Chloe's River Rescue

by Samantha Turnbull

  Bella’s parents don’t have a problem with her using power tools. She actually taught her dad how to use an angle grinder. My parents are a little more cautious.

  Mum comes out of the house carrying the drill as if it’s a loaded weapon. ‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Bella?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Karalis.’ Bella nods politely. ‘It will be done in a few seconds.’ She turns on the drill and attaches the plastic seat to the timber with four screws.

  She hands the drill back to Mum.

  ‘Danger over. Easy peasy.’

  Grace picks up the rope. ‘What’s this for again?’

  ‘I’ll use it to steer,’ Bella says. ‘Kind of like reins on a horse.’ She ties the rope to the front axle, takes a seat and pulls it from side to side to demonstrate.

  Emily and Grace applaud, but I fear Bella has missed something.

  ‘Um,’ I say. ‘What about brakes?’

  Bella laughs. ‘You know what billycarts are called in some parts of the world?’ she asks. ‘Gravity racers. And, as a scientist, you know all about gravity, right?’

  Of course I know about gravity. It’s the natural force that causes things to fall towards the earth. ‘So billycarts rely on gravity to move?’ I ask.

  Bella pushes the billycart across the grass and it stops a few metres away. ‘Yes, which means we won’t be racing on flat ground like this,’ she says. ‘It will be downhill…down a very steep hill, probably.’

  I gulp. Bella avoided properly answering the question about brakes, which I figure can only mean one thing: she doesn’t actually have any.

  Not even a pen full of squealing piglets can distract Emily from her mission.

  Hundreds of people are gathering around the arena at the fairground to watch the main attraction, but Emily won’t stop. ‘Let’s get to the sideshow alley,’ she says. ‘I’ve got tricks to crack.’

  ‘Do you think we can be back here in half an hour?’ I ask. ‘I really want to watch the piglet racing.’

  ‘We’ll be back with time to spare,’ Emily says, marching ahead.

  She stops at a booth with ten white milk bottles stacked in the shape of a pyramid.

  A carnie in an oversized cowboy hat pounces on us. ‘You girlies want to take a turn at knocking over these bottles? It’s the easiest game here.’

  Emily eyes him suspiciously as she hands him two dollars.

  The carnie gives her a softball in return. ‘Roll it towards the bottles,’ he says. ‘And when they’re all knocked down you can pick a prize.’

  Emily hands the ball to Grace. ‘Does that feel strange to you?’

  Grace rolls the ball between her hands then tosses it into the air. ‘It’s far too light.’

  Emily hands the ball back to the carnie. ‘I bet if I pulled the leather cover off this I’d find it filled with pure cork. A normal softball’s core is made from a mix of cork and rubber – or a polyurethane mix.’

  ‘Poly what?’ he asks. Emily’s words have gone way over his head.

  I step in. ‘Polyurethane. It’s a synthetic resin mostly used to make different kinds of foam.’

  The carnie seems to have no interest in my explanation, even though I tried my best to make it as unscientific as possible. ‘So are you going to have a turn or not?’

  Emily takes the ball and rolls it towards the bottles. One falls off the top of the pyramid, but the rest don’t move.

  ‘Take another shot,’ the carnie says. ‘You get three turns all up.’

  Emily pauses and examines the bottles. ‘What’s in them?’ she asks.

  The carnie purses his lips. ‘There’s nothing in them,’ he says. ‘They’re empty bottles.’

  Emily steps inside the booth. ‘Mind if I feel them?’

  The carnie shakes his head furiously. ‘You can’t do that. No one is allowed inside the booth except me. It’s for safety reasons.’

  Emily ignores him and lifts a bottle from the top tier. ‘That’s empty.’

  ‘Security!’ the carnie yells. ‘I need this girl removed from my booth!’

  Emily takes a bottle from the next row. ‘And that’s empty too.’

  The carnie rushes towards her, trying to slip his body between Emily and the bottles. He’s too slow. Emily wraps both hands around a bottle on the bottom row, bends at the knees and heaves, but it’s too heavy to lift. ‘This certainly isn’t empty.’

  A couple of families stop to see what the commotion is. ‘What’s going on here?’ a woman asks.

  Emily unscrews the top of one of the milk bottles. ‘It’s sand,’ she announces. ‘Almost all the bottles on the bottom row of the pyramid are filled with sand. That’s why no one can knock them all over – they’re too heavy.’

