‘What? You mean that’s how wombats communicate? With their droppings? No-one can communicate with droppings!’
‘Geek,’ said Gran firmly, her hands moving in sign language.
‘You mean the smell of their droppings says what they’re feeling?’ TJ looked closely at the line of droppings, and sighed again. To think he could have been back at school, staring out the window and wondering how to make Linda think he was cool.
‘Okay, Gran,’ he said patiently. ‘Tell me what the wombat says.’
CHAPTER 6
The Wombat’s Story
‘Geek geek geek,’ said Gran slowly. She sniffed the wombat droppings again and signed excitedly. ‘Gook geek geek!’
‘What!’ cried TJ. ‘Not really!’
‘Geek,’ nodded Gran.
‘But…but that’s terrible!’ cried TJ.
And it was. For in the past week, every wombat in the whole of Gobbledegook Forest had vanished—all except this one here. The wombat had sniffed at every hole and every rock, but there were no fresh wombat smells at all.
And so the wombat had hidden, scared that it might vanish too, till this morning Gran had smelt elephant out past her banana trees, and gone to investigate.
She’d met the wombat. And then she’d gone to fetch TJ for help.
‘But I don’t understand,’ said TJ slowly. He knew he wasn’t the brightest kid in the world, but something didn’t add up here. ‘What has the elephant got to do with it? Elephants don’t eat wombats.’
‘Geek,’ said Gran. She mimed sitting astride a giant animal, then getting off and grabbing a struggling wombat.
TJ struggled to understand. ‘You mean wombat poachers could ride elephants? You think there are wombat poachers in Gobbledegook?’
‘Geek geek,’ hooted Gran enthusiastically. She pretended to sniff along the ground, then shook her head vigorously.
TJ bit his lip. It sort of made sense. ‘You think that’s why you can’t smell any strangers about? Because they are riding the elephant?’
‘Geek,’ agreed Gran.
TJ thought about it. ‘I suppose it’s the only thing that fits,’ he said finally. ‘But what can we do about it? Call the police?’
‘Geek!’ cried Gran.
‘Yeah, you’re right,’ agreed TJ. The police might discover Gran instead. ‘But what else can we do?’
‘Geeek eeek eeeek!’ Gran’s gloved finger pointed straight at TJ.
‘What!’ TJ shook his head. ‘No way! I don’t know anything about hunting elephants! Or wombat poachers either! Why can’t you…’ TJ broke off. Of course Gran couldn’t hunt the wombat poachers—there was too much danger that someone would notice that she was a gorilla.
‘Geek?’ asked Gran gently. The wombat sniffed at TJ’s joggers, then peered up at him with its short-sighted eyes.
TJ bit his lip. Of course he’d help. ‘Of course I’ll help,’ he said.
‘Gook.’
‘What do you mean? Tell the wombat that I’ll help? I just did!’
‘Gook gook!’
‘A what!’ shreiked TJ. ‘No way!’
‘Gook,’ said Gran again.
TJ shook his head firmly. ‘No way am I doing a dropping just so the wombat understands me. Doesn’t the wombat speak English?’ TJ stopped. ‘I suppose it doesn’t,’ he said slowly. ‘But…but can’t you sign to it instead?’
‘Gook,’ said Gran.
TJ sighed. ‘Right. Of course. Wombats don’t understand sign. But Gran…’
Gran handed TJ some gum leaves.
TJ pulled down his tracksuit pants. ‘Well…all right, but only a little one! And no peeking!’ he insisted, squatting down.
TJ wiped his bum with the gum leaves, waited till the wombat sniffed, then scraped dirt over the small brown turd.
Thank goodness Linda hadn’t been around to see him exchanging droppings smells with a wombat! Or Gran leaning on her knuckles. And how on earth could he track down wombat poachers—and an elephant—by himself? He couldn’t even solve a maths problem without emailing Jane 2 for the correct answer.
He needed help. He needed…
TJ grinned. That was it!
He’d ask Linda for help. This was even better than going for a perambulate. He and Linda could track the poachers together!
CHAPTER 7
Asking Linda
‘You want me to what?’ cried Linda.
TJ had caught up with her on the way home from school, just before the turn-off that led to Linda’s house. TJ had walked passed Linda’s house—just sort of casually, not really looking or anything—the week before.
