Dead Hairy

by Debbie Thomas

  All of which was great fun. And all of which left two questions. What had happened to the crooks, and what would happen to the Platts?

  Part of the first answer came on the third afternoon. The phone rang. Abbie got it.

  ‘This is Sergeant Bolt calling the Hartleys,’ said the voice. ‘Do you read me? Over.’

  Abbie heard another voice whisper, ‘It’s only the phone, Sarge.’

  ‘This is Abbie,’ she said, swallowing a giggle.

  ‘Good morning, young lady. May I speak to Mrs Platt? Ove … I mean please.’ Abbie went to call Coriander from the garden, where she was plucking Winnie’s eyebrows. Matt and Perdita, who’d just rescued a hedgehog from the hedge trimmer, came inside too.

  Coriander picked up the phone in the hall. ‘Hello Sergeant. Any news?’ she asked anxiously. After giving her statement two days ago the police had been combing the country for the crooks.

  ‘Really?’ said Coriander. ‘Where? Yes, could be. I’ll come as soon as I can.’

  She put the phone down. ‘They’ve arrested a man in London. He was trying to break into the Greenwich Observatory. Said he had to look through the telescope to work out the mass of Saturn’s rings. Gave his name as Dirkstein or Eindirk or something but he said he couldn’t be sure because he had such a headache. They’re holding him at Greenwich police station. They want me to come and identify him.’

  ‘And the other two?’ asked Perdita.

  Coriander sighed. ‘No sign of them. I do hope Mell’s all right.’

  ‘After all she’s done!’ exploded Abbie. ‘You’re still worried about her?’

  ‘It’s just that –’ Coriander shook her head – ‘Melliflua’s always been so proud of her looks. She’ll be nothing without them. Or at least, that’s what she’ll think.’ Coriander sat down on the bottom stair. ‘I don’t understand it. Winnie got Samson’s strength. Dirk got Einstein’s brains, even though he got a bit confused as well. But Melliflua –’ she threw up her hands – ‘why didn’t she get Helen’s beauty?’

  Matt sat down next to her. ‘Well. The Samson juice worked, no doubt about that. I saw the spider carry that paperweight myself. But remember I never finished the other two potions. Maybe the Einstein juice was almost ready but not quite. And maybe the Helen juice was miles off. Maybe I messed that one up completely.’

  ***

  Matt was wrong about one word. ‘Completely.’

  The old crone bought her ferry ticket and joined the queue. A tear wove between her warts like a downhill skier. Who could blame Dirk for running away? She was a pimple on the face of the planet, a boil on the bottom of England. She, whose face was once so fine and bottom once so trim.

  For the thousandth time she cursed the unfairness of it all. Dirk got brainy, the ape got strong – and she got warts. Why hadn’t she inherited Helen’s gift? She could never set foot in a beauty salon again. She couldn’t even talk to anyone without them flinching. It was all her sister’s fault. Why had Coriander married that idiot? He’d put the whole idea into their heads in the first place.

  Mell-Hell sniffed and looked at her watch. Half an hour to boarding. To France and a new life. Where no one would know her, where she’d sneak or steal her way to a face lift.

  A little boy was staring at her and whispering to his mum. Even the ferry, looming from the water, seemed to be sneering down its huge rusty nose.

  She gazed round the dockyard. Men in yellow jackets were driving trucks across the concrete. A crane was unloading crates from a trawler. The stink of fish, the yells of men at work – oh, it was all so dirty, so common.

  Far along on the left Mell-Hell spotted a harbour where pleasure boats were moored. The yachts and speedboats glowed with wealth. That’s where she should be, heading for the high life.

  A horn honked. Engines juddered into life. And suddenly the ferry was heaving itself round. The water churned. Gulls shrieked in surprise. And the ferry was off, parping its oily way to France.

  ‘Hey! I’m s’posed to be on that boat!’ yelled a man with a black moustache.

  ‘Me too!’ cried a lady with a brown one. ‘Here’s my ticket!’

  ‘Wait for us!’ yelled a short man, brandishing a baby above his head.

  ‘Look at the boats!’ shouted his tall wife, snatching the child to safety. Every vessel in the dock, from trawlers to yachts, was heading out to sea.

  ***

  Klench walked through the airport security arch. It beeped.

  ‘Must be my belt buckle makink noisse,’ he said to the official, whose eyebrows met in the middle.

