Queen Luna and the Gang of Four
Page 6
wondered where the water was coming from and why the pond wasn’t overflowing.
As I walked across the lawn one cocky said:
“Hello Cat.”
It was my friend who had escaped from the Bad Man and whose command of English was so odd. Sometimes what he said made some sort of sense, but usually he just repeated odd phases parrot fashion.
The aura of the little farm was now one of peace and goodness, with the best things of the Humans interacting with raw nature without cruelty or malice. But what Human presided over this oasis of sanity? I pictured some old and wise Tibetan monk chanting:
“Om Mani Padme Hum.”
As he contently put the parrot mix out for the wild birds. But I knew how slow Human legal processes are. There simply wasn’t time for another owner to have taken over, let alone effected this transformation. While I pondered the enigma the back door of the house opened and a well remembered voice called:
“Luna! Come on in.”
It was Charlie the intruder.
I went into the room and saw guests. Charlie and the Gang of Four were sitting round the large kitchen table with little cakes and Raspberry milkshakes. The cakes were still warm so they must have just been baked. Charlie poured a bit of his milkshake into a saucer for me.
So Charlie was squatting in the Bad Man’s house? I wasn’t happy with this explanation. There were too many things it didn’t explain.
Fuji asked Charlie:
“But won’t the court order that this place be sold to pay for your father’s defence?”
Suddenly it hit me. Charlie Darwin the harmless intruder who had been abused by his father was the son of the Bad Man, Wilberforce Darwin!
Charlie answered Fuji:
“No, the court can’t do that; my father doesn’t own this farm.”
Ian asked:
“Who does?”
“I do. My mother left it to me in her will.”
Ian asked:
“But how will you live?”
Charlie replied:
“My mother also left me $500,000.”
“You mean you’ve got half a million dollars in the bank?”
“No, my father withdrew it all. He didn’t trust banks; he hid it in several places round the farm.”
Fiji said:
“But the police found the money, they thought it was drug money and confiscated it all.”
Charlie answered:
“They found over $700,000 in the house. I’m sure they are right and it must have been drug money. My father was making and selling drugs as well as growing marihuana and breeding Dogs and birds for pet shops. But the police didn’t find the money outside.”
Fuji objected:
“But why should he have kept the drug money in the house but have hidden your money outside?”
“He hid my money outside so I wouldn’t see where he’d put it. I know a lot more about the sort of place my father used to hide things in than the police, and I actually saw him putting the money into some of the places despite his efforts to stop me seeing it. I haven’t found all the outside hiding places, so I don’t have all my money yet, but I have a lot more than enough to live on until I’m an adult and become a famous inventor.”
Ian asked:
“But what if the court declares you legally dead?”
“If it tries to do that I’ll appear in court and deny being dead!”
Ian asked:
“What happens when your dad come back?”
“The police charged him with attempted murder because he fired the antique four gauge shot gun at you four, but then downgraded the charge to ‘acts endangering life’ which still has a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. He’s been charged with so many things that he’ll be in prison for at least 15 years. Because of his previous drug and violence offences the court will put him away for a very long time.
If he ever comes back here, I will deal with the problem then. I’ll easily be able to get an apprehended violence order against him and get him banned from coming into Charleston.”
Ian asked:
“But won’t the council and other people investigate why they’re not being paid?”
“No, my father was badly behind with most of the payments, but I just went into the council office and paid in cash. The lady thought it was strange for a little boy to pay, but I had the money and the proper paperwork, so she accepted it without serious comment.
“A bigger problem was the first time I went to buy myself clothes. I went into the Goodwill second-hand place in Mt Barker. The volunteer who served me was getting very suspicious so I just grabbed a few things that looked right and paid before she could call the police. After I had got clothes that weren’t falling apart, I could go to K-mart to buy better ones.
“I bought a mobile phone so I could use the number for identification to buy a Load and Go card at Mt Barker Post Office, so I can pay for things online.
