Novel - Half Moon Investigations by Eoin Colfer
“Fourth place went to SeeSaw Halpin.”
“SeeSaw,” howled the fifth grade as one. This happened every time his name was mentioned, which was very frustrating for his teachers, and his parents, who would really prefer that everyone call him Raymond.
“But unfortunately, SeeSa . . . eh, Raymond’s sister was injured this year and he was unable to continue his dance lessons. So Seesaw is out.”
“SEESAW!”
“Fifth place went to Gretel Bannon. She didn’t enter this year, because her babysitter, Maura Murnane, was tricked into overeating and hasn’t been herself. Without Maura, Gretel has had no one to take her to recorder class.”
It was starting to click with people now that what I was saying made real sense.
“Fifth was Julie Kennedy, who was not allowed to enter this year because her grades fell. Her grades fell because her after-school tutor received something nasty in the mail and left town. Seven entrants for this competition, all taken out by apparently unconnected situations. Too many coincidences. Entirely too many.”
“So who came next?” called a voice from the back of the hall.
The obvious question. I was hoping someone would ask it. I paused before answering. Whatever I said next would change my life. Someone I liked a lot would be hurt. Forever. For there was no chance that I was wrong. I knew who the guilty party was.
“May Devereux,” I whispered into the wire mesh of the microphone head.
A collective oooh rose from the audience. I didn’t blame them. This was good stuff for five euros.
“Fletcher, what are you saying?” May had pushed her way on to the stage. With her dance costume, blond hair, and wobbling lip, she looked the picture of innocence. I would have less trouble convincing a trekkie that Spock was an impulsive hothead. Still, I only needed to convince one person.
“Are you saying that I did all those things? Is that what you mean?”
I turned, blocking the sparkle of her costume from my vision. What I was doing was cruel, but it had to be done. This had to stop tonight.
“That’s exactly what I mean, May.”
She took a step to the left, her sequins glinting. “Why can’t you look at me, Fletcher? Is it because you know I’m innocent?”
“Innocent?” I scoffed. “Not too innocent to set up everyone who beat you in last year’s show.”
“But they got me, too. My lucky costume.”
“Maybe,” I countered. “But you’re still here.”
She didn’t answer. Not because she didn’t have an answer, but because she was going for the innocent, hurt look.
I plowed on. May’s credibility had to be torn to shreds. It was the only way this could work.
“Take a look, everyone. Lovely May Devereux. As pretty as her name. The perfect student and a doting daughter. But behind this facade is someone who will do anything to get her way. Being seventh in a competition was never going to be enough for May. After last year’s humiliation, she plotted her strategy for months. It was a simple enough plan: take out everyone who finished higher than her.”
May had turned so pale that she seemed almost translucent.
“So Mercedes’s mini-disk is stolen, Johnny and Pierce lose their decks, the chocolate phantom visits Maura Murnane. The list goes on. But there was one problem: Master Red Sharkey. Red has already been in more trouble than May can throw at him. Red has backbone and will not be broken; his family can’t be used against him. May is getting desperate, she’s running out of ideas. Then one day her cousin April, who has her own scheme, hires me to track down a fictitious lock of Shona Biederbeck’s hair. It was perfect.”
I paused for breath. You could have heard a potato chip crunch—but didn’t because this drama was more absorbing than any snack. Which is saying a lot for school kids.
“April and May set me on Red’s trail like a good doggy. I get assaulted, Red gets blamed, and May is the least-likely suspect. Perfect.”
May found the resolve to step forward under the lights. Her costume shimmered like a disco ball.
“You do know I’m only ten, don’t you, Fletcher? And anyway, you can’t prove any of this,” she said with some steel behind her trembling voice.
Proof. The hole in my case. A rather significant hole. But this was all part of the plan.
“I don’t need proof, because everyone in this hall knows it’s true. Your life as the popular princess is over.”
What I was doing was cruel. Terrible. I hated myself. I wished there was another way.
May retreated in the face of this onslaught. She mouthed my name, but no sound came out.
“You had more than most, May, but it wasn’t enough. You had to have the talent show crown as well, even if it meant climbing over your own schoolmates. Some of your victims have been friends since kindergarten. How could you?”
“She didn’t!” said a voice from the crowd. The outburst I had been praying for. The sound of that simple sentence was like the clanging of a victory bell. I knew, with absolute certainty, that my theory had been correct. It was as if a ghost had taken on flesh and revealed himself to the world.
“No,” I said, turning to face the man who had left his seat and was standing red faced in the aisle. “She didn’t. You did. Isn’t that right, Mr. Devereux?”
May’s father, Gregor Devereux, looked back at his seat as if he had no idea why he wasn’t still in it. His eyes swiveled to meet mine, and they were the eyes of a guilty man. Everything slotted into place with the precision of a laser-cut jigsaw, and the true thrill of detection sent a shiver through my senses. For a moment everything dissolved but the truth.
Devereux pointed a finger at me. “You just . . . You just leave my little girl . . . You just shut up, you little . . .”
“Unfinished sentences,” I said. “A sure sign of guilt.”
No one moved. No one spoke. Mothers clamped their hands over infants’ mouths.
