by Sam Jasper
‘Not to mention the dust and the flies and the slave drivers we work with,’ Tom says wearily. Jake throws a peach at him.
Lucy gets up and wanders over to a basket that has flasks of tea and coffee. Spotting Doris from the CWA, Lucy has a quick word. Doris nods and looks over at Gull. Then, picking up a flask and a few mugs, Lucy wanders back to the group.
‘Gull, I’ve been thinking,’ Lucy says slowly. ‘You know, you’re off to the Bank tomorrow for the week. And, as there’s nobody to do our chores, and Doris is going back that way, well, I was thinking … ’
‘Great idea,’ Ted says, jumping in feet first, ‘Gull can go back home with Doris, do all the chores and get your dinner ready. Right Gull?’
Lucy frowns at Ted who doesn’t notice.
Gull sighs. ‘You mean I’m useless out here?’
‘No,’ he says. ‘I mean you look knackered and that fair skin of yours could burn up, even with a hat. Anyway, we can’t send you home to the city a complete mess. Otherwise, you’ll never want to come back.’
Gull sighs. ‘What a relief,’ and laughs. ‘I am wrecked.’
‘Hey, what about me?’ Tom says. ‘I’m wrecked too.’
‘Sorry,’ Ted says, shaking his head. ‘Only one wreck per season. Anyway, you’re a farm boy: you’re supposed to be wrecked.’
Tom subsides into incoherent mumbles. Just then, Doris appears smiling. Gull slowly gets to her feet and staggers over towards Doris and her car. Waving goodbye, she slides into the hot car and breathes a sigh of relief. Doris grins at Gull and Gull smiles back happily.
As soon as Doris drops her off, Gull trudges into the house and upstairs for a shower. A while later, a clean Gull saunters down to the kitchen, grabs a Granny Smith apple and walks over to the computer in the lounge room, switching it on. Wonder how many new hits I’ve got, she thinks as she opens the Folly website. ‘Wow! Two more with emails,’ she beams. ‘Wait ’til I show the gang.’ She browses through the Internet idly for a few minutes. Then her attention wanders as she looks around the room. Forgetting about the Internet, Gull gets up to peer at the books on a shelf by the door. Think I’ll read for a while until the heat dies down. Something light, she thinks to herself. ‘Ah, the perfect thing’, she says grabbing a handful of the twin’s comics. Mmm, “Ginger Meggs”. That should do for a start,’ she adds as she settles herself down onto the couch with her bitten apple.
* * *
Biting Useless on the rump, Ma steers him towards the house. Her senses are alert. Somebody’s in the house, she thinks to herself. Gently guiding Useless through the kitchen, she steers him into the lounge room. Useless stops at the couch and sniffs at the half-eaten apple lying on the floor: Gull is fast asleep.
Ma listens intently. Through her body, she can feel an electrical vibration. Good, she thinks, that girl’s left the computer on. And that’s exactly what I need: the Internet. Now, if only I can use the mouse.
Investigating the area with her senses, Ma picks up on erratic movement to the left of the computer desk. Tom’s mouse, Curious, is running around her cage bored. With her well-honed skill, Ma directs Useless in that direction. He sits down near the cage. With her nose pressed against the side of the cage, Curious comes over to Useless and timidly sniffs him. Trusting this mission to no one else, Ma jumps skilfully onto Curious who now runs around her cage in excitement. As usual, Tom has left the cage door unlocked. Useless nudges it. Curious peeks out. Goaded by Ma, she scuttles out of her cage and onto the desk. Then she scampers onto the computer keys.
Hardly able to believe her luck, Curious travels lightly all over the keyboard, investigating every nook and cranny. Ma waits patiently for the little white mouse to become used to her new environment. Finally, Ma guides the little white mouse onto particular keys. Satisfied with her handiwork, Ma waits for Curious to settle down again before the important final step. Eventually, after many tries, Curious jumps onto the mouse pad, wiggles onto the hairless “mouse” and jumps up and down. Only then does the search engine begin its methodical rummaging for information.
Useless noses over towards Curious: they sniff each other. Seizing her opportunity, Ma jumps back onto Useless, leaving Curious to dart harmlessly among the keys.
* * *
Gull wakes up with a start. She glances at her wristwatch. ‘Oh, no! It’s after five o’clock. It can’t be. I must have dozed off. And I haven’t done anything.’ Bounding off the couch, she rushes out to the kitchen and grabs a large cane basket.
