by Jude Watson
Shep taxied
forward. They picked up speed. Amy relaxed against the seat. Isabel had been foiled. She was probably furious."Nyah, nyah," Dan muttered.
As their speed increased, Isabel suddenly cut the wheel and bumped onto the runway."What the ..." Shep exclaimed.
She gunned the motor of the Hummer. Amy could clearly see the terrified faces of Natalie and Ian in the backseat. Natalie had her mouth wide open in a scream."I can't stop. I've got to take off!" Shep yelled. "Go!" Nellie screamed.
The plane lifted, clearing the Hummer by inches.The last thing Amy saw was Isabel's face. Completely calm. Natalie was still screaming. Isabel was willing to risk her children's lives to stop them.
As soon as they were at cruising altitude, Shep tore off his headphones. "What was that?" he shouted. "That crazy Hummer almost killed us all! Did you see who was driving?"
"Did you see, Amy?" Dan asked."The sun was in my eyes," Amy said. "Nellie?"
"That was just too scary," Nellie said."I'm going to radio the airport and get that idiot arrested," Shep said. He put his headphones back on and began to speak rapidly into the headset.
Dan and Amy exchanged a glance. There was no way anybody was going to arrest Isabel Kabra. And she was on their tail.
CHAPTER 15
They flew along the coastline, aquamarine water below and stretches of golden sand. Amy's head began to nod, and she fell asleep. No wonder, Dan thought. His sister had tangled with sharks and poison needles, all in one day.
That could wear a dude out.
After an hour, even a postcard view couldn't keep his attention. Dan got tired of looking for kangaroos out the window. He hadn't been this bored since Amy forced him to babysit her Barbies when he was five.
He started to wonder about the Land Down Under. What was it under, exactly? He almost woke Amy up to ask her but decided it wasn't such a great idea.Shep's voice came over a speaker.
"There are snacks in the cabinet under the sink.""Dude! You're speaking my language!" But Shep couldn't hear him. Dan got up and foraged.By the time Amy woke up, they were flying over red ground, vast and empty, and Dan had struck up a beautiful friendship with Australian snack food.
"How long has it been like this?" Amy asked, yawning.
Dan was chewing on a potato chip. "Forever. But check this out." He held up a bag of chips. "These are chicken flavored! Is that genius or what? Are you hungry? I've got Tim Tams, Cheezels, Toobs, and Burger Rings. Can you imagine making a snack that tastes like a burger? Australians are our friends.
And look, Violet Crumbles -- the best chocolate bar in the world!"
"Don't spoil your appetite, mate," Nellie called in her Aussie accent. She was now wearing the bush hat Dan had bought in the airport. "We might be stopping for a tick at a chew and spew."
"Chew and spew!" Dan laughed and sprayed potato chips. "Love it!"
"Try the chew part," Amy said. "Lose the spew."
Shep stretched and yawned."Want to take a break?" Nellie asked. "I can take over for awhile." At Shep's inquisitive look, she said, "I've been flying since I was a teenager."
"That wasn't so long ago. I'm not reassured."Nellie grinned.
"Trust me. I've got a pilot's license. Five hundred hours.
Instrument flying. Night flying."She and Shep started talking about wind shifts, thrusts, and passenger loads. Dan leaned over to Amy."Did you know Nellie could fly a plane?"Amy shook her head. "I guess it never came up."
"Lots of things don't come up with Nellie. Until they do."A flicker of doubt passed between them for a moment, but they shoved it aside.
Nellie took over the controls. Shep watched her for awhile, then stepped back into the cabin to talk to them. He leaned against the bulkhead and crossed his arms.
"Okay, something doesn't smell right," he said. "Did you know the person in that Hummer? Because it doesn't seem like a coincidence that it showed up like that."Dan put on a look of innocence. "No?"
"Is there something you want to tell me? About what you're really doing in Australia?"
"Okay," Dan said. "I guess it's time we told you the truth."Amy gave him a no way look."Back in Massachusetts, Amy and I broke into our school one night. No biggie, right? Except that our assistant principal, Mortimer C. Murchinson, is an alien.
