Eye Spy (5 page)

I hate Mondays. Let's face it, nobody's keen to get back to school after the weekend, but at Lea Green Monday mornings are even more deadly because that's when Mr Bull holds his Year 8 assemblies.

That Monday there was more than the usual amount of chattering and giggling because there was a rumour going round that someone had seen Mr Owen and Miss Lovelace kissing on the top deck of a bus.

“That's disgusting!” Donna whispered. “They're both so old!”

I never got a chance to reply, because at that moment Mr Bull appeared at the front of the hall and roared “
Silence
!” in his usual friendly manner. The front rows were the first to shut up; they were right under his nose. The rest of us took a bit longer. Finally, everybody was quiet. Bull clasped his hands behind his back and stared round the room, trying to catch someone whispering, or sneezing, or coughing, or even farting. It was a little game he played with us at assembly. If he could begin the morning by bawling out some unlucky kid, it would put him in a good mood for the rest of the day. It's not enough for the Pitbull that he's the Head and everyone has to jump at his command; he has to ram it home to us every single day. Talk about power-crazy – he could give Adolf Hitler a run for his money.

Nobody was playing ball today, so after throwing us all a filthy look for not allowing him his morning fun, Bull started out on the usual round of news, threats, and bits of useless information. Just as I was about to switch off and start thinking about something more interesting, I caught the words ‘parents' evening' and ‘Tuesday'. I groaned inwardly. We'd have to keep Nan away from Bull or he'd have another go at all three of us about the poker game.

Bull was coming to the end of his speech at last. “… and finally, the Managing Director of Holtech Systems will be addressing Year 8 in the Hall on Wednesday afternoon as part of our career opportunities initiative…” Holtech was the biggest employer in the area. I wasn't interested in working on an assembly line when I left school, so the whole thing would probably be another boring waste of time.

At last the assembly came to an end and we began to file out of the hall. Our first period on Monday was Modern Languages. I went off to my French lesson, while Donna and Emerald, who were doing Spanish, disappeared in the opposite direction.

As I passed the open doorway of a Year 11 classroom, I did a double-take. Two girls were standing by the window, chatting. Even without the red lipstick and with her long hair tied back, there was no mistaking Atlanta. The other girl was her gum-chewing friend. I couldn't help it; I was so surprised I stopped in my tracks. A boy standing near the door saw me staring and called out, “Hey, Atlanta, your fan club's arrived!” The friend sniggered and waved at me. “Hi, Shorty!”

I could feel my cheeks turn red as I dashed off down the corridor. Their laughter echoed after me.

Our second lesson was English with Mr Cohen. I like Mr Cohen. He's not sarcastic like Mr Owen, or twittery like Miss Lovelace, or scary like the Pitbull. English is my best subject, and I usually look forward to it, but today my mind was on other things. Mr Cohen was already in the room when we arrived, so I didn't get a chance to speak to Donna, who sat down with Emerald at the next table. I waited until Mr Cohen was writing on the board, then I wrote ‘BIKER GIRL IS IN YEAR 11' on the back of one of our Eye Spy business cards and passed it to Donna. Unluckily for me, Mr Cohen chose that very moment to turn round, and swooped on the note just as Donna was holding out her hand for it. I waited, praying he wouldn't read it out to the class, but instead, after reading both sides of the card, he just raised his eyebrows at me.

“You really ought to be able to spell ‘discreet' by now, Alex.” He thrust the note into his pocket and turned back to the board. I sighed with relief and forced myself to concentrate on the lesson.

In between English and Maths, I grabbed the chance to tell Donna about Atlanta.

“What d'you think we ought to do now?” I asked. “Is it worth following her after school and seeing where she goes? She might lead us to Kiki.”

“We can try, I suppose. And in the meantime we'll keep an eye out for her at break and lunch. If she's part of a gang, she might boast about them to her friends.”

It wasn't much of a plan, but it was the best we could come up with. In the end, it was a waste of time, because we couldn't find her anywhere either at morning break or in the canteen at lunchtime. At two o'clock we admitted defeat and headed off to the Art room for our next lesson.

I dragged my feet. I'm rubbish at art, and I wasn't looking forward to an hour and a half listening to Miss Lovelace explain viewpoint and perspective. By the time I reached the patch of muddy grass that separated the main building from the Art block, the Science block and the canteen, Donna was way ahead with a group of other girls.

