Million-Dollar Mess Down Under Read online

  7. Become the first teenager to set foot on Saturn.

  Aha! Gotcha! I only put that in to check if you were paying attention and some of you weren’t.

  I splodged a particularly splodgy splodge of deep blue paint on to the canvas and flicked my wrist to squadggle it around (yes, I know that’s not an actual word). I’d managed to survive two weeks at St. Mungo’s. I’d been attacked by a bat (twice), been given six trillion demerits, been publicly humiliated, had my shins kicked, and been turned into an omelet, BUT I had also met Kasey and the Spitballers and got my painting mojo back.

  All things considered, it wasn’t a bad deal.

  I’D BEEN LOOKING forward to seeing Kasey when she got back from camp, so on Saturday morning I was a bit surprised when she didn’t call.

  “Seeing your girlfriend today?” Georgia asked at breakfast. She looked up from scanning a sheet of paper filled with her busy social life and gave me a pitying look. Since it was a Saturday morning, construction had stopped on the East Fudge freeway and I could actually hear what she was saying.

  Which wasn’t a good thing.

  “She’s not my girlfriend,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “She’s a girl and she’s your friend. She’s your girlfriend.” Georgia ate some cereal and smiled.

  I couldn’t find anything wrong with Georgia’s logic and I also couldn’t think of anything to say. I stuck my tongue out at her and made a farty sound. What? You can’t always come back with a snappy answer. Sometimes making farty sounds is the best you can do, and today was one of those times.

  “Mom!” Georgia wailed. “Rafe’s making farty noises at me!” Georgia, ensuring Mom couldn’t see her, put her head to one side and smiled at me without showing her teeth.

  Loser, I mouthed.

  “Mom! Rafe called me a loser!”

  While Mom started in on all that Why can’t you just both be quiet and give me five minutes’ peace? stuff, I tried to figure out exactly why Kasey hadn’t called. I was right in the middle of doing that when the Ghost of Self-doubt appeared on one side of me.

  “You don’t exist,” I said.

  “So why are you talking to me?”

  The Ghost of Self-doubt had a point. And maybe it was also right about Kasey. Maybe she did think I was a loser. Maybe I did totally suck. You never really know yourself, do you? If you suck, I mean.

  Another ghost appeared, this one wearing a suit and tie. It took out a croquet mallet and bashed the Ghost of Self-doubt into mush.

  “I am the Voice of Reason,” it said. “Quit talking to imaginary ghosts and go call Kasey. You don’t suck—not much, anyway.”

  I blinked awake with my head resting on the kitchen table. I must have been more tired than I thought. Plus, Georgia had drawn a big “L” on my forehead.

  The worst thing about that was I thought she was right.

  I CALLED KASEY. She sounded kind of weird on the phone, but it wasn’t because she thought I sucked. It was much worse than that.

  “I’ll come round,” I said.

  “No, I’ll come to you,” she said. “I need to get out of here.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “I’ll tell you when I get there.”

  Now Kasey was sitting up in the attic with me. Both of us were leaning back against the wall and looking at my painting.

  “I like it,” Kasey said. “I really like it.”

  “Never mind the painting. What’s up?”

  “I love the orange bits. The way they mix with th—”

  “Stop,” I said, and shifted around to face her. “C’mon, what is it?”

  “They’re kicking us out,” Kasey said, chewing her nails and looking like she wanted to strangle someone. Or kick ’em in the shins. Whichever was more painful.

  “Who?”

  “Yesterday, Principal Winton told Dad that we’ll need to find somewhere else to live from next term onward. They’re knocking down the house and turning it into a parking lot. Winton’s getting a new office and he wants a bigger car space.”

  “He’s knocking down your house to make a parking lot?” I couldn’t believe it. “They can’t do that, can they?”

  Kasey nodded. “Dad says there’s nothing we can do. He’ll still work at the school, but we’ll have to find a home somewhere else. Probably miles away too. We can’t afford to stay around there. I’ve lived at St. Mungo’s all my life, Rafe. I don’t want to move.”

  “Oh, man.” I put my arm around Kasey and we sat there, looking at the painting without saying anything for a while because there wasn’t really anything to say.

