Unleashed! (8 page)

This time there was a note! But no ordinary note. This one was on grey paper which had been crisply folded and positioned against the jar.

‘It’s a bird,’ said Bryce. ‘Wonder why they left that?’

‘Not just any bird,’ said Mio, picking it up and holding it in the palm of her hand. ‘A crane. It’s origami.’ She looked puzzled as she spoke her thoughts out loud. ‘Now, who would send us a crane?’

‘What’s it mean?’ asked Clem.

‘In my country a crane is the symbol for good fortune and a long life.’ Mio squinted as she inspected the neat folds. ‘And colour is very important.’

‘Why?’ asked Clem as she reached for the bird. ‘What’s the deal with colour?’

‘Different colours mean different things. Red for passion, green for harmony, orange for energy, white for hope. That sort of thing. But grey…’ Mio’s voice rang out. ‘Grey means nothing.’

A hush filled the van. Nothing?!

Clem examined the crane closely then said, ‘Hey. There’s writing inside.’

‘Open it. Open it!’ Bryce waved his hands in excitement.

‘Hurry,’ urged Darcy.

‘All right, all right. I’m going as fast as I can.’ Clem tried to unfold the note but the paper tore. ‘Here,’ she said, handing it to Mio. ‘You do it.’

Mio’s fingers prised open the paper, then she read out loud:

‘The Emperor and his hound,

will not be found,

where the strays no longer play.’

‘I don’t get it,’ said Clem, flicking a curl round and round her fingers.

‘That makes two of us.’ Darcy scowled, angry with himself for not being able to figure it out either.

‘Let me have a look,’ said Bryce, taking the note from Mio. He stared at it, turning it over in his hands, stroking the paper between his fingers.

A grin tugged at the corners of Darcy’s mouth, then he said, ‘Rubbing it won’t conjure up some genie, you know.’

‘Very funny.’ Bryce slayed him with a look. ‘I’m trying to get some inspiration.’ He started to sing,
‘Need some inspiration, need some meaning in my life
.’

Mio took the note and placed it on top of the TV where they all crowded around it. ‘The Emperor.’ Bryce tapped the word with his finger. ‘What d’you think of when you hear the word “Emperor”?’

‘Empress!’ said Mio.

‘King!’

‘Castle.’

‘Or palace.’

‘Crown.’

‘No,’ said Mio. ‘A wig.’

‘Wig?’ echoed Bryce, scratching his head. ‘How’s that related?’

Mio removed a hair from her T-shirt as she explained, ‘Japanese royalty wear black wigs for important ceremonies, like when they get married.’

‘Can’t see how this is helping,’ said Darcy and again he studied the neatly written words on the note. The strokes were firm, with strong vertical lines and fine horizontal ones. Sometimes the letters had loops like monkey tails and sometimes
they curled like a pig’s tail. ‘What about hound, then?’ he asked.

‘Easy,’ said Bryce. ‘Dog.’

‘Not just any dog. A hound is a dog that follows a scent.’

‘A beagle follows a scent!’ Clem’s eyes widened and her heart beat faster. ‘The note’s about the beagle.’ She snatched the piece of paper, saying, ‘This Emperor, or whatever, and his beagle will not be found, where the strays no longer play.’ She repeated the last few words softly, ‘Where the strays no longer play,’ then looked up and asked, ‘What would stop a dog from playing?’

‘Sleeping.’

‘Eating.’

Clem frowned. ‘That doesn’t help.’

Bryce picked up the note, then put it down again, when suddenly Clem clicked her fingers. ‘I know! Working dogs can’t play.’

Bryce laughed. ‘Working dogs. You make them sound like they’re in a suit and tie and carrying a briefcase.’ He gave Clem a friendly poke.

She stepped back and took a deep breath. ‘There
are
working dogs. I saw a show about it. One of those documentaries. Beagles can work as…’ Clem started counting on her fingers ‘…airport sniffer dogs, search and rescue dogs, military dogs who sniff out land mines or explosives and stuff.’

‘I get it, I get it,’ said Bryce. ‘Beagles can work. But I can’t see how that helps. There’s no airports or land mines around here.’

