‘I’m sorry,’ said Friday.

  ‘For what?’ asked Ian.

  ‘Getting you dragged into all this,’ said Friday.

  ‘I’m the one who shoved the police officer,’ said Ian with a shrug. ‘I knew what I was doing.’

  ‘But you only shoved him because he was taking me away,’ said Friday. ‘So, it’s my fault.’

  ‘I didn’t want you to be here alone,’ said Ian. ‘After last time you got arrested and I wasn’t there to rescue you, it didn’t go well.’

  ‘I don’t need you to rescue me!’ argued Friday.

  ‘Really?’ asked Ian, raising his eyebrow ironically.

  ‘If this is your rescue attempt, it’s not going very well, is it?’ said Friday. She held up her handcuffed hand to demonstrate what she meant.

  ‘Be patient,’ said Ian. ‘This is all part of my plan.’

  ‘Yeah, I haven’t got time for your plan,’ said Friday. She was fiddling under the desk with something as she spoke. ‘I need to get back to help Uncle Bernie.’

  ‘He’ll be fine,’ said Ian. ‘There’s more to Bernie than meets the eye.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t like him,’ said Friday.

  ‘I never said that,’ said Ian.

  ‘I’m pretty sure you did,’ muttered Friday, but she wasn’t listening properly. She was still fiddling under the desk.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Ian.

  Friday didn’t respond except to hold her hands just above the top of the desk. She had picked the lock on the handcuffs. She hid her hands again before any of the police officers could notice.

  ‘I’m getting out of here,’ said Friday. ‘Are you coming, or not?’

  Ian took a deep breath and sighed. He held up his hands to reveal he too had removed the cuffs.

  ‘When did you do that?’ asked Friday.

  ‘As soon as I sat down,’ said Ian. ‘My father is a master sleight-of-hand magician, remember. He didn’t teach me much, but he did teach me how to do that.’

  ‘Probably worried if you ended up like him, it would be a skill you’d need,’ muttered Friday.

  ‘True,’ agreed Ian. ‘So, what’s the plan? We’re simply going to get up and walk out of a crowded police station with bandit screens and steel doors at the entrance?’

  ‘Obviously not,’ said Friday. They were both sitting still, trying not to draw attention to themselves. But Friday was looking about for ideas. ‘We’re going to evacuate.’

  ‘What?’ said Ian.

  ‘All government buildings, even police stations, need to be easy to evacuate in case there is a fire,’ said Friday. ‘If we hit the fire alarm, the fire exits will unlock.’

  ‘Where’s the nearest fire alarm switch?’ asked Ian.

  ‘On the wall right behind your head,’ said Friday, nodding in that direction so he could see where she meant.

  Ian casually swung his chair around to look at it. He swung back.

  ‘It’s fifteen metres away,’ said Ian. ‘Are you going to walk over there and press it.’

  ‘No,’ said Friday. ‘I’d have to walk past eleven officers.’

  ‘Then how?’ asked Ian.

  ‘You see the pink stapler on the desk in front of you?’ said Friday. ‘You’re going to throw that at the switch.’

  Ian looked at the stapler, then glanced at the switch behind him. ‘That’s a tough throw. The switch is only an inch wide.’

  ‘I thought you were meant to be good at sport,’ said Friday.

  ‘I am good at sport,’ said Ian. ‘But stapler throwing is not a sport. Besides, it’s an insane idea. We should just wait.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Friday. ‘I’ll do it.’ Her hand whipped out from under the desk, grabbed the stapler and hurled it with all her modest strength at the fire alarm switch on the far wall. It sailed through the air for what felt like a very long time. Amazingly, no-one seemed to notice what was happening. It looked like the stapler was going to miss. She had thrown too high, and she hadn’t thrown very hard. The stapler was starting to drop.

  ‘It’s not going to make it,’ said Ian.

  But he was wrong. The stapler clipped the fire alarm before crashing to the ground. All the officers spun to the sound of the fallen object. The next second the deafening sound of the fire alarm filled the room. The whole staff launched into action. They had been drilled on fire escapes. They all started for the exits.

  Meanwhile, Friday leapt out of her seat, grabbing Ian by the hand and pulling him in the opposite direction from the door.

