the discoveries of the day⦠and something else. Why did Damien have to resort to that?
It was 1am. I removed my earphones from my ears. My ears caught the sound of something familiar.
Click, clack, click, clack, click, clack. Someone was on the keyboard typing away. I slunk into the living room. I heard a âhee hee, kee keeâ.
âBoo!â I pounced.
âSssssssshhh!â came the reply.
âCaught you! What are you doing here at this hour, Sophia? You had better sleep. Mumâs going to kill you if she knows.â
âSssshhh!â
âWho are you talking to?â
âWatermelon.â
âYou mean the Annoying Watermelon?â
âNo!! Just Watermelon. Now go away.â
I caught a glimpse of the screen. There was a chat going on between Sophia and Watermelon:
Sophia: You are soooo cool, Watermelon. LOL
Watermelon: You are too cute and pretty to be true too! LOL. I wish I could see you in person.
Sophia: Letâs meet! For REAL this time.
My goose pimples were rising from the mushiness of the chat content. They were mushier than Grandmaâs gross porridge.
âHey!â Sophia elbowed me while trying to block the screen at the same time. Then, she typed âBWOMâ.
Instinct told me to be brotherly. âYouâd better be careful. You know that there are many perverts out there.â
âHeâs not a pervert. He is always helping me with my Math and telling me jokes.â
âOkay⦠as long as youâ¦.â
âDarryl?? Sophia!?â Mumâs voice stirred the midnight air.
âOh no!â
âOh no too!â
I sped off to my room. Sophia slammed the laptop shut and skittered after me.
We dived into our beds, buried ourselves in a shallow grave of pillows and blankets and froze.
âDarryl?!â Mum checked again from her room.
Sophia and I played dead.
When we sensed her let up, I whispered, âPssst! By the way, what does BWOM mean? I have never heard of it.â
âIt means Brother Watching Over Me.â
âWhat?! Okay, goodnight.â
âGoodnight. If you ever leak a word to Mum, I willâ¦â
âI know! I know!â I said. âPromise!â
Sophia giggled herself to sleep that night. I was now more awake than I had ever been. Was Sophia, my 12-year-old sister, falling in love?
The next day, the members of Operation Pants on Fire decided to meet early in school. The cool foggy air made our sleuth operation even more surreptitious. We had arranged to meet in the hall, the busiest place, so that our meeting would look less suspicious.
âHey, did you bring the erasable pens?â I asked Clandestino. He had a store of pens at home since he was a pen ninja.
âYes. Of course.â
âOkay, great! Iâve got the paper,â Mundi said, whipping out a clean sheet of A4 paper. âThis paper has the exact same texture as those used for our test papers. No?â
âGood thinking, Mundi,â Janice said. âLetâs seeâ¦â she said as she placed the piece of paper on the floor. We all huddled very close together on the floor, a piece of paper at the centre of our circle.
âThis is unbelievable, no?â Mundi piped up.
âWhat Leonard does is thisâ¦â I wrote down a few numbers on the paper with a blue erasable pen. After that, I erased the numbers and went over them with a different number using the same pen.
âThree seconds!â Mundi cried.
âWhat three seconds?â Clandestino asked.
âThree seconds you took to erase the number and write the correct one. If the cheaters did that for five questions, they would need 15 seconds. No?â
âWhich is the amount of time it takes for Miss Jacobs and Madam Siti to do class control!â I added. âBrilliant!â
Clandestino scratched his neck in doubt. âThatâs it? Justin and Leonard could have erased their answers during the test