Uncovered!

by Paul Jennings

  Luke Jeffries threw the box on the ground. ‘This is an egg,’ he said. ‘So we will hatch it.’ He sat down on the box and clucked like a hen. The egg was smashed to bits.

  I turned and went for it. I just ran and ran and ran. I didn’t care about wagging school. I didn’t care about anything. Except a present for you.

  I ran into the kitchen and grabbed another egg. There was no time to blow it out. There was no time to paint rabbits and gnomes and things. I put on some boiling water to hard-boil an egg. Then I tipped in some dye.

  And that’s when it happened. I was angry and rushing around. I slipped over with the saucepan in my hands. The water sloshed onto my cheeks. Oh, the pain. Oh, my face was burning. Oh, it hurt. I’m not a sook. But I screamed and screamed and screamed.

  I didn’t remember anything else till I woke up in hospital.

  My face still burned. But I couldn’t touch it. I was wearing a mask. Bandages. I looked like a robber. There were little holes for my mouth and eyes and nostrils.

  ‘Your face will be okay,’ said Mum. ‘But you will have to wear the mask for a long time while it heals.’

  ‘I’m not going to school like this. No way.’

  ‘You have to,’ said Mum. ‘You have to wear the mask for six months or your face won’t heal properly.’

  So I walked in the classroom late. Looking like a burglar. With my mask on.

  No one laughed.

  Because someone else was just like me.

  You.

  Not burned. But just sitting there with a mask around your face.

  Where did you get it? I don’t know. And you kept on wearing it for weeks.

  And I have never said thank you. And tomorrow my parents are moving to England. I want you to know that I … No, scrub that.

  You will get this when they dig up the time capsule. I want you to know that I … No, I just can’t get it out.

  Yours sincerely … No, scrub that.

  Yours with thanks … No, scrub that.

  Aw, what the heck …

  Love,

  Ben.

  Well, that’s what I wrote all those years ago. Something like that anyway. And here I am exactly nine years later. In the shopping centre. The school has gone. There is no Mr Wheeler and his grown-up class here to open the time capsule.

  There is just me and a million shoppers. I can’t even tell where the school was. It would take half an hour to walk from one end of the centre to the other.

  My face healed up long ago. I don’t even have any scars. I should feel happy but the school has been knocked down. And there is no time capsule with my letter in it. I guess the bulldozers must have uncovered it. Or it could still be buried, deep under the shops and fountains and car parks. Maybe some of the letters inside were sent to the kids. Who knows? No one would have been able to contact me – on the other side of the world.

  One of the other kids might be here in the shopping centre. Maybe, like me, they have come because they didn’t know the school was knocked down. But I would never recognise them. Not after all these years. Not now we are grown.

  I make my way sadly through the happy shoppers. I don’t notice the shouting and jostling and laughing. I reach the door.

  And for a moment my heart misses a beat.

  For standing there I see something that takes me back in time. Silently standing by the door is a person wearing a burns bandage on her face. Children are staring at her. They shouldn’t do that. Neither should I. But my heart is beating fast and I don’t know what I am doing.

  The woman’s eyes meet mine and slowly she starts to take off the bandage. The children gasp. And so do I as her hair falls down behind her like the golden tail of an angel’s horse.

  Just for a moment I am twelve again. I catch my breath. My stomach wobbles.

  I stare at the woman in front of me.

  I know that my life is going to be happy. Because she is smiling the biggest smile.

  Just like me.

  Ringing Wet

  The man next door buried his wife in the backyard.

  That’s what I reckon, anyway. Dad says I have a vivid imagination. And my rotten, horrible, worst-ever big brother says I am nuts.

  But I am not nuts. No way. See, it starts like this. I am reading a book where five kids go on a holiday. They discover smugglers in some underground caves but the adults won’t believe them. Everyone thinks they are crazy. But in the end they catch the smugglers and become heroes. All the parents and police have to say sorry.

  Since I read that book I have been on the lookout. To be honest there are not many smugglers around our way. I have looked and looked. There are not even any underground tunnels.

  But there is Mr Grunge next door. He moved in two months ago. He acts in a very suspicious way. Consider these facts:

  Mr Grunge has a crabby face.

