The Poisoned Arrow

by Simon Cheshire

  ‘The grand final is this Saturday afternoon,’ said Izzy. ‘All the heats have taken place at different schools; the final is being held in our school’s main hall and it’s going out on the radio live.’

  ‘The twisted what?’ muttered Jeremy to himself.

  ‘Weren’t all the other rounds live?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ said Izzy. ‘All the heats have been pre-recorded at the schools. The recordings were being broadcast every weeknight in the three weeks running up to this Saturday. But the half-hour final goes out live at five o’clock.’

  ‘Who are you up against?’ I said.

  ‘That’s why we’ve come to see you, Saxby,’ shivered Jeremy. ‘St Egbert’s are facing Spykeside School.’

  ‘Never heard of it,’ I said.

  ‘Neither had we until we started the competition,’ said Jeremy. ‘The place is miles away. But unless you help us, Spykeside are going to win.’

  ‘Er, well, that’s very flattering,’ I said, ‘but, er, don’t forget that my maths isn’t exactly —’

  ‘Noooo, you dummy!’ interrupted Izzy. ‘We don’t need your help on the team! We need your help because Spykeside School have been cheating!’

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  ‘CHEATING?’ I SAID. ‘HOW DO you know?’

  ‘They’ve won every time so far,’ said Jeremy.

  ‘Well, so have you,’ I pointed out. ‘That’s why both schools are in the final! Surely they’re just good at answering general knowledge questions?’

  ‘Before they’re even asked?’ said Izzy.

  ‘Huh?’ I said.

  ‘It’s not very noticeable until you listen carefully for it, because the questions are very quick-fire,’ explained Izzy. ‘But it’s like this: each team has a buzzer, right? First team to buzz gets first go at answering, right? Several times, Spykeside have buzzed before that twerpy DJ who’s asking the questions has even finished.’

  ‘Lucky guesses?’ I said. ‘You see that sometimes on quiz shows. People can sometimes correctly anticipate the question.’

  ‘Forty-three times?’ said Izzy. ‘Once we started getting suspicious, I went back and checked. I counted. Don’t forget, Spykeside have been in exactly the same number of heats as we have. That’s forty-three times in three half-hour quizzes they’ve pressed their buzzer before the end of the question. And thirteen of those times, they pressed the buzzer before you could sensibly anticipate what the question was going to be. Like I said, it’s actually quite easy to miss unless you’re listening out for it, because of the speed of the questions.’

  ‘It could still be that they’re simply very, very bright,’ I said.

  ‘OK,’ said Izzy. ‘Here’s an example. Answer this question: Who was the third actor . . . ?’

  I stared at her. ‘The third actor who what?’ I asked.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Izzy.

  ‘That’s when Spykeside buzzed,’ said Jeremy. ‘And they got it right. Roger Moore. Who was the third actor to play James Bond in the official movie series?’

  I thought for a moment, hmmmm-ing and wrinkling my nose. ‘I guess they could still have worked it out,’ I said. ‘After all, the words “third actor” narrow down possible answers to just a handful. If three actors have all played one part, then it must be an unusually successful and long-running part. And how many of those are there? Saying “James Bond” could have been an answer based on weighing up the limited possibilities and some very fast thinking.’

  Jeremy muttered, ‘It might have been: Who was the third actor to get swept out to sea by a giant squid at last year’s Dorset Film Festival?’

  I pulled an oh-yeahhh-right face at him. ‘I don’t think that’s very likely, do you?’

  ‘OK, answering a barely-asked question once or twice could be down to very fast thinking,’ said Izzy. ‘But thirteen times? Try these three:

  ‘Question one: In what year did the first [BUZZ!] . . .?

  ‘Question two: In which play by Shakespeare does the main character say [BUZZ!] . . .?

  ‘Question three: At what temperature does [BUZZ!] . . .?

  ‘Spykeside had answered them all correctly.’

  Hmmmmm.

  What do you think? Can you work out the answers? Did Spykeside cheat?

  I scratched my head. Then I scratched my chin. Then I scratched my nose. Once I’d run out of things to scratch, I said, ‘No idea. What year was the first sausage roll made? In which Shakespeare play does someone say “Hey dude, check out my cool new trainers”? At what temperature does our form tutor Mrs Penzler explode? Those questions could refer to anything.’

