Danny Allen Was Here (11 page)

He was on his own, just as he’d wanted only a few minutes before. Survival was in his hands. Escape! He had to escape! Danny’s mind raced with foolish thoughts.

He eyed the small entrance. It was so close. He thought about making a dive for the door, but then
he had visions of the snake sinking its fangs into his bum as he struggled on all fours to pull himself to freedom.

He knew enough to realise that if he were bitten, the farmhouse was a long way away. If he had to walk that far the poison would surge through his body. He wouldn’t survive.

With his back pushed hard against the trunk of the tree Danny’s squirming hands felt the roughness, the coolness of rotting wood. The creature crawling across his back moved over his shoulder, down his arm and rested on the back of his hand. It was probably a red-back spider. If the snake didn’t kill him, the red-back would.

Danny’s body shivered as he thought that maybe the words he had screamed at his mother in the kitchen would come true. He would never come home, ever. No one knew where he was. They would never find his body. His sad spirit would wander the fields like the headless Miller woman.

The snake kept still, as though waiting for Danny to make the first move. Its tongue tasted the air. Perhaps it could taste Danny’s fear.

Danny’s next passing thought was to arm himself. He looked for a stick. He looked for a stone. He looked for anything. The ram’s skull caught his eye. The foolish plan he made in a split second of panic was that he
would dive across, scoop up the skull and throw it. One of the horns would stab the snake.

That’s how things happen in movies
, he thought,
and that’s how things will happen here. It isn’t difficult – a quick dive and then throw
.

Before Danny could put his master plan into action the head of the snake suddenly dipped low. There was movement.
Shhhh
.

Danny closed his eyes tightly and braced himself for the needle of a fang to spike his leg or his arm. He felt nothing.

He opened his eyes again. His head flicked in all directions.
Where is it? Where’s it gone?

Terrified, Danny tried to trace the telltale sounds of movement. He looked down at his feet. He saw something brown, but couldn’t tell what it was. Leaves? Bark? Or was it the snake?

Don’t lift the feet. Don’t tread on anything. Keep still, Dad always says. If you see a snake just keep still. Huh! That’s easy to say
.

Danny wanted to run, jump, kick, stamp and scream, all at once.

He gasped as the tip of the snake’s moving tail touched the toe that protruded from his sneaker. He kept his eyes glued on the tail as it slid, twisting and curling, out of the entrance and away into the open sunlight.

Relieved, he slapped the crawling thing from the back of his hand. ‘Get off!’

Then he suddenly found his voice. ‘
Heeeelp!
’

His mournful cry died in echoes. No one heard him.

Danny suddenly felt weak and floppy. He dropped to his knees, breathing hard. The flaking snakeskin that he had collected from the rocks near the old Miller homestead lay next to the sheep skull. Danny gazed at it and it set him thinking. He wondered about the snake and if it was in fact the jumping vampire snake. Danny picked up the decaying skin and it flaked away in his fingers. Flakes drifted to the ground and he thought of the broken plates in the kitchen and his mum. He wouldn’t tell her about the snake; she might yell at him for not wearing his boots. He decided he would go, but not yet.

He spent the afternoon wandering the big creek. Every snap of a twig, every crunch of rolling stone beneath his feet made him jump.

He devised an alarm system for his hide-out. He put a large flat rock by the entrance to use every time he visited. His plan was to throw it inside and see if anything came scurrying out. Once it was all clear he would crawl inside. He also decided to bring a torch with him the next time he ran away from home.

Late in the afternoon, when his hide-out was in complete shadow, Danny swung back across the creek and sauntered back to Mundowie. He was hungry and tired and was sure his mum had learnt her lesson.

He stopped under the lengthening shadow of the Mundowie Hall. He sat at the feet of the soldier statue
to think for a minute. It was here that he decided he would tell his mum just how unfair she’d been and if she did it again he wouldn’t come back next time.

As Danny sat, he was disturbed by a sound in the grass at the side of the hall. Danny spun round. The dry grass was long – and it moved!

Something was shuffling through it, creeping up on him. Given Mark’s story about the snake hunting him for revenge, Danny jumped to the obvious conclusion.

