The Peacock Detectives

by Carly Nugent

  About the Book

  The last time the peacocks disappeared Cassie found them sitting on a coiled hose behind the fire station, and Dad called her ‘Cassie Andersen, Peacock Detective’. So this time she knows what to do—she’ll look for clues, write down all the important details in her Notebook for Noticing and track them down.

  But the clues lead her in unexpected directions, and Cassie finds herself investigating a puzzling mystery about her family, searching for a missing friend, and facing her worst fear.

  And—in the middle of it all—she is working out how to be a writer.

  For Gramps

  Contents

  Cover Page

  About the Book

  Dedication

  PART ONE: Autumn

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  PART TWO: Winter

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  PART THREE: Spring & Summer

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  Acknowledgments

  About by the Author

  Copyright Page

  Today would have been an ordinary Saturday, except that two things happened:

  1) The peacocks escaped, and

  2) I started writing this story.

  Dad says if you want to write a story you should start by choosing a topic that you know a lot about. That’s why this isn’t a story about France (which I know a little bit about but not a lot), and it isn’t a story about my big sister Diana (who I used to know a lot about but now that she is fourteen-turning-fifteen I don’t anymore). This is a story about peacocks. I know a lot about peacocks because:

  a) Two peacocks live in the holiday flats across the road from me, and

  b) I’m good at finding them when they go missing.

  I’m good at finding things because I’m good at noticing details. For example, in February Mum was trying to make apple crumble and she couldn’t find the cinnamon. I went through the cupboard and sniffed everything and found it in a jar labelled ‘Cumin’. And last year when Diana lost her new bra I noticed some dirt on my dog Simon’s nose, which meant that he had been digging. I found Diana’s bra in a hole under the bay tree. I guess Simon doesn’t like Diana being fourteen-turning-fifteen either.

  Dad says that if you want to be a writer you have to be good at details because details are what colour the pictures in people’s heads when they read. I keep all my details in my Notebook for Noticing, which Dad gave me for my birthday last year. Here are some examples of the things in my notebook:

  Silverbeet for dinner tonight ☹.

  Diana was on her phone for three hours today.

  Dad is yawning a lot.

  Mum made lamingtons.

  Dad also says that a story has to have an Inciting Incident at the beginning. An Inciting Incident is something that happens to get the story started, like a problem that has to be fixed, or a mystery that has to be solved. And the Inciting Incident for this story is that the peacocks escaped and Mr and Mrs Hudson came over to ask for my help.

  Noticing details makes me a good writer and it also makes me a good detective, like Sherlock Holmes. Mr and Mrs Hudson knew I was a good detective because I was the one who found their peacocks when they escaped the last time. I found them by noticing some peacock poo on the ground, which meant I knew which direction the peacocks had gone in, which meant I could follow them and find them behind the fire station where they were sitting on a coiled-up hose.

  ‘Cassie Andersen, Peacock Detective!’ Dad said. I thought this sounded good, so I wrote it on a piece of cardboard and made it into a badge. Then I pinned it to the backpack Grandpa gave me for Christmas, and now everywhere I go I’m ready for solving mysteries.

  The first thing I did when Mr and Mrs Hudson asked for my help was write down everything I already knew about the peacocks in my Notebook for Noticing. Everything I already knew looked like this:

  1) There are two peacocks: William Shakespeare (who is a boy) and Virginia (who is a girl). Technically, Virginia is a peahen, not a peacock.

  2) William Shakespeare and Virginia live with Mr and Mrs Hudson in the holiday flats across the road from my house.

  3) William Shakespeare and Virginia are ornamental pets. Ornamental means decorative, like when you put baubles and little wooden Santas on your Christmas tree to make it look nice. Simon, however, is not an ornamental pet. He is a pet for doing things, like barking and sniffing and getting patted.

  4) Virginia and William Shakespeare have escaped once already in February, which was when I found them on the fire hose.

  5) In the wild, boy peacocks have lots of wives, but in captivity (like being decorative pets at holiday flats) they are monogamous. Monogamous means you only have one husband or wife forever. William Shakespeare is monogamous with Virginia, just like my dad is monogamous with my mum.

  6) Boy peacocks start to lose their feathers at the end of summer and the start of autumn, which, since it’s March, is now (if you are reading this in a country like England, you should know that Australian autumn starts in March).

  7) Peacocks like to have a lot of space so they can roam around.

  8) Peacocks poo everywhere and it is really messy.

  9) Peacocks like to have baths in dirt.

  10) Peacocks like to eat insects, seeds, fruit and sometimes small snakes.

  The second thing I did was interview Mr and Mrs Hudson because they are the people who know the peacocks best, and I thought they might be able to give me some more details. I’m going to write down my interview in dialogue, which means writing what someone actually said instead of just explaining what they said. Dad says it’s important to have dialogue in a story because it helps the reader imagine how people speak and it also stops them from getting bored reading lots of long paragraphs full of lots of long sentences that feel like they go on and on and on and never end.

