A. N. T. I. D. O. T. E. (6 page)

‘No, I’d rather. I mean, I want to. I mean …’ I began to get embarrassed, wondering if I was giving the game away.

‘Ah!’ Nosh’s mum nodded with grown-up under-standing. ‘Are you going to phone your girlfriend?’

‘What girlfriend?’ I frowned.

‘Don’t come over all coy with me.’ Nosh’s mum wagged her finger. ‘I’m sure a cute boy like you has a girlfriend for every day of the week.’

If I heard that word – cute! – one more time …

‘I’ll be back soon,’ I told Nosh’s mum firmly. And I walked out of the kitchen.

I could hear her laughing behind me. That made me walk faster. By the time I was at the front gate I was running to get to my own house. Cute! I really
really
hated that word. I walked up our garden path, still arguing with myself as to whether or not I should shout down the phone at Mum after she’d explained about this Shelby business. I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts that my front door key was in my hand and my hand was reaching out towards the door before I realized something.

Our front door was slightly ajar.

I stared at it, my hand frozen centimetres away from the lock. I pushed it open and ran in.

‘Mum? Mum, it’s me! MUM!’

I dashed into the living room and stopped abruptly. It was as if I’d been kicked in the stomach by a mule. There was no sound but a strange thud-thudding in my ears as I stared around. Then I realized what that strange noise was. It was my blood, roaring like thunder through my body. The living room was in chaos.

We’d been burgled.

The DVD player was gone, the telly lay on its side and the whole room had been trashed. The sofa and armchair cushions were littered over the floor. All our CDs and DVDs were strewn across the carpet like a whirlwind had entered the room. The bookcase had been tipped over and all the books lay in haphazard heaps beneath it. Like a zombie I wandered from the room.

My throat felt as if it was being strangled from the inside out and my eyes began to burn with stinging tears which I couldn’t stop running down my cheeks. The kitchen looked relatively untouched although the fridge door was wide open and the fridge motor was whirring loudly in protest. The recharger for my mobile still sat on the kitchen table – but my phone was gone.

So much for waking up and feeling it was going to be a brilliant day, I thought bitterly.

We’d been burgled. When had it happened? When had they arrived? How had the thieves known that the
house
was empty? Why now? Why us? I felt sick. I wiped the back of my hand across my eyes but I couldn’t stop my eyes from leaking – which made me feel worse. I hadn’t cried when the police had arrived saying they wanted to arrest Mum, so why cry now?

I went out into the hall and looked up the stairs. What was waiting for me up there? Had they taken the mini hi-fi Mum bought me for my last birthday? But then I remembered the most important thing of all – Mum’s computer … I didn’t so much run as leap up the stairs.

Please don’t let them have taken it – please
…

I raced into the back bedroom. It was still there. I couldn’t believe it. I would’ve thought Mum’s computer was the first thing the thieves would’ve taken. It had definitely been moved – the monitor was on the floor, the processor was by the door with the printer and scanner sitting on top of it. It was as if the thieves had planned to take it but they’d been interrupted before they could get very far. All the cables and wires were disconnected but
it was still there
. I lifted up the printer to put it back on the table before it occurred to me that maybe I shouldn’t. I didn’t want to smudge the burglars’ fingerprints. I put it back down on the monitor and went to see what exactly had been taken from the other rooms.

The bathroom was untouched. In my bedroom, all my things had been moved, my books and CDs were
scattered
across the floor, they’d even tipped my mattress off the base of my bed, but nothing seemed to be missing and it was the same story in Mum’s bedroom – as far as I could see. Were our DVD player and my mobile really the only things that had been taken? The thieves had to have been interrupted, there was no other explanation. But then, they seemed to have had time to turn the place into a tip … I didn’t understand why they hadn’t taken lots of portable things – like my mini hi-fi, or the hi-fi downstairs or the expensive digital camera in Mum’s bedroom. OK, so Mum’s computer with all its gear was too heavy and cumbersome to shift but there was plenty of other stuff in the house worth taking. Not that I was complaining or anything, but it was bizarre. I ran downstairs to phone the police. It was only when I got to the phone that I remembered something else.
Mum
. I looked down at my watch. Nine-twenty-five. Mum said she’d phone at nine-fifteen and she was a stickler for things like that.

