Bitter Enemies

by R. A. Spratt

  Suddenly, Friday felt Ian’s arm wrap around her. ‘Just hang on to me,’ said Ian. ‘Don’t let go.’

  They disappeared into the darkness.

  When you think of darkness you think of night. But the night is never completely dark. There is always the moon and the stars, or if it’s cloudy, then the soft glow of reflected man-made light on the underside of clouds. Inside an underground stormwater drain is not like that. It is truly, terrifyingly, absolutely pitch-black. It was like being blind. Except a lot of blind people can distinguish light and dark. In this tunnel, there was just dark. And the roaring gush of the water. Friday clung to Ian and he kept a tight grasp of her.

  The water was deep beneath them. They could occasionally touch the bottom but the current was moving too fast for them to try to stand. They could sense the ceiling as it rushed by close above their heads, occasionally even skimming their hair.

  ‘What if the water level rises?’ gasped Friday, her voice echoing in the confined space.

  ‘We’ll hold our breath,’ said Ian, spitting water out of his mouth. ‘This tunnel has to end eventually. You hear about people being swept out of drains onto the beach.’

  ‘We’re fifty kilometres from the nearest beach,’ said Friday.

  ‘We must have travelled one kilometre already,’ said Ian. ‘Only forty-nine to go.’

  Friday knew Ian was trying to be upbeat but it worked. His confidence made her feel better. Until they dropped.

  ‘Aaaaggghhh!’ screamed Friday and Ian.

  They were suddenly blinded by light and plunged into water simultaneously. The force of the plunge pulled them apart.

  Friday desperately thrashed and kicked. She hated swimming. She was going to die doing one of the many things she was really bad at. A hand grabbed her arm and pulled her up. Her head broke through the water.

  ‘Stand up!’ ordered Ian.

  Friday put her feet down. Her legs were shaking, but her feet touched the bottom and her head was above the water. She looked about. She was neck-deep in a large pond. It was still raining hard, but a couple of ducks idly drifted around on the water’s surface.

  ‘Where are we?’ asked Friday.

  ‘It looks like a local park,’ said Ian.

  ‘We survived!’ said Friday. She wrapped Ian in a big hug. He hugged her back. He was shaking too, either from the cold or the fear, probably both.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ said Ian. They began wading towards the muddy bank.

  Getting out was not that easy. They were drenched, the bank was muddy and the rain was still teeming down. Eventually they made it to the lawn and staggered across the park towards the street.

  They just made it to the footpath when a police car screeched to a halt alongside them and an officer jumped out wielding a handgun. ‘Stop right there, you’re under arrest!’

  Friday and Ian put up their hands, the way people always do in Hollywood movies.

  ‘Why?’ asked Friday.

  ‘Save it for the interview room,’ said the police officer, as his partner came around and cuffed them.

  When Friday and Ian were led into the police station, they were shocked to walk in and discover Sergeant Crowley covered in blood. Friday predictably fainted. She hated the sight of blood.

  Friday came to a couple of moments later. Ian was holding her nose.

  ‘Wiy are yuu hulding may nosthe?’ Friday asked.

  ‘You don’t want to know,’ said Ian.

  Friday realised she could taste blood. She fainted again.

  Ian caught her. ‘It’s no big deal,’ said Ian. ‘It’s just, if you faint while your hands are cuffed behind your back, then the only thing to break your fall is your nose. Don’t worry, I don’t think it’s broken. The bleeding seems to have stopped.’

  Friday sat up and looked about.

  Binky, Melanie and Abotomey were all there. Abotomey was holding Melanie’s hand and looking doe-eyed at her.

  ‘What’s that about?’ asked Friday.

  ‘It turns out that Abotomey wasn’t stalking you,’ said Ian. ‘He was stalking Melanie.’

  ‘Then why was he always following me?’ asked Friday. Her head injury had affected her deductive reasoning.

  ‘Because you’re always with Melanie,’ said Ian.

  ‘But he left my favourite dessert outside our room,’ said Friday.

  ‘Banoffee pudding is my favourite dessert too,’ said Melanie, as she smiled at Abotomey. ‘I’m impressed you noticed.’

  ‘I like watching you eat it,’ said Abotomey. ‘You always save the bananas for last.’

