Daisy moved slowly forward, using trees as cover, until she was as close as she dared. She hid behind a large tree and cautiously poked her head out.
Paul had been talking, but the first words Daisy was able to make out were from the older man with the beard. ‘So if you want any more, you need to do as I say.’
Paul looked torn. ‘Please, I just need a lolly. Just one more.’
White Beard smiled. ‘If you do as I say.’
Paul’s face twisted. ‘But … can’t I just have one now?’
‘If you want a lolly you need to do what I have told you. That’s clear, isn’t it?’
Paul nodded sullenly.
‘Good. We will meet again tomorrow and if you have the information that I need, I will give you not one lolly …’ He paused dramatically. ‘But two!’
‘Two? Really?’
‘Of course,’ said White Beard. ‘But if you don’t find out …’ White Beard’s smile was suddenly replaced by a stern expression that looked a lot like the one Daisy saw on her headmistress’s face whenever someone burped in assembly. ‘… then you won’t get any more lollies, and I will get a bit upset. Understand?’
There was something about the way he said the last part that made Daisy very glad that it wasn’t being said to her.
Paul gulped and slowly nodded. Even the younger man with curly hair looked a bit scared.
‘Good,’ said White Beard. ‘Now run along.’
If that’s Paul’s grandfather, he’s not a very nice one, thought Daisy. Paul turned and dashed off, straight towards the tree Ben and Daisy were hiding behind. When he had just about reached it the man called out, ‘Boy!’
Paul stopped as suddenly as if he had run into an invisible wall, and then slowly turned around. Not right around, obviously, or he would still have had his back to the man. Just halfway around. He was so close that Daisy could hear him breathing.
‘Y … yes, sir,’ Paul mumbled anxiously.
Daisy’s eyebrows shot up. She had never heard Paul speak that politely to anyone. Not to teachers at school, not to his parents, not even to the man who drove the Mister Whippy van when Paul didn’t have quite enough money for a choc-dipped cone.
‘You won’t mention our discussion to anyone. Will you,’ said White Beard slowly and sternly. It clearly wasn’t a question, which is why I didn’t put in a question mark.
‘N … no, sir,’ stammered Paul.
White Beard smiled in a not-at-all-friendly way. ‘Good,’ he said, and then flicked a finger at Paul. ‘Off you go.’
Paul gulped and then turned and raced past Daisy and Ben’s tree without so much as a sideways glance. Luckily.
White Beard stared after him for a few moments, then his eyes slowly swivelled around towards Daisy. She pulled her head back behind the tree, but had she been quick enough? She heard footsteps coming closer. Had he seen her? She hadn’t really done anything wrong, had she? She’d just been curious.
A cold feeling spread down her spine. She stayed as still as she could. Ben stood next to her, ears up. Daisy could hear her heart pounding and wished it would shut up. She held her breath, but after a while realised that if she kept doing that she’d die, so she exhaled as slowly and silently as she could, then sucked some more air in the same way.
The footsteps came closer. Two lots: one slow and deliberate, the other noisier. They stopped a few steps away from the tree.
‘What have we here, then?’ asked White Beard softly.
‘Looks like a forest to me, boss,’ said another voice, presumably belonging to the younger man with lots of curly brown hair. ‘I mean, I’m no expert on trees, but I do know that when there’s a whole lot of them clumped together, it’s usually called a forest. Unless it’s a wood. I wonder what the difference between a forest and a wood is. Do you know? Which one has more trees?’
‘Enough of that,’ hissed White Beard. ‘I sense something else. Very close.’
‘What? Like leaves?’ replied Lots-of-Curly-Brown-Hair. ‘You often find them in a forest. Or a wood. They’re usually attached to the trees, I think.’
‘No, not like leaves! Something else,’ replied White Beard tersely. Daisy heard his footsteps coming closer. He was just around the other side of the tree. She was going to be caught. She may as well get it over with. She was just about to step out when suddenly Ben dashed out, barking angrily.
‘Yikes!’ exclaimed Lots-of-Curly-Brown-Hair.
