A Thousand Water Bombs

by T. M. Alexander

  ‘What’s it all about then?’

  ‘You know we had Show and Tell the day before?’

  ‘Yesterday, Flo. It’s called yesterday.’

  ‘Yesterday,’ she repeated. ‘Yesterday, we had Show and Tell and Jack brought in his motorbike medals.’

  ‘Jack’s too young to have a motorbike.’

  ‘He has got one. It’s little and he drives it in muddy fields. He had photos.’

  ‘Lucky Jack.’ How unfair was that? A Year 3 with a motorbike.

  ‘He’s not lucky, Keener. Someone took the medals.’

  ‘As a joke?’

  ‘No. For really.’

  ‘For real, Flo.’

  ‘For real, and Jack started crying, and Mr Dukes talked to us and said one of us must know who took them.’

  ‘A thief,’ I said. ‘That’s not good. But what’s it got to do with Tribe?’

  I stopped at the edge of Craven Road to wait for a gap in the cars. Flo stepped straight into the road.

  ‘Flo!’ I grabbed her arm and pulled her back. I may not like her much but I don’t want her squished.

  ‘Sorry, Keener.’ She took my hand and I let her. The chances of anyone we knew seeing us were pretty slim.

  ‘So go on then. What’s it got to do with Tribe?’

  The answer was simple. Jack put his medals back in his desk after Show and Tell but they weren’t there at the end of the day. Flo wanted us to get them back, somehow . . .

  ‘We’re not detectives, you know. And anyway the teachers’ll find out what happened.’

  Flo started whimpering.

  ‘Is he your friend?’ I asked.

  She shook her head.

  ‘Well why do you care then?’

  ‘Because it’s not nice to take something,’ she said.

  She’s right, I thought, but I didn’t say so.

  ‘OK. I’ll see what the others say,’ I said. The rest of the way I kept Flo happy by talking about other animals Flo could make out of all the pom-poms she’d made. A guinea pig came out top.

  Fifty was playing on the floor of the Tribehouse with Probably Rose. He was rolling a ball that made a jingly noise as it turned over and Rose was meant to be rolling it back, but Fifty kept doing it for her. Bit pointless.

  ‘Hi,’ said Fifty, followed by, ‘Hello Flo. What are you doing here?’

  ‘Can you say, Keener?’ she said.

  ‘Flo wants our help,’ I said. ‘Tribe’s help.’

  ‘Doing what? Actually don’t answer that.’ He disappeared up to the house with Rose, and came back without her.

  ‘Come on then, Flo. You can sit on my seat and tell me what it’s all about,’ said Fifty, pointing to the safe. (I think Fifty quite likes my sister.) She sat there and told him the story of Jack’s stolen medals.

  ‘I loved Show and Tell. I used to spend all week deciding what to bring. Why don’t we have Show and Tell in Year 6, Keener?’ said Fifty.

  ‘Because it’s boring. Because it’s for show-offs, like you. Because no one ever has anything interesting to show. Because the same people got picked every time. Because we’re past the stage where we want to know about someone’s piece of stripy rock from Cornwall, or their pom-pom Fat Cat.’

  Flo’s lip trembled. I gave her an I’m-a-nice-brother-really smile.

  ‘I’m not though,’ said Fifty. ‘I’d like to see Fat Cat and I’d like to take my fire steel in to show how to light a fire without matches . . . and there’s my indoor sparklers. Everyone would like them.’

  ‘Grow up, Fifty,’ I said.

  He stuck his tongue out at me and turned to talk to Flo. ‘So there’s a criminal at work in Year 3, is there?’

  Flo nodded.

  ‘And you want us to catch him.’

  Flo nodded again.

  ‘OK. Don’t see why not. How are we going to do it?’

  ‘How are we going to do what?’ said Jonno, walking in, followed by Bee who said, ‘And what are you doing here, Flo?’

  Flo explained the problem again, with a bit of help from me and Fifty.

  ‘That’s really mean,’ said Jonno. ‘Why would someone steal someone else’s medals? It’s not like money you can spend —’

  ‘Or sweets you can eat,’ said Fifty.

