Escape to Australia Read online

The rest of the Surf Gorillas weren’t doing much better than Bradley. A couple of them flat-out fainted, while Belinda did her best to climb a large potted palm in an attempt to get away.

  Operation ROCK was working. Bradley had been publicly humiliated. Revenge was mine!

  Except for one small detail.

  When I planned this whole thing, the idea was that it would be Bradley—and Bradley alone—in the firing line. Everyone else in Australia’s Most Fearless Town would quickly see that the bunyip was a joke, wouldn’t they? Ha, ha, ha…?

  Australians liked practical jokes, right? Hadn’t Kell told me to lighten up? Rafe Khatchadorian’s Great Practical Joke would be the funniest thing ever to happen in Shark’s Bay. Right?

  Wrong.

  Everyone F-R-E-A-K-E-D.

  Not just Bradley.

  Everyone.

  OOPS

  Wailing like a police siren, an astronaut leaped off the lobby balcony, landing heavily on a herd of stampeding Elvis dental technicians from the Shark’s Bay Dental Clinic.

  Nearby, six Salvador Dalis from the Shark’s Bay Surrealist Society were trampled underfoot by a bevy of beefy ballerinas from the Bayside Bowling Team. A Viking, a Roman centurion, Frost DeAndrews, and a guy in a giant teddy bear costume were doing their best to hide under the skirts of a howling Queen Victoria, while, to my left, an unconscious Darth Vader was being lifted to safety by a large baby with a beard. Biff Coogan, in his gorilla costume, had scrambled up an ornamental pillar outside the front door, King Kong style, accidentally disturbing a wasps’ nest with disastrous results.

  A group of leprechauns were fighting to get out of the emergency exit first.

  It was pandemonium.

  Everywhere there was screaming and running and panic and destruction. Things had gotten waaaay out of hand.

  “Kill the bunyip!” I shouted to Ellie. “We have to stop it!”

  Ellie wrestled with the remote. “I can’t! It’s not responding!”

  Nico, Sal, Ellie, and I looked helplessly at the bunyip. Little snakes of electricity ran up and down its body, and sparks began shooting from gaps in the creature’s skin. It lumbered across the flooded lobby floor, its roar getting louder and louder with every step.

  We had created a monster.

  LASER-BEAM EYES

  The only real silver lining to this out-of-control Frankenstein scenario was the reaction of Kell Weathers.

  The very second Kell glimpsed the bunyip, he dropped his glass, let out a scream almost as high-pitched as Bradley’s, and hurled Mom toward the creature before turning on his heel and sprinting for the exit.

  Mom bounced off the bunyip and came to rest on the soaking-wet lobby floor, her face a picture of anger and disgust as she watched Kell carve a path of yellow-bellied destruction through the screaming crowd.

  I wasn’t happy that my mom had been treated so badly, but I was kind of glad that she finally got to see Kell for what he really was. If I was going to get in trouble for this (and something told me I was going to get in more trouble for this than for anything I had ever done in my life), then Mom seeing Kell’s cowardly streak would make it all worthwhile. She really did deserve better than him.

  As if reading my thoughts, she swiveled her head toward me (I swear it rotated 180 degrees), and although it was absolutely impossible for her to have spotted me in the shadows behind the curtains, she zapped a full-strength laser-beam Mom Stare in my direction.

  In that split second, I had no doubt at all that she knew.

  How do they do that? Moms, I mean. How do they just figure things out so quickly? Is there a special training school?A secret set of mom skills handed to them when you’re born?

  I sank back into the shadows as Mom got to her feet. This was it. I was about to start a life sentence of being grounded.

  But just as I began to trudge toward her to confess that the whole disaster had been my idea, Mom suddenly turned and sighed tiredly, then stalked out of the lobby without a second glance.

  I let out a long breath that I didn’t know I was holding in. I felt like I’d dodged a bullet, but one thing was for sure—if Mom ever found out for certain that I was the mastermind behind all of this, I was toast. And not the kind with Vegemite.

