‘Arabella, look!’ I said. ‘It’s a pearly white card, exactly like the one Croaka used to open all the doors.’
‘Good find, Davina.’ She said, leaning over to have a closer look at it. ‘Hmm, it’s a bit chipped round the edges.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It must have belonged to the cleaners. They probably need to open all the doors in the building so they can clean everywhere. Maybe they chucked it in that box and forgot about it when they were given a newer one.’
‘The question is, will it open this door, or is it too broken?’ Arabella asked.
‘Only one way to find out,’ I said. I turned back to the door. It had the same device on this side as it did on the other, a little box with a narrow gap down one side of it. I took a deep breath, then whooshed the card through the gap. There was a pause. Then a click!
‘Nice one,’ Arabella grinned, carefully picking her way over the floor. I turned the handle as quietly as possible, just in case. and in a minute we were standing in a dark corridor full of enormous shadowy paintings. We looked at each other.
‘Now what?’ I whispered.
‘Now we find a telephone and call Carrie. The sooner the police get here the better.’ Arabella whispered back.
I nodded. My heart was hammering loudly as we stood in the corridor, with no idea which way to go. It was dreadfully important that we found a phone before Croaka and Pike found us. I knew that at some point they’d come back and check on us and find an empty cupboard. And who knew what would happen then. Scary.com.
Anyway Diary, that’s where we are now, still in the corridor. I had a chance to write in you while Arabella looked for a phone in every room that’s off this corridor. She’s coming back from the last one now, shaking her head, so I must go. I can hear some muffled tapping noises and I think we should find out what they are. Wish us luck…
Some time in the middle of the night between Monday 30th September and Tuesday 1st October…
So we now know the tapping noises were Croaka and Pike trying to chip a large gold frame off the wall in the Orange Room because we saw them. (All the rooms in the gallery are named after different colours – very imaginative.)
We crept along the corridors, past the Pink and Green Rooms, through the Purple Hall and up to the door of the Orange Room. This was where the noise was coming from. The door was open a bit and we stared through the crack to see the AWFUL sight of Croaka standing on a ladder, being supported by Pike, hammering a sharp spike behind one corner of an enormous gold frame then trying to pull it off the wall. They mustn’t have been able to steal the paintings without getting the frames down first and I was glad to see they were finding it very difficult. And do you know what painting they were trying to steal first? “Starry Night” by Vincent Van Gogh. MY FAVOURITE PAINTING BY MY FAVOURITE ARTIST! Seethingwithanger.com.
‘I think I saw a phone back there in an office we just passed,’ Arabella whispered. ‘Come on.’
So we tiptoed back and found she was right. In an office marked ‘Events Organiser’ there was a phone sitting on the corner of the desk. I rushed over, picked up the receiver, tapped the only phone number in the world that I knew off by heart (I don’t know my parents mobile numbers as they don’t tend to answer them, being on secret missions in far off countries), and waited, biting my nails, listening to Carries phone ringing and ringing.
‘Please pick up. Pleae pick up,’ I whispered over and over again.
Just as I was about to put the receiver down again, feeling very depressed…
‘Hello?’ Came Carrie’s crackly, tired voice.
‘Carrie!’ I shouted in relief. Arabella put her finger to her lips.
‘Davina, is that you?’ Carrie said, yawning. ‘What on earth are you ringing for at this time of night?’
‘Sorry Carrie, but please listen. I’m going to try and explain everything but we don’t have much time. You see, earlier on today, Pike and Croaka kidnapped us and locked us in a cupboard in the National Gallery of Art and Design.’
‘They did what?’ Carrie shrieked, suddenly sounding very awake. ‘Are you alright, Davina?’
‘Yes fine, we escaped. After they found out we were on to them they convinced the director at the National Gallery to move the starting date of the Egmont Art Show to tomorrow, by saying Mrs Fairchild was desperately ill and wanted to see one last art show before she died.’
‘The absolute rotters, that’s outrageous!’ Carrie sounded very angry. ‘Where are they now?’
‘Erm, at the moment they’re trying to knock Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” painting off the wall so they can steal it,’ I said.
