Mr. Charles hadn’t been gardening after all. The trowel and kneeling pad I’d seen had just been left over from the previous day, forgotten in the madness of trying to look after two young kids. While Teddy was picking the petals, Mr. Charles was inside having an afternoon nap in his armchair. I was cleaning my room when, at 2:37 p.m., I heard a shout from the garden.
“Teddy! Teddy, where are you? Don’t hide from Granddad now.”
I looked outside and saw the top of Mr. Charles’s red head as he stood on his patio, his hands on his hips.
“Something’s going on,” I said to the Wallpaper Lion.
“Teddy? Teddy! You come out here this instant, young man!”
He walked around the side of the house and I ran to the office. Claudia, Melody’s mum, was just reversing her old car out of their driveway, and as she drove past number eleven, she put her hand up and waved at Mr. Charles, unaware of the panic he was in. The old man ignored her and trotted down his path, his head darting this way and that. I took some notes.
“Teddy! Teddy! Stop hiding and get back here—now!”
A few pastel pink petals fluttered along the path toward the front gate, which was now wide open. Mr. Charles walked quickly around the semicircle of the cul-de-sac, looking over garden fences and into car windows.
“Where are you, Teddy? Teddy!”
His voice sounded different. It was much higher than usual and it was shaking. As he walked past number five, Jake’s mum, Sue, appeared in her supermarket uniform.
“Everything all right, Mr. Charles?” she called.
“He’s gone. Teddy’s gone. TEDDY!”
This last cry reverberated off the windows and we all listened for any reply, but the only sound was the low hum of some distant traffic and a group of sparrows, chirruping madly in the dusty road. Mr. Charles staggered forward, and Sue ran down her path and put an arm around him. She talked to him as they slowly made their way to number eleven.
“… give the police a call … best to be on the safe side …”
“… could he have got to? I was just in the lounge …”
I watched them go inside, then looked around at all the houses. Everything was still.
At 3:05 p.m. a police car rolled onto the street and Mr. Charles and Sue rushed to the front gate to meet them. Two uniformed police officers got out of the car as Mr. Charles launched into a trembling speech.
“… grandson is missing … mother is in New York … doesn’t know yet … is it day or nighttime there? Do you think I should call?”
A female officer put a hand on his arm and guided him back to the house while the other, older officer said something into his radio.
I went back to my room and looked out at the backyards to see if I could spot Teddy hiding in a bush or, worse, floating facedown in the pond. But there was no sign of him.
Casey was busy beside the half-deflated wading pool. Her hideous doll was propped against the blue lining, its face leaning toward the water as if it were looking for something on the bottom. She skipped back toward the house, and I stepped to one side in case she spotted me. When she reached the patio she turned and ran full speed up to the doll and, with a dirty, bare foot, kicked it in the back. The doll fell forward and made a small splash as it toppled into the pool. Casey stared at the drowning doll for a moment and then reached out and pulled it from the water, cradling it gently in her arms, stroking its hair. I shivered.
“She is one scary kid,” I said to the Wallpaper Lion. I checked my clock. It had been nearly two hours since I had seen Teddy playing with the petals.
“He’s probably hiding in a cupboard or under the bed or something. They’re bound to find him. But then why is the gate open? He wouldn’t have been able to open the latch, would he?”
I looked up at the Wallpaper Lion, who didn’t seem so sure. The urge to wash my hands overtook me and I quickly rushed to the bathroom.
The thin skin between my fingers was beginning to split and the constant washing was making it worse. I splashed some cold water on my face and then I ran the hot tap until it was scalding and started washing my hands. I lost track of how long I was in there.
Back in my room I let my hands drip onto my carpet. That was fine. The water was clean, and this was a much more hygienic way to let them dry—and less painful—than using a towel. The older policeman was walking around Mr. Charles’s garden looking under shrubs and behind bushes as Casey watched him. Sue appeared on the patio.
“Casey, come on inside now, there’s a good girl.”
She hurried the girl along while the officer studied the pond and poked at the water with the same stick that Teddy had used to prod the dead chick just last week. He opened the shed, and even I could see that all that was in there was a lawn mower, a ladder, a few plant pots, a bucket, and some garden tools. He checked around the outside, then unclipped a flashlight from his belt to peer into the dark space underneath. The female officer appeared on the lawn.
“Anything?”
The officer shook his head.
“Nothing inside either. I’m getting a ladder to check the attic. You never know.”
The woman went to the shed and took the ladder out, walking briskly back to the house as the other officer went around the side, talking into his radio.
Back at the front, things had gotten a lot busier. Another police patrol car, its blue light flashing, was just parking outside our house, and a silver Mondeo was just pulling up behind it. Two uniformed policemen emerged from the first and a man and a woman in plainclothes from the second. They all walked to number eleven and straight in through the open front door. Bumps and creaks were now coming from Mr. Charles’s attic, and I imagined the policewoman was crawling around up there, searching all the dark corners.
