The Misfits Club Page 8

  ‘There,’ she cried. She lit it up with the beam from her phone-torch.

  Sam pulled across a creaking rickety chair, stood on it and reached up towards the ring.

  ‘If it’s not been used in years, it’ll be stuck,’ Hannah said.

  But, as soon as he slipped his fingers around it and pulled, it gave way. The attic door swung down, barely missing Sam’s nose, and leaving a dark space in the ceiling above them.

  Brian knew that if it opened that easily, it had been used recently. Someone else had been up there. His heart gave a jolt. What if that person was still there, hiding? Before Brian had a chance to warn him to look out, Sam was hauling himself up.

  Brian tried to follow him, but, being shorter than Sam, his fingers wouldn’t reach the edge of the attic entrance no matter how far he stretched or how many toes he tippy-toed on.

  Sam coughed and spluttered as he clambered into the dusty attic, careful to balance on the beams and not put any body weight on the spaces in between. If he did, he’d end up crashing through the ceiling in a cloud of plaster, dust and broken limbs.

  ‘Anyone else coming up?’ he shouted down.

  ‘Nah, I think you’ve got it covered,’ Brian said, getting off the chair. ‘I might just check the rest of the cottage again in case we missed anything.’

  ‘Good idea. Mind if I follow Sam up there?’ Hannah asked.

  ‘Why would I mind?’ Brian replied, a little tetchily.

  Sam and Hannah crawled across the narrow attic on their hands and knees. The thin light from Hannah’s phone barely disturbed the darkness. Much to their disappointment, the attic appeared to be empty.

  Sam was about to roar at Chris to bring in the large torch, when Hannah squealed. She’d suddenly thought of something she hadn’t wanted to think about.

  ‘What if there are rats up here?’ she said. ‘I’m not a big fan of rats.’

  ‘More likely to be mice,’ Sam said.

  ‘Mice, I can handle. Mice are cute as buttons. It’s rats I can’t stand,’ she said with a shudder.

  ‘Why are girls always so scared of rats? It makes no sense,’ Sam said.

  ‘You’re not scared of anything, I suppose?’ Hannah said.

  ‘Fear is for wimps,’ Sam said.

  ‘So, you’re not worried about the three large spiders on your shoulders then,’ Hannah said.

  ‘Yeaarrrggh, get ’em off, get ’em off,’ Sam cried, jumping to his feet.

  In his blind panic, he’d forgotten where he was and that the roof was much closer to his head than it would be under normal circumstances. His forehead cracked on a thick wooden beam, which was enough to dislodge the spiders from his T-shirt. They landed softly on the floor and scurried into the dark recesses of the attic, barely avoiding being squashed by Sam’s body as it collapsed like a felled tree.

  ‘Aaargh,’ Sam said as he landed awkwardly.

  Hannah crawled to his side. ‘Are you OK?’ she asked.

  ‘I said aaargh. It’s kind of well-known as a word that indicates pain,’ Sam said.

  Amelia couldn’t see what was going on, but guessed from the anguished cries that all was not well.

  ‘Is someone hurt?’ she shouted up through the attic hatch.

  ‘I can’t really tell because of all the agony,’ Sam replied.

  ‘We’re fine,’ Hannah shouted back.

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ Sam said with a grimace.

  He was about to launch into an explanation of the seven different kinds of pain he was in, when he distracted himself. From his prone position, he was viewing the roof from a different angle and he’d noticed something he hadn’t seen before.

  ‘Hey, shine the light up there.’

  Hannah moved the light beam around until she saw what he was pointing to.

  ‘Holy moly, this just got interesting,’ she cried out.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Brian shouted.

  It was a good minute before he received a reply.

  ‘We’ve got ourselves a proper mystery,’ Hannah said.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Sam, swiftly forgetting all about the pain he’d been in, dropped from the attic back into the kitchen, quickly followed by Hannah. They rushed outside with Brian and Amelia to where Chris was anxiously pacing up and down. All at once, everyone was talking over each other, asking questions, making faces and waving arms, without a single person able to understand a word any of the others were saying.

  ‘OK, OK, one at a time, or we’re not going to get anywhere,’ Hannah shouted.

