Friday Barnes 2

by R. A. Spratt

  ‘You’ve been digging up the time capsules,’ stated Friday. ‘And you crossed them out as you went along. That’s why holes have been appearing all over the school.’

  ‘Congratulations, you figured it out,’ said Chris as he rolled his eyes. ‘I can see why you have a reputation for genius.’

  ‘The Headmaster fell in the 1999 hole. Jacinta fell in 1991. Ian in 1980,’ said Friday, fascinated to see such an accurate map of all the minor incidents of the last few months.

  ‘Look, the map says 1987 should be here,’ said Chris, stabbing the page with his forefinger. ‘But I’ve dug and dug and I can’t find it. You tell me where it is.’

  Friday looked at the spot where Chris was pointing. It was where they were standing, along the edge of the swamp. Friday looked around her. She now noticed there were muddy holes in the ground. Holes everywhere. She looked at the map again.

  ‘No wonder you have such rough hands,’ said Friday. ‘You must have been out here, digging every night of the week.’

  ‘Look, there’s a picture of the skull and crossbones and two beans drawn underneath,’ said Chris.

  ‘That’s a pirate symbol,’ said Friday.

  ‘So?’ said Chris.

  ‘Pirate maps are written in code,’ said Friday.

  ‘I knew it,’ said Chris.

  ‘It’s a very simple code,’ said Friday. ‘You’re going to kick yourself for not working it out.’

  ‘Just tell me,’ said Chris.

  ‘On a pirate map you reverse everything,’ explained Friday. ‘Left means right, right means left, up means down, and down means up.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Chris. ‘So how does that help us?’

  ‘If you’re looking for the ’87 time capsule,’ said Friday, ‘dig up the ’78. The reverse.’

  ‘I did dig up the ’78 capsule!’ exclaimed Chris. ‘I’ve dug up all the seventies and all the eighties.’

  ‘How deep did you dig?’ asked Friday.

  ‘Deep enough to find the capsule,’ said Chris.

  ‘Then you didn’t do what the map said,’ said Friday. ‘Those aren’t baked beans. They’re footprints. One above the other. It means two feet. So you reverse the year and dig two feet.’

  ‘You’re kidding me,’ said Chris. ‘That’s just silly.’ He was clearly getting very angry.

  ‘But that’s just it, isn’t it?’ said Friday. ‘This was done by kids. Eleven or twelve-year-olds. Kids think like kids.’

  Chris snatched the map out of Friday’s hands and looked at it again. ‘1978 is in the middle of the Headmaster’s rose garden!’

  ‘I bet they enjoyed that,’ said Friday. ‘Doing it right under his nose. Although it would have been the former head. The current one started in 1989.’

  ‘Someone is going to notice if I start digging up the rose garden in broad daylight,’ said Chris.

  ‘So wait for nightfall,’ said Friday.

  ‘I can’t,’ said Chris. ‘There are going to be two hundred police cadets swarming over the grounds in an hour.’

  ‘Quite the predicament,’ said Friday.

  ‘I need a diversion,’ said Chris.

  ‘It’ll need to be an impressive diversion,’ said Friday. ‘Something that will have the whole of the school looking the other way long enough for you to dig a two-foot-deep hole in the rose garden and find the capsule.’

  ‘So what would you suggest, Einstein?’ asked Chris.

  Friday sighed. ‘Einstein was a theoretical physicist, therefore just the person to speak to if you wanted to invent a nuclear bomb. But he would have been wildly unqualified to make suggestions about petty crime. The man didn’t even brush his hair, most days. Practicalities were beyond him.’

  ‘Just shut it with the trivia facts and tell me what you suggest,’ said Chris.

  ‘Pull the fire alarm,’ said Friday. ‘The whole school will be evacuated to the rugby field for roll call. The rose garden is on the far side of the school. That will give you at least ten minutes, perhaps fifteen, to dig up the 1987 time capsule.’

  Chapter 23

  The Diversion

  A few minutes later Friday and Chris were crouched in the bushes at the far side of the hockey field from the rose garden, scoping out the scene.

  ‘The nearest switch for the fire alarm is in the entrance,’ said Friday. ‘Miss Priddock is incredibly dim-witted and unobservant, but I think even she would notice if someone pulled the fire alarm directly opposite her desk. You’d be better off looping round to the far side of the school and grabbing the fire pull at the rear of the boys’ dormitory. Boys never notice anything.’