He sprung to his feet with no time to think. It didn’t really matter what he said to his mum. Just as long as he was safe at home and hadn’t missed out on the entire feast. He wasn’t hanging around this time to let the snake tickle his toes with its tail. He took off!

When he started running he couldn’t resist taking a glance back over his shoulder. What he saw made him slow to a casual jog. There was no reason for him to be afraid. He shook his head and laughed when he saw what emerged from the long grass. Tippy bounded into view with his tail spinning. He called to Danny.
Yap, yap.
Tippy had been searching the town for him.

Then he scooted out of the shadows of the hall and set off after Danny. Danny skidded to a stop and squatted to greet his little pal.

‘Hey! Tippy boy.’ Danny ruffled Tippy’s ears playfully. ‘Where have you been?’

They trotted off side by side as usual. They spun and jumped together all the way home.

When he crept into the kitchen Danny’s mum and dad were there. They were both sitting at the table, their heads in their hands. They didn’t see him walk in; they had their backs to the door and were fumbling through a blizzard of papers that lay spread across the table. They were both hanging over the table like broken branches hanging from dying trees at the creek. The word
BANK
was written in large black letters down the spines of the three thick folders that lay stacked on the floor. It was his dad’s writing.

On the kitchen cupboard, Danny spied two freshly baked biscuits sprinkled with hundreds and thousands and a cupcake smothered in pink icing sitting on a plate next to a fresh loaf of bread. There was a small piece of coloured paper next to the plate. It was a note and the note read:
Danny’s feast – don’t touch
. It was Vicki’s writing. She’d also drawn a happy face.

Danny stepped in quietly with one eye on his parents and one on his plate of cakes. His parents were talking softly in serious tones. Danny watched as his mother put her arm across his dad’s back and rested her head on his shoulder.

Danny’s dad shook his head and sighed heavily. ‘I’m sorry,’ he breathed. ‘I can’t see a way out.’

When Danny lifted his plate, Vicki’s note drifted toward the floor like a feather.

Danny’s parents saw it land. Surprised, they both snapped to attention and looked up.

Danny looked nervously across the open space.

‘Danny boy,’ his dad said brightly.

His mum looked to his feet. She smiled. ‘You aren’t wearing your boots,’ she said softly.

Danny wanted to go to her, but his pride held him back.

‘I didn’t see any snakes anyway,’ he lied, and he walked up the passageway to his bedroom to eat.

When Danny went to his bed he found a small parcel wrapped in coloured tissue paper sitting on his pillow. He was curious. He put his feast on his bed and picked up the parcel.

There was a note. It said simply,
For my Danny boy
.

Danny knew it was his mother’s writing. He clawed at the coloured paper to reveal his present. There, gazing up at him, smiling crookedly, was a well-baked head.

He smiled, and then his smile rumbled into a throaty chuckle. He threw the paper to the floor and rested the crusty, bread-dough head in the palm of his hand.

The hair had swollen and the nose was all bent. The eyes popped and the expression on the face was hilarious. Danny turned it this way and that.

He continued to chuckle until he heard the bedroom door open.

His mum walked in. ‘What do you think?’ she asked.

‘Brilliant.’ Danny beamed. ‘Look at the hair . . . and the nose.’

His mother walked toward him until she was so close Danny could smell baked cakes, bread and biscuits. Danny took a deep breath. Ahhhh! There was nothing better than the smell of warm cakes, biscuits or freshly baked bread . . . except maybe the smell of rain on a really hot day . . . or the smell of freshly cut wheat when his dad was harvesting.

Still amazed by his baked head, Danny’s delight overcame his pride and he leant into his mum’s warm and safe embrace. He buried his head in her flour- dusted apron and she ruffled his hair.

Danny didn’t say anything about his adventure. After all, he might never see that snake again.

‘Now off to bed,’ she whispered, kissing the top of his head. ‘And tomorrow, don’t forget to wear your boots, please. There are snakes about.’

He smiled up at her sheepishly. ‘I will, Mum, don’t worry.’

