Pyro Watson and the Hidden Treasure

by Nette Hilton

  They were just different. That was all. Just different. It’d get done eventually and Geezer and Pyro would have as much fun as Min and Pyro.

  Probably.

  It was hard to feel good about knowing his best friend wasn’t going to be the most fun in the hide-out. He tried. He made a log of all the things that they’d done together. Watching Pirate Movie so many times they could say all the funny bits together. Acting the movie and leaping around in the lounge room being Captain Hook and Peter Pan and dragging all of Boa’s dolls and bears out to be the crew. Geezer didn’t even laugh when Winnie came out and he was Pyro’s own special bear who still lived on the bed in the daytime. He still lived in the bed at night when the wind whistled around the corner of the eaves and branches scratched their fingernails on the window. Geezer had a stuffed dog called Turby, whose tail had come off in a terrible accident when he was almost taken by a true dog.

  It helped a bit, thinking of things that they’d done. And listing them.

  It still didn’t make Pyro feel any better about wanting Min to build the hide-out with him and not Geezer.

  It was probably just that Min was here and ready to go and Geezer was away, away back at school.

  That was probably it.

  Geezer’d be organising their project and being the boss and everything and that made Pyro feel a bit better.

  It was good to be boss of the project because you were all by yourself.

  Almost.

  Jenna was with him.

  And he was probably letting Jenna do the crow’s nest.

  A small thought but it sent out angry little spikes that jabbed at him. He just bet, he just jolly-well bet, that Geezer would give Jenna that special job that he knew Pyro had really wanted to do.

  That’d be right.

  He’d forgotten all about that. Geezer liked the way Jenna was always happy to do as she was told. It was why they let her into their group. Actually, it was why nobody else would have her. If you didn’t tell Jenna to do it and do it this way, she didn’t do anything at all. And everyone knew, as Mzzz Cllump was always reminding them, that groups only worked happily if EVERYONE JOINED IN. Jenna’s way of joining in, unless you got her going, was to roll around and chew the ends off pencils. Or poke her nose.

  For sure Geezer would have told her to work on the crow’s nest. And that meant he would have already drawn it and they both knew that Pyro was the best at drawing masts and crow’s nests and rigging and stuff.

  It’d be just like Geezer to do that!

  Probably.

  San Simeon didn’t look up from his log. He was fixing up spelling mistakes and writing it in big letters so the crew would get it right.

  But … and it was a biggy … someone, Simeon was sure, was spilling his guts to the enemy.

  Someone was selling them out.

  Someone was trying to be the new leader and would, surely, lead them into danger.

  ‘Hidey-hodey!’

  Pyro nearly jumped out of his skin as Mr Stig swung around the corner of the camper and in under the awning. ‘Guess what?’

  There should be a rule about people creeping up on other people when they aren’t ready.

  Auntie Mor didn’t scare all that easily and she simply yawned and stretched herself before tying her dressing-gown around her and clumping down the steps. ‘I give up,’ she said without even trying.

  ‘How about this!’ Mr Stig waved his newspaper around. It was open to a page that had lots of coloured pictures. It was collapsing in the middle a bit so it was impossible to see exactly what they were supposed to be looking at. ‘I reckon we need to go and look at some proper ships and some proper maps and have a proper nosh-up at a proper restaurant that used to be a ferry!’

  Pyro would have put his postcards away but Auntie Mor had already scooped them up and put them in her shopping bag.

  ‘And where is all this exciting stuff going to happen?’ she asked. ‘I don’t recall seeing any ships or ferries in the main street of town last time I looked.’

  ‘Sydney!’ Mr Stig opened the newspaper and spread it across the table. ‘Down at Darling Harbour. The Maritime Museum is there and so is the ferry and so is the Endeavour. It’s not an actual pirate ship but we can pretend. So, what d’you reckon? We can chuck everything into the camper and drive it to the station. It’ll be all right down there and they’ll keep our possie here, I already checked …’ He looked at Mor who had opened her mouth to say And what about our spot here? ‘… And then a train all the way up the mountains to the top and off to Sydney!’