  ‘Give me your hat,’ said Chris as he snatched the green pork-pie hat from Friday’s head.

  ‘Hey,’ cried Friday. ‘That’s my trademark accessory.’

  ‘It’s about to be my diversion,’ said Chris. He opened the petrol cap on the lawnmower, screwed Friday’s hat up and jammed it inside.

  ‘That is going to be terrible for the felt,’ cried Friday. ‘I’ll never get the smell out.’

  Chris pulled out the now petrol-soaked hat. ‘Stay here,’ he instructed.

  ‘That’s a bit redundant given I’m still tied to this grass catcher,’ said Friday.

  Chris scanned the area in each direction, then stepped out of the bushes and calmly walked over to the administration building. As he crossed the shrubbery, Friday saw him bend down and pick up a large rock. He went over to the window of the stationery store and threw the stone through the lowest pane. The window shattered. Then Chris produced a lighter from his pocket and set Friday’s hat alight.

  ‘Nooooo!’ cried Friday.

  Chris threw the flaming hat through the broken window, then calmly walked back to the bushes where Friday was tied up.

  ‘How could you?’ demanded Friday.

  ‘I’m sure the school is insured,’ said Chris.

  ‘Not the school, my hat!’ wailed Friday.

  ‘Come on, I’m doing you a favour,’ said Chris. ‘That was one ugly hat.’ He turned and looked back at the building. Smoke was starting to waft out the broken window. ‘It won’t be long now.’

  Sure enough, two seconds later the fire alarm started wailing.

  They could hear people yelling followed by the general shuffling associated with three hundred people starting to move at once.

  Chris climbed back into the driver’s seat of the lawnmower. He waited until the noise of people moving had just about died down, then he turned the engine on and sped towards the rose garden, mowing down a whole bed of Lady of Shalott blooms before coming to a stop. He opened up the lawnmower’s storage compartment and took out a spade. Then he took something out of his pocket. Friday wasn’t sure what it was until he released the safety catch.

  ‘Secateurs?!’ said Friday. ‘What are you going to do? Prune the roses?’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Chris, as he lunged towards her. Friday closed her eyes. If she was going to be stabbed, she would rather not watch. But Chris simply cut the zip tie holding her hands.

  ‘You’re letting me go?’ asked Friday.

  ‘Yes, because I’m secretly a really lovely person,’ said Chris, again with his sarcastic voice. ‘No, I’m making you dig the hole, idiot.’

  ‘You want me to dig a hole two feet deep in under ten minutes?!’ asked Friday. ‘Then you’re the idiot.’

  ‘Just do it,’ ordered Chris. ‘I need to keep a lookout. It’s freshly turned earth. It won’t be hard, even for you.’

  Friday raised the spade and speared it into the ground. It was a well maintained tool.

  ‘This is Mr Pilcher’s, isn’t it?’ said Friday. ‘You’re the one who staged the bunya-bunya pine attack, just so you could get this spade.’

  ‘I thought it was an inspired idea,’ said Chris. ‘The best thing about using a tree as a patsy is it can’t rat you out.’

  ‘No, Mr Pilcher’s hat did,’ said Friday.

  ‘I didn’t realise the jogging club were such early bir
ds,’ said Chris.

  ‘Why did you put my DNA on the string?’ asked Friday as she kept digging. ‘That was just weird.’

  ‘It’s your own fault for being such a meddler. I had to try to get you out of the way,’ said Chris. ‘The plan was to find the string myself and drop you in it with the police. You would’ve been expelled for sure.’

  ‘But how did you get my spit?’ asked Friday.

  ‘The science club did a study on oral bacteria,’ said Chris. ‘We all had to spit in petri dishes.’

  ‘You stole my petri dish?!’ exclaimed Friday.

  ‘It’s always useful to have a DNA sample handy,’ said Chris. ‘If you think you might need to frame someone, that is.’

  Friday’s spade his something hard. Chris heard the noise. ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘Get it out.’

  Friday tapped around until she found the edge of the container then she slid in the spade a little deeper and levered it out. Chris took the spade from her while she bent down and pulled up a large white cardboard box. The box had the words ‘Apple Pie’ written neatly in the centre.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Friday. ‘I think I know what this is.’

