Digger Field (11 page)

I led the way through the grevillea bushes and onto the path. There was a whooshing sound and then a huge crash. We all froze, and looked at each other.

Then Tearley started laughing. I thought she’d gone mad.

‘What’s up?’ I said.

‘At least we know the EWS works,’ she said.

The early warning system. I’d totally forgotten about it. The bad news was that, now it had gone off, it wouldn’t work again. There was no way we could reset it in the dark.

Wrigs said, ‘Maybe I should be the lookout, just in case anyone comes.’

‘No way,’ I said. ‘Tearley, you be the lookout. Give me the camera.’

Tearley passed it over. I switched it to the night-vision mode. Even though it was bright outside in the full moon, it would be dark in the house.

‘Okay. Let’s go,’ I said.

Wrigs and I raced into the house. I made Wrigs take the lead so he couldn’t chicken out. We ran down the hallway into the kitchen. We couldn’t find the manhole in the dark. I stamped on the floor.

All I could hear at first was the
bup
,
bup
,
bup
sound of my shoes on the wooden floorboards, but finally I heard a
boing
noise. We both dropped to our knees to touch the metal door.

There was a tap on my shoulder.

‘What the …?’ I said.

It was Tearley. She had followed us inside. We’d been making so much noise we hadn’t heard her.

‘I was just seeing if you were okay,’ she said.

‘I nearly died of a heart attack,’ I said.

‘I got scared out there by myself,’ she said.

Then we heard another noise. It sounded like someone walking down the pathway. We raced into the little room behind the kitchen and hid in the shadows. There was no space in there so we huddled together.

If someone came in through the door we only had one escape route. An old broken window. Wrigs was closest to the window, I was in the middle and Tearley was closest to the doorway to the kitchen.

It was a disaster. We were sitting there, just waiting to be caught.

The person outside reached the bottom of the path but they didn’t come straight into the house. They walked around the outside, stopped right in front of our broken window and stood looking out over the river. We could see the shape of the person in the moonlight.

It was Mr Black.

He was carrying a hessian bag again.

And
it was moving.

I turned the video camera and pointed it at him.

As I switched it on, a little red light came on to show that the camera was recording. We hadn’t noticed the red light before, but if Mr Black turned around he would see it for sure.

I turned the camera off, just in time. Mr Black turned towards us. He mustn’t have been able to see us in the dark.

He looked away again and walked around to the front entrance of the house. Then he walked down the hallway, his torch flickering around to show him the way. Tearley pushed as hard against me as she could, so she wouldn’t be caught by the beam. The light flashed across her leg but Mr Black mustn’t have noticed. We heard him put down his bag, and put the torch on the ground.

Tearley’s weight moved off me. She squeezed past me and Wrigs and climbed noiselessly out of the broken window beside us.

I pushed Wrigs and pointed after Tearley. I wanted him to follow her, but he was frozen with terror.

We could hear Mr Black fumbling with the latch, and a key turning.

The door to the manhole creaked as it opened. Mr Black was picking up his torch when there was a crash from outside the house. It sounded like a brick hitting the corrugated iron that we used for the EWS.

Tearley! She must have done it to distract Mr Black and give us a chance to get out.

Mr Black called out, ‘Who’s there?’

He sounded startled. He was breathing heavily.

Mr Black stumbled down the hallway and out into the night.

Wriggler scrambled to the window and threw himself over the sill.

I wanted to follow him, but this was the one chance we had to see what was in the hole. I raced into the kitchen and almost tripped over the hessian bag. It was sliding across the floor all by itself.

The manhole was still open. It was too risky to jump into the hole. Mr Black could be back any second. So I lay down next to the opening and hit the record button on the camera.

Then I stuck my arm down into the hole and panned the camera around, hoping it would film something.

I was just pulling my arm out when Mr Black’s torchlight came bobbing down the hallway. I didn’t have time to get back into the other room.

‘Where are you?’ he said.

I was a goner. I turned off the camera and backed into the corner of the kitchen nearest the fireplace. I wished the wall would swallow me up.

‘Come out! I know you’re here,’ Mr Black said.

How could he know I was here? Had he caught Tearley outside?

He tripped on something and his torch fell to the ground and went out. He swore and groped around for the torch.

