“Thish ish the camp?” Vloot asked. (Btw, he doesn’t have a lisp—that’s just the way Dutch people speak English.)
“Looks that way,” Ellie said. She prodded her swag with her foot. “And this is what we’re sleeping on.”
“Nae tents?” Glen said. “Ah cannae believe it.”
“Parp!” said Thaigo’s butt. “Parp, parp.”
“You said it, dude,” Denny muttered, putting his hand over his nose. “Y’know, this is just like the start of a horror movie, when a heap of kids go somewhere real far from everything and then at night they start disappearing and stuff.”
Ellie rolled her eyes. “Gee, thanks, Denny. Bedtime stories like that are just what we need.”
“I’m scary,” Linda said in a small voice.
“Scared,” I corrected.
A weird dragging sound was coming from somewhere behind me. I turned to see Cousin Vern pulling an axe out of a metal toolbox and jumped about eight feet in the air.
“He’s just chopping some wood for the fire, Rafe,” Ellie said. “I think.”
Monique looked longingly at the bus. She wasn’t the only one. Eric burst into tears. Okay, he didn’t. But it was close.
Long and uncomfortable as the journey out here had been, I reckon most of us would have gone straight back to Bigbottom Creek quicker than you could say “I’m an artist … Get me outta here!”
I WAS PRETTY sure that Brushes McGarrity noticed that us Young Artists were getting twitchy. I was also pretty sure that he was enjoying us being scared.
It made me kind of mad, and getting mad made me feel a bit braver. You ever get that? No? Well, I do, and right then it was making me real determined not to let Brushes have the last laugh.
“C’mon,” Brushes shouted. “Let’s get moving!”
Reluctantly, we dragged our swags over to where Brushes was making a ring of stones.
“That’s for the human sacrifices,” Denny whispered. “I wonder who they’re gonna do first? My bet’s on Vloot. He’s the biggest.”
Ellie jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow. “It’s for the campfire, idiot!” she hissed.
Sure enough, Cousin Vern lumbered past and dumped a heap of wood in the middle of the ring.
When we’d all arranged our swags around the campfire, Brushes got us all to drag some bigger rocks closer. We draped our swags over them and used them as chairs. It wasn’t exactly The Ritz but it was more comfortable than you might think. While we were doing that, Cousin Vern started to make dinner.
This was good and bad. On the one hand, I was starving. On the other, it meant Vern had substituted his axe for a large knife.
Brushes got the fire going and, in about three seconds, it was burning away like he’d flicked an ON switch. Remember how hot it had been? Well, now with the sun dipping below the horizon, the temperature was starting to drop pretty quick. Of course, being from different places, we all reacted differently.
After he got the fire going, Brushes went over to the bus and came back with a cardboard box. “You’ll all be needing one of these,” he said, and pulled out a small spade. “It’s …”
MAYBE I SHOULDN’T have done it, but I couldn’t help myself. There was just something about McGarrity’s bristly leather face that made me want to show him we weren’t total dorks. So when he pulled out the spade, I cut right across him.
“I know what it is,” I said, stopping Brushes mid-sentence. “It’s a poop spade. For burying our poop, right?”
Chalk one up to me! KHATCHADORIAN: 1 MCGARRITY: 0!
But if I knew what the spade was for, it was pretty obvious that no one else did. And they weren’t happy. At all.
“What?” Ellie said. “There are no toilets? Is that even legal?”
Denny took the spade from Brushes and gave it a look so full of disgust I was surprised the thing didn’t melt. “That is so not cool.”
Thiago laughed as if he’d never heard anything so ridiculous. Linda put her hand to her mouth and looked like she was going to be sick.
I know what you’re all thinking: when did Rafe Khatchadorian get so wise and stuff about bush toilets? Huh? Huh? When did he become King of the Outback? And I’d say to you: The Program.
