by A. J. Low
“Hey! Where are you guys going?”
We turned around. It was Uncle Boon Chong. He was panting and looked winded as he jogged up to us.
“We found a clue!” Jimmy chirped. “It’s not the restroom!”
“What?” Uncle Boon Chong replied, frowning. “You guys shouldn’t be here. This… er…this is a restricted area. It’s…er…it’s for staff only.”
“We’re sorry, Uncle, but we have reason to believe that the thief might be hiding something in one of the rooms here. A locked room.” I took the rusty key out from my pocket and showed it to Uncle Boon Chong. His eyes widened. I noticed his hand drop to his pocket. He reached into it and fumbled around. When he saw me looking, he pulled out a handkerchief. “Hot,” he muttered, wiping the sweat off his face.
“We’re not using any of the rooms in this building,” he continued. “That’s why we didn’t spend the money to make it look nicer.”
“That doesn’t mean that the thief isn’t using it,” I said.
“Thieves-are-notorious-for-not-following-the-rules,” Watson helpfully added.
“Has anyone ever told you your robot has a smart mouth?” Uncle Boon Chong asked. Dad barked out a laugh, which he quickly covered with a well-placed cough.
“I found it!” Jimmy called out. He had run ahead of us and was peeking at us from around the corner. “It’s over here! It’s still not the toilet!”
“Wait, what?” Uncle Boon Chong asked. “Er, wait…these aren’t the droids you are looking for!” He waved his hands in front of us oddly. I noticed he had put another koyok on his left forearm. I was starting to think that my dad’s old classmate was as odd as QT.
“Let’s go!” Nazhar said, giving the director a puzzled look. He and Wendy dashed off after Jimmy.
I was about to run after them when I noticed that Eliza hadn’t moved a step. This was very strange. She was usually the fastest of us all, even faster than Nazhar and his long legs. “Are you coming, Eliza?”
She looked at me and seemed to want to say something, but instead she nodded and ran past me. “Wait up!” she called out.
“Er…Mike, er…I have something to tell you,” Uncle Boon Chong said. “It’s important! Like Death Star plans important!”
“Now?” Dad asked. Uncle Boon Chong nodded furiously. “Okay, okay. Sam, you go ahead. I’ll be right there.”
I nodded. By the time I got there, my friends were gathered around the door. The corridor was dark and smelled musky. The corners had cobwebs and years of dust built up. This building really was the only part of the studio that wasn’t being used. It also seemed like a perfect place to hide something that someone didn’t want anyone to find.
“It-looks-like-the-key-I-found-will-fit-the-lock,” Watson informed me.
I walked forward and inserted the key. We all held our breath. I turned it. There was a click and the door opened. We had expected it to be dark but the room had a window and light was streaming in. It smelled like dust and sweat, and I expected Wendy to have one of her sneezing fits, but she seemed surprisingly okay.
“Is that what I think it is?” Wendy gasped and pointed at the floor in front of her.
“I…think so…” I replied. I was stunned. This was definitely not what I was expecting.
“That-is-exercise-equipment-Sherlock. In-case-you-did-not-recognise-them,” Watson said. I glared at my robot.
“That’s a Pilates mat and ball,” Eliza observed. “My mom uses them.”
“And this DVD player has a Pilates instructional video in it,” Nazhar said. He pressed a button and a smiling woman came onscreen.
“Now breathe in and clench your lower tummy muscles,” the woman chirped from the DVD player. “Good. Very good. Now lift up your right leg. Good. Very good. Now your left leg. Excellent!”
“Wait. What’s that?” I said. I dashed over to the Pilates mat and pulled out sheets of paper that had been hidden underneath. Everyone gathered around me.
“What’s a contract?” Jimmy asked, reading the top of the first page.
“What’s Food Fight?” Wendy asked. “Is it a new television show?”
“A contract is a legal document, Jimmy,” I replied. “And Wendy, Food Fight does seem to be a new television program. This is a contract to hire a new director for Food Fight.”
“Wait, why would Uncle Boon Chong have a contract to be the director for another show? He already has a show,” Nazhar said.