But there had been nothing to see, not even Linda reading a book under a tree so he could have waved to herand maybe said, ‘Hey, do you want to go hunt tadpoles down the creek?’ All you could see of Linda’s place was the fence, because someone had put up a great high wall right across the front yard. It was almost as big as the fence in their
yard that Dad had put up years ago so Gran could climb her tree in privacy.
‘I wondered if you’d like to help me track an elephant,’ said TJ casually.
Linda stared at him. ‘A what!’ she said again.
‘An elephant,’ said TJ.
‘It may have escaped your notice,’ declared Linda. ‘But Gobbledegook is in the middle of the Australian bush. There aren’t any elephants in the bush.’
‘Yes there are,’ said TJ. ‘I saw its dropping,’ he added.
Linda snorted. ‘It was probably a cow pat.’
TJ shook his head. ‘It was enormous!’
‘Well, maybe it was an enormous cow! With diarrhoea,’ Linda added. ‘Anyway, suppose there is an elephant about. Why would you want to track it down?’
‘Because my gran thinks that someone is poaching wombats and the wombat poachers are riding the elephant.’
‘Huh! I bet there’s no elephant at all. It is absolutely totally impossible that there’s an elephant around here! I bet…’ Linda stopped.
‘Did you say wombat poachers?’
TJ nodded.
Linda stared at him. Suddenly she seemed to take him more seriously. ‘Your gran thinks there are wombat poachers about?’
‘Yes.’ TJ had rehearsed this bit of the story before. ‘Gran used to live with lots of animals (which was true) and she learnt a lot about poachers.’ (Which was true too). ‘And she’s noticed that just in the last week almost all the wombats have disappeared and there’s an elephant about.’
‘So she thinks someone is riding an elephant to poach wombats,’ said Linda slowly. ‘That’s serious. I still don’t believe in the elephant,’ she added. ‘But wombat poachers—that’s totally flagitious! That means wicked,’ she added.
TJ nodded. ‘We have to do something!’
Linda shook her head. ‘I don’t know anything about tracking down poachers.’
‘Neither do I. But it’ll be easy. How hard can it be to track an elephant?’
‘There is no finangling elephant!’ yelled Linda. She stared at him for a moment, then bit her lip. ‘Maybe I should help you,’ she said after a while. ‘Just to stop you coming up with bumblebrained delusions like an elephant. An elephant! Really!’
TJ felt a grin spread across his face. She was going to help him! This was even better than staring at a computer screen together!
‘Right,’ said Linda. ‘The first thing we need to do is go and confabulate, I mean talk, to your gran. She can tell us—’
‘Um…er, no! Gran can’t tell us anything!’ said TJ.
‘Why not?’
‘It’s her laryngitis,’ said TJ. ‘It’s much worse.’
‘Well, she can write down her answers then,’ said Linda.
‘She’s gone to bed.’
‘Oh. So it’s just up to us then,’ said Linda.
TJ nodded proudly. He’d got out of that one okay. ‘How about we go, er, perambulate, to your place instead,’ he said. ‘Then we can think up a plan.’
; ‘No, not to my place,’ said Linda. ‘My dad is, um, er, painting the house. It stinks! How about we go to the park?’
‘Okay,’ said TJ.
They turned back towards the centre of town. TJ felt delight bubble up inside him. How cool was this? He was actually walking with Linda! They were going to work out a plan together. Then they’d hunt down the elephant and the poachers and he’d do something incredibly brave and Linda would say…
‘Something pongs.’ Linda lifted up her shoe and inspected it. ‘No, it’s not me. How about your shoes?’
‘What, me? Shoes? What shoes?’ asked TJ, coming out of his daydream.
‘I can smell something malodorous. That means yuk. See if there’s any doggie-doo on your shoes,’ said Linda.
‘Oh. Oh yeah.’ TJ lifted his shoes one by one. ‘Nope,’ he said ‘They’re clean. Nothing mali-thingie on them at all.’
But then a horrible thought gripped him. Had he wiped his bum properly? Leaves weren’t as good as toilet paper! But at least he’d washed his hands in the gully…
Linda sniffed again. ‘It smells like…like upchuck. And snail too,’ she added.
‘What!’ TJ stared at her. He didn’t know whether to be relieved or horrified. Egbert! He must have upchucked in his school-bag!
‘I…er…can’t smell anything,’ TJ mumbled.
