Alice-Miranda in the Outback Read online

  Neither Millie nor Larry could read the ornate script. Alice-Miranda peered in closely.

  ‘The water on the table boasts a colourful feast, where Hope Springs eternal beneath a hungry rusty beast,’ the girl read. ‘Is it a riddle?’

  ‘It sounds like one,’ Larry said.

  ‘What do you think it means?’ Millie asked, the words coming out wrapped in a yawn.

  ‘That there,’ Larry pointed at the map. ‘I think that’s the boab tree. It’s native to the Kimberley region in Western Australia, but somehow we have one growing in this paddock about a hundred kilometres from the homestead. Apparently, our great-great-grandfather had a fence built around it so that it couldn’t be damaged by the stock, since it was considered so unusual. Molly says that the boab has all sorts of medicinal value. We haven’t been out there for a long time.’

  ‘Is there anything else that you recognise?’ Millie asked.

  Larry shook her head and rubbed her eyes. ‘I’m too tired to think any more. Maybe we can work it out in the morning.’

  Alice-Miranda felt a shiver of exhaustion run through her body. She set Junie down on the table.

  ‘We’re much more likely to solve it after we’ve had some sleep,’ the girl said. They left the book open on the desk. Junie leapt down and followed them back to bed.

  No one noticed the shadow on the front veranda, or heard the man enter the room through the unlocked French doors. He flicked on a torch and looked around, but he didn’t have to search far, having overheard the girls’ conversation. Now he had exactly what he needed.

  ‘You’re not as useless as I thought,’ the fellow said, glaring at Sprocket as he was presented with the other half of the map. ‘Didn’t think to get some sticky tape did you, so I could put it back together? And what’s this red blob here? Better not be your blood, old timer.’

  ‘Bolognaise sauce,’ Sprocket replied. ‘And who are you to be calling me “old timer”. You must be sixty-five if you’re a day.’

  ‘That’s none of your business. I’m glad you had something tasty for dinner,’ he said sarcastically. He motioned at the empty tins of baked beans which he’d eaten cold and had been suffering the consequences of ever since.

  ‘That explains the air in here.’ Sprocket sniffed and screwed up his nose.

  The man let one rip, then smirked. ‘Smells like sunshine to me.’

  Sprocket gagged. More like rotten egg gas. He may have lived on his own a long time, but he prided himself on behaving in a manner that would have made his old mum proud, unlike this fellow who quite likely had been raised by dingoes.

  ‘I’m curious about something,’ Sprocket said. ‘How did you know Alice-Miranda had the map, and why did you leave your car on the side of the road with the door open?’

  ‘Urgent call of nature. I had a bad chilli dog in Coober Pedy and it caught up with me in a hurry. If they’d stepped a few metres further they’d have seen me behind the mulga tree – it was just lucky I spotted them first and kept out of sight,’ Wally replied. ‘Didn’t fancy being caught with my pants down. And I didn’t need any nosey tourists asking questions.’

  ‘That’s funny. I told the kids much the same story. So what’s the plan then?’ Sprocket asked. ‘I imagine you’ll be keen to get wherever you’re going. I’ll just stay here and look after the kids until their parents return.’

  The man frowned. ‘Ah, no. You can’t stay here. I need a labourer and, while you might be old, you’re a wiry little ferret. You’re coming with me.’

  ‘But I thought you said that if I got you what you wanted, you’d let me go.’ Sprocket swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple practically lodging in his throat.

  ‘I did. But I didn’t say when. Besides, you told those kids that ute belonged to you. Would seem mighty suspicious if it just disappeared overnight and you were safe and sound here,’ the man said, sitting down at the old laminex table to pore over the map and the riddle that went with it. Wherever that ute goes, you go with it – until I say you don’t.’

  Sprocket turned around and peered out the window into the starry sky.

  ‘What am I supposed to tell the kids then?’ he said.

  ‘Nothing,’ the bloke grinned. ‘We’ll be gone before they get up.’

  ‘They’ll think I’m a thief.’ Sprocket’s jaw flapped open.

  ‘Better you than me,’ the fellow said. ‘Now, clear out these cupboards and go and see what else you can find.’

  ‘What if I wake the kids?’ Sprocket said.

