Digger Field (8 page)

I found an old milk crate outside and dragged it into the kitchen. Then I climbed up and stuck the camera on the sandstone wall above the trapdoor.

The camera was in the perfect spot. The only problem was it was black so it really stood out against the sand-coloured stone.

Tearley said we should copy what Mr Black had done with the trapdoor and paint the camera the same colour as the wall. Like a camouflage.

Squid got some model fighter planes for Christmas, and the models came with paint. So I raced home and ‘borrowed’ a couple of little tubs of yellow and mustard colours. We mixed them up and painted the camera. We even mixed some soil into it so it looked really authentic.

I’m pretty sure that the camera will catch Mr Black doing whatever he does. We need it to because, unless we get a reward, we’ve got no chance of getting the tinnie.

After we got the camera ready we hid the milk crate in the bushes round the back of the house.

Then we had a skim. I got eighteen skims. Tearley reckoned that she got fourteen, but conveniently it was when Wrigs and I were looking the other way. Wrigs got three throwing left-handed.

I wonder if there is a world record for skimming with a broken arm. If there is, Wrigs might be in with a chance.

CHAPTER 19

DAY 18: Tuesday

My skims: 19

Wriggler’s skims: 0 (Too sore from yesterday. He’s now our lookout.)

Tearley’s skims: 14 (For real.)

Got my skimming groove back.

Total needed to buy tinnie and repay Tearley: $825

We’ve got as much chance of earning $825 as we do $725.

Ever since Mum roused on me for having pebbles in my pockets, I had a new tactic. I stopped putting my dirty shorts in the washing basket. I just put them back in the drawer. And it paid off big-time. When I got up, I pulled on the shorts with the rocks I took from the police station last week. I couldn’t wait to try them out.

We needed to go to the river every day to check the camera. Inside it is a little memory card which records the photos which the camera has taken overnight. We had to take the card out every morning and check it on Tearley’s laptop.

We met at the top of View Street before going down to the house. Tearley had her computer with her.

Wriggler volunteered to take on the role of lookout. Very brave, not. I crept down the pathway to the house with Tearley.

We grabbed the milk crate from the bushes and I used it to reach the camera. I passed the card down to Tearley, who put it in her card reader and checked if there was anything on it.

I was sure the camera would have taken loads of photos.

There were none.

‘It mustn’t be working,’ I said.

‘Or maybe Mr Black didn’t come here last night,’ said Tearley.

As we were leaving I said, ‘Let’s have a quick skim while we’re here.’

The pebbles were burning a hole in my pocket.

The first stone left my hand beautifully and I got nineteen skims. That was my best ever. But I couldn’t get too confident, I should be up to thirty according to my original plan. Still, I definitely had my skimming rhythm back.

Tearley made me give her one of the cops’ stones. She got fourteen.

CHAPTER 20

DAY 19: Wednesday

My skims: 22

Wriggler’s skims: 0

Tearley’s skims: 14 (She’s peaked.)

If I keep improving like this, I’ll get the record.

Total needed to buy tinnie and repay Tearley: $825

We’ve lost any chance of getting the tinnie.

When I got to the top of View Street no one was there, even though it was 9.00 am exactly. We’d arranged to meet then and go down to the river together. Wrigs turned up five minutes later. He’d slept in.

We waited and waited for Tearley.

She finally turned up at 9.34.

‘Where have you been?’ I said.

‘Violin lesson.’

Violin lesson. Who does violin lessons? In the holidays.

We went down to the deserted house and checked the memory card from the camera. There was still nothing on it.

When we got back onto View Street, I said to Tearley, ‘I told you that camera’s not working. I reckon we take it back to the shop.’

‘No, we can’t. It’s got paint all over it,’ she said. ‘We’ll have to test the sensor out. Someone needs to go down to the house at night and stand in front of the camera in the dark. If it doesn’t take a picture then we know it’s broken.’

‘Bags not me,’ said Wrigs. ‘Anyway, I reckon Mr Black’s a ghost.’

‘What?’ said Tearley.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Wrigs, which is usually what he says just before he says something really strange. ‘Mr Black is a ghost. Probably the ghost of the kid that was killed at the house, but now he’s grown up.’

