by Sophie Lee
‘Dad?’ said Cheesy. ‘Are you alright?’
Hogmanay suddenly seemed lost in thought as he stared above him at the pleather patchwork canopy. He began counting under his breath, then shook his head. ‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘Disaster.’
‘What is it, Dad? What’s wrong? Did you sew all these jumpsuits together? Tell us what you’re pointing at.’
Before he could reply, Hogmanay was seized by a coughing fit which prevented him from answering. ‘We’re short . . . one jumpsuit. My design called for . . . a thousand,’ he managed to blurt out before his spluttering began anew. He coughed and coughed and gasped for air and clutched at his orange overalls until finally, gripping one of the ropes for dear life, he collapsed in a heap on the floor of the basket.
‘Dad,’ screamed Cheesy. She looked at Edie, white-faced and with tear-stained cheeks. ‘What have I done?’
‘Is he breathing?’ said Edie.
‘Sort of. B-but he’s . . .’
‘Unconscious? Chompster! Put him in the recovery position at once. Remember what they told us in the first-aid course?’
‘Yes,’ said Cheesy, slapping herself on the cheeks then moving Hogmanay onto his side and checking that his airway was clear.
While everyone else was distracted with matters of life and death, Snuffles made a bee-line for the mashed-up flan and began gulping it down as fast as his little jaws could manage. Mister snorted in protest.
‘Fancy that,’ said Edie.
Having done as much as she could for Hogmanay, Cheesy chanced a peek over the side of the basket.
‘Am I hallucinating,’ she said, ‘or are we actually losing height?’
When Edie looked, everyone on the ground seemed to be getting more distant, but that was because the wind was blowing the balloon away from the launch site. At the same time, the ground did appear to be getting closer. She looked up at the canopy. Jumpsuits in every colour of the rainbow plugged holes in the once pristine balloon that had been Hogmanay’s pride and joy. Each of the jumpsuits had been roughly sewn in place with surgical catgut thread, which made long zigzagging tracks across the polyurethane surface.
What did Hogmanay mean by short one jumpsuit? Edie wondered. Then it hit her. He must have bought the box that the Blank Marauder had opened just for her. When the Marauder had resealed the box after giving her the jumpsuit, what had he said? That was it. They’ll never know there’s one missing. The Marauder had let Hogmanay think he was getting a box with exactly one thousand pleather jumpsuits in it, when the box was short one and she was wearing it.
Edie looked again and saw to her dismay that one of the jumpsuit patches had come unstuck, leaving a size-nine-shaped hole in the canopy. They were losing air and altitude fast. And to make matters worse, she had begun coughing and sneezing almost constantly, and she could see the angry rash spreading up her right arm all the way to her neck.
Her Worries came right to the top. It seemed pretty clear that she, too, was coming down with the Fever. On top of that, she had no idea how to fly a hot-air balloon, especially a recently mended one that had sprung a leak. She wished she had listened a little more carefully to Hogmanay when he had been rabbiting on to her about the principles of ballooning—or was she now suffering from memory loss (Symptom 3)?
But then she had a thought. A hole needed to be plugged, a jumpsuit-sized hole, and she happened to be wearing a jumpsuit.
‘What do you think, boy?’ she said. Mister gave a snort of approval. So she stripped down to her floral vest and big woolly knickers, leaving her with one slightly sweaty red pleather jumpsuit in exactly the right size to plug the hole that was threatening to destroy them. All at once her coughing and sneezing ceased, her rash stopped itching and her head cleared. As she looked at the jumpsuit, the seed of an idea began to grow in Edie’s mind.
‘Where’s your outer garment?’ said Cheesy, who’d been checking on Hogmanay.
Edie held up her pleather jumpsuit. ‘This,’ she said, ‘is the one-thousandth jumpsuit and it’s in relatively mint condition, give or take a few grass stains. In short, it’s our salvation.’ She gave it a shake. ‘By the way, Cheesy, it seems at last you and I have something substantial in common.’
‘What’s that?’ said Cheesy.
‘Allergy,’ said Edie. ‘I’m almost certain I’m allergic to pleather.’ She took a long, deep breath, feeling a thousand times better without the manmade fabric close to her skin. It was time.
