Labradoodle on the Loose

by T. M. Alexander

  ‘Yes,’ said Bee and Jonno together.

  Smug pair, I thought.

  ‘Did you ask Jamie if he did it?’ said Fifty.

  Bee shook her head. ‘No, of course not. I asked him if Callum was all right. I wanted to see if he looked guilty about Callum being suspended.’

  ‘And did he?’ said Jonno.

  ‘Not that I could tell,’ said Bee. ‘He looked really unhappy, but I’m not convinced that means anything. I asked him if he knew why Callum did it – even though I’m sure he didn’t – to see what he’d say but he just shrugged. I couldn’t get much out of him. It was like talking to a dummy in a shop window.’

  ‘How long’s Callum been chucked out for?’ said Copper Pie.

  ‘Till he confesses, according to Jamie,’ said Bee.

  ‘So that means he says he didn’t do it,’ I said.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Bee. ‘Because it wasn’t him. And we need to prove it.’

  ‘Why?’ said Copper Pie.

  ‘Because it’s not right,’ said Bee. I didn’t want to get involved, but Jonno was nodding so that meant two Tribers were on a mission to save the dreaded Callum and two Tribers meant all the Tribers. I waited to hear what the plan was.

  No Way, Never

  ‘No way,’ said Copper Pie. ‘No way.’ He said it again in case we hadn’t understood.

  ‘Callum won’t bite,’ said Bee.

  ‘He might,’ said Fifty. I didn’t say anything. The idea that Tribe was planning to go round and see Callum hadn’t quite managed to penetrate the bit of my brain that thinks. It was like the Jedi popping round to see the Sith.

  ‘I’m with Bee,’ said Jonno. ‘It’s serious being suspended. And if it wasn’t actually him, that’s not right. If Callum’s not guilty, someone needs to sort this out.’

  But why us? my brain was shouting.

  ‘OK,’ said Fifty. ‘Why don’t we see if Callum’s at school tomorrow? If he’s not, we’ll go round after school. If he is, it must mean someone else has sorted it out.’

  ‘I’m not going. Full stop.’ That was all Copper Pie had to say about it. And it stopped us as well. We moved on to more interesting stuff, like the next Tribe road trip. We all went surfing with my dad one Sunday and everyone was keen to do it again, even Fifty who’s not mad about water but liked the hot chocolate, the bacon sarnies and the KitKats.

  ‘My dad wants to come next time,’ said Bee.

  ‘We don’t want any more dads,’ said Copper Pie.

  ‘Same,’ said Fifty. ‘Loads of us and one dad is best.’

  ‘Tell your dad to organise his own surf trip,’ said Copper Pie.

  ‘I’ll tell him you said so,’ said Bee and stuck out her tongue. That’s all it took. A Tribe war broke out which involved pushing and shoving and teasing and then laughing. Meeting over. We did the handshake and left the hut.

  On the way home I thought about Callum. If I was suspended, Mum or Dad would have to stay home to look after me. It would probably be Dad because he can work from home but Mum couldn’t (unless she invited her patients into our kitchen). If I was at home with Dad and he quizzed me for more than about ten minutes I’d end up confessing everything. So surely Callum’s parents would get the truth out of him too. And if it wasn’t him that wrote rude words on the whiteboard with red paint, then his parents would find out and they’d tell the school. By the time I got home I was pretty sure that there wouldn’t be any need to go visiting the enemy.

  Enemy Territory

  Callum wasn’t at school. Jamie didn’t do any shouting out all day. Jamie didn’t do anything all day as far as I could tell, except stare at his desk. Bee did plenty. She found out where Callum lives – we knew the road but not the number – and talked us through what she was going to say. Our job was to leave the talking to her. Simple. Except Copper Pie wouldn’t come.

  ‘Go without me,’ he said.

  ‘Come on, it’s not the same if we don’t all go,’ said Fifty. We were in the playground. School had finished ages ago but we were still trying to convince Copper Pie that he had to come to Callum’s with us.

  ‘I’ve told you. I don’t like him. I don’t care if he did it or not. I DON’T CARE.’ Copper Pie walked off towards the gates. Jonno did few skips to catch up. The rest of us followed, but quite far behind.

