Mystery At Riddle Gully (2 page)

A bright green bug meandered down Will Hopkins' arm in the chilly autumn dawn. Will waited for it to crawl onto his finger, then eased it onto the scrub at his feet. He shifted his position on the old fallen tree trunk and sniffed the air. Around him, the forest was waking up, the tree trunks filling with colour. The small bats that had been flitting around when he first arrived were long gone.

The damp bark had wet through the bum of his shorts but it felt good to be there. Alone. Even if it had meant getting up as early as the rowing team back at boarding school and sneaking out like a burglar who'd got the wrong house. In fact, this was the best he'd felt in the whole week since moving to Riddle Gully.

Not that he hated his new stepfather or anything. But the guy asked so many questions. Dinnertimes were a nightmare—his stepfather sitting across the table, chewing everything thirty-two times, rubbing his big nose and wanting to know all the details about every little thing—details Will never knew existed! How far was it from his locker to his Home Room? Did the cricket captain bat left- or right-handed? Did the canteen use butter or margarine? Had he chatted with anyone at lunchtime yet? It would drive a statue insane.

Will shook his head slowly. Of all the people his mum could have picked—like his old footy coach, for instance—why did she have to go and fall for HB, a.k.a. Harry Butt? When things were grim, Will liked to think of him as Hairy—Hairy Butt. It lifted his spirits. But to someone at the counter of the Riddle Gully police station he was Sergeant Butt or sir. Sticking his nose into other people's business was what his stepfather did for a living.

He wished he hadn't stormed off from the table last night though. Will poked at the crumbly bark with a twig. As Hairy's questions piled up, everything had somehow boiled up inside. In the end, he'd only made things hard for his mum by slouching in his room all night. Plus, now if he saw Hairy—and, seeing as it was Hairy's house they were living in, chances were he would—he was going to feel like an idiot.

Aah, well, thought Will. It wouldn't be the first time.

The log was starting to get uncomfortable, and a tribe of red ants seemed to think he was on their property. He should get going. It wouldn't be the same if when he got back Hairy was awake to grill him about where he'd been. This place—Diamond Jack's Trail or Track or whatever it was called—was a good hideaway. He'd keep it to himself as long as he could.

Besides, he had some cooking to do—a Birthday Special breakfast, no less. He'd bought all the stuff for it after school yesterday. Sure, his mum had married a nosy cop with a stupid name and dragged him out of boarding school to a town in the middle of nowhere, but it was her big day today—and that called for one of his famous breakfasts, no matter what. A lot might have changed in their lives, but some things never would. He'd get one thing right.

Will nipped three blue daisies from the neighbour's bush near the end of the driveway and padded quietly up the steps and into the house. Snoring like a jet ski doing wheelies drifted down the passage. Excellent. His mum, at least, was still asleep.

Softly opening and closing doors, he fished out the supplies he'd hidden the afternoon before. He arranged the daisies in a milk jug, opened the pots of fancy jam and put everything onto a serving tray. He measured out flour and milk, cracked two eggs into a large bowl and began beating the pancake mix with a wooden spoon,
passing on the electric mixer so as to keep quiet.

The frying pan was warming on the gas jet. Will scraped a dob of butter onto the rim, watched it melt and slide, then returned to beating the mixture, hugging the bowl to his bare chest. He smiled as he worked, thinking of Birthday Specials in the past. His mum had no idea one was coming this year. She was going to love it.

‘Well, well, well! What's all this then?' Hairy's voice boomed over his shoulder.

Will jerked backwards, slopping pancake mixture down his chest and onto his shorts. He jumped and landed with a yelp on what felt like a small animal, sloshing the rest of the mixture onto the floor. He looked down to see Hairy's great big knobbly bare foot under his own and leapt again, landing on the slimy goop. His feet slid out from under him and Will thumped onto his backside on the kitchen floor. The whole show had taken about three seconds.

As the gooey yellow lake spread steadily around Will, a ball of fire inside him grew and grew until it threatened to shoot from his chest and torch straight through the lino and the wooden boards beneath.

Funny how three small seconds could make you hate someone forever...

Clenching his jaw, Will ignored the large hand that his stepfather was stretching out to him. He reached up and grabbed for the edge of the kitchen bench. Instead, he got the serving tray. It clattered down, the milk jug
and jam pots bouncing off his head and splashing and crashing onto the floor beside him. Daisy water curdled with the batter. Petals once jaunty and blue were now limp and sullied.

Will tried to flip over onto his knees.
Splat!
Now he was face-down and coated in batter both sides like a raw fish fillet.

Hairy slowly backed behind the kitchen table.

On the stovetop, burning butter smoke curled towards the ceiling. His mum's sleepy voice drifted down the hallway. ‘That's not a Birthday Special I smell, is it, Will?'

Silence.

‘It's torture! HB, tell my son you're meant to be nice to people on their birthday!'

Hairy had reached the safety of the doorway. ‘Err ... Angela? You might want to get up, love. I'm thinking we might all duck down to the new cafe on the corner.'

‘But Will's making a Birthday Special breakfast! Besides, what new cafe?'

‘Err ... the one next to the petrol station.'

‘You're not talking about the one
inside
the petrol station, are you?' Will could hear Angela's footsteps padding up the hallway. Her voice was no longer warm and fuzzy.