  ‘We need to get out,’ said Ian, trying to turn the other way.

  ‘Not into a crowd of police,’ said Friday. ‘The windows will have unlocked too.’

  Friday pulled herself up on the windowsill.

  ‘Are you crazy?’ asked Ian.

  ‘No, if I was crazy, I’d never have been convicted,’ said Friday. She shoved the window and it opened.

  ‘What’s below?’ asked Ian.

  ‘You’re never going to believe this,’ said Friday.

  Ian climbed up on the windowsill to see for himself. Directly below them was a horse and cart. The beautiful ornamental type for tourists on their honeymoon so they can take romantic rides through the city. From the second-storey window it was a short drop into the back seat.

  ‘You’re seriously going to . . .’ began Ian, but Friday had already jumped.

  As soon as she landed in the carriage, Friday slid across to the other side and looked up. ‘Come on, we’ve got to hurry.’

  Ian did as he was told. He jumped.

  The driver was surprisingly unsurprised to have two teenagers suddenly join him.

  ‘Palazzo Vecchio, please,’ said Friday.

  The driver looked across to Ian and eyed him narrowly, taking in his young age but also the brand name clothes. ‘Eighty euros for a half hour,’ he said.

  Ian reached into his pocket and took out a wad of cash. With a flick of the reins they were in motion. The horse trudged stoically through the narrow crowded streets.

  ‘This has to be the lowest speed getaway ever,’ said Ian.

  ‘It’s brilliant,’ said Friday. ‘No-one would expect us to do it.’

  They were coming up to the end of the block. Ian leaned forward and spoke to the driver, ‘For another twenty euros can I borrow your hat?’ he asked.

  ‘For twenty euros you can have it,’ said the driver, handing it back to him.

  Ian passed over the money.

  The driver seemed impressed by how well this fare was turning out. He saw that Ian had more in his wallet. ‘For another fifty I sing opera.’

  Ian smiled and handed him the extra note.

  ‘Why do you need a hat and opera?’ asked Friday.

  ‘Because we’re about to drive past the front of the police station,’ said Ian, putting the hat on his head. ‘And the entire department will be standing outside.’

  ‘So,’ said Friday.

  ‘We need to hide our faces,’ said Ian.

  ‘With one hat?’ said Friday. She was confused.

  ‘No, the hat is to hide my distinctive blond hair,’ said Ian.

  ‘I don’t follow,’ said Friday.

  ‘We hide our faces like this,’ said Ian.

  Just as the carriage pulled out into the intersection, the driver burst into the love aria ‘Che Gelida Manina’ from La Bohème. Friday was surprised, so she didn’t noticed Ian leaning in to kiss her.

  Friday never saw if there was a crowd of police, because as soon as Ian’s lips touched hers, she closed her eyes. Her heart beat fast. She could smell his skin. He’d had salami for breakfast. She would never be able to eat salami again without thinking of this moment.

  And then, it was all over. He was sitting back. They were in Florence. The street was crowded. Perhaps she’d had a brain aneurism and that hadn’t really happened. That would make more sense.

  ‘Here we are, Palazzo Vecchio,’ said the driver. ‘You still have twenty-five minutes. If you want, I can drive you around more first.’

  ‘No, this was great, thank you,’ said Ian, springing down.

  Friday’s brain hadn’t started working properly again yet. She realised she was still sitting there. Ian held out his hand to help her out. She felt like a girl in a Jane Austen novel. She would have liked to have been able to get down by herself, but the horse never stood quite still and she frankly needed the help.

  Uncle Bernie was coordinating his staff as they wrapped up the search of the Piazza della Signoria. He had set up a command post by the Fountain of Neptune, where they were just going through the last of everyone’s bags. When he looked up, Uncle Bernie was horrified to see Friday and Ian running across the piazza towards him. ‘What are you doing here?’ he exclaimed.

  ‘I came back to help you,’ said Friday.

  ‘No no no,’ said Uncle Bernie. ‘You’re going to get in so much trouble.’

  ‘I didn’t do anything,’ said Friday.

  ‘Except trigger a fire evacuation at the city’s main police station,’ said Ian.

  ‘I had been wrongly arrested,’ said Friday.

  ‘You’d better learn how to say that in Italian for when you’re up in front of the judge,’ said Ian.

