Extraordinary Losers 2 Read online

  Sophia looked up and announced nonchalantly, “It’s a match.” Her muscles relaxed again.

  “Really? Are you sure?”

  “Of course!”

  “Super sure?” I tested.

  “Yes, Darryl DUUUHHHHH… and what are you doing with Madam Siti’s photocopied IC?”

  “It’s a long story… but thanks, Sis.” I hugged her.

  Sophia had very powerful eyes, just as I had very powerful ears. She could see as far as a kilometre away. And her powerful vision allowed her to spot details easily. It worked like a magnifying glass and a powerful telescope. But because it gave her terrible headaches, she chose not to use her powers most of the time, only when necessary.

  Sunday passed uneventfully and Monday finally came. Clandestino was feeling very gloomy. He was sure he was still doomed despite all the evidence we had. I, on the other hand, was feeling quite positive. We were determined to show Mr Grosse and Mrs Priya our findings. We had agreed to meet early that morning, at 6.55 am.

  I told my friends about how the fingerprints matched.

  Mundi was stunned. “I can’t believe this, no? No wonder she was so insistent that no one go near the wall!”

  “Yes, and Madam Siti didn’t want us involved at all remember?” I said.

  “But it doesn’t make sense. Why would she do that?” Clandestino asked.

  “She’s not happy with the school, maybe. Or Mrs Priya,” Janice added. “We have to show this to Mrs Priya and Mr Grosse.”

  We approached Mr Grosse first. Our hearts were lodged in our throats – he wasn’t exactly the most approachable teacher. When he saw us, he immediately furrowed his eyebrows suspiciously.

  “Hey, there you are, Clandestino. The police have some questions for you.” He grabbed Clandestino’s wrist. Clandestino pulled back.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Mr Grosse flared up.

  Mundi began to tremble.

  “Err … Mr Grosse,” I said. “Err… we think we know who the vandal is. I think I mean … the vandal is the same as the arsonist. Yeah, we think we know who it is.”

  “But you might not believe us,” Janice chimed in. “She’s a teacher.”

  “Yeah, one of the very important teachers,” Clandestino added.

  Mr Grosse eyeballed all of us, trying to catch on.

  “Wait… who is it then? You had better tell me before things get worse in this school.” We took a deep breath. Mundi pursed his lips in silence.

  “Madam Siti,” the rest of us said in unison.

  “What?” Mr Grosse snapped. “How do you know that?”

  “Well… we have HER fingerprints all over the crime scene,” I said.

  “Yeah, we really do. See for yourself.” I handed Mr Grosse three cellophane bags. All labelled neatly. One with the fingerprint from the Coke can, one with the photocopied IC and one with a photograph of the fingerprint on the wall.

  He peered into the contents of the bags. It seemed like an eternity and for a moment our legs turned into lead. Had we done the right thing?

  Mr Grosse let out a heavy sigh.

  “This case is not for you. This is for us and the police.

  You four are not to investigate this further, okay? Stay out of this.”

  “But…” Janice started to protest.

  “No buts, Janice. You want me to call your parents and inform them of this?”

  “No,” she said and bowed her head low.

  “Yes, then you four had better stay out of this. How dare you blame a teacher for all that has happened?”

  “The evidence speaks for itself.” Clandestino could not restrain himself.

  “Clandestino, you still are one of the suspects! There may be more than one person involved. See me after school.”

  Mr Grosse marched off with all the evidence – the photograph, the fingerprint and the IC.

  Mundi squealed, “Oh no! Oh no! Clandestino is still a suspect and now Mr Grosse has all our evidence!”

  “Not all the evidence,” Janice said. “Good thing, he hasn’t got this!” She took out the glove from her bag.

  Clandestino leapt up and immediately forced her hand down. “Don’t hold it up so high!”

  “Oops,” she said sheepishly.

  “Hey, Janice, you’re our saviour. But what are we going to do with this?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” Clandestino said.

  “But this is a strong piece of evidence.”

  “How so?” Clandestino asked.