  Sometimes life sucks.

  KASEY HAD RECOVERED a bit by midday and we headed over to Golden Blades for her practice session. It looked like so much fun I wished I could play, but there were three reasons I couldn’t:

  (A) I couldn’t roller skate;

  (B) the Spitballers were a girls’ team; and

  (C) I was too scared.

  When we got there, the rest of the Spitballers were gathered in a tight knot over by one side of the track. In the middle was the guy with the beard I’d seen last week. As Kasey and I got closer, I saw with a shock that the bearded guy was Frost DeAndrews!

  Okay. Someone’s just reminded me that not all of you have read my other books, so you won’t know who Frost DeAndrews is. Tbh, I have NO IDEA why anyone wouldn’t have read ALL the Middle School books, but I’ll do my best to fill you in. Frost DeAndrews is a fancy-schmantzy Sydney art critic who I met when I first came to Australia and who I’d accidentally involved in an unfortunate exploding toilet/rampaging zombie incident at Shark Bay. Despite that shark/zombie thing, Frost had liked my stuff, at one point comparing me to Wilhelm Van Purpleschpittel and the Neo-colonial Burble Movement—What? You haven’t heard of them?—and had gotten me an invite back to Australia to go to an art camp in the bush. So Frosty and I go way back. The big question was, what was a fancy art critic doing at the Sydney Spitballers roller derby practice?

  “Mr. Khatchadorian. Delighted to see you again,” he said, in a not-particularly-delighted-to-see-you kind of voice. It didn’t bother me. That’s just the way old Frosty is. We shook hands.

  “Frosty!” I said, patting him on the shoulder. “What are you doing here?”

  “I could ask you the same question. Please remove your hand from my shoulder. And nobody calls me ‘Frosty’,” he said frostily. “Nobody.”

  “I’ll leave you two to catch up,” Kasey said with a wink, and skated off to join the practice session.

  “So,” I said, trying to recover, “why are you at Golden Blades, Fro—Mr. DeAndrews? It doesn’t seem like your sort of place.”

  “My sister,” Frost DeAndrews replied. He waved a hand in the direction of the Spitballers. “She plays for them. Dee Stroyer.”

  My jaw dropped so low my chin bounced off the floor. “Miss Bennett?” I said once I’d recovered. “She teaches at my school!”

  “You’re a St. Mungo’s student?” Frost DeAndrews sounded surprised. Astonished, even. He raised an eyebrow. Just one.

  I explained the whole Uncle Grey thing and Frost got excited. I could tell because he raised an eyebrow two millimeters when I got to the part about the John Olsen paintings, but otherwise he didn’t react.

  When I was finished, he pursed his lips and looked at me with roughly zero enthusiasm. There was a silence that lasted about a year. I was beginning to remember how it was being around old Frosty. Eventually, just as I was considering making a run for it, he eyed the sketchbook I was carrying as if it were a dead fish.

  “Your latest work?” he said, yawning.

  I nodded, pleased he’d shown some interest. “I’ve been struggling for a while, to be honest, Mr. DeAndrews, but since I’ve started doing these Olsen-inspired drawings and paintings, things are getting better.”

  Frost sat down and stuck out a hand. “I rather think I’ll be the judge of that,” he said sourly.

  I handed over the sketchbo
ok and sat next to him like a prisoner waiting for his sentence.

  “REMARKABLE,” FROST DEANDREWS SAID. He closed my sketchbook and handed it back to me as he watched the Spitballers skate past.

  “Remarkable?” I said.

  Remarkable was good. If someone as famous and knowledgeable as Frost DeAndrews thought my sketches were remarkable, I was doing the right thing and 322 Lorikeet Drive was working its peculiar magic. I was over the artist’s block, I was on the way back up, I could—

  “It’s remarkable that they can all skate so well,” Frost DeAndrews said. “While they’re fighting, I mean. Remarkable.”

  I looked at my sketchbook. “But what about my artwork?”

  Frost DeAndrews wrinkled his nose. “Pah.”

  “Pah?” I repeated. I wasn’t sure what “pah” meant, but it didn’t sound promising. On the other hand, it didn’t sound completely terrible either.

