The Fangs of the Dragon

by Simon Cheshire

  ‘What are you ubb to, Lovecraft?’ I said.

  ‘Deary me, Smart,’ oozed Harry Lovecraft, ‘is that hay fever, or has someone finally given you the smack in the face you deserve?’

  The kids around him giggled. Some of them were from Miss Bennett’s class, and the rest from the other class in that year group.

  I tried to think of a witty reply. I couldn’t. ‘Just shudd ubb, Lovecraft,’ I said. ‘You’re ubb to something.’

  ‘We’re talking about FrogWar BattleZone,’ piped up one of the kids. ‘You collect the figures and paint them. We’re all making our own battleboards.’

  I glared at Harry Lovecraft as best I could with my bloodshot, pollen-bloated eyes. ‘You’re never into FrogWar,’ I said. ‘Whadd sneaky liddle plot are you haddching now?’

  Harry Lovecraft took a step closer to me. A new Inkspot pen, one of the more expensive sort, gleamed in the top pocket of his school uniform. Clipped to his lapel was the latest miniature MP3 player, a model that had only been in the shops for a week or so.

  ‘That’s the trouble with busybodies like you, Smart,’ he sneered, ‘you always think the worst of people.’

  ‘No, not peeble in general,’ I sneered back. ‘Just you.’

  I turned to leave. Or rather, to carry on walking ahead of them. I’d only gone a few steps when I turned back, with a question for Harry.

  ‘Your birthday’s not for three muddths yet, is it?’ I said.

  ‘What?’ blinked Harry, confused. ‘Planning a surprise party for me, are you?’

  I walked on. Despite having a fit of sneezing that lasted all the way to school, I was secretly congratulating myself. I now had two reasons for thinking that Harry Lovecraft might somehow be involved in these mysterious non-break-ins I was investigating, two coincidences which made me suspicious.

  Have you spotted them?

  The two coincidences were:

  1. Harry Lovecraft’s little FrogWar group included a number of Miss Bennett’s pupils. He would never normally be friendly with those kids. Was there a link between his sudden interest, and the non-break-ins experienced by Miss Bennett’s class?

  2. Some money had – probably, apparently – gone missing. And Harry Lovecraft suddenly owned an expensive pen and an MP3 player he couldn’t have bought before it arrived in the shops last week. From past experience I knew he was enough of a low-down rat to resort to petty theft.

  The problem was, how could Harry Lovecraft be linked with these ‘un-crimes’? As far as I knew, he hadn’t suddenly gained the ability to walk through walls, as this phantom-like burglar appeared to be doing.

  On the plus side: these un-crimes clearly showed a great deal of careful sneakiness – classic Lovecraft trademarks!

  But! On the minus side: to be so careful and sneaky seemed a bit of a wasted effort, if all that was nicked was some cash. If Harry Lovecraft wanted cash, he generally just pulled another dinner-money scam.

  But! On the plus side: no news of another dinner-money scam had reached me this term. So Harry Lovecraft’s sudden flaunting of new goodies made a link with the un-crimes all the more likely.

  But! On the minus side: would even that low-down rat turn to actual burglary? I’d never known him go that far, ever.

  By the time I arrived at school, not only was my nose bunged up with snot, but my brain was bunged up with a jumble of confusing and contradictory thoughts. Before registration, I hurried along to Miss Bennett’s class and arranged for the six victims of the un-crimes to stay behind at morning break. I had three items on my To Do list:

  Talk to these six, and find out more about each individual incident.

  Keep a close eye on H Lovecraft.

  Get hold of some more tissues. The ones I’d brought from home were already reduced to damp shreds.

  While our form teacher, Mrs Penzler, was handing out worksheets for the first lesson of the day, I leaned across to the desk beside me and had a quiet word with my friend George ‘Muddy’ Whitehouse, as follows:

  Me: (checking that neither Mrs Penzler nor H Lovecraft were looking my way) Muddy, I’m going to be busy on a case during break. Can you keep a close watch on Harry Lovecraft for me?

  Muddy: Will do. Brilliant. I’ve got some of my homemade spy gear with me.

  Me: Why do you have to keep bringing spies into everything?

  Muddy: Spies are cool.

