Looking for Trouble

by John Marsden

  Wednesday, Feb 26, 10.05 am

  Finished my Luxembourg project yesterday after swimming. It looks pretty good if you ask me. I hope I get a good mark. I did a heading for the second sheet, a really snazzy one, to match Kate’s, but when I looked at it this morning I realised I’d left out the ‘o’ in Luxembourg. It’s so annoying. I can’t be bothered doing it again. Just hope Mrs Hazell doesn’t notice.

  Natasha looks pretty unhappy at the moment. She was hardly moving during folk dancing. I might ask her if she’s OK. Terry’s away from school, with his bee sting. I think Mrs Hazell’s more relaxed when he’s not around.

  11.55 am

  We got to the end of A Line to the Top this morning. It’s a bit of a fake ending. One of the kids had chucked a note out of the truck when they were hijacked and by a fluke someone finds it and calls the police. So the police all arrive at the quarry just as the kids are about to be squashed into mudcakes. Then the kids are heroes and they get stories about them in the papers and they’re legends when they go back to school.

  That’s exactly what I’d hoped LFT would be like, but I’ve got to admit that book doesn’t sound a lot like real life to me.

  1.40 pm

  I talked to Natasha at lunchtime instead of mucking around with Phil and Luke and the other guys. It’s funny how I used to think she was shy, until we did that Science stuff together. I was right about her being upset, and it’s because her mum’s in hospital having an operation. It’s a knee reconstruction, just like a footballer.

  What I didn’t realise about Natasha is how she can send up people. She was doing imitations of Mrs Hazell and Mr O’Keeffe and Terry and Helen and she was really funny. She’s noticed all these little things about them. Maybe quiet people are like that—maybe they see more than the ones who are racing around screaming and yelling and waving their arms. For instance, there’s a way Mrs Hazell raises her eyebrows and says ‘Hmm? Hmm?’ while she’s waiting for you to answer a question. Natasha was right on to that. She was standing on the bench going ‘Lowest common denominator Tony? Hmm? Hmm? Hmm? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?’ until her breath ran out. It was funny. It was good that Natasha was laughing again, too, because it made her forget about her mum’s operation for a while.

  2.30 pm

  Gee that was quick. I put my jacket down for about two minutes while I was taking out a library book, and when I went back to get it there was a note in the pocket. I looked around but it was hard to tell who it was from. Bianca and Kate were the only girls close by, and Helen was over near the computers, and the rest had gone back to the classroom already. The note was a short one this time. It said: ‘Hi Tony, it’s me again. This is my first note for this week but I haven’t forgotten you. I think I should tell you who I am soon but I haven’t figured out how to do it. See you! Love, your secret admirer.’

  4.30 pm

  I just don’t know what’s going on with the Edwards. And I just wish I did know. Maybe I should agree with Phil and Luke and start investigating them again. Because sometimes it seems like everyone else knows what’s happening except me. And that’s very annoying.

  This afternoon when Mike got on the bus you could tell he’d been in a fight. His hair was messed up and there was dust all down one side of his face and clothes, and blood coming out of a bruise next to his left eye. He looked a real mess. When Elissa, his little sister, saw him, she started crying and she followed him down the bus till he got to his seat. He sat down and moved across to the window, then he picked Elissa up and sat her on his lap. He was talking to her but I couldn’t hear what he was saying.

  I don’t know how much she could hear either. The bus started and as usual no one was sitting next to Mike so I got up and slipped across the aisle into the empty seat. He didn’t say anything, just stopped talking to Elissa and gazed out the window. Elissa looked at me like she really hated me and said ‘Go away’. I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I just said ‘Why?’ She said ‘’Cos you’re not our friend’. I felt awful, like I usually do when I’m around the Edwards. But then Mike said ‘Shut up, Elissa’, which was quite encouraging compared to what he’d said to me the last time we’d met, outside the milk bar. So I said ‘Who’d you have a fight with?’ and he said ‘Darren Reardon’. But he was still looking out the window. I said ‘Yeah, he’s pretty strong’, ’cos it did look like Mike had lost the fight. He didn’t say anything, so I asked ‘What was the fight about?’ He said ‘His parents had money in Pedestal’. I couldn’t make any sense of that at all. Half the people we knew had money in Pedestal. We’d put our $850 in there one week before it went bust. But what’s that got to do with beating up Mike? I was lost. So I said to him ‘But what’s losing money in Pedestal got to do with having a fight with you?’ He looked at me so suddenly then. He said ‘Don’t you know?’ I said ‘Know what?’ I was completely bewildered. He said ‘You really don’t know?’ I said ‘I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about.’ He said ‘But that snooping around you were doing … what was that for?’ I was a bit embarrassed then. I tried to explain but without getting myself in more trouble. I said ‘Well, we were just mucking around … I saw the police near your house a few times … so because you were new … I got the idea … that you might be crooks or something’.