  The man looked at Sprocket and shook his head. ‘Not in the main house, you dopey sod. Next door in the empty place.’

  Sprocket felt sick. Lying and thieving didn’t sit well with him at all. And on top of worrying whether he’d ever find his way back home again, he’d been thinking about Dan. Where was he? He wouldn’t have left Junie. Something had happened to the silly old coot. Sprocket just hoped it wasn’t fatal.

  Alice-Miranda was woken by the sound of the phone ringing. She rolled over and looked down at the digital clock on the bedside cabinet, stunned to see that it was half past nine. The girls were all still asleep and, given the ringing hadn’t stopped, she presumed the boys were too. Junie jumped down from Larry’s bed and let out a hungry meow.

  Alice-Miranda scrambled to the floor and hurried through the kitchen and into the pantry, where she picked up the handset.

  ‘Good morning, Hope Springs,’ she said. ‘Alice-Miranda speaking.’

  ‘Hello sweetheart. How are you all,’ came the voice of Hugh.

  ‘Hello Daddy, we’re fine. Everyone’s had a very late sleep in. I think we were all exhausted.’

  Her father updated her on Lawrence’s condition. He was getting stronger, but the doctors were keen to keep him under observation for another day or so.

  ‘Will Uncle Barnaby be back later today?’ the child asked, presuming that her father would stay with her uncle until he was healthy enough to return.

  ‘I expect so. He’ll fly back as soon as he can,’ Hugh replied.

  ‘Okay, Daddy. Don’t worry about us. We’re fine here.’ She twirled a long curl around her finger while her father passed on information from Barnaby about the arrival of the cattle truck, which would be out soon to pick up the stock they’d mustered yesterday. They didn’t have to do anything, he assured her. The driver and his offsider would load them.

  ‘I’ll let Larry and Hayden know. Speak to you later. Give Uncle Lawrence our love. Lucas and Jacinta were particularly upset about the snake bite, so I’ll be glad to tell them that he’s improved and is only staying for observation,’ the child said. ‘Love you.’ And with that she hung up.

  Alice-Miranda picked up a box of Weet-Bix on her way out of the pantry. She found a bowl in the cupboard and got the milk from the fridge.

  Junie padded into the room and meowed.

  ‘Sorry, kitty. Would you like some breakfast too?’ the girl asked, and returned to the pantry where she located a tin of cat food that would have been stocked for Simba. It wasn’t long before the two of them were eating in companionable silence. A few minutes later, Hayden appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Gosh, we never sleep in this late,’ the boy said as he grabbed a bowl from the cupboard and got himself some cereal too. ‘Have you seen Sprocket this morning?’

  Alice-Miranda shook her head. ‘Might go and have a look after I get dressed. Daddy called and said Uncle Lawrence is doing well, but they want him to remain in hospital under observation for another day or so. Daddy’s going to stay with him, but your father should be home sometime this morning in the helicopter and the truck’s due shortly . . .’ Her sentence was cut short by the arrival of the road train rumbling up the drive.

  ‘Oh, I forgot about that,’ Hayden said. He shovelled the last spoonful of cereal into his mouth and jumped up. ‘I’d better get out there. Hopefully it’s one of the regular drivers and he’ll know what’s what.’

  ‘I’ll get changed,’ Alice-Miranda said, and dump
ed her breakfast bowl on the edge of the sink. In the sleep-out, she found Millie and the others awake and in various stages of dress. She put on her clothes and rushed out to the back veranda, where she grabbed her boots and hat and headed out to help Hayden.

  As she charged up the driveway to the yards she realised Sprocket’s white ute was missing. She wondered where he could have gone, given the nearest shops were over four hours’ drive away and he’d promised to stay until the others returned. Perhaps he’d just moved it round the back of the sheds or something – but why was anyone’s guess. While Sprocket was easily distracted, she didn’t think he’d simply abandon them.

  Millie swatted at the flies, which seemed to have swarmed into mini tornadoes while the cattle were being loaded.

  The children gave Bert and his offsider, Jase, a wave as the road train lurched forward on its long journey to the South Australian Livestock Exchange, about an hour north-west of Adelaide. They wouldn’t get there until the early hours of the following morning, but at least there were two of them to share the driving.

