by Damian Davis
As I switched it on, a little red light came on to show that the camera was recording. We hadn’t noticed the red light before, but if Mr Black turned around he would see it for sure.
I turned the camera off, just in time. Mr Black turned towards us. He mustn’t have been able to see us in the dark.
He looked away again and walked around to the front entrance of the house. Then he walked down the hallway, his torch flickering around to show him the way. Tearley pushed as hard against me as she could, so she wouldn’t be caught by the beam. The light flashed across her leg but Mr Black mustn’t have noticed. We heard him put down his bag, and put the torch on the ground.
Tearley’s weight moved off me. She squeezed past me and Wrigs and climbed noiselessly out of the broken window beside us.
I pushed Wrigs and pointed after Tearley. I wanted him to follow her, but he was frozen with terror.
We could hear Mr Black fumbling with the latch, and a key turning.
The door to the manhole creaked as it opened. Mr Black was picking up his torch when there was a crash from outside the house. It sounded like a brick hitting the corrugated iron that we used for the EWS.
Tearley! She must have done it to distract Mr Black and give us a chance to get out.
Mr Black called out, ‘Who’s there?’
He sounded startled. He was breathing heavily.
Mr Black stumbled down the hallway and out into the night.
Wriggler scrambled to the window and threw himself over the sill.
I wanted to follow him, but this was the one chance we had to see what was in the hole. I raced into the kitchen and almost tripped over the hessian bag. It was sliding across the floor all by itself.
The manhole was still open. It was too risky to jump into the hole. Mr Black could be back any second. So I lay down next to the opening and hit the record button on the camera.
Then I stuck my arm down into the hole and panned the camera around, hoping it would film something.
I was just pulling my arm out when Mr Black’s torchlight came bobbing down the hallway. I didn’t have time to get back into the other room.
‘Where are you?’ he said.
I was a goner. I turned off the camera and backed into the corner of the kitchen nearest the fireplace. I wished the wall would swallow me up.
‘Come out! I know you’re here,’ Mr Black said.
How could he know I was here? Had he caught Tearley outside?
He tripped on something and his torch fell to the ground and went out. He swore and groped around for the torch.
Once he found it, he banged it a couple of times, and it flickered on.
‘I can hear you, yeah. Come to Papa,’ he said.
I didn’t make a sound. I was holding my breath. I wished that my heart wasn’t beating so loudly.
He flashed his torch across the floor until the light landed on the hessian bag. The bag was still creeping across the floor by itself.
‘There you are, yeah. You okay?’ His voice softened. ‘You come with me.’
Mr Black had been talking to whatever was in the bag. He didn’t know I was there.
He picked up the bag and lowered himself into the hole. I waited as long as I could … it felt like hours but was probably only a few seconds. Then I crept past the hole as quietly as possible, and up the hallway and out into the night.
I was halfway up the pathway to View Street when I saw the silhouette of someone standing in the middle of the track just ahead of me. Mr Black had brought someone with him. I was surrounded.
I was going to turn back to the house and take my chances that Mr Black wouldn’t find me, when the person turned around and said, ‘Hurry up, Digs.’
It was Tearley. She was waiting for me.
‘Where’s Wrigs?’ I said.
‘That’s him at the top of the street,’ she pointed.
We bolted back to my place. I kept thinking I could hear Mr Black running after us. But I didn’t look back.
CHAPTER 28
DAY 26: Wednesday
My skims: 13
Wriggler’s skims: 0
Tearley’s skims: 9
Another disaster, but at least we got more rocks from the police station.
Money made for tinnie: $0
Might as well give up now.
When we got back to the tents we looked at the video. Because it was shot in night vision, the film was green and white.
The picture was all shaky as we ran into the house. You couldn’t make much out, but you could hear our footsteps and how hard we were breathing. I was pointing the camera at the floor when Tearley tapped me on the shoulder. I jumped about a metre and the camera stopped. Then the camera turned back on for a millisecond and you could see Mr Black outside the window.
