Friday Barnes 2 Page 11

  ‘Chen has been kidnapped!’ exclaimed the boy.

  Friday was electrified by the announcement. Finally, something interesting was happening. But she was shocked by the response of the teaching staff and student body. They collectively groaned and went back to listening to the Vice Principal’s speech.

  ‘Sit down, boy,’ said the Headmaster. ‘We’ll deal with Mr Chen’s amateur dramatics later.’

  Friday was agog. She had to sit there for another half an hour wondering what on earth was going on. Kidnapping was usually considered one of the most grievous categories of crimes. In countries that had the death penalty, it was the type of crime you could get the death penalty for. Friday elbowed Melanie in the ribs. She had to talk to someone about it, even if they could only whisper.

  ‘Wake up,’ whispered Friday.

  ‘Is assembly over?’ asked Melanie.

  ‘No, but Chen has been kidnapped,’ said Friday. ‘Remember him? He’s the library monitor. I wonder if the librarian did it herself. She seems to overreact wildly to the most minor infractions. Perhaps he got a food smear on a book and she flew into a rage.’

  ‘Is that all that happened? I’m going back to sleep then,’ said Melanie, closing her eyes and instantly dropping off.

  Friday elbowed her in the ribs again. ‘Why is no-one concerned?’

  ‘About what?’ asked Melanie.

  ‘About Chen being kidnapped?’ said Friday.

  ‘Oh, because it happens all the time,’ said Melanie.

  ‘The poor boy is repeatedly kidnapped?’ asked Friday.

  ‘No, he stages his own kidnapping,’ said Melanie with a yawn. ‘He does it once or twice a term. More often if there’s a travelling circus nearby or something good on at the cinema.’

  ‘But don’t they see, a boy who pretends to kidnap himself would be the perfect victim for a real kidnapping,’ said Friday.

  ‘BARNES!’ yelled the Headmaster from up on the stage. ‘I can see you talking. Stop it. See me after the assembly.’

  Friday went bright red with embarrassment as every student in the school turned to look at her. Ian caught her eye and wagged his finger at her like she’d been a naughty little girl. Friday turned to Melanie, but she’d already dropped off to sleep again.

  Friday could see why Melanie never got in trouble. As far as teachers were concerned, she was the ideal student. She never interrupted or asked difficult questions, and they never had to mark her assignments because she never handed them in.

  Friday waited by the back doors for the Headmaster to come out and yell at her. But when he emerged, he was not alone. Rodda, the boy who interrupted the assembly, was keeping pace with him and frantically talking.

  ‘But it’s different this time,’ said Rodda.

  ‘That’s what his note says every time,’ said the Headmaster.

  ‘But he didn’t leave a note,’ said Rodda.

  ‘Of course not, there’s no need,’ said the Headmaster. ‘I can just photocopy the last one.’

  ‘But you’ve got to do something,’ said Rodda.

  ‘I shall,’ said the Headmaster. ‘I will call Mrs Flynn at the sweetshop and tell her to send him home immediately when he goes in for his caramel balls.’

  ‘But that’s what I’m trying to tell you,’ said Rodda. ‘Chen already has a five-kilo jar of caramel balls in our room. His Aunt Stephanie sent it to him yesterday. He has no reason to stage his own kidnapping and go into town.’

  ‘I’ll call the cinema then,’ said the Headmaster.

  ‘The only film showing is a documentary,’ said Rodda.

  ‘Really?’ said the Headmaster. ‘That doesn’t sound like Chen’s cup of tea.’

  ‘It’s got subtitles,’ added Rodda.

  ‘He definitely won’t be there then,’ said the Headmaster. ‘I saw his report mark for English. Comprehension is not a strength of his.’

  ‘Would you like me to investigate?’ asked Friday.

  The Headmaster spun around. ‘Barnes, I might have known you’d be eavesdropping.’

  ‘You asked me to wait for you,’ said Friday.

  ‘Yes, there’s always a clever excuse, isn’t there?’ said the Headmaster grumpily.

  ‘If Chen really has been kidnapped this time,’ said Friday, ‘it would be very bad for the school’s image, especially if your response in the first critical hour was to sit through the rest of assembly, then go back to your office and eat chocolate biscuits.’

