Harry used the tweezers to carefully remove the fur from the fence. They both looked at the black, curly fur and thought of Milly. Only a few days earlier she had been running round with them in the garden. They missed her so much. Annabelle labelled the bag “Milly?”.
“Now for the fun bit!” said Annabelle. She cut two long, thick strips of card and checked they would be big enough to fit around the footprint. She Sellotaped them together and then pushed the card into the soil around the footprint so a large part of the card was sticking out of the soil.
“Harry, empty the plaster of Paris into the ice-cream tub. We are going to need a lot. The footprint is big. Okay, I’ll add the water then we need to stir it quickly,” Annabelle admired how smooth she had made the plaster. She tipped it onto the footprint.
“Annabelle!” said Harry crossly, “I wanted to do that bit.”
“Sorry, I was worried it would set. We need to leave it for thirty minutes. Let’s hide the bags with the evidence in that drawer inside the playhouse. No one will look for it there.”
“Done it!” said Harry. “Now what?”
“We need a plan. We need to get evidence from Mr Baker’s shed. The first thing is how we’re going to get into it. We don’t know the code for the lock.”
“Well I do! I was watching yesterday. It’s really easy too – just 1, 1, 1, 1,” said Harry proudly.
“You’re a star, my man!” said Annabelle. They really were working together as a team to solve this. She felt really proud of her little brother even if he did drive her mad at times “We’ll need to go when it’s dark so we aren’t seen,” she said.
“When I think it’s safe I’ll knock on your bedroom wall tonight Annabelle. Then we can sneak out of the house, climb onto the playhouse roof and over into Mr Baker’s garden,” said Harry.
“Great! We should leave the kit here so it’s ready for us,” said Annabelle.
“Do you think the plaster will be ready yet?” said Harry, impatiently.
“I’ll have a look.” Annabelle gently tapped the plaster. It was solid. She carefully removed the card and turned the plaster over. There was a perfect pattern of the boot imprinted into the plaster. They could see a number of imperfections where the sole of the boot had been damaged and worn.
“If we can find whose boots match this print we’ll know who was in our garden and who took Milly,” said Annabelle. Both children looked at each other. A bolt of excitement shot through each of them and an infectious smile filled their faces. The evidence against Mr Baker was starting to come together. For once they couldn’t wait till bedtime when they could get into the shed and get some more!
fter Mum and Dad had put them to bed Annabelle waited patiently in the darkness. It seemed to take forever then finally the signal came. She heard a dull tap against the wall. Annabelle tapped back and then sprang out of bed. She felt almost sick with nerves as she pulled on her wellies, overalls, facemask, gloves and coat. Then she pulled her swimming bag onto her back. She had hidden her outfit under her bed earlier and told Harry to do the same. As she stood up Harry came tip-toeing into her room. She had never known her brother to be so quiet. They both tried not to giggle at how funny they looked in their strange outfits.
“Are you ready?” said Harry. Annabelle gave him the thumbs up. She could see he was not nervous at all. In fact he was buzzing with excitement and wide awake.
“Where’s my torch?” he said. Annabelle passed him one of the torches she had in her hand.
“Don’t use the torch until we’re in the shed,” Annabelle whispered in Harry’s ear. “We don’t want to be seen. It’s a bright moon tonight so we should be able to see where we’re going. Here is your swimming bag. I thought we could use it to store any evidence we find.”
“I can hear the television,” said Harry. “I don’t think Mum and Dad will come upstairs now. Let’s go!” He led the way as they carefully crept down the stairs and out into the garden. Annabelle picked up the kit they needed from the playhouse. She heard a thud as Harry landed in Mr Baker’s garden. Trust him not to wait and leave it to her to bring everything! She climbed on top of the playhouse roof and put her legs over the fence.
“Come on, slow coach!” whispered Harry, pulling her legs.
“Don’t! I might fall. I don’t think I can do it.”
“Just jump!” said Harry. He looked up at her face and could see how scared she was “It’s alright I’ll catch you,” he reassured her. “We need to do this for Milly. I know you can do it.”
