Davina Dupree Suspects a Smuggler

Davina Dupree Suspects a Smuggler

FOURTH IN THE EGMONT SCHOOL SERIES

S K SHERIDAN

Monday, 6
^th
February

Greetings, Diary!

Arabella and I have just come back from a meeting with our EXTREMELY strict science teacher, Mrs Bunsen. It was held in her science laboratory – or lab as we call it here - which is in the north wing of our term-time home, Egmont Exclusive Boarding School for Girls. All us first years were there, our tummies rumbling away loudly because we could smell the rosemary and garlic potatoes and roast lamb that Marcel is cooking for our dinner. #Mmmmmm #SUCH a yummy smell.

The lab is ENORMOUS and has a glass ceiling - we have astronomy classes there once a week where we study the stars. They’re quite fun lessons because we’re allowed to lie on our backs on the desks as long as we’re concentrating on the stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way, (SUCH a funny
name.com
) but Mrs Bunsen is tremendously strict about manners and if any one falls asleep and starts snoring she clears her throat very loudly in their ear and they have to leave and go to bed! #Scaryteacher, #Learningfail.

In the middle of the room there are long wooden desks with white basins fitted into them where we wash all the science equipment when we’ve finished doing experiments. Mrs Bunsen usually marches up and down the classroom at this point, handing out tea-towels and checking that each piece of equipment is bone dry. She’s very small, always wears her silver hair in a tight bun and NEVER smiles! Her thin lips are set into a thin line and remain like this even when the whole class has done really well in a test or something. I find her a bit terrifying to be honest, but my best friend Arabella really likes her and in return Mrs Bunsen has a soft spot for Arabella. I know this because I saw Mrs Bunsen
almost
smile once when Arabella was working out a ridiculously complicated chemistry equation on the board. I think they understand each other, what with their mutual love of science and maths. Personally, I’m more at home in the art room with Miss Wise and Miss Cherry. #More relaxing, #Less shouty.

Anyway, Mrs Bunsen had called today’s meeting to discuss an important science experiment that we’ll soon be doing on the beach at Little Pineham.

‘Sit down, be quiet,’ she barked as we all filed into the lab. ‘‘Hand me that hairbrush Cleo, you can have it back at the end of the meeting. Stop looking at your nails, Clarice, I want to see
every single person
in this room looking at me so I know that they’re listening properly.’

Arabella and I chose velvet and gold padded stools next to the twins, Moira and Lynne. When everyone was assembled and we were being so quiet you could have heard a pin drop on the white, shiny floor, Mrs Bunsen tapped a key on her laptop and a giant photograph of Little Pineham beach flashed on to the wall.

‘This,’ Mrs Bunsen said, hitting the wall with a long, pointy stick. ‘Is where we will be going tomorrow to set up our experiment. And this,’ she tapped another key on her laptop and an image of our school’s kitchen’s flashed up, complete with Head Chef Marcel pulling a funny face. ‘Is where our journey will begin.’

‘That’s really silly Mrs Bunsen,’ Clarice said, still looking at her nails. Cleo and Clarice are the most ANNOYING girls in the school. They think they’re SO amazing and beautiful, but they’re not very nice to anyone, especially me and Arabella. ‘The beach isn’t in the kitchen is it?’

‘Sapphires loses one house point because Clarice called out without putting up her hand,’ Mrs Bunsen said.

‘Shut
up
, will you?’ Arabella hissed loudly in Clarice’s direction. I noticed Mrs Bunsen flicking a glance at Arabella but luckily she didn’t say anything. Cleo and Clarice are ALWAYS losing us house points which Arabella really minds about because she’s very competitive and wants Sapphires to win the House Shield this term. Emeralds won it last term, and I don’t think poor Rubies have EVER won it. #Not very sporty.

Melody put her hand up.

‘Yes?’ Mrs Bunsen pointed the stick at her.

‘Um, on the letter you sent my parents about the school trip you mentioned that there are old smuggling tunnels that lead from the school’s kitchen cellars down to the beach at Little Pineham,’ Melody said, going red.

