Digger Field (13 page)

‘Well,’ said Tearley, ‘if you’d listened to us in the first place we wouldn’t have made it.’

Wow, Tearley said ‘we’. She hadn’t even wanted to make the clip.

‘But you can make up for it,’ Tranh told us. ‘I need you to work with us. We’d like you to become part of Operation Liberate Reptiles From Under the Deserted House.’

‘Operation Liberate Reptiles From Under the Deserted House?’ said Tearley.

‘Yeah, cool name, isn’t it? I came up with that,’ said Tranh.

‘I thought the point of a codename,’ said Tearley, ‘was to pick a name that wouldn’t tell the bad guys what you’re doing.’

‘Well, yes. But we don’t say which deserted house,’ said Tranh. ‘Okay, are any of you aware of the concept of text-mailing?’

‘Do you do it on the Google-web?’ I asked, trying to keep a straight face.

Constable Stevens let out a short sharp giggle, and then bit her bottom lip.

‘You do it on mobile phones,’ said Tranh.

‘My brother said he did it on SkypeFace,’ I said.

‘I think you mean BookFace,’ said Tranh.

Constable Stevens let out another giggle. Tranh gave her a confused look.

‘Well done, sir, I think you’re right,’ she said and bit her bottom lip again.

Tranh continued. ‘Anyway, as you three are the only people who have actually seen the alleged trafficker, we want you to wait here and engage him. Get him talking, but don’t make him suspicious.’

‘Are we going to wear a wire?’ asked Wriggler.

‘A wire? You mean a microphone strapped to your body? Get a grip, son. This is Pensdale, not Chicago. No, what we need you to do is come here every day. When he turns up, you need to engage him in conversation. While you chat to him, one of you walks away and text-mails me. We will be down here in three minutes flat to catch him in the act. Okay? Understand?’

He handed Wrigs an ancient mobile phone. It was so worn you couldn’t read the numbers on the buttons any more.

‘Now, that’s police property, you need to look after it.’

As we were leaving Tranh said, ‘Let me give you a lesson in skimming.’

He grabbed one of the stones from the bag.

‘It’s all about how you hold it, and about timing the release to maximise the lateral spin before the stone makes contact with the water.’

His stone hit the water and bounced high into the air. It bounced another four times.

‘Oh yeah, go the Tranh-man,’ he shouted.

He punched the air and celebrated like he’d just won Wimbledon.

I couldn’t believe how unco he was. Still, he was so excited I didn’t think I should show him up. I pretended to stuff up my throw and the rock went straight in.

‘Ha,’ said Tranh. ‘You need to work on your action, son.’

Tearley got five on her throw.

‘Good technique,’ said Tranh as though Tearley should thank him for showing her how to skim.

Tranh turned to Constable Stevens. ‘Go on, have a go,’ he said and handed her a rock.

‘I’ve never done it before,’ she said.

‘Go on, we promise not to laugh,’ he said.

Stevens pegged it at the water and it bounced seven times. She blushed.

‘Beginner’s luck,’ said Tranh. ‘I used to get twenty every time before I had this shoulder reconstruction.’

He rotated his shoulder and grimaced like it was hurting him.

When we got back to the police car there was another car parked behind it. There was a man sitting in it. As we approached he got out and started taking photos of us.

‘Which one of you is Digger Field?’ the man called out.

I put my hand up, and he took a photo of me.

Tranh said, ‘Wills, no photos. I told your editor this morning this is the scene of an ongoing investigation.’

Wills ignored Tranh and got back into his car.

‘Who was that?’ said Tearley.

‘Wills is a journalist from the
South-West Daily
,’ said Tranh. ‘Apparently the editor there has seen your OurTube clip.’

CHAPTER 33

DAY 33: Wednesday

My skims: 6

Wriggler’s skims: 0

Tearley’s skims: 0

Mr Black’s skims: 12 (He’s getting better.)

24 hours until police raid the cellar. 24 hours until the tinnie goes on eBay.

Wrigs rang first thing.

‘Let’s go.’

‘Where?’ I said.

‘The river. We’ve got to catch Mr Black.’

I hadn’t told Wrigs about my meeting with Mr Black in the hardware superstore. With all the fuss caused by Tranh and Stevens going undercover the day before, I hadn’t had the chance.

‘We need to take the clip down from YouTube,’ I said.

‘No way,’ he said. ‘It’s had almost four hundred views.’

‘I’m not sure it’s right,’ I said.