  ‘How dare you …’ blustered the Headmaster, before curiosity got the better of him. ‘How did you know I was going back to my office to eat chocolate biscuits?’

  ‘You are under a lot of pressure from the Parents’ Association, who are concerned about the holes and the subsequent upswing in ankle injuries,’ said Friday. ‘They are applying pressure through the Vice Principal. And you’ve just had to listen to him give a 30-minute speech. It must gall you that he has the audacity to talk at great length when he isn’t even headmaster, which must make you wonder if he will soon be headmaster, which must be upsetting. And, given your waistline, you are evidently a man who seeks comfort from emotional problems through eating. You are a principal, so it wouldn’t do for a man of your executive stature to eat a normal plain biscuit. Therefore I deduced a chocolate biscuit was more likely. You probably have a large supply in your desk drawer, from parents bribing you to turn a blind eye to their child’s appalling behaviour.’

  The Headmaster rolled his eyes. ‘Why can’t somebody kidnap you?’

  ‘I’d love it if they did,’ admitted Friday. ‘I’ve always wondered what it would be like. Trying to escape would be much more of a challenge than most of the things they get us to do in PE.’

  ‘I haven’t got time to deal with this now,’ said the Headmaster, looking at his watch. ‘I have a phone conference with the school council. We’ve only got a half-hour window of opportunity when the time zones work, so I can’t delay. The president of the council is in New York, the treasurer is in Tokyo, and the secretary has hiked out of the Amazon rainforest to use a payphone.’ He hurried away.

  ‘What about Chen?’ Friday called after him.

  ‘He’ll turn up,’ said the Headmaster. ‘He always does. Unfortunately.’

  The Headmaster disappeared into the administration building. Rodda sobbed.

  ‘Are you crying?’ asked Friday.

  ‘No,’ sniffed Rodda.

  ‘You’re about to,’ said Friday.

  ‘I don’t want Chen to be kidnapped,’ said Rodda.

  ‘Because you’re such good friends and you’ll miss him?’ guessed Friday, sympathetically.

  ‘Yes, but mainly because I’d hate to have a new roommate,’ said Rodda. ‘I’d never get another one with access to such a large amount of candy and accurate maths homework I could copy. I don’t suppose I could pay you to come and have a look?’

  ‘How much?’ asked Friday.

  ‘As many caramel balls as you can find,’ said Rodda.

  ‘Deal!’ said Friday. Lollipops were her preferred sweet, but she was prepared to be broad-minded.

  ‘Did someone say “caramel balls”?’ said Melanie, who had just caught up with Friday. ‘Can I come too?’

  And so they hurried off in the direction of the boys’ dormitory.

  Chapter 18

  The Open Window

  ‘What are you expecting to find in their room?’ asked Melanie as they hurried to the boys’ dorm.

  ‘Well, Chen is a boy,’ said Friday, ‘so I’m guessing the room will be messy, smell funny and have obsessive iconography blu-tacked to the walls.’

  ‘What?!’ exclaimed Rodda. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘All pubescent boys have two things in common,’ said Friday. ‘Number one – their feet smell bad. Number two – their developing neural pathways cause them to think obsessively about something that is totally unimportant. For example, some boys obsess about football; others obsess about music. But Chen was not like that. He wa
s a library monitor. I’m guessing the object of Chen’s irrational obsessive devotion was in the field of science fiction, or perhaps even fantasy role-playing games.’

  They stopped at the dorm room.

  ‘How did you know?’ asked Rodda.

  Friday and Melanie stepped inside. There were Star Wars posters on the walls, Lego models of fictional spacecraft and an extensive library of books relating to the playing of Dungeons and Dragons – all exactly as Friday had predicted.

  ‘Have you been in here before?’ asked Rodda.

  ‘Thankfully, no,’ said Friday as she sniffed the air and noted that she was right about the smell as well.

  Chen’s desk was covered with textbooks and notebooks, all covered with repetitive mathematical scrawl. In the centre of it all, in pride of place, stood an enormous half-eaten jar of caramel balls.

  ‘Which is Chen’s bed?’ asked Friday. Although as she looked at the beds, she immediately knew. One bedspread was beige. The other featured a life-size picture of a Time Lord.