  LIFE’S A GAS

  Sixty seconds after the bunyip first appeared, there was no one left in the lobby apart from me and the Outsiders. Even the Surf Gorillas who’d fainted had managed to crawl off into the night. Mayor Coogan had slid down his pole at some point and disappeared. There was no sign of Frost DeAndrews or Queen Victoria or my mom, and not a single ballerina, Elvis, pirate, punk, dinosaur, boxer, or bear was to be seen.

  Crackling like an out-of-tune radio, the bunyip lurched unsteadily across a floor littered with costume props—false teeth, wigs, eyeglasses, hats, a wooden pirate’s leg, a stuffed parrot, the head of a panda. An abandoned camera lay on the floor, the button jammed. It flashed at odd intervals, making the lobby look as though there were a lightning storm outside.

  “Anything?” I asked Ellie, who was still fiddling with the remote.

  She shook her head. “It’s like it’s got a mind of its own.”

  The bunyip reached the opposite side of the lobby, hit the wall, then turned toward the open door. Flames began to lick upward through holes in the creature’s skin.

  Sal grabbed a fire extinguisher off the wall. “Well, we can’t let it burn the place down.”

  “Hold on a second, Sal,” Ellie said. “It’s heading outside.”

  “There’s not too much damage in here,” Nico said. “Some water on the floor and a few broken glasses. We could disappear. No one would know it was us.”

  I had a sudden flashback to Mom looking in my direction when the bunyip appeared. Was I really sure she knew? Or was that just guilt talking? Whatever, Nico’s idea was definitely worth considering. Deny everything. Let the bunyip become one of those urban myths.

  “Look,” Mikey said.

  The bunyip had made its way outside and was starting to put some distance between it and the surf club. Good. Every step it took meant less danger and less of a chance of us being found out. It looked like we were going to be okay.

  We followed the bunyip outside and watched it stagger toward the splintered remains of the toilet Bradley had smashed up. It was almost completely on fire now and moved much more slowly. Every so often it made a little electronic beep or squawk, which somehow made it sound weirdly alive. It was like it knew it was dying.

  “Maybe the best thing is to let it burn out,” Nico said. “Destroy the evidence?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That’s probably the b—”

  Chemistry isn’t something I pay much attention to, but as the bunyip crossed the last few feet to the smashed dunnies, one word leaped into my mind like a great big flashing neon sign: methane.

  “Run!” I yelled.

  BOOM!

  Methane,” Mr. Hernandez had said—yep, the very same Mr. Hernandez whose mustache I yanked on all those pages ago—“is a very combustible gas.”

  When he was covering science one day, he showed us a film about methane that had been trapped underground and was the cause of a terrible mining disaster. Methane, Mr. Hernandez told us, was produced by rotting vegetation, the underground release of gas from coal mines and rice fields, the digestion systems of cows… and the poop of human beings. We all laughed at that, which is probably why I remembered it.

  A row of portable outdoor toilets was more or less a collecting station for methane, and we had a flaming bunyip on a collision course with one right now.

  It was too late for Sal’s fire extinguisher.

  It was too late to try to fix the remote control.

  It was too late to do anything except get out of the way and do it now.

  As the bunyip finally reached the row of toilets, we turned and ran for our lives. I had no idea how big a methane explosion could be, so I ran about as fast as I have ever run in my life. Every step would take me
a little closer to saf—

  The universe exploded behind me in a blast of orange light, and I was thrown headfirst through the air.

  STARING DEATH RIGHT IN THE FACE

  The Grim Reaper’s long shadow covered me as he took a couple of steps forward, his heavy scythe sliding across the dry grass. I was glued to the ground. When the robed figure was no more than a scythe length away, he lifted an arm, and a long white finger pointed directly at me.

  “Rafe Khatchadorian,” the Grim Reaper said, his voice like dust. “This time you have gone too far. Your time as the Hills Village art representative has come to an end. Your career as an artist is over before it even started. It is time to pay.”

