The Case of the Exploding Loo Read Online Free Page B

can’t even be cross, because Curry in a Hurry Man is so apologetic and so desperate to make it up to me.
    “Drink!” Curry in a Hurry Man forces a styrofoam cup into my hand. “I am bringing the world’s best hot chocolate just for your good self. This I will be doing every day,
thirty minutes after four, to make apologies for my oh-so-clumsy actions.”
    “Hot chocolate?” I like hot chocolate. “Yum. Thanks. There’s no need, but if you insist . . .”
    “I am insisting.” Curry in a Hurry Man bows and apologises all the way back to his moped. There’s a split second, while he’s pulling on his helmet, when his expression
seems to change into a sneer, but it must be a trick of the light.
    Either way, I’ve missed my chance of convincing the police to warm up the case again.
    I sip my hot chocolate. It tastes bitter but I drink it anyway, gagging when I spot a familiar turquoise vehicle on the other side of the road.
    CLUE 10
    The Kazinsky Electronics van is parked outside our house almost every day now.
    It makes me nervous.
    Holly says that’s because everything makes me nervous. She might have a point. The van doesn’t seem to bother anyone else.
    I shuffle upstairs to my room, feeling incredibly tired all of a sudden. I fall asleep hugging Dad’s shoes. Other people have fluffy teddies to cuddle. I have a pair of slightly scorched
leather lace-ups. When I wake up an hour later, the thought of burning them makes me shudder.
    I don’t know what happened while I was asleep. I never get attached to anything that doesn’t have internet access, but for the rest of the day I find my hands automatically reaching
for the shoes and stroking them.

7
The Importance of Names
    Holly decides that if the police are no longer investigating Dad’s disappearance then we need to find our own witnesses. She designs a poster to stick up around town and
asks me to scan and upload it.

    I study the poster she’s handed me. It looks familiar.
    “Did you base this on next-door’s missing cat poster?”
    “What if I did?” Holly folds her arms. “They got Sheba back, didn’t they? Are you going to sit there asking stupid questions or are you going to scan it for me?”
Her kicking foot is swinging.
    I start scanning.
    We get all sorts of strange replies to the lost cat Dad poster. One seems promising, although it’s just as odd as the others:
    I am Porter. I am 14. I have information about the toilet explosion and film of the Christmas market. I can meet you to discuss it, but only in your home and only after
     dark. No front doors.
    “I told him to come round tonight,” Holly says, showing me the email.
    “To our house?” I squeak. “Are you completely mad? He’s probably planning to murder us in our beds.”
    “Then don’t go to bed. Come on, Know-All, this is important.”
    “Have you read this note, Holly? Only after dark? No front doors? What is he? Some kind of vampire? Doesn’t this strike you as weird?”
    “No weirder than exploding toilets and disappearing parents. Do you want to find Dad or not?”
    “Of course I do.”
    That doesn’t stop me screaming when I hear a bang later that night.
    I jump straight out of bed – I don’t want to take any chances – and check my phone.
    22:47
    I’m not tired, probably because I’ve been napping every afternoon this week. Something about the combination of stress and Curry in a Hurry hot chocolate always knocks me out.
    Wide awake now, I tiptoe across the landing to check on Holly. Her bedroom light is off but I can make out her silhouette against the window as she lifts the latch.
    “Noooooo,” I yell.
    But the dark figure pushes against the window and clambers over the sill. He moves towards me in the dark, lifting his right arm, brandishing a weapon. Without thinking, I rush at him and drive
him backwards, knocking him off balance so he stumbles into Holly’s open wardrobe. I shove his chest with a strength I didn’t know I had and slam