“I’ve got it. I’ve got it. I’ve got it,” Sofia muttered to herself as the ball took a slow tumble toward her. Sofia knew they didn’t have much time. Sofia knew she didn’t have much time to redeem herself. Sofia prayed to all the deities she could think of, but also reflected on a recent paper she’d read by Sandhu, Edgington, Grant, and Rowe-Gurney According to their research, when a soccer ball is kicked, the distance that it bends is related to the ball’s radius, the density of air, the ball’s angular velocity, its velocity through the air, its mass, and the distance traveled by the ball in the direction it was kicked.
A picture of the equation floated into her brain:
“So if I do this,” Sofia said to herselfas she booted the ball back with all her might, “theoretically it should...”
Everybody watched it sail through the air. On and on and on, across the entire field! It almost landed directly into the other team’s goal, but the Barbarian goalkeeper was ready and punched the ball up out of the way before running into the field, arms embracing the crowd. There was a collective groan from the Gibbons supporters.
The referee looked down at his watch.
“Yes!” The Barbarian goalie cried. “Yes! I did it!” There was no time for the Gibson Gibbons to get another goal in now. She closed her eyes and shook her fists into the air, victorious. The goalkeeper was so busy with self-congratulation that she missed her teammate’s cries of panic and frantic hand signals. The kind of gestures that said: “Behind you! The knife!”
Only it wasn’t a knife.
It wasn’t even a hand drill.
It was something much, much worse.
It was the ball bouncing back down once, twice, three times and rolling backward ever so slowly into goal.
The referee’s whistle sounded.
The Gibson Gibbons had won.
CHAPTER 45
Dead body identified
Shall we check up on the body? Don't worry. It won't bite. Or not yet, anyway. Mwa-ha-ha. Forgive me. Death is not a time for jokes... normally. Fact: In the morgue they keep the temperature of bodies at 4 degrees Celsius. This slows down the rate of decomposition and keeps away the smell. Luckily, Sydney is bitter and cold this winter. The body is well preserved. That is not to say it is looking well, though. In fact, had the woman been alive, she would have dropped dead at the sight of herself. She would NEVER have chosen the conservative blue suit and orthopaedic shoes for any funeral, much less her own. Zsa Zsa Demure, or Mrs. Moira Cronenberg when she married, had more style and chutzpah than that.
The body -
Please, call me Moira.
When you see Moira standing at the bar of The Beauty Bar, you can understand Boris the Imbécile's confusion. The stretch of timber has been converted into the reception where Katriona and Ling Ling write up appointments in a broad leather book in maroon. Moira is leaning back in a way she could never have done comfortably alive. While the wheelbarrow was handy delivering Moira this far, it did not help to maneuver her through the salon's narrow doorway, so Boris had to crank up one of her legs to squeeze her through. Rigor mortis makes the new pose permanent. Her arms remain by their side but one leg is bent at the knee. Much like the purple flamingo in Alana's living room. It suits her. Just as the new headdress with the fruit, tinsel, and three mini disco balls suits her. And the feather boa wrapped around her neck. Moira, propped up against the bar, looks like she is waiting for her own umbrella drink.
Moira will be missed. At the wake they will say that after seventy years - fifty years on stage, three divorces, one child, and a lifetime of ballroom dancing - it should not come to this. This standstill. That her body, now cold and quiet, should be so motionless. That she will never dance again. Or laugh at a bawdy joke. Or ignore her daughter's exasperated reprimands - "Do you really have to smoke, Mother? Do you really have to laugh so loud, Mother? Do you really have to wear those ridiculous outfits, Mother?"
Why yes. Yes I do. Because baby, like it or not, this is me. What was it that poet, Khalit Gibran, sai'd? "For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt in the sun? And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance."
Moira is dancing. She may be dead, but she is still dancing.
CHAPTER 46
Prom the frying pan to the coffin?
