Eustace

by Catherine Jinks

  ‘Mrs Patel?’ I called.

  ‘Allie?’ she replied. ‘Is that you?’

  ‘We’re up here!’

  Mum blew her whistle again, just for good measure. Within five minutes, Mrs Patel was climbing over the edge of the gully wall. Behind her were Tammy’s mother and two strange men – one of them wearing a National Parks and Wildlife uniform. The other, I noticed, was carrying a gym bag.

  ‘They’ve fallen down a mine shaft,’ Mum gabbled. ‘They’re down there – Tony’s hurt –’

  ‘I know,’ Mrs Patel interrupted. ‘Esme told us.’ Her skin looked grey. ‘What’s wrong with him?’

  ‘It hurts when he breathes. His leg hurts too, and his hand –’

  ‘Get away from that edge,’ the National Parks officer said sharply. Mrs Patel pulled back, just as sharply, and the National Parks officer apologised. ‘It’s probably unstable,’ he explained. ‘We don’t want anyone else falling down there.’

  ‘You should have put a fence up!’ Mrs Patel snapped. ‘Why isn’t there a fence?’

  ‘We can’t put a fence around every hole in this area,’ the National Parks officer rejoined (quite calmly, I thought). The name-badge on his chest said Ron Gorridge. ‘We put signs up. We expect people to read ’em.’

  ‘There used to be a fence here. Look.’ I pointed to the rusty strands of barbed wire sticking out of a bush. Then the other man – the man with the gym bag – said in low, rough, growling tones, ‘Let’s not stand around yakkin’, eh?’ and began to pull things out of his gym bag. A nylon rope. A trowel. A bunch of long, metal pegs and spikes that clinked as they fell on top of each other.

  ‘Right,’ Ron Gorridge agreed. He put a hand to his sunburned forehead. He was one of those men with very hairy arms and legs; blond but hairy. He wore a big, shady hat. ‘Sounds like we need to call an ambulance, first off.’

  ‘Oh – oh, I can do that,’ Mum offered, practically putting up her hand. ‘But I think you should know – Jesse told me – he was chased.’

  Everyone turned to look at her.

  ‘What?’ said Ron.

  ‘Jesse and Tony – some old man chased them, and they fell in. That’s what Jesse says.’

  ‘What old man?’ Ron scowled.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘He had no eyes,’ I squeaked, and it was my turn to be stared at.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Ron. ‘Who didn’t?’

  ‘The old man.’ I cleared my throat. ‘He – he had no eyes.’

  ‘If he had no eyes, then how could he chase anyone?’ Ron drawled, and his friend with the rough voice said: ‘Old Abel Harrow’s missin’ one eye.’

  They blinked at each other. Mum gave me a nudge. Mrs Patel said: ‘What’s wrong, Allie?’

  ‘N-nothing.’

  ‘You jumped.’

  ‘It’s okay.’ The name ‘Harrow’ had come as a shock to me – and to Mum too, I suppose – because of Eustace. But no one pressed me for an explanation. The whole group was too busy listening to Ron.

  ‘Nah,’ he said slowly. ‘Old Abel? Nah. He couldn’t have.’

  ‘All I’m sayin’ is, Abel’s lost his left eye,’ Ron’s friend pointed out.

  ‘You mean his right eye.’

  ‘His left.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ Mrs Patel interjected, ‘but we have an injured boy down there. We must get him out, if you don’t mind!’

  Ron’s friend squinted at her without speaking. Ron introduced him as Vern, who had come to help. ‘But only if the boys can be moved,’ he added, and leaned towards the gaping black mouth of the mineshaft. ‘What are their names again? Jesse and . . .?’

  ‘Tony,’ Mrs Patel supplied.

  ‘Jesse? Can you hear me?’ Ron yelled.

  ‘Yes!’ came the quavering answer.

  ‘Jesse, I’m Officer Gorridge, from National Parks and Wildlife! Are you hurt, down there?’

  A pause. Then: ‘I scraped all the skin off my knees and my hands!’

  I winced, and heard Mum groan. Ron clicked his tongue.

  ‘Can you move?’ he shouted.

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Can you walk?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘If someone came down there to help you, could you climb up a rope?‘

  ‘I – I think so.’ Jesse’s voice suddenly became shrill. ‘But what about Tony?’

