The Greek Who Stole Christmas by Anthony Horowitz

DEATH THREAT
    I knew it was going to be a bad Christmas when I walked past the charity shop and the manager ran out and tried to offer me charity. It seemed that everyone in Camden Town knew I was broke. Even the turkeys were laughing at me. On the last day of term, the teachers had a whip-round for me … not that I really needed a whip, but I suppose it’s the thought that counts. Christmas was just a few weeks away and the only money I had was a ten-pound book token that my parents had sent me from Australia. I tried to swap it for hard cash at my local bookshop, but the manager – a thin-faced woman in her forties – was completely heartless.
    “I need to eat,” I explained.
    “Then buy a cookery book.”
    “I can’t afford the ingredients!”
    “I’m sorry. You can only use a book token to buy books.”
    “What’s the point of buying books if I’m too faint to read?”
    She smiled sadly at me. “Have you tried Philip Pullman?”
    “No. Do you think he’d lend me some money?”
    I couldn’t believe my parents had sent me a book token for Christmas, but then of course they had no idea about anything. My dad had moved them to Sydney a few years before – he was a door-to-door salesman, selling doors, and he must have been doing well because this year he’d printed his own Christmas card. HAVE AN A-DOOR-ABLE CHRISTMAS, it said on the cover. There was a picture of a kangaroo with a red hat on, looking out of an open door. I was still laughing as I ripped it to pieces. My parents had two new kids of their own now: Doreen and Dora. Two sisters I’d never met. That made me sad sometimes. They weren’t even two years old and they probably had more spare cash than me.
    I was thinking about Australia as I walked home from the bookshop. My mum and dad had wanted to take me with them when they emigrated, and maybe it had been a mistake to slip off the plane before it took off. While it was taxiing down the runway, I was running away to find a taxi – and they hadn’t even noticed until they were thirty-five thousand feet above France. Apparently my mum had hysterics. And my dad had my lunch.
    I’m still not sure it was a smart decision. They say that London is like a village, and I certainly enjoyed living there. The only trouble was, I’d moved in with the village idiot. I’m talking, of course, about my big brother, Herbert Timothy Simple. But that wasn’t what he called himself. He called himself Tim Diamond, Private Detective – and that’s what it said in the Yellow Pages, along with the line: “No problem too problematic.” He’d written that himself.
    Tim was the worst private detective in England. I mean … he’d just spent two weeks working in a big department store in the West End. He was supposed to be looking out for shoplifters but I don’t think he’d kept his eye on the ball. In fact, the ball was the first thing that got stolen. After that, things went from bad to worse. The store had twenty-three departments when he started but only sixteen when he left. He was fired, of course. The dummies in the window probably had a higher IQ than Tim. He was lucky he had me. I solved the crimes, Tim got the credit. That was how it worked. If you’ve read my other stories, you’ll know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, go out and buy the books. If you like, I’ll even sell you a ten-quid book token. You can have it for nine quid.
    Anyway, right now Tim was out of work. And November had arrived like a bad dog, snapping at everyone in the street and sending them hurrying home. As usual, it wasn’t going to snow – but the pipes were frozen, the puddles had iced over and you could see people’s breath in the air.
    They were playing a Christmas carol on the radio as I let myself in. Tim was sitting at his desk wrapped in a blanket, trying to open a tin of sardines that was so far past its sell-by date he’d probably have more luck selling it as an antique.
    I threw myself into a