The Kensington Reptilarium

by N. J. Gemmell

  About the Book

  The Caddy Kids are home alone and they’re having the best time ever. Until a stranger arrives with news...

  This is the story of how four loud, grubby urchins from the Australian outback find themselves in London for the first peacetime Christmas after years of war.

  But their new guardian hates children. He prefers the company of the hundreds of snakes in his house – the Kensington Reptilarium.

  Fate lends Kick, Scruff, Bert and Pin a helping hand when outraged citizens call for the Reptilarium to be shut down. With the police about to descend, can the Caddy kids warm Uncle Basti’s heart – and have their Christmas wishes granted – before it’s too late?

  A feel-good tale that will have you cheering on these four fearless bush kids as they take on the world.

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title

  Meet the Caddys

  Dedication

  1 A Bet

  2 We Are Invaded

  3 An Offer

  4 This Is Not Good

  5 Death May Follow

  6 Please May I Introduce . . .

  7 Calamity and Commotion

  8 The Reptilarium, No the Square, No Claridges, No the...

  9 The Legend of Campden Hill Square

  10 Punishment Number One

  11 Wonderments

  12 Most Singular Sleeping Arrangements Indeed

  13 The Midnight Gate

  14 But Who to Trust, Who?

  15 Snared

  16 Dad Feels Close

  17 A Miraculous Find

  18 Scruff to the Rescue

  19 The End of . . . What?

  20 Out

  21 This Cannot Be Happening

  22 Knots

  23 Basti’s Gift

  24 The Most Secret of Secret Missions

  25 What Bush Kids Do

  26 A Most Unexpected Christmas Present

  27 Basti’s Surprise

  Afterword

  Author’s Note

  Copyright Notice

  Loved the book?

  To Lachie, Ollie, Thea and Jago

  ‘How long do you reckon it’d take to fry an egg on Matilda’s bonnet?’

  Scruff is looking longingly at our car, which is already boiling hot in the 44-degree heat – and it’s only nine a.m.

  ‘Fifty-two seconds!’ Bert rises to the challenge. ‘Do it, Scruffy boy, come on. Anything would be better than Kick’s cooking.’ She shoots a glance at me, knowing I’ll take the bait. Which I most certainly do.

  ‘Just you try being a mum plus a dad around here, young lady.’ I poke out my tongue. Everyone knows that any experiment at being a grown-up ended months ago. ‘Twenty-nine seconds,’ I exclaim, ‘and not a fly’s fart more!’

  My attempt at breakfast – a frypan with a rug of eggs tastefully congealed on its bottom – is grabbed and said eggs are flung wide into the yard. They spin like a dinner plate. Land – plop! – in the red dust.

  Cooking. Pah. I give up. I’ve had enough of it.

  Our dog, Bucket, scoots for the mess of the breakfast and gobbles it up. I bow to her exquisite taste. ‘Well, at least someone appreciates me around here.’

  Then I stand on the table in my leather flying cap, fix Mum’s old driving goggles firmly over my eyes, straighten my back and salute.

  ‘Troops, as of this moment I hereby resign from the positions of cook, cleaner, mother, father, storyteller, governess, putterer-to-bed, chief hunter, nose-wiper, Pin-tracker, master spy and war general. You’re free. The whole blinkin’ lot of you! I’m off.’

  ‘Yaaaaaaay!’

  My three siblings – Scruff, eleven, Bert, nine, and Pin, four – hoot with glee and do an instant war dance; Bucket joins in for good measure with a great flurry of leaps and barks. A finger’s waggled at her. I expect mutiny in the ranks from the humans who inhabit this adult-forsaken place but not from our dingo we’ve raised since a pup. Obediently she sits and pants. That’s better. I wink my thanks.

  ‘Forty-eight seconds, girls. The bet’s on!’ Scruff sings, rushing to the larder to gather more eggs. Dad left him his old wristwatch from World War I, complete with its stopwatch, and he’s been timing the entire world ever since.

  ‘Twelve eleven! Twelve eleven!’ Pin exclaims.

  This is the biggest number he knows, and, er, as you can see, I’ve been a bit slack in the governess department of late. We’ll get to numbers one day.

