Game Play

by Hazel Edwards

  The man looked quickly at the backs of the other track suits and then at the first man. ‘Er ... perhaps his track suit came from a different batch.’

  ‘Don’t you all come from the same place?’

  ‘Er, most do. But there have been a few new ones added to the team from other clubs. Two joined us at Singapore Airport. So we don’t all know each other.’

  Christopher thought about that as they quickly returned the umbrellas to the bin. The army helicopter had taken off, dipping like a khaki dragonfly.

  ‘Umbrella chasing is more interesting training than running around the oval,’ agreed the players.

  Carrying their hand luggage, the twins went inside the airport building. Freshly painted signs were in Japanese as well as English. A giant mural of fish decorated a seagreeny-blue wall which merged into a greeny-blue carpet. Near the mural, giant tropic plants of different greens filled the floor to ceiling windows. If there hadn’t been so many passengers noisily fussing with their belongings, the twins could have imagined that they were in a tropical rain forest.

  Just inside, unexpectedly they found a person they knew. And it wasn’t Aunty Viv!

  Chapter 4

  Undercover

  ‘Gloria, what are you doing here?’

  The twins rushed up to the official in a navy uniform.

  ‘Working.’

  ‘Are you undercover again?’

  Once before, the twins had helped Gloria catch some bird smugglers going through Melbourne Airport.

  ‘Shhhh. If I WERE undercover, everybody would know by now!’

  Gloria was smiling but she looked beyond the twins to the passengers milling around. A tour guide was translating for a group of Japanese tourists. Mr Muscles walked past and nodded to the twins. Gloria watched him closely.

  ‘Sorry,’ chorused the twins. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m here because of the International Games.’

  ‘Are you playing?’

  Gloria smiled as she shook her head. ‘Not unless you count ‘catching’ smugglers as a game.’

  ‘Bird smugglers again?’

  ‘No. Steroids this time. We’ve had a tip-off.’

  ‘What are steroids?’ asked Christopher. ‘Are they drugs?’

  Amy had read the article in the flight magazine, twice. ‘Drugs which athletes use. They’re illegal,’ she said quickly. Christopher got mad if she showed off about knowing things, too often. Sometimes she let him get mad.

  Gloria nodded. ‘Well done, Amy. And there’s a journalist coming to do another story on them. He should have been on your plane.’

  Gloria held up a hand-written sign. It said Tom Savvas. Amy remembered seeing that name. She fumbled for the free inflight magazine which she’d stuffed in her bag. She ran her finger down the table of contents.

  Meanwhile Christopher joked with Gloria. ‘Have you changed your name, too?’

  ‘No, this is so he can find me.’

  Christopher had seen handheld signs at other airports. Sometimes they were in Japanese or some other language. It was to help strangers find each other. A clue.

  Amy had found the article. ‘Tom Savvas,’ she said triumphantly, opening the magazine to the article. She pointed to his photo.

  ‘I’ve seen the article,’ said Gloria quietly. ‘That’s why we invited him here.’

  That made Amy think of something else. ‘How do couriers or smugglers who don’t know each other, find each other?’

  ‘A secret sign, I suppose,’ suggested Christopher. ‘Something they wear or something they do. Or a special place to meet. There’s a

  MEETING POINT sign in some airports.’

  ‘And the team members who know each other by the uniforms,’

  Amy suggested.

  While they were talking, Gloria’s eyes were scanning all the incoming passengers. Mrs Gold and Mrs Silver tinkled past, laden with extra hand luggage. A priest with a silver cross on the lapel of his jacket walked past, too. The team manager was trying to keep his football team together as a group. He looked harassed.

  ‘You’d better go through the official channels and get your baggage,’ suggested Gloria. ‘I’ll see you outside.’

  When Christopher looked back, he saw Gloria meeting a short, fair haired man. He tugged Amy’s arm. ‘That’s the journalist, I bet.’

  ‘Tom Savvas,’ Amy peered through her rainbow framed glasses.

  ‘Doesn’t look much like his photo in the magazine. You could do a better sketch, Christopher.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed her brother. And he might, once they got through Customs, Quarantine and Immigration.

