Friday Barnes 3 by R. A. Spratt

Friday.
    â€˜Why don’t you pick the lock?’ asked Melanie.
    â€˜There’s no time for that,’ said Friday. ‘Who knows what damage they could be doing to the letter as we speak? They could be folding extra air foils and tearing bits off to alter the weight balance.’
    â€˜Do you even know how to kick down a door?’ asked Melanie as Friday took a few steps back.
    â€˜Of course I do,’ said Friday. ‘I read all about it online. It’s just a matter of simple physics. Mass times acceleration plus the force of momentum meeting a stationary object. Oh, and you have to yell really loudly to focus your chi.’
    â€˜Isn’t that a type of tea?’ said Melanie.
    â€˜No, you’re thinking of chai,’ said Friday. ‘Your chi is your energy.’
    â€˜Okay,’ said Melanie, ‘I’ll put my fingers in my ears and you can yell as loud as you want.’
    â€˜Hiiyaaaaahhhh!’ screamed Friday as she launched herself forward and slammed the ball of her foot into the door just below the lock. The lock smashed out through the frame, splintering the wood. The door flung open, Friday overbalanced and landed flat on her face. The door hit the wall hard and bounced back, whacking Friday in the side of her head.
    â€˜Ow,’ said Friday.
    â€˜Hello Mr Maclean,’ said Melanie.
    â€˜What on earth are you doing here?!’ demanded Mr Maclean.
    Friday looked up to see Mr Maclean wearing nothing but a swimsuit and sun goggles as he struggled to sit up on a sunbed. Ultraviolet light from the sunbed bathed the room.
    â€˜I think we’ve found our radiation source,’ said Friday.
    â€˜Why? Do you think Mr Maclean was reading Marie Curie’s letter as he lay on the sunbed?’ asked Melanie.
    â€˜Excuse me,’ said Mr Maclean, clutching a towel to his beige-coloured chest. ‘A man has a right to a suntan, doesn’t he?’
    â€˜I don’t think that’s one of the legal rights listed in the constitution,’ said Friday. ‘But I certainly don’tthink it is illegal, either. Just strange and extremely vain to be secretly acquiring one in a closet.’
    â€˜Well, I have to unwind somehow after an hour of year 7 geography,’ said Mr Maclean.
    â€˜Oh, is geography over?’ asked Melanie. ‘That’s a shame. That means we’re missing music now. I have some of my best naps in music.’
    â€˜We’ve got to find that letter,’ said Friday. ‘We’ll have to double back and trace the other reading.’
    Soon Friday and Melanie were using the Geiger counter again to follow the radiation reading across the school.
    â€˜It seems to be leading towards the administration building,’ said Melanie.
    â€˜Of course!’ said Friday. ‘The clock tower.’
    They both looked up to see the tallest structure in the school: the clock tower. It was the architectural centrepiece of the administration building.
    â€˜It would be the perfect place to launch a paper airplane,’ said Friday.
    â€˜Oh dear,’ said Melanie. ‘It’s a windy day. That letter could end up anywhere.’
    â€˜We’ve got to get up there!’ said Friday.

    Unfortunately Friday and Melanie were even worse at running up a spiral staircase than they were at running in a straight line. It took some time, and a lot of gasping for breath, before they arrived at the top. Friday flung open the door only to have it thrown back at her by the force of the wind, the door hitting her in the forehead.
    â€˜Ow!’ said Friday.
    â€˜At least it was a different part of your head this time,’ said Melanie. ‘Better to have two small lumps than one big one.’
    â€˜Tell that to my cerebellum,’ said Friday. She clambered to her feet and looked out over the balustrade.
    Three boys were sitting on the far end of the ridge pole. They each had a paper airplane in their hand.