The Misfits Club

by Kieran Crowley

It’s been four days since we uncovered the treasure in the so-called ‘Cottage in the Woods’ case and progress has been slow and very frustrating. We were warned not to go near the cottage again by the twins’ police-officer cousin, Debra, but Brian ignored her warning – and ours – and decided to go back to the woods by himself. He found no signs of life and no other evidence, apart from a discarded cigarette end approximately twenty metres from the cottage entrance. He put it in a plastic ziplock bag, just like I told him to do with any evidence he found. Brian said he will keep checking, but we believe that the men will no longer be using this building to hide what they’ve stolen. We just hope that they haven’t disposed of the items yet.

  After a lot of talking, we came up with a plan. Each club member was assigned a task, which I have outlined in the rest of this official report. Amelia and I spent ages working on an evidence board, like the ones you see on detective shows. We got some corkboard and pinned up the pictures of the men, then we filled up index cards with all the information we have so far – not that much – and our plan of action. Mum caught us with it once, but we pretended we were using it as an ideas board to write our own detective story. She believed us. The only problem is she thought that it was a really fun thing to do and she wants to read our story when it’s finished, so now we have to write one!

  Amelia and I really enjoyed making the evidence board. I haven’t told the lads yet, but she’s my new best friend. Unlike the boys (well, Brian and Sam really), she doesn’t find breaking wind, talking about vomit or ridiculous pranks funny. She’s great!

  Sam has spent the whole time wandering around the town looking for the men. He has varied the time of day he visits in order to increase his chances of seeing them, but he hasn’t had any luck so far. Part of the problem is that, although we have drawings of the men and a blurry photo, we can’t show them to any adults in case they blab to our parents. If they did, the investigation would be ended immediately. I can guarantee that.

  We knew Sam’s chances of finding any of the suspects this way were very slim, but he was still really enthusiastic, especially in the beginning. He thought he’d found at least one of the men on six separate occasions, but each one turned out to be a false alarm. There was a little bit of trouble when he tried to perform a citizen’s arrest on a suspect, but the misunderstanding was sorted out before it became too serious and the woman he’d mistaken for one of the criminals was kind enough not to take the matter further once Sam had apologized about seventeen times.

  Sam was accompanied some of the time by Amelia, and by Brian at other times. Brian spoke to Mrs Doherty, the shop owner who the two men had tried to steal from, but she was unable to provide us with any new information. Her shop doesn’t have CCTV, so we were unable to obtain footage of either the men or the car. We’d hoped we might be able to get the licence-plate number, but no such luck. She was one of the few people we showed the pictures to, since Brian trusted her, but although she confirmed that the drawings were accurate she wasn’t able to be more helpful than that.

  Chris has spent nearly all his free time researching stuff on the laptop. I have too. We have both been looking to identify the items we spotted in the cottage – the painting, the jewellery, the lamp. We searched through tonnes of newspaper reports of burglaries and all kinds of thefts, but we couldn’t find any mention of the items Sam and I had seen in the attic.

  I’d hoped that we might find a photo of the painting of the ship online, but after ages searching for it I still haven’t found it. I think my eyes have dried up from staring at the screen for so long. Amelia made drawings of all the stolen goods, including the painting, based on my memories of it, and we’ve shown it to a number of people, like Déirdre Ní Laocha, a local artist, to see if they recognized it. Still nothing! I’ve found a website that does some kind of art analysis, but it’s not free, so I’ll have to sneak on to Dad’s computer as he has all the credit card payment stuff set up on it.

  When I’m not looking at the laptop, I’ve been rereading all of my mystery books, hoping to find something in there – an approach I haven’t tried or a different way of thinking, anything that might help. I’ve read everything from The Sisters Grimm to Agatha Christie to The Westing Game. It hasn’t produced any results yet, but it did get me into a crime-solving mood. There’s a definite sprinkling of mystery in the air now, and I love it.

  Brian has spent a lot of time cycling around looking for the Subaru Impreza, as it’s an easily recognizable car. He was certain he’d heard its distinctive engine once and raced down some alleys and side streets, almost colliding with a moving wheelie bin, but by the time he’d reached the road there was no sign of it.

