The Agatha Oddly Casebook Collection Books 1-3

2. Ruth Masters – Second-in-command, Ruth is ruder than Sarah, which is saying something. Her dad works in PR, and Ruth is just as conscious of her public image, carefully managing who the CCs talk to and who they avoid.

3. Brianna Pike – Brianna is Sarah’s other henchwoman. She plays with her hair a lot and spends all day posting pictures of herself pouting on social media.

I face Sarah, head on. ‘I’m afraid we’re using this room,’ I say.

‘Using it for what?’ Sarah sneers. ‘Making detective notes with your little friend?’

Brianna approaches me. She draws her shoulders back and swings her blonde hair like a weapon. ‘Move.’

‘But we’re in the middle of something,’ I say.

‘We’re in the middle of something?’ Ruth sing-songs back at me. ‘Well, get in the middle of this – SCRAT.’ She brings her face up-close-and-personal and I automatically spring back. She picks up the book I’m reading from the table – Poisonous Plants of the British Isles – and shoves it into my chest.

‘Enough messing around,’ Brianna joins in, ‘get out, Agatha. Get going.’ She pushes my shoulder.

I brush my blazer as though some dirt has landed there. ‘Come on, Liam,’ I say, gathering my things. ‘We’re outnumbered.’ And then I mutter under my breath, ‘Physically, if not mentally.’

By the time the CCs realise they’ve been insulted, we’ve already left the room. The door slams behind us. I sigh, letting my frustration show.

‘You OK, Aggie?’

‘Yes … thanks, Liam.’ I shrug. Sometimes I hate St Regis more than anywhere in the world. My first school, Meadowfield Primary, was so different. The buildings might have been falling down and there was never enough money for new books, but it had been bright and friendly, and the teachers had encouraged all of us just to get along. I had a nickname there – The Brain – which hadn’t been a bad thing. It was a dumb nickname, but secretly I had liked it. At Meadowfield, being brainy was OK. When nobody else knew the answer to a question, they’d turn to me. Then had come the scholarship to St Regis that my teacher had put me forward for. I almost hadn’t shown it to Dad. When he saw the letter, he’d said it would be silly not to at least take the test. He’d been right, hadn’t he? There was nothing to lose. Even if they offered me a place, I could still turn it down, right? And they probably wouldn’t offer me a place anyway, would they?

I took the test.

I won the scholarship.

Dad sent a letter back, saying I would accept, starting in September.

I had been excited about going to a prestigious school at first. My new school had more money floating around than Meadowfield could have ever dreamed of. New computers, new classrooms, spotless walls and carpets. But in this place of shiny things, it was me who ended up seeming shabby. It didn’t matter whether I was brainy. In fact, it didn’t matter whether I was kind or funny or whatever else might have made me the person I was. I just didn’t fit, until I met Liam …

I’d been sitting in the canteen (or refectory, as they preferred) of St Regis, eating lunch, when I pulled the Sunday Times from my satchel and started trying to do the cryptic crossword.

13 down – Calling for business meeting, talker gets excited.

‘Perhaps “calling” means a telephone call.’ A voice came from across the table. I jumped – I hadn’t realised that I’d been thinking out loud. I looked up and saw a boy my own age who I recognised from class. His name was Liam Lau. I don’t think I’d heard him speak once, except to answer ‘present’ when register was called.

‘Sorry, did I startle you?’

‘No, I … I just didn’t realise I was talking to myself.’

He smiled. ‘Do you do that often?’

‘Maybe. Sometimes.’

‘Me too.’ He nodded, grinning. ‘They say it’s the first sign of madness.’

‘Hmm … Maybe you’re right about “calling” being a telephone call.’ I said. Then, as though my brain had suddenly decided to co-operate – ‘Oh, and what if “excite” means “jumble” – there might be an anagram in there?’

‘Yes, that sounds good … Hmm, what about “meeting talker”?’ Liam said. ‘That’s the right number of letters.’

We both stared at the letters M E E T I N G T A L K E R for a long moment. Then, together, we both shouted –

‘Telemarketing!’

I was grinning as I took up my pen and put the answer in.

‘Agatha …’

Liam’s voice shakes me out of the memory. Here we are, almost a year later. I’m still a social outcast, but I have Liam as a friend. I look at him. ‘Yes?’

‘Promise me something?’

