Devils in Danger, page 3
Noah shot a lazy glance out the window. ‘Squirt the dog-walking superstar. I’d love to come with you but …’ He nodded towards his screen. ‘Next time, okay?’
I shook my head as I grabbed Bones’s lead from its hook. ‘Yeah, yeah, next time,’ I muttered. But I didn’t have time to complain any longer because after I’d clipped the leash on Bones, she started tugging me down our street, around the corner and past the community garden. A whistle rang out from the netball courts as we approached, and I hoped Missy, Katie and Urasha would still be there. It would be good to hang out with them for a while – it’d keep my mind off Mr Snibbler.
Plus give me a chance to explain about the poo.
I found my friends sitting red-faced and crossed-legged on the side of the court, sucking on their water bottles as they took a break in practice. Perfect timing.
‘How’s it going?’ I asked as Bones pulled towards Urasha first.
‘Awww, she’s cute!’ giggled Urasha as Bones pushed her head under Urasha’s hands and wagged her tail, enjoying the chance for a cuddle. ‘I seriously love golden retrievers.’
‘Me too,’ squealed Katie, scratching along the excited dog’s back and under her slobbery chin. ‘Hey, don’t lick. Your tongue tickles! Oh, she’s so soft, like Stripes.’
Katie’s fluffy tabby cat, Stripes, had mysteriously disappeared a few months before, and although we’d looked everywhere, Katie still hoped the furry feline would return.
I waited patiently as Katie and Urasha kissed and cuddled Bones, working up the courage to pull Missy aside. I was desperate to explain what I’d found without Mario stirring up drama.
Missy’s face was unusually stern. Instead of patting Bones like the others, she hugged the netball to her chest. ‘When exactly did you get a dog, Killarney?’ she demanded.
Missy had wanted a dog forever. She’d die if she thought I’d got one before her. ‘She’s not mine,’ I explained. ‘Grannie Annie got her for Noah, remember? To encourage him to go outside.’
If I’d hoped Missy’s scowl would turn into a laugh, I was disappointed. ‘Why isn’t Noah walking her, then?’ she grumbled.
I frowned. Missy knew what Noah was like. Why was she being so frosty? ‘Missy,’ I began. ‘About what happened at school. I didn’t get a chance to—’
Just then the whistle blew.
‘See you tomoz?’ said Katie, pulling Urasha and then Missy from the ground. I watched, my heart sinking, as they raced back to the courts, calling out, ‘Bye, Bones! Bye, Killarney!’
I raised a hand to wave, hoping to get a smile from Missy, but she was busy aiming the ball at the hoop. I waited, hoping she’d turn and wave, but she didn’t.
Meanwhile, Bones began leaping on the spot, keen to chase after the girls. I decided I’d better keep walking. A quick lap around the local reserve would wear Bones out and might stop all that yapping.
I headed off, taking the long way around town, past the beach. The long stretch of fine white sand fanned out towards the endless clear blue water, tempting me to peel off my shoes and socks, and take Bones for a paddle. But the water would be freezing, so I breathed in lungfuls of fresh salty air instead. Dodges Ferry really was the best.
About a kilometre along, the road swung inland again. The air still smelt of summer here, maybe from someone’s freshly mown lawn. We passed the Sharks Football Club, where the shouts from the players made me think of Dad. I took a backwards glance at the field to see if he’d made it in time for training, but Bones was tugging hard on her lead and I couldn’t stop.
It wasn’t long before we were turning down the narrow dirt track towards the reserve. The sounds from the footy club soon faded, replaced by the warbling calls of a distant butcherbird, and gum leaves rustling in the wind.
Mum had long ago declared the reserve out of bounds, worried I’d get tetanus from the illegally dumped rubbish. Looking at it now, with all the abandoned shopping trolleys, towers of rotting garden waste and hundreds of scattered plastic bottles and bags, I could see her point. The place really had become a dump.
I let Bones off the lead as soon as we were far enough away from the road. ‘That’s better, hey, Bones?’ I said. ‘Nice to have a good run?’
I took her along our favourite route, choosing the narrow path that looped around the main part of the reserve. Sometimes we saw other dog walkers and once or twice a horse and rider, but mostly Bones and I had the place to ourselves. She knew the drill and usually stayed close, sniffing all the interesting smells along the way.
