by Susan Berran
We were starving. Just about all of the food had been in Booga’s backpack. And putting him in charge of the food was kind of like feeding him a bucket of Baked Beans and saying, “DON’T FART”. Miss Croonarc reckoned that it would make him more responsible, because it had to be shared out evenly and fairly.
WOW, she really isn’t that bright.
Booga had shoved the whole lot down his MASSIVE gob before we even hit the second junction.
Of course, it wasn’t that we didn’t trust Miss Croonarc’s decision, or that we thought Booga was a humongous pig. It’s just that we’re not COMPLETE IDIOTS! So when he went to the loo just before we started, I kept watch while Jared nicked a couple of sanga’s, a few bikkies and some other goodies to hide in our bags and then replaced them with a couple of ‘LOADED’ nappies into his, just for fun. Boy was he gonna get a surprise when he dug to the bottom of his bag to get the last of the 'snacks'. Yep, in the pitch black darkness, shovelling food down his throat faster than ants to a free sugar picnic . . . would he spot the nappies in time? Would he realise the difference in the smell, or taste, or would they go straight down the hatch like an oil soaked bun?
We figured we were far enough ahead of ‘the BEAST’ to finally take a quick break and have a snack. So we huddled up against the side and began to feel around in the back packs.
“Here” Jared said as he squished and squashed one of the bags to try and feel what was in it. Then he ripped it open and handed it over to me. “Here ya go. I think this one’s the sandwich”.
I peeled back the bag and . . . CHOMP! “Mmmm” it was pretty tough I thought as I tried to RRRRIP through the thick, stretchy . . .
“Eerrr!” ppttt ppttt ppttt!!
“It’s not a sanga!” I said pulling bits of cot-ton from between my teeth and holding up the two corners to let the material unfold into the darkness in front of me.
“Why would Booga have a tablecloth in a paper bag?” I said as I stared at the cloth millimetres from my face.
SNIFF SNIFF . . . “That’s not a tablecloth” Jared said casually. “That’s Booga’s dirty undies”
“Arrhh” I screamed tossing it high into the air.
“Oops sorry”
Great, so now all we had between us was two mooshy bruised apples that Jared thought were cakes . . . half a disgustingly ICKY ‘health’ bar and one corn cracker each. You know those crackers that look like someone has just cut a slab of Styrofoam into circles? YEAH THOSE. Mum says “They’re so good for you”, which really means they taste like foam on garbage, or garbage on foam.
We had to get going, so throwing my backpack over my shoulder we headed off again. Still with no way of knowing whether we were going deeper and deeper or towards a way out. As long as we couldn’t hear anything following behind us, we decided that it was definitely the right direction.
We could just make out the darker shapes of what seemed to be another junction coming up not very far ahead of us.
OR WAS IT? As we got closer we noticed something shining up there. There were tiny fragments of light shooting all about. We crept around the edge and suddenly it opened into an ENORMOUS area and we were completely surrounded with gems, or diamonds, or something scattered absolutely everywhere. There had to be hundreds, NO THOUSANDS of the sparkling, twinkling things.
WE’D HIT THE JACKPOT! We were going to be rich! ZILLIONAIRES!
We both fumbled our way forward and began plucking them, one after another from the wall, as quickly as we could. This was awesome, we could tell that . . . hang on.
“Hey Jared, look up”
“Wow . . . stars!” Yep, high above us was the entire universe. We’d stepped into some sort of open chamber and above us the whole roof was gone and we were witnessing every star in the known universe shining brighter than ever before. We could see the entire solar system, it was incredible, beautiful and amazing. It was so peaceful, as if we’d been put into a trance. All we wanted to do was lay down and watch. We could make out the different planets, Mars, Sat-urn, Uranus and there was the milky way. Huh, Mum reckons I don’t listen in class, well wait till I see her . . . if I ever see her again.
Suddenly we became very aware that we had no idea just how long we’d been laying there for. It felt like hours and even though we knew that we had to leave, we weren’t really in a great hurry any more . . .
“EERRRR . . . OOWWW . . . AARRRR . . .”
. . . UNTIL NOW!
It had somehow tracked us down AGAIN!