At night he takes off his face and turns into this eleven-foot-tall thing with eight arms who plays for the Boston Celtics,"
Shep said with a sigh. "I get it." His gaze was searching as it rested on them. Then he turned and started back to the cockpit. "If you see any stealth bombers coming our way, just give a yell, okay?"
"You got it, Captain," Dan answered.
Nellie flew the plane for the next hour, then Shep took over for the approach to Coober Pedy."Where is it?" Dan asked, craning his neck.
All he could see for miles and miles was red dirt. The horizon was curved, as though he could see the edge of the earth."See those pyramids?"
Shep's voice came over the loudspeaker."They look like little hills of salt," Dan said to Amy."Those are the slag heaps from opal mining,"
Shep explained. "We're going to fly right over the opal fields. I reached my mate Jeff this morning. He'll pick us up."
The plane eased down on the runway and rolled to a stop.
The airfield was even smaller than the one outside Sydney. There were a few outbuildings and a couple of bush planes. They tumbled out and were hit by a wall of heat. Dan's throat felt as dry as the dusty hills.
Shep jumped down, looking as fresh as when he'd begun."Is it always this hot?" Dan asked Shep."Oh, it's cool today. Only a hundred or so. Let me deal with a bit of paperwork and then I'm guessing Jeff will show up."
Shep ambled into the office, emerging just as a dirt-caked four-wheel-drive truck roared down the road to the airfield. A tall, slim man wearing the usual khaki shorts jumped out.110"They let you land in that shonky orange crate?" he shouted in an Australian accent."Next time, I'll land it on your head,"
Shep answered. "It's big enough."They clapped each other on the shoulders.
Shep turned to them."Let me introduce you to my long-lost cousins," he said. "Amy, Dan, and their au pair, Nellie Gomez. This is Jeff Chandler, best tour guide in the Red Centre."
"Mates of Shep's are mates of mine," Jeff said. "What brings you to Coober Pedy? A little noodling?"
"We just had lunch," Amy said politely. She fanned away an enormous black fly. "But thank you."He laughed. "No, noodling's what we call searching for opals in the slag heaps. Lots of tourists love it. Odds aren't good you'll come up with a valuable stone, but there's always a chance, isn't there?"
"Actually, my rellies are here looking for some information," Shep said.
"About someone who might have lived around here in the thirties. He had a scarred face, and back in Sydney he was known as a criminal called Bob Troppo.
He didn't speak and he might have been crazy."
"Let's see. Scars on his face, criminal, keeps to himself, mad as a cut snake," Jeff said. "Sounds like half the population of this place."
He laughed at Amy's and Dan's crestfallen expressions. "No worries. I know just who to consult. Climb aboard."They piled in, and he swung out onto the dusty road and hit the gas hard. He pointed to the opal fields.
"If you go out there, you've got to keep your wits about you. Every year we lose a couple of tourists in the open mine shafts. They back up to snap a photo, and whoosh, down they go, and come a cropper. Got to tell you, we find it very annoying."
"I bet it annoys the tourists more," Dan said."No drama, they're already dead." Jeff drove through the center of town, which wasn't very big. It looked like a Wild West town from a movie. The surrounding area was barren as the moon.
The few people on the street wore broad-brimmed hats, and many of the men had long hair and mustaches.
From every corner signs shouted OPALS and UNDERGROUND MOTEL. There was even a sign for an underground church.
"Where is everybody?" N
ellie asked."In the mines or in their homes about now," Jeff said. "Which means underground.
Most of us live in dugouts here. They keep us cool during the day and warm at night.""Wow," Dan said. "This is really the Land Down Under."
"You've got it, mate! Population comes and goes-- it's about two thousand right now.
And we've got about forty-five different nationalities, everybody looking to strike it rich. We all get along pretty well, until somebody decides to blow something up. Maybe we should stop selling dynamite in the supermarket, eh?"
"He's kidding, right?" Nellie asked Shep.
"Afraid not."Jeff had slowed on the main drag but picked up speed on the outskirts of town. He roared along the dirt road with all the windows open.
At least they'd left the flies behind."Here we are!" he called suddenly.
They were in a desolate area. Hills surrounded them, and they could see the now-familiar pyramid shapes of opal mining.
