Mike sat very still. Was it … could it be … he had to think this through …
Point number one: Loser had seemed deadly serious this morning. The blank hard look had changed his face, as though he wasn’t really seeing any of them any more.
Yes, Loser had looked like he really meant to kill.
Point number two: Loser had said that the test tube held explosives, and then he’d changed his story. Mike had been sure he’d been lying both times. All of them had been sure that he’d been lying.
What if they’d been right?
Point number three: There was something in Mr Loosley’s shed that killed …
If something could kill a dog, it could poison human beings.
Mike stood up. He walked slowly over to the group watching the video and caught Budgie’s eye. He signalled. Budgie nodded, and came across to join him.
‘What’s up?’ he whispered. ‘Hey, you’re not feeling crook are you?’
Mike shook his head. ‘No, nothing like that. Look, I just had an idea.’
‘What?’
Mike sat down, Budgie sat next to him. ‘Look, suppose there was nothing dangerous in the test tube. What if Loser was just spinning us another of his stories?’
‘Yeah?’ said Budgie.
‘But he really wanted to get at us. And he knew where his dad kept some poison.’
Budgie’s forehead wrinkled. ‘So he poisoned Mr Simpson and Caitlin … and Jazz. But how?’ he demanded. ‘You think he might have put something in their food?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Mike. ‘I just don’t know. I mean, it’d be different if Loser had passed around a … a box of chocolates or something. But look, Mr Loosley does have poison in his shed. I saw it.’
‘When?’
Mike hesitated. ‘Years ago,’ he admitted. ‘I was just a little kid. But I bet it’s still there.’
‘Do you want to tell Constable Svenic?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Why not?’ demanded Budgie.
‘It’s just … well, you know Mr Loosley. If Constable Svenic turns up at his front door asking if he’s got any poison, Mr Loosley’s going to say, “No”, isn’t he? And then if Constable Svenic starts looking, the next thing he’ll do is get rid of it, or signal to his wife to get rid of it, and then we’ll never know what sort of poison it is. And we have to find out! If we knew what it was then maybe the doctors could do something.’
‘Constable Svenic could just sneak in there.’
‘He won’t,’ said Mike decidedly. ‘He wouldn’t do something like that without a search warrant, just like he wouldn’t break into Tenterfield.’
‘But what else can we do?’ demanded Budgie.
‘I’m going to try to find it myself,’ said Mike.
Chapter 17
FRIDAY, 4.10 P.M.
The window in the boys toilets was small and high, with narrow glass louvres.
‘We could break them,’ said Budgie helpfully.
‘Someone might hear. And if they saw the broken glass they’d know what had happened. No, let’s try to get them out. Give me a leg up, would you?’
Mike clambered up onto a basin, then reached across to the window, steadying himself with one leg in Budgie’s cupped hands.
‘Hold still!’ hissed Mike.
‘Gawd, you’re heavy.’ Budgie tried to brace his hands with his knee. ‘How’s that?’
‘Better. I think I can … yeah!’ he said triumphantly, as the glass slid into his hand. ‘Got it … here take it, will you?’
‘With what? My mouth? You’ll have to get down for a sec … okay, let’s get the next one.’
One louvre, two, three, four, five …
Budgie looked at the window dubiously. ‘D’you think you’ll fit through?’
‘Yes,’ said Mike, more confidently than he felt. ‘Come on, hoist me up again.’
‘One … two … three!’ said Budgie.
Mike got his head through the hole. ‘Damn!’
‘What?’
‘My shoulders won’t fit.’
‘Twist them round … sort of diagonal,’ suggested Budgie.
‘I can’t. They won’t,’ grunted Mike, when suddenly they did. Budgie pushed Mike’s legs helpfully from below.
‘Not so fast. I’ll fall!’ hissed Mike. ‘Sheesh, I don’t know how to do this. I’m climbing out head first. Haul me back again.’
‘But …’ began Budgie
‘Just do it!’ hissed Mike. ‘No, wait a sec, I’m going to try to sit up … got it … now if I stand I can grab the roof …’
‘But …’ began Budgie.
