Looking for Trouble

by John Marsden

  The bus was pretty funny this morning. Angie Gurstella and a friend of hers whose name I don’t know had their roller skates on. Every time the bus went up a hill they rolled to the back of the bus and every time the bus went down a hill they rolled to the front. Sometimes they’d be in the middle, doing little rolls backwards and forwards as the bus drove along. They talked to whoever was sitting next to them. It was good. Angie asked me about Dad, because her dad and my dad used to work together at Truscott’s, until Truscott’s went bust and they both got retrenched. Angie’s dad works at the Ampol garage now, in Fitzroy Street.

  Angie’s in Year 9 at high school. She wants to be a teacher. She’d be good I reckon. She could wear her skates and skate round the classroom, helping the kids.

  7.20 pm

  Luke and Phil and I went down the mall after school and practised shadowing people, to see if we could do it without being noticed, and also hoping we might just stumble across a real criminal. The first guy we followed was a washout though. About a minute after we started he went straight out the main entrance and caught a taxi. I wish we could have jumped in the next taxi and yelled ‘Follow that car’. I wish we could have our own car and chase crooks around the streets. Wouldn’t it be great if kids could have driving licences?

  Anyway, then we followed this young bloke who looked a bit suss. He had dark glasses on, and he was wearing a big jacket, even though it was a hot day, and he was carrying two briefcases, one in each hand. He was looking into a jeweller’s window, and we thought he might have been casing the joint. We spread out. Phil stood looking in the Toyworld window, watching the bloke’s reflection. Luke went up and watched from the next floor, near the escalator. I pretended to be reading the postcards outside the gift shop. Then the bloke moved on. He stopped at the sports store for a few minutes, looking at their clothes window. Then he went in the bank. I was getting excited, and a bit scared. What if he really was robbing the bank? The three of us met by the automatic teller for a quick conference. ‘What are we going to do?’ ‘What if he comes out shooting?’ ‘We can’t do anything.’ ‘Let’s just walk-past and have a look through the door.’ ‘OK, but not all of us.’ ‘I’ll go.’ We watched Phil stroll past the door, peer in, then come strolling back. ‘I can’t see him.’

  It was getting difficult. We didn’t know what to do next. After all, the bloke might have hostages by now. Part of me didn’t believe there was anything going on, but part of me thought it was just possible. I did a walk-past too, like Phil, but it all looked normal in there—about three or four customers. You couldn’t see what was going on over the other side of the counters.

  We had another quick conference. ‘We’ve got to go in there,’ Luke said. ‘Yes but why? We’ve got to have a reason.’ ‘Just walk in, pick up a few forms, and come out again,’ Phil said. ‘I did that for Dad once, when he couldn’t leave the shop.’ They both seemed to be looking at me so I guessed I had to do it. I was nervous, I admit. But I made myself go. I felt red in the face and embarrassed, like everyone was watching me, but I pushed open the door and went in. I walked over to the desks along the wall, where they keep the forms, and pulled three pink ones out. Then I turned around to leave, and had a quick look as I did. No one seemed to be taking any notice, so I had a longer look. I couldn’t see the young bloke at all. But suddenly one face kind of stood out. I snuck another glance. It was him, without the dark glasses or the jacket or the briefcases. He was standing behind the counter in one of the cubicles. He worked there. He was a teller.

  I felt so stupid, but sort of relieved too. I scuttled out the door pretty fast. Phil and Luke were waiting by the doughnut shop. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here,’ I said. It wasn’t till we were in the car park that I broke the news to them. It was a big disappointment. ‘Maybe he’s a crook who’s got a job there as a teller?’ Luke suggested. But somehow we couldn’t talk ourselves into believing that. LFT’s first mission had been a bit of a failure, but at least we got some valuable practice at shadowing.

  Wednesday, Feb 5, 10.00 am

  Today’s pass-sentence goes like this. The first guy has to say:

  The dog sat on the tuckerbox

  and did it to the cat.

  and the other one answers:

  Little Jack Horner sat in a corner

  and did it in his hat.

