The Gum Tree Gang and the Mystery at the Old Queenslander (11 page)

Krystal and Matthew did not
even dare turn their heads.
They could hear
slight noises above them. Krystal
silently
wished Tracey and Kevin would keep still.

Lights from another vehicle
shone through the room.
Chevy stopped
marching and turned towards the lights.

"We're getting a very
special visitor. I want you guys
to be on
your best..." He stopped speaking as sounds of heavy footsteps came
towards the room.

Everyone seemed frozen in their places.

Two figures entered the
doorway and stopped. One was
a tall thin
figure with a hat. on. The other looked like
some sort of animal.

"A man and his gorilla?"
Matthew exclaimed under his
breath,
stepping back and standing on his torch. His torch
made a cracking sound.

Krystal glared at Matthew in the dark.

~~~~
Chapter Twenty-one
~~~~

A
Noisy Tiger

The tall man shone his torch
over the other five, then
stopped at Chevy.
Chevy saluted.

"Good work," was all he
said, then he handed his torch
to the
figure that looked like a gorilla. A grunt could be
heard on the dark side of the
torchlight.

The tall man took a packet
out of his inside breast
pocket and started
passing around what looked like pieces
of
paper.

Nathan shone his torch on
the slip. "One hundred
bucks!" he
exclaimed.

"Waw!" Davo exclaimed. "Are these real?"

The tall man laughed a sinister laugh.

Matthew pressed his eye
close to the door and almost
lost his
balance. The door creaked.

"What was that?" the tall
man asked, flicking his torch
around the
room. The torchlight landed on the cupboard.

Krystal and Matthew could
see a small ray of light
through the
cracks. Krystal immediately pushed on the
trapdoor above her. For a moment Matthew stared at
Krystal vanishing through the hole; he began to
follow
her, then realised his torch was
near his foot.

"My torch!" He leaned down to pick it up.

Suddenly the cupboard door
opened and the inside was
filled with
torchlight.

"Get away!" Matthew yelled,
shielding his eyes from t
he light. Krystal
quickly, but very gently lowered the
door
into the ceiling. She felt terrible that Matt had been
caught but instinctively knew it was very
important that
the rest of the gang not be
caught as well. She stared at
Kevin and
Tracey who were quite frozen with fright.

They all wondered if Matthew
would be forced to tell
on them.

"It's a kid!" Merc yelled.
He grabbed Matthew by the
arm and yanked
him out of the cupboard.

"Mind my arm, you...you," Matthew
snarled.

"A little tiger," the tall
man exclaimed, shining his torch
on
Matthew. "Who are you? What's your name boy?"

"Matt," he mumbled, trying
to wriggle free from Merc's
grasp.

"And what, may I ask, are
you doing hiding in there?"
The tall man
indicated the cupboard, now open and
apparently empty.

Matthew decided to act
'cool'. He stared at Nathan and
Davo. "Hi,
guys!"

"Hi!" they mumbled,
surprised. What was Matthew up
to, they
wondered. They didn't know he wanted to be
friendly.

Matthew continued. "I heard
Nathan and Davo talking
at school, and I
think it sounds great. I want to join your
gang." Matthew took a deep breath. What else could he
say, he supposed, without giving the others
away?

"Very interesting. Very
interesting!" The tall man
turned his gaze
to Nathan and Davo. "Do you two know
this
boy?" He flicked the light in their faces.

They nodded "Mere, Chevy,
check this place out to
make sure there are
no more boys around here." The tall
man
shone his torch around the room as he spoke.

Merc and Chevy immediately
flicked their torches on
and started moving
around the house. Merc went right up
to the
cupboard and shone his torch inside.

Krystal, Kevin and Tracey
could see rays of light
coming and going
through the cracks. They prayed
silently.

"Looks like he's alone, Sir
Cad!" Chevy addressed the
tall
man.

"Well, we can't take any
chances. We'll have to try
him out. Morrie,
tie this fellow up and take him along for
now. We'll find out if he can be useful or not." Cad
spoke to the man who looked like a
gorilla.

Morrie grunted, and went
outside. A few moments later
he returned
with some strong looking rope.

Matthew's heart sank. In the
back of his mind he had
hoped that maybe he
could line up with his buddies from
school,
Nathan and Davo, and get one of those one
hundred dollar notes and take things from there.

"Can you two keep a watch
out here for a few hours,
and ring me if
there's any trouble?" Cad handed a
mobile
telephone to Chevy as he spoke.

Matthew wriggled and made
groaning noises as Morrie
tied his wrists
and ankles. He then pulled a large white
handkerchief out of his jacket pocket, and tied it
around
Matthew's mouth. Matthew growled
through the cloth.

Krystal, Kevin and Tracey
stayed very still in the
attic.They had
their ears to the door in the ceiling to try
and hear what was going on.

They realised Matthew must
have kept quiet about them
and felt
grateful. Still, they could be discovered at any
moment.

How would they get out of
here now without getting
caught?