‘Don’t you get it? If I run along the building someone might see me. But if I’m on the roof, the angle will hide me from the road.’
‘Just hurry up then!’ ordered Budgie. ‘Someone might come in …’
‘Yeah. Sure. I …’ Mike held on to the top of the window with one hand. The roof was level with his chest now. If only he could haul himself up onto it. He grabbed hold of the guttering and pulled.
The guttering sagged in his grasp.
‘Sheesh …’ Mike grabbed again. This time he felt the sharp tin edge of the roof properly. He balanced for a moment on the window, then heaved upwards with his hands.
Up … up … the tin pressed into his stomach, the sagging guttering bulged into his legs. Then suddenly he was there.
‘Made it!’ called Mike softly. ‘Stall them as long as you can, will you?’
‘I will,’ said Budgie’s voice from below. Almost at once Mike heard a low grating noise as Budgie began to replace the glass.
Mike looked around. In the far distance he could see Mount Gunyabah, shimmering purple in the afternoon light. Paddocks and fences and the stark shadows of thistles and grey clumps of sheep looking like rocks, or rocks looking like sheep, and all around him was grey as well — the concrete of the school, the grey metal roof.
The roof was hot, even now in the late afternoon. It smelt of last year’s dust and this year’s pigeons. Mike stuffed the mask into his pocket and took a cautious step.
Boom. The iron roofing flexed under his feet, sending not so much a sound as a shudder through the roof.
Sheesh! Double sheesh! Mike froze. It was impossible that someone inside wouldn’t hear him, that the sound wouldn’t bring someone from the SES as well.
Maybe they’d just think it was the roof contracting now the sun was behind the trees. He took another step, moving as softly as he could. This time the boom was quieter, but still loud in the shimmering air.
It wasn’t going to work. Someone would hear him for certain and as soon as they’d got round the corner they’d see him too. It all looked so simple when the hero did it on TV, thought Mike. They ran across a roof as softly as a cat, or else a helicopter conveniently happened to fly by and picked them up, and no one ever looked up and saw them. In real life someone would be sure to see you, unless you slithered on your stomach like a snake …
Like a snake …
Mike sank to his knees, then lay down flat. The corrugated iron pressed into his knees and stomach. It would be impossible to wriggle on this. Impossible to cross the roof unseen. Every part of him would end up bruised.
It was impossible that Jazz lay in the back of a station wagon speeding to the hospital, impossible that Mr Simpson and Caitlin lay dying too. This was a day for the impossible. He had to try … for Jazz’s sake. For his own. Mike began to move.
One leg, then the other leg, up like he was swimming, one arm up and then the next. It was slow, incredibly slow …
Boom. The roof flexed again.
Then suddenly he heard it. A burst of gunshots, then yelling, then more shots. A car’s brakes screamed.
Budgie had turned up the video. Mike grinned, then grimaced as the roof cut into him. He inched around the corner, then on impulse peered over the point of the roof.
He could see the roadblock now and the orange uniforms of the SES. The road was empt
y. There must be another roadblock even further along, he realised.
Would they be patrolling the rear of the school too? He glanced the other way — no sign of orange uniforms. They wouldn’t be worried that someone might approach the school across the paddocks, only from the road in front.
Would they see him run across the paddock to where the houses started? If only there were more trees, he might dart from tree to tree. But there were only tussocks of grass. You couldn’t hide behind a tussock. There was nothing to hide behind at all.
Except the fence. If he lay flat and inched along the ground he’d be mostly hidden by the bottom rail. Not quite hidden, of course, but if no one was really staring in that direction, he should be safe.
Michael wriggled over to the edge of the roof, grasped the gutter in his fingers and slid over the edge. For a second he dangled there and then the gutter began to bend under his hands. He let go quickly and dropped to the ground.
Pain shot through his ankles at the shock. Just what he needed now — a broken or sprained ankle. But then the pain diminished. Mike peered around the corner again.