She runs out to the vegie patch and hastily starts picking a variety of vegetables. Then she races over to the chicken coop and collects the eggs. Making sure the chickens have enough water, she dashes back to the house. In no time, Gull boils eggs, makes a huge salad, sets the table with an array of food and races back to make sure the horses and puppies have clean straw and plenty of water.
Rushing back into the house, she heads straight for the lounge room and the computer. Just then, she hears the ute outside and darts back into the kitchen without checking for hits.
Lucy sings out, ‘We’re back. Where’s the food? We’re starving!’
Useless barks loudly in anticipation of scraps from dinner. With a flourish, Gull shows them the table groaning with food.
‘Where’s Harry? Working late?’ Gull asks as she dishes out their favourite tomato and onion salad.
‘Yup,’ Tom says with a full mouth. ‘Arp wites,’ he mumbles as he crams another mouthful in.
‘Egg whites?’ Gull asks confused. ‘No, I did hardboiled eggs. Here you are,’ she says handing him the bowl.
‘He means arc lights,’ Jake interprets. ‘On the hemp that’s still standing, they’re using arc lights at night to harvest. But that’s all finished now. So, they’re using arc lights where they’re scything.’
‘Harry is?’ Gull asks astonished. ‘Isn’t that too dangerous?’
‘Why?’ Jake asks.
‘Because Harry could fall asleep and cut himself really badly on a scythe.’
‘No, no,’ Tom answers breezily. ‘He doesn’t fall asleep when he’s scything. Only when he’s on the Harvester.
Suddenly, all eyes are on Tom. ‘What?’ he asks in the middle of a mouthful.
‘Wait a minute,’ Lucy says. ‘That must mean that whatever is affecting the hemp is no longer in the lying-down hemp.’
‘Yeah,’ Jake says jumping up, ‘because the lying down hemp is already infected and whatever it is … ’
‘ … Is only going to be interested in getting the hemp to lie down,’ Gull adds excitedly. ‘Its job is done. The “still standing” hemp must be safe now.’
‘But why aren’t Ted and Jimmy and the other drivers falling asleep like Harry?’ Gull asks perplexed.
Everybody falls silent looking puzzled.
Suddenly, Lucy jumps up. ‘Of course! Everyone’s got a Harvester with a cabin except for Dad. So he’s affected because he’s nearest the hemp with no barrier in between.’
Then there’s dead silence. ‘So where do we go from here?’ Jake asks. ‘I suppose we could always put a watch on the standing hemp and see if we can catch whatever it is that’s knocking it down.’
‘Great idea,’ Tom says. ‘What if we had a really big camera to film the crops all night and all day, then maybe we’d find out who or what’s doing this?’
‘And what?’ Lucy asks, shaking her head. ‘Rig it up from the moon? I mean, you’d need a huge camera to cover all the crops.’
‘Hey,’ Tom smiles, ‘I like that. A camera on the moon doing surveillance on Getalong’s hemp crop.’
Lucy groans.
‘I’m getting dizzy,’ Gull says, shaking her head.
‘Probably too much sun,’ Tom says shrugging.
‘No, I mean we just seem to be going around in circles. Can we have a break for a while? Maybe talk about something else for a change?’ Gull asks plaintively.
‘You’re right,’ Lucy says. ‘Working hard all day and worrying all night
isn’t healthy. So, everybody, what will we talk about instead?’
Gull says, ‘Let’s check on “Puppy Pie”.’
‘I thought you’d done that,’ Jake frowns. ‘That’s one of your chores, isn’t it?’
‘No, I mean the other “Puppy Pie”,’ she grins. ‘Come on.’
Grabbing a last mouthful, the cousins follow Gull into the lounge room. Gull, over the moon about the increasing number of hits on “Puppy Pie” walks backwards in to the lounge room, saying as she does, ‘You won’t believe what I’ve got on the computer.’
At the lounge room door, Gull’s cousins stop dead in their tracks. Lucy does a double take as the twins collapse on the floor in hysterics. Gull spins around to see what all the fuss is about. She stares open-mouthed: Curious is sitting on the computer mouse cleaning her whiskers.
