Louis Catt – Pet Detectives (страница 2)
I think Rosie was right. She knows quite a lot about how to treat people; I think it might be because sometimes stupid people call her brother names.
The bell went then, and we had to go back into lessons. Mrs Weaver was very nice to Lyndz, which was just as well as Lyndz got all her spellings wrong.
Halfway through the afternoon I saw Frankie pass Lyndz a note.
Lyndz read it while Mrs Weaver was writing something on the board and then she passed it on to me. It said:
Hey! I’ve HAD An IDeA! IF TRUFFLe Isn’T AT Home TonIGHT someone musT HAVe STOLen HeR? so We’LL Be THe sLeepoveR DeTecTIves AnD TRAcK HeR Down!!!!
I looked at Lyndz, and she was sitting up much straighter and smiling at Frankie. I passed the note on to Rosie, and she read it too. Then Kenny got it, and she said “YES!” so loudly that Mrs Weaver turned round.
“Am I missing something?” she asked.
We all tried to look as if we had been working extra specially hard. Of course the M&Ms had to blurt.
“They were passing notes, Mrs Weaver,” Emma said, and she gave us a huge fat horrible smile.
“That’s right, Mrs Weaver,” Emily said. “We both saw them.”
Now, Mrs Weaver usually hates us passing notes more than anything else. She says it’s underhand, and that if we have something to say we should stand up and say it. She says it is really rude, and means we don’t respect her at all. This time, though, she gave Emma and Emily a funny look.
“Thank you,” she said. “If ever I want a report on the private activities in my class I’ll remember to ask you two. In the meantime, however, I suggest you all get on with what you’re doing.”
That squashed the M&Ms! We could hardly believe our luck. We put our heads down and worked really hard until the end of the lesson – which was also going-home time.
When we’d cleared up and put our chairs on the tables, Frankie went straight up to Mrs Weaver. She was holding the note in her hand. She walked right past the M&Ms, and I saw them staring.
“I’m sorry, Mrs Weaver,” Frankie said, “but I did pass Lyndz a note. It wasn’t a bad one, though. You can read it – I just wanted to cheer her up.”
Mrs Weaver smiled at Frankie, and dropped the note in the wastepaper basket.
“I had a feeling it was something like that,” she said. “Don’t do it again, though.” And she went on clearing up, still smiling.
The M&Ms looked as sick as parrots!!!
When we got outside the school gate Frankie let out a loud “WHOOPEE!!!” and we all joined in. Then Kenny said we should give three cheers for Mrs Weaver, so we did that too. (I think it was a little bit louder than it might have been because the M&Ms were walking past exactly at that moment!)
Then Frankie grabbed Lyndz’s arm. “Can you ring us if Truffle’s still missing?” she asked her. “And if she is we’ll make a Grand Plan!”
“Sleepover Pet Detectives!” Rosie said, and she whacked Lyndz on the back in an encouraging sort of way.
Kenny giggled. “We can’t catnap if we’re looking for a catnapper,” she said.
“But we’ll catch the catnapper who’s napping with the cat!” Frankie said.
“We can pore over her paw prints and follow the trail to her tail!” Rosie chipped in.
We all laughed then, even Lyndz.
“I’ll ring as soon as I get home,” she promised.
I’d been thinking while the others were telling jokes. (I’m not very good at being funny.) I wasn’t sure what we could do if we were detectives; I was worrying that we didn’t have things like magnifying glasses and cameras, and all the other things detectives need.
“What exactly will we do?” I asked. “I mean, if she hasn’t come home? Where will we look first?”
Frankie stopped grinning and rubbed her nose. “Maybe we should check out the pet shop. Maybe someone might have found her and thought she was a stray.”
“Wouldn’t they take her to a cats’ home?” Kenny said. “Or the RSPCA?”
“She’s got our phone number on her collar,” Lyndz said, and she began to look unhappy again. “If someone had found her they’d have rung up.”
