Chapter 7

The Great Snail Race

It just so happened that Mario was broke again. Grandad had stopped his pocket-money forever, or at least until his twelfth birthday.

No friends would lend him any money because Mars Bar usually ‘forgot’ to pay it back. The problem was how to make some money. Last night, he had looked over the junk put out for the indestructible rubbish collection. Even picked up a black box ,but dropped it again. Too many wires he couldn’t use.

Getting the reward for finding the dove might be one way.

Earlier he he’d thought of getting some look-alike dove from the Thursday morning market. But there were no crested feather foot fantail pigeons. And he didn’t have nay money to buy birds.

‘Probably fly back to its market owners anyway.’ muttered Mario. He was disappointed.

At school, Mrs. Tasker talked about getting snails ready for the Great Snail Race. Each student was to bring a live snail.

That gave Mario another idea.

Of course, even the best -organised events go wrong. And things always go wrong when Mario was there. But then there was the problem with the weather.

It rained, a lot.

On Thursday morning, Mount Street school children awoke to the sound of rain.

It was heavy.

‘Glad I found my snail last night,’ said India.

She looked towards her bedside table. Super Snail was waiting. He was in a jar with plenty of takeaway greenery. There were millions of air holes in the lid. There was a daub of liquid paper on Super Snail’s back.

Even before breakfast, children sloshed outside. They peered under bushes. They tracked silvery trails across the pavement. They looked in vegetable gardens for fresh racers.

‘Get away from my tomatoes!’ Mr. Ginos yelled. ‘I have no snails in my garden.’

By 8.50,there were 232 students at Mount Street School and 291 snails.

‘In this weather, we may not be able to have the race outside,’ said Mrs. Tasker. ‘What a summer!’

‘Let’s race the snails in the library,’ suggested Mario. He had a special reason for making sure the race was run.

‘Not enough room,’ said the librarian.

For once, Mario was full of helpful suggestions.

‘Take the books out! The snails will think the green carpet is grass.’

‘Not mine,’ said India. She cuddled her jar as Super Snail did push- ups.

‘He knows his colours.’

‘This is the snails’ favourite weather,’ said Mrs. Tasker through her teeth. Mrs. Tasker hated wet weather timetables. She hated extra yard duty. And she hated damp parkas in the rooms.

Mario looked up at the grey, damp sky. Gluggy cotton wool clouds drifted across the blue-grey.

‘Might clear up before lunchtime.’

Mario’s grandad had a few chickens. So in Grade 4/5T, Mario was the closest to a farmer. And farers were supposed to know about weather.

‘First heat at 1pm,’ said Mrs. Tasker in her official, loudspeaker voice.

‘How come it’s called a heat? It’s freezing.’ Mario turned to the rest of the class. He did his monkey-gorilla movements, scratching under his arm to show he was joking.

‘Attention all grades. Would each grade choose only one snail. This will represent the class. Choose a jockey also.’

In Grade 4/5T ,there was almost a fight. Everyone knew that his or her snail was best.

‘Quiet!’ Mrs. Tasker needed her loud voice.

‘A jockey,’ said Mario. ‘It’ll be like the Melbourne Cup. Hey, do you want to have a bet?’

‘Shh,’ said India. ‘Or Mrs. Tasker will have you on yard duty until Easter.’

That wasn’t the only reason India tried to shut up Mario. His money-making schemes were well known. He used to run the bubble gum racket. Then the children discovered he was selling Rainbow Gum at higher than the shop price.

Then there was the soccer card forgery. Mario used photos of cricketers.

And the frozen, fake coins. He used to feed them into the games machine. Then the owner became suspicious of all the drips on the floor and no money in the machine. Mario lost every game to the machine anyway.The rust stuck up the works and he couldn’t win. Or so he said.

‘Settle down,’ warned Mrs. Tasker.”You’ll have to do some work this morning first. Enough to make up for tomorrow too. The school photographer is coming then.’

Grade 4/5T had maths. They were doing percentages. That gave Mario his chance.

Money. Racing. Betting. Winning percentages.

Mario worked out the percentages he would make if every child bet on the snails.

He might be a millionaire by home time.

‘Hey. Look at that!’

Some snails had wandered. One crawled up the map of Europe. It started to nibble the North Pole.

