All in all, I reflected, they had deserved what they’d got. And Ellie and The Outsiders?
Ellie and I talked until late that night. I won’t tell you what we said or how we left it. That’s just for me and Ellie. Meeting The Outsiders had been the highlight of my trip. I wouldn’t forget them or regret a single thing about coming to Australia.
Except not seeing a kangaroo. I hadn’t seen a single one of those overgrown hoppy rats.
Now, that sucked.
“I’M SORRY ABOUT Kell,” I said to Mom. “I mean, I did think he was a total jerk and all, but I know you liked him. I shouldn’t have been so pleased when he … you know …”
“When he showed what a coward he was?” Mom said. “When he threw me in the way of the bunyip and ran for his life, screaming like a three-year-old who’d seen the bogeyman?”
“Maybe that’s what geologists are like,” I offered.
“I don’t think so, Rafe. I’m sure there are plenty of brave geologists out there. Just not Kell.”
“Anyway,” I said, “you liked him and I’m sorry I made him do what he did.’
We were 38,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean, about halfway back to Hills Valley.
Mom shrugged. “I thought I liked him, but he turned out to be someone different to who I thought he was. I suppose I can thank you for that. But I’m fine, honestly, Rafe. Just fine.”
Mom put her headphones back in and started watching a movie. I noticed that none of her lucky charms were visible and that she seemed pretty calm for someone terrified of flying. I guess that after everything that had gone on in Shark Bay, a flight back home didn’t seem like such a big deal.
I sat back in my seat and listened to the sound of the engines.
I was home free. So why didn’t I feel better?
The answer came to me somewhere over Hawaii. There was the obvious stuff like missing Ellie and the rest of the guys, but that wasn’t it. No, what was bugging me was that we—me and The Outsiders—had done something great, something really difficult, and no one outside Shark Bay would ever know.
And we never got to make our film.
I DID GET GROUNDED. But that was fair. I deserved it.
I had ruined the trip. I had to be punished. The only question was: How much?
I talked to Ellie a few times online. She mentioned she might make a trip to Hills Valley before too long. “And I’m working on something. Keep an eye on the post, okay?” she’d added.
I tried to get her to say more but she wouldn’t. Nothing much had changed for her in Shark Bay.
“We were always The Outsiders,” she’d said. “That’s the way I like it too.”
That was a good way of looking at things. I was kind of an outsider at Hills Valley. The thing was, before I met Ellie and the rest of The Outsiders, I’d always seen that as a negative. Perhaps I’d been looking at things the wrong way. Instead of trying to fit in with everyone else, maybe I’d be better off not fitting in and liking it.
I’ve started getting more interested in filmmaking, too. I’ve even begun working on storyboards for my own movie. A horror movie, of course.
Best of all, I realized something important the trip had taught me. It was something my mom said in between telling me how grounded I was. She’d said that bravery came in many forms and she thought I was brave for producing art.
“At least you’re trying,” she’d said. “You might be scared of sharks and snakes and imaginary drop bears, but who isn’t?”
She stopped short of actually saying she approved of me letting an animatronic zombie bunyip loose on Shark Bay, but that was never going to happen.
Being back home felt good. On the upside, it was great to see Grandma Dotty. On the downside, I was back under the same roof as Georgia.
Only kidding.
There was one really great thing about being back in Hills Valley. As my feet slid between the sheets I was pretty sure that there wouldn’t be any snakes.
THE END.
WAIT!
Something else happened. Probably the best thing to come out of the whole trip (apart from meeting Ellie).
Four weeks after arriving back I got something in the post marked with Australian stamps.
Inside it was a magazine and a note from Ellie. All it said was: PAGES 32–4.
I carefully unrolled the magazine. It was something called The Great Australian Art Monthly—a big, thick glossy thing full of articles about famous Australian artists and artists from other places visiting Australia.
I flicked to page 32 and almost passed out.
It was a picture of the bunyip ripping through the lobby of the Shark Bay Surf Club. It had been taken on a phone camera and was a little fuzzy but it still looked awesome. The bunyip’s mouth was open and sparks were shooting out. The photo had caught lots of people screaming and running. “Zombie Movie Art Triumph at Shark Bay by Frost DeAndrews” read the headline.
