by Sophie Lee
‘Please,’ said Edie, sinking down onto the grass. Her jumpsuit creaked as she crossed her legs and popped a salted caramel onto her tongue. The combination of salt and sweetness was altogether out of this world, even though her mother forbade her to eat such things.
‘Where did you get that jumpsuit? My dad has something similar—his is orange.’
‘Really? It’s made of this stuff called pleather,’ said Edie, ‘a gift from the Blank Marauder. A sort of thank-you present for tidying the shed.’ She leaned forward and cupped her hand over her mouth in a secretive gesture. ‘I’ve wanted one for ages. Trudy Truelove has one. She writes for the Bugle, you know.’
‘She always looks fashionable,’ agreed Cheesy. ‘Although I’m not sure I could say the same of my dad.’
Mister Pants appeared at the top of the gully and began a stiff downhill canter towards them. With his two enormous ears and tiny snout, he looked unusual to say the least. He made a wide variety of noises from both ends of his body, as French bulldogs are known to do. He snuffled and harrumphed; he sneezed, snorted and hiccuped. Edie knew him to be gifted with detective-like intuition after he had helped her in several emergencies. All things considered, he was a very special dog.
‘Here boy, sit!’ said Edie, giving him a hug. Mister Pants coughed then sneezed three times, and Edie snuffled in reply. She believed that he and she shared a secret form of communication, a theory that her father dismissed rather unkindly as being unscientific. Cheesy rolled her eyes. She was similarly sceptical.
‘Speaking of canines,’ said Cheesy, ‘I suppose you know Runcible River Fever is spreading very rapidly? They say the first symptoms are a cough and a sneeze, then memory loss, a rash, a heightened sense of smell, personality changes, including lawbreaking, superhuman strength in some cases, and, finally, falling over and not being able to get back up.’
‘I know,’ said Edie, pointing to Trudy Truelove’s article. ‘And there’s even a reward for anyone who can catch the—’
As she was speaking, Edie started to experience a choking feeling, followed by a coughing fit that seemed to rise up from her toes and shake every part of her body from her ankles to her armpits. She fell to her knees.
‘Cheesy. Help!’ she gasped.
A Life-Altering Flan
‘Mrs Sparks! Come quickly!’ shouted Cheesy. She scrambled up the slope towards the kitchen.
‘What on earth is the matter?’ said Cinnamon.
‘It’s Edie. She has the Runcible River Fever!’ said Cheesy. ‘The Fever, I tell you! Symptom 1!’
Cinnamon Sparks emerged from the kitchen. Black seaweed had got caught in her hair and she was still clutching a tea towel as she started running down the hill at top speed. Both Cinnamon and Cheesy were surprised to see Edie walking calmly up the hill towards them, Mister Pants at her heels.
‘Where did you go?’ Edie asked.
‘Aha! Memory loss!’ cried Cheesy, pointing at her and jumping up and down. ‘Symptom 3!’
‘Honestly, Cheesy, I’m fine,’ said Edie.
‘I think maybe I got a little bit of salted caramel stuck in my throat.’ She blushed as her mother shook her head.
‘I’m so sorry, Sparks,’ said Cheesy. ‘I should have warned you that salted caramels present a choking hazard.’
‘You know you’re not to eat refined sugars, madam,’ said Cinnamon. ‘Now, I’d better get back to my non–genetically modified seaweed stew. It could save lives, you know.’
The two girls watched her leave.
‘Cheesy, this Fever business is driving everyone bonkers. The sooner someone finds that blinking Fever Dog and a cure the better.’
‘Language,’ said Cheesy.
‘We should catch it ourselves,’ said Edie.
Cheesy looked horrified. ‘Catch the Fever?’
‘No, Cheesy, the dog.’
‘Trap a dangerous, diseased animal? Are you out of your mind?’
‘Sorry, I didn’t realise you were so keen to go back to gloomy Glasgow.’
‘You have a point,’ said Cheesy.
Edie pulled her notebook out of her satchel and began scribbling.
‘What we need to do is find and capture this dog. In doing so, we will put an end to the panic, convince your parents that it’s safe to stay in Runcible and, as a bonus, collect our reward.’
Even Cheesy had to agree that this plan, though dangerous, would solve some rather large problems.