“Wow, that’s a lot of zeroes there,” Jimmy said as I flipped to the second page.
“Yes, that is a lot of money,” I said. “It’s for an international cable TV network and I think they can pay a lot more than our local TV companies.”
“Sherlock,” Wendy said. “You don’t think Uncle Boon Chong would sabotage his own show would you?” She looked shocked. Eliza was standing next to her with her arms crossed.
“Why wouldn’t he?” Eliza said. “He looks like he needs the money to buy proper grownup shoes.”
“Eliza, that’s not a very nice thing to say,” a voice said from behind us. It was Dad. I quickly hid the contract behind my back. Uncle Boon Chong was hiding behind my dad. His face was red and he looked extremely embarrassed.
“I…I…” Uncle Boon Chong said. “I hear my office phone ringing!” He dashed away.
“What on earth is all this?” Dad asked us glancing around the room.
“And now we’re going to strengthen our buttock muscles!” the lady on the screen said.
“What?” Dad said, as he walked towards the DVD player and leaned down to watch. “Did she say buttock muscles?”
“Sherlock,” Wendy frantically whispered. “What do we do? Should we tell Dad that Uncle Boon Chong is the thief? Do you think he stole the script so that Masters of the Screen would fail and he could get more money directing Food Fight?”
“I think that’s what we’re supposed to think, Wendy,” I replied.
“Seriously, Samuel,” Eliza said. “Have you seen his ratty clothes? He looks like a bum.”
“Eliza,” Dad said, “you really need to be more respectful.”
“To that guy?” Eliza asked. “I can’t respect someone who cares more about himself than how his actions affect the people around him.”
“Well if that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black…” Wendy said, rolling her eyes.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Eliza shot back.
“Girls—” Dad started.
“It means you’ve described yourself perfectly!” Wendy shouted. “You care more about how others see you than how your actions affect the rest of us!”
I honestly thought Eliza was going to punch Wendy or scream at her, but instead she abruptly sat down on the Pilates mat. Then Eliza said something I thought I’d never hear her say: “You’re right, Wendy.”
She looked at me, her eyes tearing, and said, “Tell them, Samuel. You already know. I know you know.”
“Tell us what?” Wendy asked. She was still angry, but there was doubt creeping in her voice.
I took a deep breath. My tummy felt funny, and not in the way it felt before I was going to eat something really delicious, or after I’d eaten too much. This was something else entirely.
“Jake’s mom,” I said. “You guys know the calls Eliza has been getting from Jake’s mom? It’s a very simple anagram, but a very clever one. I assume it was his idea?” I looked at Eliza.
Eliza nodded, wiping tears from her eyes.
“I don’t understand,” Nazhar said.
“Switch the ‘k’ with the second ‘m’,” I said. I saw the mental movement in my friends’ faces. Jimmy got it first. He clapped his hands over his mouth and whispered, “No.”
Nazhar and Wendy got it next.
“James Mok,” they said at the same time.
Eliza openly wept now.
“Sam, what is going on?” Dad asked. “Are you accusing James of something else now?”
“No, Uncle,” Eliza said, in between s
obs. “Samuel was telling the truth. James faked his disappearance last month.”
“What? How do you know this, Eliza?” Dad asked. “And how do I know you’re not just covering for Sam?”
“Because I helped him do it!” Her shoulders shook with her crying.
The rest of us stood around, speechless.
“I’m so sorry about your ankle, Wendy,” Eliza said, once she could catch her breath. “Nobody was supposed to get hurt.”
“How long has this been going on?” I asked. I dreaded hearing her answer.
Eliza took a deep breath. “Since Pulau Ubin. I was just supposed to observe you while you solved your cases, but then that wasn’t enough.”
“That’s why he knew so much about Penang!” Jimmy said.
I suddenly remembered what happened outside Ben’s Vintage Toy Museum. “He was in Penang! You met him outside the museum before we started following the tattooed thief!”
“Yes,” Eliza said. “He said he was there helping me observe all of you, but later he told me he’d set the whole robot theft in motion.”
