by R. A. Spratt
‘He’s probably in the garden,’ said Joe.
‘Yeah, fixing all the damage Loretta did with her horse,’ said April.
‘No, he’s probably in the house but not answering the phone because he’s paranoid it’s bugged,’ said Fin, not wanting to think badly of Loretta or her horse.
Mr Lang’s presence was probably the only thing stopping Constable Pike from throttling the children. He’d had his worst morning on duty since he’d been transferred to Currawong fourteen years ago, and that included the morning when his squad car had been swept into the creek by floodwaters and he’d ended up floating in Wakagala Dam.
‘Why did you do it?’ demanded Constable Pike, glaring at April and Fin. ‘What sort of sick conspiracy have you cooked up?’
‘It’s just a cockroach,’ said April.
‘Just a cockroach!’ bellowed Constable Pike incredulously. ‘That could have been a championship winner. But we’ll never know now, thanks to you.’
‘Constable,’ chided Mr Lang.
‘Senior Constable,’ Constable Pike corrected him.
‘Yes, well, I taught you in fifth grade so I’m going to call you what I called you then,’ said Mr Lang. ‘Bob, you need to tone it down. You can’t yell at the children yet. It hasn’t been proven.’
‘Sorry, sir,’ said Constable Pike. ‘I’m just so upset.’
‘I know,’ said Mr Lang. ‘We all are.’
‘This is like an episode of the Twilight Zone,’ said Fin. ‘We’ve entered a parallel universe where cockroaches are really important.’
‘And dental hygiene isn’t,’ said April, looking at the constable’s teeth.
‘It wasn’t us who killed the cockroach,’ said Fin, speaking slowly and calmly to Constable Pike. ‘There was no time before we spoke to Kieran and Animesh.’
‘There must have been time,’ said Constable Pike. ‘The cockroach didn’t squash itself.’
‘I’d squash myself if I had to spend time with Animesh and Kieran,’ said April.
‘But perhaps it had already been squashed then,’ said Fin, ignoring April. ‘We just saw the boys shoving leaves in the box. It could have been squashed before we got to the cafe. Perhaps they squashed it themselves because they knew it wasn’t going to win.’
‘Ooh, I like that theory,’ said April. ‘Perhaps one of them did it accidentally, then didn’t have the courage to tell the other. I bet it’s Kieran. He looks shifty. His eyes are too small for his head.’
‘Kieran is my nephew,’ said Senior Constable Pike, glowering.
April looked at the police officer. ‘Oh yes, I can see the family resemblance now,’ said April. ‘Your eyes are tiny too.’
‘April!’ chided Fin. ‘Please don’t make the nice policeman even angrier.’
‘What?’ protested April. ‘I’m only stating a physical fact.’
‘Just because it’s true,’ said Fin, ‘doesn’t make it polite.’
‘If I worried about being polite, I’d never say anything,’ said April.
‘I think we’d all prefer that,’ said Fin.
‘If you confess now,’ said Mr Lang, ‘and give a detailed account of what you did and how you did it, I’m sure Constable Pike will take that into account and be lenient with you.’
‘What?’ said Constable Pike. ‘I will not!’
‘They’re not going to confess if you threaten to lock them up and throw away the key,’ said Mr Lang.
‘I can’t do that anyway,’ grumbled Constable Pike. ‘The magistrate over in Bilgong never takes cockroach-related crime seriously.’
‘Apparently the Viswanathan girl’s cockroach has been killed too,’ said Mr Lang.
‘No way!’ said Constable Pike. ‘That makes six this week.’
‘Six what?’ asked Joe.
‘He’s not talking about days, is he?’ asked April. ‘He does realise there are seven days in a week.’
‘The sixth cockroach that’s been nobbled,’ said Constable Pike. ‘Cindy Wu’s roach was found dead two days ago, old man McGregor’s roach fell into a paper shredder and Wilhelmina Dibbet’s whole stable of roaches was wiped out when someone put a glue trap in their enclosure.’
‘That’s half the town’s top roaches,’ said Mr Lang, shaking his head at the magnitude of the crime spree.
‘I know,’ said Constable Pike gravely.
