Extraordinary Losers 3

by Jessica Alejandro

  “Yes!” Clandestino said, before taking out his phone to read Mundi’s message. “Remember, Uncle Andy, right, at 60 km/h, 29 seconds straight. Traffic light, straight 138 seconds. Left turn 136 seconds straight. Traffic light, turn left at 20 km/h, 10 seconds straight… Poor dog.”

  “How do you know?” asked Uncle Andy, his elbow resting on the wound-down window. “Poor dog?”

  “Mundi messaged us,” I said.

  Clandestino elbowed me. “Don’t have to tell Uncle Andy everything,” he mouthed.

  I wondered why Mundi had added “poor dog” to the text message.

  “Okay, okay. Just tell me how to go,” Uncle Andy said.

  Clandestino fiddled with his red G-shock watch. “Okay, I have already set the timer. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight…” He counted out loud according to Mundi’s instructions. First, he had the coolest shoes, and now, the coolest watch?

  I turned to Janice and Adam. Both of them were sticking out their heads like dogs having a car ride. The wind blew in our faces. The pick-up was travelling at a steady speed of 60 km/h but it felt like a roller-coaster ride, bumping us around the cargo area.

  A few cars drove past and adults gave us horrified looks. Four school kids riding at the back of a pick-up driven by a shady-looking old uncle on a school day, during school hours? We felt invincible!

  A small kid pointed to us excitedly. She must have been envious of us. Poor her, strapped in the back seat while we were enjoying the most thrilling ride. At the same time, I couldn’t help but think of the horror Mundi must have gone through.

  Finally, the car entered a private estate lined with rows and rows of bungalows. Lorong Mebong, the road sign stated.

  “Here?? I don’t understand,” I said. We had come to a junction which split into two roads, one headed left and the other, right.

  “Mundi led us to a fork in the road? This is nowhere near Jurong,” Janice wondered out loud. “That’s just great. How are we supposed to know which road to take?”

  “Maybe he couldn’t finish his message in time,” I said. Everyone gawked at me, thinking that something terrible had happened to Mundi. Uncle Andy turned off the engine and peered at us through the tiny window.

  “What now?” He was breathing heavily. His coffee breath was so strong I was glad I wasn’t sharing the front seat with him.

  “If Mundi is right, then he should be somewhere here,” Clandestino said.

  “Here! Let me see what Mundi said.” Uncle Andy snatched the phone from Clandestino. We could see his blackened fingernails. Eeeww.

  He got out of the car and slammed the door shut. Then he looked at all of us. Of course, he didn’t know that we had special abilities, or he would not have commanded, “Stay here! DO NOT go anywhere! I will go and look for Mundi. Go and call Mundi’s parents and tell them where we are.”

  He looked left and then, without thinking twice, walked towards the houses on the left.

  “How would he know where Mundi is?” Janice whispered. “Unless he is… ”

  “He is the kidnapper,” I said.

  “Come on, let’s follow him, guys!” Clandestino said. Staying in the truck was not what he came here to do.

  Adam rolled up his sleeves, ready for any kungfu action. He had the brawns and he wanted people to know that before they tried anything funny. Clandestino somersaulted out of the pick-up and Adam leapt out like an Olympian hurdler. Janice and I took a good few minutes to get down, trying not to break a bone.

  We looked at the row of houses on the right and on the left. Uncle Andy had already disappeared from our sight.

  “Where should we start? I don’t see a dog, or the likes of it. We can’t just go to every house and knock on the door, right?” Adam said. “We will alert the attackers that we are here.”

  Just then, we saw a little girl coming from the road on the right. She was messy looking. Attached to her was a white dog on a leash. She seemed to be approaching us and waving desperately at us.

  “Hey!” she called out as she ran up to us. “There’s a Chihuahua barking over at house number 80.”

  “Er… so? How does that help us?” Clandestino said. “We are looking for our friend, Mundi.”

  “Clan!” I yelled. “That’s it! Poor dog!” He was slow to catch on.

  “Oh, I am not so sure about that, but the Chihuahua has been barking about a boy who seems lost. And the Chihuahua was yapping about a horrible woman,” the little girl said.

