November Read online

  Finally at the top of the stairs, I could see Winter’s flat. It wasn’t in complete darkness—the flicker of her TV screen was visible, glowing through a window.

  I knocked softly at the door.

  ‘Winter, it’s me.’

  I thought I heard a gasp, and then the volume of the TV was turned down.

  ‘Winter,’ I whispered again, ‘can you let me in?’

  Something tumbled to the floor as her scurrying feet approached. The door opened slowly and her smoky eyes peered through at me.

  She looked dazed—maybe she’d been asleep on the couch. Slowly she stepped back and let me pass, all the time staring at me like I was a ghost.

  ‘But how can you be here,’ she murmured, ‘when you’re also over there?’

  I glanced over to where she was pointing. On the TV screen, a grainy, shaky aerial image showed Ryan’s figure, circled by chopper light, running along the Georges River.

  She looked at me for an answer. ‘It’s meant to be live footage,’ she said. ‘I just saw you—a close-up of you, Callum Ormond! How did you get from there to here?’

  ‘I can explain.’

  ‘And what are you wearing?’ she frowned, tugging on the check shirt that Ryan had swapped with me. ‘You’re covered in flecks of white paint, or something.’

  ‘Can I please get a drink first?’ I asked as I collapsed in a chair at the table. I ran my hands through my hair and realised it was full of grit and dirt from the explosions.

  Winter looked at me, then back at the screen. ‘What’s going on? If you’re standing right here with me, then who’s that on the TV?’

  ‘My ultimate body double,’ I said, catching the popper she’d tossed to me.

  ‘Ryan? Ryan Spencer? Is that what you’re saying? What do you mean? How could that be?’

  ‘Has Boges filled you in on what went down at the chapel?’

  ‘You stopped the hitman and the wedding. Your uncle, mum and Gab are OK; he told me all about it,’ she rushed, ‘but we had no idea what happened to you, or whether you got away OK. Please just hurry up and explain that,’ she said, pointing to the TV once more.

  ‘They chased me for ages, all the way from the chapel down to Central Station. Then just when I thought I’d run out of chances, Ryan Spencer turned up. It was crazy. We swapped clothes and then he ran off—’

  ‘—and led the chase away so that you could escape,’ Winter finished for me. ‘It’s genius! The perfect decoy! And he can’t be arrested, because he’s not you!’

  ‘Exactly,’ I agreed. ‘Although I hope it doesn’t come to that—he’d have a lot of explaining to do. I hope he gets away,’ I said, noticing that the newsflash had ended and the screen had returned to some late-night fitness infomercial.

  I lay awake on the couch, replaying images from last night at Chapel-by-the-Sea. I recalled Gabbi, pulling at the flowers in her hair. I cringed as I pictured Mum and Rafe standing together—about to be wed. I couldn’t get my head around it, but I reminded myself that I had succeeded in what I had set out to do. I was there to protect Rafe from the assassin, and that’s exactly what I had done.

  Next I pictured that weird old fungus guy, Dr Leporello. He’d issued me the warning, for whatever reason, and I was relieved I’d taken him seriously. Otherwise, Rafe, or some other innocent person, could have been taken down by a bullet.

  For the time being, at least, the wedding was off. Now I had to return my focus to the real job: locating the Ormond Riddle and the Ormond Jewel and getting them both—together with myself and my friends—to the Keeper of Rare Books at Trinity College in Dublin. And that was only the start of the Ireland investigation.

  A long time had passed since that fateful New Year’s Eve warning. There were only sixty-one days left in the countdown to December 31st, and in that time we had so much to do. It seemed absolutely impossible. Not only did we have to retrieve the Riddle and the Jewel, and get ourselves over to Ireland, we also had to be the first to put together the clues and uncover the secret of the Ormond Singularity … and find out what really happened to my dad.

  Then, of course, there was the matter of clearing my name so that my life on the run could finally come to an end.

  We needed to get a serious move on.

  The flat was empty but Winter had left a note.

  I pulled my phone off its charger and called Boges.

  ‘Boges, it’s me. I’m OK.’

  ‘I know,’ he said in a hushed voice. ‘Winter already called me this morning. Crazy night, huh?’