It’s scary what Wrigs’ mind comes up with if he’s left on his own for too long. Obviously he had spent too much time being lookout.

‘That’s stupid,’ I said.

‘No, think about it,’ Wriggler said to me. ‘No one else has ever seen him. Just you and me. And he always appears out of nowhere and then disappears again.’

‘What about Squid? He saw Mr Black,’ I said.

‘When?’

‘It was Mr Black who gave him the ten dollars for the biscuits. The ten-dollar note that Squid vomited all over.’

‘You didn’t tell me that.’

Oops. I’d forgotten I hadn’t told Wrigs. Still it was too late to keep on lying now so I decided to tell the truth.

‘How could I? You were sure Mr Black was trying to kill you. You’d have freaked out.’

Wrigs thought for a moment, then decided to change the subject.

‘Did Squid know who he was?’

‘No. He thought he was just some dude.’

‘That’s what I mean. He turns up to your house, then disappears. Then he turns up at my house, and disappears. That’s classic ghost action. He knows we’ll see him and then he vanishes. He’s haunting us.’

‘Oh, yeah, sure,’ I said.

‘Well, how come the camera hasn’t taken a photo of him?’ Wrigs said.

‘He was on the ghost film we made,’ I said.

‘Exactly, he
is
haunting us. He’s just waiting until he gets us alone, and then he’ll vivisect us,’ said Wrigs.

I’m not sure how Wrigs gets stuff like this in his head, but it’s too scary to think about. Both the ghost theory and Wriggler’s brain.

‘I reckon we’ve missed Mr Black completely,’ I said. ‘He’s done whatever he wanted to do at the house and now he’s gone away again. There’s not going to be any reward money. We’ll never get the tinnie now. What a waste of a hundred bucks.’

‘You still have to pay me back,’ said Tearley.

The only good news was that the world record is looking like a chance again now I’m back in form and we have the river to ourselves again.

CHAPTER 21

DAY 20: Thursday

Too early for skimming or thinking about tinnies.

Still shaking. The scaredest I’ve ever been.

I woke up so early it was still dark. The clock next to my bed said 4.00 am. I hadn’t slept much. I’d spent the whole night daring myself to check the sensor on the camera at the old house. I decided it was now or never.

I crept out of bed. As I tiptoed to the door I tripped over a wetsuit that Dean had left lying on the floor.

Dean sat bolt upright in bed and said, ‘Who’s that?’

Busted, and I hadn’t even got out of the bedroom. I said, ‘No one.’

‘Good,’ he said and lay back down. Sometimes even I’m shocked at how thick Dean is. He was already fast asleep again, snoring his head off.

I was afraid of waking everyone up. The house is so old it creaks every time you move. I timed my moves so that every time Dean snored I took a step towards the front door.

When I got outside the house, the world was totally still. Not even the trees were moving. It was like the scene from a movie where someone wakes up and discovers everyone else in the world has disappeared. I wanted to go back to bed.

I knew the only way of stopping myself from turning back was to start running.

I ran down Phillip Avenue and up the hill of George Street. I pounded down Yarran Street and marched onto View Street. It wasn’t until I made it to the pathway down to the river that I got scared again.

I crept down the path and into the clearing.

It was so dark, I could only just make out the shape of the house against the river.

It was so silent it was frightening. There was the hum of the cicadas, of course, and some frogs croaking, and the water lapping. But apart from that there were no noises at all. I think they call it ‘deathly quiet’ for good reason.

All I had to do was go into the deserted house and move around a bit in the kitchen, to check if the camera was working. I’d be in and out in twenty seconds.

I took in a huge breath, like I was about to dive into a swimming pool, and walked through the doorway and down the hallway.

‘Twenty seconds, twenty seconds,’ I kept saying to myself.

I couldn’t see a thing inside the house, so I put my hands out to feel my way along the walls. I made it into the kitchen but then I heard a noise. It was from outside. It was an engine.

I froze. I couldn’t stop thinking about Mr Black cutting me open and pulling my guts out, just like Wrigs had said.