What was Ben doing? Daisy was about to follow him, but before she could move Ben turned and raced away down the hill. Daisy stayed still.
For a long moment, lots of nothing happened, and then Daisy heard White Beard chuckle. ‘Come on,’ he said, and Daisy heard more footsteps, this time going away down the other side of the hill.
‘You were right, boss,’ said Lots-of-Curly-Brown-Hair, ‘that definitely wasn’t a piece of forest. Bits of forest don’t bark. I actually think that might have been a dog.’
‘You don’t say.’
‘Or possibly a monster. A small monster. I’m just not sure.’
Their footsteps got softer and softer until Daisy couldn’t hear them, but still she stayed motionless, breathing as quietly as possible.
‘Are you okay?’
‘AHHH!’ she screamed, leaping into the air.
‘Calm down. It’s just me.’
‘Ben!’ He had crept up behind her.
‘Quick thinking me, hey! Dashing out like that. Saved your bacon … I mean, flesh.’
Daisy realised that he had. If Ben hadn’t done that, then … then what?
‘Thank you,’ she said, bending down and giving him a cuddle. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
They headed back down the hill until they found the path, and then turned for home. Instead of her usual strolling pace, Daisy found that she was walking as fast as she could.
‘What was all that about?’ she asked.
‘That man wants something from the boy,’ responded Ben.
‘But what?’
They walked on until they reached the turn that led down to their back gate. Daisy stopped and fixed Ben with a steely stare. ‘We have to find out what’s going on.’
‘No, we don’t,’ said Ben quickly. ‘We actually don’t have to at all.’
Daisy continued as if she hadn’t heard him. ‘But how?’
Ben tried again. ‘There’re lots of things we could do instead. What about tidying your room? That could be great fun. Boy, it really could be.’
‘I don’t like Paul,’ said Daisy, setting off again down the hill towards their back fence. ‘He’s stupid, smelly and nasty. But he looked terrified, and he doesn’t get scared easily. Remember that time he was on his skateboard and he went flying down his driveway onto the road and a car nearly hit him? Remember what he did?’
‘He laughed,’ said Ben. ‘He’s clearly very stupid.’
‘So if he laughs when he nearly gets killed, why was he so scared of that old man?’
‘Don’t know. Don’t care. None of our business really, is it? So we should probably just forget about it and go home and curl up in the sun and think nice thoughts about nice things in a nice way,’ suggested Ben hopefully.
‘But Ben, Paul needs our help.’
‘But we don’t even like Paul. In fact, we dislike him.’
‘That’s not the point.’
‘Isn’t it? It seems exactly like the point to me.’
Daisy’s eyes were glowing. ‘But this is exciting.’ She opened their back gate. ‘Do you know what the last exciting thing that happened to me was?’
‘Finding out I could talk?’
‘Apart from that.’
Ben frowned. ‘Well, what about that morning you had to go to school and there was no cereal left, and no bread. No cereal and no bread! I mean, wow, crisis o
r what?! And in the end you had to have a cold sausage for breakfast! Crazy! That was one exciting day. Seriously. I still think about it.’
Daisy pulled a key out of her pocket and unlocked the back door. ‘Exactly. The most exciting thing that ever happens to me is eating cold sausage for breakfast. And now we’ve got a mystery to solve.’
‘But …’ said Ben, but then stopped. Being a very clever dog, he realised there was no talking her out of it. He padded inside.
‘We need a plan.’ Daisy rubbed her hands together. She seemed to have already forgotten how scared she had been just a few minutes ago. ‘I’ve got it. When Paul is outside his house on his skateboard, we can wander past and chat to him.’
‘I don’t think I should chat to him.’
‘Good point. But I could ask him how he is and be really friendly to him and then ask him if there’s something on his mind, and he might tell me what happened.’
‘I don’t think there’s ever much on Paul’s mind,’ replied Ben. ‘And wouldn’t that be a bit suspicious, given that last time you spoke to him he called you a “stupid, smelly girl” and you called him “an even stupider, smellier boy”? Which, by the way, wasn’t one of your wittiest comebacks.’
