There was a bitter smile on Ruff’s lips. “Is there any point in me saying anything, since you’ve both decided it was me?”
Oz felt his face burn. He was getting really fed up with Ruff ‘s victim act. “Well, what are we supposed to think, for cripes sake?” he yelled, not caring if anyone heard him. “You won’t speak to us. You don’t want to come on the school trip. It’s like you don’t give a stuff about us anymore.”
“It’s not like that,” Ruff said, his face turning a dusky red.
“So, what is it like? Even the Fanshaws think you’ve gone weird. No Death Planet Hub for days? What’s going on? Has your dad taken your laptop away?”
Ruff’s head jerked up. His blotched face writhed with some inner emotion Oz couldn’t read. “My dad hasn’t done anything, okay?” he roared, but then caught himself before shaking his head and letting out a resigned sigh. “I stopped myself, if you must know.”
“Why?” Oz asked.
Ruff was breathing hard, puffing out his exhalations like a horse after a canter. “Because I’m trying to save money, all right?” he finally blurted. Once he’d started explaining, it was like a dam bursting as the words gushed out. “My brother, Gaz—he’s in Uni and it costs loads. I had no idea it cost so much. He’s sharing a flat and stuff and…” Ruff looked down at his feet and then up again, and Oz saw a kind of desperation written on his features.
“I overheard my mum and dad talking. We usually have fish and chips on Friday night; it’s a tradition. But that night, I heard them say they’d go without. Of course, they bought me some.” He shook his head and let out a mirthless laugh. “Two portions of fish and chips,” he said wonderingly. “Gaz has got no idea. He’s such a git. He just wants it all.
But I…” He let out another deep sigh. “So, I decided that if my mum and dad can’t even have fish and chips, I’d stop going online and stuff, only use my laptop for school work for a month. And I’m not going on the school trip either, for the same reason. It would have been okay if we’d won the science prize. Wouldn’t have cost anything then, right? But now…” He shook his head. “We…I just can’t afford it.”
Oz stared at him, totally dumbstruck.
“Why didn’t you just tell us?” Ellie asked, her expression still hard.
“Yeah, Ruff. Honestly, you’re such a gonk,” Oz echoed, but there was no heat in the way he said it.
Ruff pushed both his hands through his hair and squeezed his eyes shut. “I was going to. I just…I couldn’t, okay?” His face was still red, still glowing with bitter frustration and a dull anger. “So, there’s your reason for me ‘spilling the beans,’ all right?” He spat out the words. “Heeps is paying me to spy on you and Ellie so I can buy my mum and dad fish and chips. There, that’s what you wanted to hear, isn’t it?”
There was a quite long and slightly unpleasant silence while Oz and Ellie stared at Ruff. Finally, Ellie said, “Except that’s not true, is it?”
Ruff glared at her, until he slid his gaze away and mumbled, “No, it isn’t.”
“So, we’re back to square one,” Oz said.
“Can’t Soph sort this out?” Ellie asked desperately.
“Yeah, ’course she can.” Oz nodded. Pulse thrumming, he gulped and then added, “We just give her our phones and she goes through all our re….”
Silver flashed in Soph’s eyes. “That will not be necessary, Oz. I am now able to answer your question regarding which of you told Dr Heeps about Mr Bendle without examining your phones.”
They all turned to stare at her with identical quizzical expressions. It was Ellie who managed to ask the question on everyone’s lips. “You know?”
“I have been in possession of that information for 5.38 minutes, Ellie.”
“What?” Oz asked, his voice weak.
“All three of you are responsible for leaking the information.”
Oz tried to speak, but all that came out were a few staccato vowels.
Soph continued. “You asked that I do whatever I needed to do in order to obtain the information. Therefore, I performed a radio-wave scan on the three of you when you were in the science laboratory. I detected a strong transmission signal, which was being received 6.8 miles away to the northeast. My calculation places the receiver in the offices of JG Telecom.”
No one said anything; their jaws were so slack, not one of them was working.
“I also arranged an ultrasonic pulse to the lighting unit. I am sorry if the smoke was irritating,” Soph went on.
