The Mystery of Miss King by Margaret Ryan Page A

on the door and apologise. Otherwise Miss King might complain to Mr Maini. I didn’t want to lose my job. Not now I was so close to being able to afford a new bike.
    I lifted the heavy knocker and gave a tap. Nothing happened. I banged a little harder. Still no one answered.

    I must have leaned on the door when I knocked, because it slid open silently, and I found myself looking into an empty hall. The scattered magazines and paper lay on the floor beside the morning post. A large pot plant sat neatly on the hall table, but I couldn’t see or hear anything. Not the radio or the TV, not Miss King, or even her dog. There seemed to be no one around except me.
    â€œHello,” I called. “Hello? Is anybody there?”
    Nothing.
    I chewed on my lip. Something was wrong. Miss King would never leave her house unattended. Never leave her front door open for anyone to walk in. It was all very strange and I wondered what I should do.

Chapter Two

    I decided to have a look round the back. Miss King was probably outside washing her wheelie bin, or ironing the grass.
    I tiptoed round the side of the house, past the the stone Viking warrior peeping out from behind the water butt, and past the two Viking gods fiercely guarding the compost heap. Which was tidy, of course.
    There was no Miss King. But there
was
a shed. Checking that no one was looking, I sprinted across the grass and peered in the window.
    Inside, I could see a white-painted chair, a grey filing cabinet and a large wooden workbench. On the bench, laid out in rows,were some strange tools, and beside them lay some old sacks, which were neatly folded. Then I saw another sack sitting on the floor. It was lumpy and bulging, and there was something sticking out of it. I gasped, rubbed my eyes, and craned my neck to have a closer look. What was sticking out of it was … a foot!

    What
? Whose foot was
that
? I didn’t wait to find out. I turned and ran. I leapt over the garden gate and jumped on my bike. I quickly delivered my other papers, and was still breathing hard when I handed in my bag to Mr Maini.
    â€œAre you all right, Jonny?” he asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

    â€œNo, not a ghost,” I said, and decided to say no more. Mr Maini hadn’t believed me when I’d told him about the enormous pirate who lived at number 13, and this story was even more unlikely.
    So I just got back on my bike and headed for school.
    I got there in record time.
    Miss Dodds was surprised to see me. “You’re early this morning, Jonny,” she said. “Threatening to ban you from football practice seems to have worked. You may get to play in the inter-schools’ football final on Saturday, after all.”

    I gave her a weak smile and slumped down in my seat. I wasn’t going to tell her what I’d just seen; she
never
believed me.
    â€œWhat’s wrong with you?” my friend Surinder grinned, sitting down behind me. “You’re not late.”
    â€œBut you look terrible,” said my other friend, Sara. “You haven’t seen some Martians land their spacecraft in Weird Street, have you?”

    â€œNo,” I said. “Trouble is, I’m not sure
what
I’ve seen. Can’t speak now. I’ll tell you all about it at break…”

    â€œSurely it can’t have been a
real
foot,” said Sara, as we munched our apples in the playground. “Otherwise there would have been a lot of blood. What did it look like?”
    â€œI don’t know. A foot,” I said, crossly. “A foot attached to a bit of leg.”
    â€œAh,” said Surinder. “You didn’t say anything before about a leg.”
    â€œI’ve only just remembered.”
    â€œWhat kind of a leg?” asked Sara. “Male or female?”
    â€œI don’t know. I was too shocked to notice.”
    â€œWas it smooth or hairy?” asked Surinder. “My dad’s got