by Jen Banyard
‘Nuh-uh,’ said Pollo. She took the torch out of her mouth. ‘Why would I be doing that?’
‘Whew! I mean, no reason.’ She gave the torch to Will to hold.
‘I’m taking off my scarf to tie up Shorn Connery. There can’t be far to go.’ She giggled. ‘It’s made from his own wool! That’ll confuse him!’ She unwound the long scarf from her neck. It was riddled with holes. It looked more like a spider web to Will than anything.
‘Have you got giant moths at your place or what?’ he said.
Pollo held up a ragged end and smiled. ‘Dad taught himself to knit on this—that’s why it’s so long. It took forever before he stopped dropping stitches. It’s much better at the other end.’
‘Glad to hear it!’ said Will. ‘I’ve been wondering,’ he said after a moment. ‘Does this Sherri lady know what you’re doing?’
Pollo shook her head. ‘Nuh-uh—that’s the tricky part. Sherri told me that von Albericht had deliriously deep brown eyes. Enough said, right?’ Pollo held Shorn Connery and began tying the scarf around his neck. ‘That’s what all the hurry is about. I need to get evidence that this Viktor von Albericht is what I think he is before anything happens to her. If I told Sherri what I suspected without anything backing it up, she’d probably throw herself at von Albericht just to prove me wrong.’ Pollo thought for a moment. ‘Maybe I should tell her that Dad’s a vampire.’
Just then a strange sound swelled around them, wafting through the trees like a cold wind. Pollo, Will and Shorn Connery stopped dead, ears straining.
‘Dead bushrangers?’ whispered Will.
Pollo’s arms tightened around Shorn Connery as the sound swelled again, louder than before—a discordant yet strangely harmonious fizzing that seized the air, squeezing and releasing it, full of grave intensity as its pitch rose and fell.
Pollo gulped. ‘The pipe organ!’ she whispered. ‘The favourite instrument of The Undead!’
‘A pipe organ—out here in the middle of nowhere? They’re only in big cathedrals, aren’t they?’ said Will.
‘It’s the twenty-first century, dummy!’ said Pollo. ‘Vampires have portable sound systems too!’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Saturday 21:45
Pollo and Will quickly scanned the scrub as best they could and found a small clear patch. They coaxed Shorn Connery into it and looped the end of his scarf around a bush alongside.
‘This grass is pretty stringy ... and the kangaroos have been at it,’ whispered Pollo, sweeping the torch around to find a better spot. ‘I hope he’ll be okay.’
‘He’ll be fine,’ said Will. ‘Come on, we need to get going!’
With Shorn Connery staring after them, they crept down the damp path in the direction of the music. With each step it grew louder and louder. They rounded a bend. Through the trees ahead they could make out the old ranger’s hut in its clearing. Dim shafts of yellow light slanted through the single small window. The pipe organ music was definitely coming from inside.
‘Looks like he’s home,’ said Will. ‘You might have to ... you know ... switch off the torch.’
Pollo’s fingers crept onto Will’s shoulders and gripped tight. There was a soft click, and everything around them turned black except for the thin strips of light from the hut.
‘We’ll stop a bit to let our eyes get used to the dark,’ said Will. ‘You okay?’
‘Sure,’ said Pollo, her voice shaking.
Gradually the curtain of blackness drew back a little. Between the scraps of moon and starlight and the lights from the hut they could just make out the shapes and dim colours of the bushes and trees around them.
‘We should move,’ said Pollo.
‘I’m ready when you are,’ said Will. His skin was tingling. He felt charged, like when the Turbo Blaster at the Royal Show was about to take off.
Pollo took a deep breath. ‘Let’s do this!’
They reached the edge of the clearing and the moat of gravel that lay between them and the old timber hut. They had taken two crunching steps when the organ music abruptly stopped. There was a murmur of voices.
‘He’s got company,’ whispered Will.
They waited on the edge of the clearing but the music didn’t start up again. ‘They’ll hear us if we keep going,’ said Pollo.
Will checked his watch. ‘We can’t stand here all night!’ Chances were he didn’t have a whole lot of time before his mum and HB got home from Love on the Wing.
