The Mum Mystery Read online

  ‘So what do you think?’ Dad asked.

  ‘I love it!’ I replied. ‘Especially as it’s my mother’s. And if she got it when she was my age then it must be really old. Maybe it’s an antique!’

  Dad chuckled. ‘Have a heart, Esmie. It wasn’t that long ago.’

  I picked up the box and told Dad I was going to take it into the kitchen to give it a polish before putting it up in my room.

  I was still in the kitchen when the doorbell rang ten minutes later.

  Dad went to answer it and I heard him say, ‘Oh, hello, Jake.’

  ‘How’s it going, Mr Harvey?’

  ‘Very well, thank you. How’s it going for you?’

  ‘Cool, thanks. Is Matt here?’

  ‘He’s upstairs doing his homework.’

  ‘Is it OK if I go and talk to him quickly about something?’

  ‘All right, but don’t disturb him for too long.’

  I was pretty sure I knew what the ‘something’ was about, so I waited for Dad to go back into the living room before sneaking upstairs after Jake.

  I stood outside my brother’s bedroom door and listened. I’m not supposed to do that but I am in training to be a detective and I reckon every detective has to break the rules sometimes to uncover the evidence.

  ‘That’s gross! You’ve got to do something about it!’ Jake was exclaiming.

  ‘I’ve tried,’ Matty said. ‘The top bit broke off when I tried to pull it out and now it’s stuck.’

  ‘Well, it’ll have to come out. It looks pretty inflamed already.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ I asked, pushing open the door.

  ‘Esmie – get out!’ Matty yelled, pulling up his trousers.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ I demanded.

  ‘He’s got a massive splinter of wood stuck in his bum, that’s what’s wrong with him,’ Jake said. ‘I reckon you’re gonna have to go to the doctor’s to get it out, mate.’

  ‘No way!’

  ‘Is it a bit of wood from the school fence?’ I asked.

  ‘Shut up, Esmie!’

  ‘I know it was you two who did the school sign,’ I persisted. ‘And you broke the fence. That’s vandalism, in case you didn’t know!’

  ‘Breaking the fence was an accident,’ Jake said. ‘Anyway, they can easily get it repaired.’

  ‘Jake, shut up!’ Matty snapped. ‘Don’t tell her anything, OK?’ And he pushed me out through the door so hard that I nearly lost my balance.

  ‘It’ll serve you right if you have to get that splinter cut out,’ I shouted to him. And I was so angry that I went into Dad’s room and got straight on the phone to Holly.

  As I’d expected, Holly was super-interested in what I had to tell her. She’s always been more interested than most people in Matthew’s bum, ever since she decided it was just like Brad Pitt’s. (Don’t ask me why Holly is so keen on Brad Pitt when there are loads of other actors who are much less ancient, but there you go.) However, instead of focusing on how obnoxious my brother had been to me, and how much trouble he was going to be in if our dad found out what he’d done, Holly seemed more worried that Matty was in grave danger of dying from his splinter. Before I knew it, she was talking about blood poisoning, gangrene and tetanus and saying that Matty had to go and see the doctor immediately. ‘If he won’t agree to go then you’ll have to make him,’ she said firmly.

  ‘I can’t make him,’ I protested.

  ‘Esmie, his life could be at stake!’ Holly retorted. ‘You have to act now.’

  ‘But he won’t listen to me.’

  ‘No, but he’ll have to listen if you tell your dad.’

  ‘Holly, I can’t,’ I said. Holly is an only child so she doesn’t know what a big deal it is to tell on your brother or sister – especially if you’ve got a dad like ours. Dad can’t stand vandalism and he’s also pretty intolerant when it comes to any misbehaving or mucking around Matthew or I might do in school.

  ‘Yeah, well don’t blame me if he ends up having to have half his bum amputated because you didn’t act quickly enough,’ Holly said stroppily.

  By six o’clock that evening Matty was avoiding sitting down whenever possible and it was obviously very painful for him when he did.

  ‘Have they brought back the cane in your school without me knowing?’ Dad asked him as he watched Matty perch on the edge of his seat in order to eat his dinner. (We were having cheesy baked potatoes and ham salad.)

