Lula Does the Hula

by Samantha Mackintosh

  ‘Yeah, but we are wearing overshoes.’ Jack pointed to the showercap-like plastic bags on our feet.

  I gave him a look.

  ‘Yep. We’re going to have to get into trouble,’ he sighed.

  ‘Unless we do the anonymous tip-off thing,’ I suggested.

  Jack nodded thoughtfully. ‘The anonymous tip-off thing is good. That’ll give us time to get this stuff analysed. You said Forest will help?’

  ‘He said it’s good I asked him for help – he’s the best in his class. I just cannot imagine him being a biotechnician. Someone so big doing something so microscopic.’

  ‘Hey, he’s second-year now and they’ve been doing soil analysis for two terms already. If I have to hear one more time about how Richard Murphy put his poo under the ’scope, I –’

  Suddenly I heard something. ‘Jack! What was that?’

  He listened. ‘What?’

  ‘Do you hear a truck? A big car or something?’

  Jack listened again. ‘Sounds far away.’

  I listened. The noise had stopped. ‘So, once Forest’s results come back, and if it is bird flu?’

  ‘Everything gets incinerated.’

  I thought with a pang of something small and fluffy in my pocket. It was time to tell Jack, even though I knew he’d try to make me leave it behind. I wondered if bird flu were treatable, if –

  ‘IT’S JUST UP HERE.’

  Jack and I were shocked into instant action. We scrambled up the boulders to the west of the shack and squeezed behind a bush overlooking Parcel Brewster’s destroyed home.

  ‘Keep your voice down!’ The words were fiercely whispered. It sent goosebumps shivering across my skin and made my hands turn to ice.

  ‘Who is that?’ I mouthed to Jack.

  He shrugged and put his finger to his lips, then pulled out the camcorder.

  Oh boy. Boodle was still at the dam. Please, please let her just stay still and quiet.

  ‘There’s no need to whisper now,’ came the first voice, someone young.

  ‘Just keep it down!’

  ‘The old man is dead. Dead as dead. And no one’s going to come here for weeks because of the bird-flu story. Our problems are over.’

  I shot a look at Jack, and his eyes, though glued to the camcorder, were as wide as mine.

  ‘My problems will be over when you’ve cleared away this mess,’ said the second voice, a much older man. He cleared his throat and spat. ‘It’s bad enough we’ve had to wait an entire day to sort this out. I knew I should have done the whole job on my own. Were you even sober last night? We said take him out quietly, yeah, but you end up tearing down his house to get to him?’

  ‘Sometimes plans don’t go according to plan.’

  ‘And then I end up having to finish it off, don’t I?’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Shut up, you idiot.’

  Two silhouettes came into view against the night sky. They grunted their way up to the level ground where the shack was and dropped some empty bags at their feet. Soon both of them were piling things into the bags. As soon as one was full, they’d hurl it over the edge where it landed far below on the sandy beach of Frey’s Dam.

  When the first one hit the ground, there was a sharp bark that cut the air.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ asked the older man.

  ‘Just a fox, probably,’ said his companion, but he kept just as still as the old guy. There was a rustling in the undergrowth and another bark.

  Boodle, I thought desperately, tingling with dread all over, please stay still! Please, please don’t move!

  ‘You hear anything else?’ whispered the old man at last.

  ‘It was a fox,’ said his companion. ‘For sure. I know the wild.’

  The older guy snorted and they both began filling bags again. ‘Don’t take too much stuff,’ he said to his partner. ‘It needs to look like he lived here peacefully, but left peacefully.’

  The other man laughed. A high-pitched giggle that made my hair stand up on end.

  ‘And how long are you going to keep the bird-flu scare going?’

  ‘As long as it takes for us to clear the evidence.’

  The men were only another few minutes – Parcel Brewster hadn’t had much, it seemed – and then the older man shunted the shack’s structures this way and that until it looked vaguely habitable again.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said. ‘We’ll take the bags to the truck, get rid of them, and then you need to get back to keep watch again. I don’t want anyone round here poking their noses in where they shouldn’t.’