  Friday walked over and checked under the bedding. It seemed silly, but experience had taught her that eliminating the silly was an important part of any investigation. If she started sending off samples for DNA testing while Chen, who was merely a slim boy, was taking a deep nap under a thick feather doona, then she would feel very foolish indeed. But Chen was not to be found in the bed, under the bed or in the wardrobe.

  ‘How does he escape when he usually feigns a kidnapping?’ asked Friday.

  ‘Escape isn’t really the right word,’ said Rodda. ‘There’s no barbed wire or electric fences. He just leaves.’

  ‘So how does Chen usually “leave”?’ asked Friday.

  ‘It depends,’ said Rodda. ‘Sometimes he jumps into a bush and runs off when we’re out on the field during PE. But if we’re here in the dorm he just climbs out the window.’

  ‘But the window is closed,’ said Melanie.

  Friday went over to look. The window showed a beautiful view. There was a gravel driveway, which trucks used as an access road to make deliveries to the dining room. Beyond that was a pristine green lawn surrounding a huge maple tree that was bright red with autumn colour, and through the half-naked branches Friday could see the hockey field and the baseball diamond beyond. She shoved the window open.

  ‘Hang about, you might need this,’ said Rodda, holding out a ruler to Friday.

  ‘Why?’ asked Friday, taking it.

  ‘The sash is a bit tricky,’ said Rodda. ‘Sometimes it falls shut when you least expect it. If the ruler isn’t there, any vibration can make it drop suddenly.’

  ‘Interesting,’ said Friday, wedging the ruler between the sill and the sash. She stuck her head out the window and looked right, then left, closely inspecting the gravel driveway.

  There wasn’t much to see except for some tyre tracks, which could have been made at any time. Friday was just drawing her head back inside when she noticed something on the window frame above her. She awkwardly twisted herself around, almost into a limbo position, so that she could look up at it.

  ‘Oh dear!’ exclaimed Friday, clapping one hand over her eyes as she used her other hand to steady her blind re-entry to the room.

  ‘You’ve found something?’ asked Rodda.

  ‘Yes, I have, proof that Chen was indeed taken away,’ said Friday. ‘You’d better fetch the Headmaster.’

  ‘What is it?’ asked Rodda.

  ‘See for yourself,’ said Friday. She stepped away from the window and did not turn to have another look herself.

  Rodda peered at the reddish brown stain on the sash, which had strands of something sticking to it. ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘I take it Chen had black hair?’ asked Friday.

  ‘Yes,’ said Rodda.

  ‘Then that is a bloodstain with a little bit of hair stuck in it,’ said Friday.

  Rodda’s eyes bulged, then rolled up into his head and he fainted.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Friday. ‘He’s even more squeamish about blood than me.’

  ‘I’ll go and get the Headmaster,’ volunteered Melanie.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Friday. ‘And try to bring him along without the Vice Principal. This could get embarrassing.’

  An impressive three minutes later, which shows that both Melanie and the Headmaster must have been walking quickly, a thing neither of them liked to do, the Headmaster burst into the room. The trouser leg above his left knee was torn and dirty.

  ‘What is the meaning of this?’ he demanded, expecting to confront Friday in full-detective mode, crawling along on the floor with a magnifying glass. Instead he discovered her kneeling on the floor and holding Rodda in her arms. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Ah, Headmaster,’ said Friday, ‘you’ve fallen into another hole, I see.’

  ‘That’s beside the point,’ said the Headmaster. ‘Explain yourself.’

  ‘Rodda fainted,’ said Friday, standing up and letting Rodda drop to the floor. ‘I found blood and hair on the window sash, consistent with the injury you would get if you banged your head very hard on the timber.’

  ‘So you’re saying …’ said the Headmaster, ‘that Chen actually has been kidnapped?’

  ‘Headmaster,’ said Friday, ‘there is no need to alarm yourself. Chen does apparently have a serious head injury and he has been taken away. But he has not been kidnapped.’

  ‘Now is not the time to talk in riddles,’ said the Headmaster.

  ‘You will find Chen unconscious and lying on the green waste pile at the local tip,’ said Friday.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ demanded the Headmaster.