How was this thing finding us? There were so many different paths to take and directions to follow, but it just kept on finding us. It must know this place like the back of its BIG, UGLY, FURRY hand.
On the other side of the chamber we could see that this time there was only one way to go as the reflection from the stars spilled out along its path. We chucked on our backpacks and headed for the exit, falling and stumbling over crap all the way. SMASHING our shins and WHACKING our elbows and CRASHING into each other over and over in the race to get out of there. As we finally reached the other side, we took off through the opening, down the path around a corner and into another slightly smaller chamber that opened out before us . . .
“Aarrrhh!”
Our night vision was barely enough to see dark shadowy shapes half a metre in front of us, but we were suddenly face to face with a colony of HUGE, HAIRY CREATURES . . . there were so many eyes glinting in the darkness that it was IMPOSSIBLE to know how many there were. They were EVERYWHERE . . . surrounding us, staring at us! But even in the dark I knew those shapes, I knew those eyes . . . BUGS. Humungously GIANT insects. We twisted around and around, desperately searching for another exit, but every way we turned there were more CREEPY crawly eyes looking straight at us! Hundreds, thousands of them! They were all over the place, covering the walls and the ceiling. Gross BUGS from the size of my hand to the size of a footy. The nippers were more like giant, flesh-tearing jaws. I ripped off my shoe and started whacking every bug shape that I could make out. Jared immediately joined in, SMASHING everything around us. Slimey puss guts exploded all over the place, splattering our faces and dribbling down beneath our clothes. We squashed spiders, moths, splattered beetles and massive millipedes like crazy guys. There was no way we were waiting to check and see which ones were naughty, or nice. If they were in our space, they were MOOSH!
Jared was going totally berserk and freaking out, he really hates insects.
One time, when we were camping out in the back paddock of his place, he woke up screaming his head off in the middle of the night. He was going totally NUTTSO. I thought someone was murdering him and he just about completely shredded the tent trying to escape out of it. He was dancing around like some deranged, escaped LOONY-TOON. When he finally calmed down it looked like a WAR ZONE. Everything was completely ruined. All the packets of chips and biscuits had been trodden on and mooshed together with the burst soft drink bottles to form the slushie from HELL. We ended up just throwing all of our stuff into the dam, slooshing it about for a while, then dragging it out and tossing it over the old tractor to dry for a week or so.
And all of that was just because some poor innocent little millipede had crawled up one of Jared’s nostrils and then out the other. I couldn’t see what he was complaining about. He threads spaghetti up through one nostril and out through the other one all the time at school. Then he holds both ends together with one hand and strums it like a guitar with the other one while humming ‘Mary Had A Little Lamb’ to see how many of the girls will throw up. Maybe he was worried the millipede would set up home in there, after all, there is plenty of vacant space in his head.
Yep, he REEEALLY hates insects.
So back to the darkness . . .
WHACK!I smooshed another one and shoved Jared towards an opening that I’d spotted off to the side when suddenly . . .
“Aarrhhh!” Jared screamed . . .
“Aarrhhh!” and again . . .
“Aarrhhh!” and again.
SLLLAP!! I walloped him right across the chops. I could only listen to so many screams. His mouth was open wider than the swollen butt of a hippopotamus. Right in front of him, eye to lots of eyes, was the Giant Bulravian Yellow Belly red Fanged spider. The most venomous spider in the entire world. Jared was frozen with FEAR, but as long as he didn’t poke his tongue out he should be safe. I grabbed the back of his shirt and yanked him back towards me.
As we desperately tried to scan the area I realised the Giant Bulravian Yellow Belly red Fanged spider wasn’t the only venomous bug that was in there with us. The conditions inside the cavern were obviously perfect for him and his mates, because we’d somehow stumbled across an enormous colony of just about EVERY VENOMOUS insect you could possibly think of.
The Grey Nose Eye-Sucking Grass Hopper . . .
The White Ass Belching Butterfly and even the teeny tiny rare but deadly . . .
Green Spotted Brain-Burrowing Ladybird.