  The whole process has been extremely frustrating, especially when we started out with such high hopes. We are not giving up, though – far from it. You can’t just give up because something’s a bit difficult. That’d be pathetic. But after days of hard work and no real reward, there have been some grumblings from the group. It’s also been difficult to keep my parents off our backs. The amount of times they’ve almost overheard our discussions has been ridiculous. There have been far too many close calls to mention. It’d be much easier if we could meet elsewhere, but they don’t monitor me as much if we’re around my house, so it makes more sense to stay in headquarters.

  Why can’t we find anything? The men cannot just have disappeared, can they? There must be a clue or a piece of evidence. Something to give us hope. We can’t keep going and going unless we have hope. The twins will be moving soon – their parents have already started packing some stuff away – so we don’t have much time if we’re going to solve the case before the Misfits Club is finished.

  We need a breakthrough and we need it soon.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Brian, Mucky and Mucky’s girlfriend, Sharon, were in very bad moods, but not all for the same reason. Brian was annoyed that the investigation hadn’t been progressing very well. It had been almost a week since they’d been in the cottage with the stolen goods and despite spending every minute of the day looking for the two men in the Subaru Impreza, he’d had no luck. It was as if they’d vanished from the face of the Earth.

  Mucky and Sharon (who’d been a more frequent visitor to the house recently) were in bad moods because of a party invitation. The Adamus, Chris and Sam’s parents, had organized a going-away party and Mucky and Sharon had been invited. The party was that night, even though the family wasn’t moving for another few weeks. Mrs Adamu reckoned they’d have enough to be organizing without having to add a party to the mix.

  ‘Why do I have to go?’ Mucky whined. ‘I don’t like parties. All that having to talk to people and pretending you’re interested in their boring lives. It’s not for me, Shar.’

  ‘I want to go,’ Sharon said, with an air of finality that Mucky foolishly ignored.

  ‘I’m not stopping you from going. I’d be delighted if you went. Nothing would make me happier than knowing you’re having a good time. I just don’t want to be beside you when you’re having it.’

  ‘You’re going, Mucky McDonnell, and you’re going to dress up for it too. No T-shirts,’ Sharon said. She slammed a mug on the table and the handle broke off.

  Mucky and Brian exchanged worried glances, but neither said anything.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Sharon said. She massaged her temples. ‘We’re going to the party because I need a night out. Work has been stressful lately. Things haven’t been going as smoothly as I hoped and I need a break.’

  Brian still wasn’t sure what Sharon did for a living, but he was smart enough to know that now wasn’t the right time to ask.

  ‘I’m going for a lie-down. Make me a cup of tea, Mucky. And put that broken mug in the bin.’

  She disappeared upstairs.

  ‘This is all your fault,’ Mucky said when he was sure Sharon was out of earshot.

  ‘My fault?’

  ‘It’s your friends that are leaving, not mine. We’re only being invited bec
ause of you. So, thanks to you, I have to spend tonight bored out of my skull.’

  Brian had had enough. He couldn’t take it any more.

  ‘You’re right, Dad. They are my friends – two of my best friends – and they’re leaving, and all you care about is being bored for a couple of hours. You don’t care how I feel about it, do you?’

  ‘Of course, I care,’ Mucky mumbled. He was taken aback by the flash of anger in his son’s eyes. Brian had never spoken to him like that before.

  ‘Why do you care?’ Brian asked.

  ‘I . . . ahm . . . because it makes you . . . sad? And that’s . . . bad,’ Mucky said.

  He really wasn’t one for all this emotional stuff. If you didn’t allow yourself to have emotions, then nothing could ever hurt you.

  ‘Sad and bad. Brilliant, Dad, just brilliant. Do you even know my friends’ names?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mucky said.

  ‘What are they?’

  Mucky wasn’t prepared for a follow-up question. ‘I want to say . . . Steve . . . and Paul?’

  ‘I’m going out,’ Brian said.

