Читать книгу The Artsy Mistake Mystery - Sylvia McNicoll - Страница 6

DAY ONE, MISTAKE ONE

Renée and I have an arrangement. In the mornings when I walk my clients Ping and Pong, I swing round to her place and pick her up. She then takes charge of Ping, the hyperactive Jack Russell, a former pound puppy Mrs. Bennett pays me to exercise. I continue with Pong, the taller, quieter greyhound she rescued from Florida.

Renée doesn’t like to hang around her house alone, so she doesn’t mind leaving way early, the moment her older brother, Attila, takes off for class — he goes to Champlain High. If I were her, I’d want to leave even earlier.

He’s scary. His name suits him: Attila, like the Hun. Renée says it’s a popular name in Hungary, where her parents were born.

Right now I’m wondering if the arrangement with Renée isn’t a mistake. If it is, it’ll be the first one I make today, though, and not a big one. It’s important to make mistakes, my father tells me all the time. It means we’re trying new things, sometimes outside our comfort zone. Being friends with a girl is, for sure, outside my comfort zone, and Renée forces people to pay attention to her. From her sequined hair barrettes, through to her sparkly glasses, and all the way down to her light-up sneakers, everything she wears catches your eye. She’s also yappy, like Ping, always with one more thing to add or bark about. I’m more like Pong, tall and quiet.

Just not quite as calm.

Both Ping and Pong are white with black markings on the head and a black spot on the body. (Greyhounds aren’t always grey. Renée can explain all that to you.) They scramble ahead of me like mismatched horses pulling a carriage: Ping, a scruffy pony; Pong, a smooth-coated stallion.

This morning I can handle them by myself. It’s a great fall day, leaves swish as we walk, the sunshine feels warm. Even the hundred-year-old jogger, all bent over at the shoulders and back, wears shorts as he runs past us. The dogs give him a friendly bark of encouragement. Neither makes a lunge for him.

“Good boys!” I tell them.

Today, though, I think the route to Renée’s is all wrong for us. Usually, I make the dogs walk to the left of me so that when they go to the bathroom, it’s not on someone’s lawn. But today is junk pickup day. Once a month the neighbourhood gets to put out any objects, large or small, that they don’t want alongside their garbage and recycling, and the city picks them up. Dad calls it redecorating day. He is out walking his five Yorkie clients right now, scouting for a previously enjoyed bookshelf.

This junk slows us down, the large objects attracting the dogs’ attention. Sometimes, they bark at them; always, they like to pee on them. First Pong — with his long legs, he trots in the lead — then Ping. Brant Hills Park would be so much better for Ping and Pong’s exercise this morning.

“Stop that!” I yank Pong back from someone’s recycling bin just as he raises his leg to salute its contents.

Good thing. A banged-up white van pulls up beside us and a dad from our school jumps out to rummage through the recycling.

I want to call out, “Hi, Mr. Jirad.” I don’t know his son, Reuven, super well, but I helped deliver his paper route last week with Renée. Mr. Jirad concentrates on pulling out liquor bottles from the box and doesn’t notice us.

Maybe this is embarrassing for him. I’m going to pretend I don’t notice him, either, then. As he drives away, I see the big dent in the back of his van all caulked in with some kind of filler. A home repair that doesn’t quite work. Over the painted filler, wobbly black letters spell Pay the artist.

“I didn’t know Mr. Jirad was an artist,” I tell the dogs.

Ping growls, eyes intent on a teenager in a black hoodie and bright, flowered leggings. The sunlight glints off the diamond stud in her nose as she pulls the ugliest wall plaque I’ve ever seen from someone’s pile of junk. It’s a large grey fish, mouth open, pointy teeth drawn, mounted on a flat slab of glossy wood. Maybe Ping is growling at the fish, not the girl. In any case, I strain to hold on to both dogs.

She smiles as she admires the fish.

“It looks real,” I can’t help commenting as we get closer to the pile. The fish is bent as though it’s wriggling in a stream.

“It is real! Taxidermy.”

I wince. “And you like it?”

“It’s perfect!” She looks from the fish to me. “Oh, not for me. The plaque is for my prof. They’re redecorating the staff lounge.”

“Perfect,” I repeat, wondering about her professor.

She nods and grins as she walks away with her prize.

“Good dogs,” I tell Ping and Pong as we continue on. So far so good, anyway. Although, it’s not just the busyness of the route to Renée’s house that makes me wonder if our arrangement is a mistake. Does she expect me to share the money I’ve earned? I officially work for Dad’s company, Noble Dog Walking. Noble is our last name.

Also, if she wasn’t hanging around me so much, would I have a chance to make a real friend? Like Jessie. We used to have sleepovers in his pool house before he moved away last summer. Dad’s never going to let me bunk in the same room as a girl.

Ping and Pong pull hard now, Ping wagging his stub of tail like crazy.

A couple houses ahead, I see Mrs.Whittingham loading up all the children in her shiny black van. She operates a home daycare and it seems like she stuffs about ten kids in that van. She slides the door closed and then gives a friendly honk as she drives past us. The kids point and wave at the dogs. The dogs wag back.

That distracts me for a minute, and when Pong yanks toward the house near us, toward Mr. Rupert’s wishing well, I nearly miss what he’s up to.

“Oh, no you don’t! Your wishes won’t come true that way.” I pull him back. Mr. Rupert is the neighbourhood grouch and he got scary mad when Pong went number two in his flower bed last walk, even though I was cleaning it up before he started yelling.

Ping doesn’t like me scolding Pong and starts barking, sharp and loud. Ping, even though he’s a quarter of Pong’s size, likes to defend Pong when he’s not fighting with him himself.

“Don’t worry, I’m not mad at Pong.”

