Game Play (2 page)

Chapter 2

‘Is this your first visit to Cairns?' asked Amy politely. He was so big that both his legs stuck out into the aisle. His track pants were tight across his legs.

‘Yes. A working holiday. Mixing business and pleasure. I'm a body builder.' Mr Muscles moved his legs restlessly.

‘What sort of bodies?' Amy pictured a panel beating shop where they fixed car bodies. Perhaps he was a mechanic?

‘Car bodies?'

‘Human,' laughed Mr Muscles.

Amy fiddled in her bum-bag for her stickers. Amy collected stickers, coins and clues. She found the BODYWORKS sticker.' The Mouth gave it to me on the flight to Singapore.'

Mr Muscles looked at the sticker. ‘He's the pop singer, isn't he?'

Amy nodded. ‘If you're a body builder, are you a doctor? Or a designer?'

Mr Muscles shook his head. His thin hair was going bald from the front. But his skull was tight underneath.

‘Just build my own body. And the bodies of the people who come into my gym.'

Amy noticed he had eaten everything during the flight meals.

Bread roll. Chicken Mysterious, as Christopher called it. Broccoli.

Mashed potatoes. And especially the creme caramel. Mrs Silver and Gold offered their sweets and he ate them, too! He woke up for every meal. He also had a bottle of vitamins on the flight table which was still folded down. Perhaps it was a brand name, thought Amy. It was wrongly spelled as VITTAMINS.

‘How do you build your body?' she asked. ‘With exercise?'

‘Plenty of good food. I run and lift weights and ...' Mr Muscles paused. ‘Get a little bit of help.'

‘What sort of help?' Amy was firing questions again. Her favourite hobby when she wasn't collecting phone cards, stickers or stamps, was collecting answers. ‘A coach? Or a trainer?'

‘Er...' Mr Muscles looked a little uncomfortable. ‘Stacking.'

He had a rolled up newspaper sticking out of his hand luggage.

Christopher wondered why he bothered. Often the airline supplied newspapers for passengers to read.

Before Amy had a chance to ask about ‘stacking', he showed them his photographs.

‘I've been Mr World, you know.' His wallet was stuffed with photographs. They were all of him. Usually he was bare chested with tiny bathers. Amy pushed her rainbow glasses back on her nose. His muscles looked like giant bubbles.

‘You look like Arnold Schwarzenegger,' said Christopher.

Mr Muscles looked pleased.

‘Are you here for the International Games?' asked Christopher.

‘Yes. There's going to be a body-builders' contest, too.'

Christopher looked around the plane. Judging by the shoulders, there were a few body-builders on board.

‘Sports teams on board, too,' added Amy who often knew what her twin was thinking.

The flight attendant collected empty juice glasses from several seats of team track suits.

‘I'm on the juice,' said Mr Muscles. His skin had bumps and purple patches of acne. He also had a squarish jaw.

‘Have my orange juice then,' offered Amy. ‘I'm not thirsty.'

That's not exactly what he meant. Amy didn't understand until much later.

At home, Amy was called Jet Jaws. She talked a lot but she also listened. That's one reason she liked flying. Passengers loved talking about themselves. Since leaving Singapore, she'd learnt about antique jewellery from Mrs Gold and Mrs Silver and body building from Mr Muscles.

Amy wondered if Cairns had any Talking Games this week. She pictured the team of Mrs Gold and Mrs Silver talking against Mr Muscles. With Aunty Viv as the compere. That would be a noisy event.

Amy flicked the pages of the inflight magazine. She'd read ‘This Sporting Week in Cairns' by Tom Savvas and ‘Sporting Drug Dangers'.

She'd done the crossword. She had already finished her book and all the magazines. Being a super fast reader was a problem on long flights.

‘Excuse me.' She leaned across the aisle. ‘Could I read your newspaper please?'

But that's when Mr Muscles went all strange. Until then, he'd been chatting to them in a friendly way.

‘Haven't read it yet myself,' he grumped rolling it more tightly and cramming it deeper in the bag at his feet.

