Squishy Taylor and the Mess-Makers (3 page)

I think about my mum suggesting I break into the hotel. ‘I’ll go ask her,’ I say.

‘You will
not,’
Jessie says.

Vee pops up from behind the couch where she’s been building towers for Baby to knock down. She’s got a smile on her face. ‘How are we gonna meet her?’ she asks.

‘Dinner!’ Dad interrupts. ‘Someone wake up Alice.’

‘I’m awake,’ Alice says, opening their bedroom door. She has naps before dinner some afternoons, because Baby is teething.

Alice puts on her serious voice as she fills everyone’s plates with broccoli. ‘I was listening to the news in there,’ she says, ‘about your rock-climbing friend.’

‘She’s not their
friend
,’ Jessie says.

Alice waves the tongs. ‘Whatever. I really don’t want you kids having such a disrespectful person as a role model. I’m happy that you’d rather be athletes than princesses –’

We all smirk at each other. Princesses are
so
grade one.

‘–
But
,’ Alice goes on, holding up the tongs like a stop sign, ‘even the most famous stunt-doubles need to be respectful of other people’s things.’

I get what Alice is saying, but she’s wrong. ‘
Carmeline Clancy
isn’t a stunt-
double
. That’s what’s so cool about her. She’s doing her
own
stunts,’ I explain.

Vee grins at me. One day we’re going to do our own stunts.

Later, Vee interrupts my Skype session with Mum to throw a piece of paper down on my lap. ‘Look what I found in the recycling,’ she says.

I’m annoyed, because Mum only has about three minutes to talk to me. Vee is taking my precious time. But I read the piece of paper anyway, because it’s in front of me.

To the Occupier
, it says. It’s a letter explaining that the road will be closed for filming over the next two weeks.
Sorry for the inconvenience.

I wave the letter at the screen. ‘They’re closing the street for Carmeline Clancy’s film,’ I explain to Mum.

‘Which street?’ she asks.

I
squint
at the little map down the bottom. ‘The one round the back of our building!’

At school, my friends are all obsessed with how bad Carmeline Clancy is. You can kind of hear their parents in their voices as they say things like, ‘I wouldn’t want to be friends with someone like that,’ and, ‘She shouldn’t be allowed on TV,’ and ‘It’s just plain rude.’ They sit around and have a little
agreeing party
together. Everyone agrees with everyone else, only more so. Carmeline Clancy seems to get worse and worse as they talk.

I suggest playing ninja-monkey tag, but no-one hears. They’re all having too nice a time judging Carmeline.

I get depressed and go looking for Vee. But she’s with the older kids who all do
snob-face
at me.

I go do flips off the monkey bars by myself. I even talk to some grade-one kids for a bit until the bell goes.

On the tram, my bonus sisters and I
squash
onto the same seat. Jessie picks up one of the free papers and starts reading it. (It sounds weird that a kid would read the paper, but it’s actually normal for Jessie.) She rustles a page and says, ‘Ha. Hey, you guys, look at this.’

She slides the paper onto Vee’s lap. The headline says:
P
HOTOS OF
C
HILD
S
TAR’S
R
UINED
H
OTEL
R
OOM
L
EAKED BY
H
OUSEKEEPING
S
TAFF
.

Underneath, but still in big writing, it says,
‘Third night of chaos in a row,’ states secret source.

The pictures show a hotel room like a
war zone
. Sheets have been ripped up and there’s food smeared on the floor. Sections of wallpaper, at kid height, have been torn and are hanging in flaps. It’s really bad.

Carmeline Clancy says she ‘didn’t do it’, but refuses to explain,
the newspaper says.

The bit that makes me angriest is the quotes around ‘didn’t do it’. Like they’re saying she’s lying, without properly saying it.

When we get off at our tram stop, the puppy is sitting by a side door of the hotel. His fur looks a bit
shinier
than the last time I saw him. I want to run across the road and cuddle him, but by the time the lights have changed, he’s gone.

‘Where is that poor child’s mother?’ Mum asks on Skype that night. Even though Carmeline Clancy isn’t really poor, or a child.

‘Probably Geneva,’ I say, which makes Mum feel bad, even though I only said it to be funny.

‘I mean, whose job is it to keep her safe?’ Mum asks.

Mum’s life mission is to make sure everybody’s safe. That’s why she works at the UN. She knows I’m fine with Dad and Alice. She’s looking after the rest of the world.

‘Who is looking after her?’ Mum says again.

‘The meanest lady in the universe,’ I say, remembering the
death look
.

But Mum ignores me. ‘Whatever Carmeline is guilty of,’ she says, ‘this kind of public shaming of a child –’

‘But she didn’t do it,’ I say, not listening. ‘She wouldn’t.’

I know I’m right.

The next morning, as we walk past the hotel to our tram stop, we all
dawdle
and try to look in. I’m desperate to talk to Carmeline Clancy, and now I think she needs my help.

‘I’m going to go meet her after school,’ I say.

‘You can’t,’ Jessie says. ‘They’ll never let you in. Anyway, why would you want to meet someone like
that?
’

‘Jessie, you’re the one who always talks about evidence,’ I say. ‘What about innocent until proven guilty?’

Vee doesn’t say anything, but I can tell she agrees with me. Vee and I both
love
Carmeline Clancy. We loved her first.

We cross at the lights. The tram is coming slowly up the hill.

‘What about those pictures from the paper?’ Jessie says. ‘Aren’t they proof?’

‘They’re proof that
someone
made the mess,’ I say. ‘Not that it was her.’

‘Well, who else –?’

‘The hotel staff?’ suggests Vee.

‘The Nanny could have done it,’ I say, even though I know she probably didn’t. ‘Anyway. Someone needs to prove it wasn’t Carmeline.’

‘And how are you going to do that?’ Jessie asks.

I explain everything as we climb onto the tram.

‘That’s it?’ Jessie asks, as the tram
wobbles
to a start. ‘That’s your plan?’

I nod.

‘Just walk in and pretend we’re staying there?’ she repeats. ‘What kind of plan is that?’

Jessie
raises
her eyebrows and Vee
grins
.

‘And once you’re in, then what?’ Jessie asks. ‘How do you know where to find her? Every grown-up in the hotel is going to know you’re a fake in about one second.’

‘Well, do you have a better plan?’ I ask.