On The Program at Camp Wannamorra, I’d dealt with a lot more than pooping in the woods. I’d taken everything Sergeant Fish had thrown at me with a smile on my face. Okay, maybe I didn’t actually smile all the time, but you know what I mean. I’d done some wild camping, I’d survived raging rivers, and I’d faced down bears. How bad could it be at the Cultural Campout? Being A Man of Experience was something I was getting to like. I could almost feel my brain absorbing the idea that things which seem unpleasant at the time can, in the end, make you a stronger person.
Maybe things were going to work out fine at the Cultural Campout.
Linda leaned into the fire and puked.
Or maybe not.
THAT FIRST EVENING at Kamp Kulture was kind of … interesting.
Kamp Kulture, you say? Ellie had renamed the Cultural Campout about ten minutes after Linda hurled and the name just kind of stuck.
As the sun disappeared, Brushes called us over to get some food. And you know what? Vern had done a pretty good job on the barbecue. He’d even catered for the two vegetarians in the group.
Okay, so he hadn’t exactly gone to a lot of trouble by throwing six veggie sausages on the griddle, but I guess the thought was there. I was so hungry I could have eaten a slice of fried tire and a side of sand, but sinking my teeth into the national Aussie meal of sausage sangas slathered in ketchup was a whole lot better.
We sat on our rocks around the fire and ate and talked and drank hot tea from a billy can.
It was good.
With some food in my belly and the campfire crackling away, I started warming up to Kamp Kulture again. Maybe I’d misjudged Brushes and Vern. They might look like weirdo psycho outback serial killers, but they had set up the camp real nice and made a good dinner and it wasn’t their fault we had to poop in the desert. I was kind of regretting showing off about the poop spade now. I took a slurp of tea, leaned back against my rock, and looked up at the stars. I could feel the magic of the outback settling into my soul.
And then Brushes started singing.
TRUST ME—UNTIL you’ve heard Brushes McGarrity “singing” “The Man from Snowy River,” you haven’t truly suffered.
The dude had been making progress down the list of Khatchadorian’s Least Favorite People, what with the campfire and the food and all, but once he opened his hairy facehole and began wailing, he moved up about fifty places (it’s a long list). As soon as he opened his mush, every animal and insect within a hundred yards stampeded directly for the horizon. What little plant life there was near the campsite abandoned all hope and dropped stone-dead. When Brushes went for a high note (and missed by a couple of miles) the rock I was leaning against flinched. Two passing bats got so confused by the wailing they collided and dropped to the ground, unconscious. You getting the picture yet? He sucked.
Brushes followed “The Man from Snowy River” with “Waltzing Matilda” and “Meet Me at the Billabong, Betty,” then “My Kangaroo Won’t Stop Jumping” and about six zillion other Aussie songs.
I wasn’t even Australian and I was embarrassed. Ellie and Denny looked like they wanted to crawl into the nearest cave.
And Brushes didn’t stop there. Outback stories, bush poetry, and the tale of his discovery of the cave paintings came next. The man just went on and on.
And on.
And on.
TO BE FAIR, some of what Brushes was saying was kind of interesting. And he sure looked the part.
Brushes was wearing a sort of Australian cowboy-style hat and a battered full-length coat made out of what looked like (and probably was) an old tarp off the back of a truck. Lit by the flickering campfire, he could have stepped straight out of 1892.
“Mysterious place, eh?” he said, holding his hands out to the flames.
He stared at each of us. “It’s been a sacred place for our people for generations. Don’t be surprised if you get caught up in the Dreaming tonight.”
Denny snorted, then quickly covered it up with a cough when Brushes glared at him. “Got a bit of sausage stuck,” Denny said, pointing at his throat.
“You need to watch that,” Brushes growled, standing up. “Could be dangerous.” He gave Denny a meaningful glare. “Best make it an early one tonight, campers. We’ll be heading to the Rocky Hills tomorrow to see my famous McGarrity Cave Paintings—the finest Aboriginal cave paintings in the whole of Australia and you’ll all want to be fresh for that.” He jerked a thumb at the bus. “Vern’s rigging up a shower over there for anyone who needs it.”
“Starting with Vern,” Ellie whispered.