Apparently defending his bigger pal is not what Ping is up to today because he’s not looking my way. Instead, he strains at his leash toward Mrs. Whittingham’s house on the corner. When I don’t move quickly enough toward it, he bounces up and down on his hind legs like they’re bedsprings.

“What’s up, boy?” I ask. “Do you see something?” He can get excited about the slightest thing. A small black bag of dog doo sitting in a tree set him off a week ago. I thought that was kind of weird, myself. As we draw closer to Mrs. Whittingham’s house, Pong pulls, too, and I see what they want to investigate.

From the tree in Mrs. Whittingham’s yard, a yellow plastic swing moves slightly in the breeze.

It looks like there’s something sitting in it, too big for a bird or squirrel, bigger than a raccoon … oh, no … she’s left a kid behind in the swing!

The little boy looks paper white with purple circles under his eyes … like he’s, like he’s … but he can’t be; she only left a minute ago.

I run with the dogs to her house, dash up her lawn, bashing my knee on some stupid bird ornament. Ow. Then I grab for the boy in the swing. I think I’ve seen enough rescue videos that I can use CPR to bring him back to life if I have to.

That is … if it’s not too late.

“Hey, you! What the heck are you doing!” A voice blasts from behind me.

“What …”

“I know it’s butt ugly, but you leave that Halloween display just the way you found it.”

Okay, this is definitely mistake number one of the day, and it’s a doozy. Mr. Rupert catches me rescuing some kind of creepy lifelike doll.

DAY ONE, MISTAKE TWO

Halloween display? Mrs. Whittingham must have just set it up — early bird of the neighbourhood — no one else has so much as a black cat up. I drop the corpse-like doll back in its seat.

Mr. Rupert’s face wrinkles into a full frown reaching from his eyebrows down to his chin. His yellow hair sticks up like short lightning bolts. He folds his arms across his chest and squints at me. “Were you the one who stole my mailbox?”

“No, no! Of course not.”

He has a “Support Our Troops” sticker on his car’s bumper, a bright green Cadillac, and Renée swears she saw him in camouflage combat fatigues last Sunday. Even by the way he stands — back straight, legs apart — you know he’s a military man. Who would be crazy enough to take anything from him?

“Then why are you trespassing on private property?” he shouts in a cannon-shot voice.

“I thought the baby was real.” As I stop to look around now, I realize the bird ornament I knocked over is a large black plastic raven with blood painted down its beak. Styrofoam grave markers zigzag in a straggly pattern across the lawn. They have cutesy sayings: “Here rests Eddie, he died in beddy.” Pong is peeing on that tombstone right now.

I’m usually so much more observant than this.

Mr. Rupert shakes his head. “What exactly do you take me for?”

A grump. Not like I’m going to tell him that. I heard he’s a gun collector. Instead I try to explain. “Well, Mrs. Whittingham just drove off. I thought maybe with all those kids, she may have left one behind.” What I didn’t say is that she has been known to make crazy mistakes, too. She locked the keys and a couple of the littler kids in the car one day, and I let her use my cellphone to call the cops. Her phone was locked in the car with the kids. She was so embarrassed. I know how that feels, so I never told anyone.

Still, would she leave a child in a swing? I move the dogs out of the way and straighten up the raven.

“That’s better!” Mr. Rupert calls. “Now I’m going to check my surveillance camera. I better not catch you on it.”

Surveillance camera, gah! As I said, last week I helped Renée deliver newspapers for Reuven, the kid in the house next door to her. Mr. Rupert gets the paper. Of course I’m going to be on that camera.

“My wife made that mailbox,” Mr. Rupert continues, staring into my eyes, “and you better believe I’ll find out who stole it.” His eyes are large, anime-sized blobs of dark brown quicksand. He tries to drown me with his stare.

I blink first.

Then he jabs his finger in Ping and Pong’s direction. “Don’t let me catch those animals defecating on my lawn.”

“No, sir!”

“On your way!” He points and watches as we move toward the sidewalk. Then he marches back into the house.

Phew! My heart keeps pounding double time.

The dogs and I turn the corner to Renée’s house. Up the walkway, the dogs crowd together in front of me as I reach to ring the doorbell.

Renée answers before I finish ringing. She’s wearing a pink sweater with a rainbow-striped vest and red pants. Flashy and clashy all at the same time. “You’re two minutes late. Step in for a moment while I get my things.”

If I’m two minutes late, why doesn’t she have her stuff together already?

In the small foyer, Ping sniffs around a large duffle bag. “Stop that.” I pull him back. While I focus on him, Pong nuzzles into the bag and pulls out a wooden shape. Before I can snatch it out from his long snout, he slumps down and gnaws at it.

Renée comes back in that moment. “Oh, no! Don’t let him chew Attila’s fish!”

“Well, I didn’t let him …” We both kneel down to wrestle his new wooden chew toy away from him. “I thought Attila was finished his community service!”

“No. He has to cut out the wooden fish for all the schools signed up for Stream of Dreams, not just Brant Hills. These are for Bruce T. Lindley.”

I pinch the corners of Pong’s mouth between my thumb and pointer finger and press gently. “Oh, man. He complained enough when he delivered ours.”

“Yeah.” Renée scrunches her mouth. “Well, it was tons of work for him.” Renée tugs at the wooden shark shape. Ping barks. “Got it,” Renée says. “Sit, Ping, quiet!” She raises her finger at the little dog and instantly he drops his haunches, waiting for a treat. Renée holds up the rescued hammerhead shark. “Oh, great, there are teeth marks on this one.”

“It’s a shark that’s been in a battle. Stuff it back in the bag.” I hold it open for her. “Attila probably made extra.”

“This is his last batch. He should be in a better mood after this.”

“Wasn’t he a little happy to do something for the environment?” I reach into my pocket and give Ping and Pong each one of Dad’s legendary homemade liver bites. The fish were a lot of fun for us. Not so much knowing that real fish are poisoned by garbage dumped in the stream — which is why the project started — but painting the wooden models.