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘You’re sitting like I used to after our headmaster gave me six of the best.’ (Dad went to a very strict boys’ school, which he didn’t like much, but which he always likes to mention whenever we complain about our school being too hard on us.)

  ‘Ha ha,’ Matthew said drily.

  ‘So why are you sitting like that?’

  ‘I told you. I fell.’

  I couldn’t contain myself any longer. ‘Tell him, Matty.’

  Matthew glared at me as Dad looked at him and asked, ‘Tell me what?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Matty snapped.

  ‘He’s got a big splinter of wood stuck in his bum, and Holly and I are worried he’ll get gangrene or something if it doesn’t get taken out,’ I blurted.

  Matty looked like he was about to strangle me.

  Dad looked concerned. ‘Is that true?’

  ‘Yes, but it’s no big deal,’ my brother grunted.

  ‘Holly reckons he might get tetanus as well,’ I added.

  Dad frowned. ‘So how did this happen?’

  ‘He was climbing over a fence,’ I said, and I got glared at even more, despite the fact that I didn’t say which fence. Then it occurred to me that climbing over fences was the sort of thing that burglars did and that Dad might jump to the wrong conclusion if I wasn’t careful. ‘He wasn’t climbing into anyone’s private property or anything though, were you, Matty?’

  ‘Shut up, Esmie.’ Matthew looked like he now thought death by strangulation was too good for me.

  ‘Well, that’s all very interesting, thank you, Esmie,’ Dad said, turning back to fix his gaze firmly on my brother. ‘So do you think I should take a look?’

  ‘No,’ Matty growled.

  ‘Jake was really worried when he saw it,’ I put in. ‘He thought Matty needed to see a doctor.’

  ‘Esmie, just shut it, OK?’

  ‘I expect he’s shy because it’s in his bottom.’

  ‘SHUT UP, ESMIE!’ Matty yelled.

  ‘OK, that’s enough,’ Dad said. He was standing up and motioning for my brother to do the same. ‘Come on. Let’s go upstairs. I want to see how bad it is.’

  ‘No, Dad!’

  ‘Well if you don’t want me to look, I’ll make an appointment for you to see the doctor.’

  ‘No way!’

  ‘I expect he’s embarrassed in case it’s Doctor Gregg,’ I said. Dr Gregg is the lady doctor in our practice. She’s young and very pretty and my brother blushes every time he sees her – and normally he only has to talk to her about his acne. ‘Don’t worry, Matty,’ I added. ‘She’s a doctor, so she’ll have seen loads of bums before yours.’

  And that’s when my brother picked up his baked potato and hurled it at me.

  Dad went mad then. Matty got told off for throwing his food and I got told off for stirring things up, and we both got told to finish our dinners (minus the potato in Matthew’s case) while Dad called the surgery to make an appointment for the following morning.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I whispered in a conciliatory way while Dad was on the phone in the living room. ‘I won’t tell him you fell on the school fence while you were painting the sign.’

  But Matthew still seemed furious with me. ‘Quit sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong, Esmie,’ he snarled. ‘I know you think you’re Miss Marple or something, but if you ask me you’d make a really rubbish detective!’

  And if my own baked potato hadn’t been almost finished by then, I’d have thrown it at him for sure.

 
After dinner I went upstairs to use the bathroom and while I was in there I spotted a tiny fragment of grey wood on the side of the bath. Grey is the colour of our school fence and I remembered how Matty had told Jake that he’d tried to dislodge the splinter himself, but that the top part had broken off. And since this was the closest thing to crime-scene evidence that I had encountered in a while, I rushed off to fetch my Crime Buster Kit, which Lizzie had bought me when I’d first told her I wanted to follow in Dad’s footsteps.

  Back in the bathroom I laid out all my crime-busting equipment on the floor. As well as my detective-in-training pocket book that gives you lots of hot tips on how to gather evidence, there are several useful pieces of equipment, including a magnifying glass, some sealable plastic ‘evidence’ bags, a pair of plastic gloves, a fingerprint pad and a stick of chalk for drawing round dead bodies. And I’d recently added a set of tweezers for picking up smaller pieces of evidence, such as broken fingernails or strands of hair, which criminals often leave behind at crime scenes.