  “This is as good as the murder weapon. What is a single glove doing in the fire? The culprit must have accidentally left it there,” Janice explained.

  I noticed something odd about the glove. “Wait, why does it look so small? What did you do to it, Janice?”

  “Nothing! It has always been this size, Darryl!” she snapped. We were all feeling weary from the case.

  Mundi felt the glove and agreed, “Yes, it’s the same glove. Maybe you couldn’t see its actual size as it was dark that night.”

  “But wait, Madam Siti’s hand wouldn’t have been able to fit into that glove,” Janice said. “See, even mine can’t!” Janice measured the tiny glove against her palm.

  It was a logical assertion. Madam Siti was huge! She had sausages for fingers. Not just any sausage, but huge German bratwursts.

  “This is so confusing!” Janice stamped her feet in annoyance. “You mean Madam Siti might not even be involved in this?”

  Mundi nodded his head sideways so we weren’t sure if he was agreeing or disagreeing.

  “You see here? Another thing. No?” He held up the burnt glove. “It’s a left-hand rubber glove.”

  “So… are you saying the vandal is left-handed?” Janice asked.

  “Yes… I mean, probably, I mean… maybe…” Mundi hesitated.

  “Good thinking, Mundi,” I said. “Maybe the vandal only wore one glove because he needed one hand free to strike a match to start the fire. And he would wear a glove only on the hand he was going to use the most – which was his left, if he was left-handed.”

  Mundi blinked his eyes rapidly for a while before concluding, “An 80 per cent chance he or she was a leftie.”

  “Madam Siti is… let’s see… right-handed,” Janice said. “When she writes on the board, it is very obvious.”

  Clandestino let out a prodigious yawn. Every time someone started doing math, it drained his hyperactivity away. “Okay, okay. What else is there to do?” He took out three pens and started juggling them in mid-air. “Left hand, right hand. This is confusing!”

  Clandestino threw up a pen, then spun another two with his fingers while the first pen was somersaulting in mid-air. Then he caught that one and threw up another one. Basically, he was spinning pens and juggling at the same time.

  “Guys, speaking of size, the silhouette I saw near the fire that day was rather small, more like a student,” he said as he juggled.

  “Oh no! We are really losers!” Mundi said. “Now we have just gotten Madam Siti involved. She’s definitely not small!”

  “But… maybe she is the accomplice, that’s why her fingerprints are everywhere?” Janice suggested.

  “Madam Siti’s not even good in art!” I said.

  “But if you think about it carefully, who would be so silly to leave fingerprints everywhere?” Mundi reasoned. “Maybe someone is trying to frame her! No? Someone small and left-handed?”

  We looked at one another. Our eyes lit with understanding but slowly flickered with puzzlement and disappointment.

  “Miss Teo?” Janice asked.

  “She’s so nice, it can’t be her.” I scratched my head in disbelief.

  Janice nodded, recollection in her eyes. “I remember now. One day, I was doing our science project in the parade square. I didn’t have scissors, so I borrowed one from the office. Miss Teo was there and she handed me one. It couldn’t fit properly into my fingers.”

  “Maybe because your fingers are… never mind,” Mundi said befo
re he stopped himself.

  “No, not because it was too small. It was made differently,” Janice said. “And Miss Teo took it back and handed me another one. She explained that her scissors were special because it was for left-handers.”

  “We are not sure yet, we need more evidence. It could be any student who is small and a leftie,” Clandestino said. “Leonard is short too and looks like a girl from certain angles.”

  “True…” Janice sighed. She plonked onto a chair and wriggled into her thinking position. Suddenly, she had a eureka moment. She leapt onto her feet and bulldozed towards us.

  “Hey, guys, you know what?” she asked.

  “What?” came our reply.

  “What is the one place we can always count on to find out all about a person? The one place where all the little treasures are scattered and the one place people put up facts so freely about themselves?”

  “Facebook?” we answered.

  “YES!! We can check on her on Facebook!” She did a little twist, gyrating her hips to her own made-up music.

  “Why didn’t we think of that sooner, no?” Mundi said.

