Near Extinction

by R. A. Spratt

  ‘The door’s blocked,’ snapped Bruce, he was desperately pulling on the lever, but the door was wedged up against the side of the giant poo.

  Georgia ground the gears of the bus trying to find reverse. It lurched back half a metre then conked out completely. Bruce yanked on the lever one more time and the door flapped open. He barrelled down the stairs, and ran at full speed straight into – Mum’s foot. She’d thrown a turning kick at his head and he hadn’t even seen it coming. Bruce went down hard, collapsing face down on the grass.

  Ingrid ran straight past and crash tackled Georgia as she stepped off the bus. Georgia put up more of a struggle. She realised the two terrifying women attacking them meant business, so it would be a good idea to try and escape, but Ingrid was having none of it.

  ‘If you don’t stop struggling, I will press my ulna into your carotid artery until you lose consciousness,’ warned Ingrid. Georgia gave up.

  ‘Ow!’ cried Bruce. Mum had used his own belt to truss him up like a turkey, and was now pinching his finger tip.

  ‘Who sent you here?’ demanded Mum. ‘What was your mission?’

  ‘No one,’ said Bruce. ‘Ow! Stop pinching me.’

  Mum decided to take things up a level. She grabbed Bruce by the collar of his shirt and started twisting it. His collar became a sort of makeshift tourniquet around his neck. Bruce was soon gagging, and his face was turning purple.

  ‘Who sent you?’ demanded Mum.

  ‘Mum?’

  Mum looked up to see Joe, Fin and April watching her. They looked dishevelled and so much older. It had been not quite three months since she had seen them last. But it felt like three lifetimes ago. Mum released Bruce.

  ‘Oh hello, children,’ said Mum, trying to sound like a normal mother, as if they hadn’t just seen her strangling a large man with his own clothing. ‘It’s lovely to see you.’

  Joe, Fin and April were too stunned to know how to react. Their brains were spinning trying to work out whether they should be feeling shock, anger, disbelief or delight. Pumpkin was not so inhibited. He rushed forward yapping. He leapt up and tried to lick Mum’s face. Mum scratched him behind the ears, just where he liked it.

  ‘Hello, Pumpkin,’ said Mum with a chuckle. ‘Have you been a good boy? I doubt it.’

  ‘This is your mother?’ asked Loretta.

  ‘I think so,’ said Fin.

  April just scowled.

  Joe didn’t attempt speaking. There was no chance that any words would come out, certainly not the words he wanted to say.

  ‘I can’t believe you have a mother,’ said Tom. ‘I assumed you just hatched from a pod. Or were cloned by an evil scientist.’

  ‘Not now, Tom,’ said Loretta. ‘You can’t pick up on the visual clues. But I can. And let me tell you, there is enough tension in the air you’d be able to feel it with your stick, if it hadn’t been ground into dust by the drive shaft of the bus.’

  ‘Terribly sorry,’ said Dad, apologising to the children. ‘Ingrid and I were a little dishonest. We didn’t go to the city for a holiday. We popped overseas to um . . . fetch your mother.’

  Joe, Fin and April still didn’t speak. Last time they had seen her she had just been their boring, embarrassing dowdy Mum. Now they didn’t know what to think.

  ‘Can someone please tell me what is going on?’ asked Loretta, looking from Mum to Dad and then Ingrid. ‘I’ve got a super high IQ and off the charts ability to read social situations, but something is going on here that I can’t figure it out.’

  No one answered her question.

  ‘Come on, I’m a Peski now,’ said Loretta. ‘You can’t keep secrets from me.’

  ‘No, you’re not! You’re not a Peski,’ snapped April. ‘Dad hasn’t actually adopted you.’

  ‘Maybe not technically,’ said Loretta. ‘But we all know I’m a part of your family now. There’s no getting away from me. You’ve got to tell me everything.’

  ‘If we tell you everything, Mum might kill you,’ mumbled Fin.

  Now Loretta was really puzzled, but she didn’t get a chance to ask any more questions because at that moment Constable Pike staggered down from the bus.

  Mum clicked back into fight mode. She started running at the constable.

  ‘No!’ cried Joe. ‘He’s a real cop. Don’t hurt him.’

  Mum stopped where she was.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ asked Constable Pike. He was really concussed now and deeply confused.