‘Well, I can.’ Before he could stop her Linda had grabbed his bag. ‘And it’s coming from in here!’ She peered inside, just as Egbert’s angry head poked out.
Linda blinked. ‘What’s that?’
‘What’s what?’ said TJ.
‘That mucilaginous, I mean slimy thing with two big antennae that’s snarling at us out of your school-bag!’
‘Oh, that thing. That’s Egbert,’ said TJ.
‘What’s an Egbert?’ asked Linda, as Egbert twitched his antennae at her.
TJ gave up. ‘He’s a rare Giant Skateboarding Slug,’ he said. ‘My sister Jane is President of the Save the Baby Slugs Society. She sent Egbert to us for a holiday till he gets over his little problem.’
‘Eeerp,’ said Egbert.
‘What little problem…oh, I see,’ said Linda, looking at the green slug vomit on her shoe.
TJ waited for Linda to shriek, or turn up her nose and walk away from him. He bet normal families didn’t have Giant Skateboarding Slugs staying with them, especially ones with indigestion. Linda had probably had lots and lots of boyfriends before she came to Gobbledegook and none of them had Giant Skateboarding Slugs living with them, much less a gran who was a gorilla, or a dad who wore nothing but a leopard skin jockstrap about the house.
But Linda just said, ‘Ohhhhh, he’s so cute!’
TJ stared at Linda, and then at Egbert. Egbert? Cute? He shook his head. Girls were weird sometimes, he decided.
‘Um, Egbert is a he, isn’t he?’ Linda asked.
‘I think so,’ said TJ cautiously. He hadn’t actually looked to see if Egbert was male or female. He didn’t plan to either.
‘Me want lettuce or me punch your daylights out,’ signed Egbert.
TJ glanced at Linda, to see if she understood. But apparently she didn’t read sign. TJ gave a sigh of relief.
‘Give me lettuce now!’ signed Egbert. ‘Me have secret weapon,’ he added. ‘Me most ferocious slug in Australia!’
‘Shut up, you slimy jerk,’ muttered TJ out of the corner of his mouth.
‘Hey, can I see him skateboard?’ asked Linda.
‘Sure.’ TJ lifted Egbert out of his school-bag and lowered him to the footpath, then wiped his hands on his tracksuit pants.
‘Wow! Look at him manipulate that velocipede!’ Linda gazed at Egbert zooming down the footpath. ‘You’re so lucky,’ she said. ‘Fancy having a Giant Skateboarding Slug of your very own!’
‘Am I?’ TJ brightened. ‘I suppose I am.’
Egbert was still happily zipping along the edges of the flowerbeds when they arrived at the park. Linda and TJ found the seat with the fewest pigeon droppings, and sat down to make their plan.
‘Right,’ said Linda. ‘First of all we need to make a list.’
‘Do we?’ TJ blinked. ‘I thought the first thing we had to do was track the elephant.’
‘Look,’ said Linda. ‘There is no elephant.’
‘But Gran says…’
‘Your gran’s wrong! And anyway, even if there was an elephant, there’s no proof it has anything to do with the poachers. Forget about the elephant. No, what we have to do is make a list of suspicious people. People who might be putrid pecolating poachers. Now, are there any strangers in town? People who have arrived only recently?’
TJ shook his head. ‘Nope,’ he said.
Linda sighed. ‘Of course there is, you ulotrichous idiot!’
‘Ulo-what-us?’ asked TJ timidly.
‘It means having curly hair,’ said Linda. ‘And of course there’s someone who’d just arrived in Gobbledegook recently. There’s Mr Pifflewhiskers!’
‘But he’s a teacher,’ said TJ.
‘Why can’t a teacher be a wombat poacher?’
TJ shook his head. ‘That’s almost like saying you could be a poacher. I mean you only arrived last week too. You could even have an elephant behind your fence.’
‘Ha-ha,’ said Linda flatly. ‘An elephant behind our fence. Most humorous, I don’t think so. But Mr Pifflewhiskers is definitely suspicious. Have you ever met a teacher with a gold sports car and a yacht and a motorbike?’
‘No,’ admitted TJ. ‘But I’ve only met one teacher. That’s Miss Bonanza. She does crochet,’ he added.
‘What’s that got to do with it?’ demanded Linda.
‘Nothing. She crocheted the new slippery dip for the little kids last term. I just thought you might be interested.’