  She had to repeat herself a number of times before she got them to calm down a little.

  ‘What did you find?’ Chris asked, his eyes wide with excitement.

  ‘There’s a secret door in the attic and there’s stuff up there,’ Hannah said.

  ‘A secret door? Are you serious? That’s awesome.’

  ‘What kind of stuff? Is it money? Are we rich?’ Brian asked.

  ‘I didn’t see any money. There’s a painting of a ship, some bits of old jewellery, and—’

  ‘What kind of jewellery?’ Amelia asked.

  ‘There’s a necklace and some earrings—’

  ‘And there’s, like, a lamp that looks really old too.’

  ‘Oh, so it’s just the kind of junk people keep in an attic,’ Brian said.

  ‘No, it didn’t look like junk to me. Definitely not,’ Hannah said.

  ‘No way, José, this was good stuff. It looked like a proper painting, you know, one painted by a serious painter,’ Sam said.

  ‘When did you become an art expert?’ Chris said.

  ‘Not now, Chris. This is serious. I think it’s been stolen. There’s no other reason for it to be hidden there, right?’ Hannah said.

  ‘I have to have a look,’ Brian said.

  Hannah grabbed him before he was through the door. ‘Wait, we need to decide what we’re going to do. The guy who put the lock on the door could be back at any minute, right? We can’t spend ages examining the stuff when we should be doing something else.’

  ‘Like what?’ Brian asked. He really wanted to see what they’d found, even if he had to shame himself by asking Sam for a boost up into the attic.

  This was bigger than any of them had expected.

  ‘Did you touch anything?’ Chris asked.

  ‘No, of course not,’ Sam lied. ‘How stupid do you think we are?’

  He exchanged a look with Hannah. He knew that the last thing any of them needed right now was his brother freaking out.

  ‘OK, then there’s only one thing to do,’ Chris said.

  ‘Don’t say “tell our parents”,’ Brian said.

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m going to say. It’s the only answer, guys. If what’s up there actually is stolen, then that man Amelia photographed could be a dangerous criminal. We can’t just take this on by ourselves.’

  ‘Of course, we can,’ Sam said. ‘We’re a club that tries to get to the bottom of mysterious stuff and you want to run to Mam the first time we have something to investigate since I saw the aliens.’

  ‘Sam’s right. Not about the aliens, but the rest of it. We can deal with this. It’s the opportunity we’ve been waiting for,’ Hannah said. ‘It’s like fate or something. We’d be idiots not to look into it.’

  ‘We’d also be idiots if we got captured or beaten up or worse,’ Chris said.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ Sam said. He threw his hands in the air in exasperation. ‘Why do you have to be safe and boring like some wrinkly thirty-year-old?’

  ‘Someone needs to engage their brain and act sensibly.’

  ‘Yeah, but why does it always have to be you?’ Sam said.

  ‘There’s no way my parents are finding out about this,’ Hannah said.

  ‘Fine, but if we’re not telling parents then I think we should compromise and tell Debra,’ Chris said.

  ‘Compromise? Let’s just ignore him,’ Sam said to Hannah. ‘Come on, we’ll—’

 
; ‘We’re a club, Sam. We have to do it together or not at all.’

  ‘Yeah, well, let’s form a new club,’ Sam said. Hannah gave him a look and Sam knew there was no point fighting.

  ‘Who’s Debra?’ Amelia asked.

  ‘Debra’s sort of related to us. She’s married to my dad’s first cousin and she’s a garda in town. We could talk to her. She’s cool,’ Chris said.

  ‘Fine. I can’t stop you from telling Debra, but I’m not going with you. I’m staying here,’ Brian said.

  ‘Me too,’ Hannah said.

  ‘Well, if you two are staying then so am I,’ Sam said.

  ‘You can’t. You’ll need to act as a guide for Amelia and Chris. Amelia doesn’t know her way out of the woods and Chris could get lost in an empty room—’

  ‘Hey,’ Chris protested.

  ‘I’m not being mean. You have a terrible sense of direction,’ Brian said.

  ‘I know, but still.’

  ‘Fine, I’ll go with them,’ Sam said, ‘but I’ve got a bad feeling about this.’

  ‘What kind of bad feeling?’ Hannah asked.