‘Which part was wrong?’

‘I ran into Mr Black when I was at the hardware store on Monday and he seemed like a really normal guy.’

‘A normal guy who keeps a cellar full of rare reptiles?’ Wrigs said.

‘Maybe there’s some simple explanation,’ I said. ‘Like I don’t know, maybe he’s a scientist or something.’

‘Yeah, right,’ said Wrigs. ‘Like a scientist would keep all those animals underground. Even the police want to arrest him.’

‘That’s because of us. We might have got it wrong.’

‘We’ve spent all holidays trying to tell people he was up to something,’ said Wrigs. ‘And as soon as someone finally listens, you decide we’re wrong. Stop panicking.’

‘Yeah, maybe,’ I said. It was true, I was probably worrying too much.

‘We’ve got to go to the river, like Tranh told us to,’ said Wrigs. ‘If we see Mr Black, we text the police. If we don’t, you get to practise for the world record. I’ve already spoken to Tearley.’

I got to the river first. As soon as I arrived, Mr Black walked out of the house. He was carrying an empty hessian bag and his briefcase.

‘Hello. The quick-set cement and sand worked, yeah?’

‘Yeah, really well.’ I could hear my voice crack.

‘You have beaten the skimming record, yes?’

‘No, nowhere near it,’ I stammered.

‘You’ve come down for practice, yeah. Good idea. Can I have a go, yes?’

He picked up a rock and let it fly. It went like a bullet and skimmed twelve times.

‘Twelve, that’s really good,’ I said.

‘So-so,’ he said. ‘How many for the record, yeah?’

‘Fifty-two.’

‘Fifty-two. That’s massive, yeah. You must be very good, yeah.’

At this point Tearley came running down the path and through the bushes. She was completely out of breath and holding her side like she had a stitch. She was carrying a copy of the
South-West Daily
newspaper.

When she saw Mr Black, she stopped and stared at him.

‘Girl, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. It’s okay, it’s just me, yeah,’ said Mr Black.

‘Sorry, I just wasn’t expecting anyone to be down here.’

She folded up the
Daily
and tried to cram it into her back pocket.

‘Your friend is just giving me a skimming lesson, yeah. You’re very good at it, too?’

Tearley didn’t answer him. She turned to me and said, ‘Digs, I think we better go to our … our … meeting with, y’know … y’know, the … thing.’

I’d no idea what she was on about. ‘What thing?’ I said.

‘Y’know, the man … we’re supposed … to … see.’

‘I think she wants a bit of time with you, yeah,’ Mr Black said. ‘I may not know much, but I know you shouldn’t keep a beautiful lady waiting.’

He gave me a nudge.

‘But if you’ve finished with that paper, yeah, could I have a read?’ he asked Tearley.

‘No, sorry,’ she almost shouted. ‘We need it for our meeting.’

‘Okay, okay. No worries, yeah. I just want to check on a horserace. It’ll take two moments, yeah.’

He stuck out his hand and took the paper from Tearley. At that moment Wriggler came tumbling down the path. He looked liked he’d been running, too.

‘Ah look. The whole gang is here, yeah.’

Wrigs’ head was swivelling between Mr Black, the newspaper and me. He was trying to tell me something.

Mr Black’s nose was in the sports section at the back of the paper. Then I got the shock of my life. I could see a photo of myself on the front page. My big huge dumb head was spread right across the whole page. It must have been the photo Wills took. I couldn’t believe Mr Black hadn’t noticed.

‘Don’t put your heart into horses. They will break it, yeah.’ Mr Black folded the paper and gave it back to Tearley.

‘Nice to see you,’ he said. ‘You’ve been looking after our little bit of paradise, yeah?’

‘Yeah,’ we all jumped in, a bit too keen.

‘Cool, I’ll see you later, yeah.’ He started to walk off up the path, but just when we thought we were safe he came back.

‘Hey, show me that paper again,’ he said to Tearley.

‘Why?’ she squeaked.

‘I just need to check something.’

Tearley handed over the paper like she was handing over her life.

In fact she was handing over
my
life.

He turned back to the racing page and ran his finger down the page, talking to himself.

‘Aha,’ he said. ‘Good, good, yeah.’

He must have found what he was looking for because he closed the paper, turned it over, and went to give it back to Tearley. Just then he spotted the photo on the front.

‘Look, it’s you!’ he said to me. He looked at it again, and then at me, as though he couldn’t believe I was on the front of the paper. ‘You must be famous, yeah?’

