Game Play (6 page)

The guilty feeling stayed with Amy. Even when the UM attendant collected them at the Arrivals Hall, Amy still felt guilty, like a smuggler.

Chapter 11

As expected, Aunty Viv hadn't arrived yet. Somewhere along a tropical Cairns road, Aunty Viv was driving her Animal Actors van fast towards the international terminal of the airport. And the goat was with her now.

That was the latest message waiting for them. GOAT FOUND.

AUNTY VIV COMING A.S.A.P. That meant As Soon As Possible.

Being stuck with the baby and toddler U.M ‘s was embarrassing for experienced travellers like the twins. Christopher hated waiting in airport UM's rooms which always looked boringly neutral. He was collecting a list of one hundred excuses why they didn't need to stay there, and he used them.

So far, he was up to thirteen. ‘Being allergic to the wallpaper.' was one. ‘Having a stiff knee which needed airport exercise was another.' When you had an aunty like Viv who was always late in or in hurry going somewhere else, you could get stuck in the UM room for hours. Unless you had a funny excuse ready. And the attendant was the type to laugh or take you on a tour behind-the-scenes. Some minders were great at visiting control rooms, letting you sit in cockpits or play arcade games.

‘Sssshhhhhh.'

In the UMs room, Sara the attendant was hassled by a crying toddler who hadn't been collected either. The toddler had cried all down

Sara's perfectly pressed jacket and silk scarf. Even the ink on the name tag had run so the child's name was difficult to read.

‘There. There,' patted Sara kindly. The UM's attendants usually liked kids. Most attendants had legs like giraffes. Sara was no different.

And bending down to a toddler was a challenge in those ultra high heels.

‘I'll change him if you like.' Amy pointed to the other baby in the tartan overalls. Having a great sense of smell could be a problem at times like this.

‘I'd change him for a goat,' suggested Christopher. ‘Goats don't cry or ... get lost!'

‘Who says?' Amy said quickly.

‘You want to change him for what?' Sara overheard. ‘Now what do you two want to do until your aunt arrives? Watch TV? Do a jigsaw? Read a story to the babies?'

‘Is it okay if we walk around a bit ?' Amy thought it was worth trying. She knew that ground staff had to escort them until their parents arrived.

Sara looked a bit worried but Christopher reassured her. ‘We've travelled a lot. And Aunty Viv wouldn't mind. And ... Gloria knows we are here.'

‘Is Gloria from Customs looking after you?' Obviously Sara knew the undercover agents.

Amy hissed. ‘Christopher!'

Sara sighed. ‘I'll have to look after these two until their parents arrive. I'll be here in this office. But you must wait until I check with Gloria. Then, where will you be?'

‘Okay if we go to the newsagents first? Then the post office?'

Sara looked relieved. ‘Buying postcards of Cairns? There's a beautiful one of the cane fires. All orange and black. And I can see you from here if you go to the newsagent. Check back in ten minutes.'

‘Fifteen?' suggested Christopher quickly. ‘We'll show you the postcards.'

Amy was a postcard collector. And it was the first believable excuse Christopher could invent for not staying fulltime in the UMs room. But he also wanted to check on something Tom had said about mail order magazines. And the newsagents was the best place to start.

Sara phoned and said that Gloria would be there very soon, and she was.

‘I'll take them to the shops just for a few minutes,' said Gloria.

‘Then I've got other work to do.'

‘Fine. If your aunt arrives, I'll come and get you. Or send someone,' said Sara.

Gloria walked them to the row of shops which included an Australia Presents shop selling Vegemite in mini jars, toy koalas and live crabs in a big tank. The crabs scuttled across the glass tank. Amy was as fascinated as the Japanese tourists who were buying some live crabs to take home in Eskies, complete with quarantine certificates.

Just then her beeper went. Gloria answered it. ‘Stay here and look at these, I'll be back in a minute.'

