The Ghost at Doringkloof

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The boys looked at each other in numbed amazement, their investigation having taken so unexpected a turn. It had been fine, in the terror of night, to invent magical explanations for Rajit's disappearance but here, in pure daylight . . .

"REMEMBER THE LONELY GIRL," Pepper repeated. "Whatever does that mean?"

"And the numbers," said Lwazi. "Seven pairs of numbers . . . 55, 51, 53, 25, 61, 21 and 84 . . . what type of message is that?"

"Something about it sounds familiar," Pepper answered at last. "If only I could think . . . then we could find Rajit quickly before more harm can be done."

Pete, however, was troubled. "Must call the cops," he muttered. "Shouldn't we go home and just call the cops?"

Pepper nodded. "Let's do that," he agreed. "No point in messing around here any more. We've failed in our mission."

He was on the point of leading them back to their bicycles when a small dog scampered into the house. She performed an excited dance all around them before rolling onto her back.

"Just look at you, girl," laughed Lwazi, tickling her tummy. "Where did you come from?"

"It's a Jack Russell," Pepper informed them. "Wonder who it belongs to?"

"If it's a Jack Russell," Pete said, "why does Lwazi call him a girl dog? How can a girl dog be called Jack?"

Pepper laughed. "I'm sure there's such a thing as a Jack Russell girl dog," he suggested. "Else how do you get Jack Russell puppies?"

Pete wasn't sure of that and decided to change the subject. "Jumbo Rabe's got the only Jack Russell I know of," he said.

"Can't be his," Pepper argued. "Jumbo wouldn't be out here . . . at least not at this time of morning."

At that moment there was a distant whistle. The dog leapt to attention, ears erect, listening. An instant later she scampered away and was gone.

"I've seen it before," Pepper muttered to himself but his friends weren't sure whether he was talking about the dog or the note in his hand.

They made their way out to the bikes, dejected. The excitement of the adventure had suddenly evaporated and each wished now only to get home as soon as possible.

The original entrance to Doringkloof Farm had been disused for such a time that it was now no more than a narrow footpath through the veld. Utter concentration was therefore needed to prevent the bikes wandering off into the tall grass and thorn trees on either side.

Pepper wasn't his usual self as he led the way on his red machine. He appeared lost in thought, as if attempting to pry a hidden memory from the deepest corner of his mind.

"Got it!" he suddenly called, stopping unexpectedly.

It was a silly thing to do. Lwazi and Pete were riding with heads bowed, legs pumping like the pistons of two great steam engines, quite unaware of the sudden obstruction on the track ahead.

Lwazi had just clicked into another gear when Pepper's motionless rear tyre came abruptly into view. He had time only to utter a helpless "Aaarrrhhhh!" before ploughing into the stationary bike. There was a crunch, a clang of metal against metal, and Pepper found himself catapulted forwards, his arms waving helplessly. Machine and rider thereupon crashed heavily to the baked earth of the track.

Lwazi's bike came to a sudden dead-halt, heaving its rider over the handlebars, to land on the prostrate form of his captain. Almost in slow motion, the riderless machine performed a neat somersault and landed on top of them both.

At that very moment Pete, with bowed head and amazing speed, piled into the tangle. He saw neither of his friends as he became briefly airborne, to land heavily and noisily on both.

"What are you two idiots up to?" Pepper grumbled from the bottom of the pile. He struggled in vain to free himself from the heap of bodies, bikes and beating limbs.

"If one needs talk of idiots," Pete muttered from the top, "one needs ask what idiots stop in roadways without warning?"

"Why'd you stop?" Lwazi asked crossly, carefully untangling himself from the heap. His lip was split and skin had been taken off his knuckles.

"I know the answer," Pepper said simply, rubbing a painful spot on his back. "The riddle . . . I know how the riddle works."

He went over the message once more in his mind. "REMEMBER THE LONELY GIRL," he repeated. "Rajit is telling us to REMEMBER a poem called THE LONELY GIRL."

He looked from Lwazi to Pete. "Don't you remember it?" he asked. "It's something Jelly wrote last year . . . it was printed in the school magazine."

"Why should we remember a stupid poem?" Pete asked. He was trying to straighten out Rajit's badly twisted handlebars.

"Because that's the solution to the riddle!" Pepper cried. "The numbers somehow refer to the words. If we can discover the connection, we'll get the message."