“Not enough water in Australia to get that bloke clean,” Denny said.
“Any questions?” Brushes asked.
Vloot put up a hand. “Hot tub?”
“The outback’s no place for softies,” Brushes said. His smile was still in place but his eyes narrowed. It wasn’t something to get worked up about, but I could tell Brushes McGarrity wasn’t someone who liked to be on the end of anyone’s joke.
As if to confirm this, he scratched his beard in a way that seemed to be saying “I’m on to you, Khatchadorian.” He pulled down the brim of his hat so all I could see of his eyes were two pinpricks of reflected light.
“Where’s your swag, Brushes?” Denny asked.
Brushes scoffed. “Me? I find a nice flat bit of ground, boot away any stones, and bunk down right there. No swags, no fancy showers, no room service, no jacuzzis—just the stars and the Dreamtime for old Brushes McGarrity.” He paused and pointed a finger at the group, his voice going even lower and growlier than it had been before. It was the voice of the guy who does the voice-overs on scary movie trailers. “G’night, campers. Sleep tight. Make sure the dingoes don’t bite.”
Brushes turned and walked off into the darkness. There was no sign of Vern.
“Dingoes?” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. I didn’t like the sound of dingoes one little bit.
“Wild dogs,” Denny explained.
“What do you mean ‘wild dogs’? You can’t just say ‘wild dogs’ and leave it at that! Are they dangerous?”
Denny nodded. “Sometimes, but we should be okay. They usually only attack small children and tourists.”
There were a couple of things wrong with Denny’s answer—mainly the words “should” and “usually”. I was hoping for something like “dingoes are perfectly harmless, you’ll be fine”. And wasn’t I a kind of tourist? Would dingoes be able to tell a visiting Young Artist from a regular tourist?
It was going to be a long night.
I’D READ ABOUT the Dreamtime in the book Ellie had sent me.
Don’t look so surprised. I take my art seriously, and like all artists, I’ve got to do my research—and to be honest, once I got started I couldn’t stop. I read everything, from the Rainbow Serpent to how Uluru (the big rock) was formed. It turns out that some stories are so sacred they can’t be told to outsiders, which is pretty cool. (There were over two thousand language groups before 1770, btw.)
Dreamtime stories are kind of like a guide on how the world was created and why things are the way they are. Art plays a pretty big role in the storytelling too. Ellie’s book had pictures of ancient cave paintings and contemporary Indigenous Australian art. Some of them were completely made up of dots and symbols, and the book explained what they all meant and how important these stories were to Indigenous Australians. It made me think of Denny and I suddenly understood why he’d been so snappy with Brushes.
The fire had gone out and all the other Kampers were fast asleep, but I was wide awake. Maybe it was jet lag. Maybe it was the sausage sangas gurgling in my stomach. Or maybe, just maybe, it was the thought of being ripped to bite-sized pieces by a rabid pack of wild desert dogs.
Was I the ONLY sane one here?
Wasn’t anyone else even a little concerned about drongos or dongoes or whatever was roaming around in the outback? And were Brushes and Vern supposed to just abandon us like that?
I tried counting sheep but they kept getting eaten by dingoes. Plus, every time I was about to drift off, I’d hear a squeak or a rustle, and my head would pop back up, my eyes wide, hopelessly scanning the blackness for whatever was out there.
And just when I could finally, finally, finally feel sleep pulling me in, I heard a sound that I knew wasn’t in my imagination. My eyes snapped open. This wasn’t a case of a was-it-wasn’t-it rustle. It wasn’t an imaginary squeak. It was a very real boofboom kind of noise way off in the distance.
I’m pretty sure it was the type of sound some tourist-munching desert monster thing would make.
I SAT BOLT upright with the swag clutched around me, every Khatchadorian nerve ending vibrating like crazy.
“H-he-llo?” I said. “Is anyone there?” (Like a monster would reply.)
Boofboom.
There it was again, closer and louder this time and about fifty times more scary.
“D-d-did anyone else h-hear th-that?” I whispered, the words dry in my throat.