  ‘But why was Abotomey so angry with you?’ Friday asked Ian.

  ‘He saw me and Melanie sitting together at assembly on the first day and thought we were a couple,’ explained Ian.

  ‘Melanie, are you sure you should be holding his hand?’ asked Friday. ‘He is a stalker.’

  ‘He broke down the door and saved me from the flotation tank,’ said Melanie fondly.

  ‘But you were relaxing in there,’ said Friday.

  ‘It’s the thought that counts,’ said Melanie.

  ‘Why is Sergeant Crowley bleeding?’ asked Friday.

  ‘I was in a traffic collision caused by a gang of delinquents,’ said Sergeant Crowley angrily.

  Friday looked across to see all four of the former headmasters, sitting side-by-side and handcuffed to a bench.

  ‘I’m old,’ said the Colonel, sounding confused and feeble. ‘Sometimes I get the accelerator and the brake confused.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I’m not buying that old and feeble nonsense,’ said Sergeant Crowley. ‘I saw Constable Drapalski chase you down that alley. If you hadn’t slipped on a potato you would have outrun him. And you almost knocked his head off when you gave him that uppercut.’

  Friday now noticed Constable Drapalski sitting in an office chair with an icepack taped to his chin. He looked very dazed and confused.

  ‘Sometimes I get flashbacks from the war,’ said the Colonel. ‘I forget where I am and I lash out.’

  ‘The closest you’ve been to a war is holding a copy of War and Peace,’ said Friday.

  ‘How dare you!’ said the Colonel. ‘I am a veteran. I have medals!’

  ‘You have one medal,’ said Friday, ‘for “meritorious conduct”. You can win that in battle, but you can also win that serving in an office back home where the most dangerous injury you’ll get is a papercut. You certainly weren’t in Vietnam. When you took over the kitchen you claimed you had seen action at the battle of Phuket. There was no battle in Phuket in the Vietnam War. Phuket is a beach resort in Thailand. And not all Asian languages sound the same, you know. You were definitely yelling Korean not Vietnamese at Mrs Marigold.’

  The door banged open and Vice Principal Dean walked in with a woman who, judging from her expensive suit, could only be a lawyer. When she saw the headmasters, she gasped. ‘I demand that you release my clients immediately!’

  ‘Oh dear,’ worried the Vice Principal. ‘This is only going to increase the payout we have to give them, I just know it.’

  ‘They’re not going anywhere. Not until they go to court and apply for bail,’ said Sergeant Crowley. ‘They’ve assaulted two police officers and totally wrecked a police car.’

  ‘They tried to kill us too,’ said Ian.

  ‘There you go,’ said Sergeant Crowley. ‘The magistrate doesn’t look kindly on attempted murder.’

  ‘You should rethink your position,’ said Dr Wallace. ‘I will sue your department for wrongful arrest, excessive force and elder abuse.’

  The sergeant scowled. He hated when members of the public accused him of using excessive force. He was a tall, bulky man who looked bad in a suit. Juries never believed him.

  ‘The sergeant will not be sued,’ said Friday. ‘If anything he will get a medal for putting all of you behind bars. Not only have you injured several people today, you have also systematically attempted to defraud Highcrest Academy of hundreds of thousan
ds of dollars. And there was the attempt to murder the Headmaster.’

  ‘What?’ exclaimed Ian. ‘When did that happen?’

  ‘The mystery of the missing aspirin,’ said Friday. ‘Someone hid the Headmaster’s aspirin. Most likely Dr Wallace because we found her hairpin at the scene. Another headmaster called in a fake complaint, saying there were boys throwing acorns from the belltower. Probably Mrs Thompson, as she hadn’t been at the school long enough for Miss Priddock to recognise her voice. That was all it took. Sending a man with a heart condition up a steep flight of stairs when you know he hasn’t taken his medicine is premeditated attempted murder.’

  ‘But why would they do that?’ asked Ian.

  ‘To get the Headmaster out of the way,’ said Friday, ‘so that he wouldn’t notice their even larger conspiracy to commit fraud.’

  ‘You have no evidence,’ said the Colonel.