‘I can say I want to make up.’
Ben gave her a long look.
‘Well, it’s worth a try, isn’t it?’ Daisy said innocently.
Ben shrugged his shoulders, which on a dog looks very weird.
Daisy made them both a snack (two dog biscuits for Ben, and four chocolate biscuits for Daisy.)
Then they went into Daisy’s room and lay in bed reading. Eventually Ben pushed aside his copy of Spot Grows Up and Gets a Job Working in a Bank and looked thoughtful. Most people would have thought that he just looked like a dog lying on a bed, but Daisy knew him well enough by now to recognise his thoughtful look. Eventually he spoke.
‘Daisy, why did Paul want a lolly so much? I mean, I know you humans like lollies, but he sounded desperate.’
‘I guess he really likes them.’
‘But did you hear what he said? “I need it.” Not “I want it”. “I need it.”’
‘Kids say they need lollies all the time. Because we do!’
‘But why that lolly? He could have just gone to the shop and got some other kind of lolly.’
‘They must be really good lollies.’
‘Hmmm,’ said Ben.
Chapter 2
THE KID DOWN THE STREET
Around ten o’clock the next morning, Daisy stuck her head out the front door to see if Paul had emerged from his house, but all she could see outside it was a great big blank blob of air.
‘The only thing I can see outside his house is a great big blank blob of air,’ she said.
‘That’s the twenty-second time you’ve checked this morning,’ called Ben from the sofa. ‘Try to be more patient. Be more dog-like. We can sit still for hours without a single thought crossing our minds.’
‘That’s not something to be proud of,’ said Daisy, still hanging halfway out the door.
‘I don’t know about that. It feels nice. Just lots of nothing. Nothing … nothing … nothing. Ahhh. Perfect. My mind is completely blank and I love it.’ Ben stretched out his legs, then folded them back under his body. ‘I could do this all day. While you humans were off inventing cars and sofas and raspberry cheesecake, us dogs were sitting round just feeling happy and peaceful and thinking nothing, nothing, nothing. Which is better? Personally, I think –’
‘Wait! There’s a car coming. It’s turning into their driveway.’
‘How can a car turn into a driveway? That’s impossible. A car is a car and a driveway is a –’
‘No, it’s … never mind. Paul’s getting out. With his mum.’ Daisy pulled herself back behind the open front door, and then cautiously peeped her head round again.
‘Interesting idea, though,’ continued Ben. ‘If a car could turn into a driveway, you could just drive home, park on the grass in front of your house and then, shazam! The car’s gone and you have a driveway! Quite convenient, really.’
‘They’re going inside.’
‘But what if you forgot to get out of the car before you turned it into a driveway? Yikes. You’d get squished!’
‘Ben!’ said Daisy sharply. ‘You have to shut up about that now. It’s not helping. They’re going inside. What do we do? Wait! He’s coming out again. With his skateboard.’ Daisy pulled her head back inside the house. ‘Let’s go.’
‘What? You mean off the couch?’
‘Come on.’
Ben unfolded himself and trotted out the door. ‘If I must. Have you worked out what you’re going to say to him? I can’t really help, you know, unless you want me to bite him.’
‘It’ll be fine,’ Daisy replied, composing her face into what she hoped was a picture of ultra-friendliness.
Paul was in his driveway practising turns, jumps and spins on his skateboard.
‘Hi,’ said Daisy with a gigantic smile as they reached him. It was the friendliest word she had ever uttered to Paul or, in fact, to any boy, ever.
Paul looked at her. ‘Hi,’ he said in a tone Daisy had never heard him use before – friendly!
That’s odd, thought Daisy. ‘Lovely day,’ she said, smiling so hard it hurt her face. ‘Don’t you think?’
‘Yes. It is a lovely day, Daisy.’ Paul said her name slowly, as if it was a hard-to-pronounce word in a foreign language.