‘But where do they stray?’ asked Darcy. ‘It might have something to do with that.’

‘In the streets, of course,’ said Mio. Her eyes shone with excitement at the thought that trying to solve this mystery was just like in the movies.

‘So…’ said Darcy. ‘If they’re not in the streets, where are they?’

Clem leapt into the air and clapped her hands, saying, ‘The animal shelter!’ She grabbed Darcy’s arm. ‘Strays go to the animal shelter then get locked up. They’re not allowed to play!’

Darcy grinned, so wide that his cheeks almost swallowed his eyes. ‘Good one, Clem. I think you’re on the right track. It means…’

‘…that our beagle isn’t at the pound.’ Clem frowned, unsure if this was a good thing, or a bad thing. She grabbed her brother’s arm and asked, ‘If she’s not there, where is she?’

‘She’s with someone called the Emperor.’ Absent-mindedly Bryce rearranged his undies.

‘You right?’ asked Darcy, checking out the move.

Bryce ignored him. ‘But who’s the Emperor?’

Darcy shrugged as he answered, ‘No idea.’

‘Me, either.’

They looked to Mio. She was lost in thought, her head bowed.

‘Mio?’ asked Clem. ‘Any ideas?’

Mio hesitated. She chewed her lip then gave a small shake of the head. ‘No. Not really. Except, we have our Emperor in Japan, but I can’t see how this has anything to do with him.’ Silence filled The Van. ‘I guess the question is this—if the beagle’s not at the animal shelter, where is she?’

More silence.

Suddenly, a sneeze was heard outside, so close they all jumped.

Mio sprang out of The Van first, followed by Darcy, then Clem and Bryce. ‘Look.’ She pointed at a figure scurrying towards the alley and called, ‘Hey, you! Stop!’

The figure ran faster. With head down and loose clothing it was impossible to tell who it was, although from its size it wasn’t an adult.

‘The bikes!’ yelled Darcy. ‘We’ll catch them on our bikes.’

In an agonisingly long time the lock was opened and the bikes pulled free from the chain, then all four mounted and started pedalling. ‘After them.’ Darcy thrust down hard to gain speed and the others followed. Freewheelers!

‘We’re gaining,’ shouted Clem. ‘Hurry!’

Darcy shortened the distance between them. Mio and Clem were not far behind. Bryce, as usual, was last. Darcy rose to pedal half-seated, half-standing. He was a fighter bomber with his target in sight. The others glided in his slipstream.

As they reached the corner the kid veered left, jumped over a low brick fence into a tenement, then ran down a path and pushed through a side gate. The house was boarded up and there was a pile of yellowed, unopened papers littering the yard.

‘Where’d they go?’ asked Clem, powering up to the fence.

‘We, we’ve lost ’em,’ panted Bryce, then he doubled over to catch his breath.

‘Maybe,’ said Clem. ‘And maybe not.’ She leapt off her bike, throwing it down so quickly that it skidded across the pavement, then bounded over the fence towards the gate. Taking three giant strides she called over her shoulder, ‘Come on!’

Bryce baulked at the fence. ‘We can’t. It’s private property!’

‘So?!’ said Clem, pulling the handle and opening the gate. Halfway through she stopped and turned, asking, ‘Who’s with me?’

‘Me,’ said Darcy and he scooted off his bike and headed for the fence.

‘And me.’ Mio slid off her bike and propped it up on its stand before she, too, leapt the fence.

Helmets scattered.

Bryce’s face fell. In a shrunken voice he said, ‘You guys go. I’ll stay and mind the bikes.’

Darcy, Clem and Mio disappeared through the gate in a flurry of arms and legs. Bryce sighed. Standing astride his bike, he settled in for a long wait. Not for the first time he wished his mum and dad were still married and that he didn’t have to deal with stepfathers and stepmothers and the constant threat of being tossed into a juvenile detention centre and being barred by his father. I’d give anything to have a family like Clem and Darcy’s, he thought. Anything!