She reached for the duct tape she kept in her detective kit for just such an emergency. When she had got it out she wedged it between Mister’s jaws and begged him not to eat it.
‘Not today, boy!’
The balloon seemed to sag and sigh.
With arms outstretched and balancing on the esky, Edie would be just tall enough to stick the jumpsuit on the canopy and close the gap.
‘Quick! Cheesy, get that duct tape from Mister Pants!’
‘What for?’
‘Bear with me, I’ve got a plan. Peel me off a few strips. We’ve got to stop the air leaking out. I know your dad isn’t in top form, but if we don’t plug this hole none of us will make it. We’re going to crash! Do you hear me? So please. Pass. The. Duct. Tape.’
‘Got it, got it,’ said Cheesy, gingerly taking the tape from Mister’s slobbery jaws and tearing four large strips from the roll. She gagged a bit at the sight of his doggy saliva.
‘That’s good! Now pass the strips of tape to me and I’ll patch the tear.’
Cheesy gathered herself up to full height and passed Edie the sticky duct tape. ‘We’re heading towards the field fast!’ she called, looking at the ground below. ‘Quick, Edie, or we’re going to hit really hard. Holy haggis, I can see lights flashing down there.’ (Cheesy was not mistaken, because by now the police had estimated where the balloon would come down, and had summoned a fire truck, a rescue van, two ambulances and an enormous trampoline. It seemed a lot of townsfolk had broken the curfew to witness the spectacle as well.)
Edie stretched up as high as she could and stuck the pleather jumpsuit in the hole left by the one that had become detached. By a combination of true bravery and sheer good luck (which often comes in handy) she was able to fasten it in place just in the nick of time. The balloon stabilised and their descent slowed, and Edie reflected that her calmness in the emergency had undoubtedly paid off.
Mister barked not once but three times, to warn the crew that the ground was too close for comfort. Snuffles, having glutted himself on the flan, climbed under the tarpaulin to be sick.
‘Hold on to something,’ said Edie. ‘We’re going to hit!’
Hogmanay began to wake up. ‘D’ye nae ken . . .’ he began, but Cheesy put an arm around him and held on to the side rail of the basket for dear life.
WHAM!
When they hit the ground, Edie was clinging to two of the ropes and Mister Pants had his jaws clamped round the wickerwork of the basket. The esky and its contents showered down on some rogue alpacas who had escaped the confines of the refuge, and who scorned with equal disdain the caviar, shortbreads and cream cheeses which Hogmanay had hoarded for his flight.
Edie had been thrown clear and was lying on the ground. ‘It sort of worked,’ she muttered as a policeman shooed away some alpacas and Mister licked her face. He had lost his eye patch. Cheesy was half out of the basket and calling for help as two paramedics lifted Hogmanay onto a stretcher. Snuffles ran to Trudy Truelove, who was furiously taking photos and yelling tomorrow’s headline into her phone.
‘Hold the front page. It’s Fever Cure Hoax: Scotsman’s Plot Unravels. Got it?’
‘Uh-oh,’ murmured Edie, just as they were putting her into an ambulance. ‘I wonder what the Mayor will say.’ Then everything went hazy.
The Emergency Ward
The emergency ward at the Royal Runcible Hospital was abuzz. As she’d been wheeled in on a stretcher, Edie had seen Doctor Arabella Stuart and Doctor Dogwatch eating packets of crisps they had bought from o
ne of the vending machines in the foyer. The Blank Marauder, now fully recovered from being sprayed with woodworm repellent, was hovering by the entrance, biting his nails. Mister Pants was hiding behind the triage nurse with his tongue hanging out.
The ambulance officers had brought Edie through some flapping plastic doors, and had parked her stretcher in a quiet corner. She had blacked out for a few minutes and had a deep cut which needed stitches. Cheesy had been luckier, sustaining only minor contusions (which is just a medical way of saying bruises). The police, though sympathetic, were concerned about a motorised pram being driven at high speed on a public road.
Hogmanay had not fared so well. His Fever symptoms were so alarming that he had been placed in an isolation ward and attached to a breathing apparatus. It seemed his collapse in the basket amounted to Symptom 8: falling over and not being able to get back up.
Edie closed her eyes and felt someone touch her hand.
‘Child. Thank heavens you’re alright.’