We’d been walking about ten minutes when an old rusty scooter, dumped upside down against a tree, stole my attention. I stopped to inspect it, wondering if Dad could fix it up for me. But its wheels had been removed and its handlebars were bent, so I shook my head and kept walking.
‘Bones?’ I called. I’d been so busy looking at the scooter I’d forgotten to keep an eye on Noah’s hyper dog, and now she’d forgotten the rules. Instead of sticking close, she was bounding off. I gasped as she careened down a fork in the path. I knew where she was going. Straight to the middle of the reserve, to the festering dam, its polluted black water calling her for a swim.
The dam water made her itch. And smell. Grannie Annie wouldn’t be happy.
I had to catch her. I started to run.
But with everything still slippery from the rain, my feet skidded in the mud.
‘Bones!’ I yelled, but she paid me zero attention. I should’ve known better. Bones had been in a silly mood all week, ever since the mysterious creature had appeared in our yard. I should never have let her off the lead.
I watched helplessly as she dashed madly through the thick undergrowth, barking more than ever as she leapt over fallen branches and swerved like a dodgem car around the trees. Leaves, twigs and branches swished and snapped until Bones completely disappeared.
My blood went cold. Bones wasn’t heading to the dam, but towards the fire station at the far corner of the reserve. If she kept running, she’d come to Old Forcett Road, the main road skirting Dodges Ferry. It was eighty kilometres an hour along there. Noah’s dog would be squished in two seconds flat.
I sprinted after her. Wheezy panting filled the air. My wheezy panting.
Then I stopped. Everything had suddenly grown quiet. No swishing branches or yapping barks.
No Bones.
Anywhere.
Chapter 5
I waited, trying to listen out for Bones, my heart thumping hard.
‘You lost someone?’
A lady about Mum’s age, not much taller than me and wearing a black hoodie over her muddy long green pants, was pushing through the scrub towards me.
‘Yours?’ she said, nodding towards Bones who trotted obediently beside her. Her voice was kind of husky. And a little stern. Like Miss Bredlow’s, when she caught people mucking around at the bubblers.
‘No, well, not really. My friend’s,’ I stuttered. ‘I only let her off for a minute and …’
‘No harm done.’ The lady wore her long curly hair in a messy ponytail, and she swiped away a stray curl, smearing a splash of dirt across her cheek. ‘Didn’t think she was a wild one.’ Her eyebrows folded. ‘But, listen, it’s not a good idea to let dogs off-leash. Lots of wildlife live in here. Perhaps pop her back on? Just to be safe? That’s a girl.’
I swallowed. ‘Sorry. I was trying to wear her out.’ I quickly clicked on Bones’s lead, hoping the lady wasn’t from the council. The fine for letting your dog off-leash was probably huge, although no-one else in Dodges Ferry seemed to care. People let their dogs off all the time.
The lady didn’t smile, but she didn’t seem too cross either. Just a little … intense. Maybe she was from the council. Or an undercover police officer. ‘Do you know your way back?’ she asked.
I looked around. Bones had led me away from our familiar path. Did I need to go right? Or left? Down the path? Or up? I scrunched my fingers into my palms, angry with myself for losing track of my surroundings. ‘Um … well …’
The lady waited patiently while I fumbled for the right words. But my head suddenly felt too big for my body, and I couldn’t think of anything sensible to say.
Eventually, the lady stepped in. ‘Sorry. I should have introduced myself. I’m April,’ she said. ‘I guess your pooch smelt my bait.’
‘Bait?’ What, like fishing bait? In here? Tourists visiting Dodges sometimes did the weirdest things, but dumping bait in the reserve? Seriously.
April tipped her head to one side and regarded me with a curious crinkle of her eyes. ‘I guess it does sound a little weird. I’m a wildlife zoologist from the uni, monitoring the movement of native animals through here. We’re taking stock of where the reserve is at, in terms of biodiversity et cetera, so we’ve been using roadkill, like dead wombats and possums, to lure wildlife into our traps. It can get pretty stinky.’