Renée nods. “Except Attila complained that the tank he spray-painted on Champlain High’s wall had an important environmental message, too.”

“It was a nice tank. I loved the 3D effect; it looked like it was crashing out of the school.” Definitely was a bit scary, too, though I don’t tell her that.

“Your whale is terrific, too,” Renée said. “A Green Lantern whale, so creative.”

“Green and white are my favourite colours.” Green Lantern is also my nickname at school ’cause Bruno and Tyson saw my superhero boxers once when I changed for gym back in grade four.

Renée stares at the duffle bag. “I wonder why the fish are still here. The Bruce T. Lindley kids are done the environmental part of the project. They’re supposed to paint these today.”

“Maybe Attila forgot to deliver them.” I smile. A big mistake on Attila’s part.

Renée sighs. “Imagine all the kindergarteners standing around in their smocks with nothing to paint.”

It’s comforting to know that even tough Attila can forget something as important as this. The idea makes me feel generous. “I know, why don’t we bring them to the school for him?”

“Are you sure? It’s a fifteen-minute walk between Bruce T. and Brant Hills. We’ll have to take Ping and Pong with us or we’ll be late.”

“Absolutely.” Brant Hills is where we go to school, grade seven. Bruce T. Lindley only goes to grade six. I pick up the duffle bag, then drop it again on my feet.

Ow, ow, ow! My second mistake of the day. I’ve raised Renée’s hopes — now I’m going to have to let her down. “These fish weigh a ton. There’s no way I can carry them all the way to Bruce T.”

DAY ONE, MISTAKE THREE

Compared to Attila forgetting the wooden fish blanks in the first place, trying to lift them all at once is a just a weensy error in judgment. Attila is bigger and pumps iron, so he can probably do it with one hand.

Renée crumples her eyebrows. “Attila will get in so much trouble if the school doesn’t get these this morning.”

“Well, then, maybe we can divide them up.”

“Okay, except … there’s another bag in the hall. Let me check. OMG, yes, this one is full of fish, too.” Renée drags a second, larger hockey bag from the other end of the hall.

“No way.” I shake my head. “Okay, wait, maybe … what about a wagon? Do you have one?”

“No.” Renée snaps her fingers. “But Reuven does.”

“Right, that red metal number. The one we used to deliver the Post.”

“He’ll let us borrow it for sure.”

“All right then!”

Ping yips his excitement.

Stepping around Ping and Pong, we drag the bags to the front door. Then Renée runs to ring Reuven’s doorbell while I hold on to the dogs.

No answer, but I see his wagon at the side of the house. Just sitting there, waiting. Ping ruffs and Pong raises one tall ear when Renée rings the bell a second time.

“We’re going to be late,” I call to her.

She nods, looks around hopefully, then just grabs the wagon. “We’ll return it before he even notices it’s gone. He won’t mind.” She races it back to the front of her house.

“Does he have a surveillance camera?” I ask as she approaches.

“I don’t think so. Why?”

“’Cause Mr. Rupert has one and his mailbox got stolen.” In my mind, I can picture Mr. Rupert dressed in a camouflage uniform, stalking someone with a rifle in his arms. I turn to look at Renée’s face. “You don’t think Attila took it, do you?”

“Not his style. Now, if someone had spray-painted a war scene on his walls, I would be suspicious …”

“Mr. Rupert would probably like a war scene on his walls.”

“You’ve got a point, there.” Renée lifts one end of the hockey bag and I the other, in order to hoist it on to the wagon. The bag completely fills it. Then I sit the duffle bag on top. The sides are really low on this wagon, not like those tall plastic ones with built-in comfy seats for kids. Still, there’s no way we’re making two trips.

We start to walk slowly, the duffle bag shifting with every crack and bump in the sidewalk. Holding Pong’s leash makes it even more awkward to pull the overloaded wagon.

“I can take a turn with the wagon,” Renée offers. I give her the handle. But it becomes trickier when Ping dives to nip at the wheels.

“Here, give it back.” Now I have a genius idea. I wind Pong’s leash through the handle and, still gripping the loop of it, allow Pong to do most of the pulling. Ping keeps nipping at the wheels, and it’s hard steering him and the wagon. But the school is only a block away. We should make it in plenty of time.

As Pong tugs the wagon around the corner back the way we came, near Mrs. Whittingham’s house, I tell Renée about her amazing Halloween display. “Wait till you see the doll in the swing. It’s so lifelike that …” My mouth drops open.

The yellow swing moves gently in the breeze, empty now.

“Guess she took it in,” Renée suggests. “Maybe it scared the little kids.”

“Her van isn’t back yet, though.” I try to look through the windows but the curtains are closed. “Her raven and tombstones are missing, too.”

“Early for Halloween, anyway,” Renée says.

“I just hope Mr. Rupert doesn’t blame me.” But I know he will. He saw me lifting that doll. And just like he will never let me forget that Pong pooped on his flowers, he won’t let this go, either.

“Why would he think you did this?”

“Because …” I don’t really want to explain, and at that moment, Ping starts growling, a rumbling, low big-dog kind of growl. Surprising from such a pipsqueak spring coil, really.

A woman in a bulky blue coat with an orange vest overtop approaches. She’s wearing dark sunglasses and a police-type cap. Her face is vampire white and her hair hangs down as flat and straight as a crow’s wings. At her side she carries a stop sign. Our new crossing guard — Madame X the kids call her because there’s a yellow X of reflective tape across the back of her orange safety vest.

The stop sign may be upsetting Ping. He doesn’t like buses, skateboards, people in hoodies or with packages and umbrellas, and now, I guess, women in bulky coats with stop signs.

Closer and closer she comes. I can’t tell if she notices us or not because of her sunglasses.