  ‘A bad one.’

  ‘Thanks for clearing it up.’

  Sam, Chris and Amelia set off for the garda station, a walk of almost three kilometres, while Hannah and Brian stayed behind at the cottage. After numerous failed attempts at boosting Brian into the attic, they shut the door, then spent time walking around the outside of the cottage, looking for anything that might be considered a clue. They chatted excitedly, neither of them fully able to believe that the Misfits Club had finally found itself a good old-fashioned mystery.

  Their excitement faded a few minutes later when they heard the voices.

  Men’s voices.

  The Newpark Echo

  Thursday 14 March

  CATS & ROBBERS: DARING RESCUE ATTEMPT LEADS TO TREE-MENDOUS EMBARRASSMENT

  There was laughter in court today when new garda recruit, Debra O’Loughlin (27), gave evidence in the trial of two Cork men. Garda O’Loughlin had been on foot patrol in the Lavally Upper area when she noticed two middle-aged men standing beside a large white van parked on the footpath outside a bungalow belonging to Mr Max Leahy. She approached the men, who told her they’d been helping Mr Leahy move house when they’d heard a cat miaowing. It appeared that a ginger cat, known to locals as Lumpy, had become trapped in a nearby tree. The men said it had been stuck there for at least an hour, but since neither of them had a head for heights they’d been unable to help the poor creature.

  Luckily for the adventurous Lumpy, the young officer wasn’t about to leave him in the lurch. O’Loughlin outlined in court how she’d attempted to rescue the cat: ‘The two men, whom I now know to be Mr Gillespie and Mr Sweeney, took a ladder from Mr Leahy’s back garden and secured it against the tree. I climbed up as far as the ladder would take me and then began to haul myself up the tree until I reached Lumpy.

  ‘I took the cat in my arms and, while sitting on a branch, began to pet its head to soothe it,’ O’Loughlin read from her evidence notebook. ‘At this point, I heard muttering from below, followed by a scraping sound.’ After questioning from the prosecuting barrister, Mr Randal O’Connor, it was established that the scraping sound was caused by Gillespie and Sweeney removing the ladder and leaving O’Loughlin stranded in the tree.

  ‘I shouted at them to put the ladder back, but they responded with rude gestures. I then came to the conclusion that they were not actually friends of Mr Leahy, as they had claimed.’

  ‘How did you arrive at that conclusion?’ Mr O’Connor asked.

  ‘By observing them stealing many items from his house. I was unable to call for help as Lumpy was still shaking in my arms and I couldn’t reach my radio. I was afraid that if I tried I would overbalance and that the two of us would fall out of the tree. Shortly afterwards, Mr Leahy returned home and confirmed my suspicions by shouting: “I’ve been robbed. They’ve taken everything. Absolutely everything.” He was not amused when he spotted me sitting in a tree stroking a nervous cat’s head.’

  At this point, laughter broke out in court and Judge Edan Keenan had to call for silence a number of times before things finally calmed down, following the ejection of two members of the public who were unable to stop sniggering.

  Garda O’Loughlin and Lumpy were rescued from the tree shortly after Mr Leahy’s return. Gillespie and Sweeney were found guilty and received custodial sentences.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The two officers couldn’t stop laughing. The older one’s belly jiggled while tears streamed down the younger one’s face.

  ‘You . . . Let me get this right . . . You want to us to investigate a house in the woods, where you think a ghost has hidden some treasure?’

  The garda station was small, and appeared even smaller with three members of the Misfits Club squashed into the narrow public area on the other side of the counter from the two officers. The older one was Sergeant Calvin Macklow and Sam recognized the younger one – he was Sam’s PE teacher’s boyfriend – his name was Tim or Jim or something like that.

  ‘Would you look at them. They think they’re the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew,’ Sergeant Macklow said. ‘Thanks for livening up what has been a very dull day.’

  ‘Look, if we could just talk to Debra . . . I mean, Garda O’Loughlin, then we could get this all cleared up quite quickly,’ Chris said.

  ‘Is he here?’ Tim (or was it Jim?) asked.

  ‘Is who here?’

  The younger man wafted his hands around in a floaty manner. ‘The ghost. Is he here now, in the station, but I just can’t see him? Do you have to be psychic to see him?’

