Half Moon Investigations - Eoin Colfer [3]
I approached the circle round the fight, uncertain why my feet were carrying me there. What could be here for a detective? I was not fond of violent situations. It wasn’t that I’d never been in a fight, it was just that I’d never won one. But there was a stronger instinct driving me forward. I smelt a mystery. My detective’s nose pulled me closer to the action. I could no more ignore this than a magpie could ignore a diamond ring on a window sill.
Doobie elbowed his way through the crowd.
‘I got him. I got Moon.’
The crowd parted, repelled by the sight of Doobie’s nose. Nobody wanted to chance contact with those stringy greeners. I followed through to the eye of the hurricane. All eyes were on me, which was not how it was supposed to be. Detectives should never be in the thick of the action. We were supposed to turn up later and ask questions. The closest a detective gets to a bullet is dusting the shell casing for prints. And yet here I was, following an eight-year-old into the middle of a fight circle.
There were two figures in the centre. One was Herod Sharkey, short and skinny with the signature Sharkey red hair. The other was not a boy, as Doobie had thought: it was Bella Barnes, the biggest kid in the school. Bella stood nearly six feet tall in her woolly stockings and played rugby on the boys’ team. Nobody messed with Bella. Ever. Not even the teachers. And yet here was Herod Sharkey latched on to her back like a tick on a mutt.
I was stunned for a moment. Then I composed myself and took a mental snapshot of the scene, memorizing the details. According to the Bernstein Manual: A detective never knows which seemingly insignificant fact will solve the case.
So. Details. Bella Barnes. One eighty. Maybe seventy-five kilos. Eighty. Regulation school uniform, except for expressly forbidden drop earrings, which could catch on a doorknob and rip a lobe according to Mrs Quinn, the school principal. Though nobody had ever seen or heard of this happening.
Then there was Herod Sharkey. Known as Roddy to his family, and not to be confused with his big brother, Red. About 1.37 tall, silver tracksuit and brown climbing boots. Not school regulation, but the height of ten-year-old cool. Herod had his skinny arms wrapped round Bella’s neck, and they were barely long enough to meet at the front. Strictly speaking, this was not a classic headlock, as only one of the antagonists had a grip on the other.
Herod looked up from his struggle. His face was flushed but determined. A hush dropped like a blanket over the other kids as they waited for the little Sharkey to speak. I had a feeling that, whatever he said, I wouldn’t like it.
‘Moon, you nerd,’ said Herod.
So far, my feeling was right.
‘You’re the big detective. Prove to this hippo that 1 didn’t take her organizer.’
Bella bucked, tossing Herod like a rodeo jockey, but he held on grimly.
‘You took it,’ rasped Bella. ‘April saw you.’
‘Barbie is lying! I didn’t take nothing.’
A delicate-looking girly-girl in the crowd pointed a finger at Herod.
‘Double negative!’ she squealed triumphantly. ‘You did it, Sharkey. I saw you. You and your brother have been stealing from us for years.’
This was April Devereux, ten years old and already the head of an entire tribe of Barbites. Herod’s description of her may not have been very politically correct, but it was accurate. If a Barbie doll walked through a magnification tunnel, April Devereux would emerge at the other end.
‘You’re lying!’ shouted Herod. ‘And Half Moon will prove it.’
I was wondering how long it would be before someone brought up my nickname. I had been christened Half Moon by Red Sharkey back when I was in third class. Even then I hadn’t been the tallest stalk in the field.
‘What do you expect me to do?’ I asked him.
‘You’re always banging on about