  “Yup, it’s a great idea, Jan.” Clandestino smiled. “Here, you can use my phone, I have Internet connection.”

  “Thanks, Clan!” I said. Clandestino was the only one among us who had a data plan. His parents were willing to pay $55 a month on his phone bill. Janice and I only had pre-paid cards, the ones that cost less than $10 a month.

  Facebook was indeed a great idea. People whom you thought you knew are almost always entirely different persons on Facebook. For instance, my uncle Chee Boon is the most boring man in the world. Every time I see him, he wears a deadpan expression on his face and grunts a greeting.

  One day, Soph and I decided to do some spying. So we Googled his name “Sim Chee Boon” and “Singapore”. And guess what we found? We found out that he has a Twitter account, a Facebook account, a blog and a LinkedIn profile. So we clicked on his Facebook account and all kinds of pictures (some we wished we had never seen) surfaced.

  There was him with his family on trips, him posing like a rock star. What’s more, he tweeted every single day, complaining about the high cost of living and crowded public transport. He also updated his blog about food, culture, juicy news and lame jokes almost every day! It was a side of Uncle Chee Boon we never knew.

  “Here, let’s go into the music room where it’s quiet.” I beckoned. “No one will find us there.”

  The music room was rather isolated, right next to the school toilets. Mom always says listening to music makes you relaxed and helps with bowel movements, so maybe that’s why the school put them next to each other.

  CHAPTER 8: THE TECH TEAM

  Clandestino whipped out his phone, did some tricks with it before going online. The bell had rung and everyone was in their respective classes. Except us. If the basketballers could skip class because of a basketball match, this was far more important!

  Clandestino logged on to Facebook. In the Search space, he typed, “Miss Teo Nee Suan”. That was the name we knew her by.

  Nothing.

  “I seriously don’t think it’s her. She has been very nice to us all this while,” Clandestino insisted. “Remember how she bought us fries and drinks just the other day?

  Janice quickly added, “Yes, but we never know, Clan.”

  I grabbed the phone from Clandestino. It was an iPhone 5 and just touching it felt heavenly.

  “Teo Nee Suan,” I muttered as I tapped in her name.

  Still nothing.

  “No, no guys, we have to Google her.” Janice pushed us aside and took over the iPhone. She must have liked the feel of it too.

  She typed in “Teo Nee Suan, Singapore”.

  A whole lot of Teo Nee Suan-related finds came up.

  “Try images,” Mundi said, shifting his glasses.

  So we clicked on Images.

  “That one!” I pointed.

  And surprisingly, we saw a tiny picture of Miss Teo among the images. It was her with glasses and long hair. It was her, 15 years ago at least.

  “That’s Miss Teo!” I pointed.

  “She should post her 40-year-old picture, not her 25-year-old one!” Clandestino said. “Trying to be something she’s not!”

  We clicked on the image and it led us to her Facebook page under the name “Genevieve Teo”.

  “Genevieve Teo?” Mundi thought. “That’s her English name?”

  “You mean her pseudonym?” I added.

  “Huh?!” The others couldn’t catch on.

  When we clicked on her Facebook account, it was quite ordinary, judging by the profile page.

  The photo just showed her posing at a McDonald’s kiosk.

  “Okay, at least we know she likes fast food,” I remarked. “Which is rare for a 40-year-old.”

  “What if we click on the other albums and pictures, no?” Mundi suggested.

  “Yeah,” Janice agreed. “Let’s do that.”

  Her other pictures were not captivating either. In fact, most of them were of her standing in front of tourist attractions. The zoo, in Marina Bay Sands, in Resorts World, Universal Studios.

  “She is as boring as I thought,” Clandestino groaned. He scratched himself red in impatience. “See, there’s nothing here!”

  “Oooh… Oooh… I know!” Janice exclaimed. “Check the comments under her pictures!”

  We moused over the comments and we noticed something strange.

  “Nice shot, Bluefox,” a friend commented.

  “Where to meet for art group, Bluefox?” another asked.

