The Black Cat Detectives

by Wendy Meddour

  “It’s not a game, Ammi,” insisted Shaima. “It’s a matter of life and death.”

  Mrs Stalk nodded and winked. “Yes, of course it is,” she said.

  Dad’s Balancing Trick

  The following morning, Dad was standing on the banister at the bottom of the stairs.

  “What are you doing, Dad?” asked Ramzi.

  Dad was wobbling dangerously. “I found this book in the attic,” he said, waving a sky-blue book in the air.

  “Careful, Dad, you’ll fall!”

  “No. I won’t,” beamed Dad. “I’m already on Stage Three.”

  Ramzi tilted his head upwards to read the book’s cover:

  REACH FOR THE SKIES:

  Overcoming Vertigo in Six Simple Stages

  “Dad, get down! You’ll hurt yourself.”

  “Can’t. Talk. Now,” said Dad.

  Ramzi chewed on his lip. “Look, Dad. You don’t have to go up in the hot air balloon if you don’t want to.”

  “Will. Come. Just. Need. More. ‘Exposure. Treatment’. Before. ‘Changing. State. Of. Mind’.”

  “All right, Dad,” said Ramzi. He ran under the outstretched arm and into the kitchen.

  “Have you done fajr yet?” asked Mum. She was bobbing up and down with Baby Zed strapped to her chest whilst toasting some crumpets.

  “Yeh, ’course,” said Ramzi. “Have you seen Dad?”

  Mum smiled. “Is he still preparing himself for lift-off?”

  Ramzi nodded. “Won’t he be late for work?”

  “Mohamed!” yelled Mum, looking at the clock. “Get down. It’s nearly half past eight.”

  There was a CLATTER and a THUD. Ramzi and Mum waited. When Dad staggered into the kitchen, he looked a little green. “I just need to find a bridge in my lunch hour,” he said, grabbing his thermos flask.

  “A bridge?” asked Ramzi.

  “Trust the Creator, little warrior,” he said. Then he kissed them all goodbye and raced out of the door.

  “Will he be all right?” said Ramzi. “What does he need a bridge for?”

  “More ‘exposure treatment’, I suppose,” said Mum. “Don’t worry, poppet. He loves nothing better than a challenge. Now pass me the chocolate spread.”

  Ramzi tucked into the chocolatey crumpet and smiled. Everything felt better when chocolate spread was melting on your tongue.

  But something was niggling away inside him. Then he remembered. Rasheed Khan and the newspaper! He wanted to tell Mum. She’d know what to do.

  “Mum,” began Ramzi. “You know that Rasheed Khan...”

  “Yes?” smiled Mum. “Mrs Stalk did mention him. Quite a looker, isn’t he? What about him?”

  “Well,” began Ramzi. “He’s got this....”

  “Waaaaaaaaaa!” It was Baby Zed.

  “Oh dear, she’s woken up again. Sorry, love. Another time, eh?” smiled Mum.

  Ramzi nodded.

  Money Troubles

  “They’re out,” shouted a voice. Ramzi was knocking on Shaima’s door when he turned round to find Benjamin Butley running towards him.

  “I didn’t know you were back,” said Ramzi. “Aren’t you s’posed to be on your dad’s barge?”

  “S’got a leak,” said Benjamin. “Had to come back to Mum’s. Wanna play football? We could do sliding tackles.”

  “Dunno.” Ramzi kicked a stone across the path. “I’ve gotta help Shaima with something,” he said.

  Benjamin Butley screwed up his nose. “Help Shaima Stalk? Like the ‘walking encyclopaedia’ needs help! Anyway, told you. They’re out. Saw their car. Come on. Let’s go to the park.” He threw the ball at Ramzi and shouted: “HEADERS.”

  Ramzi leapt in the air and felt the welcome sting of leather on his forehead.

  “AND HE SCORES!” yelled Benjamin Butley.

  Ramzi laughed and kicked the football down Cinnamon Grove.

  ***

  Shaima was sitting in the back of the people-carrier, ‘exercising her little grey cells’. There was only one explanation for the Stalks’ sudden visit to Aunty Zakiya’s. The newspaper article about the Quainlong vase – it must have been true!

  “She says it’s a matter of great urgency,” said Mrs Stalk, arranging her scarf in the overhead mirror.

  “Well, it better be,” said Mr Stalk. “I’ve taken the day off work.”

  “She’s not one to make a fuss about nothing,” said Nanna Stalk. “It’s a shame Urooj isn’t here. I wonder what it’s all about?”

