Million-Dollar Mess Down Under Read online

  Don’t get me wrong: I wasn’t too happy about being turned into an omelet with bruised shins, but coming on top of being named “Elephant Boy” AND with that being my first day, if I came in on Day Two with Mom in tow, my life at St. Mungo’s would be over. And, if that happened, we could kiss the million bucks goodbye.

  “I’ll be fine,” I said to Mom. “Let me handle it.”

  I sounded confident. I sounded like I knew how to handle myself. The trouble was, I had literally NO IDEA how I was going to force myself back into St. Mungo’s after everything that had happened. Based on Day One, Mrs. Fitzpatrick was probably going to be waiting at the gates for me armed with nuclear weapons.

  “Lyle bakes your face off right, old skinhead,” Mom said. “Murders and flies?”

  “Huh?” I yelled over the sound of the jackhammers. Had I driven her over the edge?

  “I said,” Mom screeched, “I’ll make your favorite for dinner! Burgers and fries?”

  I nodded. “Anything except eggs,” I said, and headed upstairs to de-omelet myself.

  Uncle Grey’s wreck of a house didn’t have a shower, but it did have hot water and a bath. Okay, the hot water only arrived in the bath after the pipes sounded like they were trying to escape through the walls, but it did eventually arrive. I filled the bath to the brim and got in.

  “Ow!” I said, and leapt out of the bathtub. I’d forgotten that bruised shins and hot water don’t mix.

  Eventually, though, I climbed into the tub and settled back for a spot of Serious Thinking. If I was going to survive ninety more days in the East Sydney High-security Prison—I mean, St. Mungo’s Very Posh School for Posh People—I was going to have to get creative and quick. I needed a plan. I needed protection. I don’t think I could stand another egging.

  The steam rose from the surface of the water and drifted over toward the vintage framed movie posters that covered one wall. They were all from, like, a million years ago: 1940 or 1950 or something. Old. Maybe they reminded Uncle Grey of being young. Who knew? Who cared? The important point is that one of them caught my eye.

  I scraped the last piece of egg off my ear and smiled. The siren blew on the freeway construction site and, for the first time since I’d arrived back from St. Mungo’s, 322 Lorikeet Drive fell silent. I stepped out of the bath (which had turned into a kind of revolting egg and cement soup) and got dressed in some non-regulation clothes.

  I had a plan.

  I’m not saying it was the best plan anyone had ever come up with—or even the best plan I had ever come up with—but it was definitely A Plan and that was good enough for me right now.

  AFTER A DELICIOUS dinner of murders and flies (see previous chapter), I got busy at the computer and designed what I needed in about an hour. It wasn’t hard—just a couple of logos and some words on one sheet of paper. I wrote a few names on the back with question marks next to them, then put the sheet of paper down on some dusty floorboards and rubbed it backward and forward a few times. I scrunched the sheet up into a ball before carefully unscrunching it again and folding it in four. For this to work, this thing had to look legit. I put it in a book in my backpack and left it until morning.

  Mom and Georgia both seemed to have settled into Sydney without ANY problems. Like, NONE. Georgia came back from her new school, burbling about all the friends she’d made. She even had an Australian accent.

  Okay, that was an exaggeration … but not by much. Clearly, it was only RAFE Khatchadorian in the Khatchadorian household who’d been singled out for special treatment by The Velociraptor, Mrs. Fitzpatrick and her pet mustache, Egg Girl, Captain Shiny Hair, and the rest of The Winners Club.

  Leaving Mom and Georgia watching Australian TV (something I seriously suggest you avoid unless you, y’know, actually want your brain to shrink), I spent the rest of that evening exploring number 322.

  Like I said earlier, Uncle Grey’s place was full of junk. Or, possibly, stuff that just appeared to be junk. For all I knew, it had been worth a fortune at one time.

  Say, sometime around 1889.

  Now, it was mostly junk.

  At the very top of the house I found a set of stairs leading up to the attic. I know what you’re thinking: he’s going to go up there and find a spooky secret. Maybe a ghost or two. Or the skeleton of some forgotten plumber.

  And you’d be wrong. What I found up there was WAAAY cooler than ghosts or skeletons.

