Escape to Australia Read online

  And by the time I did eventually scramble my way past the crashing white foam, I was a total wreck. I worked so hard to get to that point that I swear my eyeballs were sweating. My eyeballs! I didn’t even know eyeballs could sweat.

  And all of those problems were accompanied by another, bigger fear—sharks.

  The entire time I was getting knocked around by the waves and gulping down lungfuls of salt water, there was the constant terror that somewhere beneath me was a FREAKIN’ HUGE SHARK.

  I swear I could hear the theme from Jaws playing over the sound of the waves.

  Whatever huge monstrosity was down there could probably throw me up in the air like it was tossing a marshmallow. At the top of my arc I would, just for a second, hang in the air above the beast—did I mention it was HUGE?—and see people on the beach running around like ants, screaming and panicking like you would if you’d just seen a FREAKIN’ HUGE SHARK.

  And then I’d be falling down, down, down, right into its gaping red maw.

  Of course, since I’m still here writing this, you’ve probably already guessed that I didn’t get eaten by a FREAKIN’ HUGE SHARK. But surfing that morning on Bloodspurt Beach was, hands down, the worst hour of my life—worse than getting beat up by Miller the Killer before our truce. Worse than getting expelled. Worse than the worst thing you can think of times six. I think I swallowed about 8 percent of the Pacific Ocean. It was like being trapped inside a giant washing machine set to Spin. The ocean played with my rag-doll body for an hour and then spat me ashore like a gorilla spitting out an orange seed.

  After all that, you’d think I’d be grateful to be back on dry land, and I would have been, except that when I did finally get back to the beach, I was unconscious.

  As it turns out, that was the least of my problems.

  THE NAKED TRUTH

  Being shredded by a massive wave after spending an hour in heavy surf is not recommended. I would have kicked the bucket for sure if it hadn’t been for the dark-haired girl from the Outsiders.

  When my skinny, surf-bashed body washed up into the shallows (I found out later), she sprinted across the sand, turned me over, and started giving me mouth-to-mouth.

  That was when I woke up and thanked my rescuer by coughing a lungful of Pacific Ocean all over her.

  (Side note: What is it with us Khatchadorians? We just can’t stop puking on Australians!)

  The dark-haired girl jumped to her feet, spattered with Khatchadorian lung drool. Then she turned on her heel and stalked back toward the trees, which was understandable.

  I sat up. “Wait!” I yelled, or at least I would have if my lungs hadn’t been filled with another sixty-eight gallons of salt water. I coughed up another bucketload, then heaved myself up and ran after her. “Wait up!” I yelled.

  I ran right through the busiest part of the beach, and as I ran, I began to notice a strange sound getting louder and louder. My ears were full of water, so I ignored it and pursued my rescuer.

  When the dark-haired girl reached the tree, she glanced back and, spotting me, put her hand to her mouth in shock. At that same moment, the water blocking my ears was dislodged and sound rushed in.

  The first thing I heard was laughter—lots of it. And a few screams.

  I glanced around. About eleven billion Australians were standing up, pointing at me, and laughing.

  I mean, I knew I wasn’t the best surfer ever, but this reaction was a bit over-the-top. I almost drowned! And my swim trunks weren’t that ridiculous, were they? I glanced down at them to check for myself and realized instantly why the good people of Shark’s Bay were laughing.

  My psychedelic, Day-Glo, see-them-from-space shorts had been ripped to shreds, and I’d left the last shred on the beach when I started running. I was completely, absolutely, totally naked.

  CAN YOU BUY RADIOACTIVE SHARKS ONLINE?

  You are proving to be very troublesome, Coogan.”

  I sat back in my white leather swivel chair ($952 from EvilGeniusFurniture.com) and stroked Mr. Meow’s fluffy white fur. Mr. Meow purred softly and stared at the prisoner with his bright-green eyes.

  “You have embarrassed me, and that I simply cannot allow.” I pointed to the sharks in the pit. “Take a look at my little pets. They are very fine creatures, no? Their teeth have been specially sharpened by my assistant.”

