The Breakfast Club Adventures, page 8
‘But do we?’ Marcus pleaded, desperate for a different answer, not the one he knew he was going to get.
‘Yes, we do,’ Lola said with a grin. ‘Don’t try to tell me that nothing fun or interesting has happened to you since I left.’
Immediately, the Breakfast Club Investigators came to mind. His team of detectives.
Stacey, the brave leader obsessed with the supernatural.
Lise, the heart of the team, and the technology expert.
Asim, the team’s brilliant artist and chief worrier.
And Marcus, he had been part of them too. He bit his lip. How had he let himself throw all that away?
‘Well, maybe there’s one thing that happened.’ Marcus swallowed. ‘But I think I messed it up.’
‘Oh, really?’ Lola looked at him questioningly.
‘Yeah,’ Marcus looked up at Lola. ‘And I don’t know if I can fix it.’
‘Well, if there’s one thing I know about friends, it’s that if you’re really friends with them, then you can always fix it. You just have to be willing to do the right thing.’ Lola shifted round until she was sitting next to him, and slung an arm round his shoulders. ‘The right thing?’ Marcus asked. ‘But what is the right thing?’ ‘That’s for you to figure out.’ Lola pushed herself up to standing, and Marcus scrambled to his feet after her.
An illustration showing Marcus and his cousin Lola sitting down hugging.
‘Sorry about kicking your football away,’ he murmured, rubbing the back of his head.
‘No need to be sorry, but you’re going to find it while I wait for you here – that’s how we’ll even that out.’ Lola gave him a gentle cuff on the head. ‘Now, go get it so we can go back to bed before your mum finds us out here and I get the telling off of a lifetime!’
Once he was back in bed, Marcus couldn’t get back to sleep. His mind was reeling from his conversation with Lola. There were so many thoughts up there that he thought his head might burst. Marcus knew that through the mess there had to be something there, a plan, a way to fix things. He just had to figure it out . . .
An illustration showing a skip full of rubbish.
As soon as he arrived at Breakfast Club on Monday morning, Marcus scanned the room until he found the person he was looking for.
Asim was at the end of a full table, earbuds in, painting.
Marcus took a seat across from him. He waved his hand in front of Asim’s face until he took out his earbuds.
‘I need your help,’ Marcus said.
Asim looked confused. ‘Didn’t you get everything you needed?’ he asked. ‘You got the thing you lost.’
‘But did we?’ Marcus replied, giving him a knowing look. ‘Did all of us?’
‘Yeah, I did, actually,’ Asim admitted.
‘Wait, what? You did?’ Marcus said, shocked.
‘I looked around after you left. My mum’s book of paintings was there, in that skip.’
‘OK, well then –’ Marcus tried to get back on track – ‘that’s great. So maybe we got the items, but did we get what we actually wanted?’ Marcus’s conversation with Lola was still echoing in his head. ‘We can’t bring back the things that we lost. Why did you want the book back?’
Asim reached down into his backpack and pulled out the notebook. It was dirty and a little bit wet, but still intact. He turned it round, showing both sides to Marcus.
On its front cover was a postcard of a painting, but it wasn’t printed onto the card – it looked as if someone had actually painted it. The colours were rich and varied It didn’t seem to be of anything in particular, but Marcus still thought it looked cool.
Asim opened up the book and then ran his finger along the dried paint on it. His jaw tightened. ‘She always had more imagination than I did. I could never paint something like this. You know, that’s the reason I joined in the first place.’
‘To paint.’ Marcus nodded, willing Asim to speak more.
‘Yeah. I thought that joining the investigators would mean that I’d see weird things and my imagination would grow.’ Asim chuckled at the thought, then the smile faded. ‘She travels a lot, my mum, and sends me postcards with little paintings on them. I started collecting them in this notebook, but then I began to think that every time she sent me a postcard she was scolding me for not having the imagination to draw like her.’
‘I’m sure that’s not true,’ Marcus said, but Asim ignored him.