‘Fine. Need any more postcards, Amy?' Christopher found a POST OFFICE sign within a shop. ‘I want to ask the postmaster something.'

‘What?'

‘Something Tom told me about.' Christopher wasn't sure exactly how to say ‘poste restante' and he couldn't spell it either.

‘Okay. It doesn't matter much now. Gloria got her smuggler.'

‘But there could be others, sending in stuff by mail. Tom told me.'

The airport newsagency was brightly coloured. Racks were full of holiday impulse presents like Cairns Tropical Air in a sealed can, t-shirts and soft toys.

‘Who buys this stuff?' Christopher tried to read the words on the can. ‘What happens when you open the can?'

‘Nothing,' said Amy. ‘It just gets filled up with the air of wherever you are.'

‘Dumb present.' He put it back next to the BULL DUST tin.

Amy thought the t-shirts were worse. ‘Look. This one is printed

‘I'm With A Bore.' Who'd buy that?'

‘Someone pretty boring. Those sporting sponsors ones looked neat.'

That reminded Christopher about the soccer player without the sponsor logo on the t-shirt. But perhaps that was just a mistake.

‘Do you need some help?' The owner had a buy-or-else voice.

‘No thanks. Just looking.'

Amy judged they had about ten minutes before the owner got annoyed enough to throw them out.

‘Look for overseas ads.' Christopher was in the aisle marked

SPORTS. The sporting magazines were grouped together. Just near the plastic-covered Girlie magazines. ‘Hey. Look at these.'

Amy was positive she'd never look like that. Even if she wanted to. And she didn't. They divided up the sporting magazines and had a quick illegal ‘freebie' look through the ads at the back. They couldn't afford to buy them all. Sometimes it was useful being shorter than adult height. They didn't show over the top of the stands.

‘But we're on the security camera. Look.' Christopher pointed to the web ‘eye' following them.

‘We're not doing anything wrong. I reckon we've got about eight minutes before they throw us out.'

‘We could buy one copy if we find the right sort of ads. Have you got any Australian money? I haven't.'

That was another problem. In her pocket, Amy had some Australian coins mixed up with Singapore ones. Amy checked in her bum-bag. ‘A few dollars, but they're Singapore dollars.'

‘We could change it outside. The Bureau de Change is open.'

Christopher always checked on that wherever they landed.

‘Find the magazine ads first. Then we'll worry about the money. How are the mail order steroids organised? Did Tom tell you?'

Amy knew Christopher was good at finding out certain things. He listened a lot, and people trusted him.

‘Gloria told me. Ads are put in sporting magazines like these.'

Christopher flicked through the pages. ‘Readers fill in coded order forms. They send money. And the steroids are mailed to them.'

‘Who would order?'

‘Gym users mainly. Here's one! SPORTS magazine. The right sort of ad. But that's a strange address.' Christopher peered at the small print on the bottom of the ad. ‘What does that mean?' He pointed to the words Poste Restante.

‘It's P.O.S.T.E. ‘ Amy spelled it out. ‘R.E.S.T.A.N.T.E.' She sounded out the words. ‘Poste restante. I don't know. Let's check with the post office. It sounds like one of their words.'

‘Will we buy the magazine?'

‘Haven't got enough money.'

The newsagent looked very, very polite as they walked past the register to leave the shop. So, from the revolving post card stand Amy quickly chose the cane fires of Cairns. Clouds of orange and black smoke filled the photo.

‘Could I have one of these please?'

‘Anything else?' the newsagent said.

Amy wondered if adults who read the magazines and didn't buy felt guilty too.

‘Have you got an Australian fifty cents?' she hissed to her brother. One card was all she could afford from her loose change.

“No.' Christopher dug in his pocket. ‘Only Singapore coins.'

Amy piled all her coins into the news agent's hand. He returned one to her. ‘Not Australian.'

‘Sorry.' Amy remembered her lucky fifty cents coin in Edwina's passport purse. She fished it out. ‘Here you are.'

