Squishy Taylor and the Vase That Wasn't Page 2

  We take it in turns to jump up and down in front of the window, but she doesn’t see us.

  ‘Wonder what she’s working on?’ I say, while Vee looks through the telescope.

  ‘Ha!’ Jessie says, from below. ‘Equal-seventh most basic password ever! I’m in.’

  We drop onto her bunk. The screen is divided into two black-and-white scenes showing the twelfth-floor corridor. It’s like two grainy YouTube clips next to each other. One shot is from the lift and the other from the stairwell door. They’re both empty.

  ‘The thief must have come in through the balcony,’ I say.

  ‘I haven’t searched the right time yet, dummy,’ Jessie says, sliding the fast-forward bar down the bottom. ‘Let’s look at when he first found out … What time do we get home from school?’

  Suddenly the screen shows Haunted Guy appearing out of his door, waving his arms and running towards the lift. She slides it some more and then he and Mr Hinkenbushel walk back down the corridor.

  ‘OK, sooo –’ Jessie says, sliding the bar back further in time to the night of the haunting.

  ‘There!’ Vee and I say at the same time. Jessie freezes the screen.

  We all stare at it. For the first time, I really, truly believe in ghosts.

  It’s an olden-days-looking Chinese soldier, standing perfectly still. He’s wearing armour carved with dragons and a helmet covering his eyes. He’s holding a spear. He doesn’t move once.

  Jessie slides the time-bar forwards and backwards. At 11.59, there’s nothing. Then at midnight, the ghost suddenly appears. It stands absolutely still for exactly thirteen seconds. You might not think thirteen seconds is a long time, but when you’re looking at a ghost, I promise you, it is. After exactly thirteen seconds, it fades to white and then disappears.

  ‘No way!’ Jessie whispers. ‘No way, no way!’

  I realise Vee’s hand is gripping mine.

  Jessie starts sliding the time-bar back and forth, like she’ll find something we’ve missed.

  Then the screen freezes.

  A text box flashes up and the words Don’t you dare appear in it, one letter at a time. It’s like there’s a ghost inside the iPad.

  Vee gives a little scream.

  Then a profile picture loads beside the words. It’s Mr Hinkenbushel.

  Mr Hinkenbushel is actually writing to us on our screen: Nosy brats, he says. If you do this again, I’ll seize your iPad for evidence. Go play hopscotch. The security screen slides away and we’re back to the Google homepage.

  Jessie gasps. ‘How did he do that?’

  Vee: ‘It was a ghost. Was it a ghost?’

  Jessie: ‘No, it was Mr Hinkenbushel. He must be tracking who else is accessing the footage as part of his investigation.’

  Vee: ‘But before that. There was a ghost before that.’

  I’m a little bit scared of the ghost. I’m more worried about Mr Hinkenbushel. I don’t want him to be in our iPad. I don’t want him to spy on us. The iPad is the only way for me to talk to Mum. It makes me kind of angry, thinking Mr Hinkenbushel could look at me talking to her.

  ‘Can Mr Hinkenbushel see what we’re doing on the iPad whenever he wants?’ I ask.

  Jessie frowns. ‘No. Why would you think that?’

  ‘Because he was just there, talking to us.’

  ‘I think,’ Jessie explains, ‘he can only talk to us from the security website. Maybe because he’s investigating, he can see what anyone on that website is doing.’ She pauses and shakes her head. ‘He can’t just look at us anytime. That would be illegal.’

  ‘Oh.’ I feel a big wash of relief.

  Vee looks half-scared, half-angry. ‘I can’t believe that’s what you’re talking about,’ she hisses. ‘Don’t you even care that we saw a ghost?’

  Alice sends us off to bed, and we go quietly. The image of that ghost is appearing and disappearing in my mind.

  ‘If the ghost can steal a vase,’ Vee whispers in the dark, ‘what else can it do?’

  ‘It can’t really be a ghost,’ Jessie says. ‘It’s got to be some kind of hoax.’

  ‘It could be either,’ I say. Whichever way, it’s a mystery, so I’m happy.

  In the night, I wake up because Vee is climbing out of bed. I get a fright and lie there, clutching my blanket. A few moments later, Alice brings Vee back and tucks her in.

  ‘Don’t be scared,’ Alice whispers. ‘I’m here.’ She stands for a while next to Vee’s pillow. My heart slows back down to normal and I fall asleep before Alice leaves.

