The Top Secret Diary of Davina Dupree (4 page)

We caught the bus in to the village, (wearing bobble hats and scarves to disguise ourselves), found the station and bunkers and guess what? There
was
a number thirty seven! It even had “Bunker 37” written on a metal plate in the middle of its large, square door. We were so excited. Needless to say, the big, fat padlock chaining the door to the wall was firmly locked and we knew where the key was – back at school in Pike’s top drawer.

I heard a scrabbling sound behind the door. Arabella listened too and heard it loud and clear.

‘Urgh, rats!’ She said. ‘I hate rats, they’re all germy and disgusting. Maybe Pike and Croaka breed them. That’s that mystery solved then. Yuk, let’s get out of here.’

‘Wait,’ I said. ‘I don’t think its animals making that noise. Let’s listen again for a minute.’

We pressed our ears next to the dirty bunker door and were very surprised when we heard a weak cough from inside. Now, I’m no animal expert but I do know that rats don’t cough. The scrabbling sound seemed to be coming from the floor so I bent down to investigate and at that moment, a dirty piece of paper came sliding out of the small gap between the gravelly pavement and the door. I picked it up.

‘Well, well, well,’ I said, feeling like a real detective. ‘It looks like your rats can write, Arabella.’

‘Really? What do they say?’ She leaned forwards to see. We both stared at the wobbly handwriting in shock. It said,

“
We’ve been kidnapped. Please help us. We used to be teachers at Egmont Exclusive Boarding School for Girls until two strange women abducted us one night. Please, please ask the police and Mrs Fairchild, the headmistress at Egmont, to free us. Thank you so much, from Katie Cherry and Harriet Wise. P.S Please take this note with you as we don’t want our captors to find it. If they do they will punish us.”

We stood there for a whole minute without moving, taking it all in. Then I leaned close to the door and called, ‘Hello?’

‘Who’s there?’ Came a shaky voice.

‘Erm, I’m Davina,’ I called through the door. ‘I’m here with my friend Arabella. We’re from Egmont School and we’ve come to, um, sort of rescue you, although we probably can’t do it straight away.’

‘Oh thank goodness. I’m Katie by the way, Katie Cherry.’ The voice sounded emotional. ‘Harriet, did you hear? Some girls from Egmont have found us. We’ll be rescued soon, then we’ll be able to get you to hospital.’

‘Urgh,’ someone groaned.

‘Are you both alright?’ Arabella spoke loudly. ‘That groan didn’t sound healthy.’

‘Oh, Harriet’s in an absolutely
terrible
way,’ Katie said. She sounded like she might cry. ‘You see –’

Suddenly, a car screeched round the corner, making Arabella and I jump.

‘That’s them,’ Katie hissed through the door. ‘That’s the sound the kidnappers car always makes when they arrive. Quick, hide before they see you, or they might abduct you as well if they realise you know about us.’

What a big, fat pain. Little and Large must have escaped from the campaign poster making earlier than we’d predicted. I bet Cleo and Clarice weren’t happy about that! Before I could work out what to do, Arabella pulled me backwards and I landed on top of her behind an empty car parked in front of the next storeroom, Bunker 38. Just in time too. Before I could roll off Arabella’s legs – she
does
have a few bruises on her shins today, but it wasn’t my fault, it was an emergency – we heard a car swerve to a stop.

Two of its doors crashed open and the unwelcome voices of Pike and Croaka filled the air like a bad smell.

‘Stand back, idiots, we’re coming in,’ Croaka growled. ‘Jacinta, bring the peelin’s.’ There were some rattling sounds, a few rude words, then a door creaked open. Pike and Croaka must have walked inside because seconds later the door slammed shut and there was silence.

‘Run. Fast. Now.’ I said to Arabella in a low voice. ‘This might be our only chance.’ We pelted off down the street, towards the bus stop in the village. I was so glad to get back to school and feel safe again, but poor Katie and Harriet! They must be so miserable and Harriet sounded really ill.

So as you can see, Diary, we now know we are dealing with very serious stuff, a crisis in fact. We wanted to tell Mrs Fairchild yesterday afternoon after we got back so she could phone the police but the deputy head, Mr Longshanks, who always looks rather cross, said she was out at an all-day salsa dancing festival and that “whatever it was would have to wait till tomorrow”. So we’re off to see her now.

Monday, 16
^th
September

Honestly, Diary!

