Puppy Pie (31 page)

Harry smiles slightly. ‘Got to see a man about a dog,' he says as he starts the engine and turns towards town. The gang stares uncertainly after the ute all the way to the top gate, still gazing as the dust settles on the track.

‘Never a dull moment,' Tom sighs.

In the dark, the other three nod, their fingers crossed.

Chapter 15

By nine o'clock
the next morning, the house is tidy, and most of the chores and cooking done. A little later, the gang hears Harry's ute pull up outside the kitchen door, and Helen gets out to be greeted by four warm and welcoming hugs. Taking her bags, the gang ushers her through the house, talking excitedly about what's been happening since they last saw her.

Soon after, cars start driving into a nearby paddock with people piling out. By ten o'clock, when the bank manager arrives, about thirty subdued farmers with their families are standing in the big shed already heating up in the hot sun. The crowd continues to grow. As the bank manager, wearing his pale, three-piece suit and holding his briefcase importantly, gets out of his car and strides into the shed, the crowd stands back to let him through. He smiles grimly at the farmers as he makes his way to where Harry, Ted and Jimmy are waiting in the middle of the shed in front of the big, red Harvester, with hay bales scattered around.

With Useless sitting alertly at Harry's feet, Ma and her brood wait expectantly.
Not a peep out of any of you,
she warns.
I don't want to miss a word. I want the Folly saved or we'll all be out of house and home.
Her brood hunches down quietly, eager to hear every word, eager to know if the Folly will remain the domain of the Mites.

While all eyes are on the advancing bank manager, the gang quietly sneaks along the side of the Harvester and plants themselves on a group of hay bales behind the three farmers. The gang huddles together hardly daring to breathe. Four angry pairs of young eyes bore into the bank manager but he doesn't seem to notice. At the front of the crowd, Helen and Shirley hold hands, fingers crossed.

Standing quietly together, Harry, Ted and Jimmy watch Cyril Sprogg advance confidently towards them.

‘I don't like the look on his face,' Ted murmurs.

‘He's gloating,' Jim says, shifting nervously from foot to foot.

‘If only I knew why he's doing this,' Harry wonders, scratching his head. ‘It's almost as if it's some kind of vendetta he's got against us.'

‘Mr Invisible,' Jim murmurs.

‘Good morning, gentlemen,' Cyril Sprogg says enthusiastically as he stops and looks up at the three farmers standing in front of him. ‘Well this is convenient. You'll be saving me quite a bit of time this morning. I won't have to go from one farm to another ferreting you out. Thought you'd all be hiding under your beds.' He giggles squeakily. ‘Amazed you're out in the open, so to speak.'

‘No use putting off the inevitable,' Ted says sourly. ‘You'd have found us soon enough.'

‘Yes, I would,' Cyril agrees wide-eyed and smiling over-brightly. ‘And this time for a change, a Sprogg has the law on his side,' he sniggers. ‘Not like last time.'

‘Last time?' Jimmy repeats perplexed.

‘Yes, gentlemen! You see, the last time a Sprogg had anything to do with a Hepplewhite, my great-great-grandfather was on the wrong side of the law.'

Gull gasps. Suddenly, the memory of the bank manager dancing in front of the picture in the hall springs into her mind.
Of course
, she thinks,
he wasn't talking to the Hepplewhites in the picture. He was talking to his great-great-grandfather
.

‘What are you talking about?' Harry asks frowning deeply. ‘I don't know anything about your family. I don't even remember you from school, er, Cyril.'

Cyril Sprogg sighs loudly but happily. ‘And that's part of the problem. In your very own hallway, you have a picture of the momentous meeting between your great-great-grandfather and mine, just on opposite sides of the photo. And of the law,' he adds. ‘When my ancestor tried robbing your great-great-grandfather here at the Folly, your family called the police. So, the robbers – my ancestor among them – were locked up, and forgotten by everyone but their families. We've borne the disgrace to our name ever since. You know, your great-great-grandfather could have been generous and not pressed charges. But no, he wasn't. Or your family could have let the thieves go with a warning. But no, they had to call the police, and my ancestor, Siril Sprogg, was carted off to prison like a common thief.'

‘But he was a common thief,' Tom says quietly to the others.

‘Shhh,' Lucy replies nodding. ‘We know.'

