Extraordinary Losers 3 (8 page)

The little girl smiled, twirled her frizzy hair a little and said, “I can't tell you. It is a secret! But I really have to go. My mama's waiting for me!”

She wiped the beads of perspiration from her cheeks. It seemed that she had travelled from quite far. Then she ran off with her spritely dog chasing after her.

All of a sudden, she turned and shouted, “Remember, the Chihuahua is in house number 80! And my name is Ellie Belly! Bye!”

“Ellie Belly?” Janice repeated. “And I thought I was weird!”

We all looked at one another, puzzled.

“Is she for real?” Clandestino asked. “If she can speak DOG-a-nese, I can speak…” He thought for a while.

“You can baby-talk!” I cracked up.

All of us laughed, and for a moment, we forgot about the danger our friend was in.

CHAPTER 11: THE PET WHISPERER

Quick, let's go! We have to go now!” Clandestino urged.

“Bye, Ellie Belly!” Janice screamed after the little girl. “Thanks!”

Janice was still hung up at the thought of meeting a little girl who could speak Dog-a-nese… and maybe more! Of course, she was surrounded by guys with superpowers, but it was a real treat to meet a girl with one.

“I should have given her a snack!” Janice said regretfully.

“Snap out of it, Janice,” I yelled. “We have to go now, to house number 80 or somewhere around there!”

“Uncle Andy took the left road, but number 80 is on the right!” Janice exclaimed.

Before we knew it, we heard a “poof” and saw a cloud of dust that was kicked up by a speeding object. Clandestino had vanished. He had zoomed off in the direction of number 80, leaving the three of us behind.

Janice squinted at the house next to her. “Are you kidding me? This is number 12! We have to run all the way there?” She fished out some pretzels from her pocket and began chewing on a mouthful.

“What happened to your donuts?” I asked.

“I ran out of them!” she spluttered. “You want some? I need energy for this run.” She offered me the pretzels that had crumbled in her pocket.

“Erm… No thanks.”

Adam strode up to Janice and said, “Excuse me, but I have to do this!” And with a swift action, he scooped Janice up with one hand.

“Hey! Put me down!” she shouted, kicking away. “I am going to report you to the teachers.”

“Hey, hush, will you? I have to do this!” Adam said. “Don't think for one minute I enjoy doing this but you are seriously slowing us down!”

Then, Adam charged forward with Janice clutched by his side. Her legs were kicking wildly but he didn't give up. Woah, Adam wasn't as fast as Clandestino but he was definitely stronger than any one of us. He could even lift the feisty Janice with one hand and run!

When we arrived at house number 80, Adam let Janice down. She was so embarrassed that for once she did not utter a word. She just rearranged her skirt. Clandestino was stooping at the gate. “There's no one here, guys!'' He sounded disappointed. “Only this.”

“This is it?” I said. After running almost 300 metres (to me it was like 2.4 km), all that greeted us was a large Victorian house. Under the afternoon sun, it gleamed a deep blue, with pale ivory outlining its edges. The house exuded a feeling of calm. On the porch, a white furry Chihuahua was taking a nap, looking serene.

Janice gasped. “Is this the Chihuahua that little Ellie Beeeeely was talking about?”

“Mundi's ‘poor dog'?” we said in unison. Everything seemed to click.

“It's Ellie Belly,” Adam corrected. “But the dog is not stirring. It must have barked its voice away.”

“Here, doggy doggy!” Janice tried to entice the dog with some pretzels. It wasn't working. The dog's eyes remained closed and it lay unconscious on the ground. Its tongue was sticking out. I noticed that it was lying on a piece of newspaper with half-eaten rice and something else. It looked like a pink pill that had been broken in half.

“That's strange,” I thought out loud. “Look at that pink pill. It looks like someone drugged the dog to force it to shut up.”

Janice, Clandestino and Adam turned to me, their eyes widening. Then they each took a step closer towards the gate and stared at the dog.

“Is it breathing?” Janice asked anxiously. “Is it?” She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. A dead dog was too much for her to take.

“Yes, it is. Don't worry, Janice, it is. I can see its stomach moving up and down,” Clandestino quickly assured her. “The owner of the house must be out.”

“Look!” Adam said, pointing to house number 81, right next to house number 80. There was a sign on the gate. It read, “RENOVATION WORK IN PROGRESS. March-October 2013. We are sorry for the inconvenience caused.” Not another renovated house! Lately, there had been plenty of renovations going on in our estate. The government had put up railings everywhere as they didn't want people to sue them if an elderly person slipped into a drain. The cheap metal railings everywhere were a huge eyesore.

