by Susan Berran
“This is Nicholas, my pet galah … ” she said. “I got him just last week from a lovely French man at that quaint little pet shop just out of town.” Just then Nicholas flew off his perch and up to the light. The kids all ‘ooohed’ and ‘aaarred’ as he swooped right by my head on the way back to his perch …
Splatt!! … leaving a huge sloppy poop running down my shoulder as he flew by. Everyone thought it was hilarious and Mrs Duckson was really apologetic … but I saw her grinning secretly to herself.
Jared and I immediately shot a look at each other. We were both thinking the same thing … it couldn’t be … could it?
Could the bird have torn up the tests?We knew none of the other kids were clever enough to do it without leaving a huge clue that would give them away. Booga Boris would probably leave a thank you note on Mrs Duckson’s desk for the tissues he’d used … and Dopey Sophie would no doubt leave a note saying:
She was about as bright as a torch with no batteries. The only ones clever enough to get away with it were us. Well me anyway, and we knew we didn’t do it. We needed a plan, a really good plan. All week the other kids followed us around, as if waiting for us to confess to their pets’ crimes. Yeah … like any minute now we were about to fall to the ground in tears and say; “Please forgive us, we’re sooo sorry. Sorry we turned Magda’s hamster into a fluffy yoyo; sorry we put Tia’s goldfish in a jug of cordial and into the fridge; and oh yeah, we’re reeaallly sorry Crabby Abbey’s French la-de-dah woosy poodle got her paws stuck in a patch of quick drying cement.” … Well actually we did do that one, but don’t tell anyone. It took all day for her dad to chisel the dumb mutt out.
But we hadn’t done the other stuff and no one believed us. We had to find out what was going on before we ended up being sent to prison … a crappy prison … with robot guard dogs … with broken glass teeth … on an island … surrounded by sharks … that were eaten by bigger sharks. And that bird of Mrs D’s was going to be pillow stuffing if I caught it. Every day at school it would sneak up and dump on me. Mrs D reckons it must really like me … yeah and VAMPIRES really love garlic!!
Mrs Duckson was like a blowfly in the dunny; really annoying and hanging around where she’s not wanted. Every time we opened up our secret plans’ folder and began to work on new plans …
“Quack!” She was there … behind the sports’ shed …
“Quack!” She was there … hiding around the corner …
“Quack!” She was there … sitting up in a tree …
“Quack!” She was EVERYWHERE! It was impossible! Before school, during school and after school. We couldn’t get away from her. She’s like some old pirate … ‘ Duck Beard’ with Nicholas on her shoulder. Wherever we were, they’d find us. The galah is like some secret spy pilot. As soon as he finds us, he zeros in and I get poop bombed. On the head, back or shoulder … he never misses. And if it’s not Mrs D and her sidekick, it’s the girls trying to sneak up on us.
We couldn’t risk going to our hideout, just in case someone followed us and found out about it. We’d be dobbed in for sure. We had less than two weeks’ holiday to find out what was going on. We needed somewhere with peace and quiet, somewhere secret … somewhere with good food and a big TV.
And I knew just the place.
Mum was going to the city with her sister and husband, Aunty Ree and Uncle Karl to visit a bunch of rellies for a week. Of course I really, really needed to study. So it was best if I stayed with Jared’s family … hey, Mum believed me and that’s all that mattered. But the best part was that Smelly Melly would be with Mum, YES!
Once I got to Jared’s place, we just had to convince his mum that we needed privacy. Some peace and quiet away from his brothers to be able to study properly. The two of us camping out in the back paddock would be perfect for studying. Jared and I were always camping out in the paddocks at his place. So it wasn’t that hard to get his mum to say yes.
We set up the tent in the usual spot. Close enough to the house so that his mum thought she could see us and far enough away that she wouldn’t bother us. Then we set up one of our greatest inventions yet.
It’s a two-part invention: PHASE ONE; set up the little windmill that we’d made. We put this as high up in a tree as possible. Then it’s connected to a fishing line that runs down the tree and into our tent. Where it is tied to the life-size Jared and Sam cardboard cut-out. As the breeze flows through the trees, ‘Jared and Sam’ are sitting up reading a book, studying and gently rocking back and forth. PHASE TWO; set up the night light that runs on solar power. It’s set to come on each night at dusk until just before midnight. The light creates a great silhouette of our cut-out onto the side of the tent.
