THE ARTIST HAS LANDED

I didn’t see much of the twins over the next couple of days, which was just fine by me. Belinda did snarkily mention that my snake video was up to 387,765 hits, and Bradley poured salt in my Wheety Snax once, but other than that, they left me to do my own thing.

Part of which involved going with Biff and Mom to see the Shark’s Bay Surf Club, where my artwork was going to be exhibited in the brand-new clubhouse’s lobby.

“Not bad, hey?” Biff said.

I had to admit it was pretty cool. Actually, the place was way cooler than I had imagined.

They’d built an indoor waterfall right at the entrance to the lobby. A cascade of water poured down a rock wall into a great big pool. There were blue and green lights under the water, which made the whole thing shimmer. It looked amazing. I couldn’t imagine anything I produced being half as nice as this.

“Your artwork will be center stage, wRafe,” Biff said. “Just to the left of the waterfall.”

Mom beamed. “It’s going to be fantastic!”

I suddenly felt really queasy and guilty.

“I haven’t even started yet,” I said.

Mom put her arm around my shoulders. “Whatever you do will be fantastic, honey.”

“You’ll be a knockout,” Biff said. “We’re all looking forward to seeing the great artist at work!”

In between all the visits to the beach, being naked in public, and devising ways to punish the twins of terror, I completely forgot the whole reason I was here. I hadn’t even begun to think about what kind of art I’d be creating for my show. I gulped and wandered around the shiny new lobby, trying to look like I knew what I was doing.

I decided to take some photos of the space. I didn’t have a clue yet what I was going to do, but I hoped the photos would give me some ideas.

Coming up with ideas always makes me have to go. The bathrooms hadn’t been finished yet in the new clubhouse, so Biff pointed to a row of big gray boxes lined up on the lawn outside of the surf club entrance.

“Temporary dunnies,” Biff said. He explained that dunny was the Australian word for toilet.

When I came back, Biff brought us to a place where I could work—a big, fully stocked room in the art department at Shark’s Bay College. The place had everything I could possibly need to make something special, which, considering I had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what to fill the exhibition space with, made me even more nervous than I already was.