Puffin Books
Aussie CHOMPS
The really nearly
deadly canoe ride
In their latest do-it-yourself adventure, Pete ‘Pod’ Podlewski and Morris ‘Shiny-Boy’ Diamond attempt to canoe all the way from Sockby to the sea.
But they didn’t count on revolting rubbish traps, killer rapids, freaky whirlpools, and a container ship ten storeys high …
Grab another Chomp!
The Mal Rider
Pat Flynn
Stinky Ferret and the JJs
Candice Lemon-Scott
The Really Really Epic Mini-bike Ride
David Metzenthen
The Really Really High Diving Tower
David Metzenthen
Josie & the Michael Street Kids
Penni Russon
There’s Money in Toilets
Robert Greenberg
Trolley Boys
James Moloney
Boots and All
Sherryl Clark
68 Teeth
James Moloney
Aussie CHOMPS
The really nearly
deadly canoe ride
David Metzenthen
Puffin Books
For Liam and Ella
PUFFIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (Australia)
250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada)
90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, ON M4P 2Y3, Canada
(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Ireland
25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland
(a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd
11, Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ)
67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand
(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd
24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published by Penguin Group (Australia), 2009
Text copyright © David Metzenthen, 2009
Illustrations copyright © Jiri Tibor Novak, 2009
The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
puffin.com.au
ISBN: 978-1-74-228634-1
Chapter 1
It’s a sunny Saturday morning, and Shiny-Boy and I are up a tree in my backyard checking out the neighbourhood.
‘Now stupidly enough, Pod,’ Shiny says, making a telescope with one fist, ‘I spy with my little eye something beginning with … K.’
I hate this game. I look down into the various backyards, all of them flat, none of them exciting, most of them filled with things that don’t work anymore.
‘Kennel?’ I try. ‘How about Kathmandu?’ Truly, I have no idea what Shiny’s on about. Over a far-off fence I see Mrs Garbutt reaching over to take something off the clothes line next door. ‘Kleptomaniac?’
‘Nope,’ says Shine. ‘Well, yeah, she is, but that’s not what I meant. Give up?’
‘It looks like I might have to.’
‘Canoe,’ says Shine.
Oh, boy. Don’t even go there, Pod, I tell myself. Do not.
‘Where, Shine?’
‘Right there.’ Morris ‘Shiny-Boy’ Diamond points to the yard next door where old Mr Beanland is dragging a wooden canoe out of his garage.
‘Nice boat, Mr B!’ Shiny shouts, hanging out of the tree. ‘Don’t go gettin’ stuck up any creeks without a paddle! Because it’ll be a creek where you don’t want to be!’
Mr Beanland waves. As usual, he is wearing his ancient baggy trousers held up with a piece of cord, and holey grey tennis shoes. This is his Totem Tennis outfit, a game which he used to play every day for thirty minutes for fitness, sometimes blindfolded.
‘Howdy, boys.’ Mr Beanland shades his eyes against the sun. ‘I’m just takin’ a last look at my good old canoe, the mighty Wolverine, before I head on back over to Canada. I can’t take her with me. So here she stays, along with my Totem Tennis pole, I’m afraid. Boy, did I ever give that thing a few whacks.’
‘I didn’t know he was Canadian,’ Shiny mutters. ‘My mum reckoned he was from Canberra. Well, that truly is amazing, Pod.’
My name’s Pete Podlewski. Nearly everybody calls me Pod.
‘Does he sound like he’s from Canberra?’ I say.
‘He came out here to Sockby after the war to set up a rubber band factory. He was a bomber pilot with the Canadian Air Force.’
‘Well, that’s freakin’ me out even more.’ Shine folds his arms, despite being five metres up a tree. ‘I didn’t even know the Canadians had a war against us. I always thought they liked Australians.’
What Shiny does and doesn’t know, and pretends not to know, would fill a library.