It is easily one of our best ideas ever. While our ‘doubles’ sat ‘studying’ in the cold night air, we jumped on our bikes and headed for my Auntie’s goat farm. I was supposed to go home each day to feed Fluff Butt, but Aunty Ree’s is pretty far from our place. So I figured I’d just give her a bucket of stuff every couple of days . . . maybe. Anyway, the less I fed the rotten dog, the less it should poop and that suited me fine. By the time we rode our bikes up the long dirt driveway we were exhausted. Luckily I knew where they hid their door key. Who would ever think of fossicking about in a bag of manure by the door?
Aunty Ree was a huge neat freak and everything in their house had to be perfectly perfect. Always in the perfect place at the perfect angle for the perfect look. I’d bought Jared to their place just once before. Unfortunately there had been a slight problem. We sort of accidentally purposely left the door open and kinda accidentally, well purposely, herded the goats into the house and they kinda ruined the place. They’d eaten everything from the lounge to the wallpaper, the carpet to the curtains, even our shoes and socks. And everything they’d eaten, passed very quickly through to the other end and dropped out, to be mooshed into every square millimetre of the house, beds, chairs, carpet … it was the goat party from hell. Of course we never told anyone that we’d even been there. That would be BAD, very very BAD and we’d both definitely be EXTINCT by now.
As we stepped through the door, I immediately noticed something really weird. I knew they didn’t have much time to pack for their trip with Mum, but something wasn’t right. It wasn’t messy exactly, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it … what was it? Aunty Ree always made sure the place was spotless with everything in its place before they went away.
“If something were to happen to us while we’re away, I wouldn’t want anyone to think we were messy slobs. I’d be so embarrassed,” she’d always say to us.
I don’t get it. If you’re dead you’ll be an embarrassed ghost … who cares what someone else thinks about your messy house? Anyway, we went into the kitchen to grab a snack and drink … good ol’ Aunty Ree, I could always count on her. She always had the fridge and pantry well-stocked with all types of junk food, health food, low fat, no fat, low carbs, no carbs, great taste, crappy taste. She had them all and plenty of different flavoured drinks to go with it. “You should always be prepared for anyone. From a bum off the street to the Queen of Bulravia turning up on your doorstep. And always being able to feed them something really nice,” she was forever telling Mum.
Yep!! I could just see the Queen of Bulravia getting a flat tyre on her horse-drawn golden carriage whilst holidaying … not on the pure white beaches of a private island … not on her private luxury two-hundred-metre yacht … not even at a luxury hotel beside the Eiffel Tower. No, no, she’d be dropping in for tea and bikkies at my Aunty Ree’s painted up cRAP sHAck in the backwater sticks of a dusty, dry, smelly place called Agnath.
I definitely think Aunty Ree needs a reality check.
But hey, having all that food was great for me and Jared and we were starving by then. I opened up the pantry to grab some … HEY WHAT THE … where’s the food? It was half-empty; actually it was more like nine-tenths empty. There was hardly anything left. And what was left in there was all muesli and bran, pickles an
d dried-up wrinkly fruit. There was only weird scary looking ‘healthy’ garbage. All the good sugary stuff was gone. “Wow … maybe the Queen of Bulravia did turn up!” Jared announced seriously.
“Mmmmm, you could be right Jared … maybe she came here for a holiday and Aunty Ree wasn’t allowed to tell anyone. Because the Queen didn’t want anyone to know she was slumming it,” I said, trying to keep a straight face.
“Yeah” said Jared still with a really serious look on his face.
I would have cracked up laughing if I wasn’t so hungry.
We checked the fridge. But it was the same thing, nothing left but prune juice. The food, the drinks … all just about gone. Maybe Uncle Karl had turned into some sort of a human food vacuum cleaner. After all, he was starting to look more than a bit pregnant.
The list!!