‘That’s why I threw it away, over that fence.’ Asim sighed. ‘But then I wanted it back because I just kept thinking that if I could see it again then maybe I’d figure something out, that maybe things would click in my head, and I’d be able to paint like her.’
‘But you can’t,’ Marcus said matter-offactly.
‘No, I can’t,’ Asim repeated. His chin sank to his chest.
‘But you can be you. No one paints like you – no one else can. You’ll never be able to paint like your mum, because you have to paint like you.’ Marcus squeezed Asim’s shoulder. ‘Why don’t you talk to your mum?’
‘I already have.’ Asim’s head popped back up. There was a smile on his face now.
‘Wait, what?’ Marcus was having a hard time keeping up.
‘I said I got what I wanted, but it wasn’t from this.’ Asim waved the notebook in Marcus’s face. ‘It was from talking with my mum. I called her after I got the notebook back and we talked things through. She’s in Italy right now, doing some teaching and working on new art. She was sending me the postcards because she wanted to give me a sneak peek of what she’s working on, but I took it so differently.’ Asim shook his head.
Marcus knew the feeling; he’d taken Lola’s gift of the football so completely differently from how she’d actually meant it.
‘If you look at things from another angle, sometimes they can look so different,’ Marcus muttered.
‘Yes, yes they can.’ Asim grinned. Marcus grinned back.
‘You know what else we can do? We can bring the Breakfast Club Investigators back,’ Marcus said.
‘But how do we do it?’ Asim asked. ‘Stacey and Lise are completely out.’
Marcus frowned, the familiar feeling of guilt stirring in his stomach.
‘It’s not entirely your fault that the BCI fell apart, you know. I didn’t exactly do anything to stop it,’ Asim said. It was as if he could read Marcus’s mind.
‘Well, I have an idea,’ Marcus told him. ‘It’s going to take some effort, but if everything goes to plan it’ll work.’
‘To plan?’ Asim’s eyebrows raised. ‘Things don’t normally go to plan with the BCI, in case you haven’t noticed. Look at our plan with the chupacabra!’
‘This plan is different.’ Marcus waved Asim closer. ‘Listen.’
Marcus laid out exactly what his plan was. And over the next couple of days they worked together. It took many hours after school, sneaking heavy packages of art supplies in, help from Marcus’s local corner shop, Oyin and Patrick and even from Mr Anderson. And then they were finally ready.
At Breakfast Club three days later, when Stacey wasn’t looking, Marcus walked over to her table and slipped a note onto it.
An illustration showing a handwritten note with the words ‘Do you want to join the BCI?’ written on it. Underneath there are two tick boxes: one labelled ‘yes’ and one labelled ‘no’.
There were two boxes drawn on the page. YES was written below the one on the left. NO was written below the one on the right.
Marcus didn’t wait around to see what her response would be. Instead he just crossed his fingers and went outside to the place he hoped she would go.
Marcus and Asim had been waiting outside the hideout for five minutes when they saw Stacey approaching. Her mouth fell open as she took in the cabin.
An illustration showing the inside of the hideout with new furniture.
‘How did you fix it?’ she breathed.
The hideout was completely repaired. A brand-new door had been installed and a whole bunch of new furniture was in the room.
‘Well, we got some help,’ Marcus said, grinning at her.
‘Building supplies from Mr Diallo at the corner store and art supplies from the woman who runs the art store, and we got Mr Anderson and some other kids at the Breakfast Club to help us repair it,’ Asim added.
Stacey frowned at him. ‘Why did you do this? It’s over.’
‘Because I’m sorry for what I said. I get it now,’ Marcus said.
Stacey put her hands on her hips. ‘What do you get?’ she asked.
‘Why you’re here,’ Marcus cried. He glanced back at Asim. ‘Why we’re all here! It’s because we like hanging out with each other.
We like each other
and being a part of BCI.
You did lose something Stacey, even if you said you didn’t. You lost your old friends and your old community and your old life when you moved here. But it’s OK, because you started the BCI, and met us, and now we’re friends.’ Marcus grinned.