  ‘You’ve done a wonderful job,’ Loretta told him, using her soothing velvety voice. ‘You’ve just arrested two jewel thieves.’

  ‘I have?’ asked Constable Pike.

  ‘You were very heroic,’ Loretta assured him. ‘You’re sure to get some sort of police bravery medal, but you did bump your head.’

  Constable Pike rubbed his head, there was an enormous lump there. Actually, there were two.

  ‘So we’d better call an ambulance for you,’ said Loretta. ‘And get some police back-up from Bilgong. You probably won’t be able to do the paperwork yourself if you can’t see straight.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Constable Pike. Even in his confused state, he liked the sound of not having to do paperwork.

  ‘Sit down on the nice soft grass,’ suggested Loretta, ‘while we sort it all out for you.’

  ‘This girl is good,’ Mum whispered to Ingrid. ‘Is she one of our operatives?’

  ‘No,’ said Ingrid. ‘She is just a gifted amateur.’

  ‘Get off me, you’re hurting me,’ complained Georgia.

  Ingrid responded by digging her knee harder into Georgia’s back. ‘I, on the other hand, am not an amateur. You will tell me who you are and why you are here. You will not make me torture you to find this out. There are children here and they have had a bad day already.’

  ‘They were after this,’ said April. She reached into the pocket of her school skirt and pulled out a plastic ziplock bag full of sparkling jewellery.

  ‘Robbery?’ said Mum. ‘You’re just thieves?’

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ said Ingrid.

  ‘It’s true,’ said Georgia.

  Mum released Bruce and went over to take the bag from April. She looked at the stones inside.

  ‘Where did you find them?’ asked Mum.

  ‘Inside that dinosaur,’ said April.

  Mum looked up at the Tyrannosaurs rex. When the bus had hit the poo, the T-Rex had slid off the top and speared into the poo-like sculpture. Its head was now impaled with its tail pointed directly in the air and it’s legs dangling helplessly skyward.

  ‘That’s a terrible representation of a Tyrannosaurus rex,’ said Mum. ‘The skeletal alignment is all wrong.’

  ‘That’s what I said!’ exclaimed Fin.

  ‘Explain yourself,’ said Ingrid, digging her knee into Georgia’s back harder. ‘You are out of your league here. Your mission has failed. Explain what you are doing here.’

  Georgia had had no sleep, she’d been in two bus crashes and she’d been bitten by a surprisingly sharp-toothed dog. She was not a professional spy. She crumpled. ‘We were just trying to get back the jewellery. We did the time. Eight years I’ve been inside. I should at least get to keep the jewellery I was put inside for stealing.’

  ‘Justice doesn’t work that way,’ said Fin.

  ‘That sounds like a line of dialogue from a cowboy movie,’ said April.

  ‘I know, I felt cool saying it,’ said Fin.

  ‘Are we sure this has got nothing to do with Maynard?’ asked Mum.

  Joe shrugged

  ‘Weird stuff like this happens in Currawong all the time,’ said Loretta.

  ‘Someone should test the groundwater,’ said April. ‘I’m sure it’s got something to do with heavy metal poisoning.’

  ‘Maybe Maynard put something in the groundwater,’ said Fin.

  ‘There’s lots of nitrogen in it,’ said Dad. ‘I always get super Dahlia’s in the autumn.’

  ‘Who’s Maynard?’ asked Consta
ble Pike.

  ‘No one,’ said Ingrid. ‘You’ve got concussion. You need some rest.’ She patted him on the shoulder, then gripped his carotid artery so hard he blacked out again.

  Once the police from Bilgong arrived, things were sorted out quickly. Constable Pike started babbling about how ‘Pumpkin was dangerous’, ‘Pumpkin had started the whole thing’ and ‘It wasn’t his fault he shot Pumpkin’. The Bilgong police officers didn’t realise that ‘Pumpkin’ was a dog. They thought Constable Pike had a serious brain injury and was having delusions about a violent vegetable. Police take it very seriously when a fellow officer has been hurt, so Constable Pike was whisked away in a helicopter to get a brain scan at a big city hospital.

  The Bilgong police had never met the Peski kids before, so they assumed they were traumatised victims and sent them home to recover, saying they could come in and make their official statements the next day. The police even offered them a lift in their van. Once they had dropped Tom off at his grandmother’s house, the extended Peski family were soon on their way home.

