, you eat your high-fibre breakfast cereal and I’ll make you another cup of tea.’

  ‘But there’s no time,’ said Dad. ‘You’ve got to get ready for school.’

  ‘School?!’ exclaimed April. Given that their mother was being held in a secret Kolektiv prison, she had assumed they would get at least one day off school, possibly a month, while they were given lots and lots of trauma counselling.

  ‘Professor Maynard said it is very important that you fit into the community right away,’ said Dad, ‘to avoid suspicion and questions being asked. She’s left uniforms for you in the living room. You’re all enrolled. You start at 9 am.’

  Joe looked at his watch. ‘That’s in fifteen minutes! How f-far is the school?’

  ‘A kilometre or two,’ said Dad.

  ‘That’s only a couple of minutes in a car,’ said Fin. ‘We’ll make it easily.’

  ‘I don’t have a car,’ said Dad.

  ‘What?!’ yelled April. Her father was becoming more and more deeply unimpressive in her eyes. What was the point of a grown-up looking after them if that grown-up didn’t have a car to drive them places?

  ‘And we don’t have bicycles,’ said Joe.

  ‘We did have bicycles,’ said Fin, ‘until they were blown up with the rest of the house.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Joe. ‘D-don’t panic. We can make it.’ He checked his watch again. ‘If we rush.’

  The Peski kids ran to the living room and hurried to get dressed. But they were not used to uniforms. Their old school’s philosophy had been to never stifle a child’s self-expression, so students could wear whatever they liked.

  ‘We have to wear ties!’ exclaimed Fin, finding a blue tie with gold stripes laid on top of a white shirt. ‘Is it even safe to wear something tightly knotted and dangling from your neck? I’m amazed ties haven’t been outlawed by occupational health and safety experts long ago.’

  ‘Just put it on,’ said Joe. ‘You’ve got to fit in, remember.’

  ‘Humph,’ said Fin. ‘I suppose I’ll fit in perfectly when it gets caught in a piece of machinery and my head gets ripped off.’

  ‘We’re going to school,’ said April, ‘not a Victorian woollen mill.’ But then she was consumed by her own horror. ‘Cripes! What on earth is that?!’

  April held up the offensive item of clothing. The material was a navy blue and white tartan.

  Joe just laughed.

  Fin was puzzled. ‘What is it?’

  Joe sniggered before answering. ‘That’s a skirt.’

  ‘Nooooooo!’ cried April. ‘No no no no no no no. I am not wearing a skirt! The suffragettes did not die and endure torture in the fight for women’s liberation just so in this day and age I would be forced to wear a skirt!’

  Pumpkin started barking and bouncing about excitedly, ready to defend his mistress.

  ‘You’ve g-got to fit in,’ said Joe.

  ‘And please don’t rant about feminism on your first day,’ pleaded Fin. ‘This is a country town. They don’t want to hear a twelve-year-old city kid yelling at them about social issues.’

  ‘I won’t do it,’ said April, dropping the skirt to the floor and plopping down on the couch with her arms folded.

  ‘April, you can’t throw a t-t-tantrum now!’ pleaded Joe.

  ‘I will not allow myself to be degraded,’ said April, turning her head and defiantly staring at the wall. Well, the overflowing bookcase in front of the wall. It didn’t really matter, so long as she didn’t make eye contact with Joe.

  ‘Our mother is a political prisoner on the far side of the world,’ said Fin. ‘We’re in hiding from counter spies. Our house has been destroyed and we’ve been driven through the night to get here and ensure our safety. We can’t compromise all that. The least you can do is put on a skirt.’

  April shook her head. Tears were beginning to well. April rarely cried, unless they were tears of rage. She did that all the time. ‘Some sacrifices are too great,’ she sniffed.

  ‘On no,’ said Fin. He had stopped paying attention to April. He was almost fully dressed, but he was standing still, staring at the last item of clothing.

  ‘What now?’ asked Joe.

  ‘Have you seen the hat?’ asked Fin. He picked up the strange article. It was blue-and-grey tweed. It looked a bit like a flat cap, except baggier.

  ‘No way,’ said Joe.

  ‘Is this some sort of prank?’ asked Fin. ‘Do we really have to wear one?’

  Dad had wandered into the doorway. He was holding their lunches in three brown paper bags.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Dad. ‘Currawong High School students all have to wear the famous baggy blue.’

  ‘Huh?’ said Fin, so shocked he was reduced to inarticulate grunting.

  ‘Currawong High is famous for being where Roland Guthrie went to school,’ said Dad.

  The kids just stared at him. This name meant nothing to them.

  ‘Roland Guthrie! The world’s greatest lawn bowls player of all time,’ explained Dad. ‘He wore that distinctive baggy blue cap when he won gold at the Lawn Bowls World Championships seven years in a row.’

  ‘And so n-n-now all the school kids have to wear them?’ asked Joe.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Dad. ‘Everyone in Currawong is very proud of the town’s lawn bowls history. Except for the people who hate lawn bowls, which is actually most people. But the kids still have to wear the cap, either way.’

  ‘I’m glad I’ve changed my name and moved miles away,’ said Fin, looking down at the cap in his hands. ‘At least none of my friends can see me now.’

  April scoffed. ‘What friends? You never had any friends.’

  Fin glowered at April and defiantly jammed the cap on his head. It did not have the effect he had hoped for. Joe and April burst out laughing. Even Dad smiled weakly. Fin had an unusual-shaped head. It was almost pointy, so the cap fell right down to his ears with the brim covering his eyebrows. Giv
en that Fin’s ears stuck out and his eyes were beady, altogether it created a rather comic look.

  ‘What? What is it?’ demanded Fin. He almost looked bald because the hat completely covered his short hair.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Joe. ‘Nothing at all.’ He put his own hat on and immediately looked like a model for a hat catalogue.

  April put hers on backwards and at an angle, making it look both stylish and rebellious. She even put on the skirt. She was still chuckling every time she looked at Fin; it totally made her forget her feminist principles.

  ‘Come on,’ said Joe, grabbing their lunches from Dad. ‘We’d better run.’

  ‘Wait!’ said Dad, as April wrenched open the front door. ‘Just remember …’

  ‘Kolektiv spies want to kidnap us, we’ve got it,’ interrupted Fin.

  ‘No, I was going to say …’ Dad was trembling nervously as he fought to find the right words. ‘That these people, in town. They’re very …’ He twitched some more. ‘Very odd. But they don’t realise they’re odd. You have to act like they’re the normal ones.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Joe, patting Dad on the arm. He didn’t think his dad was qualified to accuse anyone else of oddness. April and Fin had never had any trouble fitting in at their old school. And Joe liked to be left alone, so not fitting in was fine with him. ‘We’ll be okay, Dad. Don’t worry.’

  They took off jogging down the driveway.

  Pumpkin thought it was excellent that all three of his humans were taking him for a run. The only thing that could top it off would be if there was a nice old lady waiting at the end for him to bite.

  They hadn’t gone far when suddenly there was a loud HONK behind them. The three kids lurched out of the way. It was a large red car.