  ‘Let me see,’ said Chris, snatching the box away from Friday. ‘It can’t be a pie.’

  ‘No, it’s something much worse,’ said Friday.

  Chris opened the box. There was a horrendous smell. ‘A dead cat?!’ He gagged.

  ‘It’s Purrcy,’ explained Friday.

  ‘That’s disgusting,’ said Chris. ‘Is this the time capsule?’

  ‘No, this is just some lazy home economics students’ attempt to hide evidence,’ said Friday. ‘The time capsule will be deeper down, two feet under.’ She kept digging until her spade hit something else. Something more solid. She levered out a dirty copper box with the number 87 etched clearly on the top.

  ‘At last,’ said Chris.

  ‘What now?’ asked Friday.

  ‘Open it,’ said Chris.

  Friday crouched down with her back to Chris and started to jiggle the rust-encrusted latches. ‘The lock is rusty,’ said Friday. ‘It would be quicker to use a …’

  ‘Watch out!’ cried Ian.

  Friday spun around to see Chris swinging the flat of the spade towards her head. She ducked and closed her eyes, then heard a thud. It took a second for her to realise it was not a thud against her skull. It was the thud of Chris hitting the ground. Ian had knocked him over and they were wrestling amongst the rosebushes.

  ‘Ow!’ cried Chris. ‘I’ve got thorns in my back.’

  ‘You’ll have my fist in your front in a minute,’ said Ian.

  ‘Don’t!’ cried Friday. ‘He’s got secateurs.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Chris. ‘I forgot about that.’ He whipped out the pruning shears.

  ‘Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to play with gardening tools?’ asked Ian.

  ‘I think there are a lot of moral lessons Chris failed to learn from a parental figure,’ said Friday.

  Ian backed away from him.

  ‘What do you know,’ said Chris. ‘The two smartest kids in school, but you’re not smart enough to outwit a pair of pruning shears, are you?’

  ‘Well, secateurs are an inanimate object,’ said Friday. ‘They have no intelligence, unless you are anthropomorphising it, in which case I don’t follow the gist of your analogy.’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Ian and Chris in unison. They started circling each other.

  ‘Don’t be a hero, Ian,’ Friday warned.

  ‘Don’t you mean, don’t be any more of a hero?’ asked Ian. ‘I did just crash-tackle a guy who was about to hit you in the head with a spade.’

  ‘I just don’t want you to get hurt,’ said Friday. ‘If secateurs can cut through a rose stem, I hate to think what they could do to a blood vessel.’

  ‘You’ve really got tickets on yourself, haven’t you?’ accused Ian. ‘That you think there is even a possibility that I might risk injury for you.’

  ‘Well, I am standing in a rose garden watching two boys fight over me,’ said Friday. ‘My self-esteem is on the upswing.’

  All this time Chris was edging away. He climbed back up on the lawnmower. ‘You stuck-up rich kids make me sick,’ said Chris.

  ‘Actually, we’re the two poorest kids in school,’ said Friday. ‘Ian is the scholarship student and I pay my way because my parents earn barely enough to keep themselves in biros and notebooks.’

  ‘Just shut up,’ said Chris, ‘before I give up trying to make a getaway and come back to snip you.’ He put the lawnmower in gear and took off, lumbering back across the rugby field and towards the forest.

  ‘He’s getting away,’ said Friday.

  ‘Good,’ said Ian. ‘The nasty upstart. I never want to see him again.’

  ‘But he’s got the time capsule!’ said Friday.

  ‘I feel sorry for a boy who is prepared to commit serious assault just to steal a twenty-year-old school assignment,’ said Ian.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ said Friday. ‘What’s in that time capsule is worth thousands.’

  ‘Of dollars?’ asked Ian. ‘Yes,’ said Friday.

  Ian didn’t respond. He took off sprinting after the lawnmower.

  ‘Try not to get hurt,’ urged Friday. She ran after him, going as fast as she could, but Friday’s run was less effective than most people’s jog.

  Chris was steadily gaining speed as he approached the edge of the sports field. There was no way Ian was going to catch up with him. Friday racked her brain, trying to think of some way she could stop Chris. If she’d had her rocket, she could’ve aimed that at the petrol tank and blown the lawnmower out from under him. But her spare rocket was back in her room. It would take a miracle to stop Chris now.

