W
e cycled on into town and stopped at The Muff'nery, which is Balnamara's idea of a cute name for a baker's.
“I hope you have money, Hal,” I said as we dismounted and locked our bikes. “Because I have hardly any, but if I don't get something to eat, I am going to just drop dead here on the spot, and you will have to sling my body over your handlebars and carry me home and explain to my parents how you let me starve to death.”
“Don't be ridiculous,” said Hal. He was counting out his coins. “I have enough for two bagels and two chocolate muffins. I don't think they do doughnuts here. Will that be OK? I'll get an orange juice as well.”
“That sounds like heaven,” I said. Truth to tell, even a piece of sliced pan with no butter would have been perfectly all right.
We took our goodies to the Market Square and sat on a bench for our little picnic. It's not a market square anymore, it's like a little park. There's a monument to some dead poet in the middle, with these benches all around it, and flower beds with busy Lizzies in all sorts of zany colors.
Bagels never tasted so good. I didn't even mind about not having any butter or jam.
“Give me your mobile, will you?” I said to Hal. “I have to ring home. They're bound to be back from the airport by now, and they'll be wondering where I've got to. I'll tell them we're on a project for school. It's a bit lame, but we have to say something. I'll be murdered anyway, but I'd be murdered even worse if I didn't phone in.”
“You should have your own mobile,” Hal said grudgingly, but he handed his over all the same.
“My parents don't approve of children with mobiles,” I told him for the umpteenth time. “They explained it to me once, but I've forgotten the reason.”
“But it's OK if you use mine?” Hal said grumpily. “That doesn't make sense.”
He'd got very edgy ever since Alec got arrested. Maybe arrested. I suppose he thought his mother was going to be very upset. Well, you would be, wouldn't you? Upset, I mean, if your son had organized to have your sort-of-husband arrested on a Saturday morning. Even if it wasn't exactly planned that way.
“It's the principle,” I said, “not the radiation. It's like not being allowed to watch much TV Don't worry, I'll buy you some credit later.”
I never did buy him that credit, because I forgot, but now that I have remembered it, I think I won't buy it anyway. He got us into this situation, the least he could do was
cover the cost of a phone call to let my parents know we hadn't been kidnapped.
“Do you want to ring
your
mother?” I asked him, after I'd had a very strained conversation with mine.
“No,” he said in a surly voice.
“Hal, you have to tell her you're OK.”
“I don't,” Hal said. “Anyway, she's not even there.”
“She has a mobile,” I argued.
“But she doesn't know I'm not at home. And anyway, she doesn't ring me up every time she is out. So I don't see why I have to phone her.”
“Well,” I said, “I see why. She could be ringing your house all morning and wondering why there is no one home. I'm going to ring her if you won't. I'll tell her you're with me.”
“If she wants to talk to me,” said Hal, “which she doesn't, she will ring me on my mobile.”
“All the same, you have to cover yourself,” I said, dialing Hal's home number. “You can't just walk out of the house and not leave any word about where you are.
“Oh, hi, Mrs. Denâ ⦠I mean, Mrs. Kiâ ⦠., well, whatever, er, Trudy,” I trilled. (I really did trill. I was doing my best to sound cheerful.) “It's me, Olivia. Just wanted to let you know that Hal's with me. We're on this sort of project thing, you know, Explore Your Area or something, it's called, for ⦠for SESE, that's what was called history'n'geography, I think, when you were at school. And
science. We have these, like, worksheets, and we have to find all these monuments and stuff, raths and statues and everything, so ⦠anyway, I think he forgot to tell you he'd be ⦠oh, he's at the toilet at the moment, which is why I'm ringing, OK? We're just by the poet statue now, actually, in the square. We've ticked that one off our list. Oh, there's the pip, well, byeee!”
“What'd she say?” Hal asked when I rang off.
“Oh, she didn't answer. I was just leaving a message.”
“It's a nice day,” Hal said after a moment. “We could go to the strand and fly the kite. After we've finished the muffins.”
“Hal, we could NOT! We have to rescue your stepfather.”
“He is not my stepfather,” said Hal. “And we can't rescue him. We're just a couple of kids. And anyway, he most probably doesn't need rescuing.”