  “And how would you know?” Janice asked. “By the way, is that your dog?”

  “Yes! This is Snowy!” The little girl beamed. “Don’t you think he is cute?”

  Janice reached out to pat the white terrier on the head. Snowy was wagging its tail, excited to meet the four of us. Dogs seem to love children, perhaps because children are short, almost at eye level with them (except Clandestino) and never have any hidden agendas.

  “He has just been groomed!” she said. Then, remembering something, she added, “Oh, the Chihuahua was barking about half an hour ago and then he went quiet.”

  “How did you know what that Chihuahua was barking about? You speak DOG-a-nese?” I asked.

  The little girl smiled, twirled her frizzy hair a little and said, “I can’t tell you. It is a secret! But I really have to go. My mama’s waiting for me!”

  She wiped the beads of perspiration from her cheeks. It seemed that she had travelled from quite far. Then she ran off with her spritely dog chasing after her.

  All of a sudden, she turned and shouted, “Remember, the Chihuahua is in house number 80! And my name is Ellie Belly! Bye!”

  “Ellie Belly?” Janice repeated. “And I thought I was weird!”

  We all looked at one another, puzzled.

  “Is she for real?” Clandestino asked. “If she can speak DOG-a-nese, I can speak…” He thought for a while.

  “You can baby-talk!” I cracked up.

  All of us laughed, and for a moment, we forgot about the danger our friend was in.

  CHAPTER 11: THE PET WHISPERER

  Quick, let’s go! We have to go now!” Clandestino urged.

  “Bye, Ellie Belly!” Janice screamed after the little girl. “Thanks!”

  Janice was still hung up at the thought of meeting a little girl who could speak Dog-a-nese… and maybe more! Of course, she was surrounded by guys with superpowers, but it was a real treat to meet a girl with one.

  “I should have given her a snack!” Janice said regretfully.

  “Snap out of it, Janice,” I yelled. “We have to go now, to house number 80 or somewhere around there!”

  “Uncle Andy took the left road, but number 80 is on the right!” Janice exclaimed.

  Before we knew it, we heard a “poof” and saw a cloud of dust that was kicked up by a speeding object. Clandestino had vanished. He had zoomed off in the direction of number 80, leaving the three of us behind.

  Janice squinted at the house next to her. “Are you kidding me? This is number 12! We have to run all the way there?” She fished out some pretzels from her pocket and began chewing on a mouthful.

  “What happened to your donuts?” I asked.

  “I ran out of them!” she spluttered. “You want some? I need energy for this run.” She offered me the pretzels that had crumbled in her pocket.

  “Erm… No thanks.”

  Adam strode up to Janice and said, “Excuse me, but I have to do this!” And with a swift action, he scooped Janice up with one hand.

  “Hey! Put me down!” she shouted, kicking away. “I am going to report you to the teachers.”

  “Hey, hush, will you? I have to do this!” Adam said. “Don’t think for one minute I enjoy doing this but you are seriously slowing us down!”

  Then, Adam charged forward with Janice clutched by his side. Her legs were kicking wildly but he didn’t give up. Woah, Adam wasn’t as fast as Clandestino but he was definitely stronger than any one of us. He could even lift the feisty Janice with one hand
and run!

  When we arrived at house number 80, Adam let Janice down. She was so embarrassed that for once she did not utter a word. She just rearranged her skirt. Clandestino was stooping at the gate. “There’s no one here, guys!’’ He sounded disappointed. “Only this.”

  “This is it?” I said. After running almost 300 metres (to me it was like 2.4 km), all that greeted us was a large Victorian house. Under the afternoon sun, it gleamed a deep blue, with pale ivory outlining its edges. The house exuded a feeling of calm. On the porch, a white furry Chihuahua was taking a nap, looking serene.

  Janice gasped. “Is this the Chihuahua that little Ellie Beeeeely was talking about?”

  “Mundi’s ‘poor dog’?” we said in unison. Everything seemed to click.

  “It’s Ellie Belly,” Adam corrected. “But the dog is not stirring. It must have barked its voice away.”

