The Poisoned Arrow
Page 11
Silence from the St Egbert’s team. Hmm, tricky, dunno, tough one. The Head stared at them in disbelief – oh come on, you know that one, I know you know that one!
‘No?’ said Mike O’Phone, not quite understanding what the problem was. ‘The answer is King Harold. Here we go again. In the game of snooker, what colour is the ball that’s worth six points?’
Buzz! (Guess who.)
‘Black!’
‘Wrong.’
I was really enjoying this quiz. Although the Head clearly wasn’t. And neither was Mike O’Phone. And neither was Harry Lovecraft.
By now, you may have spotted what my idea had been, the one mentioned at the end of the last chapter?
We’d taken the questions and changed them. Just a little bit. We’d changed, ‘What is twelve times twenty-five?’ to ‘What is twelve times twenty-four?’; we’d changed ‘The Battle of Hastings in 1066 was won by which invader?’ to ‘The Battle of Hastings in 1066 was won by William of Normandy, but who did he defeat?’; we’d changed ‘In the game of snooker, what colour is the ball that’s worth seven points?’ to ‘In the game of snooker, what colour is the ball that’s worth six points?’
And so on, and so on. You get the idea.
We’d changed things just enough for Spykeside not to realise they’d learned all the wrong answers. Not until it was too late, anyway.
Naturally, the St Egbert’s team mustn’t answer any questions correctly, because they’d come up with the slightly changed versions in the first place! Now that would have been cheating! No, Izzy’s team had to stay silent and pretend to know . . . nothing about anything.
And how had we swapped the correct questions for our own ‘adjusted’ ones? Look back at the disturbance Humphrey caused. Wasn’t that helpful of Izzy to, er, a-hem, ‘tidy up’ Mr O’Phone’s papers for him?
After about fifteen minutes or so, the quiz took a break for commercials. Spykeside had charged ahead, answering everything as they’d learned it. St Egbert’s had been, hmm, oh dear, completely unable to even guess at a single answer.
Score: St Egbert’s – zero, Spykeside – minus twenty-six.
During the break, there was a lot of what’s-going-on chatter amongst the parents and teachers. The Head’s state of horror and bewilderment had been getting steadily worse and she was now looking almost as weird as the members of the Spykeside team.
Harry Lovecraft and his cronies couldn’t work out what had gone wrong. They kept throwing evil looks at Mike O’Phone, obviously thinking that he’d stitched them up and was trying to make them lose.
Mike O’Phone couldn’t work out what had gone wrong either. He was sweating so much that the Vibe FM woman had to fetch him a towel. The look of panic on his face was shouting out three things, loud and clear:
1. Am I going barmy? I don’t remember setting these questions quite like this!
2. What’s Harry Lovecraft playing at? I thought they wanted to win?
3. My career as a radio quizmaster is in ruins! No correct answers, one team silent and the other team looking as useless as a cardboard frying pan!
A couple of minutes later, the adverts finished and Mike O’Phone tried (in vain) to return his grin to normal.
‘OooKaay, welcome back to the grand final of the Brain Boom Schools Quiz Challenge, where the scores are . . . a little disappointing. Let’s step it up, eh, guys? Here we go, straight in with the next question. Sound waves are calculated in what unit of measurement?’
Buzz! (Spykeside.)
‘Metres!’ cried Captain Cool.
‘NOOO!’
Harry slapped Captain Cool on the back of the head. Captain Cool slapped him back.
‘St Egbert’s?’ wailed Mike O’Phone. ‘Any thoughts on that one? . . . No? . . . No thoughts at all? . . . No? . . . OooKaay . . .’
Izzy, Jeremy and the others were struggling not to giggle. The Head was struggling not to shout out the answers herself. Mike O’Phone was struggling not to scream.
Spykeside tried a new tactic. They’d realised that St Egbert’s wouldn’t press their buzzer, so after every question they sat there, muttering, trying to agree on the correct answer. There were long silences, during which Mike O’Phone gibbered nervously.
Even Harry started answering questions! He got several right, but nowhere near enough to erase Spykeside’s sub-zero points total. And pretty soon: ‘Ten seconds to go! Teams, here’s your final question. What nineteenth-century novel by the Victorian writer Charles Dickens features a character called —?’
Buzz! (Superguy, Spykeside.)
‘Bart Simpson!’
‘No! No! No!’ blubbed Mike O’Phone. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, no!’
