The Mystery of the Disappearing Underpants

by Nikki Young

  She is such a tell-tale, even though she is twelve.

  We ran all the way to the park before we stopped and collapsed, from laughter and from all the running.

  ‘OK, you win, that was so worth it,’ Harry said.

  ‘Yeah, I know, but I have a feeling we won’t be able to get away with any more tricks tomorrow,’ I said. ‘We’ll have to think of something else to do.’

  Wednesday

  What did I tell you? No more tricks. When we eventually decided to leave the park, thinking it would be safe to go home, we went to Harry’s house only to be greeted by his mum, who was very cross because Gruesome Newsome had lectured her for about an hour.

  ‘He saw you running away from his house after you knocked on the door, Harry, so he knows it was you two who left the poo and stink bomb.’

  Both of us chuckled when she said ‘poo’. I don’t know why, it just sounded funny.

  ‘Don’t laugh, I’m being serious. How do you think I felt having him come round here telling me I don’t know how to bring up my own children?’

  Fair comment, I suppose. Who would like a lecture from Gruesome Newsome? Not me, that’s for sure. We got up to leave.

  ‘Don’t move, I haven’t finished yet,’ Harry’s mum said.

  So we sat straight back down in our chairs, groaning. We both knew what was coming next.

  ‘I’ve had Stacey’s mum round here as well.’

  Yep, just as we thought.

  ‘What you did to her today was just plain old mean. If you don’t want to play with her then just ignore her or leave her be. There was no need to play those tricks. I’m disappointed in you both.’

  We both hung our heads, pretending to be ashamed of what we had done. Well, I did anyway, but Harry was doing a good impression of actually looking really upset, and he’s a rubbish actor.

  ‘Tomorrow you are both going to apologise to Stacey and Mr Newsome and then you are spending the day apart.’

  We started to moan in protest, but Mrs Smith raised her hand in the air and stopped us.

  ‘Don’t start that, I have spoken to your mum, James, and she agrees with me, so it’s done.’

  We moaned about how unfair it all was and Harry stomped off to his room. I left and went home, where I got the same lecture from my mum.

  ‘Blah, blah, blah,’ I said as she went on at me. I was sent to my room for the rest of the evening.

  *

  So that was what happened at the end of yesterday, and that pretty much explains what we have been doing today: no secret agency, no double agents, just boring apologising and then sitting at home, at the desk in the study. The only thing to look at from there is the embarrassing old photos on the wall of us when we were babies and the view out of the back of the house, which is the bit where we put the bins. Mum made me do homework that’s not even due until September. Kate and Chloe laughed at me, so I stuck two fingers up at them. But Mum saw and I got into even more trouble.

  This holiday is not turning out well. Luckily, I’m allowed to play with Harry again tomorrow but we’ve been told if we get into any more trouble we won’t be allowed to play together for the rest of the holidays. Where is the fun in that?

  Annoyed!

  *

  News flash: there may have been a development. I’ve just been out in the back garden practising some penalties and noticed there was a light coming from the house at the end of the road.

  ‘Mum, why is there a light on in the old haunted house?’ I asked when I went back inside.

  ‘Do you mean number 35? Oh, well you would have missed all that today, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Missed all what?’ I said. I hate it when she goes all cryptic on me.

  ‘Someone moved in there,’ Mum said. ‘Though Lord knows why anyone would want to move into that old place.’

  ‘Someone? Who – did you see them?’ I asked. I was cross I hadn’t been around to watch the removals van and all the stuff being taken into the house.

  ‘Well that’s just it – no one seems to know who it is. It’s a bit of a mystery really.’

  Maybe we have just found our second case.

  Thursday

  Today we sat outside number 35 waiting to see who had moved in, but we didn’t see anyone. It was weird hanging around that horrible old house because it’s different to all the others on our street. Mum said it was here before all the others were built, when it was a farm instead of a road. The house has a big black gate and a massive front garden and you can hardly see the house through all the trees and bushes. It’s one of those houses that no one seems to live in for very long, which is why we think it’s haunted.

  No one has lived in number 35 for ages and we haven’t been near it since last summer when we played dares with Tom and Luke from school. Harry dared them to go and sit in the back garden for five minutes and after about a minute they both came screaming out of the drive, saying they saw the shadow of someone inside. I didn’t know whether to believe them but to be on the safe side I’ve kept away from there.

  Today, the house seemed even more haunted than ever, the stone it’s built from darker coloured and the paint around the windows with more cracks. Perhaps it’s because we’d never looked at it so closely and for so long before. All the windows had old curtains in them, some of them drawn shut and others left open or hanging off. There must be a big gap in one of the upstairs windows, because the curtains in there were blowing in the breeze. It made the hairs on the back of my neck and arms stand up. I didn’t tell Harry that though.

  Harry thought we should stay on the other side of the road to get a better view of who was coming and going. I agreed, but we had to sit on the pavement in front of number 26 for ages and it got a bit uncomfortable, not to mention boring. That was when I came up with a really good idea to pass the time.

  ‘Why don’t we make up our own language so we can talk in code?’