‘Absolutely disgraceful behaviour,’ Carrie spat. ‘Right Davina, here’s what we’ll do. Mrs Peverell from the grocery shop told me that Hugh Broderick and his wife Marjorie flew back from Italy yesterday – they came back a bit earlier than expected because Marjorie got food poisoning and wanted to go home - which is bad news for her but good news for us. I’m going to go round there now, I don’t care if it is the middle of the night – this is an emergency – and tell him everything. He’s a good man, he’ll jump in to action. Meanwhile, I want you two to find a really good hiding place – somewhere those two scoundrels won’t find you - and stay there until they’ve been arrested and it’s safe to come out. Is that understood?’
‘Yes Carrie,’ I whispered, feeling relieved. ‘Good luck with Hugh.’
‘Good luck yourself,’ she said. ‘Now go and find that hiding place.’
‘What did she say?’ Arabella whispered as I placed the receiver back ever so quietly.
‘She said we’ve got to- ’ I turned and stopped. Pike was standing in the doorway looking madder than a cat in a catnip factory.
‘Chris!’ She yelled. ‘The little worms have escaped.’
‘Run!’ Arabella yelled. I didn’t need telling twice. We joined hands and ran towards Pike in unspoken agreement, bashing her out of the way as we pelted through the doorway. She tried to grab us but fell sideways as we ran on. A deep roar and pounding footsteps that sounded worryingly close came from the Orange Room. Croaka was obviously not a happy bunny.
We sprinted down corridor after corridor, past priceless paintings from around the world. A terrible stitch started in my side but somehow I kept going. We didn’t know where we were going, we just ran and ran. But Pike was gaining on us and from the growly insults being yelled, Croaka wasn’t far behind. What with all the coughing and spluttering, neither of them sounded very fit.
Suddenly, we hit a dead end. The corridor we were on just ended with a wall. We flattened ourselves against it, as Pike and Croaka wheezed and spluttered to a standstill.
‘I’ve had just about enough of you two.’ Croaka’s eyebrows were knitted together with anger. ‘Jacinta, grab them. Their luck just ran out.’
Pike stepped forward and took Arabella and I roughly by the arm. But just as she started to drag us towards Croaka, a familiar voice echoed down the corridor.
‘Unhand them this minute, Miss Pike.’ I looked up and saw the most welcome but unexpected sight of Mrs Fairchild. This time, the tiny old lady wasn’t dancing, twirling or doing yoga. She looked deadly serious – rather cross in fact - as she walked towards us, eyes flashing. Pike loosened her grip on us, but Croaka laughed.
‘How exactly are you going to stop us doing exactly what we want, old lady?’ She jeered. ‘Hit us over the head with your handkerchief?’ Croaka tuned to grin at Pike. That was her big mistake because while her head was tuned, Mrs Fairchild, who’d arrived next to the art thieves, hitched her skirt up, crouched down, twisted, then whopped Croaka in the stomach with her foot – VERY HARD. And she was wearing high heels – ouch!
‘No, but if you paid attention to anyone but yourself you would have noticed me taking kick boxing lessons every Tuesday. Do keep up.’ She said calmly. In a split second she’d repeated the process on Pike. Both art thieves were now rolling around on the floor, clutching their stomachs. Arabell
a turned towards Mrs Fairchild, who was pulling a roll of thick string from her handbag.
‘But how come you’re here? I thought you didn’t believe us?’ she asked.
‘I didn’t at first,’ Using the heel of her shoe, Mrs Fairchild pushed Croaka flat on to her stomach. ‘Do grab her arms and pull them behind her back, there’s a good child,’ she said to me. ‘I’m going to tie her up. You, don’t even think about moving.’ She said sharply to Pike, who was looking scared. I dropped to the floor and did what she asked straight away. Mrs Fairchild bent down and in a trice had bound Croaka’s hands together behind her back in a knot a sailor would be proud of. ‘Yes, to start with, I thought you were playing a game with me, exercising your active imaginations.’ She went on. ‘But then little things began to catch my eye.’ She pushed Pike to the floor and Arabella grabbed her arms without being asked. Mrs Fairchild produced another expert knot. ‘Now do sit on their backs, dear children. It’ll stop them escaping until the police get here. I phoned them when my worst fears were confirmed, just before I came and found you two. I saw the Van Gogh painting hanging off the wall with tools under it. Shocking. And I’m sorry I didn’t believe you earlier.’ She looked at us sadly.