  ‘Step this way please, Sir.’ The man ran his hands up and down – or rather round – Klench’s body. ‘Unbutton your shirt, please.’

  ‘I beck your pardon?’

  The eyebrow rose. Klench unbuttoned.

  ‘Thank you, Sir.’ The eyebrow fell. ‘Just checking all that waist belongs to you. Looked as if you might be hiding something in there.’

  Klench collected his shoulder bag and waddled towards the First-Class departure lounge. He took two Danish pastries from the counter and sank into an armchair. Mummy would be proud of him.

  An hour later, as the plane’s engines roared into life, he gave up trying to fasten his seatbelt. ‘Souss America, here I come,’ he giggled. ‘For junkle japes and high high jinks.’

  28 - Deal!

  It was Mum who saw it in the paper next morning. And it was Matt who put two and two together.

  ‘Just as well I refused to go camping,’ said Mum. She took a triumphant bite of Ryvita. (She’d dug her feet in a few months ago when Dad suggested a camping trip to France. He loved the idea of putting up guy ropes and groundsheets. But Mum said it would kill him and probably everyone else too, not to mention ruin her fingernails.)

  Dad gulped his coffee. ‘Why?’

  ‘Look.’ Mum pointed to the article.

  ‘BOFFINS BAFFLED BY FLEEING FLEET’ Dad read over her shoulder. ‘Ports along the south coast of England are in turmoil after boats have been setting sail, apparently by themselves. Holidaymakers and fishermen have been stranded as hundreds of ferries, fishing trawlers and other vessels have left their harbours, some with no crew on board. Shipping experts are –’

  ‘Crrggh!’ Matt nearly choked on his toast soldier. ‘Can I see that?’

  Mum gave him the paper. Matt scanned the article. Even his plaits went pale. ‘I need to phone Sergeant Bolt.’

  Two hours after they’d talked, the sergeant phoned back. A woman with warts had been rescued from the sea off Portsmouth. She was swimming out to a yacht. When questioned, she told the police that she was only cadging a lift because the ferry had gone without her.

  ‘So the Helen juice partly worked,’ said Matt, ‘only backwards. Melliflua’s face launched a thousand ships all right – but in the wrong direction. Because she went ugly instead of beautiful, they all sailed away!’

  Abbie sucked in her cheeks. Shouldn’t laugh. But after all that had happened, it did serve Melliflua a teeny bit right.

  Coriander stared miserably at her boiled egg. ‘So now they’ve got her. But how can I stand up in court and say she kidnapped me? I can’t send my own sister to prison.’

  ‘I can,’ said Matt bravely.

  ‘Me too,’ said Perdita. ‘She has to be locked up, Mum. So does Dirk. Otherwise we’ll never be safe. Imagine how much they must hate us now. I just wish the police could find Dr Klench too.’

  ‘Never mind ’im!’ Grandma marched into the kitchen. ‘Where’s my Chester? I woke up this mornin’ and ’e was gone.’ Her hair stood up in worried wisps. ‘’Ow am I s’posed to find ’im, when ’e finds everything for me?’

  ‘He could be out right now, finding something you’ve lost,’ said Dad comfortingly.

  Grandma gave him the look he deserved. ‘’Ow does that ’elp? If I’ve lost somethin’, and Chester’s with it, that just means I’ve lost Chester too!’

  ‘I’ll help you find him Grandma,’ said Abbie, wo
ndering if chest hair could count as a Missing Person.

  An hour later the doorbell rang. And there was Chester, wiping the wellies of a man wearing a green overall and enormous ears.

  ‘Mr Chumb!’ gasped Abbie.

  ‘Sorry to – you know.’ Charlie’s earlobes went red. ‘This little chap … I, um, recognised him from, ah – you know. I’m, ah, looking for, um …’

  Coriander was already standing in the hall with outstretched arms. ‘Charlie! How wonderful. Come in.’ She folded him in a huge hug. ‘I was going to visit you today. How are you? And the zoo? How’s everyone doing without Klench?’

  His ears wiggled happily. ‘Best thing that ever … sorry I didn’t help you more. Owe you a – you know.’

  ‘Nonsense! You really stuck your neck out for me. You’re the only one who did. Why?’

  ‘Ah. Long story,’ said Charlie sheepishly.

