by David Laing
‘The mongrel!’ Snook yelled, switching the set off in disgust. ‘That lyin’, no-good sneak. Wait till I …’
‘Steady on, son,’ Snook’s dad said, crossing over and resting his hand on his shoulder. ‘Why don’t you and Jars tell us everything that’s going on, including all you know about this Reginald Blowhard fellow?’
Chapter 34
* * *
It was 9am Monday when we arrived at the gorge camping ground once again. We’d ridden our bikes as before and, of course, Shadow had come along too. So had Gloria. ‘We’d better wait here for the police,’ I said to Snook and Gloria, ‘and not go to the crime scene area uninvited.’
‘Why not?’ Snook asked. ‘We were there first. It’s our area too.’
Snook’s logic was spot on of course, but all the same I knew that I’d feel more comfortable waiting for the police. I was about to say as much when I saw that Snook was in deep conversation with Gloria. I smiled to myself. At long last, he’d managed to straighten things out with her, and as from yesterday afternoon, she was now officially his girlfriend again.
When we saw the cloud of dust coming our way, we first thought it was the police but we were only half right. There were two other cars – a white Ford and a blue Toyota. The three cars pulled up at the edge of the camp, leaving a trail of dust hovering in the air behind them.
The occupants of the cars were a mixed lot. There were two middle-aged ladies wearing power suits and press badges and an elderly gentleman dressed in slacks and a white polo-neck jumper. And trotting along behind him, carrying a black briefcase was a young lady in a loose-fitting khaki shirt and slacks. They were followed by Sergeant McGruff and Constable Sweetman from yesterday. Graeme and Percy, his police camera dangling from one hand, had also returned.
Sergeant McGruff called for everyone’s attention. He then asked in his usual demanding voice, ‘Why are the press here? Who told them about our operation? It was supposed to have been kept quiet. Who’s gone and blabbed?’ I didn’t like the way he was looking at us when he said that.
Snook was quick to jump in. ‘It wasn’t us,’ he said. ‘We didn’t tell nobody, except my mum and dad. They would’ve found out anyway. My mum always knows when I’m hidin’ somethin’.’
‘One of the journalists flashed her press badge. ‘Belinda Cole, Advocate News. The story is already out there,’ she said. ‘It’s all over the news.’ She shoved a tape recorder in front of the sergeant. ‘Do you have any further comments? Is there any further news about the bones? Is it true that they are the remains of two children who mysteriously disappeared a long time ago? If so, are you in a position to reveal their names?’
I thought the sergeant was going to blow a gasket. Instead, he turned away from the reporter and addressed Constable Sweetman. ‘Sort this lot out, would you?’ he said, waving a hand over the group. ‘Souter and I’ll go and set up for the dive.’
I noticed the journalists’ heads bob up at the sergeant’s words. It seemed pretty clear that they weren’t going to wait around to be sorted by Constable Sweetman. I was right. They didn’t waste any time. Notebooks in hand, they hurried after the sergeant and the diver. There was no way they were going to miss out on a story.
Other cars were starting to arrive now. Spectators. No doubt, they’d heard the news on the television last night and had come out to have a look. My immediate thought was to keep out of Sergeant McGruff’s way. He’d blow his stack when he saw who’d just arrived.
But there was something else – a faint, rhythmic, throb-bing sound coming from the east. A whup-whup-whup sound that was growing louder. Then I saw it – a helicopter with the words, ABC TELEVISION, emblazoned on its side. And I could see the pilot; his head was hanging out of the side door, probably looking for a place to land.
Reginald Blowhard arrived at the far end of the lagoon at precisely 10am. He’d spent the night in a Queenstown motel and was feeling good. The interviews with the press had gone well. He’d given them the facts before those kids got to them with their stories. Smiling to himself and after parking Rex near the far end of the lagoon as he did before, he began to walk the short distance along the path towards the place where the bones were found, where he hoped the action was about to start. When he drew close, he thought he could hear voices, so not wanting to be seen, he stepped off the track into the scrub. Using the trees and bushes for cover, he crept closer … to where he could watch.
