Sherlock Sam and the Sinister Letters in Bras Basah Read online

  “I was just going to tell you about the game since you seemed so interested, but if you’re going to be like that, forget it,” Eliza said. She turned and stomped off, bumping into a startled Nazhar along the way.

  “Maybe she’s just lonely,” Nazhar whispered. “All her friends are in other classes, so they didn’t get to come for this exchange programme.”

  “Nazhar, are you defending her?” Wendy asked. “She’s a bully. If she’s lonely, it serves her right for making fun of people.”

  Nazhar and I looked at each other and shrugged. Jimmy chased a butterfly that he had spotted in a nearby bush.

  “Anyway, shouldn’t we be looking for the classes we’ll be attached to this week?” Wendy asked. “Sam, shouldn’t you be making friends with that Luis kid?” Wendy didn’t realise it, but she sounded a lot like Eliza when she was bossing us around. No one told her that, of course.

  “Who’s Luis?” Jimmy asked, giving up his butterfly chase.

  I brought Nazhar and Jimmy up to speed on the mission Officer Siva had given us, word for word.

  “Eh? How come we are your Supper Club?” Nazhar asked. “Also, what’s a supper club?”

  “I-have-yet-to-hear-an-explanation-I-can-accept,” Watson said while Wendy nodded.

  “You guys are focusing on the wrong thing,” I said. “And anyway, it’s not my Supper Club. We are all in the Supper Club together. It’s like a superhero team! We’re the Avengers!”

  “I wanna be Superman!” Jimmy shouted. I couldn’t bring myself to tell Jimmy that Superman wasn’t an Avenger. He was so excited.

  “Right, let’s go find our classes,” I said before anybody else could complain.

  Jimmy and Watson followed me as we searched for our assigned class—Mrs Chi’s Fourth Grade class. All the elementary classes were lined up at the basketball court. Enterprise International School was smaller than our school, but it seemed to have a bigger playground and sports field. It had an elementary school, a junior high school and a high school. The international school students wore a mix of light brown and dark blue uniforms. They did not seem to have a standard uniform. All the students from our school still wore our regular uniforms.

  When the bell rang, a young and pretty Korean lady came to lead us up to our second-floor classroom. I deduced that she was Mrs Chi. I could see the international school students looking at us curiously.

  As we walked into the classroom, I looked at the wall of photographs and saw that this class had thirteen students: Alejandro, Elena, Yae Lynn, Rachel, Joseph, Marissa, Nathan, Hana, Vineesha, Simon, Hannah, Tehillah and the boy of the hour, Luis. Luis was Mexican, an ethnicity I admittedly knew very little about, and from the US. The rest of the students seemed to come from all over the world!

  Ten of my classmates huddled together at the back of the class. The rest of my classmates were in the other fourth grade classes. We were all feeling a bit shy—everyone but Jimmy that is. He was bouncing around from wall to wall, exclaiming excitedly about the things that he saw. Reading lists! Letters to local businesses written by the kids! Class photographs! Arts and crafts!

  Mrs Chi formally introduced us to her fourth grade class. They said “Hi!” and waved cheerfully. Everyone seemed really friendly. Then, we all shifted the tables and desks around to make room for my classmates and me. I made sure I ended up seated next to Luis. He grinned at me and offered me a mango pop that was covered in chilli powder! I had never had a lollipop that was covered in chilli powder before! I was already learning about something new. Jimmy sat next to Alejandro and they chatted away happily.

  “We’re going to start the Reading Aloud part of our lesson now. For the exchange kids, this is where we’ll all read aloud from our chosen book and then we’ll discuss what we’ve read, okay?” Mrs Chi explained. “If anyone has a question, our rule is that you have to raise your hand and you can only speak if I point at you, understand?”

  All of the international school students’ hands immediately shot up. Mrs Chi grinned and pointed at the girl to my left, Hannah.

  “Why is there a robot at the back of the class?” Hannah asked. Everybody immediately turned to look at Watson who was seated on the couch at the back of the room.

  “Samuel, would you like to explain?” Mrs Chi asked me. My form teacher had called to explain about Watson. Watson couldn’t participate in any of the lessons but he was given observer status.