Years ago, some history teacher with a sense of humour christened that patch of grass ‘the Somme'. Mr Bull likes to call it ‘the quadrangle', as if Lea Green was some posh private school and not a rundown comprehensive. If anyone's going to try and rough you up in school, that's where they'll do it, because there are hardly any windows overlooking it, so the chances are that nobody will see. Even if you're lucky and don't get hurt, you end up covered in mud, so you get in trouble with both your parents and the teachers.

I lingered by the door to the Somme, pretending to look for something in my schoolbag and putting off the moment when I'd have to join the Art class. Then I heard the sound of a window opening, and became aware of voices coming from somewhere above my head. Although I could hear their conversation, they couldn't see me, because I was standing in a deep recess in the wall.

“Thank goodness! Fresh air at last! Do you think they'll ever get the heating to run at the right temperature? It's like the Amazon rainforest in here.”

The voice belonged to Miss Wren, our IT teacher. I liked her because she made her lessons fun and she didn't bawl at us the way a lot of the other teachers did.

“When you've worked at Lea Green as long as I have, you'll get used to it.” That was Mr Cohen speaking.

Miss Wren laughed. “How do you stand it here, Frank? The whole place is falling to pieces, and Bull is a monster…”

“It's the people that make the place, Lucy, and some of the kids here really know how to use their initiative. Look at this: I took it off Alex Macintyre earlier.” I groaned. Now Mr Cohen and Miss Wren would make fun of us.

“A private detective agency?” Miss Wren said. “You're right. That shows true entrepreneurial spirit!”

“With a mother like that, it's probably in the genes.”

I nipped out of the recess and peered upwards, but the sound of their voices was already fading as they moved away from the window.

My head buzzed with questions. What was ‘entrepreneurial spirit'? Was it a compliment or a criticism? What had Miss Wren meant about ‘a mother like that'? And what was it that was in our genes? None of it made any sense, but I was already late, so I couldn't think about it now. Shouldering my bag, I hurried off towards the art block.

In the Art room, Miss Lovelace was trying vainly to get the class to settle down. There was a lot of whispering and sniggering going on. Her ‘romance' with Mr Owen was still a hot topic, but she seemed genuinely puzzled about why people were making fun of her. I guessed that, as usual, the rumours had been untrue.

Finally we got started. The theme this week was ‘faces', and she told us each to pair off and try and draw a likeness of our partner's face.

I sat down next to Ryan Mitchell. Ryan's the only person in our class who's worse at Art than I am. Miss Lovelace always shakes her head and sighs when she sees our efforts. All the other teachers love Ryan, though, because he always knows the answers to their questions. He's like a walking encyclopedia: full of all sorts of unlikely information.

After a while, Miss Lovelace wandered over to the corner where Ryan and I were trying to make ourselves as unobtrusive as possible. She sighed when she saw my sketch. “Oh dear. Not one of your better efforts, is it, Alex? Perhaps you should try a collage next time. You might find that easier than a pencil sketch.” She wandered off again, and when she was out of earshot I whispered to Ryan, “D'you know what ‘entrepreneurial spirit' means?”

He thought for a minute, then shook his head. “Sorry. Why d'you want to know?”

“It's not important.” I wasn't going to explain what I'd overheard to Ryan; this was strictly family business. I began to mull over the comments Mr Bull and Mr Cohen had made about our mother, and the few facts about her that we'd been able to scrounge from Nan. As I struggled to make my portrait look more like Ryan and less like one of the seven dwarves, I tried to think where I could get hold of more information.

The main problem was that we didn't have any other family members to ask. Nan had fallen out with her family in Glasgow when she married Granddad; that was why they'd moved south and settled in Holcombe Bay. Granddad was an orphan, so he didn't have any relatives either, and Dad was their only child. Granddad died when we were five, so that just left Nan, Dad, Donna and me. That's one of the reasons Donna and I are so close. With no brothers, sisters or cousins, we only have each other.

By the time the end of school bell went, I was no nearer to working out how I could find out more about our mother. I decided to put the problem aside while we concentrated on finding the missing dog.

We'd agreed earlier that our best bet would be to try and follow Atlanta home, in case Kiki was with her. Luckily, there's only one way out of Lea Green: through the huge pair of wrought iron gates opening onto the road. We decided to hover near the gates and wait for Atlanta to show up. Twenty minutes later, as the stream of kids going home turned into a trickle, she still hadn't appeared. “Perhaps she got a detention,” Donna suggested with a giggle. “She looks the rebellious type.”

And then there she was, striding towards us, looking at her watch as if she was afraid of being late. She'd untied her hair, replaced her blazer with the leather jacket, removed her tie, and tucked her trousers into knee-high leather boots. She was wearing make-up too: lots of black eyeliner, and her trademark bright red lipstick that made her face look even paler. She was running a huge risk. Bull would have had a fit if he'd caught her looking like that on the school premises.