‘But your ancestor and his mate were going to set the house on fire with my ancestors in it,' Harry says baffled.

‘Maybe they were bluffing: they were only young lads. I'm sure they didn't mean it. They were probably poor with families to support.'

‘No,' Harry says thinking back to the article he'd discovered in the library yesterday. ‘They were louts with no family in the district. Apparently, they'd come up from Victoria. They were known to have robbed other houses in this district. And they were both twenty-four, old enough to know better. It seems they didn't like working for a living either. Easy money was what they were after.'

‘Bah! You've read the police report. Well they got it all wrong as usual,' Cyril says briskly. ‘Except for today.'

‘What do you mean?' Ted asks suspiciously.

‘I've called the police to come out just in case there's any trouble. If you try to stop me serving you with these foreclosure notices, the police will back me up this time. And the name “Sprogg” will be famous rather than infamous,' he adds pompously.

Cyril puts his briefcase down at his feet and bends over to undo the catch. Useless growls. Tom and Jake reach over and hold his collar. Cyril takes out three Notices and puts them in his pocket.

A moment later, the bank manager is standing up straight, looking keenly at the three men. As he goes to speak, his voice catches. ‘And to think, all I wanted was to be part of your group at school, you the most popular boys in the class. If only you'd noticed me,' he says, his shoulders sagging for an instant, ‘I might have thought twice about revenge for what your great-great-grandfather did to mine. But no! You acted as if you never even saw me. I might as well have been invisible.' He sighs loudly, his voice cracking. ‘All I ever wanted was to be noticed, to hang around with the most popular boys. But nobody ever seems to notice me. Or even remember me.'

The three farmers look at each other and back at Cyril standing dejectedly in front of them.

Harry steps forward. ‘Ah, listen Cyril,' he begins awkwardly, ‘I'm sorry if you had a tough time at school. And if you feel we ignored you.'

‘You did,' Cyril says, nodding his head vigorously.

‘Right,' Harry sighs. ‘You know it is a long time ago. But now you're a bank manager, and you've done well for yourself. I mean, surely we can come to some arrangement. Maybe just another month to give us time to get back on our feet and pay off the overdrafts?' Cyril says nothing, just stands in front of Harry looking forlorn. ‘After all, we've got young families to support. So, if you could find it in your heart to help us out, then we'd be forever grateful. And we'd never forget you again, ever. I promise. We'd remember you forever, wouldn't we boys?' he asks looking over at Jimmy and Ted, who nod vigorously.

Slowly, Cyril Sprogg raises his head and looks long and hard at the three men. Involuntarily, the three farmers take a step back. For a split second, a raw glint of mad fury shines through.

‘Too late now,' Cyril says quietly, a giggle escaping him. ‘I've waited all my life to avenge my ancestor, Siril Sprogg. And now,' he says as he reaches into his pocket for the three Foreclosure Notices, ‘I can give these to you legally and watch with unabated glee as the three most popular boys in my class lose everything they and their ancestors have ever worked for.' Thrusting the Notices under the noses of the three farmers, Cyril dances a little jig on the spot. At last,' he sighs deeply, using the Notices to fan himself, ‘I, Cyril Sprogg, have vindicated the family name. Ah,' he says spinning around in his dance, ‘I see the police have arrived. And just in time too. I'm sure they'll be happy to escort you off these premises as all this,' he says waving his hands in the air, ‘now belongs to me.'

‘To you?' Harry repeats as he watches four police officers get out of the paddy wagon and stand a few feet away in front of the crowd of stunned farmers. ‘But I thought the Bank was taking over the farms. Aren't you going to have a public auction today?'

‘Ah,' Cyril says grinning from ear to ear, ‘a little surprise for you. With my associate, Mr Toby Roberts, the Town Planner, I've formed a company called ‘B.E.Ware Developments'. And our company has put in the one and only bid for your three properties. Personally, I have arranged for the Bank to finance us, and soon we'll have a great estate going up on your land. Of course, the Folly will have to be bulldozed.'

The gang gasps in horror.

‘Or maybe,' he gloats, ‘I could personally burn it down just as the original Siril Sprog wanted to do.'

‘Well that's very clever of you,' Harry says sourly, eyeing the four stationary police. ‘I guess you win after all, Cyril.'