  He slammed the front door behind him, leaving Mucky alone downstairs. Brian’s father sighed. All he wanted was a quiet, peaceful life and look what he had instead: a girlfriend he was a little bit intimidated by, and an ungrateful son.

  A few minutes later, he’d forgotten about Sharon’s anger, but the upset face of his son niggled at him a lot longer than he would have liked or expected.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Even though the day was bathed in warm sunshine, the Burger Joint in the centre of Newpark was packed. Brian recognized some people from his school – Samantha and Ethan, a few of the crowd from Analeentha, including JJ, Luke and Willow – a few others whose names he didn’t know. He joined his four friends at their table, which was covered in empty burger wrappers and a few stray cold chips. A big fat folder of investigation notes that Chris had brought along was teetering on the edge of the table. The rest of the Misfits Club wasn’t in much better form than Brian was.

  ‘We’ve been at this forever and we’re no closer to finding the men or the stolen goods. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack,’ Hannah said.

  ‘It sure is,’ Amelia agreed.

  Brian noticed that Amelia and Hannah seemed to agree on everything now.

  ‘We need a magnet,’ Brian said. ‘If you want to find a needle in a haystack, you use a powerful magnet. We need a powerful magnet.’

  ‘Are we the needle or the haystack?’ Sam asked.

  Hannah sighed. ‘Neither. The guys in the pictures, the ones we’re looking for, they’re the needles, the entire world is the haystack.’

  ‘So, we’re the magnet?’ Sam said.

  ‘No, the magnet is what we need to find them. It could be anything. We just haven’t figured out what it is yet.’

  ‘This is all unclear. So, what are we?’

  ‘We’re still us,’ Hannah said.

  ‘They’re needles, the world’s a haystack, but we’re still us? None of this makes sense.’

  ‘Please shut up, Sam,’ Brian said. ‘You’re wrecking my head.’

  This wasn’t just his bad mood from his argument with his father. Brian had grown increasingly tetchy over the last few days. Several times, he’d said things like this to Sam, almost as if he was trying to start a fight. After all, it’d be harder to miss someone who was moving away if you weren’t getting along with them. But Sam didn’t respond to any of his taunts, which only made Brian feel worse.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said.

  ‘For what?’ Sam grinned. ‘I do wreck people’s heads. It’s my thing. Sometimes, I even wreck my own head.’

  ‘What do we do now, Chris?’ Amelia said.

  She had grown more confident with the group the more she’d got to know them and had finally felt completely part of things when she’d called Brian a ‘woolly-headed muppet’ without thinking when he’d made a ridiculous suggestion. The others had cracked up laughing and something clicked in her at that moment. She’d always felt welcome in the club, and had grown close to Hannah, but with that unthinking insult she realized again that she was more comfortable with them now than she ever had been with her own friends.

  ‘The cottage in the woods has to be owned by somebody. If we find out who that is, then we’ll find a link to the thieves. I’m certain of it,’ Chris said.

  ‘Yes, we know that,’ Hannah said. ‘We’ve been trying to make that link for days, but it’s been impossible to discover who the owner is. You’ve searched; I’ve searched. We’ve got nothing.’

  ‘Psssst.’

  At first no one heard the sound since it was drowned out by the tables of excited conversations taking place in the Burger Joint.

  ‘PSSSST.’

  Amelia was the first to notice. She nudged Hannah.

  ‘There’s a small, strange man looking at us,’ she whispered.

  The man was somewhere between four and four and a half feet tall, wore sunglasses that were too big for his face, a fedora that was too large for his head and a thick quilted jacket, which must have been extremely uncomfortable on such a warm day.

  ‘That’s not a small, strange man, that’s a small, strange boy,’ Hannah said with a smile. ‘Hello, Horace.’

  Horace McCarthy edged closer to the table. He removed his sunglasses.

  ‘Hi, guys, it’s me, Horace.’

  ‘We figured that out. What’s with the—’

  ‘Disguise? I’m keeping a low profile. The last thing I want is to renew acquaintance with Smasher. I don’t think that’d end well for me.’