  Just then Mike got this terrible look on his face. I thought his eye must be hurting so I said ‘Are you OK?’ We were coming to our stop and he stood up with Elissa, but he didn’t say anything. We went to the front of the bus, stepped off, and started walking down Rooke Street. We got to Mike’s house and just as Mike and Rory and Elissa turned aside to go in Mike said ‘You’ll find out soon enough’. Rory gave me a dirty look, Elissa stuck out her tongue, and away they went. So now here I am at home, still puzzled over what is going on at number 17.

  7.50 pm

  I tried asking Mum and Dad about the Edwards again tonight. I get the feeling they know, but they won’t tell me. Dad just said ‘Leave them alone. Don’t get involved with them.’ Mum said almost what Mike had said. ‘You’ll know soon enough.’ It’s so frustrating when parents talk like that.

  Still, I wasn’t in the mood to complain. We had my favourite tea: crumbed scallops and chips and salad. Then ice-cream with malt and nuts and lime flavouring. So yummy. Mum and Dad must be really in the money at the moment, I reckon. Dad’s been working at Wattle Windows for over a week now, and he thinks it’ll go on for a while. Jodie annoys me though when there’s a bit of spare cash around. She wants it all spent on her. She wants new swimmers, and a sports bag, and she wants to go to a Netball coaching course next holidays. I hope Mum and Dad don’t give in. I hope she gets nothing.

  Thursday, Feb 27, 10.15 am

  Phil just sent me a note when we were doing Maths this morning. He reckons he’s worked out which girl’s writing me those letters! He wants an LFT meeting at Recess. I don’t think it’s LFT business but I sure want to know who’s writing the letters.

  Then Luke sent me a new pass-sentence:

  Maggots, tapeworms, nits and lice,

  Taste so good with herbs and spice.

  11.20 am

  Phil’s theory is that it’s Kate. Now that’s quite a big surprise to me. She invited me to her birthday party but she didn’t treat me any differently to Phil or Luke. I like Kate but I can’t imagine she’d write letters like the ones I’ve been getting.

  The reason Phil thinks it’s Kate is that one of the notes was signed ‘See you, even with my eyes shut’. And apparently when Kate got off the bus this morning, she said to her friend from Holy Name, ‘See you with my eyes shut’. It is a bit of a clue I guess. I’ve never heard anyone say it before, but maybe it’s a new craze among the girls and everyone’s saying it and I just haven’t noticed yet.

  Saw Mike a minute ago. He wasn’t on the bus—none of the Edwards kids were—so I thought he wasn’t at school. He is here, but he looks shocking, all white and sick looking. Maybe he’s got the flu. There’s a lot of it around.

 
6.40 pm

  Phil and Luke came back to my place after school. They’ve just gone home now. We decided to do something different, so we set out to find the factory where Dad had been ripped off by this Mr Denison bloke. I knew from what Dad said that it was between our place and the tip, and I thought it was probably on Chamberlain Road. It was too, near the roundabout, quite a big place, marked Denison Imports. It looked a bit of a mess, with all the garden dead and the building needing a coat of paint. But it was definitely open, with cars in the car park and you could see people in the office part. But Dad said Mr Denison drove a Rover, and there was no Rover there. ‘What are we going to do?’ I asked the others. ‘I didn’t think anyone’d be here.’ ‘We should have worn disguises,’ Luke said. Finally we decided we’d go in and ask for him, and if he was there we’d ask him if we could use the car park for skateboarding at weekends. It would have been boring for skateboarding ’cos it was just a big flat place, but he wouldn’t know any better.