Just as she reached the gates, with perfect timing, a motorbike screeched to a halt a few yards away, and a voice I recognised called out, “Come on, girl. You're late.”

“So are you!” she replied. She walked straight past us without giving us a second glance. Then, as she jumped on the back of the bike, she turned round and winked at me. As they roared off down the street, Donna dissolved into giggles.

“Shut your mouth, Alex. You look like a goldfish.”

I pursed my lips. “So much for following her! Why didn't it occur to me she might get a lift home?”

Yet again, our suspect had eluded us. It was getting to be a habit, and I was fed up. “Let's call it a day and go home,” I said.

That night, we'd just sat down at the supper table, and Nan was ladling out portions of food when Dad came in looking positively chirpy. This was so unusual that Nan stopped what she was doing and looked hard at him.

“Have you won the lottery and forgotten to tell us?” she asked.

Ignoring Nan, Dad hung his coat up on the peg, looked at the food on the plate, and rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “Mmm… Lancashire hotpot. My favourite.”

He sat down at the table and started to eat. “Er… Dad?” I began, but he pretended not to hear and continued to wolf down his meal. Donna and I exchanged glances with each other. After a few moments her curiosity got the better of her and she said, “Come on, Dad, tell us what's up.”

Dad ignored her and went on eating. Finally, when his plate was clean, he let out a satisfied sigh.

“Aahh… Only your grandmother knows how to satisfy the inner man.” Then, as we all stared at him expectantly, he smiled broadly and said, “I guess you all deserve to hear the good news. The Ministry is interested in my ideas. They're sending a man down here on Wednesday so I can put Hamish through his paces.”

We all cheered. Nan went and hugged Dad. “Well done, son,” she said. “I knew you'd succeed eventually.”

Dad shook his head ruefully. “It's not in the bag yet, you know. These are early days. There's still plenty that could go wrong.” But you could see he was cautiously optimistic; he'd never before got this far with any of his inventions.

That night, after Nan and Dad had had a celebratory drink, we all sat down and played Monopoly for the rest of the evening. A couple of hours later, halfway through a complicated manoeuvre in which he was trying to acquire Park Lane off Donna, Dad's lack of sleep finally caught up with him. His eyelids started to droop and he said, “Goodnight, all. Going to sleep now.” Then he lay back in his chair and went out like a light.

Nan covered him with an old rug, and we all tiptoed out of the room, leaving him to his well-earned rest.

As we went upstairs, I grumbled, “That's typical of Dad. The only occasion in months he's had the time to play a game with us and he falls asleep. I was winning, too.”

Donna giggled. “I bet he's dreaming of thousands of little Hamishes rolling off the production line.”

It was difficult to believe that Dad's dream might soon become reality if he could just impress the man from the Ministry. I crossed my fingers and prayed that the meeting would go well.

I wanted to go into town after school on Tuesday to see if there was any sign of Sergei, but Nan insisted we come straight home and have an early supper before the parents' evening. It seemed wiser not to risk annoying Nan again, in case she took away another month's pocket money, so we did as we were told.

That evening, Dad was extra fidgety. He'd sit down in an armchair and then, almost instantly, get up again and start prowling around like a caged animal. He didn't seem to know what to do with himself. I wondered if he was anxious about what the man from the Ministry would think of Hamish. I didn't think he had anything to worry about. Hamish wasn't just cute, he was clever too, but I could understand why he was nervous. I would have been too, if I was him.

At supper, he ate his meal absent-mindedly and didn't join in the conversation. When we'd all finished eating, Nan said, “Right, you two, coats on. We need to get moving.”

Dad looked up. “Where are you going?”

“Parents' evening. If you're at a loose end whilst we're out, Ian, you can do the washing up for me. I want to put my feet up when I get back.”

Dad jumped up. “I'll do better than that. I'll go to the parents' evening
and
do the washing up. How's that?”

We all stared at him in amazement. Dad
never
did parents' evenings, which was just as well, considering what might happen if he had a confrontation with the Pitbull.

I once heard somebody say that an eccentric is a person who doesn't care what anybody else thinks of them. That's Dad, all right. Because he's not worried what anyone thinks about his appearance or behaviour, you never know in advance what he's going to do or say if he's provoked. That was why keeping him away from Mr Bull was crucial.

Nan gave Dad a hug. “Thanks, Ian. I really appreciate that.” She disappeared into the sitting room and we heard her switch on the television.