  Jessie looks extra-thoughtful over breakfast, but doesn’t say much. Vee is turning her porridge over without putting any in her mouth. Baby smashes bits of apple against the table and drops them on the floor. He’s not scared of anything.

  We don’t talk about the vase, but the whole day I’m a little bit tingly because I know there’s something big happening.

  ‘Hey, you guys,’ Dad says, as we all arrive home from school. ‘Someone got an email from Geneva today.’

  ‘Woohooo!’ I shout and run over. Emails from Mum usually mean movie vouchers or music credit.

  He shakes his finger, grinning. ‘Not for you, Squisho, for somebody else.’

  He passes the iPad over to Jessie.

  I just stare. Mum emailed Jessie? The world feels wrong. I can feel my eyes prickling hot and I don’t know what to do. Then Dad gives everyone his matching, exactly equal forehead-kisses. And I’m suddenly hot-hot angry.

  That’s my dad and my mum. It’s fine that they live apart. I got used to that ages ago. It’s fine that I have to share a bedroom with my bonus sisters. They are actually mostly pretty fun. But I need some special things, some things only for me.

  I whack the butter knife down on the bench, nearly break the Vegemite jar, and slam the cupboard closed. No-one notices.

  Dad asks Vee how school was, looking all concerned because she’s so quiet. While Jessie sits at the table, reading an email from my mum.

  No-one notices me banging plates.

  ‘Wow!’ says Jessie. She keeps reading silently. Then she says, ‘Oh, what?’

  There’s another pause. What does she think we’re going to do? Beg to be told what she’s reading?

  ‘No way!’ Jessie says.

  I actually hate her.

  ‘What is it? What does it say?’ Vee asks, falling for Jessie’s game.

  ‘So …’ Jessie says, sounding all smug. ‘Devika sent me an article about the Opium Wars. It says there were forty-seven matching vases in a temple, and a British admiral killed the priests and stole all the vases.’

  ‘Whoa,’ Vee says, pulling her chair closer. ‘He killed the priests?’

  Jessie nods. ‘Later, he sold the vases for lots of money all around the world.’

  I’m listening, even though I wish I wasn’t. Even though I wish Mum had sent the email to me, not Jessie. I can’t help feeling a bit interested.

  ‘Now there’s an international treaty,’ says Jessie, ‘between heaps of museums, agreeing to give the vases back. But they haven’t found them all. They think greedy people are keeping them a secret.’

  Dad grins. ‘This is totally Devika’s thing. She loves a bit of righting old wrongs.’

  He’s right. Mum calls it ‘justice work’ and it’s what she loves about her job.

  Then Jessie squeals, which wakes up Baby, who starts howling.

  ‘What?’ Dad and I ask.

  ‘It’s the same vase,’ Jessie says. ‘The one from upstairs is one of the forty-seven.’

  I run across to look over her shoulder. Dad and Vee crowd in. Jessie shows us the picture from Mum’s article. It’s exactly the same as the picture we saw on the tram.

  Jessie does a search for the news article then flicks between the two pictures.

  ‘So. The vase upstairs was stolen from a temple by a greedy British admiral,’ I say.

  Vee looks grim. ‘And then stolen back by a ghost,’ she says.

  ‘What ghost?’ Dad a
sks.

  Just then, there’s a knock on the door. I run to answer it, because I’m the nearest.

  It’s Mr Hinkenbushel.

  ‘I need to talk to you, Mr Taylor,’ he says, as if I’m not standing right in front of him. ‘Your kids have been hacking the damn security footage.’

  Dad has gone over to Mr Hinkenbushel’s place with Baby. Which feels really weird because Dad and Mr Hinkenbushel don’t like each other. But sometimes even adults who hate each other become allies, just to gang up on kids.

  We’re left sitting on the lounge-room floor, waiting to find out what kind of trouble we’re in. It’s supposed to be dinnertime and no-one’s cooking.

  Vee looks pretty worried. ‘Killing and stealing,’ she says. ‘That’s exactly what makes a ghost.’ She’s jiggling her knee nervously.

  ‘It has to be a hoax,’ Jessie says. ‘So someone could steal that vase.’

  ‘How could it be a hoax?’ Vee asks, her voice a bit high.