Amy watched him later. From the time she asked to borrow the paper until touch down, Mr Muscles did NOT read his newspaper. The flight attendant did ask him to put up his table when the seat belt sign went on again. Maybe he liked to spread his paper out on a table?

Perhaps he was just one of those grumps who didn't like lending things?

Or maybe there was another reason?

Chapter 3

Cairns felt steamy -- a tropical smell mixed with hot tarmac.

Going down the steps, Amy looked up at the dense, green mountains surrounding the airfield. Their pilot must have been skilful to get into here. Now a Boeing 747 was taking off, at a very steep angle to get across the mountains.

‘Our plane hasn't got an aerobridge,' noticed Christopher as they walked across the tarmac and under the covered walkway. Aerobridges linked other planes with Air Niugini, Japan Airlines and Singapore Airlines signs. Aerobridges were like people vacuum cleaners, the planes plugged into the tube and all the people were vacuumed out.

A breeze rustled, bushes moved and palm trees swayed. Little vehicles buzzed around. All the airport vehicles had flashing yellow lights. Even the ride-on mower.

Look!' Amy pointed to the yellow wheelie bin stuffed with giant striped umbrellas. ‘Are they free?'

‘People use them when it's raining. They drop them in another bin at the other end of the walkway,' explained the attendant.

‘Cool,' said Christopher. But it wasn't. The weather was muggy.

Camouflaged in green and brown, an army helicopter buzzed on the tarmac like an agitated insect. Soldiers ducked under the revolving blades. On a far runway, the FLYING DOCTOR's small plane was landing. Amy wondered where the emergency had been as an ambulance bumped slowly towards the plane.

‘It might rain again soon,' said the attendant.

‘Ace. We'll use an umbrella.' Amy grabbed one. She twirled it like a shield. The rainbow stripes blurred. Christopher grabbed an umbrella, too. He opened his with a ‘click!'

‘On guard!' He challenged Amy.

They acted out a duel....Umbrellas at three paces.

‘Hey!' called the attendant. ‘Back here please.'

Track-suited as well as casually dressed passengers walked past, staring at the children. Just then, Amy's open umbrella fell. It rolled on its side. With a sudden gust of wind behind, it gathered speed. The umbrella blew across the tarmac. It danced across unevenly on its points, in the direction of the helicopter.

‘Catch it Christopher!' Amy shouted.

But Christopher made a mistake. Somehow, he let go of his own umbrella. That took off, too. The sudden wind was strong.

Mine employees were walking in from the smaller Flight West

Airline plane which serviced their Red Dome gold mine. Obedient passengers following the covered way to their waiting planes ducked as the open rainbow umbrellas rolled in between as if navigated by radar.

Mr Muscles sidestepped one umbrella. He nearly dropped his rolled newspaper. But he made a sudden save and caught the paper. It hadn't even unrolled.

‘Stop them!' Amy yelled.

Amy started to run. So did Christopher.

The first umbrella curved. It wobbled and fell sideways. The stick stuck upwards. It rocked from side to side. But the second one kept rolling. Christopher sprinted. He made a lunge for the umbrella. He missed. His knee skinned as he contacted the ground. ‘Ow!'

Just then, a team in navy tracksuits came down the steps of the twins' plane. The first man saw the rainbow umbrella rolling towards them.

Amy called, ‘Catch that umbrella.'

So the teamwork started. The first man dived for the umbrella handle and passed it to the second. The second man put it upright, flicked the button and closed it. ‘A point to our team?' he laughed. The third team member chased, flicked and brought back the second umbrella. He was so fit he wasn't even panting when he said, ‘Yours?'

Amy smiled but she was really embarrassed. Christopher didn't mind so much. He was thinking of how he could draw the scene and which colours he'd use. On the back of each of the team track suits was printed sponsors' messages. In red, green and yellow colours.

USE X BRAND PAINT.

YYY MINING COMPANY.

DRINK MILK.

Only the first man had a plain navy track suit. It was slightly paler. Why was his different? Had something washed off?

