by Sophie Lee
‘And even “to coin a cliché” is a cliché,’ interjected Cheesy, who could sometimes be a bit pedantic (which is just a picky way of saying she liked to quibble over unimportant details).
‘Quite right, Charisma,’ said Hogmanay, putting an arm around his daughter.
‘I got my monkey shoes out to make sure I had everything organised for the big day,’ said Edie. ‘I like things to be sorted, Dad, not everything in a big jumble like in our living room with the piles of paper and stacked books and old tomato tins . . .’ She jumped forward and gave him an enormous hug. When she finally let go she said, ‘Do you think anyone will ever do anything about that cat?’
They all turned to look at Christmas Jones, who was doing a mad hopping dance around the shop with not one but three cats clawing at him.
‘Well . . . I think I just might call the University, thank you, Ma’am,’ said Michaelmas to the old woman.
‘Before you do, Dad, there’s a couple of things I want to say.’ Edie took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry I lied about us doing a science experiment,’ she said, looking from her father to Cheesy. ‘It was all my fault and nothing to do with Charisma. But thank goodness she came with me because her bravery saved my neck and well, the necks of all of us.’ Cheesy blushed with pride.
‘Also, Dad, please don’t be angry with Mister for swallowing the evidence. I know that if we have faith he’ll one day be just as much of an asset to crime detection as any police dog.’ Now it was Mister Pants’s turn to snort contentedly.
Edie smiled down at him, gave him a snort in return, then cleared her throat before gravely addressing the adults. ‘And now, the best for last: a tiny item of evidence that might interest the University.’
She pulled her locket out from inside her T-shirt and opened it, taking care not to dislodge the tiny photo of Mister Pants. She handed her father the microchip. ‘I think this may belong to you.’
Tying up the Case
Edie took a deep breath and gazed out at the clear blue sky above Hootie Hollow. Her pink curtains fluttered in the breeze and she looked back down at her work, surveying her desk. Not all the pencils were colour-coded and in jars, and not all the stray paper clips she’d been using for evidence had been put in their proper little drawers . . . yet. Edie smiled. She could tidy up later. She picked up her pen and began to jot down the last notes in her detective book.
Spring rolls, she wrote thoughtfully. After all, if her father hadn’t had the compulsion to eat deep-fried spring rolls at the Lucky Dragon Restaurant near the University, her adventure would not have unfolded in the way it did. You see, Michaelmas Sparks, having promised his wife never to eat fried food, was in a sense betraying her trust by secretly indulging his passion for it. But Michaelmas, like most of us who are forbidden the treats we love, craved them.
Cinnamon, in turn, had learned a lesson too. She saw that forbidding Michaelmas a little fried treat now and then had led to a whole chain of rather unfortunate events, and she was now at pains to set things right.
‘She’ll be writing a fatty fast food cookbook if we’re not careful, Dad,’ Edie had said to her father.
Edie smiled at the thought as she saw a seagull circle over Bunkie’s Millow. Perhaps it was the same one that had led her to the tip. She waved to it, then returned to her notebook.
Dad works on invention in Lucky
Dragon Restaurant while in possession
of microchip and burnt (but tasselled)
monkey shoe which he had been trying
to match at various shoe shops in
Chinatown, when he is . . .
‘ambushed’? Is ‘ambushed’ too strong a word? she thought. No, ‘ambushed’ was just right: hadn’t the felons worn Albert Einstein masks to hide their identity and robbed poor Michaelmas as he guiltily bit into a spring roll?
. . . is ambushed by masked Runcible
University scientist gang led by Christmas
Jones. The fight is broken up by the
manager, and the evil scientist gang kicked
out. Michaelmas, semi-concussed, leaves
the scene empty-handed but for one sacred
item. After the scuffle the piece of purple
paper, the microchip and the monkey shoe
tassel are swept aside by staff and put out
with fortune cookie rubbish to be sent to the
tip. The tassel is later discovered by curious
seagull foraging among the rubbish.
Edie nodded with satisfaction at her notes.
‘Ahem,’ said her dad, politely leaning over her shoulder.
‘Dad,’ she protested, ‘I’m tying up the case!’
‘Ah,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘you know, child, if I hadn’t asked that young girl at the Lucky Dragon where to buy the replacement monkey moccasins, things mightn’t have turned out as they did. Of course, that was just before three masked men pounced on me, robbed me of everything I had and started breaking plates.’
‘Christmas Jones!’ said Edie.