  The two men scuffed and rattled and tramped their way back down the ridge. My heart stopped when I heard another familiar bark, but the men were going round the other way and it was coming from the bank on the far side. My legs screamed at me to stand up, and the base of my spine sent a persistent dull ache into the rest of my body. Jack looked similarly cramped, but he’d gripped that camcorder like a vice the entire time and hadn’t moved a muscle.

  It took a long time for the night-time stillness to settle in. A long time before we couldn’t hear the voices, the rustling of bags being taken away, the thudding of our own hearts.

  ‘Frikking frikly frik,’ I said.

  ‘We’ve got to move,’ said Jack quietly. ‘Fast.’

  Boodle had trotted back round and was waiting exactly where I’d left her.

  ‘You clever, clever girl!’ I whispered, and pulled her lead out of my jeans pocket. She bounded down from the rock and licked my hand. ‘Just wait a minute,’ I said. ‘This clip is tricky,’ but she danced away, staring over at Jack. He was dithering near the water’s edge.

  ‘Come on, Jack!’ I said, knowing he’d hear me clearly. He held up his hand, still looking around at the shore. ‘You heard that old man!’ I called quietly. ‘The young guy is coming back here to keep watch! Let’s go!’

  ‘It’s definitely not bird flu,’ said Jack stubbornly. ‘They must have poisoned something.’

  ‘We’ve got water samples,’ I said.

  Jack frowned. ‘What if the poison has worked its way out of the water? It’s a hot spring that feeds Frey’s.’

  ‘They could have poisoned the whole dam,’ I suggested.

  Jack shook his head. ‘The evidence would stay for too long. It’s got to be in the food the birds ate.’

  I remembered something. ‘There might have been bread in the water on the other side,’ I said. ‘I saw something floating near the rocky bit where we found the ducks’ nest. Could just be feathers.’ Jack was already moving in that direction. ‘But be careful round that edge! It’s a sheer drop and it’s really deep there.’

  ‘I can swim,’ said Jack.

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ I sniped, then bit my lip. I was scared and it was making me ratty. Jack jogged carefully round the shore by moonlight, too nervous to use a torch. He got to the spot where I’d seen stuff floating and I saw him get an empty container out and scoop at the surface. He’d just put the lid on and shoved the container back in the bag when I saw him suddenly jump with fright and stumble.

  ‘Jack!’ I called, in horror.

  His feet slipped, and he fell, the incline of the slippery rock sending him down to the water.

  ‘Omigodomigod!’ I sobbed, sprinting across the shore towards him, Boodle hot on my heels.

  Somehow Jack stopped the slide, and pulled himself up, handhold by handhold, then loped across to the safer sandy area. He came fast then, sprinting almost, and I wondered suddenly about tracks and whether anyone would notice fresh footprints. I was already moving by the time he got to my side.

  And then we heard the truck.

  The engine chuntering fast, then stopping. The sound of a vehicle door slamming. The beep of an alarm setting.

  Frik!

  The guard was back!

  Chapter Seventeen

  Sunday 10 p.m. On the run

  ‘This way!’ I hissed to Jack. ‘Come, Boodle!’ and we bounded out of the c
learing round the dam and into the trees. Luckily the ground was soft and quiet with winter mulch, new ferns and bracken silent underfoot. We ran like deer, dodging fallen branches and closely packed trunks, rocks and boulders. Now and again we’d pause to listen, crouched down low behind banks of last year’s bracken, but we didn’t stop more than a few seconds, the adrenalin pushing us on.

  It wasn’t long before I began to recognise the familiar treescape of the area around Coven’s Quarter. It was much darker now under thick firs, and we had to go slower. At last I saw the paler shapes of beech trees coming into view and found a path I knew.

  ‘Not far to go,’ I whispered to Jack.

  ‘Stop!’ he said in a low voice, and grabbed my arm. ‘Where’s Boodle?’

  ‘She was just behind you,’ I replied, my chest heaving from the run. ‘She’ll be a little slower because of her sore back maybe.’

  Jack did not let go of my arm, and together we retraced our steps on tiptoe, ears pricked for any sound at all.

  Nothing but our breathing. Nothing whatsoever.

  ‘I should have put her lead on!’ I agonised. ‘You stay here in case she’s done a loop or got lost – I’ll creep up to the high ground over there, okay?’

