‘What’s going on here?’ asked Archie sternly. ‘What are you doing with a lion and a leopard in your house?’
The old man let out a long sigh and sat down in one of the chairs. ‘I know it must seem odd,’ he said, ‘but my son works for a wildlife park in Dorset. They sent him to Leeds to pick up a lion and a leopard from a zoo there, and on his way back he had some engine trouble. Of course, he couldn’t take the van to the garage with two wild animals in the back, so he left them here with me while he took the van in for repair. It was only for an hour, you see.’ He looked appealingly at the children. ‘I’m really sorry about all this, but I promise, as long as you stay in here, you’re quite safe.’
‘Are you sure about that?’ said Cyd.
‘Oh, yes!’ The old man nodded reassuringly. ‘It’s a very solid door. There’s no way it can get in!’
‘It got out,’ said Cyd. ‘Probably by pushing down that door handle with its paw. And if it got out, I don’t see why it couldn’t get back in.’
The old man looked at Cyd and then at the door handle.
‘You’re right!’ He stood up hurriedly. ‘I’ll put a chair under the handle so that—’
He stopped. Looking towards the door, they could all see the handle was already moving downwards. There was a quiet click and the door swung open to reveal the leopard lowering its paw before padding quietly into the room.
‘Don’t panic!’ The old man pushed the children behind him. ‘Kevin showed me how to use this …’ – he was holding the gun in his right hand as he spoke – ‘… it fires a dart that’ll put it to sleep. If I can just find the safety catch …’
There were several tense seconds as he fiddled with the gun while the leopard moved steadily closer, and then there was a loud bang.
The leopard gave a start and shrank back, making a hissing sound.
‘Did you hit it?’ asked Cyd.
‘I’m afraid not …’ The old man was swaying slightly as he spoke. He looked down at the dart sticking out of his foot. ‘Oh, dear,’ he said. ‘Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh …’ And he crashed, face down, onto the floor.
The leopard moved cautiously forward, sniffed briefly at the body, then lifted its head and began moving towards the children.
‘I don’t believe it!’ A young man in shirt sleeves had appeared in the doorway. ‘What is going on in here?’
At the sound of his voice, the leopard turned and ran towards him, pushing its nose against his leg. The young man bent down and grabbed it by the scruff of the neck. ‘Come on you!’ he said. ‘Out. Now!’ And he pushed the leopard into the hall and closed the door before kneeling down beside the body of the old man.
‘Would someone,’ he said, pulling the dart out of the old man’s foot, ‘mind telling me what happened?’
‘I don’t mind telling you,’ said Cyd, ‘but you’re never going to believe it!’
On the way home, Cyd said she thought it had been very nice of Archie not to report Kevin or his father to the police.
‘If you did report them,’ she said, ‘I think they’d both be in a lot of trouble.’
‘I try not to call the police when things happen to me,’ Archie told her. ‘If I do, it means spending hours describing what happened and then more hours waiting while they write it down. If I did that every day, there’d never be time to do anything else.’
‘No,’ said Cyd, ‘I suppose not.’
‘Usually,’ Archie went on, ‘I don’t even tell my parents. But I hope you weren’t too frightened or anything.’ He looked across at Cyd. ‘I’m used to things like that happening, but it can be quite upsetting if you’re not. Are you sure you’re OK?’
‘I’m fine,’ said Cyd. Just fine.’
She didn’t look like someone who’d been frightened or upset, Archie thought. In fact, he was pleased to notice, she looked as if she’d thoroughly enjoyed the whole adventure.
His mother, however, was not at all pleased when he got home.
‘You are telling me,’ she said crossly, ‘that you saw Lucy’s lion in somebody’s garden but forgot to pick it up and bring it back with you?’
She shook her head. ‘Honestly, Archie. I don’t believe it!’
On Saturday, Archie and Cyd went into town to watch a bank robbery. It wasn’t a real bank robbery, of course. Cyd’s mother had heard from a friend that they were making a film of a robbery that morning, and Archie and Cyd decided to go and watch.