  “Look,” Bradley whined, “whoever you are, I’m sorry!”

  “My name is Rafe Khatchadorian. You killed my father. Prepare to die!”

  “I didn’t kill your father!”

  “No? Oh, wait, that’s from a different movie,” I said. “But you are still going to die.”

  “Please, Dr. Khatchadorian,” Bradley begged. “I’m so, so sorry! It won’t happen again, I swear!”

  “Oh, you are right about that, Coogan.” I smirked. “It will never happen again.”

  I leaned forward and pressed a button to release the prisoner’s heavy chains.

  “NOOOOOOOO!” Bradley screamed as he disappeared below the boiling surface of the water.

  “Let that be a lesson to all enemies of Dr. Khatchadorian!” I cackled.

  I would have made a great evil genius. No, really, I would have.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t have a secret lair or a pit of radioactive sharks. I didn’t even have a cat, let alone a fluffy white one.

  I would have to think of another way to exact my revenge.

  After my swim trunk mishap, a woman at Bloodspurt Beach gave me a towel to cover up. But I still had to walk back through the laughing crowds, my face as red as a sunset on Mars. It was the longest walk of my life.

  After getting all cleaned up and dressed, I sat by the Coogans’ pool in the shade of a pandanus tree and thought dark, dark thoughts of vengeance.

  Bradley Coogan would pay. Mark my words.

  KELL-ING ME SOFTLY

  It turned out that wanting revenge was a lot easier than planning revenge. I was coming up blank on ideas for payback. After almost two hours of sulking by the pool, all I had to show for my efforts was a sunburned neck and a fat white splat of bird poop from a lorikeet on my shoulder. I didn’t even try to wipe off the poop—that’s how miserable I was.

  Around three o’clock, Mom came back with Biff and Barb Coogan and a tall, tanned man wearing a khaki shirt, mirrored sunglasses, and shorts that were a little too short.

  Short-shorts guy and Mom were laughing about something. My super Spidey senses went into overdrive instantly.

  “Hi, Rafe,” Mom sang. She looked happy.

  I didn’t like it.

  I mean, I want my mom to be happy and everything, but there was something about short-shorts guy that put me on edge.

  “Did you have a good time at the beach?” Mom asked.

  “Of course he did!” Short-Shorts said before I could reply. “Who wouldn’t have a good time on a ripper of a day like this? Catch any waves, grommet?”

  Then he bent down and ruffled my hair. My hair hadn’t been ruffled since I was in kindergarten, and I didn’t like it back then, either.

  “Oh, it was great,” I said. “Apart from Bradley trying to drown me, and me ending up naked in the middle of the beach.”

  “Oh, dear,” Mom said, suddenly concerned. “That must have been awful, Rafe.”

  “That’s right,” Short-Shorts said. “Awfully funny!”

  “I don’t see how,” I said in the coldest voice I could manage.

  “No need to get your undies in a knot, mate,” Short-Shorts said. “You need to lighten up a bit. Take that frown and put it upside down!”

  Suddenly my idea about feeding someone to radioactive sharks sounded really good again.

  “This is Kell,” Mom said. “He’s a friend of Biff and Barb’s. Kell’s a geologist who works for a big mining company.”

  I shrugged.

  “Be nice, Rafe,” she warned, giving me a look. “I’ll let you two get to know each other.” Mom headed back into the house with Biff and Barb.

  K
ell put out a hand the size of a bulldozer scoop. I could see myself reflected in his sunglasses. “Kell Weathers,” he said. “Pleased to meet you, little man.”

  I let the “little man” comment slide and put my hand out reluctantly. “Rafe.”

  Kell gripped my hand and shook. I may as well have shoved my hand into a garbage disposal.

  As much as I’d like to say that he went back to whatever rock he’d crawled out from under, Kell turned on his heel and walked into the Coogans’ house to join Mom. He was clearly here to stay. But anyway, there’ll be more on Kell later.