  He never comes out in the daytime.

  He shouts at his wife in a loud, horrible voice.

  His wife does all of the shopping and washing-up and cooking.

  Mr Grunge just sits there all day watching TV.

  Two days ago Mrs Grunge disappears.

  Yes, DISAPPEARS.

  The night that his wife disappears Mr Grunge digs in the backyard.

  Yes, DIGS IN THE GARDEN AT NIGHT

  I know all this because I have been spying on them through a chink in their curtains.

  Yes, it all fits in. They have an argument. He hits her with the frying-pan or something. Then he drags her out into the backyard. He takes off her diamond bracelet and buries her. I do not actually see this happen. But I put two and two together. It is the only explanation.

  ‘Don’t be crazy, Misty,’ says Dad. ‘She’s probably gone on a holiday.’

  ‘In the middle of winter?’ I say.

  ‘She could have gone to Queensland to get a bit of sun,’ says Dad.

  ‘Without her best diamond bracelet?’ I say.

  Dad looks at me through narrow eyes. ‘How do you know she hasn’t taken her bracelet?’ he says.

  ‘She’s been peeping through the window,’ says Simon, my rotten worst-ever brother.

  Dad bangs down his paper on the table. He is as mad as a hatter. ‘Misty,’ he yells. ‘That is a terrible thing to do. Spying and going into someone else’s garden.’

  Simon is such a dobber. He always spoils things. He is a real wet blanket. I decide to pay him back. ‘Well, he got a detention at school yesterday,’ I yell. ‘For not doing his homework.’

  Dad is really mad now. He rolls his eyes. ‘What a way to start the school holidays,’ he roars. ‘Go to your rooms at once. Both of you.’

  I stomp off to my bedroom and almost slam the door. There is an exact amount of noise you can make when you are almost slamming the door. If you do it too loud your parents will stop your pocket money for a month. If you get it right they cannot be quite sure that you actually slammed the door and they won’t do anything. But it still annoys them.

  My Dad is so stubborn. So is Simon. They won’t believe that Mr Grunge has buried his wife in the garden. There is only one thing for me to do. One night, when there is no moon. When it is very dark. I will go and dig her up. Yes, DIG HER UP.

  2

  I am lying there in bed thinking about how I will dig up the body when Simon bursts into the room. He has his fingers held out like claws. ‘Ticky, ticky, ticky,’ he says with a nasty look on his face.

  ‘No, Simon. No, no, no,’ I scream. ‘Not that. Don’t. Please, please. I’m sorry I dobbed.’

  ‘Ticky, ticky, ticky,’ says Simon. Oh, he is so awful. He is bigger than me. Almost as big as Dad. I just can’t stand up to him. I curl up in a ball on the bed. It is my only defence.

  Simon gets his horrible fingers in under my armpits and starts to tickle. I hate it. I just hate it. I start to scream and kick and yell. ‘Don’t,’ I yell. ‘You pain. Dad, Dad, Dad.’ I stop yelling. I am laughing. I don’t want to laugh. I want to scream. But his fingers are digging in a
nd I just can’t help it.

  I squirm and kick. And then I do it. I knew I would do it. And so did Simon. It is why he is tickling me. I always do it when someone tickles me.

  I wet my pants. Yes, WET MY PANTS. Warm wet wee runs down my legs and onto the bed. Oh, it is terrible.

  Simon sees. ‘What’s that?’ he mocks. ‘Where did that come from?’ He laughs wickedly and then runs out the door.

  I throw a pillow after him. ‘You wait,’ I say. ‘You just wait.’

  I hang my head in my hands. I am so ashamed. I always wet myself when someone tickles me. Even if I just get excited I do it. The doctor says I will grow out of it. Probably I will. By the time I am fifty.

  There is something else, too. Even worse. Every night I wet the bed. It is awful. Just awful. In the mornings I wake up and everything is wet. I hate it.

  I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.

  Last year I couldn’t go on the school camp. I was just too embarrassed.

  I have a shower and change my clothes. Then I go into the lounge to see Dad. ‘Something has to be done,’ I say. ‘Can’t you do something to stop this bed-wetting? It is ruining my life.’