  And then a miracle did appear, in the form of Malcolm. He burst out of the bushes at the edge of the forest and came sprinting down the slope towards the lawnmower. Chris did not see him because Malcolm was coming in from the side. But he certainly felt him, as Malcolm launched his entire six-foot-five and one-hundred-and-ten-kilos of brawn at Chris and knocked him off the machine. The lawnmower continued, unpiloted, into the forest. Malcolm and Chris rolled on the ground. Malcolm pivoted himself up on top and raised his fist to deliver a blow.

  ‘Stop!’ cried Friday. ‘You don’t want to go back inside for manslaughter, do you?’

  Malcolm clearly needed a minute to consider this. But then he decided Friday was right because instead of hitting Chris, he rolled him over, twisted his arm in a painful lock and sat on him.

  Chapter 24

  All Is Revealed

  Half an hour later Friday, Ian, Chris, Melanie, Vice Principal Dean and Malcolm were all sitting in the Headmaster’s office. Ian and Malcolm had tied Chris to a chair using the Headmaster’s sticky tape.

  ‘What on earth is going on?’ demanded the Headmaster.

  ‘I want Ian and Malcolm arrested for assault,’ demanded Chris.

  ‘They should all be expelled for being troublemakers,’ declared Vice Principal Dean.

  ‘No, Chris needs to be arrested for theft,’ accused Ian.

  ‘Actually, Chris never left the premises with any stolen property,’ said Friday. ‘It would be hard to make the charges stick. The main reason Chris should be arrested is because he’s a prison escapee.’

  ‘What?’ exclaimed everyone in the room, except for Malcolm.

  ‘You knew?’ asked Malcolm.

  ‘I knew Chris had been in jail since the first time I met him,’ said Friday. ‘The five symmetrical dots on his wrist are a common prison tattoo. They represent a person inside four walls.’

  ‘Really?’ said Melanie. ‘It sounds like a symbol of someone who doesn’t have the courage to get a proper tattoo.’

  ‘Why didn’t you report him immediately?’ demanded the Headmaster.

  ‘I thought you knew,’ said Friday. ‘I assumed he had spent some time in a juvenile detention facility. Goodness knows, more of the privileged
children at this school should be locked up. I didn’t see any need to make a fuss. If he’d done his time, he deserved a second chance.’

  ‘I’ve had a hardened criminal enrolled in the school for two months,’ said the Headmaster, shaking his head.

  ‘The P&C is not going to be happy about this,’ said the Vice Principal smugly.

  ‘Then there was the fact that Chris was so good at climbing,’ said Friday. ‘The way he climbed that oak tree was seriously impressive. He found finger and toe holds none of us could see. At the time, I assumed he had spent his holidays rock climbing. But when he threatened to break my arm and I realised he was in fact a violent sociopath, I recalled that the escaped prisoner had broken out of jail by climbing the prison wall.’

  ‘It’s a good thing you were so observant of his impressive finger strength,’ said Melanie.

  ‘The police thought Malcolm was the escapee,’ continued Friday, ‘until they discovered that the prisoner was short, brown-haired and very young. The opposite of Malcolm. But the exact description of Chris.’

  ‘But why would he want to enrol in school?’ asked Ian. ‘We’re only here because we have to be. Aren’t prison escapees meant to run away to Brazil or somewhere exotic with beaches?’

  ‘It’s quite a coincidence one prisoner being released on the same day another prisoner escapes,’ continued Friday. ‘Then they both come to the same place – here. There had to be something drawing them here.’

  ‘Like what?’ asked the Headmaster.

  ‘The 1987 time capsule,’ said Friday.

  ‘Why?’ asked Ian. ‘Did they put gold bullion in it or something?’

  ‘In a way, yes,’ said Friday. ‘Let’s have a look.’

  Friday picked up the time capsule and inspected the lock.

  Ian sighed. ‘Do we have to watch while you show off your lock-picking skills?’

  ‘No,’ said Friday. ‘It’s rusted shut. That wouldn’t work.’ She picked up her school bag and rifled around inside until she drew out a ballpein hammer. ‘This will do the trick.’