by Sally Morgan
‘But there’s money in art! Remember Mrs Wilson telling us about that bloke who made junky sculptures and sold them for thousands of dollars?’
‘But I don’t know how to make a sculpture,’ said Johnno.
‘It can’t be hard,’ I said. ‘We’ll just glue some bits of junk together, paint them and sell them as art! Reckon Dad will get his new tools after all!’
Johnno looked doubtful, but I was hopeful. Dad would be home on Sunday, so it was getting too late for me to be fussy about how we earned the money.
And besides, this was the easiest idea I’d had so far!
‘Are you going to be in on this or not?’
I asked Johnno.
He grunted.
Not the camel again!
‘You can only help if you stop grunting!’ I said.
He grunted again, then said, ‘That means, “All right, Charlie.”’
I really wonder about Johnno sometimes.
We grabbed Dad’s wheelbarrow out of the shed and set off down the street. Broken dolls, torn aprons, knitting needles, plastic drink bottles, old cushions, some ratty crocheted rugs— they all got chucked into the barrow.
About ten minutes after we started, Johnno found a curly grey wig on top of a pile of junk.
‘Hell-ooo, Captain Cook!’ he said and rammed the wig onto my head.
Suddenly he started jumping around and pointing at me. ‘Spider!’ he yelled.
I ripped off the wig and practically scalped myself clearing out my hair.
‘Only kidding!’ Johnno said and starting laughing.
‘Ha, ha!’ I said, and chucked the wig onto the next pile of junk we came across.
That was when I spotted it. Fluffy’s collar—bell and all—hanging off the branch of a nearby bush. But what was it doing this far from our house?
There was another shor ter street that ran parallel to our street. There were no houses there any more and it backed onto the community conservation area.
Had Fluffy gone in there? I wondered. But what for?
Johnno got a strange look on his face, like he was in pain. He took the collar off me and gulped. ‘Something bad has happened to poor Fluffy!’
I grabbed it back off him and stuffed it into the pocket of my shor ts. ‘Don’t be stupid, Johnno,’ I said. ‘Fluffy hated her bell. I reckon she hooked her collar over that branch and pulled it off by herself!’
‘Do you really think so, Charlie?’
‘I wouldn’t lie to you, mate.’
Well, I would, but only if it was for Johnno’s own good. And this time it was the right thing to do, because he cheered up straight away.
Just then, Grandpa cruised past in his ute.
‘Don’t suppose you boys have spotted You-know-who?’ he yelled out the ute window. He was still looking for Pig.
‘Haven’t seen him, Grandpa,’ I said.
Grandpa pulled over and said, ‘Why don’t you boys jump in and give me a hand looking?’
But I had my own problems. ‘Maybe later, Grandpa,’ I said.
‘There’s some blokes’ gear in it for you.’
Suddenly it was an offer I couldn’t refuse! If Grandpa gave us enough blokes’ gear, we could give it straight to Dad for his shed sale. That way we could forget about doing the stupid artwork and trying to sell it.
I wanted to tip all the yucky girls’ junk we’d collected out of the wheelbarrow, but Johnno said we should hang on to it in case it came in handy later. So we shoved the barrow and its load of girly stuff onto the back of the ute, next to Pig’s empty crate. Then we jumped in the front, next to Grandpa.
We hadn’t gone far, when Johnno blabbed to Grandpa about me finding Fluffy’s collar.
I decided it was time to come clean.
‘Fluffy’s gone missing too, Grandpa,’ I explained. ‘Do you reckon she might be in the conservation area?’
He shook his head. ‘I checked there earlier for Pig. It’s a fair way from the school, but it’s a good place to hide and there’s some big rocks in there a python could sun himself on. Never spotted any sign of a cat or a python, though.’
Johnno looked relieved.
‘Fluffy likes to hide, Grandpa,’ I said. ‘Reckon it’s worth another look.’
‘If Captain Cook was here,’ Johnno said, ‘he could find Fluffy and Pig. He’s good at finding things. Mrs Wilson reckons he found Australia.’
‘Captain Cook never found us,’ Grandpa snorted. ‘The Gweagal people on the east coast found him.’