  ‘No! Not okay! We need to go, Lula! If that man heard us, or saw our tracks or anything, he’s going to be right behind us. We can’t risk being found! He’ll have a gun for sure. Parcel Brewster! Lula, they got rid of Parcel Brewster.’

  ‘And they would get rid of us,’ I said, finishing his thought process.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Well, I’m not leaving here without Boodle,’ I said, my throat starting to tense up.

  ‘Lula –’

  But I didn’t wait to hear what Jack had to say. I felt suddenly angry with him and even a bad man with a gun wasn’t going to stop me looking after my – Pen’s – dog. I scrambled up the steep slope as fast as I could, trying to remember the way we’d hurtled down. Was I just going to get hopelessly lost? No, I remembered that tree, all leaning to the side like that, and there was that big bank of bracken. I picked up the pace, darting from one recognisable thing to the next, until at last I was back on high ground. I stopped, breathing hard, and crouched behind a tree.

  A hand on my shoulder made me jump and cry out.

  ‘Sorry!’ whispered Jack in my ear.

  ‘Quiet!’ I hissed back, furious with him.

  He ignored me, staring over at thick vegetation before us. ‘I don’t see or hear her anywhere,’ he muttered. ‘Where on earth could she have got to?’

  And then we heard her bark. Another sound, a jangling noise, and in the distance, moving closer, an angry voice. ‘Get back here! Get back here now!’

  ‘Frikking frik!’ I hissed. ‘Boodle’s got something of his!’

  ‘No way,’ whispered Jack. ‘No bloody way.’

  ‘Yes way! And she’s coming towards us!’

  ‘So’s that man.’

  ‘Run!’

  We ran. We ran faster than we’d run before, but still Boodle overtook us. As we leapt through a clearing on the path to Coven’s Quarter, Pen’s dog flew through the air beside me and I saw that in her mouth she had a set of keys. Vehicle keys.

  She sailed into the Coven’s Quarter clearing in triumph and stood waiting for us, her tail waving gently. I dropped to my haunches to face her and snapped her lead on without a word. Jack was beside me then, and said, ‘You know the way back to yours?’ though we both knew that was a silly question. Only last month Jack had filmed this clearing, with its huge stone seats made of immense slabs of rock, and we’d walked in and walked out together. I ignored him.

  ‘Boodle,’ I said. ‘Drop the keys!’

  ‘Oh no!’ said Jack, whirling down and checking Boodle’s mouth. ‘She’s got that man’s keys.’

  And that’s when torchlight strobed from the higher ground and began spooling out across the stone chairs, examining each seat one by one.

  Frikking frik frik!

  We darted behind the widest of the seats, and I kept my arms firmly round Boodle’s neck, while Jack held her waving tail down. I dropped down with my back to the stone of the seat, staring in horror at Boodle, and Jack staring at me in horror, and watching the torchlight flashing closer and closer across the tree trunks around the clearing.

  We could hear the soft sounds of someone walking carefully.

  Closer and closer.

  We could hear him breathing.

  Then – too, too close – a young man’s voice lilted through the night air:

  ‘Heeere doggy doggy doggy dog! Heeeere! I’ve got a treeeaat for you!’ Then that creepy giggle.

  I swallowed, and closed my eyes. Boodle sensed how completely terrified I was and licked my face. My eyes flew open and I glared at her. This is all your fault! I shouted in my head, and there’s no doubt she heard me. She blinked an apology and I bit my lip.

  The crunch of another step closer. ‘Heeere doggy doggy doggy dog! Where aaaare you?’ The singsong call chilled me to the bone. Boodle didn’t like it either. Her nostrils flared and a low growl rumbled in her throat. My grip on the scruff of her neck tightened into a fist straight away. I made big eyes at her and shook my head, mouthing, ‘NO!’

  The torchlight stopped instantly and bounced in our direction, searching all around the seat we were hiding behind. Jack reached over to me and just as I was thinking he really was being careless and stupid and irresponsible and and and –

  he flicked a stone high over our heads at a low gliding angle.

  The torchlight bounced quickly away as stone clicked against stone in the opposite direction.

  ‘Oh, doooggy,’ sang the man. ‘I’ve got you now.’ He hurried away, and didn’t stop, crashing heedlessly right out of the clearing, through the bracken and up on to the slopes.