Daisy tried to hide her surprise. In the past Paul had addressed her as ‘Hey you’, ‘Girlfeatures’, ‘Idiotface’ and ‘Derrhead’, but never ‘Daisy’.
Then Paul smiled. It wasn’t a very good one. It was the sort of smile you do when someone points a gun at you and says, ‘Smile, or else.’
‘And what are you doing, Daisy?’ asked Paul sweetly.
‘Oh, just … um … taking Ben for a walk. He goes a bit crazy otherwise.’
I do not, thought Ben, but resisted the temptation to say it.
Daisy pressed on. ‘Paul, I’ve been thinking. We live so near to each other, we’re the same age, we go to the same school. We should try a bit harder to be friends. I mean, if you have a friend up the road, then when you have a problem, you’ve got someone to talk to, right?’
‘Sure, Daisy,’ said Paul, continuing to sound unusually nice. ‘Let’s be friends. Tell each other things. Great!’
Paul stepped on one end of his skateboard, causing the other end to rise up off the ground. Smoothly he grabbed it, and then spun it in the air. He went to catch it again but missed, and it fell on his foot.
‘Oww!’ he cried, hopping up and down. Daisy stifled a laugh. Ben let his laugh out, but it sounded almost exactly like a bark, so no one noticed.
‘Are you okay?’ asked Daisy. Maybe if Paul was in pain she could comfort him, and he would be feeling so weak and vulnerable that he would tell her about the men in the bush.
‘Sort of,’ replied Paul. He sat down on the grass next to the driveway and rubbed his foot.
Daisy sat next to him, still smiling. Paul examined her suspiciously, and then smiled back. It was like they were having a staring competition, but they were using smiles instead.
‘So, have you got much planned then … for the holidays?’ asked Paul.
‘Um, this and that. A few playdates.’
‘Great. When’s the next one?’
‘Um … tomorrow morning. With Eliza. Do you know her? She’s in my class.’
‘No. Tomorrow morning. Great. That’s really great!’ said Paul. ‘Because your parents both work, don’t they?’
Daisy nodded.
‘And you don’t have any brothers or sisters, do you?’
‘No, but I’ve got Ben,’ she said, gesturing to the dog, who only just resisted the temptation to say, ‘Wassup, dudeface.’<
br />
Paul was staring at Ben. ‘The dog.’
‘And he’s very excited about tomorrow because Eliza has a dog too, a female, and they sort of like each other.’
Ben felt the blood rush to his face. How dare she tell him about his feelings for Miranda!
‘So you’ll take him with you, then? When you go tomorrow morning,’ said Paul slowly, as if this was of great importance.
‘Paul,’ said Daisy delicately, ‘are you okay? Is there something bothering you?’ She slid a bit closer. ‘Something on your mind? Something you want to tell me?’
‘Actually, there is one thing.’
YES! thought Daisy.
‘I’ve got a sore tooth. But I don’t want to tell Mum ’cos I hate going to the dentist.’
Daisy sighed. So did Ben.
Chapter 3
A BRIEF VISIT
Back home, Daisy got herself a lemon cordial and Ben a bowl of water.
As they sat in the back garden sipping and lapping, Ben raised a paw. ‘That was weird.’
‘I know. I couldn’t get a single thing out of him.’
‘But he got lots out of you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Don’t you think it’s strange that after years of not caring whether you live or die, suddenly Paul’s sooo interested in what you’re doing and when you’re doing it?’
Daisy gave Ben a long look. ‘Huh?’
‘Maybe you did get some information out of Paul,’ continued Ben.
‘What, that he’s got a sore tooth and hates dentists? Great!’
‘More than that. You wanted to find out what the old man had asked him to do, right?’
‘Yes, and he didn’t tell me.’
‘But he did show you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘For the first time ever Paul wanted to know what you were doing. It was like he was trying to find out when you were going to be out. In fact, it was almost like someone had asked him to find out when you were going to be out.’
‘But … wait. Those men? Why … no, wait … huh?’
Daisy Malone and the Blue Glowing Stone Page 2
