Billy Angel (5 page)

I couldn't help but laugh. I sat there on the pink sofa, surrounded by angels and had a right good chortle. ‘My day just gets better and better,' I grinned through gritted teeth. ‘Hocus-pocus pies! I've heard it all now.'

‘Perhaps not witchcraft,' said the angel lady soothingly. ‘Perhaps the girl is just trying to make a charm to win back her lost love. But whatever it is,' she added. ‘I think she's in trouble, and for some reason you're the only one who can help her.'

I left soon afterwards. But not before Goth girl had tried to sell me a naff-looking pencil holder, and three packs of cherubic thank-you notes she said were on special offer.

‘My aunt needs the cash,' she said grumpily. ‘She spends so much time helping people, she forgets to sell anything.'

Guiltily, I bought a pink pencil sharpener with a love heart on it and vowed to throw it away the minute I got out of the shop. I also left with two bits of advice from the angel lady. Firstly, and most importantly, she told me not to worry about wings. (How did she know I was worried? She was right of course: I was absolutely brown-pants panicking that I was about to sprout a huge pair of feathered appendages that I'd somehow have to hide at football practice.)

She also told me to listen to my inner angel. That bit of advice didn't sound useful at all.
Because so far my inner angel was telling me I should go home and hide under my bed for three weeks. But I thanked her anyway, and promised to give her an update soon.

By the time I got back to the pie shop, Dad and Grant had finished and were now sitting scoffing pies in the slightly less smelly pie-shop kitchen.

‘At last!' said Dad, dribbling pie fat down his chin.

‘I er… bumped into a friend,' I said lamely, offering them cups of stone-cold tea.

Dad smiled. ‘Ah, don't fret, son, I know what we found today wasn't pleasant. Sometimes plumbing can be tough, but the rewards are immense. You should go and run some water down that sink now – it's like a babbling brook!'

I declined the offer. I also turned down the pie that Grant offered me. I just couldn't forget the fish eyes.

‘Grant's been telling me about this pie-eating competition tomorrow,' said Dad, cramming another overloaded forkful into his mouth. ‘It's fascinating.' He chewed for several minutes before wiping the grease off his chin. ‘Apparently the world record for beef-and-potato,
deep-fried pie scoffing stands at 15 pies in ten minutes.'

I gaped.
Fifteen pies in ten minute
s? Impossible! (Almost as impossible as Grant's love for Thelma.)

‘That record was actually set back in the 1950s,' said Grant. ‘And it's never been broken.'

‘That's a lot of pies,' I said.

Grant nodded. ‘The record was set by a local man: Stan Spooner – he was known as Mr Pie. He was actually a pie chef here, back when Thelma's Grandpa ran the business….'

I suddenly got that weird feeling again. Like someone was nipping my ears to make sure I was listening. I frowned. It was actually quite annoying.

Grant shook his head sadly. ‘A bit of a sad business really. Stan Spooner died the night he set the record.'

‘Died?' I breathed. The nipping sensation was getting worse.

‘Yes, he somehow managed to swallow all 15 pies, but then he pushed his luck and decided to try for number 16.' Grant sighed. ‘It was his undoing. The 16th pie got wedged in his throat and he choked to death.'

‘What!' I gasped. ‘He died here?'

Grant shrugged his shoulders. ‘Competitive eating's a dangerous sport. Not for the faint-hearted. Would you like to see a picture of him?'

Grant beckoned me into the pie shop and there, high above the counter, was a small black-and-white photograph of a cheerful, red-faced bloke holding an enormous pie.

‘That's him,' said Grant. ‘It was taken just before the competition.'

‘What a dreadful way to go,' I whispered. ‘Choking on a pie.'

‘Oh, it wasn't so bad. Sort of suited him,' said Grant. ‘Pies were his life. He always wanted to be famous as a great pie eater, and dying the way he did, well he sort of got his wish. You know he even left his body to medical science. It was in his will. He liked the idea of doctors trying to work out how he could eat so many pies.'