Danny’s mother opened the screen door. It squealed like a kitten whose tail had been caught in the hinges. She walked out onto the verandah.

The old blue tractor was bouncing along the crest of a small hill near the creek. Danny and Sam were riding the tractor with their dad. She smiled when she heard the echo of their laughter.

Danny, who had made sure to slip his boots on that morning, was sitting next to his father, clinging to the
mudguard. The old tractor wasn’t fast, just bouncy. Sam was standing on a small platform behind the seat with his hands on his father’s shoulders. He looked like the captain of an old sailing ship standing on deck for a voyage of great discovery.

Tippy was running beside them barking madly, stopping occasionally to sniff and cock his leg. Danny called to him constantly. ‘Keep up, Tippy! Come on, boy! Come on!’

Danny spied his mum and waved to her as the tractor growled along. ‘Helloooo Muuuum!’ he bellowed.

She waved back with exaggerated sweeping movements of her arms above her head. Danny thought she looked like a person stranded on a desert island waving to her rescuers. Danny kept his eye on her until the tractor dipped into a gully and out of sight.

A trail of drifting dust mapped its journey. Danny’s mum bowed her head, turned away and walked inside.

She heard singing coming from her bedroom.
Tra, la, la, la, la, dee, dah
. She crept along the passageway and, stopping at the door, spied Vicki dancing in front of the mirror. She was wearing her mum’s finest jewellery. Smiling to herself, Danny’s mum waltzed in to sing with her.

The tractor rumbled down a gentle slope. Sam leant forward and pointed like any sea captain on a voyage of
discovery would. ‘Head for those bumps, Dad. They’ll
really
make her bounce.’

Danny saw the bumps and smiled expectantly up at his dad. ‘Yeah, go on, Dad.’

His dad gave him a wink. He was wearing his favourite hat, the one with an oil stain at the front that looked like a tiny map of Africa. He took a hand quickly from the wheel and pushed his hat firmly onto his head. ‘You hang on tightly then, boys!’ he cried playfully. He steered toward the bumps, but eased off on the speed – safe and sure.

They hit the small landscape of bumps with a childish cry from their dad. ‘Whahoo!’ Sam wrapped his arms around his dad’s neck.

Despite the lack of speed, the bouncing was wicked! Unseen parts of the tractor rattled and clanked. The mudguard creaked and shuddered. Danny’s knuckles were white with the firmness of his grip. Danny’s dad threw a glance at him. ‘Hang on to that mudguard Danny. The old girl might fall to bits.’

‘Ha, ha, ha, I’ve got it, Dad. She’ll be all right!’

The boys laughed. And the more they laughed, the harder it was to keep a firm grip.

Danny’s dad patted the body of the tractor as if it were a tame beast. ‘Good on you, old girl. Keep going.’

Some farmers had huge tractors with cabins, air conditioners and soft seats. But not Danny Allen’s dad.
He kept saying he was going to buy a decent machine just as soon as he had a good year. He’d been saying that for ages. There hadn’t been a good year for a while, so they were stuck with the old rattler.

Danny didn’t care. He loved the old thing. You couldn’t have a wild tractor ride, he thought, in a cabin with air conditioning and soft seats.

Danny leant over and peered down at the huge black tyre spinning beneath him. The thick teeth of the tread were biting ferociously into the dry earth.

Tippy was running along happily, clever enough to keep a safe distance. Every now and then, when the grass was too long for his short legs, he would spring into the air. If he looked like slowing, Danny would urge him on.

‘Come on, Tippy! Come on, boy!’

The little dog always responded with a yap and an impressive burst of speed. Danny was marvelling at Tippy’s acceleration when they hit a pothole camouflaged by a thatch of dry grass. The boys were momentarily airborne. ‘Whoa!’

Danny’s dad had to straighten his hat. Surprised by the jolt, he slowed down.

‘Go faster, Dad!’ Danny cried. ‘That was unreal!’

Danny’s father raised a hand. ‘No, that’s fast enough,’ he called. ‘Tractors can roll easily, always remember that.’

Every time he had the chance Danny’s dad would tell the boys things about tractors, or crops, or sheep. Danny wanted to remember everything his dad told him because he figured that he and Sam would run the farm one day.

