The road is bumpy, and I have to hang on to the coat with my beak to make sure it doesn’t slide off me. But if I’m very careful, I can look out between the buttons and see Jubilee, who is listening to something that goes thunka thunka thunka.
‘I feel sick,’ she says.
‘If you’d stop listening to that rubbish,’ says Mr Simpson, ‘you’d be fine.’
More bumps. We turn a corner and the car stops. Jubilee opens her door. Mr Simpson says, ‘Don’t get out. We won’t be here long.’
‘But—’
Jubilee taps her phone, and the thunka thunka thunka gets louder.
‘Turn it off,’ says Mr Simpson.
She ignores him.
‘Turn it off or I’ll leave you here in the middle of nowhere and you can make your own way back to Melbourne.’
‘You wouldn’t.’
‘Try me,’ growls Mr Simpson.
With a scowl, Jubilee rips the plugs out of her ears and throws her phone on top of the coat.
On top of me.
Mr Simpson climbs out of the car, bellowing, ‘Derek? Derek, where are you?’
If I could get hold of Jubilee’s phone, I could send an urgent message to Olive. But if I move, Jubilee will see me and tell her father, and he’ll wring my neck.
I crouch lower, wishing Olive was here. Or Constable Dad. (Though neither of them would fit under this coat.) They’d know what to do.
Footsteps crunch on the gravel as Mr Simpson walks back to the car with another man. ‘We can’t take the risk,’ says Mr Simpson. ‘Move them as soon it gets dark, to the usual place.’
He opens his car door to get in – and I make my move. Before Jubilee can shut her door, I wriggle out from underneath the coat, snatch up her phone, and jump out of the car.
Behind me, Jubilee screams, ‘A chook’s got my phone!’ And she leaps out of the car too.
I’m already halfway across the yard, frantically clutching the phone in my beak and looking for a hiding place. There’s a farmhouse on one side of me and a couple of old car bodies on the other. I run towards the cars, as fast as I can.
‘My phone!’ wails Jubilee, running after me.
‘Leave it,’ shouts Mr Simpson.
‘No,’ cries Jubilee. ‘Help me get it back or I won’t go.’
‘You’ll go where I tell you,’ shouts Mr Simpson. But when I take a quick look behind me, he and Derek are coming to help her.
Coming to catch me.
Coming to wring my neck.
I dodge around the car bodies, and dash towards an open-fronted shed on the other side of the yard. Once I’m inside, I dive under a tractor, run past some rotting hay bales and a stack of tyres, and huddle into a corner behind a pile of rusty tools, where they won’t see me. Somewhere in the distance, sheep are bleating.
Jubilee gets down on her hands and knees to peer under the tractor. Mr Simpson grabs a stick and pokes viciously at the hay. Derek kicks the tyres.
If Mr Simpson is like a dozen roosters, Derek is a dozen rats. His face is narrow and mean, and there’s something about him that makes me shrink even further into the corner.
‘Listen, Ernie,’ he says, ‘I don’t like this new truck. It’s too open. Anyone drives up behind me, they’ll see the sheep.’
‘I told you, it was the only one I could get at such short notice,’ says Mr Simpson. ‘We can’t use the old one, not if they’re onto us. Hang a tarpaulin over the back and sides if you’re worried.’
They’ve stopped searching, and are leaning against the hay bales. I’m in the corner, trying to send an urgent message to Olive. Jubilee’s phone doesn’t have a passcode, which should make it easy. But it’s completely different from Olive’s and Digby’s phones, and I can’t find the messages.
The only thing I recognise is the camera.
I turn it on, creep forward and prop the phone in the narrow gap between a spade and a garden fork.
‘If I get caught—’ says Derek.
‘You won’t get caught. And if you do, I’ll get you the best lawyers in the country – as long as you keep your mouth shut.’
‘I’d still rather wait a couple of days,’ says Derek, ‘until Hennessey’s gone.’
‘If he’s got his eye on me,’ says Mr Simpson, ‘he might know about you. And it won’t be hard to find this place once he starts looking. Get rid of the sheep tonight, and then we all disappear. No more Ernie Simpson. No more Derek Black. No more sheep.’ He laughs, hard and nasty. ‘Not here, anyway.’
‘What are you laughing about?’ cries Jubilee, from the other side of the shed. ‘Come and help me look for my phone!’
Mr Simpson and Derek roll their eyes at each other and go to help her. I turn off the camera. It has evidence inside it now, proper evidence that Constable Dad will want to see. I need to get it to him.
I slide the phone into the bag around my neck, then I creep out of the shed and make a dash for the car.
The doors are still open, so I hop up onto the driver’s seat and quickly apologise for not introducing myself earlier. ‘I was in a bit of a rush,’ I say to the car. ‘And I still am. Could you take me to the police station, please, before the criminals come back? I have important evidence for Constable Dad.’
The car doesn’t respond. I try again. ‘Don’t let me down, old girl,’ I squawk. ‘Start nicely, now. That’s it, that’s the way. Good girl!’
Still nothing. So I try Mr Simpson’s method. ‘Come on, you stupid thing. Start, or you’ll go to the wreckers!’
