The Poisoned Arrow (15 page)

‘How?’ asked Muddy.

T
HE MAIN HALL AT SCHOOL
was packed with pupils, teachers and parents, huddled on rows of plastic chairs which the school
caretaker had spent all morning setting out. In front of them was a straight line of tables, with the four members of the St Egbert’s quiz team (including Jeremy Sweetly and Izzy) at one end,
and the four members of the Spykeside team at the other. Cables from buzzers and microphones snaked about, connecting up to a set of machines over which was crouched a Vibe FM technician.

The short, tubby shape of Mike O’Phone sat between the two teams. He had a fountain-like hairdo which was far too big for his tiny face, and a multi-coloured Hawaiian shirt which made me
wish I’d worn sunglasses. He kept waving at different people, aiming a finger-gun and a snappy grin at them. Nobody took the slightest notice. Some sheets of paper were clutched in his
hands.

A young woman wearing a huge Vibe FM T-shirt and a pair of headphones was fussing up and down the hall. ‘Two minutes to transmission, everyone!’ she shouted. ‘Stand by,
Mike!’

I was sitting at one end of the front row, a few seats along from the Head, who was beaming with pride and joy at the St Egbert’s team. Beside me, slouched on the floor, was Jeremy
Sweetly’s vast, slobbery dog, Humphrey. He kept licking his chops and shedding hair all over the place. That mutt could set off my allergies at any moment! If he hadn’t been a vital
part of Operation: Revenge on Spykeside, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere near him. I hate that dog.

Izzy and the rest of the team were looking calm and confident. At the other end of the tables, Harry Lovecraft was looking as slimy as a wet toad. I gave him a look which said ‘Oh, gee
whizz, what a surprise, fancy seeing you here’. He gave me a look which said ‘You can’t stop me this time, ha ha ha’.

The other three members of the Spykeside team were even more horrific in real life than they’d been in that photo. Captain Cool and Superguy should have been called Creature from the Swamp
and Creature from the Even Worse Swamp. It was only when the Brainiator – the one who appeared to eat nails for breakfast – stood up and went to the loo that I realised it was a
girl
!

‘One minute to transmission!’ shouted the Vibe FM woman.

I looked over at Izzy. She gave a faint nod.

Begin Operation: Revenge on Spykeside, Phase One.

I unhooked Humphrey’s leash.

Mike O’Phone cleared his throat and shuffled his papers. He glanced over at Harry Lovecraft nervously.

‘Your, umm, cold better today?’ he asked.

‘My what?’ sneered Harry.

Jeremy Sweetly gave a little cough. Humphrey suddenly bounded over the tables and landed heavily in Mike O’Phone’s lap. With a wailing cry, he toppled backwards, papers flying out of
his hands in a fluttering shower.

Everyone in the hall gasped. Jeremy and Izzy hurried over to help him up. Izzy quickly gathered the papers and handed them back.

‘I’m
so
sorry,’ said Jeremy. ‘He’s a big fan of yours.’

‘Oh, is he?’ said Mike O’Phone. He’d been about to explode with anger, but not any more.

‘Oh yes, he
loves
your show,’ said Jeremy.

Mike O’Phone fired a quick finger-gun and a wink at Humphrey.

‘Get that dog away!’ squealed the Vibe FM woman. ‘Ten seconds to transmission! Lots of applause, everyone, lots of cheers!’

Everyone started to cheer and applaud.

‘Naughty doggie,’ said Jeremy, ushering Humphrey back to me. ‘Bad Humphrey-Wumphrey, stay there.’

Humphrey settled down next to me again. As he did so, a horrible smell suddenly drifted off him. I pinched my nose. The Head sniffed and gave me a filthy look. I hate that dog.

‘Hello, hello, hello,’ announced Mike O’Phone into his microphone, with a grin like a motorway of teeth running from ear to ear. ‘You’re listening to Vibe FM and
this is the grand final of the Brain Boom Schools Quiz Challenge . . .’

The Vibe FM lady waved her hands for more cheers, and everyone cheered again.

‘Both teams are ready and waiting. Are you nervous, St Egbert’s?’

‘We’re quietly confident,’ said Izzy into her microphone.

‘OooKaay, are you feeling confident too, Spykeside?’

‘Oh yeah,’ grunted the Brainiator with a smile.

