The Ideas Pirates Page 7

  People were getting ready to land soon. The attendants brought around steaming face cloths on a tray. Amy nearly dropped hers it was so hot. But it felt wonderful on her face and hands.

  Looking down the aisle, she noticed Fifi washing the face of her gnome!

  Fifi’s gnome fascinated Amy. There just had to be something inside! When she lifted the gnome in the LADIES it had seemed too heavy for a hollow plaster shape.

  ‘Too obvious.’ said Christopher when she shared her suspicions. ‘First place anyone would look.’

  ‘If it worries you that much, why don’t you just ask her.’ Winston was direct.

  Once the worry of the fruit cake had gone, he needed to prove something.’ Or I will.’

  ‘No. I’ll go.’

  ‘Thank you for the loan of the player.’ Amy returned the portable to Fifi who was fiddling with her gnome’s bow tie. Now the bandaid was across the plug.

  The attendants had collected all the steaming washers on a tray.

  ‘Excuse me Fifi, we love your gnome. What do you keep inside him?’ interrupted Winston.

  Fifi turned. For a moment, the twins thought she was going to be cross. Then she winked and explained with a laugh. ‘Special cleansing salts in my gnome. Whenever I travel my gnome comes with me. Especially when I’m chasing Fifi shirt thieves.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Winston.

  ‘She’s round the twist,’ he confided to the twins. ‘Carrying bath salts in a gnome.’

  But Fifi didn’t tell Winston that her cleansing salts were also used for another reason.

  Christopher had been thinking about the photographs for his next term’s school project. If Amy could say she was doing ‘Orchids’, that would be a good excuse to ask Dr Chung about the ‘orchid’ message he had received in the airport lounge.

  ‘Amy, got a topic for your project yet?

  She hadn’t. And she agreed that it would be a good excuse.

  ‘Singapore’s national flower is the orchid.’ said Christopher. ‘ And so many are sold in the airport.We wondered why you received a message about orchids, when we were in the gateway lounge. ‘Amy’s doing her school project on “orchids,”’ he added quickly.

  ‘That’s why we’re interested,’ Amy said quickly.

  ‘I hope you never decide to spy for our opposition company.’ Dr Chung said half-seriously. ‘The rate at which you gather information is alarming.’

  Dr Chung explained about his orchid formula. It contained the ingredients for making a special balm. This would help athletes with sore muscles, especially those with strained ankle or leg muscles. Amy asked whether there were orchids in the formula.

  ‘Just a few. But not the endangered species. ‘

  Dr Chung explained why a message had been left for him at the airport.

  ‘I had to leave the conference in a hurry so I wouldn’t miss my plane. My assistant had computer problems and couldn’t print out a copy in time. So he said he’d send it to my address in Sydney. But since the formula is secret, I had to know exactly the local time at which he would be sending it. Then I could be there to accept it. Otherwise someone else might read the formula before we were ready to release it.’

  ‘If it is a balm , does it have tiger bone in the formula?’ Winston asked.

  ‘A secret formula.’ smiled Dr Chung. ‘That means others are prepared to pay a lot of money to make our balm.’

  ‘Like KFC Chicken...?’ laughed Winston. ‘Forty three spices....Everyone knows what it tastes like but nobody else can make it.’

  ‘Our balm’s not quite the same. But your Dad’s company is interested in paying for the formula. And we MIGHT be interested in selling.’

  Chapter 10

  Are Gnomes Just Hand Luggage?

  ‘You’ve travelled a lot young lady. Your glasses look different from the passport photo,’ said the official checking passport pages.

  ‘That’s because I wear clip-on colours.’ Amy showed him how she could change her frames by clipping different colours. She kept spares in her bag.

  ‘Latest fashion is it? Rose coloured glasses. Must tell my daughter,’ The official passed her form.

  ‘Collecting gnomes is a new hobby too, I see.’ He nodded towards Fifi who was struggling behind.

  Amy picked up her backpack. She was ready for stage one. It was her job to check Jason’s backpack as soon as it came out. If it was exactly same, she was to signal Gloria. At the carousel, the baggage went round and round. Often bags looked similar. Easy to mix them up.

  She was sure now that the mystery man had mistaken her bag for Jason’s and given Amy the e disc instead. At last a purple and aqua backpack came out from under the dangling strips. It jerked along the belt. Amy stared. It was just like hers. Easy to get bags mixed u,p. And maybe that’s what the mystery man did.

  She signalled.When Jason grabbed his backpack from the carousel, he didn’t realise that several people including Gloria were watching him.

  Meanwhile Fifi had put a dollar into a slot and released a trolley. She’d stuck the gnome in the holder at the front. When the gnome rolled over on its side, Christopher could see the plug underneath. The bandaid had come unstuck.

  Some white crystals leaked from the loose plug on the gnome’s bottom, and started to leak onto the floor. Fifi was leaving a trail of white powder behind her trolley!

  Could the hospital drugs be inside? But surely the airport security people would check in Singapore and in Sydney? Christopher turned. Gloria was watching. She nodded and waved him towards the customs area.

