Davina Dupree Catches a Crook

by SK Sheridan

  ‘But don’t worry, dear Egmont girls,’ Mr Portly wrung his hands and looked like he was about to burst into tears. ‘I’ll look after you while poor Mrs Fairchild is in hospital. I’ll run the school until she comes back. Oh dear-‘ he snorted, pulling a blue and white spotted handkerchief out of his pocket and trumpeting into it. ‘This really is too sad.’

  ‘Poor Mr Portly,’ Arabella whispered as we all filed out, most girls looking pale faced. ‘He’s a kind man but not a natural leader.’

  ‘Let’s meet up at lunchtime,’ Angel muttered as she passed us. ‘We definitely need to discuss this!’

  Shocking turn of events.com!

  Sunday, 7th March

  Me, Arabella, Diya and Angel discussed Mrs Fairchild’s mysterious illness over our fennel and smoked salmon bagels at lunch yesterday.

  ‘I hate to admit it,’ Angel said, chomping away. ‘But Clarice could be right. Mrs Fairchild does love to put odd food combinations together – do you remember when she was going round telling everyone that sprout and chocolate sandwiches were just the best thing EVER?’

  ‘Ew yes,’ Arabella giggled. ‘Davina, do you remember when we knocked on Mrs Fairchild’s door to ask for the key to the helicopter warehouse and found her eating tomato, cabbage and sherbet flavoured gravy?’

  ‘Yes,’ I smiled, remembering how delighted Mrs Fairchild had looked with this new combination. ‘She even offered us some!’ We all pulled faces at the thought.

  ‘I wish there was something we could do to help her,’ Diya said, picking bits off her bagel and pushing them round her plate. ‘Mrs Fairchild is such a sweetie. It’s just not the same here without her.’

  We had double art in the afternoon – yes! - and Miss Cherry and Miss Wise suggested we all make cards for Mrs Fairchild to cheer her up. I was just in the middle of a really complicated bit, sticking real dried fruit into a flat basket I’d woven out of thin dried straw, getting it ready to stick onto my pink, glittery, FABULOUS ‘Get Well Soon’ card, when the school microphones were switched on and we could all hear Mr Portly clearing his throat. Each classroom has several pink and white speakers fitted to the ceiling so that if anyone needs to make an announcement we can all hear it at the same time. Quite clever really.com. #amazing what you can do with technology.

  ‘My dear girls,’ he began, his voice shaking. ‘This is the most effective way I could think of telling you the latest news about our dear Mrs Fairchild. And it’s not good I’m afraid.’ He paused and we could hear loud sniffing and snorting going on. ‘I don’t know how to tell you this, so I might as well say it. The doctor’s tests have come back and it appears that, I can hardly believe I’m going to say this, Mrs Fairchild has been poisoned.’

  I dropped my glue stick. Diya burst into tears and even Miss Wise and Miss Cherry went pale. For once Clarice and Cleo didn’t have any stupid remarks to make, they just stood there with their mouths open.

  ‘I know this must be a shock to all of you,’ Mr Portly’s voice was getting higher and higher. ‘Dear Mrs Pumpernickle has asked me to tell you that if anyone is feeling upset and wants to talk to her about it, her door is always open. I must also warn you, Egmont girls, that there will be a few unfortunate disruptions to our school life over the next few days. Because the doctors haven’t yet identified exactly what the poison is or where it came from, the police will soon be arriving here to conduct an investigation into whether or not foul play was involved. Basically this means they want to find out if someone poisoned Mrs Fairchild on purpose. Oh I’m too upset, I can’t say anymore...’ there was a loud crackling and sniffing then the microphone snapped off.

  We stared at each other, mouths open, faces pale. Diya was too shocked to cry any more. Poison Mrs Fairchild on purpose? But who on EARTH would do a thing like that? She’s the sweetest, most lovely lamb in the world.