We had no idea how many bugs we’d mooshed, but it seemed as if we were still surrounded by a zillion more eyes staring straight back at us. I tried to squat down a bit lower than Jared. I figured that way he might look a little tastier than me. We continued to SPLATTER our way through the bugs and out the opening, but the moment we rounded the corner, that’s when I realised that the insects were the least of our problems.
TOFFEE hadn’t been lying, for a change.
We pressed our bodies up as hard as we could against the wall, trying desperately to mould ourselves into it.
It was so dark in there!
Why is it always so dark?!
We couldn’t breathe. We were sure it would hear us. We couldn‘t move, we were TERRIFIED; well Jared was not me. I was as cool as a cucumber frozen in ice. I just pretended to be scared so that Jared didn’t feel so embarrassed.
Cautiously I took a little mirror out of my utility belt. My hands were sweating like the butt of a baboon wrapped in an unshorn sheep in the middle of summer. And as I cautiously poked it gingerly around the corner . . . the mirror, NOT my butt . . . I saw a reflection for a split second.
TEETH! Really, really, BIG TEETH; and from what I could see, as sharp as a doctor’s scalpel.
IT WAS A BEAR!
TOFFEE THOMAS is the world’s biggest liar at school. No-one ever believes him because he’s always coming up with new crap. He reckons his dad invented the computer. When everyone knows that the only thing his dad knows about computers is how to pinch rude movies. Another time he reckoned that his mum is a world famous doctor. YEAH, RIGHT! Actually she spends so much time with those doctors that try and work out why you’ve gone ‘NUTTSO’ and belong in a loony bin, that she’s probably a world famous patient! So when TOFFEE said that he’d seen a bear in there, we just thought it was another humungous bunch of bull. But this time it wasn’t. For the first time ever TOFFEE was telling the truth. And the BEAR was way, way BIGGER than they looked on those boring nature shows on TV.
I grabbed our Incredibly Awesomely Adjustable Bulravian Periscope out of the back-pack so that we could get a better look. The cavern was about the size of half a footy field and from what we could figure, there only looked like one way out . . . WaAay down the other end . . . OF COURSE.
The HAIRY BEAR was standing up on its hind legs, ready to attack, but in the dull light all I could make out was that its claws were even longer and SHARPER than its teeth. We were definitely going to need a change of daks very soon. Actually I think Jared had needed to change his undies for a while now.
Behind us we could only just hear the groaning and moaning again, the BEAST was coming our way. In front of us was the only way we could go . . . past the BEAR.
Just then I had an idea, as usual, and it was brilliant, as usual! Jared could start zig-zagging around the enormous cavern. Then while the BEAR was chasing him, I could take off out the far opening.
Of course I’d send back help just as soon as I found the way out and Jared is so skinny that there was a good chance that he could slip through the BEARS claws for ages . . . probably . . . maybe.
But for some reason Jared wasn’t that thrilled with the plan.
OH NO! As we stared into the darkness all around the cavern through my periscope, we started to realise that all of those other dark shadows weren’t just ‘STUFF’. The BEAR wasn’t alone in there.
What was this . . . the yearly meeting for all animals great and DEADLY? Or a ‘show us who’s got the biggest claws’ jamboree? Maybe it was just cheaper for them all to share a place to live. But they must’ve known we were coming. Yeah that had to be it! They must’ve known that there was a whole school of ‘kid buffet’ on the way.
Yep . . . there’d be plenty for all of them!
We could barely make out the shapes of most of the other animals. But it was pretty obvious that there was no cutesy wittle bunny wabbits, or fwuffy wuffy kittens in there. There was a huge weird shaped animal the size of a truck and heaps of others of all shapes and sizes and they all definitely had fangs and massive claws that seemed to glow in the dark.
Could it get any worse? Maybe we should go back . . .
“AARRRR . . . OOWWW . . .”
Yes . . . yes it could get worse and it was just about to.
“EERRRR . . . OOWWW . . . AARRRR . . .”
“Maybe if we dig a hole, then hide in it and cover ourselves over. Then whatever’s following us will walk straight over us and into the animals’ lair. Then while they’re trying to rip each other to shreds, we could make a run for it!” Jared suggested.