  THE ARTIST HAS LANDED

  I didn’t see much of the twins over the next couple of days, which was just fine by me. Belinda did snarkily mention that my snake video was up to 387,765 hits, and Bradley poured salt in my Wheety Snax once, but other than that, they left me to do my own thing.

  Part of which involved going with Biff and Mom to see the Shark’s Bay Surf Club, where my artwork was going to be exhibited in the brand-new clubhouse’s lobby.

  “Not bad, hey?” Biff said.

  I had to admit it was pretty cool. Actually, the place was way cooler than I had imagined.

  They’d built an indoor waterfall right at the entrance to the lobby. A cascade of water poured down a rock wall into a great big pool. There were blue and green lights under the water, which made the whole thing shimmer. It looked amazing. I couldn’t imagine anything I produced being half as nice as this.

  “Your artwork will be center stage, wRafe,” Biff said. “Just to the left of the waterfall.”

  Mom beamed. “It’s going to be fantastic!”

  I suddenly felt really queasy and guilty.

  “I haven’t even started yet,” I said.

  Mom put her arm around my shoulders. “Whatever you do will be fantastic, honey.”

  “You’ll be a knockout,” Biff said. “We’re all looking forward to seeing the great artist at work!”

  In between all the visits to the beach, being naked in public, and devising ways to punish the twins of terror, I completely forgot the whole reason I was here. I hadn’t even begun to think about what kind of art I’d be creating for my show. I gulped and wandered around the shiny new lobby, trying to look like I knew what I was doing.

  I decided to take some photos of the space. I didn’t have a clue yet what I was going to do, but I hoped the photos would give me some ideas.

  Coming up with ideas always makes me have to go. The bathrooms hadn’t been finished yet in the new clubhouse, so Biff pointed to a row of big gray boxes lined up on the lawn outside of the surf club entrance.

  “Temporary dunnies,” Biff said. He explained that dunny was the Australian word for toilet.

  When I came back, Biff brought us to a place where I could work—a big, fully stocked room in the art department at Shark’s Bay College. The place had everything I could possibly need to make something special, which, considering I had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what to fill the exhibition space with, made me even more nervous than I already was.

  THE OUTSIDERS

  Later that day, I decided to skate back down to the college to see if I could find some artistic inspiration. I grabbed Bradley’s best board from his room—one he’d told me never to touch, but whatever—and headed out.

  I was rounding a bend at the bottom of a hill when I smacked straight into another skater. It was the dark-haired girl from the beach! I’d never gotten the chance to thank her, but then again, I’d been naked. Now that I had some clothes on, I could finally do it.

  I helped her up and apologized. “Hi, I’m Rafe. I just wanted to say thanks. For, you know, saving my life.”

  “Oh, you,” she said. “The artist.”

  I blinked. Me? And then I realized I was the artist. “How do you know who I am?” I asked.

  She cocked her head. “Are you kidding? Everyone in town is talking about the crazy American nudist artist who has his own Complete Fails video.” She stuck out her hand. “Ellie’s the name.”

  We shook hands, and for once, Rafe Khatchadorian actually managed to say the right thing to a girl.

  “Would you like a smoothie?” I asked. It wasn’t the best pickup line ever, but she did say yes, so I must have done something right.

  We skated across to the T. rex burger joint, where the dinosaur was back in his rightful place. He certainly looked happy to be there again.

  “On me,” I said, pushing Ellie’s mango smoothie across the table when it arrived. “For being so good at mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”

  I don’t know what was smoother, me or what was in the glass.

  Ellie put a finger in her mouth and pretended she was puking. “Puh-lease,” she said. “Can’t you see I’m eating? Or drinking? Do you eat or drink a smoothie?”

  We talked for a while. Ellie told me all about growing up right here in Shark’s Bay and how she’d always felt like she didn’t belong. The rest of her friends were kind of the same, which is how they ended up hanging out together.

  I admit I was a little jealous. I wished I had my own group of misfits back home. All I had was Flip. And Junior, but he’s a dog.