  When the police van pulled into the bottom of their driveway, there were cars parked up by the house. ‘Just drop us here,’ said Ingrid. She had guessed who would be waiting for them, and being seen with the police would complicate things.

  ‘Who is it?’ asked Mum as the van pulled away and they started to walk the last hundred metres.

  ‘No one for you to fear,’ said Ingrid.

  They came around a bend in the driveway, the trees opened up and they could all see the house clearly. It was Henrietta Klaus and the immigration officials again.

  ‘There you are,’ snapped the senior immigration officer. It was the same man who had tried to deport Ingrid just a few weeks earlier.

  ‘You see, I told you they’d be back soon,’ said Ms Klaus. She looked very relaxed as she tapped away at her laptop on the bonnet of her BMW. ‘They were busy spending quality time as a family unit.’

  The immigration officer came to halt as he scanned the group. He did a double take when he saw Mum. ‘I’ve seen your picture in the file,’ he said. ‘Aren’t you Mr Peski’s first wife?’

  ‘Well of course she is,’ said Ms Klaus, snapping her laptop shut and giving the situation her full attention. ‘It’s important to have a good relationship with former partners. It makes a blended family stronger.’

  The immigration officer had opened his file and was checking his notes. ‘But you never got divorced. You had your marriage annulled, because of . . .’ He quickly scanned the paperwork to find the detail. ‘. . . Mistaken identity.’ He looked up from his file. ‘After that you still have a good relationship?’ He glanced from Mum to Ingrid as though he expected them to break into a fist fight right in front of him.

  ‘We’ve got a very mature attitude,’ said Mum. ‘It’s the twenty-first century. It’s important to be open-minded about identity issues. Everything is fluid these days.’

  The immigration officer looked confused. He knew he was required to be open-minded but he wasn’t sure what he was being asked to be open-minded about.

  ‘I’m afraid the immigration department are being very unreasonable,’ said Ms Klaus. ‘I suspect there is some outside influence, but we are unable to delay any longer. Ms Borg may stay in the country while her application for permanent residency is processed, on the condition that she marries Mr Peski right now.’

  ‘Right now!’ exclaimed April.

  ‘What does that mean exactly?’ asked Dad.

  ‘Today,’ clarified Ms Klaus. ‘I did an online celebrants course. I can do it myself. It will take about three minutes.’

  ‘Gosh,’ said Dad.

  ‘This is lovely,’ said Loretta. ‘You have such a beautiful garden, Mr Peski. It is the perfect setting for a wedding.’

  ‘I’ll go into town and find a hotel,’ said Mum. ‘I don’t want to intrude.’

  ‘You can’t just leave us again!’ exclaimed April. ‘You just got back.’ Her face had gone bright red, like she hadn’t decided whether she was going to cry or punch someone. Probably, knowing April, it would end up being both.

  ‘Besides, this is Currawong,’ said Fin. ‘There are no hotels.’

  ‘It’s true. There’s just Mrs Shahani’s Airbnb,’ said Loretta. ‘But it’s not really a proper bnb. It’s just a futon in her garage. You’ll be sleeping next to her Mitsubishi Mirage.’

  Mum wasn’t pretending to be a bumbling academic anymore, but she didn’t look like a ruthless operative either. ‘It’s been eleven years, Harold,’ said Mum. ‘I know you’ve moved on. In the prison, they showed me photographs, they told me about your upcoming wedding.’

  Dad turned to Ingrid. She was staring at him, in that unnerving way that made him so uncomfortable, but somewhere along the way he had become comfortable with the way she made him uncomfortable. ‘Well, yes,’ Dad said. ‘Ingrid is my betrothed. I have made a commitment. We are going to get married.’

  ‘NO!’ said Ingrid. It was shocking. She had raised the volume of her voice, which is something she had never done before. ‘This cannot go on. I cannot live a lie.’

  ‘Really,’ said Mum. ‘In our line of work, it’s kind of a professional requirement.’

  ‘You lied for years about not being able to speak English,’ Fin reminded her.

  ‘But this is a big lie,’ said Ingrid. ‘I cannot marry you, Harold.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Dad. He didn’t know how to react. He was terrified of Ingrid, but he had been getting used to the idea of having to live with her for the rest of his life. She had made him feel safe.

  ‘It’s the saggy brown dressing-gown, isn’t it?’ said Loretta with a sigh. ‘We all love you, Mr Peski, but there are some things a woman can’t overlook.’