  ‘In the boot of Dr Wallace’s car, you will find scuba gear,’ said Friday. ‘When it is forensically examined it will have residue of the swamp water around the school, as well as traces of Mrs Thompson’s DNA.’

  ‘What?’ asked Sergeant Crowley. ‘Why are we talking about scuba diving all of a sudden?’

  ‘Because that is how the headmasters faked Mrs Thompson’s death,’ said Friday. ‘Scuba gear was hidden underneath the jetty, so when the boat crashed she simply jumped off the back, grabbed the scuba tank, and used it to swim underwater to her own boat tethered to the shipping marker several hundreds of metres away.’

  ‘And then she went and worked in a gym?’ asked Sergeant Crowley.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Friday. ‘It was a brilliant disguise. It meant she was able to hide in plain sight. When you released photos of Mrs Thompson to the media everyone was looking for a large, older woman. No-one was looking for a bouncy aerobics instructor.’

  ‘And then the other headmasters could start faking their breakdowns,’ said Ian.

  ‘They planned this whole thing from the start,’ said Friday. ‘Right back to the brick thrown through the Headmaster’s window.’

  ‘But the note with the brick was written by a student,’ said Melanie.

  ‘No, they just wanted us to think that,’ said Friday. ‘It was a misdirection. They were setting up a false suspect. It was right before Mrs Thompson and Mr Novokavic arrived. Mrs Thompson is clearly a lot more athletic than we realised. She must have thrown it from the car window as she and Mr Novokavic came up the drive.’

  ‘But why would they do all this?’ asked Sergeant Crowley.

  ‘For the money, you idiot!’ snapped Dr Wallace.

  ‘Magda, shush,’ said Mr Novokavic.

  ‘Don’t shush me,’ said Dr Wallace. ‘I have a PhD in educational theory. If anyone does any shushing it will be me! That school sucked the best years of my life out of me. I never married. I never had my own children …’

  ‘But you don’t like children,’ Melanie pointed out.

  ‘That doesn’t mean I don’t resent not getting to have any!’ yelled Dr Wallace. ‘There was no such thing as work-life balance back in my day. You either worked or you didn’t. And if you worked, you had to fight tooth and nail to get equal pay with the men.’

  ‘You carried out this extraordinarily complicated crime because you were underpaid?’ asked Sergeant Crowley.

  ‘I did all this because the school council was so stupidly incompetent, they managed to lose every last penny of our pension funds when one of the parents swindled the school,’ said Dr Wallace.

  ‘Oh no, that was Dad,’ said Ian. So many problems started with his father giving ‘financial advice’ and ended with his father draining the client’s bank account.

  ‘They lost all of our money,’ said Dr Wallace. ‘Every cent. After everything we had done for Highcrest, our retirement was gone. We all had to go back to work.’

  ‘At a gym?’ asked Friday.

  ‘There’s a lot more money in running a gym than there is in being a teacher, let me tell you,’ said Dr Wallace. ‘You’d be amazed what people will pay for “diet vitamins” once you tell them you’re a doctor.’

  ‘But you’re not a medical doctor,’ said Friday. ‘Your PhD is for educational theory.’

  ‘Yes, and I was teaching them a lesson in not being taken in,’ said Dr Wallace.

  ‘Then, one day,’ said Mrs Thompson, ‘we all get letters from the school. They had the gall to invite us to the sesquicentenary celebrations. They actually listed all the wonderful things they would be frittering millions of dollars away on – a sculpture, a party, a meditation room for goodness sake!’

  ‘Why do the children need a meditation room?’ yelled the Colonel. ‘They get plenty of time to meditate if you send them on a ten-mile route march.’

  ‘So we came up with a plan to get our money back,’ said Dr Wallace.

  ‘What I don’t understand is, why did Mr Novokavic rob the jewellery store?’ asked Friday. ‘That could have jeopardised your whole operation.’

  ‘I can shed some light on that,’ said Sergeant Crowley, reaching across his desk and grabbing a large thick file. ‘It turns out there is a serial shoplifter matching Mr Novokavic’s description, who has been robbing shops up and down the country.’

  Mr Novokavic smiled. ‘People are so patronising to the elderly. They talk to us slowly and in loud voices. They help us cross roads. They never expect us to rob them in broad daylight.’

