The Mystery of the Disappearing Underpants

by Nikki Young

  We ran into the house. James went first and stopped dead, causing Stacey and me to run right into the back of him. What we saw gave us all a big shock. There was another man in there. We were scared but the man seemed just as scared as we felt. He looked at us, threw down a large envelope he had in his hands and ran out of the door.

  ‘Woah, I did not expect that!’ James said. His eyes looked wide, like two full moons against his dark face.

  Inside the envelope was a passport, a birth certificate and some money.

  ‘Another passport, like the one Perky took from Barry,’ Stacey said. ‘We should take these with us.’

  We looked around the house. Everywhere seemed normal, just like any other house, except this place was old and dirty. Upstairs was different, though. In one of the bedrooms were some machines, set out on a couple of desks that were in the room instead of a bed and other stuff you’d normally find. On the desk were loads of different passports, birth certificates and money. I took my camera out of my back pocket and snapped some photos, for evidence.

  ‘Are they making these things or something?’ I said. ‘Looks like a mini factory in here.’

  ‘I wonder who all these people are,’ Stacey said, flicking through the passports.

  ‘I’ve seen something like this on TV,’ James said. ‘When people can’t get a passport the usual way, they pay loads of money to get a fake one. People must come to Barry and Shona to get a new identity.’

  ‘This is big,’ I said. ‘We should get out of here now and go and tell the police or something. I don’t like this one bit.’

  We backed out of the room onto the landing and were just about to leave when we heard voices downstairs. It was Barry and Shona. They had escaped the shed. We were trapped upstairs.

  We didn’t know what to do.

  ‘We should hide in here,’ James said, pointing in to the next bedroom. We all scrambled to find somewhere. James threw himself onto the floor and slid under the bed and I ran round the other side to get under as well.

  ‘You can’t come under here too,’ James said.

  ‘Shut up and move over,’ I said. So we huddled there together trying to be as still as possible.

  ‘I don’t know where to go,’ Stacey said.

  ‘In the wardrobe,’ James said. ‘Quick!’

  Stacey hid in the wardrobe and we all waited in anticipation of the moment either Shona or Barry would burst into the room looking for us. We knew they were going to be really mad.

  Then the door flung open and banged against the wall. Barry’s voice echoed around the room.

  ‘Where are you, you horrible little so and sos?’ he said.

  I was trying hard to stay as still as possible, holding my breath and concentrating as hard as I could. Then I heard a sneeze.

  ‘What was that? I knew you were hiding in here.’

  It was Stacey. Barry had found her. I heard the wardrobe door open and Stacey coughing.

  ‘Come here you. What do you think you are doing trying to lock us in the shed?’ Barry said. ‘Shona, I’ve got one of them,’ he called. ‘The others must be around here somewhere.’

  Stacey shrieked as Barry dragged her out of the room.

  ‘Don’t kill me, I didn’t mean to do it,’ I heard her say.

  James and I stayed in our positions. We didn’t dare move. Once Barry had gone, I let go of the breath I was holding and whispered to James, ‘What do we do now? We can’t leave Stacey here – we don’t know what they’ll do to her.’

  ‘I know,’ James said, ‘but how are we going to get out of this room without them noticing?’

  ‘We’ll be able to hear where they are,’ I said. ‘We have to use all our spy skills to make sure we’re not caught. And we have to come up with a plan to help Stacey.’

  As slowly as we could manage, we slid out from under the bed. Then James poked his head out first to make sure the coast was clear (I said I would do it but there was no point as he was nearest to the door). We crept to the top of the landing and strained our ears to listen for where Barry, Shona and Stacey were. It wasn’t difficult. We could hear shouting coming from a room downstairs.

  ‘Did you find what you came looking for?’ It was Shona, shouting. ‘Who put you up to this?’

  ‘You don’t scare me,’ Stacey said back.

  Shona and Barry started laughing.

  ‘Ha, this one’s brave isn’t she?’ Shona said. ‘We’ll see how brave you are when we’ve finished with you, shall we?’

  ‘So you found out our little secret then,’ Barry said. ‘What exactly were you going to do about it, tell the police? But why would they believe a stupid little girl like you? And besides, you’ve done us a favour. By the time they come round here we’ll be long gone and no one will ever know what we’ve been doing.’

  ‘The police will find you,’ Stacey shouted. ‘We know who you are.’

  ‘Don’t make me laugh; do you think these are our real names?’ Shona said. ‘Do we look stupid? They’ll never find us. We’ve been doing this for years and have never been caught. We’re not about to let some rotten interfering kids change all that, are we?’

  I was scared. James looked at me.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ I said to him. As leader, I should have been the one to come up with something, but I had nothing and that made me feel pathetic.

  ‘You’ve got to go and get the police NOW,’ James said. ‘I’ll stay here and keep them busy until you get back.’

  I looked at him and could see he was scared too, but James had always been much braver than me. He was always the one to step forward and do things, whilst I hid behind him, making excuses why it wasn’t me. Well it was time to end all that. Time that I stepped up to the mark.

