To: Jake Bishop
From: Matthew Corbin
Subject: Old Nina’s Tree
Hi, Jake.
You’re right. We do need your help. How about trying to get that thing out of Old Nina’s tree?
Matthew
He replied ten minutes later.
To: Matthew Corbin
From: Jake Bishop
Re: Old Nina’s Tree
I’ll go into her yard tonight after dark.
Jake
It was late and I was sitting at the computer, my hair still wet from the shower. There was another message from Melody, apologizing for missing my earlier email, as she’d been out. She said she hadn’t had any luck seeing what was in the tree. I hit Reply.
To: Melody Bird
From: Matthew Corbin
Re: Quick!
No problem. Jake is going to try and get the thing out of Old Nina’s tree TONIGHT. I know, I know, it’s Jake Bishop—but I think he could be useful?
And hey, guess what? I followed Old Nina today! She went out and she never goes out on Thursdays. She bought balls of wool and she was staring weirdly at some diapers in the window of a pharmacy! She didn’t buy any but isn’t that a bit odd???!!!
Matthew
After I sent it I cringed. My so-called evidence looked completely ridiculous now. Melody quickly answered.
To: Matthew Corbin
From: Melody Bird
Re: Quick!
Jake Bishop? Are you mad?!!
To: Melody Bird
From: Matthew Corbin
Re: Quick!
I know, but let’s give him a chance, OK? I kind of owe him.
Matthew
I turned the computer off and went to bed.
When I eventually drifted off I dreamed about Teddy …
I was at the window again, watching him pick the petals, but when he reached up for a flower he stumbled forward and fell straight into the roses. The branches snaked around his little body, wrapping him up tightly like a spider wraps a fly. Within seconds the bush had swallowed him whole and Teddy had disappeared.
My neighbors gathered, each of them calling out as if they were all playing a game of hide-and-seek.
“Teddy! Where are you?” called Mr. Charles.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are!” Old Nina cried.
I ran into the road and shouted at them all.
“It’s the rosebush! The rosebush has got him. Listen to me! You’ve got to check the rosebush!”
Melody was there, and Penny and Gordon, Jake, Hannah with her swollen belly and Mr. Jenkins and Old Nina; as I ran around they started to laugh.
“Quick, get back in your tank, Matty!” said Melody, laughing so much she was nearly crying. “You’re going to die out here!”
I woke with a jolt at 3:22 a.m., wet with sweat. I lay there for a bit and tried to go back to sleep, but every time I shut my eyes I saw Teddy tangled in the branches. I got out of bed and crept to the office.
Mr. Charles’s front yard was empty and I could just make out a few pastel flowers bobbing in the darkness. There was no little blond boy in the roses. Teddy wasn’t there.
I turned to go back to bed, but then I spotted a figure in the shadows outside the Rectory. At first I thought it might be Jake on his mission, but this figure was too tall. It began to walk toward number three and I realized it was Mr. Jenkins. What was he doing out at this time of night? Wearing pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, he clearly hadn’t been out of bed for long; his hair was sticking up in all directions. In his left hand was a tiny, orange glow. I couldn’t believe it: Mr. Jenkins, the fitness-crazy, know-it-all, bullying teacher, was smoking!
He walked around the close, his eyes constantly on Mr. Charles’s house. When he got to Penny and Gordon’s house, he threw the cigarette onto the ground and left it there, burning, as he crossed over the road. He stood by the gate of number eleven and peered around the rosebushes and hedges, having a good look around. What was he doing? I stepped out of view as he turned toward home, and a few seconds later I heard his front door shut quietly. I went back to bed and took out my notebook.
Teddy’s Disappearance: New Suspects List
1. Old Nina
2. Mr. Charles
3. Casey
4. Mr. Jenkins???
Jake emailed first thing.
To: Melody Bird; Matthew Corbin
From: Jake Bishop
Subject: The Case of the Mysterious White Thing Stuck in a Tree
It’s a tea towel!!!!!
Well done, Sherlock and Watson.
Jake
A few minutes later, Melody replied.
To: Jake Bishop; Matthew Corbin
From: Melody Bird
Subject: MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS!!!
Look, Jake Bishop, I never asked you to get involved, so if you don’t have anything useful to say, I suggest you crawl back to your pathetic excuse for a life. OK?!
To: Matthew Corbin
From: Jake Bishop
Subject: Melody
Geez, she can’t take a joke, can she?!!
J
I didn’t want to get involved, so I switched the computer off and went to my room.
I cleaned for most of the morning and it still didn’t feel right. I went over the back of my door for a fourth time and then I tackled the legs on my bed, the legs on my dresser, and the legs on my bedside cabinet. Cleaning these would mean that the germs would have less opportunity to travel upward and spread around.