The crowd of people at the lagoon surprised him – he hadn’t noticed the cars at the camp site when he’d made the turn off at the old road, as he’d been too intent on keeping out of sight. In addition to the gathering crowd of onlookers, who were standing behind the police tape pointing and chatting among themselves, he spotted two of the journalists whom he had talked to yesterday. He spotted the two Kelly kids too. They were waist deep in the lagoon helping a diver and a police officer bring some bones onto the shore. Another woman police office and a man with a camera were taking the bones to a growing pile under a tree. And capturing it all on film was a television crew.
That Snook Kelly lad had guessed correctly, Blowhard said to himself. You only have to look at the bones they’re finding now to realise they’re pre-historic. The size of some of them tells you that. I should be in on this, he told himself. The recovery. The fan-fare that was bound to come. I should be getting the accolades from all of this. After all, I was the one that led them to the bones. He scratched his chin as he worked out his next move.
His mind was made up for him when two other people, an elderly man dressed in a white polo-neck jumper and a youngish woman in casual clothes, stepped out of the bushes close to where he was crouching. The elderly man looked confused, as though he was lost. ‘It could only happen to him,’ the young lady mumbled to the back of his head. ‘Fancy taking the wrong turn back there at the bridge. Talk about the absent-minded professor.’
Professor Ian McClelland pointed towards the hustle and bustle on the foreshore. ‘It looks like we’ve run into a reception committee of some sort,’ he said to his assistant, Katelyn Jackson, as they stumbled on to the excavation site. ‘Look, they’ve made further discoveries. Let’s hurry over.’ Almost bubbling over with excitement, the professor and Katelyn rushed over to the tree line at the edge of the lagoon.
‘Good morning,’ the professor said to the first person who looked like he belonged there. It was Percy. ‘We are palaeontologists from the University of Tasmania. We have completed a preliminary analysis of a bone sent to us yesterday that was found in this area. We’re now here to do a follow up.’ Finding it hard not to stare at the bones, he said, ‘Everyone’s been busy, I see, collecting these … specimens. Very interesting.’
After introducing himself, Percy said. ‘I’m just the photographer, but yep, they’re interesting all right.’
‘They certainly are,’ the professor said, signalling to his assistant to have a closer look. ‘In fact, if I may hazard an opinion at this stage, I think you may have the bones of a rhotosaurus there.’
‘A rhotosaurus? Really?’
‘I think so,’ he said looking over at the pile under the eucalypt tree. ‘That looks like a typical rhotosaurus tail bone in your pile, the short rigid looking bone. With a bit of luck, you may have discovered a fully-fledged, plant-eating sauropod from the Middle Jurassic period – found in Queensland normally.’
‘The Kelly kids showed us where they were,’ Percy was quick to explain. ‘They were the ones who really made the discovery.’
‘The Kelly kids?’ Katelyn, his assistant, commented.
‘Yep,’ Percy said. ‘That’s one of them out there in the lagoon; it’s the girl, giving us a hand as usual.’
Looking out into the lagoon the professor and Katelyn both shook their heads when they saw Jars helping to haul an elephant-size bone to the shore. And they couldn’t help but laugh when they saw Snook tearing after Shadow who’d decided to commandeer one of the smaller ones.
Chapter 35
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* * *
Reginald Blowhard could hardly contain his excitement. As soon as they’d finished collecting all the bones, he’d make a grand entrance. He’d walk out into the open and declare that it was he, Reginald Blowhard, who had discovered the bones.
Whoops, he gulped, it’s the two journalists and they’re coming this way. It’s too early to be seen yet; I’d better hide. He dodged behind one of the tree ferns that grew near the path and then, wondering what the journalists were up to, poked his head through the fronds. One of the reporters extracted a camera from her pocket – a small black one. I’d better make myself presentable, he told himself as he fished in his pocket for a comb … must be at my best when I make the front page tomorrow.
But there was one thing that he hadn’t counted on.
He wasn’t alone.
Two sets of eyes were looking at him, watching his every move. The first belonged to Shadow, who’d detected his presence yesterday when he’d been hiding in the scrub spying on everyone, and the second set belonged to a big black possum that’d been sitting on a branch just above his head.