  ‘So you can’t answer them?’ said Izzy.

  ‘Well, the last one might be about the boiling point of water, maybe?’

  ‘Close,’ said Izzy. ‘It was about the freezing point of water.’

  ‘Zero degrees centigrade,’ said Jeremy.

  ‘I know that!’ I said.

  ‘Sorry,’ mumbled Jeremy. ‘Y’know, if you haven't done your science homework yet . . .’

  ‘I have to admit,’ I said, ‘it looks very much like Spykeside did know what the questions were going to be. They did cheat. What were the other answers?’

  ‘The first one was 1969. In what year did the first man land on the moon? The second was Hamlet. In which play by Shakespeare does the main character say “To be or not to be”?’

  ‘You’re right,’ I said, ‘the odds of correctly guessing the answers over and over again would be pretty slim. But maybe that’s simply their strategy for playing? Buzz in quick and take a guess, just to stop the other team from answering first?’

  Izzy and Jeremy both groaned.

  ‘Did you even listen to the heats we were in?’ said Izzy.

  ‘Yes!’ I cried. ‘Well, I had the radio on while I was working on some case notes.’

  ‘Spykeside can’t be using a “buzz in quick” strategy,’ said Izzy, ‘because you lose a point if you get the answer wrong. It’s two points for a right answer, minus one point for a wrong answer. If they were just making guesses they’d end up with a negative score!’

  ‘Ah, right, yes, I remember now,’ I said hurriedly, ‘a-hem, yes, a-hem. So what made you suspicious about the Spykeside team in the first place? Did they say something to you?’

  ‘No, none of the St Egbert’s team has ever met them,’ said Jeremy.

  ‘Because it’s a knockout competition,’ said Izzy, ‘there are several teams we’ve not played, and by the luck of the draw Spykeside are one of them. The grand final on Saturday is the first and only time we’ll get to meet them. We became suspicious simply by listening to the other heats, and to the way Spykeside kept jumping in with correct answers. After that, I asked around to see if anyone I knew had any contacts at Spykeside. Nobody had, but one of my cousins [Izzy has loads of cousins. Loads. Several hundred, you’d think, judging from the way her network of cousins was always able to come up trumps.] was at one of the earlier recordings, over at a school near Birmingham. She never got to talk to any of them, but she said they looked like a bunch of rejects from a gangster movie.’

  ‘Do we know their names?’ I asked.

  ‘Unfortunately not,’ said Izzy. ‘For the competition the Spykeside team are using aliases: Superguy, Captain Cool, the Brainiator and Mr Electron.’

  ‘Oh yuk!’ I snorted.

  ‘Dreadful, right?’ said Izzy. ‘But the radio station seem to think it’s cute, so they’re playing along. The official Brain Boom Schools Quiz Challenge website includes photos of most of the teams, but Spykeside isn’t included. Spykeside School’s own website doesn’t even mention the quiz – I don’t think it’s been updated for about two years.’

  I adopted a detective-style, deep-thinking expression. ‘That’s very odd,’ I said. ‘It’s almost as if they’re trying to hide their identities.’

  ‘They’re also being very clever about this whole cheating business,’ said Izzy. ‘They never overdo it. The cheating only be
comes noticeable once you start listening for it. They keep letting the other team get ahead, but then before the end of the quiz they slowly overtake on points with a steady run of correct answers. And now and again they answer a question with a wildly wrong answer, so it looks like they’re in a panic.’

  ‘Interesting,’ I muttered. ‘There are some genuine brains at work there, then. Who’s setting the quiz questions?’

  ‘Someone at Vibe FM,’ said Jeremy. ‘We think it’s probably the DJ who’s being the quizmaster.’

  ‘And the big question,’ I said, ‘the one we’ve not mentioned so far, is: Why cheat? What’s first prize in this competition?’

  ‘The winning school gets a thousand pounds for their library,’ said Izzy. ‘Each member of the winning team gets a hundred pounds in book vouchers, plus a hundred free music downloads from Vibe FM, plus a one-year free pass to every theme park and tourist attraction that’s worth going to.’

