Free The Top Secret Diary of Davina Dupree by SK Sheridan Page B

even if I do say so myself.
    That’s what Mrs Fairchild wanted to talk to us about, after Croaka and Pike had been led away in shame, handcuffed and surrounded by loads of policemen. She said it would be silly to let two selfish criminals spoil such a strong artistic tradition and did we think we had enough energy left to help her put up the show? She said no problem at all if we didn’t, but Arabella and I said yes, yes, yes and Carrie said she’d help as she wasn’t going to let me out of her sight quite so quickly, not after everything that had happened. And Hugh said that if Carrie was helping, he would too, as she’d travelled with him to the gallery and wouldn’t be able to get home if he didn’t stay.
    Mr Cerise, the man in charge of the gallery, arrived in a total flap ten minutes after we’d started arranging the show, at about half past one in the morning. He said a police officer had phoned him to let him know about the attempted burglary about and he was so worried he’d jumped in to his car right away and driven straight here. Arabella and I couldn’t stop giggling because he was still wearing his pyjamas, which were red with a white paint brush design. After Carrie had made him a cup of tea in the gallery kitchen and advised him to pull himself together, Mr Cerise stopped pacing around flapping his hands and calmed down enough to fix the painting and frame that Croaka and Pike had tried to steal.
    The art show space Egmont School had been given was also in the Orange Room. We had two enormous bare walls to fill with pupils work. It was MEGA exciting to think that my painting would be on show in the same room as Vincent Van Gogh’s!
    We worked on the exhibition for hours, wanting it to look totally perfect. Mr Cerise lent us tons of spare gold and silver picture frames that he’d stored in an upstairs cupboard, before escaping to do some work in his office. Arabella and I spent quite a long time matching each first year’s painting to the right sized frame. Mrs Fairchild and Carrie made a good team, with Mrs Fairchild standing on a chair holding a hammer and nail in one hand and a frame in the otherand Carrie saying, ‘Up a bit, left a bit, no I mean right a bit, there – perfect.’
    When they’d put my painting up, Carrie gave me a kiss and said she was very proud of me. They put Arabella’s little one of a maths book next to it. The paintings did look smart all together against the deep orange wall. I couldn’t wait to tell all the other first years about everything that had happened. That is if any of them except Arabella were talking to me…
    Right Diary, I have to go now because Mrs Fairchild is going to drive us back to Egmont. I think I might fall asleep in her car because I’m so very, very zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz….
    Thursday 3 rd October
    I’ve just had the best news, Diary!
    Arabella and I have been voted in as head of year prefects! Can you imagine?! I’m so extremely excited.com .
    It turns out that while we were kidnapped at the National Gallery of Art and Design, Melody overheard Cleo and Clarice giggling about what other notes they could write, pretending to be us, during dinner. She quickly told the rest of the first year and they called a meeting with Clarice and Cleo that evening and told them they’d found out about the note writing. At first Clarice and Cleo tried to deny everything but in the end they gave in and admitted it, before storming off saying they didn’t want to be prefects for a bunch of losers anyway. Then, in the morning, when Arabella and I were asleep in the infirmary under Matron’s watchful eye, (Mrs Fairchild was very firm about this, she said we had to rest for several hours without being disturbed) word somehow leaked out about us being kidnapped by Croaka and Pike. By the time we joined the rest of the school for lunch in the hall, everyone knew all about how we’d escaped, been chased, captured the art thieves with Mrs Fairchild and helped to