  ‘I’m sure he’s forgotten all about it,’ Chris said. ‘He probably bullies people on a daily basis. He’d need a database to keep track of everyone he has to beat up.’

  ‘I’m not taking any chances. This is my first time out of the house in days. Thought I’d grab a burger,’ Horace squeaked. ‘Anyway, that’s not why I’m here. I couldn’t help overhear your predicament.’

  ‘Our predicament?’ Brian said.

  ‘Yes, Misfits business. I’m not going to lie – I was eavesdropping. Always been a fan of clubs and investigations and things like that. Also, I owe you one for saving my life.’

  ‘Sorry, Horace,’ Sam said. ‘I don’t understand a word you’re saying.’

  ‘You’re looking for information on who owns a premises, right? I can help you. My dad knows who owns every house in town. Before he ran the gift shop, he was an estate agent.’

  The Misfits were back in their club headquarters an hour later, sitting on their comfortable beanbags, pages of investigation notes scattered on the rug in front of them. Brian and Sam were sharing a bag of crisps and Amelia was flipping through the pages of some of Hannah’s mystery novels when Chris’s phone rang. He went outside, paced up and down the garden path for a minute, deep in conversation, before ending the call and returning to the shed.

  ‘That was Horace. His father told him that the cottage in the woods belongs to a Mr Rodney O’Reilly,’ he said.

  Four faces looked blankly at him.

  ‘Are we supposed to know who that is?’ Brian asked.

  ‘Oh, I kind of thought you would know,’ Chris said. His words hadn’t had the impact he’d expected them to have.

  ‘Rodney O’Reilly,’ he repeated, although the repetition of the man’s name didn’t make things any clearer. ‘Ranting Rodney.’

  ‘Ohhh, him. I remember him,’ Sam said.

  ‘Of course, you do. He’s only shouted at you about twenty different times. He said you were an idiot.’

  ‘He said I was a thundering idiot,’ Sam said, almost proudly.

  Recognition slowly dawned on Brian and Hannah’s faces too as Chris explained to Amelia who Ranting Rodney O’Reilly was. He was a local man who was well known for his fits of rage. Rodney would get into a furious temper over the most minor inconvenience or perceived slight.

  He lived in the heart of the town on a narrow street wher
e the front doors of the houses opened out on to the footpath. This meant that occasionally passers-by would stop outside his front door to take a phone call or tie their shoelaces. They’d soon realize that this was a mistake when the door swung open and they received a verbal volley of abuse from Rodney for the crime of momentarily loitering outside his house. His list of intolerances was quite lengthy, including, but not limited to: talking too loudly, talking too quietly, fidgeting, looking the wrong way at him, coughing, sneezing and breathing too noisily. He was one of Newpark’s most unpleasant characters.

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought that Rodney was the kind of person who’d own a cottage. His house is tiny and my dad always said if he’d been busy working rather than sitting at home he wouldn’t spend so much time ranting,’ Hannah said.

  ‘He inherited it from an uncle who died. It’s not worth much since nobody wanted to live out there, but someone might pay him for the use of it,’ Chris said.

  ‘The bad guys,’ Brian said. ‘The bad guys are renting it from him and storing their stuff there.’

  ‘If they are, then Rodney must know them. He might be the key to finding them, or at least finding out who they are,’ Hannah said. ‘This just got interesting.’

  ‘So what do we do now?’ Sam asked.

  ‘We pay Rodney a visit,’ Hannah said.

  Of course, that wasn’t what Hannah told her mother. She said they were going for a cycle, which was partly true, since it was too far for them to walk to Rodney’s house. While Hannah got ready, the other four waited outside in the garden.

  They’d spent some of the ten minutes they’d been waiting mocking Amelia’s bike, which was a solid old thing that belonged to her grandmother. Florence had kept it in almost perfect condition over the years and, despite what the boys said, Amelia thought it was very stylish.

  ‘What are we going to say to Rodney?’ Amelia asked, trying to change the subject.

  ‘Leave it to me,’ Sam said. ‘I’ll do all the talking, because I’m naturally charming.’