‘Well … thanks for the ride home!’ said Paige as Tom brought Aquila to a stop in a section of the enormous garden where she could climb out without being seen. ‘It was fun.’ She picked up her bag and added, ‘Would you like to come to my party next week?’
‘Party?’ said Tom.
‘It’s my birthday,’ Paige explained. ‘Mom’s giving me a party here – goes on all afternoon, hundreds of people – but if you and Geoff could come it’d be just great.’ She smiled, appealingly. ‘You think you could?’
And Tom heard himself saying that he’d have to ask Geoff but, yes, he thought they might be able to manage that.
‘You are such a sweetie!’ Paige leaned across and gave him hug. ‘See you next week then!’ She went racing up the garden towards the house, pausing at the top of some steps to give him a wave and one last radiant smile.
After she’d gone, Tom sat in the cockpit of Aquila for some time before eventually pressing the green button and asking it to fly him back to the Eyrie. He wondered, as he did so, what Geoff would say when he told him about the party.
When he got home, there were still some guests from his mother’s party sitting around the garden and lying on the grass. His mother was just coming out of the kitchen with a large pot of tea, looking rather cheerful.
‘Did Paige get back all right?’ she asked.
Tom said that she had.
‘She was a nice girl,’ said Mrs Baxter. ‘Will you see her again?’
‘Maybe,’ said Tom. ‘I’m not sure.’
Alan was over by the barbecue doing some sausages for a hot dog for Dunstan, who had been so busy on the computer he had forgotten to eat.
‘You want one, Tom?’ he called across, and Tom realized he hadn’t eaten a great deal himself and said, yes, thank you, he would.
He joined the others on the grass, chatting in the afternoon sun, and it all felt very relaxed and easy. At one point someone organized a group playing with a frisbee, and later on there was a game of poker which they played with monopoly money and Dunstan won eighteen thousand pounds. Somehow, it was all very comfortable, and then Geoff arrived.
He was anxious to hear if Paige had got back to Norway all right. Tom assured him that she had, and then told him about the birthday party.
‘A party? Really? What did you say?’
‘I told her we might manage it,’ said Tom. ‘We’re not doing anything else on Saturday, are we?’
And suddenly, Tom didn’t know why, everything was all right between them again. It was back to how it had been before. The bad feelings had disappeared and Geoff was his friend again, just as he’d always been.
When the party finally broke up late that afternoon, everyone seemed to be happy. Mrs Murphy was the last to leave and she was almost too happy to walk straight. Mrs Baxter was happy that her party had been such a success. Alan was happy for Mrs Baxter, and Dunstan was still happily clutching his eighteen thousand pounds.
Everyone was happy, and the feeling that, somehow, things might be going all right continued through the rest of the weekend and well into the week that followed.
It lasted, in fact, right up to the time that Dunstan went missing.
CHAPTER NINE
Tom and Geoff were sitting in the Eyrie after school on Wednesday when Tom got a phone call from his mother.
‘Dunstan’s disappeared,’ she told him. ‘He walked out of the house after lunch and nobody’s seen him since. He’s not with you, is he?’
‘No,’ said Tom. ‘Why would he be?’
‘He left a note,’ said Mrs Baxter, ‘saying he was coming over to our house to see you.’
Normally, Dunstan would have been at school, but that day the school had been closed because of a burst water main and he had been sent home.
A little before two o’clock, he had apparently decided he wanted to see Tom, and simply walked out of the house. It was ten minutes before Mrs Munns, the woman looking after him, noticed he was missing, and when she found the note and ran out to call him back, it was too late. There was no sign of him.
Mrs Munns had driven a mile along the road to Tom’s house and back again without finding him, then phoned Alan at work to tell him what had happened. Alan had phoned Mrs Baxter to ask if Dunstan had turned up yet, then phoned the police and then gone out on the road himself to find his son.
‘I’m going out myself now,’ said Mrs Baxter. ‘The more of us looking, the more likely we are to find him. Where are you?’
‘I’m with Geoff,’ Tom told her.
‘Well, perhaps you’d better stay there,’ said his mother, ‘but I’m leaving Mrs Murphy here if you want to come home. I’ve asked her to come over in case Dunstan turns up while I’m out.’
It was Geoff who suggested – after Tom told him what had happened – that if you wanted to search for a missing eight-year-old boy, it was the sort of thing that would be a lot easier to do from the air.
Before they started, the boys had a brief debate on what would be the best way to conduct the search. Geoff thought they should fly round in a spiral from the last place Dunstan had been seen, while Tom thought it would be better to fly along the route he had probably followed. It was a difficult choice, and there was also the problem of whether it would be better to fly high, to get a wide view, or low enough so they could see people’s faces. They were still debating both issues when Geoff suddenly leaned forward and pressed the small green light on the dash.
‘HI! WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU?’ appeared in the air in front of them.
‘We need to find Dunstan,’ Geoff explained. ‘D’you know who I mean? The boy that was round at Tom’s house every evening last week?’
A picture of Dunstan sitting at Tom’s computer appeared in the air in front of them, with ‘THIS ONE?’ written underneath.