“Hang on a minute,” Ruff said. “Are you saying that you caused the light bulb to explode and the foam to ignite and stuff?”
“I initiated the ignition. Mr Skelton provided the pyrotechnics, Ruff.”
“Buzzard,” Ruff said, grinning and sounding suddenly a lot more like his old self.
“But why?” Oz demanded, finding his voice at last.
“To stop further leaks.”
“So, the lab is bugged, is that it?” Ellie asked.
“No,” Oz said, “it’s not the lab.” He was smiling mirthlessly and shaking his head as the truth hit home. “Think about it. What do we always do in the lab?”
“Wear Gerber’s lab coats,” Ruff said, holding out both hands in a gesture of frustrated realization. “All that fancy silver piping…”
“…would make a great aerial,” Ellie said, shaking her head.
“We should have guessed he was up to something,” Ruff added darkly.
Oz looked from Ellie to Ruff, his mind churning as he struggled to remember what they’d talked about when they’d been wearing the coats. The answer, of course, was everything. During the long, and sometimes boring, practical lessons, they often chatted about what they’d planned, or what they’d just done. Oz suddenly felt like he’d been slapped in the face with a sodden flannel. He could see from the others that they were all thinking exactly the same thing
“Oh, my God,” Ellie said. “We all dropped Bendle in it.”
“Right in it up to his neck,” Ruff said, and the heavy distaste in his voice made them all think of that awful image of Bendle and the manure.
“Suppose we’d better get back,” Ellie said eventually.
Oz knew it was now or never. He couldn’t just let them drift back into the sour misery of the last few days. He blew out hard and turned to Ruff. “Okay, Ellie’s right, we need to get back, but I have to say this. If you’d told us about your…situation, maybe we could have sorted something out.”
“How?” Ruff said with snort. “Rob a bank?” He still sounded bitter, but there was a lot less hot anger now.
“For cripes sake, you forget who we have to help us.” Oz turned to Soph. “Let’s say we need to find £100 by Monday and make certain Ruff gets a hundred percent in the last science exam, could we find a way?”
Soph spoke. “A sublimsert would help Ruff in the examination. Finding £100 in a town the size of Seabourne, with a population of almost half a million, would not prove too difficult.”
“Legally?” Oz asked.
“Of course,” Soph said.
Ruff looked from Ellie to Oz and then at Soph, his mouth opening and shutting silently. Something changed in him in that moment, as if the icy crust, which had frozen his features into the brittle version that was so difficult to like, fell away. He was still the same Ruff as a moment before, but without the sullenness, the self-pity, and the misery.
“If you still want to come with us, that is,” Ellie said, eyes flashing.
“’Course I do,” Ruff said to the floor, before looking up into the others’ eyes.
“Right, then. That’s settled.” Oz held out his hand, and Ruff shook it.
“Sorry,” Ruff mumbled.
“It’s fine,” Oz said.
Ellie had her arms crossed over her chest, eyes blazing. “Don’t you ever do that to us again, Ruff Adams. We’re supposed to be in this together. A team is a team, no matter what.”
“Okay, I said I was sorry. Who
are you, my mum?” Ruff said.
“I might as well be. I’ve got more than enough on my plate to worry about without you and your moods.” Ellie strode out of the room, leaving Ruff looking like he’d just been slapped. She, it seemed, was less ready to forgive than Oz was.
Soph, as usual, stood watching them as the boys prepared to leave.
“You must think we’re all bonkers,” Ruff said to her.
“Do you wish me to answer that truthfully, Ruff?”
“No,” Oz said quickly. “Definitely not.”
Chapter 14
The Cuckoo And The Loon
Now that Oz knew what had been bugging Ruff, he was determined to do something about it. Mrs Chambers had given him the okay for a stay-over on Saturday night, and both Ellie and Ruff were free. On Saturday morning, he decided meeting inside the Café Ballista, with its aroma of cookies and hot chocolate, was too much of a temptation (especially for Ruff). The last thing he wanted was to make Ruff feel any worse about the situation than he already did. So, Oz suggested they meet outside Danton’s instead.