  Just then, the sniffer dog and his handler approached. The twins knew some sniffer dogs were taught to leap onto conveyor belts. The ‘active’ dogs sniffed suitcases moving along them for traces of drugs.

  Other ‘passive’ sniffer dogs just sat alongside people whose luggage had a suspicious smell.

  ‘Do they smell steroids the same way as other drugs?’ Christopher asked the handler.

  ‘If they’re trained for that scent. And these ones are.’

  Mr Muscles moved across to the other queue, away from the dog. It was hot inside. Posters of the Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree Rain Forest decorated the walls. Each week, thousands of international passengers moved in and out of Cairns on their way to Asia. The wall posters said so.

  Amy yawned. For once she hadn’t slept well on the plane. Mr Muscles’ snores had kept her awake. Now the heat was increasing. Prickles of sweat ran down her back. Amy tied her jacket around her middle. The twins waited in line to clear Customs. They’d already filled in their declaration forms on the plane, but because they were under nobody had passed anything illegal to them.

  The priest stood in front of them. Light glinted on the silver cross on his lapel. His hand luggage was at his feet. The sniffer dog walked past, but didn’t stop.

  ‘Is your visit business or pleasure, sir?’ asked the Customs officer as he checked the photo and stamped the priest’s passport.

  ‘Both. But I hope to see a few soccer games while I’m here,’ said the priest. ‘And look at the body-building contests. I’m interested in all kinds of fitness. Mind and body.’

  Idly Amy whispered. ‘D’you reckon priests ever try to smuggle anything?’

  ‘Shhh. Of course not. They’re like nuns,’ said Christopher. Amy wasn’t so sure. The priest had a bottle of something in his bag. Was it legal?

  ‘Excuse me, sir?’ said the officer. ‘Anything to declare?’

  ‘Only this.’ The priest pulled the bottle out of his bag. The liquid was colourless.

  ‘Is it a spirit, sir?’ asked the officer undoing the top and sniffing.

  ‘Er ... it’s only water,.’ explained the priest. ‘That doesn’t have to be checked by Quarantine does it?’

  ‘Yes, sir. It does.’

  The twins giggled as the priest nodded. ‘Brought it back myself from the Holy Land.’

  ‘Just water?’ checked the quarantine officer glancing across at the dog-handler who paused.

  ‘Holy water,’ explained the priest looking down at the sniffer dog.

  ‘No duty on that surely?’

  ‘No sir, but it does have to be declared to quarantine. Just in case.’

  ‘In case of what?’ The priest was a little annoyed.

  ‘There are any bugs in it.’

  The twins giggled. ‘Holy microbes!’ whispered Christopher.

  The priest was waved through and the sniffer dog kept patrolling. Then it was the turn of the twins. They stepped over the line together. They’d been through checkpoints in many airports. Each pulled out a passport which was on a neck cord.

  ‘Amy Lee?’ The officer checked her photo and looked up at her face. Dad had taken the passport photo when her g
lasses were broken.

  That made officials look twice.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’ve got a fine collection of stamps in this passport,’ said the officer as he thudded an entry stamp on the right page.

  ‘What were you doing in Singapore?’

  ‘We were on holidays with our parents.’

  ‘You live in Sydney? Why have you come to Cairns?’

  ‘Our Aunt is working here this week. She’s meeting us.’ Amy hoped that was right. Aunty Viv was often late or something else went wrong.

  ‘Go through, Amy. Anything to declare?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Collect your baggage and go through the Green channel.’

  Amy knew that Customs checked any goods going in or out of the country. Sometimes tax had to be paid on legal goods. Illegal goods were stopped.

  ‘Carrying any food? Anything on the quarantine list?’

  Amy shook her head. Anything which might carry disease interested Quarantine. Goods could be brought in but had to be shown to the Quarantine officers. Holy water was pretty unusual. Amy wondered if it did have bugs in it? Would that make the bugs religious?

  Christopher was cleared through Customs quickly too, with the airline attendant standing alongside. In the next booth, Mr Muscles was being asked lots of questions. He seemed nervous. But perhaps that was just natural. Most people got nervous at being checked for anything.