  So we went into the office. We had to wait a few minutes, then this bloke with a beard came out. He was about Dad’s age, and he was wearing overalls and he had a pencil behind his ear. He looked pretty busy. I asked if Mr Denison was there, and he laughed and said ‘Popular bloke this Denison. No, he isn’t here, boys. Sorry. And we’re not expecting to see him.’ He started going back into the factory, then he stopped and said ‘How come you want him anyway? You look a bit young to be creditors.’ He looked honest so I decided to trust him. I said ‘My dad did some work for him and he didn’t get paid—so he told us to call in and see if he’s here’. The man laughed and said ‘So you’re the enforcers’. Then he said ‘No, seems like he’s shot through. And your dad’s not the only one he owes money to. We just took over the lease last week but we’ve already had about a dozen people in here looking for him.’ I said ‘My dad’s got a truck and he worked for him all Saturday for nothing and he even paid the tip fees himself’.

  The bloke with the beard said ‘Yeah, times are hard enough, without rip-off artists like that making things worse. I tell you what though, we reckon he’s still around. Someone got in here two nights ago, and took some stuff, including a lot of mail addressed to this Denison bloke. Whoever it was must have had a key. We had to get all the locks changed. So tell your dad, if he really wants to find this bloke, keep an eye on the place at nights. Hardly worth it though, for a day’s pay. Even with the tip fees.’

  We thanked him and went. But the effect on Phil was pretty strong. He’s always looked a bit like Elvis Presley, and now he looked like Elvis Presley after an electric shock. His hair was sticking up, and his eyes were popping, and in the car park he couldn’t stand still. ‘Let’s come over here tonight and stake the place out’ was the first thing he said. ‘I knew you’d say that,’ Luke complained. ‘We can’t do it tonight,’ I said, ‘I’ve got to look after Toby for Auntie Sal.’ ‘Can’t do it at the weekend,’ Phil realised, ‘we’re going to Piper’s Beach.’ We decided it was a good idea and we’d try to do it next week. ‘After all,’ Luke said, ‘he wouldn’t come every night. He’ll probably wait a week or so till he tries it again.’

  Friday, Feb 28, 12.05 pm

  Mike wasn’t at the bus stop this morning either, but he is at school. I asked him at Recess how come he isn’t getting the bus, but he wouldn’t talk to me. Back to the bad old days again. Maybe he just hasn’t got over losing the fight with Darren Reardon. Rory and Elissa were with him and they both looked at me as though they hated me. It’s funny how they were sticking together.

  Terry spent the whole of Recess trying to sniff his Fanta up a straw and into his nostril. What a dork.

  Bianca’s got the idea that we should have a class newspaper. They had one at her last school, South Kendry, apparently. It’s a bit boring the way she talks about her last school being so cool all the time. You feel like telling her to go back there, if she liked it so much. But a class newspaper does sound like it’d be good. We could all put poems and stories and stuff in it—have jokes and gossip and school news, and drawings and cartoons. I reckon Mrs Hazell’d go for it. She’s always raving on about publishing writing.

  Bianca and Kate want me to go with them next week, to see Mrs Hazell, to talk her into it. I said ‘Why me?’, hoping they’d say ‘Because you’re such a good writer and we want you to be editor’. Instead they said ‘Because Mrs Hazell loves you’. I said ‘She does not’, and they said ‘You know she does! You’re her favourite! She’ll do anything you ask.’ What a load of rubbish.

  1.30 pm

  All the Edwards kids went somewhere at lunchtime. They were in a car, and it was just turning out of the school gate into the road when I saw it. Maybe they have to go to the dentist or something.

  4.10 pm

  We started another cricket game this afternoon. It was good. But the best thing was Phil and Helen. They’ll never give up. They were asking each other all these stupid questions. ‘If there are ten cockatoos in a tree and you shoot one, how many are left?’ ‘Nine.’ ‘No, none, ’cos when you shoot one the others all fly away.’ Fair dinkum. There was one that went: ‘There was this pig in a paddock. He wanted to get out but he couldn’t, because the gate was shut. So how’d he get out?’ ‘Through the fence.’ ‘No, it was barbed wire.’ ‘Over the fence.’ ‘Nuh, too high.’ ‘Under the fence.’ ‘No, too rocky.’ ‘I don’t know, I give up.’ ‘Yeah, so did the other pig.’

