DAY 14: Friday
My skims: 0
Wriggler’s skims: 0
Days to becoming world champion: 25 (Feeling the pressure.)
Found proof that Mr Black is up to something.
Money made for tinnie: $0 ($725 to go. We need to make some money soon.)
Wrigs came over early. He raced through the front door and closed it behind him.
‘It’s him. He’s everywhere,’ he said.
‘Who? Dean?’ I said. ‘He’s gone to the beach.’
‘Not Dean, Mr Black,’ he said. ‘He was at the hospital while I was waiting for the doctor to look at my arm. He just walked in on his own. Didn’t sit down, just looked around. He didn’t talk to anyone or anything.’
‘He was probably just seeing if someone he knew was there,’ I said.
‘Nah, he waved at me, then left again.’
Wriggler was leaning on the closed front door like he was expecting someone to barge through it.
‘What did you do?’
‘I ignored him. But then, when I got home, he was standing outside my place,’ Wrigs said.
‘Outside your place?’
‘It was like he was waiting for me. As soon as he saw our car turn into the drive he just walked off.’
‘It could have been a coincidence.’
‘No way. He’s following me. He’s going to kill me,’ said Wrigs.
Why would anyone want to kill Wrigs? I know he is my best mate but he is pretty unimportant to everyone else.
‘Why would he want to kill you?’ I said.
‘Why else would he be watching everything I do?’
Then I had a flash, like a bullet to the brain.
I asked, ‘Are you sure your parents are your real parents?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well, maybe they’re not, and you have some secret that a Russian criminal gang is trying to find out.’
It was suddenly obvious.
‘Like your real dad was an undercover police agent and he infiltrated a Russian gang. Maybe the gangsters found out, but just before they killed him, your father had a computer chip implanted into your brain with all their secrets.’
Wriggler started scratching around on the top of his head, looking for a scar.
‘And maybe he sent you to Pensdale, the most boring place in the world, to hide you. But the gang have finally tracked you down.’
All the blood left Wrigs’ face. I’d never noticed how many freckles he’s got but they really stand out when his face is pale.
‘Bull,’ he said.
It was such a good story I was a bit disappointed to admit I had only made it up.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘But it would be pretty cool if it was true, though.’
These holidays had gone from bad to worse. Nothing had worked out. We hadn’t made any cash and I was nowhere near the world record. The skimming was my shot at glory and I wasn’t going to let Mr Black or anyone else wreck it.
‘I’m sick of this,’ I said. ‘I reckon we should find out what he is up to.’
‘Who?’ said Wrigs.
‘Mr Black.’
‘Are you mad?’ Wrigs said.
‘What can he do to us?’
‘He’ll vivisect us,’ Wriggler said.
‘Vivisect?’
‘Y’know, cut us open and pull out our insides, while we’re still alive.’
Typical Wriggler. Always expecting the worst. It was time to stand up for ourselves.
‘We can sit around here being bored to death, or we can do something. It’s our river. We have to find out what Mr Black is up to at the deserted house, so we can stop him and get back to working on the world record.’
‘You reckon?’
‘Yeah,’ I said.
‘Well all right,’ he said. ‘But if I see him, I’m bolting.’
We walked down to the river. Just as we got to the path Wrigs said, ‘I’ll be the lookout.’
He said he would stay at the top of the path and call out if anyone came down towards the deserted house. I reckon he’d been working on that one since we left my house. How soft can you be?
So I had no choice but to go down to the house on my own. I was scared but couldn’t show it. I had to show Wrigs that I wasn’t weak like him.
I crept down the path and stood at the edge of the clearing. The vacant lot was to my left and the deserted house was to my right. At that exact moment the sun went behind a cloud and everything got darker. A gust of cold wind made me shiver.
But I wasn’t going to let Wrigs think I was a wimp, so I kept going. I picked up a half-brick from the ground in case there was someone inside the house. I didn’t know what I would do with it, but carrying it made me feel braver.
I slipped through the doorway and crept down the hallway as quietly as I could. There were rooms on either side, but they were empty. The hallway opened up into another room that must have once been the kitchen. It had a big chimney that probably used to have a stove in it. The kitchen was empty, too.
I was clutching the half-brick so hard my hand was hurting.
There were a couple of little rooms behind the kitchen. I guess one used to be a toilet and the other one was a pantry, or something. I didn’t really know what I was looking for.
I called out, ‘Hello.’
Nobody called back. There was no one there.
I was squeezing the half-brick so hard I was amazed I hadn’t crushed it. I pegged it against the chimney in the kitchen and it bounced off and rolled across the floor.
It made a bup-de-bup, bup-de-bup, bup-de-bup noise as it bounced along the wooden floorboards. Bup-de-bup, bup-de-bup. Then, boing.
Boing? The last bounce sounded completely different. Like it was on a different surface. And it sounded like there was nothing underneath that surface.
I went and picked up the brick and dropped it again on the spot. Boing. Weird. It sounded like the brick was hitting metal.
I picked it up again and dropped it half a metre to the left and it went bup-de-bup. Wood.
I brushed away the dirt on the floor just in front of me. Underneath was a trapdoor. I tapped it and it was definitely made of metal. It looked like it had only just been put there. It was about the size that a man could go through. I guess that’s why they call them manholes.
I wanted to try and open it but there was no way I was going to do it on my own. I ran up and got Wrigs.
‘So what?’ he said when I showed him the trapdoor. ‘It’s probably always been there.’
‘Look, it’s metal. It’s brand-new. The rest of the floor is old floorboards,’ I said. ‘And whoever put it here didn’t want anyone to find it. They’d covered it with dirt so it looks like the rest of the floor. They’ve even painted it brown like the wood.’
‘Mr Black?’
‘S’pose,’ I said. I bent down and looked to see if there was any way to open the trapdoor. There weren’t any handles on it, or anything.
‘I can’t open it,’ I said.
‘There’s something under there and we’re not meant to know about it,’ he said. ‘Let’s go to the cops.’
I found a little flap, about the size of a twenty-cent piece, which slid sideways. Under it was a lock.
Wrigs looked at me for a second. Then he said, ‘Graa-aa-ee-agh!’ and ran out of the kitchen, down the corridor and out of the house. What a sook. I spread the dirt back across the trapdoor so Mr Black wouldn’t know we found it, and then chased after Wrigs.
Wrigs was waiting for me at the top of View Street. We started walking to the police station, which should have taken us about ten minutes, but we walked so quickly it took us about four.
The police station is an old brick house in Queen Street. We were about to walk through the front door when I said, ‘What are we going to tell them?’
‘We’ll tell them what we’ve seen.’
‘What, that there’s a trapdoor in a deserted house?’
‘Yeah, and about Mr Black,’ he said.
‘So we’ll say that we’ve seen a guy hanging around who looks like he stepped out of an old black-and-white gangster film?’
‘Yeah,’ said Wrigs.
‘They’ll think we’re idiots.’
‘Well, I’m going to tell them anyway.’
‘They’re going to say we’re wasting their time.’
Wrigs looked at me for a moment. He knew I was right. We turned to leave.
Just then I noticed a garden bed next to the police station door. Someone at the station must have really liked cactus plants. There were loads of them, all different shapes and sizes.
But, better than the plants, were the quartz pebbles covering the bottom of the garden bed. They were exactly the right size and shape for skimming.
I picked up a couple and put them in my pocket.