Next door, the Grade 3 children were excited.

‘Look!’

Another snail had trailed across the maths board. It had slimed out the answer to the last question.

At recess time, Grade 6 children found a snail on the timetable in the corridor. Friday’s sports lesson had been nibbled away.

Meanwhile the teachers were worried. They had to mark the start and finish circles.

‘The white chalk won’t leave a mark on the damp ground. We may have to cancel,’ said Mrs. Tasker.

‘Not all the children can fit under the verandah if it keeps raining.’

Busy writing lists, Mario overheard. He made a quick suggestion. ‘Mrs. Tasker, what about the white board? There’s one in our room. I’ll get it.’

Mario wanted the race to be run. It took him about five minutes to convince the Grade 4/5T children.

They moved the outdoor seats and upturned rubbish bins and put plastic boxes in a circle.

‘Good idea,’ said Mrs. Tasker. She looked upwards at the classroom windows overlooking the courtyard. ‘Grade 6 children can stand up there. Those with raincoats can use the chairs. If the little ones crouch down, we could all see. All right. The race will start at 1 o’clock.’

Mario sighed with relief. Now all he needed were the names of the runners.

Lunch started at 12.15. Mrs. Tasker used the school camera to take photos. Snail-shaped food was arranged on a big table in the multi-purpose room. Snail scones. Snail marshmallows with cherries at the end of licorice sticks for eyes. Green pasta snails. Vegemite sandwiches rolled sideways, Slices of Swiss jam roll with toothpicks sticking out.

‘D’you think my snail might like a nibble of this?’ Mario opened the lid of his margarine tub. The snail’s feelers poked out.

‘Is it a cannibal? Does it eat other snails?’ asked Art.

‘I don’t know,’ said Mario thoughtfully.’ But we could find out.’

‘Forget it,’ said Art.

Rain was still drizzling down.

‘Go outside for a few minutes children,’ said the teachers.

But Mario was too busy. He needed to finish his lists. He needed to collect money from the other kids. He also accepted IOUs which he stuffed in his jeans pocket.

‘Mrs. Tasker , would you like me to write the names of the snails on the board? Then everyone will know who to bet…who to barrack for.’

‘Thankyou Mario. You’ve been very helpful today. It’s a nice change.’

‘The prep snails is …Sally.’

‘How can we tell which snail is which? They all look the same, except mine,’ said India.

‘No they don’t. Look at this one. He’s special.’ Laim let the snail coil around his middle finger. The it wandered along the back of his finger. Then it…

‘Yuk,’ said Liam.

‘Wipe it off with a tissue..’

‘How do you know the snail is a he?’ asked India. ‘ I thought snails were hermaphrodites..That means he and she at the same time.’

‘What?’ Mario didn’t like big words. Even for swearing. But India used book words all the time.

‘Put white-out on him,’ suggested India. ‘That’s what I used.’

Liam’s snail was chosen as Grade 4/5T’s snail.

‘Laim, does your snail have a name? ‘ asked Mrs. Tasker.

‘Not yet.’

‘St Mount,’ said Mario. ‘ Patron saint of snail, wasn’t he?’

‘That’s not what I learnt,’ smiled Mrs. Tasker who’d heard Mario’s tall tales before. ‘But St Mount, it is. S.M.’

Mrs. Tasker was the starter. Using the microphone, she named the runners and their jockeys.

‘Place your snails inside the inner circle .The first snail to go over the outer circle is the winner.’

The seven snails were very colourful. Stick-on dots, nail polish blobs and white-out marked their shells.

Grade 2 was colour co-ordinated. The yellow dot on Sunny matched the jockey’s yellow parka.

At 1 o’clock, the race began. The black circle was drawn on the white board.

‘Ready,set ,go,’ said Mrs. Tasker.

The snails bunched together.

‘Come on, Super Snail.’ India had loaned her snail to another class.

‘Run Racer!’

‘Move quickly…please…Eat-My-Dust.’

Yells filled the courtyard. Teachers covered their ears. Mrs.Tasker turned off the microphone.

Eat-My-Dust was in trouble. The snail started to follow the line of the inner circle. It slithered round and round.

Other snails began to slither over it.

There was a snail traffic jam.

When Eat-My-Dust started to crawl over the top of Super Snail, it didn’t worry Mario.