  I found Uncle Grey’s art studio. It had everything an artist could possibly need—great big skylights letting in, um, light; boxes of paints; stacks of blank canvases; easels; brushes; palettes; paper; pencils; masking tape; rags; turpentine; charcoal. You name it, it was all there on the paint-spattered floorboards. The walls were covered in sketches and paintings. All of them looked like they’d been done by Uncle Grey. There was that same messy splodgyness, that spidery line work, that sense of fun. Okay, everything was totally covered in dust and cobwebs so thick I would probably have needed a chainsaw to cut through them, but, to me, it was a treasure cave (if that’s even a thing). An Aladdin’s cave. That’s what I mean.

  In the middle of the room was a huge canvas under a white sheet—the only protected item in the studio. I just knew that under that mysterious sheet lay Uncle Grey’s masterpiece. I had a sudden image of me lifting the sheet to reveal a painting so flat-out AMAZING that Sydney art galleries would be throwing money at me … if I was willing to sell.

  I flung off the sheet and saw … absolutely nothing.

  The canvas was blank.

  AFTER THE DISAPPOINTMENT of the blank canvas in the attic, I went to bed, slept like a log—I never understood that saying. Do logs even sleep? No, I didn’t think so—and woke up ready to face another day. Above my head, the jackhammers were silent and, through the dusty windows, I could see it was another gloriously sunny Sydney morning. That day at St. Mungo’s was fantastic. I made a bunch of great new friends and we spent the whole day eating cotton candy while dancing with unicorns across a glittering rainbow.

  Ha! I just put that stuff in to see if you were paying attention and it looks like some of you weren’t.

  So, there were (obvs) absolutely ZERO dancing unicorns, no rainbows, not a sniff of cotton candy, and definitely no new friends at St. Mungo’s High-security Prison when I went back. That’s not how life works. Not my life, anyway.

  No, the way Rafe Khatchadorian’s life works is more like this: Day Two at St. Mungo’s School for Very Posh People started pretty much like Day One. I didn’t get tripped up by Cory Tadpole-Blurt, but I did get two uniform demerits from Mrs. Fitzpatrick and one language demerit by a passing tree frog teacher. (Just to make it clear, he wasn’t teaching tree frogs. I didn’t know his name. He had a face like a tree frog.)

  But I made it to recess without adding anything more to Demerit Mountain. At this rate, I wouldn’t need to put The Plan into action.

  How wrong I was.

  After first period, I was heading toward my locker when I noticed Cory Topknot-Binman lurking nearby with a creepy smirk plastered all over his shiny face.

  I’m no Sherlock Holmes, but I knew this dude was up to something … and that something would probably not end well for me. I made a note to be on the lookout for Cory and the rest of the mental midgets in The Winners Club. I got to my locker, relieved to have made it past Tinpot-Berk without more trouble.

  I heaved a stack of new textbooks out of my bag (I was the New Kid, remember, and every teacher had handed me enough books to buckle the knees of a muscle-bound Mexican mule). Keeping one eye on my enemies, I opened my locker door and was hit smack in the kisser by a bat.

  Yep, you heard me, a bat.

  Not a baseball bat or a cricket bat. This was a bat bat. Like the flying, rat-faced, leathery, winged kind. And not just your standard-issue bat either. This was a great big, full-on horror-movie bat, which exploded out of my locker at roughly the velocity of an intercontinental ballistic missile.

  To say I was surprised would be putti
ng it mildly.

  Having a MASSIVE FLAPPY BAT explode in your face ranks right up there (or down there, more accurately) with discovering you’re standing on the back of a giant crocodile, and finding out you would be sharing a tent with Miller the Killer on Summer Camp—both of which I’d experienced.

  If I had to choose, I’d put the MASSIVE FLAPPY BAT at the top of that list of terrible experiences. My screams could be heard on Mars.

  Especially as the MASSIVE FLAPPY BAT got tangled in my hair. For about twenty seconds, I twitched and shook like a—well, like a dude with a MASSIVE FLAPPY BAT caught in his hair.

  Eventually, the disgusting thing let go and flapped off into the distance. I’m an environmentalist like everyone else, but when it comes to bats? I’m all for mass extermination.

