Meet Pearlie Read online

  As Beake walked away, Naoko sighed.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I guess he really can’t be a Japanese spy if he’s not Japanese.’

  ‘I guess not,’ Pearlie agreed.

  ‘But then why does he have a spy camera? Explain that to me, Pearlie Chan.’

  ‘Nao, please don’t get into this. It’s none of our business.’

  ‘But it is – don’t you see? I have to prove my dad’s not a spy, which means I have to find the real spy. And Beake’s my only suspect.’

  It was no use. Naoko was like a dog with the scent of a bone in its nostrils. Her mind was made up and as her best friend, Pearlie would have to help her.

  Naoko’s house was much bigger than Pearlie’s. It even had electricity instead of kerosene lamps. And it was always filled with light. Pearlie lived in the back of their shop, so there were no windows; each shop shared a wall with the one next door. The only time light came in was when the front and back doors were open.

  Mrs Ito greeted them as they came into the kitchen. The table was set with afternoon tea – dried fish, hard-boiled eggs, pickled vegetables and gyoza, which were pan-fried dumplings. It’s more like dinner, Pearlie thought. All she got for a snack at her place was white bread with condensed milk on top, which she had to make herself.

  ‘Call your father, Naoko. We are eating now,’ Mrs Ito said.

  Naoko put her head out the back door. ‘Otosan!’

  ‘Ai.’ Mrs Ito frowned, wiping her hands on her apron. ‘Go outside and call your father nicely.’

  ‘Yes, Mama.’ Naoko disappeared outside and Pearlie heard excited little cries. When Naoko came back she was cradling Tinto in her palm.

  Pearlie put out her hand. She was the only person besides Naoko that he liked to go to. He jumped onto her shoulder and began picking through Pearlie’s hair. She always felt embarrassed when he did this, but Tinto picked whether your hair was clean or dirty.

  Mr Ito came into the kitchen and set down a tiny tree in a green oval pot. When he wasn’t out on his boat, he was trimming, bending and shaping these miniature bonsai. Pearlie was surprised at how tired and worn down he looked.

  ‘Hello, Mr Ito,’ she said.

  ‘Ah, Shinju.’ He smiled.

  ‘Shinju’ meant ‘pearl’ in Japanese. But Pearlie could see that it was a pretend smile. There was sadness in his eyes that hadn’t been there the week before.

  ‘Did something else bad happen today?’ Naoko looked at her father then her mother.

  ‘Someone put a hole in your father’s boat,’ Mrs Ito replied.

  ‘What!’ Naoko clenched her fists.

  ‘It is not too bad,’ Mr Ito said. ‘A few days in dry dock and I will be able to go out again.’

  ‘Did you go to the police?’ Naoko said.

  ‘It would do no good. We have to accept that now Japan is at war, everything has changed,’ Mr Ito replied.

  There was a knock on the back door. Mrs Ito opened it and Rosco, the delivery boy, was standing there, a box of groceries in his arms. He came in and put the box on the table.

  ‘Would you like to stay for afternoon tea, Rosco?’ Mrs Ito said.

  ‘Not today.’ Rosco looked uncomfortable, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and pushing his spectacles up his nose.

  ‘What is the matter?’ Mr Ito asked.

  ‘I’m sorry . . . but this . . . um . . . is me last delivery . . .’ His voice trailed off and he stared at the ground.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Naoko said angrily.

  ‘You know how it is . . . what people are saying and all,’ Rosco said.

  ‘What are they saying?’ Naoko took a step closer to the boy.

  ‘Dinkum, I don’t believe it meself but the boss, you know . . . well, he says I’m not allowed to make deliveries here anymore because of the talk about you being a spy, Mr Ito.’ Rosco’s eyes flicked around the room. He didn’t dare look at anyone.

  Mr Ito put his hand on Rosco’s arm. ‘It is all right,’ he said. ‘We understand.’

  ‘But I don’t!’ Naoko said.

  ‘Shh . . . no more talk,’ Mrs Ito said. ‘We don’t want trouble.’ She went to the sideboard and opened an old milk tin. ‘Here, take this as a token of our thanks for your service.’ Mrs Ito gave Rosco a handful of silver.

  ‘Gee, thanks . . . I’m real sorry,’ Rosco said again. Then he went down the steps, mounted his bicycle and rode away.