  “Here, doggy doggy!” Janice tried to entice the dog with some pretzels. It wasn’t working. The dog’s eyes remained closed and it lay unconscious on the ground. Its tongue was sticking out. I noticed that it was lying on a piece of newspaper with half-eaten rice and something else. It looked like a pink pill that had been broken in half.

  “That’s strange,” I thought out loud. “Look at that pink pill. It looks like someone drugged the dog to force it to shut up.”

  Janice, Clandestino and Adam turned to me, their eyes widening. Then they each took a step closer towards the gate and stared at the dog.

  “Is it breathing?” Janice asked anxiously. “Is it?” She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. A dead dog was too much for her to take.

  “Yes, it is. Don’t worry, Janice, it is. I can see its stomach moving up and down,” Clandestino quickly assured her. “The owner of the house must be out.”

  “Look!” Adam said, pointing to house number 81, right next to house number 80. There was a sign on the gate. It read, “RENOVATION WORK IN PROGRESS. March-October 2013. We are sorry for the inconvenience caused.” Not another renovated house! Lately, there had been plenty of renovations going on in our estate. The government had put up railings everywhere as they didn’t want people to sue them if an elderly person slipped into a drain. The cheap metal railings everywhere were a huge eyesore.

  “What if the little dog here was barking about… its neighbour, who had abducted a… a… boy… who is… Mundi? And the perpetrators wanted to silence this poor little dog?” said Clandestino slowly. He wasn’t usually the problem-solver in the group.

  “Darryl, can you hear if anyone is inside?” Janice commanded. It was an order, not a question.

  I breathed heavily and shut my eyes. “I hear only the hum of the refrigerator… and wait, someone… someone… someone snoring…”

  “Okay,” Clandestino decided. “Let’s go into the house!”

  “Yeah, before Mundi shares the same fate with the dog,” Adam agreed.

  Clandestino lifted his foot to take off, then stopped abruptly. “Wait, wait, wait! I have to call Mundi’s mum to tell her where we are.”

  He punched in some numbers quickly and waited for two seconds. There was no answer.

  “Hurry! There’s not enough time!” I urged. “The kidnappers might be on their way back and we need to find out if it is Mundi in there.”

  Adam snatched the phone from Clandestino.

  “Hey, be careful!” Clandestino pleaded. “This is my new iPhone.” He must have remembered the last time Adam crushed my phone and shattered it to unrecognisable bits.

  Adam texted quickly, his bulging muscles twitching at the punch of every letter. “There you go!” He flicked the phone back to Clandestino and smiled. “Done! Now can we go in?” He was a little too anxious, if you asked me.

  The thought crossed my mind again that this might be some kind of trap… and maybe Adam was in on the plan to capture us. Adam working together with Uncle Andy? I pushed the thought out of my mind lest I be labelled paranoid.

  The gates of the house were chained loosely, which was very odd. All of us crept under the chains and entered the premises effortlessly, even Janice. Clandestino first, Adam second, followed by Janice and me. I was pretending to be a gentleman by practising “ladies first”, but in reality, I was a frozen statue. It shouldn’t be this easy to rescue Mundi, should it? It’s a trap! my subconscious mind screamed at me again.

  Tall lalang grass flanked the mouldy walkway. Buckets of stagnant water were placed everywhere like booby traps. Cords of blue electrical wires snaked around the house like they were intentionally placed there to trip trespassers. We came to an old wooden door that housed tiny termites.

  “Eeeew!” Janice remarked.

  “Ah choo!” Clandestino sniffed. “No wonder this house needs renovation. It’s so dusty and old.” His nose was turning redder and red rash bumps were appearing on his skin. He rapped loudly on the wooden door with his knuckles, bruising them. Clandestino’s knees and elbows were, as always, bruised pink too.

  “That’s strange. No one is here,” he said, scratching his neck after knocking twice.

  “Okay, let’s get out! Let’s just wait for our teachers to come with the police,” I suggested.

  Janice blinked, a mocking look on her face. “I can’t believe you, Darryl. Are you being a scaredy cat?” she said. “Mundi’s life is in danger and all you can think about is….”

  Before she could finish, the door creaked open. Clandestino had used one of his pens to pick the lock.

  “Woah, cool, bro!” Adam laughed.