Emma, Katriona and Ling Ling found the body in The Beauty Bar, after The Big Game became The Big Victory against the Bluejay Barbarians. The dead body was propped up against their counter, next to the catalogue display of “Summer’s hot hues for hair.” Ling Ling yelled an imprecation. “You said her name was Fok Wee” reminded Emma. Even though Ling Ling, had never met Fok Wee in person because all loans were made through an intermediary, everybody knew she was a little old lady who wore her hair in a top knot like a steamed bun balanced on top of her head, had skin as pale as milk, and teeth which were the best porcelain chompers money could buy. There was no doubt in Ling Ling’s mind that the body in The Beauty Bar was Fok Wee Mung. If they lifted her eyelids, Ling Ling swore the woman’s eyes would face different directions, like the all-seeing demon she was.
The shock of the discovery set their own bones in clay, so that when the phone rang, it was several minutes before they picked up. The call was a request for a last-minute hair appointment, and the client would be there in five. There was not enough time to do more than drag the body into the corner and shove the Salon Hood Hair Dryer, Model HB-M1028, over her head. Exactly five minutes later, the tinkle of the bell above The Beauty Bar’s door announced the client’s arrival. The client didn’t notice the body, balancing like a flamingo in the corner of the room - perhaps because Katriona had assumed the pretence of painting the corpse’s nails. Katriona chose a Liberace-inspired color called, Bling It On to match the feather boa. After all, just because the woman was dead, didn’t mean it was the end of Style. As Ling Ling shampooed the client’s hair, she longed to swap places with Katriona. Not because she particularly wanted to lacquer a dead woman’s nails, but because under the bubbles of extra volume shampoo, Judge Debnham was pouring her heart out, as clients were wont to do.
Never had the three women jumped so quickly from the frying pan to the fire, or in this case, Ling Ling felt, a coffin. She didn’t know the penalty for harboring a dead body in a beauty salon but she sensed it was probably worse than sixty hours of community service. Luck was on their side, however, and Judge Debnham’s grief - so sorry for your loss - blinded her to the fact that the salon owners were Emma Oakley’s friends from her “colorful past,” that Emma Oakley herself (in a gorilla suit) was lying next to her at the shampoo basin, or that The Beauty Bar’s other client was, in fact, dead.
Judge Debnham’s hair was washed, primped, and curled in record time, so that she found herself outside The Beauty Bar door with ten minutes to spare and more tissues than she could use. “Such sweet beauticians,” she sniffed. The sweet beauticians and Emma, meanwhile, were heaving the dead body up the stairs - careful, don’t smudge her nails - and down a thick plank, through to next door’s window. Arnie the Bodybuilder (and part-time political activist-slash-streaker) could cope with dead loan sharks better than they could...
Couldn’t he...?
Five minutes later, Emma, Katriona, and Ling had a change of heart. It wasn’t fair that Arnie should have to deal with their problem, even if the corpse was now rather cleverly disguised with a lampshade on her head. What they needed was concrete blocks on the dead woman’s feet, a speedboat, and dark sunglasses. And maybe they should call each other names like Albert “the Executioner” Anastasia, Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso, and Louis “Louie Bagels” Daidone, suggested Emma, who was researching New York City Sicilian Mafia gangs for her latest article. While the trio redesigned the corpse’s cement footwear, sorted out logistics, and argued who was going to be the capo di tutti capi or “Boss of Bosses,” Arnie and a woman with fabulous-looking hair, strode through the door.
“What are you doing with my mother?!” Jud
ge Debnham shrieked.
So. Not Fok Wee Mung after all.
Hmmm... definitely worse than sixty hours of community service.
CHAPTER 47
Missing persons
Alana Oakley noticed the missing wheelbarrow as soon as James dropped them home. Alana’s senses tingled. The missing wheelbarrow and the missing body had to be linked - a fact confirmed by Mrs. Whetu next door, her graying hair still in rollers.
“Why, yes,” Mrs. Whetu informed them with relish, “the skinny boy from across the road came looking for the mannequin from his mother’s shop. Apparently it’s missing. I told him I saw a body being carted out of your house last night in a wheelbarrow. By the boy in the leather jacket,” she added, watching them closely.
