“She’s always being sent to the headmistress’ office,” he whispered.
Sometimes, he could be dumber than the dumbest dumb person.
“Yes, Detective Dopey, but she’s going today. That means she’s the thief, Charles. Awful Agatha is the thief!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been so happy. Well, actually, I could. It was when I chatted with my parents on Skype. But I try not to think about Mum and Dad because it’s like having a hurricane in my belly. It really hurts.
So I thought about Awful Agatha instead. I pictured all the different, painful punishments she might be suffering in the headmistress’ office. They called her the Cannibal for a reason. Maybe Awful Agatha was being stretched out on a rack, like they did in medieval times. Miss Quick-Pants once told me all about the rack. In the olden days, criminals were tied to a rack, which was like a long contraption that pulled their arms and legs until their bones cracked and snapped. I liked the sound of that.
Maybe this school still caned naughty students. Miss Quick-Pants had her cane, which scared all the other royals, but it never bothered me because I was a good girl, most of the time. But a long, bendy cane would whip against Agatha’s skin and make it red and sore. The Cannibal seemed like the sort of headmistress who would have a long, bendy cane locked away in her cupboard for emergencies. I don’t believe in violence. I’m trained in self-defence. I’m almost a taekwondo expert.
But I’d make an exception for Awful Agatha. She made my life a misery. She was horrid for no reason. She hated me from the first moment she clapped eyes on me. I knew she’d promised to leave me alone, but that wasn’t the real Agatha, the awful Agatha. She would never leave me alone, not until she’d had her revenge for sliding into the pigswill.
But now she couldn’t. She was gone. She was outta here. See you later, Awful Agatha. So long. Farewell. Auf Wiedersehen. Good riddance. Get lost.
I had a week of peace coming, a week of peace at least. The little minx should’ve been suspended for smacking me in the face with a water balloon. And Charles said she’d been a total diva all year long. This was her last straw. She couldn’t steal from other students. In fact, I didn’t think a week was long enough. She deserved to be suspended for at least a month. A month seemed about right for a disgrace to the human race.
I was just about to lean over and ask Charles if he agreed when the classroom door flew open. Awful Agatha came in first. She looked like she’d been to a funeral. She walked really slowly and kept her head down. The rat-faced troll obviously didn’t want any of us to see her weeping eyes.
Miss Cannington followed and closed the classroom door. She looked straight at Miss Shufflebottom.
“Is everything ok?” Miss Shufflebottom asked.
“I’m afraid not,” Miss Cannington replied. “I have had a long and difficult conversation with Agatha.”
I bet they did. Awful Agatha still wouldn’t look any of us in the eye. She was totally guilty and ashamed.
“Could you all stand up please?” Miss Cannington said.
We all looked at each other. Even Miss Shufflebottom seemed confused.
“Stand up, please, children,” the Cannibal said again, much firmer this time.
We shuffled to our feet. It didn’t make any sense, but nothing about this place made much sense. I looked at Charles. He just shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t have a clue either, but then he never does.
“It’s not easy for me to say this, but I now suspect that the thief is in this room,” Miss Cannington said in her serious headmistress voice.
Finally, we were getting somewhere. Bring on a week with no Awful Agatha! Bring on a month with no Awful Agatha! Maybe she’ll get expelled. Bring on the rest of my life with no Awful Agatha! It’s party time!
“Could you all pick up your school bags and empty them onto the tables, please.”
Now the old Cannibal was making no sense at all. We dumped the contents of our school bags onto our desks. There were reading books, pencil cases and lunch boxes all over the place.
“Come with me please, Agatha,” Miss Cannington said.
The pair of them wandered around the classroom, poking their noses into our private stuff on the desks. What cheek!
“Agatha didn’t want to come forward. She said she didn’t want to tell tales on her friends,” Miss Cannington continued.
She was talking gibberish. Awful Agatha didn’t have any friends. She just had her laughing hyenas doing whatever she told them to do. She didn’t have any real friends, like what Charles and I were.