They were a little later than they meant to be. Archie wanted to take some pictures and had borrowed his mother’s camera, but first they had to find new batteries for it, and then she had to give him a lesson on how it worked, and both these things took longer than expected. Cyd was luckier. She could take pictures on her phone, and was looking forward to getting some exciting shots.
When they got to the bank, however, there was nothing exciting for them to take pictures of. The street was almost empty.
‘I don’t believe it!’ said Archie. ‘Your mum said there’d be hundreds of people here! Where is everyone?’
‘I wonder,’ said Cyd, ‘if we’ve come to the wrong bank.’
‘I’ll ask,’ said Archie. There wasn’t much choice about who to ask. The only other person in the street was a man sitting in a car outside a jeweller’s shop.
‘Excuse me!’ Archie tapped on the car window. ‘Is this where the robbery’s happening?’
The man in the car looked rather startled. ‘Robbery?’
‘Yes,’ said Archie. ‘Is this the right place to come and watch?’
‘What … what do you know about a robbery?’ asked the man in the car, glancing nervously up and down the street.
‘Well, not much,’ said Archie, ‘but Cyd’s mum has a friend in the police who said they were going to be filming a robbery here today and we thought—’
But Archie never got a chance to say what he thought, because the man in the car suddenly drove off down the road, very fast.
‘How rude!’ said Archie. ‘He drove off while I was still talking!’
‘I don’t believe it!’ A big man, dressed all in black, had appeared on the pavement, pulling off a ski mask. He was carrying a baseball bat and a large black bag. ‘Where’s he gone?’ he demanded.
‘If you’re looking for the man in the car,’ said Archie, ‘he drove off.’
‘Drove off? Why?’
‘I have no idea,’ said Archie. ‘All I did was ask him if this was where the robbery was happening and—’
‘Robbery?’ The man in black lowered his voice and looked anxiously at Archie. ‘What do you know about the robbery?’
‘Well,’ said Archie, ‘like I told the other man, Cyd’s mum has a friend in the police who said they’d be filming a robbery here today—’
‘They’re filming it?’ The man in black took out a handkerchief and mopped nervously at the sweat running down his face.
‘I think so,’ said Archie. ‘We were planning to watch it, but …’
He stopped. The man in black had thrust both the bag and bat into Archie’s arms and was running off down the road as fast as he could go.
‘I don’t believe it!’ said Archie. ‘Why do people keep running away when I’m talking to them?’
Cyd did not answer. She was looking thoughtfully at the jewellery shop behind them, and then at the bag in Archie’s arms.
‘Archie,’ she said, ‘I wonder if—’
‘Oi! You! Stop right there!’
Archie and Cyd spun round in time to see a middle-aged man in glasses come out of a toy shop on the other side of the road and start running towards them.
‘And where do you think you’re going with that?’ he demanded, pointing at the baseball bat that Archie was holding.
‘I wasn’t going anywhere,’ said Archie. ‘I was—’
‘That bat does not belong to you!’ said the man in the glasses. ‘You stole it from my shop!’
‘No, I didn’t!’ said Archie.
‘Oh, yes, yo
u did! My wife had just put six of those bats out on display,’ said the man. ‘And now there’s only five. She says the only other person in the shop was a boy in a red T-shirt and—’
‘But Archie’s not wearing a red T-shirt,’ said Cyd. ‘It’s orange.’
Archie looked down at his shirt. ‘I suppose you could call it a sort of red,’ he said.
‘No, you couldn’t!’ said Cyd. ‘It’s orange. It’s a completely different colour!’
‘The colour,’ interrupted the man in glasses, ‘is not important! What’s important is the baseball bat. It’s not yours!’
‘I know it’s not,’ said Archie. ‘But I didn’t steal it.’
‘No? So where did you get it?’
‘A man gave it to me,’ said Archie. ‘Just now. And then he ran off.’
‘Oh, yes?’ The man in glasses smiled, but it was not a nice smile. ‘So I’m supposed to believe that a man gave you a baseball bat that looks exactly like the one that’s just gone missing from my shop … and then ran away?’