No one in sight. They’d all be keeping as far away as possible. Mike darted over to the toilet block, then edged around it. Now for the fence.
The ground was hard as he pounded across it. Every moment he expected to hear someone yell, ‘Stop!’, but the world was silent except for the magpies, warbling in the trees beyond, and the distant sound of more gunshots from the video …
Made it! Mike realised his hands were shaking. He tried to steady his breathing as he slipped over the fence, then lay back down again on his stomach.
Faded chip packets, grubby iceblock sticks, shreds of wild turnip and thistle — the wind seemed to have gathered them all together against the fence. He briefly wondered how many dogs had visited there too. Then he began to slither.
Ten metres, twenty metres … he must be in open sight of the front of the school by now, but he didn’t dare look up to see. Thirty metres, forty … another few metres and he’d be behind the Prothero’s tall wooden fence.
Suddenly a dog began to yap.
‘Shut up,’ muttered Mike. What if someone came out to look and saw him?
The dog kept yapping. Mike kept crawling.
Ten metres now … five … three … Mike reached the cover of the Prothero’s backyard fence. It was made of tall wooden palings, bleached grey by years of sun, stained at the bottom by generations of dogs.
Mike stood up carefully. He could no longer see the school or the road. He hoped that meant that no one there could see him either.
The dog kept barking.
He began to jog along the backs of the houses. Paling fences, colourbond fences, there were wire fences too, but no one seemed to be looking out their back windows, or lingering in their gardens. On the other side of him the paddocks stretched flat and almost lifeless, the long shadows of the scattered gum trees turning black in the afternoon light.
All at once the barking grew frenzied. Mike peered over the fence.
The dog was small and white, with hair that looked like it had been teased out of a ball of wool. It stopped barking as it met Mike’s eye and sat on its haunches.
‘Woof,’ it said hopefully.
‘Hello, boy,’ said Mike softly. ‘Are you bored?’
‘Wurruffuf,’ said the dog.
‘I’d really appreciate it if you’d shut up,’ said Mike. ‘’Cause if you keep making a racket someone’s going to come out and investigate.’
‘Wrowff?’ said the dog.
Mike looked around carefully. The house was one of those old wooden ones, with a fibro bathroom and laundry tacked on the back. The back door was shut, and there was a dog’s water bowl in the shade of an old camellia tree by the clothesline. He was pretty sure there was no one about.
‘Sorry, boy, but I’ve got to go,’ said Mike.
The dog erupted in a howl of barking. It backed away, still barking, then raced over to the house and disappeared round the side. Suddenly the barking stopped.
Hell, thought Mike, it’s gone to tell its owner there’s a burglar out the back.
Suddenly the dog reappeared, galloping as fast as its short legs could carry it. It was holding something in its mouth, almost too large for it to carry. It dropped it triumphantly next to the fence and sat on its haunches again.
‘Wurrrrurf,’ it announced happily.
‘You dumb dog,’ said Mike staring at the food bowl at his feet. ‘I haven’t got any dog food! You’ll have to wait till your owner comes home.’
‘Wurruff? Wuff!’ said the dog.
‘Great guard dog you are,’ muttered Mike, as he started to trot along the fence again. ‘Some burglar arrives and you bring him your food bowl. I bet I could break in and steal the whole houseful and you’d be happy as long as I put a few Meaty Bites into your dish.’
‘Wurf,’ agreed the dog, prancing along the fence next to Mike.
Mike paused at the fence that divided the dog’s house from next door. ‘Look,’ he said to the dog. ‘I can’t play with you now. But when this is all over, I promise I’ll ask your owner if I can take you for a walk. Alright?’
‘Wuurrruff,’ said the dog. It gave a half-hearted spurt of barking as Mike ran on, and then was silent.
Chapter 18
FRIDAY, 4.40 P.M.
Things felt better after talking to the dog, thought Mike, as his feet pounded along the rough track behind the houses, worn by generations of bicycles and scooters and gardeners dumping lawn clippings.
Silly little hairy dog, sang his feet against the ground, how he’d like to have a … what rhymed with dog, he wondered. Frog? Log?
