The Mystery of the Squashed Cockroach
Page 16
April laughed. ‘Good boy.’ Even Joe and Fin couldn’t stop smiling. Pumpkin panted happily.
The booing grew louder, there was some angry yelling as well.
‘Whatever,’ said April. ‘I’m going home.’
She stalked off. Pumpkin quickly bit the mayor’s ankle before chasing after her.
‘I guess we’re back to square one.’ Fin sighed. ‘No one likes us again.’
‘I think I prefer it this way,’ said Joe. ‘Popularity is t-t-terrifying.’
‘Oh, look, there’s Daddy!’ exclaimed Loretta, waving to a man wearing surgical scrubs and talking on a mobile phone. ‘He must have snuck out of heart surgery to buy me lunch.’ She ran over to meet him.
Joe, Fin and April pushed their way through the crowd, which now could be more accurately described as an angry mob, towards the car that was waiting for them. Ingrid had driven them all down to the ceremony. Hopefully, even without Loretta she’d give them a lift home. Dad had stayed in the car because he didn’t like crowds or people, plus Constable Pike had yelled at him the day before for leaving the keys in his unregistered helicopter.
The Peski kids slid into the back seat.
‘Let’s go home,’ said Fin.
Dad didn’t respond, except to quiver and point at the person sitting in the driver’s seat. It was not Ingrid, but it was someone they recognised.
‘Professor Maynard!’ exclaimed Joe.
‘What are you doing here?’ asked Fin.
‘Responding to reports from the field,’ said Professor Maynard.
‘What does that mean?’ asked Joe.
‘Spies,’ said Dad.
‘Okay, Dad, we’ve heard enough of your crack-brained theories,’ said April.
‘No, your father is entirely correct,’ said Professor Maynard with a smile. ‘You didn’t think we’d leave three children with a price on their heads alone and unwatched, did you?’
‘You never said there was a price on our heads,’ said Fin.
‘How much?’ asked April curiously.
‘You can’t kill Fin,’ said Joe, guessing the train of his sister’s thoughts.
‘Why not?’ said April. ‘I don’t need two brothers. Two too many if you ask me.’
‘Maybe I’ll hand you in,’ said Fin, glaring at April.
‘Hah,’ scoffed April. ‘Like to see you try.’
Fin grabbed April in a headlock. April took hold of Fin’s arm in a wristlock and wrestling commenced.
‘Am I going to have to stun you two with my taser so we can finish this conversation?’ asked Professor Maynard.
‘Please d-d-do,’ said Joe.
‘Your caseworkers have reported that you have critically failed in your assignment to assimilate into the local community,’ said Professor Maynard sternly, ‘and that on the Richtenheimer scale of physically observable morale levels, you displayed a score of only eight-two out of a possible three hundred in personal satisfaction ratings.’
‘What does that mean?’ asked Fin.
‘We have mathematically observed that you are unhappy here,’ said Professor Maynard. ‘I have graphs and tables on my phone that can prove it. As such, we have set up a new safe house for you. This time in an urban environment, where hopefully you will be better able to acclimatise yourself to the community.’
‘What’s she saying?’ asked April, still trying to give Fin a noogie while everyone else was distracted.
‘She’s m-m-moving us again,’ said Joe.
‘No!’ protested April. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
‘You can’t refuse,’ said Professor Maynard. ‘Setting up a one hundred per cent secure safe house in this day and age of high technology is no easy business. You won’t get this chance again. If your identities are compromised here, there’s nothing I can do short of arranging for you all to have plastic surgery and move to the Bahamas.’
‘Cool,’ said Fin. ‘I like the beach.’
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ said April stubbornly. ‘I like it here.’
‘What?’ said Fin. ‘Everyone hates you.’
‘I don’t care,’ said April.
‘You complain about everything,’ said Fin.
‘To be fair,’ said Joe, ‘she complained about everything back in the city too.’
‘I like Currawong,’ said April. ‘It’s never boring. Bat-guano crazy, maybe. But never boring.’
‘I like it here too,’ admitted Joe.
Fin rolled his eyes. ‘You just like Loretta.’
Joe blushed.
‘Well, she is stunning!’ snapped April. ‘You’d have to have your eyes gouged out with a melon baller not to notice.’
‘I want to stay too,’ confessed Fin. ‘Everything is very real. Trees, sunshine, cockroach races. It’s fun.’
‘What about you, Dad?’ asked Joe. ‘What do you want to do?’
‘I don’t mind where I am,’ said Dad, his voice and his whole body shaking. ‘I just want to stay with my kids.’ His eyes welled with tears.
