‘TOP-GRADE MISBEHAVIOUR’ GUARDIAN
Praise for The Detention Detectives
‘Top-grade misbehaviour . . . Lis Jardine’s first novel is a compelling addition to the new canon’
Guardian
‘Friendship, trust, courage and determination are at the heart of this extremely funny murder-mystery tale. Featuring a hugely entertaining cast of characters, the intriguing plot is full of twists and turns, and will keep readers guessing to the very end’
BookTrust
‘Funny as it is clever, moving seamlessly from slapstick comedy to high drama . . . happily, the stage is firmly set for a sequel’
Books for Keeps
‘This new school-set crime series is well worth investigating’
LoveReading4Kids
Amazon customer reviews
‘Great voice – Jonno, the narrator is very believable – and an exciting and intriguing set-up that raises the stakes but still leaves it accessible for younger readers’
Andy R
‘I loved this story and how it pans out for all of them. Well-constructed with dramatic twists and turns throughout’
Amazon customer
‘The Detention Detectives is a great, intriguing book, it really gets you thinking about who the real suspect is and makes you want to read more every single time’
Kindle customer
‘A proper MG murder mystery young readers will love. Likeable and relatable characters, surprising twists, and quick-pace storytelling that will keep you turning the page for more’
Kate D‘It reminds me of the Murder Most Unladylike series and if you are into those sorts of books I would definitely recommend it. I loved this story so much it has taken a spot in the place where I keep my favourite books. Five stars would definitely recommend’
Amazon customer
Lis Jardine grew up in various vicarages across London and the Black Country. She has been a lifelong reading addict and is rarely spotted in the wild without a book, usually a Golden Age murder mystery or a comic fantasy. She currently lives in Cheshire with her husband and nearly-grown daughters, where she combines the two best jobs in the world: secondary school librarian and children’s novelist.
Lis studied English Literature at the University of Warwick and completed the MA in Writing for Young People at Bath Spa University. She has not won any prizes since a generalknowledge quiz at primary school.
In her spare time, Lis likes to watch TV, learn Norwegian (1300-day Duo streak!) and invent unlikely vegan sandwich recipes.
Follow Lis Jardine on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @LisJardine
The Detention Detectives Lis Jardine
Title Artwork TK
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First published 2024
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To Eleanor and Alice, my favourites
CASE 2: The Murder of Jim Palmer
WHO’S WHO
Kids: Lydia Strong
Jonno Archer
Daniel Horsefell
Me: Detention
Detective and aspiring investigative journalist with exceptional leadership qualities
Guitarist, friend, fellow Detention
Detective
Third member of the DD s.
Fin Taylor
Ayisha Hafiz
Jing-Wa Kuan
Emily Woodson
Jamie Something
Tyler Jenkins
Jerome Herrera
Star Trek ‘enthusiast’
(understatement of the year)
Goth metalhead with a lot of rage
Popular but self-obsessed girl from Year Nine
Diligent and hardworking perfectostudent
My unexpected stepsister
Part-time stall keeper at Hanbridge Market
Big, horrible meanie
Tyler’s mate, equally icky
Teachers of Hanbridge High:
Mr Scouter
Ms Zheng
Headteacher
PE teacher
Miss Culham
School librarian
Mrs Sudely English teacher
Mr Runacre Science teacher
Mr Sinclair Geography teacher
Other adults:
Susan Woodson
Steve Woodson
Jim Palmer
DI Meek
DS Norman
Mrs Fustemann
My long-lost mother
My unexpected stepfather
Local businessman and murder victim
Police detective in charge
Police detective who doesn’t much appreciate my leadership qualities
School secretary, aka
The Dragon
Mrs Archer
Becky Horsefell
Gran Strong
Gramps Strong
Jonno’s mum
Daniel’s mum
My gran, who has an opinion for every occasion
My grandad, who is awesome John Gardner
Stan Waldron
Sensei at taekwondo
Local entrepreneur and bodybuilder
Mrs Troy School receptionist
Mr Jackson School groundskeeper/ handyman
Mr Fisher Science lab technician
Miss Styles Librarian at Hanbridge Public Library
Jim Palmer junior and his henchmen
Palmer family members
Dear readers . . .