“Right,” Ellie said in her usual matter-of-fact way when they were finally together in front of the big department store. “What’s the plan?”
“Soph wants us to head for the market,” Oz explained.
“The market?” Ruff snorted in a way that made it clear his doubts had not been entirely dispelled by Soph’s reassurances. “They giving money away today, then, are they?”
“No,” Oz said carefully. “This is all Soph’s idea. She says I just need to keep the pebble in my hand at all times, and she’ll do the rest.”
“Great,” Ruff sneered. “For a minute there, I thought we didn’t have any sort of plan at all.”
“Just give Soph a chance.” Elle tutted at him and shook her head.
“Ready?” Oz asked, deciding that now would be as good a time as any to start.
The others nodded, and Oz removed the pebble from his pocket and slipped it inside a thick woollen glove on his right hand. The pebble slid between his palm and the material of the glove, nestling flush against his skin. Immediately, he felt a familiar tingle in the very middle of his head. The morning fog had lifted, and though it was sunny, a chill wind whistled through the streets. Other people were muffled and gloved up too, much to Oz’s relief.
“Here goes,” he said. Instantly, the street around him shimmered and flickered out of focus before settling down again. Only now, Oz was seeing another street on top of the one they stood on. This one was ghostly green with blurry edges, and as Oz looked around, this view seemed to follow his gaze on a half-second delay. It was a wobbly feeling, and for a moment, Oz felt a little woozy, but it passed quickly, and a second later, Soph’s voice popped into his head.
“It will take a moment to adjust, Oz.”
“Yeah, no probs,” Oz said, swallowing hard.
Ruff and Ellie both said, “What?” at the same time behind him. Oz swivelled and held up his hands in apology. “Sorry. Talking to Soph.”
“Why don’t you just think it?” Ellie said tapping her head. “I mean, if she’s already inside there.”
“Good idea,” Oz said. “I keep forgetting.”
“Turn left at Libanus Street,” Soph said.
“This isn’t the way to the market,” Oz thought.
“Libanus Street has four restaurants, two convenience stores, and a tavern called The Golden Lion. It is exactly the type of street we should be searching,” Soph replied.
Oz turned the corner into the street, and as if on cue, something happened to his vision. At least a dozen bright spots flared in the ghostly street image. “What are those?”
Oz thought to Soph.
Soph answered him immediately. “Hotspots.I am scanning for both magnetised threads and specific copper-zinc-nickel alloys. We have five possible targets. Please investigate.”
“Think we’ve got something,” Oz said out loud. He walked along to where the first bright spot glowed and ended up next to a very smelly and overflowing bin. The target appeared to be the remains of a half-eaten kebab balled up in greasy wrapping paper at the foot of the bin. A battalion of flies took off as Oz nudged the messy lump with his foot.
“There, that’s the first target,” he said.
“Ugh,” Ellie said looking away. “I’m sorry, I’m not touching that.”
“Nor me,” Ruff said, mirroring Ellie’s look of disgust.
“Oh, come on,” Oz said and nudged the wrapping once more with his foot, a move that caused it to roll over and spill out the crusty remnant of a bit of pita bread and bits of congealing, spit-roasted lamb.
He looked up at Ellie and Ruff. Both their faces wore the same you-must-be-joking expression. Grimacing, Oz knelt and picked up a discarded lollipop stick gingerly, between gloved fingers. He used it to tease open the rest of the kebab wrapper. The smell of stale grease was disgusting, but Oz kept on poking. He was about to ask Soph if she was positive about this when a familiar-looking image of a blue hat appeared amidst the scrunched layers. Oz continued probing and unwrapping and two minutes later stood up, waving a slightly soggy but intact five-pound note triumphantly.
“Wowee,” Ellie said, her eyes satellite dishes of amazement.
“But how?” Ruff said, frowning.
“Someone wasn’t too careful with their change, obviously,” Oz said.
“But…I mean…that’s just…” Ellie spluttered.
“Impossible, yeah, I know,” Oz said airily. “But don’t forget, this is Soph we’re talking about here.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a rumpled plastic bag and a couple of pairs of thin plastic disposable gloves he’d found in his mum’s mud-room cupboard; his dad had used the same sort for examining historical artefacts. He held out the gloves to Ellie and Ruff. “These are for you, and the bag’s for the money. We can stuff it all in here and wash it later.”