  We all scramble out to Matilda, our trusty car, which I can drive (with three blocks of wood tied with ropes to the pedals and a pillow on the seat) at the grand old age of thirteen, thank you very much.

  ‘A minute’s silence please.’ Bert clasps her chest dramatically when we get there (ever the drama queen). She raises her head to the wide blue heavens. Bucket takes her place behind the wheel. ‘Please bring Daddy back to us by Christmas Eve. With the following: a rifle for Scruff, a slingshot for Pin, a black velvet dress from Paris for me and a . . . a little . . . book . . . of some sort . . . for the ex-governess.’ She wrinkles her nose in distaste in my direction.

  My eyes narrow. ‘Dinner’s all yours, Madame Pompadour. Tonight. Just see what you can do with a roo tail, two cups of flour and a chocolate bar.’

  ‘Forty-eight seconds, ladies!’ Scruff exclaims, ever the peacemaker, his palms wide between both of us as he scrutinises the tall blue sky.

  We all do. Oh, it’ll deliver all right. Cook those eggs in the blink of an eye. Because we live smack bang in the middle of the hottest place on earth – the Central Australian desert. And we live here, at the moment, all by our glorious selves.

  Dad’s gone away on yet another of his expeditions. He’s always heading off, ever since I could talk he’s been disappearing and then coming back with a great wallop of presents and stories about princes and paupers, India and Ceylon and Paris, samurai swords and civil war muskets, spies and saboteurs, crocs and stingrays and sharks. He’s an adventure hunter, that’s all we know, liberating peoples and animals across the world, and it’s always of the highest importance and the most mysterious intelligence. His latest mission: yep, you guessed it, top secret. But it’s to save the world from imminent destruction – even though the war, er, ended several months ago. Apparently. We’ve spent World War II on our station in the middle of Woop Woop, scouring the horizon for Japs, which always turn into camels as they get close through the haze of heat. But we’re ready for ‘em!

  And Mum? She died when Pin was born; Dad says she ran away to God, because another little Caddy surprise was just too shocking for this world to ever cope with and she needed to instruct God how to do it. Mum’s always up there, with us, close, we must never forget it.

  The four of us climb onto Matilda’s bonnet, which creaks companionably with our weight but never gives, thank goodness, ’cause we’re on here a lot. Our darling, faithful old girl of a ute, she’s taken us to every waterhole within a hundred-mile radius thanks to Dad. She’s sped between sand dunes trailing an old mattress that we’ve all clung onto for dear life, she’s carried swags and firewood and dead roos and goannas piled high for feasts, as well as endless gaggles of kids on hunting expeditions with our blackfella mates.

  Dad organised for Aunty Ethel to stay with us during this latest absence – something about me ‘becoming a woman and needing some help’, which he couldn’t talk about, and he would blush whenever I tried to ask, but excuse me, I’m more than all right now, thank you very much. I’ve got his war pistol and his whip, his car key and a stash of books – what more does a girl need?

  Aunty Ethel agreed that her services might no longer be required after she found the entire occupants of Bert�
�s scorpion farm in her sheets. Which came the day after Pin whacked Scruff with a fresh roo tail and sprayed blood across Aunty Ethel’s white Sunday-best dress, and Scruff used her glasses to set fire to the straw under the chook house as a liberation experiment.

  ‘Your father was always the black sheep of the family – but he’s got nothing on you lot,’ she’d said as she slammed the door of her car. ‘I’ll write and tell him to get back instantly. No one else will have you. Kick, you’ll just just have to work out how to become a lady all by yourself. And clean up that potty mouth of yours, because your father certainly won’t!’

  The last sight of our visitor from hoity toity down south: her Morris Minor coughing and spluttering as it disappeared in a cloud of dust.

  Excellent. That’s how we like it. We rubbed our hands in glee. Me free to do and say what I want. Kids free of supervision and baths. Plus the most superb development of the lot: Dad on his way back to look after us.

  Except he’s not here. Yet.