  Auntie Mor stretched again. She stretched so far that Pyro half expected her to sag in the middle like the old elastics that the girls used to play jumping games with at school. ‘It’s a long way to Sydney,’ she said.

  ‘Not too far.’

  But far enough, Pyro was sure, to be too far away to be back here in time for after school and hide-out building.

  Min would arrive and they wouldn’t be here. He might even think they’d gone forever and not come back.

  Pyro didn’t even know his last name.

  It was going to be perfect building that hide-out and it would have taken all the time up to when he was going home.

  ‘How about it?’ Auntie Mor was saying. ‘It’ll be a great chance to have a look at some of those old maps with dragons and things on them. I’ve never been to the Maritime Museum! What d’you say, Pyro?’

  They were doing it for him. He could feel it and tried to look really happy. ‘Great. It’ll be great!’

  Auntie Mor looked at Mr Stig and they both then looked at Pyro. ‘So how come you look about as happy as the man who lost a sixpence and found a penny?’

  Now Mr Stig looked back at Mor. ‘What?’

  ‘Forget it,’ she said. ‘So, Pyro, what’s making you so gloomy? Come on, spark out of it!’

  Pyro took a deep breath. Sometimes when adults asked what was wrong, he’d found, they didn’t really want to know. They just wanted you to get over it but this time, he felt, it just might be that they could do something. Like maybe go tomorrow.

  ‘Could we go tomorrow?’ he asked.

  Auntie looked at Stig. ‘Why tomorrow? Today’s much better. We’ll have the whole museum to ourselves on a Friday. All the kids are in school …’ She scruffled her hand into his hair, ‘… except you!’

  ‘It was just that we found a cubbyhouse.’ He nearly said ‘hide-out’ but that would give the game away and he didn’t want Auntie Mor and Mr Stig making pirate jokes all day and talking in piratey voices. ‘We were going to fix it up.’

  Auntie Mor was gathering up her towel and wash bag. ‘Is that all! Lordy, lordy, you’re your mother’s child!’ she said. ‘Never knew anyone like her for making mountains out of molehills. I’m sure you could do it tomorrow, couldn’t you? You’ll have all day instead of just after school time. Come on. Buck up!’

  She took off over to the toilet block, turning once on the way to send him a big, long smile. ‘Cheer up!’ she called. ‘It might never happen!’

  Mr Stig pulled his towel around his shoulders. ‘She means the worry, not the cubbyhouse. But it will be all right. Your new friend Min will be here at sparrow crack in the morning to get onto it. Just you wait and see!’

  Pyro wasn’t too sure what a sparrow crack was. At home his mother always made a point of explaining exactly what she meant.

  He wasn’t too sure, either, that Min would be here then anyway.

  New friends who were just happening came unstuck easily. It was like the glue hadn’t had time to set properly.

  As he walked over to the showers he kept thinking about him and Min.

  The glue had hardly had time to even get out of the tube, let alone paste itself around them like they were friends.

  It would have been nice though.

  There were a lot more people in the caravan park by the time Pyro woke up and pulled himself out of bed. It was amazing, really, how many caravans and campers had been fitted
into the spaces between them and the old couple who were travelling around Australia. In fact, if Pyro hadn’t stood a second longer on the top step of the camper he might’ve been fooled into thinking they’d gone already.

  He couldn’t even see the clifftop or the seats where the Worries sat, without peering around the edge of a big cream and blue caravan. There were all sorts of people sitting all over the place out there and the tables were covered in picnic breakfasts and fishing lines and eskies and baskets and people unpacking things. The only things missing were the Worries but Pyro could easily imagine them slinking off to pick on kids in less populated places. Like backstreets and school playgrounds, when all you really wanted to do was take a short cut.

  Mr Stig was at their table in the annex reading the Saturday paper and deciding which horse was most likely to win at the races. Auntie Mor said she only liked to pick them if they had good names like Rolan’ Strong or Shesaboy, so they were reading out names and writing them down.

  ‘Do you want to pick out a horse?’ Mr Stig said. ‘We could have a bet using some bottle tops if you like. The winner has to buy the chocolate.’