  It had taken almost two hours to herd the five-hundred head of cattle onto the four trailers. Bert and Jase did most of the heavy lifting, with some help from Hayden and Larry. The men had been shocked to hear that one of the station guests was in hospital recovering from a snake bite. Jase then shared several close calls of his own, including a recent run-in with an inland taipan, which didn’t do much to settle Millie’s nerves.

  She and Alice-Miranda had busied themselves making tea and sandwiches for the men, while Lucas was on hand to fetch and carry as required. Jacinta had begged off with a headache and was spending the day in front of the television with a cold flannel on her forehead. Millie wasn’t sure if she was genuinely unwell, or still stricken about what had happened to Lawrence, but given Jase’s stories it was probably for the best.

  Earlier, Alice-Miranda had done a lap of the sheds and outbuildings to see if Sprocket’s car had been moved somewhere else, then she did a quick check of the dongas to see if perhaps he’d fallen asleep inside, but he was nowhere to be found.

  ‘Good job, everyone,’ Hayden said now as they headed for the homestead. They all had a speedy wash before cool drinks were dispensed, and an Anzac slice that Larry had taken out of the freezer the night before was consumed with gusto.

  Alice-Miranda looked in on Jacinta, who was snoozing on the lounge with Junie curled into her tummy. She walked back to the kitchen without waking the pair.

  ‘Has anyone seen Sprocket?’ Alice-Miranda asked.

  The others all shook their heads.

  ‘His ute’s gone,’ Millie said. ‘So much for him looking after us until Barnaby got back.’

  Larry scoffed. ‘Few roos loose in the top paddock, you might say.’

  ‘He’ll probably turn up and tell us he just went for a drive in the countryside or something,’ Hayden said.

  Alice-Miranda reached for another piece of Anzac slice. Sprocket was an odd one, that’s for sure.

  ‘Do you want to see if we can make any more sense of that map?’ she asked.

  Millie explained to Hayden and Lucas what they’d discovered the previous night.

  ‘Sure,’ the boys replied, and the children made their way to the study at the front of the house.

  ‘Didn’t you leave that open?’ Millie pointed at the now-closed book.

  Alice-Miranda frowned and nodded.

  Larry turned the pages, looking for the torn section. She thought she was in about the right place when she spotted the jagged edges close to the spine.

  ‘Our half is gone!’ she declared.

  ‘What do you mean it’s gone?’ Millie said. ‘It was there when we went to bed.’

  There was a short silence until the children all had the same thought at once.

  ‘Sprocket!’ the children exclaimed.

  ‘He must have come for the map,’ Alice-Miranda said. ‘He was just pretending to be in the neighbourhood and that’s why he was so desperate to get the other half back.’

  ‘But how would he know about it?’ Millie said, shaking her head.

  Hayden was pacing up and down the length of the room, while Lucas was deep in thought.

  ‘It had an “X” on it, didn’t it?’ Lucas said.

  ‘Yes,’ Alice-Miranda said. ‘The bit I found on the way out here did – but that’s the part I gave to Sprocket.’

  ‘He was so evasive about what it was when you asked him yesterday,’ Larry said.

  ‘It’s got to be the treasure map. Molly must be right about the legend of the opal deposit somewhere on Hope Springs,’ Hayden said.

  ‘Well, if it’s true and there is a fortune out there, it’s on our land, so technically he’d be stealing it,’ Larry said.

  Alice-Miranda pointed at the riddle on the facing page and brought their attention back to the book. ‘Okay – given you said that the boab tree was in the top left corner, we know that the map covers the area about one hundred kilometres to the north of the homestead, and the “X” was to the east of that. So what could this mean?’ She recited the riddle for everyone.

  Hayden sat down in the swivel chair and spun around, tapping his finger against his chin.

  ‘There’s no surface water out that way at all,’ he said.

  ‘But we have water because it comes from the bores,’ Larry said.

  ‘The water table!’ Hayden said. ‘But it’s well below ground level.’

  Lucas had perched on one of the lower rungs of the library ladder. ‘The colourful feast has got to be the opals.’

  ‘What about the hungry rusty beast?’ Millie said. ‘Are there any old trucks or cars out there?’