  The dialogue of my interview with Mr and Mrs Hudson looks like this:

  Me: Excuse me, Mr and Mrs Hudson, would you mind if I asked you a few questions? (When you are interviewing people it’s important to be polite.)

  Mrs Hudson: Not at all, Cassie, go ahead.

  Me: Thank you. When was—

  Mum: (Interrupting) Would anyone like a cup of tea?

  Mrs Hudson: That would be lovely, thank you.

  Mr Hudson: Thank you.

  Me: When was—

  Mum: (Interrupting again) Milk? Sugar?

  Mrs Hudson: Black, please.

  Mr Hudson: Milk, no sugar.

  Me: When was—

  Mum: (Interrupting again) Caramel slice?

  Me: Mum!

  Mum: What?

  Mrs Hudson: Not for me.

  Mr Hudson: No, thank you.

  (A pause while I wait for Mum to interrupt again.)

  Mum: What are you waiting for?

  Me: (Sighing) When was the last time you saw Virginia and William Shakespeare?

  Mr Hudson: This morning. Before breakfast.

  Mrs Hudson: We let them out into the garden. Like we always do.

&n
bsp; Me: And after breakfast—

  (Mum interrupting again by putting cups of tea and a plate of caramel slice on the table, even though no one wanted caramel slice.)

  Mrs Hudson: Thank you, Helen.

  Mr Hudson: Thank you.

  Me: (Continuing, despite the unwanted presence of caramel slice and my mum) And after breakfast they were gone?

  Mrs Hudson: Yes.

  Mr Hudson: They were gone.

  Me: I see. (Pause while I write down important details.) Is there anything else you can tell me about William Shakespeare and Virginia? Anything…unusual?

  Mrs Hudson: Unusual? Sebastian? (Sebastian is Mr Hudson’s first name.)

  Mr Hudson: (a.k.a.—which means ‘also known as’—Sebastian) I suppose…

  Me: (Excited because I could tell by the way they didn’t finish their sentences that I was getting close to an important detail) Yes?

  Mrs Hudson: They’ve been a lot noisier than normal recently. Especially Virginia. But I’ve no idea why.

  Me: (Trying to hide my interest because good detectives never give away their real feelings) Thank you for your time.

  Mrs Hudson: Thank you, Cassie.

  Mr Hudson: Thank you.

  Then Mum sat down at the table and started talking to Mr and Mrs Hudson about the night classes she is taking, which had nothing to do with peacocks and was boring. So I got up and went to my room and added another important item to the list of things I know about the peacocks:

  11) William Shakespeare and Virginia were being noisier than normal.

  I felt like this was important but I didn’t know exactly why. I did know, though, that when you are writing a story (or looking for peacocks) things are not always clear from the beginning. So it’s important to listen to your feelings and write down everything you can.

  My room is small but I like it because it makes me feel like I am in a burrow, like a wombat or a platypus. I have lots of brown things in my room, like a brown dressing table and a brown desk and a brown doona cover. I like feeling like there is dirt all around me. Not dirty dirt, like crumbs or bits of hair that get stuck in the bathroom drain. Clean dirt, the kind that’s under grass and that worms like because it’s soft and spongy and warm. Sometimes when I’m in my room I feel like a worm must feel, and it is a good feeling. It is a cosy, busy, eyes-shut feeling.

  When you write a story it’s important to use lots of details, but it’s also important not to use superfluous details. Superfluous means something you don’t need. In a story, superfluous details are details that the reader doesn’t need to know to understand the characters. For example, you don’t need to spend a lot of time describing someone’s shoes (even if they are really cool shoes like those runners that have lights on them) unless they show you something important about that person (like they want to be an athlete, or they have a lot of money).

  Sometimes it’s hard, though, being the writer of the story and trying to decide what you (the person reading the story) need to know and not know, because we are different people. For example, maybe you really like dogs and you like to imagine the world in a dog sort of way, and because of this you need to know more details about Simon. (Just in case you are that sort of person: Simon is a Brittany spaniel, and he likes to eat dog food and bananas, and he is scared of storms and vacuum cleaners.)

  In this story I’m going to try to give you enough details so that you can understand, but not so many that you get bored and stop reading and go to the park or the zoo instead. Here are some important details about me that you need to understand this story:

  1) My name is Cassandra, but most people call me Cassie (unless it is a Special Occasion or they are mad at me). My name comes from a Greek myth about a princess who can see the future, but when she tells people about it they don’t believe her. This is an important detail because I also know what it feels like when people don’t believe you (it feels like having no friends and being told off by teachers and yelled at by your mum).

  2) I have really curly hair (like my dad) that is long because if I get it cut short it goes springy and makes my head look like a triangle. I have pale skin and freckles (also like my dad) and I get sunburnt really easily so I have to Slip Slop Slap as soon as it is summer.

  3) I’m eleven-turning-twelve years old and I’m in Grade Six at school, even though I can read and write at a Year Seven level. In the school readathon last year I read twenty-six books (chapter books, not picture books) and raised $72.60. Dad says I could have skipped a grade but because my school is so small the class was full.