The possum, probably thinking it was time to make his presence felt to this human who had disturbed him, let out a low growl about a foot from Blowhard’s left ear. With images of ghosts and tales of Mamu still careering around in his head from the last two days like a horror movie, Blowhard slowly, carefully, turned and looked up.
‘What a circus!’ Sergeant McGruff said as he stood next to Constable Sweetman. ‘We’ve got every man and his dog here. I thought this was all supposed to be a secret,’ he repeated for the umpteenth time that morning. ‘We were supposed to keep the press and everyone else who’s not an official in the dark … until we knew who all the bones belonged to … until we’d made some sense out of this mess.’ Throwing his arms in the air, he said, ‘It’s too late for that now. We might as well go and give the press a statement if that’s what they want. There’s no sense in trying to keep this hush-hush anymore. They most probably know more than we do by now, anyway.’
‘We might as well, Sarge.’ Graeme Souter said, walking onto dry land and shaking the last drops of water from his flippers. ‘I could tell them about the dive. I reckon I’m finished for the day. I’ve had a good poke around out there and I can’t see anything else. A team of professionals scouring the bottom might though.’
‘Okay, we’ll call it quits,’ the sergeant said. ‘In the meantime, I’ll talk to those two lady journalists who’ve just ducked under the barricade. And yes, you can talk to them too.’
‘Arghhh! Arghhh!’ The loud, harsh, guttural noise and the piercing scream that followed made every head in the official salvage party and every person in the crowd turn and look. Perching birds flew fluttering into the air, sleeping wallabies awakened and raced into the bush, and even Belinda Cole and Susan Partridge, the journalists, stopped in their tracks. ‘Sounds like a wild animal amongst those trees,’ Belinda whispered out of the corner of her mouth. ‘I wonder what it is.’
‘We’ll know in a couple of seconds,’ Susan replied. ‘There’s a German shepherd going in there to find out.’
Susan and Belinda weren’t the only ones to stop and stare. ‘What the devil’s that?’ Sergeant McGruff said, more to himself than anyone else.
‘Beats me,’ his offsider answered, thinking the question was directed at her.
Snook and I drew alongside the two police officers. ‘I know what it is,’ Snook said.
‘You do?’ The sergeant said looking down at him. ‘You sound very sure of yourself.’
Covering the grin on my face with my hand, I looked at Snook. He was grinning too. We’d both heard the Aghhh! Aghhh! sound as well as the scream before. ‘It’s Blowhard!’ we exclaimed, ‘and he’s just found his friend, Charlie!’ Struggling to stifle our giggles, we made our way into the scrub. The sergeant and Constable Sweetman, followed by Belinda and Susan, were close behind. The others, Percy, Graeme and the two palaeontologists and some of the crowd stood by watching.
We found Blowhard dangling by one arm from a low-hanging tree branch. We stood and stared. His feet were swirling and treading air like he was riding a bike and his other arm was waving and twirling in the air as though searching for something to hold on to. He was also screeching at the top of his voice. ‘Help! Help!’ he was calling out. ‘It’s Mamu! He’s come to get me!’
And at the base of the tree, head in the air and pawing at Blowhard’s windmilling feet and legs was Charlie, the big black possum. In the confusion, Blowhard and Charlie had changed places.
We all burst out laughing; even the sergeant was laughing. The two journalists were nearly crying, and the ABC television crew, who’d come over to see what the ruckus was all about, were in fits, and looking on with a bemused look on his face and head cocked to one side, was Shadow. His early training as a ranger’s dog had taught him to leave the wild animals alone when he came across them in their natural habitat. But how long that would last in this situation, I didn’t know. From where I was standing I could see a nervous alertness creeping into his eyes, and his tail was thumping the ground. Maybe he was thinking he’d been patient long enough. I waved a finger in his direction. He understood. Instead of reacting to the possum, he slunk over until he was beneath Blowhard’s windmilling legs and then, still looking bemused, he looked up at the strange man swinging from the tree by one arm … and barked.
