“Where are we going, Miss Polewidth?” asked David as the car zoomed along the highway towards Sydney.
“To look at art,” said Miss Polewidth loftily. “Art has the power to cultivate and lift the mind from the swamp of barbarism.”
“Oh good,” said Debbie. “I like museums.”
“Museum? What museum?” asked Miss Polewidth indignantly. “You don’t go to a museum to view art. All you’ll find in a museum is a bunch of stuffy old paintings in heavy gold frames. You can tell at once what the pictures are meant to be. A horse. A woman. Some countryside. How derivative. It requires no mental power whatsoever to appreciate art like that.”
‘The New South Wales art gallery has a modern art section,” said David.
“That is only slightly better,” sniffed Miss Polewidth. “There are placards telling you what the artist wishes you to see. It’s all so unsubtle. No, I am taking you somewhere where you can see real art. An abandoned train station down in the depths of Sydney’s underground is the perfect place to see real, raw unedited art. The graffiti down there is magnificent.”
‘Is that even legal?” demanded David.
“Pah,” said Miss Polewidth dismissively.
David and Debbie looked at each other in horror.
“Where is this abandoned train station?”
“Dear children,” said Miss Polewidth sternly. “The graffiti of an abandoned train station is a national treasure. I don’t want to make its whereabouts common knowledge because hoodlums might go down there and destroy it. It is enough for you to know that I know where this abandoned train station is and I’m confident that we can get to it without being hit by a train. After all, I’ve never been hit before. The trick is to stay very close to the wall so if a train does happen to pass by, you just feel a strong wooshing and not a loud crunching.”
They had arrived at Redfern. Miss Polewidth parked the car down a back street, and they walked towards the train station. “We will catch a train to Central,” said Miss Polewidth, waving her torch about as though she could hardly wait to start looking at graffiti in dark, abandoned stations. “Beyond that I will not tell you.”
Upon entering the station Miss Polewidth’s eyes moved towards the restroom. “Pardon me for a few minutes, children,” she said. “Get something from the muffin stand while you wait.” She handed them a twenty-dollar bill and hurried towards the restroom.
“Come on,” said David. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Where are we going?” asked Debbie.
“Anywhere,” said David, hurrying towards one of the steep staircases that led down to the platforms. “That woman is a nut. We’re not going to go down to an abandoned station with her. Quick, let’s get on this train.”
“Where should we get out?” asked Debbie.
“Somewhere where Miss Polewidth wouldn’t want to go,” said David grimly, looking at the station names sliding across the train screen. “Can you think of anywhere she wouldn’t want to go?”
“She didn’t seem to like art museums very much,” said Debbie. “Perhaps we should get out at Saint James station and walk through Hyde Park to the art gallery.”
“Can you remember how to get from the park to the gallery?” asked David.
‘I think so,” said Debbie slowly. “Anyway, I like Saint James’s station, it’s got sparkly floors.”
“That’s a good idea,” said David. “And we can have lunch at that café in the old bus stop, The Grouchy Cook.”
Saint James station is a pretty, old fashioned train station. David and Debbie hurried along over the glittering floors down the long, narrow passageway out onto the foot path. The foot path ran along a very loud, busy road. A bus painted all over in bright colours read, AI Festival at the Art Gallery.
Debbie pointed at it. “Uncle Octavius would hate that,” she said. “He’d say it was ugly modernity at its worst. Poor Uncle Octavius, I hope he’s doing alright in jail.”
“I hope so too,” said David.
The path towards the Grouchy Cook was overhung by enormous old trees.
“This would be such a lovely day, if Uncle Octavius wasn’t in jail and Professor Snot wasn’t waiting for us and Miss Polewidth wasn’t trying to drag us down to some dangerous old station to look at ugly graffiti,” said Debbie.
“I know,” agreed David. “Let’s have donuts for lunch to cheer ourselves up.”
Two big donuts each later, they both felt a bit better. “Let’s go to the art gallery,” said Debbie. “We know Miss Polewidth won’t look for us there.”
As they walked towards the gallery, signs for the AI festival were everywhere. Debbie started reading some of the signs out loud:
“AI, and the future of Art.”
“Can AI Produce New Old Masters?”
“AI, the Future of Forgery Detection?”
In the distance, they could see the big art gallery. Suddenly David jumped. “That car! Look at the number plate!”
A horribly familiar car, in a nasty shade of mustard orange was speeding down the road towards the gallery. The number plate read JeanYiz.
“You don’t suppose he’s going to the art gallery?”
“Oh David, I think he is! Look, he’s parking in front of it!”
“He’s parking in a handicap parking spot!” said David indignantly.
“Quick, get behind this tree,” said Debbie.