  Pyro wasn’t sure he was supposed to bet. His mother liked going to the races and they’d all had a day at the Gosford track when she’d jumped up and down when her horse looked like it was going to win. It didn’t. It was just as well, she’d explained, that she hadn’t bet any money or else it wouldn’t be so funny that it came second last.

  ‘Your mum won’t mind,’ Auntie Mor said. ‘Go on, pick out a horse and go find some bottle tops.’

  He wasn’t sure how she did it but Auntie Mor seemed to have a knack for knowing what he was thinking.

  ‘She’s my sister,’ she was saying now. ‘That’s how I know.’

  He was definitely going to be careful about his thoughts. He wondered if it would make a difference if he wore a cap. It might muffle any ideas that were drifting around so they wouldn’t be so easy to read. It’d make them like a code.

  San Simeon held the blackboard aloft. ‘This ‘ere is a code,’ he said. ‘It’s what we’re going to use so the pirates can’t work out what we’re thinking!’

  Derrick the Cook snorted. ‘Course they couldn’t do that anyway. Whatever are ye thinkin’, Cap’n? Ha! Ha! Ha!’

  San Simeon was thinking there was a traitor in his crew. He was thinking up a plan to trick that traitor into the open.

  ‘Now, watch carefully,’ he cried as he picked up two of Sweet Calamity’s pocket handkerchiefs. ‘When I hold my hands like this …’ he stuck his chest out, held his head high, and straightened his arms out so they formed right angles, ‘this signal means HELP.’ And then quickly, without moving his chest or his legs or his middle or anything except his outstretched arms, he swung them straight up so they looked like toothpicks. ‘And this means GO RIGHT.’

  Nobody moved.

  They simply looked and then one or two glanced sideways. A smile twitched at the edges of Cracker the Wheel’s mouth and he fought hard to stop it stretching any wider.

  ‘Wif respect,’ Derrick the Cook finally spoke up, ‘I don’t fink so, Cap’n.’

  ‘Pardon?’ San Simeon dropped his arms and held his hankies in front of him. ‘I’m sure it does.’ He consulted a book that he had opened on the sand. ‘Why? What d’you think it means?’

  A couple of the crew sniggered and then, when Simeon glared about to see who was being disrespectful, they quickly sucked in their cheeks and stood tall.

  ‘Well, I’m not all that smart, Cap’n, but if I saw one of me lads standing on the wharf wif his lace hankies stuck out there like that I’d reckon he was asking for trouble?’

  ‘Yeah,’ another voice chimed up. ‘You wouldn’t like it if someone flapped a hanky out at you, would you? You’d be saying, “what’re you flapping that hanky at me for?” And stuff like that. And then there’d probably be a fight or somefing.’

  ‘He could be drying ‘em?’

  Everyone turned to face Smit the Cabin Boy’s Father.

  ‘What?’

  ‘His hankies. He might have washed ‘em cos they got all snotty and wanted to dry them real quick.’

  The crew considered this and a few who could easily recall trying to blow a nose into a snotty hanky nodded wisely.

  ‘No.’ San Simeon looked heavenward as if he hoped a passing angel might be able to help him out. ‘It’s a proper code! It is! It’s in this book.’

  It wasn’t an airborne angel who stopped. It was Sweet Calamity. ‘Now boys …’ she said as she shook out some fresh new lace-edged hankies. ‘If I stand like this …’ She held her hankies out to the side. She didn’t stick her chest out and her hands, so delicate and fine, were held more precisely than Simeon’s, but the signal was the same. ‘… If you see me doing this, it is a signal for “help me”. Do you think you could remember that?’

  The crew nodded.

  ‘And this …’ Her arms were held up high with her sweet wrists just touching each other. ‘… If you see this, gosh, what do you think it means?’

  Heads were scratched and toes twitched but it was a toughie. And the Cap’n hadn’t said he was going to test them so nobody really knew.

  ‘Oh dear.’ Calamity let her hankies touch at a little wet tear that leaked from her eye. ‘If it meant that I was in great danger, you would have failed me.’

  They stood horrified. To think that they were all here and ready and strong, and poor little Calam could have been in danger and they’d done nothing because they didn’t know the signal.