I thought it was time to call a halt to the madness. I must admit that I was feeling a little guilty laughing at Blowhard’s dilemma, but the truth was we couldn’t help it. Snook must have thought so, too. So, with Blowhard yelling at the top of his voice to get him down, and amongst flailing limbs, Snook walked over to help him out. While he was doing that, I shooed the possum away. ‘Go home, Charlie,’ I said, ‘and stop scaring the poor man.’
Charlie scampered into the bush, his big black tail bouncing in the air behind him, and Blowhard, panting for breath, let go of the branch and fell to the ground.
Lying on the grass and looking up at all of our faces, Blowhard started to blather, ‘It caught me by surprise. It was Mamu … the evil spirit… he nearly got me.’
Snook and I exchanged glances and then shook our heads. We watched as Blowhard leaped to his feet, scrambled out of the scrub and raced back along the track at the side of the lagoon … still jabbering, still blathering. Afterwards we walked back to all the others, who were still standing among the trees inside Constable Sweetman’s barrier tape.
Chapter 36
* * *
‘You should have been there, Sam. It was unbelievable, wasn’t it, Jars?’
Although closed for business due to the Monday public holiday, Sam had opened up for Snook and me. We had some photos that needed processing. ‘Okay,’ Sam said. ‘Tell me, what was so unbelievable?’
‘Findin’ the remains of Aaron Cooper and Lucy Kemp was pretty amazin’,’ Snook said. ‘Discoverin’ the bones of a dinosaur was too; that was unbelievable, and that Blowhard fella was out of this world. Things kept happenin’ to him; he wuz a real pest, he wuz. He kept interruptin’ my photo takin’.’
Sam asked Jars, ‘How about you? Did you get any shots?
‘Oh, I got a few.’ She handed him the camera. ‘Thanks for the loan. It worked really well.’
Snook jumped up and sat on the counter. ‘Everythin’ worked out real good in the end, didn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘The professor rang us this afternoon to tell us that it has been confirmed; the dinosaur bones once belonged to a rhotosaurus. The professor also said he would be at the presentations tonight.’
‘Sounds like an interesting couple of days were had by all,’ Sam said. ‘There’s no doubt about you two, though. You always seem to end up where the actions at.’ Chuckling to himself, he added, ‘But now I’d better go and process these photos. Will you come back for them or do you want me to give them to the judges?’
‘We’ll leave them in your hands, Sam,’ I said
, after a quick nod of confirmation from Snook. ‘Not that they’ve got much chance of winning anything.’
‘You never know,’ Sam said, as he disappeared into a back-room. ‘You never know.’
Chapter 37
* * *
It was Monday evening, when the winners of the photo-graphic competition would be announced at the presentation evening in the Cray Bay Hall. Snook and I were already there, sitting in a couple of seats at the back of the hall. We’d left Shadow at home; the occasion wouldn’t have suited him. All of the other chairs in the hall had been stacked away. Apparently it was a standing room only evening.
Snook’s dad, for once not smelling of fish, and Snook’s mum were among the crowd somewhere. His mum had really dressed up for the occasion. She’d put on her favourite grey tailored suit with a lime-green blouse and a matching purse and shoes; she’d looked a treat when I saw her earlier. I think she was kind of pleased with us and wanted to do us proud. Maybe Uncle Jim felt the same way; he’d dressed up, too, in his best shirt and tie.
Quenton wasn’t there though and I can’t say I blame him. Apparently his you-beaut camera with all it bells and whistles hadn’t taken any photos in the end; he’d got the settings mixed up. I can’t help feeling sorry for him sometimes, but I guess he brings it on himself.
The crowd was just starting to arrive when we got there; most were standing around in groups talking among themselves, waiting for the presentations to begin. As usual, the Country Women’s Association ladies were doing the evening proud. They’d placed the long trellis supper table in the middle of the hall which they were now filling with all sorts of goodies – cakes, mini-sandwiches and homemade biscuits and several cream cakes. Little pies and sausages rolls were being heated up in the kitchen, and at each end of the table, were knitted baby clothes for sale. The CWA were renowned for their giving to charities.