Just then Dad appeared. ‘OK, Grant, we'll be off now,' he said. ‘Tell Mr Potts I'll let him have my invoice in a day or two.'

I was still too stunned to speak, but my head was swimming with images: Thelma and her pie slice; Charlie Pittam, the love-rat sausage swallower; Stan Spooner choking on pies…

‘Hey – I've just had a thought,' beamed Grant. ‘Why don't you both come along to the competition tomorrow? You can drop off your bill then, too.'

Dad grinned.

‘No!' I tried to shout, but somehow the word wouldn't come out, and I felt the nipping sensation again.

‘It'll be a great night. Piles of pies, lots of excitement,' said Grant. ‘And I've got a bit of a surprise in store myself.'

Dad beamed. ‘We'd be delighted.'

I tried to shout again. ‘NO! NO MORE PIES!'

But still nothing came out. And I suddenly had a scary thought: was this my inner angel messing with my mind?

In the car on the way back home, I tried to piece it all altogether. According to the hoodie-angel,
something awful was going to happen to Thelma tomorrow. And no matter how much I disliked her (and, more to the point, was terrified of her), I'd been charged with protecting her. Tomorrow was also the night of the pie-eating competition, where her ex-boyfriend would be competing. I knew it was a dangerous sport. People died scoffing pies. People like poor Stan Spooner – the record-breaking pie eater.

Suddenly I had a flash of inspiration. Thelma was obviously going to knobble one of Charlie's pies during the competition. All she needed to do was stick something lumpy in there and hope he'd choke! Fish eyes, newts' feet, a lump of pig hair… they'd all do the trick: no wonder she'd been ‘working on some new recipes'. Goth girl had got it wrong. This wasn't anything to do with hocus-pocus high jinks. This was plain and simple murder. And my mission was obviously to somehow stop Thelma from going through with it. But there was one small detail I couldn't quite work out – how was I, William Box, reluctant plumber, and small, skinny eleven-year-old boy, going to stop Thelma from doing
anything
?

‘Billy!' bawled Mum. ‘It's for you.'

It was the next morning and I was still in my pyjamas when the doorbell rang.

‘Who is it?' I yelled. I wasn't expecting anyone. Barry was still on holiday (lucky devil) and all my other friends are never out of bed before twelve.

There was a pause, and then. ‘It's Gaby… from the shop!'

Gaby from the shop? What shop? Gaby who? Reluctantly, I decided I'd better find out.

‘Hello, Billy, you left your feather behind.'

It was Goth girl.

‘Oh, right,' I muttered. I could see Mum hovering in the kitchen with a smile on her face. My heart sank. She obviously thought that this was my girlfriend. ‘Well, thanks for dropping it off. Be seeing you…'

I tried to shut the door, but her small, black leather boot was blocking the way.

‘So, Billy,' she said cheerfully, ‘have you worked out how you're going to stop Thelma from slicing up that sausage swallower?'

‘Ssh!' I said. ‘Keep it down.' I could see Mum craning her neck from the kitchen, with that same soppy look on her chops. Actually I
had
finally worked out a plan. ‘It's simple,' I said confidently. ‘I'm going to go back to the pie shop and tell Thelma I'm there to do a follow-up examination of the plumbing system. That way I'll be able to keep my eye on her and find out what she's really up to.'

‘Well, that's rubbish,' said Gaby. ‘For a start, Thelma's not working today. I've just been to the shop, looking for you. Grant the pie chef gave me your dad's card. That's how I got here.'

‘Great! Well, thanks again for the feather. Be seeing you.'

I tried to shut the door again, but still she wouldn't move her boot.

‘Thelma's at home,' she went on. ‘Grant told me. And I checked the phone book, so now I know where she lives…'

She was beginning to sound like one of those scary stalkers you read about.

‘Fantastic,' I said sarcastically. ‘Well, as soon as I've had my shower, I'll go round there and tell her I'm her guardian angel, ready to save the day – and stop her killing her ex-boyfriend.'