‘What?’ I ask.

‘Try not to get expelled tomorrow?’

I roll my eyes. ‘I promise.’

He grins. ‘Come on, then – you can walk me to the bus stop.’

I’ve just finished liquidising a pile of vegetables when Dad walks into the kitchen, begrimed with mud and smelling of manure. I’d forgotten my tiredness in the excitement of making something new.

‘What on earth are you doing, Aggie?’

‘Making dinner,’ I say.

‘With all the green mush, I thought it might be some kind of science experiment,’ he laughs.

I sigh – Dad can be soooo closed-minded sometimes. He isn’t a bad cook, but he isn’t a very good one, either. I often make dinner for the two of us, but it’s usually one of his favourites – something easy, like sausages and mash or beans on toast. Who can blame me for wanting to try something different for a change? I’d found a dog-eared copy of Escoffier’s Le Guide Culinaire from a bookshop on the Charing Cross Road, and then spent an evening trying to decode his instructions from the original French. Dad looks over at the wreckage, shaking his head, and trudges off to get clean.

Dad – Rufus to everyone but me – has been a Royal Park warden since he left school at sixteen. He’s worked his way up to the position of head warden of Hyde Park, so we live in Groundskeeper’s Cottage. Still, even though Dad’s in charge, he refuses to let others do all the dirty work and is never happier than when he’s got his sleeves rolled up and is getting his hands dirty. He reappears in a fresh shirt, smelling strongly of coal-tar soap, which is an improvement from the manure. He looks over at the food I’m making, stroking his gingery-blond beard.

‘What … is it?’

‘Vegetable mousse, with fillets of trout, decked with prawns and chopped chervil.’

‘Looks quite fancy, love.’

‘Just try it – you’ll never know if you like it otherwise.’

Dad shrugs and sits down.

I’ve been saving up for weeks for the ingredients. Dad gives me pocket money in exchange for a couple of hours shovelling compost at the weekend so it’s been a hard earn. But it’s worth it – everyone should have a chance to try the better things in life, shouldn’t they? Dad reaches for his fork, staring at the plate. He searches for something diplomatic to say, and fails. ‘It’s not very English.’

I smile.

‘Poirot says something like, “the English do not have a cuisine, they only have the food,”’ I recalled.

He groans at the mention of my favourite detective. I go on about Hercule Poirot so much that Agatha Christie’s great detective is a bit of a sore spot for Dad.

‘You and those books, Agatha! Not everything that Poirot says is gospel, you know.’

I ignore this last comment and plonk a plate of the fish and veg medley in front of him. He takes a fork of everything, and I do the same.

‘Bon appetit!’ I smile, and we eat together.

Something is wrong. Something is very wrong.

I look to Dad, and I’m impressed by how long he manages to keep a straight face.

Something awful is happening to my taste buds. I can’t bring myself to swallow for a long moment, and then I force it down, gagging.

‘I may have … mistranslated.’

Dad swallows, eyes watering.

‘Might I have a glass of water, please?’

When the last of the mousse has been scraped into the bin, we go off to buy fish and chips. I decide not to paraphrase Poirot’s thoughts on fish and chips, that ‘when it is cold and dark and there is nothing else to eat, it is passable’. I don’t think Dad would be amused and, besides, I really like fish and chips.

After carrying them back from the shop in their paper parcels, our stomachs rumbling, we eat in happy silence. I savour the crisp batter, the soft flakes of fish, the salty, comforting chips. For once, I have to admit that Poirot might have been wrong about something.

While we eat, Dad asks about my day, but I don’t feel like talking about school and the CCs, or the headmaster, or about how I’d zoned out in chemistry class, so I ask about his instead.

‘So are the mixed borders doing well this year?’

‘Not bad,’ he grunts.

I think of the book I’m reading at the moment.

‘And do you grow digitalis?’

‘If you mean foxgloves, then there are patches of them down by the Serpentine Bridge.’

‘What about aconitum?’ I eat a chip, not looking Dad in the eye.

‘Monkshood? You know a lot of Latin names … Yes, I think there’s some in the meadow, but I wouldn’t cultivate it. It’s good for the bees, though.’

‘Ah … what about belladonna?’

‘Belladonna …’ His face darkens, making a connection. ‘Foxglove, aconitum, belladonna … Agatha, are you only interested in poisonous plants?’