‘Let’s think like a hunted dog,’ said Edie. She had read about this technique in her detective manual.
‘It’d probably be hungry,’ said Cheesy. ‘Like all canines, it would respond to the promise of a treat.’
‘And what would it want to eat most of all, according to the Bugle?’
‘Schoolteachers?’ said Cheesy.
‘No, Cheesy. Think again. A little clue can be found in the crumbs on your kilt.’
‘Flan?’ she said.
‘Exactly,’ said Edie. ‘Flan. And I know just how we can get one.’
Mister Pants gave a low rumble and the three headed up towards the house where they tracked down Cinnamon, who was now working on her new cookbook.
‘Excuse me, Mum, Cheesy’s—er, Charisma’s dad’s a bit down in the dumps and needs cheering up. You remember how his balloon got wrecked in Chinatown?’
‘Mm-hmm,’ said Cinnamon distractedly.
‘Well . . . could you please make another flan for him? Perhaps throw a bit of organic meat into it as well? By the way, I like your hairstyle, Mum. Seaweed suits you.’ As Edie knew, flattery was always useful when it came to securing the help of grown-ups.
‘Now, sweetheart, I have a lot on my plate. There’s the deadline for my brand-new cookbook, besides which I’ve promised to send the Bugle some immune-boosting recipes that will prevent the spread of Runcible River Fever. But . . .’ She paused, pulling at the strand of seaweed and looking fondly at her only child.
‘Mum?’
‘Well, I was about to say, if Charisma’s dad needs cheering up, then I’m happy to help.’ She patted Edie’s hand and returned to the kitchen humming an aria (which is a rather lovely high-pitched piece of music).
‘Thanks, Mum,’ said Edie.
Edie beckoned to Cheesy to follow her up the spiral staircase to her room. ‘Let’s brainstorm while the flan’s baking,’ said Edie.
As they went up the girls had a bird’seye view of the chaos below them. As usual, the kitchen and living room were strewn with a jumble of pots, pans, measuring jugs, cooking ingredients, spanners, test tubes, scientific doodlings and notepaper.
Mister Pants looked wistfully after them and at the miniature harness dangling from a rope above the stairs. This contraption was another of Edie’s dad’s incomplete inventions. When finished, it would be a dumb-waiter doggy-lifter, by means of which Mister could be transported up to Edie’s room without falling down the spiral staircase (which he had done several times already).
The doggy-lifter was just one of the half-finished inventions littering the house, along with an eco-friendly mouse trap (complete with a tiny aerated organic cotton sack that would serve as a comfortable detention centre for the trapped mouse, who would later be processed then liberated unharmed), the wild-weather horn (which would alert the town to danger in the case of freak storms) and the shoe enlarger, which had a tendency to singe and burn footwear, so it was definitely still a work in progress. The French bulldog–sized brown leather pouch that would one day enclose Mister’s body hung empty, secured by various brightly coloured ropes that were attached with mountaineering hooks to a large metal pulley hanging from the ceiling, and the contraption, if ever completed, would be set in motion by a small bone-shaped lever.
Although the rest of Edie’s house was a mess, she herself kept a neat and organised room. The pinboard above her desk displayed a blueprint for the dumb-waiter doggy-lifter, a certificate for neatness from Runcible Public School, photos of Mister and some rough sketches of clothe
s she had done for her mother as a polite hint that she would prefer not to be given any more maxi dresses made from curtains. Edie kept all her paperclips and stationery in the desk drawers and there was a special place reserved for her detective kit and monkey shoes in a box under the bed.
‘Right, here’s what I think we should do,’ said Edie with an air of authority. ‘Let’s call it the Flan Plan. We’ll say we need to deliver the flan Mum’s making to your dad. Bingo, we have bait for the Fever Dog. Now, what do dog-catchers use to capture their prey?’
‘Enormous butterfly nets?’ said Cheesy.
‘Hmm. Where would we find one of those, I wonder?’
‘As it happens, I have one,’ said Cheesy. ‘Auntie Bee sent it over from Scotland last Christmas.’
‘Excellent,’ said Edie. ‘Size?’
‘Huge. Believe me, it’s big enough to scoop up a wolfhound.’