  Miss Wise and Miss Cherry told us to get on with our art if we could, but not to worry if we needed to just sit quietly for a while. I find that doing art makes me feel calmer, so I carried on, not wanting to talk to anybody, Mr Portly’s words going round and round in my head. I finished the basket, stuck it on the card and drew lots of extra pictures of flowers and hearts to stick all over it, all the time thinking about Mrs Fairchild. By the time the card was finished, I felt calmer, but I felt ANGRY. If someone thought they could poison Mrs Fairchild and get away with it, they had another think coming. She had always been SO good to me, there was no way I was going to let her down now, when she needed help. I decided right there and then that I was going to do EVERYTHING possible to get to the bottom of this mystery and uncover the truth about the poison, and I was pretty certain Arabella would want to do the same.

  Monday, 8th March

  Prepare yourself, Diary, there’s more shocking news...

  Golly, police are literally SWARMING round the school. I found one patrolling the corridor outside our dorm this morning, he gave me such a fright I dropped my silver, sequinned history folder and papers fell out and splatted all over the floor. We’ve all been interviewed and the police are conducting investigations into what the poison might be and where it came from, not a nice business.com.

  Arabella and I had just called an emergency meeting with Diya and Angel in our dorm because we know they love Mrs Fairchild as much as we do and we wanted to know if they wanted to help us do some detective work. They’d just begun to get excited and we were talking about maybe sneaking into Mrs Fairchild’s office to look for clues, when there was a THUMP THUMP THUMP on the door. Arabella fell off her bed in shock, although she likes doing that and I think she would have done it anyway, crazy girl.com.

  The door opened and a scarred, meaty face appeared.

  ‘Hello girls, I’m Detective Inspector Frank Clifford. I’m looking for Diya Gala and Angel Anderson, we’ve got reason to believe they might be able to help us with our investigation.’

  ‘I’m Diya and she’s Angel,’ Diya said pointing at her friend, her big brown eyes trying to read the detective’s face. ‘I’m not sure how we can help you but we’ll certainly try.’

  ‘Come with me please ladies, this is a private matter and Dr Aardvark has kindly said we can use his study to talk things over,’ Detective Clifford held the door open wide and beckoned them to come through.

  ‘Listen, what’s all this about?’ Angel sounded like she was getting stressed so I put my hand on her arm. She has a very fiery temper and I didn’t want her to start being rude to a detective, that sort of thing could lead to all SORTS of trouble. ‘Can’t you talk to us here in front of our friends?’

  ‘Not really,’ Detective Clifford scratched his pock marked face. ‘You see, we have it on good authority that you two were the last two people to see Mrs Fairchild before she was poisoned. Dr Aardvark has confirmed that he saw both of you entering her study at approximately half past eight the evening before she was taken ill, holding some sort of drink or potion.’

  ‘It wasn’t a POTION it was a large mug of hot chocolate,’ Angel shouted. I could tell she was scared because her arm was shaking. ‘The first years take it in turns to bring Mrs Fairchild her evening drink and we all like doing it because she always gives whoever’s done it some yummy biscuits.’

  ‘I can confirm this is all true, Detective,’ Diya said, looking more solemn and serious than I’ve ever seen her look in my life. ‘Angel and I made her a double hot chocolate and put squirty cream and marshmallows on the top. Mrs Fairchild was so pleased with it that she gave us three Honeycomb Crunchers each.’

  ‘Ooh, did she really?’ Arabella drooled. ‘They’re SO yummy, the way they’re all hard on the outside and gooey inside...’ I nudged her hard, this REALLY wasn’t the time to be praising biscuits.

  ‘These are all things we need to discuss, girls, so if you would kindly come with me we can all sit down and sort things out,’ Detective Clifford sounded kind but very firm. ‘You see, as you two were the last people to be seen entering Mrs Fairchild’s study with a liquid that we
know she drank, I’m afraid to say that at the moment you are our prime suspects.’

  ‘What?’ Arabella screeched, as Diya and Angel got up and allowed themselves to be shuffled out of the room looking pale and confused. ‘This is RIDICULOUS! Are you seriously suggesting Angel and Diya poisoned Mrs Fairchild?’

  ‘Calm down,’ I said to Arabella in a low but very firm voice. ‘It won’t help them if we get in trouble too. We need to help them properly Arabella, so please shut up until Detective Inspector Clifford has gone.’

  Tuesday, 9th March

  Time for some serious detective work, Diary.