Annabelle closed her eyes, held her breath and jumped. She landed softly on the grass and felt Harry’s arms around her helping her up. She let out a long breath and felt relieved she had landed safely. She watched Harry running across the lawn to the shed. He had already undone the lock by the time she got there.
“Well done Harry! That didn’t take you long.”
“Of course not, I’m a ‘DNA Detective’. What did you expect?” he said and gave her a wink. Harry opened the door. The musty smell hit them.
“We can turn on our torches now,” said Annabelle. Both children gasped as the light showed a very different picture of the shed than when they’d last seen it. The blankets had gone and behind them were at least seven big cages.
“We were right. This is where Mr Baker was keeping Milly!” said Annabelle.
“It looks like it wasn’t just Milly. Look there are blankets in the cages. They’ve all got hairs on them.” Harry peered into the cages. “It looks like they’re from different animals. I can see white fur here, black fur and look here is some sandy-coloured fur.”
“Quick, Harry! Use the tweezers and collect the fur into bags,” said Annabelle. “I’m going to use the cotton bud to swab the handles of the cages. Mr Baker must have touched them and that means he’ll have left some of his DNA there. Every contact leaves a trace!” Annabelle got out the cotton buds and started rubbing the cage doors. She used a different cotton bud for each cage, then put them in bags and labelled them.
“Where else do you think he’d have touched?” said Annabelle.
“What about the door handle on the inside of the shed?” said Harry.
“Of course! Good thinking.” As Annabelle was walking towards the door she kicked something with her foot. It rolled loudly across the floor.
“What was that?” asked Harry looking up.
“Hold on! I’ll have a look.” Annabelle shone her torch in the direction the object had rolled.
“Noooo!” she sobbed. Harry was worried. He looked to see what Annabelle was looking at.
“It’s a syringe, Harry!”
“What’s a syringe?” asked Harry.
“You know, like the needle they put into your skin when you have to have an injection,” said Annabelle. “I think Mr Baker has been drugging the dogs to make them sleepy so they don’t make any noise.”
“That makes sense,” agreed Harry. “Otherwise if Milly was locked up in the shed she’d have barked.” He watched Annabelle rub the syringe with a cotton bud.
“But where is she now? And what about the other dogs that were in here?” Annabelle stared at Harry. She saw the frightened look in his eyes and the worry as to where their beloved little dog could be now.
Suddenly the silence was shattered by the sound of heavy footsteps running down the garden. They heard a man’s voice shouting gruffly outside. The door of the shed was flung open. The children dropped their torches in fright and the lights went out. Annabelle reached out to Harry in the darkness. They stood together awaiting their fate.
knew it would be you two!” shouted Mr Baker. “Always sticking your noses where they’re not wanted!” He moved towards them so that his face was right in front of theirs. He looked furious. “Didn’t you find your little doggy?” he mocked. “Poor you! Shame! Get out of my shed now!”
Annabelle took hold of Harry’s hand. He was shaking all over. Luckily they had managed to hide the evidence they had collected in their swimming bags.
In the dark and with their coats on top Mr Baker had not seen their overalls. Annabelle quickly pulled down her face mask and took off her gloves behind her back so Mr Baker wouldn’t see. She nudged Harry with her foot so he would do the same. The last thing they wanted was for Mr Baker to find out what they were up to.
“Right, you’re coming with me!” said Mr Baker gruffly and pushed the two children towards his house. Annabelle felt tears in her eyes. But she knew she mustn’t cry.
“It’ll be alright, Harry, don’t worry,” she said. She could see that Harry’s eyes were wide as saucers and he looked worried. He hated being told off and shouted at, which was surprising considering how many naughty things he did. She put a protective arm around his shoulders which seemed to calm him.
Annabelle cried out as Mr Baker grabbed her arm and pulled her along with him. He gripped it so tightly it hurt. He was a strong man. Harry followed behind them. Annabelle felt relieved as she realised they were heading down the gravel path and towards their own home.