  ‘Awesome,’ Harry said.

  The first idea I came up with was to swap the first and last letters of every word to make a new one. So if I wanted to say, ‘Hello, I’m Agent James Hunt,’ I would actually say:

  ‘Oellh, M’I tgenta Samej Tunh.’

  This was quite hard and took lots of practice. Ew tas eutsido rumben 35 lla yad tub ehert saw gothinn ot treporr. Ohw sah dovem ni ot rumben 35?

  The problem was Harry is so bad at spelling I couldn’t work out what he was trying to say, so we had to give up on that one. There’s no point in having a secret code if you can’t even understand it yourself, is there?

  The next idea was Harry’s. He said we should say every word backwards. That was quite fun until Alex from number 26 came out to see what we were doing. We were sitting in front of his house after all.

  ‘Why are you talking backwards?’ he said to us.

  ‘How did you know that?’ I said. ‘We were talking in a secret code.’

  ‘It’s hardly secret, is it?’ he said. ‘Everyone does that.’

  Alex is in the year below us at school, so we knew we would have to come up with something else.

  Our third and final idea was the one we decided to go with. If there is an ‘a, e, i, o or u’ in the word we had to change it to ‘iz’.

  So, ‘I am James Hunt’ would be: ‘Iz izm Jizmes Hiznt.’

  Harry Bond is ‘Hizrry Biznd.’

  That made sitting watching an empty house so much more fun and when we eventually decided to call it a day (which was only because we were so hungry), we went back to my house and practised in front of my mum and Kate and Chloe. Mum just tutted and shook her head but Kate and Chloe got annoyed because they didn’t know what we were saying about them or why we were laughing. That meant our secret language code actually worked.

  We also went to Harry’s house to try it out there. Unfortunately, it
didn’t work on his big brother. Instead, he hung Harry upside down by his ankles and threatened to drop him on his head if he didn’t stop. We gave up after that.

  Friday

  We may be secret double agents, with our own language, but we have no idea what is going on in number 35. Today there was no one there again. We even went up the drive and looked around. Well, Harry did. We flipped a coin to see who would do it and he lost. He muttered something about that being typical bad luck for him because he lost his lucky underpants. I wish he would stop going on about them, it’s getting boring.

  Harry said there was furniture and stuff in the house, so it looked like someone had moved in, but where are they?

  We did find one lead though. There was the old ‘for let’ sign in the front garden with the name of the estate agents, so we went there to see if we could find out the names of the new people from them.

  Happy Moves Estate Agency seemed surprised when we walked in.

  ‘How can we help you young men?’ a lady sitting at the front desk said. It was then we both looked at each other and realised we hadn’t thought about what we were going to say. Harry shrugged his shoulders and went bright red. He just looked at me instead. He always makes me do the asking.

  ‘Erm, we have come to ask about a house on Trinity Grove,’ I said.

  ‘Why, are you interested in buying it?’ she said, and I could tell she was trying not to laugh. I felt a bit silly but carried on anyway.

  ‘It’s number 35, do you know if it’s still on the market?’ I asked.

  The lady checked her computer and told us that it had been let already, which we kind of knew anyway.

  ‘Oh, could you tell us who to, please?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m afraid I’m not allowed to tell you that, young man,’ she said. I hate it when people call me ‘young man’.

  ‘OK then, thanks,’ I said, and dragged Harry out of the door.

  ‘Was that it?’ Harry said when we got outside. ‘You didn’t expect them to just come right out and say who it was did you?’

  ‘Well, I didn’t see you coming up with a better idea,’ I said, annoyed he was having a go at me. ‘You do the talking next time,’ I said. ‘Izm gizizng hizme.’ And then I left him there.

  I’m a bit fed up of this secret agency. It’s not been any fun since we did the double agent days. Anyway, I’m at football camp this weekend, so I won’t be able to work on the case again until next week. That is, if there is any case to work on.

  Saturday

  Man of the match, top goal scorer and a definite place in the pre-season cup match team, I’m sure. That’s how well football camp went today. It’s a shame I can’t say the same thing about Harry. He played so badly again, just like last week. I don’t know what’s got in to him lately. He’s normally a good player, one of our best defenders, though I would never tell him that to his face. It seems like he’s forgotten how to play altogether.

  All the team kept having a go at Harry today and I felt sorry for him. I could see the coaches shaking their heads too, as well as some of the mums and dads who were watching, and that’s never a good thing. Harry looked miserable and I asked him what was going on after the match.

  ‘It’s because I haven’t got my lucky pants anymore,’ he said. ‘I used to play so well when I had them and now I’ve lost them I’m useless.’

  ‘You can’t blame losing some dumb old pants for the way you play football,’ I told him. ‘You’ve got to get over it, they’re gone and they won’t stop you playing football or doing anything else.’

  Harry looked hurt as he turned and walked away from me. I felt bad for talking to him like that. It’s the truth though. Harry knows I don’t believe in stuff like that and he needs to realise he can play football just fine, with or without Spiderman pants on. I hope he gets it together before the coaches choose the team for the next game. If he’s left out of the squad, he will be gutted and so will I. It won’t be the same playing without him.