For once, Alana was grateful for her nosy neighbor’s powers of observation, and thanked Mrs. Whetu for the tip. Yes, she was helping the skinny boy from across the road recover the missing “mannequin,” and no, she didn’t know where the boy in the leather jacket was taking it, but she was sure it was all a big misunderstanding.
“You know how mixed up deliveries can get,” Alana said pointedly, at which Mrs. Whetu’s back stiffened - clearly Alana was onto her.
The four girls took off after the “mannequin” by following the tracks the wheelbarrow had left behind. Mud, paint, and even dog poo, had left a convenient, if somewhat smelly, trail. When the imprint left by the solitary wheel ran out, they asked nearby residents and passersby. They discovered people of Mrs. Whetu’s ilk lived everywhere and helped them on their way. But now they were at a crossroads and had no idea which direction the body had gone.
Alana glanced at her watch. James would be picking them up soon for a celebratory dinner. They were running out of time.
“Why don’t we call the delivery guy?” Maddie suggested.
“Of course!” Alana yelled. “You’re brilliant!” Maddie dusted her shoulder and smiled.
But just up ahead, while Sofia tapped the number for Boris the Imbécile on her phone, Alana spotted a familiar figure. The boy had short, dark spiky hair, high cheekbones, and light-colored, deep-set eyes. It was Will, and by the look of it, he was searching for the body too!
What do you do when you have to confront a suspected vampire about your dead ballroom dancing teacher? (Strategize! Call for reinforcements! Run!)
Exactly! But that’s you.
What Alana did was tackle.
“Where’s Mrs. Cronenberg? What did you do to the dead body? Why did you turn her into a vampire?”
“Ummm, Alana,” Maddie interrupted, “maybe Will could answer if you took the garlic out of his mouth.”
Alana loosened her grip on Will’s face and allowed him to spit out the bulb. He coughed and spluttered before picking bits of garlic from his teeth.
Will looked into Alana’s eyes and Alana’s throat closed up. His eyes. They were a rich, golden color. The color of liquid topaz. Like the eyes of a lion just before it opens up its maws to devour prey.
“You think I’m a vampire?” Will said.
Alana crossed her arms. “I know you are,” and proceeded to list all of her suspicions against him and his family.
Will’s answer to Alana’s accusation was simple.
Plastic fangs - the kind from a joke shop -lay in the palm of his hand. Will’s always messing around. Im sorry if he scared you. Corinne Lofgren’s voice echoed in Alana’s head.
Alana refused to give up, although she did allow Will to sit. Your pale skin? We’re half Swedish and Irish, what do you expect? Steak tartare? Seriously? Who eats raw meat? We do. The Ouija board? How do you explain that? I rigged it to spell “Woof.” It was just a stupid joke. (But there was still the question of their ballroom dancing teacher. Dead the last time Alana saw her.) And what was your dad doing with the body in your basement? Mrs. Cronenberg, wasn’t it?
Will looked down and refused to meet their eyes. “Dad’s a mortician,” he admitted finally. “That means he prepares the deceased for viewing before their burial,” he explained to Khalilah who didn’t understand. Bruneian customs were very different. Dead bodies were wrapped in a shroud before being buried straight away. “We begged our parents not to tell anyone because people at our last school freaked. We don’t even let Dad drive the hearse. He never brings his work home unless he has to, but sometimes it gets busy. Storage can get tight which is why Mom and Dad bought the house. Dad said the basement’s perfect. Anyway,” he continued, “Mrs. Cronenberg was another client. But she was the first one I knew personally. And the first to go missing.”
Alana gave an uncomfortable cough.
“But of course, I would have jumped to the same conclusion. A vampire!” he chortled. “That’s hilarious!”
“Yeah well somehow I don’t think Katriona and Ling Ling are going to think it’s very funny,” Sofia interrupted them. “Boris said he delivered the ‘old bird’ to The Beauty Bar half an hour ago.”
