Davina Dupree Suspects a Smuggler (3 page)

Later that night, Tuesday 7
^th
February

Crisis, Diary!

Oh my goodness, you’ll never guess what happened while we were all at the beach, it’s SUCH a disaster, especially for poor Arabella.

As we dragged ourselves up the last bit of the tunnel and into the kitchen cellars, VERY tired after our day on the beach, we could hear frantic shouting that got louder and louder as we got closer to the kitchens.

‘Is that...Marcel?’ Melody asked from behind me.

‘Yes,’ I said, worried. ‘I think it is.’ We all know Marcel has a TERRIBLY bad temper and always argues with his chefs, but sometimes I think it’s all for show. He has a really soft side too and always bakes amazing cakes for all the teachers, pupils and chefs on their birthdays. But the way he was shouting now was different from normal, he sounded more anguished and distressed.

‘Where are all the jars of Italian sweets?’ Arabella said as we walked through the deepest cellar. ‘I’m sure they were right
here
before.’ She pointed to a large, dark space on the floor.

‘Maybe Marcel moved things around while we were out?’ I said, doubt creeping into my stomach. Something didn’t feel right at all.

‘It certainly looks a lot more spacious down here than it did this morning,’ Lottie said, coming to walk next to me. ‘Don’t you think?’

‘Yes,’ I said, breaking into a run, seeing the steps up to the kitchen ahead of me. I arrived in the shiny silver and white kitchen, closely followed by Arabella and Lottie, in time to hear Marcel shriek,

‘But where ‘as it all gone, Mrs Fairchild? Where are all my INGREDIENTS?’

‘Deep breaths, Marcel, there’s a lamb,’ Mrs Fairchild said in a calm little voice. She was standing in front of the enormous oven, hands clasped, watching Marcel pace up and down the kitchen. For once he wasn’t wearing his chef’s hat, which was a bit alarming to see because Marcel ALWAYS wears his hat, it’s practically part of him. But most disturbing of all were the tears that ran down his face in rivers.

‘Why would anyone ‘ere do theez to me?’ He howled. ‘Why, Mrs Fairchild. Why? What did I do to deserve it? All my new batch of ingredients stolen, including ze WHOLE stock of Italian sweets. The school meals are ruined. RUINED!’

‘You are a great chef, Marcel,’ Mrs Fairchild stepped forwards, taking his hand and holding it tight. She glanced up and saw us first years assembling at the top of the steps. I’m sure half our mouths must have been hanging open. ‘I know you’ll be able to manage with the ingredients you have left until we catch the culprit and get back what is rightfully yours and the schools.’

‘The Italian sweets,’ whispered Arabella in my ear. ‘Please don’t tell me they’ve been stolen. They’re the most important ingredient of Magic Mousse.’

I turned to see she’d gone rather pale. Like I mentioned before, Arabella SERIOUSLY loves Magic Mousse.

‘Look,’ Mrs Fairchild let go of Marcel’s hand and shooed him gently towards the kitchen door. ‘Why don’t you go to bed, there’s a dear? Things always look better after a good night’s sleep. Let’s talk about this again tomorrow morning.’ So with his head hanging down, Marcel shuffled off into the corridor, sniffing loudly. Mrs Fairchild turned to us.

‘I didn’t mean for you to see or hear any of that,’ she said, quite seriously for her. ‘Please understand, first years, that something extremely serious happened while you were out on your school trip today, and I shall be calling an emergency assembly about it tomorrow morning. The fact is, most of Marcel’s ingredients that he keeps in the cellars have gone missing, presumed stolen. The total amount they are worth together is over a hundred thousand pounds, as Marcel buys in the finest, rarest foods from around the world.’

Mrs Bunn, who’d come to stand behind me – I could tell from the chewing and strawberry sweet aroma - tutted loudly. Arabella moaned softly, her worst fears confirmed. Mrs Fairchild stopped frowning.

‘But let’s not forget its only food that we’re talking about,’ she rubbed her hands together. ‘Luckily it’s all replaceable. Eventually. Rather an expensive batch to buy back, but never mind. Now come on, off to bed with you all. You must be tired after your busy day.’

Well. Really! #What a palava!

Wednesday, 8
^th
February

The plot thickens, Diary.

By breakfast time, the whole school seemed to know what had happened.

There was a buzz in the dining room as we ate our smoked mackerel on seeded toast with lemon mayonnaise. Literally EVERYONE seemed to be talking about it.

‘Apparently Marcel’s scream made Mrs Fairchild sprint from her office...’

‘They’re calling the police in, there’s a criminal amongst us...’

