TO CATCH A WOLF
By Michele Powles
Mote recoiled, holding his hand to his mouth and trying not to be sick.
“Wuss,” said Deb, taking in
his pallor even as she leaned in closely over the sheep.
“Don’t. Like. Blood.” Was all
Mote could manage before he had to turn away.
“It’s not blood, it’s a bit of
red balloon.” She pulled the limp red streak off the sheep’s belly and waved it
in front of him.
“I knew that. Didn’t want you
to…you know, get scared or anything.”
Deb rolled her eyes.
“I’ll take that thank you.
Might be evidence.” As if he’d been there the whole time, Inspector Barker
loomed over them and snatched the balloon fragment, secreting it away in a
plastic bag. Mote shivered as the Inspector’s sleepy eyes seemed to scan him
like a barcode.
“I’m not sure this is the place for children.
Shouldn’t you be…I don’t know. At school or something?”
Deb narrowed her grey eyes,
the steel in them glinting like polished metal. When she added an arched
eyebrow, Mote groaned inwardly.
Deb pursed her lips and used
the tone that got their father totally riled. “It’s a hol-i-day. And our dad is
in charge. I don’t see you solving much. In-spec-tor.”
Inspector Barker swivelled his
eyes away and to Mote it felt as if a nasty buzzing had stopped in his ear.
“Debussy, that’s quite enough
thank you,” Mendelssohn Finnegan said even as he reached for his ringing cell.
“I have to go. Carry on Inspector. Don’t get in the way, and get back to the
grandstands. Your mother will meet you there.” He scurried off.
“Bring him this way.” The
Inspector demanded of the stretcher bearers and started off up the corridor.
“Hang on.” Deb’s eyebrow was
still up and Mote put a hand on her arm but she shrugged him off. “Where are
you taking him?”
The Inspector’s eyes lost
their sleepy look for just a moment and Mote felt a cold rush wash over his
body as if the corridor had turned into a fridge. “I’m taking him to the
hospital.”
“What about the sheep?”
“Evidence. It’ll go to
Scotland yard.” The Inspector waved his hands at the stretcher bearers and the
lot of them shuffled up the corridor and around a corner. Mote turned to his
sister. “Are you mental? He’s from Interpol. He could have you arrested.”
Deb shrugged her shoulders and
put her hand in her pocket. “Not very good at his job then.” She pulled out a
curled up piece of paper.
“What did you…where did you
get that? You’ll have messed the fingerprints.”
“Almost impossible to get
fingerprints off paper. But I’ll be careful.”
“ Shouldn’t we give it to the
police?”
“Sure. And we will. As soon as
we’ve worked out if we can trust them.”
“What about Inspector Barker
then. Interpol is like…police times ten. Or maybe even times a hundred.”
“I don’t trust him. He makes
me feel all…” she shivered and rolled her eyes back in her head.
It felt strange to agree with
his sister twice in one day but that was exactly how the Inspector made Mote
feel. He shook himself to get rid of the last remains of the corridor fridge
feeling.
“It takes a wolf to catch a
wolf.” Deb had unrolled the paper and was holding it carefully by the edges.
“Oh man. Wolves have big
teeth.”
“Yeah, and their bite is twice
as powerful as a dog’s.”
Mote thought through the day’s
events. “The wolf-whistling contest. Do you think…”
“Don’t be dumb. That’s way too
obvious.” Deb chewed on her finger. “To protect the sheep, you need to catch
the wolf.” Her eyes lit up. “Wolf pack leaders have to fight to keep their
position. Maybe there’s someone trying to get the top job and this is their way
of getting rid of their opposition.”
“Which top job?”
“Exactly.” Deb frowned. “Who
would benefit from the opening ceremony going wrong?”
“Someone who wanted Dad’s job?
Or to be Head of Security,” Mote suggested.
“Or top of police, the head of
SAS or the SIS. Pretty much anyone who was in the room with us for the
opening.”
“We should tell Dad that
there’s a wolf out to get him.”
“We don’t know for sure. But
we do know that whoever did this isn’t going to stop. You reap what you sow,
remember. This could get really nasty.” She pulled something small out of her
pocket.
“Hey, what’s that?” Mote took
it and turned it over in his hand. “Could be a piece of a flash drive.”
“Definitely a clue,” said Deb.
“But it’s not helping now. This wolf is leaving plenty of clues but we’re no
closer to solving any of them.”
They were both silent a
moment. Then Mote pulled out the day’s Titanic games program from his back
pocket.
“What are you thinking?”
Mote held up a finger and
incredibly, Deb was quiet. “The pool,” he said finally.
“We don’t have time to watch events,”
Deb said but the spark in his eyes must have been as hot as it felt and she didn’t
nag him further.
“We won’t be watching the
events,” Mote said. “The Byrd lady said she was going to the opening of the
Titanic pool tonight, and the Tuatara said he’d go with her.”
“That’s two wolves,” Deb said,
getting his drift. “I think I heard Captain Pejalmer say she would go with them
too. But what about the Inspector? He gives me the creeps.”
“I didn’t hear him say where
he was going. But three out of four is a good place to start.”
“True. You think they’ll still
go, after this?”
“I think Dad will make them.
Keep up appearances and all that.”
“Good point. Right, come on
then.”
The Titanic swimming complex
was connected to the main stadium by an underground tunnel with a travellator
running the whole distance and illuminated blue koru patterns set into the
curved walls and ceiling.
“Check
me out,” said Mote, doing an almost perfect moonwalk as they glided alone.
“Nice,”
said Deb, not even looking as she gazed at the Titanic games venue map she’d
grabbed on the way down.
“Deeeebussy.”
“Shhh,
I’m concentrating.”
Mote
sighed and looked up at the blue ferns they were passing. “Um, Deb.”
“I
said, I was concentrating.”
“You’ll
want to see this.”
They’d
just reached the entrance to the swimming complex and in front of them the blue
koru patterns from the ceiling swooped down to twine around the door. Only they
didn’t. They swooped fine, they just didn’t twine around the door because where
the door should have been was a gaping hole.
“Holy
floating polar bears,” said Deb.
“I
know,” said Mote. “What could have done that to the door?”
“No.
I mean holy floating polar bears,” said Deb.
Mote
followed her finger and wished he hadn’t. Floating in the pool was a lump of
ice and standing on it, its teeth dripping with something that didn’t look like
a red balloon, was a large and very crotchety polar bear.
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Now it's your turn to write chapter four. In chapter four, the kids get deeper into their own investigation but now they are in danger themselves.
You can read the winning child's chapter and the judge's report at Winning Writing
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Now it's your turn to write chapter four. In chapter four, the kids get deeper into their own investigation but now they are in danger themselves.
You can read the winning child's chapter and the judge's report at Winning Writing
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