“It took me a long time to see it,” I said, stepping to the lip of the stage. “I was so stupid, for so long. It had to be you, Mr. Devereux.”
“Call me Gregor,” said May’s father automatically.
“Everything pointed to May, because she was the one to benefit. But if she didn’t do it herself, and I never for a moment believed that she did, then who would want her to benefit. Who? Her father, of course.”
Gregor Devereux tried to laugh, but no sound came from his mouth.
“Fletcher, you’re disturbed. Everybody knows it. You’re a fugitive, for heaven’s sake.”
Reasonable enough words, but the delivery was hollow.
I pointed a rigid finger straight at his heart. “You stole the needles. You sent the package. You left the chocolate. It was all you. On a crusade to prove to the wife that walked out on you that you could raise May on your own. A pushy father who refused to accept the fact that his daughter could not dance.”
“She can dance!” blurted Devereux. “She can. Like her mother used to. All May needs is some encouragement. A confidence booster.”
“Daddy?” May was center stage now, eyes wide and wet. “Tell them it’s not true. Tell me.”
Gregor Devereux realized what he was saying. How close he was to a confession. He closed his eyes for a second, collecting himself. When he reopened them, they were sincere and almost merry.
“Of course it’s not true,” he said, smiling in fatherly reassurance. “I care about your dancing, of course, princess. But that’s all. I would never do anything. Never hurt anybody.”
May was convinced. Of course she was. He was her daddy.
“There,” she said to me. “I hate you, Fletcher.”
My heart quailed but I forged ahead.
“May had the motive and the opportunity, but there were a few pieces of the puzzle that just didn’t fit until you showed up on my radar, Mr. Devereux.”
“Oh, you have radar now,” joked Gregor, but nobody laughed.
“First there were the strange footprints left in my
“Ridiculous,” scoffed Mr. Devereux.
“Maybe,” I said. “But my father uses a homemade fertilizer. An absolutely unique concoction. I am sure the police lab can match any soil from your soles to the fertilizer in our garden.”
Gregor Devereux was blinking fast and sweating. His bangs flopped into his eyes and he pushed them back, flattening the hair to his head.
“Nothing,” he said, appealing to the audience for support. “None of this means a thing. The delusions of a strange boy. We’ve all known it for years, haven’t we? We’ve all known that little Half Moon is not quite right. A midget detective? Please.”
He was right. People did think I was strange. They still do. But that didn’t change the truth.
“But let’s get back to Mercedes’s music. The missing mini-disk. We found your footprint under her window, and there was also evidence of a frenzied search. As though the thief had lost something. But what could he have lost?”
Hundreds of chairs squeaked as the audience leaned in.
“I forgot the most basic rule of investigation: the most obvious explanation is usually the right one. The only thing you could have lost was the thing you came to find, the mini-disk that you had overheard Mercedes talk about so many times.”
“Fantasy,” bellowed Mr. Devereux. “Pure fantasy!”
But his blink rate jumped, as though it were wired to the power grid. I was right!
“You lost the mini-disk during the break-in. I saw the flower bed outside May’s window. It was torn apart. You had no option but to return home and hope the mini-disk didn’t turn up before the talent show.”
My big speech had ended with a whimper rather than a bang. My entire theory was bordering on the incredible. It was a stretch. I knew it and so did everyone else. I needed a trump card, and Mr. Devereux provided it. He strode purposefully down the center aisle, vaulting onto the stage. He speared me with a withering look and grabbed the microphone. The Sharkeys were elbowed from his path. Herod stumbled at Gregor’s feet, remaining there for a moment before joining his sister in the wings.
“How much more of this insanity are we supposed to stomach?” he asked. “You all know me. Frank, Seamus. We play squash together. Is any of this the least bit credible? I don’t even know why I’m bothering to defend myself. Come on, honey, let’s go home.”
I motioned to Red, and he tossed me his microphone.
“One more thing, Mr. Devereux. The mini-disk.”
Gregor blew his fuse. “What about it?” he bellowed. “Conjured it up out of thin air, have you? Give it a rest! Haven’t you caused enough pain? Think of your parents.”
“Those pants you’re wearing, with the curious strap marks in the corduroy. Black, with plenty of pockets. Big cuffs, too. I’m guessing they are your sneaky pants. . . .”
“Work pants!” spat Gregor. He rolled his eyes. “Why am I explaining myself to you?”
I took a step closer. “If a small disk were to fall out of a person’s pocket, it could easily slip into one of those cuffs. You’re right-handed, so in the right cuff. If that disk were to survive the washing machine, it could still be there.”
Devereux’s laugh was short and sharp, like the warning bark of a territorial dog. “Get away from me, Moon. I’m not subjecting myself to a search from you.”
I met his wild gaze with a steady one of my own. “Just one second to bend down. One second and everyone knows I’m a lunatic.”
“Shove your second, Fletcher. And shove your accusations. I am sick of being the polite, responsible adult. I’ll say what we’re all thinking. Your parents have to take a firmer line with you.”
May moved toward her father. He smiled triumphantly and reached out a hand. She did not take it.