I stole a look over April’s shoulder, imagining a massive rat trap or something worse. But that was silly, since April was monitoring the animals around Dodges, not killing them. Which made me think. If April was so familiar with the local wildlife, she might know the visitor in our yard …
I opened my mouth to ask her, then quickly shut it again. Mum would freak if she knew I was in the reserve, let alone giving out our address to complete strangers. It might be best if Bones and I just headed home.
‘Sorry,’ I said, tightening my grip on Bones’s lead, ‘but I think I should get back. Would you mind pointing the way to the football club? I’m a little lost.’
April nodded. ‘Of course. Of course. I’ll just get my stuff and I’ll walk you there myself.’
Bones strained on her lead while I squelched after April, trying not to let my mind fill with images of traps. Ghoulish, rusty contraptions filled with terrified, squealing animals, biting on wires, trying to escape. By the time we reached a small clearing in the bush, my stomach fizzed. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.
I needn’t have worried. Instructing me to keep Bones away, April crouched down to grab her bag, which lay beside a length of thick white tubing. It was a little like the plastic pipes that take water away from guttering, but shorter and wider, and solid at one end, with a round lid propped open at the other. There were no wires, no sharp, scary ‘teeth’ and no terrified animals to be seen.
‘We put the bait in the solid end,’ April explained, ‘and when the animals crawl in, the lid on the other end snaps shut behind them. They’re safe in there until we come back to check on them.’
‘Don’t they bite?’
‘We wear gloves, of course,’ she continued, ‘to protect us from any sharp teeth. But we’ve got it all down pat nowadays. We empty the tube into a hessian sack, check what we’ve caught, record any microchips or specific details, and then release the animal back into the wild.’
I swallowed. ‘So, you don’t take them away?’ I asked. ‘To a zoo or anything?’
April tipped her head to one side. ‘Why would we do that?’ she wondered.
My heart hammered. This was exactly why I never put my hand up in class. ‘Just, well …’ I shrugged. ‘I thought … Don’t zoologists work in zoos?’
April stuck her hands firmly in her pockets. ‘Ah, I see. No, most of us are the opposite, really. We prefer to keep wildlife out and about in the wild.’
My face reddened. I’d got it wrong. Again.
‘Once they arrive in a zoo, wild animals can lose their natural abilities and can’t teach their babies how to survive in nature anymore,’ April continued. ‘Best-case scenario, we just let them be.’ She paused. ‘Although, don’t get me wrong. Zoos are super useful for education and research, plus a bunch of other things. It’s just that we’d love to see more animals safe to live in the wild.’
I glanced at the trap. That made sense. ‘So, um, if someone found a wild animal …’ I fumbled with Bones’s lead, wrapping it round my hand. ‘You know, theoretically, any animal, then would you want them to leave it alone or report it or …?’
April raised her brows.
Which made me gulp. Why was I so nervous? April wasn’t really scary. Or mean. She was just serious. Sure of herself. Like she wouldn’t tolerate any nonsense. Like Mum or Mrs Bredlow. ‘I mean, it could just be a mistake. Maybe a weird cat or something,’ I spluttered. ‘But what if someone saw strange paw prints? And wiry poos?’
‘Mmm, I see.’ April offered me a business card with a picture of a lion holding an Olympic-style torch: Professor April Summers, Wildlife Zoologist, University of Tasmania, Hobart. ‘That’s my number and my email. So, if someone …’ Her stern eyes softened. ‘Anyone found something they weren’t sure of, I’d love them to give me a call.’
Chapter 6
I raced home with Bones, practising all the ways I might explain to Mum why I was in the reserve so I could tell her about April. Last time Mum found out I’d strayed somewhere she’d declared out of bounds, she threatened to stop my pocket money for a month. And she always asked so many questions that she’d definitely figure out where April and I had met. I’d have to come up with something super inventive.
‘Hey, Mum. Bones and I were just on our way to the IGA, when we got a little lost …’ No, she’d never believe that. I’d lived in Dodges all my life. Of course I knew the way to the IGA.
‘Hey, Mum. I thought I saw Stripes, Katie’s missing cat, so Bones and I …’ Mmmm, that would be a straight-out lie. Stripes had been missing for months.
I decided it was best to say as little as possible.