“What if the little dog here was barking about… its neighbour, who had abducted a… a… boy… who is… Mundi? And the perpetrators wanted to silence this poor little dog?” said Clandestino slowly. He wasn't usually the problem-solver in the group.

“Darryl, can you hear if anyone is inside?” Janice commanded. It was an order, not a question.

I breathed heavily and shut my eyes. “I hear only the hum of the refrigerator… and wait, someone… someone… someone snoring…”

“Okay,” Clandestino decided. “Let's go into the house!”

“Yeah, before Mundi shares the same fate with the dog,” Adam agreed.

Clandestino lifted his foot to take off, then stopped abruptly. “Wait, wait, wait! I have to call Mundi's mum to tell her where we are.”

He punched in some numbers quickly and waited for two seconds. There was no answer.

“Hurry! There's not enough time!” I urged. “The kidnappers might be on their way back and we need to find out if it is Mundi in there.”

Adam snatched the phone from Clandestino.

“Hey, be careful!” Clandestino pleaded. “This is my new iPhone.” He must have remembered the last time Adam crushed my phone and shattered it to unrecognisable bits.

Adam texted quickly, his bulging muscles twitching at the punch of every letter. “There you go!” He flicked the phone back to Clandestino and smiled. “Done! Now can we go in?” He was a little too anxious, if you asked me.

The thought crossed my mind again that this might be some kind of trap… and maybe Adam was in on the plan to capture us. Adam working together with Uncle Andy? I pushed the thought out of my mind lest I be labelled paranoid.

The gates of the house were chained loosely, which was very odd. All of us crept under the chains and entered the premises effortlessly, even Janice. Clandestino first, Adam second, followed by Janice and me. I was pretending to be a gentleman by practising “ladies first”, but in reality, I was a frozen statue. It shouldn't be this easy to rescue Mundi, should it?
It's a trap!
my subconscious mind screamed at me again.

Tall lalang grass flanked the mouldy walkway. Buckets of stagnant water were placed everywhere like booby traps. Cords of blue electrical wires snaked around the house like they were intentionally placed there to trip trespassers. We came to an old wooden door that housed tiny termites.

“Eeeew!” Janice remarked.

“Ah choo!” Clandestino sniffed. “No wonder this house needs renovation. It's so dusty and old.” His nose was turning redder and red rash bumps were appearing on his skin. He rapped loudly on the wooden door with his knuckles, bruising them. Clandestino's knees and elbows were, as always, bruised pink too.

“That's strange. No one is here,” he said, scratching his neck after knocking twice.

“Okay, let's get out! Let's just wait for our teachers to come with the police,” I suggested.

Janice blinked, a mocking look on her face. “I can't believe you, Darryl. Are you being a scaredy cat?” she said. “Mundi's life is in danger and all you can think about is….”

Before she could finish, the door creaked open. Clandestino had used one of his pens to pick the lock.

“Woah, cool, bro!” Adam laughed.

“Sssh! And don't call me bro!” Clandestino replied. We entered the house gingerly.

“You must conquer your fear, Darryl,” nagged Janice, turning back to me. I thought she had finished her lecture but I was wrong. “Let me show you how you can do it.”

“Okay! Okay!” I snapped.

It was a ghastly sight. Dust obscured every surface like ash. Old plates and dishes sat on an antique table thickly encrusted with dried mould. The stale air left a sickening taste in our mouths. The crumbling tiles on the floor made every step a dangerous one. The only thing breaking the evil darkness in the room was the light that was streaming in through the gaps in the heavy velvet curtains.

“Guys? Guys? I can actually hear someone snoring,” I said.

“You do?” Adam asked. “How come I can't hear anything?”

I caught a glimpse of Clandestino smiling at Janice. We couldn't divulge our secret powers to Adam yet. He had to prove himself first. As we inched our way through the house, Clandestino kept scratching himself. I thought he was going to have a severe rash breakout anytime.

“That way.” I pointed to a room beside the kitchen. “The snoring is coming from there.”

The four of us crept slowly to the room. The snoring was getting louder and louder in my ears. All of a sudden there was a loud “HEY! HOW DID YOU GET IN?” A Chinese man appeared out of nowhere. According to my superhuman ears, he sounded exactly like the Chinese man that had spoken to Mrs Sakdipa on the phone. A black woollen hoodie covered most of his face. His grey overalls were peppered with white specks of plaster and paint. His brown narrow slit eyes met mine and I could see his pupils dilating like a provoked cat about to pounce.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THIS HOUSE?”

A masked man always spells danger. He was wearing socks so I hadn't made out his footsteps. How come I hadn't heard his breathing either? Maybe his hoodie had silenced his breathing?