Then it didn’t come back on until I pointed it into the hole. It took a moment for the camera to focus as it adjusted to the lack of light, and then you could see all these beady things blinking back at it. They were eyes.
Animal eyes.
Stacked up in the hole were piles of cages, all holding snakes and lizards and geckos and bearded dragons.
‘It’s like a zoo,’ said Wrigs.
‘Why would he have so many animals under there?’ said Tearley.
Suddenly the truth hit me like a tennis racquet to the face. ‘He must be an animal trafficker,’ I said.
‘A what?’ said Wriggler.
‘Y’know, someone who smuggles lizards and snakes to Japan or wherever.’
‘Then what was Mr Black doing in the States?’ Wrigs said.
‘He probably sells there, too,’ I said. ‘We’ve got to show this to the cops.’
‘It’s one o’clock in the morning,’ said Tearley.
‘I reckon Ms Burke is behind it,’ said Wrigs.
‘What do you mean?’ I said.
‘I don’t trust that woman at all,’ he said.
‘She did have that photo of him in her house, which is really strange,’ said Tearley.
‘I bet she’s the mastermind behind the smuggling,’ Wrigs said. ‘Look how rich she is. Mr Black just does her dirty business.’
‘I thought you said he was a ghost?’ I said.
‘How could he be?’ said Wrigs. ‘You’re weird.’
We decided to try and get some sleep. Every time I closed my eyes I dreamt I was back in the deserted house and Mr Black was running down the corridor. Except in my nightmares he didn’t trip over and drop his torch. He came straight at me.
The next thing I knew it was bright daylight and Mum was shouting at me through the tent flap.
‘What did you say to Squid? He’s almost scratched off the top of his skull.’
‘Nothing much, Mum. I told you he’d get scared if he camped out with us when we were telling ghost stories.’
‘He’s only five.’
‘Almost six.’
Mum sighed and walked off.
It was boiling hot in the tent. And it smelt of Wrigs’ farts. I crawled across to Tearley’s tent and woke her up.
‘Let’s show last night’s video to Tranh,’ I said.
‘He’ll just say it’s none of our business again,’ she said.
Wrigs crawled into Tearley’s tent, too. The smell followed him.
‘We’re going to show this to Tranh,’ I told him.
‘Do we have to?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ I said. I must have sounded really determined because both Wrigs and Tearley agreed.
After breakfast we trudged off to the police station again.
Sergeant Tranh was on the phone when we got there.
‘So I can pay monthly or annually?’
When he saw us he said, ‘Sorry, can you hold for a moment?’ and put the phone down.
‘Ah,’ he said to me. ‘Here they are again— Supersleuth and his able assistants. What have you got for us today? A mild-mannered old lady who is a cat burglar at night perhaps?’
‘You know about Ms Burke?’ sa
id Wrigs.
‘Who?’ said Tranh.
Tearley was right. We shouldn’t have come. I wanted to turn around and leave again. But we had to go through with it.
‘Have a look at this,’ I said and showed Tranh the video of the animals.
‘What’s this, a holiday video? You went to a zoo, did you?’
‘No, it’s the cellar under the old house we told you about,’ I said. ‘That dude we told you about keeps native animals in there.’
‘We think he’s a trafficker,’ Tearley said.
‘Trafficker? An animal trafficker? In Pensdale? You’ve been watching too much TV.’
‘He told us he wasn’t Mr Bayoumi either,’ said Wriggler.
‘Who?’
‘The owner of the house,’ said Tearley. ‘Constable Stevens looked it up for you, remember?’
Tranh turned to Stevens. ‘When do the school holidays finish?’ he asked.
‘In a week or so,’ she replied.
‘Thank goodness for that. See ya, kids.’ He waved towards the police station door like he wanted us to leave.
As we starting leaving, he picked up his phone again and said, ‘So, what’s your best price on this car insurance, then? Oh hang on a sec …’
He called out as we were going through the door, ‘By the way, we’d like those rocks back from our cactus garden. They’re police property.’
