Scam on the Cam by Clementine Beauvais Page A

let other people have their chance too.
    Leaning over the barrier, I spotted the startingpoint of the Boat Race. It was astronomically far from where I was standing. No way at all I’d get there in five minutes.
    It was all over. The criminal Cambridge team would race with a criminal cox and a criminal coach.
    I couldn’t stop them.
    Unless
 . . .
    Unless I could somehow get to that little Zodiac that was moored down there near the river.
    Unless I could get to it before its owner, who was standing on the bank looking at the river through binoculars, noticed what I was doing.
    Unless I could get to it and manage to find out how to make it start before anyone could stop me.
    I had to be fast.
    â€œHey! Hey, you! That kid’s just jumped on my boat! Hey!”
    â€œCome on,” I whispered to the engine, “come on, how do you work? How do you start?”
    And once again my fabulously well-connectedbrain saved the day, because it somehow seemed to remember what it had seen Gwendoline do the other day on the motorboat in Ely, even though I couldn’t even remember looking at her then.
    It told me calmly to turn the key in the ignition.
    It then told me to pull on the rope, several times, until the engine started to putt-putt in the manner of Dad having found Peter Mortimer’s offering of half a squirrel on his pillow.
    It then told me to grab onto the rudder.
    And then it told me to GO!
    SPLASH! went the water behind me as the owner of the Zodiac fell into the Thames while trying to jump onto his boat.
    VROOM! went the Zodiac on the water in a very straight line until I figured out how to steer it.

    It was going slightly faster than a falling meteorite, and stood almost vertical on the water, but supersleuths like me are endowed with a splendid sense of balance. In about twelve seconds, I was as wet as a halibut. Of course, I couldn’t resist doing a few circles on the water and then accelerating a little bit more, but you wouldn’t have resisted it either.
    But I did remember that I was on a mission.
    Conveniently, the starting point of the race was getting closer and closer—and to my horror, I spotted the two teams settling into the boats and strapping their feet into place.
    So I slashed through the water, slaloming around the journalists’ boats, speeding up nearer and nearer to the start . . .
    â€œStop that boat!” shouted someone.
    â€œAnd there seems to be an incident near the start of the Boat Race,” said the voice of the presenter in the amplifiers. “An unidentified Zodiac is absolutely rushing toward the Cambridge and Oxford boats . . . Oh mygoodness! It’s going to hit them! . . . No, it isn’t! It’s braking! . . . It’s stopping near the bank . . . Well, the police are now running down in full gear to welcome our unwanted guest . . .”

    Silence.
    Then:
    â€œWhat on Earth . . . ? It’s a
little girl
!”
    There wouldn’t have been more police officers if I’d been trying to steal the Queen. I looked up, half-expecting to see a dozen more parachuting down with loaded Kalashnikovs, but unfortunately I only saw seagulls and pigeons.
    In the middle of the river, the two long rowboats were rocked by the downwash from my Zodiac, but all the rowers and the two coxes were staring at the bank. On the bank, there was me, there were journalists, there were the police and a crowd of hundreds of people, each of them staring at me with eyes like this: O O.
    You know me. I’m not completely against being the center of attention.
    â€œHello hello!” I chanted. “Sorry to interrupt. May I borrow a microphone?”
    â€œShe’s asking for a microphone!” exclaimed the presenter’s voice through the speakers. “Who
is
this kid?”
    Two police officers were already frog-marching me to the top of the bank, but a