  The carnie’s face turns bright red. I’m afraid he might erupt, so I call Emily away. ‘I think it’s time to move on.’

  Before Emily can escape, the carnie flees the scene, grabbing his moneybag and running through the crowd.

  ‘Where’s he going?’ Bella asks.

  We watch as he weaves through the families in the sideshow alley, disappearing behind a pavilion in the distance.

  ‘I guess he didn’t want to face the crowd once he was exposed,’ Emily says. ‘So he’s just…gone.’

  Three more carnies see us coming and immediately shut up shop. One pulls an awning down across the front of his booth, another sits a ‘Closed’ sign on his table, and the last shouts, ‘I’m out – enjoy the rest of your day!’

  Just two remain open at the end of the alley – a basketball game and a pond of plastic ducks.

  ‘Ooh, basketball,’ Grace says. ‘I’m great at shooting hoops.’

  ‘Okay, Grace.’ Emily hands a dollar to the carnie in charge of the basketball game. ‘Take a shot.’

  Grace lifts the basketball and aims at the ring. It misses, then hits the ground and bounces high into the air.

  ‘Hmmmm,’ Emily says. ‘That bounced higher than I would’ve expected. I think it’s over-inflated.’

  The carnie flashes her gold-capped teeth at Emily. ‘I can see what you’re trying to prove,’ she says. ‘But I’ve got nothing to hide here. Take another ball if you don’t like that one.’

  Emily grabs a ball and takes a shot herself. It looks as if the ball should go through the ring, but it hits it awkwardly and bounces off.

  ‘Bad luck,’ the carnie says. ‘One shot left.’

  Emily turns to Bella. ‘I don’t suppose you’re carrying a measuring device, my trusty builder friend?’

  Bella reaches into her pocket and pulls out a tape measure.

  Emily turns back to the carnie. ‘If I were to climb on my friend Grace’s shoulders, would you let me measure that ring?’

  The carnie puts her hands on her hips. ‘No,’ she says. ‘I would not let you measure that ring.’

  Emily twists the tape around her fingers. ‘And why not?’

  ‘Because the ring is undersized, okay?’ the carnie whispers. ‘It’s a very tight squeeze to get the ball through.’

  Emily’s taken aback by the carnie’s honesty. ‘Ah, so you admit it?’

  ‘I know your type.’ The carnie starts dismantling the ring. ‘You’ve proved your smarts, now be on your way.’

  Emily backs away with the rest of us.

  ‘That was weird,’ I say. ‘She didn’t even try to hide the fact she was tricking people.’

  We reach the pond of plastic ducks and Emily hands over two dollars.

  ‘Ain’t nothing shady going on here,’ the carnie says. ‘Simply fish a duck out of the pond and you’ll win a prize.’ He gestures to a shelf of numbered prizes and passes Emily a stick with a hook on the end.

  We all study the hook carefully, but it seems intact. Emily easily hooks a plastic duck and brings it in. The carnie flips it over and reads a number from the bottom. ‘Thirty-nine!’

  He takes a whistle marked ‘39’ from the shelf and passes it to Emily. ‘Told you,’ he says. ‘Simple as that.’

&n
bsp; A horn blares in the distance. ‘It’s the pig races!’ I say. ‘Let’s go.’

  The carnie waves us off. ‘Come back tomorrow if you like,’ he says. ‘Everyone wins at the duck pond, ladies and gentlemen!’

  As we run back to the arena, a voice booms over the loudspeaker. ‘Mr Porky wins round one!’

  Emily stops in her tracks. ‘Porkies,’ she says. ‘That carnie is telling porkies. I’ll prove it.’

  Cough, cough, cough. Cough. Cough.

  I’m squished between a man with his arm in a sling and a girl coughing as though she’s about to lose a lung.

  Mum and Yiayia got the only other vacant seats on the opposite side of the waiting room.

  Cough, cough, cough. Cough. Cough.

  I get up. I’d rather stand than risk catching whatever has infected the coughing girl. The droplets in a single sneeze can contain millions of virus particles capable of surviving in the air for hours.

  ‘I’m telling you, koritsi mou,’ Yiayia says,

  ‘I don’t need to see a doctor.’

  Mum pretends she doesn’t hear and opens a magazine. ‘Oh look, a recipe for lamb meatballs. They’d be good with the feta dipping sauce you invented, Chloe.’