My turn to tell you all about what’s been happening with me, Jonno and Daniel. Even though we solved the murder of our PE teacher back in May,1 we were left with some major loose ends we needed to tie up.
It’s now almost the end of autumn term of Year Eight; we’ve been investigating yet another horrible crime in Hanbridge. But this time, it was PERSONAL .
Signed,
Lydia StrongThe Detention Detectives
1 I’m not going to tell you whodunnit because spoilers suck. Read Jonno’s write-up of Case 1 if you want the backstory.
Thursday 15 October, 3.00 p.m.
Hanbridge High School
It started out like any other Thursday. Jonno, Daniel and I had to stay back after school. Again.
This was our thirty-fourth after-school detention since we solved Mr Baynton’s murder. For lots of reasons, our headteacher, Mr Scouter, was very much not our biggest fan, so any time any one of us stepped even a bit out of line, he was down on us like a tonne of bricks.
This time it had been because of me. I could not keep my mouth shut in assembly, not when Mrs Sudely was getting it so badly wrong about what ‘British values’ meant at the school. Mrs Sudely
didn’t mind; she encourages debate. But when I pointed out errors in her basic assumptions,2 Mr Scouter shut me straight up and gave all three of us detention. Jonno hadn’t even said anything, and Daniel was just staring into outer space as usual. But we weren’t surprised.
No point arguing, he’d only make it worse for us. And anyway, detention gives us time to talk – to investigate. Mr Scouter is definitely up to something, something no good and probably criminal, and we’ve got precisely nowhere with our (highly secret) enquiries into his (highly secret) dodgy dealings. (We hadn’t even managed to pinpoint exactly what those dodgy dealings might consist of, yet.)
One of our (many) problems was that Mr Scouter put on a faultless show of being a really good guy. After we’d got the culprit arrested for Mr Baynton’s murder, Mr Scouter’d managed to fool the police into believing he had nothing to do with it – but we weren’t so sure. Not after all the things he’d said and done.
2 Jonno’s always telling me to be cooler – use slang etc. – but I don’t think I should dumb down. I happen to have a very wide vocabulary for my age (partly because of growing up with Gran and Gramps as my guardians, and partly because I read instead of watching TV ), and it’ll no doubt be an asset when I start my career at a national newspaper.
Unfortunately, over the last couple of months we’d managed to prove nothing. Not an atom. He just constantly came up smelling of roses (as my gran likes to say), so we’d slightly lost our vavavoom for the case.
Mr Scouter hadn’t forgiven us for meddling in his affairs, though, so I had to plaster an angelic mask over my face whenever our paths crossed. But I was sick of regularly taming my journalistic instinct to ask difficult questions in class. It felt wrong to let everyone off the hook like that, even though I didn’t want to give Mr Scouter any further excuses to punish us. He scared me, and he scared the boys too.
The bell rang for the end of school, so I hurriedly gathered up my books and pens and stowed them away in my bag. You only have four minutes to make the journey from class to the hall, ready to work silently on your homework or read your library book (or, in my case, work on the next issue of the school newspaper). That’s if you were lucky; some days Mr Scouter sprang a ‘character-improving’ activity on us, which generally involved doing some free labour for a teacher, like cleaning oven trays in food tech or stapling artwork up on the noticeboards. I suppose we should be grateful for small
mercies. Gran says they used to sit writing lines when she was at school.
Daniel and Jonno were already there when I pushed through the heavy double doors to the hall. As part of our punishment, we were expected to set out the single chairs and tables for ourselves. I wondered how many others would be sharing the space with us for the next hour.