"Which is ... where?" Nellie asked."Kangaroo Ken's place," Jeff said, grinning. "Don't believe a word he says, but he does know everything about Coober Pedy."With that dubious endorsement, he jumped out of the car and headed toward one of the hills. Now they could see a multicolored door set into the hillside.
As they drew closer, they saw that the door was decorated with countless flattened beer cans nailed to its surface.
"Interesting decor," Nellie said."You ain't seen nothing yet," Shep said."I can get you a mate's rate if you care to spend the night. Ken rents out rooms, too."
Jeff opened the door without knocking and shoved his head inside. "Cooo-eee!" he shouted. "You home? It's Jeff, mate! Got some folks who want to meet you!"
"No need to shout, just come on in before you let in all the blowies, you blooming twit!" a voice roared back.
Jeff winked at them. "Don't let him bother you.
He does the Aussie act for the tourists. He's a bit deaf, so speak up."They crowded inside and Nellie quickly shut the door. They were in a small hallway. Faint light came from the two small windows near the door.
There were hundreds of things tacked to the wall -- license plates, bumper stickers in every language, T-shirts, candy wrappers, postcards. The items were so numerous that they were nailed over each other and made a kind of crazy wallpaper. Where there was bare wall, people had scrawled signatures and messages.
"The house was built straight back into the hill, so we're underground right now," Jeff explained as they passed through a kitchen and dining area.
The rough walls curved around them. It was like being in a cave, except there was a stove, a refrigerator, a dining table, and a rug on the floor.They followed Jeff farther into the house, where he led them to a living room lit with lamps.
They'd expected to find themselves in some kind of a bunker, but instead they were in a regular room, with a brown couch, a coffee table, a shelf of books, and a TV. It took you a minute to realize the weird part -- there were no windows.
But after the blasting heat outside, the inside felt cool and comfortable.
An old man sat on the couch, reading a newspaper. He was tanned to the color of a walnut and completely bald. He, too, wore khaki shorts and a T-shirt that read DON'T ASK.
He looked over his half glasses at them.
"G'day, cobbers. I can see you bunch of galans made it to my shack okay, so pull up a pew and I'll fire up the barbie.""Stuff the lingo, Kenny," Jeff said. "They're here for a bit of history of Coober Pedy, not your Aussie act."
"You say this is your posse?" the man asked with a chortle.
"Knew you'd turn out to be no good." He slapped his knee."Aussie act," Jeff shouted. "Oh, never mind. These folks need some information." He raised his voice.
"Did you ever hear of a bloke called Bob Troppo?"
"We think he might have lived here in the 1930s," Amy said in a loud voice.
"He could have been a miner, but we're not sure about that. We're not sure of his name, but it could have been Bob. His face was scarred on one side and he didn't speak."
"Go on."
"We think he knew someone here ... someone who sold a ring to Amelia Earhart."
"Blimey," Ken said. "I thought that was just old Ron taking the mick."
"You've heard the story?"
"My own dad told it! Right before the war, he took a trip up to Darwin with some loose opals and some jewelry.
He told me the story about how Earhart bought a ring off him. Typical of my dad-- he'd tell you some whopping tall tale, and you couldn't prove it didn't happen."
"Well, it did," Dan said. "We know that for sure."
"Too bad he's not around to rub it in." The old man laughed."What about the scarred man?" Amy asked."Sounds like Fossie," Ken said. "My dad called him that because he got lucky fossicking."
Amy and Dan looked blank."Same as noodling," Jeff explained.
"Searching for opals on the heaps of sand that get dug out for a mine. It takes some patience, let me tell you."
"Fossie made more money fossicking than mining. He was a strange one. Didn't talk, just stared right past you. A few kangaroos loose in the top paddock, for certain."
"Has anyone else besides us ever asked about him?" Dan asked. He was hoping for news of their parents. "Eh?"Dan repeated the question, louder this time.
"Not a one," Ken said. "Not many left in Coober Pedy who remember him, and we keep things to ourselves.
Besides, Fossie didn't socialize at the pub. He died before Coober Pedy really took off."Nellie's face changed, and Amy knew she was trying not to smile at the notion that dusty Coober Pedy had taken off. She looked as if she'd just inhaled pepper and was trying not to sneeze."Did you ever meet him?" Dan asked."Once.