‘Can’t people just catch some more?’ asked April.
Constable Pike bristled. ‘These people are grieving for their loved ones. How dare you suggest something so insensitive?’
‘Can we go now?’ asked Fin. ‘We didn’t do anything.’
Constable Pike scoffed. ‘Huh, I don’t believe that for a second.’
‘You’ve got no evidence,’ said April. ‘You can’t arrest us.’
‘Apart from anything else, killing cockroaches isn’t a crime,’ said Fin.
‘Actually, it is in Currawong,’ said Mr Lang. ‘Injuring another person’s cockroach is punishable with a $2000 fine.’
‘We should get their parents down here,’ said Constable Pike. ‘If we can’t throw the book at the kids, perhaps they’ll punish them appropriately.’
‘Our mother is mi–’ began April.
‘Overseas on a w-w-work trip,’ Joe interrupted.
‘Get their dad in then,’ said Constable Pike.
‘We can’t,’ said Mr Lang with a sigh. ‘Mr Peski has a note from his doctor excusing him from all parent meetings.’
‘Can a parent even do that?’ asked Constable Pike.
‘Apparently,’ said Mr Lang.
‘Well, if I see either of you kids acting suspiciously, I’ll arrest you faster than you can say “habeas corpus”,’ said Constable Pike menacingly.
‘Can we report you for threatening innocent children?’ asked April.
‘I’m a cop in a small town,’ said Constable Pike. ‘It’s my job to threaten and intimidate children.’
Dad was not in the garden. And he was not hiding from imaginary assassins. When Constable Pike had tried calling him, Dad did not answer the phone because he was busy. The electronic bug detector he had ordered on the internet had arrived in the post, and he was putting it to use. Dad was on his hands and knees under the desk in his office running the detector along the wall. It lit up like a department store on Christmas Eve. There was definitely an electromagnetic signal coming from the spot that corresponded with the drill hole on the outside of the house. There was only one way to figure out what it was. Dad picked up the chainsaw he had also ordered on the internet and pulled the starter cord. The chainsaw screamed to life. Brrap-rraap-rappp-RRAAAP! Dad stepped forward and started to hack a hole in the dry wall.
Thirty seconds later, he was holding a tiny electronic device in his hand. It was the size of a medicine capsule, but the scanner clearly showed it was emitting a CDMA signal. The type the military use to send information.
Dad dabbed his forehead with his handkerchief. He didn’t know what to do. Someone was listening to him, here in his own home. He’d been found.
Dad got to his feet and set the scanner on his bookcase. He should call Professor Maynard, but he had no contact details for her. Just then, the scanner’s LED display lit up again. Dad picked the scanner up and ran it along the bookshelf. All the bars flashed. There was an electromagnetic device there as well. Dad tried the window frame. The scanner lit up again. Then the door. Another device. He kept searching, methodically making his way through the house.
By the time he had finished with the scanner and the chainsaw there was a pile of 136 tiny electronic emitters sitting in a bowl on his kitchen table. They were all different sizes and shapes. Some were tiny capsule devices, others were larger boxes with pinhole cameras. Dad sat on a stool, trembling. He didn’t know what to do. He was overwhelmed with a feeling of terrible dread. He had to do something. But what? And how could he do something when he couldn’t stop shaking. Eventually Dad dug deep and found the courage to stand up. He picked up the
bowl full of electronic bugs and tipped them into the blender. After three minutes on the pulse setting there were no more electronic signals being emitted.
All three Peski kids were dejected as they trudged up their driveway that afternoon. The second day of school had gone even worse than the first. Word had soon spread about the debacle at the Good Times Cafe. No one had spoken to April or Fin all day. Joe, on the other hand, had the opposite problem. Now that he had the reputation of a lawn bowls master, girls had been following him around, staring at him with moony eyes and giggling.
‘What did you do?’ April asked Joe.
‘Huh?’ said Joe.
‘At lunchtime I was cornered by a group of year 10 girls demanding to know where you were,’ explained April.
‘Did you tell one of them they were fat?’ asked Fin. ‘Girls hate that.’
‘Everyone hates that,’ said April.
‘Sumo wrestlers don’t,’ said Fin.