  “So,” I said uncertainly, “you like them?”

  “Rather,” Frost murmured, “they are precisely eighty-two point six percent more than passable.” While I was still trying to work out what Frost meant, he leaned forward and tapped a bony finger on my sketchbook. “Listen, Mr. Khatchadorian, Dee asked me here to advise the Spitballers about painting an artwork on the side of this ghastly ruin in an effort to supply some much-needed cheer and spruce the place up for the big fundraiser they’re planning to hold in three weeks’ time. How about you and your friend Kasey work up something in that line?”

  “You want us to paint a mural?”

  Frost DeAndrews tapped a knuckle on my forehead. “Hello? Anyone home? Of course I want you to paint a mural! That’s why I was moving my lips and sounds were coming out of my mouth. I’ll recommend to Dee that you and your friend should be the ones to decorate the stadium. Three weeks, remember. You’ll have to get your skates on. Har-har.”

  Frost got to his feet. He opened the sketchbook to a double page and pointed to a painting I’d done a couple of days after visiting the Art Gallery of NSW.

  “Use this one as the basis for your design,” he said. “And I’ll come around to your place and see your uncle’s paintings. There could be an article in it. My secretary will make the arrangements.” Frost DeAndrews turned, blew a kiss to his sister, and left.

  I sat back, stunned, thinking about how big the outside of Golden Blades was. We were going to need plenty of paint.

  MISS BENNETT HAD listened to her brother and the Spitballers had approved our design. During the art lessons at St. Mungo’s, Miss Bennett helped me map it out. Her lessons were just about the only thing at St. Mungo’s I actually liked.

  By Sunday night, the stadium wall had been transformed into a blank canvas by a team of Spitballers using white paint donated by a couple whose daughter skated for the team. They were also supplying the paint for the mural.

  On Monday, Kasey and I sketched the main parts of the mural and then we began painting. It was hard work, but I loved every single paint-spattered minute and I was pretty sure Kasey felt the same. More importantly, I think working on the mural helped Kasey forget—for a while, at least—about being booted out of their house. The weather helped us too, as if it was on our side. The whole time we were painting, there wasn’t a drop of rain. When night fell, we continued to paint, using a set of outdoor road construction lights we’d been loaned by another Spitballer parent.

  And the Spitballers themselves pitched in, turning up in old clothes to splash and spray and fling paint all over the old stadium. Great fingers of paint slithered down the wall and onto the parking lot, mingling in a giant multicolored, footprint-patterned big Aussie mess.

  We could have put down sheets to keep the mural on the wall, but we wanted the thing to ooze off the edges, as if it was just having too much fun to stay in one place. That was what John Olsen’s and Uncle Grey’s paintings were like and I wanted this to be the same—a wobbly, wiggly, rebellious blast of FUN and movement.

  Of course, we got absolutely covered in paint every time. It was messy, it was chaotic, it was fantastic!

  And, slowly, the Golden Blades mural took shape.

  THE MURAL WAS going great. I was enjoying living in Australia. The Winners Club were doing relatively little bullying. Kasey’s dad had heard about a nice apartment they could move into next term. Tickets for the Spitballers Fundraiser were selling well. Mom and Georgia seemed to be having a good time. My painting in the attic, although stopped in its tracks by the mural, was still going to be there when I’d finished. Frost DeAndrews had dropped by to look at Uncle Grey’s paintings. He’d taken a bunch of photos, made some notes and had gone away after telling me he’d liked the painting in the attic. I told him about the tickle in my brain about Lake, and about John Olsen and Uncle Grey, and which paintings were real Olsens and which weren’t and how confusing it all was, and Frost told me he’d look into it.

  So, like I say, things were going well for once.

  I should have known it was too good to be true.

  IT’S FUNNY HOW things turn out.

  How big changes can be started by tiny things, I mean. I guess if I hadn’t had that extra piece of toast that Monday morning, if I had stopped to tie my shoelaces, if it had been raining and I’d taken the bus to St. Mungo’s instead, none of what I’m about to tell you would have happened.

  But I did eat the extra toast, I didn’t tie my shoelaces, and it hadn’t rained—all of which meant that I bumped into Mrs. Fitzpatrick and Principal Winton at exactly 9.03 am that Monday morning.