  ‘Not bad,’ I said. ‘I guess that lot’s worth cheating for, then. What we need to work out is —’

  At that moment, we all heard a distinct scratching noise coming from outside the shed. We froze, listening.

  It was a sharp, scraping sound. Someone was beside the door, out of sight of the shed’s perspex window.

  Izzy leaned over to me and whispered, ‘I think we’ve been followed.’

  I nodded. Jeremy stood there looking terrified.

  Slowly, trying to make sure I didn’t creak any floorboards, I crept over to the door. I put my shoulder to it, ready to fling it open and catch whoever-it-was before they could escape.

  Had our conversation been overheard? Had the Spykeside team sent someone to spy on us?

  I looked back at Izzy. Three . . . Two . . . One . . . Go!

  I crashed open the shed door and bounded outside. I was going to shout ‘A-ha! Caught you!’ but what I actually shouted was ‘Whoaaaaa!’

  I tripped over a solid mass that was lurking beside the door and went head over heels on to the garden lawn. I spun around. I found myself staring into the wrinkly, snuffly face of Jeremy’s huge slobbery dog, Humphrey.

  ‘Jeremy!’ I yelled, as that great drooling hound came lolloping towards me. ‘He’s got out again! Help! Heeeeelp!’

  Jeremy caught Humphrey by the collar and started going all huggy cuddly over his wuvvwy poochie-poo. Made me feel ill.

  ‘Can’t you keep him under control?’ I grumbled, scrambling to my feet before Humphrey could start dribbling on me. ‘That dog escapes and comes looking for you every five minutes!’

  ‘He’s a cwevvver doggie, aren’t you, humphy-wumphy,’ said Jeremy.

  I hate that dog.

  A Page From My Notebook

  It seems fairly clear that Spykeside ARE cheating. Either that or they’ve got the ability to look a few seconds into the future, see what questions are coming up and then know how to answer them perfectly . . . Hmm. No, they’re cheating.

  QUESTION: HOW are they cheating? If it’s a case of knowing the questions in advance, then . . .

  ANSWER 1: They’re STEALING the questions before each quiz.

  OR ANSWER 2: They’re BEING GIVEN the questions before each quiz.

  If ANSWER 1 is correct, then HOW are they doing it? If ANSWER 2 is correct, then WHO is helping them? (Someone at Vibe FM, presumably.) And WHY? (Why would Vibe FM want to fix the result of the competition?)

  WAIT! POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVE CHEATING METHOD! Could it be that the Spykeside team have discovered WHERE Vibe FM are getting the questions from (a particular online encyclopedia, something like that), and are using that same source of info to learn facts from? In other words, could it be that they’re NOT getting the actual questions in advance, but simply studying the SOURCE of the questions (whether it’s a book, an online database, or whatever)?

  WAIT! Hang on, no. That’s not possible. It means they’d have to LEARN that entire encyclopedia. Which means they’d have to have the world’s best memories. Which means they’d have no need to cheat!

  No, they MUST be getting the actual questions in advance.

  What should be the next step in my investigation?

  PLAN A: Ideally, I need to talk to someone at Spykeside School. However, from what Izzy and Jeremy have told me, that’s unlikely to be possible. Is there any way I could go undercover at Spykeside myself? That seems even less likely. I’d be rumbled instantly.

  PLAN B: The first thing I must do is listen to those other radio shows. There may be some more clues to be picked up.

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  I SPENT THE EVENING LOGGED on to the Hear It Again page of Vibe FM’s website, listening to all the quiz heats I’d missed and making notes. (I tried answering the questions myself as I went along. After only seven heats I’d amassed the same number of correct answers as the St Egbert’s team had scored in their first round. I was quite pleased with myself.)

  Once I’d finished, I could see exactly why Izzy and Jeremy had become suspicious of the Spykeside team. The questions were pretty rapid-fire, so it was easy to miss the fact that Spykeside were anticipating questions rather too regularly. However, once I’d clicked the rewind button here and there and listened carefully, I could spot the remarkable snappiness of their answers to questions like that ‘Who was the third actor . . .’ one.