They all wondered what would happen to
Matthew?

~~~~
Chapter Twenty-two
~~~~

Bumpy Ride

"To the car." Cad addressed
Morrie, who responded with
a grunt.
Immediately, much to Matthew's dismay, Morrie
lifted him on his shoulders like a sack of
feathers!

Matthew felt terrified. A few moments later
he was thrown into the back seat of a silver coloured car, which
was hidden in the bushy driveway.

As Matthew lay on the seat
he tried to move but the
ropes were very
tight. He had remembered to tense his
muscles when they were being tied, but somehow he just
could not wriggle free. A tear ran down the bridge
of his
nose and he sniffed.

"I think they've taken Matt
to the car," whispered
Kevin
softly.

"I'm going down," said
Krystal, moving stealthily
along the beams
towards the trapdoor at the back of the
house. In a few moments she lifted the opening and
peered down. It seemed quite light outside
compared to
inside, and the silver car
glinted in the soft night light.

"Close the trapdoor after
me," whispered Krystal as she
quietly and
swiftly slid down the hole.

Kevin and Tracey gazed as she went out of
their view. They quietly put the trapdoor down in its place.

Krystal's heart thumped as
she moved along the
shadows of the back
verandah and watched as Morrie
headed
towards the front door of the old Queenslander
again, grunting as he hobbled along. Although very
scared, she determined to at least try and rescue
Matthew.
She climbed silently over the
railing, dropping to the
ground. She
crouched for a moment, then crawled
towards
the car. As she neared the shining metal, she
memorised the registration number which she could just
make out in the soft night light. She moved along
the
side of the car and reached up for the
door handle.
Quickly she opened the door
and peered inside.

Yes, Matthew was lying on the back seat.

"Shh," said Krystal, as she
pulled the door shut and
crouched on the
floor. "It's me!"

Matthew sighed.

Krystal brought her camping
knife out of her jeans
pocket and pulled
out the small blade. She felt for the
ropes
on Matthew's feet, and began to move the little knife over the
thick ropes.

Suddenly there was the noise
of someone approaching. Krystal ducked down as much under the seats
as possible.
The back door of the car was
opened and Morrie threw a
red tartan rug
over Matthew. "Co-old," he grunted, as he
closed the door again.

"Go!" mumbled Matthew
through the gag tied around
his
mouth.

"No," murmured Krystal, "not
yet!" She pulled a piece
of the red tartan
rug over her head and once more tried to
cut the ropes around Matthew's ankles.

The passenger door was
opened and Cad's frame sunk d
eeply into the
soft leather seat.

Morrie moved around the
front of the vehicle and got
into the
driver's seat. In a moment the engine started
purring.

Krystal worked the little
knife even more quickly over
the ropes
tying Matthew's feet, but the ropes were very
thick. She also found she could hardly breathe under
the
rug.

As the car moved, she was
tossed from side to side, so
had to stop
cutting the ropes. She didn't want to cut
Matthew's legs and have him screaming under his
gag!

They drove for about fifteen minutes Krystal
reckoned.

When the car came to a halt,
the ropes were still not cut
through.

The driver's door opened and
Morrie stumbled out. He
opened up a garage
door, then jumped back into the
driver's
seat and drove the car into a garage.

The two front car doors
opened; Cad and Morrie got
out.

Morrie opened the back
passenger door and reached in
for Matthew.
He lifted him as though he was a teddy
bear. Krystal stayed still under the red rug. "Please
Lord,
don't let him pull the rug off,
please...." She closed her
eyes and waited,
almost forgetting to breathe.

The door went 'bang' and
Krystal opened her eyes. The
rug was still
over her head. She felt like crying. "Thanks
Lord," she said, blinking a tear away.

If only she had managed to
cut the ropes from
Matthew's feet, he could
have made a run for it. It was
too late
now; Krystal sighed. What if something awful
happened to him? She couldn't bear to think about
that!

After a few minutes, she
heard the garage door close
and the
footsteps disappear.

Krystal pulled the rug from
off her head and looked around, taking a deep breath. It was so
dark in the car she
felt that she still had
her eyes closed!

Instinctively, she knew she
should get out of the car
before she too
was caught and tied. She tugged her small torch out of her back
jeans pocket and flicked it on.

She shone the light on the
dashboard, searching for a
mobile
telephone.

The sound of someone coming
interrupted Krystal's
task. She flicked her
torch off and reached for the door
handle.
She tumbled out of the car and crawled along the
floor of the garage.

~~~~
Chapter T
wenty-three
~~~~

Nightmare

The garage door opened,
silhouetting the figure of
Morrie. Krystal
touched something that smelt like a
farm.
It was bales of hay! She pressed herself close to
the hay away from Morrie's torchlight.

He shone the light around
the garage for a moment,
then on the car.
He opened the back passenger door and
took
something out. It was the red tartan rug! In a
moment he was leaving the garage, and the metal bolt
made a bang as it was locked.