“But her purse went missing after the assembly and she insists that it went missing in this classroom.”
“Miss Cannington, are you sure about this?”
Miss Shufflebottom obviously didn’t believe this fairy story either. Even Miss Cannington wasn’t sure. She raised an eyebrow at Miss Shufflebottom that told me everything that I didn’t want to know.
And suddenly, I knew everything.
I knew what was coming next.
“I have to give Agatha the benefit of the doubt, Miss Shufflebottom. If she says her purse has been stolen, then we must help her try to find it.”
In that moment, I hated Awful Agatha.
I hated Awful Agatha more than macaroni and cheese, and not just any macaroni and cheese either, but the powdery one that’s made in the packet.
She walked towards my desk with the two teachers.
I hated Awful Agatha more than the doggy poop that the Palace puppies used to leave behind on the kitchen floor.
The three of them stopped at my desk.
I hated Awful Agatha more than the fact that I couldn’t go home to my Mum and Dad.
Miss Cannington shook my empty lunch box. It rattled. My empty lunchbox wasn’t empty—and I knew why.
The headmistress opened the lunchbox and sighed. “Oh, Sabrina,” she whispered.
She took out something that I’d never seen before in my life.
“That’s my green purse!” Agatha shouted dramatically.
Of course it was.
The vicious witch finally had her revenge.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Now the funny thing about Uncle Ernie is he’s really handsome. Well, he’s not handsome to me, obviously. That would be gross. He’s not handsome. He’s not ugly. He’s Uncle Ernie. That’s it. But he’s got neat grey hair and a fancy way of speaking that makes women go a bit silly.
At the Palace, the housemaids and cooks always giggled whenever he complimented them. Sometimes, they giggled when he just smiled at them. I thought they were all loonies. Maybe it’s because I’m a very mature girl for my age. I might even be more mature than the adults. Grown-up women are the ones who go all giggly whenever Uncle Ernie speaks to them. They act like little kids in front of Uncle Ernie. I just didn’t get it so, one day, I asked Mum about it.
“Oh, you’ll understand when you’re older,” she said, grinning away as she brushed my hair.
“I want to understand it now,” I replied.
“Ok, well, Uncle Ernie is what my mother would’ve called ‘dashing’.”
“I know that. He’s always dashing about. He runs about like he’s got ants in his pants.”
Mum laughed. We always laughed together, but I’d rather not think about that now.
“No, this kind of dashing means handsome,” she continued.
“Why didn’t you just say handsome then?”
“Well, dashing is more than handsome, I would say. Dashing can be handsome and charming and witty and clever, too.”
“Well, who else is dashing then?” I wondered.
“Let me think. Ah, yes, do you know the actor George Clooney?”
“No.”
“Well, he’s dashing, too. Some women think of him in the way that some of the women in the Palace think of Uncle Ernie.”
“So these women are all mad as well, then?”
I wasn’t buying any
of that nonsense. Women lose their minds when they get older. Even if Uncle Ernie was handsome—and he wasn’t and never will be—he certainly wasn’t charming or witty during our taekwondo lessons.
“I don’t think Uncle Ernie is any of those things you said,” I insisted.
“No, no,” my mother replied. “In a certain light, he looks like Brad Pitt.”
I thought he looked more like a gravel pit.
But as I sat in the headmistress’ office, I didn’t care. In there, Uncle Ernie was doing that thing he does with women, the “dashing” stuff that Mum talked about. And the silly old Cannibal was falling for it!
I still didn’t see what was so funny about the tripe coming out of his mouth, but Miss Cannington seemed to be enjoying it and that’s all that mattered. Every time Uncle Ernie spoke, she blushed. And then she giggled like a baby. And then she forgot about me for a minute. So I was happy for Uncle Ernie to do his dashing magic tricks, whatever they were.
“I’m so sorry to call you in at such short notice, Mr Parslowe,” Miss Cannington said.
“Ernie. Please call me Ernie. All my friends call me Ernie.”
“Sorry, Ernie.”