  My mouth went dry. I tried to say something but I couldn’t. Besides, what would I say? “Sorry”? Did the Grim Reaper have a court of appeal?

  The Grim Reaper ran a finger along the scythe before pushing back the hood of his robe to reveal a familiar face.

  “Mom?” I said.

  “No, it’s me.”

  I opened my eyes to see Ellie’s face floating above me.

  “Can you hear me?”

  “You’re floating,” I said.

  “No,” Ellie said. “I’m not. You’re lying in a ditch.”

  Ellie had clearly lost her mind, and I was about to tell her exactly that when I realized she was right. I was lying in a ditch. I couldn’t remember getting there or why I would be there. I didn’t even like ditches.

  And then it all came back to me, just like that. Bunyip. Fire. Explosion.

  Ellie, Nico, Sal, Mikey, and Dingbat came into view. Mikey’s eyebrows were singed and Dingbat’s head was smoking, but other than that, they seemed fine.

  I got to my feet, brushed off the worst of the dirt, and breathed a sigh of relief. This was bad—really bad—but at least I hadn’t killed anyone.

  “Everyone okay?” I said.

  “We’re fine,” Dingbat replied, “except you did have your butt in my face when we landed.”

  “You had your butt in my face,” Ellie said with a shudder.

  “We’re all good,” Nico said. “No one’s hurt.”

  We staggered up to the top of the embankment and stood in silence, watching as a great plume of fire and smoke rose from what remained of the toilets and our zombie bunyip.

  “Whoa,” Dingbat said.

  “Whoa” was right. “Whoa” just about covered all the bases.

  Lightning zigzagged across the sky, followed closely by a crack of thunder. The storm that had been threatening earlier was about to hit.

  I glanced up just as a fat raindrop landed on my head. Within three seconds, the skies opened and the heaviest rain I’ve ever seen came down on us. The fire on the remains of the bunyip spat and hissed and then went out like someone had thrown a giant bucket of water over it. In the distance I could see red and blue flashing lights headed our way.

  You know how in movies, at moments like this, someone always comes up with a smart line that sums everything up and is kinda cool and tough at the same time?

  That doesn’t happen in real life.

  WHO, ME?

  It took Shark’s Bay exactly twenty-two minutes to figure out who was behind the Great Surf Club Zombie Bunyip Disaster.

  The first hint that no one was going to believe we were innocent came when I arrived back at the Coogans’ place. I kinda hoped that I could slink in unnoticed under the cover of darkness. After all, I was soaked to the bone, and all I wanted to do was take a shower, get dry, and get into bed. Instead, everyone was gathered in the living room waiting for me when I opened the door.

  All eyes turned to me as I stood there, dripping all over the rug, trying not to look guilty—which, if you’ve ever tried it, you’ll know is a hard look to pull off when you are innocent. When you’re actually guilty, it’s practically impossible.

  “Oh,” I said. “Hi, everyone.”

  Bradley, who was wrapped in a blanket, gave me a look of pure hatred.

  Ditto Belinda.

  Ditto everyone except maybe Mom.

  She gave me a look that combined suspicion, shame, anger, fear, and relief. You’d think that would be a hard one to manage, but she did it without blinking. Another one of those mom skills, I guess.

  “Do you have something to say to us, Rafe?” Biff said.

  Barb stood next to him, her arms folded.

  Did I? I didn’t know. Other than an exploded set of outdoor toilets and a spoiled art exhibition, there was no real harm done, was there? But I needed to give an answer that would deflect all suspicion from me and the Outsiders. Something that would convince everyone that I wasn’t involved at all with the bunyip disaster and was just an innocent bystander whose zombie sketches were sadly destroyed.

  So, what did I come up with?

  I said, “Not really.”

  Genius.

  “You know Bradley was injured?” Mom said.

  I looked at Bradley. “What happened?”

  “He ran into the woods to get away from whatever that was back there,” Barb said, “and got bitten by a possum.”