With her cousins laughing too hard to help, Gull gingerly moves towards Curious and picks her up. The little white mouse sits in Gull’s open hand, explaining excitedly how she was the one who used the Internet; what fun it was to jump from one key to another, and how simple a computer is to use. As Gull doesn’t speak “mouse”, the conversation is lost on her. She simply shakes her head, nods, smiles at Curious and hands her to Tom where Curious runs happily up and down his arm squeaking excitedly.
Gull sits patiently at the computer waiting for her cousins to recover. Finally, grinning from ear to ear, they saunter over to her.
‘So, what’s your next trick?’ Jake asks grinning hugely.
‘I didn’t have anything to do with the mouse on the, er, mouse.’
‘Well, who else, Gull? I mean, it wasn’t one of us. We weren’t even here,’ Tom grins.
Gull looks sternly at the happy mouse and frowns. ‘I think we’ve got another mystery on our hands.’ Idly, Gull moves the computer mouse around. ‘Now, everybody watch this!’ she says hitting a key. The screen lights up. Immediately, a small map of South America appears in a corner next to a larger, highlighted map.
‘What’s this?’ Jake asks. Argentina? Why’d you get that up?’
‘I didn’t,’ Gull says bewildered.
‘Sure!’ Tom the unbeliever scoffs.
‘See? More magic! Even without the magician knowing,’ Jake adds laughing.
‘Well, seeing it’s here,’ Tom says, ‘what about a guided tour? Let’s see now,’ he says scrolling down the list of topics: ‘Art: that’s one for Lucy; Cattle, Climate, boring, boring. Ah, Cooking: that’s one for Jake. Right, now what else?’ Tom starts skipping through, picking topics at random while Gull sits back bemused. He reads, ‘Crops, Finance, Geography, Tourist must-sees …’
‘Stop,’ Lucy shouts. ‘Go back, Tom. Click on “crops”.’
‘Why?’
‘Just a hunch,’ she shrugs. ‘They’ve got crops. We’ve got crops. Might pick up a few hints.’
Tom clicks on “crops”. He starts reading aloud: “Argentina is famous for its wheat, blah blah blah, the Pampas, blah blah, wheat yield, blah, wheat uses, blah, wheat export.’ He stops and sighs heavily. ‘So boring! Who cares anyway?’ He stretches and wanders over to the window with Curious now perched contentedly on his head.
‘Argentinian farmers care,’ Lucy says seriously as she takes Tom’s place next to Gull, scrolling through. ‘There might be something useful here.’
‘Like what?’ Tom asks walking back to stare at the screen.
‘Hemp!’ Jake says. ‘Hey, look: they’re using hemp to make didgeridoos. Shouldn’t we be doing that?’
‘Probably!’ Tom yawns. ‘So, what else is new?’
‘This!’ Lucy shouts suddenly.
Chapter 10
She points excitedly. ‘Look, look everybody. It says, “Even though hemp has no natural predators, a new and as yet unclassified pest has emerged. Nicknamed the “Argentinian Siesta Mite”, it seems that these miniscule mites send off a vibration well below human hearing level. Apparently, their vibration has been known to cause crops, such as wheat and hemp, to fall over or, as we like to say in Argentina, have a “siesta”. This makes it very difficult to harvest, and farmers have been known to resort to old-fashioned farming methods such as scything and slashing in order to bring in as much of the crop as is humanly possible”.’
‘What?’ Jake bursts out. ‘Like us?’
Lucy nods vigorously and continues reading: ‘Scientists are working on an antidote for the “Argentinian Siesta Mite”. They believe that they may have been “manufactured” by combining several mites to produce a hybrid. Scientists believe that they only last one generation, i.e. do not reproduce. So far, their greatest effect has been on hemp crops. Unfortunately, Argentinian wheat farmers have also been affected, falling asleep for long stretches.’
‘Stop right there,’ Gull says suddenly.
‘Why? What?’ Jake and Lucy ask together.
‘Don’t you see? Listen, “farmers … also affected: falling asleep for long stretches”.’
Lucy and Jake stare at each other, light dawning.
‘Of course!’ Jake says amazed. ‘Well, that explains Dad.’
‘And Mum,’ Lucy says, relief flooding her voice.
‘But Mum hasn’t been out harvesting,’ Tom says.
‘No but she’s sensitive and psychic, remember,’ Jake says. ‘That’s why she’s been falling asleep, even before Dad. The vibration of those South American mites started affecting her long before the crop started falling over.’