  ‘Looks like it’s just the four of us then,’ said Fifty.

  Bee sighed. I think she was disappointed in C.P. I was disappointed that I hadn’t thought of saying the same as him. I didn’t want to go to Callum’s either.

  ‘What if Callum’s dad’s there?’ asked Fifty.

  ‘What if he is?’ said Bee.

  ‘He might send us away.’

  ‘Why would he do that? You’re such a wimp, Fifty.’

  And you’re a bit of a bully sometimes, Bee, I thought. And that thought stayed well inside.

  At the end of the alley, Jonno and Copper Pie turned right towards Callum’s. Home for all of us is left. I looked at Bee and Fifty with raised eyebrows. They raised their eyebrows back at me. We jogged to catch up. Bee and I went to one side, Fifty went to the other. Copper Pie was surrounded.

  ‘Are you coming, then?’ said Fifty.

  ‘Looks like it,’ said Copper Pie. Jonno had obviously worked some magic. He’s good at persuading people, also known as brainwashing.

  Callum’s house was only three minutes from school. We slowed down as we got nearer, and made a V-formation like birds do, with Bee in the lead in the middle at the front, Jonno one side, Fifty the other and me and Copper Pie behind on the wings. Callum’s house didn’t have a front garden, the front door was on the pavement. Bee knocked three times. We waited for the enemy to open the door and let us in.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ said the blond head poking round the door. He didn’t open it all the way. Maybe he thought we’d charge in and attack him.

  ‘We’ve come because we don’t think it was you who painted on the whiteboard,’ said Bee. She was straight to the point. Callum didn’t seem to know what to say.

  ‘Is your dad in?’ said Fifty. What a stupid thing to ask.

  Callum shook his head, opened the door a bit more and said, ‘Are you coming in?’

  No, I thought.

  ‘Yes, thanks,’ said Bee.

  Callum turned first right off the hall into the telly room. That gameshow with money in red boxes was on. He pressed mute. I watched anyway.

  ‘Walrus told me you got caught with red paint on your sweatshirt,’ said Bee.

  ‘So?’ said Callum.

  ‘So, I’ve been thinking, and I don’t think you were writing, I think you might have been cleaning it off.’ There was a long silence. I was busy thinking that Bee’s idea sounded quite believable. Callum seemed to be busy deciding what to say. Everyone else was either busy waiting, or watching the moving mouths on the telly.

  ‘What if I was?’ said Callum eventually.

  ‘Why would you let everyone believe you’re guilty if you’re not?’ said Bee.

  ‘Unless you’re protecting someone else,’ said Jonno. (It was like watching Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson in action.)

  ‘What if I am?’ said Callum.

  ‘We know it’s Jamie,’ said Bee. (There isn’t exactly a long list of people Callum could call friends.)

  ‘What if it is?’

  ‘It’s not fair for you to take the blame,’ said Jonno.

  Callum used a sarcastic voice. ‘So the Tribe think I should tell on him, do they?’ It was a good question. We wouldn’t tell on each other so why should Callum tell on Jamie? No one had the answer.

  Bee went off in another direction with her interrogation. ‘Why did he do it?’

  ‘He hates Miss Walsh. And she hates him.’

  ‘Are you sure that’s all?’ Bee moved her fringe – always a sign that things are getting serious. ‘Is there something else?’ Callum didn’t look like he was about to speak so she carried on. ‘There must be a reason why he gets told o
ff every day for years and one day, that’s no worse than loads of others, he storms out of class and writes something on the whiteboard with red paint.’

  ‘Ask him,’ said Callum.

  I heard a key in the lock. ‘Hello!’ shouted someone that I assumed was Callum’s mum. She came in and smiled at us. She didn’t look anything like our mums. She was wearing a dark trouser suit and a shirt and looked like a newsreader. And she had a briefcase.

  ‘Hello,’ said Jonno. ‘I’m Jonno . . . from school.’

  ‘Come to see the graffiti artist, have you?’ She tutted.

  We did some nodding. There was an awkward gap. Fifty filled it.

  ‘We came to see how he was.’ It sounded like Callum was ill.

  ‘I expect he’s bored having spent all day at home,’ said his mum. ‘Anyway, I need to get changed and then I’m nipping round to Karen’s.’ She headed out of the door. ‘You can all stay for tea if you like. Cheer him up.’