The only answer came in the form of a fart from somewhere over near Thiago. It was the one time in my life I’ve been glad to hear a fart. At least it meant everyone else wasn’t already dead.
“Ellie? Denny?” I croaked. “Glen?”
Not a peep. Not even a parp.
BOOFBOOM!
Whatever was making that sound was getting real close to the campsite. I could feel the bass notes vibrating under my already twitchy butt.
It was exactly like that dinosaur movie. You know the one where the kids are trapped in the wrecked jeep just outside the T. rex enclosure and there’s a glass of water (why?) on the dash? Everything’s real quiet and then the kid hears a sort of boof noise and the water ripples outwards from the center of the glass and the kid knows—just knows—that the sound is caused by the massive thudding footsteps of an ENORMOUS T. REX THAT’S GETTING NEARER AND NEARER AND …
BOOFBOOM!
The whole camp vibrated like the surface of the water in the glass on the dash of the jeep outside the enclosure in that dinosaur movie. (I know that sentence sort of runs on and on and there should be some commas and stuff in there, but I was way too terrified to sort out my grammar.)
Directly above my head—so close I could almost touch it—a massive shape as black as a school principal’s heart hurtled across the star-spangled sky. I caught a brief flash of razor-sharp teeth, the red glint of a glowing evil eye, and then whatever the thing was landed on the other side of the camp with another colossal BOOFBOOM!
Trembling more than a bobblehead toy on the outstretched palm of a coffee-swilling base jumper with vertigo standing on the top of the Empire State Building in a hurricane, I listened to it thudding across the desert until there was just silence—and a smell.
Oh, man, what a smell!
This was a stench from beyond the grave: a stanky, stinky, stenchy pong-o-rama so completely and utterly 110 percent downright nasty that my nostrils begged for mercy.
It smelled worse than the dumpster behind Swifty’s. Worse than the time I went to the bathroom straight after Miller the Killer had broken the school record for eating chilli enchiladas. Worse than a vat of sixty-year-old rotten eggs and fish heads topped with a layer of used diapers.
Coughing, eyes stinging, heart pounding, I crawled to my bag and, with a trembling hand, took out my sketchbook and started drawing.
BY THE TIME I finished the sketch, my heart rate had gone down to a manageable four zillion beats per minute. As I was wondering what to do next, Ellie woke up.
“What’s going on?” she said in a sleep-thickened voice.
I decided to play things cool.
No one would believe for a second that a mutant fart-powered giant crocodile had just bounced across the campsite. I’d look like a complete idio
t if I said anything.
“Amutantfart-poweredgiantcrocodilejustbouncedacrossthecampsite!” I blurted out.
D’oh.
That playing-it-cool thing is always way harder than it seems. I’d lasted all of two nanoseconds.
“Look!” I said, and held out the sketch for Ellie to see. (And before anyone gets all snarky about it being night-time and all “how would anyone be able to see a sketchbook in the dark, huh?”, I was using my otherwise useless phone as a torch. Bet you feel stupid now, hey?)
“Nice drawing,” Ellie mumbled, and lay back down.
“No! You don’t understand! This thing was RIGHT HERE!”
Ellie yawned and pointed past my shoulder. “You mean like that one?”
I turned to see a giant mutant crocodile standing above me, its drooling jaws and glowing eyes illuminated by the light from my phone.
“Yes,” I said, turning back to Ellie, “exactly like that o—”
The words froze in my throat. A thick spatter of giant crocodile drool hissed as it hit the dying embers of the fire. Directly above my head, the creature’s jaws slowly opened. From my angle it seemed to be smiling. There was a moment’s pause and then, faster than I would have believed possible, the crocodile lunged at me. I opened my mouth to scream but it was too late …
“RAFE! RAFE!” ELLIE cried out in horror.
The giant crocodile was tossing me around like a toy. I felt the creature’s monstrous jaws clamp onto my arm and …
“RAFE!”
I opened my eyes, expecting to be staring down the throat of the giant mutant croc. Instead, Ellie was bent over me and shaking my arm.
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