‘That’s right,’ Gull says eagerly. ‘The Argentinian Siesta Mites have been singing Helen to sleep. And, and,’ she adds excitedly tripping over her words, ‘remember when Helen first started falling asleep, Lucy? You said at breakfast, “it’s almost as if someone’s singing her to sleep”.’
Lucy’s eyes open wider. ‘Oh, yes, I did, didn’t I?’
‘Wow!’ Jake grins. ‘Now things are beginning to make sense. So, what else does it say, Lucy?’
She continues to read, ‘It says here “Nobody knows how the Argentinian Siesta Mites travel through the crops or how many were manufactured. However, if they start to affect more wheat crops, as well as the hemp crops, then Argentina would be devastated, as a great percentage of its export is wheat and other crops. This would cause financial ruin to many families. The good news is that their lifespan is only 30 days.” ’
‘Wow! Wow! Wow!’ Gull breathes, clapping her hands happily. ‘Now we really do have a reason for the crop falling over.’
‘And Mum and Dad falling asleep,’ Tom adds walking back to the computer. ‘They’re not sick or …’
‘Or lazy after all,’ Jake adds, ‘they’re just victims of these all singing, all dancing mites.’
‘Just humming at this stage,’ Tom says quietly. ‘Even I can’t imagine mites singing and dancing.’
‘Whether they’re humming, singing or dancing, I bet they’re here in our hemp,’ Lucy frowns. ‘But we have to be certain. There are still a lot of things we don’t know about them. Like … ’
‘Like how they arrived here, for one thing,’ Jake continues. ‘I mean, how did they get here? Swim? They’d have to be gold medallists if they did.’
Gull says seriously, ‘Doubt it. No, they would have to be carried into the country, sneaking past Customs …’
‘That’s a bit far-fetched,’ Tom says dismissively. ‘You’d have to travel to Argentina, sneak them back into the country somehow without being caught, come out here and … ’
‘And what?’ Lucy asks. ‘Just let them loose? But why? Just for fun? Just to prove you could?’
‘I don’t know,’ Tom shrugs mystified. ‘That’s why I think it’s so far-fetched.’
Lucy walks away from the computer and sits down on the floor beside the coffee table, frowning deeply. ‘Why? Why? Why?’ After a minute of deep thinking, she says ‘Wait a minute, let’s calculate.’
‘Calculate what?’ Tom asks.
‘Well, if these mites only last thirty days, when do they die and stop affecting the hemp? Now,
let me think. Can anyone remember when the crop started falling over?’
‘Ah, it was about a week after the first day of harvest, wasn’t it?’ Jake asks.
‘But when was that?’ Lucy sighs. ‘Everything’s a blur.’
‘That’s because we’ve been harvesting every day, all day, non-stop,’ Tom says. ‘Every day feels like yesterday and tomorrow.
‘Wait on,’ Jake says. ‘It’ll be on the calendar in the kitchen: Dad always writes it down. I’ll check.’ He runs into the kitchen.
Within seconds, he’s back. ‘Right! Dad started harvesting with Ted and Jimmy here the day after Gull arrived, which makes it second January. They were all here about a week. Then didn’t Ted and Jimmy go off to other farms? Now, whose crop fell over first?’
‘Ours did, dopey,’ Lucy laughs. ‘
‘But Ted’s and Jimmy’s crops didn’t fall over at all, remember?’ Tom adds.
‘But that’s because they’d done their harvesting between Christmas and New Year. Remember?’
‘So,’ Gull murmurs, ‘there were no Argentinian Siesta Mites before New Year’s Day.’
‘Right,’ Jake says slowly. ‘So Dad’s hemp was the first to fall over that we knew about. Wait a minute. Wasn’t that the day they decided to split up and work on the other farms?’
‘So, it must have been on the seventh, about a week after they started. Right, so seven from thirty gives us twenty-three days to go from the seventh. Does anybody know today’s date?’
Everybody looks blankly at each other. Jake rushes back into the kitchen to look at the calendar. ‘Today’s the twenty-third,’ he yells back. Uh, oh, he thinks. The thirtieth is the day before Dad’s overdraft is due. He runs back into the lounge room.
‘Is that all?’ Tom asks surprised. ‘I thought we’d been harvesting for at least two months, not two weeks. It’s the same old thing day after day: hand out the reaping tools, tie up the stalks, hand out the food, tie up the stalks, gather the hemp, tie up the stalks, put the hemp in the ute, tie up the … ’