‘Me? No, it can’t be,’ I said. But it was a bit hard to deny. There was my grinning face filling the page. It was under the headline: ‘NET JUSTICE’.

‘They’re talking about your record attempt, yeah?’

‘I guess so,’ I said and tried to grab the paper off him.

But he held it in the air. ‘One second, little man,’ he said and began to read: ‘
Digger Field is a young man. But what he lacks in years he makes up in tenacity. He and his friends have uncovered what they believe to be an international native animal trafficking syndicate in the sleepy suburb of Pensdale.
’

Mr Black stopped reading. He just looked at the paper like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing, and started prodding it with his index finger.

‘What are they talking about?’ He looked at me. ‘You have been telling people I am some kind of animal smuggler, yeah?’

Tearley said, ‘It doesn’t say anything about you. Why do you think it is about you?’

‘You think it’s smart to make up stories? It’s not smart. It just causes trouble.’

He stepped towards Tearley like he was about to grab her.

‘We know about the cellar,’ Wrigs said.

Mr Black spun around and looked at Wrigs.

‘What cellar? What are you talking about? You’re a mad kid. There is no cellar, yeah.’

‘We’ve got photos,’ continued Wrigs.

‘Of what? There is no cellar, there is no trafficking. Understand, yeah?’

Wrigs pulled out the police phone and started punching buttons. Mr Black grabbed the phone and threw it at the ground. It shattered into a thousand pieces.

‘You say anything to anyone, I’ll break every other bone in your body,’ he hissed at Wriggler.

‘He’s just making stuff up,’ I said. ‘We’re going.’

We turned to go but Mr Black grabbed my arm so hard I almost fell over. He pulled me back towards him. I could feel his breath on my cheek.

‘This is the worst, yeah. You have no idea.’

At that moment Wriggler proved that he was the best bestie it was possible to have.

He ran at Mr Black at full speed, screaming like a lunatic. He launched himself through the air like a rugby player about to flatten his opposing forward. His one good arm was ready to wrap around Mr Black’s chest, and his shoulder was ready to drive him into the ground.

Mr Black looked at him. There was fear in his face.

He let me go. Then he stepped slightly to his left.

Wrigs went flying through the air, past me, past Mr Black and landed on the rocky ground on his good arm.

You would have been able to hear his scream on the other side of the river.

Mr Black looked at Wriggler. ‘Are you okay, yeah?’

Wrigs just lay on the ground. He was still screaming.

‘Your arm, it doesn’t look good, yeah.’

Wrigs’ good arm was bent out of shape.

Mr Black looked at me. ‘Do you know how much trouble this is going to cause, yeah?’ he said. Then he ran up the pathway.

Wrigs was in complete agony.

We helped him up to his feet. He could hardly walk.

‘We have to get him to the hospital,’ said Tearley. ‘I’ll go and find someone to help.’

‘No. It’ll take too long,’ I said. ‘Let’s take him up to the road and we’ll get help there.’

I tried to carry Wrigs but we both almost fell over. He was groaning.

‘It’s okay, Wrigs, we’ll get you to the hospital,’ I said.

‘I told you Mr Black was bad,’ Wrigs said through the pain.

‘Yeah, I know. You were right,’ I said.

Tearley and I each put an arm around Wriggler and we walked side by side up the pathway. Wrigs wasn’t able to grab onto anything so when we got to the ledge we both had to lift him up.

As we got to the road a battered old black station wagon drove down the street towards us. Tearley waved it down.

It pulled up next to us. The driver was Mr Black.

‘Get in,’ he said.

‘No way,’ Tearley said.

Wrigs couldn’t run, so we walked as fast as we could to get away from Mr Black.

‘I’ll take him to the hospital, yeah,’ called out Mr Black.

‘We won’t get in your car,’ shouted Tearley.

Mr Black pulled his car over and jumped out.

‘Okay, okay, you don’t trust me, yeah? I understand, yes,’ he said. ‘But your friend is going to pass out.’

He reached back into his car and pulled out his phone. He punched in three numbers.

‘We need an ambulance, yeah … Bottom of View Street in Pensdale … Yes, a boy … Broken arm, I think … Looks like he is in shock, yeah … An accident while playing … Yes, quickly, please … He is in a bad way, yeah.’

He hung up and turned back to us. ‘Sit him down on the gutter. They’ll be two minutes, yeah,’ he said.

Wrigs groaned as we sat him down.