Just then I remembered about Aunty Ree’s ‘list’. As soon as something is drunk or eaten it has to be immediately written up onto ‘the list’ by whoever has taken it. Even when Mum, Smelly Melly and I come over, as soon as one of us eats or drinks anything, I have to write it up. It’s sort of like a ‘golden rule’. That would tell us who’d eaten what. I snatched the pad off the fridge door … milk … bread … vegemite. That was it. So who’d eaten all the food? If Aunty Ree or Uncle Karl had eaten it, it would be on the list. It had to be eaten by someone … or something that didn’t know the golden rule.
We grabbed the only stuff left that we could safely eat and drink without chucking … a half-empty box of pretzels and a can of prune juice. My mind was still ticking over faster than a cheetah on pep pills as we entered the lounge room to sit down. Jared flicked on the television and I sat our drinks on the coffee table in front of us.
Boy, if Aunty Ree could see us now she’d have a FIT. There was only one thing she hated so much that she thought hangings should be bought back for… . no coaster on the table under your drink. She’d go absolutely BERSERK if she knew we weren’t using coasters … that’s it!!
“Jared … someone’s been here,” I said in a quivering voice.
“Yeah I know … us,” he said.
“Well deerrrr,” I swear scrambled eggs are smarter than Jared sometimes … actually pretty much most of the time.
“Oh, you mean someone else … how do you know?” he asked.
“Because look!!” I said pointing to the rings of dry brown stains from coffee cups all over the table. Aunty Ree had just bought this brand new all-singing-and-dancing coffee machine. No one but her was allowed to use it … no one was even allowed to enter the ‘invisible protected air space’ around it. And when she did use it, out came the matching cups and saucers. A cup with no saucer or coaster … there was NO WAY on this planet that Aunty Ree would let that happen. Not unless a bum had come by and Uncle Karl had made the coffee and then couldn’t find the coasters. But I’d know for sure if he’d done that. Because there’d be two fresh graves in the backyard where she’d buried their bodies. No, something else was going on, something had happened here.
We had no idea what we were looking for. But I kinda reckoned we’d know if we found it. While Jared searched downstairs I wandered through the upstairs for clues. As I looked around, I heard a far-off noise, sort of like marching. I looked out the window and way off into the distance, I could see a big cloud of dust coming along the road. I stood there watching as it got closer and closer. Then, as it got to the bottom of Aunty Ree’s driveway it turned … it was heading straight for the house … this house!
I tried desperately to stare through the haze. I could see … I could see the dusty silhouette of something … a cow? a horse? … no, a dog! A really BIG DOG and birds and a cat … there were heaps of animals, pets, everyone’s pets! It was the group of pets that we’d spotted sneaking off to somewhere the other day; and now we knew where … Aunty Ree’s!
I had to tell Jared, we had to get out of there … or … this could be our chance to find out what was going on. Peeking out the window again, I could see that they were definitely heading for the house.
I FLEW downstairs three steps at a time. And in one swift move I’d flicked off the tele’, shoved the food and drinks under one arm and just about ripped Jared’s arm out of its socket. I dragged the lot into the kitchen where I shoved Jared into the fridge and dived into the broom closet with the pretzels and prune juice …
AaAAhHh!!
Flinging open the closet door, I reefed open the fridge and yanked out the blue Jared popsicle in front of me. Then I shoved the food and drinks into the fridge and leapt back into the broom closet with Jared. Our chests were pressed up so hard against each other that we had to breathe together.
“Ssshhhh!!” I signalled to Jared. But he couldn’t make a noise if he wanted to. His teeth were clenched tighter than Mum’s purse when I ask for a raise in my allowance.
Click! The key turned in the door; they knew about the key in the manure!?
We could hear paws and claws of all sizes TROTTING in and around the lounge room. We peeked between the slats in the closet door. We could see the pets all wandering around like they owned the place. Just then the guinea pigs came scampering into the kitchen, chattering to each other in a high-pitched squealing. A galah and some budgies flew over to the window. All of a sudden, there was a flash of white fur skidding flat out across the room towards us …
WWWSSSS … Thump!! It smashed straight into the bottom of the closet door where we were hiding. I don’t know how he did it, but suddenly Jared’s pants were defrosted.
