Contents
About the Author
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
About the Author
Morris Gleitzman grew up in England and came to Australia when he was sixteen. After university he worked for ten years as a screenwriter. Then he had a wonderful experience. He wrote a novel for young people. Now, after 36 books, he’s one of Australia’s most popular children’s authors.
Visit Morris at his website:
www.morrisgleitzman.com
Also by Morris Gleitzman
The Other Facts of Life
Second Childhood
Two Weeks with the Queen
Misery Guts
Worry Warts
Puppy Fat
Blabber Mouth
Sticky Beak
Gift of the Gab
Belly Flop
Water Wings
Wicked! (with Paul Jennings)
Deadly! (with Paul Jennings)
Bumface
Teacher’s Pet
Toad Rage
Toad Heaven
Toad Away
Toad Surprise
Boy Overboard
Girl Underground
Worm Story
Aristotle’s Nostril
Doubting Thomas
Grace
Too Small to Fail
Give Peas a Chance
Pizza Cake
Once
Then
After
Now
Soon
Extra Time
Loyal Creatures
For Brendan and Maisie McCaul
1
Jake gripped his bat and stared across the ping pong table at Crusher.
Crusher stared back, not moving a muscle. Or a tattoo. The scar on the side of Crusher’s face didn’t even twitch.
The pine trees towering over them creaked with nervous tension.
Jake kept his expression blank so Crusher couldn’t see what he was thinking.
Please.
Hit this one back.
It’s not ping pong if you don’t hit it back.
Crusher’s eyes were black and dull.
Poor bloke, thought Jake. Must feel awful, being slaughtered by a kid.
Jake crouched over the table and did the gentlest serve he could, straight at Crusher’s furry tummy.
He held his breath.
So did the seagulls hovering overhead.
So did the crabs watching from the rocks.
For a second the ball looked as though it was heading for the centre of Crusher’s bat. Then a breeze wafted in off the sea and the ball started to curve away.
‘Go for it,’ yelled Jake desperately.
He knew that wasn’t fair. You shouldn’t shout things like that in ping pong. Not when you were playing with someone like Crusher.
The ball drifted past the edge of Crusher’s bat and plopped onto the sand.
The crabs groaned.
So did the pine trees.
Jake’s insides felt heavier than all the rocks and boulders on the island put together. He could hardly bring himself to tell Crusher the score.
‘Twenty-one nil,’ he said. ‘That’s forty-seven games to me and none to you.’
Jake tried not to show how frustrated he was feeling as he headed to the other end of the table to console Crusher.
It wasn’t Crusher’s fault. Crusher probably didn’t even want to play ping pong.
On the way Jake overheard a crab talking to a friend.
‘Poor kid,’ the crab was saying. ‘It’s pathetic. Stranded out here on this remote island. No other kids for hundreds of kilometres in any direction. No wonder he’s so lonely. No wonder he’s so miserable he never even whistles any more. No wonder he’s reduced to playing ping pong with a teddy bear.’
Jake turned and glared down at the crab.
‘Crusher’s not just any teddy bear,’ he said. ‘Crusher’s a tough, fearless adventurer and he happens to be my best friend.’
‘Oh yes, I can see that,’ said the crab. ‘The minute I saw you humiliate him forty-seven games to nil I knew he was your best friend.’
Jake wanted to point out to the crab that he’d tried to make things as fair as possible. He’d given Crusher a bat in each paw. And he’d done all Crusher’s serves for him, even though it had been really hard work getting back to the other end of the table to return them.
But saying that stuff out loud would hurt Crusher’s feelings, so instead Jake muttered, ‘I just wanted to play ping pong like a normal kid.’
‘Oh yes, right,’ said the crab. ‘It’s very normal to have your ping pong opponent stuck to the other end of the table with sticky tape.’
Before Jake could reply, he was startled by a loud squawk.
He turned and saw a large seagull diving at Crusher.
‘No,’ yelled Jake.
The seagull clamped Crusher’s head in its beak and beat its wings. There was the sound of tearing sticky tape. Suddenly Crusher wasn’t stuck to the end of the ping pong table any more. His furry face was squeezed out of shape into an agonised silent scream. Jake saw the stitches pop in Crusher’s face scar and fluffy stuffing spill out of the open wound.
Jake flung himself at the seagull, but it was too late. The seagull was already in the air, shooting upwards. Crusher hung from its beak, sticky tape and ping pong bats dangling at the end of his furry arms in a helpless farewell.
‘Crusher,’ screamed Jake.
He raced along the beach, hoping the seagull would land and he could wrestle Crusher free. But the seagull kept flying. Soon it was a dot in the sky over the ocean, heading for the horizon.
When the dot had vanished, and Jake couldn’t shout any more, he collapsed onto the sand.
His only friend was gone. He was alone, a boy on a desolate rocky island in the middle of the ocean. Just him and a bunch of sarcastic crabs.
‘Crusher,’ he sobbed hoarsely. ‘Crusher.’
‘Jake,’ said a voice softly. ‘Jake.’
Jake opened his eyes.
He blinked a few times.