Pollo nudged him. ‘What are you like at climbing trees?’ she whispered.
‘I haven’t done it for a while ... Pretty good I guess.’
‘I reckon that one over there would give us a good view,’ said Pollo, pointing to the bush beyond the clearing, ‘and it’s in the dark if anyone comes outside.’
Will followed Pollo’s finger. The tree was on the spindly side, but Pollo was right—it looked to have a line of sight to the small square window of the hut. And he was pretty sure Pollo wouldn’t let him off the hook until she’d got what she came for.
‘It’s worth a go,’ he said. Why not add climbing trees in the middle of the forest in the dark to the list of strange things he’d done that day?
A few minutes later, their feet were wedged in the fork of a branch about three metres above the ground, the tree’s rough bark digging into their arms as they hugged the trunk. They edged up to a standing position and carefully leaned sideways to peer through the small square window.
They froze.
‘Is that who I think it is?’ whispered Will.
Pollo nodded slowly. ‘Sherri!’ She gulped. Von Albericht had got to her already!
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Saturday 22:00
Pollo and Will watched from their tree. Sherri was nestled in a tattered armchair in the corner of the room, her dangly earrings catching the light as she nodded and laughed with Viktor von Albericht. Von Albericht, in black trousers and polo-neck, was filling her glass with a dark, red liquid from a strange, pillow-like vessel. It looked like the body of a dead animal, with a spigot where a head should have been.
‘He’s got her drinking blood already!’ said Pollo.
‘Does that mean we’re too late?’
‘Not necessarily,’ whispered Pollo. ‘He might just be giving her a taste for it. Let’s hope it’s only animal blood. Vampires drink that too sometimes.’
Von Albericht disappeared. A moment later the eerie strains of pipe organ music again snaked from the hut. Pollo and Will wrapped their arms more tightly round their tree trunk.
Von Albericht moved back into view and crouched down next to a crate in the corner near Sherri. He reached in with both hands and brought out what appeared to be a small, furry animal. Sherri stopped smiling. She shrank back into her chair. Her eyes widened as von Albericht, cupping the animal in gloved hands, held it out to her. She flung up both hands to stop him bringing it closer.
‘Looks like a bat,’ said Will above the sombre strains of the organ music.
Pollo nodded with a shiver.
As the notes swelled to a crescendo, von Albericht raised the animal level with his own chin. Staring intently at the tiny beast, he opened his mouth.
‘He’s going to eat it!’ squeaked Pollo. ‘I’ve seen enough! We’ve got to get Sherri out of there!’ She was about to jump down from the tree when Will grabbed her arm.
‘Wait!’ he said. ‘We can’t just rush over there! He’ll hear us coming. He’ll be prepared!’
Suddenly the organ music plummeted into silence—and at that same moment, a barrel-bellied, stick-legged sheep trailing a black scarf burst into the clearing and clattered up the wooden steps to the front door of the hut.
Baaa-aaa-aaah! Shorn Connery bellowed as only an angry, left-behind sheep can.
Pollo was about to call to him when the door swung open and the tall, dark shape of Viktor von Albericht loomed against the yellow light, the bright crimson puff of Sherri’s hair bobbing behind him.
Po
llo crouched low, pressing into the fork of the tree. Will, onto the other hand, having little experience in surveillance work, flung himself along the slim tree branch he’d been standing on. In seconds, he’d swung down to the underside and was dangling by his arms and legs like a pig on a pole being taken to market.
A very bendy pole.
With a whip-like crack, the branch gave way, dumping Will on the dirt with a loud hoomph! as the air from both lungs shot from his body.
Von Albericht’s head snapped in their direction. He squinted into the dark, then took the steps in one bound and began striding towards them.
Pollo swung down from what was left of her tree fork. She dragged Will to his feet and draped his arm over her shoulders. ‘The track’s back this way! We can cut through the bush!’ Will couldn’t breathe to object.
They scrambled through the pitch-black forest, Pollo closing her eyes whenever she dared, Will trying desperately to rake air into his lungs. Finally they emerged onto Diamond Jack’s Trail. They flopped against a tree, catching their breath as quietly as they could.