  Mrs. Fitzpatrick did her usual thing—slapping me with demerits for my purple sock tassels not being purple enough.

  “Virtually lilac!” she barked. “Three demerits!”

  “Tut, tut,” Principal Winton tutted.

  I know what you’re thinking: how did Mrs. F know that my sock tassels were too pale? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s because she whipped out a little book of color swatches that was attached to her keychain. She matched the correct purple against my sock and there it was: insufficient purple.

  “I think my mom washed them, Your Sirships,” I said, but Principal Winton wasn’t finished. He was looking at me in a funny way. He cocked his head to one side and squinted.

  “You’ve had a lot of demerits, haven’t you, Khatchadorian?” he said.

  Mrs. Fitzpatrick, lurking at the principal’s shoulder, sniggered. “A lot!” she squawked.

  “One or two.” I gulped. “Sir.”

  I didn’t like the way this was going. It looked very much like I was about to find out exactly what those demerit points were for. And I was betting it was nothing good.

  Principal Winton produced an electronic tablet from his jacket and jabbed a claw at the screen. “As I thought. You’ve passed the one-thousand mark, Mr. Khatchadorian. Remarkable for a mere four weeks at St. Mungo’s.”

  I blushed. “Well, I’m not one to boast, but—”

  “This is not a laughing matter!” Principal Winton screeched. “One thousand demerits means death by tiger.”

  “What?!” I gasped.

  “Yes,” Principal Winton said, “you will be smeared with meat and placed in a pit, where you will be eaten by the school ti—”

  Mrs. Fitzpatrick leaned across Principal Winton and pointed to something on the screen. Both of them looked disappointed.

  “Ah,” Principal Winton said, “yes, thank you, Mrs. Fitzpatrick.” He turned back to me. “I seem to have made a small error, Khatchadorian. The correct punishment for one thousand demerits is not, it seems, death by tiger, but detention. You will be in detention after school every day this week for two hours.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief as they walked away. Death by tiger hadn’t sounded good.

  And then it hit me like a smack across the face with a wet fish. If I was in detention all week, I wouldn’t be able to finish the mural at Golden Blades.

  It was the last straw.

  After everything that had happened lately, I’d had enough of Principal
Winton and his stupid uniform rules and his stupid office expansion plan. It was time for Rafe Khatchadorian and Kasey Moran to take matters into their own hands. I didn’t stop to think about the consequences. (Don’t forget there was a million bucks riding on me staying at St. Mungo’s.) But did I think about that? Nope. All I knew right then was that we needed to take a stand.

  It was time to strike back at the Evil Empire.

  It was time to strike a blow for freedom from sock inspections.

  It was time to stand up to bullies and idiots who preferred parking lots to people.

  In short, it was time for revenge.

  I HAD PLENTY of time to think about exactly what shape our revenge should take during that week’s detention.

  Detention was in the school library—as if going to the library was punishment!—directly opposite the swimming pool. Being St. Mungo’s, the pool was more like something you’d see at the Olympics. It had everything: a fifty-meter competition pool, a twenty-five meter “lap” pool, a diving pool, seating for about eighty thousand people, electronic scoreboard, giant TV screens … they probably had a water park stashed out back somewhere. There was also an outdoor pool on the other side of the swim hall, but, it being winter, it was out of action.

  The lights were on inside the pool complex and I could see the St. Mungo’s swim team training. Needless to say, Cory Trumpy-Burphole was on the team. I watched him adjust his goggles and dive effortlessly into the water. I watched Principal Winton walk up and down the pool side, shouting instructions through a megaphone and glancing frequently at a stopwatch in his hand.

  The Velociraptor was a keen swim coach and never missed a session—or so I’d been told. There he was, tracksuited and with a towel slung around his neck as if he’d actually been swimming. I guessed the team were getting ready for the big swim-off against St. Mungo’s biggest rivals, Loondoo College, on Monday. I’d seen the posters around the school and old Winton had droned on about the competition in assembly that morning. The whole school would be watching, and St. Mungo’s, Principal Winton reminded us, had never lost to Loondoo.