  ‘We’ll sort Tony out, don’t worry about it!’ Ron turned back to address the rest of us, all at once very brisk. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Vern’s going to fix things up down there. I’ll put a call though to the local volunteer ambulance service, and they’ll be able to stabilise this kid until the ambulance unit arrives from base, whenever that might be. Did you say there were some other people wandering around out here?’ He was talking to Mrs Patel, who seemed to bristle at his tone.

  ‘They are looking for the lost boys,’ she began, but was cut short.

  ‘Well, you’d better go and make sure they haven’t fallen down any holes,’ said Ron. ‘And for God’s sake don’t go on your own.’

  ‘But I must stay!’ Mrs Patel protested. ‘The boys . . . it’s my responsibility . . .’ Tammy’s mother, however, laid a hand on her arm.

  ‘What about Mrs Karavias?’ she said haltingly. ‘We must tell her.’

  ‘Oh. Yes.’ Mrs Patel looked embarrassed. ‘Of course.’ She took a deep breath. ‘If you come with me, Esme, we’ll go and find Maria. Judy, you’d better take Allie back to the car, okay? It’s not good for her to be here.’

  ‘Car?’ said Mum. ‘What car?’

  ‘It’s my four-wheel drive,’ Ron remarked, butting in. ‘It’s up on the road, in that little parking bay, you know where that is?’ Mum nodded. ‘It’s not locked,’ he finished. ‘You’ll be fine in there.’

  ‘But my phone,’ Mum objected. ‘Won’t you need my phone?’

  ‘Got one,’ Ron replied shortly. ‘What do you reckon, Vern? Is it manageable?’

  He was definitely in charge; no one wanted to argue. So as he and Vern began to discuss ropes and friction and load-bearing ratios, Mum and I set off for his car, with Tammy’s mother and Mrs Patel trailing behind us. We soon parted ways. The other two went upstream to look for poor Mrs Karavias; Mum and I went downstream to look for Ron Gorridge’s car.

  We found it without any trouble. It was a greeny-yellow colour, and marked with the National Parks and Wildlife Service logo.

  We both got into the back seat.

  ‘I can’t believe this,’ said Mum. She sounded immensely tired. Her face was smudged, her clothes were dusty. ‘I can’t believe this is happening.’

  I had nothing to say. It was all bottled up inside. Abel Harrow? Who was this Abel Harrow? Evie’s brother? Her husband? Her son? Could one of Evie’s relations be the feral with the white hair?

  Surely not.

  As for Jesse – well, I couldn’t face the thought of him at all. Not at all. Something funny had happened there.

  ‘You should never have been allowed to wander off on your own in the first place,’ Mum went on. ‘Mrs Patel should never have let you all do it.’

  ‘Don’t blame Mrs Patel,’ I responded wearily. ‘It wasn’t her fault that Jesse got chased.’

  ‘He never would have been chased if he hadn’t been out wandering around by himself.’

  ‘He wasn’t by himself. He was with Tony.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  We fell silent. My stomach growled. I took Michelle’s almond bar out of my pocket, unwrapped it, and ate it.

  If you’re wondering what I was thinking, the answer is: nothing much. I was suddenly very tired, and my mind didn’t seem to be working properly.

  ‘Samantha and the others must be wondering what’s happened to us,’ Mum observed, after a while. ‘If only I knew Richard’s mobile number!’

  More time passed. We waited and waited. I offered Mum a bite of my almond bar, but she declined. We drank the last of her water. Then it occurred to me: my project sheet
!

  ‘My project sheet! Where’s my project sheet?’

  ‘Is it in your pocket?’

  I checked. ‘No.’

  ‘What about your back pocket?’

  ‘It’s not there either!’

  ‘Well, calm down, Allie, I’ll look in my bag. I seem to remember putting something in there.’

  ‘That was Jessie’s project sheet!’ I don’t know why I was so upset, but I was. ‘Oh no! I’ve lost it!’

  ‘You couldn’t have lost it. Ron Gorridge wouldn’t let you lose it – it would spoil the environment. Hang on. Let me look in here . . .’

  A tap on the window glass made us both scream. We’d been so busy peering into Mum’s bag that we hadn’t seen Angus’s dad approaching us. Malcolm was with him.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Angus’s dad said gruffly. ‘It’s only me.’

  ‘What’s happening?’ Mum asked, as he climbed into the front seat, jangling keys. Malcolm slid into the seat beside him. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’ve been told to drive you all to town and fetch the district nurse. Apparently she’s on duty at the clinic from two to three, so I should be able to get hold of her.’

  ‘Why? Is it bad?’ Mum exclaimed. Angus’s dad turned Ron’s key in the ignition, and started pushing the gear stick about.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he replied curtly. ‘I do what I’m told. That Parks guy just thought of this community nurse, so off I went. At least she’ll have a first-aid box, or something.’

  With a lurch and a bump, the four-wheel-drive moved onto the road, churning up dust. Then Angus’s dad hauled at the steering wheel, and we did a U-turn. We were heading back to Hill End.

  We didn’t actually pass the cemetery; it was further down the road. But something about the dirt tracks leading into the bush on our left made me think of the iron grilles, the brick fence and the gravestones.

  And then I remembered.

  Abel Harrow?

  That was the name on one of the gravestones in the Tambaroora cemetery.

  CHAPTER # seven

  ‘It can’t be the same guy,’ said Michelle. ‘They must be relatives – him and the dead Abel.’

  ‘Maybe.’ That was certainly possible; I had to admit it. ‘Or maybe not.’

  ‘Allie, he can’t be a ghost,’ Michelle insisted. ‘He can’t be dead, or people would know. It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘It might,’ I said slowly, ‘if everyone does think he’s some sort of relative – if everyone just takes him for granted, without stopping to think how old he might be, or where he might come from. He’s a feral, after all. He’s supposed to live in the bush. No one seems to know anything about him.’

  Michelle appeared to be struck by this argument. She thought about it as I finished my cheese and biscuits. We were sitting by our tent in the Village Camping Area, where Mum and I had been dropped not twenty minutes before. Since then, Mum had been talking furiously with Amy’s dad, while I told Michelle about the latest developments.

  ‘It seems like an awful lot of ghosts,’ Michelle finally objected. ‘First the matron, then Eustace and now Abel. What are the chances?’

  ‘In a town like this?’ I shrugged. ‘If you ask me, the chances are pretty high.’

  ‘I suppose Abel was behaving a bit like a ghost,’ Michelle had to agree. ‘Appearing and disappearing.’

  ‘Chasing Jesse.’

  ‘You really think he chased Jesse and Tony into that hole?’

  ‘Either that or they got freaked. I got freaked.’ Shaking my head, I wrapped my arms around myself. ‘It’s spooky, that place. Golden Gully.’

  ‘But why chase them? Eglantine never chased anyone.’

  ‘She didn’t need to. She had other ways of scaring people.’ After pondering this for a while, I added: ‘Not that she particularly wanted to scare people. She just wanted to get her book finished.’

  ‘So if Abel’s a ghost, what does he want? To kill people? What good is that going to do him?’

  I shivered.

  ‘Don’t say that,’ I mumbled. ‘Those boys aren’t dead.’

  ‘How are they?’

  ‘I don’t know. Jesse could talk, at least. Tony didn’t seem so good.’

  ‘Poor Tony.’

  ‘Poor Mrs Karavias.’

  ‘I wonder if we’ll have to go home?’

  It was a good question. So far we’d already missed our visit to History Hill, which had been scheduled for two o’clock. Everybody was sitting huddled together in little groups, glumly eating a late lunch. With Jesse and Tony missing, the spark seemed to have gone out of us all. Even Malcolm was pale and subdued. When asked if he had seen Jesse being pulled out of the old mineshaft, he had shaken his head.

  ‘They were still messing around with the rope,’ he’d muttered. ‘They made me leave.’

  ‘So you didn’t see anything?’ I’d pressed him.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you see the old man?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you notice anything else weird?’

  ‘Look, just leave me alone, will you?!’

  And that was all I had managed to get out of Malcolm. But I didn’t blame him. I didn’t want to talk or even think about the mineshaft myself – the mineshaft, Jesse, Tony or Abel. The emotion surrounding that concealed hole had been so raw. Jesse’s voice had been so frightening. And though I had come to accept that the voice I’d heard floating up out of the dark had been Jesse’s, in my heart of hearts I couldn’t help believing that it had belonged to an entirely different boy. Not to the boy with the cheeky grin who had once drawn a still-life of dog poo for his art project.

  No, the desperate boy down the mineshaft had been someone else entirely. Someone in whom I wasn’t the slightest bit interested. Someone who was part of something dark and nasty and frightening and . . . and real. Frighteningly real.

  ‘Perhaps Abel doesn’t actually want to kill anyone,’ Michelle suddenly suggested. ‘Perhaps he just wants to scare them away from Golden Gully, do you think?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I sighed.

  ‘Like a dog guarding his territory. That would make sense. Oh!’ Michelle swung around to face me. ‘What if he’s guarding a treasure? What if he has a whole lot of gold down there somewhere, and doesn’t want anyone finding it?’

  That didn’t sound right to me. ‘How do you mean?’ I said. ‘What kind of gold?’

  ‘Gold that he’s mined.’

  ‘Ghosts can’t dig for gold.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  I had to confess that I didn’t, not for sure. ‘But it’s more likely to be gold that he found when he was alive. Though even then . . .’ It still didn’t feel right, somehow. ‘Why didn’t he take it to the mining registrar, and sell it?’

  ‘Maybe he died before he could do that.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘Maybe that’s why he haunts the place. Because he can’t bear to leave his gold.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Then Mum approached us, eating an apple and looking exhausted. She said that she wanted to find out if Richard had arrived at Samantha’s place. Would Michelle and I mind popping up there, and making inquiries? ‘I can’t leave Victor with all these kids,’ she said. ‘It wouldn’t be fair. And I know you two girls are reliable.’

  ‘But, Mu-um . . .’

  ‘Please, Allie. Please. Samantha and Richard have to know what’s happened, and I can’t call them. I don’t have their number. Be nice.’

  It was impossible to refuse. Grudgingly I agreed to make things easier for Mum, and began to trudge up the road with Michelle at my side. As we dodged the bigger potholes and flapped the flies away, Michelle suddenly suggested that we tell Richard about Abel.

  ‘We could ask him about the gold,’ she said. ‘We could ask him what he thinks.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ I groaned. ‘Don’t let’s.’

  ‘Why not? He’d be interested, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, but it’s all
too horrible,’ I protested. ‘It’s not like Eglantine. You weren’t there when we found Jesse. You didn’t see it.’

  ‘I saw enough,’ Michelle replied, sounding slightly offended. ‘Anyway, if Abel’s a ghost, and he’s chasing kids into holes, don’t you think something should be done to stop him? I certainly do.’

  She was right, of course. We had to do something. I was still wondering what that something might be when we arrived at Taylor’s cottage, and saw that a little silver hatchback was parked next to Samantha’s battered red car. I recognised the PRISM sticker on the hatchback’s rear window.

  Obviously, Richard Boyer had arrived.

  ‘He’s here,’ I said.

  ‘Good,’ said Michelle.

  ‘Maybe they’ll give us some food,’ I muttered. ‘Are you starving? I am. Those cheese and biscuits weren’t enough.’ We walked up the front path, between enormous lavender bushes, and I tugged at the cast-iron bell-pull near a door that had ‘Welcome’ painted on it. We could hear someone approaching from the back of the house, because the floors creaked so much. It turned out to be Samantha.

  ‘Hello!’ she exclaimed. ‘We’d almost given up on you!’

  ‘Mum couldn’t come, because something happened,’ I announced. ‘She sent me to make sure Richard’s all right.’

  ‘Of course! Come in! He’s out the back with Delora, waving his machine around.’ Samantha giggled. ‘It’s all so exciting.’

  Michelle gave me a nudge – I don’t know why. Then we followed Samantha down the dingy hall, through the kitchen and into the garden again. Here, among patches of tomato plants and runner beans, we found Richard peering into the outdoor dunny, clutching an electromagnetic field detector. In some ways he looked the same as ever: pale and thin, with bright blue eyes and curly hair. But instead of his usual rimless spectacles, plain red jumper and baggy jeans, he was wearing sunglasses, a white jacket and shiny grey pants so narrow that his legs looked like pipe-cleaners.

  I decided that Delora must have been buying him clothes.

  ‘Hello, Allie, who’s this?’ he said, in his quick, breathless voice.