The Mystery of the Squashed Cockroach

by R. A. Spratt

  ‘How did we not hear that coming?’ asked Joe.

  ‘It’s an electric car!’ said Fin. ‘Their engines are practically silent. They’re super swish. I didn’t expect to see one of those all the way out here.’

  The car had tinted windows so they couldn’t see the occupants inside. It didn’t speed past as they had expected. It pulled up alongside them and the rear passenger window began to buzz down. Sitting inside was the girl they had seen already that morning, Loretta, their new next-door neighbour.

  ‘Good morning,’ Loretta said politely. Up close they could see she was about their age, fourteen or maybe fifteen. Her voice was soft and gentle, with a lovely English accent. ‘May I offer you a lift? I’m on the way to school myself.’ Loretta was wearing a uniform too, but hers was a different colour and more stylish. She clearly went to a much fancier school.

  Fin was again stunned by her beauty. He was just starting to say ‘Ye …’ when he was elbowed out of the way and interrupted.

  ‘No, thank you,’ said April. ‘We’re not allowed to get into cars with strangers.’

  ‘Wait!’ said Joe. ‘She’s n-not a stranger. We know this is L-L-Loretta. Dad told us who she is.’

  ‘We also witnessed her vandalising our father’s flowerbeds,’ said April.

  Loretta chuckled. ‘Mr Peski is your father? I didn’t realise. Then you must get in. Mr Peski and I are dear friends.’

  ‘He said he’s asked you repeatedly not to ride in his garden but you won’t stop,’ said April.

  ‘Oh, that’s nothing,’ said Loretta, beaming happily. ‘I know Mr Peski doesn’t really mean it when he says such silly things. He loves Vladimir.’

  ‘Who’s Vladimir?’ asked Fin jealously, assuming it was Loretta’s boyfriend.

  ‘My horse,’ said Loretta. ‘Well … my jumping horse. Obviously, I have different horses for polo and hack riding.’

  ‘Obviously,’ said April sarcastically.

  ‘We’d be very g-grateful for a lift, thank you,’ said Joe, hastily getting in the front passenger seat before April could create a scene and offend Loretta.

  Loretta slid across the back seat to make room and Fin jumped straight in. April stood and glowered. She would much rather have been late to school than be polite to this unnaturally good-looking girl. But Pumpkin betrayed her by leaping into the back seat and licking Loretta’s face.

  ‘What a sweet puppy!’ exclaimed Loretta.

  ‘Be careful,’ said Fin. ‘He bites.’

  ‘Till den offentliga skolan, tack, Ingrid,’ Loretta called to her driver, an extremely tall, well-muscled blonde woman.

  ‘Huh?’ said Joe.

  ‘Don’t mind Ingrid,’ said Loretta. ‘She only speaks Swedish.’

  ‘Your mum only speaks Swedish?’ asked Fin.

  Loretta laughed again. ‘No, silly, Ingrid isn’t my mother. She’s our au pair.’ Loretta leaned forward and tapped Ingrid on the arm before gabbling in Swedish. ‘Barnen trodde att du var min mamma.’

  Ingrid burst out laughing. ‘Dumma, dumma barn.’

  ‘What’s she saying?’ asked April.

  ‘I told her you thought she was my mother,’ said Loretta. ‘And she said you are stupid, stupid, children.’

  ‘What?’ said April, her blood beginning to boil.

  ‘So you’re English?’ asked Joe, trying to change the subject before April could physically attack Loretta.

  ‘No!’ exclaimed Loretta. ‘Why ever would you think that?’

  ‘You have an English accent,’ Fin pointed out. ‘Do I?’ said Loretta.

  ‘Yeah, you t-t-totally do,’ said Joe.

  ‘No, I was born here,’ said Loretta. ‘Mummy and Daddy just like me to speak nicely.’

  ‘But where are you from?’ asked April.

  ‘Here,’ repeated Loretta.

  ‘But,’ began April. She looked at Loretta’s dark skin and long black hair, stuggling to word her next question without sounding racist.

  ‘Viswanathan is an unusual name,’ said Joe, helping his sister out.

  ‘No, it’s not,’ said Loretta. ‘In India it’s very common.’

  ‘Your family is from India?’ asked Fin.

