1.35 pm: Just a hundred metres from the house is an old mine. The entrance is small and dark. Ben, Mimi and I get on our hands and knees and inch our way into the darkness like three blind mice. Lachlan is somewhere behind us. He’s looking after the headlamps, which would be very handy in the mine. He makes excuses about the entrance being too small for him. I think he’s just afraid of the dark.

‘This isn’t a mine. It’s a toilet,’ Ben says stopping to sniff the air. ‘It stinks in here.’

It’s completely black, which is why I don’t see that Ben has stopped, until my nose crashes into his bottom. And Mimi doesn’t see that I have stopped, until she head-butts my backside.

‘Hey, get your nose out of my bottom,’ I say to Mimi.

‘Get your bottom off my nose,’ she complains.

‘You’re scratching my behind,’ Ben says. ‘Get your face out of my rear end.’

I am just trying to untangle myself from the chain of bottoms, when the mine explodes with noise.

Clang ... bang ... clang ... clang ... bang.

It sounds like someone is playing the cymbals in my ears.

Mimi lets out a scream loud enough for someone on the Great Wall of China to hear. I scramble to my feet. I hit my head on the roof. I turn to find out where the noise is coming from. Then I see Lachlan at the entrance of the mine. He’s banging a saucepan and lid together.

Flying custard pies! He’s got me again.

The cymbals sound stops, but the noise gets even more deafening. The walls of the mine come alive. There’s screeching, flapping, swooping, and something is peeing on my head.

It’s bats!

‘I’ve been bitten!’ Lachlan shouts. ‘The bats are attacking!’

I crawl like a bionic baby back out of the tunnel, with Ben head-butting my bottom most of the way. I scramble into the daylight. Hundreds of bats wheel around the entrance of the mine. They’re confused by the daylight, flapping in my face, screeching in my ears. I’m not surprised they’re annoyed. Bats like to sleep during the day. They don’t like being woken up by silly boys with saucepans. And nor would I.

A bat flies straight towards my face. It gives me a perfect view of possibly one of the ugliest creatures alive. It has long ears and what looks like a piece of salad on the end of its nose.

I’m being attacked by Master Yoda with wings! I’m in the middle of a Star Wars battle zone.

I cover my head with my arms. A pair of white wings flaps past. I look up. More bats swoop towards me. I get to my feet and run. (This time I’m following Mimi’s directions.) I don’t stop until our bikes come into view.

‘They’re vampire bats,’ Lachlan says when we eventually reach our bikes. ‘They tried to kill me.’

‘Vampire bats don’t eat people,’ Mimi says. ‘And they don’t even live in Australia.’

‘You deserve to be eaten,’ I say to Lachlan. ‘Why did you bang that saucepan?’

‘It was just a little joke,’ he says.

It might be a joke for Lachlan. But I don’t think it’s funny. Banging Lachlan over the head with a saucepan, now that would be funny. Putting a jellyfish down his pants, that would also be funny. Mixing kangaroo poo into his spaghetti bolognaise, that would be even funnier.

‘So we found the mine. But where is Mr Elephant Ears?’ Lachlan says. ‘I was looking forward to giving him some driving advice. Maybe letting down his tyres would slow him down a bit. Guess we’ve lost him.’

‘We might not have lost him,’ Mimi says. ‘He had a flyer for the disco in his backpack. Maybe he’s planning to go. Do you think you’ll recognise him if he shows up?’

Of course I’ll recognise him. Who could forget those ears?