‘OooKaay, we all know the rules, first to the buzzer is first to answer, two points for a correct answer, one point deducted for a wrong answer. In just half an hour, we’ll know
which team will be our Brain Boom champion!’

More cheering. I think everyone was getting a bit fed up of the whole cheering thing now. There was a definite feeling of Get On With It in the hall.

‘Here we go!’ cried Mike O’Phone. ‘Fingers on buzzers! What is twelve times twenty-four?’

Buzz!
(Spykeside.)

‘Yes, Captain Cool?’ said Mike O’Phone.

‘Three hundred!’ said Captain Cool.

Mike O’Phone’s grin vanished. He re-checked his question sheets. ‘Er, no, umm, that’s incorrect Spykeside. One point deducted.’

The Spykeside team looked at each other, puzzled.

‘OooKaay, so let’s offer that question to St Egbert’s. What is twelve times twenty-four?’

Izzy, Jeremy and the others sat there with hmm-dunno expressions on their faces. For several seconds there was silence. The Head gaped at the team in shock. She knew that a question like that
was easy-peasy for a brainbox like Izzy. But nope, the St Egbert’s team shook their heads sadly, sorry, no idea, no answer.

‘Er, OooKaay,’ said Mike O’Phone at last, ‘the answer is two hundred and eighty-eight. Next question. The Battle of Hastings in 1066 was won by —’

Buzz!
(Spykeside again.)

‘Superguy, Spykeside?’ called Mike O’Phone.

‘William the Conqueror,’ piped up Superguy.

Mike O’Phone squirmed slightly. ‘No, you buzzed too soon there, Spykeside. Here’s the full question for St Egbert’s. The Battle of Hastings in 1066 was won by William of
Normandy, but who did he defeat?’

Silence from the St Egbert’s team. Hmm, tricky, dunno, tough one. The Head stared at them in disbelief – oh come
on
, you know that one, I
know
you know that one!

‘No?’ said Mike O’Phone, not quite understanding what the problem was. ‘The answer is King Harold. Here we go again. In the game of snooker, what colour is the ball
that’s worth
six
points?’

Buzz!
(Guess who.)

‘Black!’

‘Wrong.’

I was
really
enjoying this quiz. Although the Head clearly wasn’t. And neither was Mike O’Phone. And neither was Harry Lovecraft.

By now, you may have spotted what my idea had been, the one mentioned at the end of the last chapter?

We’d taken the questions and changed them. Just a little bit. We’d changed, ‘What is twelve times twenty-
five
?’ to ‘What is twelve times
twenty-
four
?’; we’d changed ‘The Battle of Hastings in 1066 was won by which invader?’ to ‘The Battle of Hastings in 1066 was won by William of Normandy, but
who did he defeat?’; we’d changed ‘In the game of snooker, what colour is the ball that’s worth
seven
points?’ to ‘In the game of snooker, what colour is
the ball that’s worth
six
points?’

And so on, and so on. You get the idea.

We’d changed things just enough for Spykeside not to realise they’d learned all the wrong answers. Not until it was too late, anyway.

Naturally, the St Egbert’s team mustn’t answer any questions correctly, because they’d come up with the slightly changed versions in the first place! Now that
would
have
been cheating! No, Izzy’s team had to stay silent and pretend to know . . . nothing about anything.

And how had we swapped the correct questions for our own ‘adjusted’ ones? Look back at the disturbance Humphrey caused. Wasn’t that helpful of Izzy to, er, a-hem, ‘tidy
up’ Mr O’Phone’s papers for him?

After about fifteen minutes or so, the quiz took a break for commercials. Spykeside had charged ahead, answering everything as they’d learned it. St Egbert’s had been, hmm, oh dear,
completely unable to even guess at a single answer.

Score: St Egbert’s – zero, Spykeside – minus twenty-six.

During the break, there was a lot of what’s-going-on chatter amongst the parents and teachers. The Head’s state of horror and bewilderment had been getting steadily worse and she was
now looking almost as weird as the members of the Spykeside team.

Harry Lovecraft and his cronies couldn’t work out what had gone wrong. They kept throwing evil looks at Mike O’Phone, obviously thinking that he’d stitched them up and was
trying to make them lose.