Ping’s rumbly growl sets Pong off. Suddenly, he jerks the wagon forward. The top bag of fish pitches to the side. I make a grab for it a second too late. The bag tumbles. Wooden fish blanks clatter everywhere.

Madame X raises her stop sign high. When it comes down, it will slice Pong right through. Ping barks hysterically.

Renée throws her arms out to protect the dog.

But Madame X drops to her knees, placing the sign down next to her. “Dare, dare, nice doggy.” She reaches out with her black-gloved fingers and pats Ping.

Ping drops even lower.

“I can geeve heem treat, yes?” She asks me, probably because I’m wearing my uniform, complete with our Noble Dog Walking paw print logo across the shirt pocket.

“Um, sure.”

“I’m meesing my own Jack Russell from when I was leetle girl.” She gives him a small milk bone. “Cheese flavour,” she tells him and then holds a bigger one out for Pong. “Bacon.”

Ping flips to his back and she strokes his belly.

Meanwhile, I stuff all the fish back into the bag.

“Eez good you took down those ugly feesh. They block my view and I can’t see dee keedies when I’m doing crossing.”

Mistake number three of the day goes to Madame X for thinking these wooden blanks are actually the painted ones used to decorate the fence around our kindergarten play area. Yes, I think it’s fair to count adults’ mistakes, too. They’re always quick to point out kids’ mistakes, after all.

I open my mouth to tell her these are fish blanks, not the painted ones from our school fence. At that moment a few notes of Beethoven’s Fifth plays from Renée’s backpack.

She removes her cell from a side pocket and checks the screen. “It’s Attila.” She frowns as she reads. “He’s panicking. He borrowed one of the shop cars to deliver the fish, but when he came home, they were gone.”

Well, okay then, check Madame X’s whoopsie. We clearly made the bigger mistake; let’s call ours mistake number three of the day. Struggling to do moody Attila a favour ’cause we thought he forgot his community commitment, we underestimated him. Attila just figured out an easier way.

DAY ONE, MISTAKE FOUR

Madame X continues walking toward Brant Hills, while Renée and the dogs and I scuttle awkwardly in the other direction toward Bruce T. Lindley’s parking lot to meet Attila.

He’s waiting for us by the time we get there. Tall, with a black, pointy mohawk and heavy gorilla arms, he gives no wave or hello, just a grunt: “Give me those.” He grabs the handle and drags the wagon toward the front door.

“We need to return Reuven’s wagon,” Renée calls brightly as we follow behind. She’s one-third his size and acts three times as cheerful.

“Wait out here! They” — Attila points down at the dogs — “can’t come in.”

As he pulls the wagon up the front steps, bump, bump, bump, the duffle bag tips and spills again. Attila curses, and as he collects the fish, mutters something that sounds like, “Hate, hate, hate.”

We scramble to help him, I don’t know why. When we’re finished, he grumbles, “Stupid fish.”

Then he disappears into the school for what seems like hours.

“Hope they don’t notice the teeth marks on the shark,” Renée says.

“The kid that gets it will,” I answer. “But maybe they’ll like the teeth marks.”

Finally, Attila comes back outside, returning Reuven’s empty wagon to us. He grumbles again, nothing that sounds like a thank you, then drives off in the old, yellow Saturn they’ve been working on in shop class.

I can’t help shaking my head. “Well, that was pleasant.”

Renée frowns. “Attila’s got a lot on his mind.”

“What? Did he get a new video game?” I can never understand why Renée sticks up for Attila. He’s not very nice to her.

“No! He has a deadline to apply for Mohawk College. Or Dad says he’ll send him to military college. And he needs a portfolio.”

“Uh-huh.” We start back to Reuven’s house with the wagon and dogs. “You know, his art is brilliant. Too bad it’s always spray-painted on a wall.”

“Yeah, well so is Banksy’s.” Renée told me about Banksy before. He’s a British street artist famous for his graffiti and, yes, it’s very cool. But the art seems a bit angry, too. Just like Attila.

“Bet Banksy never got into a college with it.”

“So you get Attila’s problem. Having to jig saw those fish pieces for the Stream of Dreams projects took all of his spare time, too.”

Actually, I understand her family’s problem. Renée tells me her parents always fight about Attila. While their dad wants to send him away, his mom thinks he’s gifted and misunderstood.

Gifted and grumpy, I think.

As we get to Reuven’s house, I check the outside for surveillance cameras. None. Good. We park the wagon. Then we jog with the dogs down a paved shortcut. They gallop ahead, loving the extra action.

The shortcut continues through three streets and lands us across the road from our school, Brant Hills.

There, Madame X waves her stop sign at cars to help some little kids and their mom get to the other side. And that’s when I realize something’s wrong.

The mom takes the kids in through the kindergarten play area and I watch as they start playing on some trikes behind the wire fence.

“Hey,” I tell Renée, “I can see the kindergarteners.”

“You’re right. Oh my gosh. The fish are missing from the fence!”

“I em so happy you took dem down,” Madame X says as she walks us to the other side. She points to the play area. “Look at those cute keedies.” She smiles as a little boy waves a mini hockey stick at a girl on a trike.

“But the fish were colourful and happy looking,” Renée says. “Art-ee-fish-ful,” Madame X says. She blows into her whistle sharply. “Leetle boy, stop that! You don’t heet people with hockey stick.”

He doesn’t listen to Madame X, but the duty teacher hears her and breaks the two kids up.

Renée and I don’t have time to investigate the missing fish right now. We need to get Ping and Pong home, and I still want to change out of my Noble Dog Walking uniform before we go to school.

More recycling bins and a mattress and a sofa slow us down as the dogs continue to investigate everything on the way back toward the Bennetts’ house.

At one curbside, a plastic toy kitchen set with a stove and fridge and cupboards stops me. “Aww. I used to have one of these!” I turn the knobs on the stove just because, and the little round elements turn red. “No!” I push Pong away when he lifts up his long back leg.