Cyril preens himself, his shoulders straightening. ‘Yes, at last, I, Cyril Sprogg win the day. And my ancestor is vindicated.'

‘So, tell me Cyril,' Harry says despondently, ‘seeing you've won, I'm still curious to know how you managed everything so efficiently.'

‘Curious?' Cyril echoes, unaware that he's still holding the Notices in his hand.

‘Yes, curious. I mean, how did you know the hemp crop would start falling over? Or was that just luck?'

‘No such thing as luck, Harry Hepplewhite. You have to grab luck by the scruff of its neck.' Useless bares his teeth and Cyril takes a step back.

‘You don't mean to say you knew the crop was going to fall over?' Jimmy asks astonished.

‘I certainly did,' Cyril says proudly. ‘A stroke of genius on my part, even if I do say so myself.'

‘But how did you know?' Ted asks intrigued.

‘You really want to know?' Cyril asks, beaming at the three unhappy but curious farmers. ‘Now that
was
a stroke of luck, I must say. You see,' he says almost confidentially, ‘on our honeymoon, Norah and I happened to visit South America. And while we were there, the place was buzzing with news of these strange insects called Argentinian Siesta Mites. Apparently, they had been smuggled out of a science laboratory and were going to be sold to people who wanted to destroy their opponents' crops so the price of their own crop would go up. That explains why the Mites were released into the Pampas of Argentina. In no time, the wheat crop was falling over, having been sung to sleep by the Mites. Now, I knew you were planting a new crop, hemp, and that it was pest resistant. So I smuggled the Mites in to this country.'

‘But how?' Ted asks curious.

Cyril Sprogg reaches into his fob pocket for his watch. He presses a button and the silver top springs open. Then he presses down on the glass with his thumbs and it pops out. ‘When I was here New Year's Day, I simply took out the glass, palming it into my hand, and shook the Mites over the new puppies. It was so easy. Then that useless dog of yours, what's his name?'

‘Useless,' Harry mutters.

Cyril laughs hysterically. ‘Of course! Useless! Well Useless did the rest of the work for me. In fact, he was very “useful” to me. You know, he went off running all over the hemp crop and, of course, the Mites jumped off him and into the crop. And whenever they wanted a decent meal, they jumped back on to Useless and his pups.'

‘Oh, no,' Harry groans. ‘So it was Useless who spread the Mites throughout the district. That's what caused the crops to fall over.'

Norah Sprogg was right after all,
Lucy thinks.
There was a blight on our farm. And it was carried by our very own, faithful dog.

‘Even better than I expected,' Cyril says, turning around and beaming at the nearest police officer who smiles back politely. ‘Useless did my work for me. Now the Bank can call in other people's mortgages and B.E.Ware Developments will be there to take them over. Very clever, don't you think?' Cyril asks beaming at the other police officers.

‘Very clever, sir,' the sergeant says. ‘Very clever indeed.'

‘I thought so,' Cyril says laughing. ‘Now, watch carefully, Sergeant as I hand these men their Notices.' With a flourish, Cyril thrusts a Notice into the hands of the three unwilling farmers. ‘Now then, Sergeant, do your job. These men have been served with their papers. And all these other farmers are witnesses. So, now, you can escort each of them off their farms. It's high time justice prevailed.'

‘You're right there, sir,' the sergeant says as he steps forward to stand next to Cyril Sprogg. And as the bank manager rubs his hands together gleefully, the Sergeant takes out his handcuffs and cuffs the wrists of Cyril Sprogg.

‘What are you doing?' Cyril Sprogg shouts indignantly. ‘These are the people you should be handcuffing, not me. You have to march these three off their land, not me. After all, I'm the new owner.'

‘Somehow,' the sergeant says putting the key in his pocket, ‘I don't think the judge will see it that way, sir. I have many witnesses here, including three police officers, who heard you say how you'd brought in a pest from overseas which means Customs and Excise will be wanting to have a word with you. Also, there's the little matter of you using your position in the Bank to set out to wilfully destroy the livelihood of these three farmers. And then you generously explained how you'd cleverly plotted to take over these men's farms through fraud and deception. And all of this you did in collusion with the Town Planner, Mr Toby Roberts. So, I should think it will be you sitting in gaol for an even longer term than the original Siril Sprogg. Now, there's a record you can be proud of.'