‘Okay, everyone except sumo wrestlers,’ said April. ‘And I haven’t noticed any female sumo wrestlers enrolled at Currawong High School.’
‘Maybe they don’t go out much because they’re sensitive to the sun,’ said Fin.
‘So you’re saying there’s a pasty-pale female sumo wrestler hidden somewhere in the school and Joe has gone out of his way to insult her?’ asked April.
‘Well, we all know Joe isn’t very good at making conversation,’ said Fin.
‘Shut up,’ said Joe.
‘Point proven,’ said Fin.
Joe shoved Fin. He didn’t push him hard, but Fin was in the middle of taking a step so it was enough to make him overbalance into a grevillea bush.
‘Hey!’ said Fin.
‘He told you to shut up,’ smirked April.
Fin scrambled after them.
‘Thank goodness you’re here!’ cried Dad, bursting out of the front door. He looked frazzled. His hair was uncombed, which was actually pretty standard for Dad. But his jumper was inside out and he was wearing mismatched shoes, so he looked even more stressed than usual. Pumpkin barked excitedly and rushed forward. He loved biting Dad.
‘What’s the problem?’ asked April. ‘Have you been attacked by a pasty female sumo wrestler too?’
‘The Japanese are after us as well?!’ exclaimed Dad. ‘All the more reason to make haste. Quick children, grab your bags. We’re going!’ Dad ducked back into the house and returned a second later with four suitcases. He threw one each to the children.
‘Going where?’ asked Joe.
‘I’m not going to tell you,’ said Dad, as he tried to wrestle Pumpkin away from his trouser cuff. ‘If you don’t know they can’t torture it out of you. Come on.’
Dad picked up his own bag and started hurrying round the side of the house. The children looked at each other.
‘What’s got into him?’ asked Fin.
‘Who knows,’ said April. ‘Too much exposure to cockroach spray probably.’
‘Better follow him,’ said Joe, walking off in the direction Dad had disappeared.
As they turned round the side of the house, they could see Dad at the far end of the garden making his way towards the big garden shed.
‘He’s not going to make us do gardening, is he?’ asked Fin. ‘I didn’t sign up for that.’
As they drew nearer they could hear Dad rattling about on the other side of the shed’s big double doors.
‘What’s he doing?’ asked April.
Just then the bolt lock slid open and both doors swung out, revealing a state-of-the-art helicopter.
‘Wow!’ said Joe
‘Hop in,’ said Dad.
‘Wait a second,’ said April. ‘Do you even know how to fly this?’
‘Of course,’ said Dad. ‘I am a graduate from a top Samoan online flying academy.’
‘Online?’ said Fin. ‘But have you flown an actual helicopter before?’
‘I’ve flown hundreds of hours on the simulator,’ said Dad. ‘I know what I’m doing.’ He kicked out the chocks from in front of the wheels.
‘Where d-d-did you g-get it?’ asked Joe. He didn’t know much about helicopters but he imagined they were very expensive.
‘I built it,’ said Dad. ‘You can get kits online. It’s just an internal combustion engine attached to a rotor and an anti-torque rotor. It wasn’t hard.’
‘But where are we going?’ asked April.
Dad looked about nervously. ‘I can’t tell you,’ he said. ‘The walls have ears.’
‘This is ridiculous,’ said April, turning on her heel and heading back towards the house. ‘I’m going to get a snack.’
‘Come back!’ cried Dad. ‘Our lives are in danger.’
‘Too right,’ April called over her shoulder. ‘We’re doomed if we get in that death-trap with you.’
‘Sorry, Dad,’ said Fin, slapping his father on the shoulder. ‘I’m sure when I get to know you better I’ll love you like a … well, like a father. But even then, I’m not getting in that thing with you.’
Fin followed April back towards the house. Leaving only Joe with Dad.
‘But we’re in terrible danger here,’ said Dad, pleading with Joe. He leaned forward and whispered. ‘I found bugs in the house.’
Joe didn’t know how to respond.
‘Hundreds of them,’ whispered Dad, checking over his shoulder in case one of the bushes was listening in.
‘But I thought you had the h-h-house sprayed for that?’ said Joe.