  ‘They’re going,’ said Callum.

  Too right, tea with the enemy was out of the question.

  ‘You can come with me then, Callum,’ his mum shouted from the staircase. ‘Karen’s not so good, the latest treatment’s knocked her for six, so I may as well make Jamie and Katy their tea and you can eat with them.’

  ‘OK,’ said Callum.

  ‘We’d better go,’ said Bee. We followed our leader out of the room, except Copper Pie who was glued to the mute telly. Fifty grabbed his elbow and pulled him along. Bee opened the front door and we all trooped past her and started heading back the way we’d come, but she stayed where she was.

  ‘Are you coming?’ said Fifty.

  ‘You go on,’ she shouted. ‘I’ll catch up.’ I could tell that she was on to something. We waited to hear the latest from the Tribe detective.

  There Are No Right Answers

  We hung around at the end of the alley waiting for Bee.

  ‘So how come you changed your mind and came to Callum’s, Copper Pie?’ said Fifty.

  ‘Jonno made me,’ said Copper Pie. He flashed Jonno a mean look. I laughed. Jonno couldn’t make C.P. do anything.

  ‘How exactly did he make you?’ said Fifty. ‘Chinese burn?’

  Copper Pie kicked some imaginary dirt on the pavement. Jonno was smiling, waiting to hear what he was going to say. Copper Pie spoke to the floor. ‘Jonno said I owed it to you for what happened at the summer fair.’

  I would never have dared mention Copper Pie going off with Callum to do the football stall at the summer fair. That was all in the past. Thankfully Bee wasn’t long. I didn’t want to go over the whole episode that threatened Tribe’s existence ever again.

  ‘I guessed right,’ she said. (There’s a surprise.) ‘It wasn’t Callum. It was Jamie. But there’s nothing we can do about it.’

  ‘Did Callum actually say it was Jamie?’ asked Fifty.

  ‘He didn’t need to. I know it was Jamie, and I know why he did it, and I know why Callum’s covering up for him.’ Bee is such a know-all.

  ‘Tell us then,’ said Fifty.

  ‘Miss Walsh telling him off was the last straw for Jamie, because he’s really upset. His mum’s got cancer.’ She paused to make sure we knew that was bad. ‘That’s why Callum doesn’t want to land him in it. That’s why Callum tried to rub off the writing before anyone found out. That’s how he got his sweatshirt covered in paint. And that’s where he and his mum are going now. To Jamie’s.’

  ‘How do you know?’ I asked.

  ‘Jamie’s sister’s called Katy, so I knew it was his mum that isn’t well. And did you notice Callum’s mum said “treatment”? Everyone knows what that means.’

  ‘In our house it would mean Mum’s gone for a pedicure,’ said Jonno.

  ‘It would be physio in mine,’ I said.

  Fifty made the my-mum’s-a-loony face. ‘And we’d be meditating in mine, with joss sticks.’

  We all looked at Copper Pie. ‘A telling off. Definitely.’

  ‘Well, in Jamie’s house it means cancer treatment,’ said Bee. ‘I asked Callum straight out and he nodded, but he’d promised Jamie he wouldn’t tell anyone. Jamie doesn’t want anyone to know. And neither does his mum.’

  Bee put her fist out for the fist of friendship. We knew what that meant – keep the secret.

  ‘So . . . Callum’s innocent, but unless he dumps Jamie in it he’s got no way of proving it.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Bee. ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Copper Pie. ‘It’s not our problem.’ I was about to agree but . . .

  ‘That’s so mean,’ said Bee. ‘We may not like him but Callum can’t stay off school forever for something he didn’t do.’

  ‘Has he told his mum the truth?’ I asked. ‘Surely she could sort it out with Miss Walsh or the Head.’ My solutions usually rely on other people. I like it that way.

  ‘He can’t have done, can he? Didn’t you hear her call him a “graffiti artist”?’ Bee was right, as usual.

  I had another try. ‘Why can’t we just tell Miss Walsh the truth? She’s not going to come down hard on Jamie when she knows about the . . . you know.’

  ‘It’s called cancer, Keener. You can’t catch it by saying it.’

