Extraordinary Losers 3 (7 page)

“Whose bright idea was it to get him involved?” Janice glanced over her shoulder, displeased.

“Er, mine?” I replied. “Come on, Janice. Mundi needs to be found quick and we need help!”

Janice held my wrist. “Then let's hurry to the teachers and Mundi's parents!”

We secretly raced one another to the staff room, hoping the adults hadn't left for the police station. Of course, Clandestino was the first to arrive, followed by Adam. I was only slightly ahead of Janice, which didn't make me look too good. But there was no sign of Madam Siti, Mr Grosse and Mundi's family.

“Oh no, where could they have gone? We need to contact them immediately,” Janice said.

Out of the blue, a familiar voice shot through the air, “Hey kis… Where are you going?”

“He means kids,” Janice corrected. Uncle Andy had a few missing teeth that made him mispronounce some words. He wasn't worried about it at all. Perhaps his gold tooth made up for it.

“We are looking for Madam Siti and Mr Grosse,”

I said. “Have they left?”

“Yeah, we need to tell them something,” Janice added.

“What you need to tell them?” Uncle Andy scratched his red sunburnt chest that lay exposed beneath his half-buttoned shirt. He seemed suspiciously restless.

“Something,” Clandestino said. He turned to me. “Letta usta nota trusta himta.”
Let us not trust him.
Clandestino was speaking in our secret language. We had made up a secret language so we didn't have to depend on the Guitar Club notice board to communicate secretly anymore. The language was simple. We added an extra “ta” to every syllable. I thought it was quite easy to get the hang of it but Clandestino said it was the most difficult code in the world.

“Wai, wai, wai. Are you looky for Mundi? The teachers came to me just now and asked me about the Milo van and Mundi.” He sighed. “I was so careless!”

“Maytabeta heta ista theta oneta.”
Maybe he is the one.
Janice tried to speak in our secret language too.

“Uh huh,” I acknowledged.

Uncle Andy continued, “They showed me their Milo badge. I thought they were doing a promotion. So good they come to this school, you know. Anyway, Mundi never contact you?”

We looked doubtfully at one another, hesitant to divulge any further information. Uncle Andy might just be the kidnapper since Mundi's mother did say that a Chinese man had called to demand a ransom of $100,000.

Adam, the strongest of us all, then suggested, “Shall we just look for Mundi ourselves?”

Uncle Andy overheard this and said, “Come, I have a pick-up, I can drive you there!”

“No, it-it-it is okay,” I quickly insisted. “We can go ourselves. I remember Mrs Sakdipa saying that the address is somewhere in Jurong.”

“How?” Janice whispered into my ear. “We need a vehicle that can tell us the speed at which we are travelling. Remember Mundi's message? It had speed, seconds and all other kinds of other weird instructions.”

Adam quickly added, “Yeah, we'd better follow Mundi's directions. The Jurong address might be a trap! And the teachers are on their way there now!”

I still didn't think it was a good idea to follow a stranger in his vehicle. “Maybe we should just wait for Madam Siti and Mr Grosse to return.”

“They are no here! They are no here!” Uncle Andy sighed. “They scolded me just now and they say I let a Milo van in and because of that poor Mundi disappeared.” Then his brown eyes glazed over like he was reminiscing about all those times with Mundi.

“They went to the police station. I want to help find him too.” Uncle Andy trotted off.

Adam and Clandestino signalled to me to follow Uncle Andy.

“That's the only way,” Clandestino urged. “We can't afford to waste anymore time!”

“Yeah, there're so many of us. What can possibly happen?” Adam agreed.

Janice begged to differ. “I am not sure about you guys, but I am definitely worth a million…”

Before she could finish her sentence, Adam and Clandestino had dashed off after Uncle Andy. Janice and I looked at each other. Why would they be afraid? One was The Credible HULK and the other was The SPEED.

But what if Uncle Andy was pretending to be someone he was not? What if this was his trap to kidnap more children? What if he was really the one that kidnapped Mundi and now he wanted to silence us?

CHAPTER 10: THE RIDE OF YOUR LIFE

By the time Janice and I arrived at the carpark, Uncle Andy was already in the driver's seat. His red pick-up was a rusty mess and looked to be a 100 years old.

Clandestino and Adam had climbed onto the open-air back of the pick-up and were beaming at us with megawatt smiles.

“Come on, guys!” Clandestino reached out to help Janice up.

“It's illegal to sit at the back. It's meant for carrying goods,” Janice muttered. “First bad sign.”

“Maybe it's a short distance?” I suggested, still unsure about the whole follow-Uncle-Andy decision. But as soon as Janice hopped on, she changed her mind.

“Wow, this actually could be fun!” She danced around.

I had no choice but to climb up too.

“Yeah, see!” Clandestino exclaimed. “It's not that baaa….”

Before he could finish his sentence, the pick-up jerked and reversed abruptly. Our heads bobbed violently.

“Woahhh!” Adam was thrilled.

