Red Dirt Diary 3 (8 page)

Flipper won because he attacked Nick when they got to the vegie patch. Nick was still thrashing around in agony when Flipper tumbled back to the coop. Who knew a face full of pigeon pecks could hurt so much?

The Colonel took a little tin from his pocket, pulled out six tiny round sticking plasters and patched them over Nick's wounds. Everyone gathered around, trying to see what else the Colonel had in his useful little tin, but he snapped the lid shut and popped it back in his pocket. Jack reckons he saw a tiny hammer and some nails. Tom said there was a candle stub and three matches. Grace thought there were tea bags and
mini Easter eggs. Davo swears he saw a little stick of dynamite. How can I possibly turn people against a bloke who carries tiny tins of dynamite in his pocket? It's just too, too cool.

Wednesday, 30 May

Woken at 5.40 am by Gunther and Macka squealing at the foxes. Wes and Fez ran outside and somersaulted across the garden in their pyjamas, screaming and laughing like maniacs. They scared the foxes, Gunther, Macka, Gertrude, Doris, Mildred and the three rabbits away across the paddocks.

Heaps of kids brought little tins and boxes to school in their pockets today. Everyone wants to keep what they have inside a secret, but I did see Worms eating jelly beans from his tin, and Harry took a little car out of his box that he played with in the sandpit. I think Jack has a frog in his because it keeps croaking.

Thursday, 31 May

Flipper has moved to Hillrose Poo. The new carrier pigeons should arrive at school tomorrow and the Colonel said we needed to make room for them. He sent the Birmingham Rollers home
with eight different families. Everyone thought Nick should take Flipper because they have so much in common, but Nick said he doesn't want a psycho pigeon living at his house.

Flipper's living with the chooks. There's no roof on the chicken yard, but he can't fly, so it doesn't matter. Wes, Fez and I spent all afternoon feeding him toast and Vegemite in the chicken coop so he associates his new home with happy memories. Petal is jealous. She waddled into a nesting box to sulk, then wouldn't come out when we left.

I'm really excited about tomorrow's
Bake Tribulation
. I love being an editor. I think our paper represents the true Hardbake Plains.

The classifieds are all ready to go:

Poor Ben and Grace. Ben didn't even say anything when he came to school.

Friday, 1 June

An exciting day — eight new carrier pigeons
and
a brand-new edition of
The Bake Tribulation
.

The pigeons are beautiful and have already been named — Blue (because it is white with freckles on its face like me — how rude!!!), Tiny Tim (the fattest one), Blacky, Browny, Greyey, Whitey, Patch and Feathers.

Worms named Feathers. When we asked why, he said, ‘Duh! Because it has
feathers
!'

Worms is quite concerned that Feathers might feel the cold because he doesn't have fur like all the other pigeons. We tried to explain that
all
birds have feathers, but his tummy started rumbling. He was too hungry to pay attention.

The second edition of
The Bake Tribulation
is a ripper, although I'm not sure how happy Mat will be when she reads part two of her romance:

Ben and his dodgy printing! Looks like Banjo's poem got tangled up with the words of Mat's romance. It's funny how that happens with computers sometimes.

Although I'm not so sure Mat will think it's funny …

Saturday, 2 June

Mat
wasn't
amused.

We went over to the Sweeneys' for tennis and a barbecue lunch today, but I ended up spending all day in Mat's bedroom passing her tissues, and saying lame things like ‘There, there' and ‘The road to love is never easy'.

‘Ben ruined my romance
again
!' Mat cried. ‘Edmund was meant to tell Elizabeth that the sight of her face makes his heart soar on angels'
wings, not that the sight of her face makes him want to vomit.'

Mat cried so hard that snot was streaming out both her nostrils, and the sight of
her
face made
me
want to vomit!

But a friend is a friend, so I gave her a hug and told her that nobody would even notice. And besides, it was quite impressive that Elizabeth was still able to tumble away merrily down the street after Edmund had been so mean. I thought that showed great strength of character on Elizabeth's part.

Mat gave me a withering stare, burst into tears again, and said the tumbling, rolling, somersaulting, spinning part was the WORST OF ALL.

‘Imagine how her long skirt and petticoats and legs would have flown up in the air!' cried Mat.

‘She would have flashed her bloomers all over the place!' she sobbed.

‘It would have been the most humiliating moment of Elizabeth's life!' she shrieked.

Mat threw herself on her bed and cried and cried and cried.

We ran out of tissues.

By the time I went home at four o'clock, I was exhausted and I hadn't played a single game of tennis. Phew! What an afternoon.

It was a relief to come home and have some tumbling races with Wes, Fez and Flipper. Flipper won six races, I won three, and Fez tumbled down the old pit trap for the foxes. Wes staggered around laughing so much at Fez that he tripped over and fell down the pit on top of Fez.

Sunday, 3 June

We let Flipper out of the chicken coop today and he tumbled backwards across the grass until he collided with Mrs Whittington. She was sweeping the dirt off the driveway, even though the whole thing is made of dirt.

Flipper got cross and started pecking Mrs Whittington on the ankles. Mrs W swung the broom back like a hockey stick and belted Flipper so hard that he tumbled backwards all the way to the veranda. Poor thing.