‘ALL of the Italian sweets are gone, Marcel will never be able to make Magic Mousse again...’

‘Noooo!’ Arabella yelled, when she heard this remark.

Marcel came out of the kitchen to talk to Mrs Fairchild, who was sitting on a table not far from our own. He didn’t look like the chef we’d come to know and love, his face was pale, his eyes looked down and his shoulders sagged.
Poor
Marcel. I was annoyed to see Clarice and Cleo intercepting him on his way over. Whatever they said to him made him shake his head vigorously and look even more miserable. #So whingy.

‘Meesus Fairchild,’ he cried, as he got nearer to the headmistress’s table. ‘Those blonde ‘aired girls just told me they think ze thief is Franco, as e’s new and nothing like this ever ‘appened before ‘e arrived. But I’ve known Franco since ‘e was born. I can’t believe –‘

Mrs Fairchild sighed.

‘I believe you may be talking about Cleo and Clarice, Marcel, and if I’m not mistaken, Franco accidentally poured mint sauce all over Clarice’s white top the other night.’ Her eyes twitched mischievously. ‘Let’s not forget that this may be
why
those particular girls are so quick to point the finger at Franco, to exact some sort of petty revenge.’

Marcel shook his head despairingly.

‘I ‘aven’t slept all night,’ he said, wringing his hands. ‘I just don’t know what to theenk anymore. Maybe I should resign-‘

‘Don’t you dare,’ Mrs Fairchild said, rather fiercely for her. ‘You and I shall be brave and stick together, Marcel. If we do that, and with the help of the police – who I’ll ring later today - we’ll somehow get to the bottom of this mystery once and for all. And today we’ll buy back at least some of your ingredients and keep them under lock and key until the thief has been caught. Deal?’ She stuck her hand out. Marcel sighed.

‘Deal,’ he said. ‘Thank you, Meesus Fairchild. You are indeed a magnificent lady.’ Mrs Fairchild twinkled and giggled in reply.

Arabella turned to me.

‘We should investigate too,’ she said in a low voice. ‘This is the worst crisis I’ve ever faced. I think I might
die
if I can never eat Magic Mousse again.’ I grinned. She can be so melodramatic sometimes.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘What shall we do?’

‘We need to take a look at the scene of the crime ourselves,’ Arabella muttered. ‘Take a look at the cellars without a grown up breathing down our necks. That way-‘

‘What are you two whispering about?’ Mrs Bunn came waddling over, a beam on her face but her eyes sharp like usual. ‘Come on, eat up or you’ll be late for lessons.’

Right, I must go now Diary as I have a double art lesson after break. Arabella and I have agreed to do some snooping around in the cellars after school today. I just hope we don’t get caught...

Later that afternoon, Wednesday 8th February

Disturbing discoveries, Diary!

My goodness, we’ve had an exciting day.

Basically, after lessons finished we wandered down to the kitchens looking really innocent. Our cover story was that we needed some chocolate as we were feeling tired after all our hard work, and were looking for a chef to ask him for some. But really, we were determined to sneak down to the cellars and have a look around to see if we could find a clue that might tell us who the thief is.

Luckily there was no one about, which is exactly what we’d hoped for. We knew the chefs tended to take a break between lunch and dinner time as we’d often seen them strolling about the school gardens arm in arm, or sometimes arguing loudly, so it was an eerily quiet kitchen we found ourselves sneaking into.

‘Excellent,’ Arabella whispered. ‘Let’s go.’

We tiptoed over to the cellar door and descended the stairs. Arabella had a torch stuffed up her cardigan sleeve, which THANK GOODNESS she got out and shone in front of us or I think I might have tripped.

As before, the cellars looked remarkably empty.

‘They must be locking any new ingredients up somewhere safe,’ I whispered.

‘Yep,’ Arabella whispered back, sounding grim. ‘Marcel won’t leave anything to chance now there’s a thief about. Come on, let’s go down to the deepest cellar where the Italian sweets were kept. You never know, we might find a clue...’

I gulped, but kept following her. Arabella is much braver than me and she doesn’t mind the dark that much but I have to say I
did
find the cellars a
little
bit scary, especially as it was just me, Arabella and a torch and lots and lots of darkness. We didn’t dare put the wall lamps on in case it attracted the attention of any visitors to the kitchen.

I was just beginning to think I might have to run back up to the kitchens when Arabella said,

‘Wait! What was that?’

‘Um?’ I said.

‘Listen,’ she said, moving her feet around. ‘Can you hear that crunching sound?’

I listened carefully.

‘Actually, I can,’ I said. ‘What is it?’ I moved my own feet around and found I could make crunching noises too.

‘That’s odd,’ Arabella said. I could tell she was bending down because the torch light bent down too. ‘Ooh, it feels all grainy.’ She stood up and shone the torch on her hand.

‘Crushed up Italian sweets,’ I breathed.

Arabella shone her torch down on the ground and I IMMEDIATELY saw a trail of crushed and stamped on sweets that led away from where we stood. I took her arm.

‘Arabella, follow the trail of sweets, it may lead us to another clue.’ I was feeling more excited than scared at this point. ‘The thief might have recently moved their loot!’

‘Good idea,’ she muttered. Together, we crunched after the trail which led us right up to the OLD SMUGGLING TUNNEL’S DOOR!

We looked at each other. I could tell by the light of the torch that Arabella’s eyes were rather wide and I saw her gulp a couple of times. Personally, my heart was going crazily fast and I felt rather dizzy.

‘I think we should go down the tunnel,’ Arabella said in a strangely high pitched voice.

‘But it might be dangerous,’ I said quickly, not relishing the thought of going down the murky, slimy tunnel again. ‘If the thief’s there we might find ourselves in serious trouble.’

‘But if we don’t,’ Arabella’s eyes turned pleading. ‘We may miss a vital clue and lose all the Italian sweets and Marcel might resign and then I’ll NEVER HAVE MAGIC MOUSSE AGAIN!’

‘Sshhh!’ I said, squeezing her arm. The LAST thing we needed was to be discovered snooping around in the cellars. ‘
Calm down
. OK, we’ll go down the tunnel a bit but if there’s any sign of danger I think we should come straight back. OK?’

‘OK,’ Arabella said. ‘Give me a leg up and I’ll get Marcel’s key down.’

Within minutes we were walking, or should I say CRUNCHING, down the tunnel again. Arabella had insisted on closing the door to the cellar, saying it would look less suspicious if one of the chefs had to come down for some reason. To be honest, I hated every minute of the journey through the tunnel that time and it seemed even longer and murkier than last time. I kept having to remind myself of how upset Arabella and Marcel would be if the mystery was never solved.

AT LAST we came to the mouth of the tunnel, finding ourselves once more on Little Pineham beach, the winter sun beginning to set behind the grey horizon.

‘Look Arabella,’ I said, immediately spotting a pile of large cardboard boxes stacked up against the side of the cliff. ‘What on earth are those?’

Checking around us for signs of movement, we crept over to the boxes. The top one was open and we both peeked in.

‘Jars of Italian sweets!’ Arabella half shouted.

‘Sshhh!’ I said, feeling quite cross. ‘I’m not exactly enjoying being here, Arabella, and the least you could do is keep your voice down so we don’t get discovered if the thief is somewhere about.’

‘Sorry,’ she whispered, looking sheepish. ‘I was just so excited to see them.’

I rolled my eyes and grinned. We lifted up the jars of Italian sweets, finding that several had smashed and were half empty – explaining the trail of sweets we’d followed. We also found other ingredients that had been thieved, including jars of rare herbs and Moroccan pasta swirls. As we packed the ingredients back together, trying to make it look like they hadn’t been touched, a small piece of paper floated off the top of the box and fluttered down to the sand. Arabella picked it up.

‘Oh,’ she said.

‘What is it?’ I asked, busy packing jars on top of herbs.

‘It looks like one of Mrs Bunn’s strawberry sweet wrappers,’ Arabella said slowly. ‘Look.’ I looked over and yes indeed, it was one of the dinner lady’s trade mark bright pink sweet wrappers.

‘She might have dropped one by mistake when we were doing the science experiment,’ I said, feeling uncertain. ‘And...the wind might have blown it on top of the box. Anyway, it can’t have been Mrs Bunn who raided the cellar that day, she was on the beach with us the whole time.’

‘You’re right,’ Arabella said, looking relieved. After all Mrs Bunn
had
been very nice to us, sharing her sweets and everything. It wasn’t pleasant thinking of her being a criminal.

We tramped back to the mouth of the tunnel, keeping watch all the time. Just as we got there, my foot slipped. I looked down.

‘Mud!’ I whispered. ‘What on earth is mud doing on a beach, Arabella?’

She looked down.

‘I can’t believe we didn’t notice this when we arrived,’ she said in a low voice, looking puzzled. ‘This mystery is getting stranger and stranger. At least we have several proper clues now; the trail of sugar down the tunnel, the boxes of ingredients on the beach and the strange patches of mud near the start of the tunnel. Do you think-‘