Guys Read_ Funny Business_ Artemis Begins - Eoin Colfer [2]
“Who broke the award?” asked Donal, dragging it out.
Niall pointed to his own head. “It was me. I broke the award.”
Donal mashed a clod of clay onto G.I. Joe’s head. “Well, if you’re the one who broke Mum’s award, you might as well leave home now, because she’s going to go straight to DEFCON four.”
Donal loved using military terms to confuse his little brother.
“DEFCON four?”
“Oh, yep. I remember a milkman made the wrong delivery once. Gave Mom a bit of cheek, and she went from zero to DEFCON four in six point three seconds. Broke every bottle of milk in the lorry. Stamped on all the yogurt cartons. It was a massacre.”
This was good stuff. I wrote as quickly as I could. Donal was a gold mine.
Niall’s face fell. “A massacre?”
He was a clever boy. Only six years old and already he knew what the word “massacre” meant. He tugged on Donal’s mucky sleeve. “You can help me, Donnie. You know stuff. Everyone in the estates knows you have powers.”
Donal was torn. On the one hand there is nothing a big brother likes better than seeing his little brother up to his neck in trouble, especially when that little brother is such a cutie that trouble usually slides off him. But on the other hand his professional curiosity was aroused. Could he get Niall off the hook for such an extreme crime? If he managed it, the name Donal would become legendary around the estates.
I could be bigger than Santa Claus, I imagined him imagining.
Eventually Donal thought of a plan that could both dig Niall out of the hole he was in and inflict a little brotherly pain at the same time. Perfect.
“I will help you,” he said magnanimously.
“Thanks, brother,” said Niall, collapsing in a grateful heap. “He’s great, isn’t he, Eoin?”
“I am not here, remember?” I said. Some people are a bit slow to catch on.
Donal brought Niall to the top of the stairs, where they waited for my mother’s return. I followed a couple of spaces behind. I had an idea what was coming but it would have been wrong of me to intervene, just as it would be wrong of a nature reporter to come between two monkeys in the wild.
“When Mom sees the smashed award she will be furious,” Donal explained.
Niall nodded. “DEFCON four.”
“Exactly, grasshopper. So, my job is to somehow turn that fury into sympathy. I have to do something so extreme that Mom won’t even remember why she was angry in the first place.”
Niall was nodding like a little bobblehead toy. He would have done anything. Anything.
“All you have to do is kneel here, at the edge of the stairs, and when I give the signal, scream like you’re in great pain.”
“What’s the signal?” asked Niall, which I thought was a fair question, but Donal would not have agreed with my thought had I voiced it, which I didn’t, as I was merely an observer.
“What’s the signal?” Donal repeated, shocked. “What’s the sig…Are you questioning my methods? Are you trying to run the show? Maybe I should just leave you to get out of trouble yourself and see how far you get.”
Niall’s nose candles dripped in shock. “No. No. Don’t go. I’ll be good.”
“You will be obedient,” corrected Donal. “Like a puppy!”
“Woof,” said Niall.
“Okay. You’ll know the signal when you see it.” Donal poked his head between the banister posts. “Now we wait.”
It was not a long wait. Mere seconds later we heard the familiar snick of the front door closing and the mutter of Mom’s voice as she complained to herself about the person she had just been talking to. We followed her footsteps down the hallway and into the kitchen, where the crystal shards would be winking a Morse code of guilt that read: NIALL NIALL NIALL.
“Niall!” my mother shrieked, being well-versed in crystal codes. “Niall!”
“Here we go,” said Donal, rubbing his hands.
Niall pointed at the rubbing hands. Was that the signal? He was afraid to ask.
Mom was on the hunt now. She picked up the trail of muddy trainers coming in the back door, followed it to the bottom of the stairway. From above, her body language