Will post the next edition of
The Bake Tribulation
to Miss McKenzie tomorrow. I'll also send one of Flipper's feathers and our school photo from last year. Just so she knows what she's missing out on.

Monday, 4 June

Everyone was talking about ‘Heart's Triumph' on the bus this morning. Tom and Jack were discussing why Edmund wanted to vomit when he looked at Elizabeth's face. Tom said she must be really ugly. Jack said eyes like blue poo would look gross,
and
they'd stink!

Ned said it was totally cool the way Elizabeth went tumbling away at the end of the story. He thought she might turn out to be a Birmingham Roller, like in those stories where people turn out to be spiders or tigers, take over the earth and eat all the people for vitamins. Nick said Elizabeth would probably peck Edmund and Barry the butcher to death before the serial ended — like a science-fiction blood-and-guts action story. Now everyone is really excited about what will happen in the next episode.

You'd think Mat would be pleased to have written such a popular serial, but she's not. She sat up the front of the bus, blowing her nose and pretending not to hear. Then, when we got to school, she punched Ben in the nose for ruining her romance story, her real-life romance with Warren from Warren AND HER WHOLE ENTIRE LIFE. It was a darned shame because
Gabby was away sick and she would have loved dealing with all that blood and bruising.

Worms spent the day carrying Feathers around inside his jumper in case he got cold. Everyone thought he was silly, but it turned out to be lucky. When the Colonel opened the door to the pigeon coop today, all the pigeons flew out and headed off towards Wagga Wagga. Only Feathers stayed behind because he was asleep, snuggled up against Worms's chest.

I was about to give a loud laugh, full of scorn and ridicule, but the Colonel looked devastated.

‘Never mind,' I said encouragingly. ‘They're sure to be back by sundown.'

And then, before I realised what I was doing, I
smiled
and gave him a
hug
.

WHAT WAS I THINKING????

I'm so confused!

Do I want to get rid of the Colonel or not?

Tuesday, 5 June

Seven carrier pigeons were sitting in the pigeon coop when we arrived at school. Everyone was so excited, except for Banjo, Mat and me. It was kind of obvious that they weren't the same pigeons as we had yesterday. Whitey had grown
big brown spots, Blacky had turned dark grey overnight, Patch's patches had shrunk and Tiny Tim was now the smallest pigeon of them all.

I mentioned this to Mr Cluff. He said not to tell anyone, but the Colonel had driven all the way over to Gilgandra last night to pick up some new pigeons, just so the little kids wouldn't be sad. I was going to point out that he probably didn't want people to see that he'd messed up the whole pigeon thing YET AGAIN, but I didn't. It really was very kind of him, and the pigeons are beautiful. They're one of the best things we've ever had at school.

Lucy and Gabby spent all of lunch time shampooing Whitey to try to get the brown spots off his feathers. Jack and Davo spent all of recess and lunch time trying to feed their chocolate crackles and chips to Tiny Tim to fatten him up again. They also handed me another article for the newspaper:

Mrs Whittington wandered past the chicken coop this evening and Flipper went bonkers. He tumbled backwards into a corner, shook all over and hid his head beneath his wing. Poor thing.

Wednesday, 6 June

Woken at 6 am by the foxes. Wes and Fez climbed up onto the roof and pelted boots, rocks and scones down at them. Mum was really mad
because the scones were to take for the Queen's Birthday morning tea at the CWA.

The Colonel gave us an advanced climbing course today. We revised wall walking, swinging and winching. Then the Colonel led us around to the end of the sports shed where he had set up a climbing wall by screwing hand and foot grips into the bricks. It was so cool. He said that we could use it any time we liked once we'd learnt to climb safely.

We spent the rest of the day rotating around five groups: walking up and down the toilet walls, swinging like Tarzan across Sam's compost heap, winching ourselves up the flagpole, scrambling on our tummies along the balance beam and traversing the sports shed wall. It was great fun. Even Matilda Jane the Mature loved it. She forgot to be angry with Ben and cheered when he made it across the new climbing wall.

Unfortunately, Sam fell into his compost heap when he was swinging across, and killed his favourite worm. He felt really bad. Gabby felt pretty crook too. She tried to revive the worm with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, breathed in too hard and swallowed it.

Just as we were all walking out the front gate at home time, Dora called out from the top of the flagpole, ‘Excuse me! I'd like to get down now!' Fair enough, too. She'd been stuck up there for nearly an hour.

Wes and Fez spent all evening screwing little blocks of wood to the wall outside their bedroom and rigging up ropes all over the veranda. Mum will freak when she sees all the holes they've drilled into the mud walls.

Normally I would point out every single bit of destruction to Mum then blame it on the Colonel but, honestly, it JUST DOESN'T WORK. Everyone loves him.

And why wouldn't they? He really is heaps of fun.

Besides, we all know that Wes and Fez are totally feral regardless of who is teaching them and what new ideas are put into their heads.

I give up. My plan to get rid of the Colonel has failed.

In fact, if I'm honest, I really don't want to get rid of him.

It's time to get Miss McKenzie back using Plan B …

Only trouble is, I don't have a Plan B!

Thursday, 7 June

Received three articles for the next paper today.

‘Zombie flesh-eater let loose at primary school' by Sam tells of Gabby's unsuccessful attempt to resuscitate Anthony the worm.

‘My life as a flag' has been written by Dora with a little help from her mum: