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the guitar. It was put in by some previous owner long after the guitar was made. Maybe even the person who used the wrong kind of knife and scratched the panel.
    Now the question is, why would someone put this tube into the electrics?
    Was it some kind of modification to improve the sound?
    The Swiss army knife has a set of tweezers. Once again I hold my breath and use the tweezers to finagle the tube out from under the wires, without breaking any more connections.
    I swallow hard. As the tube comes free I realize what it is. At almost exactly the same moment there’s another flash of movement on the floor and I drop the knife into the wiring. With shaking fingers, I fish out the knife, then once again use the tweezers and draw the tube free from the wires.
    I can just make out faint blue lines.
    It is a rolled up Post-it note, a couple of inches square, held into a tube shape by the sticky strip.
    A message in a bottle, except that it’s a message in a p-bass.
    A draft of icy air wafts in through the window.
    I wish I’d put on a sweater before I started on this escapade, but I’m too curious to get to the bottom of it to stop now. When the note was put in here, it was probably bright blue, but now it has faded and yellowed with age. When I was in primary school we made white paper turn yellow by leaving it on a sunny windowsill. It took a couple of days. We put blocks on the paper, and under the blocks the paper remained white. I don’t know how long it would take a piece of blue paper to fade, sealed up in the innards of
a bass.
    The sun has set, and Shawn’s room is almost totally dark. I lower the bass onto the bed beside me, move close to the nightstand, and flick on the desk lamp.
    A hollow feeling spreads across my chest as I unroll the paper. The faded script reads:
    PLEASE. If you find this note inside the bass, then the instrument has been stolen. Please, please, please, return it to me as soon as you can. This instrument is everything to me, and without it my entire existence will be meaningless. I am Julie McGuire, 48B Mariner Street, Brunswick, BK57SA, Tel: 554553. I am prepared give you a reward of two hundred pounds, no questions asked.—Kisses, Julie.
    All of the letters’ “I’s” have little circles over them, apart from the “I” of Julie, which has a little heart over it. A sort of numbness runs down the underside of my arms. I turn the note over. Nothing is on the back.
    I hold it up in front of the lamp so the glow of the bulb shines through it, but nothing more is there. I close my eyes. Maybe I’m hoping that when I open them, the note will have vanished. Just an illusion.
    But it is still there.
    I return my attention to the little hollow on the back of the bass. I hold the body of the instrument under the light and tip it back and forth to get a better look inside, then I freeze.
    Whatever it is scoots across the floor again. I take long, steady breaths as I tip the desk lamp up and cast the beam over to the other side of the room.
    I shake my head.
    Nothing.
    What was I thinking?
    That the bass was haunted?
    I lay the bass on Shawn’s bed, then turn my attention back to the note. Even though the script swims in front of my eyes, I can still see that each letter is big and carefully rounded.
    It’s nice handwriting. Much better than my own. I’ve never really thought about analyzing anyone’s handwriting before, but the way this is written I can almost see this Julie person’s hand as it moves across the page.
    I look across at the bass lying next to me. I can see her fingers moving across the strings. What am I supposed to do? Should I follow the instructions in the note and give it back to this Julie McGuire?
    Or should I scrunch the note up, toss it into the garbage, and never think of it again?
    â€œShawn, mate,” I say to the dark corner of the room. “Tell me. It’s your bass. Do you want me to give it