I pushed open our door and slunk inside. ‘Hey, Mum!’ I called, purposely keeping my voice light, like nothing special was up. But really, I was bursting with news. I’d met a real-life zoologist setting traps in our reserve!
Old Mr Tratt, from the post office, sat in Mum’s salon chair, looking more like he was about to have his teeth pulled than simply having a haircut. He almost leapt from his seat when I walked through the door. He was always like that. Over-reacting. When the small bell tinkled on the post office door, he’d jump back as if a hand grenade was about to go off. And if someone put the wrong postcode on their outgoing mail? Catastrophe! Mr Tratt would wring his hands and screw up his face like a crinkly prune as he checked and double-checked the ledger.
It was too hard to talk over the buzz of the clippers, so I left Mum to shave Mr Tratt’s anxious grey head and stubbly whiskers, while I headed to my room to reorder my soft toy collection – basically anything to avoid doing my homework while I waited for a chance to talk to Mum.
It was only later, when Mum had closed up shop for the day and Dad was home from footy training, that they asked me about the business card I’d left propped up against the kettle.
‘Come on, spill the beans. When did you meet a professor?’ teased Dad, giving me a wink. ‘Mum been lining up your uni spot again?’
I felt my face flush. It was a running joke in our house. Mum always going on about how she wished she’d gone to uni, and how if she’d had her time again …
Which sucked. Because somehow, just because she hadn’t got a degree, she thought I should. But I didn’t need to study at uni to be a great hairdresser like her.
I stuck out my chin. ‘I got the card, not Mum,’ I retorted. ‘I was walking Bones, and …’ I left out the part about where I’d been walking Bones. ‘Then—’
‘Noah still not walking his dog?’ Dad interrupted. ‘I tell you. That kid! His eyes must nearly be square.’
‘Daz!’ scolded Mum. ‘Leave poor Noah alone. Here, let me see.’ Mum took the card and turned it over in her hands. ‘A professor at Hobart University? Wow! Where did you meet a real professor, Killarney?’
I hopped from foot to foot, dying to tell them more about April and the traps, but how would I do it without letting on about the reserve? I waited patiently, biting my lip as Dad stood at Mum’s shoulder, eyeing the card a little longer. ‘Mmmm, a professor. A real professor,’ he murmured.
Eventually, I couldn’t hold it in. ‘Well, anyway, I was walking Bones when I met—’
‘What was she like?’ Mum asked.
‘Who? Bones?’
‘No, silly. The professor.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ve never met a professor before. What did she look like?’
I shrugged. ‘Like a person? But anyways—’
‘How many years does it take to become a professor?’ Mum wondered.
‘I don’t know. She’s researching Tasmanian wildlife, tracking the animals that live around Dodges.’
Mum looked impressed. ‘A wildlife zoologist? Gosh, she must be pretty smart,’ she mused, flicking the card against her palm.
Dad grinned as he wrapped an affectionate arm around Mum’s waist. ‘You’re so funny. Why don’t we invite this April over? Get her in for tea and scones? What do you think, Killarney? Mum could do the whole starstruck OMG, I can’t believe it, you’re a real-life scientist thing, while she offers her the jam.’ He laughed, which earnt him a glare from Mum.
‘Daz!’ she scolded again. ‘Don’t be mean.’
Dad’s grin slipped. ‘Sorry, love. But we don’t all need letters behind our names. Some of us are hunky dory just the way we are.’
‘Yeah,’ I agreed as Mum ducked away from Dad’s teasing arms. ‘April should be the one dying to meet you, Mum. You’re the best hairdresser in Dodges.’
‘Awww,’ said Mum with a smile. ‘Except I’m the only hairdresser in Dodges.’
I thought of nothing else but Professor April over the next few days. I hoped we’d find an excuse to call her and, thanks to the broken floorboards near the kitchen sink, it wasn’t long before we did.
‘Here, take a torch. And try not to get too dirty,’ Mum said a few days later as she ushered me down to retrieve her car keys, the latest victim of ‘The Gap’. Three of the floorboards had become so warped that we were constantly losing stuff in the giant cracks between them. Debit cards, loose change, butter knives. Mum’s engagement ring, once.