  ‘No, we’re from Sri Lanka,’ said Loretta. ‘But Mummy and Daddy emigrated. They heard you had a shortage of competent surgeons in this country, so they thought they could make a lot of money by coming here. It turns out they were entirely right. So many people need to be cut open and fiddled with these days. Which is why Mummy and Daddy had to hire Ingrid. They get absolutely no rest at all. They’re elbow deep in people’s guts all day long.’ She leaned forward and spoke to Ingrid. ‘Mamma och pappa jobbar för hårt, eller hur? Ingrid?’

  Ingrid snorted.

  ‘What was that?’ asked Fin.

  ‘Ingrid was agreeing with me that Mummy and Daddy work much too hard,’ explained Loretta.

  April scowled. She didn’t see how derisive snorting could be taken as agreement.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Fin. They were reaching the centre of town and he had just spotted a monstrosity out the window. It was big, brown and lump-shaped. ‘It looks like a giant …’ He couldn’t bring himself to say the actual word.

  ‘Poo,’ said Loretta helpfully. ‘Yes, you’re not the first one to notice. It’s supposed to be a giant potato. It was built by an eccentric and misguided local farmer who thought a giant potato would make a great tourist attraction.’

  ‘But it’s just a huge lump,’ said April.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Loretta. ‘But it is a tourist attraction. We get three or four tourists a month who stop to have their photo taken with the giant poo.’

  ‘That’s disgusting,’ said Fin. ‘Why hasn’t it been taken down?’

  ‘People enjoy the irony,’ said Loretta. ‘Here we are!’

  The car turned into the main street of town.

  ‘So this is Currawong,’ said Joe.

  There was a bright and cheerful strip of shops. It looked like a tableau from a postcard with the bright blue sky, the rolling hills surrounding the town and the unusual abundance of flower planters overflowing with beautiful blooms. Even the cows in the distant fields looked like they’d been placed there by an artistic director to maximise the beauty of the scene.

  ‘It’s so … pretty,’ said April, as though ‘pretty’ was a swear word.

  ‘Oh yes, Currawong prides itself on its prettiness,’ agreed Loretta. ‘We won seventh prettiest town with a population under ten thousand but above five thousand last year in the Eastern Division.’

  ‘I spotted some graffiti!’ cried April happily, pointing out the window.

  ‘Where?’ asked Loretta.

  ‘On that fire hydrant,’ said April. ‘It says …’ She strained to read the rude words but was sorely disappointed. ‘“Have a nice day”? Who spray-paints nice graffiti?’

  ‘A Currawongian,’ said Loretta. ‘The town prides itself on niceness too.’

  ‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ said April.

  ‘It’s just culture shock,’ said Fin. ‘I’m sure we’ll get used to it.’

  ‘Haven’t you visited your dad before?’ asked Loretta. ‘Um … n-n-no …’ said Joe cautiously. He hadn’t considered how much they should tell anyone about their past. They probably should have come up with a cover story before they left for school.

  ‘That’s odd,’ said Loretta, eyeing them shrewdly. ‘It never occurred to me that Mr Peski would have children. He’s so nervous. I can’t even imagine him being married.’

  ‘Yeah, well, h-he was,’ said Joe.

  ‘Has your mother come to stay as well?’ asked Loretta.

  ‘No, M-M-Mum has been … d-d-detained … by …’ Joe trailed off, not wanting to lie, but not wanting to reveal too much either.

  ‘Work commitments,’ said Fin, finishing his brother’s sentence.

  Loretta looked Fin in the eye. He blushed. ‘I see,’ she said. ‘It sounds like a mystery, and I do love mysteries.’
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  ‘No, it’s nothing like –’ Joe began to protest. But Loretta held up her hand to silence him.

  ‘No, please don’t explain. Reality is usually so dull,’ she said. ‘I’d much rather think of an explanation for myself. I have a very sordid imagination, I’ll think up something much better.’

  ‘I bet you don’t,’ April muttered under her breath.

  The car drew to a halt. They were outside the school.

  ‘This is it. Currawong High,’ said Loretta. ‘Enjoy your first day.’

  No one got out immediately. It looked like any other high school in a country town. An old Victorian brick building, surrounded by ramshackle demountables that had been incrementally added every decade since. It looked so nice and ordinary that it was intimidating. The Peski kids were not nice or ordinary. At best they were eccentric, more realistically they were probably weirdos. They had fit in well in their inner city high school. But here, surrounded by flowers and sunshine, they were not so confident they would blend in.

  ‘Får de dumma barnen ut?’ asked Ingrid, interrupting the silence.

  ‘What did she say?’ asked April.

  ‘Ingrid is just wondering if you are ever going to get out of the car,’ said Loretta, with a smile.