  I put on the gloves and carefully undid one of the evidence bags. Then I used the tweezers to lift the splinter of wood from the side of the bath and drop it into the bag. Tomorrow I was going to take it into school and see if it matched what was left of the fence. And if it did, I’d have all the proof I needed that my brother was the culprit. Then we’d see who was a rubbish detective!

  But the next morning I totally went off that idea.

  For one thing Matthew was clearly terrified about the appointment Dad had made for him with Dr Gregg, and I began to feel sorry for him all over again.

  ‘I was just scared in case you got ill, Matty,’ I told him as I watched him standing at the table picking at the breakfast Dad had insisted on making for him. ‘Holly said you might get blood poisoning and people can die from that.’

  He must have seen how genuinely worried I was because he grunted, ‘It’s OK, Esmie. Here. Do us a favour and eat some of this will you?’ And he shoved his scrambled eggs on toast (which he normally loves) in front of me.

  ‘Hey, it’s all going to be over with very quickly, you know,’ Dad said, giving him a fatherly pat on the shoulder as he came into the kitchen to make himself a coffee.

  ‘Dad, I don’t need to go to the doctor’s.’

  ‘I’ll take you there on my way to work and I’ll drop you off at school afterwards. How’s that?’

  ‘Great,’ Matthew grunted sarcastically.

  ‘But you might need stitches and then you won’t even have to go back to school afterwards, will he, Dad?’ I said, trying to cheer my brother up.

  Matthew and Dad both glared at me then – goodness knows why.

  Jake called round as usual to walk Matty to school, and I answered the door because my brother and father were both upstairs. As soon as Jake stepped into our hall it was clear that he had some bad news. He quickly told me that Jennifer had been asked out by another mate of his, called Ian, and that she had agreed to go.

  ‘Oh no! Matty’s going to be gutted,’ I exclaimed.

  Jake didn’t have time to tell Matthew about it, because no sooner had my brother come downstairs than there was another ring on our doorbell, and Matthew opened it to find himself face to face with Mr Stevens from across the road.

  ‘I’ve just come to tell you that your cat has been sitting on my car again,’ he told Matthew grumpily. (I should probably mention that Nevada’s uncle is just as fussy about his car as he is about his geraniums.)

  ‘Are you sure it wasn’t Pixie?’ I asked, stepping forward to stand beside Matty.

  ‘No – it was definitely your cat because I saw him this morning. I got up early to give my car a wash and the second I’d finished there were muddy paw prints all over it and that Hercules was sitting on the bonnet.’ (He pronounced it like the name of the Greek God.)

  ‘His name’s Hercule,’ I corrected him, ‘after Hercule Poirot, the famous detective. And he’s only a kitten,’ I added protectively.

  ‘Yeah, so they can’t be very big paw prints,’ Matthew put in.

  Mr Stevens glared at him. ‘I suppose you think this is funny.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Matthew replied, but he and Jake both sniggered rudely as the two of them brushed past Mr Stevens on their way through the front door.

  ‘Matty, what about the doctor’s?’ I called after him, but he didn’t come back.

  Mr Stevens was looking furious. ‘I’d like to speak to your father, Esmie – now.’

  ‘He’s in the bathroom. I’ll go and get him.’

  When Dad arrived downstairs, Mr Stevens started complaining to him about Hercule, who in the meantime had arrived in the hall and was sitting in the middle of the floor, diligently washing his paws.

  ‘I’m sorry, Frank, but I really don’t know what I can do about it,’ Dad said briskly, looking at his watch. ‘You know cats – they have minds of their own. Perhaps you could park your car in the garage in future and then he won’t be able to get to it.’

  ‘Ruth’s sister’s car is in the garage. She’s left that with us for three months – as well as her daughters!’ Clearly Mr Stevens was in a pretty bad mood.

  Dad finally managed to get rid of him by advising him to throw water over Hercule if he did it again. (I was horrified, but then Dad can be pretty ruthless sometimes, which I guess comes from dealing with all those murderers at work.)

  As he closed the front door he asked me where Matthew was.

  ‘Jake called for him. They’ve left for school already.’

  ‘He knew I was about to drive him to the doctor’s.’ Dad sighed. ‘This is worse than trying to get Hercule in the cat box to take him to the vet.’