As I looked outside, my eyes seemed to go blurry—the glass was rippling and vibrating. My chest rumbled as a police helicopter approached from behind Penny and Gordon’s chimney like a giant black-and-yellow hornet. It thundered over the houses, and I rushed to my bedroom and watched it hovering over the backyards.
“This looks serious, Lion,” I said to the piece of wallpaper. “This looks very serious indeed.”
Our doorbell rang and I froze. Mum wasn’t due back for another hour, and anyway, she’d use her key. Peering down from the top of the stairs, I could see a large, black outline of a figure standing on the other side of our frosted glass door. The doorbell rang again, and then the letterbox opened and someone peered through.
“Hello? Can you open up please, it’s the police.”
The flashing blue light of the patrol car swirled around the hallway like an annoying bluebottle fly. I slowly made my way downstairs and opened the door a couple of inches. The helicopter was so loud now it felt like someone was drumming on my ribs.
“Hello there. He told us you might not answer—you not well?”
A skinny policeman with a face like a tomato was standing on my doorstep holding a pad and pen. He practically had to shout to be heard over the noise of the helicopter. Behind him I could see the man who had searched Mr. Charles’s backyard talking to Claudia, who was holding her dachshund, Frankie, under her arm.
“I’m Officer Campen. There’s been a serious incident next door—a little lad has gone missing. Have you seen him at all? Wandering about?”
I shook my head.
“And have you seen anyone around in the area? Anyone acting suspicious?”
I shook my head again.
“Okay, well I need to have a quick check around your backyard. That all right?”
I blinked in the sunlight at the man and then looked down at his large, black shoes.
“Do you think you could go around the side?”
Officer Campen frowned.
“Look, son, let me come through, would you? This is serious.”
I stood back and he pushed the door wide open and thumped his great feet onto our doormat. After giving his shoes a halfhearted wipe, he walked off toward the kitchen and into the conservatory.
“Through here?”
I nodded.
“I’ll need to take a few details down in a minute,” he said and he opened our back door and went outside.
I watched from the entrance of the kitchen as he looked around our shrubs and behind Dad’s runner bean wigwams. The yards were small on our street, so it wouldn’t take long for them all to be searched. After checking down the side of the house where we keep the trash cans and recycling, he headed for the shed. A rake, two tennis rackets, and an old swing-ball pole fell out as he opened the door. Shaking his head, he climbed in over the mess, pulling things out of the way so that he could have a good look.
I took the chance to wash my hands at the kitchen sink, turning the tap on using my elbow. Germs were more widespread down here what with the doors opening and closing and Nigel skulking around wherever he wanted. I could hear the policeman talking into his radio as he headed back to the kitchen, so I quickly shook my hands dry.
“Wow, that’s better. Lovely and cool in here. Your parents at work?”
I nodded.
The policeman scraped out one of our pine chairs and sat himself down while I stayed in the doorway. He frowned at me, clearly noticing I wasn’t coming into the room.
“This is number nine, isn’t it? What’s your name?”
He waited as I watched him wrap each ankle around a chair leg, his dirty soles now thankfully off the floor.
“Matthew Corbin.”
“And how old are you, Matthew?”
“Twelve.”
He looked up from his pad.
“Did you know that your neighbor, Mr. Charles, has his grandchildren staying with him?”
“Yes.”
“Well, the little boy, Teddy, has possibly wandered off somewhere. And you definitely haven’t seen him or heard him at all?”
I told him about the petals on the path and the gate being locked. I said that I’d thought Mr. Charles was gardening at the front and had just gone around to the back for something. I didn’t tell him he’d called me a fish and pointed at the window—it didn’t seem important. The policeman scribbled on his pad, his tongue sticking out at one corner as if he had to concentrate on looping the letters together. He rocked back until he was balancing on the back legs of the chair. Dad hated that.
“And did you tell anyone about this? That you’d seen a toddler on his own? Near the street?”
I blinked at him.
“I … I, well, no. I thought his granddad was around. I didn’t think there was anything wrong. And he wasn’t near the road. The gate was shut.”
The policeman scribbled something, then looked up at me.
“And why would you notice a thing like that.”
I felt a bit sick. “What?”
“The gate being shut.”
I accidentally leaned onto the doorframe, then stood bolt upright.
“I don’t know … I just look at things and see stuff. That’s all.”
Officer Campen wasn’t taking notes anymore.
“And why were you looking out the window in the first place? It’s summer vacation, why aren’t you off playing football or frying your brain with all that gaming you kids do?”
He tapped his pencil against his lips. I looked around the room, trying to think what to say.