‘Let’s go over to your house and collect it. Then we’ll need to take the flan and the net to where the Fever Dog was last sighted, which was approximately . . .’ Edie went over to her desk, fished out a map of Runcible and spread it on the desktop. ‘Here!’ she said, circling a spot on the river bank with a red pencil. Both girls paused to survey the map.
‘The Flan Plan . . .’ said Cheesy, sounding uncertain.
Edie picked up her detective kit and went to the window. She tried to focus her binoculars on the distant river bank, and in doing so was surprised to spot Hogmanay Chompster at the house next door.
‘Cheesy, quick, over here,’ said Edie.
‘What’s the hurry?’ said Cheesy. She had settled herself in a corduroy beanbag with her packet of salted caramels and Edie’s Jolly Junipers fanzine (a junior comic for budding vegetarians featuring the adventures of String-Bean Sue).
‘Since when did your dad become friends with the Blank Marauder?’ said Edie.
‘What?’
Cheesy joined Edie at the window and grabbed the binoculars. Hogmanay Chompster was standing just inside the Marauder’s back gate, looking furtively about him (which is just a fancy way of saying that he seemed anxious not to be noticed). He was, however, wearing his orange pleather jumpsuit, which made him an easy surveillance target.
‘Look, Edie, the Blank Marauder is coming!’ whispered Cheesy.
The Marauder had arrived at the back gate, pushing a wheelbarrow with a large box in it. He looked upset and said something while pointing a bony finger at Hogmanay’s face. Hogmanay in turn looked shocked, shook his head and appeared to launch into an explanation. After what seemed like a lot of explaining indeed, he produced an envelope and thrust it into the Blank Marauder’s hand. The Marauder kept shaking his head and pushing the envelope away until finally he seemed to surrender, accepting the envelope and helping Hogmanay to load the box onto a trailer attached to a small orange car parked outside, which had the words Flights of Fancy painted across it in yellow. Hogmanay climbed into his car, waved and pulled away from the kerb. The Blank Marauder watched him go before returning to his shed.
‘What on earth was that about? Do they know each other?’ asked Edie.
‘And what was in that box?’ Cheesy wanted to know.
It looked like the box containing the nine hundred and ninety-nine pleather jumpsuits, but Edie couldn’t imagine why Hogmanay would want those, or why they would be the subject of an argument. Edie returned to her binoculars and then nearly dropped them in shock. Someone in a white coat was lurking behind a hedge, keeping a close watch on the goings-on next door. Whoever it was had binoculars of their own and they seemed, for a brief moment, to be aimed straight at Edie’s bedroom window. She shrieked and crouched on the floor as the oven timer went off downstairs.
‘Flan’s ready, girls,’ called Cinnamon from the kitchen. ‘Edie Amelia, is that you screaming? Really dear, it’s silly to be histrionic.’
The Next Ship to Scotland
Edie’s binoculars were at the ready, hanging about her neck, and her detective kit was safely inside her satchel, which was slung across her left shoulder. She thought it best that Mister Pants stay home in case they had a run-in with the Fever Dog sooner than they expected. The girls kept a close eye on passers-by for symptoms of the Fever as they hurried along, but saw only ever-increasing numbers of townsfolk wearing multi-coloured pleather jumpsuits.
‘We’re home,’ called Cheesy as she reached her front gate, clutching the flan. She sounded relieved not to have been set upon by the Fever Dog along the way.
Cheesy lived in a red-brick house on a hillside not twenty minutes from The Pride of the Green. Edie thought Cheesy’s house was a marvel, with its polished tables, comfortable chairs and colour television. Then there were all the clocks. There were clocks in every room and in the hallways as well: porcelain clocks with floral designs, wooden alpine clocks, jangly alarm clocks with pointy arms, a tall grandfather clock with a long brass pendulum and even a cuckoo clock, complete with a perky bird that popped out every hour on the hour to remind the Chompsters that time flies.
‘Are you deaf, Sparks? Didn’t you hear me ask you to close the lychgate behind us?’
‘Sorry,’ muttered Edie, who didn’t understand the point of a gate with a roof over the top of it, but was afraid to cause offence by saying so.