“He does if he's been arrested,” I said. “Oh, Hal, just think, if Alec has been arrested because of
us
⦔
“It's not because of us,” said Hal. “
We
didn't get him arrested.” His voice had got higher than usual, and squeaky. He was definitely ruffled, I thought. “He got
himself
arrested, the silly galoot. If he has been. Which he probably hasn't been.”
“Still, all those police ⦠That's very odd, Hal, wouldn't you say? We really had better find out what the situation is, don't you think?”
“How?” asked Hal.
“We'll have to go to the Garda station and find out.”
“What!”
“You heard me, Hal. We have to go and see if we can find out if he's been arrested.”
“But ⦠we can't just go swanning into the Garda station and ask if they have Him,” said Hal. “Because if they have, they will want to know what we know about it, and then ⦠And anyway, I don't want to see that guard again, the one that thinks he knows me.”
“We have no choice, Hal.”
“We have a choice,” said Hal. “We can just forget about Him and go and fly the kite.”
That was all just talk, I knew. I could see that he was starting to get worried. There were two little pink spots high up on his cheeks, as if someone had kissed him, twice. Not even Hal could have wanted his little plan to have been quite this effective. All he'd meant to do was create a row between his mother and Alec. He hadn't actually planned on getting anyone arrested. He was just bluffing when he suggested flying the kite.
“Hal! If you were an idiot, which would you be, a bit of a fool or a complete moron?”
He got the message, I think. Though it's hard to tell with Hal sometimes. He slumped back on the bench and took a vicious bite out of his muffin.
“I suppose we could be on a school project,” I went on,
“and just meet him by chance, while we're looking around the station.”
“I don't think you could wander into a cell by chance,” said Hal. “I believe they lock the doors.”
“Funny, that,” I said, and gave a nervous little giggle.
Hal smiled. It was the first smile he'd given all morning. It made me feel better. Not much better, but a bit better.
“Come on, Hal,” I said then, wringing the bakery bags into a knot for putting in the litter bin. “Let's go. We have to see a policeman about a dog.”
“What dog?”
“Oh, Hal. No dog. It's only a turn of phrase. We just have to go and see a policeman.”
“It might be a woman,” Hal argued.
Well, that was true, but really, sometimes I could shake Hal. He comes up with the most pointless remarks sometimes. True, but pointless.
“It might,” I said with a sigh.
And as a matter of fact, it was.
W
hen we got to the station, I went in. Hal stayed outside, “to keep an eye out,” he said.
It wasn't very nice in the Garda station. Everything was gray and the walls were very bare and there were crumpled papers on the floor, which was covered in worn tiles. The place seemed to be empty, but there was a little bell on the counter, so I gave it a ring. It made a mighty buzzing sound, enough to wake the dead, you'd think, but it didn't seem to have any effect.
I waited for ages, and I was just wondering if I should ring again, or would that annoy them, when this young guard came out and asked what she could do me for (ho-ho).
She had a nice smile, so I didn't bother making anything up or saying I was on a project or anything, I just asked her straight out about Hal's stepfather. She gave me a funny look, as if she thought I didn't seem to be the kind of person who knows people who get arrested (which is true), but she went off and came back with a sheaf of papers.
“I have no record of anyone of that name,” she said, wrinkling her nose in puzzlement.
That was a relief.
“You mean, he hasn't been brought here?” I said.
“No, I mean he hasn't been arrested this morning at all. He's not on our list. That kind of information is instantly available, you know.”
“Really?” I said faintly.
“Oh yes. We have the latest technology.”
“Oh!” I said. “Well, thank you, guard.”
That was good news. It didn't explain what had happened, but at least we hadn't got a person arrested for nothing. I bounced out to where Hal was sitting on a wall outside the station.
“He's not here,” I said.
“Does that mean he hasn't got here yet?”
“No, it means he hasn't been arrested.”
“Oh well,” said Hal. He stood down from the wall and dusted his hands smartly together. “Well, now we know.”
“Thanks for asking, Olivia,” I said. “You are a fine friend, and I owe you a big favor.”
“Who are you talking to?” Hal said.
“Myself,” I said.
“You're nuts,” said Hal.
I sighed. “I must be,” I said. “OK, then, what now? And do NOT mention that kite, Hal King, or I will ⦠Oh!