  “She has another name – Bluefox!” Janice concluded.

  “Wait, wait,” Mundi said. “Let’s check out her About and Likes pages.”

  Clandestino clicked on Likes.

  To our surprise, Genevieve Teo did in fact have a long list of Likes. What was more unbelievable was that all of them had nothing to do with school and everything to do with ART!

  She had liked: deviantART, artnet, ARTINFO, Artcyclopedia, TheArtsmap… so on and so forth.

  “My goodness!” Janice gasped. “Miss Teo is an ARTIST!”

  “Hold your horses, no, Janice, we have to check to confirm this,” Mundi reminded. He scrolled over the various website links one by one and thought carefully about which one to check out.

  “Let’s just do all!” Clandestino said. “We have time.”

  Janice clicked on deviantART and searched Bluefox. There were a few people who had Bluefox as their profile names. But one painting belonging to one Bluefox stood out. It portrayed caricatures of children and adults, and all of them looked strangely familiar!

  “Let’s click on that painting, no?” Mundi pointed to the painting of caricatures.

  When Clandestino clicked on it, our hair stood on end; it was a caricature of Mr Grosse and Madam Siti.

  “Hahaha,” Clandestino laughed. He was tickled pink. The painting was funny and yet worrying. Mr Grosse had metal studs all over his face, on his nose, ears and eyes. Madam Siti was in her traditional Malay costume and she was blown out of proportion! She was the fattest lady anyone had ever seen.

  “Great job!” someone called Rancidfan had commented.

  “Cool, you really do have talent, Bluefox!” another user called Angelfire commented.

  She was a deviantART star! Many people commented freely on her uploaded artwork. All those who commented had weird names and funny hairdos.

  “Usually, criminals have more than one name, so they can confuse people with their multiple identities,” I said.

  “Look, there are some caricatures of children wearing our school uniform, with the red tie,” Janice noticed.

  “Yes, she could very well be the vandal and arsonist.”

  “Look at her artwork. It is very similar to the painting on the wall. Look at the style and the colours,” Mundi added. “They are so similar to the graffiti outside the main office. No?”

  It was true. Everything seemed to
match – the colours, the style and the way the letters slanted to the left (typical of some lefties).

  We clicked and clicked and clicked and we saw more of Miss Teo, Genevieve Teo and Bluefox in all her drawings. They were very clear and distinct. Most of her drawings, although funny, screamed rage, sadness, anger and horror.

  “This doesn’t seem like Miss Teo at all,” Janice lamented. Deep down all of us were disappointed that we had to see the ugly side of Miss Teo. She was one of our favourites in school.

  Mundi let out a heavy sigh. “She was just so nice to us, giving us drinks and lending us her whistle.”

  At that instant, I suddenly had a light bulb moment. “That’s it!” I yelled.

  “What, Darryl?” Clandestino looked up and swiped his nose in excitement.

  “Recently, Miss Teo, I mean Bluefox, or Genevieve, has been giving drinks to people, for free. So she must have offered Madam Siti a can of Coke!”

  Mundi quickly caught on. “And THAT’S how Miss Teo managed to get Madam Siti’s fingerprints!”

  “And she must have planted the can of Coke with the fingerprints at the scene of the fire to frame Madam Siti,” Clandestino finished, looking quite pleased with himself that he had contributed in an intelligent way.

  “Wicked!” Mundi whispered.

  “Yes, still waters run deep,” I said.

  But there was still something puzzling us.

  “Why did Miss Teo leave her rubber glove there? That’s the silliest thing anyone can ever do!” Janice yelled.

  “Maybe she didn’t leave it there on purpose … Maybe she left it…”

  All of a sudden, there was a loud crash! Shards of glass came raining down on us! Three of us could do nothing but cover our faces with our hands.

  “Oh no! I am going to die!” Mundi cried.

  Clandestino’s jaw dropped and his face took on a grey pallor when he saw that the window had shattered to smithereens. The glass shards were now heaped precariously on the floor like shaved ice on an ice kacang. Except this wasn’t a yummy sight at all.