As the caretaker walked towards us, I saw that he had a scar
running across his cheek. He was wearing a silver uniform, with holes in his
hat and a name badge saying ‘Dave’ on his chest.
“What do you think?” I whispered to Mr Smith. I already felt
the situation was out of control and was unsure whether to let another person
join us.
“I don’t trust him,” he replied. “leave it up to me!”
Before I knew what was happening, he had tripped Dave up and
to my surprise produced a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and put them onto
Dave’s wrists. Why on earth did he have them with him? I was becoming more and
more worried about whether I should really have trusted this man.
He snatched the tape away from his grasp, took a set of keys
from the caretaker’s pocket and held one up to me. “This says its for the Paper
Cupboard, I saw that door inside the school!” By this time Dave was shouting at
us, but we managed to get him inside and into the cupboard without too much
trouble. A pang of guilt made me leave the keys in the lock on the outside
though, so hopefully he wouldn’t be in there for too long.
“I’m not leaving it here now,” said Mr Smith, and swiftly
opened the hiding place to get the diamond back again. By this time my head was
spinning at the constantly changing decisions, but I let him take the diamond
once again and put it into his back pack.
Outside the school, the road was quiet and dusty with the
sounds of the traffic in the background. Just then a black cab came past, and
not only that but the light was on. I hailed it and we got in. The taxi driver
turned round. “Where to?”
“The river?” said Mr Smith
“And step on it!” I told him.
The cab was spotlessly clean and unusually shiny inside,
with gold leather seats and television screens in front of us. I noticed that
the film Goldeneye was playing.
“You must have some money to do the cab up like this,” I
remarked.
“Oh yeah, it comes from all the diamond smuggling,” he
laughed, without noticing how much we both jumped. “Only joking! Seriously
though, I don’t need the money but I just like driving people round.”
We went back past the yellow and red buildings, past
Sainsbury’s and the Odeon, until he pulled up by the river, where I had passed
earlier that day.
I searched in my pocket for some change. “This one’s on me,”
said the driver, and we got out of the cab. “Just do me a favour some other
time.”
“Thanks for the ride!” I called after him as he drove away.
We were standing by the Yacht Club, the bright sails
clinking in the wind, which seemed to be getting stronger. My rash companion
had already jumped into one of them which was just at the edge of the water. I
tried to tell him that I hadn’t ever sailed a boat before, but he took no
notice. The water was so rough that the boat was being pushed around and I
could see that it was going to be impossible to sail it on the river.
“If you’re not coming with me, I’ll have to go on my own!”
he said, the wind gusting around him. I was becoming increasingly concerned for
his sanity, and once again wondered whether Mr Smith was really his name, or
just a cover he had used at the Pilot Inn.
I had no time to react, because just then a particularly
large gust of wind blew him off his feet and he landed on the floor of the
boat. The diamond, which had been clutched in his hand, flew into the air, the
light gleaming and reflecting from its surfaces as it went.
SPLOSH! The diamond cut through the surface of the water as
fast as a bullet.
We looked at each other for a split second before Mr Smith
dived over the side of the boat to try and rescue his prize, but the diamond
was falling too fast through the murky waters. I could just see him at the
bottom of the river, his hands grappling through the mud and grime. After
nearly a minute of frantic searching, he came back up to the surface, but the
water was by now even rougher, and he was being carried away by the current.
