Authors: Catherine Jinks
Genius Squad
GENIUS
SQUAD
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Evil Genius
Living Hell
This Way Out
The Future Trap
Witch Bank
Eye to Eye
Piggy in the Middle
What’s Hector McKerrow Doing These Days?
The Pagan Chronicles:
Pagan’s Crusade
Pagan in Exile
Pagan’s Vows
Pagan’s Scribe
Pagan’s Daughter
See also:
www.catherinejinks.com
GENIUS
SQUAD
CATHERINE JINKS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author would like to thank Richard Buckland, Jamie Grant, Jill Grinberg, Margaret Connolly and Peter Dockrill for their assistance
First published in 2008
Copyright © Catherine Jinks, 2008
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The
Australian Copyright Act 1968
(the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
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Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218
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Web:
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National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Jinks, Catherine, 1963– .
Genius squad.
ISBN 9781741751321 (pbk.).
I. Title
A 823.3
Text and cover design by Ellie Exarchos
Illustrations by Heath McKenzie
Set in 9.5/13pt ITC Legacy Serif Book by Midland Typesetters, Australia Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
TO KATHY DAWSON,
WHO CONJURED THIS BOOK
INTO EXISTENCE
CONTENTS
Cadel was in a very sour mood when he first met Detective Inspector Saul Greeniaus.
The day had started badly. To begin with, Cadel had been woken at three a.m. by the sound of piercing screams coming from Janan’s bedroom. Though only six years old, Janan had the lung capacity of a whale. He also suffered from night terrors, and the combination was deadly. Cadel usually felt sorry for Janan, who had been living in foster homes for most of his life. But it was hard to sympathise with
anyone
at three o’clock in the morning, let alone a kid who could scream like an hysterical gibbon.
As a result of his interrupted sleep, Cadel was late for breakfast. Not that it mattered. He didn’t have to go to school, so Mr and Mrs Donkin never insisted that he be awake at a specific time. But Mace and Janan did attend school, and were finishing their eggs just as Cadel arrived in the kitchen. Had Cadel been feeling more alert, he would never have sat down to eat just then. He would have waited until Mace was out of the house and running to catch the bus, his grey shirt untucked and his thick legs pumping.
Had Cadel used his brain, he would have sensed trouble in the air, and tried to head it off.
The whole problem was that Hazel Donkin refused to allow locks on any of the doors. There was a house rule about always knocking first, and another rule about respecting privacy. These rules were written in beautiful script on a piece of handmade paper that was pinned to the door of the pantry cupboard. (Hazel had done an evening course in calligraphy.) But both rules were quite easy to break, because Hazel had banned locks and keys from the Donkin premises.
Cadel could understand her point of view. One of her previous foster sons had locked himself in his bedroom before trying to set it alight. Leslie, her husband, had then been forced to smash through the door with a hammer. So although Hazel continuously said nice things about sharing, and everyone ‘always being welcome everywhere’, Cadel felt sure that her open-door policy was rooted in fear. She was afraid of what might happen if, during an emergency, she couldn’t reach any of the kids in her charge.
This was certainly Fiona’s opinion. Fiona Currey was Cadel’s social worker. She had told Cadel about the locked-bedroom incident after Cadel had finally complained to her about Mace, who liked to mess around with other people’s possessions. It was pointless complaining to Hazel, as Cadel had discovered. Her answer to every problem was what she called a ‘family conference’.
‘I’m sorry, Cadel,’ Fiona had said. ‘I know it must be hard, but it won’t be forever. Just hang in there. Mace isn’t nearly as bright as you are; surely you can handle him for a little while? Until things are sorted out?’
Most people seemed to jump to the same conclusion about Mace, whose real name was Thomas Logge. They thought that he was stupid. They looked at his lumbering form, his vacant grin and his clumsy movements, and they made allowances. They heard his slow, awkward speech patterns, and dismissed him as a big, dumb kid. Whenever he smashed something, they called it an accident; cracked windows and broken doorknobs were explained away. Mace, they said, had badly underdeveloped fine motor skills for a fourteen-year-old. He didn’t know his own strength. He might have poor impulse control, but he wasn’t malicious. He wasn’t clever enough to be malicious.
Only Cadel had doubts about this interpretation of Mace’s conduct. In Cadel’s opinion, Mace was a lot smarter than he let on. Not brilliant, of course, but cunning. Had he been as stupid as everyone made out, Mace wouldn’t have been so quick to take advantage of the few minutes granted to him while Cadel was eating breakfast.
How many minutes had it been? Six? Seven? Long enough for Cadel to gobble down an English muffin. Long enough for Mace to empty his bladder into Cadel’s bed.
When Cadel returned to his room, he found his mattress wet and stinking.
‘Mace did it,’ he told Hazel.
‘No, I didn’t!’ That was another thing about Mace: he had perfected the art of sounding completely clueless. ‘I did not! He’s blaming me because he wet his bed!’
‘Did you really wet your bed, Cadel?’ asked Janan, who wet his own bed all the time. He sounded pleased – even excited – to discover that someone else shared his problem. Especially someone who had recently turned fifteen.
‘There’s nothing wrong with wetting the bed,’ Hazel assured them all, in soothing tones. ‘I have plastic covers on the mattresses, and I can easily wash the sheets. You don’t ever have to feel bad about wetting the bed.’
‘I don’t feel bad,’ said Cadel, through his teeth. ‘Because I didn’t wet it. Mace did.’
‘I did not!’
‘Then why are my pyjamas bone dry?’ asked Cadel, holding them up for inspection. Mace blinked, and Hazel looked concerned. She never frowned; her wide, plump face wasn’t built for frowning. In situations where other people might have worn grim or angry expressions, Hazel merely looked concerned, dismayed or disconcerted.