‘Where, Grandpa?’ I asked.
‘Sweating his backside off on a beach in their country!’
‘What, no bathers?’ Johnno said.
‘Long pants and boots, boys!’ said Grandpa. ‘Can you believe it?’
‘Johnno and me have to do a project on him,’ I said.
Grandpa grinned. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘there’s a whole lot I can tell you about that fella that most people don’t know.’
We never found Pig, but our reward for helping Grandpa was one tin of blue paint, a jar of glue and a rusty saw with bent teeth. It wasn’t much blokes’ stuff. Definitely not enough to give to Dad to make up for the shed invasion.
Actually, it was hardly anything at all. The next time Grandpa wants help, I’m going to ask for a better deal.
But Johnno was excited by the stuff Grandpa had given us. ‘Paint and glue,’ he said. ‘That’s just what we need to make our artwork!’
It looked like we’d have to get busy with the girly junk we’d collected after all.
Grandpa invited himself to dinner. While he talked to Mum, Johnno and me fetched the girly stuff from the wheelbarrow and hid it behind the piles of Mum’s junk on the back verandah.
She had a fair bit stacked up there, ready to go into Dad’s shed. Plastic flowers, boxes of fabric and craft supplies, some bags of clothes she was going to wear when she lost weight, fashion magazines and other stuff that blokes wouldn’t be interested in.
After dinner, I grabbed a couple of kitchen sponges. We didn’t have any paintbrushes, so the sponges would be useful in applying the glue and the paint.
‘Come on, Johnno,’ I whispered. ‘We’ve got work to do!’
Thirty minutes! That’s all the time we got before my sisters came out to pester us for information about Mason.
‘Go away!’ I said. ‘Johnno isn’t going to tell you anything!’
Sharni laughed. ‘Do you actually think we care, Charlie? We already know Mason uses that shampoo that smells like lavender.’
Johnno was offended. ‘He does not!’ he said. ‘He uses that baby shampoo because it makes his hair soft.’
The girls squealed in triumph. They loved getting information about Mason out of Johnno.
‘You idiot, Johnno!’ I said. ‘It was a trick!’
He was stunned. Poor Johnno, he doesn’t have sisters, so he has no idea how evil they are.
Tia picked up something Johnno was working on. He’d glued a bit of crocheted rug to the top of a doll’s head so it wasn’t bald. Then he’d stuck a plastic drink bottle where the doll’s neck should have been so he could stand it up.
‘What’s this?’ Tia asked.
‘It’s a sculpture for someone to put in their garden,’ said Johnno.
‘Don’t lie, Johnno!’ said Sharni. ‘It looks like something out of a nightmare.
No one would put that in their garden.’
‘You’re sick, Johnno!’ said Tia.
‘Charlie made it,’ Johnno lied.
Tia said she should’ve known I’d make something like that.
Sharni laughed. ‘You’ve been reading horror comics behind Mum’s back again, haven’t you?’ she said to me. ‘That’s where you get those sorts of ideas from.’
I wish!
‘Last time you read those comics, you had nightmares about zombies for weeks,’ said Tia.
Tia grabbed Johnno’s sculpture and donked me on the head with it. ‘You’re so immature, Charlie!’ she s
aid.
Grandpa came out the back door to say goodbye. Unfortunately Mum came with him.
‘Charlie’s been reading horror comics again!’ Sharni said.
‘And making sick-looking models!’ said Tia.
‘Is it true, Charlie?’ Mum said. ‘Have you been reading those scar y comics again? Don’t lie to me!’
There was only one way out of this situation—and that was to tell a lie!
‘Sorry, Mum!’ I said. ‘But it was only two comics.’
I couldn’t believe I’d confessed to a crime I hadn’t committed.
Mum was amazed I’d confessed to anything at all. ‘Perhaps you’re growing up, at last!’ she said. Then she glared at the mess Johnno and me had made. ‘But you’re not keeping all this rubbish, Charlie. Out the front with it!’
The girls laughed like they were winners, or something. Having sisters really sucks sometimes. But I was glad the girly stuff was going. What we were making was so bad we wouldn’t even be able to sell it as art.