  ‘Someone in a costume?’ suggests Jessie.

  ‘But what about how it just faded?’

  Jessie shrugs. Vee looks even more creeped out.

  I’m creeped out too, but in a good way. Is it a hoax or haunting? Either way, it’s huge.

  ‘Well,’ I say, ‘the main thing is that the vase should be returned to China.’

  The others nod.

  Then I think of something else. ‘Why do you think Mr Hinkenbushel wanted to stop us looking at the ghost?’

  ‘It wasn’t a ghost,’ Jessie says.

  ‘How do you know?’ Vee asks. It’s getting darker outside, and she’s looking more and more nervous. There’s something a bit catching about the way she jumps and stares around whenever there’s a noise.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jessie says. ‘Let’s look at the footage again now, while Mr Hinkenbushel is distracted with Tom.’ She’s already hunting around for something.

  ‘Dad took the iPad,’ I say. I saw him slip it under his arm on his way out. Jessie stands still, like she doesn’t know what do to next.

  We need a plan. Vee is jiggling like a crazy person and biting her lip.

  ‘In the movie, they did this thing to scare off the ghost,’ Vee says. ‘They did chanting and drew a magic circle. One man held a big black book.’

  It sounds exciting, like a scary kind of fun. But Jessie is shaking her head. I can tell she’s worried about how seriously Vee is taking the ghost thing.

  ‘We need to look at that security footage again somehow,’ Jessie says. ‘Or get someone else to.’

  ‘What about Boring Lady?’ I suggest.

  ‘What about her?’ Jessie asks.

  ‘Well, she is the Chief of Special Secret Undercover Operations,’ I say.

  Vee looks hopeful. ‘Do you reckon we could signal her?’

  I scramble off the floor and grab the torch from under the sink. I switch it on and blind myself. It’s definitely bright enough.

  We all run into our bedroom.

  ‘Is she there?’ Vee asks.

  She’s there.

  I shine the torch towards the window, but it just reflects back at our faces. Jessie takes the torch and pushes it against the glass. She scrapes it from side to side.

  I do a high kick up to my bunk and sprawl, staring through the telescope and thinking, Look at us, Boring Lady, look at us. But she doesn’t. She just keeps typing. Her face is concentratey –with a little frown.

  Vee is getting more desperate. ‘This isn’t working.’

  ‘OK, what about this?’ Jessie runs to the door and switches our bedroom light on and off, on and off. Surely Boring Lady will notice a whole window flickering.

  She doesn’t.

  ‘Boring Lady, help!’ Vee shouts. Even though we all know she can’t hear us.

  ‘We could email her,’ Jessie begins, then stops herself. ‘Only we don’t have the iPad.’

  It’s starting to feel like Dad and Alice are never coming home and Vee looks panicky.

  ‘OK, you know what we should do?’ I say. ‘You know who would believe us?’

  The others look at me.

  ‘Haunted Guy!’ I say. ‘Maybe he’d let us look at the ghost on his computer.’

  We stare at each other for a moment.

  Vee says, ‘You’re right. If anyone believes us, he will.’

  ‘Should we go visit him?’ I ask. ‘Now?’

  That’s when Dad walks in with Baby. And he is mad.

  We eat cheese on toast for dinner in silence while Alice puts Baby to bed and Dad skypes Mum. He talks to her for ages in our bedroom – probably all about how bad I am. When he comes back with Mum still on the iPad, it should be my turn.

  But it’s not. Dad props Mum up on the kitchen table and makes us sit where we can see her.

  ‘Family meeting,’ he says, as Alice steps in quietly, closing the door.

  I groan. ‘Family meeting’ translates to: ‘Adults talk too much. Kids get bored.’ I just want to visit Haunted Guy.

  The adults take it in turns to tell us about using the internet responsibly. Which is exactly as interesting as I guessed.

  ‘From now on, we’re going to have a new rule,’ Alice says. ‘You’re only allowed to use the iPad in the lounge room.’

  Jessie protests.

  I look at Mum, who’s looking seriously out of the screen. ‘But what about when I skype you?’ I ask.

  She shakes her head. ‘Sorry, Squisho. Lounge room only. You just lost your privileges.’

  We do pleading faces. We promise to be so, so, so good. The grownups don’t shift.

  Then I have to hang up on my mum without talking to her properly. Again. That’s the third night in a row that we haven’t talked properly.