She looked up and saw Michaelmas and Cinnamon sitting by her bed. ‘Mum, Dad . . . I’m sorry,’ she began. ‘We never meant to get out of control on the hill in the pram or go up in the balloon . . .’
‘The paths of scientific enquiry never did run smooth,’ said Michaelmas.
‘At least you had your woolly knickers on,’ said Cinnamon.
‘Where is Mister? Is he okay?’ said Edie.
‘Apart from the three teeth that came out when the balloon hit the ground, yes, he’s fine,’ said Cinnamon, ‘but has there ever been an unluckier animal?’
‘Dad,’ said Edie drowsily, ‘I think I’ve solved the mystery of the Runcible River Fever. I don’t think it was a virus at all.’
Michaelmas’s eyes lit up behind his glasses. ‘Go on,’ he said.
‘I think . . . I think we’re all allergic to pleather,’ said Edie. ‘The idea came to me as soon as I took off my own pleather jumpsuit and stopped coughing.’
‘I see,’ said Michaelmas inscrutably (which is just a clever way of saying that he knew something important but was not giving it away just yet).
‘You see,’ said Edie, ‘I used my jumpsuit to patch the balloon.’
‘Good heavens, it’s a wonder you’re not—’ said Cinnamon.
‘Go on, Edie,’ Michaelmas interrupted.
‘Well,’ Edie began, ‘we tailed the Blank Marauder, who led us to Hogmanay. Hogmanay has been behaving very mysteriously of late . . .’
‘Indeed,’ said Michaelmas. ‘I suspect that he had his sights set on my scientific theories. He’s been pestering me about them for days.’
‘I think Hogmanay took your theories on the cure for Runcible River Fever, but I have to admit, all I could see him holding up were the sketches of the doggy-lifter.’ She felt gingerly for the bump on her skull. ‘I know I’ve just fallen on my head,’ she said, ‘but I’m a little confused.’
‘No, you’ve done remarkably well. An allergy to pleather. In a nutshell! That’s exactly the conclusion I drew myself, dear girl,’ said Michaelmas. ‘Hogmanay didn’t stop to analyse my notes and saw the dumb-waiter doggy-lifter diagram upon which I’d scribbled something about elevating a Fever Dog, a discounted theory that unfortunately Hogmanay decided, quite literally, to run with. I suppose, to him, it tied in all too neatly with his burning desire to fly.’
‘How he was able to stitch all those jumpsuits into his balloon in such a short period of time is beyond me,’ said Edie. ‘Although he did get the Emergency Sewing Repairs people to help.’
‘One of the less reported symptoms of what was previously called “Runcible River Fever” was a sort of short burst of superhuman strength, agility and speed; allegedly a symptom which comes shortly before falling over and not being able to get back up. Apparently the sewers did the hundred-metre hurdles in record time on their way to the hospital,’ Michaelmas replied.
‘But how could a whole town believe a Fever Dog was responsible for a virus when the Fever Dog didn’t even exist?’ Edie asked.
‘Well, dear, a lot of us were misled by what was reported in the newspaper. Say something false often enough and people will believe it,’ said Michaelmas.
‘Trudy Truelove didn’t check her facts, did she?’ said Edie thoughtfully. ‘I wonder if it was her dog Snuffles that bit the schoolteacher, and to avoid getting into trouble she made up a story about a scary Fever Dog and blamed it.’
‘I think you’re on to something there; I could see the police questioning Ms Truelove when we arrived.’
Edie reached under the stretcher and found her notebook.
‘So, Dad, my theory was right!’
‘Yes, indeed, a pleather allergy explains everything.’ Michaelmas gently ruffled her bob. ‘As you know, the Blank Marauder has been offloading pleather garments left, right and centre. They may have been in mint condition, but a lot of people have proven to be allergic to the chemicals used in their manufacture. I did extensive tests on that swatch of fabric. These chemicals were toxic enough to cause a cough, sneezing, rash, temperature, memory loss, all of that.’
Cheesy burst through the plastic door, followed by her mother.
‘How’s Mr Chompster?’ asked everybody at once.
‘Much better,’ said Cheesy.
‘Of course,’ said Edie, smiling sympathetically at her friend, ‘all that time your dad spent around pleather must have given him the worst pleather allergy ever, which explains all his bonkers behaviour.’