  “He’s my robot,” I said. “Would you like to introduce yourself?”

  “My-name-is-Wat-son,” Watson said. “I-am-not-allowed-to-discuss-my-secret-abilities.”

  Watson really didn’t seem to understand the concept of “secret” abilities.

  “And he’s Sherlock! Sherlock Sam!” Jimmy said excitedly, pointing at me. All eyes in the classroom swung from Watson to me.

  “Well, well, Sherlock and Watson, eh? Very interesting,” Mrs Chi said, her eyes sparkling. “Kids, you’ll have more time to investigate Sherlock and Watson during recess, okay? Now it’s time for reading.”

  After the half-hour Reading Aloud session was over, Mrs Chi took us to the school library to select one of five books to write book reports on. Apparently, the authors of these five books were going to be featured at the upcoming children’s book festival in May. All the authors were either Singaporean or living in Singapore as permanent residents. When we reached the library, we immediately saw that Luis’ dad, Fidel Alvarado, was one of the featured authors for his book The Boy Who Thought He Could Fly. Luis looked shy, but very proud. The four other books were: Why Peas Taste Green by Yvonne Zhang, Wibbly Wobbly, Timey Wimey by The Physician’s Companion, The Adventures of Trill the Robot and Sofa the Sofa by Michael Yeo, and Indestructible Shapes by John Halson.

  Right then, Wendy, Nazhar, Eliza and a few of their fifth grade classmates came into the library as well.

  I picked Wibbly Wobbly, Timey Wimey because it was a book about time travel, Jimmy picked The Adventures of Trill the Robot and Sofa the Sofa because he loved robots, Wendy picked Why Peas Taste Green because the author was known to write everything out by hand, and Nazhar picked Indestructible Shapes because he’d heard the author was kind of an eccentric fellow. Eliza picked Luis’ dad’s book. Based on what I knew about her, she did that because she liked knowing famous people.

  “Watson, if you’d like to pick a book to write about, please go ahead,” Mrs Chi said.

  Watson immediately selected The Adventures of Trill the Robot and Sofa the Sofa.

  “What do you think happens now?” Jimmy whispered as he clutched his book.

  “Children, listen up. This is the second time we’re doing this but I’m explaining it again for our exchange students. You will have two days to finish your books. Make sure you don’t pick the same book as the first time,” Mrs Chi said. “Please write a letter to the author, asking him or her about his or her book. If your parents have given you permission, you may give the authors your home address, for them to write back to you. This is just like what you did for the first round of letters we wrote the last time. If not, use the school address. And make sure you ask intelligent questions!”

  Mrs Chi also explained that the school had arranged for us exchange students to get our response letters from the authors by Friday—our last day at Enterprise International School.

  Just as she finished, the recess bell rang and all the kids cheered. We were instructed to put the books back in our respective classrooms before heading down for recess.

  “Now comes the important part,” I said quietly. I was already thinking really hard.

  “What’s that, Sherlock?” Nazhar asked. The Supper Club had gathered around me.

  “Deciding what to eat for recess,” I answered.

  After a delicious meal of chicken fried chicken and a grilled cheese sandwich, we found Luis in line for the Four Square game. The line was quite long, so I couldn’t talk to him right away. Luis finally got his turn to play, and worked his way up to the second square before he
was taken out. When he finished, he saw us and walked over.

  “Hey, guys. So how did that Sherlock and Watson thing happen?” Luis asked.

  “What-do-you-mean?” Watson asked.

  “Why are you guys called Sherlock and Watson?” Luis asked.

  “Sherlock Holmes is one of my heroes and I would like to be a great detective like him one day! Batman too!” I said.

  “So you named your robot Watson after Sherlock Holmes’ partner?” Luis asked.

  “No. I-was-named-by-Sherlock’s-father,” Watson said.

  “Yeah, I was going to name him MEGADESTRO-TECHNO-BOT,” I explained, “but my dad walked in at just the wrong time.”

  “I think it worked out better, Sam,” Wendy said, nodding. I had to agree. Given Watson’s personality, he was highly unlikely to mega-destroy anything or anyone.