The brooms and mops and stuff all shook on the wall and a few more icicles dropped off Jared’s face. As it backed away from the door, we saw what, and who it was … Fluff Butt! Just then, two cats, a lizard and a really colourful sheep with a really bad haircut and a fish bowl on its back, entered the kitchen as well. Hang on … that wasn’t a sheep … wow no wonder Crabby Abbey was so annoyed, that was one ugly poodle. Anyway, with their claws and the slippery tiled floor, they could barely stand up or even walk. It was sort of like watching the world championship of drunken ice-skating ballet. Or a game of animal pinball; all bouncing off each other and then sliding off in another direction. Boing … bing, boing … bing, bing … boing. Knees crashed into hips, noses cracked into ribs, faces collided with butts … which they seemed to enjoy … as they all ricocheted off each other. They were looking … no, they were smelling. And some of them smelt really bad. But they weren’t smelling each other, well, not any more. They were after something. Trying to sniff whatever it was, out.
Did they know we were here?
As we peered through the gaps, we could see every different pet sniffing at every drawer, every cupboard, and every shelf, as he or she slid and banged into it. We knew that it was only a matter of time before one of them would sniff us out.
I tried to play charades with Jared to tell him we should make a break for it … but neither of us could raise our arms. So he just gave me a dumb look and shrugged his shoulders. I guessed the only option left was for me to make a run for it and hope that Jared would follow.
Yes, there was a very good chance that he’d be caught and taken to their home planet, or kennel, or wherever they’d come from … but I was willing to take that risk. Whhaaammm!!! What the … too late … two huge nostrils were shoved in tight through one of the louvre gaps in our door. Flaring in and out, drawing in a huge sniff of … US! From the size of it, we knew it had to be Miss Ooh La La I’m-not-really-French, Crabby’s giant poodle. SSNnniFff!! All of a sudden, the poodle’s legs were skating on the spot, trying desperately to go backwards. Her butt was skimming the floor and water splashed out all over the place from the fishbowl balancing on her back. As her paws finally gripped, she shot backwards, bowling over the lizard, pushing through the cats and then hitting the cupboard on the other side of the room. Finally collapsing heavily straight down onto her butt. There was dead silence for a split second as they all stopped instantly to see what had happened. Suddenly the air was filled with the s
ound of a shrieking bird. I could see a few feathers sticking out from underneath the rainbow poodle. Fluff Butt slid over to it and grabbed a mouthful of the dog’s ear, then heaved her off a very flat, peeved and scrappy looking galah, Nicholas. That fake French poodle’s face seemed to be a shade of green and he was obviously telling the others something. A few yaps, tweets, meows and other languages were exchanged between all of the animals. Then they all looked directly at the cupboard we were hiding in.
We’d been smelt out for sure.
The room went silent once more and the poodle very gingerly crept back over towards us. Then without a sound, she lifted her rear leg and ‘marked’ our door. Wow, I didn’t even know a girl dog could do that, but she did. Then as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. They went back to sniffing absolutely everywhere over and over. But not one of them came anywhere near our door again. Wow … what an insult. We watched in silence as they got organised. It seemed that Fluff Butt was in charge. She appeared to be directing different pets to do different things. The galah and budgies were keeping watch at the window. With another yap, one of the cats leapt onto the poodle’s back and then stood on the rim of the fishbowl. Then the guinea pigs scampered up through the fur of the poodle’s legs, onto the fishbowl, up the back of the cat and opened a cupboard door. Like lightning, the lizard then snaked its way up and over all of them and straight into the cupboard. The circus troupe of pets then all jumped down, leaving the lizard to zip along the inside of the cupboards. Doors flung open all along the wall and junk food that must have been hidden somewhere in the back, was tossed down into their waiting paws. They knew exactly what they were after and within a minute, the food was all down, the cupboards were all emptied and closed. They’d taken the only bits of food that had been left. Even the fridge hadn’t been a challenge as we watched them take out the last cans of prune juice. When the last door closed, they all retired to the lounge room where we could only see a small gap through the doorway.