‘Excellent, one house point to Sapphires,’ Mrs Bunsen nodded grimly. Arabella gave Melody the thumbs up. ‘Well remembered Melody, you are absolutely correct. Bertie the gardener told me about the tunnels a few months ago when he discovered that someone, probably Marcel, had moved a stack of crates hiding an old door in the deepest, darkest kitchen cellar. He opened the door and came face to face with a black tunnel, which he bravely decided to go down, armed with a powerful torch. He followed the tunnel all the way to its end and came out on Little Pineham beach. On the way back, he shone his torch at the walls and saw old graffiti there that smugglers had written hundreds of years ago. I myself have investigated the tunnel and can confirm that there are indeed messages scratched into the wall, saying things like, “Old Seamus left ten quarts of brandy from The Crimson Wave ship int’ big house’s veg garden for Young Jimny, 22
^nd
December, 1756”.’

‘Oh I see,’ I called out, feeling excited. Then I remembered about Mrs Bunsen’s strict no calling out rule and put my hand up.

‘Do share, Davina,’ she said, eyebrows lowering.

‘I think the message means that a smuggler called Old Seamus took or stole some bottles of brandy from a ship called The Crimson Wave, smuggled them through the secret tunnel and left them hidden in the grounds of the big house, which is probably now our school, for someone called Young Jimny, nearly three hundred years ago.’ I said, ignoring the faces Cleo and Clarice were making at me.

‘Precisely,’ Mrs Bunsen agreed dryly. ‘You should be a detective, Davina.’ I nodded in agreement, because I
am
nearly a detective as Arabella and I have already solved several mysteries together in the past.

Cleo put her hand up.

‘I hope you don’t expect
us
to travel down this revolting tunnel, Mrs Bunsen?’ she said.

‘That’s precisely what I expect you to do, Cleo,’ Mrs Bunsen looked almost cheerful as Cleo and Clarice shot each other horrified glances. ‘We will all assemble outside the school’s kitchen door tomorrow morning at nine o’clock sharp. Late comers will lose points for their houses. Each of you must be wearing a rainproof coat and wellies, with sensible clothes underneath. I will provide you with head torches so you can pick your way through the tunnel without any fuss. Mrs Bunn, Egmont’s new dinner lady, has kindly agreed to come with us to provide an extra pair of hands, so I trust you will all make her feel welcome. I’ll tell you what the experiment actually involves when we get to the beach, and needless to say I’ll be bringing essential items like anti-explosive aprons and safety goggles. ’

Arabella grinned madly at this news and I felt quite excited about seeing the old smuggling messages. Cleo and Clarice had gone pale yellow and looked like they were going to either throw up or faint. Dark tunnels weren’t really their idea of fun. #No mirrors.

‘That’s all for now, first years,’ Mrs Bunsen shut her laptop smartly and surveyed us with her eagle eyes. ‘You are dismissed. You may file out quietly.’

Tuesday, 7
^th
February

Good morning Diary!

Well! Last night Arabella and I were finishing off our particularly delish roast dinners while we tried to guess what the science experiment might be, when all of a sudden a bit of drama blew up.

‘You idiot,’ Clarice screeched, jumping up and flapping her arms about. Arabella and I stood up to get a better view of what was going on. The new trainee chef, Franco, was standing next to Clarice, beetroot red. Clarice’s white top had been drenched in a green goo, which was dripping off her into thick puddles on the floor. I felt quite sorry for Franco, he looks quite small and youngish and he was shaking with nerves.

‘Good shot, Franco,’ Arabella whispered, grinning. ‘He must have tripped and accidentally thrown mint sauce all over her!’

‘What eez all this fuss about, please?’ Came Marcel’s loud voice from the kitchen. The metal doors banged open and the head chef came cantering out. He threw his hands in the air when he saw Clarice’s top.

‘Franco! Why you do this to me?’ Marcel shouted. ‘I give you job as a favour to your father, and this is ‘ow you repay me? We put the food on the
table
, Franco, not on the pupils’ clothes. Now go and get a cloth this
instant
.’

Franco dithered around for a moment, then stumbled off towards the kitchen. #Poor chap.

‘I don’t want a
cloth
!’ Clarice screamed. ‘My top is ruined. RUINED. Mummy bought it back from St Tropez and it cost her five hundred euros and I’ll never be able to get another one like it, it was an original! I’m going off to change.’ And with that she flounced out, closely followed by Cleo who was also flouncing, just for effect.