  “How about you? When did you and your family move to Singapore?” I asked. I needed to get information about the sinister letters without letting Luis know he was the target.

  “We moved here a couple of years ago when I was eight,” Luis said. “My mom, who’s a kidney doctor, was offered a job here and she took it. My dad started writing only when he got here. It was hard for me to adjust to Singapore at first, but once I figured out my parents were staying for good, I had to accept that I wasn’t going to see my friends back in California again. Now I have friends here, though, so it’s okay.”

  I couldn’t imagine leaving Jimmy and Nazhar, or any of my other friends, if my parents ever decided to move overseas. It would be really hard!

  “And…uh…have you gotten any letters recently?” Wendy asked as innocently as possible. She kept biting her nails though, which, to me, looked like a giveaway.

  “How did you know about that?” Luis asked, frowning suspiciously.

  “Know about what?” I asked quickly. “Aren’t you playing Chain Mail as well? Wendy and I received letters asking us to write about our favourite books.”

  A good detective needs to have a quick mind and always be ready to deal with the unexpected.

  “I got one with a physics question,” Nazhar said. “Can I show it to you later, Sherlock? It involved pi.”

  “Oh, right. I’d forgotten about that,” Luis said, looking relieved. “I’m sorry I freaked out a little. Someone’s been leaving letters for my dad in my bag, and every time I deliver a new letter, my dad looks scared. He tries to hide it, but I can tell.”

  “Do you know what the letters say?” Wendy asked immediately.

  “No, they’re sealed, and I don’t want to open my dad’s mail,” Luis said. “But I also don’t want to keep giving the letters to him.”

  “Do you know who they’re from?” I asked. I already knew what Luis’ answer would be but I wanted to make sure.

  “No, they’re just there when I get back from recess or lunch,” Luis said. “I’ve never been able to catch who leaves them there.”

  “Why don’t you hide somewhere and spy on your bag?” Jimmy asked.

  “I’ve tried, but nobody ever comes when I hide in the classroom,” Luis said. “The letters are really starting to freak me out.”

  “Sinister letters tend to have that effect on people—” I said.

  “Why do you call them sinister letters?” Luis interrupted, looking shocked. “What do you mean? Are you saying they are threatening my dad or something?”

  “The letters might just be a prank, Luis. It’s nothing for you to be worried about yet. I promise,” I said.

  “Wait, I don’t understand. How do you know anything about what’s going on—” Luis said. However, before he could continue, the bell rang to signal the end of recess.

  “I promise I’ll explain everything later,” I said. “But now, we should get back to class.”

  Luis stared at me hard and finally nodded his head. I knew it would be difficult for him to be patient, under the circumstances. He ran off towards Mrs Chi’s classroom. PE was the next lesson.

  I always kept my promises. I wasn’t going to let anything happen to Luis. Officer Siva trusted me with this and I wasn’t going to let him or Luis down.

  “Whoever is giving the letters to Luis must be someone at this school, right, Sherlock?” Nazhar said.

  “Not only that, I suspect it might be someone in his class,” I said.

  “Why do you say that, Sam?” Wendy asked.

  “Because the culprit clearly knows when Luis is not at recess or lunch,” I said.

  “It can’t be anybody in his class, Sherlock,” Jimmy said. “I’ve talked to most of them, and they’re super nice! Yae Lynn is from Korea, and Simon is from Germany, and his name is not pronounced SY-MON, it’s pronounced SEE-MOAN. And Hana is Japanese, but Hannah is Australian. And Joseph is Korean-Chinese, but from the US, and Vineesha is Indian, but from England! They’ve come from all over the world!”

  “Hmm, at least one of them isn’t as nice as he or she is pretending to be,” Nazhar said. “Or it could even be Mrs Chi!”

  “Tread carefully, Nazhar,” I said. “We need more information before we can definitely say anybody is doing anything. For all you know, it could be anyone who has access to the classroom and knows the class schedule. It may even be Luis himself, in a bid for attention.”

  “Oh yah, that’s true,” Nazhar said. “I didn’t think about that.”

  “As-important-as-this-conversation-is-I-believe-we-need-to-get-ready-for-P-E,” Watson said.