We keep walking. The hundred-year-old jogger passes us, just barely. The dogs bark. Renée calls, “Good morning.”

He touches his cap. We hang back to give him time to clear some distance.

“I don’t get it,” Renée says. “Why does he wear that jacket with his jogging shorts?”

“To carry his pacemaker?” I suggest.

“Oh, he’s not that old. He’s just scrunched up from working at his desk.”

“How do you know?” I’m not sure why I even ask. Renée always knows everything.

“My mom hired him to coach Attila — you know — on his portfolio. Mr. Kowalski used to be head of the art department at Mohawk.” We start walking and close in on a new pile of junk. Renée stops. “Aw, look, someone’s throwing out a picture!”

Leaning against the garbage can is a framed painting of a boy and a rabbit in the snow near a farm. “That’s too bad. I kind of like it,” I say. But there’s no time for me to rescue it and make it to school on time.

The recycling truck lumbers up alongside us now, and both dogs go crazy. The driver dumps some newspapers and clankity bottles into the back of it, then some cardboard tied together with white string.

Rouf, rouf, rouf!

No artwork, kitchen sets, or mattresses — that’s for a separate pickup. The driver hops back in the cab and throws a lever.

Ping’s barking takes on a new frantic pitch as the truck starts to shuffle from side to side, in kind of a Watusi. It’s like the driver has turned on the vehicle’s digestive system and the truck needs to shake down all the food.

Mistake number four turns out to be watching the strange dance. We should have been watching our dog clients at all times, keeping them safe and out of mischief.

DAY ONE, MISTAKE FIVE

When the truck finally moves on again, the dogs turn super quiet. Good. We’re really close to their house now. Tails stop wagging. Ping and Pong know the fun is over. At the Bennetts’ bungalow, I pull the key from one of my pockets, unlock the door, and unleash them.

They slump down at either end of the white-tiled hall, quiet. That’s not like Ping at all.

“He’s got something in his mouth,” Renée says.

Ping’s eyes shift around guiltily as I drop to my knees to check.

“Where did he get this?” I gently pry a painted bass from his mouth. The bass has messy green scales and sad black blobs for eyes.

“Pong has one, too.” Renée holds up a swordfish.

“That looks like Bruno’s Stream of Dreams creation. See the blob of white near the sword part?”

“And the bass belongs to Tyson. They both picked the biggest fish and then did sloppy paint jobs.” Renée shakes her head.

“I didn’t see where the dogs picked them up, did you?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Too bad. Could be our Stream of Dreams thief.” Both of us think on this, first quietly, then outside our heads. “Has to be from one of the junk piles,” I say.

“Really? Who would dump stolen art right in front of their house?” Renée asks. “Kind of bold. Isn’t that just asking to be caught?”

“True. Besides which, if someone stole them, why would they just chuck them?”

“Well, Madame X wanted them off the fence,” Renée insists. “No one else seems to be upset about them disappearing, either.” We look at each other.

I can’t obsess about this too long. Mom tells me that never helps. I must move on. The dogs stand around me, watching, big-eyed with attention. They want their chew toys back. I don’t know what to do with the paint-blobbed fish, but I sure don’t want Ping and Pong to get splinters in their mouths. “Oh well,” I finally say and shove the fish in one of the bigger pockets on my pants.

“Better fill up their water,” I tell Renée. A delay tactic. I always feel bad leaving them. Renée gives Pong pats and Ping flips over for rubs.

“Gotta go, guys,” I tell them, giving Ping’s belly a last rub. Then Renée and I leave quickly. It’s like ripping off a bandage.

As I lock the door behind us, I can hear Ping’s yap of disappointment.

Renée shrugs her shoulders at me. Hardest part of dog walking. Worse than scooping poop, even.

Next we stop at my house so I can change out of my Noble Dog Walking shirt. I keep the cargo pants of the uniform on. I grab my lunch from the counter. It’s in a plastic box with sections to keep the apple wedges and carrot sticks from touching my cream cheese sandwich. No accidentally grabbing a bag full of defrosting blood-dripping liver today. I did that last week when I left my backpack at school and Dad put my sandwich in a plastic grocery bag. We learn from our mistakes, I think happily. I don’t forget my backpack, either; my agenda’s been signed. My teacher, Mrs. Worsley, is big on that. Even if there’s no homework, Mom or Dad have to initial that they know this.

“Want a granola bar?” I ask Renée as I grab one for on the way.

“Okay.”

I pitch it to her. We walk to school together, chewing on chocolate-covered oatmeal bars. We’re going to be on time. I feel good. It’s a pretty ordinary day so far. There’s going to be a perfectly logical explanation for the fish disappearing, I know it. A missing mailbox, a stolen Halloween display, no biggie. I know if Mom were around and not on layover in Amsterdam, she’d say none of those are my problems, anyway.

We arrive at school just in time for the second bell, so no late slip needed. As always, we start the day singing the national anthem and then listening to morning announcements. Our principal, Mrs. Watier, says nothing about the Stream of Dreams fish disappearing from the fence. You would think she might explain if it was some kind of routine fish cleaning or relocating project, but then, my parents tell me I overanalyze things, so I try to put it out of my mind. One of the grade eight girls begins reading our morning inspiration, but in the middle of it, she stops. We hear some mumbling in the background and then Mrs. Watier interrupts:

“Your attention, please. Everyone stop what you are doing and listen. This is a lockdown. I repeat: we are in lockdown. Please proceed to a lockdown position.”

“Why?” I want to scream, but instead, I take a deep breath. And then another. Maybe those breaths sound loud against the sudden silence. Maybe the blood is draining from my face because my head feels swirly.

Tyson rolls his eyes and punches me. “Calm down, Green Lantern. It’s just a drill.”

