Twenty-one
‘Hey, I was just about to call you with my flight details,’ Emma said, greeting Bel on the phone.
‘Great. So, I was wondering, when you were planning on coming clean about the stuffed rooster in the feed shed?’ Bel asked casually.
The silence on the phone was confirmation of what Bel had suspected.
‘I was planning on getting rid of that when I came back.’
‘Getting rid of it?’
‘Returning it, whatever,’ Emma said.
The shrug in her tone was annoying Bel. ‘What are youdoingwith it in the first place?’
‘It was a dare, of sorts,’ Emma said, sounding a little less offhand and a lot more sheepish.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Craig and I were out on our wedding anniversary, we were reminiscing about our youth and how much fun we used to have, and … how boring we’ve become,’ she sighed deeply. ‘There’d been a fair bit of alcohol consumed with dinner and we were walking past the museum. I don’t know, I just had this crazy idea. I dared Craig to do something illegal and the least likely thing to get prison time for was to break into the museum. So he double-dared me and … we did it. Together.’
‘Theleastlikely thing to get prison time for? Good grief, Em, you’re supposed to be a respectable parent. You’re on the P&C committee, for goodness’ sake!’
‘The alternative was to have sex in a public place,’ Emma said defensively, as though she’d made a much more respectable choice in breaking and entering.
‘Oh my God.’
‘Oh, stop it. You have no idea how depressing it is to remember how fun you used to be before you had to give it all up and become the strict mum and fun police.’
Okay, so maybe now she’d had a taste of losing her fun aunty identity to enforce Emma’s guidelines, she could sympathise. And yes, it did hurt to be strict with the kids about eating dinner and doing homework, but still …
‘I realised the next day how stupid it was, and I was planning on taking it back when I got a chance, but then Craig had his accident and everything … I’d forgotten about the damn thing until you made that post.’
The bloody post that had suddenly drawn attention to the missing bird that was currently in a bag at her feet.
‘ASIO is involved, Emma! The freaking spooks!’
‘Oh, would you relax. You’re obviously getting all caught up in your own social media whirlwind. Everyone thinks it’s a joke and a big publicity stunt.’
‘Which means they probably think I’m behind it,’ Bel groaned.
‘It’ll be fine. I’ll take Elvis back when I get home and it’ll all blow over.’
‘Meanwhile, I have stolen goods in my possession.’
‘Stash it under a bed somewhere.’
‘I am not stashing poor Elvis under a bed.’
‘I have to go, the insurance company are calling. I’ll take care of it when I get home.’
So all Bel had to do was pretend she had no idea who the bird thief was or where Elvis was, despite using the hashtag #WhereIsElvis on every single post she’d been making.No worries at all.
‘I can’t believe we’re doing this.’
‘Youcan’t believe it?’ Dean whispered back. ‘I’ve managed to survive thirty years without committing a crime and I’m breaking into a museum toput something back. If we get caught, it’s not even for something cool.’
‘If Emma wasn’t already going through hell, I’d …’ Well, there wasn’t much point worrying about what she’d do. They had to fix it. Now, before this whole thing went any further.