  Naoko ran to the door and slammed it shut. ‘How can you stand there and not do anything about it! Come on, Pearlie.’

  ‘Eat first,’ Mrs Ito said.

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ Naoko replied.

  ‘Shinju? What about you?’

  ‘Ah . . . thank you, Mrs Ito. Maybe a bit later,’ Pearlie replied. She was really, really hungry, but Naoko needed her friendship more than Pearlie’s stomach needed food.

  Mrs Ito gave Pearlie an understanding nod.

  Pearlie followed Naoko to her room. In silence they fetched the scrapbook, coloured pencils and bits of paper, and spread them out.

  Pearlie used to think grown-ups were kind. But over the last few days she’d realised that they could be just as mean as some children. I’ll never be like that to Naoko, Pearlie promised herself.

  She sat down on the tatami mat. She could see that Naoko was embarrassed by what had just happened so she didn’t say anything more about it. Tinto leapt to the ground, picked up a pencil and began inspecting it. Then he put it into his mouth and clambered up the blind to sit on top of the wardrobe.

  ‘Now be a good boy, Tinto,’ Pearlie called up to him.

  ‘He’s always so obedient with you,’ Naoko said. ‘Who’s that saint who was kind to animals?’

  ‘Saint Francis of Assisi.’

  ‘Yes, that’s the one. I’m going to call you Saint Pearlie of Assisi from now on.’

  Pearlie laughed, glad that Naoko was returning to her usual playful self.

  The scrapbook was something they’d started a year ago. It was Pearlie’s idea: a book of friendship, a collection of shared memories – a leaf, a poem, a drawing, a shiny green beetle, a bottle top, halves of tickets for the pictures. Each left-hand page was for Naoko and the right-hand page for Pearlie.

  Pearlie’s pages were filled with poems and stories. Like the time they were chased by a feral pig and had to scramble up a tree while the pig sniffed and snorted below. Or when they were down in Doctor’s Gully and came across a snake shedding its skin. After it slithered away, they took the translucent skin to Naoko’s house, and it had hung in the back of Naoko’s wardrobe ever since.

  Drawing was what Naoko loved to do, so her pages were filled with pictures. On the last page Naoko had carefully glued the butterfly that Pearlie had given her and then she had copied it to the very last detail, even adding the tiny hairs on the butterfly’s body.

  Pearlie finished a poem about Diamond Cave while Naoko drew a picture of Beake and his miniature camera.

  ‘Oh! I almost forgot about this,’ Naoko said, reaching for her knapsack and taking out the battery they’d found. She set it in front of her and began to copy it.

  ‘I wonder who it belongs to?’ Pearlie said.

  ‘Another adventurer like us,’ Naoko said. ‘But I wish we’d got there first.’

  BY the end of the week, everyone was whispering about Naoko’s dad being the spy. Someone put a piece of liver covered with maggots into Naoko’s lunchbox. A note that said JAP SPY was pinned to her back.

  And Naoko is changing, Pearlie thought. There were grey splotches under her eyes and she walked with her head bent. The past few days she’d been disappearing after school. Pearlie had tried her best to cheer her up, but nothing was working.

  ‘You have to tell Mr Plumber,’ Pearlie said one day as they walked home from school.

  Naoko shook her head.

  ‘But he’s the principal, Nao. It’s his job to fix bad things.’

  Naoko shrugged.

>   They walked along the Esplanade. The breeze that blew off the sea seemed to calm them both.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ Naoko said, ‘about Beake and him being the real spy and all that.’

  Pearlie’s stomach squirmed.

  ‘I asked Dad and he said those spy cameras like the one you saw are really expensive. It’s not something an ordinary person can buy. So he’s gotta be some kind of spy.’ She paused. ‘What if we snuck in his house to get proof?’

  Pearlie stopped in the middle of the road. ‘Naoko Ito. That’s the craziest idea you’ve come up with yet.’

  ‘It’s the only way. My dad and mum don’t say anything. They won’t fight back. They let people put holes in the boat, leave dead things on the doorstep. But I’m not going to put up with it anymore. Don’t you see, Pearlie?’

  There was a long silence. A gull cried out at sea.

  ‘I’d feel the same way,’ Pearlie said at last.

  Naoko’s face was full of surprise. ‘So you’ll come with me, then?’

