‘Can I come too?’ asked Peter.
‘I guess.’
‘Gold-bearing gravel,’ said Michelle. ‘That shouldn’t be hard to find.’
We began to follow the winding creek bed, which was mostly dry, though there were patches of flaking mud here and there which still showed traces of moisture between the cracks. On either side, the fretted walls of the gully towered above us, sometimes closing in like nudging shoulders, sometimes opening out into other meandering corridors. The earth really was a golden colour. A hundred and fifty years of wind and rain had carved it into amazing shapes: pinnacles and arches, stalactites and stalagmites. We came to one enormous arch that spanned the whole creek bed, and must have been – I don’t know – ten metres high. What’s more, there were holes everywhere. Man-sized holes puncturing the walls of the gully, black and deep and yawning like mouths.
‘They all look round to me,’ said Peter. ‘At least, they don’t look oblong.’
‘That hole’s got a really curved top, but a flat bottom,’ Michelle observed. Like Peter, she kept her voice low; something in our surroundings made us all want to whisper. ‘Do you think it’s Chinese, or not?’
‘Look,’ I breathed. ‘Look up there. Don’t they look like faces?’
Above our heads loomed strange, sculptured shapes with jutting shelves for chins, shadowy hollows for eyes and crumbling lumps for noses. Not normal noses, mind you. Ogres’ noses. Monsters’ noses. There were ribbed drums like crowns and drooping tufts of grass-like hair.
‘Excellent,’ said Peter, in tones of profound satisfaction.
‘They remind me of statues in a ruined city,’ said Michelle.
‘I wish I had a camera,’ I remarked, and winced as the shouts and yelps of Jesse’s mob reached our ears. Surely Jesse’s voice wasn’t raised among them? Surely, if left to himself, he would have walked in awe through the brooding landscape, rather than playing the fool for the entertainment of his deadhead companions? ‘Don’t you hate it when people make so much noise in a place like this?’
‘Here’s some quartz,’ Peter pointed out. Stooping, he picked up a pink-and-white stone from the creek bed. ‘At least, I think it’s quartz.’
‘I don’t see what else it could be.’ Michelle picked up two more pieces. They glinted in the sunshine. ‘One for you, Allie, and one for me.’
‘What about the gravel?’ Squinting, Peter surveyed the pebbles under his feet. ‘Would this do?’
‘Let’s go a bit further,’ I suggested. ‘We’ve still got time.’
Okay, I’ll admit it. I wanted to see what Jesse was up to. But no one had a better idea, so we pressed on, beneath the big arch, around a blind corner, past a hole so big that it was practically a cave, and into another stretch of gully where Amy, Tony, Zoe and Malcolm were grouped near one wall, shrieking and laughing and jumping around.
Above them, Jesse’s legs were sticking out of a large hole. I could tell they were Jesse’s legs, because I had been paying very close attention to everything he wore. The baggy jeans, the football socks, the red- and-black trainers . . .
‘Jesse!’ I cried, before I could stop myself. ‘What are you doing?’
Amy turned. ‘He’s such an idiot,’ she simpered at us, in admiring tones.
‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ Peter was clearly disgusted. ‘That is so pathetic.’
‘Room for one more?’ Malcolm Morling yelled. Jesse’s feet were waggling about just above his head; Jesse must have climbed up the wall using cracks and lumps as footholds. I couldn’t help admiring him for it, because it wasn’t an easy climb.
‘I said, room for one more?’ Malcolm repeated, placing his hands on the edge of the hole and raising one foot to rest in a crevice. Then suddenly Jesse began to kick frantically. His right trainer collided with Malcolm’s head.
‘Hey! Hey!’ a muffled voice cried. ‘Hey, I’m stuck!’
‘Yeah, right,’ said Tony. Malcolm, rubbing his head, growled something unprintable.
‘Help! Help!’
‘Nice try, mate!’ Malcolm shouted. Amy and Zoe were laughing excitedly.
Peter turned on his heel. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
‘No – wait.’ I couldn’t leave. What if Jesse wasn’t playing tricks? What if he really was stuck? How could I walk away if he was in trouble? ‘Hang on . . .’
