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It was well after midnight when they finally padded up the last stretch of Tammy’s street. Piho was boiling with annoyance about missing his midnight swim so Randy was keeping well out of striking range, not daring to say a word. Nikki’s funny little car wasn’t in the street. Randy moved even further back as Piho slipped through the side gate and skirted around the pool towards the sleep-out. Piho put on the light and they both jolted in fright.
“Nikki!”
She was sitting in the only chair in the room, looking bemused and a bit sleepy. “Hi, guys,” she said “have a nice walk?”
“Errrrrr, yeah!”
“Odd time to be out walking?”
“Y-yeah. We, ah, couldn’t sleep.”
“You okay?”
“Sure,” said Piho, “Uh, thanks for – you know...” He turned to give Randy a look that said ‘shove off’. Randy hesitated, puzzled, then shoved off, glancing back once and wondering what Nikki could possibly see in Piho.
He went around the pool and slipped in the back door of the house. As he crossed the dark kitchen the light suddenly popped on. He jumped with fright.
It was Tammy. “Where’ve you guys been?” She sounded worried.
“Out.” said Randy quickly, “Ah, just walking, and talking and stuff.”
“But it’s so late.”
“We couldn’t sleep. It’s the heat.”
“It’s not that hot!” she said, “Anyway I’m glad you’re back. I got up for a drink and saw you were missing. I’ve been really worried.”
Randy felt touched by her concern and smiled at her goofily.
“Well,” she yawned, “Glad you’re okay. Goodnight.” She gave him a sleepy hug, then disappeared off to her own room. Randy staggered on to his.
Collapsing onto his bed, he eventually fell asleep under the whiffling fan, clutching a roll of money in each hand and smiling hugely.
#
THE FIRST THING TAMMY said to him the next morning was, “You want eggs for breakfast?” He nearly fell out of his chair.
“Ahhh, no. Just ... toast. Got any Marmite?”
“Only Vegemite here. This is Australia, remember?”
“No Marmite! How do you survive? Okay, think I’ll go with the eggs.”
“It’s all in the fridge,” she said, “I’ve got to get to work.”
“Okay. Ah, Tammy?”
“Yes?”
“Anything special you want? Y’know, if I go shopping today?”
She slid into his lap and snaked her long thin arms around his neck, “Awwwww, you’re so thoughtful.” She seemed to think for a moment, then said, “No, not really. I just want love, and happiness, and a world that cares. But thanks for asking.” Just as she was about to kiss him there came a peculiar bleat from outside.
“That’s Nikki!” Tammy sprang off his lap. “I’ve gotta go!” She hurried out.
He followed, still feeling a bit stiff and slow from his night in the bush, and got to the front door in time to see Tammy’s thin arm waggling out the side window as the Peppy roared off down the street. He waved her off, then guiltily went straight to her bedroom and ‘borrowed’ her digital camera. He hoped Piho knew how to use it.
Piho wandered in a little later, looking bleary. He grunted at Randy and stuck his head in the fridge. “Any eggs in here?”
“Yeah, somewhere. Listen, I’m thinking about today. We could just get a taxi out to the bush. What do you reckon?”
“Yeah, whatever,” said Piho turning from the fridge. Suddenly he fixed Randy with a murderous stare and growled, “Just don’t ever bust into my bedroom like that again or I’ll kill you, okay?”
“But...”
“I mean it, mate. I’ll bloody kill you!”
Randy backed off, “Alright, okay, sorry, whatever.”
#
THEY GOT A REAL COOL taxi driver, an Aboriginal dude called Cliff. They talked about rugby and stuff as Randy gave directions onto the road out of town. Eventually they stopped in the middle of the wilds, right where they had been yesterday.
“You sure this is the place?” asked Cliff.
Randy started blathering, “Well, see, we’re from New Zealand, right? So anyway we’re here on holiday and.., well everyone kept saying you’ve really got to see the Australian bush. So, like here we are: bush!”
Piho made lip-zipping gestures at him as he paid the fare and got out into the heat. Holding open the door he leaned in to speak to Cliff one last time, “Ah, can we, like, book you now to pick us up again? Like say in two hours time?”
Cliff shrugged casually, “No worries, mate.”
“Good.”
“Now you boys take care in the bush,” said Cliff, “It’s a dangerous place.”
“Eh? Whatdya mean?” asked Randy, halfway out his door.
“Take it from me, fellas, my people have been here for thousands of years. If you’re in the bush make sure you make a lot of noise as you’re walking. Hit the ground with a stick and shout ‘Yah yah-yah! Yah yah-yah!’ all the time. Got that?”
“Yah yah-yah!” repeated Randy, “Okay, but why?”
“To scare away the Drop-bears.”