Gaby scowled. ‘You can't do that!' she snapped. ‘But maybe we could go round there together and sort of keep a lookout. Make sure she isn't up to anything.'

‘
We
?' I said.

‘Well, two of us won't look so suspicious. No offence, Billy, but if I saw you hanging around outside my house, I think I'd call someone.'

She sort of had a point. I sighed. I wished I had an excuse not to go. But I didn't. Dad had been called out on an emergency plumbing job in the early hours and was now snoozing it off. I was surplus to requirements.

‘I suppose you'd better come in,' I said.

While I got dressed, Gaby scribbled her aunt's number on a piece of (pink) paper, which I gave to my mum, along with a cock-and-bull story about going around to Gaby's with a gang of kids from school to watch a DVD.

Mum smirked a strange smirk that I hadn't seen before. And, annoyingly, I felt my face turn red. I grabbed my coat and escaped.

‘Have you got your tool bag?' asked Gaby.

‘Why?'

‘Because it might come in handy – you know, a cover for why we might be in Thelma's neighbourhood. You could pretend you're doing a plumbing job.'

I stared at her. My tool bag weighed a ton. There was no way I wanted to lug it around. But then again, I might actually feel safer around Thelma if I had several heavy tools within reach. A few moments later, I reappeared with my bag. And we were off.

Gaby was smaller than me (which is saying something), but she was much faster. It was like going for a walk with a whippet. She powered alongside me, every so often getting so far ahead she'd have to stop and wait. It was actually quite annoying. Then, suddenly, she stopped.

‘This is it,' she said, peering at a bit of (pink) paper. ‘Number four – the big house over there.'

There's obviously a lot of dosh in pies, because we'd arrived at a pretty posh neighbourhood. The cars were all shiny and new, and the gardens were stuffed full of those adventure play centres that only truly rich kids own. Some of them were bigger than my house.

‘Let's take a closer look,' whispered Gaby. She grabbed my arm and we went towards the house.

But a moment later, she suddenly shoved me sideways, really hard. (For someone so small she had iron-man arms.) We landed in a thorny bush.

‘OWWWWWWWWWW!' I screamed, or I would have done, if Gaby hadn't clamped her small, sweaty hand over my mouth.

‘I think she's coming,' she whispered.

I wriggled a bit. It was hard not to with a giant thorn stuck in my behind.

Gaby pinched my arm. ‘Ssh!'

And then I saw her. It was Thelma all right. She was walking briskly down the road, pulling one of those old-lady shopping trolleys behind her, and she had a determined look on her face.

I felt my heart pounding, and I wondered whether it was from fear of Thelma, or the fact that I was struggling to breathe with Gaby's hand over my face.

A few moments later, Gaby let go, and I collapsed back onto the pavement.

‘Don't ever do that again!' I yowled.

But Gaby wasn't listening. ‘Come on, she's getting on that bus.'

Thelma had reached the end of the street, and as if by magic, a bus had just appeared.

‘We can't follow her,' I gasped, as Gaby dragged me towards the bus stop. ‘She'll recognise me.'

‘Maybe not.' Gaby fumbled in the pocket of her leather trench coat. ‘Here put this on.'

‘I'm not wearing that!'

It was disgusting. Like a robber's balaclava. The type of thing the thugs wear on
Crimewatch
. And as disguises go it was pants,
especially as I was carrying a bag full of tools.

‘I might as well hang a sign around my neck saying: Look at me, I'm on my way to rob your house,' I muttered.

But Gaby wasn't listening. She just snatched the balaclava from me, and pulled it down over my face.

‘Two fares to town, please.'

And that was that. She shoved me up the middle of the bus past Thelma, who was so busy reading a book, she didn't even glance our way.

‘Macaverty and Lawson!' whispered Gaby, as the bus moved off. ‘I knew it.'

‘What are you talking about?' I pulled off the balaclava and sank into my seat.