  Shaima rubbed her spectacles until they shone.

  When they arrived at the cottage, the door was already ajar.

  “Zakiya,” called Nanna Stalk. “Are you in?”

  “Yes,” came a distant reply. They took off their shoes and pushed past the boxes. Shaima noticed the long black niqab hanging by the door.

  “Alhamdulillah, you’re here,” said Aunty Zakiya. She looked different this time. She was wearing pink tracksuit bottoms and a stripy top – her pony tail bobbing on one side.

  “Are you all right?” asked Mr Stalk. “We got your message. What’s happened?”

  Aunty Zakiya kissed them all and sighed. “I suppose I should be happy,” she said. “But I feel terrible.”

  “Why? What’s happened?” asked Mrs Stalk. “What’s wrong?”

  Aunty Zakiya passed a rolled-up newspaper to Mr Stalk and he straightened it out. Shaima recognised the picture straight away. It was the same as the one she’d seen through the telescope. The one Rasheed had been reading at the Café Rouge.

  “Subhan’Allah!” exclaimed Mr Stalk. “Is that a picture of you? So... you’ve... well, subhan’Allah!!”

  “Pass me that,” ordered Nanna Stalk. She peered through her thick glasses and scanned the words. “Alhamdulillah!” she said, squeezing her daughter’s arm. “I always said you should deal in antiques. What wonderful news!”

  “But is it?” asked Aunty Zakiya.

  They looked at her blankly.

  “Of course it is! You’ve just come into millions of pounds,” said Nanna Stalk, stabbing the paper. “Your future is secure. How can this not be good news?”

  “But I don’t want more money,” sighed Aunty Zakiya. “I don’t even like money. It makes things complicated. I just like old things.”

  “She had a difficult birth,” sighed Nanna Stalk, throwing the newspaper down on an antique cake-trolley. “That’s why she talks such nonsense.”

  Mr Stalk raised an eyebrow.

  “Mustafa,” pleaded Aunty Zakiya. “Will you help me?”

  “Of course,” said Mr Stalk. “Mr Ramadan knows a lot about stocks and shares.”

  “No, I don’t mean that. I want you and Urooj to have it. I’ll give some to charity, of course, but...” she grabbed Mr Stalk’s hand, “you could buy a bigger building for The Spice Pot and Urooj always needs money for research. Take it off my hands, brother. It’s such a burden.”

  Mr Stalk looked puzzled. “A burden? Are you sure about this?”

  She nodded.

  “All right then, Zakiya – you’re one in a million.” He hugged her tight, his long black beard tickling her face.

  She brushed it away. “And we can put some aside for Amin and Shaima’s University fees, and pay for Ammi’s chiropody bills and Iqbal can have...” Aunty Zakiya paused to think.

  “Can I have an ice-cream, please?” asked Iqbal.

  Aunty Zakiya laughed. “Yes – and Iqbal can have an ice-cream. Shaima – they’re in the freezer. Go help yourselves.”

  Shaima nodded thoughtfully as she wandered past the cake-trolley and into the kitchen. There was a scrumpling sound of paper as she left the room, but no one noticed. Stuffing something into her salwar kameez, she squeezed past a grandfather clock, opened the freezer and passed Iqbal a cornet. Then, taking one for herself, she went outside.

  Shaima looked at the apple trees and sighed. If only Aunty Urooj wasn’t in Dusseldorf. If only she knew about the money. Or rather, if only she knew that Rasheed Kha
n knew about the money. Shaima peeled off the wrapper and licked the top of her walnut whip.

  “LOOK AT ME!” shouted Iqbal. He was hanging upside-down from an old tree, his ice-cream dripping on to the grass.

  “IQBAL – BE CAREFUL!” yelled Shaima.

  “Everything’s upside-down,” giggled Iqbal.

  “You’re going to fall!” yelled Shaima.

  “Wheheee!” cried Iqbal – his legs swinging in the air.

  Shaima ran across the grass, grabbed his little body and plonked him on the floor. “Look at you!” she scolded. “You’re covered in ice-cream. What’s Ammi going to say?”

  Tears welled up in Iqbal’s eyes and his bottom lip began to quiver. “Iqbal all sorry. It was only an accident,” he said.

  Shaima slumped on to the grass next to him. “No. I’m sorry, Iqbal,” she said. “It’s just that... well... I think it might be all my fault. Everything’s going wrong. I mean... if Rasheed marries Aunty Urooj and burns her special beetle collection, it’ll be because of me. You’ve not been naughty. You’re just sticky. That’s all.”