  They opened the doors and stepped out into the sunshine.

  ‘Thank you f-for the ride,’ said Joe.

  ‘My pleasure,’ said Loretta. ‘I’m so pleased to have new children in the neighbourhood. I’m sure we’ll get into lots of adventures together. Or have lots of fights and feuds. Either way, it’s going to be fun.’

  Loretta shut her door and the car whizzed away.

  ‘Well, she’s a weirdo,’ said April.

  ‘You just don’t like her because she’s nice,’ said Fin.

  ‘I don’t trust her because she’s nice,’ said April. ‘She must have some angle.’

  ‘Hospitality?’ suggested Joe.

  ‘Pfft,’ said April. ‘She’s probably softening us up for some sort of elaborate initiation prank.’

  The Peski kids turned to their new school.

  ‘I suppose we have to go in,’ said Fin.

  ‘Well, we’ll get sun stroke if we keep standing here,’ said April, shoving Fin aside so she could enter the gate first.

  Joe and Fin followed in her wake.

  ‘You can’t have that in here!’ exclaimed Mrs Pilsbury, the school secretary. She was pointing at Pumpkin. April was clutching him protectively to her chest.

  ‘He’s my support dog,’ said April. ‘I need him for medical reasons. I have a doctor’s note.’

  This wasn’t strictly true. April did have a doctor’s note, only it was now ashes among the ruins of their house.

  Joe, Fin and April were standing in the school’s reception area. There was a long high desk with sliding glass windows that separated the secretarial staff from members of the public. It was as if they worked in a bank, except the only thing they had to protect was a bunch of files, a bulk pack of bandaids and their personalised coffee cups, which admittedly they did guard with the protectiveness of a lion defending the carcass of a half-dead antelope.

  On the public side of the desk was some worn vinyl furniture and, inexplicably, dozens and dozens of handmade cockroaches dangling from the roof. It was like a sea of incredibly ugly and slightly disturbing piñatas.

  ‘What sort of medical reasons?’ demanded Mrs Pilsbury. ‘You’re not blind, are you?’ She peered at April to see if her demeanour gave any hint of bad eyesight. Certainly, April’s poorly combed hair indicated that might be a possibility.

  ‘Emotional reasons,’ explained April defiantly, holding her chin high. ‘Pumpkin helps me cope with my social anxiety disorder.’

  ‘Your what?’ asked Mrs Pilsbury.

  ‘Social anxiety disorder,’ repeated April.

  ‘You’re only a child!’ exclaimed Mrs Pilsbury. ‘What have you got to be anxious about?’

  ‘Rude adults yelling at me for a start,’ said April, glowering at Mrs Pilsbury.

  Joe grabbed hold of his sister before she could move any closer. ‘April has anger m-m-management issues,’ said Joe.

  ‘Her psychiatrist tried counselling, hypnotherapy and medication but none of that worked,’ explained Fin. ‘So he recommended she get a dog. As you can see, she’s still really bad.’ April was glaring hatefully at Mrs Pilsbury while hugging a growling Pumpkin. ‘But she was way worse before. A dog has really helped her. Of course, Pumpkin bites, so all up about the same number of people get hurt. But now April is only doing half of it herself, so technically it is an improvement in her behaviour.’

  ‘You might be able to get away with this malarkey in the city,’ seethed Mrs Pilsbury, she was quite good at glaring herself, ‘but you’re in a small town now. We leave animals in the fields and backyards where they belong.’

  ‘Mrs Pilsbury!’ a man with a gentle voice called out. Joe, Fin and April turned to see a podgy middle-aged man in a sweater vest emerging from an office. ‘Can I help?’

  ‘This girl has brought a dog to school,’ explained Mrs Pilsbury. ‘She says her doctor said she can because she’s a crackpot.’

  ‘Well, we here at Currawong High School have a charter that requires us to be sensitive to the requests of anybody with mental health special needs,’ soothed the man, smiling at the children.

  Mrs Pilsbury scowled, sat down on her chair and slid her glass window shut.

  ‘I’ll take the children through the orientation process then, shall I?’ the man asked Mrs Pilsbury, raising his voice slightly so he could be heard through the glass.

  Mrs Pilsbury pretended she couldn’t hear him and started loudly typing on her keyboard.

  The man turned back to Joe, Fin and April. ‘Mrs Pilsbury has been a devoted member of staff here for over thirty years.’