  ‘Let me explain what happened,’ said Friday.

  ‘Please do,’ snapped the Headmaster.

  ‘Chen is a silly but academically able boy,’ said Friday. ‘From his desk we can see that he was studying for a maths exam next week. His family are supportive of his academic goals. His aunt even sends him his favourite sweets to help him focus. Studies show that a high sugar diet aids short-term memory. If you want to improve the school’s academic standing, you should think about handing out candy bars for exams.’

  ‘Don’t wander off the point,’ chided the Headmaster.

  ‘Sorry, where was I?’ said Friday. ‘Ah yes, Chen was at his desk studying dutifully when he went over to the window, opened it and stuck his head out. Why would he do that?’

  ‘Perhaps he wanted fresh air,’ said the Headmaster.

  ‘Chen likes playing Dungeons and Dragons,’ said Friday. ‘He clearly has no interest in fresh air.’

  ‘I don’t know then,’ said the Headmaster.

  ‘Let us ask ourselves – “What is a window?”’ said Friday.

  ‘Please, just get on with it,’ said the Headmaster, rolling his eyes.

  ‘A closed window is an entrance for light into a room,’ continued Friday. ‘But when you open a window it becomes a porthole for communication.’

  ‘For goodness sake, just tell us what happened!’ demanded the Headmaster.

  ‘Chen opened the window to yell at someone outside,’ said Friday.

  ‘How can you know that?’ asked the Headmaster.

  Friday stood back. ‘Look out the window yourself. What do you see?’

  ‘The driveway, the tree, the lawn,’ said the Headmaster.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Friday. ‘There’s something missing.’

  ‘Chen,’ said Melanie.

  ‘Something missing in addition to Chen,’ said Friday. ‘Where are the autumn leaves? That maple tree has shed half of its leaves. Thousands of them would have been dropping off every day for the last few weeks. Where are they?’

  ‘The groundskeeper was working on this side of the school this morning,’ said the Headmaster. ‘He would have collected them all. It’s his job to keep things tidy.’

  ‘And how do men like to keep autumn leaves tidy in this day and age?’ said Friday. ‘Not with the quiet dignity of a rake, no, they use leaf blowers.
A device powered by a petrol motor with no muffler to deaden the sound. So poor Chen sat here trying hard to study, while the groundskeeper was out there going on and on with his leaf blower in the Sisyphean task of collecting up autumn leaves in a school with over a thousand deciduous trees.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ asked the Headmaster.

  ‘I’m saying that Chen, delirious with study and empowered by the large amount of sugar pumping through his bloodstream, stuck his head out the window and yelled at the groundskeeper,’ said Friday.

  ‘Mr Pilcher didn’t report anything,’ said the Headmaster.

  ‘Of course not,’ said Friday. ‘He was using a leaf blower – he couldn’t hear anything. In fact, he would have been wearing ear protection; occupational health and safety would require it. Frustrated, Chen withdrew his head, just as the slippery window dropped down. The speed of his retreating head combined with the speed of the frame moving down would have been quite a blow. Force equals mass times acceleration. His head bounced away from the window frame, he toppled forward and landed down there.’

  ‘On the driveway?’ asked the Headmaster.

  ‘No,’ said Friday. ‘Because there was something else there. The groundskeeper’s truck, full of autumn leaves from his morning’s work. Since the truck was full he would have taken it straight to the tip, which is where you will find Chen.’

  ‘Oh my goodness!’ cried the Headmaster, taking out his mobile phone and dialling. ‘I hope you’re wrong. Being dumped unconscious at the tip is almost worse than being kidnapped. At least if he was kidnapped, it would be someone else’s fault.’

  ‘I’m sure he’s fine,’ said Friday.

  ‘As long as they haven’t put the load through the mulcher yet,’ added Melanie.

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ admitted Friday.

  ‘I’ve got to get down there,’ cried the Headmaster, and for the first time in twenty years he ran – out of the room and to his car, as quickly as possible.

  Chen returned to the school two hours later with a bandage wrapped around his head, and a second, even larger, jar of caramel balls. When asked, he claimed he could not remember what had happened. But from the autumn leaves tucked down the back of his collar, Friday knew she had been entirely right.