Hey, that actually wasn’t a bad idea for Jared. Normally a good idea for Jared is when he thinks of something like . . . using the brakes on his bike when he’s just about to smack into a brick wall. This one was pretty good. If only we had a shovel instead of a teaspoon to dig the hole with and a week instead of about twenty five seconds to dig it.
“EERRRR . . . OOWWW . . . AARRRR . . ."
Whatever it was, we were about to find out. It was just about onto us and sounded like it was only back around the last corner.
We were going to have to make a RUN FOR IT! A last chance dash right through the middle of the cavern full of animals, there was no time and no other way.
Jared grabbed out our heavy duty, wide load, single boulder holder sling shots. Then we laid out the ‘AMMUNITION’.
Three loaded, smelly nappies each.
It wasn’t much, but it would have to do. Although right now what we could really use was a spear, or a canon, or a stick, or any sort of weapon, otherwise, very shortly we’d be making some ‘smelly AMMUNITION’ for ourselves, if you know what I mean? There was only one thing that we did know for sure . . . that the teeth around the next corner weren’t just there to smile at us.
As we each loaded up our sling shot we got ready to run.
“AARRRR . . . OOWWW . . . ”
Suddenly it wasn’t just the moaning and groaning that worried us anymore. We could hear FOOTSTEPS! They sounded absolutely ENORMOUS and really close now! Thumping along, getting louder, stronger . . . catching up to us from behind, FAST, and just like when Mum is really peeved, it was thumping along heavier than an elephant wearing lead shoes on a tin roof. The sound began to totally engulf us, echoing and bouncing all around. THUD THUD THUD! There was no time left to think, we had to go, it was now or never.
“EERRRR . . . OOWWW . . . AARRRR . . . ”
“Go!!” I suddenly screamed at the top of my lungs.
With our slingshots at the ready, we leapt out from the corner together and fired our first shot at the gigantic wolf-like BEAR . . . BULLSEYE! I hit it right between the eyes, spraying the contents of the goopy nappy all over its head and straight into its wide open snarl-ing mouth. Jared’s shot seemed to explode as it SLAMMED square into the BEAST’S chest, sending the nappy contents in every direction. We zigged past one, we zagged by another, ducking under outstretched claws, twisting past razor sharp fangs the size of bananas. Like a graceful ballerina I stretched out my legs
to do the splits mid air as I leapt across a huge round-ish animal the size of a lounge chair, I think it was a giant, prehistoric man-eating wombat, or something.
At the speed that we were going and without light everything was just a dark fuzzy shape that we had to avoid at all costs. Vicious claws and jaws flashed in front of us as we raced on.
“Jared, look out, tiger!” I screamed as he turned just in the nick of time. He fired another stench loaded shot at the massive set of jaws to his right . . . THUD! yes! Brilliant, HE GOT IT! The tiger dropped like a rock. It fell so heavily that I felt the vibration race through my entire body.
Wow! Smelly Melly’s stinky ‘AMMUNITION’ was stronger than we thought, way stronger . . . luckily for us!
We kept ducking and weaving, dodging and sliding as we fought our way across the cavern towards the only exit. OH GREAT! Suddenly, directly in front of us was some sort of even more GIGANTIC, humongous BEAST. It was bigger than everything else that we’d passed, it was absolutely enormous. It was so big that we just hadn’t seen it. We’d assumed that it was just part of the cavern. And now we were about to smash, head on, INTO IT, like a bug hitting the windscreen of a truck doing two hundred on the freeway. Whatever it was it was standing on all fours with its head just about scraping the ceiling. So right at the very last second I screamed out to Jared. . . “Now!” We both instantly did a full-on belly flop and dove down onto our guts, sliding straight underneath its belly. In an instant I twisted onto my back and fired a shot straight up at its gut as we slid below. The nappy hit its mark and disintegrated on impact, sending the disgusting Melly poop raining down onto us from above. I could feel the warm goop trickling down my skin and mixing in with my salty sweat to then run even faster around my body. Little chunks of solid veggies attacked my face and bounced away. And finally I could feel little tufts of nappy fluff sticking to me like spit-balls . . . but unfortunately they weren’t just soaked in spit.