  The official went through Amy’s backpack. When he found Edwina, he pressed and pulled her. ‘ Just checking the bare bear facts! Last week, some illegal currency was hidden inside a teddy.’

  Behind her, Christopher laughed. Amy didn’t think that was funny but the official did. He smiled as he took the lens from Christopher’s old camera.

  ‘We’ve been told to check for the missing hospital drugs.’

  The security officer asked the burly dark haired man beside them, ‘ Is this your personal luggage sir?’

  The case was so filled with carefully folded T-shirts, that the catch had broken from the strain. Blue, green, black and pink. They fell onto the floor.

  As she helped pick them up, Amy glanced at the labels. Pretending to help fold them again, she checked. They couldn’t be personal! She looked back at the man. Thirty T shirts! They would last him for a month, without even washing once. But something else was wrong. He was a big burly man with a thick chest.

  ‘Excuse me sir, what size clothes do you wear?’

  ‘Er ... Large.’

  Amy checked the neck tags on the T- shirts. Some were L for large. Some were M for medium. And some were S for Small. But they all had Fifi written in curly letters on the label.

  The man said quickly, ‘ I’m allowed to bring four hundred dollars worth of goods into the country for my own use. It says so in your booklet.’

  ‘That’s right sir. For your personal use.’ the customs officer stressed the word.

  Christopher whispered to Amy. ‘How much does a real Fifi T- shirt cost?’

  ‘At least one hundred dollars!’ replied Amy. She worked it out quickly. ‘His T-shirts must be worth at least three thousand dollars, if they’re genuine Fifis.’

  Gloria said loudly. ‘Are these fakes, sir?’

  The man looked uncomfortable. ‘Er, what do you mean by fakes?’

  ‘Imitations being passed off as a known brand. ‘

  ‘What will you do if I say yes?’

  ‘The trademark holder has a month to take action through the courts. If you say “no” you’ll have to pay the normal duty.’

  ‘Excuse me, Gloria, ‘said Amy.’ How can someone wear three different sizes at once?

  He’s carrying small, medium and large
, and he’s a large man. I don’t think he’d fit into the small size.’

  Gloria smiled. ‘Good point Amy. If he were a small man he could argue that he sometimes liked to wear a sloppy, large T-shirt, but it doesn’t work the other way around. Unless he goes on crash diets.’

  Fifi bustled up. “Ahhhhh My pirate! I’ve got you. Gloria said you might be here.’

  Gloria looked a bit concerned at Fifi’s outburst. The burly man looked more scared of arm-waving Fifi than the officials.

  ‘D’you know which Fifi T shirts this thief stole?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘They all say “I’m with stupid.”’

  Amy laughed. ‘Somebody stupid enough to take it.’

  ‘Or to make it. Actually it’s one of my best sellers,’ admitted Fifi.

  Along with my gnome messages’, but when they wash it, a new message will come through on the T- shirt.It will say I’M A FAKE FIFI and it won’t wash out! That’ll fix those idea pirates!’

  The twins were amused by Fifi’s trick.

  ‘The only way to stop the FAKE appearing is by using my special washing salts which I keep inside my gnome. Here!’ Fifi turned to her gnome and discovered the leaking salts.’Oh no! My samples have leaked out!’

  Gloria was concerned about Fifi’s washing salts. Apparently washing powder gives a similar reaction to heroin on some official tests.

  ‘I thought you meant you kept BATH salts in there.’ Winston muttered.as Gloria ‘borrowed’ the gnome and the remaining salts to arrange a second , more detailed test to distinguish them from heroin.

  Amy was so pleased that she had been right about Fifi.

  ‘ Fifi gave me the gnome to hold. If she’d hidden something illegal inside, she wouldn’t risk anyone looking when she wasn’t there. That’s when I decided she was not a smuggler. Besides, she was too disorganised. She was always dropping things.’

  Christopher had already shared his ‘sleuthing’ idea with Gloria.

  ‘When I was taking photos for my ‘airport’ project, I ‘shot’ some cleaners on the airfield. D’you think such a small package could have been mixed up with the rubbish and thrown out by mistake into the rubbish dump bins?’

  Gloria smiled. ‘ Clever try Christopher. The good news is that we’ve found it. When I went into the baggage area to check on Jason’s backpack, one of the sniffer dogs found a parcel mixed up with cartons of herbal tea! The hospital will be VERY pleased.’

  ‘Dr Chung’s herbal tea?’

  ‘No. I don’t think so.’ Gloria smiled. ‘His tiger bones have been carefully checked. They’re the real thing.’

  ‘I understand now why the man said “Slipper Orchid” to me at Changi Airport. He meant the pop group’s hits on the pirated CD master copy. But why was Jason smuggling it?’

  Gloria explained ‘ When you mentioned Amy’s backpack Christopher, that started me thinking. I got the Sydney security people to go through Jason’s baggage very carefully when it was still in the behind- the- scenes baggage area. And we found a notebook in Jason’s purple and aqua backpack.