“Could she have lost her collar?” I asked. Rosie nodded.
“Our cat wriggles out of his quite often. It’s because you mustn’t put their collars on too tight.”
“She might have lost it,” Lyndz said. “Actually, it was a bit loose, and it had one of those elasticky bits on it.”
“Well then!” Kenny waved her arms in the air. “Probably she got stuck in a tree or something yesterday, and she wriggled out of her collar this morning—”
“And she’s sitting on your bed at home now this minute!” Rosie yelled.
Lyndz smiled at us. “Thanks,” she said. “I do feel better now.”
“Will you ring us anyway, even if she’s back?” I asked.
“Of course I will.” Lyndz picked up her bag. “I’ll zoom back and see right this minute.” She dashed off, and we all went home too.
I’d only been at home about ten minutes when the phone rang. It wasn’t Lyndz – it was Frankie. She said Lyndz’s mum had told Lyndz she could only ring two of us and we were to pass the message on. Anyway, Frankie said Truffle was still missing, and we were all going to go to the pet shop after school tomorrow.
“We could come back to my house afterwards to make a plan if Truffle’s not there,” I said.
“Actually,” Frankie said, “everyone’s coming to my house. I’ve already arranged it. Oh, and Lyndz’s mum says she can have a sleepover at her house next Friday to cheer her up … or if Truffle’s back it can be a celebration! OK?”
“Yes,” I said. “All right.”
“See you tomorrow, then,” Frankie said, and she rang off.
I put the phone down too. Sometimes Frankie can be very bossy. We hardly ever meet up after school at my house, and my house is much the nicest. My mum really likes it when everyone comes round too, and she makes us special cakes and buys lots of different kinds of biscuits.
We had to wait for my brother Callum before we could go to the pet shop the next day. He walks home with me, and my mum says he’s not old enough to come home on his own. His class was late coming out; because they’re younger they seem to take ages and ages getting their coats on.
While we were waiting, Lyndz told us she’d been doing some detective work on her own.
“The last person who saw Truffle was Mum,” she said. “Truffle was bouncing out of the cat flap, and she looked just like she always does. And we’ve checked all the cupboards and sheds and drawers, because a friend of Mum’s said her cat got into her airing cupboard and was shut in for six days while they were away on holiday!”
“Was the cat OK?” Rosie asked.
Lyndz nodded. “Yes. It was very thin, but it was completely fine as soon as it had had something to eat!”
Kenny was looking thoughtful. “What did the airing cupboard look like?”
I knew exactly what she was going to ask about. Kenny always wants to know about disgusting things. Luckily just at that moment Callum came round the corner, so I jumped up.
“Look!” I said. “There’s Callum! Let’s go!”
Callum was a bit grumpy about having to go to the pet shop, but he cheered up when Lyndz told him about Truffle. She’s got younger brothers too, so she knows how to talk to him.
“I’ll look out for her,” he said. “I’m very good at seeing things.”
We all squeezed into the pet shop together. It isn’t very big, so we more or less filled it up. There were cages all over the walls, and all round the floor too. I didn’t mind the ones with birds peeping and cheeping, but I didn’t look at the ones with horrible squirmy little rats and mice in.
Mr Garez didn’t look very pleased to see us. He’d probably guessed we weren’t going to buy anything, even though Lyndz usually buys loads of rat food from his shop, and Frankie’s mum buys dog food there.
“I hope you’ve come for a reason,” he said. “I’m fed up with kids coming in just to look at the kittens. This is a shop, not a zoo.”
“Kittens!” Kenny said. “Oh, Mr Garez – where are they?”
Mr Garez sighed very loudly and pointed at a big cage in the corner – and there they were. Three tabby kittens, and a tiny fluffy black one that was chasing its tail round and round and round.
“OH!” Frankie nearly fell over her feet in her rush to look closer. “LOOK! He’s
“Who’s Muffin?” Rosie asked her.
“He was my cat who died.” Frankie said. “He was
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