‘That's the one!' said Hairy. ‘The Pickled Walnut is closed for painting. The boys reckon the coffee at this new one's not bad!'

‘What are you on about? The petrol station? On my
birthday? When Will's making a lovely—'

As Angela reached the kitchen doorway an eerie silence fell, as though all the air had been sucked from the room. Will slithered in a last, lame attempt to get up. He twitched on his stomach on the floor like a hooked herring in a bucket, his eyes slit against the batter trickling down his forehead and off the end of his nose.

Angela looked at him and spluttered. Then chortled. Soon she was heeing and hawing, gripping the doorframe for support. ‘It's the Creature from the Snot Lagoon!' she gasped. Will held still, waiting for her to finish. His stepfather stood there, rubbing his nose and tugging his earlobes, saying nothing.

‘I think the petrol station is a brilliant idea!' said Angela eventually, wiping her eyes with her singlet. Will watched, helpless, as she picked her way through the mess, retrieved the empty mixing bowl and turned off the flame under the frying pan.

She looked down at him, at the batter gluing his hair into clumps, and held out a hand. ‘Oh, Will,' she sighed, ‘it's wonderful that you were trying to keep up the tradition, but we might have to give the Birthday Special a miss this year, don't you think?'

Will watched his breakfast oozing around the daisies and clots of jam into the cracks beneath the cupboards. So Hairy Butt planned to take his mother to the
petrol station?
On her
birthday?
He clenched his fists, batter squirting out like lava, and vowed revenge.

Will slumped on his bed, staring at a half-finished drawing on his sketchpad. It was better than staring across the petrol station table at Hairy Butt's stupid big nose. Better than doing anything else in this dumb stupid town that he hadn't wanted to come to in the dumb stupid first place.

He ran his fingers through his wet hair, which now smelled of herbal shampoo. He'd made the Birthday Special for Angela ever since he could remember. When he was a little kid, he'd stood on a chair at the bench, his dad, Clive, beside him showing him what to do. As he
got older, Clive read the paper and ‘tested the goods'. It was what Will did on his mum's birthday. His thing.

Since his breakfast had turned into a total, humiliating disaster, he'd said he wanted to stay home and draw something for Angela instead. But every time his pencil touched the paper, he expected Hairy to boom in his ear, ‘Well, well, well! What's all this then?' It was useless.

Will twirled his pencil between his fingers. At least at boarding school there were enough kids around that you could always find someone who felt like doing the same thing as you—kick a footy, go to the river. And he'd really liked the special art group after classes. In Riddle Gully there was nothing, just a school full of kids who seemed to have known each other since the beginning of time.

Coming here was a really bad idea, no offence to Angela. She'd decided they should all stick together after all. But when that meant moving in with a boof-head with an idiotic name and a big bent nose that didn't know when to butt out, it sucked.

Crack!
The pencil between his fingers snapped in two. Draw a picture for his mum? He had better things to draw! He scrambled off the bed, grabbed his old blue school backpack and stomped down the hall towards Hairy Butt's toolshed.

The strip of trees and scrub at the edge of the high school oval hid him from the road. He laid his bike on the
ground and looked around. No one. His mouth set in a tight grim line, he swung his backpack onto his shoulder and strode towards the school buildings.

Five minutes later, Will stood back, surveyed the cream brick wall and grinned broadly. He was good, if he said so himself. He'd got Hairy's crooked nose and big ears with just a few sweeps. It looked just like him! It was amazing what could be achieved with a can of red spray-paint. He felt ten times better already!

He looked behind. Still alone. He turned back to the wall. Now for the finishing touch. He shook the can, the
tink-tink-tink
of the ball-bearing inside ricocheting around the brick walls and bitumen, cheering him on.

Sucking his bottom lip under his teeth, he held up the can and pressed the nozzle. The bright spray hit the bricks, dense at first, then tapering as he stroked downwards...

He was smart enough not to call him Hairy or HB! He stood back to see where to start the next line. He wanted it nicely centred. He stepped up to the wall, sucked his lip under his teeth again, and pressed the nozzle...

One more word and he was done...

He leaned into the downward stroke of the final letter. But on the upward stroke that followed, the can began to splutter. And at the top, he had to do the curve twice. As he reached the bottom of the second downward stroke all that the can produced was a nasty, jeering hiss. Will stumbled backwards and stared in horror.

A pig's bun? It was stupid! It was lame! It was all wrong!

Perhaps he could get rid of the last few letters altogether. Hairy could just be a pig. He stripped off his T-shirt, bunched it up and scrubbed. The T-shirt turned pink but all there was to show for it on the wall was a slight fuzzing around the edges of the letters. He looked at his hand. Each finger now looked like a party frankfurter.

At that moment, from the other side of the building, Will heard the low thrum of an approaching car. It slowed to a halt. Will froze. The sound of doors clunking shut and boys—a lot of them, laughing and yelling to each other—followed.

Will remembered. Cricket! The interschool finals! Principal Piggott had been saying that everyone should
come and watch but he'd zoned out. He suddenly felt sick. Sick and very stupid. As the voices drew closer he stuffed his T-shirt and the spray can into his pack and scuttled for oblivion like a cockroach down a drain.