‘We were friends.’ Stacey crossed her arms.
‘No, we are friends.’ Lise stepped out of the hideout.
‘Lise?’ Stacey gasped. ‘I thought you said you weren’t going to go back.’
‘Sorry, Stace. They asked me really, really nicely. How was I supposed to say no?’ Lise shrugged.
‘But what’s the point?’ Stacey pressed.
‘The point?’ Marcus repeated.
‘Yeah, why would I join again if it’s all going to end in the same way?’ Stacey stared off to one side and gritted her teeth. ‘What if you all leave? Her voice almost cracked as she said it.
‘And what if that doesn’t happen?’ Marcus said. ‘What if this works? Things can go well too.’
Stacey frowned for a moment, but she couldn’t stop a grin from forming on her face.
‘Well, I suppose we can’t leave the mystery of the chupacabra unsolved. What type of detective would that make me?’ Stacey ran over to the other three and hugged them. ‘So, how are we going to finally finish this case?’
An illustration showing Stacey smiling.
‘Well,’ Marcus said. ‘I have an idea.’
An illustration showing Asim’s drawing of the four-legged creature.
Marcus’s heart was thumping. Everything had been leading to this. Yet he couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if they were wrong. What if this didn’t work out? They were going up against a monster: a chupacabra. Or at least something that looked like a chupacabra.
‘Are we ready?’ Marcus glanced around at his fellow detectives.
Lise gave a confident nod.
‘Probably not, but –’ Asim shrugged.
‘Of course!’ Stacey exclaimed. ‘You remember who we are?’
‘We’re the Breakfast Club Investigators!’ Marcus shouted.
they all cried at once.
Marcus, Asim, Lise and Stacey were standing in the alleyway where they’d found the football, the one to which they’d tracked the chupacabra. But this time they weren’t following a tracker, and they had no traps.
Marcus had been thinking about it for days. Last weekend, when they’d followed the creature, hadn’t been the first time he’d gone through this alleyway. He’d been through here loads of times, just not recently. It had been with his school football team. And this wasn’t just any alley – it was a short cut.
At the end of the alley, way past the skip, was a football ground called Stillwater Stadium.
A shout next to Marcus made him look up. ‘Look!’ Stacey cried. ‘It’s there!’ She pointed.
Far off in the distance, they could see the chupacabra jumping over one of the side fences of the stadium.
‘We need to get inside!’ Marcus yelled. ‘Come on!’ He tried to push away his memories of what had happened the last time they’d met the chupacabra as he ran down the alleyway. Especially its sharp teeth and its long claws. It was time for them to solve this mystery.
Marcus reached the entrance to the stadium, and waited for the others to catch up. He swallowed hard, and nodded in determination. ‘This way,’ he said. He beckoned Lise, Stacey and Asim through the entrance.
The doors of the stadium clicked shut behind him.
‘So now we’re trapped with it,’ Asim murmured, not daring to raise his voice above a whisper.
‘We’re not locked in here with it. It’s locked in here with us,’ Stacey said in a low voice. Marcus could tell she was trying to sound much braver than she felt.
They crept into the stadium, keeping as quiet as possible, so as not to alert the creature.
At first, the space was wide and open, but as they got deeper into the building the corridors became more and more narrow. Marcus exchanged nervous glances with Asim. It felt as if the entire building was closing in on them.
‘Where is it?’ Lise whispered. No one responded. ‘It must be here, right?’
‘It’s here. I can feel it,’ Marcus said quietly. Then he froze as the lights above flickered. The whole group stopped, drenched for a moment in darkness. Then the lights turned back on.
They were not alone.
The chupacabra was staring at them from the other end of the hallway.
The hair on Marcus’s arms stood on edge as the chupacabra let out a long, low howl. It started to walk towards them menacingly.
But Marcus had a plan. With all these rooms and corridors, so many twists and turns, it would be impossible for them to trap the chupacabra by themselves. But, this time, they were not alone.