“Are you saying he asked Hwee Fong, Jimmy’s mum’s assistant, to steal Vivian’s vintage robot?” Dad asked. “That’s quite an accusation, Eliza.”
“No, he would never be so obvious about these things,” Eliza said. “He gets other people to work on his behalf, sometimes without them even knowing it. He knew you were going to visit Jimmy’s mom, and that Jimmy’s mom had that robot. He studied all of Auntie Vivian’s employees and picked the one that was most likely to steal the robot.”
“Why did he pick Auntie Hwee Fong?” Nazhar asked.
“She owed people a lot of money, apparently,” Eliza said.
“But how did he get her to steal it?” Dad asked.
“He got his butler to make her an offer, and then ‘let human nature run its course’.” Eliza put that last phrase in air quotes. It did seem like something James would say.
“His-butler,” Watson said. “He-was-the-man-at-the-airport-when-Sherlock-tried-to-ride-me-like-a-Pegasus.”
I remembered! He had been at the studio that morning with James, and in the onyx Rolls Royce driving away. That’s why he looked so familiar. And that’s why he recognised Eliza at the airport. It was all falling into place and my brain was swimming. I was still speechless.
“But Officer Siva said the butler was innocent of everything,” Dad said. “That he didn’t know the robot was stolen.”
“And that was true,” Eliza said. “James compartmentalises. He only tells people what they need to know, and his butler only needed to know to make a specific offer to a specific person for a specific robot.
“But…why?” Nazhar asked. “Why is he doing all of this? What for?”
Eliza looked like she was going to cry again. “I don’t know,” she said. “My information is compartmentalised too. For all I know, he set this mystery in motion too, somehow.”
Wendy, who had been quiet this whole time, walked to Eliza and bent down. I was afraid of what she was going to do, but instead she squeezed Eliza’s hands.
“It’s okay,” Wendy whispered. “You don’t have to be his spy any more. You can be our real friend.”
Eliza looked at Wendy and burst into tears again. When she abruptly got up, she accidentally knocked over Wendy, whose injured leg was still slightly weak. Then she looked at Wendy again before running off, sobbing uncontrollably until she smacked right into Mom, who was walking towards us with Auntie Kim Lian. Mom was very surprised. Dad walked towards them, most likely to update them on what had happened.
“Wendy,” I said. “There is no way this is okay. She’s been helping James for longer than we even knew he was doing anything wrong.”
Wendy was still sitting on the ground. “He must have made her do it somehow, Sam,” she said. “She didn’t want to do it. That’s why she’s been so angry recently.”
I shook my head. If Eliza had ever been a member of the Supper Club, she certainly wasn’t now and she never would be again.
“We have a case to solve,” I said, determined. “We should focus on that.”
We were all very shaken by what we had just learned. When Dad told Mom and Auntie Kim Lian, they were both astonished. Mom called Eliza’s parents, who sent their helper to pick her up. Mom had tried to talk to Eliza, but Eliza just shook her head and stared at her phone until her ride came. Mom then tried to talk to me about it, but I told her I couldn’t think about any of that right now. There was still a missing script to find.
We sat on some chairs we found near the costume racks in the courtyard between the three buildings.
“I know that was…” I didn’t actually know what that was, but I needed to rally the Supper Club. “We need to solve this mystery.”
Wendy sneezed loudly again and Mom immediately took out some allergy medication for her. They had huddled together earlier and I deduced that Wendy was filling Mom in on all the details regarding Eliza’s betrayal. Mom gave Wendy a comforting hug, but my sister still looked miserable. The red eyes and runny nose didn’t help
“Dad, I need to show you something,” I said. I had been thinking about the contract carefully. Usually, with the evidence I had, I would confront the suspect because part of how I deduced a person’s innocence was tied to how they reacted under pressure. Uncle Boon Chong had already looked extremely guilty just now with his nervousness and sweating. However, he was also my parents’ good friend and Dad had told me before that I needed to be a responsible detective and ensure that I didn’t unnecessarily hurt anyone. I finally understood that he meant more than just causing physical hurt—like when I made Wendy and Watson sneak out with me and Wendy fractured her ankle.