  I sat up, dazed—had I mentioned I was on the floor?—and looked at the sea of laughing faces. For the second day in a row, Rafe Khatchadorian was the center of a SMEPEI (St. Mungo’s Extreme Public Embarrassment Incident).

  Cory Templeton-Bishbosh was nearby with his flock of cronies.

  I looked at him and he looked at me.

  This meant war.

  NOW, I HAD no proof that Captain Shiny Hair had anything to do with putting the MASSIVE FLAPPY BAT in my locker, but I didn’t need proof. I knew that creep had done it and, what’s more, he knew I knew he’d done it. You following?

  I was about to tell him exactly where he got off when I saw The Velociraptor approaching, his nose twitching at the scent of trouble.

  As soon as Cory spotted Principal Winton, he rushed over and started helping me to my feet. He changed his facial expression from “evil bully” to “concerned friend” in about 0.0006 of a second.

  “What on earth is going on here?” The Velociraptor hissed. He bit the head off a nearby sixth-grader and looked at me with his reptilian eyes while he munched.

  “Rafe was attacked by a bat, Principal Winton, sir,” Cory said. For a moment I thought Captain Shiny Hair was going to add “Your Highness.”

  “A bat?” The Velociraptor said.

  “Yes, sir. A fruit bat, I think, sir. Pteropus poliocephalus.”

  “You mean a flying fox?” The Velociraptor said.

  Okay, let me be the big buttinski here before Cory Tickly-Butt has a chance to reply.

  For anyone not Australian, this is the classic Aussie Animal Name Shimmy in action. Haven’t heard of it? It goes something like this:

  “Bats” are horrible, right? Basically, they’re blood-sucking, flea-bitten mutants—even the vegetarian ones. But in Australia they call things by fluffier, friendlier names to pretend they aren’t disgusting. For example, saying a bat is a “flying fox.” Much cuter, right? Or how about calling a great white shark a “white pointer”? Nowhere near as bitey. An 8-foot predatory lizard with sharp teeth and claws? Easy, that’s not a velociraptor, that’s a goanna. A wild dog that EATS people? A dingo. You get the idea?

  Right, back to the action.

  “You had a bat in your locker?” The Velociraptor said.

  “Don’t you mean a flying fox?” I said. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew I’d made a mistake.

  The Velociraptor leaned back, lifted his claws, and gave a kind of screech. “Three demerits!”

  I thought he was signaling for the rest of the raptors, but when I saw Mrs. Fitzpatrick snicker, I realized Principal Winton was laughing.

  “One for illegal storage of a winged nocturnal mammal on school property, one for insolence in correcting a superior officer, and one for no use of ‘sir’!”

  “Burn the witch!” Mrs. Fitzpatrick yelled, her eyes glittering and her mustache vibrating like an angry caterpillar, although (now I think about it) she probably didn’t actually say “Burn the witch” out loud. Even St. Mungo’s wouldn’t allow the public burning of students … Would they? But she looked like she wanted to say it.

  I was about to argue back when I had an extremely rare MoM—a Moment of Maturity. Arguing would get me exactly nowhere. Arguing with The Velociraptor would only land me in more trouble and let Cory Timbuktoo-Buttface win. I flashed back to the cunning plan I’d put together last night.

  Be smart, whispered a voice in my head. (Again, not Leo. This was another voice in my head. It’s pretty crowded in there sometimes.)

  “It won’t happen again Principal Ve—Principal Winton, sir,” I groveled. “There’ll be no more flying foxes in my locker. And I’ll do my American best to improve my school manners, sir.”

  “Six demeri—Oh.” Principal Winton stopped mid-scream. “Oh, right. Yes, I see.”

  “And I’d like to put forward Cory for a School Spirit Award, if I may, your Sirship,” I said. I had no idea if there was such thing as a School Spirit Award, but I was guessing St. Mungo’s would be exactly the kind of joint that would have one. I knew it had school spirit because I’d been given a demerit for not having any. “Cory was the first one to check I was okay while everyone else was laughing. It wouldn’t be fair if that went unrewarded, Lord Volde—Principal Winton.”

  Cory looked at me, puzzled. I was betting this wasn’t going the way he thought it would go.