“I thought I had been fooled,” DeAndrews wrote, “when the Zombie Movie exhibition I had been invited to at sleepy little Shark Bay turned out to be nothing more than a collection of passable sketches by visiting young American artist Rafe Khatchadorian.
“Boy, was I wrong. In one of the most scintillating and brave performance art productions I have seen in recent years, Khatchadorian and his art group, The Outsiders, ran us right through the A–Z of contemporary art and treated us to a totally immersive experience not seen since the days of Wilhelm Van Purpleschpittel and the Neo-Colonial Burble Movement …”
The rest of the article was illustrated with more photos of the whole event and interviews with Ellie and the guys and a lot of artspeak I didn’t understand. Even Mayor Coogan got in on the act.
“Rafe insisted on keeping everything top secret,” he said. “We’re very proud of Shark Bay’s association with an artist like Khatchadorian.”
An artist like Khatchadorian.
It had a ring to it. I liked it.
“Mom!” I shouted, leaping off my bed. “You gotta see this!”
JAMES PATTERSON is the internationally bestselling author of the highly praised Middle School books, Homeroom Diaries, and the I Funny, Treasure Hunters, Confessions, Maximum Ride, Witch & Wizard and Daniel X series. James Patterson has been the most borrowed author in UK libraries for the past seven years in a row and his books have sold more than 300 million copies worldwide, making him one of the bestselling authors of all time. He lives in Florida.
MARTIN CHATTERTON was born in Liverpool, England and has been successfully writing and illustrating books for almost thirty years. He has written dozens of children’s books and illustrated many more for other writers, including several British Children’s Laureates. His work has been published in fourteen languages and has won and been shortlisted in numerous awards in the UK, US, and Australia. Alongside writing for children, Martin writes crime fiction (as Ed Chatterton), continues to work as a graphic designer, and is currently working on his PhD. After time spent in the US, Martin now divides his time between Australia and the UK.
Also by James Patterson
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Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life (with Chris Tebbetts)
Middle School: Get Me Out of Here! (with Chris Tebbetts)
Middle School: My Brother Is a Big Fat Liar (with Lisa Papademetriou)
Middle School: How I Survived Bullies, Broccoli, and Snake Hill (with Chris Tebbetts)
Middle School: Ultimate Showdown (with Julia Bergen)
Middle School: Save Rafe! (with Chris Tebbetts)
I Funny series
I Funny (with Chris Grabenstein)
I Even Funnier (with Chris Grabenstein)
I Totally Funniest (with Chris Grabenstein)
Treasure Hunters series
Treasure Hunters (with Chris Grabenstein)
Treasure Hunters: Danger Down the Nile (with Chris Grabenstein)
Daniel X series
The Dangerous Days of Daniel X (with Michael Ledwidg
e)
Watch the Skies (with Ned Rust)
Demons and Druids (with Adam Sadler)
Game Over (with Ned Rust)
Armageddon (with Chris Grabenstein)
For more information about James Patterson’s novels, visit
www.jamespatterson.co.uk
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Version 1.0
Middle School: Rafe’s Aussie Adventure
9780857986023
First published by Random House Australia in 2015
Copyright © James Patterson 2015
Illustrations by Martin Chatterton 2015
The moral right of the author and the illustrator has been asserted.
A Random House book
Published by Random House Australia Pty Ltd
Level 3, 100 Pacific Highway, North Sydney NSW 2060
www.randomhouse.com.au
Random House Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com/offices.
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Creator: Patterson, James, 1947—
Title: Rafe’s Aussie adventure/James Patterson, Martin Chatterton
ISBN: 9780857986023 (ebook)
Series: Middle school; 7
Target Audience: For primary school age
Subjects: Middle schools—Juvenile fiction.
Adventure stories.
Other Creators/Contributors: Chatterton, Martin, author
Dewey Number: 813.54
Cover illustration by Martin Chatterton
Cover design by Christabella Designs
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1 “She’ll be right, mate” = “I have absolutely no idea what the outcome of this problem might be, up to and including injury and/or death (for you), but I’m blindly hoping that things will turn out for the best.” Never trust an Australian who says this to you.
2 There’ll be more on weird Australian food later. You have been warned.
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