Mr Baker banged angrily on their front door. Annabelle watched as he stepped back from the door. He took a deep breath and released the grip on Annabelle’s arm. She rubbed it and put her arms round Harry who was unusually quiet.
As soon as the door opened Annabelle took Harry’s hand and pulled him inside their house. They both stood behind Mum peering out at Mr Baker. “Just returning your children!” said Mr Baker. “I found them in my shed!” He was smiling as if he had no cares in the world. A complete turnaround from the man who had just marched them angrily to their house.
“I’m so sorry,” stammered Mum. She looked shocked and embarrassed.
“Don’t worry at all. I think they just wanted to find Milly. I don’t have her, I promise you. Anyway, it’s late – I must be off.”
The children watched as Mr Baker walked down the path and back to his own house. They knew they were in trouble.
“Right, you two. No iPad for a week. Upstairs and into bed NOW and just think about your behaviour. Poor Mr Baker. I can’t believe you did that. You saw how nice he was.”
“But he isn’t. He hurt Annabelle’s arm. He’s got Milly and the other dogs who have gone missing. He’s the pet thief!”
“No more! Or it’ll be two weeks without the iPad!”
“Don’t be sad, Harry,” said Annabelle when they reached the safety of her bedroom. “I know it was frightening but Mr Baker obviously has something to hide. Don’t forget we now have the evidence to prove it’s him.”
“Oh yes!” said Harry. “I’d forgotten that. We can really teach him a lesson!”
“Tomorrow Harry we’re going to break into Mum’s laboratory and get DNA from the hair and the cotton buds.”
“Brilliant! Like when we extracted DNA from kiwi fruit in Mum’s workshop.”
“Just like that! Although Mum has a special kit for extracting DNA from humans and animals. Do you remember she showed us when we went in her laboratory? We can use her kit.”
“I’m so excited, Annabelle. I can’t wait till the morning.”
“I know, me too. Remember Granny is coming over tomorrow because Mum and Dad are going out. We need to wear her out. Then after lunch she’ll have a snooze. That’s when we can get into the laboratory.”
“I can’t wait! Time for the ‘DNA Detectives’ to meet some real DNA!” laughed Harry.
heir plan worked well. By lunch Harry had exhausted Granny by making her push him really high on the swing in the garden, playing as many different games as possible and continually demanding food. Annabelle peeked around the corner and looked into the lounge.
“It has worked, Harry! Granny is fast asleep!”
“Quick, let’s go before she wakes up!” said Harry, who was back to himself after the drama of the night before. They ran to the door of the laboratory in the garden. Annabelle stood in front of the keypad which needed a code in order to get inside.
“What are you doing?” said Harry.
“I’m sprinkling this fingerprint powder on the keypad,” said Annabelle. “Mum will have left her fingerprints on the keypad when she types in the code. The powder will make the fingerprints black so we should be able to see which of the numbers Mum uses for the code.” She used a brush to dust off the excess powder. “Look Mum’s fingerprints! They’re on the 1, 2, 4 and 7.”
“How do we know what order to press them?” said Harry.
“I hadn’t thought of that. Hold on. Those numbers are familiar… it’s our birthdays, Harry!”
“Oh yes! You’re oldest so maybe the ‘27’ is first. Try it.” Harry watched as Annabelle typed in “27” and then “14” They heard the whir of the keypad as it unlocked.
“We did it! Go DNA Detectives!” shouted Harry. Annabelle rolled her eyes. Technically it was her that had done it but she kept quiet. She let Harry have his moment. They were in and that was the most important thing. Getting DNA from the evidence they had collected was key in proving that Mr Baker had stolen Milly. She couldn’t wait to get started.
Annabelle loved being in the laboratory. It smelt of chemicals. They often helped Mum with the samples. They knew the layout and where everything was kept really well. The first room was where Mum worked on human DNA. People sent her samples and she used their DNA to find out if they were related and to identify long-lost family members. The second room was for animal DNA. Pet owners would send Mum samples of their pet’s fur which contained DNA. The DNA from the pets’ fur was then stored in a pet database. If a lost pet was found its DNA could be used to search the pet database. If a match was found the lost dog could then be reunited with its owners.