He didn't welcome visitors, I'll tell you that. But when he was dying, he called my dad over, and I went with him. I was just a lad then. He left my dad his mine. Nothing much to it, we never did get a stone out of it. After that, he went on a walkabout and never came back. Died out there, alone, just as he wanted."
"Do you know where he lived?"
"Too right I do! Lived right in the mine. Dug a room next to it. Many did in those days. He was the first to figure out a ventilation system, get the whole system working right."Amy and Dan exchanged a glance. Ekat."Can we see it?"
"Sure, it's just down the hall."
"Wait a second," Amy said. "Are you telling us that Bob -- I mean, Fossie -- lived here?"
"Well, not here here," Ken said, gesturing around the room. "My dad dug out more of the hill and made the house.
Fossie just carved out a tunnel and mined straight back into the hill. He dug out a room for himself."
"Is the room still here?"
Amy asked.
He nodded. "Sure. We just slapped up a wall to block the mine.
But Fossie's room is still there.
Shazzer made it up as one of the guest rooms. She was my third wife."
"Your fourth, I think," Jeff said. "And my mum, if you'll recall. You were my stepdad for about two years."
"That's right!" Ken laughed. "How are you, sonny? Sure, have a look," he said to
Amy and Dan.
"It's been fifty years at least, so I don't think you'll find a thing. But you're welcome to try."
CHAPTER 16
A short while later, Amy sat back on her heels. "Ken's right. There's nothing here. It was all too long ago."
They'd searched the simply furnished room thoroughly, including the small closet. Nothing remained from the home that Bob Troppo had made there.
"I hate dead ends," Dan muttered. "I thought for sure we'd lucked out."They got up wearily and went back out into the crazily patterned hallway.
Amy turned back for a last look and stopped dead. She pointed to the wall on top of the doorway.
"Dan, look!"Amid old postcards from all over the world, crazy drawings, and loopy scrawled messages there was a silly drawing.HA!
[drawing of a heart-shaped head with two eyes, a smiling hair and frizzy hair]
Be MINE
"Mom drew this," Amy said breathlessly, pointing to the heart.
"I know it. It's drawn with a purple pen! And look, the eyes are red and the smile is blue. She used to make us heart-shaped waffles with strawberries for eyes and a blueberry smile."
"Everybody's mom does that," Dan said."But do they do zucchini curls for hair? Look! Green!"
Dan gave her a pained look."I liked to dip the zucchini in syrup."
"HA," Dan said."Okay, I know it's gross, but-- ""No, HA. It could stand for Hope and Arthur. They were here!" Dan shivered with a sudden chill, as though the ghosts of their parents were right there underground with them.
"Do you think they knew we'd come here?" Amy whispered.
Dan shook his head. "They'd never think we'd be going on the clue hunt. Did Grace know about the waffle zucchini thing?"Amy nodded. "Sure. She made them for me, too."
"It must be a message for Grace, then," Dan said. "They were telling her where to go."
"Where?"
Dan pointed to the last word. "The old mine."* * *
It was late afternoon, but it was still brutally hot. The heat shimmered and bounced. Dan had to squint to see the map that Ken had made for them.
They stood on the hill behind Ken's house. Or, Dan corrected in his mind, on top of Ken's house."It's an old minefield back there, see," Ken had said, "so watch out for mine shafts -- they're not all marked.
The old ventilation shaft for Fossie's room is still there-- you'll see it near the circle of orange flags.
Take the first mine shaft past the flags and head down. Then head back the way you came. Easy as pie, not that pie is easy to make, heh!"
They left their bags and Saladin with Ken, who had rooms to rent for the night. Jeff had to get back to work, meeting a busload of tourists, but Shep, Nellie, Amy, and Dan carefully made their way through the field.
They saw the orange warning flags, brilliant against the blue sky.
"There's the ventilation shaft right there," Shep said, pointing. "So we take the next mine shaft over.""This isn't exactly what I had in mind when I agreed to bring you here,"
Shep added, avoiding a mine shaft.