“I was in the office at the front of the house, checking my email.”
The chair banged back down onto four legs and scraped along our tiled floor as Officer Campen stood up.
“Can I see?”
I took a step back so that I was in the hallway again.
“See what?”
“The window where you saw the boy when you were checking your email. Get an idea of how much you could see from there, okay?”
He didn’t wait for an answer and walked straight upstairs, shoes and all. His sweaty hand squeaked along our banister. I needed him to leave.
“In here?” he called and turned right, into the office. I quickly followed and stood guarding my room across the landing. I could hear the Wallpaper Lion growling quietly behind the door.
“You’ve got a good view of the whole road from here, haven’t you?” He placed both disease-ridden hands onto the sterile white windowsill and looked around.
“So you haven’t noticed anyone different hanging around? Any cars you didn’t recognize? Anything that was a bit strange?”
I thought of Casey pushing him in the pond but kept quiet.
“No. Nothing.”
He turned away from the window, looking around the room.
“Mum expecting again, is she?” he said, nodding toward the elephant mobile.
I shook my head, but he ignored me and headed back downstairs.
“Our neighbor went out running,” I said as I followed him.
“Which one was that then?” said Officer Campen as he picked up his hat and notebook.
“Mr. Jenkins, next door at number seven. He left at …” I took my own notebook out of my back pocket. “12:51 p.m.”
The policeman narrowed his eyes.
“You wrote it down?”
I nodded and quickly stuffed the book back into my pocket. What did I do that for? The policeman narrowed his eyes at me.
“Why would you write something like that down, eh? Something so trivial? Are you sure you didn’t see anything?”
The phone began to ring, and we both stared at the black receiver lying on the kitchen work surface; the little red light blinked on the top.
“You going to answer that?”
I didn’t move as the phone made three more rings. Officer Campen leaned back on the kitchen counter and folded his arms, watching me. I swallowed, my mouth bone-dry, as I walked toward the receiver. Phones harbored some of the worst germs imaginable owing to their intricate parts. I’d owned one cell phone in my life, but it hadn’t lasted long. Disinfectant and cell phones aren’t really made for each other.
I reached out, trying to hide my trembling hand, when the answering machine cut in and my mum’s voice filled the kitchen.
“Hello, you have reached the Corbin household. We’re obviously out somewhere having fun, so leave us a message and we’ll call you back. Ciao!”
She never says ciao in real life. In fact, I’ve never, ever known her to say it at any other time apart from on our answering machine. Another, deeper woman’s voice began to speak.
“Oh hello Mr. and Mrs. Corbin, this is Debbie from Dr. Rhodes’s office. I just wanted to confirm with you that Matthew’s first therapy appointment is tomorrow at ten. We look forward to seeing him then.”
Officer Campen reached for his hat, avoiding my eyes.
“Right, I’d better move on and knock at your neighbor’s. Mr. Jenkins, did you say his name was?” He didn’t wait for an answer and strode toward the front door, opening it quickly. After hearing that message he couldn’t wait to leave.
“Hopefully we’ll find him soon; we usually do. But we might need to come back and talk to you again, and your parents when they’re home from work, okay?”
Putting his hat on, he walked away and turned toward Hannah and Mr. Jenkins’s house. I pushed the door closed with my foot and ran upstairs to grab my cleaning things and made a start on the windowsill in the office before the germs spread too much. A trumpet blast announced that I had an email.
To: Matthew Corbin
From: Melody Bird
Subject: Police
Matty! Have you heard? Teddy’s gone missing!
M x
It appeared that she’d forgiven me for practically throwing her out of my house earlier. I quickly typed my answer; my fingertips felt dirty hitting the keys without any protection.
To: Melody Bird
From: Matthew Corbin
Re: Police
I know. The police just knocked on my door and asked me a load of questions. Did you see anything?
Matthew
I looked out on the cul-de-sac as a small crowd formed in the middle of the road. I took my notebook out again as I waited for her reply.
Teddy Dawson has gone missing. There are police everywhere and it looks like they are organizing a search party. Gordon, Sue, and Claudia are all taking part.
Gordon was wearing a white, wide-brimmed hat and clutching a bottle of water. He looked like he was about to go off on safari. A policewoman was pointing toward the top of the road as he nodded, taking in her instructions.
Hannah was talking to Officer Campen on her doorstep, and I caught the odd sentence.
“… he went out about one o’clock for a run and hasn’t come back yet … usually stops at the gym … works on his abs … teaches PE at the school …” I couldn’t see from the window, but I imagined her Californian smile was there as she talked about how great her husband was.
Old Nina was peering around her front door, head down, clearly terrified to be exposed to the outside world like this as another officer talked to her. The trumpet blasted again.
To: Matthew Corbin
From: Melody Bird
Re: Police
No, I didn’t see anything. Did you?
M
To: Melody Bird
From: Matthew Corbin
Re: Police
I saw him playing in the front yard earlier. That’s all.
Matthew
Mum’s car crawled along the street, and she parked outside Old Nina’s house because our driveway was blocked. She rushed over to the search party and her hand went up to her mouth. Melody’s reply flashed up on my screen.
To: Matthew Corbin
From: Melody Bird
Re: Police
Oh wow! You’re probably their best witness! And you didn’t see anything strange? Nothing at all? What about that kid Casey. Was she playing too? Wasn’t Mr. Charles with him?
Mel.
I groaned. I should have kept my mouth shut.
To: Melody Bird
From: Matthew Corbin
Re: Police
No sign of Casey or Mr. Charles. Mr. Jenkins went for a run and that was it.
Matthew
Our front door opened and Mum yelled up the stairs.
“Matthew! Have you heard? Isn’t it awful?! I’m going out with the search party now. I’ll speak to you later! Okay, darling?”
She didn’t wait for an answer and the door banged shut. I watched her hurry to join the group and link her arm in Sue’s as they headed down the road toward town.
A van pulled up, and two men went around the side of Mr. Charles’s house carrying some electrical equipment and some plastic pipes. I went back to my room.
One of the men was putting a black cylinder into the middle of the pond while the other walked to an outdoor socket on the patio and plugged it in. The pump began to hum, and after a few seconds water began to gush out of a long blue pipe onto the flower bed where it puddled in the bone-dry earth. Within minutes the pond was empty, and one of the men took his shoes and socks off and rolled up his trousers before stepping down into the dirty sludge. As he raked about in the mud I wondered if he’d find the dead chick that Teddy had thrown in there.
“Stop! Stop! What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?! There’re fish in there! You’ll kill them!”
Mr. Charles was running down his yard, waving both of his fists in the air. He’d changed clothes and was wearing a white vest over some pale blue trousers. A forest of gray hair smothered his shoulders.
“Who said you could do that? I didn’t give permission for you to touch my pond!”
The man on the lawn spoke to him quietly. It was obvious without draining it that Teddy wasn’t in the pond, so I can only assume they were looking for clues.
Mr. Charles ignored the man and went into his shed and came out carrying a large black bucket, which he filled from an outside tap. He then struggled with it toward the empty pond as the man in the sludge stood waiting with something scooped in his hands. I saw a sliver of orange as he dropped the fish into the bucket and Mr. Charles crouched down to inspect it.
“There are five more in there, you know. And I want every one out alive!”
Mr. Charles was really shouting now. The man on the lawn put a hand on his shoulder as he tried to calm him down, but Mr. Charles shrugged him off. He went back to the patio and began to fiddle with a yellow hose that was on a wheel fixed to the side of his house. The man in the pond scooped out two more fish as Mr. Charles marched back down to the garden with the trigger of the hose in his hand as it unraveled behind him. He stood there, aiming the hose at the pond, and waited.
Ten minutes later the pond had been fully searched, with only one more fish making it into the bucket. The men gathered up their equipment and headed back to the front of the house, shaking their heads.
Without a word Mr. Charles pulled the trigger on the hose, and a sharp blast of water hit the plastic pond liner. He stood there, motionless, until the pond was full once more.
At 6 p.m. I watched as two sniffer dogs ran excitedly around the neighborhood, their tails circling madly. They looked like they were onto something, only to turn around and head off in a different direction. They stopped and sniffed at a lamppost outside Penny and Gordon’s house as Frankie yapped frantically from the window of number three. Melody’s arms appeared briefly around the net curtain as she lifted the dog out of sight. The handlers directed them around the cul-de-sac as they searched each yard, and then they headed down the alleyway toward the graveyard.
The computer made a trumpet sound and an email appeared on the screen.
To: Matthew Corbin
From: Jake Bishop
Subject: Old Nina Took Teddy!!!
Old Nina’s got him. She’s a witch. She’s probably baking him in a pie right now!!!!
Jake
I stared at the message. Apart from the occasional yells of abuse, I hadn’t really had much to do with Jake Bishop lately. In fact, this was the first contact I’d had with him without him calling me a freak or a weirdo for about two years. I wasn’t really sure what to say.
To: Jake Bishop
From: Matthew Corbin
Re: Old Nina Took Teddy!!!
Of course she’s not a witch! Did you see anything?
Matthew
I looked back over my notes. Jake had sped off on his bike after Old Nina had pointed her finger at him when he was hassling Melody. That was the last I knew about his whereabouts.
To: Matthew Corbin
From: Jake Bishop
Re: Old Nina Took Teddy!!!
The only thing I’ve seen is your stupid gawping face staring out of that window of yours. What do you do up there all day exactly?
I deleted the email without answering.