by Ailsa Wild
We all lean out, looking down at the vase glowing white in the orange sunrise. Along the wall are the remnants of us trying to signal our way out: the torn recipe book, the torch, the turmeric.
‘We can’t do anything while we’re stuck here,’ Jessie says. She starts waving the torch towards Boring Lady. But it’s not going to work. Boring Lady never answers our signals.
‘We’re going to have to climb down to Haunted Harry’s balcony,’ Vee says.
Jessie is horrified. ‘That’s insane!’
It’s actually not. From Haunted Harry’s balcony to here is nowhere near as high as our rock-climbing walls. I can see some good handholds in the stone. If you fell you’d only fall as far as the balcony.
‘It’ll be easy,’ Vee says, jutting her chin. ‘I’m going to save us.’
‘Vee, don’t be crazy,’ Jessie says, pulling her arm back.
Squishy Taylor to the rescue. I put my palms on the wall and jump, pushing down until my arms are straight. My tummy is bent over the wall. I lift one leg to swing it over.
Jessie shouts, ‘No, Squishy, stop it!’ and grabs my leg.
That’s when I knock the jar of turmeric.
It drops down the side of the building, ricochets off Haunted Harry’s balcony rail and keeps falling. The lid flies off and the powder glides out in a great, spiralling, yellow cloud. The cloud gets bigger and bigger as it drops towards the ground.
And now, finally, Boring Lady has noticed us. She stands at her window, staring first at the cloud and then up at us. I wave wildly, clinging to the wall with my knees, and Boring Lady runs for her phone. She’s waving us back with crazy, flinging hands, as if she could push us away from the edge of the wall.
‘Hey! What are you kids doing?’ It’s Haunted Harry. He’s staring up at us from his balcony in his pyjamas. He must have heard the jar of turmeric hit the rail.
‘We’re stuck!’ Vee yells.
‘We can’t get down!’ I shout.
‘Well, for the love of little fishes, do NOT try to climb down!’ he hollers back up at us.
Mina appears beside him and stares up at us, before running back inside.
‘Wait right there!’ Haunted Harry yells. So we wait.
The first person to run out the door is Dad. He ignores my bonus sisters and pulls me up into the biggest hug ever.
‘We woke up and you were gone,’ he says with a mouthful of my hair. ‘I was so worried.’ He squeezes me really tight.
That’s when I know I will always belong to my dad, however many bonus sisters I have.
Alice is beside us cuddling Jessie and Vee.
Haunted Harry, Mina and Boring Lady are right behind her. We all stand on the roof, laughing and talking. Dad doesn’t let me go for a long, long time. Even when he stops hugging me, he keeps hold of my hand.
‘How did you find us?’ I ask. ‘Did Boring Lady call you first, or Haunted Harry?’
‘They both got to us pretty quickly,’ Dad says. ‘But you know who called me first?’
I look at him, not sure.
‘Your mum,’ he says.
I smile. Now I really, truly don’t feel deserted.
‘The vase,’ I say remembering why we’re there. ‘It came back!’ I try to drag Dad over to look but he doesn’t move, and Alice holds up her hand. ‘Wait a second, Squishy Taylor. First things first. What in heaven’s name are you three doing up here?’
I don’t even know where to start. Vee garbles out the story of the way we got rid of the ghost. Jessie makes sure everyone knows she never believed in the ghost. I interrupt to explain to Mina about being banned from talking to my mum (which Alice tries to explain isn’t exactly true). We all tell Boring Lady how many times we tried to signal her. She’s the only one in daytime clothes, so it’s a raucous rooftop pyjama party. The grown-ups are rolling with laughter one minute, and intrigued the next.
‘But we still don’t know who edited the security footage?’ Alice asks.
‘That’s what I want to know,’ Jessie says. ‘It must have been someone who had access to the footage and wanted the vase.’
I’m struck by something. ‘But we know somebody who had access to the footage, and really didn’t want us to look at the video,’ I say.
They wait for me to answer. ‘Mr Hinkenbushel!’ I announce.
‘Squishy!’ Jessie laughs. ‘We know Mr Hinkenbushel isn’t the bad guy.’
Mina coughs, looking embarrassed. ‘Actually,’ she says, ‘it was me. I secretly took the vase to be valued, because I knew Harry was wrong. In the meantime I thought he’d quite like to be haunted –’
Harry grins. ‘Loved it,’ he says. ‘And so, clearly, did these guys.’
‘We sorted it all out with the police on the first day,’ Mina explains. ‘I had no idea there was a whole other adventure going on until yesterday,’ she says to the grown-ups. Then she grins at us. ‘I’ll never try to keep a secret from you guys again.’
I can’t tell if I’m disappointed that there’s no ghost, or pleased to be friends with a hacker. I can tell which one Jessie is. She’s already got a billion questions for Mina on the tip of her tongue. But there are more important things than that.
‘And now,’ I say, turning to Boring Lady, because I’m sure she will help us, ‘we have to return the stolen vase to China.’
But Mina gets our attention with a shake of her head, half-laughing, half-disappointed. ‘It was a fake. Mum really did buy it from a two-dollar shop in the eighties,’ she says.
Everybody laughs. Our adventure on the roof feels scary and exciting enough that I don’t even mind.
Boring Lady pulls a huge red scarf from her handbag and passes it to Jessie. ‘From now on,’ she says, ‘any time you guys want to contact me, hang this in your window. I promise to look up at least three times a day.’
Jessie and Vee say excited thank-yous, and Alice tries to tell her she doesn’t need to.
Mina turns to Dad. ‘I can show you how to lock your iPad so it only accesses Skype,’ she says to him, but winking at me. ‘Then Squishy Taylor can call her Mama in private without getting into other kinds of trouble.’
I suddenly realise something. ‘Where’s Baby?’ I ask.
Dad and Alice turn to each other in horror.
‘He was asleep,’ Alice says at the same time Dad says, ‘We forgot him.’
We all bolt for the stairs, with Alice and Dad leading the charge.
Our apartment door is wide open. Standing in the middle of the kitchen, with Baby giggling and trying to poke out his eyes, is Mr Hinkenbushel.
Ailsa Wild is an acrobat, whip cracker and teaching artist who ran away from the circus to become a writer. She taught Squishy all her best bunk-bed tricks.
Ben Wood started drawing when he was Baby’s age, and happily drew all over his mum and dad’s walls! Since then, he has never stopped drawing. He has an identical twin and they used to play all kinds of pranks on their younger brother.
Squishy Taylor and the Vase that Wasn’t
published in 2016 by
Hardie Grant Egmont
Ground Floor, Building 1, 658 Church Street
Richmond, Victoria 3121, Australia
www.hardiegrantegmont.com.au
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A CiP record for this title is available from the National Library of Australia.
eISBN 9781743584026
Text copyright © 2016 Ailsa Wild
Illustrations copyright © 2016 Ben Wood
Series design copyright © 2016 Hardie Grant Egmont
Series design by Stephanie Spartels
Illustrations by Ben Wood
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