Middle School: Rafe's Aussie Adventure Read online

  As things turned out, that was the least of my problems.

  BEING SHREDDED BY a massive wave after spending an hour in heavy surf and then landing unconscious on an Australian beach is not recommended. I would have died 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 the kiss of life.

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

  What was it with us Khatchadorians? We just couldn’t stop puking on Australians.

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

  I jumped to my feet. “Wait!” I yelled, or at least I would have if my lungs weren’t filled with another 68 gallons of salt water. My voice sounded strange because my ears were full of water. I coughed up another bucketload and then 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. I ignored it and pursued my rescuer.

  When the dark-haired girl reached the park, 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 looked round. About eleventy billion Australians were standing up, pointing at me and laughing.

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

  My psychedelic, day-glo, see-them-from-space shorts had been ripped off in the surf. I was completely, absolutely, totally naked.

  “YOU ARE PROVING very troublesome, Coogan.”

  I sat back in my white leather swivel chair ($952 from EvilGeniusFurniture.com) and stroked Mr. Barkley’s fluffy white fur. Mr. Barkley purred softly.

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

  “My name is Rafe Khatchadorian, and you killed my father. Prepare to die!”

  “I didn’t kill your father!”

  “No? Oh, wait, that’s from something else,” I said. I was getting mixed up. “But you are still going to die.”

  “Please, Dr. Khatchadorian,” Brad 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 Coogan’s chains.

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

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

  Did I mention the sharks were radioactive? A true evil genius never takes any chances. I didn’t even have a cat, let alone a fluffy white one.

  I would have to think of something else.

  I was back at the Coogan place. A woman at Bloodspurt Beach had given me a towel and I had walked back through the laughing crowds, my face as red as a Mars sunset.

  It had been the longest walk of my life. After getting cleaned up and dressed I sat by the Coogans’ pool in the shade of a pandanus tree and thought dark, dark thoughts of vengeance.

  Brad Coogan would pay. Mark my words.

  I CAME UP blank on ideas for Brad’s 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 lorikeet poop on my shoulder. I didn’t even wipe off the poop—that’s how miserable I was.

  Around 3 pm I heard a car pull up outside, and a few minutes later, Mom came onto the pool deck 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. Instantly, my super-spidey senses went into overdrive.

  “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 alert.

  “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?”

  He bent down and (I swear this is true) ruffled my hair. My hair hadn’t been ruffled since I was in kindergarten, and I hadn’t liked it much back then.

  “Oh, it was great,” I said. “Apart from Brad 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 can’t see why,” I said, in as frosty a voice as 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!”

  I was beginning to rethink my attitude about feeding someone to radioactive sharks.

  “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, Rafey,” she said, giving me a look. “I’ll let you two talk.” Mom headed back into the house with Biff and Barb.

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

  I let that “little man” bit slide and put my hand out reluctantly. “Rafe.”

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

  There’ll be more on Kell later.

  I DIDN’T SEE much of the twins over the next couple of days, which was just fine by me. Belinda did snarkily mention about two hundred times that my “CompleteFails” clip was up to 387,765 hits or whatever, and Brad put salt on my Wheety Snax, but other than that they left me to do my own thing.

  One of which was going with Biff and Mom to see the Shark Bay Surf Club, where the artwork I was supposed to be making—the whole point of this trip and something that I’d almost forgotten about—was going to be exhibited.

  My artwork, whatever that turned out to be, whenever I got around to actually producing any, was going to take pride of place in the foyer of the new club.

  “Not bad, hey?” Biff said.

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

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

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

  “I haven’t done anything 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’s work!”

  No pressure then. I gulped and wandered around the lobby, trying to look like I knew what I was doing.

  The waterfall was right at the entrance to the new surf club. A cascade of water poured down a fake rock wall into a great big pool. There were blue and gree
n lights under the water, which made the whole thing shimmer. It looked amazing. I couldn’t imagine anything I produced standing a chance if it was anywhere near this.

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

  The only unfinished thing about the club was that the toilets weren’t working yet. I saw a row of grey boxes outside lined up on the small lawn to one side of the surf club entrance.

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

  Biff had also come up with a place for me to work in—a big, well-stocked room at the Shark Bay College. The place had everything I could possibly need to make something special, which, considering I had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA about what to fill the exhibition space with, made me even more nervous than I already was.

  AFTER A COUPLE of days without anything very interesting happening, I decided to skate down to the college and see if I could stare at some blank pieces of paper down there. I grabbed Brad’s best board from his room—one he’d told me never to touch—and headed out.

  Rounding the bend coming down the hill to Bloodspurt Beach, I smacked straight into another skater. It was the dark-haired girl from the beach. I braced myself for some sort of insult about how lame I was.

  “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.

  The girl got to her feet. “Are you kidding? Everyone in town is talking about the crazy American nudist artist who has his own CompleteFails clip.” She stuck out her hand. “Ellie’s the name.”