When we got outside Tearley said, ‘I told you he wouldn’t listen to us.’
We went back to the deserted house to get the pictures out of the sensor camera. They showed me hiding from Mr Black. He was so close, if he’d reached out he would have caught me. I’ve got no idea how he didn’t see me.
CHAPTER 29
DAY 27: Thursday
My skims: 0
Wriggler’s skims: 0
Tearley’s skims: 0
At least I’m going to be a YouTube superstar.
Money made for tinnie: $0
Have 7 more days to find $735.50, and that doesn’t include the cash we owe Tearley.
I was having breakfast when Uncle Scott rang. He asked how I was going with the cash for the boat.
I lied to him.
‘I reckon we can get it, Uncle Scott, but I’ve just got to convince a new investor.’
‘Great,’ he said. ‘Mate, my plan is to put it on eBay next Thursday. Let me know how you’re going before then.’
Seven days. How were we going to get seven hundred and thirty-five dollars and fifty cents in a week? This holiday had sucked. My plan had been to go back to school as a world champion skimmer and a boat owner. Instead, I was going to go back exactly the same way as I left. A nobody.
Then an idea hit me like a tin can full of rocks. Even if I wasn’t going to get the world record or the tinnie I knew exactly what we had to do about Mr Black.
‘We’re going viral,’ I told Wrigs and Tearley when they came around. ‘We’re going to make our own news story and stick it on YouTube.’
‘About Mr Black?’ asked Tearley.
‘Yep, that way people will have to pay attention.’
‘I don’t reckon we should get involved any more,’ said Tearley. ‘We’ve told the police. That’s enough.’
‘Well, you don’t have to be involved. Digs and I can do the news story,’ said Wrigs.
‘Okay, I don’t care,’ Tearley said. ‘I’ve got my English tutor this morning anyway.’
English. In the holidays. And she doesn’t mind. What is the problem with her?
Wrigs and I went down to the river and videoed the derelict house and the secret trapdoor in the kitchen floor. Then we got on Wrigs’ computer and edited together a story like the ones you see on the television news.
We started with our new shots of the house and the manhole so you could see what they looked like in the daytime.
Then we cut to the photos that the sensor camera took of Mr Black arriving in the middle of the night and opening the secret trapdoor. On one of the photos I drew an arrow pointing at the full hessian bag that Mr Black was carrying.
After that, we added the photos of Mr Black climbing into the hole. Then we put in the night-vision shots of all the snakes and lizards in cages. Their beady eyes still freaked me out. After the night-vision stuff we added on the photos of Mr Black getting out of the hole and leaving. I put the arrow on the hessian bag again to show it was now empty.
Then I added a voice-over, just like on a real news report.
I started by saying, ‘On the banks of the Clarry River, in the sleepy suburb of Pensdale, is this deserted house. Locals claim that the ghost of an eleven-year-old boy, who was mysteriously killed here, still haunts the house. But it’s not ghosts that are walking the corridors at night. It’s this unknown man. In the cellar under this hidden, locked door he keeps native lizards and snakes.’
Then I said, ‘Experts believe they are being traded internationally by this illegal animal trafficker. Sergeant Tranh, of Pensdale Police, is keen to hear any information that may lead to the identification and arrest of this man.’
I signed off with, ‘Digger Field reporting.’
The finished news report was just like you’d see on the evening news. Wriggler and I were really proud of it. We showed it to Tearley when she came back around.
‘Who are the experts?’ she asked.
‘Me,’ I answered.
‘Are you sure about posting this on YouTube?’ said Tearley. ‘Shouldn’t you be sure before you tell the world Mr Black’s an animal trafficker?’
‘You saw what was under that trapdoor,’ I said. ‘What else could he be?’
Wrigs hit ‘upload video’ on the computer and the news report went straight onto YouTube. We called it ‘Animal Trafficker Caught Red-Handed’.