  Me: So are fridges, so what? We are not spies. This is detective work.

  Muddy: (pulling a face) . . . It’s similar to spies.

  Me: No, it’s not, it’s — (flapping hands about) Just forget about spies. Watch Harry Lovecraft. Don’t let him know you’re keeping tabs on him, OK? Be casual. Be subtle.

  Muddy: Casual and subtle, check. (Pause) ‘The seagulls fly south over Moscow.’

  Me: . . . What?

  Muddy: It’s what spies say.

  Me: Oh shut up.

  Mrs Penzler: Saxby, less chatter, please!

  Me: Sorry!

  The moment the bell for morning break sounded, I zipped along to Miss Bennett’s class. I talked to each of the six one by one, and made careful notes. Here are the results.

  Incident 1

  Pupil’s name: Maggie Hamilton

  Date/time/location of incident: 24 April (first Thursday of term)/between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m./14 Meadow Road

  What happened: Maggie’s mum came home, thought several things had been moved – computer keyboard, address book by kitchen phone, pile of household bills; £20 note in hall drawer gone. Mum has large jewellery box in bedroom – untouched.

  Any other relevant info: Mum and Dad think Mum’s just mistaken (neighbour says she saw Mum arriving home at 11.30 a.m., Mum thought she didn’t get back until 1 p.m.); Dad was away on business all that week; Mum works afternoons at SuperSave.

  Incident 2

  Pupil’s name: Patrick Atwood

  Date/time/location of incident: 1 May/in the morning ‘sometime after 10.15 a.m.’/26 Avon Street

  What happened: Files and papers on desk disturbed; drawers sorted through.

  Any other relevant info: Patrick’s mum works from home – this happened on the only day of the week she’s not at home; very worried that ‘intruder’ knew this and/or was watching the house.

  Incident 3

  Pupil’s name: Sarah Hardy (This was the pupil who first mentioned the ‘un-crimes’ in class)

  Date/time/location of incident: 8 May/‘must have been between 9.45 a.m. and noon’ / Flat 2, Park Court

  What happened: Stuff around PC station moved; waste paper basket in living room ‘in wrong position’; pile of change on hall shelf gone; £10 note from Mum’s dressing table gone (credit cards untouched).

  Any other relevant info: Mum thinks Sarah’s two older sisters swiped the money; sisters grounded; sisters not happy; only Sarah noticed item movements – sisters distracted by college work, Mum distracted by daily hobby of shopping(!); Mum calls Sarah’s suggestion of an intruder ‘ridiculous’.

  Incident 4

  Pupil’s name: Thomas Waters

  Date/time/location of incident: 15 May/‘sometime late morning’/36 Field Close

  What happened: Drawers left slightly open; box of old paperwork disturbed; kitchen bin moved; £20 in assorted coins and notes gone from teapot in kitchen(!?), but Mum has convinced herself she used this for Chinese takeaway the previous week.

  Any other relevant info: Thomas’s mum suspicious when returned home from appointment; Thomas’s dad always at work 7 a.m.–7 p.m.; Mum works with Maggie Hamilton’s mum at SuperSave in the afternoons, and is friends with Liz Wyndham’s mum down the street.

  Incident 5

  Pupil’s name: Liz Wyndham

  Date/time/location of incident: 22 May/before 12 p.m./45 Field Close

  What happened: Work desk disturbed; computer screen angle changed; wardrobes gone through.

  Any other relevant info: Liz’s mum works from home part-time – only leaves house a couple of times a week d
ue to medical stuff. Liz asked nosy Mrs Huxley from across the street if she’d seen anything that day (‘she misses nothing’) – Mrs H claimed Liz’s mum left house at 9.20 a.m., came back at 10.50 a.m., left again at 11.05 a.m. and returned again at 12! But Liz’s mum says she was out all morning, from 9.20. Liz worried about her mum!

  Incident 6

  Pupil’s name: John Wurtzel

  Date/time/location of incident: 29 May/‘had to be 10.15– 11.45 a.m’/177 Deadman Lane

  What happened: Cupboard in dining room opened; laptop lid down when had been up; bills pinned to corkboard moved slightly; glass bowl on mantelpiece emptied of loose change.