  A young woman in a T-shirt and cargo pants opens the surgery door. ‘Eleni Petropoulos?’

  Mum closes her magazine. ‘We’re here,’ she says, and the doctor steps back inside her room to wait for us.

  Yiayia is sceptical. ‘That is no doctor,’ she says. ‘She’s a child.’

  I make a ‘tsk-tsk’ sound. It’s what Yiayia does when she disapproves of something. ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover, Yiayia. She might be fresh out of university and a whole lot more enthusiastic than someone who’s been in the job for fifty years.’

  Mum and I walk Yiayia into the doctor’s room. ‘Welcome, Mrs Petropoulos,’ the doctor says. ‘What a beautiful Greek name you have.’

  Yiayia takes a seat. ‘You know Greek?’

  The doctor smiles. ‘No, but I’ve visited the Greek Islands,’ she says. ‘My name is Daria Weal. What can I do for you today?’

  Mum interjects. If she didn’t, Yiayia would spend the whole appointment reminiscing about the Greek Islands. ‘My mother fainted on the beach yesterday,’ she says. ‘We’re on holidays here for a week, from Newcastle.’

  ‘Ah yes.’ Dr Weal ruffles through some papers. ‘The receptionist organised for your files to be sent to our practice.’

  Yiayia is staring at a painting of a bowl of lemons on the wall.

  ‘Mrs Petropoulos? Have you ever been tested for Type 2 diabetes?’ Dr Weal asks.

  Yiayia yawns.

  ‘The reason I ask is that you’ve previously visited your doctor with symptoms of blurred vision and headaches,’ Dr Weal says. ‘Those things, along with dizziness and fainting, can all be attributed to diabetes.’

  I squeeze Mum’s hand.

  ‘Nonsense,’ Yiayia says. ‘I am just getting old. I’m seventy-eight, you know.’

  Doctor Weal opens her desk drawer and takes out a flyer titled ‘Understanding Diabetes’. ‘You’re right, in that the risk of diabetes increases over the age of fifty-five,’ she says. ‘But there are other risk factors such as lack of exercise or poor diet.’

  Yiayia shoots me a ‘keep quiet’ look. She knows I’ve seen her eating a few too many doughnuts lately.

  ‘I’d like you to have a blood test,’ Dr Weal says. ‘We can do it here today.’

  Yiayia rolls up a sleeve of her cardigan. ‘Let’s get it over with, then,’ she says. ‘Then you can cure me.’

  ‘Well, that’s the unfortunate thing, Mrs Petropoulos,’ Dr Weal says. ‘While diabetes can be managed, there is no cure.’

  Yiayia’s face lights up. ‘Wonderful,’ she says. ‘Chloe, this is a science project for you. Find a cure for diabetes.’

  I can’t help but laugh.

  I wonder what the anti-princesses would say if I proposed a mission to find a cure for a chronic disease that kills millions of people across the world.

  Grace is armed with a can of spray paint.

  Kailani, Taylor, Ash and Tex have brought along a giant sheet of steel for Grace to attack. Bella, Emily and I are sitting on the grass eating ice-creams and watching them think up a surfers’ code of conduct.

  A little part of me still doesn’t trust the local kids. I want to make sure they don’t revert to jerk-mode with Grace – not that she needs rescuing.

  ‘So, I’m going to spray the rules on the sign,’ Grace says. ‘Then we’ll stick it up at the most popular entrance to the main beach – okay?’

  Everyone approves.

  ‘I think the first rule should be no tourists,’ Taylor says. ‘Locals only.’

  Grace must feel like she’s fighting a losing battle. ‘Thanks for the suggestion, Taylor. But isn’t the idea to help people get along in the water?’

  ‘Grace is right,’ Kailani says, spitting some chewing gum on the ground. ‘We should definitely put something about not dropping in.’

  ‘That’s the perfect rule, Kailani.’ Grace sprays Surfers’ Code of Conduct: at the top of the sign, followed by

  1. Don’t drop in. ‘What next?’

  Ash speaks up. ‘Sometimes people get in my way when they’re paddling out. It sucks, because I have to flick off my waves.’

  Grace nods enthusiastically. ‘I hate that too,’ she says. ‘You need to stay away from the impact zone when you’re heading out.’

