Half Moon Investigations - Eoin Colfer [70]
I heard Larry and Adam growling. The noise rumbled across the yard like the revving of two sports cars. I thought it was the most frightening sound I had ever heard, until it was followed by the rapid clicking of their clawed paws on the tarmac.
I stood, grabbing the bars and shaking them, as though I could dislodge the metal poles from their cement beds.
‘Red!’ I called, mindless of our supposed stealth. ‘Get out! They’ll eat you alive, or kill you then eat you.’
Next I heard the whistle. Two short notes. Maybe that was my signal to come in, or maybe Red didn’t want to die alone.
‘Red?’ I hissed into the blackness. ‘Are you alive? Can you talk? Do you need stitches?’
A set of teeth appeared before me. ‘Will you please shut up? You heard my whistle, didn’t you? So come on.’
I struggled over the fence, without arguing. Red had faced Larry and Adam and survived. His hardman status was assured for life.
I crossed the yard, using years of memory to guide me. Ahead I could hear Red’s footfalls and a gristly, slurping noise. My imagination, fed on years of murder-mystery novels, supplied gruesome explanations for these noises. When I drew closer to the shadows around the main building, I saw that the slurping noises were, in fact, slurping, as Larry and Adam licked the grease from the frying pans.
Red knelt between the dogs, slowly tethering them both to the school oil tank. ‘Roddy knows every security dog in Lock. They love him. I think it’s because he’s a bit of a mutt himself. You show any dog in a five-mile radius these frying pans and they roll over to get their bellies tickled.’
‘Very clever.’
Red shrugged. ‘An old trick. We never wash those pans, in case a dog needs distracting.’
My stomach wobbled. I distinctly remembered Genie serving up sausages from those pans. How many dogs had licked them before now? It was probably wiser not to ask.
We skirted the hopscotch squares, tiptoeing across to the office window. The blind wasn’t drawn and an alarm sensor squatted bug-like on the sill.
‘That’s it,’ I said, sighing a whoosh of relief. I couldn’t help it. ‘We can’t open the window.’
Red placed his toolbox on the sill. ‘I don’t want to open it,’ he said. ‘Opening it would set off the alarm.’
If Red was stating the obvious just to make me feel like a moron, it was working.
He selected a flat chisel from the box, sliding it under the strip of rubber that held the glass in place. He patiently wiggled the chisel across the bottom of the window, up the side, across the top and back to the beginning, removing each length of rubber as he reached a corner.
‘Knock, knock,’ said Red, rapping smartly on the centre of the pane. It flexed then toppled from the frame. He caught it, laying it carefully on the ground.
‘The sensor is only activated if the window opens. This way, I don’t break the connection.’
Another nugget of Sharkey wisdom. A hundred and one things you don’t learn in school.
‘I’ll remember that.’
Red paused and dropped his head. ‘Don’t remember it, Fletcher. When this is all over, forget everything we’ve done. I’m going to try. I’ve been trying.’
It was dark and Red was wearing a mask, but I knew how his face would look. Pained. This break-in was costing him.
He took a breath before vaulting through the window frame into the office shadows. I clambered after him, not quite as gracefully, but I managed to gain entry without jarring the frame.
Red switched on his pencil torch. ‘Now, what are we looking for?’
I felt my way across to the desk. This office was making me extremely nervous. The musky odour of two Dobermanns still clung to the walls, and the wet-wool smell of Principal Quinn wafted from the chair like a ghost of her presence.
‘This,’ I said, hauling her patterned velour ledger from the drawer. ‘Principal Quinn keeps a unique record of every student’s school activities. We should be able to spot the final connection from the pictures.’
I heaved open the