  ‘No, it is not Mr Peski’s ugly clothes, or weak personality or shameful cowardice,’ said Ingrid. ‘I grow to like, even respect him, even with all this.’

  ‘Ooooh,’ said Loretta. She hugged April’s arm. ‘This is so romantic.’

  ‘Harold, I cannot marry you,’ said Ingrid. ‘Because . . . I love another.’

  ‘Then you’re going to have to come with me,’ said the immigration officer, taking a pair of handcuffs from his belt.

  Ingrid shook her head. ‘I’m afraid I am not going to agree to that either.’ She clenched her fists.

  Then suddenly every sprinkler in Dad’s garden came on simultaneously. The immigration officials yelped with shock. The water was cold. And it wasn’t tap water. It was Dad’s special irrigation blend. It was pre-mixed with manure and smelled really really bad.

  ‘Run!’ yelled Joe. He was standing by the tap, the faucet still in his hand.

  Ingrid ran.

  To be continued . . .

  The line shuffled forward. Dr Banfield had just checked in for her flight. She was hoping to get back before the children came home from school. She only needed to pass through security, then she would be able to sit down and relax in the lounge, as much as you can relax surrounded by a thousand sweaty, nervous strangers. But the line was taking forever.

  There was a family in front of her fussing over their hand luggage. They seemed to have broken every airport security rule – liquids, scissors, bottle openers. They had everything they shouldn’t in their bags.

  Finally, their things passed through the X-ray machine for the last time and Dr Banfield was able to lift her one carry-on suitcase onto the conveyor. She rifled through the pockets of her old tweed jacket, digging out her spare glasses, throat lozenges and tissues. She dropped them into a plastic tray, then stepped through the metal detector.

  Security guards never wanted to pat her down or do an explosive test on her bag. She was a frumpy middle-aged lady. She was harmless. They barely even noticed her. That was, until now. The conveyor belt juddered to a halt. Dr Banfield looked up as a man in a cheap grey suit stepped into the security area. He whispered something to the X-ray operator, then pulled Dr Banfield’s suitcase aside.

  He motioned
for Dr Banfield to join him at the counter. This had never happened to her before. She watched as the man in the suit opened her suitcase and searched through her dirty clothes and museum paperwork.

  ‘What’s this?’ asked the man, with a thick accent. He pulled something out from the bottom of the suitcase. It was a large bone.

  ‘The ulna of a stegosaurus,’ said Dr Banfield. ‘It was found in Kiev. It is particularly significant because the striations on the bone appear to be the teeth marks of a sabre-toothed tiger, which would be the earliest known confirmation of that species on the Asian continent.’

  ‘Really?’ said the man in the suit. ‘We’ll see about that.’ He raised the bone and whacked it down hard on the edge of the counter.

  ‘No!’ cried Dr Banfield. ‘It’s a crucial fossil for understanding the evolution of mammals in Eastern Europe.’

  The man in the suit apparently did not like being yelled at by a frumpy middle-aged lady. He looked angry now as he raised the bone again and smashed it down even harder. It shattered into a thousand fragments, but lying in the middle was something black and shiny. A small USB drive.

  The man in the suit picked it up. ‘What do we have here?’

  ‘I’ve got no idea how that got there,’ said Dr Banfield. She turned pale. Her eyes gaped wide. This was going terribly wrong.

  ‘You’d better come with me,’ said the man ominously.

  ‘But my flight?’ said Dr Banfield. ‘I have to get home. My children are expecting me.’

  ‘I’m sure it will only take a few moments to clear this up,’ said the man, with a smile.

  He was lying. It took Dr Banfield’s very large brain just a millisecond to recognise this fact, another millisecond to see that two armed guards were approaching to assist him and a third millisecond to decide that her best course of action was to punch this man, in his cheap grey suit, in the throat with her wedding ring.

  Dr Banfield lashed out with lightning speed, hitting the man so hard his brain was momentarily starved of oxygen and he collapsed. The two armed guards hesitated. Their smaller brains were struggling to assimilate the fact that a dowdy middle-aged lady had just felled their department head. One of them belatedly reached for his gun, but his hand had only touched the grip when Dr Banfield broke both the bones in his forearm with a brutal turning kick. She then kicked him in the knee with her other foot to knock him down too.