‘That's just enough.' The newsagent rang up the register as if it were a money-grabbing monster under only his control.

He gave Amy her postcard in a bag with FRIENDLY SHOPPING IN CAIRNS on it. There was Japanese writing on it, too.

‘Here you are.'

As they walked out of the shop, Amy said. ‘We need more money to buy that SPORTS magazine with the suspect ads. Maybe they sell the magaine online? Or we could photocopy the page. There was a photocopier in there. Twenty cents a page.'

‘He wouldn't let us. Anyway I've got a better idea.' Sometimes Christopher had good ideas. This was one of them.

‘See those trolleys over there.' He pointed to the abandoned trolleys near the kerb. People used trolleys to take their bags to the buses or the taxi-stand. In a hurry to leave the airport, they often did not return them to the corrals. ‘Let's collect a few of them.'

‘Why?' Amy's mind was still on the magazine. She wanted to do some useful sleuthing. How could the magazine be used to catch the ‘To get the dollar deposits. Look.' Quickly Christopher rounded up trolleys. He drove them back into the corrals.

As they clicked into each other, the dollar coins flicked out.

Christopher collected them. ‘Eight dollars. That SPORTS magazine cost ten.'

Amy spotted another trolley left near a shop window. ‘I'll get that one.' Unfortunately that trolley was a dud. There was no coin inside.

‘Let's try again,' said Amy. So the twins collected two more trolleys from outside the post office.

‘Let's take these back.' Christopher pointed. ‘Then let's ask the post master about Poste Restante.' He felt quite proud at saying that.

Amy was the word expert in their family. Pictures were HIS thing.

The post office part was run by a woman. ‘Post Mistress' was the label on her desk. She peered suspiciously down at the twins.

‘Why do you want to know about Poste Restante then?'

‘Curiosity,' said Amy cheerfully. ‘We're clue seekers. Part-time sleuths.'

‘That's a relief. I thought it might be ANOTHER school project.' said the Post Mistress. ‘I hate finding sample forms.'

Surprisingly she became quite pleasant as she answered their questions. Her glasses with unusual metal frames glinted. As owners of glasses, the twins always noticed other frames. ‘You can use Poste Restante when you want the post office to hold your mail for you. It's when you don't have a home address of your own. Often it's for people who are travelling. You've just come in on the Singapore flight have you?''

‘Yes. Could Poste Restante also be for criminals, who don't want packages or mail traced to them?' Christopher had been told that by

Tom Savvas. ‘How would that work?'

The eyes of the Post Mistress were thoughtful.

‘They'd arrange for an illegal parcel to be sent Poste Restante. Then they'd have to go into any post office to fill in a parcel redirection form and have it sent on to their own address. ‘

‘Ahh.' said the twins. ‘Has anyone done that here recently?”

‘I couldn't say.'

The twins weren't sure whether that meant she didn't know or officially she wouldn't tell them.

Christopher realised something. ‘Oh! They wouldn't have to come in here to fill in the form?' His first idea was wrong.

‘Right. Otherwise they may as well collect the parcel at the same time.' The Post Mistress continued. ‘Some people address mail or packages care of the post office. Some have post office boxes. They can open the boxes, even when the post office is shut.'

‘Are they the ones in banks outside?' Christopher had noticed the numbers on the boxes on the way in.

She nodded. ‘They have their own keys. Then they collect it in person or fill in a form for it to be sent on to them. There's nothing illegal about that.'

‘Thank you very much,' said the twins. ‘Could you tell us...'

‘If you're going to ask me about smuggling steroids by mail, you're too late. That journalist has been in here already. And collected the mail addressed to him.'

‘Tom Savvas?' said the twins together. ‘Where was his mail from?'

She nodded. ‘Mail is private. We can't tell strangers about people's mail. Not unless there is a special authority given.'

She smiled and her face lit up. ‘He said you might be in here within the hour. He was right. Good luck with your sleuthing.'