Once through the gate and down a path the kids found themselves in a small courtyard cocooned at the side of the rickety old tenement. Downstairs the windows and door were boarded up. Between the moss and the dirt it was obvious that it hadn’t been lived in for a very long time. An old metal stairway led to another floor at the top. The path continued down the side.

‘Which way?’ asked Clem, squinting to see what lay behind the windows.

‘Who knows?’

Mio pointed to the darkened passage. ‘Down the side, maybe. They went that way.’

‘How can you be sure?’ asked Clem.

‘I can’t.’

‘Let’s split up, then,’ said Clem. ‘We’re wasting too much time. Mio, you and Darcy check the side path. I’ll do upstairs.’ She scaled the steps, three at a time, pleased that Mio didn’t argue.

Grabbing Mio’s sleeve Darcy pulled her into the shadows of the passageway. The air was cool and dank, giving them goosebumps. It smelt musty, like old clothes, or an attic. Mio hugged herself for warmth.

Darcy took the lead, ducking and weaving around what looked like a lifetime of junk. Broken stools, an old cupboard, rusted buckets and mouldy mops all had to be sidestepped.
Ughhh!
he thought as he swerved then swiped madly at his hair and face.

‘What?’ asked Mio, who nearly toppled over him.

‘Spider web!’ Darcy spat and swatted at the same time.

Mio felt a shiver down her back. ‘Glad it’s you and not me.’

At the end of the passage they came to another gate. It was tall, much higher than the other, and padlocked. Darcy rattled it but it didn’t open. He rested his cheek against a paling, trying to look through the cracks. He could vaguely make out the bumper and bonnet of a car, white, but that was all.

‘He, or she, can’t have gone through here,’ said Mio, suddenly feeling trapped.

‘No. Otherwise they’d have broken that web.’

‘Let’s go find Clem.’

When they got back to the courtyard Clem couldn’t be seen. The kids bolted up the stairs to be greeted by another door into the house, also boarded up. They edged along the landing, trying to see through the grimy windows.

‘Where’s Clem?’ asked Mio, her voice breathless.

Darcy looked to the left, right, left, wondering how she could disappear, when all of a sudden a whistle got his attention. He looked up then gasped, ‘Oh!’

Mio’s eyes widened. Somehow Clem had scaled the lattice on the side of the landing and climbed a small gabled roof. There she crouched, peering from rooftop to rooftop.

‘Clem!’ hissed Darcy, watching his sister anxiously as he gripped the railing. ‘Get down from there. You’ll fall!’

Clem held her finger to her lips, then pointed to the building next door. This one was higher, separated from the other by about a two-metre gap. She mouthed something to Mio and Darcy.

‘What?’ asked Darcy.

Mio prodded him with a hushed,
‘Shhhhh
.’

Again, Clem pointed at something next door. The kids inspected the building. They saw broken tiles and a chimney covered in bird poo. Clem
pointed more urgently so Darcy looked closer. And then he saw it. Poking out from behind the chimney. A foot! Or more precisely, a foot wearing a runner—a very white runner. Darcy calculated the distance between their landing and the roof opposite and scowled, wondering how on earth they’d jumped that.

Standing slowly, Clem took several steps backwards. Darcy watched as she crouched, her elbows flattened to her sides—one arm extended forwards and the other back—and wondered what she was doing. She rose to her toes, then bounced once, twice.

‘No!’ screamed Darcy. ‘Clem, no!’

‘What did you do that for?’ growled Clem, climbing down the latticework and leaping onto the landing. ‘I could’ve jumped it easily and caught him, if it wasn’t for you. You idiot!’

Darcy scurried down the stairs and across the pavers calling over his shoulder, ‘’Cause I wasn’t in the mood for a funeral.’ As he pushed open the gate that led back to the street he turned and added, ‘Although I am now!’ before storming through.

Mio opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it again.

‘What?’ Clem huffed with frustration, her hands curled at her sides.

‘Nothing,’ said Mio then she, too, turned and headed for the gate. Clem dragged behind.

The sun was sinking, making long shadows on the footpath and taking the heat out of the air. In the distance people scurried home from work, weaving their way through the evening traffic. There was the familiar sound of horns beeping and tyres screeching.