The dog was such a normal thing, such an everyday thing. Suddenly the world looked like it always did — the dip and slope of tin roofs, the dull-leafed camellia trees and leggy clotheslines and bright plastic little kids’ wading pools in the backyards, the mutter and excited music of a game show on someone’s TV set behind the curtains.
Right, thought Mike. All he had to do was cut along the backs of the houses till he came to the creek. Then if he snuck along among the willow trees he could come up behind his place and Loser’s.
Mike hesitated. If he went in through Loser’s back gate Mrs Loosley might be looking out of the kitchen window and see him, or Mr Loosley might be feeding the chooks or something. Of course, they were probably both out looking for Loser, but he still couldn’t risk it.
No. What he needed to do was sneak up into his own garden. Then he could climb over the fence right next to the shed and there’d be no chance of the Loosley’s seeing him at all.
Mike glanced at his watch: 4.45. On a normal Friday, Mum would still be at the gallery. She usually picked up a couple of pizzas on her way home. Mike always got a couple of videos on the way home, one for him and a not too bad chick-flick that Mum might like as well. He watched the first till she got home, then they watched the next one as they ate …
For a moment a longing ran though him — so, so deep it made his bones ache. There’d be no videos tonight and no pizza either.
Suddenly the vision of Jazz lying so still on the stretcher flashed into his mind. Mike ran faster.
Past the rest of the houses, over the sun-hard ground, its gold grass like thin tufts of hair. The creek smelt like it always did; half of sheep and half of too-still water, with the almost-pepper scent of willow trees and rotting wood.
It was harder running here, though he didn’t have to worry about anyone seeing him. The creek narrowed then pooled; broken branches lay propped against the trunks, their heads decaying in the water. It was almost like hurdling in athletics, except on the oval there weren’t rabbit holes or unexpected puddles. A red-bellied black snake looked up, startled from its perch on a log in the last of the sunlight, then slipped soundlessly down the log and disappeared between the roots.
His footsteps sounded doubly loud in the silence under the trees. Every inch of this creek was familiar
to him. He’d played pirates here as a little kid, with Mum keeping half an eye on him and Loser as she read a magazine on a low branch.
There was the pool he used to fish in, hoping to catch a shark or at least a barramundi, though all it held was tadpoles and dead leaves. There was the old cubby he’d built with Loser when they were in Year Two. Mr Loosley had given them some old corrugated iron and bits of wood and a hammer and nails.
Loser hadn’t been so bad back then, thought Mike. Or maybe when you were a little kid you just wanted company. You didn’t think what the other person was really like. Or maybe … maybe it was a bit of both. Loser was always Loser, but things had changed him too …
Mike stopped, out of breath, and leant against a willow tree. He could see his house through the leaves, his bedroom window with the dark blue curtains. He could even see the clock in the kitchen and the dumb kitchen mobile of plastic cups and spoons and forks he’d made as a little kid and Mum refused to take down.
There was Loser’s house, too, with its overgrown garden that seemed to cut the house off from the rest of the world, the chook shed leaning slightly to one side, the boat that Mr Loosley had started but never finished (Loser had said that he was going to sail it round the world), and the two old cars behind the garage for spare parts. He and Loser had pretended to drive them and crash into each other …
The Loosley’s back fence was too high to get over. He’d have to go through his own garden first, then through the side fence. Luckily, Mum would still be at the gallery …
Mike took a deep breath. He looked both ways, then ran across the space between the creek and the fences, through the back gate of his house and up the side of their house. Now all he had to do was …
‘Mike!’
Mike froze. His mum stared down at him from the kitchen window. She looked older, Mike thought. There were shadows on her face that hadn’t been there this morning. ‘Mike, darling, what are you … what’s happened … is it all over?’
‘Mum, no! Stop!’ But it was too late. The face at the window disappeared. Mike heard the back door open and her footsteps clattering down the stairs. ‘Mike, I was so worried. I’ve just been sitting here by the phone. I tried to ring your father but he’s not in yet. Tell me …’
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