‘Grab his feet!’ Tony exclaimed, leaping forward. ‘Mal! Come on! You pull that one and I’ll pull this one.’
‘Yeah!’ Gleefully, Malcolm obeyed. He began to haul at Jesse’s right leg as if it were a piece of rope. Tony did the same with the left leg. It looked painful. I heard someone say ‘Ow’.
‘Don’t,’ I faltered. ‘You’ll hurt him.’
‘Ow! Stop it!’ The muffled voice was shrill now. ‘I can’t! Help! Don’t!’
Amy’s smile began to fade. This didn’t sound like Jesse.
‘Stop playing the fool, Gerangelos!’ Peter said loudly and sharply, his hands on his hips. ‘Don’t be an idiot!’
‘I’M STUCK!’
‘You are not!’
‘Somebody help me! Get Mrs Patel!’
Everyone exchanged glances. My heart skipped a beat.
‘Mrs – Mrs Patel?’ Malcolm stammered. ‘You must be kidding.’
‘GET MRS PATEL!’ Jesse shrieked.
That did it. Amy bolted. Zoe followed her. They rushed past us and disappeared, heading back down the creek. I realised that I had my hands over my mouth.
‘He can’t be stuck,’ Tony muttered, then raised his voice. ‘You’re not taking the piss, mate? Jess?’
‘Of course he is.’ Peter approached Jesse’s feet. ‘Hey! Gerangelos! You can’t possibly be stuck! You got in there – you must be able to get out!’
Suddenly the suspended feet gave one convulsive kick; there was a flurry of movement and Jesse’s filthy form hit the ground with a thump. He straightened, dusted his clothes and looked around with a big, cheeky grin on his face. ‘So,’ he said, panting slightly, ‘who’d I get rid of? The girls? Good. Come on, you guys – before they get back.’
He wasn’t talking to me – or to Michelle. Tony gave a whoop. He and Jesse exchanged a high five.
Malcolm bristled. ‘You didn’t fool me,’ he declared.
‘You reckon?’
‘You did not!’
‘Come on,’ said Peter, touching my arm. ‘I told you he wasn’t stuck.’
‘Come on, Allie, we’ll be late.’
Jesse didn’t ignore us entirely. Before I turned to go (dragging my feet, I have to admit), he shot me a bright, sidelong glance, and touched his forehead in a gesture that was sort of like a salute. Why? For what reason? I couldn’t tell. It was like that business of the bikini remark – I didn’t know if he was trying to create some kind of connection with me, or whether he was just showing off.
Naturally, I hoped that he was singling me out. That salute had made my insides clench up. I thought: maybe he wants me to be in on the joke.
Whatever that joke might be.
As we walked away, Peter muttered: ‘With any luck, he really will get stuck down a mineshaft next time.’
It seemed like a very nasty thing for Peter to be saying. I didn’t understand why he had to be so mean.
After all, Jesse had never done him any harm.
CHAPTER # five
Michelle, Peter and I retraced our steps. Around us, the air seemed to throb with the pulse of humming flies. (Or was it another insect making that noise? Bees, perhaps?) We passed a tree hung with shiny brown pods. We passed a bush covered in small yellow flowers. A cloud of black-and-orange butterflies rose from a patch of damp mud. As I turned my head to watch them, something else caught my eye.
A movement.
‘Look!’ I gasped, and stopped.
The others stopped too.
‘What?’ said Peter.
‘Did you see that?’
‘See what?’
‘That guy!’
‘What guy?’
‘Didn’t you see?’
They shook their heads. I pointed. We were standing at the intersection of two gullies; one of them – smaller and narrower – opened off the great, winding canyon that we were following.
‘He was just in there,’ I hissed. ‘He disappeared around that corner.’
‘Must have been Angus’s dad,’ Peter remarked.
‘No! No, he was old! He had white hair!’
‘Really?’
‘And greyish – sort of greyish clothes.’
Michelle’s eyes widened. ‘The fossicker?’ she suggested.
‘The feral?’ I frowned. ‘Do you think?’
‘Are you talking about that gold-panning guy?’ asked Peter. When I nodded, he hitched his backpack higher and said: ‘Let’s go and see. We’ve still got time.’