Now Dad was confused. ‘No, the other type of bugs,’ he said, realising what Joe meant. ‘The listening ones.’
‘Right,’ said Joe, thinking his Dad was barmy but not liking to say so to his face. ‘I’m sure you’re right, but this h-h-helicopter thing is too c-c-crazy. I think we’d rather take our chances with the bugs, the crawly ones and the listening ones. Sorry.’
Joe started walking back to the house too.
Dad hesitated. Every fibre of his body was screaming at him to jump in the helicopter and get out of there. But deep down in his soul, another voice was talking to him too. A voice telling him that he must not abandon his kids.
Dad started to shake. He was so frightened. But he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t leave his children. True, he’d only just met them. And he didn’t particularly like them yet. But they looked like their mother, and he had loved their mother dearly. So now he felt something he had never felt before. The instinct to protect. It was the same way he felt when he saw newly hatched ducklings. He felt teary and emotional.
Dad slumped. He was going to have to be brave. He hated being brave. He swung the doors shut and re-bolted the shed, then headed back across the garden. Perhaps one of the children would make him a snack too.
Joe, Fin and April paused before they entered the school gates. Pumpkin stopped to chew on the sign that said ‘No dogs on school premises’.
‘Well, today can’t be as bad as yesterday,’ said Fin philosophically.
‘Of course it can, nitwit,’ said April. ‘Yesterday was bad, but none of us suffered irreparable brain injuries or had our legs eaten off by crocodiles.’
‘I’d rather suffer a brain injury than have to face D-Daisy again,’ said Joe.
‘Is she ugly?’ asked Fin.
‘Worse,’ said Joe. ‘Incredibly good-looking. She’s absolutely t-terrifying.’
‘Do you want me to wrestle her for you?’ asked April.
Joe did consider this for a second. ‘B-Better not,’ he decided. ‘She might like it.’ Joe pushed opened the gate and headed off towards the senior playground.
Fin and April reluctantly made their way to the junior area. As they crossed the playground there were no words of abuse or sneering comments. They were met with eerie silence. All conversation stopped as they approached. People glared and moved away as if they were diseased. It was only fifty metres to the verandah where they had to drop their bags, but the walk seemed to take forever.
‘What are you looking at?’ April snapped at
a small girl who hadn’t moved away quick enough. The girl didn’t respond, except to scurry off.
‘It only took two days to become the most unpopular kids in school,’ said Fin.
‘Pfft,’ said April. ‘They’ll come round. I’ve got a cute and adorable puppy.’
At that moment, Pumpkin was going to the toilet on someone’s backpack. Fin loathed his sister in so many ways, but he had to admire her blind stubbornness and determination.
‘Anyway, who wants to be friends with these weirdos?’ said April.
Fin watched the rest of the kids in the playground. ‘I think by any objective measure, we are the weirdos in this scenario.’
‘You are,’ agreed April. ‘But I’m the coolest kid in this school. They’re just too dumb to know it.’
‘Okay,’ said Fin. Sometimes it was easier not to argue, especially if you didn’t want a black eye before first period.
The bell rang. Matilda ran over and swept up her bag. It had been near Fin’s feet. ‘You stay away from my roach,’ said Matilda, clutching her bag to her chest.
‘I didn’t do anything,’ argued Fin.
‘Yeah right,’ said Matilda. ‘Everyone’s knows what happened at the cafe.’
‘Really? We don’t know and we were there,’ said April.
‘Just stay away,’ said Matilda, slinging her backpack up onto her shoulder. ‘Hey, why is my bag wet?’
‘Good dog, Pumpkin,’ said April. He sat proudly at her feet while she gave him a pat. ‘Maybe I will kill some cockroaches today,’ muttered April. ‘Just to show these country kids a thing or two.’
Fin grabbed April by the forearm. ‘Don’t, please don’t. We have to live here. There are no other schools we can get transferred to.’
‘Come in,’ said Miss Hickson, their art teacher. April relaxed. She liked art. Fin suspected there was some therapeutic value for her. Like basket weaving, it pacified her.
‘We’re going to be doing abstract expressionism today,’ said Miss Hickson happily.