‘Afternoon, Lydia,’ Jonno said, expertly flicking out the legs of his collapsible table. ‘Here we are again.’
‘There’s no need to make obvious statements,’ I replied. ‘I won’t know what to do with myself once school days end at three p.m. again.’
‘Who’s supervising today?’ Daniel asked, as Fin Taylor kicked open the door behind me. Never a surprise to see him here; he has severe angermanagement issues and is regularly sent out of lessons for swearing at the teachers.
‘Dunno,’ said Jonno, sitting in his place quickly to get out of Fin’s way. ‘Hope it’s not Mr Runacre.’
I hoped it wasn’t too. Mr Runacre was unwilling to compromise on the whole ‘silence in detention’ thing, to the point where shifting in your seat was done with painstaking care in case it creaked.
‘I had Mr Sinclair earlier, period three, and he said he’d see me after school, so it must be him,’ Fin said.
I had already got out my notebook and pen. This year I had been promoted to sub-editor at the Hanbridge High Herald, meaning I had a lot of grammar to correct and headlines to write.
‘Oh, that’s good. Mr Sinc is OK ,’ I said.
At that point we were joined by two more wrongdoers. Ayisha Hafiz, the loudest girl in Year Nine, followed swiftly by the last person I expected to see – Jing- Wa Kuan. Ayisha was practically puffing smoke out of her ears and fire out of her nostrils, but Jing- Wa looked like she was going to cry.
‘Grab a chair and a desk,’ said Ayisha. ‘We have to sit quick or the teacher will make us come back tomorrow. It’s bad enough missing the netball tournament tonight; no way am I missing football too.’
Jing-Wa nodded, looking terrified. She was the goodiest two-shoes in the school, predicted grades of 8 to 9 and held up as an example to the rest of us.
My curiosity got the better of me.
‘What brings you here?’ I asked.
Jing-Wa’s eyes were wet. ‘Accident,’ she whispered, glancing sideways at Ayisha.
‘Mr Runacre caught her looking at her phone in science. But Jing-Wa says it wasn’t on purpose – it fell out of her bag.’ Ayisha shrugged. ‘I said I’d bring her to hall with me; I got caught trying to use my Bunsen burner to set light to Georgia’s pencil case.’
‘So this is your first detention, Jing-Wa?’ Jonno said. ‘Welcome to the club. Mr Sinclair should be here by now, shouldn’t he?’
I checked my watch. ‘Yes.’
Fin clattered his chair across the floor, scraping dull matt lines on the shiny wood. ‘If they can’t be bothered to turn up, I’m off,’ he said. He sat down on the edge of the table and checked his watch, smoothing his long black hair behind one ear. ‘I’ll give them another three minutes, but I’ve got better things to do than waste my time here. I’m almost on Level Forty-three of Manticores vs Gryphons.’
He’d do it too, blow off detention and disappear into the afternoon. Fin was one-fifth of the school’s goth metal band, the one that practised every Thursday lunchtime and drove everyone away from the area around the music block. The members of Nüclear Corpse believed in volume over melody,
and the lead singer, Matt Evans, sounded like he was being tortured with hot oil.
Daniel looked over at me. Mr Sinclair was really late, and if he didn’t come, we’d have no one to confirm our attendance. If no one signed off that we’d been here, we’d probably get a whole extra week of detentions added to our sentence. Mr Scouter was that petty.
‘Shall we go and find him?’ I said, putting down my pen. I was quite good at reading Daniel’s facial expressions. He shouldered a lot of responsibility at home, so I tried to ease his anxiety when I could.
‘Shouldn’t we stay here?’ Jing-Wa whispered in alarm. ‘You might get in trouble if you leave the hall.’
I snorted. ‘He’s just forgotten. You know what Mr Sinclair is like – distraction is his middle name. Someone probably asked him a question about Squid Games or something in period six and sent him off on a tangent.’
‘Come on, you two,’ Jonno said. He got up from the desk and slung his bag over the back of the chair. ‘Let’s go.’