‘But we have to tell Mrs Patel that Jesse’s not stuck,’ Michelle pointed out. ‘She’ll come running up here in a minute.’
‘Oh yeah.’ We all looked at each other. Then I said to Peter: ‘Come on. We’d better go and find Mrs Patel.’ To tell you the truth, I wasn’t keen to go chasing after that feral. Something about my glimpse of him had made me slightly uneasy.
‘But if he’s a fossicker,’ Peter pointed out, ‘he’ll be able to tell us about the gravel.’ Seeing our blank faces, he added impatiently: ‘The gold-bearing gravel, guys! We still need some.’
‘Oh yeah . . .’ I’d forgotten about that. ‘But isn’t it all gold-bearing gravel?’
‘I don’t know. Is it? Maybe this fossicker bloke could tell us.’ Without waiting for an answer Peter started to walk away.
I turned to Michelle. ‘You’d better find Mrs Patel,’ was my suggestion. ‘This won’t take a minute.’
‘What makes you think this bloke is the feral?’ she objected. ‘He’s probably just some tourist.’
‘I know. Still – it’s worth a try. I guess.’
Michelle shrugged and sighed, and began to trudge back towards the bus. I followed Peter, hurrying along, because I had a feeling that the feral – if he was the feral – had been moving very quickly.
Sure enough, when I entered the smaller gully, there was no one else in it except Peter.
‘He must have turned the next corner,’ I said, and Peter paused to look back at me.
‘Will we chase him?’
‘I don’t know.’ I glanced at my watch. ‘We’ve got five minutes.’
‘Come on.’
‘Well . . . okay.’ I was still a bit reluctant. But we pressed forward, and soon the small gully merged into yet another one, wider and deeper, but scrubbier. Loose slopes of rubble were like foothills propped against the steep peaks of the gully walls. Roots and dead branches were twisted into tortured shapes that were almost painful to see.
‘We’d better not get lost,’ said Peter.
‘What’s that noise?’
He stopped and listened. It was the distant sound of screeching voices – the sort of thing you always hear in our school playground.
‘It’s Jesse being an idiot,’ he declared.
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m sure.’
We kept going. Small trees and tufts of grass were sprouting from areas where the gully walls were less steep. There were gaping holes everywhere, some high, some low. I had a sudden, chilling thought: what if the old fossicker was hiding in one of those holes, watching us?
‘Let’s go back,’ I said abruptly.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Of course I am.’ I couldn’t help flushing, though I was annoyed as well as embarrassed. ‘We’ll be late, that’s all. I don’t want to be late.’
Peter shrugged. ‘Okay,’ he said.
‘You can stay if you want to. I don’t care.’
‘HAAH!’
It was a shout from behind us, and the shock of it nearly killed me. We whirled around. I dropped my project sheet.
Malcolm Morling came skidding around a corner, covered in dust. He stumbled to a halt when he saw us. ‘Oh,’ he gasped. ‘It’s you.’
‘Of course it’s us, you moron!’ Peter cried. His cheeks were red; I could tell that he, too, had been scared. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
‘I thought – I thought you were Jess and Tones.’
‘Well, we’re not,’ Peter snapped.
I picked up my project sheet.
‘Have you seen them?’ Malcolm asked.
‘Who?’ Peter growled.
‘Jess and Tones.’
‘No, we haven’t. Come on, Allie.’
Malcolm’s face grew dark. ‘They ran away from me!’ he spat. ‘The rotten sods! They’re hiding from me!’
I caught Peter’s eye. From his expression, I deduced that the same thought had shot through both our heads at exactly the same time; namely, ‘I’m not surprised.’
‘Where are you going?’ Malcolm wanted to know, as we walked past him.
‘Where do you think?’ I said.
‘To the bus?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then I’ll come with you. I’m lost.’
It figured. Peter and I led him back to the little gully that connected the two bigger ones. We were almost out of it when I turned, to check that Malcolm was still behind us.
He was – and so was someone else.
‘There!’ I shrieked. ‘Look!’
The fossicker. He was gone in the blink of an eye, flitting away so quickly that neither of the boys saw him when they swung around. I had an impression of white hair . . . ragged clothes . . . a gaping mouth . . . but it happened so quickly that I couldn’t be sure.
