Read Online Sleuth on Skates by Clementine Beauvais - Free Book Online

bomb, and put it down on the table. It was called
Happy Ducks
and, appropriately, was decorated with a picture of a smiling duck. Just underneath the duck, there was the small C in a circle I’d seen on Fiona’s T-shirt and somewhere else. I flicked through the magazine. It wasfull of very useful objects that the keen duck-breeder would need. Duck food! Egg incubators! Little coats for ducklings!
    â€œThat’s amazingly cool,” I said. “I think we should try it! Look, you can get a beginner duck-rearing kit from only £124.99! Can we? Can we?”
    Dad just rolled his eyes and picked up the
Telegraph
.
    â€œGood morning, Mummy, are you in a good mood?”
    â€œWhy? Do you have something to confess?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œThen if I’m in a good mood it’s very likely to change. What is it?”
    â€œWell, please don’t make me reveal my sources, but I have splendid evidence that Jenna Jenkins’s kidnapper is none other than Professor Ian Philips, probably helped by his brother Professor Archie Philips. They locked the poor girl in a broom cupboard in the Fitzwilliam Museum.”
    Mum looked at Dad, who looked at Mum, and they both produced vexingly loud laughs. Dad smiled and said, “The good thing about Sophie is that she’s an imaginative little Scheherazade.”

    â€œNo, seriously, parents, you have to believe me. He kidnapped Jenna and left her to rot with only a box of biscuits and a pile of comics in a cupboard. I don’t know where she is now, but that’s the absolute truth. And Archie Philips is involved in the Tsarina affair! And they both use the Fitz as a base for their illegal activities. . . .”
    â€œMy adorable, insane little girl,” cooed Dad. “Go and get dressed. You’re going to be late for school.”
    â€œDad, I swear to God . . .”
    â€œDon’t swear to God.”
    â€œI swear to the Archangel Gabriel . . .”
    â€œDon’t swear at all.”
    â€œBut Daddy, seriously, look at me, I have my serious face on—seriously, the Professor Brothers of Evil have to be arrested. You have to call the police because if I do it they won’t believe me. . . .”
    â€œYou’re right, they won’t. Go and put your uniform on.”
    â€œBut they’re the only ones who can tell us where Jenna Jenkins is!”
    â€œOh, Sophie,” sighed Mum, half-smiling. “Everything’s fine. We know where Jenna Jenkins is.”
    My eyeballs almost fell out of their sockets, but I pressed them back in. “What?”
    â€œWe received a letter from her this morning. It’s just as we suspected—she had a nervous breakdown and left college for a few days to go to London. When she realized everyone was looking for her, she came back and wrote toexplain what had happened. She’s still shaken up, so she’s going to give up on her degree this year and come back next year.
    â€œSo you see,” said Dad, “there’s nothing at all to worry about, my little spinner of funny tales.”

    Still frowning with incomprehension, I joined Gemma and Toby on the school field.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?” asked Gemma.
    â€œFirstly, PE. Secondly, Jenna Jenkins has mysteriously reappeared. You’ll never believe it.”
    I explained everything to them, and they gaped at the tale of my midnight escapade.
    â€œI don’t get it,” said Toby eventually. “If Jenna Jenkins says she was in London, who was locked in the cupboard?”
    â€œIt can’t be anyone else. No one else was missing! Jenna Jenkins is nose-lengtheningly lying in the manner of Pinocchio. She was in that cupboard: I smelt her.”
    Toby said, tying his shoelaces, “Maybe yougot it all wrong, Sesame. Maybe it wasn’t your mum’s perfume, just the smell of cleaning products.”
    â€œAre you saying my mum smells like a