  ‘Of course we’ll help, Flo,’ said Jonno.

  ‘Help what?’ said Copper Pie, the last to arrive. We should learn to wait for all the Tribers before we talk about things. Then we wouldn’t have to repeat everything.

  ‘Help find out who took Jack’s medals,’ said Fifty.

  ‘From his desk,’ I added. Detail might be important.

  ‘Is Jack the tall one who’s always got his sweatshirt on back to front?’ Bee asked Flo.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘He’s a headcase,’ said Copper Pie. ‘He’s got a dirt bike. So’s his brother. They race them.’

  ‘That’s what he got the medals for,’ I said.

  ‘So what? Even headcases deserve to have their Show and Tell treasures back, don’t they?’ said Fifty.

  ‘But how do we get them back?’ said Bee.

  ‘Metal detector?’ I said.

  ‘Idiot,’ said Bee. (She’s been saying that a lot lately. Tribe should ban it.) ‘It would pick up every bit of money, zips, knives —’

  ‘We’d be doing the school a favour if we found knives,’ said Fifty.

  ‘It would pick up fire steels too,’ said Bee, glaring at Fifty. He always has his fire-maker in his pocket.

  ‘We could search the school,’ said Fifty, ignoring the Bee stare. ‘It would be risky to take someone else’s medal home. How would you explain that you suddenly got medals for racing a motorbike when you don’t even have one? They’re probably stuffed behind something.’

  ‘We looked for them at school,’ said Flo. ‘They weren’t in our classroom but they could be somewhere else.’

  ‘Maybe they’re down the loo,’ said Copper Pie, always ready with a sensible suggestion!

  ‘I know,’ said Jonno. ‘We could interview everyone in Flo’s class, looking for signs that they’re lying. That might work.’

  ‘What signs?’ I said.

  Jonno ran through the seven signs of lying.

  THE SEVEN SIGNS OF LYING

  1.

  No eye contact. You look in their eyes but they look away.

  2.

  Stammering. Lots of umms and ahs.

  3.

  Blinking, blushing or fidgeting.

  4.

  Saying things that just don’t sound right.

  5.

  Refusing to answer questions, maybe even accusing other people of lying.

  6.

  Letting you change the subject randomly. People telling the truth will ask why you changed the subject.

  7.

  Touching your nose (think Pinocchio).

  ‘OK. What should we ask?’ said Fifty.

  ‘Let’s work out a set of questions so everyone gets asked the same thing,’ said Bee. She was warming up to the idea of being a detective. So was I. And it seemed a Tribish thing to do – help a Year 3 get back his biking awards. I wondered what they looked like.

  ‘What do they look like?’ said Bee, reading my mind again.

  ‘They’re on stripy ribbons, red, blue and yellow,’ said Flo. ‘There are three of them. They’re gold on the outside and they have a motorbike on the inside.’

  ‘Well done, Flo,’ said Jonno. ‘You were obviously paying attention.’

  Flo smiled. She was clearly feeling a bit better.

  ‘What shape are they?’ I said.

  Flo thought for a second. ‘I don’t know the name.’

  ‘She could draw it,’ said Bee. ‘Get the paper, Keener.’

  I did as I was told. I usually do. Flo drew a circle, with a badly drawn bike in the centre, and a pattern round the edge.

  ‘It’s called a circle, Dodo.’ Did my sister not know the basic shapes?

  ‘I know that, Keener. Bu
t it’s a circle with lacy bits.’

  OK. Whatever.

  Flo budged up to make room for me on the safe so I could write out the plan for the interrogation. Flo had a few ideas but they weren’t any good so she shut up – I guess she realised we were older, and better.

  It took up the whole meeting – no time for my list. But I didn’t mind. It was Tribe’s first criminal investigation – the mystery of the missing medals.

  Flo pushes her breakfast round her bowl

  I typed the questions we’d agreed, printed a copy to check that it looked all right and made four copies.

  INTERROGATION QUESTIONS

  1.

  Did anyone apart from Jack touch the medals?

  2.

  Do you think they’re lost, not stolen?

  3.

  Did anyone seem particularly interested in them?

  4.

  Where do you think they might be?

  5.

  What is your favourite dinner?

  6.

  Who do you think might have done it?

  7.

  Have you got anything else to say about Jack’s missing medals?

  I also did copies of the seven signs of lying so we’d know what to look for. I put it all in my rucksack, together with a list of all the people in Flo’s class, which I got off the class email. There were twenty-eight of them, twenty-six excluding Flo and Jack. That meant we had to interrogate five kids each, with one left over.

  ‘We’re all set,’ I said to Flo at breakfast.

  She pushed her Shreddies round and round.

  ‘Why don’t you try eating one,’ I said.

  She ate one. And then pushed the rest round her bowl again.

  ‘What will you do if you no one’s lying?’ she said.

  ‘No idea,’ I said. ‘And anyway one person must be lying. The person who took the medals.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ said Amy. She’d made a big pink lipstick mark on her orange juice glass.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Flo quickly.

  I kept schtum.

  ‘Suit yourselves,’ said Amy.

  Flo pushed her hardly touched breakfast away from her. I scraped the last speck of cereal off the bottom of my bowl – I don’t mind the sound but Amy hates it. I scraped my bowl again, even though it was all gone, and finished my orange juice.

  ‘Bye, Mum,’ said Amy. She was off to meet spotty boyfriend. Flo says they snog on the way to school. She saw them on the corner of the alley when Mum drove the back way one day when they were late.

  ‘Can’t you just look for the medals, Keener?’ said Flo. ‘They must be at school somewhere. Fifty said so.’

  ‘But they could be anywhere. And anyway then we wouldn’t know who stole them. Unless they were in a desk. Don’t worry, Flo, we’ll get the guilty kid.’

  Mum spotted Flo’s full bowl. ‘Flo, would you like a banana instead?’

  Flo nodded and took a bite from the peeled banana, but as soon as Mum turned her back to us she shoved the rest in her school bag.

  That’ll be mush, I thought as I left for school.

  Fifty was waiting on the corner. It must have been hair wash day in his house because his curly locks were extra extra curly. I didn’t say anything. I’ve learned not to tease him about his bouffant hair. I gave him the sheet of questions and the clues to lying. He had lots of his own questions.

  What if the kids won’t answer?

  How will we make them?

  What will we do when we find the guilty one?

  ‘Let’s ask the others when we get to school,’ I said. It sounded better than ‘no idea’.

  All the Tribers were already on our patch. Fifty repeated his questions. Jonno gave the answers. ‘Flo’s class will want to help Jack find his medals. Everyone will want the thief caught and the medals returned.’

  ‘They won’t,’ said Copper Pie. ‘I told you, he’s a headcase.’

  ‘But even if you don’t like someone, or he’s a headcase, you still wouldn’t want him to lose something that really mattered,’ said Bee.

  I thought about whether I’d want arch enemy Callum to get something back that he loved. Nope, I’d rather he stayed miserable. I kept that thought to myself.

  ‘How are we going to let them know about the interviews?’ I asked instead.

  ‘Flo can tell them,’ said Bee. She shouted across the playground to where my sister was sitting by herself.

  ‘Is she all right?’ asked Fifty, watching her walk over to us. I nodded.

  ‘What?’ said Flo.

  ‘Tell your class to come to our patch at break —’

  Jonno interrupted. ‘That won’t work. Too many at once. Flo, tell all the kids with names that begin with A to L—’

  Bee took over again. ‘First names or last names?’

  ‘First,’ said Jonno.

  ‘OK.’ Bee paused to make sure we were all concentrating. ‘Flo will get all the kids with first names that begin with letters A to L to come here at break for the first round of questions. OK, Flo?’

  She nodded but it wasn’t a believable nod, if you know what I mean. Bee spotted it too.

  ‘Would you rather I got the kids rounded up?’

  Flo nodded, a proper nod this time.

  ‘I’ll go and talk to them when they’re lining up,’ said Bee. In charge as usual.

  ‘Real names or nicknames?’

  ‘Shut up, Keener.’ Bee was impatient to sort it all out. ‘The rest, with names from M to Z, can come at lunch. So by the end of school we’ll know who did it.’