They watched across the road as the healthy, limber figure of Professor Snot leaned into the back of his car and suction cupped a disabled parking permit to his window. Then he climbed easily out, locked his car and strode towards the large doors of the museum.
“What a horrible man!”
“Yeees,” said David slowly. “It’s also illegal. Look, there’s a policeman, let’s tell him about it. Maybe he can arrest Mr Snot and then we won’t need to worry about going home.”
Constable Cuffs was ambling happily towards the art gallery. He was on break, and he was about to have his second date with a very pretty secretary from a bank up the road. The last date had been a great success. She had told him three times that she thought he was a very brave man, twice that she thought him handsome and not once had she made that tired old joke about his last name. He was now going to meet her for coffee in the big cafe under the gallery. He was looking forward to it.
Suddenly he saw two children. Constable Cuffs did not like children. Two weeks after he, an only child, had graduated from the police academy, his mother (who he had always assumed was ancient) had gone and got pregnant with twins.
He especially disliked children in pairs. Why was this revolting duet walking towards him? He didn’t want to talk to children. He tried to look tough and unhelpful.
“Please sir,” said David. “That car over there, belongs to a criminal.”
“What?” Constable Cuffs jumped to attention. This put a different perspective on things. What good luck to do something dashing just before his date. He could tell her all about it and she would be more impressed than ever.
“Yes, yes? What sort of criminal?” Oh, please let it be a bank robber-thought Constable Cuffs. Or at the very least a hit and run driver. But preferably a bank robber. She would be interested in that.
“A very awful criminal!” Said Debbie darkly. “A thief!”
“Yes, yes,” said Constable Cuffs excitedly swivelling his head about, looking for shady characters.
“He stole a disabled parking spot!”
“What?” Constable Cuffs glared at David. “Is that all?”
“It’s a very mean thing to do!” Debbie was indignant. “He forged a disabled parking permit! Over there, you can see it’s a fake!”
Constable Cuffs glared at her. “I will look,” he said sternly. What rotten luck. This was no great quest with which to impress her. He followed the children sourly to the car.
“That is not a fake disability parking permit.”
David was shocked.
“It is a fake permit! It’s a forgery, it’s been made by Professor Snot and there’s nothing wrong with him at all!”
“Except his nasty heart,” muttered Debbie.
“If that’s a forgery,” said Constable Cuffs coldly, “it’s a magnificent one. It’s so magnificent it might has well be the real thing. Now go away to your parents.”
He stomped off towards the tall gallery doors.
Debbie and David watched him go. “He wasn’t very helpful,” said Debbie.
David kicked at a half-crumbled flyer lying in the gutter. “He thought we were just kids,” he muttered. A breeze lifted the flyer, and it summersaulted in the air before returning to the gutter, this time with the other side facing upwards.
“LOOK!”
Debbie looked where he was pointing. On the flyer were written the words:
For One Month Only, All the Way from New York City! The Claudine Exhibit! Fashion and Literature Combine into a Wonderful Visual Tale! Now at the New South Wales State Library!
Below that was a beautiful picture of an elegant ladybug looking more like something you’d find at a king’s coronation than pottering about on a cabbage leaf.
“Claudine! It’s Claudine! That must be the real Claudine! Remember Professor Snot said they’d chosen Claudine because no one would think anything of her name popping up in a literary town?” Debbie was breathless with excitement. “We’ve solved the mystery, David.”
“No, we haven’t. We’ve only solved one tiny bit of the mystery. We don’t know why Claudine is important and we don’t know why Professor Snot wants to find her and come to think of it, we still don’t know who Claudine is. We just know that this Claudine looks a lot nicer than that rotten Madam Claudine back in the circus. And we still don’t know why Professor Snot thinks we know where she is.”
“Then let’s go to the exhibit, it’s only on the other side of the park.”
Soon they had walked through the park to the library but when they got there, they got a shock! Banners stood on the steps of the library advertising the Claudine exhibit and balloons seemed to be bursting out of every window and door of the grand old library. And every balloon was a brightly coloured red and black ladybug.
Debbie looked at David and David looked at Debbie.
“The ladybug balloon on the golf course! That’s the Claudine Professor Snot’s after! There must be something about that ladybug!”
“We left it in our bedroom back at Uncle Octavius’s house! What if Professor Snot thinks to look there! Oh David, we must get back to the Southern Highlands before he does!”
“Then we better hurry,” said David. “It takes a lot longer to get to the Southern Highlands by train than it does by car!”
And they began to run for the nearest train station.
Come back next week to find out what happens next! Follow me on Facebook and Instagram at Ruth Marie Hamilton to never miss an instalment.
The picture of the library licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. The writing is copyright R.M. Hamilton 2023. Designs created and owned by R.M. Hamilton.