  4) I like reading stories and I like telling them, too. The other night when we were having tea I told a story about how I couldn’t eat silverbeet anymore. I couldn’t eat it because the school had given all the Grade Six kids vaccinations that made them allergic to green leafy vegetables, and if I ate silverbeet I would break out in pus-filled scabs and die. When I told that story Diana laughed and said, ‘Good one,’ and Mum said, ‘If you don’t finish all your tea you won’t get any sweets,’ and Dad said, ‘What about cabbage?’

  5) The last detail you need to know about me is that I’m really, really afraid of snakes. It’s important that you know this so that if there is ever a snake in this story you will be ready to hold your breath and stomp your feet really loud and scare it away.

  While I was in my room, Diana opened the door without knocking and said, ‘What are you doing?’ She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and she was holding a book in one hand and her phone in the other.

  ‘Getting ready to look for Virginia and William Shakespeare,’ I said. I had my notebook in my backpack and I was putting on my stomping shoes because it was only early autumn and there might still have been snakes around. ‘Want to come?’

  Diana twisted her face into a shape that looked a bit like a question mark. Now that Diana is fourteen-turning-fifteen she is sometimes confused about what she likes to do. For example, when she was thirteen she really liked playing Hide-and-Seek but now that she’s fourteen she only plays it at birthday parties, and when she’s fifteen she probably won’t play it at all. So when I asked her about the peacocks I wasn’t sure which direction she was going to go in—the thirteen direction or the fifteen direction.

  ‘We can share my Saturday treat,’ I added. Every Saturday, after I help with shopping, Mum buys me a treat. Today I got a Wizz Fizz, which is Diana’s favourite. I took it out of my bag and ripped off the top.

  ‘Okay,’ Diana said.

  So we went together. Diana was holding her book and her phone and the Wizz Fizz, and I was holding Simon’s lead (Simon is sometimes good at sniffing out peacocks, although most of the time he gets distracted by things like long grass and pine cones).

  ‘Is that a good story?’ I asked. We were walking across the road to the holiday flats.

  ‘It’s not a story,’ Diana said. ‘It’s about Buddhism. Aunt Sally gave it to me for Christmas.’

  Aunt Sally is my dad’s sister who lives in The City. She has three kids (two of them are so small that they still pick their noses and eat it) and we go to her house for Christmas every year.

  ‘What’s Buddhism?’ I said. Simon was pulling my arm really hard, trying to reach a puddle.

  ‘It’s a religion,’ Diana said.

  ‘Like church?’ I said.

  ‘No,’ Diana said. ‘Not like church.’ She said it in the voice she uses a lot now that she is fourteen-turning-fifteen. It is her you-don’t-understand voice.

  We were at the holiday flats by then, and we went into the garden where Mr and Mrs Hudson keep the peacock cage. It is a big enough cage for sleeping and sitting in, but not for walking or roaming. The cage was open, and I bent over so I was peacock-sized and went in. Diana didn’t.

  The cage was mostly empty. There was some brown grass on the ground, and some branches high up for the peacocks to roost (roost is a bird-word for rest) on at night, and some peacock poo, which Simon ate a bit of before I could stop him. And right at the back, s
tuck in the wire, was one of William Shakespeare’s feathers. I knew it was William Shakespeare’s feather and not Virginia’s because it was big and green/blue and had a shape like an eye in the middle of it, which is the kind of feather boy peacocks have but girls don’t. When a boy peacock puts all of his tail feathers up it feels like hundreds of eyes are looking at you. I pulled the feather out of the wire and put it in my backpack.

  I was about to wrap up the cage part of my investigation and I turned myself around in my bent-over peacock shape to leave. Then I saw the ground from a different angle, and that was when I noticed something. In the corner of the cage some of the dirt was scraped away. It looked like the peacocks had been trying to make a hole, except the ground was too hard and all they could do was make a sort of dent. I looked closer, and got out my notebook.

  ‘What is it?’ Diana said, peering through the wire.

  ‘Something,’ I said, because I didn’t know how else to describe it.

  Diana sighed and looked at her phone, which was beeping. I ignored her, and wrote the something down.

  After I had climbed out of the peacock cage and Simon had finished peeing on the side of it Diana said, ‘Now what?’

  ‘Now,’ I said, ‘we follow the poo.’ I pointed to a pile of soft brown peacock droppings next to Diana’s boots (since Diana became fourteen-turning-fifteen she wears Doc Martens instead of runners).

  Simon sniffed the pile, ate some of it, and veered off in the direction of a large pine cone.

  Behind my house there is a river, and a small track alongside it, and a lot of bush. Because peacocks like to roam I thought the bush, which is big and perfect for roaming in, might be a good place to start looking for Virginia and William Shakespeare. Simon also likes roaming in the bush, mostly because there are lots of things to sniff.

  Dad says that when you describe an important setting (a setting is a place and a time) in a story you should use the Five Senses to make a clear picture for the reader’s brain. The Five Senses are Sight, Sound, Smell, Taste and Touch/Temperature. Looking for the peacocks by the river in autumn is a very important setting in my story, so I hope this helps you see it clearly: