Alice-Miranda in the Outback

by Jacqueline Harvey

  ‘Well, the Flying Doctors aren’t going to be here for a while, I’m afraid,’ the woman said. ‘We have to get him to the homestead if we can.’

  Ralph made his way into the shaft and was greeted by Larry with great enthusiasm. She introduced Alice-Miranda and Lucas before the man’s attention turned to Dan.

  ‘Geez, mate, you’ve done a number on yourself there,’ Ralph said, wondering how hard it was going to be to get the injured man up the ladder. But he was a bushman and it wouldn’t be the first time he’d had to innovate.

  Sprocket McGinty climbed down too. When he reached the bottom he promptly burst into tears.

  ‘Dan, my old matey, you are a sight for sore eyes,’ he said, and fell to his knees for the second time that afternoon.

  ‘Mr Sprocket, do you need a tissue?’ Alice-Miranda pulled one from her pocket and passed it to him.

  He mopped his tears then promptly fired into action.

  ‘Can you hold onto me, Dan?’ Sprocket asked. ‘I can give you a piggy back up.’

  It seemed unlikely, given the poor fellow was so weak. At least his leg was stable, thanks to Alice-Miranda, Larry and Lucas, who had used a length of wood Hayden and the others had found in the back of Wally’s ute and the bandages from the first-aid kit to make a splint.

  ‘Are you sure you can hold him?’ Alice-Miranda asked.

  ‘Carried a buck kangaroo out of one of my shafts a few months ago. Silly sod fell in. Had to use occy straps but we made it – him kicking up a right old fuss too. How d’ya think I got those scratches on my neck?’

  ‘I thought you said that was from when you were raised by dingoes,’ Lucas said.

  Ralph chuckled. ‘Raised by dingoes, my hairy armpit.’

  The children fell about laughing and even Dan managed a grin.

  ‘Well, laugh you may, but help him up and I’ll have him out of here in a jiffy. The rest of you make sure that you climb up right behind us so you can cushion the fall if I misstep,’ Sprocket said. The children and Ralph looked at each other, wondering if he was serious.

  ‘What are you fellas doing down there?’ Molly called. ‘We need to get a move on. Someone’s coming and I don’t think it’s help.’ It was Jacinta who had spied a vehicle. It was still a way off but it wouldn’t take too long to get to them.

  The children and Ralph helped Dan up on his good leg. Then they put his arms on Sprocket’s shoulders, and tied them around the man’s neck with some extra bandages. Despite his size and age, Sprocket stepped onto the ladder and climbed the rungs far more nimbly than anyone had expected.

  ‘Argh!’ Dan cried when his leg moved, but Sprocket whispered for him to hold on. That they were almost there. It wasn’t quite true, but he wanted to be encouraging.

  Ralph stood at the bottom of the ladder, watching every painful move, hoping Sprocket didn’t slip and that Dan could hold on.

  ‘Do you think he’s found anything down here?’ Lucas shone the torch around the walls. There was a line of quartz, but no evidence of any colour.

  ‘He’s been here a while if he dug this from scratch,’ Larry said. ‘It’s an impressive hole, even though he has no right to be here.’

  Alice-Miranda wondered how Larry and Hayden would react when they found out the truth.

  Sprocket took his final step on the top rung of the ladder and hauled Dan out. Hayden, Jacinta and Millie helped lay the man down on the ground while Molly watched the swirl of dust get closer and closer.

  ‘Come on, kids, we need to get moving,’ Ralph called from halfway up.

  ‘Get him in the ute,’ Molly urged. ‘Hurry.’

  But by the time Alice-Miranda and the others had reached the surface, Wally had arrived, and he wasn’t in the mood to let anyone leave before he had exactly what he’d come for.

  ‘G’day, kids,’ Wally sneered. ‘Can’t say it’s good to see you again, ’cause I don’t like tellin’ lies.’

  In the background, Muz and Col were looking particularly uncomfortable, hopping from one leg to the other and swatting at flies.

  Wally turned to them. ‘Get all the keys.’ The two men didn’t move. ‘Now!’

  They scrambled around to the vehicles and did as they were ordered. ‘Give ’em to me,’ Wally said, then shoved each set into his pockets. ‘And lock those two mutts up as well. Put ’em in the dog cage.’

  Wally turned and spotted Dan lying on the ground.

  ‘Well, well, well, fancy seeing you here,’ he said as a fly buzzed into his mouth. He spat it back out right beside Dan’s head.

  ‘Do you two know each other?’ Sprocket asked. ‘I suppose it would stand to reason seeing as though we ran into each other at Dan’s place and you were going through his cupboards and making a general mess. Oh and thanks for the tea this morning.’ He rolled his eyes.

  ‘Keep your trap shut, old timer,’ Wally said.

  Molly and Ralph recognised the man from somewhere, but couldn’t place the spot until Alice-Miranda piped up.

  ‘Is this what your wife meant the other day when we met you at the roadhouse? When she said your ship was about to come in? Was she talking about the treasure?’ Alice-Miranda looked at the man, whose face seemed to have almost reached boiling point.

  ‘I have a score to settle, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘You see this bloke here? When he moved to Coober Pedy he cosied up to my old man. Became the son he wanted and replaced the one he already had. They were as thick as thieves, those two, and when my father kicked the bucket, guess who got his fortune. Him, not me. I got a box of paperwork. Shoved it in the back room and left it there until we sold up. That’s when I found something. A diary and papers – all about the treasure at Hope Springs. How he and Dan here were going to find it one day. Dad had one half of the map, so I figured Dan had the other, but he just had that stupid riddle.’

  ‘You sound bitter,’ Millie said, garnering herself a glare.

  ‘Just getting what should have been mine from the start,’ he said. ‘Found anything down there yet, Dan?’

  The man shook his head.

  ‘You’ve gone to an awful lot of effort – must have taken months to dig this pit, and all the while you’ve been looking in the wrong spot. What a dummy,’ Wally sneered. ‘It’s not a mine you’re looking for – it’s a bag of stolen gems.’

  ‘I don’t understand how you think you’re going to get away with any of this,’ Alice-Miranda said. ‘We all know where you live.’

  ‘You’re a clever little thing, aren’t you? You seriously think I would have come all this way without an escape plan? Roadhouse is sold – new owner took over a few days ago. By the time anyone finds you lot, Shazza and I will be long gone,’ he said.

  Col and Muz, ordered by Wally, collected the children’s packs and radios, throwing them into the back of the brute’s ute. Wally walked to the edge of the mine shaft, grabbing the torch from Larry on the way. The girl kicked him in the shins, but his legs were like concrete and he just laughed it off.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ the girl demanded.

  ‘Do I have to repeat myself for the slow learners?’ He sneered at Larry, who was mightily offended by that statement.

  ‘All of you – down that hole,’ he motioned at the shaft opening. ‘Now!’

  Sprocket McGinty was the first to disappear, closely followed by Jacinta. Lucas went after her, then Millie and Larry. Molly and Ralph were next, but Alice-Miranda and Hayden hung back.

  ‘Dan’s badly injured. You can’t expect him to go back down there,’ the girl said. ‘He can’t walk. His leg’s fractured.’

  ‘Boohoo. He can stay here and watch me find what he couldn’t then,’ Wally said. He shoved Hayden towards the edge. The boy stood up taller and lunged at the man, who knocked him sideways.

  ‘Don’t touch my friend!’ Alice-Miranda shouted. She ran to Hayden, who was nursing hurt pride rather than anything more serious.

  ‘Stop wasting my time and get down there, you little brats!’ he yelled.
r />   Reluctantly, the children did as they were told. The family and friends huddled together at the bottom of the shaft, having managed to squirrel a couple of torches down with them but nothing else.

  Molly hugged Jacinta, who was crying. ‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ the girl sobbed.

  ‘Stop it!’ Millie ordered. ‘All you’ve done is whine and moan ever since we got here. We’re all in this together, if you haven’t noticed, and I’m just as scared of the snakes and the lizards as you are – but you don’t see me going on about it all the time.’

  This was news to Jacinta. She didn’t think Millie was afraid of anything.

  Alice-Miranda intervened. ‘Come on, we have to take care of each other. As soon as they leave we can head back up.’

  Except that, as she spoke, the ladder began to rise.

  ‘Pull!’ Wally shouted.

  ‘Sorry, kids,’ Muz called. Seconds later, their only means of escape was gone.