“What’re they?” asked Randy, worried, as a slow smile spread over Piho’s face.
“Well,” said Cliff very authoritatively, “you’ve heard of koala bears, right? Well, Drop-bears are a lot bigger, and they’re flesh-eaters, man! They’ll rip your throat out in seconds. They sit up in the trees and drop on you as you go under. Always attack a single walker, but if you make a lot of noise they’ll think you’re a lot of people and then you’re safe.”
“You’re joshing us,” said Piho dryly.
The driver laughed out loud. “Yeah, but it’s still good advice. You don’t want to go surprising any snakes.”
Randy hesitated at his door, “Snakes!”
“Don’t worry about it, Kiwi. They’re more scared of you that you are of them. Just don’t go pulling any old logs apart or lifting up rocks and you’ll be fine. Listen, fellas, love to talk but I’ve got a couple of calls. See you in two hours.”
They waited as the taxi drove away, then turned to look at the daunting walls of bush on either side of the road.
Piho growled at Randy, “You’d better find it mate, or we’re as good as stuffed.”
“I’ll find it. I’ll find it.” Randy began to pace the roadside, gazing intently at the ground. Piho stood back, impressed by Randy’s tracking skills. That was until Randy bent down, picked up a hefty-looking stick and whacked it on the ground.
“Yah yah-yah!”
#
FORTY MINUTES LATER, standing in a shallow dip in the ground surrounded by the litter of the recent flood, Piho turned to Randy and said crossly, “You’re lost, aren’t you? You haven’t a clue where you are!”
Randy flapped at the eternal flies and said, “We’re in Australia, mate.”
“Yeah, lovely,” muttered Piho, “A million bucks worth of fossil and we can’t even find it! We’re never going to find it!” He took his anger out on the nearest tree, thrashing at the trunk with his stick. A bunch of noisy birds took flight somewhere nearby. “I hate this place!” he roared as his stick broke.
“What about Nikki? What about all that money in your pocket?”
“I love this place!” said Piho enthusiastically, whacking the remnants of his stick on another tree.
“Come on,” said Randy, “maybe there’s another whole different valley. It all looks the same, damn it!” He started walking again, whacking his stick on the ground and chanting, rather half-heartedly, “Yah yah-yah! Yah yah-yah!”
“Ah shut up!” growled Piho behind him, “I keep telling you, there aren’t any Drop-bears in Australia!”
“You can’t be too sure, mate, you can’t be too sure.”
#
TEN MINUTES LATER RANDY stopped on a low rise, “Pee-ugh! What’s that stink?”
“Something’s dead,” muttered Piho, sampling the breeze, “I’ve smelt that before. Hey, remember that dead cow we found in that creek?”
Randy pulled a disgusted face, “Yeah. You had to try poking its eyes out.”
“So? You were the one who poked it in the guts. Wow what a mess!”
“Wasn’t my fault it exploded. You deliberately gave me that sharp stick!”
“I still can’t believe how much pus came out!” reminisced Piho.
“Me neither!”
“Mum had to throw out all my clothes!”
“Mine too!”
“Those were the days, eh?”
“Yeah!”
Piho waved his broken stick in the air, “Wanna go see what it is this time?”
“No way!” Randy turned away, then suddenly stopped. “Wait!”
“What?”
“We must be really close!” He started towards the smell.
“Are you nuts?”
“No no no. It’s this way! I’m positive!” Randy pointed into the breeze.
“You are definitely nuts,” said Piho with a long-suffering sigh. He put on his I-am-talking-to-the-idiot voice, “Look, how long ago did the dinosaurs die? A million years ago; right? So they are like really totally dead, okay? Nothing but bones left, right? So ... that is not the smell of a dead dinosaur!”
“You don’t understand!” shouted Randy, still blundering on. He crossed over a disused four-wheel-drive track and headed down the slope on the other side. The stench of rotten animal grew steadily stronger. Piho stopped at the top, watching Randy charging down through the bush. He saw him stop near a big fallen tree with lots of flood junk stuck all through it.
Randy started whooping, “Yes! Yes! There it is!”
Piho hurried down, stood beside him, and breathlessly looked along Randy’s outstretched finger. There, in the branches of a fallen tree, lay something dead and furry and surrounded by a billion flies. The stench was overpowering.
Piho rapped Randy sharply on the skull with his knuckles. “Great! Brilliant! Work of a genius, Cathro! It’s the dead thing. Well done! Now if you don’t mind, I’m going home to kill myself!”
Randy rubbed at his skull as he slowly turned around, looking for something else. Suddenly he was on the move again. “There!” he shouted.
Piho followed, his fingers twitching with a serious desire to seriously injure his friend. But all his anger melted away when he saw the fossil.
“Strewth, mate,” he whispered, “it's beautiful!”