  Mrs Gold and Mrs Silver were in the next queue. Their voices were very loud. Both were short and had to stretch up to reach the counter. So they shouted to make up for it. ‘Yes, we’ve just been to England to visit our relatives. Yes, they did give us many gifts. Mainly antique jewellery. Inherited.’

  A moment later, two sporting groups arrived together. Passenger Processing quickly cleared the teams and their luggage. Amy watched. One soccer team had blue blazers. Their manager showed their papers.

  Then they were waved through by the officials. If you were wearing a uniform, you could blend in with the rest, thought Amy. A good disguise. Then came the football team in the navy track suits. Amy counted.

  ‘There’s eleven in a soccer team, isn’t there?’

  Christopher nodded. ‘Plus the manager and a couple of subs.’

  ‘Oh, there were fifteen in that team. Fifteen track suits.’ Amy recounted.

  ‘Yes, one of those guys had different coloured navy trackpants.

  And his socks were green instead of navy like the rest. I drew him before. He was carrying heavy hand luggage. You could tell from the way he bent over.’

  Christopher always noticed colours, shapes and weights.

  ‘That Mr Muscles is a fitness freak,’ said Christopher. ‘He’s got two bottles labelled VITAMINS in his luggage.’

  ‘Was it properly spelled? On the other bottle it said VITTAMINS.’

  ‘Looked okay to me.’ Art, not spelling was Christopher’s best subject. ‘Onboard, when I dropped my pencil, I bent over and the zipper was undone on his hand luggage under the seat. I could see the labelled bottles.’

  The passenger on Amy’s other side was just as interesting. It was Tom Savvas, the sports journalist. Gloria had vanished. All passengers had to go through the Entry Control Point. But Gloria was staff so she could move around easily wearing her I.D. tags for Customs and FAC.

  Amy tried to eavesdrop, but his voice was too soft as he answered the official’s questions. All she could make out was ‘business’ as the reason for his visit. Amy thought she wouldn’t mind being a journalist when she grew up. Then she’d never run out of things to read or places to visit. Waiting for the queue to move, Amy read the colourfully decorated wall. One of the things she liked about Cairns were the tropical posters. She turned to her brother. ‘Did you know that fifteen hundred species of fish are found on the Great Barrier Reef?’

  ‘I do like fish and chips.’ Christopher laughed. ‘Did you count them? Probably missed the lizard fish. Dad said it’s almost invisible on the coral.’ He pointed to a map poster. ‘There’s a Lizard Island, too. Would you like an island named after you?’

  ‘Not really.’ Amy remembered the ‘Lizard Lady ‘ in the wheelchair when solving an earlier airport mystery. ‘But the Lizard Lady might.’ Amy stared at the photograph. ‘Do you know The Great Barrier Reef is more than two thousand kilometres long. It’s bigger than the UK or even Texas. And it contains more species of plants and animals than anywhere else.’

  ‘You’re very well informed for a young girl.’ The priest standing nearby was impressed. Christopher wasn’t. It was normal. Amy always read the inflight magazine. And usually there were facts about the next place the plane touched down. Christopher liked the fish posters better.

  ‘Look. This parrotfish is grey and female to start with. Then it changes into a blue and green male fish.’

  ‘Yes. Reef fish change their colour and sex as they get older.’

  Amy had read that. ‘Sometimes I wouldn’t mind changing a bit. I’d like red hair.’

  ‘What about them?’ pointed Christopher. Nearby were some fresh mud crabs and lobsters swimming in a tank. Visitors could arrange to buy them by the kilo, and fly them home in Eski containers, complete with a quarantine certificate. ‘They’ll probably change into dinner!’

  People nearby laughed.

  ‘Body builders try to change their shape.’ Mr Muscles overheard.

  ‘They make their limbs bigger and stronger. So do swimmers.’

  ‘That’s different. Athletes aren’t fish,’ Amy said quickly.

  ‘Unreal!’ Christopher was still thinking about the reef fish. ‘Glad I’m not going to turn into a girl. Or change colour.’