The engine kept coming closer and closer, until it sounded like it was inside the house. Suddenly a beam of light came through the broken kitchen window. It was a boat, a little tinnie, going past. Probably a fisherman going to catch the early tide. Phew.

I waited until it motored past, then I crept in to the centre of the room where the camera would see me.

I waved my arms around and did some star jumps. The camera was supposed to pick up the slightest movement, but I wanted to make sure it saw me.

Then I heard another noise.

A scraping noise.

It was like a stick being scratched on metal. I couldn’t work out where it was coming from. It was close, but not in the room. It sounded like it was coming from below me.

Then I realised it was from under the floor. Under Mr Black’s manhole.

It sounded like someone was trying to get out.

I was so scared I yelled out, ‘Oy!’ The scraping sound stopped.

I froze for a millisecond. Then I bolted, out of the house, through the bushes, up View Street, along Yarran Street, down the hill of George Street, left into Phillip Avenue and straight into my house and into bed.

I closed my eyes tightly. I hoped I had been asleep and that I’d wake up and find it had all been a dream.

CHAPTER 22

DAY 20: Thursday (later)

My skims: 15

Wriggler’s skims: 0

Tearley’s skims: 8

Mr Black’s skims: 8 (!)

Money made for tinnie or Tearley: $0

Am going to have to ring Uncle Scott and see if he’ll wait a bit longer.

When I woke up everyone was out. I lay there, half awake, half asleep, wondering what had made that scratching noise under the floor in the deserted house.

Every time I closed my eyes I could hear it again …
scrape
,
scrape
,
scrape
. I thought I was dreaming. Then I realised I was actually hearing scraping. One of Dad’s chickens was scratching the dirt outside my window.

Someone knocked on the front door. It was Tearley.

‘We’re not going back to that house,’ I said.

I told her about the noise coming from under the trapdoor.

‘Maybe it was Mr-Black-the-ghost getting dressed to go out,’ she said.

She wasn’t taking me seriously at all.

‘Shut up, Tearley,’ I said. ‘There is someone trapped in that cellar and they’re trying to get out. And I’m not going back there.’

‘Then how will we ever know if the camera worked? You’ll have scared yourself for nothing,’ she said. ‘You need to harden up, Dribbler. Let’s get Wrigs and go down there.’

I
really
hate it when she calls me Dribbler.

We walked around the corner to Wrigs’ place. Wrigs was in the front yard.

When I told him about the scraping noise I’d heard, he went inside for a minute or two. When he came back out, he was wearing a bright red bandana around his forehead.

He went to his Mum’s rose bed and rubbed his good hand in the dirt. Then he smeared the dirt over his face like some kind of commando soldier.

He looked ridiculous. Like a ranga Rambo.

‘What’s that for?’ I said.

‘It’s what the SAS do. It’s camouflage, and it’ll scare anyone off because they’ll think I’m armed and dangerous.’

‘You mean, it’ll give us a chance to run away while they laugh at you?’ said Tearley.

When we got to the river, Wrigs set himself up in the bushes as the lookout. He would have been camouflaged except for the bright red hair popping out over the bright red bandana.

Tearley and I crept down the path through the bushes towards the house. I grabbed the milk crate from its hiding place. My heart was racing.

When we got to the old doorway Tearley called out, ‘Hello,’ but no one answered.

When we got to the kitchen, I climbed up on top of the milk crate and took the memory card out of the camera.

We went back outside into the vacant lot. We sat down on the retaining wall facing the river and Tearley fired up her laptop. She put the memory card in. A page popped up on the screen saying ‘Ready to download images?’ Tearley clicked ‘Yes’.

The first photo was of me standing looking at the camera. The time said: 04.35.38. The next couple of photos showed me doing star jumps. The next showed me staring at the floor, looking shocked. In the one after that, I was running out of the room. The pictures were good. But luckily not so good you could see how scared I was.

Just then, there was a noise. I looked behind us and spotted Mr Black striding out of the bushes towards us. Tearley snapped her laptop shut.

‘Hey kid, you’ve got something to hide, yeah?’ Mr Black said to her. He was dressed in his usual black suit and carrying his black briefcase, but he was also holding a small hessian bag.

Tearley went bright red.