  Dad nods his head. ‘There is one more thing to try,’ he says. ‘I have been hoping we wouldn’t need it. But I guess we have to give it a go.’

  ‘Anything,’ I say. ‘I will try anything.’

  3

  That night Dad comes home with a rubber blanket. ‘We put this under your sheet,’ says Dad. ‘When you wee it makes the blanket wet and it will ring a bell. You wake up and we change the sheets. After a couple of weeks your brain knows what is going to happen and it stops you wetting. Bingo – you are cured.’

  I don’t like the sound of it. Not one bit. But I am desperate. I will try anything. I snuggle down under the covers. Outside the moon is shining bright. It is not dark enough to go and dig in the neighbour’s garden. So I close my eyes and drop off to sleep.

  ‘Ding, ding, ding, ding.’ Good grief. What is it? That terrible noise. I sit bolt upright in bed. It is like sirens from the police, the ambulance and the fire brigade all put together. My head is spinning. Is the house on fire or what?

  I know. I know. I bet the police have come to arrest Mr Grunge. They will charge him with murder.

  Dad bursts into the room with a smile. ‘It works,’ he says. ‘Out you hop, sweetheart. You go and change your pyjamas and I’ll put on fresh sheets.’

  My heart sinks. It is not the police. I have wet the bed. The terrible noise comes from the bell attached to the rubber blanket. It works all right. It is the worst noise in the world.

  Dad makes the bed while I put on dry pyjamas. ‘See, that wasn’t so bad,’ says Dad as he walks out. He is quite chirpy really.

  I snuggle down under the clean, crisp sheets. I am so tired. This getting up in the middle of the night takes it out of you. I have no sooner closed my eyes than ‘ding, ding, ding, ding’. Oh no. I’ve wet the bed again. I look at the clock. Two hours. Have two hours really passed already?

  Dad staggers into the room. This time he is not so chirpy. ‘Geeze,’ he says. ‘I’d just dropped off to sleep. Okay, up you get. I’ll get some dry sheets.’ Dad is not exactly cross. Well, he is trying not to be cross. But I can tell that he does not like getting up in the middle of the night. And he is not the only one – that’s for sure.

  The next day is Saturday. It is Mum’s weekend. Mum and Dad split up a couple of years ago and we live with Dad. Every second Saturday we go off with Mum. It is grouse because she takes us to lots of good places. To be honest, though, I wish she still lived at home.

  Dad looks out of the window. ‘Here’s your mother,’ he says. He never calls her Mum any more. He always calls her your mother. Funny that. Anyway, Simon and I race out and hop into Mum’s car.

  ‘Where are we going?’ says Simon.

  ‘Luna Park,’ says Mum.

  ‘Unreal,’ we both yell.

  We wander through the great big mouth that is the entrance to Luna Park and look around. We have a ride on the Big Dipper, the Water Caves and go into the Giggle Palace. They are all great.

  ‘Let’s go on the Rotor,’ says Simon.

  ‘What’s that?’ says Mum.

  ‘It’s this round room,’ I say. ‘You stick to the wall. I am not going on it. No way.’

  ‘Neither am I,’ says Mum.

  ‘Wimps,’ says Simon. ‘I’m going on it. You can watch if you like. You can go upstairs and look down on the brave ones.’ He bends one arm and bulges out his muscle. He thinks he is so tough.

  4

  We all get in the line, pay our money and file inside. The line splits into two. One line is for the people who are going to stick to the wall. The other is for those who want to watch. There is a lot of pushing and shoving and Mum is not sure where we are. ‘You go in there,’ says Simon.

  Mum and I file through a door while Simon heads up some stairs. The door slams behind us. We look around. We are in a big, round room with about ten others. There are a whole lot of people up above looking down on us. It is sort of like a round squash court with spectators sitting around upstairs.

  What is going on here? What has happened?

  Simon has tricked us. That’s what. I see his grinning face peering down from the spectators’ seats. He thinks he is so smart. He has sent us into the wrong place. We are inside the Rotor. Yes, INSIDE.

  I start to panic. I have to get out of here. I just have to. But where is the door? I can’t even see it. There is no handle. And the walls are covered in rubber.