Dad rubbed his hands together. “Come on, then. You heard the lady. Let's go.” He grabbed his jacket off its peg, wound a very long red scarf round his neck, and hustled us out of the front door before we had time to object. He started walking briskly in the direction of Lea Green while we trailed behind, trying not to think of all the things that could go wrong when we got there.

“This is going to be so embarrassing!” Donna hissed in my ear. “If he does anything awful, we'll never live it down.”

“It could be worse. D'you remember that time he went into town wearing tartan trousers, flip-flops, and a baseball cap saying ‘Kiss me quick'?”

She shuddered. “Wasn't that awful? But seriously, how are we going to keep him away from the Pitbull?”

“Dunno. We'll have to play it by ear. Maybe he won't even be there.” I didn't really believe that. Mr Bull loves to show off to the parents. They see a cuddly Father Christmas lookalike with a white beard and red cheeks, which is just what he wants them to see. They never realise it's all an act.

We were still lagging behind Dad as we passed through the school gates and joined the stream of other families heading for the parents' evening, but once we were inside the building he stopped and waited for us to catch him up.

“Right then, who have we got to see?” I ran through the list, ending up with Miss Lovelace, the Art teacher. “But she's not important,” I added, remembering the unconvincing portrait of Ryan I'd drawn the day before.

“Speak for yourself!” said Donna, glaring at me. “You may be hopeless at art, but she's very pleased with
my
work!”

Dad smiled, as if he was looking forward to a real treat. “After you,” he said, gesturing to us to lead the way.

As we approached the room where the parents' evening was being held, I began to get jittery. Why had Dad been so eager to come with us? Did he have some secret purpose of his own? Because I didn't know what was going on in his head, I couldn't predict how he'd behave, and that made me nervous. And I didn't even want to think about what would happen if he came face to face with Mr Bull.

There were a lot of people in the room, but even so it was obvious that Mr Bull wasn't one of them. He's too large and too loud to disappear in a crowd, and there was no sign of him. Sighing with relief, we joined the queue waiting to speak to Mr Cohen. I wondered if he would mention Eye Spy to Dad. Even worse, would he mention our mother? I went cold just at the thought of how Dad would react to that. By the time we reached the head of the queue, I was getting more nervous by the minute.

Mr Cohen was as friendly as ever. “Mr Macintyre? Pleased to meet you at last.” He nodded at us. “Hello, you two. Alex, there's no need to look so worried, you're doing very well in English. The only thing you need to improve on is your concentration in class.” I breathed a sigh of relief as he congratulated Dad on encouraging us to be well-read and literate. Dad looked pleased with himself, but I wanted to tell Mr Cohen it was nothing to do with Dad. I'd spent the last couple of years working my way through Granddad's large collection of detective stories. I'd read all the Sherlock Holmes tales and now I'd moved on to Raymond Chandler's
Phillip Marlowe
books. I didn't need any encouragement, because I loved detective stories.

By the time we'd seen the Maths, History and French teachers, I'd begun to relax a little. So far, Dad was behaving just like all the other parents: looking pleased when a teacher said something nice about us and promising to encourage us to try harder when the teacher was critical. In fact, although he was getting a little restless, everything was going really well. We were waiting in line to see Mr Owen, our Science teacher, when I heard Mr Bull's voice in the distance, accompanied by the sound of footsteps approaching along the corridor. Donna had heard him too. She grabbed Dad's arm and began to steer him towards a screened-off area in the corner of the room. “Look, Dad,” she said. “There's no queue for IT. Let's go there next.”

Dad brightened up. “Sounds good to me. I never could stand queues.” As we nipped behind the screen, I could hear Mr Bull greeting parents. We'd just made it in time.

Suddenly I remembered that Miss Wren, like Mr Cohen, knew things about our mother, and might be curious about Eye Spy. She looked at us expectantly. I introduced Dad and they shook hands. “No problems with these two, I hope?” said Dad. She shook her head. “Not so far, Mr Macintyre. Do they have their own computers at home?”

“Oh yes. As a matter of fact I built their computers myself from old models I'd salvaged.” He tried to sound modest but didn't quite manage it. Miss Wren looked impressed and started to ask him questions about how he'd done it. While they chatted, Donna stuck her head out from behind the screen and peered round the room.

“Mr Bull's still in the far corner,” she whispered to me. “I hope he stays there! Oh, look, there's Em!”

She darted off and reappeared with Em, who was talking excitedly. “The drama group's rehearsing
Romeo and Juliet
in the main hall,” she was saying. “Let's go and have a look.”