  It took a minute or two for Calamity to kiss everyone better and settle them down and assure them that she wasn’t in real danger, it was just a pretend …’But,’ she reminded them, ‘if you don’t listen to San Simeon you really won’t get it right.’

  They listened. By golly, ears fairly twitched as they leaned forward to catch every word.

  And, by the time they’d done the test at the end, they were all able to wave hankies or singlets or undies around and send all sorts of messages.

  It hadn’t taken very long for Pyro to have a wash and clean his teeth. The whole day stretched out ahead of him. Empty. Not even the rock pool was going to be available as Mor said she wasn’t putting her face into any water that had that many bottoms sitting in it all day.

  He ambled along the path, not looking where he was going and thinking it’d be fun to write out Simeon’s code.

  At least it would pass a bit of time.

  He’d barely rounded the grassy edge that led to his camper when a quick shove in his back nearly sent him sprawling, at the same time as a fat little doggy body hurled itself at his chest.

  ‘Gotcha!’ Min danced around in front of him. Becks was flinging herself up and down like she was on a string and it was wonderful. ‘You didn’t even see me creeping up!’

  Pyro didn’t like being shoved in the back. At least, he didn’t think he’d like it but it was the best surprise he’d ever had. He shoved Min back and together they fell in a lump onto the grass. Becks barked and grabbed bits of T-shirt and tried to pull them apart. When she couldn’t she contented herself by jumping right on top of both of them and landing on their necks.

  Both boys had to stop to push her off and they’d barely found their feet when a new voice joined in.

  ‘Righto, you lot!’ It was the park manager. He was very stern about people who didn’t do the right thing and he’d put lists of right things to do all over the place. And he was pretty stern about dogs and child ren doing just about anything. ‘Get the noise down and that dog, Sonny Jim, will have to go home today. Too many people in the park to be kicking up such a ruckus!’

  Min waited until the park manager had moved off towards his cabin. ‘Did you kick up a ruckus?’

  Pyro giggled. ‘I don’t even know what a ruckus is?’

  ‘It’s a thing you kick!’

  ‘Like a football!’

  Min hooted. He hunched himself over and walked with his hands hanging down
in front of him. ‘I’m a ruckus!’ he roared.

  Pyro hunched over as well. ‘So am I!’

  Becks danced around them as they ruckused back across the park to the camper. They had to stop every now and then because she was having so much fun she forgot to be quiet.

  ‘Listen here, dog!’ Pyro said. ‘You’d better stop kicking up a ruckus!’

  It set them off again and they hooted and stumbled as they shuffled, ruckus-shaped, back to their bit of the park.

  They’d barely arrived when the park manager appeared on the horizon. Both boys leapt on Becks and hushed her.

  ‘Come to my place,’ Min said. ‘There’s too many people to work on the hide-out.’

  Quickly then, because the day that had started off at a slow crawl now held so much promise and already it was whooshing by and they’d barely begun.

  ‘We can go down the street and they’ve got these neat swords …’ Min slashed the air in front of him.

  ‘I know the ones. They make a clanking noise.’

  ‘Yeah, and you can clobber each other and it doesn’t hurt.’

  Becks was setting up for a day of high fun and games with lots of leaping and barking and ripping and racing about.

  ‘They cost three bucks. Shush, Becks.’

  ‘Three bucks fifty. Shut it, Becks.’

  The boys leapt on her again but it was too late. The park manager stormed over. ‘You boys are going to have to keep that dog quiet! Can’t have noisy dogs upsetting everyone.’ Then he launched himself right at Mr Stig and Auntie Mor. His hand waving was pretty well saying it all.

  ‘We didn’t mean it,’ Pyro said when they arrived. ‘True. We were just talking about these neat swords …’

  ‘And we’re going down the street to buy one if that’s okay,’ Min said. ‘And then my gran said that Pyro could come and play at our house for a bit.’

  ‘Three bucks, eh?’ Mr Stig said.

  ‘Three bucks fifty.’

  ‘Sold!’ He dragged out his wallet and gave the boys ten dollars. Min’s eyes were like saucers and Pyro wasn’t too sure about taking money just like that. His mum liked to know all about any money that came his way. ‘And keep the change!’