A few minutes passed. There was no sign of von Albericht. Slowly Pollo stood up and looked around. She tilted her head. ‘Can you hear anything?’
Will listened. ‘No. He probably went back to Sherri. Lucky for us, eh?’
His words hung in the air. Will and Pollo looked at one another, two heads thinking the same thought. With Sherri and Shorn Connery back at the hut, it might have been better if von Albericht had kept coming.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Sunday 10:00
Pollo sat on the back step of her house, her head in her hands. The trail of carrots she’d laid on the track behind the houses and in through the propped-open gate was untouched. Shorn Connery hadn’t come home.
He’d been separated from her lots of times before but he’d always made his way back, no problems. Half the time, he’d been bleating at the back gate waiting for her. He’d certainly never stayed out overnight. What was keeping him this time? Away from his food and water troughs? Away from her?
She’d ridden her bike around for nearly two hours in the morning looking for him. She’d even gone back up Diamond Jack’s Trail a bit, where she’d started scattering the carrots. She’d found nothing—not so much as a strand of wriggly wool.
There was only one stone still unturned—Viktor von Albericht’s hut.
There were two reasons to go back there (three if you counted getting out of helping Aunty Giulia and Uncle Pete bag sheep manure at their farm). The first was easy—the hut was the last place she’d seen Shorn Connery. The second reason was much harder to face. She and Will had interrupted von Albericht’s little party last night. Hopefully he’d lost his chance to work on Sherri—for the time being at least. But the odds were, then, that he’d been left hungry ... and to The Undead, if human blood wasn’t on hand, animal blood was the next best thing.
Pollo gnawed on a fingernail. She’d read often enough that vampires couldn’t harm anyone in daylight hours. But having seen von Albericht at work last night, it wasn’t a theory she was itching to test on her own. She needed Will’s help—just one more time.
‘You want the galvanised ones, son.’ Sergeant Butt’s voice drifted over his back fence as Pollo tiptoed nearer along the track. ‘Other nails rust soon as you look at ’em. Pass us a couple, there’s a good lad.’
Pollo squatted and peeked through a crack as Will passed his stepdad the nails.
Sergeant Butt ran one through his hair. ‘Little trick I learned from a carpenter friend,’ he said, winking at Will. ‘It greases them up. Makes them go in easier.’
All of a sudden, a mighty bang shot through the fence past her ear, sending Pollo tumbling backwards into the dirt. ‘You don’t muck around with little taps!’ said Sergeant Butt. ‘You’ve got to give it a good wallop! Here—you do the next one.’
Pollo heard Sergeant Butt step away and she scrambled back to the fence. As Will squatted down with the hammer, she tapped the wood next to his head. ‘Meet me here at eleven hundred hours!’ she whispered. ‘Please!’
They approached von Albericht’s hut by the back way this time, creeping in a wide semicircle through the bush and along an old kangaroo trail, damp and glistening green. A light shower had fallen a little earlier—the first of the season. The only sound now was the occasional cascade of droplets as birds hopped in the branches above, disturbing the wet leaves.
Climbing onto a wood-chopping stump, they peeked through the small side window—the one they’d spied through from the tree the night before.
Pollo tried to steel herself for what she might see—Shorn Connery tied up, gaffer tape wrapped around his snout or, worse, lying unmoving on the floor. There was no sign of him. What she saw instead filled her insides with stone.
Stretched out on a camp bed, dead to the world, was von Albericht. His hands were folded over his chest like an Egyptian mummy ... or like someone who had recently enjoyed a fresh, hearty meal.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Sunday 13:30
‘Beat this, Sherri.’ Pollo was standing in front of the mirror of an antique dresser. She rolled her eyes and stuck out her tongue—what Principal Piggott might have called a ‘minimal effort’.
Sherri looked over to Pollo, a rare frown creasing her brow. ‘I’ll come and pull faces with you when I’ve finished serving my customer, Pollo.’
‘Oh yeah ... sorry.’ Pollo stared at the mirror and sighed. One minute she’d been chasing a killer story that was going to change her life. Next thing she knew, her dear friend Sherri was lining up to be recruited to The Undead, and Pollo had practically served up Shorn Connery on a plate to an evil stranger.