  And it’s too late to go visit Haunted Guy. They make us go straight to bed. We’re not even tired.

  Vee actually climbs the ladder to her bunk. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her do that. Alice flicks off the light and I hear Vee’s breathing get frightened.

  I don’t care. At least her mum kisses her goodnight. I’m not even allowed to talk to my mum.

  I wake up in the dark with something touching my face.

  ‘Can you hear that?’ Vee whispers. She’s hanging over the side of the bunk. Her fingers are tapping my ear.

  I scrabble at her hand. ‘No, shhh,’ I say.

  I listen for a while, but don’t hear anything.

  ‘We need to do that thing they did in the movie to scare off the ghost,’ Vee says, sounding scared.

  ‘Vee, go back to sleep.’

  In the morning, Vee looks ragged. Over breakfast, she talks to Dad and Alice about hauntings in a scared voice. They are too rushed to really notice. But this ghost thing is getting serious.

  ‘Let’s go straight to Haunted Guy’s after school and get this straight,’ Jessie says in my ear as the tram dings through the rain. She’s looking at Vee’s tired face.

  I nod. I want to discover the truth and look after Vee. We’re on a mission.

  Haunted Guy lives on level twelve, which is the very top of our building (apart from the roof). The corridors are exactly the same. His door is almost like ours – only without the dirty fingerprints.

  ‘What are we gonna say?’ whispers Vee, as Jessie holds out her fist to knock.

  ‘We’ll tell him the truth,’ Jessie says, hitching up her schoolbag.

  ‘What truth?’ I ask, but she’s already rapped twice.

  Haunted Guy doesn’t answer the door. A lady does. She’s wearing jeans and a massive bright scarf.

  We all smile at her.

  ‘Hello,’ she says, smiling back. ‘What can I do for you people?’

  Grown-ups love it when kids make eye contact, as long as you’re smiling. That’s something Mum taught me. Even if you feel shy, meet the grown-up’s eyes. Gets ’em every time.

  ‘Um … we came to talk to, um … the man who lives here about his … his … missing vase,’ Jessie says.

  The lady chuckles. ‘Y
ou mean you want to know all about the ghost?’ she asks. ‘How did you hear about it?’

  We all talk at once.

  Jessie says, ‘We live downstairs.’

  ‘We saw him in the foyer right after it happened,’ I say.

  ‘The ghost was on our iPad, but we’re not allowed to look at it anymore,’ Vee explains.

  ‘All right, all right, slow down,’ the lady laughs. ‘Sounds like we’re neighbours. I’m Mina, and the man you saw was my brother, Harry. Wanna come in? Harry’s still at work, but you can talk to me.’

  The apartment is the same shape as ours, but has about one-tenth of the stuff in it.

  ‘Firstly,’ Mina says, shoving a laptop aside and piling crackers on a plate, ‘the ghost is not real, I promise you. Now sit down.’

  We all sit around Harry’s table.

  Vee says, ‘The ghost is real, we saw the security footage.’

  ‘You saw the security footage?’ Mina looks a little bit surprised and glances at the laptop on the table. Then she looks back at us with arched eyebrows. ‘How did you manage that?’ Her listening smile reminds me of Mum when I’ve come home from some crazy adventure.

  So Jessie explains about hacking into the security footage and seeing the Chinese ghost. Vee tells about Mr Hinkenbushel stopping us from looking, and how we’re banned from the iPad.

  I say, ‘So Vee thinks it’s a ghost and Jessie thinks it’s a hoax to steal the vase. Either way, we know the vase needs to be returned to China. We knew if anyone would care about what we discovered, your brother –’

  ‘Harry,’ Mina says.

  ‘– Harry would care. And –’

  Jessie interrupts. ‘And maybe he’d let us check the security footage again on his computer.’ She nods towards the laptop.

  Mina bursts out laughing. ‘You are some seriously cheeky kids!’ she says. ‘Listen, I don’t have the password for his computer, so we can’t check that security footage. But I promise there’s no ghost. OK?’

  Vee nods. But I’m annoyed. Even though Mina is funny and nice, we saw the ghost with our own eyes. She doesn’t seem to care about the temple at all. She’s just making promises with that grown-up bossiness, like we should just believe her. Plus, the laptop is right there in front of us. I bet Jessie could crack the password.