I was starting to wonder how many laws Charlie was breaking, and whether as Queen of Charleston I should take official notice of it. Fuji may have been thinking on the same lines because he asked:
“But what about school?”
“I’m home schooling myself. There are syllabuses and all the information I need on the internet. I bought myself a second hand laptop computer.”
Fuji looked doubtful about this idea.
“How far have you got in maths?”
Charlie answered:
“I doing algebra at the moment, I’ve just started simultaneous equations.”
A lot of 11 and 12 year old boys would never have heard of simultaneous equations, but Fuji is not a typical Australian boy. His father is a top Japanese computer expert working for a software development company in Adelaide while his mother is an English doctor. He lived in Japan until he was 5, and is bilingual in English and Japanese, and understands more Cat than most Humans. Unlike gifted Australian boys he had never needed to hide how clever he was. Although he was the youngest, slowest and weakest of the gang of four he was the undisputed leader, purely because of his intelligence. He was several years ahead of his age group at school.
He obviously decided to test and see if Charlie was making things up and wrote down a simple pair of simultaneous equations which Charlie solved easily. Fuji was impressed.
Fuji said:
“But weren’t you diagnosed as having ADHD?”
“Yes. I was a mess after mum was killed and dad started beating me. Then I was put into a class doing baby things. Of course I couldn’t concentrate on Jack and Jill when I was trying to work out why Pythagoras’s Theorem works.
“Mum hated drugs, and then the doctors put me onto stimulant pills to treat something I was sure I didn’t have. I was being forced to take drugs that stopped me sleeping properly and made me irritable and bad tempered. The effects were horrible.”
Ian asked:
“But won’t you get lonely?”
Charlie said:
“I’ll miss my mum. I always will.”
Charlie didn’t cry, but we could see tears in his eyes.
Ian said:
“But not your Dad?”
Charlie brightened up:
“No definitely not my dad and not any of the foster parents I was sent to.”
“But what about friends?”
“I stayed with each foster family for such a short time that I haven’t had any friends since my mother died; until now. You five are the best friends I ever had. I hope you’ll come and see me whenever you can.”
The four boys all said they would and I meowed my agreement.
“I’ve also got lots of friends on Facebook.”
Ian looked slightly jealous. He wasn’t allowed to have a Facebook account until he turned 13:
“So you have a Facebook account?”
“Yes, not under my real name of course. My real name is Charles and no one called Charles Darwin is allowed to have a Facebook account without proving that it really is their name. I need to keep q
uiet about my existence for the next 8 years or so.”
Fuji asked:
“What are you thinking of inventing?”
“I’ve got a lot of ideas, but at the moment I’m completing our research on a Raspberry powered solar cell.”
There were incredulous questions from the boys so Charlie said:
“Come outside, I’ll show you.”
We went and Charlie showed us an odd looking metal sheet with several layers of coating on, and holes with wires going through to the back. He explained how it worked, but only Fuji looked is if he had any idea what most of Charlie’s terms meant. Charlie showed us what it was doing.
“The power is low voltage, and works the water pump bringing water from the big pond at the bottom up to the slightly smaller one at the top and it flows through the channels to the big pond.”
Ian asked a practical question:
“Why doesn’t the water soak away?”
“All the ponds and the channels are lined with two layers of heavy duty butyl rubber sheet. It’s covered with soil or gravel, but it stops the water disappearing. There’s a concealed ball valve which controls water coming from the big rainwater tank to replace evaporation and the water the animals drink. We have Kangaroos here every evening.”
One of the other boys asked:
“Did you do all this in a few weeks?”
Charlie laughed:
“No, of course not, my mother and I did this when I was 6; this was about a year before she was killed. We had a bobcat in to do the excavation.”
I was glad to hear that some sort of cat had helped them.
Ian asked:
“But the Raspberry solar cell; is that your invention?”
“Not really, plant dye based solar cells have been around for years. All we did was to test all ten varieties of Raspberry we have growing here to find the best one, then work out a simple method of concentrating the