  ‘Insane!’

  ‘Dude, I’m at school and am about to sit a big exam, so I’ll have to go in a sec, but just quickly—I was really worried about the amount of magnesium I used in the Special FX. Did it work?’

  ‘Sure did,’ I said. ‘Nearly burst my eardrums, but it gave me enough cover to get away … until Ryan took over.’

  ‘Sweet! Sounds like having a double pays off! I have to go, but I have something for you that I’ll bring around to Winter’s tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘What is it?’ I asked. But Boges had already hung up.

  60 days to go …

  The muscles in my legs were still sore and tight. Winter was at the library again with her tutor, so I had taken a hot shower then parked myself on the couch with my feet up, next to her radio. I turned up the volume the second I heard my name on the hourly news report.

  My stomach started churning when the newsreader mentioned the name ‘Senior Sergeant Dorian McGrath’—the guy who’d accused me of kidnapping Gabbi when I was in police custody in the secure wing of Armitage District Hospital.

  ‘The net is closing around Ormond,’ said McGrath. ‘We have a large, well-equipped intelligence centre which is receiving crucial information about this dangerous young criminal every day. We’re building up a strong picture of where he is. We’ve plotted all of the sightings and have isolated one area—the south-east of the city. It’s only a matter of time before we arrest him.’

  They weren’t bluffing. The south-east of the city was exactly where I was—sitting with my feet up in Winter’s flat. It was also the rough location of the St Johns Street house.

  I hated admitting it, but I knew I’d have to move on. I decided I’d talk to Winter and Boges when we got together that night, to see if they had any ideas on where I could go. In the meantime, I’d see what I could do about changing my hair.

  I checked myself in the mirror after rubbing a section clear on the misty surface. I’d need to dye my hair again or something. Anything to try and avoid recognition and capture.

  I grabbed one of Winter’s baseball caps, then put on Boges’s mirrored sunglasses, left behind after his Cyril the Sumo act. I’d need to risk a quick trip to the shops to get some more dye. Maybe a darker brown, I thought. Maybe even black.

  No-one was around on the street outside Winter’s building, but for some reason I felt exposed.

  At the sound of someone coming out of the building behind me, I turned. A man in a suit and black-rimmed glasses gave me a hard look.

  ‘I think I’ve seen you around here a few times now,’ he said. ‘Which flat do you live in?’

  ‘I’m just visiting,’ I said, trying to keep my answer as vague as possible.

  He grunted, clearly unsatisfied, but he nodded as if to say it would do for the moment. I watched as he walked away towards the bus stop further down the street.

  I imagined the guy in the suit casually asking the other residents about me, eventually realising that none of them had a sixteen-year-old visiting them. I would have to keep my trips to Winter’s flat to a minimum. Or avoid the place altogether.

  Something flew at my head as I made my way to the shops. It struck my mirrored sunglasses, startling me, and I ducked, instinctively lifting up an arm to defend myself.

  A bird had dive-bombed me from one of the huge fig trees that grew on Winter’s street. I looked up, shielding my face, to see the source of the attack. A magpie perched on a low
branch in a nearby tree cocked his head and looked at me with serious, brown eyes.

  I knew it couldn’t have been Maggers, but as I snatched the mirrored sunglasses off my face I thought of him and my old great-uncle.

  As I continued walking to the shops, I looked back. The magpie was still perched there, his sharp eyes following me. All of a sudden I felt like maybe it was my great-uncle watching out for me, reminding me of my need for constant vigilance.

  It would be great living high in the treetops, out of sight while quietly keeping watch on the world. When I was a kid, me, Boges and a guy from school called Luke built ourselves a treehouse. Luke lived on a big, bushy block with an incredible climbing tree, right up the back. It had thick, strong branches that formed an ideal platform to build on, and it was in a perfect spot—far away from the house.

  I remembered thinking how much I wanted to build one up the back of our house in Richmond—Gabbi would have loved it—but we just didn’t have the right tree …

  I picked out a cheap hair dye and approached the pharmacy counter.

  ‘Do I know you?’ the chemist asked.

  ‘I come in here a bit,’ I lied. ‘I live around here.’