  ‘Yeah, sure you are,’ Hayden yelled back. ‘And you can stop stealing our water too. We know it was you – working for those scoundrels at Saxby Downs!’

  Meanwhile on the surface, Wally ordered Col and Muz to begin their search.

  ‘Get digging!’

  Col and Muz scampered off to find shovels and picks then headed over to the bucket of the steam shovel.

  ‘Any ideas how we might get out of here?’ Larry said despondently.

  ‘Maybe they’ll put the ladder back once they’ve found what they’re looking for?’ Millie suggested, but there wasn’t much agreement on that.

  ‘I knew when we saw that Chlamyd-whatever that no good would come of this trip!’ Jacinta sighed.

  Molly looked at the girl. ‘You saw a frill-necked lizard out here?’

  Jacinta nodded. ‘Hayden and Larry said you’re not a fan.’

  ‘No, siree,’ the woman said. ‘Greedy so-and-sos, they are.’

  ‘I’ve got a plan,’ Sprocket said, holding a torch beneath his chin to light up his craggy face. ‘Let’s tell ghost stories.’

  ‘No,’ Jacinta said. ‘Are you mad?’

  ‘Probably, but I thought it might pass the time,’ the man said.

  For a little while no one spoke, until the silence became claustrophobic.

  ‘I’ve got a better idea,’ Sprocket said, to groans from everyone else. ‘No, hear me out. What was that riddle again?’

  The children repeated it for his benefit.

  ‘Let’s look for opals,’ he said.

  Millie shrugged. They had nothing to lose.

  ‘We need to get out so we can help Dan,’ Alice-Miranda said, but Sprocket wasn’t listening. He’d passed his torch to Ralph and was already chipping away with one of Dan’s picks.

  Alice-Miranda shone the other torch up the shaft. While Col and Muz had taken the ladder, they hadn’t removed the windlass and the bucket. It was still perched over the top, high above them. If only they could reach it somehow, they might be able to rig up a pulley system.

  Jacinta was staring upwards too, doing some mental calculations.

  ‘I can get out!’ she declared. The others looked at her.

  ‘How?’ Millie said.

  ‘I’ve got to be good for something on this trip. I’m sorry I’ve been a terrible whiner. It’s just that everything’s so different out here. But I’m a gymnast, remember. Last month when I went to that special camp, there was one of those ninja-style courses and something we had to do was shimmy up a round pipe – I was the best at it by a mile. This can’t be too different.’

  Alice-Miranda smiled at her friend. ‘If anyone can do it, you can.’

  ‘How are you going to get up there in the first place?’ Molly asked. She wasn’t keen on the idea at all, but there didn’t seem any alternative and the girl sounded confident.

  ‘She can stand on my shoulders,’ Lucas said, but it turned out he wasn’t tall enough and neither was Ralph. They needed Sprocket, who was focused on his opal hunt.

  Alice-Miranda walked over to the man. ‘Mr Sprocket, we need your help,’ she said. He ignored her and kept picking away. Alice-Miranda remembered that her father had said once Sprocket was distracted there was no getting his attention until he’d finished what he was doing, so she decided to try another angle.

  ‘He’s gone weird again,’ Jacinta said, looking upwards and wondering if there was another way.

  ‘Just give me a minute,’ Alice-Miranda said. and grabbed the other pick. She hurried over to join him.

  Alice-Miranda chipped at the rock face without success. She decided to change tack and moved to the very end of Dan’s pit, where it felt as if the walls were damp. She sunk the pick into the rock face with a blow so hard it got stuck.

  ‘Here,’ Hayden said, grabbing the end to pull it back out again.

  Alice-Miranda held the torch while the boy pushed and pulled and finally dislodged the tool along with a large piece of rock.

  ‘Anything?’ Hayden asked as she bent down to pick it up.

  ‘I think it’s a pretty piece of potch,’ she replied, and tossed it on the ground. It was Millie who saw the flash. She ran to pick it up and turned it over.

  ‘Alice-Miranda. I think you might want to see this,’ the girl said, a smile on her lips.

  Molly, Ralph and the other kids gathered around while Sprocket hammered away in the darkness.

  Ralph shone the light on the rock, which only just fit in the palm of Millie’s hand.

  ‘Might be worth a few dollars, but that’s nothing to get excited about,’ the man said.

  The girl turned the rock over and a blaze of emerald green with splashes of blues and reds surprised them all.