  Pearlie swallowed. ‘That’s what friends do, don’t they? They sneak into the houses of dangerous villains for the people they love.’

  ‘You are so brave, Pearlie Chan, and I love you.’

  And so, with a pounding heart, Pearlie said, ‘When are we going to do it, then?’

  ‘Well, actually, I’ve been doing a bit of spying myself the last few days,’ Naoko said.

  ‘I wondered where you’ve been. I didn’t think you had that many violin lessons.’

  ‘I discovered that Beake leaves his house at four o’clock every afternoon and gets home around six at night,’ Naoko said. ‘That’s when we break in – tomorrow, as soon as school’s over. He also has an old motorcar so we’ll hear him coming a mile off.’ Naoko smiled for the first time in days.

  They had come to the corner where they always said goodbye. How Pearlie wished tomorrow would never come.

  Pearlie and Naoko looked up at the windows of the Tompkins’ house. Each one was sealed tight with a wooden shutter. And too high to reach unless they had a ladder.

  ‘I saw a gap in one when I was snooping around the other day,’ Naoko said. ‘And there’s a gum tree right next to it we can climb. Come on, it’s around the back.’

  ‘Climb?’ Pearlie said under her breath. ‘You didn’t say anything about climbing.’

  ‘I’ll be there to help. Don’t worry,’ Naoko said, grabbing Pearlie’s arm and leading her round to the big old tree.

  Naoko clambered fearlessly from branch to branch. When she was level with the window she took out a penknife, reached over and prised open the shutter. ‘Got it!’ she said triumphantly, and climbed through the window. ‘Come on up, Pearlie. Your turn. No, wait. Stop!’ Naoko pointed at the foot of the tree, looking horrified. A goanna at least five feet long was emerging with a dead snake in its mouth.

  Pearlie stepped calmly to one side. ‘Hello, big fella,’ she said to the gigantic lizard. ‘It won’t hurt me,’ she told Naoko. ‘Good thing it was there. That snake might’ve bitten us.’

  Naoko shivered. Pearlie took a deep breath and pulled herself onto the first branch, then the second, all the while telling herself not to look down. The hardest part was figuring out how to get from the tree to the window. Naoko had done it with ease but Pearlie knew there’d be a point when she wouldn’t be holding onto anything.

  ‘Give me your hand and I’ll pull you through,’ Naoko said encouragingly.

  ‘I don’t think I can,’ Pearlie replied, making the mistake of looking down. Her head spun.

  ‘You can. I’ll catch you.’ Naoko stretched out her hand. ‘Come on.’

  Pearlie breathed in. Then she let go.

  For a second her hands clutched thin air.

  Then Naoko had her fingers around one wrist, then the other, and was pulling Pearlie in through the window.

  The first thing Pearlie noticed was the stink of stale pipe tobacco. Naoko flashed a torch around and the beam passed over a light switch. She flicked it on.

  The Tompkins’ furniture and belongings were still there. Pearlie had heard that the evacuees were only allowed to take one suitcase with them.

  The house looked untouched except for the large room in the centre. The sofa was covered with rumpled sheets and there was a suitcase with Beake’s clothes spilling onto the floor.

  ‘Pearlie – look!’ said Naoko, pointing to one of the walls. It was covered in swords and other strange-looking weapons.

  ‘Nihonto,’ Naoko whispered, and smiled.

  ‘Nihonto? What’s that?’

  ‘It means “sword”. These are Japanese weapons. Beake might not be Japanese but he certainly has an interest in Japanese things.’

  ‘Aha,’ said Pearlie, picking up a framed photo of a Japanese wedding. ‘Look who’s the groom.’ Dressed in traditional wedding clothes, standing next to his Japanese bride, was none other than Beake. And there were more photos of him standing in front of a pagoda and sitting on the floor eating a meal.

  Naoko laughed triumphantly. ‘We have our proof, Pearlie! We need to report him.’

  ‘But do you think this is enough?’ asked Pearlie. ‘All it shows is that –’

  There came the growling sound of an old motorcar.

  ‘Oh peanuts! He’s back early!’ Pearlie felt a shiver go down her spine.

  ‘Quick – put everything back how it was. I’ll see if we can leave through the back door.’

  Pearlie felt the blood drain from her body. She couldn’t move.

  ‘Pearlie!’ Naoko said, shaking her. ‘Snap out of it!’