Thursday 15 October, 3.10 p.m.
Hanbridge High School
Jonno, Daniel and I set out along the corridor, leaving the other three to vouch for us if we missed Mr Sinclair’s arrival. This was a box we had to tick, or the detentions would never end.
Daniel trailed behind, looking a bit worried. I hoped his mum was OK at home without him. She has something called chronic fatigue syndrome, and he’d told us she’d started trying to take long naps in the afternoon so as not to be awake and in pain if he was out late.
‘Quiet today,’ Jonno said as we neared the
geography department. ‘I wonder if there’s staff training or something.’
‘Mr Sinclair is in double trouble if he’s actually missing two things,’ I said. ‘And if he had gone to staff training, someone there would have reminded him he was on detention duty.’
Things didn’t become clearer when we got to Mr Sinclair’s classroom. The door was closed and no one answered my firm knock.
‘Hallooooo?’ Daniel pushed the door open a little and poked his head through. ‘No one here. Where now?’
‘I guess the staff room. Just in case he’s managed to swerve past everyone and miss being reminded. Probably sitting with a packet of custard creams and a cup of tea.’
I led the way as we tramped back through the corridors. Only three years to go until I can shake the dust of this place off my shoes and go to sixth form college (or, ideally, an apprenticeship at the local newspaper3). I couldn’t wait. I bet they’d appreciate my enquiring mind there.
3 As if Gran would let me skip A levels.
As we rounded the corner, Jonno grabbed my arm. ‘Shhh! Look!’
To our left, down a completely dead-end corridor, a door was open. A door that had always, always been shut. There was even a big sign on it saying no admittance , and if I’d ever paid it any attention before, I’d figured it was a server room or something to do with the cleaners.
What was even more interesting was that Mrs Fustemann, fire- breathing school secretary and very much a part of last term’s shenanigans, 4 was standing outside the door, looking in. It was enough to stop us all in our tracks.
We crowded behind the scant camouflage offered by the lockers on the wall. ‘What’s she doing?’ I whispered.
‘She’s talking to someone. If we get closer, I can listen in,’ Jonno said. He loves a good eavesdrop.
Our luck was in. Mrs Fustemann suddenly stepped into the doorway and disappeared.
As one, we slipped out of our dodgy hiding place and crept silently down the corridor. Mrs
4 Mrs Fustemann has been universally nicknamed The Dragon. I expect you can guess why, but read our previous case for more.
Fustemann had been thoroughly mixed up in the Mr Baynton case, after all.5
As we huddled behind the open door, I hoped against hope we wouldn’t be discovered. The risk was huge; but I was both terrified and pleased to hear the sound of Mr Scouter’s voice. I think we’d all secretly been hoping for that.
‘There should be plenty of stock here. The shipment came in exactly as promised, and Jamie at the market is completely clueless about where it comes from, as ever. I’ve never met a kid with so little curiosity – just takes his hourly wage and gets on with selling. Just make sure he doesn’t spot you dropping the goods off outside his house – it’s vital he doesn’t see anything that could trace it back to the school.’
‘Indeed,’ said Mrs Fustemann, with a sniff.
We were all surprised when a third voice broke in. ‘Aye. Nae problem. I’ll wait until it’s dark later.’
Daniel, Jonno and I shared a curious glance. This
5 OK , OK , without spoilers, here’s the lowdown on Mrs F: she’s Mr Scouter’s right-hand woman (and biggest fan) at the school. Though it wasn’t entirely clear whose side she was on during the Mr Baynton investigation, when she was in big trouble it was Daniel who saved her dracon (that’s like bacon but made of dragons).
sounded really interesting. Certainly it was the most intriguing conversation to do with Mr Scouter that we’d heard since May.
But it wasn’t over yet.
‘Regarding that . . . topic , erm, the new accountant has asked to see the sales’ records from the school canteen . . .’ Mrs Fustemann sounded nervous.