I blush a little. Found out! Poisonous Plants of the British Isles is sitting in my school satchel as we speak.

‘I’m just curious.’ Deep breath.

‘I know that, love, I do. But I worry about you sometimes. I worry about this … morbid fascination. I worry that you’re not living in the real world.’

I sigh – this is not a new discussion. Dad loves to talk about the REAL WORLD, as though it’s a place I’ve never been to. Dad worries that I’m a fantasist – that I’m only interested in books about violence and murder. He’s right, of course.

‘I’ll do the washing-up,’ I say, quickly changing the subject. Then I look over at the sieves, pans and countless bowls that I’ve used in my culinary disaster. Perhaps not.

‘My turn, Agatha,’ says Dad. ‘You get an early night – you look tired.’

‘Thanks.’ I hug him, smelling coal-tar soap and his ironed shirt, then run up the stairs to bed.

When we’d first moved into Groundskeeper’s Cottage, I chose the attic for my bedroom. Mum had said it was the perfect room for me – somewhere high up, where I could be the lookout. Like a crow’s nest on a ship. I was only six then, and Mum had still been alive. Before that, we’d squeezed into a tiny flat in North London, and Dad had ridden his bike down to Hyde Park every day. He’d been a junior gardener when I’d been born, still learning how to do his job. The little flat was always full of green things – tomato plants on the windowsills, orchids in the bathroom among the bottles of shower gel and shampoo …

The attic has a sloping ceiling and a skylight that is right above my bed so, on a clear night, I can see the stars. Sometimes I draw their positions on the glass with a white pen – Ursa Major, Orion, the Pleiades – and watch as they shift through the night.

The floorboards are covered with a colourful rug to keep my toes warm on cold mornings. We don’t have central heating, and the house is draughty, but in mid-July it’s always warm. It’s been scorching today, so I go up on my tiptoes and open the skylight to let some cool air in. My clothes hang on two freestanding rails. Dad is saving to get me a proper wardrobe, but I quite like having my clothes on display.

On one wall there’s a Breakfast at Tiffany’s poster with Audrey Hepburn posing in her black dress. Next to her is the model Lulu. There’s also a large photo of Agatha Christie hanging over my bed, which Liam gave me for my birthday. On the other is a map of London … Everything I need to look at.

My room isn’t messy. At least, I don’t think it is, even if Dad disagrees. It’s simply that I have a lot of things, and not much room to fit them in. So the room is cluttered with vinyl records, with books, with a porcelain bust of Queen Victoria that I found in a skip. Every so often, Dad makes me clear it up.

And so, I try to tidy now. But with so little space it just looks like the room has been stirred with a giant spoon.

I take the heavy copy of Le Guide Culinaire and place it on my bookshelf, which takes up one wall of the room. I sigh – what a waste of time. What a waste of a day.

I run my hand along the spines of the green and gold-embossed editions – the mysteries of Poirot, Miss Marple, and Tommy and Tuppence – the complete works of Agatha Christie, who my mum named me after. She’d got me to read them because I liked solving puzzles, but said I should think about real puzzles, not just word searches and numbers. When I’d asked what she meant, she had said –

‘Everybody is a puzzle, Agatha. Everyone in the street has their own story, their own reasons for being the way they are, their own secrets. Those are the really important puzzles.’

I feel hot tears prick the back of my eyes at the thought that she’s not actually here any more.

‘I got called in front of the headmaster today …’ I say out loud. ‘But it was OK – he just let me off with a warning.’ I continue, tidying up some clothes. I do this sometimes. Tell Mum about my day.

I change from my school uniform into my pyjamas, hanging everything on the rails and placing my red beret in its box. What to wear tomorrow? I choose a silk scarf of Mum’s, a beautiful red floral Chinese one. I love pairing Mum’s old clothes with items I’ve picked up at jumble sales and charity shops, though some of them are too precious to wear out of the house.

Next, I go over to my desk in the corner and unearth my laptop, which is buried under a pile of clothes. I switch it on and log in. People at school think I don’t use social media, but I do. I might read a paper copy of The Times instead of scrolling down my phone, and write my notes with a pen. But I’m more interested in technology than they’d know. You can find out so much about people by looking at what they put online. Of course, I don’t have a profile under my own name. No – online, my name is Felicity Lemon.