Hal!
” I shrieked.
It was using Hal's full name that made me realize what an idiot I'd been.
“What?” he asked. “What, what? What's wrong?”
“No, nothing's wrong,” I said, “or maybe it is. Oh no!”
“Olivia, could you please talk sense?” Hal pleaded.
“I've just realized,” I said. “I used the wrong name in the Garda station. I asked for Alec
King,
not Alec Denham. I keep forgetting he doesn't have the same name as youâremember, I couldn't think what to call your mother on the phone? Gee, that was dead embarrassing, did you notice?”
“So ⦔
“So,” I said, “we are none the wiser. He might have been arrested after all. Oh, Hal. Sorry.”
I felt such a dumb-cluck, and I really didn't fancy the idea of going back in there and explaining myself, no matter how nice the policewoman had been.
“Will you come in with me this time?” I asked Hal. “Please?”
He nodded.
So the two of us stumbled into the reception area and rang the bell again, and after the usual delay, out came my friend.
“I ⦠er, I made a mistake the last time,” I said, grinning dementedly at her in the hope of making her think I was a sweet child that she should be nice to.
“Oh?” she said, and she took a pencil from behind her head. She had her hair held up with it, I think, because it all came tumbling around her shoulders when she took the pencil out. She tapped her front tooth with the blunt end. “What kind of a mistake?”
She had a nice face. With her hair down, she looked quite young. Well, I mean, she still looked like an adult, but as if she hadn't been one all that long. She probably didn't think I was a sweet child, but she looked as if she might be sound.
“A name mistake,” I said.
“Let me get this straight,” she said, and she tapped her tooth again. Then she turned the business end of the pencil toward me, as if I was a chart she wanted to point something out on. “You came in here to ask about an arrest, and you didn't even
know the name
of the arrested person? Alleged arrested person.”
She poked the pencil toward me in an unnecessarily menacing way.
“That's ⦠well, I did know. I just ⦔
“You know, we can't be handing out information about arrests to just anyone. It'd have to be a person with a genuine reason.”
The pencil poked the air in front of my nose again.
“Oh, I have a genuine reason,” I said.
“I mean, a reason
we
would consider genuine,” she said sternly.
“Yes,” I said. “I understand.” I licked my lips nervously. They tasted of chocolate muffin. I hoped my tongue wasn't all brown. I tucked it quickly back into my mouth.
“So, who is this person you are looking for information about?” she asked officiously, licking the point of the pencil
and holding it over a sheet of paper. “Is it a member of your family?”
“No,” I said. “It's a member of
his
family.” I pointed at Hal. I was glad I'd got him to come in this time. “But he's too shy to ask himself.”
“Ah, I see,” she said. “Well, that's understandable. Now, what's this gentleman's name? If you have quite decided, that is.”
“Denham,” I said.
“Denham,” she said, and wrote it down.
Well, at least she hadn't suddenly shrieked in recognition. That looked good.
“First name?”
How many Denhams did she think might have been arrested in Balnamara in the last hour and a half? But I didn't say that. I just said, “Alexander.”
“And are you a Denham too?” she said, turning to Hal.
“Nuh-o,” he stammered. “I'm a King.”
“You don't look like a king,” she said, and laughed.
Hal has heard this joke before. He didn't smile.
“Not even a prince,” she went on.
Still there was no reaction from Hal.
“What's your first name?” she asked, more gently.
“Hal.”
“And you're sure you're not a King?”
“I am, it's a Denham I'm not.”
“Oh, right, yes, I see. And what is Hal short for? Hallelujah?”
I started to giggle.
“Haldane,” muttered Hal.
I giggled some more at that. She frowned at me, but it looked like a frown she'd just put on, like a mask.
“I can't help it,” said Hal. “It was my mother's idea.”
The guard gave a little tinkly laugh. But then she frowned again and said crisply, “People in the same family usually have the same surname. Is this man some in-law of yours or what? Or a cousin maybe, on the mother's side?”
“Nuh-o,” stuttered Hal.
“Good. For a moment there, I was under the impression you were related to this person. The one you say was arrested.”
We hadn't said that. We'd only asked if he had been. But I thought we shouldn't argue. She wasn't such a walkover as I had hoped she was going to be. Being children, and moderately cute, wasn't working the way it does with some adults.