  ‘Actually, statistically a large percentage of all shoplifting is done by the elderly,’ said Friday. ‘They struggle to live within the budgets of their pensions, and they don’t see society’s rules as applying to them.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to sit at home eating cat food just because some con man stole my pension,’ said Mr Novokavic. ‘I’d earned a decent retirement. When mine was stolen, I decided to steal it back.’

  ‘You four are going away for a long time,’ said Sergeant Crowley. He’d been longing to say something like that ever since he’d become a police officer.

  ‘At least we’ll get a roof over our heads and three meals a day,’ said Mr Novokavic. ‘It can’t be as bad as a government-funded nursing home.’

  ‘And there will be no children,’ said Dr Wallace. ‘I’m positively looking forward to it.’

  Constable Drapalski drove Ian, Friday, Melanie and Abotomey back to school.

  ‘You’re going to be a hero,’ said Ian. ‘Getting rid of four headmasters at once. That’s the stuff of legend.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Friday. ‘People might be interested for a nano-second, then some girl will get an unfortunate haircut or someone’s parents will be shipped off to jail for tax fraud and I will be forgotten about.’

  ‘I’m glad everything is going back to normal,’ said Melanie. ‘It was exhausting having so many angry old people wandering about the school.’

  Abotomey squeezed Melanie’s hand. ‘You’re so brave.’

  ‘Thank you, Harrison,’ said Melanie.

  Ian shook his head. ‘And people say our relationship is weird.’

  ‘Here you go, kids,’ said Constable Drapalski. ‘Do you want me to come in with you, in case your teachers want an explanation of what’s going on?’

  ‘Sergeant Crowley said he would ring the Headmaster and sort it all out,’ said Friday. ‘We’ll be fine.’

  ‘Besides, no-one pays much attention when we are where we shouldn’t be and we’re not where we should be,’ said Melanie. ‘Usually they’re just pleasantly relieved.’

  Friday and Melanie walked off together towards the year 8 girls’ dormitory.

  Ian called after her, ‘It’s only half an hour till dinner, do you think you can make it through that time without needing rescuing?’

  Friday smiled. ‘I’ll try.’

  Ian grinned and waved before he turned towards the boys’ dorm with Abotomey.

  As Friday and Melanie trudged to the top of the staircase at the end of the corridor, they were surprised to see Parker and Nigel in the corridor.r />
  ‘Why are they in the girls’ dormitory?’ asked Melanie.

  ‘More importantly,’ said Friday, ‘why are they taking things out of our room. Hey! What are you doing?!’

  ‘We’re taking all your stuff out of your room,’ said Parker.

  ‘But why?’ asked Friday.

  ‘We don’t know that,’ said Nigel. ‘We’re just following orders.’

  ‘Has Friday been expelled?’ asked Melanie, growing pale.

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that!’ said Parker. ‘I hope not. But grown-ups don’t often confide in me, so I can’t tell you.’

  ‘We’ve got a message for you though,’ said Nigel. ‘Give her the message, Parker.’

  ‘Oh yes, here it is,’ said Parker, dropping his box on the floor.

  ‘Hey, that’s my telescope!’ complained Friday.

  Parker found a crumpled piece of paper in his pocket and handed it to Friday. ‘There you go.’

  Friday flattened out the paper and read it aloud. ‘Friday Barnes, report to the Headmaster’s office at once.’

  Melanie grabbed Friday in a big hug. ‘They can’t expel you. They just can’t. I’ll do what those environmental protesters do if they try.’

  ‘You’re going to harass whaling ships?’ asked Friday.

  ‘No, I’ll chain myself to you,’ said Melanie. ‘Like environmentalists do to trees.’

  ‘That’s a lovely thought,’ said Friday. ‘But I should go to the Headmaster and see what this is all about. I thought he was in hospital. If he’s back already he probably just wants help with another problem.’

  A few minutes later, Friday was knocking on the Headmaster’s door. She waited for the usual grumpy bellow of ‘Come in’, but it never came. She was just about to knock again when the door swung open.

  A woman in her mid-thirties, not much taller than Friday, wearing a smart fashionable suit, was standing in front of her. The woman had stylish short hair. She looked like a merchant banker or an up-and-coming barrister. She radiated energy and intelligence.