She said his name funny. Her voice wobbled. Then her cheeks went red. Then she giggled. Then he giggled at her giggling. Then she went even redder, turning into a big, bright traffic light. He smiled at her. She smiled back. And then they giggled again like a couple of kids.
I was the only one in the office behaving like a grown-up.
“Oh, Ernie,” she said.
“Oh, Miss Cannington,” he replied.
Oh, for heaven’s sake, I thought.
“It seems ever so funny calling you Ernie,” Miss Cannington gushed.
No, it didn’t. She was just being weird again.
“Now where was I?” she asked.
“You were talking about the thefts in the school,” Uncle Ernie said.
“Ah yes, it’s very unfortunate, Mr Parslowe … I mean, Ernie. I’ve been headmistress at this school for twelve years and we’ve never had so many incidents of stealing in such a short space of time.”
Uncle Ernie leaned forward. “That can’t be right.”
“I’m afraid it is.”
“No, it can’t be possible that you’ve been headmistress for twelve years. You look too young. I thought you’d only just started in the job.”
I thought I was going to be sick.
“Ooh, Ernie, you do know how to flatter a woman, don’t you?”
Her voice was all high-pitched and fluttery.
“Nonsense. I was just saying to Sabrina the other day that Miss Cannington looked too young to be the school headmistress, wasn’t I?”
Uncle Ernie tapped my foot beneath the Cannibal’s desk.
“What? Oh yes, that’s what he was saying, Miss Cannington, exactly that.”
Uncle Ernie wasn’t the world champion of little white lies. He was the master of the universe when it came to telling big, fat whoppers.
“Ooh, Ernie, you are far too kind. You’re lucky to have such a kind uncle, Sabrina.”
I didn’t feel particularly lucky. I felt like running from the room, hunting down Awful Agatha and closing her lying gob for good with one of my superb roundhouse kicks. But I just nodded instead.
“That’s why this accusation seems so hard to take in.”
She pointed at the green purse on the desk. We all looked at Awful Agatha’s trap. The purse was old and falling apart. The fake, green leather had mostly peeled off. Why would I possibly want to steal it?
“Miss Cannington, I know Sabrina has had a tough time settling into her new school, but I can assure you that she is not a thief,” Uncle Ernie said, finally talking about me, rather than the Cannibal.
“I’m sure she isn’t,” the headmistress said. “But I cannot be seen to give preferential treatment to any particular student, just as I must take the accusations of every student seriously. Agatha can be …”
She looked at me, as if she wanted me to finish the sentence. I’d fill in the blanks all right. Awful Agatha is one big blank.
“Lively. Agatha can be lively, shall we say, but I have to listen to her nonetheless. More importantly, I have to address the obvious tension between Agatha and Sabrina. That’s the deeper issue here.”
“I couldn’t agree more. That’s why I’m here. Could I get a glass of water please, Miss Cannington?”
Uncle Ernie pointed at a jug and some glasses on a cabinet over the headmistress’ shoulder.
“But of course.”
The moment Miss Cannington turned her back Uncle Ernie whipped his phone from his pocket. He held it over the green purse and pushed a button. A red laser scanned the purse. He winked at me.
“Fingerprints,” he whispered, grinning at me.
“What? You can’t …”
Miss Cannington finished pouring water into a glass and started to turn round. “Would you like a glass of water, Sabrina?”
“YES, PLEASE!” I squeaked. “I’m really thirsty, Miss Cannington!”
She turned away again and reached for the jug. Uncle Ernie continued to scan the purse for fingerprints. He was humming! He was actually humming while committing a crime in my headmistress’ office. He had never looked happier.
“Stop it,” I hissed.
“Almost done.”
I watched the Cannibal pour water into a second glass. I watched Uncle Ernie do something illegal. I waited for us to be arrested. He was smiling. I was sweating. Miss Cannington was turning. Miss Cannington was turning!
I kicked Uncle Ernie under the table. His phone beeped.
“Done,” he said, looking really pleased with himself.
Miss Cannington turned round and spotted the phone in Uncle Ernie’s hand, near the purse.
