by R. A. Spratt
‘They might not be able to ride in that canoe,’ said Melanie, ‘but they’ll be able to use it to bring the food back.’
‘What’s Friday doing?’ asked Harvey.
They all looked up to see Friday stand still for a moment, and then run at full speed (which looked very silly with the bottles stuffed up her cardigan) towards the river.
‘She’s lost her mind!’ worried Melanie.
Friday leapt straight off the bank four metres above the water.
‘She’s going to die!’ screamed Susan.
But Friday had a firm grasp of the end of the rope. She swung out over the water, well past the middle of the current, before letting go and plopping down just a few metres from the far bank.
The Houseboaters erupted in screams of joy.
‘I can’t believe it!’ cried Harvey.
‘She actually knew what she was doing!’ yelled Wai-Yi, grabbing Patel in a big hug.
Friday was not a good swimmer, but with thirty plastic bottles inserted in her clothes there was no way she would sink. She awkwardly paddled over to the bank.
‘Quick,’ said Melanie, ‘let’s get the rope. Then we can throw it across to help pull her back.’ The Houseboat team started scrambling up the hill.
Friday made it to the nearest pile of supplies, took hold and pulled it over to the bank. She then took the empty bottles out from under her cardigan and began hooking them onto the plastic strapping around the box.
Ian was still duck-diving down into the water trying to find his sunken food. He looked over and saw what Friday was doing.
‘You think you’re so clever, don’t you?’ said Ian.
Friday had just fastened the last bottle to the package. ‘I honestly hadn’t given it any thought,’ she said. ‘Every standardised examination I have ever taken certainly supports that conclusion. But there is a theory that human intelligence can be broken up into seven different types, and I am well aware that I am a blithering idiot at emotional intelligence.’
Ian sighed and slumped on the bank, surrounded by his waterlogged supplies. ‘You know, sometimes you are so pedantic that you go beyond being annoying and I can almost feel sympathy for you.’
Friday nodded. ‘That’s probably the oxygen starvation talking because you’ve had to duck-dive down under the water so many times. When you’ve caught your breath, I’m sure I’ll start irritating you again.’ She started to unbutton the fly on her jeans.
‘Hey! What are you doing?’ yelled Ian, leaping up and turning away so he wouldn’t be subjected to any unexpected nudity.
‘I’ve got undies on,’ said Friday.
‘No one wants to see your legs,’ said Ian.
‘I’m still wearing my cardigan and t-shirt,’ said Friday. ‘Get over yourself. You’d see more if I was in my swimmers.’
‘But why are you taking your trousers off?’ asked Ian.
‘It’s survival skill,’ said Friday. ‘I read up on them before we came away to camp. If you need to make a buoyancy vest, you just take off your trousers, tie the ankles together, get them wet, then fill them up with air and hold them around your neck.’ She waded into the river. ‘I’m not very good at swimming,’ Friday explained as she grabbed hold of her supplies and pulled them towards her. The supplies bobbed down in the water, but with the bottles attached all around the outside, the package floated like an iceberg with ten percent above the water.
‘Friday!’ yelled Melanie from the far side of the river. ‘Grab hold.’
Patel swung the rope around his head with his good arm. He had tied a rock to the end to give it momentum. Then he let go. It hurtled through the air.
‘Watch out!’ cried Ian.
‘For what?’ asked Friday. As she turned to glance at Ian, the rock with the rope attached hit Friday on the side of the head.
Ian winced.
Friday tottered on her feet for a moment then passed out face down in the water. Ian leapt in and grabbed her, pulling her onto her back. She floated easily in that position because of the buoyancy vest.
Ian sighed. ‘The number of times I’ve had to rescue you.’ He grabbed the one tin of sardines he’d managed to save from his own supplies, put it on top of Friday’s brick, tied the rope to it, then took hold of Friday and waded out into the river.
The Houseboaters started pulling him and the package back across as they drew in the rope hand over hand.
The cool water soon made Friday regain consciousness. ‘What’s happening?’ she asked.
‘I’m saving you again,’ said Ian.
‘Okay,’ said Friday.