  “Shaima,” said Iqbal.

  “Yeh?”

  “Iqbal got good idea.”

  “What?” asked Shaima.

  Iqbal giggled. “Shall we play monsters?”

  Shaima laughed. “OK.”

  “Shaima...”

  “Yes, Iqbal?”

  “Are you a monster now?”

  “GRRRRRRRRRRRR,” snarled Shaima. For no one – not even Shaima Stalk – could be clever, serious and detective-like all of the time. She wriggled her fingers in the air and growled: “I’M COMING TO GET YOU!”

  Iqbal screamed as she chased him across the buttercup lawn.

  Up, Up and Away

  “I can’t look!” said Dad. He was sitting in the bottom of the basket with his eyes squeezed shut.

  “Come on, Dad,” yelled Ramzi, the wind blowing in his face. “It’s awesome!”

  Ramzi had always dreamed of exploring the world – but he’d never imagined that a balloon ride could be so magical. Every time it began to sink in the sky, a huge roar of fire lifted it back up again. On tiptoe, he peered over the edge of the basket. Far below, rivers twisted like silver string, houses stuck together like Lego. The world had turned into a toy town and Ramzi felt like a giant. “Dad, come and look! It’s great!”

  Slowly, Dad stood up. “Vertigo,” he explained to Amin, “makes me... feel like I’m going to... fall through... the bottom of this thing.”

  “You’ll be OK, Mr Ramadan,” smiled Amin.

  Dad nodded. “You’re right. This world is just a test.”

  Shakily, he edged towards Ramzi, clutching the rim of the basket. Ramzi held his hand as Dad glanced at the earth below. Suddenly, everything started to swim. His knees buckled. Ramzi grabbed his waist and helped him to the side.

  “Look!” said Shaima. “There’s Cinnamon Grove.” She was pointing at a cluster of grey houses nestled by some dark green trees.

  Dad sat down again. He was looking pale.

  “What are we going do?” asked Ramzi.

  “We’ve got to distract him,” said Shaima.

  “How?”

  Shaima’s eyes began to twinkle. “Mr Ramadan,” she began. “Did you know that the first things to go up in a hot air balloon were a sheep, a duck and a rooster?”

  The balloon lurched and Dad closed his eyes.

  “It’s not working,” said Ramzi.

  “Patience, Agent Ramadan,” whispered Shaima. She bent down in front of Dad and tried again. “Mr Ramadan – the demonstration took place outside the Palace of Versailles, right in front of Marie Antoinette.”

  Dad tried to smile. “A sheep, eh?”

  “Yes, Mr Ramadan... and the first man to attempt flight was a Muslim Berber called Abbas Ibn Firnas.” Dad looked up. “He was a totally famous physician and poet and musician and engineer and aviator from the Emirate of Cordoba – born in 810 AD!”

  Ramzi grinned. “He was like you, Dad. A flying Berber!”

  Very slowly, Dad grabbed the side of the balloon and stood up.

  “A flying Berber, eh?” he said, puffing out his chest.

  “I think you’ll find it was an Englishman,” said the man from the Pendragon Balloon Company.

  “What?” asked Dad, turning round. It was the first time the balloon man had spoken and they all looked at him with surprise.

  “I said, the first man to attempt flight was an Englishman.”

  Dad’s face fell.

  Ramzi looked at Shaima. Please don’t be wrong, he thought.

  Shaima adjusted her spectacles: “Oh, you mean Eilmer – the flying monk,” she said, smiling. “Yeh – he was an Englishman. But that was in the tenth century. Way after Abbas Ibn Firnas. Eilmer made the same mistake, though.” She flapped her hands behind her bottom. “No tail.”

  The balloon man turned the heat up and there was a sudden ROAR of flame.

  “I think you’ve upset him,” giggled Ramzi. “How do you know all this stuff, anyway?”

  “Books, I guess,” shrugged Shaima. “And the internet and Radio 4 and... hey, look at your dad!”

  Ramzi glanced behind him. Dad had his arm round the balloon man’s shoulder and was shouting over the noise of the gas.

  “No offence, my friend, but you’ve got to admit – European history’s a complete whitewash!”

  Amin and the balloon man looked startled but Dad carried on. “I just don’t understand it. Why do Europeans blank out other people’s histories and say everything began with the Greeks? I mean, what about the Assyrians, and the Persians, and the Egyptians – not to mention the Chinese and the Indians and...”