‘Are they doing a full audit?’ Mr Scouter’s voice rose an octave.
‘Yes. And I’m wondering if he might be able to trace any of these . . . transactions back to –’ Mrs Fustemann said.
Mr Scouter’s voice was calm again. ‘No need to get worried. You’ve done a good job of covering our tracks. After all, you learned from the best.’
‘If Mrs Fustemann’s teacher was “the best”, then we wouldn’t have caught them out,’ I whispered into Jonno’s ear.6 His hand went to his mouth to squash the laughter I could see bubbling up inside him. That gave me the giggles too, and I held my breath to try and stop them.
6 NO SPOILERS , but we got the villain good.
We were idiots.
There was a swirl of movement and Mrs Fustemann appeared outside the door. She couldn’t miss us. Her eyes and mouth opened wide.
To my surprise, the shocked expression was wiped off her face almost immediately and she replaced it with her usual resting-Dragon face. She grabbed hold of the door handle and stepped to shield us.
‘Will we be much longer?’ She had turned her head to speak through the open cupboard door. ‘Only I have a great deal of paperwork waiting back at the office, and Miss Hussam needs more supervision than she really should . . .’
She waved her free hand behind her back and then pointed us away from the room. We crept back to the corner where we’d started and along the corridor towards the staff room. Mrs Fustemann’s mysteriously protective actions had punctured our mirth; suddenly it didn’t seem very funny any more.
‘We must be mad. If we got caught by Mr Scouter listening to that convo we’d be dead meat. Possibly literally. We don’t know how dangerous he could be,’ Daniel hissed.
I privately agreed with Daniel. And I was very confused about Mrs Fustemann; I thought she was on Mr Scouter’s side. She certainly was at the end of Case 1. My brain was ticking at 170 miles an hour. What we’d heard was GOLD.
‘Who was the man they were talking with?’ I said, to get straight to the point. ‘And what were they talking about? Sounded very iffy. Maybe this is our chance to nail old Scouter.’ Jonno and Daniel both nodded.
‘Totally. What was in the shipment? Who are they delivering it to? How’re they going to make money out of it?’ Daniel ticked off the questions on his fingers.
‘What’s wrong with the accounts for the canteen?’ Jonno chipped in.
‘Who is the third person?’ I repeated, raising an eyebrow. ‘I’ll find out that one. I’ve got a network of spies across the school from the newspaper club.’ Though to be honest, I was the only person who took it seriously. ‘Sounded like he had a northern accent, maybe even Scottish, so that will narrow down the search.’
By this time we’d arrived back where we started, and Jonno took a peek inside the hall. Only Jing-
Wa remained, sitting upright and still, a look of woe etched across her face.
‘Where are the others?’ I demanded. ‘Any sign of Mr Sinclair?’
Jing-Wa shook her head, and glanced up at the clock on the wall. ‘They left. And no one’s coming, are they? So we won’t get marked off in the register. And we’ll have to come back all next week –’
‘Not our fault,’ I said firmly, attempting to stem the waves of anxiety I could feel coming off her. ‘Anyway, we reckon Mr Sinc might be in the staff room having a snack. Jonno will go and fetch him now, won’t you, Jonno?’
I sat down at my desk. I needed a moment to think. It had been a close shave, and we’d been saved by someone I’d assumed was an enemy.
What on earth was going on?
Thursday 15 October, 6.45 p.m.
Gran’s house
Later that evening, when we’d finished dinner, Gran collected the plates, Gramps brushed the crumbs off the table, and I took Bingo into the lounge to play – our nightly ritual after dinnertime and before his last walk of the day.
My mind was on a speed run, thinking about what we’d seen and heard. Mr Sinclair had come back with Jonno, apologizing profusely and sending those of us home who’d stayed; he took complete responsibility for being so late. Me, Jonno and Daniel talked all the way back (well, to the point where we split off to our own streets) about how