In a bout of wildly uncharacteristic empathy, April reached forward and awkwardly put her arm around her dad’s shoulders. He hugged her back, his shoulders quivering as he silently wept. It’s hard to have a relationship with a father you’ve only known for a week, especially when he doesn’t have a very tight grasp on rationality. But what the children now realised was that although they might not have known their father, he had known them, and he had been missing them for eleven years.
‘We’ll stay,’ said Joe.
‘Fine, I suppose,’ said Professor Maynard sniffily. ‘There is another family in mortal peril, so I suppose they can have the new safe house. But be warned, there is a limit to how well I can protect you in Currawong now. Especially if you make a habit of hijacking hot air balloons.’
Professor Maynard opened the door and swung her leg out.
‘Wait!’ called Fin. ‘Who are our caseworkers? Who have you got watching us?’
‘I couldn’t possible reveal his or her identity,’ said Professor Maynard.
‘I bet it’s Mr Popov,’ said April. ‘It isn’t normal for a teacher to have an accent and rippling shoulder muscles.’
‘No, Joy from the cafe!’ said Fin. ‘It would explain why she’s so miserable. She’s a highly trained spy who hates being posted here.’
‘Stop guessing! This is not a game!’ snapped Professor Maynard, her veneer of affability slipping. ‘Don’t try to compromise your handlers’ cover IDs the same way you’ve ruined your own.’
Dad glanced out the window and spotted Ingrid sitting on a park bench and waiting for their conversation to end. He opened his mouth to say something but stopped. If he was right, he didn’t want to put her in danger.
‘If you don’t care about your own safety,’ said Professor Maynard sternly, ‘think about your mother. Think how your actions here can affect her.’
With that mysterious and dramatic statement she got out and slammed the door. A black van pulled up, Professor Maynard climbed in and it sped away.
‘I suppose we should be grateful she didn’t blow our house up this time,’ said Fin. ‘She didn’t blow it up, did she?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Dad.
‘Come on,’ said Joe. ‘Let’s go home and see.’
As Ingrid drove them home, the Peski kids felt almost like a regular family. As regular as a family with a traumatised father and a mysteriously absent mother could feel. Even Dad had stopped manically fidgeting so much.
‘I’m just glad this cockroach craziness is over,’ said Fin. ‘Now things can go back to normal.’
‘They can’t go back to normal,’ snapped April, ‘because nothing here was ever normal to start with. Everything here is weird and all the people are bonkers.’
‘Yeah, but that is normal for Currawong,’ said Joe.
‘I’m going to have a cup of tea and spend the afternoon separating my daffodil bulbs,’ said Dad.
‘Vad är det?!’ cried I
ngrid.
They didn’t have to speak Swedish to figure out what she was looking at. Up ahead, a huge cloud of black smoke billowed above the trees, directly over their house.
Ingrid floored the accelerator and they flew up the driveway, skidding to a halt on the gravel as they came around the last bend.
‘Oh no, oh no, oh no!’ wailed Dad.
Their house was on fire. Flames licked out from an upstairs window.
The Peski kids were horror struck.
‘This is a nightmare,’ murmured Fin.
It was the second time they had seen their home in flames in one week.
‘Who would do this to us?’ asked Joe.
No one had a clever reply.
R. A. Spratt is the author of The Peski Kids, Friday Barnes and The Adventures of Nanny Piggins. In her previous life she was a television writer. Unlike the Peski kids, R. A. Spratt never fights with her brother, but only because he moved to Hong Kong to get away from her. R. A. lives in Bowral, NSW, where she has three chickens, two goldfish and a dog. She also has a husband and two daughters
For more information, visit raspratt.com
Books by R. A. Spratt
The Adventures of Nanny Piggins
Nanny Piggins and the Wicked Plan
Nanny Piggins and the Runaway Lion
Nanny Piggins and the Accidental Blast-Off
Nanny Piggins and the Rival Ringmaster
Nanny Piggins and the Pursuit of Justice
Nanny Piggins and the Daring Rescue
Nanny Piggins and the Race to Power
The Nanny Piggins Guide to Conquering Christmas
Friday Barnes: Girl Detective
Friday Barnes: Under Suspicion
Friday Barnes: Big Trouble
Friday Barnes: No Rules
Friday Barnes: The Plot Thickens
Friday Barnes: Danger Ahead
Friday Barnes: Bitter Enemies
Friday Barnes: Never Fear
The Peski Kids: The Mystery of the Squashed Cockroach
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First published by Penguin Random House Australia Pty Ltd, 2018
Text copyright © R. A. Spratt 2018
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
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ISBN: 978 0 14378 882 9
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