‘You just saved our lives, Mrs Fairchild,’ I said. ‘So please don’t apologise.’
Screechy police sirens suddenly filled the air outside. Croaka, who I was squashing as much as I could, began to wriggle and squirm when she heard them, but a quick, (rather hard) tap from Mrs Fairchild’s shoe soon sorted her out.
In a minute, our corridor became VERY busy. One minute there was just the five of us there in the dark and the next, lights were switched on and literally HUNDREDS of police officers wearing bullet proof vests swarmed in, followed closely by Carrie, who was arm in arm with a white haired man who I recognised as Hugh Broderick.
Carrie rushed over and gave me the biggest hug. She was trembling. She hugged Arabella, then turned to look at Pike and Croaka, who were now both handcuffed and surrounded by burly, serious policemen. Pike still looked scared while Croaka looked fuming mad.
‘You two ought to be ashamed of yourselves,’ she said sternly. ‘Deceiving pupils and teachers, then trying to rob the nation of its art. You should have chosen an honest career like the rest of us. I remember now where I’ve heard your names, why they sounded familiar when young Davina first told me about you. You’ve stolen works of art from galleries and museums around the world, haven’t you? I remember seeing you on the news. The newsreader said you were two of the most wanted criminals in the world.’
‘Yes, I think we’ll have quite a few high up police officers from all over the globe on the phone when news of this arrest gets out,’ said a big, red man. He must have been an important policeman because all other ones kept asking him questions. He turned to look at me and Arabella. ‘Apologies for not believing you when you phoned.’ He spoke gruffly and looked a bit embarrassed. ‘It was me you spoke to. You’ve both done a sterling job, helping to catch this man and woman. There’ll always be a job here waiting for you on the force for when you’re older – you’ve already proven yourselves fine detectives.’
‘Thank you. But hang on a minute, did you say man and a woman?’ I asked, feeling puzzled. I looked at Pike and Croaka. ‘They are two women. Aren’t they?’
‘Of course I’m a man, you silly little worm,’ Croaka yelled. ‘Didn’t you notice? With my deep voice and broad shoulders? The way my sister Jacinta kept calling me Chris? It stands for Christopher, not Christine. You must be even more stupid than I thought. Those women’s clothes were so uncomfortable, I can’t wait to put my jeans on again.’
‘Here, don’t you talk to my Davina like that,’ Carrie said crossly. ‘And I think you’ll be wearing prison uniform, not jeans, where you’re going. Isn’t that right, Hugh?’
‘Absolutely correct,’ said the man with tufty white eyebrows, who’d so far been standing next to Carrie observing everything. ‘Davina and Arabella, you’ve done some top class detecting work. And with hardly any help, I hear.’ Mrs Fairchild and the important policeman blushed red at this point. ‘I thought you might want to know,’ Hugh went on. ‘That as soon as Carrie explained everything to me, I had some men go over to bunker thirty seven and pick up Katie Cherry and Harriet Wise. They’re both being looked after in hospital now.’
‘Oh thank goodness,’ I said. ‘Are they OK? Poor Harriet sounded very ill.’
‘Harriet is diabetic, she needs to have her medicine called insulin with her at all times,’ Hugh explained. ‘The little she had with her when they were kidnapped soon ran out and she became very poorly, but she is being very well looked after now. The doctor I spoke to says she’ll make a full recovery. They both send you two and Carrie their thanks.’
I have to go now, Diary, because Mrs Fairchild – who hasn’t done any mad twirling or dancing since she got here so I think that might all be an act – says she wants to have a word with Arabella and I in private.
5.30 AM on Tuesday 1st October
Yawn, Diary…
Arabella, me, Mrs Fairchild, Carrie and Hugh (until he fell asleep on a chair in the corner) have just finished putting up the Annual Egmont Art Show in the National Gallery of Art and Design. And it looks pretty fabulous, even if I do say so myself.