‘Are you going to stay in Canada, Mr Beanland?’ I ask, because he used to visit his cousins in Moosejaw every Christmas, and sometimes pop over to Stinkbeetle, Alaska, for his sister’s birthday.
Mr Beanland comes over to the fence, wearing a cap with a red maple leaf on it, which should’ve told Shiny something.
‘I am.’ He nods slowly, perhaps a little sadly. ‘So if you fellers want a genuine handmade Canadian canoe, the Wolverine is all yours. Just as long as you swear to me three times over that you’ll steer clear of all sorts of trouble.’
‘We’d love to have it, Mr B.’ Shiny starts to climb down. ‘And there’ll be no trouble at all. And as for swearing, if that’s what you want, me and Pod’ll do it all day every day. Even if my mum might not like it.’ Shine looks at Mr Beanland for a long moment. ‘That leaf cap of yours, Mr B, did you get it from The Garden Warehouse or what?’
Chapter 2
Shiny and I carry the Wolverine back to the Diamonds’ shed. There is plenty of space in there now because Shiny’s grandpa, Grandpa Jack, sold his 1965 Holden.
‘Just think, Poddy,’ Shiny says, studying the Wolverine, ‘if it was calm, we could paddle to New Zealand. They’ve got extinct birds and everything.’
‘It might be a bit far,’ I say. ‘But I wouldn’t mind going down the Sockby Creek. Maybe all the way to the sea. Like the Canadian explorers did. You know, in Canada, that is. Not Sockby. I saw it on TV. It was full-on.’
‘Of course it was full-on, Poddy.’ Shiny waves a wooden paddle around. ‘Because the great thing about explorers is that they go wherever they like, and do whatever they want, no matter how stupid it is. They don’t listen to anybody. Which probably explains why heaps of ’em fell off the edge of the earth. Which wouldn’t happen today, as the earth is round now.’
There’s no point going too far down this track with Shiny, so I don’t.
‘The Sockby Creek meets up with the Yarra River,’ I say. ‘Which cuts right through the middle of the city and out into the bay. We could paddle all the way, Shin
e.’
‘Yep!’ Shine’s face is pink with enthusiasm. ‘We’ll call it Operation Beanland. A voyage from boring, flat, dull Sockby to the sparkling, shiny sea! For the glory of Australia and Canada and whoever else might be interested. But mainly it’ll get us away from home.’
I agree with that; the more time I spend away from my place, the less weeding I have to do – as my parents are total gardening maniacs.
We rub down the dusty canoe until it glows from bow to stern, although we’re not quite sure which is which.
‘Grandpa Jack said to sand it back to bare timber,’ says Shiny. ‘Then we’ll paint our totem animal on it, Poddy, and re-varnish it. The Canadian Indians were right into the totem thing. You know, like the Sioux and the Iriquois.’
‘How d’you know, Shine?’ I ask. ‘We never did any of that at school.’
‘I read it on the back of a Sugar Bix box.’ Shine taps his temple. ‘That’s why it’s called brain food, Pod. Because every morning, as you enjoy your healthy daily Sugar Bix Fix, you learn somethin’.
Did you know emus can’t fly? And that elephants can do paintings – if someone supplies the brushes and paper, otherwise they struggle a bit.’
We don’t eat supermarket cereal. My mum makes her own muesli. She calls it Mrs Podlewski’s Secret Muesli Mix, and it tastes like dirt.
‘So what’s our totem animal, Shine?’ I ask. ‘I mean, we’ve only got a fish at our place, and your parrot swears like a trooper.’ I hesitate over my next suggestion. ‘I guess we could put your dog on it. Chihuahuas are pretty interesting. In a way.’ Apparently they are, according to Shine.
‘Well,’ Shiny says, ‘I would like to go with Mitzi, the truly amazing Chihuahua. But seeing Mr B’s already called the canoe the Wolverine, it’d be bad luck to change it.’ Shine wipes his nose on the collar of his shirt. ‘Besides, wolverines are, like, the baddest, meanest, smackdown champions of the natural world. They’re fightin’ freaks. And Chihuahuas aren’t.’