"I remember playing a game like that once," Lwazi recalled. "We put numbers to words and spelt out coded messages."

He used his teeth to tear a piece of loose skin from one of his knuckles, then looked at the blood. He wasn't sure whether it came from the graze or from his split lip. He sucked it clean.

"We've got to get hold of the poem," Pepper said. "There must be a copy in Jelly's room. Come on . . . let's go!"

The home journey was mostly downhill and the three riders sped along in a frenzy of purpose. Each knew they had to solve the riddle quickly before something dreadful happened to Rajit.

At last Pepper peddled recklessly into the driveway of his house. He scarcely slowed before leaping from the bike, allowing it to crash heavily onto the lawn. He sprinted for the doorway and had already disappeared before Lwazi and Pete had managed to dismount. They found him in Jelly's room, searching frantically through his sister's bookshelf.

"Must be here somewhere," he muttered.

He suddenly gave a whoop of triumph. "Here it is!" he cried, dragging a magazine from the lower shelf. He began a frantic search through its pages.

"Got it!" he said. "The Lonely Girl . . . here's the poem Rajit asked us to remember."

Lwazi and Pete crowded behind him, looking over his shoulder. They found the short poem which had given Jelly immense joy when it appeared in print.

Pepper read it out loud, slowly and dramatically, as if their very lives depended upon a perfect performance:

THE LONELY GIRL by Gillian Pepperoni She was seventeen Almost become a young woman Living alone Holding few dear Held dear by few friends But those in nature The soft-eyed deer The frogs the snakes She was a lonely girl But she had love in her heart

"Sounds like junk to me," Pete observed but his friends were prepared to ignore his ignorance of good poetry in view of the serious task ahead.

"Quickly," Lwazi urged. "Let's look at Rajit's message . . . the numbers . . . see if they say anything."

Pepper hauled the crumpled sheet from his pocket, spread it on Jelly's bed. He tried to remove some blood-stains by dabbing them with a licked finger but succeeded only in rubbing a hole through the paper.

"I don't see nothing," Pete said.

"Wait!" Pepper snapped. "The solution is to match the numbers to the words in the lines."

He pointed to the first digits. "55," he said. "What about if the five refers to line five, and the other five refers to the fifth word in that line."

"FRIENDS!" Lwazi shouted, almost deafening Pepper whose ear was close to Lwazi's mouth.

"Line five, word one?" Pepper pressed on.

"HELD!" shouted Pete in the other ear, not wanting to be outdone.

"A little softer chaps," pleaded Pepper. "What about line five, word three?"

"BY!" Lwazi and Pete shouted in unison.

"Two and five?" asked Pepper, cupping his hands over both ears.

"WOMAN!" they shouted.

"Six and one?"

"BUT!"

"Two and one?"

"ALMOST!"

"Eight and four?" he concluded.

"SNAKES!" Pete and Lwazi gave forth with added gusto.

"FRIENDS HELD BY WOMAN BUT ALMOST SNAKES," the three shouted in unison.

"We've done it!" Pete cried, springing about like a jack-in-the-box. "We've done it! We've solved the riddle! Rajit is saved!"

Pepper beamed at them. "We have!" he agreed. "We're brilliant! Someone should write a book about us."

"But," said Lwazi, hesitantly, "what's it mean?"

"Mean?" asked Pepper blankly.

"It's got to mean something," Lwazi explained, "if we're to go out and rescue Rajit!"

"Yeh," Pete agreed. "What's it mean?"

"Well," said Pepper. "It could mean, FRIENDS (it's a message to us!) HELD BY WOMAN ALMOST SNAKES. What woman do we know who has snakes?"

"Mrs Owl!" cried Pete. "It's Mrs Owl what done it!"

There was stunned silence while the shock of Pete's solution sank in. The boys looked from one to the other, too amazed to speak.

"It must be Mrs Owl," said Pepper. "She's the only one who keeps snakes. Do you think she's fed Rajit to her python?"

"Must get the cops," Pete muttered, returning to his original theme. "Maybe the cops can still rescue him. They say it takes ever so long for a python to digest its prey."

"Maybe she's chopping him up," Lwazi suggested, "and is feeding him to the python in pieces."

"Let's go! There's no time to lose!" Pepper exclaimed, and they sprinted for their bikes.