  The shaking seemed to work but Pearlie’s hands were trembling as she tried to arrange the photographs. Was the wedding picture on the right or on the left of the temple? And what about the one of Beake sitting on the floor eating? Oh please, God, help me.

  The sound of the car grew louder and louder. Grrrrrrrr . . .

  At last everything was in place and Pearlie ran through the house to find Naoko.

  ‘The door’s padlocked and I can’t find the key!’ Naoko shouted. ‘We’ll have to hide.’

  The car door slammed. Bang!

  Naoko looked around. She opened a cupboard under the kitchen bench. ‘Hide in there, Pearlie. Hurry!’

  ‘It’s too small . . .’

  ‘Just get in, will you!’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘There’s not enough room for both of us. I’ll find somewhere else to hide.’

  There was the sound of a key in the lock. Click . . .

  Pearlie crawled into the cramped space, folded her legs up to her chest and Naoko closed the door.

  Footsteps sounded. Her heart was pounding so loudly she wished it would stop.

  THE cupboard smelled of rat droppings. Pearlie hoped a rat wouldn’t crawl over her – she knew she’d scream.

  In the door was a small mesh window so she could see out. Had Nao had a chance to hide?

  Heavy footsteps approached. It was Beake. Pearlie held her breath. To stop her teeth from chattering she bit into her gold bracelet.

  Beake came in. He opened drawers, banged them shut. Opened cupboards, banged them shut.

  He was looking for something.

  Then Pearlie saw his legs right up against the cupboard. He bent down. His face was inches away on the other side of the mesh – so close she could smell the tobacco on his breath and see the ginger hairs on his moustache. She held her breath and squeezed her eyes shut.

  One second, two seconds, three . . .

  If he opens the door I’ll punch him in the nose, she thought. Maybe that will give me enough time to get away.

  She heard Beake grumble something, then stand up and, to her relief, walk out of the kitchen. There was never a sweeter sound than those footsteps growing softer and softer. And even better was the squeak of the front door and then the beautiful growl of Beake’s motorcar driving away.

  Pearlie wiped her eyes and opened the door. ‘Nao,’ she called.
‘Where are you?’

  ‘In here.’ Naoko emerged from a tall cupboard, her eyes shining.

  ‘That was so scary,’ Pearlie said. ‘He nearly opened the cupboard I was hiding in.’

  ‘Forget about that. Look at this!’ Naoko beckoned Pearlie to follow her into the closet.

  There was the red glow of a light bulb and a strange chemical smell, which tickled Pearlie’s nose. ‘What is this place?’

  ‘It’s a darkroom – where you develop photographs,’ Naoko replied.

  On the bench were two enamel trays each filled with a clear liquid and a strange camera mounted on a post, its lens facing downwards. And beside that were the miniature camera and cases Pearlie had delivered to Beake.

  Naoko pointed at two batteries. ‘Look familiar?’

  Pearlie gasped. ‘They’re the same ones we found at Diamond Cave!’

  Naoko’s torch lit up a machine on a shelf higher up on the wall. ‘And this is some kind of radio transmitter for Morse code. Look, all the writing’s in Japanese. But this is the best thing of all.’ She aimed the beam at the roof.

  Pegged on a string were photographs of the big guns along the coast of Darwin. There were also photos of sheds and the oil storage tanks on Stokes Hill and the airstrips with bomber planes. At the end were the photos he’d taken of Pearlie and Naoko with the ships and the town behind them. But he’d enlarged them so the girls were no longer in the picture.

  ‘Oh – so he was just pretending to take photos of us,’ Pearlie said. ‘He really just wanted the ships and the town.’

  ‘Exactly!’ Naoko beamed.

  Pearlie’s voice came out small. ‘Do you really think Darwin’s going to be bombed?’

  Naoko switched off her torch. ‘Not if we can help it,’ she said. ‘We gotta tell the army.’

  ‘Why don’t we take some of the photos?’

  ‘We can’t,’ said Naoko. ‘Beake’ll know then that someone’s been snooping. We’ll bring the army with us next time. Then we won’t have to worry about Beake ever again. And my dad’s name will be cleared.’

  They left the same way they came in: through the window and down the tree. This time, instead of being scared, Pearlie’s thoughts were on Beake. He was a real live spy. And they’d found him out! It made her feel brave.