Between the driver's cabin and the open cargo area was a plastic window. With one hand, Uncle Andy slid the window open and called out, “Everyone okay there?”

We could see that he had decked out his dashboard with all kinds of ornaments, photographs of Chinese celebrities and childish stickers. There were receipts strewn all around and my eye caught sight of two tiny cockroaches scampering under the seat. I didn't want to make a scene since Janice was there and she was a squealer.

“Yes!” Clandestino said, before taking out his phone to read Mundi's message. “Remember, Uncle Andy, right, at 60 km/h, 29 seconds straight. Traffic light, straight 138 seconds. Left turn 136 seconds straight. Traffic light, turn left at 20 km/h, 10 seconds straight… Poor dog.”

“How do you know?” asked Uncle Andy, his elbow resting on the wound-down window. “Poor dog?”

“Mundi messaged us,” I said.

Clandestino elbowed me. “Don't have to tell Uncle Andy everything,” he mouthed.

I wondered why Mundi had added “poor dog” to the text message.

“Okay, okay. Just tell me how to go,” Uncle Andy said.

Clandestino fiddled with his red G-shock watch. “Okay, I have already set the timer. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight…” He counted out loud according to Mundi's instructions. First, he had the coolest shoes, and now, the coolest watch?

I turned to Janice and Adam. Both of them were sticking out their heads like dogs having a car ride. The wind blew in our faces. The pick-up was travelling at a steady speed of 60 km/h but it felt like a roller-coaster ride, bumping us around the cargo area.

A few cars drove past and adults gave us horrified looks. Four school kids riding at the back of a pick-up driven by a shady-looking old uncle on a school day, during school hours? We felt invincible!

A small kid pointed to us excitedly. She must have been envious of us. Poor her, strapped in the back seat while we were enjoying the most thrilling ride. At the same time, I couldn't help but think of the horror Mundi must have gone through.

Finally, the car entered a private estate lined with rows and rows of bungalows. Lorong Mebong, the road sign stated.

“Here?? I don't understand,” I said. We had come to a junction which split into two roads, one headed left and the other, right.

“Mundi led us to a fork in the road? This is nowhere near Jurong,” Janice wondered out loud. “That's just great. How are we supposed to know which road to take?”

“Maybe he couldn't finish his message in time,” I said. Everyone gawked at me, thinking that something terrible had happened to Mundi. Uncle Andy turned off the engine and peered at us through the tiny window.

“What now?” He was breathing heavily. His coffee breath was so strong I was glad I wasn't sharing the front seat with him.

“If Mundi is right, then he should be somewhere here,” Clandestino said.

“Here! Let me see what Mundi said.” Uncle Andy snatched the phone from Clandestino. We could see his blackened fingernails. Eeeww.

He got out of the car and slammed the door shut. Then he looked at all of us. Of course, he didn't know that we had special abilities, or he would not have commanded, “Stay here! DO NOT go anywhere! I will go and look for Mundi. Go and call Mundi's parents and tell them where we are.”

He looked left and then, without thinking twice, walked towards the houses on the left.

“How would he know where Mundi is?” Janice whispered. “Unless he is… ”

“He is the kidnapper,” I said.

“Come on, let's follow him, guys!” Clandestino said. Staying in the truck was not what he came here to do.

Adam rolled up his sleeves, ready for any kungfu action. He had the brawns and he wanted people to know that before they tried anything funny. Clandestino somersaulted out of the pick-up and Adam leapt out like an Olympian hurdler. Janice and I took a good few minutes to get down, trying not to break a bone.

We looked at the row of houses on the right and on the left. Uncle Andy had already disappeared from our sight.

“Where should we start? I don't see a dog, or the likes of it. We can't just go to every house and knock on the door, right?” Adam said. “We will alert the attackers that we are here.”

Just then, we saw a little girl coming from the road on the right. She was messy looking. Attached to her was a white dog on a leash. She seemed to be approaching us and waving desperately at us.

“Hey!” she called out as she ran up to us. “There's a Chihuahua barking over at house number 80.”

“Er… so? How does that help us?” Clandestino said. “We are looking for our friend, Mundi.”

“Clan!” I yelled. “That's it! Poor dog!” He was slow to catch on.

“Oh, I am not so sure about that, but the Chihuahua has been barking about a boy who seems lost. And the Chihuahua was yapping about a horrible woman,” the little girl said.

“And how would you know?” Janice asked. “By the way, is that your dog?”

“Yes! This is Snowy!” The little girl beamed. “Don't you think he is cute?”

Janice reached out to pat the white terrier on the head. Snowy was wagging its tail, excited to meet the four of us. Dogs seem to love children, perhaps because children are short, almost at eye level with them (except Clandestino) and never have any hidden agendas.

“He has just been groomed!” she said. Then, remembering something, she added, “Oh, the Chihuahua was barking about half an hour ago and then he went quiet.”

“How did you know what that Chihuahua was barking about? You speak DOG-a-nese?” I asked.