  And it’s been an awfully long time. Every day we expect him to arrive. The days are ticking on, the tins are running low, as well as the powdered milk and flour with too many weevils in it, and Christmas is in a week, the bush pine will have to be selected and chopped and Dad’s always in command of that. Along with bagging the bush turkey, tuning the piano for the singalong, directing the Christmas pantomine (sole audience member: Bucket), and painting across the entire tin roof, in bright red, our yearly message to Santa on his flying kangaroos in case he misses it: ‘STOP! BEER + GOOD KIDS HERE.’

  ‘Ah, shouldn’t that be written the other way round?’ Scruff had asked last year.

  ‘In this heat,’ Dad had laughed, ‘Father Christmas needs a beer before anything,’ and clapped his son on the back.

  ‘I do too!’ Scruff had jumped in right quick.

  ‘You’re only ten, mate. I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you one when you’ve grown some hairs on your chest – and you’re all of eleven.’ Then they’d both cackled with laughter that wouldn’t stop. Little boys, both of them, especially on December 25th. So. Scruff’s come of age now and Dad needs to hurry up. Any moment, I just know it, can feel it.

  Dad Junior now holds an egg high. ‘Troops, are we ready? Steady?’

  Pin holds my hand, squeezes with excitement.

  Bert examines her nails, which she’s just covered with old blackboard paint that’s still hanging around, miraculously, even though all the governesses have long fled. ‘Excuse me, stop. We’re not ready yet because I have a question. A crucial one. What does the winner get?’

  Scruff looks at her, thinking. It’ll be something to do with warfare, I bet. ‘My entire grenade collection.’

  ‘Do any of them work?’ Bert’s now looking straight at me, planning her attack.

  That’d be right. Just because I told her she has to pull her weight and help with a week’s worth of dishes now that we have nothing left to eat off.

  ‘Not a single one, sis!’ Scruff cackles then cracks the egg with great aplomb between his spread legs. ‘Breakfast is on its way, ladies and gentleman – the best feast you have ever tasted in your life!’ He counts from his watch, ‘One – two – three – four –’

  Pin’s tugging me, trying to get me off the car. ‘Sssh,’ I tell him, ‘don’t interrupt, pup.’

  ‘But Kicky . . .’ he whines.

  ‘Twelve – eleven –’ Scruff winks at Pin ‘– thirteen – fourteen –’

  But Pin’s head is somewhere else. Our little man can be distracted by an ant, a fly, anything but the task at hand, and that usually leads to him wandering off, which always gives us heart attacks. Right on cue he jumps from Matilda. Heads to the front gate. Our gaze follows him.

  To an enormous plume of angry red dust, bulleting straight at us from the horizon.

  The egg is forgotten as we rush to Pin . . . hearts in our mouths.

  What is it?

  It’s not Dad, it’s too fast. It’s something else.

  Right. This is the weirdest day of my life and I think it’s only going to get weirder.

  A police car. Coming straight at us with its big plume of dust. The worst car possible. Because it means something not very good. Snatchings. Removal. Punishment. Too many questions, too much suspicion. But it slows, then stops a couple of hundred yards away, as if it’s scared (as it should be) of what goes on in these parts. Scared of the four of us with our big reputation that’s got everyone – including Aunty Ethel – running for the hills. As if there’s a big huge warning sign at our gate:

  The police car starts up again. Revs hard like a bull about to charge. I’m feeling sick. Because this is only the start of what’s coming next and this car looks mean like a grenade looks mean, as if it doesn’t like four kids alone without their parents in the middle of the toughest desert on earth, as if it has to put a stop to this.

  I blast hard on Dad’s trench whistle that’s always around my neck – it once saved him from a Turk’s bullet ripping through his chest and it’s going to save us now, just watch.

  ‘Action stations! Invasion imm-in-ent!’

  So. Let this battle commence. We’ve scared off everyone else. Because if we’re taken from here we won’t be coming back, I just know it, I’ve read too many books: they’ll put us in a home with high walls and rats and Dad’ll return from his expedition to an empty house and a skeleton of Bucket by his bed and we promised to look after everything and we’ll have let him down and no, oh no, we’re not doing that. We’ve got Dad’s arsenal of souvenirs from all his adventures, a mighty war chest in fact: Japanese swords and Javanese knives, Burmese shields and Thai bayonets, fishing nets from Sumatra and balloon silk from India, not to mention ropes. Twenty-eight types.

  We all know the drill. We’ve discussed it enough. In thirty seconds flat we’re in our places.

  Scruff – lover of bets, pranks, cooking and fights and the best shot in these parts – clangs the gate shut (well, as shut as he can get with its broken latch) then, with a bow and arrows slung across his shoulder and a sling through his belt, he scrambles up the flying fox so he can zip across the driveway as soon as the car’s in range and slingshot all his marbles and Dad’s entire rock collection smack bang into an unsuspecting windscreen.

  Bert – lover of graves, cupboards, fashion and all things black – is actually staying bold in the light. This must be serious (and miraculously, we’re in agreement for once). Our little ball of fury stands poised by the barricade of sharpened, slanting sticks that we’ve erected across the front of the gate as extra protection. She’s armed with her picnic basket of rotten eggs kept just for these moments and her top three attack-scorpions in their chocolate tin, plus an extra special surprise in the pyjama sack she fashioned from the second-best tablecloth.

  Pin, mighty Pin, is on the verandah holding back a wildly barking Bucket by hugging her around the neck until the crucial moment when whoever it is steps out of their car and bam! – Pin will let go and they won’t know what’s hit ‘em. Our girl’s the wildest, snarliest dingo in the west when she wants to be, and I’m talking dog here, not sister – well, both, actually – and Pin adores them equally and clings like crazy to each.

  And then yours truly. Directing the lot of them. Up in the crow’s nest (Mum’s old laundry basket) high on the rooftop, hidden behind the chimney with its parasol and two upside-down wellies poking out – our grim warning to anyone getting too close. One hand is tight around a bucket of flat riverbed stones; the other around the slingshot from a ghost gum that’s never let me down yet. I’ve got a mighty arsenal of attack-objects here – collected over the years to help us out with any invasions from the world beyond. Which is now.

  The police car smashes through our barricade. It scatters like an army of skittles. Right. I give three sharp whistles. Meaning: direst threat. Meaning: close. Dad’s hunting rifle is grabbed – his third-best, the one he left for us without Aunty Ethel knowing, only to be used in the most terrifying of c
ircumstances.

  Bert lobs an egg dead centre at the windscreen; Scruff lets loose an assault of marbles from the flying fox. Pin releases Bucket’s collar and in a flurry of snarl our girl races to the car trying to savage its door handle off. Bert hurls the last of her eggs then grabs Millie the sand snake from her pyjama sack ready for a freshly vacated car seat; we’re calling up the entire troops but still the car comes and comes.

  I aim for the front tyre – got it. There’s only one crack shot better than Scruff in this place and it’s a girl, yes a girl, not that he’d ever admit it.

  The car spins wildly. Oops. Almost crashes into the house. Double oops. Out races a policeman with pistol in hands and – what? – he seems to know exactly where to aim. Straight at the roof. That would be me. No. Don’t you dare, mate.

  ‘Thomasina, raise your hands above your head and come out. No funny business, madam. We’ve got you in our sights.’

  Who says it’s me up here? And the name’s Kick, thank you very much. That Thomasina malarkey is lost in the mists of time; Dad’ll back me up on this. Thomasina will get you nowhere, mate.

  ‘I know it’s you . . . Kick.’

  Great.

  ‘Ralph. Albertina. Phineas,’ he yells, and everyone else is now cringing at the full horror of their proper names. ‘Don’t do anything your father wouldn’t be proud of.’

  Dead silence. Everyone waiting for . . . me. Er, right.

  Nup. Not biting, mister. They’ll have to haul me out in a box from this place. A sharp whistle blow – the signal to the troops to regroup, fight on.

  Bucket crouches before the man, growls; waiting for the attack command, my whistle like a whipbird. I slide down the slippery dip from the roof to the backyard, land on the mattress in a cloud of dust and race through the house and hide by the doorless front door, hunting rifle poised. Eyes to Scruff’s double peephole that’s been gouged into the wall with Dad’s penknife precisely for moments like this. The last stand. Too much to lose here: a house, freedom, a father’s return, an arsenal of ancient weapons, the right to wear trousers and cuss, brothers and even a sister.