‘That’s him,’ said Geoff. ‘He was supposed to be going from a house in Walnut Close to where Tom lives, but it looks like he got lost on the way. Can you find him?’
‘SEARCH INITIATED.’
At the same time as the words appeared on the screen, the lifepod shot forward out of the water tower and then up into the air. At several hundred feet, it stopped, swung its nose first to the right, then the left, moved forward, then back and then …
‘TARGET IDENTIFIED.’
… Aquila went into a smooth dive that took them down to a road that ran along the back of their school, where it stopped a few metres in the air directly in front of Dunstan, who was sitting on a low wall, studying the screen of his mobile phone. It was yet another impressive display of the lifepod’s abilities, thought Tom. If he’d known Aquila could find missing people so easily, he wouldn’t have had to panic that time in New York.
Geoff steered Aquila to a point out of sight behind some bushes. He and Tom climbed out and they walked back to Dunstan.
‘What are you doing out here, Dunstan?’ Geoff asked.
Dunstan looked up from his phone. ‘I was coming to see Tom.’
‘You’ve been missing for two hours,’ said Tom. ‘What happened? Did you get lost or something?’
‘Well …’ Dunstan looked vaguely around.
‘Your dad’s been going wild,’ said Geoff. ‘The police, Tom’s mum – everyone’s out looking for you. They think you’ve been kidnapped or something.’
Dunstan frowned. ‘I left a note.’
‘The note said you were coming to my house,’ said Tom, ‘but you’re not there, are you? And you didn’t tell anyone you were lost.’ He pointed to the mobile Dunstan was holding. ‘How about you phone your dad, and tell him you’re OK?’
Dunstan dialled a number on his phone and held it to his ear.
‘Dad?’
he said. ‘It’s me.’
There was a pause while he listened to his father and then he turned to Tom and Geoff. ‘Where am I?’
Tom took the phone.
‘Hello, Alan? We’re in Twyford Avenue. It runs along the back of the school and … Yes, he’s fine … Yes … Right.’ He turned off the phone and gave it back to Dunstan. ‘He says to wait here. He’ll be round in three minutes.’
In fact it was less than two minutes before the big silver Lexus came barrelling down the road towards them, and Alan jumped out. He hurried over to Dunstan.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
Dunstan nodded.
‘You’re sure?’
Dunstan nodded again.
Alan took a long deep breath and let it out again. ‘So … what were you doing?’
‘I wanted to see Tom,’ said Dunstan. ‘I left a note.’
‘I know you did,’ said Alan, ‘but you can’t just …’ He stopped and took another deep breath. ‘We’ll talk about why it wasn’t a good idea when we get home. You hop in the car.’ As Dunstan walked over to the car, Alan turned to Tom and Geoff. ‘How did you find him?’
‘We were just lucky, really,’ said Geoff.
‘We came out to help look,’ said Tom, ‘and there he was.’
‘Well, thank goodness you did.’ Alan ran his fingers through his hair. ‘I can’t believe he just walked out of the house without a word to anyone …’
‘Are you going to be very cross with him?’ asked Tom.
‘Getting cross doesn’t really work with Dunstan,’ said Alan. ‘He’s … different. You have to give him a reason if you want him to behave in a particular way. And you have to be very precise. His teachers say he’s a genius, but when he does things like this it’s not easy to believe …’ He reached into his pocket and took out his phone. ‘I’d better call the police. And your mother. Then I’ll give you a lift home.’
‘No, no, it’s OK,’ said Tom.
‘We do this route every day,’ said Geoff.
‘Are you sure?’ Alan looked keenly at the boys then suddenly held out a hand. ‘I haven’t even said thank you. I owe you one for this. Both of you. I won’t forget.’
‘I wonder if he meant money,’ said Geoff, as they walked round the corner. They both still occasionally wondered how they could use Aquila to make money, but had never managed to come up with an answer.
Geoff blew the signal on his whistle that would bring Aquila down to his right. ‘That’d be kind of convenient, wouldn’t it?’
That evening, Alan brought Dunstan round to Tom’s house so that he could say sorry to Mrs Baxter for all the trouble he’d caused and hand over a bunch of flowers by way of apology. Mrs Baxter invited them both in and then made some scrambled eggs when she found they hadn’t eaten. It was while they were all sitting in the kitchen that Tom remembered what Paige had said about it being a good idea to find out as much as possible about Alan … and asked him what he did for a living.
He wasn’t quite sure what Alan would say – whether he’d try to avoid the question in some way or make up an answer that wasn’t true – but he did neither of those things.
‘Drains,’ he replied promptly. ‘Drains and toilets, that’s my game! If you’re having trouble with back-up or you need some outside loos for a garden party, I’m your man! I’ve got a little place up on the industrial estate.’
‘It’s not a “little” place.’ Mrs Baxter turned to Tom. ‘It’s enormous.’
‘Have you seen it?’ Tom asked.
‘Alan showed me round a few weeks back,’ said Mrs Baxter. ‘You should ask him to give you a tour one day. It’s really interesting!’
‘A tour …’ said Tom. ‘Yes, I’d like that.’