It left me with a huge problem, though. The go-car t was a non-starter. We hadn’t been able to find any replacement blokes’ stuff for Dad. And the art idea had turned out to be a fizzer, too. What was I going to do now to make up for the shed invasion?
Just as I was leaving for school, Mum shoved some papers at me. They were photocopied drawings of Fluffy. The picture was awful. The cat just wasn’t that good-looking! Under the furry smiling face, Mum had written:
LOST! One Loving Cat. Tor toiseshell.
Answers to the name of Fluffy.
‘Give them out at school,’ she said. ‘And stick them up in the main street on your way home this afternoon.’
I told Mum I would. It might stop her from blaming me so much for Fluffy’s disappearance.
Then she said, ‘There’s something strange about this, Charlie. Fluffy’s a big cat for her age. She couldn’t have just vanished into thin air!’
I thought about how me and Johnno had found Fluffy’s collar near the conservation area. Then I remembered Grandpa saying that Pig would love the conservation area, too. Neither Pig nor Fluffy had been there when Grandpa looked, but that didn’t mean they might not have both ended up there later.
If Pig still hadn’t eaten and they met each other, anything could happen. I was worried that maybe Fluffy had vanished into thin air … or whatever the air is like inside a three-metre carpet python.
Just before we got to the school gate, I gave the posters to Johnno.
‘You hand them out at school,’ I said.
‘And whatever is left over, I’ll stick up around town.’
‘Poor Fluffy,’ said Johnno. ‘I hope we find her.’
At morning break Mrs Wilson asked to see what me and Johnno had done so far on our Captain Cook assignment. A big fat nothing, that’s what. I told her we were still on a voyage of discover y about him.
‘Meaning,’ she said, ‘that you haven’t even weighed anchor yet. Have you, Charlie?’
I had no idea what she was talking about, so I just nodded.
‘I expect it to be handed in first thing tomorrow morning,’ she said. ‘And not just a drawing, boys. Some words too, please.’
Me and Johnno went outside to get a drink and eat some biscuits. Johnno was panicking about the words we needed to put on our Captain Cook assignment. He’s not very good with words. Actually, that’s not true. He’s good at talking, he just doesn’t like writing a lot.
‘Words?’ Johnno babbled. ‘I don’t know many words about Captain Cook. Grandpa Ted said he had a sweaty backside, but Mrs Wilson won’t like us to write that. What else did your grandpa tell us? Do you remember? What do you think we should write?’
‘A giant zero, that’s what!’ I said. ‘We’ve got more important things to do. Like thinking of another way to earn some money for my dad to spend on tools.’
Sometimes Johnno forgets what’s really important.
At lunchtime, Johnno handed out the cat posters to our classmates. It wasn’t more than a few minutes before everyone wanted one.
I couldn’t believe it. Then I took a closer look. Down the very bottom of the poster Mum had written in tiny print: $100 Reward. And she hadn’t told me! A hundred dollars was a for tune! I could buy Dad a brand-new electric drill and some other new tools with that much money. Please be alive, Fluffy! I thought.
Please, please, please! And please let me be the one to find you and get the reward money.
I started asking for the posters back. Some kids refused to hand them over, even when I told them the reward was a mistake.
Tim Slade came over with a poster in his hand. He waved it in my face. ‘Is this just a stupid joke, Burr?’ he said. ‘Or is it for real? A hundred bucks for finding a mangy cat?’
I pulled the poster from his hand. ‘Sorry, mate!’ I said. ‘But, like I told the others, there’s been a mistake.’
I grabbed a pencil from my pocket. Then I rested Tim’s poster on my knee, crossed out the two zeroes and handed it back to him.
Tim was disgusted. ‘A buck?’ he said. ‘Does your mum expect us to search the whole town for a buck?’
‘You know how it is,’ I said. ‘Mum’s broke.’
Tim screwed up the poster and threw it at me. ‘Reckon that’s a job for you, Charlie!’ he laughed.
All the kids standing nearby copied him and threw their posters at us, too.
Phew! That’s exactly what I was hoping Tim would say. With a bit of luck, me and Johnno would be the only ones searching for Fluffy!