Other members of the Breakfast Club filed in behind them, standing at almost every possible turn, blocking off the chupacabra’s options. Marcus saluted Oyin and Patrick as they edged behind it, making sure that it couldn’t run away.
Despite his fear, Marcus grinned as he saw everyone taking their place. His plan had been to work together. With everyone here, they could actually corner the beast and get to the bottom of the mystery.
The chupacabra was clearly panicking with so many people surrounding it. It glanced left and right, as if looking for an escape, its shoulders raised. It let out another blood-curdling howl, louder this time, and then it fixed its stare right at Marcus, Stacey, Lise and Asim.
An illustration showing Lise, Asim, Marcus and Stacey with their eyes shut and covering their ears. There is a silhouette of a four-legged creature behind them.
The investigators didn’t move from where they stood, in the dead centre of the corridor.
Marcus’s mind was racing as he looked at the creature. The stain on Lise’s hand, the oily barrel in the alleyway that had been half spilled, the chupacabra – Marcus knew that there was a connection between all three of these things – he just didn’t know what it was yet. But he did have an idea of something that could help him figure it out. Patrick and Oyin had helped him set it up the day before.
This was the second part of Marcus’s plan.
‘Hose,’ Marcus yelled suddenly. A couple of moments later a hose slithered forward, passed from person to person, until it was in Marcus’s hands. He twisted its nozzle and immediately a jet of water blasted out, hitting the chupacabra squarely in the side. It yelped and retreated.
The entrance to the stadium was now closed, and the rest of the paths were blocked off by the other kids, so there was only one other place to which the chupacabra could run. The place they were sure it had been living.
The third changing room.
The detectives chased the chupacabra into its lair, leaving the other kids behind. They ran single file, each holding a part of the hose, and burst into the room. It was filled with an assortment of odd objects – random toys, footballs, even glasses – all the items it had been hoarding.
‘It’s all here. It’s really here,’ Stacey said, with wide eyes.
‘Stacey – the chupacabra!’ Marcus yelled.
The creature was moving so fast that it couldn’t stop itself, even though it tried. It crashed into the wall at the back of the room. This was their chance. Marcus leaped forward and twisted the nozzle of the hose once more, letting the full force of the water come out. It collided with the creature, completely drenching it, and spraying so much water back at them that Marcus could barely see. The group yelled as cold water drenched their clothes, but they didn’t retreat.
This was the moment of truth.
Dark splotches rippled away from the chupacabra, followed by a sludgy, oily mixture. It was like the mess next to the skip. But that wasn’t all. Tonnes of twigs, sticks and pieces of dead grass followed. To Marcus, it looked just like water when he had washed his muddy trainers in it. He finally turned off the hose.
The chupacabra stood up, and when it did, it looked very different. Instead of a dark black, its body seemed to be grey. Now that the sludgy oil was off, they could clearly see strands of wet fur poking out in all directions. Saliva, which looked suspiciously like the ectoplasm, was drooling from its mouth.
‘It’s a dog!’ Asim cried out as it clambered forward.
It shook its body hard, spraying water all over the room, drenching the detectives even further.
An illustration showing a dog covered in oil and water.
‘It’s a dog,’ Stacey gasped. ‘You were right, Marcus. It wasn’t a chupacabra.’ Her face dropped.
Marcus felt bad for her. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘Look at how big it is!’
‘It’s just a husky, right?’ said Stacey in a small voice.
‘No, I’ve seen big dogs before, but this is bigger than any dog I’ve ever seen.’ Marcus stared at the creature, examining it from all sides. It shook itself again, hard, spraying even more water all over the room.
‘So, what do you think it is?’ Asim piped up.
Marcus paused for a moment. ‘I think it’s a wolf.’
‘A wolf?’ all the other detectives said at once.
‘That would explain why it’s so big and why it howls so much,’ Marcus went on. ‘And why it keeps stealing everyone’s things. The wolf probably thinks this is its territory and our stuff is its stuff.’