Dad was outside stacking up cans of paint, brushes, and dust sheets on the lawn as Mum came out of the conservatory carrying an armful of wet laundry. Hannah and Mr. Jenkins were out as well.
“Oh hello, Hannah, love. How are you doing with all this stress going on? It can’t be good for you or the baby.”
Hannah rubbed her football stomach as she joined Mum at the fence. She always walked like that now. It was as if it were the only way she could gain momentum. I avoided looking at her oversized belly and watched Dad get a stepladder out of the shed, which he propped up on the grass and leaned against. Mr. Jenkins came over to talk to him. He was dressed in a fluorescent yellow running vest and black shorts and a pair of sunglasses rested on top of his head. He looked like a wasp. He said something to Dad, and Dad turned and looked up at my window and then shook his head.
“They’re talking about me, Lion,” I said. “What with everything going on, they still find time to talk about me.”
Mr. Jenkins followed Dad’s gaze and stared at me.
Mr. Jenkins was the worst teacher in our school, and for a while I’d managed to excuse myself from quite a few of his lessons (I felt sick, I’d pulled a muscle in my leg, I was getting over a chest infection, etc.). But he wasn’t fooled easily, and before long he was right on my case.
“You can’t be bothered, that’s your problem, isn’t it, Corbin?” he said when I told him I had a migraine and couldn’t go swimming. “Any feeble excuse not to do any exercise. You’re bone-idle! That’s what you are. Now shut up, get your suit on, and get in that pool.”
My anxieties weren’t too bad then, so I resigned myself to just having to get on with it, but I took my towel and trunks out of my bag as slowly as possible. I certainly wasn’t going to hurry.
I thought I was the only one left in the changing room, but then I could hear a boy frantically searching for something behind the forest of school uniforms hanging on rows of hooks.
“Where are you? You stupid letter! You’re in here somewhere, I know it!”
It was Jake Bishop.
“You all right, Jake?”
He looked up at me, his red-rimmed eyes wet with tears.
“I’ve lost the stupid letter. I’m not supposed to go swimming and my mum wrote a note and now I can’t find it.”
He took a deep breath, then, like a scurrying animal, he scratched around again in the pockets of his backpack.
“Can’t the school call your mum?”
Jake snorted.
“Yeah, right. I said that to Mr. Jenkins and he found that very funny. I’m Jake Bishop, remember? What do I matter?”
He turned back, pulling out his scruffy schoolbooks and ink-stained pencil case, piling them onto the bench.
Mr. Jenkins appeared from the pool and threw a pair of purple trunks at Jake, which hit him in the face.
“Get these on. You’ll have to borrow a towel.”
He saw me standing there.
“Why aren’t you dressed yet, Corbin? Come on!” He clapped his hands together rapidly like machine-gun fire. “You’re losers, the both of you! Especially you, Bishop. What are you?”
“A loser, sir,” said Jake quickly. He’d clearly been in this position with Mr. Jenkins before and wasn’t bothering to put up a fight.
“A pathetic excuse for mankind, that’s you. Now, hurry up!”
I darted back to my bags. The echoing shouts of our classmates from the pool sounded sinister, like they were all being tortured. I watched Jake through the dangling coats as he wiped his eyes.
“I can help look through your bag if you want,” I said.
I didn’t know what I’d do if he agreed. There was no way I’d touch Jake’s bag.
“What’s the point? Someone’s stolen it. Probably thought they’d get back at me. Well, this time they’ve won, but they won’t be winning when I get hold of them.”
He pulled his shirt over his head without undoing the buttons and tugged at the sleeves. As he turned away, I saw raw patches of eczema all over his back. I’d never had eczema before, but I knew as soon as his skin hit that chlorine-filled water it was going to hurt like crazy.
I never did find out if someone had taken Jake’s letter. He was probably right, it was very likely that someone did take it, just to get revenge on him. But on that particular day, there was only one bully in the changing room, and it certainly wasn’t Jake Bishop.
Mr. Jenkins rested his hands on the low fence between our yards as he babbled on to Mum and Dad. Hannah now had her arm linked through her husband’s, the sunlight dazzling on her white teeth as she stared up at him. Mum shaded her eyes as she and Dad nodded, agreeing with whatever it was Mr. Jenkins was saying. They didn’t have a clue how different he was from this perfect image he projected. Bullying kids, sneaking around in the middle of the night, smoking cigarettes when he was supposed to be setting a healthy example. What else could he be up to? He’d run past Teddy on the day he went missing. Had he turned back when I wasn’t looking? Had he seen him crouching down by the roses after all?
My PE teacher finished what he was saying and pulled his dark glasses down over his eyes, a mad grin on his face as Hannah began to talk. His head turned toward my window, and I had a strong suspicion he was staring right at me. When his grin twisted into a grimace, I knew I was right.