After lunch, Mrs Wilson told our class that Rubbish Week was finishing early. Cyclone Betty had grown bigger and changed direction towards the coast. The cyclone probably wouldn’t come this far inland, but the junk would be collected on Sunday instead of Monday, just in case. Could we please tell our families?
When school finished, I wanted to hunt for Fluffy straight away. There was a hundred dollars in it for me, so finding the cat was now my top job. But Johnno wanted to eat something, so we went back to my house first.
The house was empty. I guessed Mum was off somewhere with the girls. While Johnno looked in the fridge, I wrote Mum a note:
Betty coming. Junk going—Sunday.
Then I shared the lumpy green dip Johnno was eating. It tasted weird but we were hungry, so we ate it anyway.
The screaming started when the girls came in with the groceries.
‘Are you boys crazy?’ Tia yelled.
‘Mum made that special face mask for my pimples!’ screamed Sharni.
‘Face mask?’ spluttered Johnno.
‘Pimples?’ I choked.
We rushed to the sink and spat everything out.
‘Muuum!’ the girls yelled.
‘What’s going on?’ Mum shouted as she came in through the front door.
The last thing I needed was more trouble. I dragged Johnno out the back door.
We ran up the side of the house and headed down the road towards the conservation area. I reckoned that looking in there was my best shot at finding Fluffy.
The big cooldrink truck that comes through from Per th once a month was parked on the reserve between the road and the bush.
‘Hey, Charlie!’ Frank King, the truck driver, sang out. ‘Your grandpa just stopped by. Reckons he lost his watch round here somewhere.’
Grandpa must’ve been looking for Pig again. I wondered if he’d seen Fluffy.
‘Your grandpa told me you’ve lost a cat!’ Frank added. ‘Must be the week for losing things. I’ve lost my new sidekick, too. Find him and there’s a hundred bucks in it for you.’
Another hundred bucks? The money for Dad was rolling in!
Well, sort of.
I asked what his sidekick looked like.
‘He’s big,’ said Frank. ‘Browny-red colour. Meaner than a saltwater croc. Answers to the name of Grabber.’
Frank’s dog sounded even tougher than Fluffy.
‘I can only stick around till Sunday,’ said Frank.
‘Bit worried about that cyclone. If you’ve had no luck by then, the money’s off the table.’
That was fair enough.
Frank reached into the cab of his truck, flipped open an esky and gave us an ice-cold can of cooldrink each. I grabbed mine quick smart—I needed something fizzy to settle my gurgling stomach after that face mask.
Then Frank pulled a meaty bone out of the esky, too.
‘You might be able to lure Grabber in with this,’ he said.
I figured his new sidekick had to be a Rottweiler.
Blowies mobbed the bone. I passed it to Johnno. Flies don’t bother him all that much.
We said goodbye to Frank and headed off into the conservation area. The afternoon was still hot, even though there were some clouds moving in, but the cooldrink kept us going. We looked and looked for Fluffy and for Grabber and Pig, but all we found were some little brown lizards.
When our fizzy drinks ran out, so did our energy. But, as we headed back towards the road, I got the creeps. It was the same kind of feeling I get when Fluffy spies on me. I turned around.
‘Fluffy!’ I yelled. ‘You’re hiding in here somewhere, aren’t you?’
I grabbed the bone off Johnno and waved it about.
‘You see this bone, Fluffy?’ I shouted. ‘It’s for a dog called Grabber. But if you come out, I’ll give you something even better!’
I waited. Nothing. Not a hiss, a spit or even a yeowr.
‘She knows you’re lying!’ said Johnno.
I gave him back the bone. The blowies were going crazy!
‘I’ll be back, Fluffy!’ I shouted. ‘I know you’re there. You might’ve fooled Grandpa, but you can’t fool me!’
The sky was overcast by the time we got home. I hoped the cyclone would come inland for a change. It might flush Fluffy out of wherever she was hiding.
Mum and the angry pimple-twins were lurking at the front door.
‘Johnno, what on earth is that?’ Mum said.
The bone was alive with flies. Johnno didn’t know what to say, so I dived in.
‘It’s a science experiment,’ I said. ‘For school. We’re timing how long it takes for the meat to rot.’