‘Thanks.' Christopher pointed. ‘How come his track suit is different? Is he the coach or manager or something?'

The man looked quickly at the backs of the other track suits and then at the first man. ‘Er ... perhaps his track suit came from a different batch.'

‘Don't you all come from the same place?'

‘Er, most do. But there have been a few new ones added to the team from other clubs. Two joined us at Singapore Airport. So we don't all know each other.'

Christopher thought about that as they quickly returned the umbrellas to the bin. The army helicopter had taken off, dipping like a khaki dragonfly.

‘Umbrella chasing is more interesting training than running around the oval,' agreed the players.

Carrying their hand luggage, the twins went inside the airport building. Freshly painted signs were in Japanese as well as English. A giant mural of fish decorated a seagreeny-blue wall which merged into a greeny-blue carpet. Near the mural, giant tropic plants of different greens filled the floor to ceiling windows. If there hadn't been so many passengers noisily fussing with their belongings, the twins could have imagined that they were in a tropical rain forest.

Just inside, unexpectedly they found a person they knew. And it wasn't Aunty Viv!

Chapter 4

‘Gloria, what are you doing here?'

The twins rushed up to the official in a navy uniform.

‘Working.'

‘Are you undercover again?'

Once before, the twins had helped Gloria catch some bird smugglers going through Melbourne Airport.

‘Shhhh. If I WERE undercover, everybody would know by now!'

Gloria was smiling but she looked beyond the twins to the passengers milling around. A tour guide was translating for a group of Japanese tourists. Mr Muscles walked past and nodded to the twins. Gloria watched him closely.

‘Sorry,' chorused the twins. ‘What are you doing here?'

‘I'm here because of the International Games.'

‘Are you playing?'

Gloria smiled as she shook her head. ‘Not unless you count ‘catching' smugglers as a game.'

‘Bird smugglers again?'

‘No. Steroids this time. We've had a tip-off.'

‘What are steroids?' asked Christopher. ‘Are they drugs?'

Amy had read the article in the flight magazine, twice. ‘Drugs which athletes use. They're illegal,' she said quickly. Christopher got mad if she showed off about knowing things, too often. Sometimes she let him get mad.

Gloria nodded. ‘Well done, Amy. And there's a journalist coming to do another story on them. He should have been on your plane.'

Gloria held up a hand-written sign. It said Tom Savvas. Amy remembered seeing that name. She fumbled for the free inflight magazine which she'd stuffed in her bag. She ran her finger down the table of contents.

Meanwhile Christopher joked with Gloria. ‘Have you changed your name, too?'

‘No, this is so he can find me.'

Christopher had seen handheld signs at other airports. Sometimes they were in Japanese or some other language. It was to help strangers find each other. A clue.

Amy had found the article. ‘Tom Savvas,' she said triumphantly, opening the magazine to the article. She pointed to his photo.

‘I've seen the article,' said Gloria quietly. ‘That's why we invited him here.'

That made Amy think of something else. ‘How do couriers or smugglers who don't know each other, find each other?'

‘A secret sign, I suppose,' suggested Christopher. ‘Something they wear or something they do. Or a special place to meet. There's a

MEETING POINT sign in some airports.'

‘And the team members who know each other by the uniforms,'

Amy suggested.

While they were talking, Gloria's eyes were scanning all the incoming passengers. Mrs Gold and Mrs Silver tinkled past, laden with extra hand luggage. A priest with a silver cross on the lapel of his jacket walked past, too. The team manager was trying to keep his football team together as a group. He looked harassed.

‘You'd better go through the official channels and get your baggage,' suggested Gloria. ‘I'll see you outside.'

When Christopher looked back, he saw Gloria meeting a short, fair haired man. He tugged Amy's arm. ‘That's the journalist, I bet.'

‘Tom Savvas,' Amy peered through her rainbow framed glasses.

‘Doesn't look much like his photo in the magazine. You could do a better sketch, Christopher.'

‘Yes,' agreed her brother. And he might, once they got through Customs, Quarantine and Immigration.