But Mrs. Worsley immediately shuts our door and locks it. In a pinched, quiet voice, she speaks. “Grade seven, this is very important. We are now going to do everything exactly as we practised a few weeks ago, do you remember? Everyone, into our safe corner.”

Does this have anything to do with the missing fish? Not unless the disappearance is linked to some kind of gunman loose in the school. Oh my gosh, Mr. Rupert! Did he review the surveillance video and come looking for me? I take another breath. I am not going to panic like I did for the fire alarm last week. That turned out to be a bomb scare. Together with everyone else in the class, I hurry to huddle in our safe corner.

Outside, I see the sun shining and a police car pulling into the parking lot. For a lockdown drill, the police come, so this does not have to mean disaster. I’m not going to leap up and yell at everyone to hide. In fact, I kneel down calmly beside Renée. Tyson must be right after all. This has to be a drill.

Mrs. Worsley’s roll of tape squeals as she sticks chart paper over the window in our door.

A second and then a third squad car pull in behind the first one.

That doesn’t happen in a drill. Mistake number five has to be thinking any thought that ever comes out of Tyson’s mouth is right.

DAY ONE, MISTAKE SIX

I keep breathing deeply so the drum in my chest stops beating as hard. But as Mrs. Worsley pulls the string to close the blinds, they clatter down loudly and I jump. So does Renée. We knock into each other.

Mrs. Worsley puts her finger to her lips and waves our group closer together. Standing in front of us, Mrs. Worsley folds her arms across her chest. She’s shorter than I am but fierce, like an eagle. She makes me feel safe.

Renée sits next to me on the floor. Staying quiet is a really impossible job for her. Behind her red glasses, her eyes pop. I can smell brown sugar and wonder if that is coming from her skin — some kind of bath lotion or cream — or whether I am going to have a seizure. I read about people smelling strange things before having one; usually, it’s burnt toast, though. The rest of the class shuffles around. The floor feels harder than usual against my butt, so I shift myself, too, but can’t find a comfortable position.

Mrs. Worsley looks at us, and with her finger, counts us, mouthing the numbers. She nods as she finishes and smiles. Then she picks up our read-aloud book, The Night Gardener, and begins to whisper from it. It’s a scary story about a spooky tree that grows in a mansion and manages to control everyone who lives in it. Mrs. Worsley whispering the story is making it scarier today, but in a good way. That tree can’t hurt us, after all, and what- or whoever is causing this lockdown seems another world away as I listen.

Even though I called her Mom once accidentally at the beginning of the year, and that was a pretty embarrassing mistake, worst of that day, I realize I have never liked Mrs. Worsley more than I do right now.

She reads two entire chapters. When the intercom turns on again and Mrs. Watier announces the lockdown is over, I am hooked on the story and disappointed we can’t continue. I must check out Brant Hills library and see if they have the book. I need to know what happens next.

Mrs. Watier explains that the police have searched the entire school and have assured her that there is no danger to any of the staff or students. But she doesn’t explain what caused her to call a lockdown and she doesn’t say anything about the missing fish.

Mrs. Worsley asks Renée and me to open the blinds again, and it’s still a sunny October morning out there. Nothing has changed. No bodies, no fires or bomb squad. But also no fish on the fence.

She asks Tyson to take down the chart paper.

We continue on with math as though nothing happened. Mrs. Worsley talks to us about estimating and rounding a number to the nearest ten to make it easier to add or subtract. She shows us a problem on the Smart Board. “Bronte Creek holds a nest of fish eggs and this nest contains 544 eggs. If 322 hatch, how many did not hatch?”

The problem makes me think of our missing painted fish. If there are 250 students at Brant Hills, there has to have been that many fish on the fence. They were each attached with two heavy metal staples; it would have taken a long time to remove them. Someone should have seen it.

“Stephen?”

“Yes, Mrs. Worsley.”

“How many fish?”

I’m confused for a moment. How does she know I’m thinking about those missing Stream of Dreams fish?

“Two hundred and twenty-two!” Renée calls out.

Now here’s where Jessie would have been a way better friend. He would never have shown me up like that. Even if a teacher called on him after me, he’d pretend not to know the answer. Probably, he wouldn’t even have had to pretend. Renée is just not great at being quietly smart.

“Raise your hand and wait till you’re called on, Renée.” Mrs. Worsley knits her woolly eyebrows together. “Class? Is she right?”

Renée’s always right but I’m not going to answer.

“Remember, we’re estimating.” Her mouth purls. “We round to the nearest ten. For that, we round 544 down to 540 and drop the two from 322 to make it 320. Now, we subtract 320 from 540. The answer is approximately two hundred and twenty.”

“But it’s easy to subtract 322 from 544 and get the exact figure,” Renée says.

She can’t help herself. She doesn’t mean to argue, but it sure comes across that way.

Mrs. Worsley closes her eyes for just a moment, then opens them again. “But we wouldn’t be estimating, would we, Renée? In estimating, we round off the numbers to the nearest tens.”

“But who would want to round off a number when they could have the exact one?”

Plenty of people, I think. Me, for example. It’s not like we’re measuring the fish for suits or anything. Now, if we needed one wooden fish per student, I would count out the students in each classroom exactly. Or round up. Hopefully, they rounded up so no one has to paint the fish the dogs chewed.

“Excuse the interruption, but would Stephen Noble and Renée Kobai come to the office, please? Stephen Noble and Renée Kobai.”

I look around in a panic. The other kids stare at us. This can only mean one thing.

Police questioning! They’re going to put us in a room with double-sided mirrors that they can see through to watch us.

Renée grabs my hand as she stands up, forcing me to my feet, too. I quickly shake myself loose. Then she leads the way out the door to the office.

I can see him through the window. It’s that police officer with the dog, Troy.

He opens the door for us and Renée immediately calls out: “I remember you. You’re the police officer who blew up Reuven’s science project!”

Renée’s right about the policeman waiting for us in the principal’s office. He searched the school with Troy during the bomb scare. With his black muzzle and blond fur, I’d know that golden shepherd anywhere, and he knows us. He’s wagging his tail.

After Troy sniffed out Reuven’s backpack in the computer lab, the remote-control robot removed it to X-ray it. When it showed the wires of his homemade radio science project, the robot took it to the sandbox and exploded it.

But did Renée have to remind the officer about his mistake? Couldn’t she have just said she remembered him from the roof or something? That’s where we first met him and Troy; they were searching from the top of the school down. Renée doesn’t exactly put the police officer in a good mood.

“I am Constable Jurgensen.” He thumbs back toward a woman with a French braid tucked into her police cap. “And this is Constable Wilson. You are the kids with the greyhound and the Jack Russell terrier. Renée and Stephen, am I right?”

We nod.

“Sit down. We want to ask you some questions.” Constable Jurgensen doesn’t sound friendly and even Troy stops wagging at us. That’s Renée’s mistake, number six of the day. Reminding the constable about something that puts him in a very bad mood.

DAY ONE, MISTAKE SEVEN

“Ask away.” I smile just a little to show the officers we’re friendly and co-operative. But not so much that they think we’re laughing at them. Renée and I each take a chair. “We’d be happy to answer anything we can.”

“Good,” Constable Wilson says, smiling. “That’s great.”

Troy’s muzzle opens into a happy pant. It looks as though he’s grinning at us.

“Did either of you see anybody suspicious around the school this morning when you were walking the dogs?” Constable Jurgensen asks, one eyebrow at attention.

“Hmm, no, we arrived at school a little later than usual,” Renée says.

“That’s right, we headed toward Bruce T. Lindley first,” I add.

Troy wags as though he likes our answers.

“So you didn’t see anyone enter the school armed with a gun?” Constable Jurgensen continues.

I gasp. Oh, no, Mr. Rupert! I shake my head.

“No, sir,” Renée answers.

“What about last night?” Constable Wilson asks. If they’re playing good cop, bad cop, I think she’s the nice one. I notice she’s the one who holds Troy’s leash. “Or early this morning?”

I shake my head.

“Did you notice anybody different hanging around? Any unusual activity?” Constable Jurgensen barks. Troy woofs, too.

Constable Wilson loosens her hold on Troy.

“Nothing,” I say.

Constable Jurgensen’s nose and eyes seem to sharpen. “You sure? You live close by, don’t you?”

“I do.” I point to Renée. “She doesn’t.”

Troy steps forward, sniffing my pant leg.

I shuffle uncomfortably.

“You don’t look so good.” Constable Jurgensen’s voice turns hard. “You feeling guilty over stealing the Stream of Dreams display from the fence?”

“No!” I squeak. I can almost hear the fish in my pocket clack together as I jump.

Troy woofs again.

“We didn’t steal the display,” Renée says. “Why would we?”

Constable Wilson clears her throat. “The crossing guard, Mrs. Filipowicz, says she saw you with wooden fish in your wagon.”

Troy sniffs a little higher on my pant leg.

“Those weren’t fish from the school’s kindergarten fence. They belonged to my brother, Attila.”

“Attila!” Constable Jurgensen exclaims. Then he turns to Constable Wilson and explains, “He’s the juvenile who spray-painted the high school.”

“Yes, but he’s paid his debt to society,” Renée says. “He made the fish blanks for the Stream of Dreams project for both schools.”

I jump in. “Madame X, um, Mrs. Filipowicz, saw us taking the blanks to Bruce T. Lindley.”

Constable Wilson squints at us. “Attila didn’t come into this building, did he?”

“No! He goes to Champlain High not Brant Hills.”

Will Renée tell them that Attila borrowed a shop car to deliver the blanks to Bruce T.? Did he have permission from the shop teacher? Or would using the Saturn be considered theft, too?

For once, Renée stays quiet. I think she does the right thing.

“So you don’t know anything about the disappearance of the fish from the fence?” Constable Jurgensen asks.

I should tell the police about those wooden fish in my pocket right now. But they’ll think we’re involved, for sure, when we don’t know a thing. I stick my hand on top of them. The bass and swordfish feel as if they have come alive and want to leap out of my pocket.

Troy seems to sense this and jumps up.

“What do you have in your pocket?” Constable Wilson asks.

“Liver bites,” I answer, pulling a zip-lock bag from the other side. “My dad makes them. Can I give Troy one?”

“Absolutely not,” Constable Jurgensen says.

Troy keeps his paws on my legs and wags his tail.

“Sorry, boy,” I say, and scratch behind his ears.

“Do you mind showing us what you have in your other pocket?” Constable Wilson asks.

My face heats up like tomato soup. Now what?

I knew I should have pulled out the swordfish and bass the moment Constable Jurgensen mentioned the Stream of Dreams project. Before even. The moment we walked into the office, I should have asked why the fish had disappeared from the fence and shown the police the two that the dogs picked up somewhere along our walk.

Instead, slowly, reluctantly, I remove the painted bass and swordfish from my pocket now.

Renée jumps in quickly. “Ping and Pong had those in their mouths when we took them home. We have no idea where they came from.” She talks so fast, even I think she’s guilty. Troy whines and slumps down.

“Really?” Constable Jurgensen says. “You sure they didn’t pick them up from Attila’s room?”

“What?” I squawk. “We weren’t even in Renée’s house. Well, we were, but just for a moment in the front hall.”

“So did the dogs pick them up in the front hall?” Constable Wilson asks.

“No!”

“You said you had no idea where the dogs found the painted fish. Now, you’re sure they didn’t get them from Attila.”

“Because that’s where we found the blanks that we delivered to Bruce T. Lindley,” Renée explains. “The dogs stole blank fish from the bag in the hall.”