  She nodded as she handed me my change, but didn’t once take her eyes off me.

  My mobile buzzed in my pocket. I fished it out and answered it, quickly walking away from the inquisitive chemist.

  ‘Cal?’

  ‘Winter, what’s up? Are you OK?’

  ‘I’m fine. Just had to get away from Miss Sparks for a moment.’ She paused. ‘I’m almost done here and Boges is coming straight over after school—the three of us have to get together and plan our next moves—getting the Jewel and the Riddle back, and getting to Ireland. We also need to find out who the three people on that list of nicknames are—one of them will have the goods, I’m sure.’

  ‘I just had my final physics exam,’ said Boges, flopping down at the table with a grin.

  ‘I take it you went well?’ said Winter.

  ‘Easy,’ he said. ‘Too easy for me.’

  Winter threw a cushion at him. I picked one up and threw it at him too.

  ‘Hey!’ he complained, deflecting the cushion attack. ‘I’m just being honest! Anyway, you should be happy it’s over, because now I have more time to devote my brilliance to the DMO.’ He folded his arms. ‘And I can also now reveal the results from the Caesar shift program.’

  ‘And?’ I asked.

  ‘Zilch. Nada. Not a single clue. It was all total gibberish.’

  I groaned, shaking my head.

  ‘Still,’ said Boges, ‘you have to look on the bright side.’

  ‘There’s a bright side?’

  ‘At least now we know where the Caesar shift isn’t,’ offered Winter.

  ‘Exactly,’ agreed Boges.

  ‘Super!’ I said, sarcastically. ‘So it’s been used in the missing last two lines or not at all—that doesn’t sound like the bright side to me. We need to start making serious plans. We have to decide on how we’re going to get to Ireland, and it looks like we’ll have to make do with the help of our copy of the Ormond Riddle and the drawings of the Jewel. In the meantime, I also need another place to live. I just heard on the news that the cops have narrowed my position down to the south-east of the city. I need to get out of here.’

  ‘I can sniff around for something,’ said Boges.

  ‘I’ve already thought of a possible place,’ I said. ‘Do you remember our treehouse?’

  Boges and Winter both looked at me like I was speaking another language.

  ‘At Luke Lovett’s place,’ I added.

  ‘Oh, yeah, I remember,’ said Boges, nodding. ‘The awesome one we built in his parents’ backyard.’

  ‘That’s the one,’ I said.

  ‘Aren’t you a bit old for cubby houses?’ joked Winter.

  ‘These are desperate times,’ I said with a shrug.

  ‘Probably not a bad idea, actually,’ said Boges. ‘It’s at least a couple of hundred metres or so from the house, and has great coverage—that’s if all those other trees are still surrounding it. And that’s if they haven’t pulled it down—but why would they? It’s a breathtaking example of modern architecture!’

  ‘It was pretty awesome,’ I agreed, remembering how hard the three of us had worked to have it finished over one weekend in our school holidays. ‘We built it mostly out of wooden panels that we’d collected in wheelbarrows from an old barn that was being torn down nearby,’ I explained to Winter. ‘We even found this long seat from a train carriage, abandoned by the side of a road, and dragged it back to the tree.’

  ‘Yeah, do you remember how long it took us to get that thing up the tree?’ Boges asked me. ‘Took us forever to pulley it up—it was so heavy and awkward. But once we got it up there and positioned it against the back wall, we stretched out on it and couldn’t stop smiling.’

  ‘Sounds unreal,’ said Winter. ‘I always wanted a treehouse.’

  ‘We thought it was the coolest treehouse we’d ever seen,’ I said. ‘Especially after we added a rope ladder and a swing.’

  Boges nodded. ‘Cal, no-one would even know you’re up there—if you’re careful—but that doesn’t mean you can sit back on that awesome bench and relax, exactly.’

  ‘Boges, I’m always careful and I’m never fully relaxed. That’s how I’ve survived so long. Anyway,’ I said, smelling something delicious wafting out of his bag. ‘Those pies in your bag aren’t going to eat themselves. Get ’em out already!’

  Boges pulled out a big paper bag with meat pies inside, while Winter jumped up to fetch some tomato sauce for us from her cupboard.