‘But you won the supply challenge,’ said Ian. ‘All I managed to retrieve was a can of sardines.’
‘Never mind,’ said Friday. ‘The girls in your hut are keen on slimming anyway.’
Ian laughed.
The next thing Friday knew, there were five pairs of hands grabbing hold of her and the supplies as the Houseboaters waded in and helped them from the water.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Melanie.
‘I think so,’ said Friday, rubbing her head.
‘It was nice of Ian to hug you as you swam back with him,’ said Melanie.
‘I wasn’t hugging her,’ said Ian. ‘I was rescuing her by swimming sidestroke.’
‘Ahuh,’ said Melanie. ‘You say “potato”, I say “it looked like a nice hug”.’
‘The Treehouse team loses,’ announced Geraldine, glaring scornfully at her favourite team.
The Tent team and the Hole team were working together to bring back the one remaining block of supplies in the canoe. The third block of supplies was still at the bottom of the river, no doubt well on its way downstream towards the ocean.
‘The Tent and Hole people can share their supplies,’ said Geraldine. ‘The Treehouse team will spend a whole day going without.’
‘It’s all your fault, Wainscott,’ said Jessica bitterly.
‘We should throw him out for fraternising with the enemy,’ said Mirabella.
‘Hang about,’ said Drake. ‘Wainscott is our best athlete. You don’t want to cut your nose off to spite your face.’
Mirabella gasped in horror. ‘Who told you I’ve had plastic surgery?!’
‘What?’ asked Drake, terrified of the reaction he’d caused. ‘It’s just an expression. Cut your nose off to …’
‘How dare you!’ yelled Mirabella. She launched herself at Drake trying to slap him, but he dived into the river to get away. ‘Come back here, you coward!’
‘Stop!’ called Friday. ‘There’s no need to be angry with Drake or Wainscott, I mean, Ian.’
‘They’re on a first-name basis,’ said Melanie.
‘You won’t go hungry,’ said Friday. ‘We’ll share our supplies with you.’
‘We will?’ asked Patel.
‘But they’re always mean to us,’ protested Wai-Yi.
‘I know,’ said Friday. ‘But if I’d drowned on the other bank, we wouldn’t be getting anything to eat either. We wouldn’t have got the supplies without Ian’s help.’
‘That sounds fair enough,’ said Harvey.
‘There are only six of us,’ said Melanie, ‘so there would be extra to share.’
‘It’s a deal, then,’ said Friday.
‘Thank you,’ said Ian.
‘But don’t think this means that we like you, Barnes,’ said Trea.
‘I would be horrified if you did,’ said Friday.
Chapter 13
Petty Thief
‘Barnes, I need your help.’
Friday looked up from the potato she was peeling. She was a scruffy person at the best of times, but having just peeled her 183rd potato since her pre-dawn star Friday was even more dishevelled and dirt-smeared than usual. So she provided stark contrast to Jessica Dawes, the lean, athletic strawberry-blonde standing before her. Jessica was wearing jeans and a t-shirt the same as Friday, but unlike Friday her clothes were immaculate.
‘Did you bring an iron?’
asked Friday.
‘What?’ asked Jessica.
‘Your clothes are perfect,’ said Friday, ‘no creases or crumples. Did you bring an iron with you to camp?’
‘Of course not,’ said Jessica. ‘We’re meant to be roughing it here.’
‘So how are your clothes so beautiful?’ asked Friday.
‘It all comes down to how you fold them when you pack,’ explained Jessica. ‘Our maid always uses tissue paper between the clothes so that they don’t get crumpled.’
‘I see,’ said Friday. She nodded and went back to peeling potatoes.
‘I need your help,’ continued Jessica.
‘I have another 117 potatoes to peel before breakfast,’ said Friday. ‘If you want to tell me your problem, you’ll have to do it while I peel. Better yet, you could pick up a peeler and help.’
Jessica snorted a laugh. ‘I can’t do that. If anyone from my hut sees me talking to you, let alone helping you, I’d never hear the end of it. They’d probably make me sleep on the verandah. And I toss and turn, so I might fall over the side of the Treehouse.’