“I think they picked the painted ones from some recycling bin on Duncaster,” I tell them. “They may have even fallen off the truck.”

“Do you know if your brother owns a gun?” Constable Jurgensen asks Renée.

“No. Of course not.”

“So you don’t know?” he snaps.

“No. I mean of course he doesn’t own a gun.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I know my brother. He isn’t violent.”

“But he paints tanks.”

“Because he’s making a comment on war!”

Constable Wilson murmurs something into Jurgensen’s ear and he nods back.

“Fine. That will be all. But you tell Attila we’ll need to see him for questioning.”

“Maybe you should talk to Madame X, instead,” Renée says. Mistake number seven. The more Renée argues, the guiltier Attila seems.

“We’ve already spoken to her,” Constable Wilson answers.

“We’ll be in touch,” Constable Jurgensen says. He waves a few fingers in goodbye.

“Bye, kids,” Constable Wilson calls, smiling like she’s still on our side.

DAY ONE, MISTAKE EIGHT

“Why did you tell them to question Madame X?” I ask Renée after we leave the office. “She likes kids and dogs. A perfectly nice lady.”

“Because she said she hated those fish. And she’s wearing a big coat and it’s not even cold.”

“You think she was hiding all 250 fish in her coat?”

“Quiet in the hall!” a teacher calls from a classroom and slams her door.

Renée rolls her eyes and shrugs.

I lower my voice. “She thanked us for taking them down. Why would she say that if she stole them herself?”

“Oh, that’s just to throw us off track. She says they block her vision. She can’t see the” — Renée forms air quotes with her finger — “‘keedies.’”

“But Attila hates them more. He can’t even go close to one of those fish without smoke coming out of his ears.”

“Oh, you’re just like them. You want to pin every crime on Attila.”

Mrs. Worsley pokes her head outside of our classroom now and waves us back. “Stephen, Renée, quit lollygagging in the hall!”

“Later!” Renée hisses. She looks as though she’s bursting with other stuff she wants to say.

At lunchtime, over her jam and cream cheese bagel, she finally explodes. “You don’t understand, Stephen. If the police show up at my door to question Attila, the fighting will start again. My father will yell. My mother will cry.”

That makes me feel bad for Renée. I swallow a bite of my own cream cheese sandwich. “Maybe you should text him,” I tell her. “Get him to go to the police by himself.”

“Hmm.” She thinks a moment. “You’re right. That way, my parents won’t have to know.” She pulls out her cell, keys in a long message, and then looks up. “Now, you know what we have to do?”

“No, what?”

“We have to find the real thief so we can prove Attila’s innocence.”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” I ask.

“What?”

“The real thief probably has a gun.”

After lunch we sit through a class on metaphors and similes, which is as much fun as a barrel of puppies. (That’s a simile, by the way.) Mrs. Worsley passes around a box, and we have to write down two nouns and drop them in. I throw in fish and dogs.

When everyone’s put theirs in, we get to pull out two. I get bomb and Minecraft but Mrs. Worsley lets me choose another one because she says brand names are not allowed. I get mistake this time.

“Now, class, I want you to write a couple of sentences using either a metaphor or a simile.”

Renée gets alien and brother, and she reads out this sentence: “My brother has turned into an alien. I don’t even know what planet he’s from.”

I agree with her there.

“Good!” Mrs. Worsley points to Tyson.

“I got art and gun,” he answers. “I can’t think of anything.”

“Class, help him out!”

Renée calls out, “Art is a gun that fires everyone up.”

“Excellent. Raise your hand next time! Stephen?”

Mine makes me feel a bit squishy inside. “A mistake is a bomb that goes off when you least expect it.”

“Hmm, very nice,” Mrs. Worsley says.

No, it’s not nice at all, I think. Seven mistake bombs have already exploded in front of me today.

Finally, it’s time to pack up for home. As we write last-minute notes in our agenda, Mrs. Worsley hands us each an envelope with an explanation of the lockdown. But she says we are not to look at it without a parent.

Of course, Renée and I already know about the gunman. She’s always afraid of being alone and likes to hang around with me until someone’s home at her house. Today, she’s even more clingy.

By now all the recycling bins and garbage pails are empty, and all the furniture, the toy kitchen, and that cool painting of the boy and his rabbit are gone.

When we get to our house, Dad is sitting on the couch knitting something tiny in pale blue. On four needles, no less.

A strange smile creeps over Renée’s face. “Well, hi, Mr. Noble. Whatcha making?”

“Hi, kids. A sweater.” He holds up the knitting so we can see it better.

Renée looks at me with wide eyes.

Oh, no, she can’t possibly think my mom’s expecting a baby. Then, for a moment, I panic. Is Mom pregnant? “It’s pretty tiny, Dad.”

He nods. “The Yorkies are. I’m knitting one for each. Their owner wants them in the colours of the rainbow.”

Renée’s mouth drops open. “You mean, she has seven dogs?”

“No, five. I’m going to trim the necklines with the other two colours. Indigo and orange. Mrs. Irwin was very specific.” He shrugs his shoulder. “She’s an artist.”

“Wow, that looks really hard to do, Dad. How do you know it will fit?”

“I measured. But this is the test sweater,” he answers.

I drop my backpack so I can haul out Mrs. Watier’s note to parents. “Dad, something happened at school today.”

“You two aren’t in trouble, are you?”

“No, no. But there was a lockdown. Here, read this.”

Dad puts his knitting down and takes the letter. His eyebrows crush together as he scans it. For a while after, he just stares at it, and then he looks up at us. “So you know you were safe at all times. They found a gun in the library and needed to be very cautious.”

“Just the gun, no gunman?” Renée asks.

“That’s right. They locked down the school because they thought whoever left it there might still be in the building. They were wrong. That person had left.”