  “Y-ess,” Principal Winton said. He scratched his chin thoughtfully with one of his razor-sharp claws. It’s hard to fool a velociraptor. Principal Winton knew there was something fishy going on but he couldn’t quite place his talon on it. “I suppose a School Spirit Award might be appropriate.”

  See? I was right.

  The Velociraptor and Mrs. Fitzpatrick scuttled back to their lair and everyone else began drifting off.

  “Thanks, buddy,” I said to Cory, and walked away, lifting a book out of my bag and taking care to drop the sheet of paper I’d prepared last night.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Cory dart forward and pick it up. If I’d read this dude right, there was no way he’d tell me I’d dropped something. I kept walking and Cory didn’t say a word.

  Step One of The Plan was in action.

  I DIDN’T GET into any more trouble that day.

  That was a good thing.

  On the other hand, there was nothing exactly pleasurable either. I mean, I wasn’t expecting fun or anything—this was still school, after all—but I’d kinda hoped I’d meet at least one sorta kinda somewhat cool kid. Big Red, who I’d assumed would become my buddy, gave me the kiss-off about ten minutes after the bat incident. “I can’t be mates with someone who’s cruel to flying foxes,” he’d said, wiping away a tear.

  “Bats!” I yelled, but he was already halfway down the corridor. “Not moving so slowly now, are you?” I shouted, but Big Red was gone.

  So, at the end of another day, I was walking across the fields toward the back gates when I saw something terrible heading my way.

  Egg Girl.

  She was wearing decorated roller skates and sunglasses and a school uniform that definitely wasn’t the St. Mungo’s fancy dress. Egg Girl’s uniform was kind of messy: just shorts, T-shirt, and cap. She had a schoolbag slung over her shoulder and a set of headphones over her ears. If she’d been a St. Mungo’s student, she’d have made my demerit mountain seem like a bump in the road.

  I scanned the surroundings for somewhere to hide. (What do you mean “coward”? I’d been traumatized by my encounter with the MASSIVE bat, okay?) My shins began to throb. I don’t think they could take another kick. But there was nowhere to go and I was locked in Egg Girl’s tractor beam.

  EGG GIRL ZIPPED down the slope at about the same speed as a Japanese bullet train (198 miles an hour, if you must know) and showed no sign of stopping.

  Maybe that was her plan—to simply mash me into a sticky red stain on the St. Mungo’s school drive and head for the hills.

  She was still traveling at full speed when she got to within about two feet.

  “Don’t mash me!” I yelped, and clenched my buttocks.

  Instead, Egg Girl zipped around me in a tight circle and skidded gracefully to a stop without so much as touching me.r />
  My butt began to unclench. I eyed Egg Girl’s feet.

  “I’m not going to kick you, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she said as she hung her headphones around her neck.

  “N-no,” I replied. “I was, um, just admiring your roller-skate shoes—boots—or whatever.”

  “Hand-painted AeroGlide 1480s with rebored Glissande trolleys,” Egg Girl said. “Swedish-made carbon axles. Tungsten-reinforced chassis and an embedded performance-feedback microchip.”

  I blinked. Egg Girl knew a lot more than me about roller skates, which, considering all I knew was that they had wheels, wasn’t saying much.

  “Okay,” I said.

  She put out a hand. “Kasey Moran. Sorry.”

  “You’re sorry for being called Kasey Moran?” I was puzzled. I mean, my name is a bit of a mouthful but I’m not sorry about it.

  Egg Girl punched me in the arm. It wasn’t as bad as her shin kicks but it was still painful.

  “Ow!” I yelped. “Will you quit kicking and punching me?”

  “That’s my name, you doofus. The ‘sorry’ was for yesterday.” She pointed at my shins. “For the, uh, kicking and the egg stuff. I found out it wasn’t you who egged our house.”

  “You live at St. Mungo’s? I thought that was the caretaker’s house?”

  Kasey rolled her eyes and pointed a thumb at herself. “Yeah, my dad’s the caretaker?” She stepped forward and rapped her knuckles on my forehead. “Hello? Anyone home? Jeez.”

  “Ow!” I danced back a few steps out of range of Kasey and her knuckles. This was the most painful apology I’d ever received. It may have been the ONLY apology I’d ever received. I couldn’t think of anything to say so I just kind of stood there like a dummy.