I glanced at Dad, who was discussing the finer points of writing computer programs with Miss Wren. “What about Dad?” I whispered.

“With any luck he won't even notice we've gone. He's as safe here as anywhere.”

I wasn't convinced she was right, but I wanted to see the play, so I agreed, and the three of us slipped out of the room and hurried along the corridor to the Assembly Hall, where the rehearsal was going on.

The members of the cast were lolling about on chairs watching as two boys wearing cloaks pretended to fight each other. Mr Oliver, the Drama teacher, kept making them do it again, while the audience laughed and jeered when they fell over or dropped their swords. After a while one of the boys, who had the sort of bulging arm muscles you get when you spend hours in the gym each week, threw his sword down. “If you don't like the way I do it, sir, find someone else!” he said as he stalked off the stage.

Mr Oliver shook his head in frustration. “OK, Aidan,” he said. “I'm going to show you that anyone can fake a fight if they just follow instructions, even a complete beginner.” He looked round the room, ignoring several boys and a girl who were shouting, “Pick me, sir, pick me!” Then he saw me standing near the doorway. “Ah! What's your name, boy?”

“Er… Alex, sir.”

“Ever performed on stage, Alex?”

“No, sir, but…”

“Great. Come up here. You're going to show Aidan just how easy it is to fight convincingly on stage. Aidan, give him your cloak.”

I could hear Donna and Em giggling to each other as I walked towards the stage. Aidan gave me a filthy look as he handed me his cloak. I made a mental note to keep out of his way in future.

Up on the stage I faced my opponent. He was a thin, gangly Year 10 boy at least a head taller than me. He looked me up and down and shook his head. “Sir!” he said. “This is ridiculous. Do I have to?”

Mr Oliver ignored him and began to demonstrate the correct way to hold a sword. We started the fight sequence in slow motion, while Mr Oliver shouted instructions. It was easier than I thought it would be, and the audience clapped and cheered when I pretended to get the better of my opponent. I guessed he wasn't very popular. The fight ended with him pretending to run me through with his sword and I fell to my knees.

The teacher said, “Right, Alex. You're dying. Look convincing!”

By now I'd got into the swing of things and was quite enjoying myself. I fell over sideways, made a few gurgling noises, and then lay still.

“Excellent!” Mr Oliver said. “You see how easy it is, Aidan, when you put your mind to it? Right, I want Juliet up on stage now. Where is she?”

I wasn't sure if I was supposed to get up, so I continued to play dead. Finally, as I heard someone climbing up on stage, Mr Oliver remembered me. “You can get up now, Alex,” he said. As I clambered to my feet I found myself face to face with a girl in a long velvet skirt. It was Atlanta. She stared at me in disbelief. “What's
he
doing here?” she demanded.

I could feel my cheeks burning as I tore off the cloak, threw down the sword and jumped off the stage. As I left the hall with Donna and Em, who were in fits of giggles, I heard Atlanta say, “I swear that boy's stalking me!” A couple of the audience laughed and I imagined everyone turning round to stare at me. I was so embarrassed, I felt as if I'd gone red all over. Even my ears were burning. No Olympic athlete could have got out of that hall quicker than I did that night.

Back at the parents' evening, the crowds were thinning out a bit and Mr Bull seemed to have disappeared. “I hope Dad hasn't been looking for us,” said Donna, as Em re-joined her family and we made a beeline for the IT corner. There were several people still waiting to see Miss Wren, and when we stuck our heads round the screen we found out why. Dad was giving Miss Wren a lecture on the subject of artificial intelligence. I thought she looked a bit bemused, but then Dad often has that effect on people. When she saw us, she smiled at me. “Alex, you're just in time to collect your dad. Mr Macintyre, I have enjoyed our talk, but now I really must see some of the other parents. Good luck with your project.”

Dad shook her hand enthusiastically. “Many thanks for all your help,” he called over his shoulder as we emerged from behind the screen. The next parent in the line scowled at us and muttered “At last!”

We made a hasty exit from the room and steered Dad out of the building as fast as we could without actually running. He seemed in an even better mood than he had been earlier. “There, that wasn't so bad, was it?” he said. He was striding along so fast that we had difficulty keeping up with him. “Very clever woman, that Miss Wren. She's given me some good ideas on how to program Hamish to make him more versatile. Something to impress the man from the Ministry.”

So that was why he'd volunteered to go to the parents' evening. I hoped Miss Wren knew what she was talking about. I didn't want Dad turning up at school and having a go at her if her program didn't work.