  As we silently ploughed into the food, I tried to remember the last time I’d felt entirely carefree. I had to cast my mind back to way before Dad died. Maybe it was during that last summer we all had together at Treachery Bay. Mum sitting under the beach umbrella with a pile of books, me, Dad and Gab mucking around in the boat. All of us heading into the tiny township for hot chips to go with our catch of the day.

  ‘Boges, you said you had something for me,’ I said. ‘I’m guessing you weren’t talking about pies.’

  ‘Hmm, just a sec,’ he said with a mouthful. Boges put down his pie, licked his greasy fingers and dived into his school bag again. ‘I want you to wear this,’ he said, pulling out a small, padded envelope. ‘Inside is a failsafe GPS transmitter. You can use it as a distress signal, but they don’t come cheap, so it’s for emergencies only.’

  ‘In case the Ormond Angel doesn’t show up to save me,’ I joked, opening the package.

  ‘You can put it under the inner sole of your sneaker,’ said Boges, ignoring my comment, ‘under the arch of your foot.’ He handed me a pocket knife. ‘Here, use this. Cut a small piece of rubber out of your shoe,’ instructed Boges. ‘The transmitter will fit in without creating much of an uncomfortable bump for you to walk on.’

  The transmitter was similar to the one Oriana had buried under my skin. I turned it over in my hand.

  ‘Once you activate it, by pressing the tiny switch, it’ll set off a distress signal which means I’ll be able to track you down.’

  I pulled off my left sneaker and carefully lifted the inner sole. Where there was a raised part—to support the arch of my foot—I began digging with my knife, cutting out a shape similar to the transmitter. I tore the rubbery piece out of my shoe then tossed it into the bin. The transmitter fit perfectly in the gap I’d created.

  ‘Cool,’ said Boges. ‘Now use some of this to tape it down.’

  He handed me electrical tape. As smoothly as I could, I taped the beacon down, replaced the inner sole, then put my sneaker back on and stood up, walking around the small room.

  ‘It just feels like I have a coin stuck in my shoe.’

  ‘You’ll get used to it,’ said Boges.

  ‘Thanks, Boges. This is cool. Hopefully I won’t actually have to use it.’

  ‘So,’ said Winter, ‘let’s talk about
the list of nicknames. Would you believe that “The Little Prince” is the name of a famous novel written by a French aviator, Antoine de Saint-Exupery?’ The French name rolled off her tongue easily. ‘It was about a pilot marooned in the desert.’

  Immediately Great-uncle Bartholomew came to mind. But that didn’t make any sense at all. If there was one person who didn’t have the Ormond Riddle and the Jewel, it was him. And surely Rathbone would have known to cross him out, seeing as he was dead.

  Winter handed each of us a photocopy of Rathbone’s list of nicknames.

  ‘And get this,’ Winter said, ‘part of the story involves the interpretation of drawings, and—’ she paused for effect, looking hard at me, ‘—a boy and a rose. Remind you of anything?’

  ‘Freaky,’ I said, recalling Dad’s drawing of exactly that. The three of us looked at each other.

  ‘Rathbone must know a lot about my dad’s drawings and how important they are for decoding the Ormond Singularity,’ I said, ‘to pick a nickname like that.’

  ‘All the hours I’ve spent with Miss Sparks at the library lately,’ Winter began, ‘I’ve been completely distracted by this list, trying to work out who the names could belong to. But still, I haven’t really figured out anything. Only Rathbone knows who they are—he’s the one who came up with them. And obviously he was frustrated with getting nowhere, if you found the list in the bin.’

  She hesitated, as if she was about to say something more, but then shook her head. Her deep, dark eyes looked steadily into mine, and then she turned away. ‘We’re up against more than we bargained for. Maybe Nelson can help us.’

  Winter looked awkwardly at Boges and then at me.

  Boges squirmed uncomfortably. ‘If you’d like me to leave or something,’ he said, ‘I can.’

  ‘No, Boges,’ she said. ‘You should hear this, too.’ She turned to me. ‘Cal, the reason I needed to talk to you wasn’t just because of those nicknames. Sligo called me, asking me for help.’