  ‘Remember I said that my pen had gone missing this morning,’ the sergeant said. ‘Maybe the ghost took it.’

  It was fair to say it wasn’t going well. They’d asked for Debra twice already, but the officers weren’t in any hurry to call her. Amelia knew their mistake had been to let Sam speak first. As soon as they’d arrived at the station, Chris and Amelia had clammed up in the unfamiliar environment, but Sam had marched up to the counter and begun talking. It had been proceeding in a relatively normal manner until he mentioned the word ghost. As soon as that word had popped out of his mouth, the two officers, who had previously seemed desperately bored, had shown a sudden interest in what he had to say. Tim/Jim had made cups of tea and the two officers of the law had pulled up seats and listened with an increasing amount of mirth as Sam had told the story. When they’d shown them the picture that Amelia had taken on her phone, they’d started to refer to the man in the photo as Casper the Friendly Ghost.

  Amelia had kept quiet, but the mocking laughter annoyed her so much she’d begun clenching and unclenching her fists without even being aware of it.

  ‘He didn’t say a ghost had stolen anything,’ Chris said. ‘He said that we suspected it was a ghost, but then we realized it wasn’t. And then we found the treasure in the attic.’

  ‘So you’re telling me that if I go to this cottage in the woods, and I climb into the attic, I’ll see a pile of treasure?’

  ‘Yes,’ Sam exclaimed. ‘That’s exactly what we’re saying.’

  ‘Is it pirate treasure? Did Casper join up with Long John Silver and Captain Jack Sparrow?’

  The sergeant took a hearty slurp of milky tea, some of the liquid dribbling down his chin and on to the front of his uniform. The door to the back office opened.

  ‘Chris? Sam? What are you doing here? Is everything OK?’ Debra O’Loughlin asked. She was tall and rosy-cheeked, and her eyes were filled with a steely determination.

  Once she’d been reassured that her cousins-in-law were in good health, the sergeant quickly filled her in on what had happened so far.

  ‘So what do you think, Garda O’Loughlin?’ he asked, turning to Debra. ‘This case sounds like a priority to me. I think we should investigate it immediately. And by we, I mean you.’

  ‘I don’t think there’s any need to go that far, Sergeant,’ Debra
said.

  ‘Oh, I disagree. This could be the important next step in your career. You’ve a reputation to uphold. You’ve already saved a cat . . . What was his name . . . ? Bumpy, was it?’

  ‘Lumpy, I believe,’ the younger officer said.

  ‘That’s it. One moment you’re saving good old Lumpy, the next you could be thwarting a team of thieving ghosts,’ he chuckled. ‘That’s enough to put you in . . . high spirits.’

  ‘What’s wrong with you? We already told you it wasn’t a ghost,’ Sam said.

  The sergeant’s eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t talk to me like that, son.’

  Chris nudged his brother sharply.

  ‘Sorry,’ Sam muttered. He didn’t sound sorry at all.

  ‘Did any of you take a photo of this treasure?’ Debra O’Loughlin asked.

  ‘I wasn’t in the attic,’ Amelia said.

  ‘Why didn’t you take one, Sam?’ Chris said.

  ‘How could I take one? I was practically unconscious after I banged my head. I’m lucky to be alive,’ Sam replied.

  Debra rolled her eyes. This was promising to be a very long day.

  ‘What are you waiting for, Garda O’Loughlin? Off you go with the lads and lady. They’ll love a spin in the patrol car.’

  ‘You’re not serious, are you?’ Debra said.

  ‘Very serious. You know me. I never joke about anything.’

  ‘But, I have to—’

  ‘That can wait. Like I said, priority case. Off you go now. That’s a direct order. You can give us a full report when you return. We’ll hold the fort here. And don’t worry – we’ll keep the radio on, so if you encounter anything spooky or otherworldly you can let us know immediately.’

  ‘And, if you do meet the ghost, check that he has a haunting licence. Like a hunting licence? Geddit?’

  The sergeant opened his mouth so widely that Amelia thought he was going to swallow his entire mug of tea. He inhaled deeply before exploding in spluttering laughter, sending showers of spittle and cold tea across the station.