I still think old Mrs Fairchild is a bit of a lamb but she’s also totally crackers. When Arabella and I went to see her yesterday afternoon she had her feet up on the day bed in her study as she said she was rather sore from all the salsa-ing she’d done the day before, but she invited us to come in for a chat.

So in we went, perched on a couple of foot stools by the day bed and explained the situation as best we could, showing her Katie’s note at the end.

She took her glasses off her head, stared at the note for a minute, then threw her head back and went in to peals of laughter. Honestly, I couldn’t believe it!

‘Oh you two nearly had me there,’ she said, wiping her eyes. ‘Such good larks, well done. It reminds me of the time when I was a girl at Egmont and we convinced the headmaster, Mr Crosby, that … Oh we laughed for weeks.’

‘Um, it’s not a joke Mrs Fairchild, everything we just told you is true. Surely you must recognise the handwriting on that note,’ I said.

‘Oh stop it! That handwriting is so shaky anyone could have written it.’ She was screaming with laughter again. ‘Oh you two are a good tonic. I haven’t laughed like this since old Bertie the caretaker got his head stuck through the cat flap when Tiddles was having a funny turn.’ Tiddles is her fluffy Persian cat who none of us like because he scratches anyone who tries to stroke him.

‘Honestly, Mrs Fairchild.’ Arabella had a go at convincing her. ‘We
know
that Katie Cherry and Harriet Wise are being held hostage in a bunker in Little Pineham because they talked to us through the door. Miss Pike and Miss Croaka are criminals.’

‘But, my dear.’ Mrs Fairchild chuckled. ‘Katie Cherry and Harriet Wise wrote their letters of resignation themselves. I’ve known them for years and I’d know their handwriting anywhere. That’s not to say I wasn’t shocked, of course,’ she went on and a little frown appeared on her forehead. ‘And a little hurt that they didn’t discuss such big decisions with me. But it must have been what they wanted and life goes on. Did I hear you say you’d slipped off to Little Pineham by yourselves, you cheeky monkeys?’ The frown had been quickly replaced by a grin. ‘Well I tell you what, if you run along now like good children, we’ll say no more about it.’

‘But –‘ I began.

‘Off you go, my pets,’ Mrs Fairchild waved us away with her papery hand. ‘You’ve given me a jolly good laugh but let me rest up now, there’s good people.’

‘Come on, Davina.’ Arabella looked as depressed as I felt. ‘Let’s go.’

So here we are, still no closer to rescuing the old art teachers and with no idea why the new ones kidnapped the old ones!

Arabella’s having another flying lesson at the moment and I’m off to do a Thai cookery course in the food room but when we get back we’re going to phone the police. Hopefully they’ll be more helpful than Mrs Fairchild…

Tuesday, 17
^th
September

Right, Diary. That’s it.

I’ve had enough of stupid grownups, none of them are helpful. (Except Carrie of course, but she’s not going to be here until Saturday and there’s no point in trying to tell her about this mess until then.)

Yesterday evening, after our disastrous meeting with Mrs Fairchild, Arabella and I decided to phone the police ourselves. I mean, two poor, innocent women’s lives are at stake here. They are trapped in a horrible bunker and one of them desperately ill. So using Arabella’s iPhone (Carrie didn’t let me have a mobile phone – she said I wasn’t old enough) I phoned the emergency police number and explained everything to the gruff man at the other end of the phone. Who then had the cheek to give me an earful about wasting police time!

‘Haven’t you grown out of this kind of time wasting yet, young lady?’ He shouted. ‘You’re trying to tell me that two criminal masterminds have kidnapped your teachers, locked them in a bunker and are now working as fraudulent art teachers at your exclusive boarding school? Pull the other one, it’s got bells on! I should have you arrested for wasting police time, I really should. Now no more crank calls otherwise you’ll find a police car turning up at your school before you can say “don’t be an idiot”.’

Utterly unhelpful, totally useless and extremely annoying. Arabella and I think the only thing we can do now is to take our detective work to another level and try to find a way to free the hostages BY OURSELVES.

I have to go now Diary, we have a lot to sort out.

Wednesday, 18
^th
September

Our campaign t-shirts from Arabella’s dad arrived today and she insisted we put them straight on. So I’ve been going around with a photo of me (with my eyes shut) and Arabella (cross-eyed) on my belly for several hours now.
Feelingawkward.com
.