  ‘We need to find the lens,’ said Friday. ‘And the real culprit.’

  ‘I’ve got it, I’ve got it!’ a security guard cried from the other side of the square, running over to show them.

  ‘You see,’ said Bernie. ‘We can handle it. That’s one of my men from the museum. He found it.’

  The guard came to a panting halt in front of them. ‘The lens, signore.’

  Uncle Bernie took the lens from him. It was a lens and it was round, but it was perfectly clear glass.

  ‘This isn’t Galileo’s lens!’ said Uncle Bernie. ‘Have you never looked at the lens on display?’

  ‘Um,’ said the guard.

  ‘It’s old and clouded, and there is a crack in it,’ said Bernie.

  ‘So, this is not it?’ asked the guard.

  ‘No,’ said Uncle Bernie, holding it up to the light. ‘This looks like it popped out of a pair of eyeglasses.’

  ‘But well done you for trying,’ Melanie said kindly to the guard.

  ‘It’s still a clue,’ said Friday, taking the modern lens from Bernie’s hand. ‘How often are the bins emptied in the museum?’

  ‘Twice a day,’ said Bernie. ‘Once at lunchtime and again at the end of the day.’

  ‘Then it must have been thrown in the bin this morning,’ deduced Friday.

  ‘So?’ said Bernie.

  ‘Who would throw away a lens from a pair of glasses?’ said Friday. ‘If you went to the trouble of picking it up, you’d realise what it was and hand it in to lost property. No, the person who threw this away was the person it belonged to.’

  ‘None of us understand what you’re saying, Friday,’ said Ian.

  ‘What if the thief replaced the lens in their own glasses with the lens from Galileo’s telescope?’ said Friday.

  ‘That’s genius,’ said Ian. ‘If they did that, they could walk right out through security, wearing the lens on their face!’

  Friday spun around to look at the group of students, teachers and museum visitors. ‘So, who here is wearing glasses?’

  There actually weren’t that many. Most of the students were too vain for glasses. If they needed prescription lenses, they wore contacts. Of those who did have glasses, the lenses were the wrong shape – letterbox style rectangles or ovals. Only one person had round frames.

  ‘Tatiana!’ said Bernie.

  She froze when she heard her name. ‘What, what is it?’ asked Tatiana.

  Ian strode over and looked into her eyes. Well, not really her eyes, but the glasses in front of her eyes. ‘You’ve got a lens missing.’ He reached up with his finger and poked it through the frame, almost poking her in the eye.

  ‘What are you doing?’ said Tatiana. ‘I lost it in the confusion. That’s not a crime.’

  ‘She’s right,’ said Bernie. ‘It was probably just an accident.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ said Friday. ‘Maybe you smuggled Galileo’s lens out in your glasses then handed it off to someone so you wouldn’t be caught with it.’

  ‘But Tatiana dislocated her knee. She was lying sprawled on the floor when it all happened,’ said Ian.

  ‘She was lying on the floor and her knee was definitely dislocated,’ said Friday. ‘But we don’t know when that happened. Some people with old sports injuries have joints that dislocate really easily. What if she triggered the alarm? Then when everyone panicked and ran for the exits, she climbed up the ten-foot display case and in through the manhole on top. It would be easy for her. She’s a former gymnast with elite level strength and agility. Once she stole the lens and fitted it into her own glasses, she purposefully dislocated her own knee. That way her injury would be her alibi.’

  ‘That’s crazy,’ said Bernie.

  ‘Or crazy brilliant?’ said Melanie.

  ‘Ian!’ exclaimed Tatiana. ‘How could you accuse me? This is outrageous!’

  Ian took a step back. He seemed shocked by what was being said himself.

  ‘We can prove it if we find the lens,’ said Friday.

  ‘We’ve looked everywhere,’ said Bernie. ‘The thief can’t have passed it off to someone else. We’ve searched everyone here in the square, twice.’

  ‘But perhaps,’ said Friday. ‘There is an inanimate object you are underestimating.’

  ‘I think Bernie will have you arrested himself, if you don’t explain yourself, Friday,’ said Melanie.