The car just sits there, taking no notice of me. I can’t afford to waste any more time on such a rude, unhelpful creature – Mr Simpson and Derek will be back soon and they mustn’t catch me.
But just as I’m about to hop down, I see a shiny silver badge hanging next to the steering wheel on a silver ring.
Why has this car got a badge? Badges are for helpful people, like the roosters. And me.
I grab the ring in my beak and pull it out of the hole it’s stuck in. There’s a little silver stick attached to it, which makes it even nicer.
‘You don’t deserve such a fine thing,’ I tell the car. And when I hop down, I take the badge, the ring and the silver stick with me.
I hurry across the yard to the corner of the house, and settle into a spot where I can watch both the shed and the car without being seen. Then I put the silver badge down carefully beside me, take the phone out of its bag and try once again to find the messages.
But I’ve run out of time. Mr Simpson is marching back to the car, brushing cobwebs and dust from his clothes. ‘We have to go,’ he says.
‘What about my phone?’ wails Jubilee.
‘Is there anything incriminating on it?’
‘No.’
‘And did you put a passcode on it when I told you to?’
‘Um – yes,’ mumbles Jubilee.
‘Then it doesn’t matter if you lose it. I’ll get you another one in Melbourne.’
Jubilee tries to argue, but her father ignores her. He says a few final words to Derek, then he and Jubilee climb into the car and slam their doors.
I peck frantically at the phone. How can I get a message to Olive? The car’s about to leave, and—
But it’s not leaving. Instead, the driver’s door flies open and Mr Simpson climbs out, checking his pockets. ‘Derek, have you seen my car keys?’
6.30 PM
Mr Simpson is swearing and searching for his keys. (I don’t know what keys are, but I’m glad he lost them.) Jubilee is back in the shed, looking for her phone. Derek leans against one of the car bodies with his eyes shut.
I’m trying to work out how to send a message to Olive.
Mr Simpson is still searching for his keys. He’s storming around the yard now, red-faced and swollen with anger. If he had feathers, they’d be bristling.
I’m still trying to work out how to send a message, but Mr Simpson’s anger makes it hard to think. So does the trembling in my legs and wings.
7.30 PM
After a lot of shouting, Derek and the Simpsons have gone inside the house. My legs have stopped trembling and I’ve found the messages at last. But I don’t know Olive’s phone number.
7.45 PM
Mr Simpson and Derek come out of the house. Mr Simpson is still angry, but now it’s a cold, hard fury that’s even got Derek treading carefully. They start wiping down the car with a towel, inside and out. They’re cleaning away the fingerprints, just like the mob boss in Episode 10 of Death in the City.
Except the mob boss was nowhere near as scary as Mr Simpson.
‘Get those sheep loaded into the truck,’ he snarls over his shoulder to Derek. ‘We’re leaving as soon it gets dark.’
8.00 PM
I’ve found the nasty messages that Jubilee sent. And there’s Olive’s phone number! I send a new message.
‘SIMPSONS ESCAPING SHEEP AT DEREKS FARM COME QUICKLY’
I haven’t got time for full stops. I hope it makes sense.
8.10 PM
Olive hasn’t replied yet.
I can hear a truck now – Derek is on the move. I don’t want to go after him. I want to stay where I am, hidden from Mr Simpson’s anger.
But Olive still hasn’t replied to my message. So I gather up my courage, shove the phone and the silver badge into the bag, poke my head through the loop and run out of the shed.
I follow the sound of the sheep down a rough road to a yard, where a blue truck is backed up to a gate. Derek is waving his arms at the sheep and shouting, ‘Hoy! Hoy! Up you go, up the ramp, that’s right. No, not that way, stupid.’
I creep as close to him as I dare, and wait until another sheep tries to escape. As Derek turns to grab it, I dash past him, up the ramp and into the far corner of the truck, where I hide behind a forest of woolly legs.
Derek pushes the runaway sheep up the ramp after me, and shuts the back of the truck. He walks around to climb into the driver’s seat, and the truck rumbles to life and carries us towards the house.
The top of the truck is open to the sky, but there are canvas flaps nailed to the back and sides, so I can’t see out. I stare at the nearest sheep instead, and she stares back at me.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ I squawk. ‘Clara, Chook of Mystery, at your service.’
I don’t think she understands me, so I introduce myself to the truck with the same words. It rumbles quietly, which is more than the car did.
We stop at the house, where Jubilee is complaining again. ‘Can we just leave?’ she wails. ‘I’m sick of this place.’
‘Put the luggage in the cabin so it doesn’t get dirty,’ orders Mr Simpson. ‘We’ll pick up a rental car as soon as we get to a decent-sized town.’
Jubilee grumbles a bit more, then loads the luggage and climbs up into the truck. A bit later, Mr Simpson joins her, and we set off.
Mr Simpson and Derek are not safe to be around, and neither are the sheep. They have hard hooves, and they don’t at all mind treading on the detective who is trying to rescue them.
I squawk softly at them to remind them I’m here. I suggest they lie down, so that they won’t fall on top of me every time we go over a bump or around a corner. They take no notice.
Olive has not come. I start unpicking the bottom corner of one of the flaps with my beak, so I can see where we are going.