‘O.M.G.’ Cleo screamed when she and Clarice came marching in to the common room to stare at us after hearing we were wearing campaign t-shirts from other members of our year. ‘You can’t even keep your eyes open for photographs. How sad!’ They both went in to cackles of laughter then started doing impressions of how Arabella and I look in the photograph. I hadn’t really wanted to be a prefect up until that moment but when I saw them smirking at me I suddenly realised that Arabella and I WOULD make BETTER prefects than them. And it made me WANT to beat them and be a prefect because I actually like most of the girls in our year, plus I do have one or two good ideas about clubs. I don’t think I could stand it if Clarice and Cleo became prefects as they would become even more NASTY and UNBEARABLE than they already are, so for once I’m going to help Arabella with our campaign. That is if we have time for any campaigning while doing detective work.

We had a crisis meeting yesterday evening and have established the following facts:

•  “Bunker 37” is a storeroom opposite the station.

•  We now know for sure who Pike was talking about when she said “those other poor idiots”. Poor Katie and Harriet.

•  “The feeding” must have been what they went in to the bunker on Saturday to do, they’ve already said they want the old art teachers “alive not dead”, although I’m sure Croaka told Pike to bring some peelings in to the bunker and if they’re giving those women horrible potato peelings to eat I’m not surprised Harriet’s ill!

•  We believe the wallet in Pike’s drawer belongs to Katie Cherry, because the photo of the pretty lady in it matches the one of her in last year’s school magazine - Arabella found a copy in the library and we both had a look. She has ringletty golden hair and dimples and she looks much friendlier than Pike and Croaka. I wish she and Harriet were my art teachers instead.

•  We still don’t know what they meant by “blast off” or “reap the rewards”, or why they want to learn some map off by heart.

Our next move is to go to art this afternoon and ‘innocently’ ask Pike and Croaka a few questions…goodbye for now, dear Diary…and wish me luck!

Thursday, 19
^th
Sept ember

Well Diary,

Only two more sleeps until Carrie arrives. Yippee! And guess what? We had a MASSIVE breakthrough in art. The only bad news is that we now have a new problem.

So yesterday, when all of Sapphire class were sitting in the art room - me next to Arabella, the twins behind us, Clarice and Cleo at the front, Melody next to Zoe at the big table in the middle so she could help her if she got stuck and Joan and Hannah by the sink - Croaka eventually stopped giving us her robotic stare and started to speak.

‘You heard Mrs Fairchild mention the Annual Egmont Art Show in assembly last week.’ A few of us nodded but Zoe looked blank. Melody bent over to explain it to her. ‘It’s being held on the 16
^th
October at the National Gallery of Art and Design.’

Clarice and Cleo went, ‘Ooh,’ together and Pike glared daggers at them.

‘The annoying thing is,’ Croaka went on. ‘We’ve been told to get you horrible lot to paint a load of rubbish for us to display. It’s just a show of first year’s work apparently. And it’s all got to be finished and dry in less than four weeks. So stop staring at me like gormless goldfish and get on with it!’

Hannah put her hand up.

‘What do you want?’ Croaka growled.

‘What kind of things do we paint?’ Hannah asked. ‘When my sister Flo was in the first year, Miss Cherry and Miss Wise gave her class the theme of “Rainbow Colours”, and Flo painted enormous multi coloured flowers on a canvas. It’s a really good painting. Mummy hung it in our Spanish Villa.’

‘I don’t care what your stupid sister painted, or what your Mummy did with the canvas.’ Croaka roared. ‘But most of all, I don’t care what those nitwits, Cherry and Wise, taught you. You’ve got us now, so get used to it. Paint what you like. It’s bound to be a load of codswallop anyway.’

There were gasps from around the classroom. Hannah looked like someone had slapped her face. Zoe had tears in her eyes and to be honest, I felt like crying myself. What a waste of all the materials in the well-stocked class room. But Arabella, who didn’t care much for art, was on fire. Her hand was already up and straining to be seen.

‘What?’ Croaka shouted, her meaty face a deeper purple than usual.

‘Why did you call Miss Cherry and Miss Wise nitwits? The older girls have told us they were brilliant teachers and really kind.’ Arabella said calmly. I looked at her in admiration.

‘What did you say?’ Croaka whispered, quivering.

‘I just asked why you think Miss Cherry and Miss Wise are nitwits?’ Arabella repeated.

‘I don’t have to explain myself to you, you horrible little worm.’ Croaka spat. But she looked a bit flustered. Following Arabella’s lead, I put my hand up.