  Friday pointed to the corner of the square at the Loggia dei Lanzi, an outdoor sculpture gallery. ‘Tatiana has a brother who is so good at impersonating statues that he never makes any money, because people honestly believe he is a statue.’

  ‘This is crazy,’ said Tatiana. ‘She is crazy.’

  ‘So, my question is,’ said Friday, ‘which one of those statues is the odd one out?’ She scanned the group of sculptures. They all looked exactly like sculptures. But one caught her eye. ‘That one!’ she exclaimed, pointing to a statue of an old bearded man looking through a telescope. ‘There’s no statue of Galileo in the Loggia dei Lanzi!’

  Friday started striding towards the statue. It was such a ludicrous accusation that no-one else moved at first. Blaming a mouldy old statue for a theft at the museum was crazy. But as she got closer, the statue suddenly came to life, the marble Galileo leapt up from his seat and jumped down from the pedestal.

  ‘Heck, she’s right!’ exclaimed Bernie. He took off running.

  Ian did the same and his legs were faster. He raced past Friday and grabbed Galileo around the waist, crash-tackling him to the cobblestones. The telescope flew out of his hands.

  Friday scrambled after it, but just as she was about to pick it up, the telescope was snatched away. Friday looked up. It was Tatiana. She had the telescope and was off running towards the Ponte Vecchio. Roberto had shaken off Ian and was running with her. Ian leapt to his feet again and chased after them both. Friday was trying to keep up, but it was not easy. Roberto didn’t have the body of the statue of David for nothing. He could really run. And Tatiana was an ex-athlete, so even with her limp she moved quickly. But Ian was faster. He rushed straight past Friday and was gaining on Tatiana.

  Tatiana heard him coming. She grabbed a rack of tea towels from a souvenir vendor and pulled it down behind her to slow him down. Ian easily leapt over it, but Friday tripped, careening headfirst into a t-shirt display. Ian stopped and turned back to help her. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked as he pulled a ‘My mother went to Florence and all she got me was this lousy t-shirt’ t-shirt off her head.

  ‘I think so,’ said Friday.

  Ian grabbed her by the hand and they took off again, together. But Tatiana and Roberto were a long way ahead now. They had made it to the Ponte Vecchio and ran down a staircase to the river bank. When they got closer, Friday and Ian could see there was a waiting speed boat – and sitting at the wheel was Mrs Benatti.

  ‘Oh wow!’ said Friday. ‘I didn’t think their mum would be in on it too.’

  Mrs Benatti started the boat and the engine roared to life.

  ‘No!’ cried Ian. He sprinted as fast as he could, but the boat pulled away just as he reached the end of the jetty. Ian briefly considered leaping into the water. But he could never catch a motorboat going full speed.

  Friday caught up with him on the boat ramp.

  ‘They’re going to get away!’ said Ian.

  ‘No, they’re not,’ said Friday. She had turned to the sound of a noisy old two-stroke engine making its way across the Ponte Vecchio. Ian followed her gaze. It was Sister Maria on her old vespa.

  Friday waved and called out to her, ‘Sister Maria! Sister Maria!!!’

  The sister saw them and rode over to where they were standing.

  ‘We don’t have time to explain,’ said Friday. ‘But can we borrow your vespa? It’s an urgent matter of national historic importance.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Maria, stepping off the bike.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Friday, swinging her leg over. She turned back to Ian. ‘Get on.’

  Ian eyed the ancient vehicle sceptically. ‘How is an antique motorcycle going to help us catch up with a boat?’ he asked, as he climbed on behind her.

  ‘Just watch,’ said Friday. With that, she hit the accelerator and drove the bike straight at the river.

  ‘Agh!’ cried Ian. He grabbed hold of Friday’s waist. Ian didn’t have the greatest faith in Friday’s ability to judge the mechanical limitations of a vespa. But he was wrong to doubt.

  As soon as they hit the water, Friday flicked the switch to amphibious mode, the running boards splayed out and a water jet engine turned on. A geyser of water shot out of the exhaust pipe like a fire hose. They rocketed forward with a sudden burst of speed. The vespa had become a jet ski.

  ‘Awesome!’ cried Ian, over the sound of the noisy engine and the wind in their faces.

  ‘I know, right?!’ said Friday. She wasn’t usually an adrenalin junkie, but this was undeniably exciting.