‘What? What?’ Malcolm cried.
‘The old guy! He was there!’ I yelped.
‘Who was?’
‘Jeez, Allie!’ Peter exclaimed, white-faced. ‘You scared the life out of me!’
I pushed past Malcolm and pounded up the gully, following the direction that the old man had chosen to take. But he was gone. There wasn’t a trace of him: not a sound, not a footprint, not even a faint smell. The trees and rocks were motionless in the sun.
‘Hey!’ I panted. ‘Excuse me! Hey!’
Nothing.
‘Are you sure you saw him?’ asked Peter, from behind me. He sounded sceptical.
Behind him, Malcolm was waiting for us to return, making plaintive noises. ‘What are you doing?’ he called. ‘Come back!’
But I ignored him. I had seen the feral, and was determined to prove that I had – that he hadn’t been some weird figment of my imagination. The more elusive he became, the more I wanted to pin him down. Just to show that I wasn’t going crazy.
‘I saw him, Peter. Cross my heart. I really saw him.’
‘Where?’ Peter demanded. ‘Where was he?’
‘He went around this corner.’ I was trying to catch my breath. My heart was pounding. ‘He turned down here.’
‘Then where is he now?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Do you think – do you think he’s hiding?’
‘I don’t know.’
We looked at each other, then quickly looked away. Something twisted in my stomach. Around us, the towering walls of the gully waited silently, like sentinels. The air almost seemed to hum.
Peter cleared his throat, his face covered in sweat. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said suddenly.
I opened my mouth, but couldn’t find the strength to argue. I just said: ‘Yes.’ All at once, I wanted to get out of the place as much as he did.
We didn’t dawdle. After rejoining Malcom, we went straight back to the bus, at a pace that Malcolm found a little brisk, to judge from his protests. On the way, we met up with Mrs Patel. She was looking hot and cross.
‘It’s all right, Mrs Patel,’ I assured her, wondering why Michelle hadn’t passed on the news. ‘Jesse isn’t stuck after all.’
‘I know.’
‘Then –’
‘He’s late. I’
m going to get him. Who’s with him now? Just Tony?’
‘Just Tony.’
‘All right.’ She marched on, breathing heavily, pebbles crunching under her boots. I almost opened my mouth to warn her about the fossicker, but found that I couldn’t. I don’t know why. Embarrassment, perhaps? Fear?
Instead I returned to the bus in silence, trailing behind Peter and Malcolm. I kept glancing over my shoulder, but I didn’t see the old man again. It only occurred to me later that I hadn’t been scanning the tops of the gully walls. I still don’t know if anyone was up there, watching us over the edge of a crumbling golden cliff.
I could hear Mrs Patel’s distant ‘Coo-ee!’, but nothing else. Nothing else except the insects.
When we arrived at our destination, Mum practically jumped on me.
‘Where did you get to?’ she demanded. ‘I was beginning to worry.’
‘We were just collecting quartz, Mum. For our project sheet.’
‘You shouldn’t wander off like that.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘You did. You’re late.’
‘I am not!’
‘You’re two minutes late. Look.’ She thrust her watch at me. I saw Peter sidling away, with a sympathetic backward glance. I saw Zoe and Amy giggling together – as if their own mums weren’t exactly the same. ‘Mrs Patel’s gone to look for you, do you know that?’
‘She’s not looking for me. She’s looking for Jesse and Tony. She said so, when we ran into her.’
‘Even so, you went much too far.’
‘I’m thirsty.’
‘The water’s in the bus. You can get it yourself.’
She was being unfair, but I decided to forgive her, because it was very hot. I went to the bus and found my water, which I drank in the shade. Soon Michelle joined me; we sat fanning the flies away from our eyes and mouths. The adults were all standing in a group, gazing down the gully from beneath their hands and their hat-brims. The kids were huddled under trees, complaining about ant-bites and sharing around M&Ms.
We waited and waited.
‘This is taking too long,’ I said at last, glancing at my watch. It was half past twelve. ‘She should be back by now. It’s lunchtime.’
‘Trust Jesse to stuff us all up,’ Michelle grumbled.
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