  ‘Wow!’ the children all gasped.

  ‘So the legend is true, after all,’ Molly said. ‘We’d heard about this for years – your great-grandfather Charlie said that a surveyor reckoned the place had gemstones like nothing he’d ever seen before, but the pair had a falling out and then the surveyor bloke up and died. The surveyor had put the map in the book he made and added a riddle to punish old Charlie, but it became a bit of a joke – no one thought it was real. About forty years ago, though, half the page went missing.

  There was another story that did the rounds too: that there was a robbery in Coober Pedy and the fella who did it hid the bag of gems out here somewhere – but then he turned up dead and no one knew where he’d left them.

  ‘What do you think it could be worth?’ Larry asked.

  Molly shook her head, unsure.

  Alice-Miranda had gone back to the section where she’d found the stone. She shone the torch on the wall and drew in a breath.

  ‘There’s more!’ she shouted. The family and friends charged over to see and were mesmerised. Below the chunk that Hayden had removed was a wide seam of colour, and who knew how long it ran.

  ‘Mr Sprocket!’ the child called. ‘We’ve found something and you’re going to want to see it.’

  But the man continued chipping at his own spot until Alice-Miranda waved the opal under his nose.

  Sprocket stopped and grabbed the stone.

  ‘Oh my word.’ He jumped from one leg to the other. ‘Dan really was onto something. Woohoo!’ The man let out a howl of happiness.

  ‘Shhh!’ Alice-Miranda demanded. ‘Not so loud. I’ve got an idea and it’s only going to work if everyone sticks exactly to the plan.’

  Sprocket nodded and everyone gathered around to listen. Half an hour later, the group had more opals in their pockets than they’d ever seen in their life.

  Then, after standing on Sprocket’s shoulders, Jacinta managed to shimmy her way up the shaft, her legs almost in a splits position at times. Lucas couldn’t watch. The thought that she might fall was too much.

  The bucket was hanging inside the shaft, not far from the top. Reaching it, Jacinta tested to see that it was latched in position before she grabbed hold of it and pulled herself up the rope and out onto the ground above.

  She lay on her stomach
and looked back down into the mine, shocked to see Sprocket McGinty scaling the opening too, his legs spread wide and his hands pushing against the walls. He grabbed the bucket and hauled himself out after her.

  ‘Forgot I was once an elite gymnast myself. Just didn’t realise that I should try until I saw you give it a crack,’ he grinned, almost blinding the girl.

  Jacinta smiled back at the man. He was barking mad for sure, but thank goodness for that.

  Over near the steam shovel, the dirt was piling up and tempers were frayed.

  ‘Deeper!’ Wally ordered. They could just glimpse him through the cover of the vehicles.

  The pair pushed the ladder back to the edge of the hole and Sprocket whispered for everyone to clear the area below. Then he lowered it, holding on as long as he could until the thing flew out of his hands and hit the bottom. Within a minute, the family and friends were out. Sprocket climbed back down alone.

  Ralph and the kids pulled the ladder out and hid on the other side of Dan’s mullock heap, while Molly went to make sure that Dan was still with them. The man was lying in the back of their ute with the tailgate down. She snuck up on him, finger pressed to her lips and was pleased to see his eyes flicker open. She grabbed a water bottle and moistened his lips. ‘Thanks, Molly,’ the man croaked. The old woman was staring at him when the realisation hit.

  ‘Oh my word,’ she gasped, and turned away, her hand clasped over her mouth. Molly sank to the ground out of sight.

  ‘Hey, Wally!’ Sprocket’s voice echoed out of the shaft. ‘I think we found what you’re looking for!’ He had to call a few times before the man paid any attention, but then, given they were having no success near the steam shovel, Wally stormed over to the edge.

  ‘What are you talking about, old timer?’ Wally snarled.

  ‘Your opals. They’re down here,’ Sprocket called. ‘You’re the one looking in the wrong place. It’s not a pouch of stolen gems – it’s a whole reef.’

  The children and Ralph lay against the other side of the mullock heap, hidden from view but ready to leap into action.

  ‘You’re delirious, mate. That reef’s an old wives tale – the treasure was a bag of stolen gems from Coober Pedy. Saw a newspaper clipping about it in my old man’s stuff,’ Wally said.