  ‘No, you go,’ I said. ‘I’ll stay here to help Stacey. I know what to do.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ James said and I nodded, afraid that if I spoke he might realise that I wasn’t at all OK. I didn’t want him to worry.

  ‘How am I going to get out?’ he said.

  ‘You can go through the kitchen into the back garden and out the escape route,’ I said.

  James nodded and we sneaked downstairs and crept along the hall. The door to the room where Barry and Shona were holding Stacey was open slightly and we could see their shadows flicking across the wall. We pressed our backs against the opposite wall and took the slowest steps possible to get past, scared the floor would creak and give us away.

  In the kitchen, there were two doors, one leading out to the garden and a mystery one. I thought about the layout of the house and realised this mystery one was a door leading in to the garage. Whispering to James, I pointed to it.

  ‘I think this door goes in to the garage. If I open it at the same time as you open the back door and let it bang shut, they’ll think we’ve gone in there. Then I’m coming outside with you.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to stay here and distract them?’ James said.

  ‘Yes I am, but there’s something outside I need,’ I said. ‘I’ll think of a way to get back in.’

  I sounded a lot braver than I felt. On the count of three, we opened the doors at the same time and then escaped into the garden. James ran down to the bottom and through the fence, leaving me hiding behind one of the bushes where we had crouched earlier waiting for Barry and Shona.

  From my position by the bush in the garden, I could see Barry dash into the kitchen and fling open the garage door. After a few minutes, he came out looking puzzled. Then he checked around the kitchen and noticed the back door open. He stuck his head out, craning his neck to see if anyone was in the garden, at which point I crouched down to avoid being spotted and didn’t see where he looked after that. After waiting for what seemed like forever, I heard the back door close as he returned inside the kitchen.


  Behind the bush was the backpack I had brought with me and I emptied it all out to see what I could use. There was a torch, some night vision goggles (which were toy ones, so they weren’t that good), stink bombs, a fake tarantula, handcuffs and some rope. Shoving it all back into the bag, I crawled out from behind the bush.

  Judging by the shadows and the lights, Barry, Shona and Stacey were in the front room, so, keeping low, I moved towards the house, avoiding the window where Barry and Shona were. Barry had left the back door unlocked so I pushed down the handle and pulled it towards me, hoping it wouldn’t creak. When the door opened just enough for me to get through, I squeezed through the gap and into the kitchen. I could hear Barry talking in the next room.

  ‘We’re going to have to get out of here in case the cops come,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to take the girl with us and drop her off somewhere.’

  ‘We can’t take her, that’s kidnap,’ Shona said. ‘This isn’t what we do; it wasn’t part of the plan.’

  ‘Plans can change, Sho,’ Barry said, ‘and thanks to this one we have to change ours. She’ll be all right.’

  I had to act fast, so went to the garage hoping to find what I needed. I was in luck. In the garage was the main switch for the electricity. I knew all about it because I had seen my dad flick it when we had to turn the power off at our house. I got the rope out of the bag and set it up to stretch tightly behind the door, across the entrance to the garage, then I put on my night vision goggles.

  After flicking the switch to cut the power, everything happened so fast. Barry and Shona started shouting and Stacey screamed. I knew Barry would try to find his way into the kitchen towards the garage and when he did he opened the door and tripped head first over the rope I’d set up. Because it was pitch black he wasn’t able to see a thing and he fell straight onto the lawn mower and knocked himself out. I put the handcuffs on him just in case, grabbed the rope and then dashed out of the garage.

  ‘Barry, is that you? What’s happening?’ I heard Shona shout out.

  I stayed silent and crept towards the door where Shona had Stacey. Then I crushed a stink bomb and rolled it under the door. The door opened and she came out coughing and spluttering. Shona ran to the downstairs bathroom to be sick and Stacey tried to feel her way around, but she kept banging in to the wall. I ran to help her.

  ‘Stacey, it’s me, Harry. Here, take this,’ I said, giving her the torch.

  ‘Quick, let’s shut her in the bathroom,’ Stacey said, rushing to the door and holding it shut.

  Inside, Shona started screaming. ‘Let me out of here, you idiot!’

  The two of us stood with our backs to the door trying to stop Shona from getting out.

  ‘We have to get something to bar the door,’ Stacey said. ‘Can you hold her in whilst I go look?’

  ‘Yes, go,’ I said and pushed with all my strength.

  Stacey came back dragging a chair from the dining room and we propped it at an angle under the door handle.

  ‘We need to get something else to hold it,’ she said.

  So, together, we moved a hall table from behind the front door and added it to the other things. Shona was banging and pushing at the door from inside.

  ‘Do you think it will hold?’ Stacey said.

  ‘I don’t know, she’s strong,’ I said, as the door banged. We both jumped.

  ‘If we could see, we could find some more stuff to prop against it,’ Stacey said.

  ‘That was me, I turned the lights off to get Barry to come in to the garage,’ I said, explaining to Stacey what had happened.

  ‘Nice work,’ she said. ‘but do you think you could turn them back on?’

  ‘I know I can,’ I said ‘and it would be a good idea to check on Barry anyway. You stay here and make sure that Shona doesn’t get out.’