Mrs Fairchild, the headmistress, who’d been tucking into her food quite happily while the drama unfolded, stood up, gave a little burp and clapped her hands. ‘Sit down everybody please, the pantomime’s over,’ she trilled. #Eccentric lady.

‘Mmm, look Davina,’ Arabella pointed to the end of our table where a chef was carefully putting down two silver bowls. ‘Our Magic Mousse has arrived. I could seriously eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the rest of my life, it’s so unbelievably yummy.’ Magic Mousse is Arabella’s favourite EVER dessert. It’s made from special, glittery sweets that Marcel says he orders from Italy, which are crushed up and stirred into a dark chocolate sauce. The sauce is then poured over a honeycomb sponge cake, so that it soaks in and oozes out of the bottom. I think it’s very tasty but Arabella likes it more; she goes into a kind of trance when she’s eating it and doesn’t talk till her bowl is scraped clean. #VERY interesting to watch!

Mrs Bunn, the new dinner lady, patrolled the dining hall while we ate, chewing a strawberry smelling sweet. I kept getting whiffs of it whenever she walked past. She’s small and squashy looking, with wispy white hair pinned back in a bun. Mrs Bunn wears a bun! It’s a bit like Mrs Bunsen’s only not as neat. She kept on and on smiling at everyone, but I couldn’t help noticing that when Franco was being told off by Marcel, her eyes stopped being smiley and turned narrow, and she edged closer to hear what was going on. Oh well, maybe she’s short sighted.

Ooh, I can’t wait to go down the tunnel, I’m already dressed in my coat and wellies. Actually I’m beginning to get a bit hot... #Perhaps I should have waited...

Lunch time, Tuesday 7
^th
February

Wow, what a day, Diary!

Arabella and I made it to the science lab this morning with only minutes to spare because it took ages to find Arabella’s wellies (eventually located behind the mess under her bed, #typical), earning us a poisonous look from Mrs Bunsen. She was in the middle of handing out head torches, so we took one each and strapped them onto our foreheads, then we couldn’t stop laughing because we looked so silly! Mrs Bunsen didn’t think it was funny though, I don’t think she’s got much of a sense of humour. Cleo and Clarice refused to wear theirs, so Mrs Bunn, who was already wearing a head torch, together with pink and white wellies and a green quilted raincoat, said;

‘Come on, duckies, you don’t want to trip and hurt yourselves in the tunnel do you?’

‘How hard can it be to walk in a straight line?’ Cleo replied, rude as always, and Mrs Bunn scowled, making her face look really different from usual, sort of glaring and cross instead of plump and crinkly.

We marched off to the kitchens in single file, led by Mrs Bunsen who was in sergeant major mode, and found Marcel was waiting for us with our packed lunches.

‘Smoked salmon and avocado sandwiches, Belgian chocolate truffles, exotic fruit medley, beetroot crisps and fizzy grape juice in each one,’ he smiled proudly, stroking his moustache. ‘Ok girls, follow me and please don’t touch anything in the cellars, I keep my Italian sweets for Magic Mousse down there and they’re so expensive we can’t afford to ‘ave even one jar smashed, yes?’

‘Yes Marcel,’ Arabella nodded her head seriously.

Going down into the cellars was like going into Aladdin’s Cave. We stepped carefully down a winding, gold staircase, ‘oohing’ and ‘aahing’ at all the piles of unusual food stacked everywhere. Old fashioned lamps attached to the cellar walls provided a dim glimmer which made all the bottles and jars look like mysterious treasure.

‘Look, those are jars of rare herbs that Marcel puts on chicken,’ Melony said, pointing to about fifty large jars full of red, amber and dark green leaves.

‘And those must be his seaweed pasta shells,’ Moira said, as we passed a stack of large packets containing gold and green shapes.

We walked on, going deeper and deeper underground.

‘Yippee, sweets for Magic Mousse,’ Arabella said, licking her lips as we entered the last cellar. She stopped and stared at a stack of about two hundred silver lidded jars absolutely packed with glittery sweets in extraordinary, twisty shapes. ‘Listen everyone, walk past these jars really carefully, OK?’ She stood with her arms stretched out protectively while we walked past.