  2. Paddle wide.

  Tex high-fives his friend. ‘I get angry when I can’t figure out what kooks are doing,’ he adds. ‘Like when they go right on a wave and I think they’re going to go left.’

  3. Communicate.

  ‘Very succinct, Grace,’ I say. ‘Good job.’

  Taylor doesn’t like me butting in. She throws a pebble in my direction.

  ‘Hey, that was uncalled for,’ Grace says. ‘But you just reminded me of what I wanted to put down for the next rule.’

  4. Don’t throw your board.

  Kailani claps her hands. ‘That’s the best one so far. I’ve crashed into so many runaway boards because people don’t hold on to them properly.’

  ‘I have one last suggestion,’ Grace says. ‘But I’m not sure how to word it.’

  Kailani picks up the gum she spat out earlier and throws it into a nearby bin.

  ‘That’s it, Kailani!’ Grace squeals. ‘I think we need to put something down about not littering…but broader than that.’

  Kailani takes the spray can from Grace and adds the final point: 5. Show respect. Then she tosses the empty can into the bin. ‘Respect the town, respect the beach, respect each other.’

  Grace leaps onto Kailani and gives her a huge hug. Kailani smiles awkwardly. I don’t think The Palms kids are big huggers.

  ‘Our surfers’ code of conduct is finished!’ Grace declares. ‘Let’s stick it up for everyone to see!’

  Tex, Ash, Kailani and Taylor each grab a corner of the sign and follow Grace up the beach.

  ‘You think we can leave them alone with her now?’ Bella asks.

  I think we can. I think they might even be friends.

  Mission Grommet: complete.

  We all take turns pushing Bella’s billycart up the hill to where drivers register for the derby.

  ‘Are you really sure you’ll be okay with no brakes, Bella?’ I ask. ‘This hill is very steep.’

  ‘The steeper the better,’ Bella says. ‘I’ll go faster.’

  There are at least thirty billycarts at the top of the hill: fibreglass ones that look like professional grand prix racers, a couple of converted skateboards, a bathtub on wheels, and something I could’ve sworn was an aeroplane if it wasn’t so small.

  ‘Wow, there are some creative designs here,’ Bella says. ‘Mine feels so ordinary.’

  Emily runs her hands over the frame of Bella’s billycart. ‘Don’t be like that, Bella,’ she says. ‘You did an amazing job building this thing in the time you had
.’

  A man carrying a clipboard strolls over in our direction.

  ‘Urgh, it’s Jim the mechanic,’ Bella whispers. ‘He must be one of the race officials.’

  Jim has to look twice to believe it’s us. ‘Hello there, girls,’ he says. ‘I see you got your dad to cobble something together for you.’

  I think I see a little steam escaping from Bella’s ears. ‘No one’s dad built anything,’ she says. ‘I made this billycart myself.’

  Jim crouches down and examines the cart, tugs the rope and spins the wheels. ‘Whoever made it doesn’t really matter,’ he says. ‘It passes the safety test.’

  Emily, Grace and I jump up and down.

  ‘Settle down there,’ Jim says. ‘I need the name of the cart so I can sign you up.’

  ‘It, um, it’s called, uh…’ Bella stutters.

  Jim starts to move to the next cart in line.

  ‘It’s called Joan!’ Bella shouts. ‘Joan of Arc.’

  Emily looks concerned as she counts the other drivers. ‘It won’t be safe if you’re all racing down that hill together, Bella.’

  Bella straps on her helmet. ‘We don’t all race together, silly – we race four at a time and a timekeeper records our speeds. They figure out the overall winner at the end.’

  ‘So when is your turn?’ Emily asks, relieved.

  Jim overhears. ‘She’s in the first run. You’ve got five minutes before you’re off.’

  ‘Oh no!’ Grace says. ‘We won’t make it down to the bottom of the hill in time.’

  ‘I guess we can watch you from the top, Bella,’ I say. ‘Let us help you to the start.’

  We push Joan of Arc to some makeshift gates. A woman wearing a badge that reads ‘Race Marshall’ asks who we are.

  ‘I’m Bella Singh,’ Bella says. ‘And this is my billycart, Joan of Arc.’

  The marshall guides Bella towards the second of four gates. There are drivers lined up in the other three spots. Two of the billycarts are similar to Bella’s, but the third looks like a rocket ship with its pointy nose and winged rear.