“I’ll show him, Daddy,” she said. She knelt by his right pant cuff and quickly found the disk tucked in there.
“Oh, Daddy,” she sighed, with a sorrow that squeezed my heart.
Gregor was flabbergasted. “That’s impossible. That can’t be. What?”
I hammered home my advantage. “There it is. The stolen disk. Explain that, Gregor, if you can.”
May’s father took the disk in a trembling hand. His face was wrinkled with incomprehension. “May, you have to believe me. I . . . this . . .” The words wouldn’t come. His mouth churned uselessly for several moments until he finally blurted: “Don’t you understand? I wasn’t even wearing these pants that night!”
The room was silent for an instant as everyone digested the importance of this statement, then Red raised both arms to the crowd.
“Confession!” he roared, and the crowd went crazy. This was real entertainment.
“You attacked me!” I accused, through the commotion.
Gregor looked around desperately, as if he was expecting a rescue from somewhere.
“I attacked a garden gnome!” he shouted. “You came out of nowhere. I would never hurt anyone. All I wanted to do was destroy the gnome and leave Red’s hurl so that he would be blamed. That’s all. May, you have to believe me.”
In the eye of the hullabaloo, tears dripped from Gregor’s eyes as his daughter turned from him. The tears turned to ice and he took three quick steps across the stage and grabbed me by the shoulders.
“You don’t know what you’ve done,” he growled. “May is fragile. She is still recovering from her mother leaving.”
I wriggled, but Gregor had me in his strong gardener’s hands. Red was the first to react. He hurtled across the stage, tackling Devereux below the waist. But he was only thirteen, and Devereux was a six-foot-plus plank of fitness. Red bounced off him like a bird off a window. All the impact did was remind Devereux where he was.
“Stay back,” he warned, hoisting me off the ground. “Let me think. Give me room.”
I don’t think now that Gregor Devereux was in his right mind on that evening. I don’t think he was aware that he was dangling my legs over the orchestra pit.
Cassidy took a few steps onstage, palms raised. “Come on, Devereux. God knows none of us are fond of Half Moon, pain in the behind that he is, but you have to put the boy down before you drop him.”
“In a second, Cassidy,” said Devereux calmly. “I just need to find the right words, to explain things to May.” He pulled a face. “Her mother will have a field day with this.”
My future at this point was uncertain, and I had only myself to blame. I’d pushed a man over the edge in uncertain circumstances.
I heard something. The sharp smack of metal striking wood. The noise came again and again. Increasing in intensity until a rhythm was established.
The pressure on my shoulders eased slightly. “May,” whispered Devereux.
I realized what the noise was. Dancing shoes. May was dancing. With tears streaming down her cheeks, May Devereux was performing her competition routine to distract her own father.
Devereux was instantly transfixed. The real world was forgotten. The current crisis took a backseat to the talent competition.
“Come on, honey,” he said. “Head up, back straight.”
May danced like she had never done before, somehow finding coordination in her flashing feet. The noise of her tap shoes silenced the crowd as they realized that something special was happening.
Gregor’s head bobbed along with the routine. “Two, three, four, five, six, seven, and heel, toe. Fingers crossed now, honey.”
Gregor held his breath. The click-kick was coming. May had never managed this in her life. Tonight she did. Her legs flashed straight as rulers four feet up, heels smacking together on the descent. She finished with a deep bow.
Gregor Devereux ran across the
Sister Julie B. Winters, the chief judge, looked to her co-judges for support. When none came, she spoke haltingly. “Good . . . I mean excellent presentation. Nice technique and form. Impressive click-kick. I would say, definitely, first place. First, no doubt about it.”
Gregor’s face cracked with relief. A mountain of stress lifted from his shoulders. “You won, honey. We won. It was all worth it. All the practice. All the . . . everything.” He turned back to the judges. “Where’s the trophy? Isn’t there a trophy?”
Sister Julie picked up the marble trophy at her feet and passed it into the waiting hands of Gregor Devereux.
Gregor Devereux’s hands were empty and waiting to receive it, because he had cast me aside.
Cassidy should have had him, or any one of a hundred adults in the wings, but they didn’t, because my mother never gave them the chance. The text of my presence had reached her cell phone from one of the mothers’ circles. She had immediately jumped into the car and driven to the hall. At the exact moment Gregor dropped me, she was barging through the crowds in the wings. When Mom realized what was going on, she pulled a curtain rail sampler from her shoulder bag and charged Gregor Devereux, who had an eight-inch and eighty-pound advantage over her.
Devereux was in the act of hoisting May’s trophy when a foot length of cherrywood struck him on the temple, swung with the strength of motherhood. Gregor pirouetted once, then dropped like a sack of stones.
May flung herself on his chest, sobbing.
“I’m sorry,” I said to the one girl who had ever liked me. “It was the only way.”
May raised her head long enough to say the words that have haunted my dreams since that night. “What my daddy did was bad,” she said, her bleary eyes like dark stones underwater. “But what you did tonight was worse.”
Maybe I could have persuaded her otherwise, but my mother smothered me in her arms and the moment was lost.
Now it is too late. Now she hates me for life.
Join the club.