‘We saw the intruder,’ announced Darcy as he came through the gate.

‘The intruder’s foot,’ corrected Mio, then she paused. ‘Come to think of it, we saw the eavesdropper’s foot. We don’t even know if it’s the same person or not.’

‘Must be.’

‘Surely.’

Mio shrugged and said, ‘Maybe. But maybe not.’

‘I could’ve caught him,’ growled Clem. ‘If it wasn’t for a certain person with red hair who is not ME!’ She was so angry that her face and hair blended in. ‘He got away.’

Darcy looked heavenwards as he threw his hands in the air, then let them flop to his sides. Raising his pitch to sound like Clem he said, ‘Gee, Darcy. Thanks for saving my life!’ Then in his own voice he answered, ‘Not at all, Clem. That’s what brothers are for.’

Bryce grinned, thinking,
Typical!

‘It’s that boy in the old clothes and white runners,’ said Clem.

Darcy spoke through clenched teeth. ‘The boy we keep seeing. The one at the bike fence. On the station. At the shelter. The one who we thought was Mio.’

Mio looked around at her friends, saying, ‘Lots of people wear white runners. How can we be sure it’s him?’ She turned to Clem and asked, ‘Did you get a good look at his face?’

‘No-o-o.’ Clem frowned. ‘But I’m one hundred percent sure it’s him.’ She walked over to her bike and lifted it up, then grabbed her helmet and swung her leg over the top tube bar. Once settled on her seat, she ran her hands over the frame, checking for damage. There were one or two extra scrapes but apart from that it had survived the slide on the pavement.

‘Only ninety-nine percent certain,’ corrected Darcy, also scooping up his helmet and retrieving his bike. ‘You’ve got to factor in human error. We learnt it in maths.’

‘Whatever!’

Mio walked along the street, now and again rising on tiptoes and peering upwards. Every so often she stopped and looked from a tenement to the park and back again. Her eyes calculated angles and distance.

‘Whatcha looking for?’ called Bryce.

‘I’m trying to see if he’s still there,’ answered Mio. Another couple of steps and she gave up, heading back to the others. A poster plastered to a brick wall caught her eye. Out loud she read:

Lost: Brittany spaniel. Answers to the name of Cassie. White fur with tan blotches. Much loved. Reward.

‘Someone else has lost a dog,’ she called to the others.

‘Never mind that. Did you see anything?’ asked Bryce. ‘Intruder? Elvis? ET?’

‘Very funny,’ said Clem, but it was only Darcy who laughed.

Mio flicked a speck of dust from her top, then looked up. ‘The roof’s too high to see from the street. He could be anywhere by now.’

Bryce looped his helmet straps over his wrist as he asked, ‘Why don’t we wait him out? He’s gotta come down sometime.’

Clem shook her head, saying, ‘Waste of time. What’s to stop him from getting away? He’s probably going from rooftop to rooftop as we speak.’

‘What’s he want?’ asked Darcy, his voice rising in frustration. Spit flew from his mouth. ‘And is he the one who left the note?’

‘We’ll never know, will we?’ said Clem. ‘Because we let him go!’

Mio thrust her hands in her pockets, saying, ‘We can’t be sure it’s the same boy. All we know is that a person was outside The Van while we were talking. We can’t say it’s him because of one white runner.’

Bryce beamed at her in admiration. ‘You sound like a full pro. Mio Shinozaki, Lawyer!’

Mio smiled. Her head lifted higher. She wished she got such praise at home.

‘I wonder if he wanted to help us or hurt us?’ asked Clem, thinking aloud.

Mio tucked a strand of hair behind her ears as she said, ‘Could be a trick.’

Darcy nodded. ‘I think it is a trick. Otherwise he’d come right out and tell us where the dog is—not muck around with riddles.’

‘But what’s his motive?’ Bryce turned to Mio, grinning. ‘Hey, I could be a lawyer, too!’

Darcy went to say,
Not with your record,
but he bit his tongue. Instead, he said, ‘His motive is to stop us from going back to the pound.’

‘But why’d he do that?’ asked Bryce. ‘Why wouldn’t he want us to have the dog?’