  Any other relevant info: John’s parents are divorced – Dad is an office manager, Mum is an artist – she spends most of every day in her studio in the attic. Mum thinks Dad turned up and moved stuff around just to confuse and annoy her(!)

  Looking through these notes on the way back to class, lots of interesting links and possibilities leaped out at me faster than a pouncing tiger. Links involving dates, times, even the nature of the incidents themselves.

  I could see three remarkable coincidences, one really weird connection, and – argh! – something which more or less proved Harry Lovecraft could not be the intruder. How many of your conclusions agree with mine?

  ITEM 1 – three remarkable coincidences:

  1. The timing of each incident. In every case, it happened on a Thursday (the dates are seven days apart)! And on a Thursday morning too, between about a quarter to ten and one o’ clock!

  2. The households involved. In every case, there was no dad around at the time of the incident – every dad was either at work, or away, or absent for one reason or another. And, leading on from that: it struck me as very odd that all these six mums were people who just happened to be free on those Thursday mornings. They worked for themselves, or they worked in the afternoons, or whatever. They were all people who, on those Thursday mornings, could organise their own timetable.

  3. The stuff that was disturbed. Strangely similar in each case – household papers, stuff in drawers, and computers in particular. That simply had to be significant!

  ITEM 2 – one really weird connection:

  In two cases out of the six, the relevant mum was seen by somebody to be at home at a time when she claimed to be out. Maggie Hamilton’s mum and Liz Wyndham’s mum were both spotted by neighbours.

  Now, if that had happened in one case, I’d have put it down to a simple mistake. Someone got their times wrong. But it happened twice, and it happened twice within this very specific, already coincidence-packed group of six. Now that’s weird!

  ITEM 3 – Harry Lovecraft now had a perfect alibi:

  Thursday mornings, he was at school.

  Hmm . . .

  On my way back to class, my hay fever a bit better now that I’d been away from fresh air for a while, I got a full report from Muddy on what that low-down rat Harry Lovecraft had been up to during break. The report was pretty much exactly what I was expecting.

  ‘He’s been talking to various kids in the year below us,’ whispered Muddy, as everyone filed back into the classroom, ‘and several in the year below that as well.’

  ‘Good work,’ I whispered.

  ‘There was a lot of chit-chat about giant frogs, or something, I didn’t really follow that bit. But I think that was just a cover. What he was trying to find out was personal details. What their parents do for a living, what area their house is in, that kind of thing.’

  ‘Excellent work,’ I whispered. ‘I suppose these kids didn’t suspect him of anything?’

  ‘No,’ whispered Muddy. ‘They think they’ve got some great new mate. He keeps claiming he can get a discount on these frog-whatsernames.’

  ‘Brilliant work,’ I whispered. ‘How did you get all this information? Careful listening and deduction?’

  ‘No, I went up to them and asked.’

  ‘You what?’ I cried. Several of our classmates turned in our direction. ‘I told you to be casual and subtle!’

  ‘You told me not to use my spy gear!’ protested Muddy. ‘I had the Whitehouse Listen-O-Phone 2000 with me in my bag, but oooh nooo, not allowed. I haven’t got super-powered hearing, you know! I can’t eavesdrop from the other end of the playground!’

  ‘Harry’s going to know we’re investigating him now,’ I hissed.

  ‘Tut tut,’ said a voice behind us, a voice that was slimier than a snail’s handshake. That low-down rat Harry Lovecraft swanned past us, grinning his sickly grin. ‘Tut tut, Smart; is one of your trained poodles not doing its tricks correctly?’

  Muddy made a remark about tricks and trained poodles that can’t be repeated in these pages. From the other side of the classroom, Mrs Penzler clacked a ruler on her desk for attention.

  ‘Is there a problem? Saxby Smart? George Whitehouse?’

  ‘Sorry!’ I cried.

  A Page From My Notebook

  Further important thoughts arising from the Harry Lovecraft connection, and from my investigations so far:

  Obviously, nobody’s walking through walls. The intruder is either using actual keys to get in, or is a superb lock-picker. As yet, there are no leads whatsoever on this point. The intruder has clearly made quite an effort to gain entry, and yet has taken very little. WHY? It must have something to do with the items that were disturbed.