  ‘No wonder she hates children,’ said Fin, in his usual matter-of-fact monotone.

  ‘Yes, well, perhaps you’d better come into my office,’ said the man.

  ‘Who are you?’ asked April rudely, still clutching Pumpkin tightly.

  ‘Sorry, I should have introduced myself,’ said the man. ‘I’m the guidance counsellor here. You can call me Mr Lang.’

  April glared at Mr Lang as if trying to intimidate him purely with her eyebrows. It worked. Mr Lang leaned back instinctively as she strode past him into his office. Joe and Fin followed along.

  ‘Well, your mother’s colleague, Professor Maynard has made all the arrangements for you,’ said Mr Lang as the children sat down. He moved around to his own side of the desk. ‘Joe, April and er … I think someone must have written your name down incorrectly,’ said Mr Lang, glancing at Fin then squinting at the form in his hand. ‘It says here your name is Sharkfin?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Fin. ‘But I go by Fin.’

  ‘Is this some sort of joke?’ asked Mr Lang nervously. ‘The higher-ups don’t like it when people put jokes on forms.’

  ‘It’s not a joke,’ said Fin earnestly. ‘That’s what it says on my birth certificate.’

  ‘But your brother’s name is Joe,’ said Mr Lang. ‘That’s quite a contrast.’

  ‘Joe isn’t my real name,’ said Joe. ‘It’s P-P-P …’

  ‘Peregrine,’ April finished for him.

  Joe nodded.

  ‘Joe had trouble saying it,’ explained Fin. ‘Because he’s got a stutter,’ said April, pointing at Joe so that Mr Lang would know which brother she was referring to. ‘It’s an involuntary speech disorder where he gets blocked on words.’

  ‘I’m sure Mr Lang knows what a stutter is,’ said Fin, rolling his eyes at his sister’s insensitivity.

  ‘Well, then he should have said something,’ snapped April angrily, ‘because it’s always better to discuss problems openly and not be embarrassed!’

  ‘I f-f-forged a new birth certificate,’ explained Joe. Mr Lang looked at Joe. He was one of the most ordinary-looking boys he had ever seen. He didn’t appear to be the type
who could forge a birth certificate, but he supposed young people could do all sorts of surprising things these days with technology. Best not to get into an argument about it. ‘All right, well, April and Sharkfin will be going into year 8,’ said Mr Lang, handing a timetable to each of them. ‘It is a little unusual to have siblings almost a whole year apart in age in the same academic year.’

  ‘Mum couldn’t wait to get April out of the house,’ explained Fin.

  ‘I could read and do maths already, so Mum packed me off to school with Fin,’ said April. ‘Everyone assumed we were twins.’

  ‘And you’re in year 10 even though you’re sixteen,’ said Mr Lang, turning to Joe. ‘Shouldn’t you be in year 11?’

  ‘I got held b-b-back,’ said Joe.

  ‘Dyslexia?’ asked Mr Lang sensitively.

  Fin snorted. ‘More like disinterestia,’ he said.

  ‘Okay,’ said Mr Lang. ‘Well, I think the best thing to do is to head to your regular classes and in a week we’ll have another meeting to see how you’re getting along.’

  The kids got up to leave.

  ‘One more thing before you go,’ said Mr Lang, opening a drawer and pulling out some more papers. ‘You’ll need your entry forms for the cockroach races.’ He handed one to each of the children.

  ‘The what?’ asked Fin.

  ‘The Currawong Annual Cockroach Races,’ said Mr Lang. ‘Haven’t you heard of them?’

  ‘We hadn’t even heard of Currawong before yesterday,’ scoffed April.

  ‘But we have heard of cockroaches,’ said Fin.

  ‘The races are a big deal,’ said Mr Lang. ‘It’s one of our top festivals in town.’

  ‘It’s a festival?’ asked April incredulously.

  ‘Oh yes, people travel miles to see it. It’s wonderful for local tourism,’ said Mr Lang. ‘It’s on next weekend, so you won’t have long to train up your entrants. But you can still give it a go.’

  ‘I’m not entering,’ said April flatly. ‘I don’t approve of racing. It’s inhumane.’

  ‘C-C-Cockroaches are inhuman,’ Joe pointed out. ‘Then it’s cruelty to animals,’ said April. ‘I won’t have any part of it.’ She dropped the form back on the desk.

  ‘But all the students get involved,’ said Mr Lang, calling on all his professional levels of patience to maintain his calm and reasonable tones. ‘They have a great time.’