Mum was looking down at him. Behind her was his bedroom ceiling. He could feel Crusher’s furry foot in his ear.
Relief flooded through him like a tidal wave of ping pong balls.
He was in bed. He’d been asleep. It had all been a dream.
‘You OK, love?’ Mum was saying. ‘You looked like you were having a nightmare.’
‘I was,’ croaked Jake. ‘It was horrible.’
Still blurry with sleep, he gave Crusher a hug in case Crusher had been having the same dream.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ asked Mum.
Jake did, but he needed to wake up first. He squinted in the morning light pouring in through his open door. Outside he could hear the rumble of waves, the creaking of pines, the squawk of seagulls…
Suddenly his warm happy glow vanished. His insides started aching and it wasn’t just that he urgently needed to pee.
It hadn’t all been a dream after all.
The ping pong and seagull bits had been, but the island hadn’t.
The island was real.
He was on it.
Mum was looking at him, concerned.
‘Jake,’ she said. ‘Aren’t you getting a bit old to be sle
eping with a teddy?’
Jake realised he was still hugging Crusher. Hot-faced, he pulled away.
‘He’s not a teddy,’ he said. ‘He’s a friend substitute. It’s what kids have when they live on remote islands hundreds of kilometres away from other kids. Ask any psychiatrist.’
The second he’d said it, he wished he hadn’t. Specially when he saw the sadness in Mum’s face.
‘But he’s so old and grubby,’ said Mum.
‘It’s not dirt,’ said Jake. He pointed to Crusher’s furry biceps. ‘They’re tattoos. That one’s a skull with a snake coming out the eyes, and that one’s a lobster with a machine gun.’
Suddenly Mum was hugging him.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, and he knew she wasn’t just talking about calling Crusher grubby. She was talking about the island and their whole lives.
Trouble was, it didn’t change anything.
His life was still a nightmare and neither Mum nor Dad could do anything about it.
2
‘Mum didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,’ said Jake, propping Crusher up on the kitchen bench next to the blender. ‘She and Dad just get a bit thoughtless sometimes. It’s the stress of running a small hotel. Worrying about whether the guests are going to fight over the last breakfast sausage or wet the beds.’
Jake switched off the blender. He could see that Crusher understood. He could also see that Crusher thought he should have put the lid on the blender first.
‘Sorry,’ said Jake, scraping a blob of pancake mix off Crusher’s nose.
Then Jake saw something through the kitchen window that made him drop the bread knife.
A glimpse of something pink going down the cliff path.
Jake stared. The salt crusted on the window made it hard to see clearly.
It looked like a woman in a pink dress. Jake could hear Mum vacuuming upstairs, so it couldn’t be her. It must be one of the guests. The woman must have climbed the wire fence with the sign on it that said ‘Danger, Proceed At Own Risk’.
‘She obviously doesn’t have a clue how much danger she’s in,’ said Jake. ‘I begged Dad to use the word “death” on that sign.’
Crusher looked as alarmed as Jake felt.
Jake struggled to open the window.
That’s the trouble with hundred and twenty year old guesthouses, he thought as his fingers gouged at the salt-swollen metal handle. Why couldn’t Mum and Dad have bought a modern motel with aluminium window frames?
Finally the old handle surrendered with a squeak and Jake pushed the window open.
He opened his mouth to yell a warning.
It was too late.
The woman was already out of sight. Jake imagined her halfway down the cliff path, clambering towards the cave. Probably clutching a picnic basket. There were probably other guests with her, loaded up with rugs and books and loaves of Dad’s home-made olive bread. All totally unaware they were about to die.
They’d never hear him. Not even if he yelled as loud as he could. Not with the waves crashing and the seagulls screeching.
He had to move fast. When the tide turned and the cave suddenly filled with water, they’d be doomed. Specially when they discovered Dad’s olive bread didn’t float.
Jake could see what Crusher was thinking. Helicopter. Wire hangers. Hover low and hook the dopey mongrels out of the water.
‘Good thought,’ said Jake, ‘but it’d take too long. The wire hangers are upstairs and they’re all tangled. And we haven’t got a helicopter.’
Jake sprinted out of the kitchen and into the office.
‘Dad,’ he gasped. ‘Quick. It’s an emergency.’
Dad was sitting at his desk, hand in his jellybean jar, staring mournfully at a bundle of bills.
‘The guests are going down to the cave,’ panted Jake. ‘It’s nearly eleven. They’ll get caught by the tide.’
Jake waited, jiggling on the spot, while Dad slowly stood up and looked out the window, which Jake knew was pointless as you couldn’t even see the cave from here. Jake jiggled some more. Dad turned and put his hands on Jake’s shoulders.
‘Jake,’ he said in the calm voice he used when guests ran out of soap. ‘Don’t fuss, mate. Our guests are grown adults. They’re fully qualified optometrists. They’ve got university degrees. They’ll be OK.’
‘They won’t,’ Jake wanted to shout. ‘They’ll be underwater by eleven twenty. By eleven twenty-three they’ll never prescribe a pair of glasses again. Not even to a jellyfish.’
He opened his mouth, but before he could get a word out, Dad continued.