Harry Lovecraft jabbed Superguy in the ear. Superguy flicked Harry Lovecraft’s nose.
BOOOONGGG!
‘OooKaay, the sound of the gong means time’s up. That’s the end of the contest, let’s look at the scores. No, let’s not look at the scores.’
Score: St Egbert’s – zero, Spykeside – minus twelve.
‘St Egbert’s have won,’ wailed Mike O’Phone. ‘I don’t know how, but they’ve won. I give up! I quit! Ladies and gents, listeners, kids, I can stand it no more! I can’t bear the guilt! I gave Spykeside the answers! There, I said it! That boy there was blackmailing me! He found out I secretly collect Happy Bunnybears merchandise! But I don’t care any more! Tell the world! Tell my mates down at the pub! I’ve had enough! It’s the Bunnybears I love, not this rotten quiz!’
He burst into tears and the Vibe FM woman led him away, her arm cuddled around his shoulders. Meanwhile, Harry Lovecraft was in big trouble.
‘You promised us those prizes!’ growled the Brainiator. She knocked him back with a hefty shove. Then the rest of the Spykeside team started describing, in disturbing detail, all the toilets they were going to stick his head down when they got back to school on Monday morning.
He broke free of them long enough to come staggering over to me. He bristled with anger, from his shiny hair to his shiny shoes.
‘You did this, didn’t you, Smart?’ he sneered.
‘Yes, Harry,’ I said, smiling. ‘Yes, I did.’
‘One day, Smart, I’m going to have my revenge on you, once and for all.’
‘Ready when you are,’ I said casually.
Suddenly, Humphrey came bowling out and leaped up at Harry with a happy-to-see-you woof, dribble splattering everywhere. Harry fell flat on his back with a howling squeal, while Humphrey licked and slobbered all over his face.
I hate that dog, but I guess he has his uses.
Meanwhile, the Head – along with most of the teachers and parents – was busy congratulating the St Egbert’s team, even though no one was quite sure what they were congratulating the team for. Izzy gave me a little wave, and I smiled back.
By the time I got back to my garden shed, I was feeling exhausted. It had been a long, strange day. I wrote a few comments about the case in my notebook, went back into the house and went straight to bed. It was only as I was drifting off into a peaceful sleep that I suddenly realised . . . ‘Oh bottoms,’ I mumbled, pulling the covers over my head. ‘Still haven’t done that science homework.’
Case closed.
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In each story Saxby Smart – schoolboy detective – gives you, the reader, clues which help solve the mystery. Are you ‘smart’ enough to find the answers?
1 – The Curse of the Ancient Mask
A mysterious curse, suspicious sabotage of a school competition, and a very unpleasant relative all conspire to puzzle Saxby Smart, schoolboy private detective.
Stories include: The Curse of the Ancient Mask,
The Mark of the Purple Homework and The Clasp of Doom.
2 – The Fangs of the Dragon
A string of break-ins where nothing is stolen, a rare comic book snatched from an undamaged safe, and clues apparently leading to a hidden treasure – Saxby solves three more challenging crimes.
Stories include: The Fangs of the Dragon, The Tomb of Death and The Treasure of Dead Man’s Lane.
3 – The Pirate’s Blood
A bloody handprint inside a museum case containing pirate treasure, a classmate with a mysterious secret, and a strange case of arson in a bookshop require Saxby’s expert help.
Stories include: The Pirate’s Blood, The Mystery of Mary Rogers and The Lunchbox of Notre Dame.
4 – The Hangman’s Lair
A terrifying visit to the Hangman’s Lair to recover stolen money, a serious threat of blackmail, and a mystery surrounding a stranger’s unearthly powers test Saxby to the limit in this set of case files!
Stories include: The Hangman’s Lair, Diary of Fear and Whispers from the Dead.
5 – The Eye of the Serpent
A valuable work of art vanishes into thin air, a notorious crook returns from the dead, and there’s an eerie case of stolen identity . . . Time to call in Saxby Smart!
Stories include: The Eye of the Serpent, The Ghost at the Window, The Stranger in the Mirror.
6 – Five Seconds to Doomsday
Saxby’s arch-enemy plots his ultimate revenge, video games vanish off a truck, and the school office is the target of an apparently pointless robbery. What’s really going on?
Stories include: Five Seconds to Doomsday, March of the Zombies and The Shattered Box.
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