  Vital Question: What is this intruder really looking for? And WHAT is going on with those two mums who were seen at home when they said they weren’t at home? To have the INTRUDER seen at those times would make sense, but those neighbours positively identified the mums, NOT a stranger.

  Conclusion: Huh???

  IMPORTANT POINT: I have no reason to suppose that the intruder is going to stop at six break-ins. Who’s going to be next?

  All this leads to a specific question: I need to know exactly what the six mums were doing while they were out on each ‘incident’ day!

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  BEFORE THE END OF THE SCHOOL DAY, I asked the six affected pupils in Miss Bennett’s class the specific question that my notes had suggested. The following morning, I had six specific answers.

  Maggie Hamilton: ‘She left at ten, drove to the Post Office, then she was at something called Monsieur Jacques’s De-Stress Session from half ten to half eleven. Then she drove into town for lunch with my gran, then home at one o’clock.’

  Patrick Atwood: ‘At quarter past ten she walked to her weekly de-stress session, which is run by some French bloke from Dragonfang Gym. Then after that she did some shopping at SuperSave, then came home.’

  Sarah Hardy: ‘After leaving home she popped into the dentist’s to make an appointment, then she was at Monsieur Jacques’s class until half eleven, then straight back.’

  Thomas Waters: ‘She says the only place she went was to her regular de-stress class. I said to her “De-stress? Distress, more like,” because she’s so wound-up you’d think she was clockwork. And she said to me “Stop being a cheeky little so-and-so and lay the table”. . .’ etc., etc.

  Liz Wyndham: ‘Mum went to the doctor’s for 9.45. After that, she went to a weekly thing Dragonfang Gym organise. Then back home at midday.’

  John Wurtzel: ‘She’s got it all in her diary, apparently. Quarter past ten, leaves the house to go to her stress-free meeting, or something like that. Then back home and she was in her studio the rest of the day.’

  ‘Bingo,’ I said quietly to myself, smiling a huge smile. Then I stopped smiling and said ‘Uh-oh!’, not at all quietly.

  Today was Tuesday. On Thursday there would be another of this Monsieur Jacques’s classes. During which, someone, somewhere, was going to get a visit . . .

  I had two days to track down the intruder!

  Think, think, think! Find out whose mums would be attending Thursday’s class. That would give me all the addresses where the intruder might strike next. But how could I know which address would be next on the intruder’s list?
>
  There was only one way to proceed: to get as much info as possible on this Monsieur Jacques and Dragonfang Gym. In the main hall at lunchtime, while everyone was chewing on cardboard-like pie crust and trying to hide their uneaten peas from the dinner ladies, I talked to my friend Izzy. As those who’ve examined my earlier case files will know, Isobel Moustique is St Egbert’s number one classroom genius, and quite possibly the girliest girl on the face of the earth. I told her the story so far as I struggled to cut into my piece of pie.

  ‘So,’ I said, gritting my teeth as I leaned as heavily as I dared on my knife and fork, ‘I need all the background info you can give me on both the gym and the French guy.’

  ‘No problem,’ she said. ‘This Monsieur Jacques person has only been in the health and fitness business a few months, but he’s already built up quite a large list of clients. He holds all his classes in people’s homes – yoga, weight training, relaxation, the usual thing. Each member of the class takes it in turn to host a session. He’s not been going very long, as I said, but he’s already planning to close Dragonfang Gym at the end of the year. Apparently, he and his wife are moving to Africa to do charity work.’

  ‘You’re amazing,’ I gasped, open-mouthed. ‘I simply name a subject, and you know all about it! Incredible!’

  ‘Nnnnot really,’ said Izzy, pulling a you-poor-dumb-fool face. ‘My mum’s just signed up for one of their classes.’

  ‘Ah,’ I said quickly, ‘yes, I thought so, of course.’ I shovelled some peas on to my fork. They fell off.

  ‘And before you ask,’ said Izzy, ‘no, my mum’s class is not on a Thursday morning. It’s tonight, at six.’

  ‘That’s perfect,’ I said. ‘Could she get me in there? I want to observe this Monsieur Jacques at close hand.’

  ‘I don’t think they normally have kids at these sessions,’ said Izzy, ‘but I’m sure we can think of something.’