  I’d also spotted something else – something Izzy and the rest of the St Egbert’s team hadn’t. Here are some figures I jotted down as I listened to the three heats Spykeside had taken part in so far: Do you notice something about the Spykeside team?

  There was one member of the Spykeside team – this Mr Electron person – who hadn’t answered a single question, either right or wrong. (Also, you could see that Spykeside’s quarter-final opponents had one really rubbish team member. But that’s not relevant to the case. I’m just pointing it out.)

  Listening to those quizzes, it was clear that this Mr Electron person hadn’t so much as spoken.

  Weird.

  At school the next day – Friday – I sat next to Izzy at lunchtime. I told her about my discovery.

  ‘Weird,’ she said.

  ‘Your cousin,’ I said, ‘the one who saw one of the earlier heats being recorded. She didn’t mention anything about this Mr Electron person, did she? I mean, the team isn’t three people and a knitted mascot or something?’

  ‘No,’ said Izzy. ‘Definitely four Spykeside pupils.’

  ‘So why would they have one member of the team who never says anything?’

  Izzy shrugged. ‘Maybe he’s very shy. Or a bit dim.’

  ‘But they’re cheating,’ I said. ‘They all know the answers.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s the only one in the team who isn’t cheating?’ said Izzy. ‘Perhaps he’s found out what’s going on and the others have shut him up?’

  ‘That’s possible, I suppose,’ I mumbled. ‘Or perhaps he’s decided to say nothing and walk away with the prizes like the rest of them. I wish we could get a look at these guys.’

  Izzy almost leaped out of her seat. ‘That reminds me! I did a lot more searching last night and I found a photo. A very bad one, but it’s better than nothing.’

  From her school bag she produced a website printout. Sandwiched in between a couple of short articles and a fringe of adverts, there was a small, rather dark picture.

  ‘I got this from a local news site that covers Spykeside,’ said Izzy. ‘It was only posted a couple of days ago. That’s why I didn’t find anything last time I looked.’

  Under the photo was a paragraph which read:

  The head teacher of Spykeside School, Mr Bradley Mole, poses with the team who have made it through to the final of the Brain Boom Schools Quiz Challenge: (left to right) Captain Cool, Superguy, the Brainiator and Mr Electron.

  The head teacher looked like he’d recently arisen from the grave, and the Spykeside team were (left to right) three bug-eyed uglies and a fuzzy blur. The Brainiator was a bruiser who looked like he’d eaten a bag of nails for
breakfast. And then eaten another bag of nails, just to show how tough he was.

  ‘What a bunch,’ I whistled. ‘Do you suppose this was taken in a distorting mirror? I can only hope this was taken in a distorting mirror.’

  ‘There’s the silent Mr Electron on the right,’ said Izzy. ‘He must have moved his head just as the picture was taken.’

  I held the paper up close to my nose. I squinted a bit, and angled the picture into the sunlight that was flooding through the dining hall windows, but nothing revealed any further details.

  ‘I wonder,’ I said, ‘if this Mr Electron person doesn’t want to be heard, perhaps he doesn’t want to be seen either.’

  ‘You think he’s trying to stay anonymous?’ asked Izzy.

  ‘I think the whole team is trying to stay as anonymous as possible,’ I replied. ‘But this Mr Electron person is keeping himself positively invisible. Can I keep this picture?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I think I’ll take it over to Muddy’s lab after school. He might have some gizmo which will get us a better look at it.’

  My great friend George ‘Muddy’ Whitehouse was St Egbert’s School’s unofficial Head of Technical Wizardry. Anything he didn’t know about the world of gadgets probably wasn’t worth knowing.

  Later that day, while Izzy was digging around for any more information which might be useful, I went to see Muddy in the garage attached to his house – or his Development Laboratory, as he prefers to call it. He was busy adapting a couple of old bikes into a go-cart. As always, his school uniform was littered with an assortment of oil stains, food stains and plain old-fashioned grime. He wiped his greasy hands on his shirt before taking Izzy’s printout from me.

  ‘Is this the best photo you can find?’ he said, scrunching up his face to peer closely at it.

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ I said.

  ‘Brilliant!’ he declared. ‘It’ll give me a chance to try out the Whitehouse OptiScope Mark 3.’