‘Well, as long as Wolverines can swim,’ I say. ‘I agree.’
Shiny looks at me strangely. ‘Of course they can swim, Pod. All animals can. Except for the Spotted Somalian Desert Trotting Pig. And that’s probably because no one’s ever really bothered to check.’
Strangely enough.
Grandpa Jack always helps us with our projects. He lets us use his tools and shed, and he’ll show us how to do things if we don’t know. He’ll even buy stuff for us if we’re broke. Like sandpaper and varnish from the Sockby Hotel and Hardware Store.
‘Boys should be boys and run wild,’ is one of Grandpa Jack’s favourite sayings.
When Shiny asks him what girls should be, he says, ‘A good-looking cook whose old man owns a brewery.’
But Grandpa Jack doesn’t mean this, because Grandma Rose, who died, was a terrible cook, her dad didn’t own a brewery, and when she ran wild everyone got out of her way, including Grandpa Jack, and he’s an ex-commando.
Shiny pokes one of the Wolverine’s seats, which Mr Beanland said were woven from buffalo hide and need replacing.
‘Grandpa Jack says us Diamonds have always liked exploring.’ Shiny points to a photo on the shed wall of a man wearing two pairs of glasses and a hat made of leaves. ‘That old guy is our great, great, grand-Uncle – Uncle ‘Clever’ Trevor Diamond. He helped organise the last Burke and Wills expedition, Pod. And look what they achieved.’
‘They died, Shine,’ I say. ‘Stranded out in the desert.’
Shiny looks surprised. ‘Did they? Well, that wouldn’t have had anything to do with good old Uncle Trevor, as he was only in charge of packing the billiard table and the extension ladders. Anyway, Pod, think of Captain Cook. He discovered Australia, and then went to Hawaii for a holiday. So exploring is, like, a really fun thing.’ I thought Hawaii was where Captain Cook was speared to death?
‘But –’
Shiny holds up a hand. He’s drawn a picture of a wolverine on his palm.
‘No buts about it, Pod. The wolverine spirit lives on. And we will follow it from the mountains to the sea, like you said, via the Sockby Creek and the sparkling Yarra River.’
Sockby’s actually as flat as a pancake, and the Yarra isn’t the sparkliest river in the world, but I’m sure we can still find ourselves some sort of action or trouble. We usually do.
‘You and me, Shine,’ I say, and we tap fists. ‘From Sockby to the sea.’
Shiny nods, dreadlocks swinging.
‘You betcha, Podster. Uncle Trev’d be proud. He lived for adventure. He just laughed in the face of danger. His motto was, “Be as brave as a lion. And always take a raincoat.” ’
‘That’s inspirational, Shine,’ I say.
‘Really?’ Shine’s eyebrows dip down. ‘I thought it was rubbish. Umbrellas make much more sense.’
It’s probably a good thing no one gets to hear most of our conversations. In fact, I’m sure it is.
Chapter 3
With Grandpa Jack’s help, Shine and I sand the canoe, and re-string the seats with some soft old rope. Then we make a tracing of a wolverine that will go on both sides of the bow.
‘The great thing about wolverines,’ Shine says, using a permanent marker to outline it, ‘is that they’re really snarly all the time. They’ve even been known to fight bears. So, as you can see, Pod, they don’t mind a challenge. Like you trying to get Virginia to like you. Same thing. Sort of.’
Virginia is a girl from another suburb who we met at the Sockby Pool. She’s very nice and I ring her up and email her all the time. Well, sometimes I do. Well, I don’t very often, but I’d like to. It’s just that I can never think of anything to say; so our relationship is kind of on hold. Temporarily.
‘I think she already likes me a little bit,’ I say.
Shiny gives the wolverine fangs and some wrap-around sunglasses.
‘Well,’ he says, ‘we could take her and her friend Jodie out on the Sockby ornamental Lake. Get some practice in before the big voyage. Because if you tip over in the creek, Pod, you’re definitely gunna smack your head on a washing machine or a shopping trolley. And as they say, a drowned explorer is a dead explorer. End of story.’