Mike O’Phone couldn’t work out what had gone wrong either. He was sweating so much that the Vibe FM woman had to fetch him a towel. The look of panic on his face was shouting out
three things, loud and clear:

1. Am I going barmy? I don’t remember setting these questions quite like this!

2. What’s Harry Lovecraft playing at? I thought they wanted to win?

3. My career as a radio quizmaster is in ruins! No correct answers, one team silent and the other team looking as useless as a cardboard frying pan!

A couple of minutes later, the adverts finished and Mike O’Phone tried (in vain) to return his grin to normal.

‘OooKaay, welcome back to the grand final of the Brain Boom Schools Quiz Challenge, where the scores are . . . a little disappointing. Let’s step it up, eh, guys? Here we go,
straight in with the next question. Sound waves are calculated in what unit of measurement?’

Buzz!
(Spykeside.)

‘Metres!’ cried Captain Cool.

‘NOOO!’

Harry slapped Captain Cool on the back of the head. Captain Cool slapped him back.

‘St Egbert’s?’ wailed Mike O’Phone. ‘Any thoughts on that one? . . . No? . . . No thoughts at all? . . . No? . . . OooKaay . . .’

Izzy, Jeremy and the others were struggling not to giggle. The Head was struggling not to shout out the answers herself. Mike O’Phone was struggling not to scream.

Spykeside tried a new tactic. They’d realised that St Egbert’s wouldn’t press their buzzer, so after every question they sat there, muttering, trying to agree on the
correct
answer. There were long silences, during which Mike O’Phone gibbered nervously.

Even Harry started answering questions! He got several right, but nowhere near enough to erase Spykeside’s sub-zero points total. And pretty soon: ‘Ten seconds to go! Teams,
here’s your final question. What nineteenth-century novel by the Victorian writer Charles Dickens features a character called —?’

Buzz!
(Superguy, Spykeside.)

‘Bart Simpson!’

‘
No! No! No!
’ blubbed Mike O’Phone. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,
no
!’

Harry Lovecraft jabbed Superguy in the ear. Superguy flicked Harry Lovecraft’s nose.

BOOOONGGG!

‘OooKaay, the sound of the gong means time’s up. That’s the end of the contest, let’s look at the scores. No, let’s not look at the scores.’

Score: St Egbert’s – zero, Spykeside – minus twelve.

‘St Egbert’s have won,’ wailed Mike O’Phone. ‘I don’t know how, but they’ve won. I give up! I quit! Ladies and gents, listeners, kids, I can stand it no
more! I can’t bear the guilt! I gave Spykeside the answers! There, I said it! That boy there was blackmailing me! He found out I secretly collect Happy Bunnybears merchandise! But I
don’t care any more! Tell the world! Tell my mates down at the pub! I’ve had enough! It’s the Bunnybears I love, not this rotten quiz!’

He burst into tears and the Vibe FM woman led him away, her arm cuddled around his shoulders. Meanwhile, Harry Lovecraft was in big trouble.

‘You promised us those prizes!’ growled the Brainiator. She knocked him back with a hefty shove. Then the rest of the Spykeside team started describing, in disturbing detail, all the
toilets they were going to stick his head down when they got back to school on Monday morning.

He broke free of them long enough to come staggering over to me. He bristled with anger, from his shiny hair to his shiny shoes.

‘You did this, didn’t you, Smart?’ he sneered.

‘Yes, Harry,’ I said, smiling. ‘Yes, I did.’

‘One day, Smart, I’m going to have my revenge on you, once and for all.’

‘Ready when you are,’ I said casually.

Suddenly, Humphrey came bowling out and leaped up at Harry with a happy-to-see-you woof, dribble splattering everywhere. Harry fell flat on his back with a howling squeal, while Humphrey licked
and slobbered all over his face.

I hate that dog, but I guess he has his uses.

Meanwhile, the Head – along with most of the teachers and parents – was busy congratulating the St Egbert’s team, even though no one was quite sure what they were
congratulating the team
for
. Izzy gave me a little wave, and I smiled back.

By the time I got back to my garden shed, I was feeling exhausted. It had been a long, strange day. I wrote a few comments about the case in my notebook, went back into the house and went
straight to bed. It was only as I was drifting off into a peaceful sleep that I suddenly realised . . . ‘Oh bottoms,’ I mumbled, pulling the covers over my head. ‘Still
haven’t done that science homework.’