  We stayed frozen in our hiding place until not a flicker of torchlight could be seen.

  When I felt it was safe, I nodded. Jack took the keys from Boodle’s mouth and shoved them in his pocket.

  ‘I think you should leave those here,’ I said. ‘Most definitely. You’re going to make things complicated.’

  Jack smiled at me, but it was strained. ‘Lula, I’m so sorry I said to leave Boodle. I just wanted to get you out of here.’

  I shot a glance over my shoulder. ‘Just drop the keys. It’s time to go.’ And I was off, with Boodle on a tight leash. And we didn’t stop, not even at my front gate. Just kept going till we were all the way inside.

  Jack didn’t stay for longer than five minutes when we got home. He could barely look me in the eye as he asked if I was really okay. Then he took off for his digs with my backpack full of dead bird, sand, water, bits of sodden bread, after checking that I’d locked the door behind him, and that my phone was working.

  He called me when he got back home, but the conversation was stilted and left me feeling upset enough to cry. How could the perfect plan to win Jack back from Jazz have gone so horribly wrong?

  ‘You sure you okay?’ he’d asked.

  ‘I’m fine!’ I said testily, then felt bad straight away. He was just worrying about me, and I shouldn’t snap just because I was freaked out by the fact that we’d stumbled upon a murder scene. ‘Is Forest still okay to test that stuff?’

  ‘He is. And I called the cops from a payphone on the corner of Aston and Freeman. Said Parcel Brewster is presumed dead.’

  I swallowed. ‘The anonymous tip-off. Good. No camera at that callbox. Jason and Jessica are always snogging in it. Hey, I’ll ask Arns to ring me when his mum has news about it. Our inside line to the police force. See? Alex and I do know people.’

  ‘Mm,’ he said. ‘You sure you’re okay?’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ I cried before I could stop myself. ‘Stop treating me like a child!’

  ‘I’m not, Lula! That’s the last thing I –’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I interrupted. ‘I . . . I just can’t believe Parcel . . .’ My throat clenched shut an
d I couldn’t speak for a moment. ‘I’m being a total b–’

  ‘No, you’re not,’ comforted Jack. ‘I get it. You’re upset.’

  ‘It’s not just that. Jack, I’m worried we won’t be able to do anything because I was so stupid, making us trespass . . . Did you check your camera? Can you send the police an mpg file?’

  Jack took a deep breath. ‘You’re not going to like this.’

  ‘Oh no. What?’

  ‘There’s no sound. And it was so dark it’s impossible to make out anything at all.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  I sighed. ‘Don’t apologise. You were brilliant to think of it in the first place. All that came to my mind was hiding. Will you phone me when Forest has some answers?’

  He was silent on the other side, as if he were thinking about something, and then he said, ‘Sure, and will you call me with information from the police department? To check that they’re taking the tip-off seriously?’

  ‘Yes. Of course. If I hear anything.’

  We said goodbye, both of us feeling deflated and upset. Well, I felt upset. Difficult to know what goes through boys’ minds. Like, did he think I was a total amateur after tonight’s mess? What an idiot I was. I’d put myself on the same level as Jazz with the journo leads, and now look. How could I have hoped to compete? All I’d done was embarrass myself entirely and put us in terrible danger; I was still the silly schoolgirl, someone he had to worry about all the time, and Jazz was still the beautiful independent university student, her sparkling career and fantastic contacts all before her – a far more appealing girlfriend candidate.

  I puffed out an exhausted breath, and would have collapsed on my bed, but Boodle pushed against me and went, ‘Wrooarf,’ at my pocket.

  ‘Oh my goodness!’ I said, my pulse thundering up to race pace again. I stood quickly and carefully, and cautiously eased the tiny duckling out of my jacket pocket into the light. Its eyes were closed and it was completely still, but I could feel its heart beating fast in its fragile chest. It didn’t take long to make it a nest out of my fake Blahniks’ shoebox. I put the carton on the floor next to my bed and went into the main house to make it some warm oats, Grandma Bird’s cure-all for feathered creatures in need. When I got back to the annexe, I found Boodle curled round the box, huffing her warm breath on the duckling, which still hadn’t moved.