  We were saying it to each other every five minutes during Folk Dancing, every time we met in the Pride of Erin or the Progressive Barn. Then Phil started dancing to it, and got in trouble from Mr O’Keeffe.

  We haven’t found any crimes yet but we’re still looking. There wasn’t much chance yesterday. Jodie and I had to go to swimming after school. Dad was really tired when he got home after two days at Crest Paints, and Mum was in a bad mood because she’d had an argument with Mrs Chin, her boss at work. They’re always having arguments. This one was because Mum parked in Mrs Chin’s space in the car park.

  I’d better stop writing this, because we’re meant to be doing our projects. We had to pick any country in the world, so I chose Luxembourg, because it’s about the smallest country there is and I thought it’d be easy to do. But it’s so hard to get any information. Maybe it wasn’t such a good choice after all. The only thing I’ve found out so far is that if you want to talk to the Prime Minister in Luxembourg you just pick up the phone and call him. His number’s in the telephone directory, like everybody else. That’s ace I reckon. We should have that here.

  2.55 pm

  A funny thing just happened. When I opened my pencil case I found a note in it. It says, ‘Hi Tony. You don’t know who I am but I think you’re really cute. I like the way you’re always laughing all the time, and I like the way you keep your hair long even though you get teased about it. It’s Valentine’s Day in nine days but you’ll hear from me again before then. Love, your secret admirer.’ Then there were a whole lot of hearts and crosses and noughts.

  Now this is quite a surprise. I didn’t know any girls liked me. I can’t work out who it is. The girl I like most is the new girl, Bianca, who’s really pretty and sits at the next desk. But it doesn’t look like her handwriting, and besides, I don’t think she’d do a thing like this. It could be Cindy or Kate. It could be Kathryn, who liked me last year, but I don’t think she likes me much now.

  I suppose this is a real-life mystery that LFT could solve. But I don’t even know if I’ll show it to Phil and Luke. Once those two maniacs got hold of it, anything could happen.

  The girls don’t like Phil much. I think that’s because of Helen’s influence. This afternoon in Health she said to him ‘Hey Phil, did your mother chain-smoke when she was pregnant?’

  Time to go home. I’d better start packing up.

  5.05 pm

  We haven’t got any homework tonight, so I’m writing this instead. Jodie and I are watching ‘Steal a Moment’ on TV. It’s such a sterile show, I don’t know why we bother.

  Another strange thing happened this afternoon, as well as the note in the pencil case. Coming back from school, I realised there was a police car parked outside the Choos’ old house. And as I went past two policemen came out of the house and walked down the path and got in the car and drove away. Maybe there’s a crime going on there—maybe someone robbed the house or something. The three kids have been catching our bus, but they don’t say much. They keep to themselves. But they weren’t on this afternoon’s bus.

  8.00 pm

  I asked Mum tonight about the new people in number 17. She said their name’s Edwards and they’re from Whitney. They’ve got four kids—there’s a baby, as well as the three I’ve seen. She said not to get in their way while they’re moving in.

  Thursday, Feb 6, 12.40 pm

  I thought of today’s pass-sentence myself. One person starts:

  Hey diddle diddle,

  the cat and the fiddle

  and the reply is:

  Get out the bucket,

  ’cos Puss did a piddle.

  The problem was
that I wrote it down and passed it to Luke when we were meant to be doing silent reading. And Mrs Hazell saw me pass it along. And she told me to bring it out. And I did. And she read it. And that’s why I’m now sitting in this classroom during lunch, waiting till 1.15 when I’ll be allowed out.

  I’ve called a meeting of Looking for Trouble in my garage this afternoon after school. We have to design a badge and work out who’s going to do the different jobs and decide what our next tactics are. The trouble is, most crimes happen at night. I don’t think we’d better go out looking for murderers at midnight—it mightn’t be a very smart move. Another problem is that the famous crimes get investigated so much anyway. Like, that girl who went missing from Waterford before Christmas, that’s had so much publicity. Her photo’s been in the paper every day; the police have had information stands everywhere; there’s hot-lines set up and the government’s offered some huge reward. It’s not too likely that we could do much more to find her. Hope someone does soon, but. I saw her parents on TV last week—they were so sad.

  Mrs Hazell read us a bit more of A Line to the Top before lunch. The kids in the book go to the Spring Carnival because half the city’s going to be there, so maybe they’ll see the crims they’re looking for. And sure enough they think they see one of them, working in a sideshow. They chase him through all these tents and caravans and trailers, till they come to a trailer at the end of the line, and they think he’s in the prime mover. So the crazy member of the group, a kid called Rick, sneaks into the trailer to have a look. The others can’t talk him out of it so they follow him in there. And suddenly the truck starts up and they find they’re bolting down the highway at high speed, being taken they don’t know where. And that’s where Mrs Hazell left the story, because it was lunchtime. It was so frustrating.

  Anyway, I want something like that to happen to us. Some really exciting adventure.

  Right now it’s 1.10. I guess it’s safe for me to go out—it’s close enough to 1.15.

  5.50 pm

  Phil and Luke have just gone, we had cool fun. It was a good meeting. We designed a badge—I’ll put it in here.

  Luke reckons we ought to put it on a T-shirt. I think it might be too expensive but. You can get things printed on badges but I don’t know where you go to get it done, or how much it costs.

  We also decided our different jobs. Luke’s in charge of lab work, ’cos he’s good at Science, and interested in it, and he’s got a microscope and a chemistry set at home. Luke’s good at everything really. Phil’s in charge of fieldwork—that’s following people and stuff like that. I’m in charge of our Head Office, and also communications and records.

  What we really need are mobile phones, but I guess that’s a bit out of our reach.

  Phil suggested we should investigate some crimes at school, like the graffiti on the Year 5 blackboard last year, or the broken window in the library that no one owned up to, or the computer discs that someone knocked off. I thought that was a good idea. It’d be good practice for us. There hasn’t been much happen this year though—everyone’s always on their best behaviour for the first week or two of school.

  I told them about the police car at the Edwards’, and we agreed we’d start watching them more.

  Our meeting got interrupted when we thought we heard someone outside. We raced out and sure enough there was Jodie. She must have been listening through the side door. ‘I heard everything you said,’ she yelled, then she raced inside the house. She’s so annoying.

  Friday, Feb 7, 9.40 am

  I just found another one of those notes. ‘Dear Tony, hi, it’s me again, your secret admirer. Have you been wondering who I am? Well, I’m not going to tell you yet, because it’s more fun this way. But I can tell you that I’m in 6H with you, but I’m not someone you know really well. Anyway, I just want you to know that I still like you and I still think you’re cute. If you want me to write to you again, put a little cross on the blackboard, above the seven in today’s date, OK? But don’t let anyone see you doing it. Lots of love, me.’

  Amazing! This note was in my Spelling Book, which we use first thing in the morning, so she would have known I’d find it straightaway.

  If it’s someone I don’t know all that well, like she said, then that rules out Kathryn, because I’ve known her since we played together under the sprinklers in the nuddy when we were in Kinder. You can’t know someone much better than that. I still think it could be Cindy because she’s always going on about boyfriends and stuff, and she’s always trying to matchmake. But I know her pretty well, because we’ve been in the same class since Year 4. I don’t really like Cindy all that much. She’s a bit bossy and I don’t like the way she laughs—kind of loud and fake. It could be Kate, who’s quiet and who’s only been here one year. She’s really smart at schoolwork, probably the smartest kid in the class, but she’s nice and kind and everyone likes her. It wouldn’t be Helen, because she doesn’t like me, or Natasha, who’s too shy, or Wendy or Fatima, ’cos they know me too well.

  It’s fun though, trying to work out who it is. I think I’ll put the cross on the board. I’ll do it at Recess.

  Most of all I hope it’s Bianca, the new girl. I really like looking at her, she’s so pretty. She could be a model, I reckon. When she smiles she looks extra good, and she’s got long black hair that’s always shiny and fresh looking. She hasn’t made any friends yet though, I don’t know why.

  12.20 pm

  Everyone’s sitting at their desks in a state of terror ’cos Mrs Hazell just blew up like an egg in a microwave. Yikes! I’m keeping my head down, I swear. Everyone said she was crabby but I don’t reckon she has been, that much, but she is at the moment. Still, it’s mainly Terry’s fault. That kid is a future juvenile delinquent, I reckon. It all started with Helen cutting a bit of Fatima’s hair off. Fatima sits at the desk in front of Helen. Fatima went absolutely sick, but when Mrs Hazell found out what happened she went even sicker. And about three minutes after she’s finished yelling at Helen, what does Terry do? Yep, you guessed it—he cut off a bit of Luke’s hair.

  Imagine if you left Helen and Terry together in the school for half an hour, with no teachers. There’d be a lot of bald students walking around.

  Well, the way Mrs Hazell is right now, we’ll be lucky if we’re allowed home for the weekend, let alone finish our game of cricket this afternoon. And I haven’t even done anything wrong.

  4.20 pm

  Something quite strange just happened. I was coming home past the Edwards’ place again and there was another police car. Or it might have been the same as the last one, I’m not sure. The point is, the police were there again. That’s twice in one week. There’s only three reasons I can think of for that: one, there’s a policeman living there. Two, there’s a crime been committed against them. Three, the police are checking up on them because they’re crims. And one thing I know for sure: if it’s reason number two or three, then LFT are interested. Very very interested. Luke had to go shopping with his mother this afternoon, and Phil’s at the dentist, so I won’t see them till tomorrow, but I can’t wait—I might call them tonight.

  The cricket ended up well. Mrs Hazell only decided at the last minute to let us play, and Terry wasn’t allowed, which was no big loss ’cos he always mucks around. Anyway, they were all out for 51, and I got 4 for 12, which is about the best I’ve ever done. I even got Darren out for 9, and he normally always gets 25 retired.

  Saturday, Feb 8, 3.30 pm

  It’s so hot today I hate it. I’m just lying on my bed, hoping it’ll get cooler. It must be some kind of record I reckon, 40 at least. I wish it’d get to 50 or something, just to see what it felt like.

  I wanted to have an emergency meeting of Looking for Trouble, but it’ll have to be tomorrow. Dad’s working today. I hope he’s not too hot. He got a one-off job through his ad in the paper, taking loads to the tip from a factory that’s closing. I asked if I could go with him but Mum wanted me to walk Jodie down to Netbal
l, and home again afterwards. Fair dinkum, it made me sweat just watching her play, but they won by three points, and Jodie played really well. She’s good at sport.

  At breakfast I asked Mum and Dad more about the Edwards, the people who’ve moved into the Choos’ house. They still didn’t know much. Dad said he’s a sort of accountant but he’s not working at the moment, and Mrs Edwards doesn’t work either. I said ‘Is there a policeman living there?’ and Dad said ‘No’, but in a funny sort of voice, like he didn’t want to talk about it any more. So I reckon something is going on.

  Sunday, Feb 9, 4.45 pm

  It’s still hot but maybe not quite as bad as yesterday and we managed to have our meeting at last. First we had to figure out a pass-sentence, ’cos we haven’t had one for a couple of days. Eventually we made one up from a riddle that Luke knew:

  What’s got four legs and flies?

  A cat that’s used up all nine lives.

  The first person says the first bit and the other person says the rest.

  After that we talked about these people, the Edwards. I told them about the second police car being there, and we agreed that this was our best lead so far. It would be a real break if they were fair dinkum criminals and living in this street. It made me a bit nervous actually. Then we declared the meeting closed and went for a wander past their house, trying to look cool. We couldn’t see anything—the blinds were down, as usual. So we went up to the end of the street, down Penleigh Street and along Halliday Lane, which brought us round the back of the Edwards’ place. They’ve got a paling fence, quite a high one, so we crept along that and tried to peep through the cracks into their back yard. I could see a little part. It was all bare now, because the Choos had taken the trampoline and the barbecue. But there was a big pile of weeds where someone had been cleaning up the garden. A little girl wandered across the bit of lawn I could see. She was the smallest of the ones who caught our bus. She’s got gingery hair and a red face and her left thumb is always in her mouth. She wears a hearing aid, which had surprised me the first time I’d seen it, on a kid that young.