‘I know it sounds odd,’ said Archie, ‘but … that’s what happened.’
‘Well, I don’t believe it,’ said the man, ‘and I doubt if the police will believe it either when they get here.’ He reached out and took the bat. ‘So I’ll look after this until they do, shall I? And you can both …’
He stopped. While taking the bat, the man’s fingers had pulled open the top of the bag and given him a glimpse of what was inside. Tucking the bat under one arm, he took the bag from Archie, reached in and brought out a fistful of diamond necklaces, strings of pearls and jewel-encrusted bracelets.
‘I don’t believe it!’ said the man. He stared at Archie for several seconds. ‘You stole all these as well?’
‘I keep telling you,’ said Archie. ‘I haven’t stolen anything!’
‘The man who gave him the bat gave him the bag at the same time,’ said Cyd.
‘You’ve both been out stealing all morning, haven’t you?’ The man was still staring at the jewellery in his hand. ‘I can’t believe it! I mean … how old are you?’
Before Archie could reply, however, there came a shout from further down the street.
‘Put the bag down! Put the bag down, now! And the bat!’
They turned to see two policemen running down the road towards them. One of them, a sergeant, was holding a spray can. ‘Put them down,’ he said firmly. ‘Unless you want a taste of mace.’
The man with the glasses put down the bat and the bag, and the police sergeant put him in handcuffs. The other policeman opened up the bag and gave a low whistle at what he saw inside.
‘Looks like we got here before he could get away, Sarge!’
The police sergeant looked at the man. ‘Care to explain how you come to be in possession of all this jewellery?’ he asked.
‘I … I got it from him,’ said the man, pointing to Archie.
‘Yes, of course you did,’ said the policeman with a grim smile.
‘No, no really! He’s the thief. Him and the girl! They were both in it together,’ the man insisted, and he would have said more, but the policeman told him to be quiet.
‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself,’ said the sergeant, ‘trying to put the blame on a couple of kids like that.’ And he had just finished putting on the handcuffs when a woman in a smart skirt and a blue jumper appeared.
‘What on earth’s going on?’ she asked.
‘Nothing to be concerned about, madam,’ said the policeman. ‘This man has just robbed that jewellery shop, but we caught him before he could get away.’
‘But that’s ridiculous!’ said the woman. ‘My husband hasn’t had time to rob anyone! He was in our shop with me until a minute ago!’
‘With you?’ The policeman frowned.
‘Yes!’ The woman pointed. ‘We own the toy shop over there.’
‘I told you!’ said the man with the glasses. ‘I came outside because this boy stole a baseball bat from our shop and—’
‘Well, he didn’t actually steal it, Gavin,’ said the woman in blue. ‘That’s what I came out to tell you.’
‘He didn’t?’
‘No. Nobody stole anything. One of the bats had fallen down the back of the box, that’s all.’ She looked at Archie. ‘And anyway, I said to look for a boy in a red T-shirt. This one’s wearing orange.’
‘I think,’ said Archie, ‘you could say it’s a sort of red …’
‘STOP!’ said the police sergeant in a very loud voice. ‘EVERYBODY! STOP TALKING! NOW!’ In the silence that followed, he turned to Archie. ‘Did this man come out of that toy shop and find you holding a baseball bat and a bag of jewels?’
‘Yes,’ said Archie.
‘Right.’ The policeman looked very stern. ‘Would you like to explain how you got them?’
Archie thought for a moment. ‘I think I’ll let Cyd do the explaining,’ he said eventually. ‘She’s better at this bit than I am.’
Everyone looked at Cyd.
‘Well, I could explain,’ said Cyd, ‘but it’s probably quicker if you just watch the video.’ She held out her phone. ‘I recorded everything that happened, you see.’
The policemen watched the video. It was all there. The man in the car who had driven off, the second man coming out of the jewellers and giving Archie the bag and the bat, and then the man with the glasses running over from the toy shop.
‘I recognize the one in the car,’ said the police sergeant. ‘That’s Big Barry Bolan. But I’ve no idea who the other one is.’