  We seem to be facing a crisis at Egmont Exclusive Boarding School for Girls. Yesterday, after Diya and Angel had been taken away for questioning, Arabella and I tried to regroup and assess the situation, which was very difficult because Arabella has a hot temper and kept stomping round the dorm, picking things up and smashing them down again, most distracting.com, #fiery redhead.

  ‘Can you put my new phone down gently please?’ I said, feeling rather alarmed when she picked up my amazing new present from my old nanny, Carrie Whepple. It’s a phone but has loads of other cool functions, like you can write essays on it and print them off on its mini printer, you can watch television programmes from any country around the world, you can even programme it to smell like a particular place, for example if you press the seaside button wafts of suntan lotion, salty sea, fish and chips and hot sun come out of the phone’s speaker. If you press the mountain air button, a crisp, flowery, light scent comes out, it’s SO cool.com, # so please don’t break my phone Arabella!

  ‘Actually,’ I said, thinking fast. ‘Can you pass me the phone, no don’t chuck it just pass it over, I think Carrie would be gutted if it got broken.’

  Arabella sighed and passed it to me, then came and sat down on my enormous bed. I’ve got my most FAVOURITE duvet cover on at the moment, one with a large photo of me and Arabella on our school trip to Ni Island printed on it. We look really happy but very cold, standing on a desert island in the middle of winter with strange little animals sitting on our feet!

  I opened up a new blank typing sheet on my phone. For short bits of writing I like to use my phone but don’t worry, dear Diary, it will never replace YOU!

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Let’s go through the case so far and I’ll write down everything we know. Then it’ll become clear what we need to do next to help Mrs Fairchild, Diya and Angel.’

  ‘Good idea,’ Arabella grunted, looking slightly more cheerful. She rolled on to her back. ‘I like having a plan. You’re so good at keeping calm in a crisis, Davina, I don’t know how you do it. So, as far as we all know, this whole thing started on Saturday morning when Mr Portly found Mrs Fairchild. We know that Diya and Angel were probably the last ones to see her and that for some reason Dr Aardvark was very keen for them to be questioned about the poison in his study. To be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was HIM who poisoned poor Mrs Fairchild. Everything was fine until he came to the school and then suddenly our headmistress collapses!’

  ‘Yes, but Mr Portly’s new too,’ I reminded her, tapping away at the phone’s keypad, recording everything she said. ‘If we are suspecting new people surely we should include him?’

  ‘Fine, put him on the suspect list,’ Arabella said. ‘But he seems pretty harmless if you ask me.’

  I stared at the screen, taking in everything I’d written. It said: Suspects so far: Dr Aardvark, Mr Portly, Diya and Angel, (although we don’t really think it was them).

  ‘I reckon we need to do a bit of snooping around in Mrs Fairchild’s study,’ I said, scratching my head. ‘So far we don’t have any clues to go on, just a few facts and if we’re going to prove Angel and Diya were just in the wrong place at the wrong time and had nothing to do with the poisoning we need hard evidence to back up our claims.’

  ‘Mrs Fairchild’s study is being kept locked at the moment and Mr Portly has the key on a big bunch that he attaches to his belt,’ Arabella said. ‘I saw him locking it up the other day, sniffing and dabbing his eyes. He really is such an emotional man.’

  ‘I’ve just remembered that my old art sketchbook is still in Mrs Fairchild’s study,’ I said slowly, feeling a plan forming. ‘Do you remember Mrs Fairchild borrowing it last week to show to parents who were looking round the school?’ Arabella nodded. Mrs Fairchild always asks for a selection of books to show visitors so they can see the kind of work we do here. ‘We can go and find Mr Portly and I’ll explain that I DESPERATELY need my sketchbook back as there are plans in it that I need to look at for my new art project, which is kind of true although I do have photocopies, and we can offer to take the key and get the book ourselves as we know how much going back into her study upsets him!’

  ‘I like your thinking, my dear!’ Arabella rolled off the bed and stood up. ‘Come on then, what are we waiting for? No time like the present, and all that.’

  I’ll tell you about the unexpected shock we had as a result of all our planning later, Diary – I’ve got to go now as we’ve got cooking with Marcel and he’s going to show us how to make Ballerina Cakes, yummy.com, then after that we’ve got Geography with moody Dr Aardvark, boo!