Danny liked the idea of being a farmer. He liked the idea of being just like his dad. He would need a dusty hat with oil stains though.

Down a small gully and up the other side they rumbled. The tractor riders weren’t only out to have fun; they had a job to do. A section of the fence that ran along the highest bank of the creek was down. They were soon riding through long grass beneath the flickering shade of crowded trees. Sam pointed and cried, ‘There it is, Dad, just ahead.’

‘Thanks son, I see it.’

Danny saw it as well. A large section of the bank had been undermined and had crumbled away, taking fence posts and wire with it. Some of the older posts lay splintered in the creek bed below.

The concern was that without the fence some of the sheep might wander too close to the edge and parts of the bank were unstable and could give way at any time.

Danny felt that some of the sheep were already standing too close. When Danny set eyes on them he immediately thought of Vicki and smiled. The day
before, when the three children were sitting on the front verandah watching Tippy bully the chickens as he hunted for stale crusts that had just been scattered for them, Vicki had asked Sam why the fence needed fixing.

Sam gave her a silly answer. He was a good storyteller. He didn’t grin or smirk once.

‘If Dad doesn’t fix that fence, it will be awful,’ he explained very seriously. ‘Our sheep could be in
terrible
danger. You must have heard them bleating loudly sometimes.’

Vicki sat, mouth open, peering intently up at her big brother. ‘Yep, I have,’ she said keenly.

‘Yeah, well that’s it,’ said Sam. ‘That’s the sound they make when they try to fly.’ He made his hands flutter like little wings above Vicki’s head. Her eyes widened as she watched them. Sam leant forward and said, ‘If one tries to fly over the creek then the rest will follow. That’s what sheep are like. Most of them can’t think for themselves; they just follow each other. So they’ll all line up and jump.’

Vicki looked shocked. Sam knew he had her. ‘They’ll flap their legs madly,’ he continued enthusiastically, ‘but they won’t get far. Over the edge and down they’ll go . . .’ Sam made a diving motion with his hands. ‘Then . . .
splat
!’ He slapped his hands loudly on the verandah.

Vicki jumped.

Sam leant in close to her and made a sickly face. ‘We could have a pile of dead flying sheep, all squished with blood and guts, on the creek bed.’

Vicki recoiled. ‘Yuck!’

Sam’s flying sheep story was the reason Vicki didn’t want to travel on the tractor that morning. She was afraid of finding a pile of dead sheep in the creek, or being a witness to some bone-crunching, gut-splattering crash landings.

When the boys left her she was drawing chalk pictures on the cracked path near the verandah. She was obviously still thinking about the sheep. When the boys walked past, she stopped drawing and said, ‘I’ve got an idea. I think the sheep should wear parachutes.’ She pointed to her pictures. ‘See?’ she beamed proudly. She’d drawn a flock of little sheep parachuting through white fluffy clouds. ‘That will save them and they will still get to fly . . . sort of.’

The boys had walked off, sniggering.

When the tractor slowed with a loud squeal Danny gazed at the sheep gathered under a nearby tree. He imagined them all lining up, like paratroopers in a plane, ready to jump off the cliff. He chuckled at the thought of parachuting sheep.

Danny’s dad brought the tractor to a jerking halt. The creek was wide at this point. This was one of
Danny’s favourite spots. It was where the billabong formed after the rains.

There was an old tyre tied to a rope that hung from one of the branches reaching out over the cliff’s edge. When the billabong was full, Danny, Sam and Mark Thompson loved to swing out and drop into the deepest water.

At the top of the high cliff, overlooking the creek, sat three old rusty drums. The drums had been used for lots of things. They had once been part of a raft that the boys made. Danny would never forget it; there had been rain and the creek was running.

It had been Mark Thompson’s idea. ‘We’ll tie the drums together with rope and sail it downstream. We might get to parts of the creek we’ve never seen before. It will be like a voyage into the unknown.’