‘Our guests can look after themselves,’ said Dad. ‘They’ve come here for their holiday because they want a few days without kids pestering them. Anyway, they won’t have gone down to the cave. Not after I warned them about it.’
‘But,’ spluttered Jake desperately, ‘I saw…’
‘First rule of hotel management,’ said Dad, popping a jellybean into Jake’s mouth. ‘If you start seeing things, get your eyes tested.’
The phone rang.
Dad picked it up.
‘Sunbeam House,’ he said. ‘Adults-only island resort.’
Second rule of hotel management, thought Jake as he darted towards the door, desperately hoping he could get to the cave in time. Don’t let the guests drown. Specially when they’re your only ones.
He crashed into Mum, who was coming into the office with the bookings book and a worried look on her face.
She frowned at Jake.
‘Love,’ she said, ‘shouldn’t you be switching the radio on for school?’
‘Mum,’ muttered Jake. ‘It’s the holidays.’
‘Right,’ she said distractedly. ‘Sorry.’
Jake tried to slide past her, but she caught his elbow. She peered closely at him and wiped something off his forehead.
Pancake batter, thought Jake, his heart sinking. I shouldn’t have turned the blender up so high.
‘Jake,’ sighed Mum. ‘You haven’t been assisting with the guests again, have you love?’
Jake shook his head. Pancake batter wasn’t assisting. Not when you were just experimenting to see if your Vegemite batter tasted better than Dad’s seaweed batter.
‘It’s an emergency,’ said Jake. ‘The optometrists have gone down to the cave. Look at the time.’
‘We appreciate you wanting to help, we really do,’ continued Mum, ‘but you know you can’t. Not for another few years.’
‘… exclusively for adults,’ Dad was saying into the phone. ‘Sunbeam House is a sophisticated adults-only holiday hideaway. Children aren’t accommodated here, so you can be sure of a nice relaxing stay.’
Suddenly Jake couldn’t stand it any longer.
‘They could all die,’ he yelled. ‘Don’t you care?’
Mum dropped the bookings book.
Dad put his hand over the phone.
Jake trembled as they both stared at him, faces darkening with anger.
At least they were listening.
Jake didn’t mind being sent to his room when it was for a good cause.
Like saving four lives.
He pressed his ear to the stone wall and tried to hear what was happening outside.
The waves were rumbling faintly and the seagulls were going mental as usual, but as yet there were no other sounds. No rescued optometrists stumbling back up to the house sobbing their thanks. Recommending Jake get nominated for a junior heroism award. Suggesting Dad use a bit more yeast in the olive bread.
Or if there were, Jake couldn’t hear them.
‘I wish these walls were thinner,’ Jake said to Crusher, who’d given up trying to hear anything and was lying on the floor with his head in a pair of Jake’s underpants. ‘It must be fantastic living in a fibro house.’
Jake could tell from the position of Crusher’s buttocks that he agreed.
And it must be even more fantastic having a room with a window, thought Jake. That was the problem with cellar
bedrooms. You couldn’t see out.
‘With a bit of luck, Crusher,’ he said, ‘Mum and Dad’ll be so grateful we’ve saved their guests, they’ll give us a bedroom upstairs.’
Suddenly the door swung open.
Mum and Dad came in.
They didn’t look as though they were planning any bedroom changes. Their faces were so grim that for a moment Jake thought they’d got to the cave too late.
‘Are the optometrists OK?’ he asked.
‘The optometrists are fine,’ replied Dad in the voice he used when the meat supplier sent steak with bone chips in it. ‘They’re playing Monopoly by the pool. Have been for the last two hours.’
‘But,’ said Jake, ‘I saw…’
‘First rule of hotel management,’ growled Dad. ‘Check your facts first.’
Mum put a hand on Dad’s arm. ‘Let me do this, Frank,’ she said.
Jake saw that Dad’s pants were sodden from the belt down. Dad glared at Jake and sloshed out of the room.
‘I saw someone,’ Jake pleaded to Mum. ‘I’m almost certain I did.’
Mum put her hand on Jake’s cheek.
‘You’re a kid and kids have vivid imaginations, we understand that,’ she said. ‘But Jake, we need you to be a big boy. No more fairy tales, OK?’
Fairy tales?
Jake turned to Crusher to back him up. Then he remembered Crusher was a teddy bear. There were times when it was a real disadvantage having a best friend with a sewn-up mouth.
‘I know it’s not easy for you living here, love,’ Mum was saying, ‘but it’s not like we keep you locked in a cupboard. You’ve got your own room and your own TV and your own computer. You’ve got your schoolfriends on the radio and there are millions of kids all over the world you can meet on the Internet.’
Jake opened his mouth to explain to Mum about the people he’d met in the Internet chat rooms. How they all had names like killer and babemagnet. How their conversation consisted mostly of words like asswipe and dude.
Mum was still talking.
‘All we ask, Jake, is that you be a good boy and leave the guests alone.’
‘But Mum…’
Mum put her finger over his lips.
‘Try not to argue, Jake,’ she said. ‘We’ve been through this a million times. When guests come all the way…’
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