The girls climbed Cheesy’s front steps and knocked on the door. Cheesy’s mother, Beltane Chompster, let them in. ‘Oh hello, lovelies, what do we have here? Something smells nice.’ She wore a green knitted turban, and although she smiled at them, Edie thought her eyes looked red. Whether it was from sadness or Fever, Edie couldn’t be sure. She made a mental note to watch out for a dry cough, wet sneezing and memory loss.
‘Good afternoon, Mrs Chompster,’ said Edie.
The girls noticed some cardboard boxes in the lounge room as they followed Beltane into the kitchen.
‘Mummy! What’s going on?’ demanded Cheesy.
‘I’m doing a little packing, Charisma. The Runcible River Fever is a big, big . . . botheration. Our Loch Ness monster is a pussycat compared to this Fever Dog. So I’m very sorry but we’re leaving.’
Cheesy looked as though she’d swallowed a barnacle as she deposited the flan on a bench beside a clock in the shape of a silver cat with a meowing chime. ‘Let’s go to my room,’ she whispered to Edie.
Although the girls politely excused themselves as they left the kitchen, Mrs Chompster continued talking, seemingly unaware that they had gone.
‘Have you noticed your mum coughing lately?’ said Edie, pulling out her notebook.
‘Not sure.’ Cheesy walked ahead, down the red-carpeted hall. ‘I got us some orangeade,’ she added glumly. ‘We may as well toast my imminent departure.’
Cheesy opened the door to her room and tripped over Volume 12 of The Whiz-kids’ Encyclopaedia, spilling orangeade all over the carpet.
‘Blast!’ said Cheesy.
‘Language,’ said Edie.
There was a knock on the door and Beltane’s head appeared around it.
‘I think you girls have forgotten someone,’ she said. As she stepped aside, Mister Pants scuttled into the bedroom and stood on the wet patch of carpet. Mrs Chompster returned to her packing.
‘How did you get here?’ said Edie, giving Mister a hug.
‘I don’t necessarily want him in here!’ said Cheesy. ‘Can’t he wait by the door?’ Cheesy, as it happened, was not fond of animals. She objected strongly to insects and bushland creatures, and had only recently become friends with Mister Pants after he had behaved heroically in Chinatown on the evening of her father’s balloon crash. This didn’t, however, mean that she was happy to have his doggy smell, doggy hairs or doggy slobber in her bedroom, which her mother had tastefully decorated with floral fabrics, china figurines and more clocks. A large antique pram with enormous wheels and a navy canopy stood in the corner of the room. Edie knew this had been Cheesy’s when she was a baby, and Cheesy had since filled it with her limited-edition nineteenth-century doll collection.
‘Sit, boy,’ said Edie when she’d taken Mister into the hall. Tired from his long walk, Mister Pants sank gratefully onto his belly in the doorway.
Cheesy handed Edie a glass of what was left of the orangeade.
‘Edie, Mum’s packing. If we don’t do something about it soon, I’ll be on the next ship back to Scotland!’
Mister Pants grunted, then pricked up his ears. The garage door at the side of the house had begun to creak open.
‘Dad’s home!’ said Cheesy.
‘Quick,’ said Edie, ‘is there some way we can see down to the garage? I’d love to know what he’s up to and what he’s done with that box!’
‘Not to mention what’s in it,’ said Cheesy. ‘Get your torch. If you stand on the window ledge and look through that vent you can see down into the garage.’
Edie fished her trusty yellow torch out of her detective kit and climbed onto the narrow window ledge, steadying herself by hanging on to the top of Cheesy’s head. She aimed the light down the vent and saw Hogmanay closing the garage door. With a lot of puffing, panting and sniffing he dragged what looked like the heavy box to a corner of the garage and then went to great pains to cover it with a tarpaulin.
Cheesy began to wobble.
‘Hold on, I think he’s coming up now,’ whispered Edie. ‘He’s heading for the side door. Try to stay still for a few more seconds.’
‘You try standing still with a detective yanking on your left plait,’ Cheesy muttered. ‘What on earth can he be up to now?’ she said, craning her neck in an effort to see.
‘Let’s go and find out,’ said Edie.
Flannery Will Get You Nowhere
Hogmanay’s large auburn beard shone under one of the many ceiling lamps as he stood with arms crossed and legs apart in the centre of the Chompsters’ kitchen. He reminded Edie of a conquering Viking. Edie, Cheesy and Beltane stood staring at him from the doorway.