  Much longer than it needed to be, what with all the ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’ and ‘you knows’. The potted version – the one that Abbie dictated into her tape recorder later – went like this:

  MONKEY BUSINESS AT BRADLEIGH ZOO

  Zookeeper Charlie Chumb has spilled the beans on crafty crook Hubris Klench. Charlie told our ace reporter Abigail Hartley how Dr Klench offered him a job six months ago. Klench promised him loadsa cash. Charlie was glad to take the job because his wife Gladys needs money for a hair transplant after a long illness. Klench also hired other keepers who needed money for sick family members. In return, Klench ordered them to keep quiet about the animal smuggling ring he was setting up. The bulging beachball of a baddie told them that he was sneaking endangered animals to the zoo from all over the world. The poor things, half starved, were to be sold on as pets. ‘I knew I should tell on him,’ said Charlie, adding a few ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’. ‘But I was desperate to help my Gladys.’ Then Coriander Platt was kidnapped to smarten up the animals for selling on. And something snapped in Charlie Chumb. With a heart as big as his ears, he did his best to help her, behind the very wide back of cruel Klench. ‘None of the keepers have been paid a penny,’ said Charlie, adding a few ‘you knows’. ‘And Dr Klench said if we went to the police, he’d persuade them that we’d organised the smuggling ring. He’s a very persuasive bloke.’

  When Charlie had finished telling his tale in the sitting-room, he’d tugged his ears sadly. ‘You’d better phone the – you know. Turn me in.’

  Coriander jumped up and put her arm round him. ‘But you saved me and all the animals!’ she protested. ‘If you hadn’t posted my letters I’d still be in that cage. And Klench would still be up to his tricks.’

  Everyone who was listening agreed that, on balance, Charlie should have told the police about Klench. (Everyone who wasn’t listening was dozing in the treehouse, weeing on the lawn, cuddling earthworms or thinking up poems to long-lost wifeyheads.) Then everyone who was listening slapped Charlie on the back and said, never mind, he was still a hero. Then they decided that, oh dear, they might forget to tell the police about the zookeepers being in on Klench’s smuggling scheme. Then Charlie burst into tears of gratitude and asked if he could have a ‘quiet, um – you know’ with Coriander and Matt.

  While Charlie had his quiet word, Mum and Ollie prepared refreshments. It was no small task. Bourbon biscuits, chocolate muffins, bananas, melon skin, coffee, lemonade, milk and peanuts were laid out on three trays. Dad spread a cloth on the lawn. Winnie decorated the edge with earthworms.

  Abbie and Perdita sat on the cloth. ‘I wonder what Charlie wants to talk about with Mum and Dad,’ said Perdita, plaiting three earthworms.

  Abbie popped a Bourbon into her mouth and said nothing. But what she thought was something very exciting.

  And she was right. Ten minutes later the Platt grown ups and Charlie joined them on the lawn. Coriander took one of Perdita’s hands. Matt took the other. They looked at Perdita with wide, serious eyes.

  ‘How would you feel,’ said Coriander, ‘about chopping raw meat?’

  ‘And fish?’ said Matt.

  ‘About clearing panda poo?’ said Coriander.

  ‘And monkey mess?’ added Matt.

  ‘About scrubbing ellies?’

  ‘And wearing wellies?’

  ‘All,’

  ‘Day,’

  ‘Long?’

  Perdita’s eyebrows nearly shot off her forehead. ‘The zoo?’

  She whooped, she hooped, she loop-the-looped. She danced with Winnie, she pranced with Minnie. She hopped with Abbie and bopped with Ollie. Then she ran up and kissed Charlie Chumb. His ears went red and he fell over backwards, landing in a muffin.

  ‘Your mother …’ he began, wiping chocolate off his overalls … ‘the animals, um, missed all her – you know.’ He made cutting movements with his fingers.

  ‘I bet they did,’ said Perdita and kissed him again.

  ‘And her – mmmmm,’ he hummed.

  ‘Quite,’ giggled Perdita.

  ‘And all the …’ he spread his arms in a hug.

  ‘I understand,’ said Perdita, hugging him back. His ears twitched joyfully.

  Coriander beamed at them. ‘So Charlie. It’s a –’

  ‘DEEEEAAAAL!!’ yelled Perdita, walloping her mother in the chest.

  There was loads to be done. Getting proper food for the animals for a start. The poor things had nearly starved under Klench. Meat and fruits, nuts and shoots came in by the lorry load. After that all the staff had to be paid for the six months they’d worked under Klench. And then there was the building of bigger and better cages, pens and pools for the animals.

  Not that there was any money for all this. Klench had spent the zoo profits on tailor-made suits (OK, he didn’t have much choice), barrel-loads of buns and expensive dental work (all that icing played havoc with his teeth). But when Grandma phoned the papers and the story hit the headlines, all the local businesses helped out for free.

  Butchers donated meat for the big cats. Bakeries sent buns for the elephant. Fishmongers sent cod for the seals and penguins. Greengrocers supplied fruit for the monkeys and tapirs. And a local millionaire offered to fund all the building improvements.

  For the rest of the summer holidays everyone was very busy.

  Coriander got back to grooming the animals – sensibly this time, without nail polish for crocs or highlights for lions’ manes. Charlie helped her. Mum prepared frighteningly healthy meals for all the animals.

  Matt developed a mixture that made Charlie’s wife’s hair grow back in a week. Then he turned his skills to designing new equipment for the animals. Gina the ellie got a bun dispenser. It was like a drinks machine, with a round slot at the top. By pushing a branch into the slot with her trunk, Gina could scoop out a doughnut from a tray at the bottom. Coriander was happy for her to have box-loads of buns every day, but Mum put her foot down and said that more than four would ruin Gina’s teeth. The seals got a Jacuzzi at the side of their pool. Every now and then Noa and Kaila flipped over the wall and bounced in the bubbles, clapping their flippers and giggling. And the sound of a seal giggling is enough to cheer anyone up, even a miserable shrunken head. Dad brought Fernando to watch every day after they’d worked on their book. For the tapirs Matt designed a special mirror that made their noses look shorter and boosted their confidence. Now, when anyone walked by their fence, they stuck their snouts over to be stroked. And for Silvio, Matt made a clockwork antelope that grazed round the cage and helped the tiger with pouncing practice.

  Abbie and Ollie visited every day. They helped Perdita clean out the animals and play with the ones who weren’t too snarly or fangy. They did such a good job that the other zoo staff decided to resign and start new careers, leaving their sad memories and shady secret behind. Abbie loved polishing the giraffes’ hooves and playing hide and seek with the lemurs. And it was amazing how, with all these pets around, Ollie seemed less like one. It wasn’t that she stopped arguing with him. More that they usually ended up laughing when Vinnie started copying them or W
innie hugged them or Minnie weed on their feet.

  Because, of course, the orangs could no longer be caged. Winnie would just bend the bars back and step out if she wanted a cuddle. She was actually a great help, picking Gina up when the elephant got a thorn in her foot, and lugging boulders around to make the animals’ surroundings more interesting.

  Although they closed the zoo for renovations, Coriander and Matt wanted to practise having visitors. So one afternoon they invited Sergeant Bolt and his constables for a guided tour. The group included Wendy Wibberly. She whispered to Abbie that she’d meant to resign, but Sarge and the lads had been so nice since that museum business she didn’t have the heart to. Especially as the brass-cleaning job at the church had been taken.

  The afternoon started with Grandma’s Whizzy Wig Show. Chester danced on her head then disappeared down the front of her cardigan. Next thing, he was popping out of her pocket, waving Sergeant Bolt’s walkie talkie.

  Bolt jumped up from his seat. ‘You’re under arrest,’ he boomed, ‘for stealing police property!’

  Constable Ludge turned and whacked him on the arm. It was a hard, heartfelt whack, as big as all the whacks Bolt had ever given him put together. ‘Siddown, Sarge,’ he ordered, with a spot-splitting grin. ‘You’re ruining the show.’

  Chester dived into Grandma’s pocket. He reappeared on her shoulder, with Ludge’s spot cream held aloft. The third time he ended up on Grandma’s head, brandishing a silver button from the inside of Constable Wibberly’s jacket. Everyone clapped except Wendy, whose eyes filled with tears. When Chester threw the button back, however, she cheered and joined in the applause.

  Grandma bowed. ‘Thank you,’ she tried to say. But it came out as ‘Fankoo.’ That was because, as she bent over, her false teeth fell out. Chester scooped them up from the ground and popped them back into place.

  During the tour of the zoo Wendy Wibberly tapped Abbie on the arm. ‘Is there a café here?’ she murmured.