Sherri closed the till with a clunk. ‘Your daughter will love it, I’m sure, Mr McNutty. Toodle-oo! Take care.’ She watched Mr McNutty leave then joined Pollo at the dresser.
Like all good human beings’ reflections, Sherri’s joined Pollo’s in the mirror. Pollo’s heart lifted. So von Albericht hadn’t made Sherri one of his own yet. There was still time for her, if not for poor Shorn Connery.
Sherri waggled her ears in the mirror, making her earrings jingle. ‘That’s my best party trick! Your turn now.’
‘Turn for what?’
Sherri huffed. ‘To pull a face, of course! It was your idea, Pollo.’ She peered into Pollo’s eyes. ‘What’s the matter with you today? Ever since you came in here you’ve been moping around like a single sock. I’d have thought you’d be out chasing your big story.’ She opened a drawer of the dresser. ‘It’s nothing to do with this, is it?’ She pulled out Pollo’s long black scarf—the one that had been tied around Shorn Connery’s neck the night before.
Pollo gasped. ‘You know then!’
‘Know what, exactly?’
‘About von Albericht! About what he’s done to Shorn Connery!’ wailed Pollo. ‘Poor Shorn Connery has vanished!’
Sherri sighed. ‘Listen, kiddo. I’m sorry to hear that he’s gone missing, really I am. But it’s nothing to do with Viktor. All I know about Viktor is that he makes breaded udder to die for, and he has the sort of gentlemanly manners I haven’t seen since my last cruise.’
‘Breaded what?’ Pollo’s mouth curled.
‘They call it “uger pane” where he’s from. Breaded cow’s ... never mind. Anyway, Shorn Connery darted off last night as soon as we tried to tie him to the verandah post. We looked for him but we just assumed he’d make his own way home. He’ll turn up.’
Pollo grabbed Sherri’s arm. ‘Shorn Connery ran off? Von Albericht didn’t suck out all his lifeblood?’
‘Suck out all his what?’ Sherri’s tower of curls jiggled in astonishment. ‘Why on earth would Viktor do a thing like that?’
Relief and dismay seesawed in Pollo’s head. So von Albericht hadn’t captured Shorn Connery last night! But if von Albericht wasn’t one of The Undead, she’d lost her story—and maybe Sherri, by the way she was looking daggers at Pollo now.
Beneat
h all the confusion one fact remained. If Shorn Connery was alive he’d have come home by now. Von Albericht had to be at the bottom of things somehow. There was way too much coincidence otherwise.
Pollo looked sideways at Sherri. ‘Viktor might do something like that if he was a...’ A heavy silence enveloped them.
‘Was a what, Pollo?’ Sherri said eventually, her lilac eyelids blinking as she waited for Pollo to answer.
‘Well...’ This was ten times harder to say out loud! But she couldn’t not say it—Sherri had no idea of the danger she was in. ‘Well ... for one thing ... if he was a ... vampire.’
Sherri’s eyes widened. She stuck out her neck and pursed her lips as though trying to kiss something just out of reach. She covered her mouth and rushed from the room towards the kitchen out the back.
Oh-oh ... Pollo had never seen Sherri upset before. What was she supposed to do now?
Suddenly, from behind the screen a loud snort erupted, followed by alternating splutters and gasps. This metamorphosed into a succession of long, drawn-out hoots that rolled through to the shopfront where Pollo sat glowering, twisting a silver pendant from a nearby display case around and around in her palms.
Sherri returned after a minute or so, sniffing and dabbing at the corners of her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Pollo,’ she said. ‘What were you saying?’
Pollo scowled. ‘I don’t see what’s so funny. I’m telling you this for your own good, you know.’
Sherri pulled Pollo’s stiff torso towards her and gave her a hug. ‘You don’t think you might be trying a bit too hard to finish the Riddle Gully Gazette with a bang, do you? It would be perfectly understandable.’
Pollo flopped back in her chair and, avoiding Sherri’s eye, explained what she could—the graveyard, von Albericht’s strange rituals, his name, the way he dressed, the bats, his sleeping at midday and now Shorn Connery’s disappearance. How it all added up.