The hammer rang once. A spark jumped off the anvil and did not go out. It waited. They followed.

The spark rolled across the Green, past the door of Brightfield School, and stopped at the mending shed. The shed was where broken chairs, kettles and bicycles went to get better.

Beto knew it well. He lived next door.

"From where?" asked Beto. "Why here?"

Nobody knew. But the door was open.

On the workbench lay something wrapped in an old blue blanket. Danya knew that blanket. It came from the club room's dressing-up box.

Lan lifted one corner. Underneath, shining, was the club bell.

The thin dark line down its side was gone. In its place was a neat silver seam.

"It's mended!" said Lan. "I knew it! I'll ring it!"

Beto did not want to ring it. He wanted to know how it rang.

He took a spanner from the wall. If he could just take the clapper out, he could see how the inside worked.

"Log it before it changes hands," said Seal.

An otter in a canvas apron came out from behind a pile of chairs. A pencil hung from her neck on a string.

"I could take it apart," said Beto. "I'd put it back. Probably."

"Every hand goes in the book," said Seal. "A broken chain can't be trusted. If you take it apart now, nobody will know who did what to it."

Beto hung the spanner back on its hook. His fingers still itched.

Seal opened a thick logbook on the bench.

"Who had it, and when?" asked Seal. "It's all here."

She read it out, line by line. Club bell. In for a crack, three Mondays ago, at twelve minutes to four. Signed by the school caretaker. Mended. Signed by the bell mender. Out today, at a quarter past five, to go back on its hook.

"One, two, three hands," counted Tí. "Three names."

"Sign here, please, and the time," said Seal, and turned the book round for Danya.

Danya signed for the club. Now there were four hands in the book.

A small mouse popped out of Danya's coat pocket. She had come along without asking.

"Put it in order on the clock," said Tick. "What did we write three weeks ago?"

"The bell left between twenty to four and five to four," said Danya. "The fifteen-minute window."

"Write the time beside it," said Tick.

Twelve minutes to four. That was eight minutes after the window opened, and seven minutes before it closed.

"The order is where the answer hides," said Tick. "It fits."

"The tall person in the long coat," said Inkling. "I noticed his coat on the hook in the hall. It's the caretaker's."

They carried the bell back to the club room in its blanket. Danya went straight to the case board.

"Do the sources agree?" asked Danya. "The museum card said to be mended. The shed's book says it was mended. That's two."

He took the black pen. Under SAW, in ink, he wrote THE BELL WAS BEING MENDED. He pinned up a copy of the log page. It was the fourth card.

Then he rubbed out every pencil guess. Stolen. A big man with a sack. All of it.

"We never wrote anyone's name in ink," said Danya. "Good."

The caretaker came in with his long coat over his arm. He looked worried.

"I meant to leave a note," he said. "I left one, in code, for fun. I didn't think it would take three weeks."

Beto remembered his flaw. He had been so busy with the bell that he had forgotten the person.

"Thank you for mending it," said Beto. "How does it work? Could you show me the clapper, with the book open?"

The caretaker laughed and said yes.

Together they hung the bell on its iron hook. At half past five Lan pulled the rope.

The bell rang once, clear and round, for pickup.

Back on the Green

The spark dimmed to a warm dot and settled back on the anvil. The Green was just the Green again.

At home that night, Beto lent his bike pump to his neighbour. Before she took it, he wrote it on the fridge: pump, to the neighbour, Monday, six o’clock.

"Every hand goes in the book," said Beto.