‘In crochet? Nope. But I am interested in Mr Pifflewhiskers!’
Could she be right? TJ wondered. Maybe she was. Linda seemed to know so much more about the world than him. ‘Suppose Mr Pifflewhiskers is the poacher,’ he asked. ‘What do we do then?’
Linda’s eyes gleamed. ‘We follow him!’
‘In case he leads us to the elephant?’
‘Forget about the blasted elephant, you dinglebrain!’ yelled Linda. ‘Why would wombat poachers need an elephant? We follow Mr Pifflewhiskers so he leads us to the stolen wombats!’
‘Oh. Right,’ said TJ.
CHAPTER 8
Tracking Mr Pifflewhiskers
School looked deserted. Even the pigeons had finished scuffling in the rubbish bins.
‘Maybe he’s gone home,’ whispered TJ.
Linda shook her head. ‘No, there he is.’
Linda was right. Mr Pifflewhiskers stood by the school room door. Was he going to get into his sports car? wondered TJ. They’d never be able to follow him in that. But, after a quick look both ways, Mr Pifflewhiskers crossed the schoolyard, away from the car park, and vaulted over the fence to the bush beyond.
‘See!’ said Linda triumphantly. ‘He’s sneaking off.’
TJ tried to think of a good reason why a teacher would sneak off into the bush after school, leaving his gold sports car behind. But he couldn’t. ‘Maybe he’s gone to get his elephant,’ he suggested.
Linda sighed. ‘If you say the word “elephant” once more I’m going to dong you on the beanie! There is no elephant! Just one highly suspicious teacher. If he is a teacher,’ she added. ‘Which I doubt. What sort of peculiar pedagogue doesn’t give you homework?’
‘A really nice one,’ said TJ, but Linda just snorted again.
‘Right. Let’s go after him. And make sure you keep out of sight!’
It was cool under the trees after the glare of the schoolyard. TJ tried to walk quietly, but the dry leaves and bark under his feet kept crackling like breakfast cereal. He wished he could swing through the trees like Gran. Even Dad could swing through trees, as long as he had a creeper to swing from, and Mum was pretty good at it too.
But normal families didn’t swing
through trees, TJ reminded himself. And at all costs Linda had to think they were normal!
Down to the creek, and over it. TJ and Linda waited till Mr Pifflewhiskers had vanished over the hill, then leapt from rock to rock across the water.
Up the hill…TJ peered through the shadows. Yes, there was Mr Pifflewhiskers.
‘Maybe he’s just going for a walk,’ he whispered.
‘Huh!’ said Linda. ‘He’s creeping. That’s a creep if I ever saw one!’
TJ watched Mr Pifflewhiskers step carefully between the trees. Maybe Linda was right. Mr Pifflewhiskers seemed to be treading as softly as he could. He kept glancing around, too, as though making sure nobody was looking. Yes, deduced TJ, Mr Pifflewhiskers was definitely creeping.
Suddenly Mr Pifflewhiskers paused. He peered at the ground.
What was he looking at? wondered TJ. He nudged Linda. ‘Look,’ he whispered.
‘I am looking!’ hissed Linda. ‘What do you think he’s doing?’
Mr Pifflewhiskers picked up a stick, and began to probe the ground.
‘Maybe he’s looking for wombat tracks, or wombat holes,’ suggested TJ.
‘Maybe,’ said Linda and rolled her eyes.
Mr Pifflewhiskers seemed to come to a decision. He dropped the stick, and strode off silently into the bush.
‘Come on,’ hissed Linda. ‘Let’s have a look at what he was poking at.’
TJ followed her. Something was niggling him. A sort of worry that trickled down his shoulder blades. What if…What if Mr Pifflewhiskers was dangerous. Maybe they should have waited till Mum and Dad got home from their conference. But then it would be too late to save the wombats. Mr Pifflewhiskers would have taken them away and…
‘This is it!’ said Linda staring at the ground. ‘But what on earth was he looking at?’
TJ stared too. But this patch of ground seemed no different from any other, just leaves and bark.
TJ shook his head. ‘There’s nothing here,’ he said. But then he brightened. ‘Maybe he was looking at the stick. Yes, here it is.’ TJ stepped forward to pick it up…
Suddenly the ground beneath him vanished. And the world went dark.
Wonderfully Wacky Families Page 9