The Mystery of Miss King (2 page)

I must have leaned on the door when I knocked, because it slid open silently, and I found myself looking into an empty hall. The scattered magazines and paper lay on the floor beside the morning post. A large pot plant sat neatly on the hall table, but I couldn't see or hear anything. Not the radio or the TV, not Miss King, or even her dog. There seemed to be no one around except me.

“Hello,” I called. “Hello? Is anybody there?”

Nothing.

I chewed on my lip. Something was wrong. Miss King would never leave her house unattended. Never leave her front door open for anyone to walk in. It was all very strange and I wondered what I should do.

I decided to have a look round the back. Miss King was probably outside washing her wheelie bin, or ironing the grass.

I tiptoed round the side of the house, past the the stone Viking warrior peeping out from behind the water butt, and past the two Viking gods fiercely guarding the compost heap. Which was tidy, of course.

There was no Miss King. But there
was
a shed. Checking that no one was looking, I sprinted across the grass and peered in the window.

Inside, I could see a white-painted chair, a grey filing cabinet and a large wooden workbench. On the bench, laid out in rows,
were some strange tools, and beside them lay some old sacks, which were neatly folded. Then I saw another sack sitting on the floor. It was lumpy and bulging, and there was something sticking out of it. I gasped, rubbed my eyes, and craned my neck to have a closer look. What was sticking out of it was … a foot!

What
? Whose foot was
that
? I didn't wait to find out. I turned and ran. I leapt over the garden gate and jumped on my bike. I quickly delivered my other papers, and was still breathing hard when I handed in my bag to Mr Maini.

“Are you all right, Jonny?” he asked. “You look like you've seen a ghost.”

“No, not a ghost,” I said, and decided to say no more. Mr Maini hadn't believed me when I'd told him about the enormous pirate who lived at number 13, and this story was even more unlikely.

So I just got back on my bike and headed for school.

I got there in record time.

Miss Dodds was surprised to see me. “You're early this morning, Jonny,” she said. “Threatening to ban you from football practice seems to have worked. You may get to play in the inter-schools' football final on Saturday, after all.”

I gave her a weak smile and slumped down in my seat. I wasn't going to tell her what I'd just seen; she
never
believed me.

“What's wrong with you?” my friend Surinder grinned, sitting down behind me. “You're not late.”

“But you look terrible,” said my other friend, Sara. “You haven't seen some Martians land their spacecraft in Weird Street, have you?”

“No,” I said. “Trouble is, I'm not sure
what
I've seen. Can't speak now. I'll tell you all about it at break…”

“Surely it can't have been a
real
foot,” said Sara, as we munched our apples in the playground. “Otherwise there would have been a lot of blood. What did it look like?”

“I don't know. A foot,” I said, crossly. “A foot attached to a bit of leg.”

“Ah,” said Surinder. “You didn't say anything before about a leg.”

“I've only just remembered.”

“What kind of a leg?” asked Sara. “Male or female?”

“I don't know. I was too shocked to notice.”

“Was it smooth or hairy?” asked Surinder. “My dad's got really hairy legs.”

“Smooth, I think, and brown…”

“See,” said Sara. “You
are
remembering. I could be a policeman like your dad. I bet he's good at getting people to remember things.”

“Why don't you tell your dad about it and see what he thinks,” said Surinder.

“I'm going to, just as soon as I get home,” I nodded. But I couldn't get that foot out of my mind. I kept seeing it, sticking up out of the sack, and it put me off my schoolwork.

“You've been staring into space all morning, Jonny Smith,” frowned Miss Dodds, when she saw how few maths problems I had done. “You'll finish these at home.”

“OK,” I sighed, and put my maths book into my rucksack. I'd have to do them after I tidied my room.

Mr McGregor, our football coach, wasn't too pleased with me at practice, either.

“You're on another planet, today, Smith,” he yelled. “Keep your eye on the ball if you want to keep your place in the team.”

“Uh huh,” I muttered, and did my best, but I couldn't wait to get home to tell Dad what I'd seen.

In the end, I told Mum and Gran, too, as they were all sitting in the kitchen.

“Are you sure about this, Jonny?” frowned Dad, when I'd finished. “You've told us some strange stories about the people in Weir Street before.”

“But they all turned out to be true,” Mum pointed out.

“The enormous pirate, the wacky inventor, the mysterious archaeologist…” Gran ticked them off on her fingers. “And now… Did you know that in the nineteenth century there were two men called Burke and Hare, who were grave robbers. They used to dig up the bodies then sell the parts to medical science.”

“That's quite enough of that.” Dad was stern. “I'm sure there's a perfectly simple explanation. The foot's probably a theatrical prop, or something from a joke shop.”

“But you could check the missing persons register,” Gran said. “Just to be sure.”

“You watch too many cop shows,” sighed Dad. “But I'll drop by the station tomorrow, if you like.”

“Excellent,” said Gran. “I love a good mystery.”

She wasn't the only one. Sara phoned me later that evening.

“Surinder and I have been talking,” she said. “We've decided you shouldn't go back to Miss King's on your own, so we'll help with your paper round tomorrow.”

“But you two hate getting up early,” I said. “I bet you just want to have a look in that shed.”

“Maybe,” said Sara. “But I don't hear you complaining.”

She was right. I would be glad of their company. Just in case…