Just then, the sniffer dog and his handler approached. The twins knew some sniffer dogs were taught to leap onto conveyor belts. The ‘active' dogs sniffed suitcases moving along them for traces of drugs.

Other ‘passive' sniffer dogs just sat alongside people whose luggage had a suspicious smell.

‘Do they smell steroids the same way as other drugs?' Christopher asked the handler.

‘If they're trained for that scent. And these ones are.'

Mr Muscles moved across to the other queue, away from the dog. It was hot inside. Posters of the Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree Rain Forest decorated the walls. Each week, thousands of international passengers moved in and out of Cairns on their way to Asia. The wall posters said so.

Amy yawned. For once she hadn't slept well on the plane. Mr Muscles' snores had kept her awake. Now the heat was increasing. Prickles of sweat ran down her back. Amy tied her jacket around her middle. The twins waited in line to clear Customs. They'd already filled in their declaration forms on the plane, but because they were under nobody had passed anything illegal to them.

The priest stood in front of them. Light glinted on the silver cross on his lapel. His hand luggage was at his feet. The sniffer dog walked past, but didn't stop.

‘Is your visit business or pleasure, sir?' asked the Customs officer as he checked the photo and stamped the priest's passport.

‘Both. But I hope to see a few soccer games while I'm here,' said the priest. ‘And look at the body-building contests. I'm interested in all kinds of fitness. Mind and body.'

Idly Amy whispered. ‘D'you reckon priests ever try to smuggle anything?'

‘Shhh. Of course not. They're like nuns,' said Christopher. Amy wasn't so sure. The priest had a bottle of something in his bag. Was it legal?

‘Excuse me, sir?' said the officer. ‘Anything to declare?'

‘Only this.' The priest pulled the bottle out of his bag. The liquid was colourless.

‘Is it a spirit, sir?' asked the officer undoing the top and sniffing.

‘Er ... it's only water,.' explained the priest. ‘That doesn't have to be checked by Quarantine does it?'

‘Yes, sir. It does.'

The twins giggled as the priest nodded. ‘Brought it back myself from the Holy Land.'

‘Just water?' checked the quarantine officer glancing across at the dog-handler who paused.

‘Holy water,' explained the priest looking down at the sniffer dog.

‘No duty on that surely?'

‘No sir, but it does have to be declared to quarantine. Just in case.'

‘In case of what?' The priest was a little annoyed.

‘There are any bugs in it.'

The twins giggled. ‘Holy microbes!' whispered Christopher.

The priest was waved through and the sniffer dog kept patrolling. Then it was the turn of the twins. They stepped over the line together. They'd been through checkpoints in many airports. Each pulled out a passport which was on a neck cord.

‘Amy Lee?' The officer checked her photo and looked up at her face. Dad had taken the passport photo when her glasses were broken.

That made officials look twice.

‘Yes.'

‘You've got a fine collection of stamps in this passport,' said the officer as he thudded an entry stamp on the right page.

‘What were you doing in Singapore?'

‘We were on holidays with our parents.'

‘You live in Sydney? Why have you come to Cairns?'

‘Our Aunt is working here this week. She's meeting us.' Amy hoped that was right. Aunty Viv was often late or something else went wrong.

‘Go through, Amy. Anything to declare?'

‘No.'

‘Collect your baggage and go through the Green channel.'

Amy knew that Customs checked any goods going in or out of the country. Sometimes tax had to be paid on legal goods. Illegal goods were stopped.

‘Carrying any food? Anything on the quarantine list?'

Amy shook her head. Anything which might carry disease interested Quarantine. Goods could be brought in but had to be shown to the Quarantine officers. Holy water was pretty unusual. Amy wondered if it did have bugs in it? Would that make the bugs religious?

Christopher was cleared through Customs quickly too, with the airline attendant standing alongside. In the next booth, Mr Muscles was being asked lots of questions. He seemed nervous. But perhaps that was just natural. Most people got nervous at being checked for anything.