‘And that would be a terrible shame,’ said Friday. (She was getting better at sarcasm. This was precisely the sort of important social skill that Friday went to high school to learn.)
‘Someone has been stealing my breakfast cereal,’ whispered Jessica.
Friday looked up from her potato. She was clearly missing something. The camp for all its faults – and there were a great many – did provide a full hot breakfast for the campers every morning. You could even go back and get seconds, or thirds if you were particularly hungry and didn’t mind watery scrambled eggs or fatty bacon.
‘So why don’t you help yourself to more?’ Friday asked.
Jessica was puzzled for a second then she caught on. ‘Oh no, it’s not the breakfast cereal they provide, that horrible stuff full of sulphites, sugar and carbohydrates.’
‘Carbohydrates are sugars,’ said Friday.
‘They’re all unhealthy,’ said Jessica.
‘You’d die if you didn’t eat any sugar,’ said Friday. ‘There’s fructose in fruit, lactose in milk, sucrose in sugar cane and galactose in sugar beets. You can’t get away from sugar.’
‘My dietician says I need to if I’m going to achieve one per cent body fat,’ said Jessica.
‘Why on earth would you want to achieve one per cent body fat?’ asked Friday.
‘So I can make Trea Babcock die with envy,’ said Jessica.
‘All right,’ said Friday, ‘let’s set your frightening lack of understanding of the chemistry of food aside, and move on with the problem at hand. I take it you have a stash of breakfast cereal you brought from home and someone is stealing that?’
‘Yes, my breakfast cereal is paleo, gluten-free, probiotic and high in protein,’ said Jessica.
‘So is a slice of bacon,’ said Friday.
‘But bacon is high in fat,’ said Jessica.
‘You need fat in your diet for fingernails, hair and essential minerals,’ said Friday.
‘If I’m bald, I can wear a wig,’ said Jessica. ‘If I’m fat, there’s nothing I can do about that.’
Friday sighed. She didn’t know why she bothered using facts and reasoned argument on girls like Jessica.
‘So someone has been taking your breakfast cereal,’ said Friday.
‘Yes, every morning when I wake up, the jar has been pulled out from under my bed, the lid has been taken off and some cereal is missing,’ said Jessica. ‘You’re supposed to be a detective. I want you to find out who’s been stealing it.’
‘What’s in it for me?’ asked Friday.
‘What?’ asked Jessica.
‘How are you going to pay me?’ asked Friday.
‘This is a camp,’ said Jessica. ‘We’re meant to be roughing it. We were specifically told not to bring money.’
‘You brought paleo, gluten-free, probiotic, high-protein breakfast cereal, but you didn’t bring a credit card?’ said Friday.
‘You take credit cards?’ asked Jessica.
‘As a matter of fact, I do,’ said Friday. ‘We’re allowed to send letters. I’ll send your card number and expiry to my uncle, and he can deduct the money from your account.’
‘Fine,’ said Jessica.
Friday grabbed her backpack and went with Jessica back to her hut. Technically, Friday didn’t really go ‘with’ Jessica, because Jessica insisted that Friday walk parallel to her but twenty metres away through the forest so no one would see them walking together.
‘This is ridiculous,’ said Friday. ‘Everyone is at breakfast. No one will see us.’
‘I’m not prepared to take that risk,’ said Jessica.
Friday had added a 25 per cent ‘being forced to walk through the forest’ levy to the original fee she had negotiated, so she wasn’t too fussed about Jessica’s ludicrous over-precaution.
When Friday arrived at the clearing, she had to admit she was impressed. She had not seen the Treehouse close up before, and it was an amazing building. It had been built into the branches of two adjacent oak trees. There was a circular room around the trunk of each tree with a large covered communal room suspended between the two, and wide verandahs spreading out from the structure on all sides.
‘Okay, that is worth doing twenty push-ups for,’ conceded Friday.
‘Huh?’ asked Jessica.
‘Never mind,’ said Friday. ‘Do you want to show me the scene of the crime?’
‘Okay,’ said Jessica, ‘but if anybody sees you with me, I’m going to tell them that you forced me to let you inside by blackmailing me.’
‘Blackmailing you for what?’ asked Friday.