  ‘But what will we do with the guilty one?’ I asked.

  ‘We’ll tell the Head, of course,’ said Bee.

  It sounded simple, but I was sure it wouldn’t be. Catching thieves was bound to be more complicated than a sheet of questions and Jonno’s lie-detection manual. Wasn’t it?

  the kangaroo court

  Yes, it was more complicated than we thought.

  At break, about twenty kids from Flo’s class tried to squash into our den between the netball court’s wire fence and the tree, which was almost all of them. Trust her class to all have names from the beginning of the alphabet.

  There was pandemonium for a bit until Bee used her foghorn voice to organise them all into five lines, with a Triber in front. My first one was a girl called Izzy. She looked terrified. I looked down at the sheet and read the first question. ‘Did anyone apart from Jack touch his medals?’

  She answered, ‘No.’

  I looked down at the other sheet, with the signs of lying. I couldn’t judge the first one – no eye contact – because I forgot to look at her. I went on to the second sign – there was no stammering, but then again it would be hard to stammer over a word with only two letters. I scanned the rest to see if I could work out whether her answer was a lie or the truth. But I realised that I needed to ask more questions, ideally ones that would get her to say more than one word.

  ‘Is that it, Keener?’ said the little girl, who had stupid bunches, like dog’s ears, hanging either side of her face.

  ‘No, Izzy. There are a few more questions.’ I rattled them off, being sure to study her for signs of blushing, fidgeting, loss of eye contact, etc. There were none. I was fairly sure she was not guilty, so I wrote NG by her name. She watched me.

  ‘You can go now,’ I said.

  She stayed where she was and gave me a sickly smile and I felt my face going the pinky colour. Yuck, a Year 3 who likes me! Luckily it was a boy next: George.

  George wasn’t very cooperative. His answers to the seven questions went like this: don’t know, maybe, can’t remember, no idea, spaghetti bolognaise, the tooth fairy, no. He walked off. I had another kid waiting but first I needed to decide whether George was G or NG. It was tricky. He was fine on the eye contact and stammering and blushing, but when I asked him his favourite dinner, which we put in to catch the liar out, he was meant to say something like, ‘Why do you want to know that?’ but he sai
d ‘Spaghetti bolognaise’. According to Jonno’s list, a person who is telling the truth will ask why there’s a random change of subject, but a liar will answer even if the question’s completely off the wall. It worked with Izzy. She said, ‘I thought this was about the medals, not about dinner?’

  ‘Are you going to ask me anything or not?’ said the next in line.

  I quickly scribbled NG by George and moved on to Ayesha. She had a lot to say and didn’t take any breaths along the way. We’d got as far as ‘Who do you think might have done it?’ when the bell rang for end of break.

  She answered anyway, naming every boy in the class without any gaps. ‘GeorgeCharlieDanBenHughJoeShakil . . .’

  I skipped the last question which was, ‘Have you got anything else to say about Jack’s missing medals?’ She was a definite NG.

  ‘How many did you interview?’ asked Bee.

  ‘Three,’ I said.

  ‘One,’ said Fifty. Bee gave him an I’m-disappointed face.

  ‘Five,’ said Copper Pie, and gave Fifty an I’m-better-than-you face. I gave Copper Pie a how-did-you-manage-that face.

  ‘Three,’ said Jonno. ‘What about you?’

  ‘Three,’ said Bee. ‘So that means we’ve done fifteen.’

  ‘But how many were rotten cheating liars?’ said Fifty.

  ‘None.’ I shook my head. So did everyone else.

  ‘Well, that’s good,’ said Bee. ‘It means we know the guilty one is one of the last eleven. It’ll all be sorted by end of lunch. Tribe does it again.’

  We did a mini Tribe handshake and plodded back into class.

  ‘Right class, it’s mental maths. You know what to do. Books out and pencils ready. I’ll read the questions and you answer what you can,’ said Miss Walsh.

  Alice’s hand shot up.

  ‘No, Alice. There can’t be any questions about this. We do it every week.’

  Jamie stood up and shouted out. ‘She’s dropped her pencil, Miss. It’s under Ed’s seat.’