by Ailsa Wild
I can hear him complaining as they walk away. ‘Careful of my shirt, it creases easily.’
We are all left standing in the corridor. Alice, Baby, the bonus sisters and me. I’m trying to unobtrusively take off my harness.
Alice looks at the card. ‘Chief of Special Secret Undercover Operations,’ she says.
Dad stumbles out, squinting at the light, and asks, ‘What’s going on?’
The rest of us look at each other and then burst out laughing. Even Baby.
The next morning, Alice takes us across the road to meet the Chief of Special Secret Undercover Operations. Boring Lady doesn’t meet us in her normal office, but takes us to a big room with a shiny wooden table and chocolate croissants.
She shakes all our hands. ‘Thank you for coming,’ she says.
I have so many questions. We’ve been talking about Mr Hinkenbushel being an undercover agent since we woke up. And the fact that the document was in his apartment the whole time.
I start talking before we even sit down. ‘But how did you and Mr Hinkenbushel already have the receipt?’ I ask.
‘Squishy!’ Alice says.
But Boring Lady nods. ‘Good point. Mr Hinkenbushel took it a few weeks ago, while he was undercover, pretending to be a criminal from a different gang. So the smugglers thought they had been tricked by other criminals, not caught by the police.’
‘That’s why you told the news you were still looking for it!’ Jessie says. ‘To protect Mr Hinkenbushel’s disguise.’ She pauses. ‘But then who broke into Mr Hinkenbushel’s apartment the first time?’
Boring Lady smiles. ‘You are quick, aren’t you? It was the smugglers, trying to get their receipt back. Luckily, I was keeping it safe.’
‘I don’t get it,’ I say. ‘You had the document. Wasn’t that the evidence you needed?’
‘Unfortunately it didn’t prove Lord Smiggenbotham-Chancery was the one bringing illegal diamonds into the country. So we used the document as bait, to catch him red-handed.’
Jessie realises something. ‘So Lord Smiggenbotham-Chancery was meant to hear Mr Hinkenbushel say he was going out of town, leaving the document in his apartment.’
Boring Lady grins. ‘But you heard him too. So tell me, how did you end up in the middle of a special police operation?’ She asks us lots of questions and we all spill over ourselves trying to answer them. We tell her about the diamond catalogue and the hopscotch stake-out and the homemade safety harness.
When she finally seems satisfied, I ask, ‘Will he have to pay his diamond taxes now?’
‘That, plus a big fine. And maybe even prison,’ Boring Lady says.
Vee has been shifting in her seat. ‘But where are the diamonds?’ she asks.
‘Ah!’ Boring Lady says. ‘We got the diamonds first. They’re what made us realise there were smugglers operating in Melbourne. Follow me.’
She leads us down a long corridor into a lift, down to a basement, through a big cage door with a beeping card swipe, and into a room with lots and lots of safes. It’s like something out of a movie. Every safe has a big dial.
She turns one of the dials this way and then that, and pulls out a silvery suitcase, which she puts on a table.
Inside is a plastic bag full of tiny clear stones. They are a little bit shiny. But they don’t even look that special.
‘I thought they would be big and sparkly!’ I say.
I think about how stupid it is that stones so small could make someone want to steal and lie and be cruel to people.
‘What happens to the diamonds now?’ Vee asks.
‘Mr Hinkenbushel will return them. They will be given back to the miners to sell and feed their families.’
I’m thinking Mr Hinkenbushel might be a nice man after all. But just then, the cage door beeps and Mr Hinkenbushel comes in. He scowls at us and at the suitcase of diamonds.
He obviously thinks showing them to us is a terrible idea.
‘Morning, ma’am,’ he says to Boring Lady. ‘I’m here to sign these out.’
He puts the diamonds away and closes the suitcase. Then he takes it over to a desk on the other side of the room and starts filling out a form.
Boring Lady grins at us. ‘He’s a cranky-pants,’ she whispers. ‘But he’s good at his job.’
As we’re stepping out onto the street, I turn back to Boring Lady. ‘If you’re the chief, how come you just type at your computer all the time? Why don’t you act like a spy?’
‘Squishy!’ Alice says, embarrassed.
Boring Lady waves a ‘don’t worry about it’ hand to Alice, and turns to me. ‘I have all my meetings in the big room. Your window looks into my quiet office. No-one’s allowed to disturb me there ever.’ She laughs. ‘I guess I would be pretty boring to watch.’
That night, Dad talks to Mum for a long time before I’m allowed to. When he finally comes out of his room and hands me the iPad, Mum’s smiling but also looks a bit serious.
‘Sounds like you’ll have to take me rock-climbing when I come home,’ she says.
I can tell she’s worried by the stuff Dad told her.
‘Squishy, I’m glad I taught you to be brave and take risks, but …’ She pauses.
‘But don’t die?’ I suggest.
She grins. ‘Please don’t die.’
‘Don’t worry, Mum, I won’t.’
I get into bed first. Jessie tucks herself in beneath me, and Vee does a celebratory Clambereeno up to her bunk. I lie on my tummy, staring out at Boring Lady’s office. The light is off, but now I know she might just be in another meeting room.
I think about the basement room with the safe and the diamonds. I think about traps and criminals being caught red-handed. By me. I grin into the dark. Weird stuff. I love weird stuff.
About the author and illustrator
Ailsa Wild is an acrobat, whip cracker and teaching artist who ran away from the circus to become a writer. She taught Squishy all her best bunk-bed tricks.
Ben Wood started drawing when he was Baby’s age, and happily drew all over his mum and dad’s walls! Since then, he has never stopped drawing. He has an identical twin and they used to play all kinds of pranks on their younger brother.
Squishy Taylor and a Question of Trust
published in 2016 by
Hardie Grant Egmont
Ground Floor, Building 1, 658 Church Street
Richmond, Victoria 3121, Australia
www.hardiegrantegmont.com.au
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers and copyright holders.
A CiP record for this title is available from the National Library of Australia.
eISBN 9781743583975
Text copyright © 2016 Ailsa Wild
Illustrations copyright © 2016 Ben Wood
Series design copyright © 2016 Hardie Grant Egmont
Series design by Stephanie Spartels
Illustrations by Ben Wood
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