‘Indeed!’ Michaelmas took off his glasses and gave them a quick polish with his hanky. ‘Anyway, I wasn’t able to get back to Shoe-Shoe-Monkey-Moon for your birthday present until you found me there last night.’ He patted her bob.
‘So, Dad, when you were robbed they managed to take everything except my monkey shoe?’ said Edie.
Michaelmas smiled. ‘Well, I held on to that for dear life. Some things are too important to let go of, no matter how many Albert Einsteins are rough-housing you.’
The Birthday Party
Edie was certain that the first thing guests would have noticed was the pungent smell of the salmon skins above Bunkie’s Millow, but the aroma was soon forgotten under the dazzling marquee.
Gleaming juniper berry cutlets, roast salmon roll-ups and organic cumquat pizzas were passed around on trays fashioned from corrugated cardboard, as were gumnut and lantana berry tofu blocks mounted on recycled wooden sticks. The coconut ice on offer was so chewy and sweet it left guests speechless.
Hogmanay helped himself to a large plate and was filling it with all the macrobiotic-organic-biodynamic treats on offer. ‘It’s food like this that’s enabled me to drop those surplus kilos necessary to get airborne once more,’ he exclaimed.
The Marauder, who up until this moment had been saying ‘No, thank you’ to offers of food, at last acquiesced (which is just a fancy way of saying he gave it a try). Shortly after this he declared he liked tofu after all. In the festive atmosphere the Sparkses had taken pity on him and, despite the fact that he had once rudely refused their daughter’s offer to catalogue the contents of his shed, had invited him to the party. Edie concluded that he must be a very lonely man, because his eyes had filled with tears when Michaelmas invited him.
‘I haven’t been asked to anything like this since my wife left me and took the cat,’ he had said as Michaelmas offered him a hanky.
The Marauder, whose real name was Adam Halloween, wiped his mouth on a napkin and looked up at the marquee. ‘What an amazing piece of work, eh? It’s like a fishy Sistine Chapel.’
Edie, who had been passing round organic cranberry juice, sidled up to her dad, who was standing beside the enormous Chinese bouncy castle that the long-haired waitress and her father had lent the Sparkses. The 105-year-old woman from the shoe shop made a wonderful sight jumping up and down on it with her pipe clamped firmly in her mouth. She was sporting a glittery green pair of winklepickers and tapped her toes in merriment with every bounce.
‘Your wife make you extra special party food today, eh, Professor?’ she called out.
‘What’s she talking about?’ whispered Edie to Michaelmas, who had dressed for the occasion in a large tartan bow tie that was a gift from Hogmanay, and knickerknockers, which are a bit like knickerbockers but of a more regal bearing.
‘These,’ said Cinnamon, who had overheard.
Cinnamon, who had invited the old woman into her kitchen that very morning and
struck up a most unlikely friendship with her, now stood before them with a platter of the finest looking vegetarian spring rolls Edie had ever seen. The crackling pastry of the exterior was golden and flaky and the vegetable medley within a vibrant orange and green. Edie and Michaelmas each did a double take, which I suppose would add up to a quadruple take, while Edie’s mother grinned from ear to ear.
‘You know, my angels, I borrowed Beltane Chompster’s deep fryer to make these specially.’
Michaelmas smiled so fondly at Cinnamon that Edie wondered if he might perhaps be swooning. He reached out and helped himself to a roll saying, ‘Just this once, dear,’ as he leaned forward and kissed her.
‘I’ll pass them round,’ she said, flushing with pleasure and pushing back a stray piece of hair that had fallen in front of her eyes.
Edie looked around at the gargantuan marquee and the crazy untidiness of her family’s backyard and instead of feeling embarrassed or wanting to tidy things away she felt proud of her family’s eccentricity. They were different, but Edie wouldn’t have it any other way.
‘Um . . .’ Edie spied Cheesy lingering by a trestle table groaning with organic cheeses, ‘gotta go, Dad!’
She picked up her skirts and ran towards her friend, and Mister Pants joined her at heel, snorting and snuffling with excitement.
‘Boo!’ said Edie, finally reaching her friend and tapping her on the shoulder. ‘Put down that cheese a minute. I want to show you a game.’ Edie took Cheesy’s sticky hand in her own, leading her to the RSPCA-sponsored Pin the Tail on the Cane Toad, which was in full swing in Hootie Hollow. Pinning anything on donkeys was a no-no in the Sparks family, since donkeys are such sweet-natured animals, and it is well known that the cane toad is destroying the natural ecosystem of northern Australia.
‘First prize is a vat of organic cauliflower cheese,’ whispered Edie.