  Part 3

  Week 3

  Secret Diary of Stacey Webster

  Monday

  It’s not fair. There are no girls my age on this street. I have to live next to horrible Harry Smith instead and he plays all the time with James Murphy, who is really mean to me. That’s what I will call them from now on, Horrible Harry and Meany Murphy.

  I hate boys. They are disgusting and they stink because they never wash properly. I don’t even think Harry ever brushes his hair – those curls of his make him look just like his dog – as for James, well he thinks he’s a Premiership footballer or something, with that stupid long bit of hair he styles on the top of his head. Urgh, I can’t even think about them.

  The school holiday is soooo boring because all my friends have gone away and we are the only ones who aren’t having a holiday. Mum said we couldn’t afford it because they have spent all their money doing work on the house. Dad has to work, like all the time until midnight every day or something, and Mum has also got a job doing cleaning, so every day we are stuck at home with Granny looking after us.

  Most of the other kids on our street are either boys or loads older than me. The only person I have to play with is my sister, Kim. She’s OK but she’s only six and all she ever wants to play is mummies and babies.

  I wanted to join the secret agency that Horrible Harry and Meany Murphy made up because it sounded cool. I was going to be like Carmen Cortez from Spy Kids: Agent Stacey Cortez. But then they did horrible things and spoiled it all. I know I fell for their stupid tricks but if they think they’re getting away with it then they are SO WRONG.

  There was no one in the shed at the bottom of Horrible Harry’s garden today (that’s the place where they have their stupid meetings). I knocked on Harry’s door just to make sure and his mum said they were both up at Meany Murphy’s house. Well, she didn’t say ‘Meany Murphy’s’; she just said ‘James’ house’ but you know what I mean. Anyway, that was good news for me. With both of them out of the way, it gave me an idea and you would not believe what I did. I went into their stupid den and found their box of tricks. I wasn’t sure which one to use but then I saw the sneezing powder and I had the idea to sprinkle it all over the place, so the next time they go in there they will be sneezing their heads off. I’m going to set up my own secret club and I will get back at them for what they did to me. My first task is to spy on the boys to find out what goes on in this secret agency of theirs.

  Tuesday

  As predicted, because they are so boring and predictable, Meany Murphy came round to Horrible Harry’s this morning and they went to their den. I know this because I was hiding out in the playhouse at the bottom of my garden, which is my own mission control room, and when I heard them come down the path in Horrible Harry’s garden I got myself into position, which was right by the fence on my side.

  I had the small stepladder from the garage and the hosepipe and I was all ready for action. It wasn’t long before I heard the sneezing start and after about twenty sneezes the door flung open and Horrible Harry and Meany Murphy came rushing out. I know all this because there is a spy hole in the middle of the fence.

  Both of them were sneezing and rubbing their eyes and had tears streaming down their faces. That was my cue. I stood up on the stepladder so I could see over the fence.

  ‘Oh, what’s the matter with you two?’ I said. ‘Got hay fever or something?’

  ‘We can’t… atchoo… stop… atchoo… sneezing… atchoo,’ said Horrible Harry. ‘My throat… atchoo… hurts.’

  ‘I wonder what could have caused that?’ I said. ‘You need some water. Would you like me to get you some?’

  ‘Yes… atchoo… please… atchoo,’ said Meany Murphy.

  ‘OK then,’ I said. ‘Here you go.’

  And I turned on the hosepipe and aimed it straight at them.

  ‘You sa
id you wanted water, didn’t you?’ I shouted.

  Horrible Harry and Meany Murphy both stood there screaming like babies as I soaked them through. They tried to run away but I kept aiming it at them. Eventually they ran further up the garden and I couldn’t reach them anymore.

  Two tricks in one and they hadn’t even suspected a thing. Ha. I turned off the hose and sat down on the stepladder. I was feeling really pleased with myself until…

  I was suddenly soaked from above. I screamed and jumped off the ladder. They had gone and got their own hosepipe and were aiming it at me from over their side of the garden. IT WAS WAR.

  I turned the hosepipe on again and aimed it back. It was like we were having a shoot-out, except we were using hosepipes instead of guns. The top of our hose is a bit like a gun and you can make the water come out of it by squeezing the handle like a trigger. Horrible Harry has one just the same. So I was squatting on the top of my ladder, sneaking a look to see where my enemies were (they were hiding in the bushes) and whenever one of them peeped out I would aim at them. Then I had to duck back down so I didn’t get hit.

  Before long we were all soaked and laughing our heads off. In the end Horrible Harry was even squirting Meany Murphy and by the time we’d finished none of us was hiding anymore, we were just squirting each other and getting more and more soaked (if that’s possible).

  The only reason we stopped was because Horrible Harry’s mum said we had to turn the water off as we were wasting it and if we didn’t then there’d end up being a hosepipe ban altogether.

  ‘Truce,’ Meany Murphy said.

  ‘OK, then,’ I agreed.

  ‘That was the best fun I’ve had all holiday so far,’ Horrible Harry said.

  And for once all three of us actually agreed on something.