“Well?” I said, after a moment. “What is ⦠I mean, can you tell us ⦠? I mean, what's the ⦠situation?”
She opened up the top of the counter and jerked her head. “You'd better come into the day room and have a cup of tea,” she said. “I'm just going off duty, so we can have a chat without being disturbed. One of the others will be minding the shop.”
Maybe she was going to be OK.
I looked at Hal. He was very pale, and the two little pink spots on his cheeks looked even pinker.
He shrugged at me. I shrugged at him. Then we both trooped in behind the counter and went into this room they have behind the scenes. I wondered why it was called the day room. Then I wondered if they had a night room, too. Maybe not. Maybe it's like the Low Strand, even though there isn't any High Strand.
There were a few other guards sitting around. Two of them were playing cards, and one in a corner was doing something on a computer. I recognized the guard on the computer as the bicycle guard we'd met earlier. He gave me a big grin and a wave.
Uh-oh, I thought. Now he's going to want to know why we're here, and could we not find our way home, and is this man still missing, and ⦠but he didn't say anything. He went back to what he had been doing.
Our guard pointed to a sofa that had seen better days. It looked as if the dog slept on it, actually, but beggars can't be choosers. (That's another of my mother's annoying little sayings; it's funny how these things rub off on you, even if they annoy you.) So we sat down, side by side, on the manky sofa. There was a horrible little brown table in front of it. I stared at an application form for a passport that was lying on it, and our guard went out of the room for a moment and came back with two cans of Coke and two teacups.
“The kettle is stone cold,” she said. “I thought you might prefer this anyway.”
She thought right. She was pretty deadly, really.
“Now,” she went on as we poured our Coke into the cups, “I want to hear the whole story from the beginning.”
“Will you tell, Hal?” I asked. “Seeing as it's your story.”
But I could see he really didn't feel like telling the story. His face was white, and I thought I could hear his teeth chattering, though that might have been just the Coke, which was very cold.
“All right,” I said, when Hal shook his head. “I'll explain.”
So I did. The guard began by writing down everything I said, but the further I got into the story, the more slowly she wrote, and eventually she put down her pencil and notepad and just listened. She shook her head a few times, and once or twice she groped in a tissue box for a paper hanky and did the most tremendous amount of coughing and spluttering into it.
“So, we got my brother to leave the message on the answering machine,” I said, “and he must have got it, Mr. Denham, I mean, because he set off this morning and he drove to the hospital and he went in. We followed him, just for the laugh, like, well, actually, we didn't follow, we went ahead and waited for him, but anyway, we saw him going in the hospital gate. And the next thing was a squad car arrived. And he didn't come out, and we couldn't work out what was going on.”
She shook her head about fifteen times, and then she said, “So, because of you two and yerâ
prank
,” said our
guard, “the guards have arrested, as far as you know, an innocent man who only wanted to paint a building in the hospital? This boy's stepfather, is it?”
Hal opened his mouth, but I didn't want him explaining how Alec wasn't really his stepfather, so I said quickly, “Yes, that's about it, I suppose.”
“Well,” the guard said briskly, “you are the boldest children I ever met. Ye deserve to go to jail, the pair of ye.”
I could see that the edges of her mouth kept wanting to turn up in a smile, but still, I wasn't sure if we could trust her not to make life difficult for us.
“It was his idea,” I said.
That was mean of me, I suppose, and I am not proud of it, but it was his idea. I hadn't liked it from the start, as you may remember, and it didn't seem fair if I had to go to jail for something I hadn't wanted to get involved in in the first place. (Though I suppose a lot of criminals say that.)
“But luckily for you,” she said, ignoring me, “you are too young for jail.”
Well, we kind of knew that, but all the same, when you are more or less in police custody, it's nice to hear it from the horse's mouth, so to speak.
“Thank you, guard,” I said humbly.
“But tell me one thing,” she said. “Tell me why.”
“Why what?”
“Why did you do it? Why did you want to play such a trick on this poor man?”
“Well ⦠,” I said, and I looked at Hal.
I certainly wasn't going to tell her it was part of a major plot on Hal's part to make his mother split up with his stepfather, and that I had gone along with it out of a misguided commitment to saving the earth from global warming.