Was she all right? Had something happened?

I closed my eyes and clenched my fists against all the feelings threatening to overwhelm me. It was as if I was at the bottom of the sea, desperately swimming upwards, but no matter how hard I kicked I never got to the surface. What next, for goodness’ sake?
What next
?

‘Emergency. Which service do you require?’

‘We’ve been burgled,’ I told the anonymous voice at the other end of the phone.

‘I’ll connect you through to the police,’ the woman’s voice told me.

Moments later I was explaining what had happened to the policeman who answered. He started off by asking my name and address, then my age.

‘Are you sure that the burglar is no longer on the premises?’ he asked.

‘Yeah, long gone,’ I replied.

‘Well, stay put, try not to touch anything and we’ll send someone round straight away,’ he said.

I put the phone down, hoping that Mum hadn’t tried to contact me when I was on the phone to the police. I glared at the phone, willing her to ring me, missing her more than I’d ever thought possible.

‘It wouldn’t have killed you to wait for …’ Nosh’s voice trailed off as he looked at me. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘We’ve been burgled.’

‘You’re kidding.’

I didn’t even bother to answer. I just looked at him. I mean, did it look like I was kidding? Being burgled wasn’t exactly something I’d joke about.

‘What did they take?’ Nosh asked, when he saw that I was serious.

‘Just the DVD player and my mobile as far as I can see.’

Nosh walked into the living room. He gave a long, low whistle when he saw what had happened in there. It was that more than anything else that finally convinced
me
that I wasn’t dreaming. I sat on the second to last stair, the phone cradled in my lap, and waited.

The police arrived in about ten minutes. Mum didn’t phone. And within two minutes of the two policemen arriving, Nosh’s whole family was in my house.

‘What’s going on?’

‘Burgled!’

‘Why didn’t you come and tell us, Nosh?’

‘Elliot, I’m so sorry.’

And on and on Nosh’s parents went. Only Halle said anything of any use. She took a look around the living room, turned to me and said vehemently, ‘What a bunch of scumbags! I hope whoever took your DVD player has the thing blow up on them – taking their favourite film with it!’

She smiled at me then and I couldn’t help but smile back.

Once I had shown the police around the house, we went into the living room. They let me put the sofa cushions back where they should be and we all sat down. They asked me lots of questions about where my parents were and when was the last time I’d heard from my mum, but precious little about the burglary. There were two of them, although only one asked me any questions. Then the fingerprint officer arrived. She had this gloomy, forlorn look on her face that looked like it was permanently painted on. She disappeared off somewhere muttering something about her raging
indigestion
. She came back less than five minutes later, shaking her head.

‘It looks like a professional job. They came in through the back via the kitchen window. There were two of them but they were both wearing gloves.’

‘Not much chance of catching them, then,’ the head policeman said glumly.

Yep! If today was going to be a brilliant day, I should definitely get back into bed and wait for tomorrow, I decided.

‘You’re not staying here by yourself, are you?’ asked the glum policeman.

I shook my head. ‘I’m staying with Nosh’s family next door until my mum gets back,’ I replied.

He wrote something in his book.

‘Well,’ he said, standing up, ‘I can give you a crime number which your mum will have to use to claim on her insurance.’

‘Is that it, then?’ I asked, surprised.

‘The thieves are long gone now, but we’ll see what we can do.’

Was I impressed? Not much! But what could I do? Missing Mum more than ever, I began to straighten up the room.

‘I’m meeting Julian in an hour. We’re joining the ANTIDOTE protest march against Shelby’s later this afternoon but I’ll stay and help you tidy up until then,’ Halle told me.

‘I’ll stay for a while too,’ said Nosh’s dad. ‘I can’t let you clear up this mess by yourself.’

‘I’ll see you later, Elliot,’ Nosh told me.

‘Nosh!’ His dad and mum spoke in shocked unison.

‘I’m only joking.’ Nosh grinned. ‘I wouldn’t run out now, would I?’

‘Hhmm! I wouldn’t put it past you,’ said his mum.

‘I’ll start on the upstairs,’ I said quietly.

I could feel my eyes stinging again and I didn’t fancy embarrassing myself in front of my neighbours. I trudged up the stairs, thankful that no one tried to stop me.

‘D’you want some help?’ Nosh called after me.

I turned back to him. ‘Yeah, OK,’ I said at last.

Nosh followed me into Mum’s computer room.

‘You can help me get this lot sorted out,’ I said when at last I could trust myself not to blub.

We put the processor under the table and moved the PC screen onto the table next to the printer. Nosh sorted out the cables strewn across the floor, whilst I tried to figure out what I needed to do to make Mum’s PC work again. Actually it was the best thing I could do in the circumstances. I soon became so engrossed with what I was doing that it took my mind off … other things. Not completely, but enough for me to calm down inside. All the cables and wires were still present so Nosh and I set about connecting the whole system up again. It took a while but at last we were plugged in and ready to give it a go. I turned on the speakers and
the
screen before turning on the processor. Text immediately came up on the monitor.

‘Yes! It still works,’ I grinned at Nosh.

‘Of course it does,’ Nosh grinned back. ‘We did it!’

But I’d spoken too soon. About two seconds after we got the initial message about booting up the computer, the system crashed. My smile faded. I pressed the button on the processor to try again. The same thing happened. I dug Mum’s backup boot CD out of the pen-tray of the table and inserted that in the drive. This time the computer booted up properly, from the CD – but it might as well not have bothered. There was absolutely nothing on Mum’s computer. The directories, the files – they’d all gone. The hard disk was empty. It wasn’t that the hard disk was corrupt and wouldn’t allow us to read any files, there just wasn’t anything there. Nothing. And ANTIDOTE. CONFIDENTIAL – the Marcus Pardela memo that Mum had loaded – that had gone, too.

‘What’s going on? Where’s all the stuff we were looking at yesterday?’ Nosh asked me, puzzled.

I stared at the screen. ‘It’s all been erased. A total wipe-out.’

‘I don’t understand.’ Nosh frowned.

‘I mean, someone has deliberately wiped out every file Mum had on the system,’ I said. ‘Now why would a burglar – a real burglar – sit down and take the time to do that?’

‘
WHAT’RE YOU SAYING
? That the people who broke into this house weren’t real burglars at all?’ Nosh asked, astounded.

‘Why would they take the time to sit here and wipe out every file, then not take the computer?’ I asked. ‘Why not take the computer, then delete all the files once they got it home or something?’

‘It doesn’t make any sense,’ Nosh agreed.

‘Nothing about this whole business does,’ I said. ‘I mean, how come the burglars knew the one and only night in the last year and a half when there was no one at home? Don’t you think that’s a bit of a coincidence?’

‘Are you sure you’re not getting a bit carried away?’ frowned Nosh.

‘Nosh, look around. Nothing was taken – nothing except an old DVD player and a mobile phone. I reckon that was only taken to make it
look
like a burglary.’

‘But what about all the mess …?’

‘I’ve been thinking about that, too. The only
explanation
I can come up with is that the so-called burglars were looking for something.’

‘Like what?’

I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe they knew about Marcus Pardela’s confidential memo and wanted to get that back. Or maybe they were looking for Mum’s mobile. That could be why she told me to take her phone and put it somewhere safe. And maybe that’s why they took my phone, because they thought it was Mum’s.’

‘Is that what she told you to do when she phoned you last night?’ Nosh asked curiously.

I grimaced and bit my lip. Me and my ginormous mouth! ‘Yes, but don’t tell anyone else. Mum warned me not to say anything to anyone.’

‘I won’t tell a soul. You can count on me. But what I don’t understand is why anyone would be after your mum’s mobile?’

‘I DON’T KNOW!’ I exploded. ‘Stop asking stupid questions I can’t answer.’

‘Well, excuse me whilst I just run after my bloomin’ head.’

We both sat in silence staring at the monitor.

‘Those two men we saw last night,’ Nosh said suddenly. ‘D’you think they were the burglars?’

The moment he said that, I instantly felt that he was right. And then I told myself off.

‘It’s not very likely,’ I pointed out, doubtfully.

‘But if you’re right about this not being a real burglary then it makes sense,’ Nosh insisted. ‘Those two men were watching your house. They only turned away when they noticed that we were watching them.’