AN ARTIST LIKE KHATCHADORIAN

Wait! I forgot to mention the best part! Probably the greatest thing to come out of the whole trip (apart from meeting Ellie).

Four weeks after arriving back, I got a weird package marked with Australian stamps in the mail.

Inside it was a rolled-up magazine and a note from Ellie. All it said was: here—here

I carefully unrolled the magazine. It was something called the Great Australian Art Monthly—a big, thick, glossy thing full of articles about famous Australian artists and artists who were visiting Australia from all over the world.

I flicked to here and almost passed out.

It was a picture of the bunyip ripping through the lobby of the Shark’s Bay Surf Club. It had been taken on a phone camera and was a little fuzzy, but it still looked awesome. The bunyip’s mouth was open and sparks were shooting out. People were screaming and running in the background. The headline read ZOMBIE MOVIE ART TRIUMPH AT SHARK’S BAY, and it was written by Frost DeAndrews.

“I thought I had been fooled,” DeAndrews wrote, “when the Zombie Movie exhibition I had been invited to at sleepy little Shark’s Bay turned out to be nothing more than a collection of passable sketches by visiting young American artist Rafe Khatchadorian.

“But I was deeply mistaken. In one of the most scintillating and brave performance art productions I have seen in recent years, Khatchadorian and his art group, the Outsiders, ran us right through the A–Z of contemporary performance art and treated us to a totally immersive experience not seen since the days of Wilhelm Van Purpleschpittel and the neocolonial burble movement.…”

The rest of the article was illustrated with more photos of the whole event and had interviews with Ellie and the guys, and a lot of art speak I didn’t understand. Even Mayor Coogan got in on the act.

“Rafe insisted on keeping everything top secret,” he said. “We’re very proud of Shark’s Bay’s association with an artist like Khatchadorian.”

An artist like Khatchadorian.

It had a ring to it. I liked it.

“Mom!” I shouted, leaping off my bed. “You gotta see this!”