  Changing to bluey-green could be awkward. Christopher was quite used to being himself. He didn’t want to change anything much.

  Not even his eyes which went up at the ends a bit.

  ‘Smily eyes,’ his Mum said.

  Chapter 5

  Wildlife

  It was Amy who first noticed the snake.

  They were waiting to collect their bags. Their flight number winked above the baggage carousel. Even inside, the airport was steamy hot.

  ‘Look!’

  Amongst the slowly circling baggage on the carousel tumbled a snake. It wriggled. Then the snake fell against Amy’s purple and aqua bag as the belt jerked on. A blue sports bag with hockey stick attached was next in line.

  Other stick-bags littered the moving belt. Many had GROUP TRAVEL labels.

  ‘Wild life!’ Christopher often made bad jokes. He grabbed HIS bag which was metres away from the snake.

  ‘What about MY backpack?’ muttered Amy staring at her purple and aqua bag as it jerked past. The snake was writhing near the label which said AMY LEE in big writing. Any moment, it might slip off the on that floor. What if it slithered up her leg? Or what if it clung to her bag forever?

  ‘Leave your bag until the next time around,’ suggested Christopher. ‘The sniffer dogs might have got the snake by then.’

  But Amy was not going to lose her luggage! Edwina was in that bag. She could imagine the headlines. Edwina strangled by snake! She glanced around for a weapon.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said to an athlete. He was waiting beside the roundabout for his second bag. His first sports bag was on the floor alongside his fashionable, running shoes. ‘Could I borrow this?’

  ‘What?’

  Amy didn’t wait for permission. Her backpack had almost finished its circle. On the moving belt, the snake was still wriggling. Its tail was near the strap of Amy’s bag. Grabbing a hockey stick from outside his sports bag, she hooked her aqua shoulder strap. She jerked. The bag fell off the belt. The snake vanished behind the flaps with the unclaimed bags.

  ‘Let’s see if the snake comes around again,’ said Christopher.

  Amy watched. Now Edwina was safe, the sna
ke didn’t matter so much. But she wasn’t telling her brother that. He thought teddies were babyish for ten year old sleuths like them. But Edwina had travelled everywhere with her.

  ‘Hey!’ At that moment, a big hand landed on her shoulder.

  She jumped.

  ‘Finished with my stick? I need it for the game today.’

  Amy turned. ‘Er.....Thanks.’ She handed the stick back to him.

  ‘Could be a great snake hooker.’

  The athlete laughed. ‘We’re not playing against the Snakes, as far as I know. I think the first match is against the Staghorns.’

  ‘Are you playing in the International Games?’ asked Christopher politely as he watched for the snake. But this time around, the only wild life was the drug detector dog, sniffing the bags. There were two left that no one claimed.

  ‘Snake must have slithered off.’

  ‘Maybe the sniffer dog ate it?’ Amy unzipped her bag to check

  Edwina was still inside.

  ‘They don’t eat snakes!’

  ‘Good luck for your game,’ called Amy as the athlete strode away with his two bags. ‘Know why the team’s called Staghorns?’

  ‘Dumb name for a sports team,’ said Christopher.

  ‘Staghorn is a coral from the Great Barrier Reef.’

  Christopher wasn’t going to ask where she read that. He knew.

  ‘Sports teams are hard to miss,’ said Amy as the Blue Blazers walked past. ‘All look the same. It would be easy to hide in a group like that.’

  Blue Blazers piled their baggage on the greeny-blue airport carpet.

  Their sports bags had stick shapes strapped outside. In Cairns they’d be hot in those blazers!

  ‘’More hockey players.’ Christopher was starting to sketch as usual. ‘That other team at Singapore Airport had yellow blazers. They were footballers.’

  There were two exits from the Customs Hall. Red was for people with something to declare. Green was for people who had nothing to declare. Officers could search travellers in either line. People had to put their bags on the long counters. If the officer asked, the bag had to be opened. The twins were in the Green queue. Tom Savvas stood behind them. His voice was soft, with a slight accent.