  “Agent Stalk,” said Ramzi. “You are so totally cool. Dad’s like completely forgotten about his vertigo.”

  Shaima shrugged and smiled.

  “What happened to them, anyway?” asked Ramzi.

  “Who?”

  “The men without tails.”

  Shaima leant over and whispered in Ramzi’s ear: “Well, Abbas Ibn Firnas broke his ribs and Eilmer broke both his legs. But let’s not tell your dad that bit.”

  They both looked over at Dad. He was flapping his imaginary wings. Ramzi smiled – Shaima was always right.

  The Wedding Sari

  When Shaima Stalk ran into a red-and-gold sari at the bottom of the stairs, she knew she had to act fast.

  “Careful!” yelled Aunty Urooj. Shaima unravelled herself from the sari’s slippery folds and burst into the lounge.

  “You’re back!” Shaima exclaimed.

  Aunty Urooj was sitting on Iqbal’s little stool, her sleeves and trousers rolled up as if she was going for a paddle in the sea. “I was only gone for a couple of nights,” she said.

  “Yes, but there’s a red-and-gold sari at the bottom of the stairs?!”

  “I’m glad you like the colour,” beamed Aunty Urooj.

  Shaima blinked. “But that means...”

  Mrs Stalk came into the room, carrying what appeared to be a tube for decorating cakes. “We were going to tell you the wedding’s tomorrow, Shaima,” said Mrs Stalk, “but you’ve been acting so strange lately.”

  “But... but...” stammered Shaima, “but... why tomorrow? What’s the rush?”

  Aunty Urooj blushed.

  “Don’t be cheeky,” said Mrs Stalk.

  “No. It’s OK. I should have told Shaima before,” said Aunty Urooj, taking Shaima’s hand. “He will be your Uncle Rasheed, after all.”

  Shaima felt sick. “But...”

  “But what?” asked Mrs Stalk, kneeling down by Aunty Urooj’s bare feet.

  “But... I need to go and see Ramzi.” Shaima ran out of the house.

  “Shaima!” said Aunty Urooj, standing up.

  “Don’t move!” said Mrs Stalk. “You’ll spoil it.”

  Mrs Stalk had just started to squeeze dark brown henna onto Aunty Urooj’s toes. “One smudge – and I’ll have to start again.”

 
Aunty Urooj sat down again. “Is Shaima all right?” she asked.

  “Not really,” sighed Mrs Stalk. “The pressure’s getting to her.”

  “But she could do that exam in her sleep,” said Aunty Urooj.

  Mrs Stalk smiled. “Insha’Allah. Now, are you sure you want this pattern? Nanna thinks something more conservative might be better?”

  Aunty Urooj gazed at the tiny stag beetles twisting around her ankle. “No. This will be perfect,” she smiled.

  ***

  “Ramzi! Ramzi! Aunty Urooj is back. We’ve got to do something! Now!” cried Shaima.

  “What?” Ramzi was taking penalty kicks against garden wall.

  “She’s having her henna done!”

  “So?” said Ramzi. “Mum’s always doing that.” He kicked the ball hard. “GOAL,” he yelled, throwing his arms into the air and waving at the invisible crowds. “Did you see that?” he grinned.

  “Boys are soooo weird,” muttered Shaima under her breath. She pushed open the garden fence and grabbed the football. “Agent Ramadan, are you a member of The Black Cat Detective Agency or not? Because if you’re not...”

  “OK, OK,” said Ramzi. “But what’s the problem? She’s only having some henna done.”

  Shaima sighed. “Ramzi Ramadan – henna fades very quickly. And henna has to look good for the wedding. Which means...” She looked at Ramzi expectantly, waiting for the penny to drop.

  “Oh!” he said, “You mean...”

  “Yes! The wedding’s TOMORROW.”

  Without warning, Shaima grabbed Ramzi’s arm and pulled him to the ground.

  “Now what are you doing?” asked Ramzi.

  “Shhhh!” said Shaima, putting her hand over Ramzi’s mouth.

  Footsteps echoed along the pavement on the other side of the wall. Ramzi mouthed the words, “Rasheed Khan?” Shaima nodded. They held their breath and waited. And waited. And waited. When they were sure he’d gone, they both stood up.

  “But what’s he doing here?” asked Ramzi. “I thought you said they’re getting married tomorrow?”