When Penny and Michelle Dyer’s dad started crying at the dinner table because he’d lost his job, they decided to do something about it.

The Dyers never seemed to have any money as it was. Their house looked as if it was falling down around their ears, and their car had had it. Plus the girls could never afford things like movies or lollies and they always had to wear their neighbour’s hand-me-downs. Not that they complained about it. Why make things worse?

Mr Dyer had often said,‘Who knows what we’d do if I lost this job?’ Secretly, Penny and Michelle knew exactly what they’d do. Earn some money themselves, to help out. But they’d never tell their dad. It would probably hurt his feelings.

So, that night, Penny and Michelle lay in their bunks, and talked and talked and talked. Penny had heard on the radio that a man had become a millionaire by finding bits of old junk, fixing them up and selling them. Simple as that.

‘Excellent,’ said Michelle. ‘I’ve always wanted to be a millionaire.’

Every few months in the area where they lived, there was a special day when people threw out all their old stuff that didn’t normally go in a rubbish bin. Things like old toys, old prams, tyres, bits of tin, boxes and stuff – you name it.

If you looked hard enough, you could usually find just about anything. People would leave all the old stuff out on a Sunday, and by Monday afternoon it would all be gone, collected by people from the council in big trucks.

Luckily, a throw-out day was coming up the very next afternoon. By the time the sun was starting to rise, Michelle could hardly contain herself. ‘Imagine,’ she said, getting really excited, ‘by this time tomorrow we’ll be millionaires.’

‘I don’t think it’s quite that easy,’ said Penny with a yawn, ‘but we’ll certainly give it a try. What we need to do is catch a bus to one of the really rich areas because their junk will be the best.’

‘Catch a bus? By ourselves!’ said Michelle. ‘Mum would kill us.’

‘Not if she doesn’t know,’ said Penny.

So later that morning, Penny and Michelle ended up walking down a leafy street past some of the biggest houses you could ever imagine. And Penny was right. Out on the nature strips stood piles of the most beautiful rubbish the girls had ever seen.Toys, furniture, electrical stuff. Everything. The first thing to really catch Penny’s eye was an old ten-pin bowling ball.

‘Look at this!’ yelled Penny. ‘Fill in these cracks with chewy or something and it’s as good as new. And look! False teeth! They’re worth heaps, aren’t they?’

The girls found stacks of stuff. They used an old wheelbarrow to carry everything – toys, plates, even a blanket with fewer holes than the ones they had at home.

‘No way we’re selling this,’ said Penny. ‘Give it to Mum. Remember how cold she got last winter?’

They also found a fan that probably didn’t work, but who knew, maybe if they hit it with a hammer a couple of times it’d come good. And a toilet brush that looked pretty good, although Michelle thought they should come back for it later in case they found a better one.

And then they saw it. Neither of them could believe their eyes. A huge television set! Michelle and Penny’s family hadn’t had a TV since the old one blew and, in Michelle’s eyes, here was half a million bucks just waiting to be carried away.

‘Do you think it still works?’ Penny whispered in awe.

‘Yes, it does,’ said a lady’s voice from behind. The girls got such a fright they almost jumped out of their skins.

‘Sorry,’ said Penny, ‘we just –’

‘No need to be sorry,’ said the lady. ‘It looks like you’ve got quite the haul there!’

When Penny explained how they were going to be millionaires to help out their dad, the lady almost cried.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘there’s nothing that pleases me more than people showing some courage. People trying their best. How about I ask my husband to put the trailer on the car and I give you a lift with all of this stuff?’

‘I don’t want to sound rude or anything,’ said Penny, ‘but Mum and Dad always say not to get into cars with people we don’t know.’

‘And very good advice it is, too,’ said the lady. ‘Silly of me not to think. What if you tell me where your place is, and I’ll just take the stuff for you? Oh, and if you’d like to give me your telephone number, I think I might have a few more things I could give you to sell.’

‘Radical,’ said Penny. ‘We haven’t got a phone at the moment but the shop at the end of the street will usually take messages for us.’

‘That sounds fine,’ said the lady. ‘My name’s Carmel, by the way.’

‘Nice to meet you,’ the girls said.

The lady dropped all the stuff at a park near the girls’ house, and by that afternoon the girls had their shop all set up. Guess how many things they sold?

None. Not one. They had never been so disappointed in all their lives.

‘Isn’t anyone using false teeth anymore?’ asked Penny. ‘I can’t believe it. Still, at least we get to keep the TV for ourselves.’

‘What do we do now?’ wondered Michelle. ‘Leave the whole lot here, I suppose,’ said Penny. ‘Let the council pick it up in the morning.’

As the girls trudged into their house, they were most surprised to hear the sound of laughter.

‘You’ll never guess,’ squealed their mum. ‘Your dad’s got a job. A really good one.With better pay and everything.’

‘Mum, that’s so fantastic,’ said Penny.

‘Who with?’

‘With a lady called Carmel, doing repairs and odd jobs and gardening,’ said her mum. ‘It’s unbelievable. Apparently she’d heard what a good worker your father is and how he’s really keen on gardening, and she just rang up the shop and offered him a job.’

‘How terrific,’ said the girls, looking at each other. Although, of course, they would never tell that they knew who the lady was.

Whether their dad knew their secret, the girls never found out. But he did spend a chunk of his first paycheck on two beautiful new dresses.