‘You would?’ Alan looked surprised. ‘Really?’
‘Yes,’ said Tom. ‘Yes, definitely.’
‘How about Friday then?’ Alan suggested. ‘I could pick you up after school.’
‘And you could get Geoff to go along with you,’ said Mrs Baxter. ‘I’m sure he’d be interested as well.’
To their surprise, both boys enjoyed their tour of Alan’s business. He picked them up after school on Friday as he had promised, drove them out to the industrial estate and showed them around Unit 17.
He showed them drainage pipes and explained how they got blocked and what you did to unblock them. He showed them septic tanks and explained how they were emptied, and how all the waste could now be recycled. And, finally, he showed them the rows of portaloos behind the main building.
‘Probably our biggest money spinner at the moment,’ he explained, patting the side of one of the green booths. ‘We’ve got three hundred of them now and, this time of year, they’ll all be in use.’
‘Who cleans them?’ asked Tom.
‘I’ve got a team of people to do that.’ Alan said. ‘But if it’s a fast turn-around, everybody drops what they’re doing and gets stuck in.’
‘Everybody?’ said Tom. ‘Even you?’
‘Especially me!’ Alan grinned. ‘Everyone enjoys seeing the boss get his hands dirty!’
The tour over, he took them up to his office, where his secretary had laid out a plate of buns and some soft drinks for the boys and a large mug of tea for Alan.
Then Geoff asked if he had always been interested in drains and Alan laughed and said no.
‘It was Miss Taylor got me into the business,’ he added.
‘Miss Taylor?’ Tom blinked. ‘Our Miss Taylor? From school?’
‘That’s right.’ Alan spooned sugar into his tea and stirred it. ‘She was my class teacher back then, and at the end of my last term she gave me a card and said, “This is a man I know who clears drains. Go and see him, and if he offers you a job, take it.” So I did.’
‘Miss Taylor told you to get a job cleaning drains,’ said Geoff, ‘and you just did what she said?’
‘She was quite a forceful woman in those days,’ said Alan. ‘Most people did what she told them to.’
‘And you didn’t you mind?’ asked Geoff. ‘Her telling you what to do?’
‘Mind?’ Alan chuckled. ‘I’ve never been so grateful to anyone in my life. She laid it all out for me. “Work two years for John,” she said, “then set up in business on your own. You’ll be good at running a business.” ’ Alan paused, his mug halfway to his lips. ‘Nobody’d ever said anything like that to me before. Nobody’d ever told me I’d be good at anything.’ He sipped his tea for a moment and added, ‘Whenever I have a problem, she’s still the first person I go to.’ He looked over the top of his mug at the boys. ‘Have you come across her much yet, at school?’
‘A bit,’ said Geoff. ‘She’s … um …’
‘She’s quite scary,’ said Tom.
‘You can say that again.’ Alan grinned. ‘Twenty years on and she still frightens the daylights out of me!’
As he was driving them home, Alan mentioned again that he would like to do something for the boys as a thank you for finding Dunstan.
‘How about I take you both somewhere?’ he suggested. ‘Maybe this weekend? A theme park perhaps? Or a visit to London?’
‘That’s very kind of you,’ said Tom, ‘but not this weekend.’
‘We’re busy this weekend,’ said Geoff. ‘We’re going to a party.’
CHAPTER TEN
The boys had spent some time debating what presents they should get for Paige’s birthday on Saturday. It wasn’t easy. As Geoff said, the only thing they knew she was interested in was clothes, but buying her something to wear from what was left of three pounds pocket money a week meant the options were rather limited.
In the end, Geoff made a pri
nt of a photo he had taken of himself and Tom in the Eyrie, with just the nose of Aquila visible in the background, and put it in a frame. Tom, meanwhile, used Aquila’s laser to slice off a section from the peak of Mont Blanc, glued it to a piece of wood and taped a printed piece of paper on the base explaining what it was.
‘At least we know no one else’ll be giving her the same thing,’ Geoff said as they sat in the Eyrie wrapping both presents in birthday paper Tom had brought from home. ‘When does she want us to be there?’
‘One o’clock,’ Tom told him. ‘That’s when the party starts. We can leave after your lesson with Miss Stevenson.’
In the event, however, they nearly didn’t get to the party at all, because on Saturday morning Alan arrived at Tom’s house in a flatbed lorry with eighteen portable toilets strapped to the back.
‘I’m really sorry,’ he told Mrs Baxter when she came out to meet him, ‘but I’m not going to be able to make it this afternoon.’
Mrs Baxter was going to a Bushido demonstration of Japanese swordsmanship at the town hall that afternoon, and had invited Alan to go with her.
‘Oh, dear,’ she said. ‘Has something happened?’
‘I’ve got two drivers off sick.’ Alan gestured to the toilets. ‘There’s no one else to get this lot down to Bedford by two o’clock. I feel really bad about letting you down.’
‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ said Mrs Baxter reassuringly. ‘I’ll be fine on my own.’ She glanced up at the cab, where a rather unhappy-looking Dunstan was sitting in the passenger seat staring out of the windscreen. ‘Are you taking Dunstan with you?’
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