Once he found it, he banged it a couple of times, and it flickered on.

‘I can hear you, yeah. Come to Papa,’ he said.

I didn’t make a sound. I was holding my breath. I wished that my heart wasn’t beating so loudly.

He flashed his torch across the floor until the light landed on the hessian bag. The bag was still creeping across the floor by itself.

‘There you are, yeah. You okay?’ His voice softened. ‘You come with me.’

Mr Black had been talking to whatever was in the bag. He didn’t know I was there.

He picked up the bag and lowered himself into the hole. I waited as long as I could … it felt like hours but was probably only a few seconds. Then I crept past the hole as quietly as possible, and up the hallway and out into the night.

I was halfway up the pathway to View Street when I saw the silhouette of someone standing in the middle of the track just ahead of me. Mr Black had brought someone with him. I was surrounded.

I was going to turn back to the house and take my chances that Mr Black wouldn’t find me, when the person turned around and said, ‘Hurry up, Digs.’

It was Tearley. She was waiting for me.

‘Where’s Wrigs?’ I said.

‘That’s him at the top of the street,’ she pointed.

We bolted back to my place. I kept thinking I could hear Mr Black running after us. But I didn’t look back.

CHAPTER 28

DAY 26: Wednesday

My skims: 13

Wriggler’s skims: 0

Tearley’s skims: 9

Another disaster, but at least we got more rocks from the police station.

Money made for tinnie: $0

Might as well give up now.

When we got back to the tents we looked at the video. Because it was shot in night vision, the film was green and white.

The picture was all shaky as we ran into the house. You couldn’t make much out, but you could hear our footsteps and how hard we were breathing. I was pointing the camera at the floor when Tearley tapped me on the shoulder. I jumped about a metre and the camera stopped. Then the camera turned back on for a millisecond and you could see Mr Black outside the window.

Then it didn’t come back on until I pointed it into the hole. It took a moment for the camera to focus as it adjusted to the lack of light, and then you could see all these beady things blinking back at it. They were eyes.

Animal eyes.

Stacked up in the hole were piles of cages, all holding snakes and lizards and geckos and bearded dragons.

‘It’s like a zoo,’ said Wrigs.

‘Why would he have so many animals under there?’ said Tearley.

Suddenly the truth hit me like a tennis racquet to the face. ‘He must be an animal trafficker,’ I said.

‘A what?’ said Wriggler.

‘Y’know, someone who smuggles lizards and snakes to Japan or wherever.’

‘Then what was Mr Black doing in the States?’ Wrigs said.

‘He probably sells there, too,’ I said. ‘We’ve got to show this to the cops.’

‘It’s one o’clock in the morning,’ said Tearley.

‘I reckon Ms Burke is behind it,’ said Wrigs.

‘What do you mean?’ I said.

‘I don’t trust that woman at all,’ he said.

‘She did have that photo of him in her house, which is really strange,’ said Tearley.

‘I bet she’s the mastermind behind the smuggling,’ Wrigs said. ‘Look how rich she is. Mr Black just does her dirty business.’

‘I thought you said he was a ghost?’ I said.

‘How could he be?’ said Wrigs. ‘You’re weird.’

We decided to try and get some sleep. Every time I closed my eyes I dreamt I was back in the deserted house and Mr Black was running down the corridor. Except in my nightmares he didn’t trip over and drop his torch. He came straight at me.

The next thing I knew it was bright daylight and Mum was shouting at me through the tent flap.

‘What did you say to Squid? He’s almost scratched off the top of his skull.’

‘Nothing much, Mum. I told you he’d get scared if he camped out with us when we were telling ghost stories.’

‘He’s only five.’

‘Almost six.’

Mum sighed and walked off.

It was boiling hot in the tent. And it smelt of Wrigs’ farts. I crawled across to Tearley’s tent and woke her up.

‘Let’s show last night’s video to Tranh,’ I said.

‘He’ll just say it’s none of our business again,’ she said.

Wrigs crawled into Tearley’s tent, too. The smell followed him.

‘We’re going to show this to Tranh,’ I told him.

‘Do we have to?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ I said. I must have sounded really determined because both Wrigs and Tearley agreed.

After breakfast we trudged off to the police station again.