  Larry slumped against the desk. ‘Lots. There’s abandoned tractors and farm equipment and some cars and trucks that I’ve seen when we’ve been going round the property. They’re spread out for miles – it would take forever to find them all.’

  ‘We don’t need to find them all,’ Alice-Miranda grinned. ‘We just need to find the right one.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ Jacinta appeared in the doorway and yawned widely.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Millie asked the girl. She felt bad for having given her friend a bit of a hard time since they’d set out on the trip.

  ‘Fine. Hungry, actually. Is there anything to eat?’ Jacinta asked.

  Millie offered to go and make her a sandwich while everyone else brought the girl up to speed on what they’d discovered.

  Millie looked out the louvres on the back veranda on the way to the kitchen and noticed a cloud of dust swirling behind the sheds.

  ‘Hey!’ she called. ‘I think Sprocket’s back.’

  There was a stampede as the rest of the children ran down the hallway to join her. But the dust kept swirling as if the vehicle was driving straight past. Alice-Miranda grabbed her boots and pulled them on, then charged out into the backyard and through the gate to the sheds. She ran around the corner just in time to see the white ute hurtling away along the road past the cattle yards.

  Hayden was right behind her.

  ‘He’s gone again,’ the girl puffed. Alice-Miranda stared into the distance.

  She was thinking about everything that had happened the day before when she remembered something unusual that she’d seen when she’d gone looking for Sprocket earlier. ‘Come with me,’ Alice-Miranda said, and grabbed the boy’s hand, pulling him towards the staff dongas.

  She ran up the veranda steps and into the first of the huts.

  ‘What are we looking for?’ Hayden asked as Alice-Miranda pushed open the door.

  ‘Sprocket said that he was going to sleep in his swag outside last night, but when I came looking earlier I saw that the bed was all mussed up in here.’

  ‘I did offer for him to sleep inside, so he could have changed his mind,’ Hayden replied.

  ‘I imagine he does that quite often, but what about those?’ She pointed at three empty tins of baked beans sitting on the sink.

  ‘Sp
rocket said last night at dinner that he was glad not to have to eat baked beans as they were his least favourite food.’ Hayden nodded. ‘Do you think someone else is with him then?’

  Alice-Miranda peered into the rubbish bin and found three cigarette stubs.

  ‘Does anyone who lives here smoke?’ she asked.

  Hayden shook his head. ‘None of Molly’s family do.’

  ‘And neither does Sprocket either. He told us he didn’t when we were at his dugout,’ the girl explained.

  ‘Alice-Miranda!’ Millie called.

  ‘We’re in here,’ Hayden yelled. Millie and Larry raced up the stairs and into the donga next door by mistake. But it was just as well they did.

  ‘Hey, guys, where are you? You need to see this!’ Larry called.

  Alice-Miranda and Hayden ran to find them. Jacinta and Lucas were there now too.

  ‘Whoa, this place is filthy,’ Hayden said as the dust particles danced on the sunbeam that streamed through the back window.

  ‘Not important,’ Larry said and pointed at the dark red laminex table top.

  Written in dust across the centre were the words, ‘Kids, help! He’s going to ki.. me. The map. Sprock . . .’

  The last few words were smudged almost as if he’d rubbed them out, but the message was clear.

  ‘Sprocket’s been kidnapped!’ Alice-Miranda declared.

  ‘And I don’t think whoever has him is planning to kiss him, do you?’ Millie said.

  ‘No wonder he couldn’t describe the map properly – he came to get it for someone else,’ Jacinta said.

  ‘I didn’t look in here earlier – only next door. Then I just ran along calling Sprocket’s name and opening and closing the doors. Oh my goodness. I don’t think that is his white ute after all,’ Alice-Miranda said.

  ‘Come on, we need to go after them,’ Larry said.

  A row of frown lines took up residence on Jacinta’s forehead. ‘What? Out there – again? With all the snakes and the dinosaur lizards and the pterodactyls. Count me out.’

  ‘Seriously,’ Millie started, then noticed a fierce look from Alice-Miranda. ‘Seriously, it’s a great idea if you stay here and look after the house and Junie and wait until Barnaby gets back. I imagine he shouldn’t be too long if he’s coming by chopper . . . And we should probably let your father and Hugh know what’s happening too.’