  ‘I know,’ I said.

  Jonno pushed his springy hair off his face, and it sprang back to where it started. ‘The thing is, if we say Jamie did it, even if he doesn’t get suspended it’ll make everything much worse for him.’

  ‘Much worse for his mum,’ said Bee. ‘If she feels rubbish already, how will she feel if she knows Jamie’s going around spraying insults all over school.’

  ‘One whiteboard, Bee. Not all over school,’ I said. She ignored me.

  ‘There must be a way we can get Callum in the clear without dropping anyone else in it,’ said Jonno.

  ‘This is mad,’ said Copper Pie. ‘We hate Hog.’

  ‘It’s not about Callum,’ said Jonno. Seemed to me that it was, but I waited to hear what Jonno thought. ‘It’s about what’s fair.’

  I hate it when people say things like ‘fair’ or ‘right’. It always means we have to do something we don’t want to.

  ‘And it’s about us as well,’ said Bee. ‘About being Tribe. We don’t go around not caring about the rest of the world, do we?’ There was a bit of reluctant nodding from me and Fifty, and agreeing-type nodding from Jonno, and a completely still head from Copper Pie, which Bee pretended not to notice.

  ‘OK. We’ve agreed that we’re getting Callum off the hook. All we need is a plan that doesn’t involve Jamie. Thinking caps on.’

  The Tribe’s Thinking Caps

  Copper Pie: Let’s say someone else did it.

  Bee: We can’t dump on some poor innocent kid.

  Fifty: We could say we saw who did it but didn’t recognise him.

  Keener: We could say we know Callum didn’t do it but we don’t know who did.

  Jonno: But in that case how would they know Callum’s telling the truth?

  Keener: We know he’s telling the truth. Bee said.

  Jonno: We know, but how does Miss Walsh or whoever know?

  Bee: It’s no good just saying Callum’s innocent. We need evidence.

  Fifty: Let’s give him an alibi.

  Bee: But we don’t know when it happened.

  Fifty: A long alibi then. From the end of art until bedtime.

  Copper Pie: No one would believe that.

  Jonno: What about using the right to remain silent?

  Keener: What’s that?

  Fifty: It’s what filthy rich criminals do. They refuse to answer questions.

  Jonno: And they get their lawyers to get them off.

  Bee: How does that help us?

  Jonno: We say we know who did it but we can’t tell anyone.

  Fifty: Can you see the Head letting us get away with that?

  Keener: Even worse, she’d think it was a Triber.

  Bee: She can think what she likes. We’re not covered in red
paint.

  Jonno: OK. Unless someone comes up with something better —

  Bee: Before break tomorrow.

  Jonno: We’re choosing to use our right to remain silent.

  Bee: Only partly silent.

  Fifty: And partly loud.

  Keener: Partly very annoying, to Miss Walsh.

  Copper Pie: Totally mad.

  Jonno: And completely Tribish.

  A Chat With Dad

  I was still awake when Dad got home from Timbuctoo or wherever it is he goes to work. He poked his head in, which he says he always does but as I’m asleep I’ve never known if he was telling the truth or not.

  ‘Hi, Dad,’ I said, quietly.

  He came and sat on the edge of my bed. ‘How’s things?’ he whispered back.

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Something keeping you awake?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Anything you want to share?’

  I thought for a second before I decided to tell Dad everything. If it was Mum who had asked I’d have kept it to myself because she might have made me tell on Jamie but I was pretty sure Dad wouldn’t. He listened to the story from the beginning – pink whiteboard and missing Callum – through the middle – Walrus and Bee, Bee and Jamie, Tribe and Callum – to the finale – telling Miss Walsh it wasn’t Callum but refusing to tell her how we knew or who the real graffiti artist was. Dad took it all in.

  ‘Whose idea was it to use the right to remain silent?’

  ‘Jonno’s,’ I said.

  ‘That figures,’ said Dad. ‘Smart boy.’ Everyone likes Jonno.

  ‘Do you think it will work?’

  ‘Depends what you mean,’ said Dad. ‘I think they’ll have to listen to you, and they’ll probably believe you because you’re no friend of Callum’s so you wouldn’t be sticking up for him out of loyalty.’ There was a pause. I helped Dad along.