Sergeant Tranh was on the phone when we got there.

‘So I can pay monthly or annually?’

When he saw us he said, ‘Sorry, can you hold for a moment?’ and put the phone down.

‘Ah,’ he said to me. ‘Here they are again— Supersleuth and his able assistants. What have you got for us today? A mild-mannered old lady who is a cat burglar at night perhaps?’

‘You know about Ms Burke?’ said Wrigs.

‘Who?’ said Tranh.

Tearley was right. We shouldn’t have come. I wanted to turn around and leave again. But we had to go through with it.

‘Have a look at this,’ I said and showed Tranh the video of the animals.

‘What’s this, a holiday video? You went to a zoo, did you?’

‘No, it’s the cellar under the old house we told you about,’ I said. ‘That dude we told you about keeps native animals in there.’

‘We think he’s a trafficker,’ Tearley said.

‘Trafficker? An animal trafficker? In Pensdale? You’ve been watching too much TV.’

‘He told us he wasn’t Mr Bayoumi either,’ said Wriggler.

‘Who?’

‘The owner of the house,’ said Tearley. ‘Constable Stevens looked it up for you, remember?’

Tranh turned to Stevens. ‘When do the school holidays finish?’ he asked.

‘In a week or so,’ she replied.

‘Thank goodness for that. See ya, kids.’ He waved towards the police station door like he wanted us to leave.

As we starting leaving, he picked up his phone again and said, ‘So, what’s your best price on this car insurance, then? Oh hang on a sec …’

He called out as we were going through the door, ‘By the way, we’d like those rocks back from our cactus garden. They’re police property.’

When we got outside Tearley said, ‘I told you he wouldn’t listen to us.’

We went back to the deserted house to get the pictures out of the sensor camera. They showed me hiding from Mr Black. He was so close, if he’d reached out he would have caught me. I’ve got no idea how he didn’t see me.

CHAPTER 29

DAY 27: Thursday

My skims: 0

Wriggler’s skims: 0

Tearley’s skims: 0

At least I’m going to be a YouTube superstar.

Money made for tinnie: $0

Have 7 more days to find $735.50, and that doesn’t include the cash we owe Tearley.

I was having breakfast when Uncle Scott rang. He asked how I was going with the cash for the boat.

I lied to him.

‘I reckon we can get it, Uncle Scott, but I’ve just got to convince a new investor.’

‘Great,’ he said. ‘Mate, my plan is to put it on eBay next Thursday. Let me know how you’re going before then.’

Seven days. How were we going to get seven hundred and thirty-five dollars and fifty cents in a week? This holiday had sucked. My plan had been to go back to school as a world champion skimmer and a boat owner. Instead, I was going to go back exactly the same way as I left. A nobody.

Then an idea hit me like a tin can full of rocks. Even if I wasn’t going to get the world record or the tinnie I knew exactly what we had to do about Mr Black.

‘We’re going viral,’ I told Wrigs and Tearley when they came around. ‘We’re going to make our own news story and stick it on YouTube.’

‘About Mr Black?’ asked Tearley.

‘Yep, that way people will have to pay attention.’

‘I don’t reckon we should get involved any more,’ said Tearley. ‘We’ve told the police. That’s enough.’

‘Well, you don’t have to be involved. Digs and I can do the news story,’ said Wrigs.

‘Okay, I don’t care,’ Tearley said. ‘I’ve got my English tutor this morning anyway.’

English. In the holidays. And she doesn’t mind. What is the problem with her?

Wrigs and I went down to the river and videoed the derelict house and the secret trapdoor in the kitchen floor. Then we got on Wrigs’ computer and edited together a story like the ones you see on the television news.

We started with our new shots of the house and the manhole so you could see what they looked like in the daytime.

Then we cut to the photos that the sensor camera took of Mr Black arriving in the middle of the night and opening the secret trapdoor. On one of the photos I drew an arrow pointing at the full hessian bag that Mr Black was carrying.

After that, we added the photos of Mr Black climbing into the hole. Then we put in the night-vision shots of all the snakes and lizards in cages. Their beady eyes still freaked me out. After the night-vision stuff we added on the photos of Mr Black getting out of the hole and leaving. I put the arrow on the hessian bag again to show it was now empty.