Game Play

by Hazel Edwards

  Game Play

  A Frequent Flyer Twins mystery

  Written by Hazel Edwards.

  Illustrated and designed by Jane Connory.

  Amy and Christopher, the Frequent Flyer Twins, are on their way from Singapore to Cairns, where the International Games are going to be held.

  But more than one lot of games are being played! Amy and Christopher have heard that someone is smuggling steroids in on their flight. All passengers are suspects. So are the airline staff.

  Something doesn’t add up, but what is it? The Frequent Flyer Twins are just the people to find out.

  Airport security changes fast. If our Frequent Flyers travelled tomorrow, there would be new regulations and electronic devices.

  Some of their past mysteries were solved without the technology we have now.

  Also in the Frequent Flyers Series, by Hazel Edwards.

  Copyright © Hazel Edwards and Jane Connory, 2011.

  Written By Hazel Edwards.

  www.hazeledwards.com

  Illustration and design by Jane Connory.

  www.ineedalogo.com.au

  ISBN 978-0-9871078-1-7

  All electronic rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

  Teacher resources and activities available -

  http://www.hazeledwards.com/shop/item/1657789

  Contents

  Chapter 1 On Board

  Chapter 2 Muscle Bound

  Chapter 3 Umbrellas

  Chapter 4 Undercover

  Chapter 5 Wildlife

  Chapter 6 Reporting

  Chapter 7 The Tip-off

  Chapter 8 Custom Hall/Haul

  Chapter 9 Packaging

  Chapter 10 Pills

  Chapter 11 Goat Found: Aunty Viv Coming ASAP

  Chapter 12 Bin

  Chapter 13 Old Bags

  Chapter 14 Explanations

  Chapter 15 Found Out

  Chapter 1

  On Board

  ‘Are you flying alone?’ asked the elderly woman.

  The twins nodded. People often worried about that.

  The elderly woman wore gold chains, gold earrings and gold bracelets. Her friend alongside wore silver chains, silver earrings and silver bracelets. They were moving bling displays.

  When she introduced herself, the twins grinned. They couldn’t help it.

  ‘I’m Mrs Silver and this is my friend, Mrs Gold.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ muttered Christopher. They were the wrong way around!

  Mrs Silver was wearing gold! The friend, Mrs Gold, was wearing silver bling. They both clanked.

  In case they heard Christopher’s comment, Amy said quickly,

  ‘We’re UMs.’

  ‘What are they?’ Puzzled, Mrs Silver tugged at her heavy earring.

  The gold bracelet jangled as she lifted her arm. Amy was a coin collector so she noticed the coins set as brooches. Later, she was glad she had noticed them. Mrs. Silver’s jewellery was very noisy. You’d have to be deaf and blind to miss it.

  ‘Unaccompanied Minors. Kids travelling alone. The flight crew look after us. They’re great.’

  ‘Do you have parents?’ Mrs Silver looked a bit worried at the thought of ten year old twins flying around the world alone. She didn’t know that the twins had clocked up more kilometres than most adults.

  They’d worn out two passports flying to meet their parents at various airports. And that was just since their eighth birthday!

  ‘Our parents are still ‘shooting’ in Singapore.’ Amy paused, then added. ‘Shooting film. They’re eco-photographers. But they’ll meet us in

  Cairns later. They’re making a doco about the Great Barrier Reef.’

  ‘A documentary film,’ explained Christopher. Amy liked using work jargon. It made her feel important to know the short words.

  The flight attendant bustled up. She had a clipboard on her arm.

  Food trays were being collected. The plane would be landing soon.

  ‘Excuse me. You’re the Lee twins aren’t you?’

  The twins said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sorry. I’ve got bad news for you. From your aunt. She’s lost the goat.’

  Mrs Silver and Mrs Gold exclaimed, ‘A goat! A real one?’

  Amy nodded.

  ‘Is Aunty Viv going to be late AGAIN?’ groaned Christopher. ‘She rang our parents in Singapore before we left.’

