Scam on the Cam Read Online Free PDF

said. “We stole the key, but got kidnapped by a pirate who was a French barge owner and called us zieves, so we had to throw the key into the Cam, and as a result we couldn’t open the chest that didn’t belong to the pirate anyway, since he wasn’t one.”
    â€œTough luck,” said Toby sympathetically.
    â€œAnd I lost my earrings,” said Gemma.
    â€œOh yes,” said Toby, “I was going to ask youwhere they were when you arrived this morning, and then I forgot.”
    â€˜This morning?” repeated Gemma. “I didn’t have them on when I got to school?”
    â€œI told you!” I told her. “You’ll find them at home tonight, and since absence makes the heart grow fonder you’ll love them even more than before. And who knows, they might have made lots of tiny baby pearls when you weren’t watching.”
    But Gemma wasn’t listening: she was looking into the distance with an expression of such pain that I suspected for a minute the imminent arrival of the Four Horsemen of Apocalypse. But when I turned around I realized it was much less exciting than that; it was, in fact, the pangs of despised love. For yonder near the stream were Julius Hawthorne and Lily Murray (Toby’s unfortunate rowing partner and owner of an impressive marmalade mesh of red hair) who were laughing and cooing together, gazing at each other from the corner of their long-lashed eyes in the manner of two badly drawn Disneyprincesses.
    â€œI can’t believe this,” said Gemma. “She can’t even play Dvořák on the cello.” I left her to her lovelorn state, because I was quite keen to have a look at Toby’s frog. It was a lovely shade of green, like my mum’s face when she gets the bill for something I’ve broken, and had two perfectly humid eyes, just like Mum again when she’s signing the check to pay the bill.
    â€œIt’s super fast, you know,” said Toby, petting its sleek back. “I’m sure it’s faster than any frog I’ve ever seen.”
    â€œI didn’t know you were in the habit of speed-checking amphibians,” I said. “Where did you catch it?”
    â€œOh, next to the university boathouse, when we finally passed by it earlier. You must have been inside then.”
    While we were playing with the frog, Mr. Halitosis awoke from his paper bag–induced calm, got to his feet and threatened to slice us into slim strips of meat for a giant stir-fry if we weren’t ready to go back toGoodall in two seconds. Not being one for soy sauce, I rushed into the Laurels’ boathouse to get my clothes and bag.
    As I checked my phone, coming out into the sunshine, I saw that I had a lovely little text waiting from me from
Susie
, all warm and exciting like a mini-blueberry muffin:
Fourth & fifth rowers of the university team taken ill and in hospital. How’s the investigation going? Jeremy x
    Running back to Toby and Gemma, I found the latter sidekick in a state of dangerous hyperventilation, repeating, “He came to talk to me! He came to talk to me!”
    â€œWho did?” I asked.
    â€œJulius!”
    â€œCaesar?”
    â€œNo, Hawthorne!”
    â€œAh,” I said. “Maybe he guessed you could play Dvořák in the end.”
    â€œHe told me he’d only come here to talk to me! He knew that we were training, and he wanted to talk to me! He came here to talk to me!”
    â€œTo say what?” asked Toby.
    â€œJust that,” said Gemma.
    â€œHe came here just to tell you that he’d come here just to talk to you?”
    â€œYes!” she marveled. “Isn’t that wonderful?”
    â€œThe boy is profoundly deranged, as I always suspected,” I said. “But that’s okay, since he seems to have found an equally insane kindred spirit.”
    â€œAnd then,” reminisced Gemma, “I asked him if he could give me his phone number, and