  Jimmy, Watson and I split off from Wendy and Nazhar, and went to class. Mrs Chi dismissed us for PE and told us we could use the boys’ restroom to change into our PE uniforms.

  We rejoined our class at the field behind the elementary school building, where we found the tallest teacher I had ever seen in my life. He was so tall, I couldn’t see his head properly!

  “Hello, students. My name is Mr Johnson, and this is my PE class,” he said. “Before we play any sports, I need you all to limber up, so let’s do some jumping jacks.”

  It didn’t take a genius detective to figure out this was going to be my least favourite class. After the jumping jacks, Mr Johnson had us run around the track. Jimmy sped around the track twice before I finally finished one round.

  “Okay, everybody, good job! Now, let’s play some flag football!” Mr Johnson shouted.

  “Watson,” I said. “Tell Mom she may have been right about my eating habits if I don’t make it out of this alive.”

  I didn’t even know what flag football was but the name led me to believe that there would be a flag and a football involved, and most likely lots of chasing.

  “I-think-a-better-use-of-my-time-would-be-to-record-you-attempting-to-play-flag-football,” Watson said.

  My robot needed a serious personality matrix upgrade.

  After the excruciating gladiatorial games that made up PE, the rest of the school day passed without much incident. We learned a bit of world history, and got some time to read the books we chose earlier in the day.

  After school, we walked out and saw Officer Siva waiting by the front gate.

  “Hey, Supper Club!” he called out.

  “What’s that mean?” Eliza asked Nazhar. She seemed to appear out of nowhere. “And who’s that?”

  Nazhar looked surprised that Eliza was talking to him directly.

  “He’s Officer Siva,” Nazhar said hesitantly. “He’s a bit weird. He keeps calling us Sherlock’s Supper Club.”

  “You know a policeman? Why did he give you guys a name?” Eliza asked bossily. “What did you do that you know policemen who give you names?”

  “You remember those DVD bootleggers that got caught in Fort Canning Park?” Wendy asked. “That was us. We helped catch them. Try and make fun of that. C’mon, guys.” She pulled Jimmy and me away from Eliza, but Eliza seemed to have Nazhar cornered.

  “Hey, Officer Siva,” I said. “We don’t have much of a report to give you, unfortunately.”

  “That’s not why I’m here, actually,” he said. “I told M
r and Mrs Alvarado about you and how you were helping me out, and they want to meet all of you. They’ve invited you to dinner tonight!”

  “Oh. I don’t know if we can go,” Wendy said. “We’ve got homework and Mom doesn’t usually let us go out on school nights.”

  “Now, let’s not be hasty,” I said. “What kind of dinner are we talking about?”

  Officer Siva chuckled. “I checked with your mom and dad already, and they were okay with it, but you can call them to make sure.”

  Wendy took Officer Siva’s handphone and called home.

  “Okay, but seriously, what kind of dinner?” I asked.

  “You’ll have to wait to find out!” Officer Siva said, grinning.

  Mom had indeed agreed to let us go for dinner, and Jimmy and Nazhar had been allowed to as well.

  Nazhar was walking away from Eliza towards the car when Officer Siva said, “You can bring your other friend along too.”

  “Oh, no, Officer Siva,” Wendy started, “she’s actually—”

  “Thank you so much, Officer Siva,” Eliza said in the sweetest voice I had ever heard from her. “Nazhar was just helping me catch up on the case and I’d be ever so happy to help out.”

  “What’s happening?” I asked Wendy in a whisper.

  “She does this all the time at school,” Wendy whispered back. “She’s only nice when grown-ups are around.”

  “Of course you can help! I didn’t realise you were part of the Supper Club,” Officer Siva said.

  “Actually, she’s—” Wendy started.

  “Thank you, Officer Siva!” Eliza said. As soon as Officer Siva turned around, she stuck her tongue out at Wendy.

  Officer Siva waited for Luis to come out of the school. He greeted Officer Siva as “Uncle Siva” and was very surprised to see us all with him.

  “I’m sure you’ve met them already, but let me re-introduce you to Sherlock Sam and the Supper Club! They helped me solve a case before, and now they’re going to help me figure out what’s going on with your dad.”