  A loud voice comes over the microphone. ‘All riders stand against the wall, please,’ it says. Riders? I am not meant to be a rider. I am meant to be a watcher. ‘Let me out,’ I yell.

  But it is too late. Mum drags me back to the wall and the room starts to spin. Faster and faster. The faces up above are just a blur. We are whirling around like a crazy spinning top. Suddenly the floor drops away. And we are stuck to the wall. Right up in the air.

  This is terrible. Horrible. I am scared. I’m embarrassed. Everyone is looking at us. We are like flies on the wall.

  Mum starts to squirm. She has turned sideways. If she is not careful she will soon be upside down. Some of the people on the wall are groaning. Others are screaming. Some are laughing and having fun.

  But I am not having fun. I am excited. When I am excited something terrible always happens.

  And it does happen. Oh, horror of horrors. It happens.

  I wet my pants.

  There on the wall with everyone looking – I wet my pants.

  A river of warm wet wee runs along the wall. It snakes its way towards Mum. My shame scribbles its hateful way across the round, spinning room.

  I close my eyes and try to pretend that this is not happening. But it is.

  After ages and ages the walls start to slow. Gradually the floor comes up to meet us. Finally the Rotor stops and I am standing on the floor in front of a wet, smeared wall. My legs and dress are all wet. Mum and I stagger outside and blink in the sunlight.

  Simon is going to die. Simon is history. I will get him for this.

  Before I can reach Simon to strangle him, Mum grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him until his head just about drops off. ‘You have ruined the day,’ she yells. ‘Now I will have to take you back to your father’s so that Misty can change.’

  We all drive home without talking. I am so angry. ‘I will get you for this, Simon,’ I think to myself. ‘I will get you for this. If it is the last thing I do, I will pay you back.’

  5

  Mum drops us at the gate and drives off. As we walk up the drive I see Dad’s startled face staring out of the window. I also see Mr Grunge in his backyard. He has a shovel in his hand. He stares at me as I go by. It is almost like he can read my mind. I shiver and hurry indoors.

  Dad is surprised to see us. ‘What are you doing back so soon?’ he says. He is annoyed. And I know why. In the lounge-room is his girlfriend, Brook. She o
nly ever comes over when we are out. Her hair is all ruffled and she looks embarrassed. Dad’s shirt is hanging out. They have been cuddling. Yes, CUDDLING. And we have broken it up.

  I am annoyed too. He should be pleased to see us back. Not annoyed.

  ‘Simon made me wet my pants,’ I yell.

  ‘I did not,’ he says.

  ‘Liar, liar, liar,’ I shout.

  Dad rolls his eyeballs at Brook. Then he does something strange. He takes out his wallet. He bangs a fifty-dollar note down on the table. ‘See this?’ he says. ‘This is for the person who keeps quiet the longest.’

  Simon and I stop yelling. We are both very interested.

  ‘The first one to speak,’ says Dad, ‘does not get the fifty-dollar note. As soon as one of you speaks, the other one gets this. Do you understand?’

  I open my mouth to say ‘yes’. But I don’t. No way. I just nod my head in silence. So does Simon.

  ‘Not one word,’ says Dad. ‘Not a shout, not a scream, not a giggle. Total silence. That is the deal. Get it?’

  We both nod our heads again.

  Dad looks smug. ‘Now maybe we will get some peace at last,’ he says.

  I grin an evil grin. Now I will get Simon back. I will win the fifty dollars and he will be really cut. It is perfect. He might be bigger than me. He might be stronger. He might even be smarter. But I am stubborn. I will not say a word to anyone. Even if it takes ten years.

  That night I get into bed and wriggle down under the blankets. I turn off the lights and my mind starts to wander. Mr Grunge was giving me a funny look this afternoon. What was he thinking about? Suddenly I feel cold all over.

  He knows.

  He knows that I know that he has buried his wife in the backyard.

  What if I am next?

  I can’t sleep. I toss and turn. Finally I drift off when … ‘crash’. My bedroom door flies open. Someone bursts into the room. My brain freezes with fear. It is a person wearing a devil’s mask. A horrible, horrible mask. The figure dances around at the end of my bed.