While Chase attends to the paperwork with the headmaster, I pack my tartan suitcase. This takes three minutes, as I don’t have much stuff. Amy pays close attention as her bowl, lead, and jacket go in. Next to my bed, there’s a box lined with my spare towel for her to sleep on, reminding me how strange it is to have another living thing in my room. I mean, books are the loveliest and liveliest of companions, as my mother says, but they’re a bit limited after they’ve been read.
I look out my window, feeling fresh in my environmentally approved organically grown hemp and flax pyjamas. Amy stands on a chair, her front paws on the sill. Tapley Grammar is spread out below, soft-edged in the dusk. It’s an amazing place, but there are other amazing places in the world, I’m sure. I consult my watch. Eight thirty p.m. Not so bad; only an hour and a half past my normal bedtime.
‘Time to hit the sack,’ I tell Amy. ‘We’ve got a big day tomorrow.’ And into our respective beds we hop.
I look down. Two bright black eyes look up, and I can hear one short tail tapping on cardboard. The sound makes me smile. My world feels somehow bigger. Better. And brighter.
Following a five-minute interview with the headmaster that went surprisingly smoothly, Chase and I pull our suitcases towards the school gates. Amy is in my backpack, her head sticking out, forcing me to tell Brigadier Roylance, the senior gardener, that she is a bobble-headed toy destined for the back shelf of my father’s Rolls Royce.
‘Good show,’ says Brigadier Roylance. ‘Carry on, lads. And if you see any enemy troops, you have my permission to shoot to kill. Cheerio.’
Chase and I walk to the Tapley Grammar bus stop that sits under an old oak tree.
‘Does your father really have a Rolls Royce?’ Chase asks.
‘No, he has a fold-up commuter bicycle.’ I watch Amy looking into a hollow in the tree. ‘I don’t like to fib, Chase. But I had to protect Amy.’
‘Yes,’ Chase replies, ‘generally it’s best to play a straight bat. But when lives are at stake, you can be a little inventive with the truth. Because the world does move in strange ways.’
I can’t argue with that, because suddenly something spotted and possum-like shoots out of the hollow and climbs up into the oak’s highest branches.
‘That’s an odd-looking cat,’ Chase says. ‘Wee-erd.’
‘It’s not a cat,’ I say disbelievingly. ‘It’s a spotted-tail quoll. They’re virtually extinct around here, Chase. Until now.’
Chase takes out his phone and photographs the quoll.
‘Well, that’s one semi-extinct animal we’ve brought back to life, George,’ he says with satisfaction. ‘Very good. Anyway, here’s the bus.’
We sit up the back of the bus, where I’ve never sat before, as my mother has warned me that it’s where hooligans, hoodlums, swearers, and low-pants wearers like to be. But it seems relatively safe, because Chase and I are the only ones here.
‘There must be more than one quoll,’ I say to Chase. ‘For there to be one quoll. Reproductively speaking.’ I blush. ‘If you follow me.’
‘You old devil, George!’ Chase whacks me. ‘You and your reproductively speaking. Wow. You’re a firecracker! You’ll be talking about reproductive organs shortly! Boy, you’re really off the leash now!’ Chase leans comfortably in the corner. ‘Say, Parkie. Does this bus driver remind you of anyone . . . famous?’
The lady driver wears a peaked cap, a tight green jacket, and has long blonde hair. As I’ve been busy working on a simplified counting system that uses fewer numbers but includes half the letters of the Greek alphabet, I don’t watch much TV.
‘Does she sell used cars?’ I ask.
Chase laughs. ‘No, you goose. I think she might be a rockstar. First name starts with K. Second begins with M.’
It’s not Dolly Parton or Miss Piggy, then. I put on my glasses and sneak a peek.
‘Nope,’ I say. ‘Nothing there for me, I’m afraid, Chase. I’m not very good with popstars.’
‘No kidding?’ Chase digs in a pocket and hands me a business card.
Chase Landon-Bond: a can-do type of guy in a go-to type of situation.
‘When we get off, George,’ he instructs, ‘ask for her autograph. And we’ll see what we get.’ He hands me a solid gold pen inscribed with the words, Happy Third Birthday, Chase.
When we pull into Lonsdale railway station, I politely ask the driver for her autograph. She smiles, asks me my name, and writes on the card, and I thank her. Her sequinned jacket does seem rather low-cut and frilly, I think, for a bus driver.
‘What does it say, George?’ Chase enquires.
‘Dear George,’ I read out loud, ‘be kind and look after your dog. Signed, Kylie M.’ I shake my head. ‘We’re no further ahead than we were fifteen minutes ago, Chase.’
Chase blows out a breath. ‘Boy, Georgie-boy, for a really smart kid, you’re on a learning curve about as steep as the Empire State Building. Still, let’s grab our tickets. Train’s due in five.’
We go into the old station. It has a high roof designed to allow smoke from the steam engines to escape – a good idea, quite obviously, otherwise the carbon monoxide would suffocate the people waiting below.
‘Train,’ announces Chase, getting up. ‘The old red rattler has arrived.’
We find seats on the train and I open my backpack a little so Amy can poke her head out.
‘Chase,’ I say. ‘Why are we going to New York?’
‘Oh, we might take in a concert at Madison Square Garden,’ he answers casually. ‘Then we’ll get onto our rescue mission.’
Rescue mission? ‘And what might our rescue mission be, Chase?’ I am now officially worried.
‘At this point, George,’ Chase says, ‘the less you know the better. Let me just say that your expertise will help us liberate someone from somewhere rather high that also has rather high security. And then we have to get us and that someone out of that country and back to where we started.’
Now I’m truly alarmed.
‘I don’t have any expertise, Chase,’ I say. ‘I’m only good in theory. Once my mother had to call the fire brigade when I got a finger stuck wrapping a Christmas present. I was holding the knot, then everything went black. You see? Useless.’
Chase pats Amy. ‘You’re not useless, George. You’re useful. You’re just going to have to stretch yourself.’
Stretch myself ? Holy smoke.
‘Well, Chase.’ I take a long breath. ‘I’ll do my best.’ Chase nods. ‘I know you will.’ We gather our stuff as the train glides into Southern Cross station. ‘Your talent as a master of disguise and your acting ability will come in handy.’
I follow Chase out of the train and onto the platform.
‘I have very little acting ability,’ I say. ‘And I’m no master of disguise, Chase. I am nothing and no one but George Errol Erling Edron Parker.’
Chase hardly listens. ‘That’s exactly why you can be a master of disguise,’ he says. ‘Because you’re a blank canvas, George. No one ever notices you. Which will allow us to get into places where people wouldn’t want us to be, and get out again – alive.’
Good golly! That sounds not only somewhat insulting but incredibly dangerous. Chase gives me a winning smile, which he’s good at, because he wins lots of things.
‘Chill, Georgie-boy.’ He sets off up the platform, dragging his case. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you practise before we tackle the big one.’
Oh, dear.