That’s true.
‘You ring the girls about next Saturday, Poddy.’ Shine adds boxing gloves to the wolverine’s front paws. ‘And I’ll make sure the canoe is ship-shape. Deal?’
Er, deal.
Bravely, I ring Virginia and tell her about our canoe, and how Shine and I would like to take her and Jodie, if they’re available, for a ride next Saturday on the Sockby Ornamental Lake.
‘We’ll be there, Pod,’ Virginia says. ‘I can always rely on you guys for some sort of an adventure.’
I think Virginia’s referring to our mini-bike ride along the old railway line, which ended up with our mini-bikes falling off a bridge and disappearing forever.
‘Our parents are a lot happier this time,’ I say. ‘Because there’s no petrol or engines involved.’
‘And we can bring our own life jackets,’ Virginia says. ‘Because Jodie’s dad’s got a speedboat and he has some. I’m really looking forward to it, Pod.’
‘So am I,’ I mumble. ‘Andseeingyou,’ I add at the speed of light. ‘I mean, seeing you two at two. Next Saturday. At the Ornamental Lake. Bye.’ And I hang up.
Phew–eee!
Man, suddenly it’s got so hot in here.
By the time I get back to the shed, Shiny has painted the boxing wolverines on the bow, using thirty-year-old marine paint that has been banned from sale in about fifty countries, according to Grandpa Jack.
‘It might have a fraction of lead in it,’ Grandpa Jack says, drinking a beer as he watches us. ‘But as long as you don’t put it on your sandwiches, she’ll be apples. See yers later.’ He goes outside, whistling to the tame magpies on the fence.
‘Actually, lead’s not all that bad.’ Shiny adds some silver streaks to the wolverines’ fur to give it some nice highlights. ‘According to the Sugar Bix O
ld Histree Fax Pak, the ancient Romans used it for drinking cups, Pod, and they were, like, the smartest people on earth. Even though none of their temples appear to have roofs, which makes you wonder.’
The matching wolverines look fierce and snarly with their boxing gloves, shades and combat helmets, although one wolverine seems to have an extra paw.
‘I dunno how that happened,’ Shine says. ‘Still, it shows that even physically challenged wolverines can also be high achievers, so I say it stays. It’ll put us at peace with all our animal brothers, even the ones who aren’t exactly ten out of ten.’
I agree. In fact, I like the five-pawed wolverine best; he looks a little bit more like he could come from Sockby, where lots of things are not quite right, and I’m not joking. For example, our school motto is, ‘Try harder. We’re sick of coming last.’
‘Next Saturday,’ says Shine, throwing his paintbrush out the window, and into the weeds, ‘I reckon we’ll impress the girls somethin’ shockin’.’ Shine catches my eye. ‘In a good way, Pod, in a good way.’
Chapter 4
I ride my bike to Shiny’s house early on Saturday afternoon so that we have plenty of time to take the Wolverine down to the Ornamental Lake. My parents are quite happy about the canoe, as they think that carrying it around the streets is all that we will ever do with it.
‘I used to have a similar hobby myself, Peter, in my younger, wilder days,’ my dad told me at breakfast. ‘Often you’d see me out and about on Saturday with a two-metre-tall sunflower in a pot, maximising its sunlight exposure. I made a lot of new friends that way. Gee, the good old days, eh?’
‘Ah, yeah,’ I’d said. Then, praying that I hadn’t inherited one little bit of the infamous Podlewski family gardening madness, I’d bolted.
Shine and I set off carrying the Wolverine toward Sockby Ornamental Lake. After a few hundred metres or so, we stop for a rest.
‘Boy, this is hard work, bro.’ Shine takes a plastic box from his pocket filled with dark squares of … something. ‘Want a piece of pemmican, Pod? It’s great.’
Really Nearly Deadly Canoe Ride Page 1