‘If anything proves that we should all be wearing organic cotton, then this is it,’ said Cinnamon, bending over her daughter and stroking her hair.
‘Mum, shouldn’t you be working on your book?’
‘Book schmook! Nothing is more important than family, darling.’
‘I couldn’t agree more,’ said Cheesy’s mum. ‘With all this Fever nonsense I’ve been neglecting my own.’
‘We’ll miss you when you go back to Scotland, Mrs Chompster,’ said Edie.
‘Go back?’ she said. ‘We’ll not go back now it’s safe. After all, we couldn’t possibly leave our friends.’
‘And Dad never meant to steal those things,’ said Cheesy, ‘he was only borrowing them in what he sincerely believed was a good cause.’
‘You are not to worry for a second, Charisma,’ said Michaelmas.
He went on to explain that he had taken his allergy theory to Doctor Proudfoot, who in turn had incorporated the study into his own research. Doctor Proudfoot confirmed that Runcible River Fever was indeed an allergy to pleather and easily cured by removing all pleather from the environment. So the police were not going to charge Hogmanay, who couldn’t be held responsible for his actions because of an especially bad case of allergy (of which ‘law-breaking behaviour’ was recognised as a symptom).
Mister Pants ran through the flapping plastic doors and gave Edie’s hand a lick in what surely must have been an act outside of hospital policy.
‘Well, I do declare, this dog looks odder than ever,’ said Michaelmas. ‘Has he gone cockeyed?’
‘Er, yes, Dad,’ said Edie with fingers crossed behind her back. ‘But Doctor Stuart said she’d fix him for free. By the way, I hope she isn’t too mad at the Blank Marauder.’
‘I hope not,’ said Michaelmas. ‘They’re getting married.’
A Renewal of Vowels
As a surprise to everyone, including themselves, Arabella Stuart and Adam Halloween had decided to get married. An even bigger surprise was that it wouldn’t be the first time. They had been married before, but after only a few months Arabella had fled, taking with her Major Wiggins, the cat. Her reason? Neither the Major nor Arabella could put up with the untidiness of the Blank Marauder’s shed.
When Arabella heard through the grapevine that the little detective next door had tidied Adam’s shed, and that he was now running a profitable enterprise in pleather goods, she had invited him to come and see her at the vet surgery to talk things over. This was when things got messy. During his visit, Ar
abella was called away by a hoax caller (Hogmanay) to a non-existent emergency. Confused and angry about the items found missing from her storeroom upon her return, she paid the Blank Marauder a visit, but was scared off when she spied a nutty Scotsman (Hogmanay again) taking a large box of what looked like stolen goods from her ex-husband.
In an attempt to smooth things over at the hospital, Cheesy had repeated to Adam and Arabella what she’d heard in the hangar: that it was her father, Hogmanay, not Adam, who had taken the goods from the surgery. Cheesy confirmed that Adam had asked Hogmanay to lock up the vet clinic, not to help himself to the stores. Edie’s thorough detective report, including the discovery of a length of Hogmanay’s auburn hair at the vet’s surgery, was filed the day after and further cleared the air. Why had Hogmanay been at the surgery? It seemed the Blank Marauder had confided in him about there being a possibility for reconciliation with his ex-wife. Sadly Hogmanay, under the effects of his severe pleather allergy, had seen this as an opportunity to source materials for his balloon repair.
Fortunately, all had been forgiven. Arabella and Adam were able to resolve their differences and fall in love all over again, and Mister Pants was offered complimentary veterinary consultations in perpetuity (which is a fancy way of saying forever after).
Not long after Hogmanay Chompster was discharged from hospital, an invitation arrived in the Sparkses’ letterbox. Edie ran into the kitchen with it, Mister Pants at her heels with his tongue hanging out.
‘Could you open it, dear?’ said Cinnamon, who was up to her elbows in buckwheat pancake batter. Edie pulled her Swiss army knife from her detective kit, carefully sliced open the back flap of the envelope and withdrew a card. Round the edge were forget-me-nots and thunderbolts, and the writing upon it read:
Dear Michaelmas, Cinnamon, Edie
Amelia and Mister Pants (Sparks),