  “You know,” Ellie said, “I thought you were one of the Coogan bozos when I first saw you heading out into the surf.”

  I shook my head. “I had no idea what I was doing.”

  “The Coogans should have known better,” Ellie said. “It’s dangerous out there.” She paused and looked straight into my soul with her special truth-seeking laser-beam eyes. (Did I mention she had eyes like lasers? No? Well, she did.) “Unless you were dumb enough to pretend you could surf?”

  “Um.” I looked down at the table. My voice got real small. “I might have, sort of, kinda said I could…”

  Ellie shook her head. “I thought so. Even the Coogans wouldn’t send a newbie out there. And for them, the surf’s not such a big deal. They like to think of themselves as the bravest family in town. Nothing scares Bradley Coogan—except frogs. He was in my biology class last year and kind of freaked out when a frog got loose.”

  “Frogs, huh?” I said.

  A tickle of a whisper of a possibility popped into my mind, but I decided to leave it for now. The Big Revenge Plan could wait. I was enjoying myself for the first time since I arrived in Australia.

  I slurped my smoothie. “Your friends and Bradley’s friends don’t get along, right?”

  Ellie nodded. “You could say that. Bradley and the other morons dubbed us the Outsiders as an insult, but we kind of like it, so that’s what we call ourselves now. We’re just into different things than them. That beach stuff isn’t really our idea of fun. I mean, a couple of the guys surf, but it’s not our thing.”

  “So what is your thing?” I asked.

  “Movies,” Ellie said, her eyes lighting up. “We make horror movies.”

  I didn’t see that one coming, but as soon as Ellie said the words, I had a lightbulb moment. I leaned closer. “Tell me more.”

  A DROP BEAR ATE MY SANGA

  Kell Weathers dangled helplessly at the end of my arm. He’d made the mistake of trying his old hand-crushing handshake routine for the last time, and now he would regret it.

  What Weathers didn’t realize was that I’d signed up as a NASA test subject for experimental android technology, and I was about to get my revenge.

  “Would you like a sausage sandwich or some barbecued ribs?” Kell said.

  Considering the situation, it seemed like a funny thing for him to say.

  “Rafe?” Kell said again. “Sausage sanga? Drink?”

  I suddenly blinked and saw Mom looking at me strangely. I had fallen asleep on a lounge chair on the Coogans’ pool deck, right in the middle of the party.

  “What?” I said.

  “You were miles away,” Mom said. She put her hand across my forehead in the way that moms do.

  “I wish I were miles away,” I mumbled.

  “Play nice,” Mom said. “For me?”

  I sighed and nodd
ed.

  Mom was right. She was enjoying her trip to Australia, and I didn’t want to spoil things for her, even if she did have a blind spot when it came to tan Australian geologists. The sky was blue, the sun was shining, and I was about to dig into a plate of ribs. What did I have to complain about?

  Especially since I was meeting Ellie and the rest of the Outsiders at the movies later. With that to look forward to, I could manage the next few hours.

  Although, as Mom wandered over to Kell Weathers at the grill, I felt the fingers of my right hand twitch. A robotic steel claw could definitely come in handy.

  I stretched and yawned, then got up to go do my Mom-pleasing duty. The place was packed with the people of Shark’s Bay. When Mom reached up to touch Kell’s shoulder, he looked in my direction and smiled threateningly. I got that super Spidey tingle all over again. I’d have to watch this situation closely.

  The party wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. At one point Biff dragged me around like some sort of trophy and introduced me as “the American artist.” Surprisingly, people seemed to be pretty interested about me winning the prize, so I relaxed and tried to enjoy myself. After an hour of small talk and smiling so much my jaw ached, I grabbed some food and my sketchbook and found a quiet spot under the trees by the pool. I had just taken a bite of my grilled cheese sandwich when Kell appeared, holding a can of soda.

  “Thought you looked a bit thirsty there, Rafey,” he said, passing me the can. The soda was ice cold.