Uh-oh!
The four friends and Will tore off down the street.
CHAPTER 48
To cut a long story longer
There was no easy answer to Judge Debnham’s question (“What are you doing with my mother?!”) without first explaining why Emma, Katriona, and Ling Ling were in Arnie’s apartment. To do that, they had to start from the beginning.
“Katriona didn’t want to celebrate her thirtieth birthday,” Ling Ling began, “not even with paintball or a spa treatment or cake, and she kept saying, ‘I’m nevereverevereverever getting out of bed!’ and so she didn’t, which made it impossible for me to run the business on my own, so I borrowed some money, and then we ran away because they wanted their money back, so when Katriona said she’d get out of bed to see Kylie Minogue in Tasmania, I jumped at the chance —” “— but we couldn’t take Emma’s car because of, you know, what happened last time,” Katriona continued, wisely not elaborating, “so she went to Dodgy Dave’s and got a Kombi van, but Ling Ling had to drive because Emma didn’t feel confident in the new car. Then Emma put the wrong coordinates in the GPS, and we got lost in the desert somewhere —”
“— and we couldn’t call anyone because Ling Ling packed everything except the phone charger and reception was so poor,” Emma took up the story, “and when we did talk to someone, it was only my mother, so now I have to go to another cousin’s wedding, with no date, as usual. And before that, Jinx got eaten by a snake, which we thought was a creepy bird and we went swimming in a billabong pool with crocodiles, and an alien spider attacked me, but luckily Katriona and Ling Ling killed it, and even luckier, a scientist found us and showed us where we could find a hotel, which...” Emma collapsed into giggles, “ended up being over the hill, only a few meters away. Funny, right?”
“Side-splitting,” said Judge Debnham with no hint of a smile.
“And they even had the cute little umbrella drinks, remember?” Katriona reminded her.
“Yes,” said Emma, “which made Katriona insanely happy, and then we saw the soccer game on TV, and that reminded me of Alana’s game, so we hurried home as fast as we could, but Ling Ling chose the car with the giant mango on it, and actually...” Emma paused to think. “Maybe that’s why the police were there? Maybe they wanted the mango back?”
Judge Debnham, having dealt with Emma before, was not surprised the police force was involved in the women’s story. Trouble with a capital “T” didn’t find Emma so much as hunt her down. Then just when the judge thought the day couldn’t get any stranger, Emma’s daughter, Alana, and four other teenagers climbed into her son’s bedroom via the plank in the window. Shortly after came a boy in a leather jacket with the words “The Imbécile” embroidered on the back. The room was suddenly very crowded. A hail of voices started speaking at once.
“Wait one minute! Where do you think you’re going with my mother?” Judge Debnham protested over the hubbub when she spied Boris maneuvering Moira out the window.
“The door. Good thinking,” Boris said, as he and the corpse di
d an about-face.
“Oh no, you’re not,” Judge Debnham said, pulling on her mother.
“Oh yes, I am,” insisted Boris. C.O.D. meant Cash On Delivery and Boris was yet to deliver.
Alana interceded before the tug-of-war split Mrs. Cronenberg in two, and explained to Boris that the “blue bird” he was supposed to deliver was still back at her house. To Judge Debnham, she explained that Mr. Löfgren had outsourced the hair and makeup to The Beauty Bar for authentic “Showbiz Pizzazz.”
Emma, Ling Ling, and Katriona nodded vigorously after only two sharp elbows in the ribs.
“Because,” Alana said, taking a punt on her powers of observation, “you know Mrs. Cronenberg wouldn’t really be happy in that suit, or those orthopedic shoes.” Alana said the word “orthopaedic” as if it was toe jam or something, and Judge Debnham nodded against her will. All the fight seemed to flow out of her body and she leaned on Arnie’s arm for support. Ling Ling hoped Judge Debnham wouldn’t start crying again. She was out of tissues.
Bloodsuckers and Blunders Page 14