But then something terrible did happen. Excitedly Liam picked up St Mount to point the snail around the right way.

‘Disqualified!’ roared Mrs. Tasker.

‘Oh! No!’

By 1.15 ,no snail was near the finishing circle.

‘We’ll stop the race in one more minute.’ Mrs. Tasker decided. ‘Unless a snail moves across the line in that time, there will be no winner.’

There was a roar of disappointment.

‘Out of seven snails, surely one could find the finish!’ said Mario. He ignored the ‘Where’s our money?’ being muttered behind him.

When Mrs. Tasker’s watch showed 1.16, the Great Mount Street Snail Race was over.

India smiled as Mario returned her fifty cents. It took him all afternoon to return the other bets.

‘Put salt behind the snails. Then they’ll move,’ said India.

‘Yeah? Well maybe next time I’ll borrow a salt shaker from the school canteen,’ said Mario. That afternoon he sat in the corner, sulking until home time.

After school Mario called Liam. ‘Come and have a look at this.’ There were two sugar lumps on the table in the shelter shed. Art and India watched. They knew Mars Bar was planning a trick of some kind.They knew he was broke.

‘Want a bet?’ offered Mario.

‘What sort of bet?’

‘I bet you two dollars that a fly will land on my sugar lump first.’

Liam looked closely at the sugar. He felt in his back pocket.

‘Haven’t got two dollars. Only got fifty cents.’

‘Okay,’ decided Mario. ’Of course, I’ll win, so it doesn’t matter.’

‘Yes it does.’ As a new kid, Liam was a bit worried. ‘Fifty cents is all I’ve got.’

‘Where’s your fifty cents, Mario?’ asked India who had been watching closely.

‘Shhh,’ Mario reached across the table and touched the two sugar cubes in front of Liam.

‘Which one?’

‘I’ll bet on this one,’ Liam chose the one closest to Mario. He was learning.

‘Okay,’ said Mario. Art was worried that Mario didn’t look worried. They had to wait for a while. The rain had stopped. There were lots of flies buzzing around. Sometimes they landed on the table. Then they flew off.

‘Perhaps they’ve got radar like pigeons.’ Art was thinking aloud.

Mario looked up. ‘Radar! Did you hear about the police radar getting mixed up with the rubbish? It was in a street behind the racecourse. The trainers were laughing about it.’

Liam grinned. ‘D’you know who picked it up?’

‘Easy to do. The parts could be useful for something. I did have a look at it. But I put it down again. ‘Mario shook his head.’Dunno what happened next.’

Art was not going to tell him.

‘Shh. There’s a fly coming.’

At last, a fly landed near Liam’s sugar. His eyes brightened.

Then the fly circled and went onto Mario’s sugar and landed.

‘I win!’ cried Mario.‘I knew I would.’

‘How did you know?’ Liam felt he’d been tricked.

Mario put the fifty cents in his pocket.

Art had been watching closely. He picked up Liam’s sugar cube and smelled it.

‘Fly spray. If you put fly spray on a sugar cube, the fly goes somewhere else.’

Poor Liam didn’t know what to do. ‘But I took the sugar cube that was in front of him.’

Art nodded. ‘Mario was counting on that. He sprayed that one.’

‘What if I had chosen the other one?’

‘Then he would have lost.’

‘Sounds a bit like cheating to me,’ said India.

‘Mrs.Tasker told me,’ said Art with a strange smile.

‘Mrs.Tasker told you how to cheat?’ India was surprised.

‘No. She gave me a book about con men.’

‘Have you been reading?’ India was even more surprised.

Art nodded. ‘A little bit. There’s pictures too.’

‘Confidence men?’

Yes, the ones who used to trick people out of their money.’

‘Con artists?’

‘Yes.’

‘What happened to them?’

‘They moved around a lot.’

India laughed. “I’ll bet they did. Mar’s Bar’s gone home already.’

‘With my fifty cents,’ said Liam. ‘Can I borrow you book tomorrow Art? ‘

‘If you like. I’m finding out about doves. Magicians make some doves disappear.’

‘Once I saw a magician make a dove appear out of a top hat,’ said India. ’But you’re not a magician, Art.’

‘Wait and see,’ said Art.’ Saturday is the deadline. Serena has to be back for the wedding photos.’