Clem jumped in. ‘Maybe he wants the dog for himself? Or maybe he’s trying to cover for someone? Or maybe he’s trying to get at us?’ She
kicked at a loose stone on the ground. ‘How would we know?!’

‘At this point he’s only under suspicion,’ said Mio. ‘Before we do anything else we have to talk to him.’

‘No.’ Clem shook her head. ‘Before we do anything else we have to go back to the pound.’

‘I disagree,’ said Mio. ‘I think this boy knows something. Something that can help us. I say we speak to him first.’

‘Me, too,’ said Darcy.

‘Me, three,’ added Bryce.

‘But what if the dog gets shipped out? You heard the man. She’ll end up some place where we’ll never find her.’ Clem felt like she was pleading for its life.

‘Remember that other man said Thursday,’ said Darcy.

‘But what if it’s sooner?’ Clem’s voice crackled, then caught on the ‘sooner’. She could feel her face growing flushed. A lump wedged in her throat.

Mio touched Clem lightly on the arm. ‘I know it’s hard to ask you to wait, but you can’t ignore the clue.’

‘Or the fact that we’ve got an eavesdropper,’ said Bryce. ‘We haven’t forgotten the beagle, Clem. We’ve just put her temporarily on hold.’

It made sense but every instinct was telling Clem to go back to the animal shelter. ‘Okay.
We’ll try to catch this kid tomorrow. But, if we fail, I’m going back to the pound. With or without you.’

‘So, how do we find this dude?’ asked Bryce. ‘He hasn’t exactly left a name ’n’ address.’

‘We could set a trap like Mr Lark suggested,’ said Clem.

Darcy snorted and raised one eyebrow. ‘We already tried that. Some trap!’

Mio pressed her lips together. The rest of her face stayed blank.

Bryce waggled his finger at Darcy, saying, ‘At least Mio tried.’

No-one spoke. Mio peered up at the rooftops, looking for answers. Darcy scowled into the sun. Bryce winked at Clem to reassure her, when suddenly Mio announced, ‘We don’t have to set a trap.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Darcy.

‘We don’t need a trap. All we need to do is meet at The Van.’ Her voice grew stronger, shimmering with excitement. ‘And he’ll come to us.’

‘How come?’ asked Clem.

Mio explained, ‘We got a really good view from that landing, didn’t we? Could see all the way to the park. Imagine what that boy can see if he’s up one level higher. I’ll bet he spies on us. Watches and waits, from up there.’

Darcy smiled. ‘So when we’re in The Van, all he has to do is creep down and eavesdrop and…’

‘Learn all our plans,’ finished Clem.

Bryce whistled in admiration. ‘Clever.’

There was a moment of silence as the kids let the words sink in.

‘Maybe he works with that horrible man? As his sidekick, or something?’ suggested Clem. She blanched at the thought.

‘We’ll catch him,’ said Darcy. ‘Tomorrow afternoon, after school. We’ll come to The Van, make something yummy and lure him in.’

‘Let’s make bananas in a blanket!’ said Bryce. ‘With choc bits. My favourite.’

The others shook their heads. ‘Hopeless,’ said Mio.

‘I’m only helping to set the scene,’ said Bryce, but he did look sheepish. As much as he tried not to let it, food came into his thoughts every waking minute.

‘Yeah, right, Bryce.’ Clem tried to look stern but her eyes were smiling. ‘I think three of us should come to The Van at the normal time after school and the other one should come early and hide. Then, when the boy gets near, we pounce. Let’s beat him at his own game.’

‘Great idea!’ said Mio. ‘We can easily hide in those play tunnels.’

Darcy hooked his thumb in his shorts. ‘I’ll hide. I’ll come out with the bus kids and race straight here.’

‘No, me,’ said Clem. ‘I’ll hide.’

‘No, I will. I’m the smallest and can easily fit in a tunnel. Besides, this is my idea.’ By the tone in Mio’s voice the others knew not to argue. She checked her watch, saying, ‘Oh, no! Look at the time. Better run.’

Bryce called to her departing back, ‘I’ll bring the ingredients!’