‘His name’s Fergus,’ said Cyd. ‘Fergus O’Donnell.’
Both policemen looked at her. ‘How do you know that?’
‘He dropped his wallet,’ Cyd explained, ‘when he was getting a handkerchief out of his pocket.’ She passed the wallet to the sergeant. ‘You’ll find his address in there as well.’
‘I don’t believe it!’ said the sergeant.
It was about an hour before everything was sorted out and Archie and Cyd could go home. The police had taken a copy of Cyd’s film. The man from the jeweller’s shop, who’d been tied up behind the counter, was released and came out to say ‘thank you’ and to promise them both a reward. And the man with the glasses told both children they should come and choose something from his toy shop, as an apology for the mistake he’d made.
‘Well,’ said Cyd, as they walked home, ‘that was exciting, wasn’t it? I think it was even more exciting than the leopard!’
‘Yes …’ Archie sighed. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do when you go on holiday.’
‘You’ll miss me, will you?’ said Cyd.
‘I certainly will!’ said Archie. ‘When things go wrong, it really helps to have someone around who can go and get the glue solvent, or work out that the dog’s not dead, or produce a film of what really happened.’ He looked at his friend. ‘Who’s going to do all that when you’re away?’
‘It’s only for a week,’ said Cyd. ‘And after I get back, I’ll be with you every day.’
‘You will? Really?’
‘It’s a promise,’ said Cyd, taking his arm, and for some reason Archie found that a very cheering thought.
What wasn’t so cheery was his mother’s mood when he got home.
‘I don’t understand you at all, sometimes,’ she said, crossly. ‘You make me go to all that trouble this morning to sort out a camera for you, and then you don’t take any pictures with it! Honestly! I don’t believe it, Archie!’
On Sunday, Archie decided to have a quiet day at home.
It had been a busy week and he thought it might be nice if, for one day at least, nothing odd happened to him. It would be particularly nice because, if anything did happen, he knew he wouldn’t have Cyd to help sort things out because Cyd and her mother had gone to America.
After lunch, Archie’s mother asked him to take a pile of magazines to the old lady who lived next door, and he picked up the magazines, opened the front door … and found Cyd standing on th
e step outside.
‘Aren’t you supposed to be on holiday?’ he said.
‘We can’t go!’ Cyd looked as if she was trying not to cry. ‘Mum’s had her bag stolen!’
Cyd’s mother had been standing on the pavement that morning with their luggage, waiting for the taxi that would take them to the airport, when a young man had run past and snatched her handbag.
‘It had our passports and tickets and all our money in it,’ said Cyd.
‘I don’t believe it!’ said Archie. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Cyd. ‘I didn’t know what to do. So I came round here in case, maybe, you could help.’
Archie frowned. ‘Me? How?’
‘I just thought,’ said Cyd, ‘if I came round, something might … happen.’
Archie let out a long sigh. ‘I know odd things happen to me most days,’ he said, ‘but I can’t make them happen. I’m sorry, but if you’re thinking I can magically make someone turn up with your mum’s missing bag then—’
‘Ah, there you are!’ said a voice.
Looking down the path, Archie saw the large woman who, on Tuesday, thought he had strangled her sister’s dog.
‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you!’ she said.
‘Me?’ asked Archie.
‘No, no, not you!’ The large woman pointed at Cyd. ‘You!’ She held up a bag. ‘Does this belong to your mother?’
‘It’s Mum’s bag!’ said Cyd. ‘How did you find Mum’s bag?’
‘Well,’ said the large woman happily, passing the bag across, ‘I was out for a walk earlier, when a young man came running down the path and unfortunately tripped over Timmy’s lead.’ She gestured to the little dog beside her. ‘I went to help him up, but he just ran away. Then I noticed he’d dropped that bag, and when I looked inside I realized who it belonged to.’
Cyd was burrowing through the bag’s contents. ‘It’s all here!’ she said excitedly. ‘The passports, the tickets, the money …’ She looked up at the large woman. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Thank you very much.’
I Don't Believe It, Archie! Page 4