They had rolled the drums to a bank at a deep part of the creek where the water was flowing quickly. The bank was wet and sloped perfectly so that when the raft was finished they could slide it into the water. ‘That’s how they launch real ships,’ Mark had said expertly. ‘They hit the bow with a bottle of champagne and slide them down big ramps.’ Danny was impressed by Mark’s knowledge of ship launching.

They worked for a whole afternoon tying the drums together with ropes. The drum raft had an old door as its deck that they had carried down from the
tractor shed. It had a stick for a mast and a torn wheat bag for a sail.

When they were ready to launch they found a rotten, white ant-ridden post and pretended it was a bottle of champagne. They shattered it on one of the drums. White ants fizzed from the post like the froth from a champagne bottle. Mark stood on deck as self-appointed captain while Danny and Sam pushed the raft down the slippery slope.

Mark shouted instructions above the roar of the water. ‘Push harder, you guys! Make it slide fast and when it hits the water, jump on!’

But when the raft gurgled into the water Sam and Danny had no hope of scrambling aboard. They fell flat on their faces!

The wild water was so fast it pulled the raft into the hungry veins of the twisting current. The raft spun and bobbed. Mark Thompson looked worried.

‘Hey!’ he screamed. ‘You guys! What are you doing? Get out here!’

Danny and Sam watched helplessly as Mark sailed out of reach.

He was setting off on a voyage to the unknown, alone! ‘Help meeee!’

Sam and Danny ran along the bank trying to keep up. Mark was spinning and bobbing, yelling and screaming. ‘I’m going to drown!’

‘Swim for it!’ Sam yelled.

‘I can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘I can’t swim!’

Danny was stunned. Mark Thompson couldn’t swim?

Mark wrapped his arms and legs around the flimsy mast and clung to it like a koala up a tree. ‘Get a rope! Get something! Help me!’

Before Sam and Danny could react to his instructions, Mark spiralled into a whirlpool of rapids. ‘I’m going to be sick!’ The raft then spun into a huge floating log.
Crunch!
And like a ship thrown onto a reef, it quickly broke apart.

Obviously terrified – his face said it all – Mark looked at the boys and screamed, ‘I’m going under!’

Somehow, when the mast toppled, Mark lunged at one of the bobbing drums and clung to it. He sailed along, yelling and screaming, until his drum ran aground. Relieved that his feet could touch the bottom, he scrambled through shallow water to the bank. He was shivering and coughing when Danny and Sam pulled him to his feet. Mark’s teeth were chattering loudly when he looked at Sam and Danny and blamed them for the shipwreck. ‘Next time
I’ll
tie all of the ropes,’ he grumbled. ‘You guys are useless!’

But there had never been a next time. When the creek dried out the boys found the drums and rolled
them to the top of the bank, where they became seats for spectators.

Sam called them ‘the grandstand’.

When someone was swinging out across the calm water of the billabong ready to drop from the tyre and do a bomb, the others would sit on the drums and watch. They had scorecards and if you did a good bomb they would hold up a ten.

Danny had only got a ten once. Sam had pushed him out across the water when he wasn’t ready. He lost his grip on the rope and had fallen with his arms waving wildly and his legs kicking frantically. Spinning like a human frisbee, he screamed all the way down. ‘Aggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!’ Then . . .
smack
!

He hit the water, back first.

He came up spluttering and coughing. He was going to yell at Sam, but when he heard Mark Thompson cheering and saw him holding up a ten, Danny was rapt.

Standing at the edge of the creek, seeing the tyre dangling on the rope and the drums sitting in a line, reminded Danny of his perfect score of ten.

He smiled and called to his brother. ‘Hey Sam, remember . . .’

Sam turned his back and started walking away. ‘Yeah I know, you got a ten from Thommo when you did that bomb.’

Danny beamed. ‘You remember it, then?’

‘You won’t let me forget it! You mention it every time we come here.’

Sam waddled off to sit on a drum. There was a stone in his boot. He walked funny.

Danny’s dad was pulling at a rotting post. The wood crumbled in his fingers and a writhing mass of white ants was sent into a blur of panic. He danced around them. Some of them ran over his hands. He flicked them away and kicked the post. An explosion of dust, grit and splinters flew to the air.