  Their Aunty Viv was supposed to meet them at Cairns Airport. She was driving from Sydney in her ‘Animal Actors’ van because Aunty Viv hated flying. Her ‘Animal Actors’ animal actors were booked to perform at the International Games.

  ‘Why is your aunt taking a goat to the Games? Is she riding it?’

  The flight attendant was puzzled, but then she didn’t know Aunty Viv.

  The twins laughed.

  ‘The animals aren’t competing. They’re supposed to be the entertainment between events.’

  ‘Well, the arrangements have been changed. Your aunt’s van broke down. Some of the animals escaped. She’s lost several hours looking for her goat in Surfers Paradise.’

  The twins smiled. That sounded like their Aunty Viv. She was always losing something.

  ‘She wants you to wait at Cairns Airport for two hours. If she hasn’t arrived by then, we’re to take you to the hotel and wait. The room is booked in your parents’ name. She’ll meet you there.’

  ‘Where is she now?’ asked Christopher pushing back his glasses. He always did that when he was thinking.

  ‘On the road into Cairns. She rang from a public phone.’

  ‘Aunty Viv has a mobile phone. Dad bought it last time she got lost. So we could keep in touch. I wonder what’s happened to that?’

  Christopher put his pencils away.

  ‘Probably the goat ate it!’ suggested Amy. Aunty Viv’s animals acted in TV commercials. But sometimes they just played up. And Wilhemina, the goat, had snack-attacks.

  ‘Two hours to wait on the ground. Can we have a look around Cairns Airport?’

  The flight attendant looked worried. ‘We’re supposed to keep an eye on you. Wouldn’t you like to sit in the Unaccompanied Minors’ Lounge? Or in our office?’

  ‘Two more hours of sitting? No way,’ muttered Christopher. They’d been in the plane all night.

  ‘Sometimes we take Y.P.T.A s into the control room,’ suggested the attendant. ‘It depends who’s looking after you.’

  The twins weren’t old enough to be Young Passengers Travelling Alone yet. Until twelve, you had to be an UM and the airline people looked after you ALL the time.

  ‘We’ve been in there before,’ said Amy politely.

  Mrs Gold and Mrs Silver were listening eagerly. Amy hoped they wouldn’t offer because the twins liked to be on their own. Mysteries found them then.

  ‘We’ll just walk around. We’ll check in with you every half hour. Christopher likes to draw. We need to walk after all that sitting. We’ll stay in sight.’

  The flight attendant looked relieved. ‘One of our people will stay near you. Are you’re sure you won’t get into trouble?’

  She didn’t know that the twins were always in trouble. They were always solving mysteries or getting involved when things went wrong
. Especially at airports. Just then the flight attendant tripped over the outstretched leg of Mr Muscles. He was sitting across the aisle from Amy.

  ‘Sorry, sir.’

  ‘My fault. Hard to fit my legs in this small space.’

  Mr Muscles looked like a balloon man. His arms were double balloons. So were his thighs. Even his head was round. The seat was too small for him. A great shape to draw. Christopher took out his sketchbook again. Since Singapore, he’d sketched several passengers.

  As the crew collected the meal trays and got ready for landing, Amy chatted to Mr Muscles. He’d been asleep most of the flight. His snores were proof of that. His snores had kept her awake. And he was a mega snorer. But now he wanted to talk.

  She didn’t realise then, how important that chat might be, later.

  Chapter 2

  Muscle Bound

  ‘Is this your first visit to Cairns?’ asked Amy politely. He was so big that both his legs stuck out into the aisle. His track pants were tight across his legs.

  ‘Yes. A working holiday. Mixing business and pleasure. I’m a body builder.’ Mr Muscles moved his legs restlessly.

  ‘What sort of bodies?’ Amy pictured a panel beating shop where they fixed car bodies. Perhaps he was a mechanic?

  ‘Car bodies?’

  ‘Human,’ laughed Mr Muscles.