‘But what happens if Mr Black really is a bad guy, and he sees that clip and comes after us?’ Tearley said.
I hadn’t thought of that. And he knows where Wrigs and me live.
CHAPTER 30
DAYS 28 / 29 / 30: Friday / Saturday / Sunday
Skims from anybody: 0
May never skim again.
Money made for tinnie: Nothing. Nada. Nil. May never see the river again.
Busted big-time. Grounded. May never see daylight again.
Life used to be so much simpler. We were proud of the YouTube clip at first, but now we’re too scared to go to the river in case Mr Black has seen it.
Tearley couldn’t come around because she’d gone to stay at her granny’s for a couple of days.
Wrigs and I had to find things to do. On Friday morning we superglued five-cent coins onto the driveway and told Squid that someone had dropped them. We watched him trying to force them off the concrete. Normal kids would have kicked the coins a few times and then given up when they realised they weren’t going to budge.
Squid kicked at the coins. Then he tried to pry them off the concrete with a screwdriver. Then he got a sledgehammer and tried to bash through the concrete to loosen them.
Nothing worked. The coins were still stuck to the concrete. It would have made a great TV ad for the glue company.
Then Squid found a chisel and dug a trench around each coin. He grabbed Mum’s metal nail file from the bathroom and tried to get under the coins and force them off.
At that moment, Mum drove around the corner and through our front gate. In front of her was Squid sitting in the middle of the driveway, surrounded by holes. He was still gouging into the concrete and trying to lever off the coins with her nail file.
Mum got out of the car.
‘What are you doing, Cooper?’
Mum only called Squid ‘Cooper’ when he was about to be in big trouble.
Squid pointed at the coins stuck to the ground.
‘David,’ she shouted.
I was about to be in really big trouble.
Wrigs and I had been watching from the verandah. I walked down to the driveway like I was facing a firing squad.
She was angrier than I had ever
seen her before. She sent Wrigs home and grounded me.
If Mum had been angry, she had nothing on Dad. When he got home from work and saw what I’d done, he said that until I got the driveway fixed I could kiss my freedom goodbye. And then he said the only way of getting the driveway fixed would be to get a tradesman in, which I would have to pay for myself. I could never afford that, which meant I was grounded for the rest of my life. I might as well kiss the tinnie and the world championship goodbye, too.
I had to spend the rest of the weekend doing chores. I had to clean out the chicken coop (twice), mow the lawn, trim the hedges and then vacuum the whole house. And, just to rub my face in it, Mum made me clean Squid’s bedroom and wash Dean’s clothes.
I didn’t reckon it was fair. It wasn’t me who hit the driveway with a sledgehammer.
Whenever Mum and Dad weren’t looking, I checked on YouTube to see if anyone had watched our video.
At the end of Sunday it had been viewed seven times, of which I knew five were mine. I reckoned Tearley and Wrigs would have looked at it, too. So much for the whole world knowing what Mr Black was up to.
It was the worst weekend ever.
CHAPTER 31
DAY 31: Monday
Skims from anybody: 0
Chances of ever getting the tinnie: None.
Out of one bit of trouble, into a worse bit.
I woke up determined to find a way to fix the driveway. Everything depended on it. The tinnie. The world record. Catching Mr Black.
I rode down to the hardware superstore first thing. Mum had agreed to lift my grounding as long as I went straight there and back. No stopping.
I walked into the superstore, which is a warehouse about a kilometre long with about seven hundred and fifty aisles of shelving stacked full of tools and boxes and hinges and taps.
I had no idea where to start looking. I didn’t even really know what I was looking for.
None of the staff looked interested in talking to an eleven-year-old. Not even one whose whole existence depended on finding something that would fix a concrete driveway.
Just as I was about to give up, around the end of an aisle came Mr Black. He was carrying a huge pair of bolt cutters. The kind you could use to cut through padlocks. Or fingers. He didn’t see me.