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

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

  We skated across to the T-Rex burger joint, where the dinosaur had been put back in his rightful place. He looked happy to be there again.

  “On me,” I said, pushing Ellie’s mango smoothie across the table when it arrived. “For saving my life.”

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

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

  I wasn’t too sure but we carried on talking for a while. Ellie told me all about growing up right here in Shark 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 Leo.

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

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

  “The Coogans should have known better,” Ellie said. “It’s dangerous out in the surf.” 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 does.) “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 Brad Coogan—except frogs. He was in my biology class at school and kind of freaked out when a frog got loose.”

  “Frogs, hey?” 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 just about the first time since I’d arrived in Australia.

  I took a slurp of my smoothie. “Your friends and that bunch don’t get along?”

  Ellie nodded. “You could say that. Brad and the other morons dubbed us The Outsiders, thinking it was an insult, but we kind of liked it, so that’s what we call ourselves. And we’re into different things to 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 hadn’t seen that one coming, but as soon as Ellie said the words, I had a real lightbulb moment. I leaned closer. “Tell me more.”

  I LOOKED AT Kell Weathers dangling helplessly at the end of my arm. He’d made the mistake of trying his old hand-crushing handshake routine once too often.

  What Weathers hadn’t reckoned with was that I’d signed up as a NASA test subject for an experimental android technology.

  “Would you like a sausage sandwich?” Robo-Kell Scorpion said.

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

  “Rafe?” Robo-Kell said again. “Sausage sandwich? Drink?”

  I blinked and saw Mom looking at me strangely. There was no sign of Robo-Kell Scorpion. I had fallen asleep on a sunlounger next to the barbecue grill on the Coogans’ pool deck 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 was miles away,” I mumbled.

  “Play nice,” Mom said. “For me?”

  I sighed and nodded.

  Mom was right. She was enjoying her holiday in Australia and I didn’t want to spoil things for her, even if she did have a blind spot when it came to Australian geologists. The sky was blue and the sun was shining. 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 toward where Kell Weathers was talking to Biff, I felt the fingers of my right hand twitch. A steel robotic claw would come in handy sometimes.

  I stretched, yawned, then got up to go do my Mom-pleasing duty. The place was packed with the great and the good (and not-so-good) of Shark Bay. As Mom reached Kell, he looked in my direction and smiled. 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’d 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 interested, so I relaxed and tried to enjoy the experience. But after an hour of 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 cheese sandwich and started drawing 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.

  I looked at it suspiciously.

  “Look,” Kell continued, “I know we haven’t exactly hit it off, but I’m not really a bad guy and I couldn’t let you stand around over here without giving you a heads-up, you being from overseas and everything.”

  “A heads-up?”

  Kell pointed at the branches above my head. “It’s highly unlikely, but we do have a small problem in Australia: Drop bears. You heard of ’em?”

  A chill ran down my back.

  “There are drop bears here?” I said, looking up at the trees.

  Kell nodded. “They know when there’s fresh meat in the neighborhood.” He eyed my sandwich. “And they do love a cheese sanga. Watch yourself, mate.”

  I looked at Kell. Maybe I’d been wrong about him. Perhaps he wasn’t so bad after all.

  “Thanks,” I said, and opened the can.

  As I did, two things happened.

  The first was that the soda exploded all over my face, temporarily blinding me.<
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  The second (and this one was much more worrying) was that I felt something furry fall onto my head and wrap its arms around my neck.

  A drop bear!

  I screamed like a startled pony and leapt backwards. For a split second, my feet teetered on the edge of the pool and then, with an almighty splash, I fell in head first, clawing wildly at the drop bear. I wasted no time in expertly sucking in about 83 gallons of chlorinated water and sank below the surface, sure that at any moment the thing was going to rip open the top of my skull and commence drop-bear dinner. Main course: Khatchadorian Brain à la mode.

  I erupted from the surface of the pool like a ballistic missile leaving a submarine, dragging the creature off my neck. Without hanging around to see what had happened to the drop bear, I kicked toward the edge of the pool so fast I felt as though someone had strapped an outboard motor onto my rear end and pressed the START button.

  Through a foam of white water (caused by my high-speed flailing arms), I wondered why no one was diving in to save me. Couldn’t they see that I was about to be eaten alive? Or maybe they were too scared of the drop bear? And then I saw the pool was surrounded by laughing faces.

  I stopped swimming and looked around. A soft toy bobbed on the surface of the pool. I looked up and glimpsed Brad in the branches of a nearby tree, laughing like he’d just swallowed a joke book.

  The whole dirty trick became as clear as the Coogans’ swimming pool.

  I’d been had. In public. Again.

  I clambered out of the pool with as much dignity as I could. Which, in case you were wondering, was exactly zero.

  “C’mon, Rafey,” Kell shouted as I stalked toward the house. “It’s only a joke, mate!”