Mrs Gold and Mrs Silver were in the next queue. Their voices were very loud. Both were short and had to stretch up to reach the counter. So they shouted to make up for it. ‘Yes, we've just been to England to visit our relatives. Yes, they did give us many gifts. Mainly antique jewellery. Inherited.'

A moment later, two sporting groups arrived together. Passenger Processing quickly cleared the teams and their luggage. Amy watched. One soccer team had blue blazers. Their manager showed their papers.

Then they were waved through by the officials. If you were wearing a uniform, you could blend in with the rest, thought Amy. A good disguise. Then came the football team in the navy track suits. Amy counted.

‘There's eleven in a soccer team, isn't there?'

Christopher nodded. ‘Plus the manager and a couple of subs.'

‘Oh, there were fifteen in that team. Fifteen track suits.' Amy recounted.

‘Yes, one of those guys had different coloured navy trackpants.

And his socks were green instead of navy like the rest. I drew him before. He was carrying heavy hand luggage. You could tell from the way he bent over.'

Christopher always noticed colours, shapes and weights.

‘That Mr Muscles is a fitness freak,' said Christopher. ‘He's got two bottles labelled VITAMINS in his luggage.'

‘Was it properly spelled? On the other bottle it said VITTAMINS.'

‘Looked okay to me.' Art, not spelling was Christopher's best subject. ‘Onboard, when I dropped my pencil, I bent over and the zipper was undone on his hand luggage under the seat. I could see the labelled bottles.'

The passenger on Amy's other side was just as interesting. It was Tom Savvas, the sports journalist. Gloria had vanished. All passengers had to go through the Entry Control Point. But Gloria was staff so she could move around easily wearing her I.D. tags for Customs and FAC.

Amy tried to eavesdrop, but his voice was too soft as he answered the official's questions. All she could make out was ‘business' as the reason for his visit. Amy thought she wouldn't mind being a journalist when she grew up. Then she'd never run out of things to read or places to visit. Waiting for the queue to move, Amy read the colourfully decorated wall. One of the things she liked about Cairns were the tropical posters. She turned to her brother. ‘Did you know that fifteen hundred species of fish are found on the Great Barrier Reef?'

‘I do like fish and chips.' Christopher laughed. ‘Did you count them? Probably missed the lizard fish. Dad said it's almost invisible on the coral.' He pointed to a map poster. ‘There's a Lizard Island, too. Would you like an island named after you?'

‘Not really.' Amy remembered the ‘Lizard Lady ‘ in the wheelchair when solving an earlier airport mystery. ‘But the Lizard Lady might.' Amy stared at the photograph. ‘Do you know The Great Barrier Reef is more than two thousand kilometres long. It's bigger than the UK or even Texas. And it contains more species of plants and animals than anywhere else.'

‘You're very well informed for a young girl.' The priest standing nearby was impressed. Christopher wasn't. It was normal. Amy always read the inflight magazine. And usually there were facts about the next place the plane touched down. Christopher liked the fish posters better.

‘Look. This parrotfish is grey and female to start with. Then it changes into a blue and green male fish.'

‘Yes. Reef fish change their colour and sex as they get older.'

Amy had read that. ‘Sometimes I wouldn't mind changing a bit. I'd like red hair.'

‘What about them?' pointed Christopher. Nearby were some fresh mud crabs and lobsters swimming in a tank. Visitors could arrange to buy them by the kilo, and fly them home in Eski containers, complete with a quarantine certificate. ‘They'll probably change into dinner!'

People nearby laughed.

‘Body builders try to change their shape.' Mr Muscles overheard.

‘They make their limbs bigger and stronger. So do swimmers.'

‘That's different. Athletes aren't fish,' Amy said quickly.

‘Unreal!' Christopher was still thinking about the reef fish. ‘Glad I'm not going to turn into a girl. Or change colour.'

Changing to bluey-green could be awkward. Christopher was quite used to being himself. He didn't want to change anything much.

Not even his eyes which went up at the ends a bit.

‘Smily eyes,' his Mum said.