  Names ,numbers and e dresses were coded. Once our people de-coded it, we found contacts in most Asian capitals. Mr BIG is the boss who lives on a yacht. That’s how he left Singapore, on his yacht. He was to meet Jason in Sydney Harbour. On board is a pirate radio station with master disks of recent music worth millions. “Slipper orchid” is one of the pirated clips.’

  ‘Wow!’

  Christopher was still concerned about Jason’s T-shirts. ‘Why did he have so many in his baggage?’

  Gloria explained that Jason’s shirts were not illegal. He had bought them all at Fifi’s fashion parade in Orchard Road and paid the proper price.

  ‘But some were different sizes!’

  ‘The smaller ones were going to be give-a-ways for radio station promotions.’

  ‘Prizes?’

  ‘But they must have cost more than four hundred dollars.’ Amy had worked out the figures in her head.

  ‘So does he have to pay duty on them?’

  Gloria explained that Jason had already declared the clothing, but was not going to mention the pirated CDs. He thought that if he drew attention to one thing, the officials might miss the pirated master tape. Or that was the plan, until Amy got the CD by mistake.

  Gloria nodded. ‘We also chased up your mystery man, Amy. Matched him with the photo on Christopher’s second film.’

  ‘Second film?’

  ‘Yes, he gave us the bird watchers’ film by mistake at first. A mistake for them but not for us. Christopher provided us with evidence we needed to convict them.’

  ‘I thought you left the cap on? ‘ Amy tugged her brother’s arm.

  ‘But I took more than one photo. Remember I’ve got Dad’s camera too.

  ‘Ah.’

  The twins could tell that Gloria was delighted. The clues were in her smile and the excited tone of her voice.

  ‘Customs developed that roll of film you found Christopher. Guess what was on it?’

  The twins were just ready to leave the Arrival Hall and see if Aunty Viv was waiting for them outside. But they couldn’t bear to leave before they found out.

  ‘Holiday snaps of Sentosa Island ?’ suggested Amy.

  ‘Not exactly.’

  Gloria showed them some glossy prints. Birds, eggs, the men, nests, gum trees.

  ‘I couldn’t believe it! ‘ Gloria pointed. ‘What a gift! They gave us the evidence!’

  ‘Evidence of what?

  ‘Look, here’s our guy actually taking the eggs from the nest! His mate took photos. Four of them. All from different angles.’

  The children looked closely. In one photo Big Ben was shown from the back. But in the second, his face was clear. He was looking straight at the camera. Anyone would recognise him.

  ‘Why did his mate take the photos? Did he know?’

  ‘Who? Big Ben? of course. Look, in this one he’s posing.’

  ‘That’s just it! ‘

  ‘Was the cameraman an undercover agent?’ asked Amy.

  Gloria shook her head. ‘No. He was one of the smugglers. They were just proud of their adventure. Probably wanted to show people at home.’

  ‘But it’s a crime.’

  ‘That’s right. But we did know they were around.’

  ‘Who gave you the tip off?

  ‘A park ranger. Can’t tell you his name. He saw a group acting suspiciously near some birds in the park on their last visit to Australia. So he contacted us.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘We checked their names with our files. Ben had come into the country about ten times during the previous five years.’

  ‘Is there anything illegal about that?’ Amy was puzzled.

  ‘No, but each time was at the bird breeding times. They had brought maps with them of the National

  Parks with areas marked on them where each type of bird could be found and when they nested.’

  Christopher pictured that marked map in his head. ‘So those were the nesting trees?’

  ‘But why do they want these birds?’

  ‘Wildlife is sold to zoos, circuses or specialist collectors and breeders as pets. We arrested them . Forty eggs each they had. They were also carrying rolls of film which Customs developed and found they had taken more photos of themselves lifting the eggs out of the nests. If each of these eggs had hatched, the birds would have been worth about $15000 to $200,000 each.’

  ‘Wow!’ Winston looked at the twins. ‘Do you always have adventures like this when you travel as UMs?

  ‘Most times.’ said the twins.

  At Sydney airport, although she welcomed the twins with a big hug, Aunty Viv was upset.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘A car thief stole my Animal Act
ors van, with the car phone which your father insisted upon giving me.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I went to a phone and rang my own number.’

  ‘The car mobile number? In the Animal Actors van?’

  ‘Of course. And when he answered, he said,’ “We are professional car thieves and we do this kind of thing all the time.”’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I asked if he’d looked in the back yet? He said ‘no’.’ I asked if he liked reptiles.

  He said “No.’ So I warned him about Serendipity, my snake, and her habit of curling around the driver’s neck. That’s when he dropped the phone and I heard the squeal of brakes.’

  ‘You don’t have a snake called Serendipity do you?’ asked Amy.

  Aunty Viv just gave a little smile.

  ‘But I did make one mistake. I should have asked him where he was driving before I mentioned the snake. Anyway the police found the van abandoned outside a pizza place.’

  ‘Were the animals okay?’

  ‘Except for Henrietta. She’d nibbled through her leash and eaten half of the car thief’s bag. He left it behind. Must have left in a hurry. Henrietta was found eating the “ALL YOU CAN EAT “SPECIAL sign!’

  The twins looked at each other.

  Being back with Aunty Viv was never boring!