  Later that evening, Tuesday 9th March

  So anyway Diary,

  I’m literally SO FULL right now I can hardly move! The Ballerina Cakes were SO amazing. They went up in layers like wedding cakes, but each layer was part of the ballerina’s skirt made from floaty pink and white sugar paper. We made the body and head out of different coloured marzipan and icing, then Marcel showed us how to put it all together. Mine was a bit wonky but she still looked impressive and she smelled all sweet and almondy. I took some photos on my flash new phone to show Carrie, then Marcel said we could eat some of our cakes before Geography. #Ate too much, #will never have to eat again, #can’t move or walk properly now.

  But anyway, back to detective business. So yesterday afternoon, Arabella and I went off to find Mr Portly, who was changing some fairy-light bulbs in the dining room, (Mr Portly LOVES lights, bless him, he’s always adding to the atmosphere of Egmont by installing newer and more glittery ones in every room possible). We told him about my sketchbook and at first he looked horrified when he thought we wanted him to go back into Mrs Fairchild’s study.

  ‘Oh I can’t girls, I’m terribly sorry,’ he held his hand against his heart and went pale. ‘That room holds such bad memories for me, poor Mrs Fairchild was lying there on the chaise longue so quietly, so still. Oh dear me-‘ He took out a giant handkerchief and blew his nose into it.

  ‘Don’t worry Mr Portly,’ Arabella said cheerfully. ‘Davina and I don’t mind going to get the sketchbook, no need for you to go back into that study at all.’

  ‘Oh you dear girls,’ Mr Portly regained some colour in his cheeks and fumbled around on the giant key ring around his waist. ‘You brave soldiers. Here’s the key, give it a jolly good twist, the lock can be quite stiff sometimes.’

  So soon, Arabella and I were safely inside Mrs Fairchild’s study, ALONE!

  ‘Come on,’ I said, immediately spotting my sketchbook on a bookshelf and putting it next to the door so I didn’t forget it. ‘Let’s have a look round for anything unusual, anything that looks out of place or like it doesn’t belong here. I reckon we’ve been in Mrs Fairchild’s study enough times to recognize where everything should be, don’t you?’

  Arabella nodded and we set to work, examining the desk, shelves, cabinets, cupboards and especially the chaise longue. Mrs Fairchild does keep some odd things around but then we’ve always known that, so we didn’t pay much attention to the pair of bongo drums, the book about cheerleading or the row of fancy dress outfits.

  ‘Hang on, what’s this?’ Arabella turned round from the drinks cabinet next to the chaise longue, holding a beautiful, small pink bottle with a label hanging from its neck. ‘I don’t remember this being here before, do you?’

  ‘No, I would have remembered it because it’s so
pretty. Is there anything written on the label?’ I said, going over.

  ‘”To Dearest Mrs Fairchild”’, Arabella read. ‘”A small gift from a grateful new employee. I’m so excited to be working at Egmont now and hope to serve you and the girls well as your new deputy head. I shall always cherish the day your letter arrived telling me I’d got my dream job. With best wishes and much admiration, your faithful servant Clarence Portly”. It’s from Mr Portly and look, it’s only half full!’

  ‘Mrs Fairchild must have drunk half already,’ I took the bottle and turned it round in my hands, reading the ingredients. ‘It says it’s dessert wine.’ I took the stopper out and smelled it. ‘Ew, very sweet. But Mr Portly’s such a sensitive soul, you don’t really think-‘

  At that moment the study door crashed open and Detective Inspector Clifford strode in. He was NOT looking amused.

  ‘Girls! What on earth are you doing in here?’ He barked. ‘I thought I heard chatting. This room is strictly off limits to pupils, it’s the crime scene for goodness sake.’ He arrived next to me and yanked the pink bottle out of my hands, very rudely I thought.

  ‘What have we here?’ He growled, reading the dangling label. ‘Hmm, very interesting. Very interesting indeed. Why didn’t my men find this when they did their search?’

  Arabella and I shook our heads and looked confused. How on earth were we supposed to know the answer to that!

  ‘I’ll bag this and take it down to the police station for testing,’ Detective Clifford said, glaring at us. ‘And I have a feeling your deputy head will be accompanying me to help us with our enquiries. And from now on, you two meddling kids stay AWAY from the crime scene. Do you understand?’