  “Doesn’t sound too bad,” I said.

  “That depends where you get bitten,” Bradley whimpered. “I might need a rabies shot!”

  I tried not to smile, but it was difficult. The idea of a possum giving Bradley a nip in the privates was just about the funniest thing I’d ever heard. And if anyone deserved a rabies shot, it was Bradley Coogan. I couldn’t stop the smallest smirk from appearing.

  “Any sign of Kell?” I asked Mom.

  She shook her head. Only an expert on Jules (like me) could tell that she was about two seconds away from bursting into tears. My mini smile disappeared like snow on a griddle. I walked over and gave her a hug.

  “I’m sure he’ll be fine,” I said.

  Mom nodded and sniffed. “I hope not,” she said, and we both smiled. I think we were both just about ready for the night to be over. She told me to go dry off and get ready for bed.

  That wasn’t so bad after all. The Coogans were all suspicious, but it wasn’t like anyone had any proof.

  I walked upstairs, dead tired and ready to sleep for thirty hours.

  That’s when the mob of zombies arrived.

  THERE’S NO REASONING WITH AN ANGRY MOB OF ZOMBIES

  Okay, this is where the story started, if you can remember that far back. If not, it might be worth reminding everyone of the situation.

  Watching from an upstairs window, I said my prayers and hoped that the mob would stop short of actually killing me, but I couldn’t rule it out. The only comfort I had was that the zombie mob wasn’t made up of real zombies, just an entire town of enraged partygoers who had been frightened half to death by an animatronic bunyip. They still wanted to rip me limb from limb, but at least they probably wouldn’t eat me, too.

  I don’t know how they knew it was me, but maybe they’d just give me a very stern lecture and tell me not to do it again. Maybe when they got real close, they’d see that deep down I was a nice guy and they’d rethink their plans for bloody retribution.

  Or, then again, maybe they wouldn’t.

  And that was just a few of the nicer things they said. Some of the more colorful ones can’t be repeated here. A woman dressed as Tinker Bell, whom I recognized as the local librarian, was swearing so much I thought her head was going to explode.

  “Oh, boy,” Leo muttered. “This is worse than I thought.”

  “Gee, is that supposed to cheer me up?” I turned around, but Leo had vanished. Even my imaginary brother had chickened out.

  I leaned closer to the window and saw Biff Coogan below me, standing outside the front door, arguing with the ringleaders. I couldn’t hear much of what Biff was saying, but I think he was pointing out that, while I probably deserved anything they were suggesting as punishment, he, Biffly Algernon Coogan, mayor of Shark’s Bay, could not stand by and watch his American guest being torn limb from limb.

  “Think of the publicit
y!” Biff reasoned. “And the mess! The police will want to know what happened to him.”

  “No, we won’t!” a man dressed as a punk rocker said. “I’m Sergeant Justin Carter Hatfield, and most of the department is already here.”

  “And the fire department,” someone else shouted.

  “Everyone’s here, Biff!” Sergeant Hatfield said. “So let us at the little blot, and we’ll see he gets what’s coming!”

  Biff was clearly jolted by the unexpected appearance of the Shark’s Bay Police Department, but he did a good job of not letting it show. He crossed his arms and jutted out his chin defiantly. “Now, that might be the case, Justin, but it’s still no way for a town to b—”

  “There he is!” Bradley squealed like a pig with a trench full of slops.

  Everyone looked up at me, and the effect was like dropping a match on a gasoline-soaked bonfire. A great roar rose from the mob, and all the pitchforks and flaming torches were lifted into the air. The zombies pushed Biff aside like he was made of straw and swarmed toward the door.

  I was doomed.

  MIGHTY MOM

  Stop right there!” A voice crackled through the night. It was like an atomic bomb going off, and it stopped the mob dead in its tracks. It was a voice that demanded to be obeyed. It was the ultimate voice of authority.

  It was the voice of Mom the All-Powerful.

  I ran out of my room, leaned over the rail of the stairway, and looked down at the hallway below.