‘Where do I sign?’ Cheesy grinned and, with hitherto unheard of zeal, fetched herself an organic cotton blindfold, leapt forward and made an immediate bullseye on the cane toad. ‘Howzat!’ she said, tearing the cloth from her eyes and punching the air with glee.
Edie stood back and watched her friend with amazement. She’d certainly come a long way since the Bouncy Log episode and Royal Runcible Outpatients.
‘Piñata time!’ sang Edie’s mum, who had seemed a lot less stressed ever since learning that her husband had got his job back at the University—with a promotion—and that he had resumed work on his mind-boggling invention. Above all, she knew that Michaelmas was once more a happy man.
Michaelmas hoisted himself up onto the makeshift stage and cleared his throat.
‘It’s piñata time everyone,’ he declared smiling. ‘And there are some surprises in store. It would be customary for the birthday girl to have first pop at it,’ he said gesturing towards what would surely go down in history as the most enormous vegetable-matter-clad piñata ever, ‘but today I’d like to honour a member of the family who sometimes gets forgotten. But we mustn’t forget he is a very brave soul, and we should express our gratitude to him, and indeed to our daughter Edie and her friend Charisma, for saving the day and restoring to us what is rightfully ours. How about a round of applause!’
The gathered crowd put their hands together warmly and the three adventurers felt very pleased indeed. Edie doubted whether real detectives were publicly thanked for their efforts.
‘So . . . Mister Pants?’ continued Michaelmas. ‘Come here, boy, and give me your dear paw!’
Mister Pants came forward, gave one of his very strange barks and did a little dance of excitement.
‘Edie, could you come forward and assist him in giving the piñata the very first whack? You see,’ he looked out at the party guests, ‘there is something special for each of you inside it.’
Edie stared up at the enormous piñata and noticed for the first time that it had been modelled in the shape of a French bulldog.
‘But most exciting of all,’ continued Michaelmas, ‘there is a gift within designed especially for my daughter, the birthday girl.’ Michaelmas rubbed his hands together. ‘Well, what are you waiting for? Let the merriment commence.’
Edie helped Mister Pants hold the club in his jaws and lifted him up to give the piñata a sideways thwack. SNORT!
Next in line was Beltane Chompster, whose biceps were well developed from all the work she did making garments on her loom. POW!
Hogmanay and the Blank Marauder both stepped up to the plate and, with a thump and a whump, the piñata began little by little to come apart at the seams.
A succession of party guests had a crack at it. The long-haired waitress pushed the 105-year-old woman to the front of the queue and the old lady delivered a surprisingly hefty thud to its exterior.
Cinnamon Sparks nudged it along the way and, to whoops and hollers from the crowd, Cheesy delivered an impressive upward punch that sent the piñata heaving and creaking and threatening to fall apart at any moment.
Finally and fittingly, it was Edie’s precisely delivered blow that sent a shower of gifts raining down on everyone. There were fortune cookies from the Lucky Dragon restaurant, talking party crackers, macrobiotic toffees, mechanical jumping frogs, party streamers in all the colours of the rainbow, and special gifts for each guest lovingly wrapped in recycled paper. Something large and metallic flashed before her but before Edie could work out what it was her father had grabbed her in a hug.
‘Close your eyes, Edie,’ said Michaelmas. ‘Now open them!’
Edie gasped, clapped her hand over her mouth and looked. ‘Is this . . . robot actually for me, Dad?’ The gold, child-sized creature seemed to tilt its head and smile straight at her.
‘Indeed it is, my dear, my latest invention. The E-bot. Now, do you know what its primary function is?’
‘To do my homework for me?’ said Edie, looking goggle-eyed at the robot.
‘You need to keep on with that yourself, I’m afraid. This is a voice-activated tidying robot. It will tidy away whatever you ask it to. If you’ll allow me to demonstrate?’ he asked. ‘E-bot, tidy away the piñata pieces,’ he commanded, and everyone watched in wonder as the E-bot did just that.
‘Er, Dad,’ said Edie, ‘this is without doubt your finest invention to date and the best present I’ve ever received. But let’s give E-bot the day off. It is a party, you know.’
Edie looked around at the party guests unwrapping their presents. There were gadgets for looms, special motors for wonky cars, vine trimmers, balloon-jet improvers and animal-shaped shoe-horns. There was a gold kilt fastener for Hogmanay in the shape of a French bulldog, a holographic menu board for the Lucky Dragon, and a large meat-flavoured tofu dog’s bone artfully wrapped in recycled plastic.
‘After all,’ she said, ‘what’s a celebration without a bit of mess?’