Annabelle loved the whiteness of the laboratory. Everything felt very clean. There was lots of equipment and machines with flashing lights. It felt like they were on a spaceship from the future. They both put on their white lab coats which Mum kept hanging up for them when they helped in the lab. Then they put on gloves and facemasks so they didn’t contaminate the samples with their own DNA.
“The first thing we need to do is print out labels for the samples. How many are there, Harry?”
Harry counted the evidence bags from the shed and the garden.
“Let’s see,” he said. “There are the cotton buds and hairs from the hat. We also have the cigarette and cotton buds we took from the blood on the fence, the glove, the door handle of the shed, the syringe and from the cages in the shed. That’s ten samples.”
Annabelle went to Mum’s computer. She clicked on the bar codes like Mum had shown her and printed out ten labels recording the numbers in her notepad.
“Harry! Get the tubes and a rack to put them in from the cupboard. Remember Mum uses red racks for human samples,” she watched her brother put the rack on the bench. She then put a label on each tube. The tubes were small, about the size of her thumb. They were made of clear plastic with lids on the top.
“Okay, let’s add the samples to the tubes. I’ll write down what sample goes in each tube. We need to cut the end of the cotton buds off into the tube using these scissors. Remember to wipe the scissors after you use them with this.” Annabelle handed Harry a squeezy bottle with a pink liquid in it and some paper towels.
“What’s that pink stuff?” he asked.
“Mum uses it to wipe down the benches and wipes things with it to make sure they’re clean and to get rid of any DNA. We don’t want to contaminate our samples.”
Harry used tweezers to carefully add the hairs from the hat to the first tube. Then he cut a small section off the smoking end of the cigarette and added that to the next tube. Harry cut the end off the cotton buds for each of the remaining samples. He carefully placed one into each of the empty tubes, just like Mum had shown him with her samples. She had to get DNA from lots of different things like watches, hats, socks… even toothbrushes! Annabelle recorded which sample went into which tube in her notepad.
“All done!” said Harry proudly.
Next Annabelle got the DNA-extraction kit from the
fridge. Mum had shown them how to use it when they extracted their own DNA for fun. She opened the first bottle in the kit. It contained a clear liquid. She carefully added it to each of the tubes.
“What’s that?” asked Harry.
“Don’t you remember? It’s called a ‘DNA-extraction buffer’,” explained Annabelle.
“Is it like the one we used in the workshop to extract DNA from the kiwi fruit? We made it with washing-up liquid, salt and water. What does it do?”
“Do you remember the instructions to make your Lego Droid Escape Pod? When Mum takes them into schools the instructions can get bashed about and damaged. If our instructions, our DNA, got damaged, we might end up with ten heads or five legs. It’s why our DNA is protected in a special bag called a cell.”
“What does a cell look like?” asked Harry.
“Imagine some bubble wrap,” Annabelle explained. “The bubble bits are like little cells. But, instead of air, imagine they’re full of jelly. This is called ‘cytoplasm’ and it protects the DNA from getting damaged.”
“I love popping bubble wrap!’ laughed Harry
“Imagine there is a spot in the middle of each cell or bubble in the bubble wrap. That’s where the DNA is. It’s called the ‘nucleus’. The plastic around the outside of the bubble is like the bit on the outside of the cell that keeps all the cell contents inside. It’s called the ‘cell membrane’. We have cells containing DNA all over our bodies inside and out. They’re so small we need a microscope to see them.”
“That’s great Annabelle, but what does that liquid you added do?” asked Harry.
“Remember the plastic bit on the outside of the bubbles in the bubble wrap?”
“The ‘cell membrane’? The bit that keeps all the bits of the cell inside?” asked Harry.
“That’s the one!” said Annabelle. “Well, the liquid helps to dissolve the cell membrane and the nucleus and then all the bits inside the cell, including the DNA, spills out into the liquid.”
To Catch a Thief Page 4