  “Sssh! And don’t call me bro!” Clandestino replied. We entered the house gingerly.

  “You must conquer your fear, Darryl,” nagged Janice, turning back to me. I thought she had finished her lecture but I was wrong. “Let me show you how you can do it.”

  “Okay! Okay!” I snapped.

  It was a ghastly sight. Dust obscured every surface like ash. Old plates and dishes sat on an antique table thickly encrusted with dried mould. The stale air left a sickening taste in our mouths. The crumbling tiles on the floor made every step a dangerous one. The only thing breaking the evil darkness in the room was the light that was streaming in through the gaps in the heavy velvet curtains.

  “Guys? Guys? I can actually hear someone snoring,” I said.

  “You do?” Adam asked. “How come I can’t hear anything?”

  I caught a glimpse of Clandestino smiling at Janice. We couldn’t divulge our secret powers to Adam yet. He had to prove himself first. As we inched our way through the house, Clandestino kept scratching himself. I thought he was going to have a severe rash breakout anytime.

  “That way.” I pointed to a room beside the kitchen. “The snoring is coming from there.”

  The four of us crept slowly to the room. The snoring was getting louder and louder in my ears. All of a sudden there was a loud “HEY! HOW DID YOU GET IN?” A Chinese man appeared out of nowhere. According to my superhuman ears, he sounded exactly like the Chinese man that had spoken to Mrs Sakdipa on the phone. A black woollen hoodie covered most of his face. His grey overalls were peppered with white specks of plaster and paint. His brown narrow slit eyes met mine and I could see his pupils dilating like a provoked cat about to pounce.

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THIS HOUSE?”

  A masked man always spells danger. He was wearing socks so I hadn’t made out his footsteps. How come I hadn’t heard his breathing either? Maybe his hoodie had silenced his breathing?

  He moved towards the kitchen.

  “We were just… just… just…” I said.

  “We aren’t scared of you!” Adam interrupted.

  I elbowed Adam. That was easy for him to say.

  “WHAT!?” the worker roared. “Get out of here now before I make you scared of me.”

  “Please calm down,” Clandestino said.

  “NO WAY!” he barked. “GET OUT OF HERE NOW!” He reached for a power drill on the grimy kitchen table and waved it at us!

  Janice was biting her fingernail
s nervously.

  I sensed danger in the air. “Guys, maybe we should really go.”

  Then the door to the room from which the snoring was coming opened. A young woman walked out. “What’s all this about, dear? Ah Kiat?” she asked. “Who are these awful-looking children?” She was wearing a party mask of Batman’s Joker, so we couldn’t see her face.

  “Excuse me?” Adam asked. “Awful-looking?”

  Adam certainly thought the world of himself and I guessed he didn’t want to be lumped in the same group as us. I was sure he was about to tear his school uniform apart to reveal his six-pack underneath.

  “These children want to share the same fate as Mundi, you see?” The man snarled, walking closer towards Janice. He pressed the trigger and the drill spinned hazardously.

  “They do, don’t they?” The woman laughed sinisterly. “You kids should have seen the way he looked when we grabbed him. He was shivering all over like a little drenched kitten. That silly boy uttered no sound. He must have been too afraid even to speak.”

  She reached for a knife on the kitchen table.

  “Guys, Ita canta stillta hearta theta snortaringta,” I whispered.

  “Oh no, be careful, she has a kni…” Janice started to say.

  Before she could finish her sentence, the lady had already snaked her arm around Janice’s neck and pointed the knife at her. I could see Janice’s veins throbbing in fear and hear her heart beating wildly.

  “Please, please, not me!” she cried out. “Do something, people!” She stamped her foot.

  I turned to Clandestino. He winked at us. The next thing we knew, he had vanished in a cloud of dust and was whirling around the man and the woman.

  “What in the world?” the woman shrieked.

  Kerpow! Everything was happening so swiftly I couldn’t make sense of it. I could only hear what was happening.

  “Clandestino, look out!!” screamed Janice hysterically.

  “That’s the end of you boys!” the man shouted.

  “Ouch!” Janice cried. “Oh no….”

  My super sensitive ears detected the sound of skin being slashed.