Squishy Taylor and a Question of Trust (5 page)

Vee gets on the tram at the opposite end to us. She sits there with her earphones in and her ponytail swinging. Jessie rolls her eyes.

I lean in to Jessie and whisper, ‘If Mr Hinkenbushel has the forged documents, where do you think he’s keeping them?’

Jessie shrugs, her eyes on Vee’s ponytail. Finally she says, ‘We need to know what he does, where he goes, understand his movements. But …’

I know what she’s thinking. If we get any further into this adventure without Vee, she’s going to be so mad she might
blow up our apartment
– or the whole of Melbourne.

‘There’s only one thing for it,’ I say finally. ‘A crazy bonus-sister apology.’

I stand up on the crowded tram and shout out, ‘I’m
SOOO
sorry, Vee!’

She looks around. First success. I was louder than the music in her earphones. She
scowls
and shrinks down in her seat. I push down the aisle towards her,
donking
people with my schoolbag on the way through. Jessie follows, giggling and trying to hush me.

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I miss you!’ I sing, until I’m standing in front of her, doing prayer hands. The tram stops and I nearly fall over backwards. Vee has curled down into her seat and her ears are red.

‘We’re sorry. Please, we need your help. And …
STACKS ON!
’ I jump so I’m half-sitting, half-lying on her lap. Jessie jumps on top of me. We’re a heavy tangle of arms and schoolbags and laughter.

‘Please, please forgive us? And help us,’ I beg, into her armpit.

‘Fine. Fine. But get OFF me,’ Vee says and we scramble to our feet.

Luckily, the person who was sitting next to Vee decides to stand up, so we all squeeze together on the one seat.

‘OK,’ I whisper. I realise it’s going to be very difficult to have a secret meeting now the whole tram is watching us. I huddle in close to my bonus sisters. ‘How do we get evidence against Mr Hinkenbushel?’

‘We need to watch his door, and then follow him wherever he goes,’ Vee says.

I feel my heart relax because she’s on our team again.

Jessie nods. ‘
A stake-out!
’

‘But we can’t watch his apartment door,’ I object. The others agree. That would last about three minutes before Alice put a stop to it.

‘The street door then,’ Jessie says. ‘Let’s make a list of all the reasons to hang around out the front.’

This is a really good plan, because Jessie likes lists and Vee likes thinking of ways to be
sneaky
.

Jessie gets out her notebook and writes:

We stare at it. Good. But it only lasts for as long as Baby’s asleep.

Vee says, ‘We offer to run all the shopping errands and then one of us stays behind at the front door.’

Jessie writes it down, but it’s the same problem. There’s a time limit.

‘Pretend we want to play on the footpath because we’re not allowed to play in the corridor,’ Jessie says.

Straight away, I know it’s
genius
. We could do that for hours.

Vee ‘borrows’ footpath chalk from the gym at school and Jessie googles hopscotch, so by the time we get home we’re ready to start the stake-out.

I leave Jessie and Vee on the footpath and take the lift up with all our bags. I tell Alice what we’re doing and she says, ‘Hopscotch! That was
retro
when I was in primary school. Well, don’t annoy anyone, and stay away from the road.’

Jessie tells us what to do because she’s read the rules. She even demonstrates hopping down the court. It’s weird because she doesn’t play bunk-bed moves or do rock-climbing or anything sporty usually. I thought hopscotch would be a dumb game for little girls but after we’ve played it a bit, I start getting really into it. There’s a rhythm in the skip of it that’s
satisfying
.

We all keep glancing at the front door, but Mr Hinkenbushel doesn’t come or go.

I get better at not landing on the lines and Vee is really good at tossing the stone exactly in the square. Jessie isn’t as good as either of us, but she does keep playing. It’s like, because we have the purpose of the stake-out, she doesn’t mind that she’s not as good as us.

We do
hopscotch stake-out
after school every day, but nothing happens. Until Friday. We’re about to give up and go to the park instead, and finally, Mr Hinkenbushel comes out the front door of our building. He walks straight past our hopscotch game and down the street.

We all stare at each other. I suddenly realise how stupid we’ve been. We don’t even have an excuse to follow him.

‘I’m going,’ I whisper.

‘But –’ says Jessie.

‘What’s the point of the stake-out if we don’t follow him?’

‘I’m coming too,’ says Vee.

‘OK then, me too,’ says Jessie.

I shake my head. ‘We can’t
all
go.’

Mr Hinkenbushel is getting smaller and smaller, disappearing down the street.

‘
Why not?
’ Vee asks.

After staring at each other for a second, we all turn and run after him.

When we get closer, we tumble to a walk. I hold up my hand for quiet and we all start to tiptoe down the footpath. I dodge along in the shadowy section of a wall and the others follow.

Mr Hinkenbushel looks a bit nervous. He’s going at a funny speed. Not quite fast and not quite slow, but kind of twitchy. Nervous. He’s pulled a hat down over his eyes and he’s
peeking
out from under it like he doesn’t want anyone to see his face. He crosses a road and we just manage to make the same lights as him.

On the other side of the road, he seems to see something. Then he slows right down so we’re about to catch up with him. Vee pulls my sleeve and pretends to look in a shop window. We line up next to each other, looking in the window, trying not to laugh. It’s men’s shirts.
Really boring
.

‘What’s he
doing
?’ Vee whispers.

He seems to be dawdling. Then he suddenly picks up his pace. I realise he’s following somebody else. I’m pretty sure he’s following a tall man with a big gold watch and very shiny shoes, who has just stepped out of a bank. The tall man strides along the footpath. Mr Hinkenbushel
dodges
after him, and we follow in a line behind.

‘Who’s the new guy?’ Jessie whispers from the back.

‘No idea,’ Vee says.

‘Do you think Mr Hinkenbushel is going to do something bad?’ I ask over my shoulder.

‘Should we call the police?’ Vee sounds a bit nervous.

But we don’t have a phone and anyway, the police won’t believe anything we say now they’ve seen our revenge video.

They didn’t believe anything before they saw it.

Just then the tall man stops.

Mr Hinkenbushel stops behind him, and we stop behind Mr Hinkenbushel.

We’re like a set of
dominos
ready to be tipped over.

The tall man has reached into his pocket to answer his phone.

‘Good afternoon,’ he says, in a voice I recognise straight away.

It’s Lord Smiggenbotham-Chancery.

At first I’m so
dumbstruck
that I just stand there. Mr Hinkenbushel is following Lord Smiggenbotham-Chancery!

Until this moment, part of me thought I was probably wrong. I was kind of just playing a big game with the diamond smugglers and the stake-out. But now I think it’s real. Now I know I was right.