“What’s that, Sam?” Dad asked as I handed the contract over to him. He looked at it. I saw his jaw drop when he flipped to the second page and saw the number of zeroes there.
“We found this in the room,” I said. “And based on Uncle Boon Chong’s reaction and also from the way he tried to distract us from the room, I’d say he knows something about this. I didn’t want to accuse him of anything because he might have a reason for doing what he did.”
“OKAY! I ADMIT IT!” Uncle Boon Chong suddenly shouted from across the compound.
We all looked at him, stunned.
“I just couldn’t stand it anymore!” he said as he rushed up to Dad and me. Mom and Auntie Kim Lian quickly joined us. The rest of the Supper Club gathered around as well.
“Everyone keeps asking why,” he continued. “Why Koey could do it but I couldn’t!”
“Koey’s show?” Mom said. “But Masters of the Screen is far more popular than his show.”
“Exactly! He has so much more time! He can focus on directing and nothing else!” Uncle Boon Chong cried. “I spend half my time trying to please the producers and the marketing people. I just don’t have the time to work out like he does.”
“What?” Auntie Kim Lian asked.
“So I thought I would set up a mini-gym here at the studio and when everyone else was having lunch, I would work out.”
“Pilates-is-excellent-for-toning,” Watson said. “But-I-would-suggest-some-cardio-exercises-too. You-are-easily-winded-like-Sherlock.”
“Wait, so you’re admitting to it?” I said. “You did it?”
“Yes. I’ve been doing it for the past month,” Uncle Boon Chong replied.
“You’ve been sabotaging your show for a month?” Wendy asked.
“What? Why would I sabotage my show?” Uncle Boon Chong said, horrified.
“For money!” Jimmy said. “We found the contract with all the zeroes!”
“What are you guys talking about?” Uncle Boon Chong replied, now looking very confused.
I observed Uncle Boon Chong carefully. He had yet another new koyok on the back of his neck. “He doesn’t know, Dad,” I said. “It’s not him.”
“Maybe you should explain, Sam,” Dad replied.
“James wanted us to find the contrac
t there. He thought that I would immediately accuse Uncle Boon Chong of sabotaging his own show so he could leave and start a new show for more money.”
“What new show?” Uncle Boon Chong cried. “Would someone please explain what’s going on? I just confessed to secretly doing Pilates. Do you know how embarrassing that is? Koey lifts massive weights! The size of elephants!”
I handed him the contract for Food Fight. He looked at it and said, “What is this? I’ve never seen it before. Also, seriously, Food Fight? That’s a dumb name for a drama.”
“We found this in your secret exercise room, Uncle Boon Chong,” Nazhar said.
His eyes widened. “So you think I stole my own script?”
“I think that’s what I’m supposed to think,” I said. “But I don’t think that.”
“What do you think then?”
“I think there’s a lot of thinking going on,” Auntie Kim Lian whispered to Mom.
“I think, I mean, I believe that you’ve been set up,” I said. “Have you seen a robot who is a lot more polite than Watson and looks like a British butler?”
“Yes. It belongs to that the other kid. The one with the British accent. I ran into him as I was coming out of the toilet.”
I paused and stared at Uncle Boon Chong.
“Okay, fine. As I was coming out of my secret exercise room.”
“Did you bump into him?” I asked.
“Yes. He even offered me a bottle of mineral water from his stomach. It was chilled. Quite amazing.”
“Indeed,” I replied with a sidelong look at Watson. “And your key to the room, where was it?”
“I put it in my pocket…which is why I was so surprised to find that you had it,” Uncle Boon Chong replied.
“Is it possible that it fell out somehow?” I asked. Though I suspected that James Mok had something to do with this, I found it hard to believe that Moran would pickpocket Uncle Boon Chong on his own. I believed that James had sent Moran on an exploration mission around the studio, and that Moran finding the key was an unexpected opportunity that James’s fiendish mind quickly put to use.