  ‘Matty’s just nervous cos it’s Doctor Gregg,’ I told him.

  ‘I know he is, sweetheart, but she’s the only one on duty this morning and he needs to get this seen to. Come on. I’ll give you a lift to school and we’ll try to catch him up.’

  In the car I told Dad what Jake had said about Jennifer. ‘Matty’ll probably be in a really bad mood when you pick him up, Dad.’

  Dad sighed. ‘Your brother’s always in a bad mood these days.’

  We had just turned out of our road when I spotted Nevada walking along on her own.

  ‘Dad, there’s Nevada,’ I told him. ‘Can you let me out here please, so I can walk to school with her?’

  ‘I can give you both a lift if you like.’

  ‘No, it’s OK. I’d rather walk. Make sure you catch Matty though, won’t you?’ I climbed out of the car and called out, ‘Hi, Nevada!’

  She didn’t acknowledge me, so I waited for her to catch me up before saying in a rush, ‘Listen, I’m really sorry about what happened yesterday. I only told Holly that your mum’s a psychic because I think it’s really cool. Holly was the one who told everyone else. She’s just got a weird sense of humour, that’s all.’

  ‘Yeah – and a big mouth,’ Nevada snapped.

  ‘Well . . .’ I felt torn between agreeing with her and defending Holly – even though she didn’t deserve it.

  ‘Still, she’s your best mate, right?’ Nevada added, almost as if she could read my mind.

  I nodded. ‘Since we were five.’

  ‘You’re lucky. I’ve always moved around too much to have a best friend.’

  ‘That must be hard,’ I said sympathetically. Like I said before, I’ve lived in the same place all my life, so I don’t know what it’s like to have to move away from everything and everyone who’s familiar to me.

  ‘It’s terrible,’ she said with feeling.

  ‘But at least you’ve seen lots of different places,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Oh, yeah – I’ve lived in six different countries so far.’ She didn’t sound at all enthusiastic about it.

  ‘Holly and I thought you might be American, because of your name,’ I told her.

  ‘I was born there.’

  ‘Really? I think America’s a really cool place! My grandma lives in Chicago and we’ve been to visit
her twice. Did you think it was cool when you lived there?’

  ‘I can’t remember – I was only two when we left. Carys was six, so she can remember it, but she always says she can’t.’ She frowned. ‘I sometimes think she just can’t be bothered to tell me about it.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ I confided. ‘I can’t remember my mum because she died when I was a baby, whereas Matthew was four, so he can. But whenever I ask him about her, he says he hardly remembers her. I mean, I can remember stuff that happened when I was four, so why can’t he? I sometimes think he wants to keep her all to himself.’

  ‘It must be awful not having a mum,’ Nevada said, sounding sympathetic. ‘You know, you should get yourself hypnotized – then you might remember her. My mum says people who get hypnotized can sometimes remember things that happened when they were babies.’

  ‘Yeah . . . well . . .’ I didn’t feel like pointing out that my mother and I hadn’t actually spent any time in the world together at all.

  ‘When I grow up I’d like to be a hypnotist,’ Nevada continued. ‘I think that would be such a cool job.’

  ‘I thought you wanted to be a psychic.’

  ‘Yeah – well that as well.’

  We walked along in silence for a bit while I wondered what to say next.

  ‘Does your mum help the police in the way that you said?’ I eventually asked. ‘You know – sensing where dead bodies are hidden and stuff?’ I was thinking how great it would be, if I could tell Holly that Nevada’s mum was the sort of psychic who helps find missing people, rather than the kind who tells fortunes at the fair.

  Nevada shook her head. ‘She’s got her own business. People come to her if they’ve got problems and she tries to help them.’

  ‘What sort of problems?’

  ‘Oh, sometimes they want to know about their love lives, or about relatives who’ve passed on – stuff like that. She’s got contacts in the spirit world and she gets messages from them.’

  ‘Wow!’ But before I could question her any further we turned a corner and I spotted Holly in the distance – and so did Nevada, judging by the wary look on her face.

  ‘HOLLY!’ I yelled at the top of my voice, thinking that I had to somehow get her and Nevada to spend some time together, so they’d see that there was no reason to dislike each other.