  Amy fiddled in her bum-bag for her stickers. Amy collected stickers, coins and clues. She found the BODYWORKS sticker.’ The Mouth gave it to me on the flight to Singapore.’

  Mr Muscles looked at the sticker. ‘He’s the pop singer, isn’t he?’

  Amy nodded. ‘If you’re a body builder, are you a doctor? Or a designer?’

  Mr Muscles shook his head. His thin hair was going bald from the front. But his skull was tight underneath.

  ‘Just build my own body. And the bodies of the people who come into my gym.’

  Amy noticed he had eaten everything during the flight meals.

  Bread roll. Chicken Mysterious, as Christopher called it. Broccoli.

  Mashed potatoes. And especially the creme caramel. Mrs Silver and Gold offered their sweets and he ate them, too! He woke up for every meal. He also had a bottle of vitamins on the flight table which was still folded down. Perhaps it was a brand name, thought Amy. It was wrongly spelled as VITTAMINS.

  ‘How do you build your body?’ she asked. ‘With exercise?’

  ‘Plenty of good food. I run and lift weights and ...’ Mr Muscles paused. ‘Get a little bit of help.’

  ‘What sort of help?’ Amy was firing questions again. Her favourite hobby when she wasn’t collecting phone cards, stickers or stamps, was collecting answers. ‘A coach? Or a trainer?’

  ‘Er...’ Mr Muscles looked a little uncomfortable. ‘Stacking.’

  He had a rolled up newspaper sticking out of his hand luggage.

  Christopher wondered why he bothered. Often the airline supplied newspapers for passengers to read.

  Before Amy had a chance to ask about ‘stacking’, he showed them his photographs.

  ‘I’ve been Mr World, you know.’ His wallet was stuffed with photographs. They were all of him. Usually he was bare chested with tiny bathers. Amy pushed her rainbow glasses back on her nose. His muscles looked like giant bubbles.

  ‘You look like Arnold Schwarzenegger,’ said Christopher.

  Mr Muscles looked pleased.

  ‘Are you here for the International Games?’ asked Christopher.

  ‘Yes. There’s going to be a body-builders’ contest, too.’

  Christopher looked around the plane. Judging by the shoulders, there were a few body-builders on board.

  ‘Sports teams on board, too,’ added Amy who often knew what her twin was thinking.

  The flight attendant collected empty juice glasses from several seats of team track suits.

  ‘I’m on the juice,’ said Mr Muscles. His skin had bumps and purple patches of acne. He also had a squarish jaw.

  ‘Have my orange juice then,’ offered Amy. ‘I’m not thirsty.’

  That’s not exactly what he meant. Amy didn’t understand until much later.

  At home, Amy was called Jet Jaws. She talked a lot but she also listened. That’s one reason she liked flying. Passengers loved talking about themselves. Since leaving Singapore, she’d learnt about antique jewellery from Mrs Gold and Mrs Silver and body building from Mr Muscles.

  Amy wondered if Cairns had any Talking Games this week. She pictured the team of Mrs Gold and Mrs Silver talking against Mr Muscles. With Aunty Viv as the compere. That would be a noisy event.

  Amy flicked the pages of the inflight magazine. She’d read ‘This Sporting Week in Cairns’ by Tom Savvas and ‘Sporting Drug Dangers’.

  She’d done the crossword. She had already finished her book and all the magazines. Being a super fast reader was a problem on long flights.

  ‘Excuse me.’ She leaned across the aisle. ‘Could I read your newspaper please?’

  But that’s when Mr Muscles went all strange. Until then, he’d been chatting to them in a friendly way.

  ‘Haven’t read it yet myself,’ he grumped rolling it more tightly and cramming it deeper in the bag at his feet.

  Amy watched him later. From the time she asked to borrow the paper until touch down, Mr Muscles did NOT read his newspaper. The flight attendant did ask him to put up his table when the seat belt sign went on again. Maybe he liked to spread his paper out on a table?

  Perhaps he was just one of those grumps who didn’t like lending things?

  Or maybe there was another reason?