  I went back to the kitchen and into the garage. It was quiet and Barry was still on the floor. I went to the fuse box and switched the electricity back on. The garage was still dark but there was light coming from the kitchen. Suddenly Barry moved his head and began to moan. He turned and saw me.

  ‘You…’ he said. ‘I’m going to kill you.’

  He started to get up, so I ran out of the garage and slammed the door, holding it shut with all my weight.

  ‘Stacey,’ I shouted. Now we were both trapping someone in.

  Stacey came into the kitchen.

  ‘Barry’s in here. I knocked him out but now he’s come round. What can we do?’

  Stacey looked around and then she ran towards something.

  ‘What’s this?’ she said, grabbing a key hung by a string on the wall next to the garage door. ‘It could be the key to the garage. Let me try it.’

  Stacey put the key in the lock and it turned. We both breathed a sigh of relief. Then we heard the bathroom door banging.

  ‘Quick, Shona is escaping,’ I shouted.

  When we got there, the door was partly open and Shona’s hand was sticking through it. Stacey slammed the door shut right on to her hand. Shona screamed and I cringed, but was secretly impressed by Stacey’s quick thinking. We got the door shut again and pushed the table and chair closer. Then we got other chairs from the dining room and piled them up outside the door.

  ‘That should be enough to keep her in until the police get here,’ I said.

  ‘Have you phoned them?’ Stacey said.

  ‘No, but I helped James escape earlier, so he could go and get help,’ I said. ‘We just have to hang on now until they get here.’

  So Stacey and I sat on the floor of the hallway listening to the sound of banging and shouting from both Barry and Shona and waiting until someone came to help. It seemed like we sat there for ages, until we heard different shouting and the sound of glass smashing in the kitchen. Stacey clutched my arm, moving closer. I could feel her shaking.

  ‘What’s that?’ she said. ‘Do you think Barry has got out? What should we do?’

  But then we heard familiar voices.

  ‘Where are you, what have you done with our kids?’

  There was swearing too, so I’d better not repeat that.

  ‘It’s my dad and James’ dad,’ I said, jumping up.

  ‘We’re in here.’

  I shouted back and the dads came barging into the hall where we had been crouching. My dad was holding a garden shovel and James’ dad had a baseball bat. Both were holding their weapons in the air and looked battle-ready.

  ‘Are you OK, kids?’ Dad said, when he saw us. He looked around frantically, trying to make sense of the situation.

  ‘We’re fine, Dad. Everything is under control. Shona is in there and Barry is locked in the garage.’

  ‘And you’re not hurt?’ Mr Murphy said, looking us over, turning Stacey and me this way and that.

  ‘No we’re fine, really,’ Stacey said. ‘Thank God you came though. We didn’t know how long we could hold them here.’

  ‘Don’t worry, the police are on their way,’ Dad said, as we heard the sound of sirens and saw the flashing of the police car lights outside the house.

  *

  When the police came in, I think they were surprised to find Stacey and me standing there with the two dads.

  ‘Looks like you’ve done a great job without our help,’ the police officer said.

  Stacey and I looked at each other and beamed. It was the first time we have ever smiled at each other.

  ‘But I think you need to go with one of our officers so they can take your statements. You’ve got some explaining to do.’

  We both stopped smiling then, realising we were going to be in big trouble.

  Part 5

  What happened after James left Barry and Shona’s house?

  James Story

  I thought it was best for James to fill
in the details here, as he was the one who escaped and went to raise the alarm.

  Oh boy, I am in so much trouble, I’m not sure if I will ever be able to leave my room again. This diary might be the only evidence I ever existed.

  If you’ve ever said ‘I think I’m going to die’, you didn’t know what you were talking about, because last night I really did think I was going to die.

  I told Harry to escape so he could go and call the police, but he insisted I go, which isn’t like him at all. I didn’t want to leave him, but he seemed determined and one of us had to raise the alarm, so I escaped out of the hedge and ran home. All I could think about when I left was what would happen to him and Stacey. I thought about how brave Harry was as I stumbled down the back alleyway towards my house. I hoped he was brave enough to stay calm and do something to help Stacey. I knew it was my job to make sure I got help as fast as possible. This was a dangerous situation. It wasn’t fun anymore and the secret agency no longer seemed like a good idea.

  When I burst in through the kitchen door, it slammed against the cupboards behind it so hard that it made Mum and Dad come rushing into the kitchen to see what was going on. For a minute, I just stood there. The words wouldn’t come out of my mouth.

  ‘James, what’s wrong?’ Mum said, coming over towards me.

  I know when Harry reads this bit I will never live it down, it’s so embarrassing, but here goes – I cried, actually cried, and then told Mum and Dad what we had done.

  ‘You have to call the police, Mum,’ I said. ‘Barry and Shona are crazy and they’ve got Stacey. I don’t know what they’re going to do to her, but they’re really mad about what we did.’

  Dad grabbed the phone and made the call.

  ‘Tell them to hurry up,’ I shouted.

  ‘They’ll get here as soon as they can, don’t worry,’ Mum said.

  ‘I’m not waiting around for them to get here,’ Dad said and he dashed out towards the garden.