“Oh dear, you’ve caught me red-handed,” he said.
“I have,” she said.
I felt my bladder bursting.
“I forgot to turn my phone off before the meeting,” Uncle Ernie said.
“You did. It’s one of our school rules for parents, I’m afraid.”
“Sorry, Miss Cannington, it was an urgent business matter.”
“Not to worry, Ernie. You’re still new here.”
“That’s true. I’ll have to come back so you can show me the ropes.”
The blushing Cannibal passed Uncle Ernie his glass of water. Their fingers touched. They chuckled again. My water was dumped on the desk. I had been forgotten about, as usual. But I hadn’t forgotten about Uncle Ernie’s antics.
He was going to get it when we got home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Uncle Ernie was seriously driving me crazy. He was behaving like a big kid. He whistled all the way home in the van. He always whistled when he was enjoying himself. And then he disappeared into his office full of computers and cables. I moaned about his ridiculous fingerprinting thingy in the Cannibal’s office, but he just ignored me.
So I sat in the living room, sulking for a bit. But there’s not much point in sulking if no one else can actually see you sulking. So I got up to sulk where he could see me. But he suddenly barged into the living room.
“I’ve got it,” he cried.
He stood in the middle of the room, waving his phone in the air. “I have returned from the dining room with peace for our time.”
He was talking gibberish again.
“What are you going on about, Uncle Ernie?”
He shoved his phone in my face. There was a 3D image of that rubbish green purse on the screen. “I scanned the entire side of that girl’s purse.”
“Awful Agatha. Her name is Awful Agatha.”
Uncle Ernie grinned at me. “Is that her full name?”
I crossed my arms in a huff. “No, her full name is Awful Agatha, the most witchy of witches in a disgusting, slime-filled swamp of greasy, toady—”
“Yes, yes, I get it,” Uncle Ernie interrupted. “You two don’t get on. Well, the good news is I can co
nfirm that your fingerprints were not on that purse.”
“I knew that.”
“Yes, there were fingerprints belonging to Agatha, Miss Shufflebottom and the endearing Miss Cannington, but none belonging to you.”
“How do you know what their fingerprints look like?”
“Oh, that was easy,” Uncle Ernie said, leaning over to show me his phone.
“I just used this hacking device to hack into their personal details on a private database called—”
I stuck my fingers into my ears. “Lalalalalala … lah! I’m not listening! I’m not listening. I don’t want to know!”
“Ok, fine, but I have conclusive proof that you never touched that purse.”
Uncle Ernie sat back on the sofa, waiting for me to give him a round of applause or something.
“That’s brilliant, Uncle Ernie. You’re a genius.”
“Yes, I think so too.”
“Duh! I was being sarcastic.”
“Oh, were you? It’s hard to tell with kids these days.”
“And what are we supposed to do with this evidence? Tell the teachers? ‘Oh, good morning, Miss Cannington. I didn’t steal Agatha’s purse because my uncle used an illegal app on his phone to scan for fingerprints.’ And he also knows all about your fingerprints because he stole them too.’ That’s brilliant, Uncle Ernie. Epic!”
He shook his head. “Oh Sabrina, you’ve still got so much to learn. I’m not confirming your innocence. I knew you were innocent. I’m confirming Agatha’s guilt. There were no other girls’ fingerprints on the purse, just hers. She set you up.”
Uncle Ernie’s brain seemed to be turning into mashed potato.
“Of course she set me up! I know that!” I shouted. “I knew that as soon as they found her stupid purse in my bag. How does that help me?”
Uncle Ernie leapt to his feet. “Ok, listen. I wasn’t always a handyman at the Palace.”
“No, really?”
Uncle Ernie’s eyes narrowed. “Is that your sarcasm again? Never mind. Anyway, before I was a handyman, I was a hunter. I worked in a rainforest back home. Well, when I say a hunter, I was a hunter of hunters. Your father employed me to look for poachers. Do you know what poachers are?”
Princess Incognito: a Royal Pain in the Class Page 10