‘I don’t know,’ said Jessica, ‘I’ll make something up. I’ll say you’re holding my poodle to ransom.’
‘I would never do that,’ said Friday. ‘I don’t like dogs.’
‘Neither do I,’ said Jessica, ‘which is why I don’t have one. But no one needs to know that. This way …’
Jessica led Friday over to the spiral staircase that wrapped around the trunk of the oak tree.
‘The girls’ dorm is in this tree,’ explained Jessica. ‘The boys are in the other.’
When Friday entered the dorm room she was shocked. It was immaculate. She had expected that the pampered girls, when forced to fend for themselves, would be struggling, but the room was spotless. The beds were all perfectly made with neat, crisp hospital corners. There was even a vase of wildflowers on a table in the middle of the room.
‘Wow,’ said Friday. ‘I hadn’t expected you to be so tidy.’
‘Oh, we’re not,’ said Jessica. ‘Amelie snuck in her maid.’
‘Huh?’ said Friday. ‘Are you saying one of the girls smuggled in a human being in her luggage?’
‘Gosh, no,’ said Jessica. ‘We had to carry our own bags. There’s no way Amelie could have carried Gretchen up here. No, her father dropped the maid off at the nearest fire trail. She hiked in and is secretly camping three kilometres away in the woods. She comes in every morning before dawn to do the cleaning.’
‘So which is your bed?’ asked Friday.
‘Over here,’ said Jessica, walking over to the bed nearest to the window. She reached underneath and pulled out a large plastic jar, which was now only a third full of breakfast cereal.
‘I see,’ said Friday, taking the jar from Jessica and inspecting it closely. There were some scratch marks about the jar and lid, but only the normal type you would expect from kitchen Tupperware that had regular use. Friday left the jar on the bed and looked around.
‘Your maid has done a thorough job of destroying all the evidence,’ said Friday. ‘There are no footprints, no traces of residue that may have been brought in on the perpetrator’s feet, no litter left behind.’
‘Excuse me if we in the Treehouse like to maintain standards,’ said Jessica.
‘You mean, you like to pay others to maintain your standards for you,’ said Friday.
&nbs
p; ‘Same thing,’ said Jessica.
Friday went over and looked out the window. There wasn’t much to see, just the big tree branches stretching out above and below the Treehouse.
‘The problem with cleaning up a crime scene is now I have no clues,’ said Friday. ‘Footprints can tell me the size of a perpetrator’s feet, and the length of their gait from which I can extrapolate their height. Residue from their shoes can tell me where they’ve been. And accidentally dropped litter can tell me what they’ve been up to. I have none of that here.’
Jessica sighed. ‘I’m not really interested in what you can’t do. I want to know what you can do.’
‘I could cross-examine all your roommates,’ said Friday.
Jessica scoffed at the thought. ‘Not going to happen. I don’t want people to see me with you, and I certainly don’t want them to know I’ve spoken to you.’
‘All right,’ said Friday. ‘Then I suppose all I can do is fingerprint the jar.’
‘You can do that?’ asked Jessica.
‘Sure. All I need is some powder, sticky tape, a brush and some black card,’ said Friday. ‘Do you have those things here?’
‘Duh,’ said Jessica. ‘What do you think this is? A preschool? I didn’t bring craft supplies.’
‘You probably have some of them,’ said Friday. ‘We just need to think laterally. Did you bring any make-up with you?’
‘Of course,’ said Jessica. ‘My mother never lets me leave the house without all the essential supplies.’
‘So does that include blush?’ asked Friday.
‘Yes,’ said Jessica.
‘May I borrow it?’ asked Friday.
‘Why? You never wear make-up,’ said Jessica.
‘Just lend it to me and I’ll show you,’ said Friday.
Jessica went to her make-up bag, rifled through and found a blush compact.
‘Perfect,’ said Friday. ‘Now we just need to find the fingerprints on the jar.’
Friday very carefully took hold of the jar by the rim of the base, then with her other hand began liberally shaking powder all over the container.
‘Hey!’ exclaimed Jessica. ‘That’s from Paris. It costs $100 a jar.’