That’s what Mrs Fairchild wanted to talk to us about, after Croaka and Pike had been led away in shame, handcuffed and surrounded by loads of policemen. She said it would be silly to let two selfish criminals spoil such a strong artistic tradition and did we think we had enough energy left to help her put up the show? She said no problem at all if we didn’t, but Arabella and I said yes, yes, yes and Carrie said she’d help as she wasn’t going to let me out of her sight quite so quickly, not after everything that had happened. And Hugh said that if Carrie was helping, he would too, as she’d travelled with him to the gallery and wouldn’t be able to get home if he didn’t stay.
Mr Cerise, the man in charge of the gallery, arrived in a total flap ten minutes after we’d started arranging the show, at about half past one in the morning. He said a police officer had phoned him to let him know about the attempted burglary about and he was so worried he’d jumped in to his car right away and driven straight here. Arabella and I couldn’t stop giggling because he was still wearing his pyjamas, which were red with a white paint brush design. After Carrie had made him a cup of tea in the gallery kitchen and advised him to pull himself together, Mr Cerise stopped pacing around flapping his hands and calmed down enough to fix the painting and frame that Croaka and Pike had tried to steal.
The art show space Egmont School had been given was also in the Orange Room. We had two enormous bare walls to fill with pupils work. It was MEGA exciting to think that my painting would be on show in the same room as Vincent Van Gogh’s!
We worked on the exhibition for hours, wanting it to look totally perfect. Mr Cerise lent us tons of spare gold and silver picture frames that he’d stored in an upstairs cupboard, before escaping to do some work in his office. Arabella and I spent quite a long time matching each first year’s painting to the right sized frame. Mrs Fairchild and Carrie made a good team, with Mrs Fairchild standing on a chair holding a hammer and nail in one hand and a frame in the otherand Carrie saying, ‘Up a bit, left a bit, no I mean right a bit, there – perfect.’
When they’d put my painting up, Carrie gave me a kiss and said she was very proud of me. They put Arabella’s little one of a maths book next to it. The paintings did look smart all together against the deep orange wall. I couldn’t wait to tell all the other first years about everything that had happened. That is if any of them except Arabella were talking to me…
Right Diary, I have to go now because Mrs Fairchild is going to drive us back to Egmont. I think I might fall asleep in her car because I’m so very, very zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz….
Thursday 3rd October
I’ve just had the best news, Diary!
Arabella and I have been voted in as head o
f year prefects! Can you imagine?! I’m so extremely excited.com.
It turns out that while we were kidnapped at the National Gallery of Art and Design, Melody overheard Cleo and Clarice giggling about what other notes they could write, pretending to be us, during dinner. She quickly told the rest of the first year and they called a meeting with Clarice and Cleo that evening and told them they’d found out about the note writing. At first Clarice and Cleo tried to deny everything but in the end they gave in and admitted it, before storming off saying they didn’t want to be prefects for a bunch of losers anyway. Then, in the morning, when Arabella and I were asleep in the infirmary under Matron’s watchful eye, (Mrs Fairchild was very firm about this, she said we had to rest for several hours without being disturbed) word somehow leaked out about us being kidnapped by Croaka and Pike. By the time we joined the rest of the school for lunch in the hall, everyone knew all about how we’d escaped, been chased, captured the art thieves with Mrs Fairchild and helped to display the Annual Egmont Art Show. I can’t help thinking the crafty headmistress had a hand in leaking the information.
‘Look, here come the heroes!’ Suzie yelled as she saw us come in, rubbing our eyes. Everyone in the lunch hall broke in to applause and some people even drummed on the table with their knives and forks and stamped their feet hard on the floor, while the canaries overhead joined in by singing. Honestly, Diary, it was awesome and very noisy!
Everyone wanted to sit on our table during lunch, and people were asking so many questions.
‘Is it true that Croaka was really a man?’
‘Did they hurt you?’
‘How did you escape?’
‘Is it true that Mrs Fairchild attacked them like a ninja?’
‘Did they manage to steal any art?’
We tried to answer them all as best we could and I hardly had time to eat any of my asparagus and bean wrap even though I was starving.
The Top Secret Diary of Davina Dupree Page 6