  I took a good catch. A classic catch, even if I say so myself. It was off Darren’s bowling. Karen was batting. She hit the ball really hard, straight at my head. I was at square leg, so I was quite close to her, but it was funny how much time I had to think. I thought, ‘I’d better dive out of the way’. Then I thought, ‘No, I can catch this if I don’t chicken out’. I didn’t move at all, just put my hand up in front of my face and caught it. It hit my hand with a loud slap, like a belly flop on water, but I held it tight, and just chucked it back to Nick, who was wicketkeeper. I was trying to look cool but I was pleased. Darren went crazy and came racing over, hugging me and stuff, and everyone was clapping and saying ‘Wow’. I felt good!

  7.08 pm

  Oh help. Now I know. Oh boy, do I ever know. This is awful. I can’t believe how stupid we’ve been. Stupid, stupid, stupid. All that snooping around we’ve been doing, all that spying, thinking Mr Edwards was a criminal. Well, we were right about that. And we were the only ones who didn’t know. I wish Mum and Dad had told us. They let us make fools of ourselves. They should have told us. I’m really mad about that. Really really mad.

  So, this is what happened. I’ll try to write it down calmly, the way I saw it. It would have been about 6.02. I walked in just as Jodie went over to the TV to change channels. I heard his name, even though Jodie was between me and the television, so I couldn’t see the picture. ‘Leave it alone,’ I said. ‘Get out of the way.’ The newsreader said something like this: ‘In Central Criminal Court today Zacchaeus Edwards, aged 44, of Rooke Street, Cobbler Park, pleaded guilty to two hundred and eleven charges of fraud.’ By then I could see the screen, and you could see a man walking along a street, holding a newspaper to his face. He was surrounded by reporters and TV cameras and lawyers in wigs and just people. I hit the record button on the VCR and taped the rest. The newsreader said ‘Depositors in the failed Pedestal group of companies screamed abuse as Mr Edwards arrived at the Court. Two people were ejected from the public gallery as disturbances continued. Barrister Melissa Wignell told the court that Edwards was a weak man whose taste for the high life had led him into disastrous speculations with other people’s money. Edwards had assisted police fully in their investigations and now deeply regretted the pain and suffering his actions had caused many people including his own family. Ms Wignell submitted that a prison sentence would achieve nothing, and that Edwards still had a contribution to make to society. Crown Prosecutor Terry Gibbs, however, told the Court that a long prison term was the only appropriate penalty for Edwards’ crimes. He said that a combination
of mismanagement and embezzlement had led to a shortfall of $23 million in Pedestal’s accounts, and many people had lost their life savings.’ I’m getting a sore hand writing this down. Lucky these things have got pause buttons. Here I go again: ‘Magistrate Lee Spathis remanded Edwards in custody for sentencing on Monday.’ The rest was just a lot of stuff about the Pedestal companies, and how they grew so fast and then collapsed. There were pictures of Mr Edwards a few years back, at a racecourse with a horse he owned that had just won a big race. I wondered if they’d show any pictures of Mike and his brother and sisters, but they didn’t.

  I was in a state of shock. I went into the kitchen. Mum was cooking the tea and Dad was doing the crossword. I said ‘Why didn’t you tell me about Mr Edwards?’ They said: ‘We knew you’d find out soon enough.’ I said ‘When did you know?’ They said ‘As soon as they moved in.’ Dad had done a job for him, so he recognised him straight away. Gradually other people started to realise. I said ‘But you lost money in Pedestal. Aren’t you mad at them?’ Dad said ‘Too bloody right I’m mad. I’d make a speed bump out of the bludger. That’s all he’s good for.’ Mum said ‘We’re mad at him. But not at his family. They didn’t know what he was doing. And they’re the ones who’ll suffer for a long time yet.’

  I asked ‘What does “remanded in custody” mean?’ Mum said ‘He has to stay in jail till he goes to court again.’ ‘So that means he’s in jail right now?’ ‘That’s right.’ ‘Gosh. That’s awful. Poor Mike. And Rory. And Elissa. No wonder they’ve been acting so funny.’ 2 So that’s what’s happened so far tonight. Now that I’ve calmed down a bit I can sort of understand why they didn’t tell us. But I’m still angry about it. I think they should have told us. Anyway, I’m going to ring Phil and Luke now, to see whether they saw the News. I think we’d better have a meeting of Looking for Trouble.