  Chapter 3

  Umbrellas

  Cairns felt steamy -- a tropical smell mixed with hot tarmac.

  Going down the steps, Amy looked up at the dense, green mountains surrounding the airfield. Their pilot must have been skilful to get into here. Now a Boeing 747 was taking off, at a very steep angle to get across the mountains.

  ‘Our plane hasn’t got an aerobridge,’ noticed Christopher as they walked across the tarmac and under the covered walkway. Aerobridges linked other planes with Air Niugini, Japan Airlines and Singapore Airlines signs. Aerobridges were like people vacuum cleaners, the planes plugged into the tube and all the people were vacuumed out.

  A breeze rustled, bushes moved and palm trees swayed. Little vehicles buzzed around. All the airport vehicles had flashing yellow lights. Even the ride-on mower.

  Look!’ Amy pointed to the yellow wheelie bin stuffed with giant striped umbrellas. ‘Are they free?’

  ‘People use them when it’s raining. They drop them in another bin at the other end of the walkway,’ explained the attendant.

  ‘Cool,’ said Christopher. But it wasn’t. The weather was muggy.

  Camouflaged in green and brown, an army helicopter buzzed on the tarmac like an agitated insect. Soldiers ducked under the revolving blades. On a far runway, the FLYING DOCTOR’s small plane was landing. Amy wondered where the emergency had been as an ambulance bumped slowly towards the plane.

  ‘It might rain again soon,’ said the attendant.

  ‘Ace. We’ll use an umbrella.’ Amy grabbed one. She twirled it like a shield. The rainbow stripes blurred. Christopher grabbed an umbrella, too. He opened his with a ‘click!’

  ‘On guard!’ He challenged Amy.

  They acted out a duel....Umbrellas at three paces.

  ‘Hey!’ called the attendant. ‘Back here please.’

  Track-suited as well as casually dressed passengers walked past, staring at the children. Just then, Amy’s open umbrella fell. It rolled on its side. With a sudden gust of wind behind, it gathered speed. The umbrella blew across the tarmac. It danced across unevenly on its points, in the direction of the helicopter.

  ‘Catch it Christopher!’ Amy shouted.

  But Christopher made a mistake. Som
ehow, he let go of his own umbrella. That took off, too. The sudden wind was strong.

  Mine employees were walking in from the smaller Flight West

  Airline plane which serviced their Red Dome gold mine. Obedient passengers following the covered way to their waiting planes ducked as the open rainbow umbrellas rolled in between as if navigated by radar.

  Mr Muscles sidestepped one umbrella. He nearly dropped his rolled newspaper. But he made a sudden save and caught the paper. It hadn’t even unrolled.

  ‘Stop them!’ Amy yelled.

  Amy started to run. So did Christopher.

  The first umbrella curved. It wobbled and fell sideways. The stick stuck upwards. It rocked from side to side. But the second one kept rolling. Christopher sprinted. He made a lunge for the umbrella. He missed. His knee skinned as he contacted the ground. ‘Ow!’

  Just then, a team in navy tracksuits came down the steps of the twins’ plane. The first man saw the rainbow umbrella rolling towards them.

  Amy called, ‘Catch that umbrella.’

  So the teamwork started. The first man dived for the umbrella handle and passed it to the second. The second man put it upright, flicked the button and closed it. ‘A point to our team?’ he laughed. The third team member chased, flicked and brought back the second umbrella. He was so fit he wasn’t even panting when he said, ‘Yours?’

  Amy smiled but she was really embarrassed. Christopher didn’t mind so much. He was thinking of how he could draw the scene and which colours he’d use. On the back of each of the team track suits was printed sponsors’ messages. In red, green and yellow colours.

  USE X BRAND PAINT.

  YYY MINING COMPANY.

  DRINK MILK.

  Only the first man had a plain navy track suit. It was slightly paler. Why was his different? Had something washed off?

  ‘Thanks.’ Christopher pointed. ‘How come his track suit is different? Is he the coach or manager or something?’