He didn’t have to ask them twice this time; they snatched the gloves from him eagerly.
“Where next?” Ruff said, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet and looking around at likely piles of refuse. Ten yards further on, Oz pointed to a pile of dead leaves, which Ellie gingerly peeled apart to reveal a pound coin nestling in the dirt. Shooting Ruff a look of mingled distaste and satisfaction, she carefully retrieved the coin and dropped it into the bag. By the time they got to the market, they were £15 better off, but as they stood on the edge of the bustling rows of stalls, Oz was suddenly dazzled by dozens of bright spots in his vision. He was getting better at looking through the lights at the piles of flotsam or empty cans or swept-up debris that harboured the treasure. Even in the rubbish-strewn corner of the car park they were now standing in, four possible targets were glowing.
“Right,” Oz said. “Ruff, see that manky old copy of last week’s Daily Express?” He pointed towards a chain-link fence.
“Got it,” Ruff said, hurrying over. When he turned back, he looked disappointed. “Fifty pence.”
“It all adds up, Ruff,” Ellie said, but there was no denying her smug tone. She’d already found one fiver outside the Golden Lion.
To anyone glancing over at them, it looked like they were doing their bit for Keep Britain Tidy. In fact, Oz had brought a black plastic bag for any rubbish they did pick up, so as not to arouse suspicion. As they moved into the market proper, the trio avoided the main drag and kept to the fringes where discarded veg, half-ripped cardboard boxes, and other market debris sat in windswept heaps.
They hit the jackpot with a ripped twenty-pound note stuck to the bottom of an old boot by a bit of chewing gum, and a tenner folded up into a one-inch square inside a china pig with a slit in the top. That it had once been someone’s moneybox, there was no doubt, though to whom it had once belonged was anyone’s guess, given that it was covered by decaying cabbage leaves at the bottom of a rusting wheelbarrow.
Mainly it was pound and fifty-pence coins that they unearthed, and they unearthed an awful lot. After scouring
the edge of the market, Soph took them back through the old town towards the new shopping centre until finally, two and a half hours after starting out, they stood outside Ballista’s, rosy-cheeked and triumphant. Oz stuffed the half-full black rubbish bag in a convenient bin and held up their spoils.
“How much do you reckon?” Ruff asked.
Oz heard the answer immediately. “Soph says a hundred and forty-eight quid.”
“Yessss!” Ruff raised a fist.
“So I’d say a hundred for Ruff and twenty-four for each for us,” Ellie said.
“How about twenty each for us and ninety for Ruff and use the rest for a slap-up lunch?” Oz suggested.
“Deal.I’m starving,” Ruff said, and pushed open the door to Ballista’s.
Oz turned to Ellie and whispered, “He seems pretty much back to normal, then?”
“Yes,” Ellie said, “worse luck.”
After a lunch of hot paninis, lattes with extra cream, and one of Ballista’s mega-double-chocolate chip cookies each, they caught the bus back to Penwurt to find a note on the kitchen table for Oz, from his mum.
“Gone to decorating centre with Rowena. Back later. Chicken and broccoli dijonnaise for supper.”
“Mmmmm. C and B dijonnaise,” Ruff said dreamily.
“We’ve only just finished lunch,” Ellie said with a shake of her head.
“So? We’ll be starving by suppertime,” Ruff argued.
They went straight to the library so they could do some studying for Monday’s final science test on magnetism and electric motors. Oz had some cards made up ready for magnetism snap, but it soon became obvious that Ruff was clueless.
“Well, I haven’t done any revision, have I?” he protested after flunking every question Ellie threw at him. “What was the point? I mean, up until yesterday, I wasn’t going on the buzzard school trip, so it didn’t matter what I got.”
“You’re hopeless, Ruff Adams. I wish I had half your free time. You ought to come to my house and try and find a quiet corner to work in,” Ellie barked.
“Who rattled your cage?” Ruff said.
The Beast of Seabourne Page 22
