Treasure Hunters--The Plunder Down Under Read online

  “Then you better hurry off to Melbourne,” said Mr. Tyler. “Qantas has a direct flight first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “Tomorrow?” I said. “But we need to be there today!”

  “Sorry, lad. The evening flights aren’t direct. They’ll make you change planes and wait for hours in far-flung hubs. You’ll end up landing later than you would if you just wait until the morning to take off.”

  “Very well,” said Uncle Richie. “We’ll take the first flight tomorrow.”

  “You’ll also be taking Terry and Tabitha, eh?”

  “Of course,” said Uncle Richie. “Why, I wouldn’t think of continuing this adventure without them.” He shielded his mouth with a hand so he could whisper to Mr. Tyler. “Tell me: Have the Tasmanian Twins ever flown commercial before?”

  “You mean with other people and flight attendants and rules about when you have to fasten your seat belt and when you can and can’t go to the toilet?”

  “Right.”

  “Nope. That’ll all be new to ’em.”

  Uncle Richie blinked and smiled and looked like he might be ill.

  Timbo Tyler gave him a hearty slap on the back. “Cheer up, mate. Like you said: it should be quite an adventure!”

  CHAPTER 38

  We spent the night at a hotel near the Melbourne airport.

  Uncle Richie called Mom and Dad and gave them an update.

  “We’re heading off to Alice Springs at the crack of dawn,” he told them. “We’ll be journeying into the Outback. We suspect that Charlotte Badger has a jump on us. She’s already in the desert, hunting for Lasseter’s long-lost reef of gold. And she still has that one last opal we need to spring you free from the hoosegow!”

  Meanwhile, it turns out that Terry and Tabitha had never stayed in a hotel before. They were fascinated by the ice machine at the end of our hall.

  “It just keeps making ice cubes?” Terry asked. “All day, every day?”

  “Yep,” I told him.

  “Why does anybody need that much ice?”

  “Well, it’s for all the rooms on the floor.”

  “It’s for us, too?”

  I nodded.

  “And it’s free?”

  I nodded again.

  Ten minutes later, Terry and Tabitha got into an ice chucking battle up and down the hallway. When security came to our floor to tell them to “cease and desist,” they returned to our rooms to trampoline on the beds and fling room service trays and food-warming domes like they were boomerangs.

  They weren’t behaving much better when we boarded the Qantas flight first thing in the morning. They found the bin where the flight attendants stowed the prop oxygen masks for their preflight demonstrations. Terry and Tabitha each put one on and went tearing up and down the aisle screaming, “We are from Mars!” through their noses.

  When the flight attendants told them to sit down, they took that as an invitation to kick the seats in front of them.

  When other passengers asked them to stop doing that, they figured out how to make peashooters with the free peanuts and a paper straw.

  Then there was the meal service.

  Who knew trays on seat back tables could make such great food catapults or that ham sandwiches could glue themselves to the bottom of the luggage bins?

  As we made our final approach into Alice Springs, the flight attendants found some duct tape to make sure the twins were securely fastened to their seats.

  Looking out the window, the terrain reminded me of the American Southwest, only redder. There was nothing but scrubby ridges, dirt, and a few scattered houses as far as the eye could see. The Outback (what some Australians call Never Never) was, definitely, the middle of nowhere.

  We touched down, right on schedule, which was a good thing. We were down to four days before our deal with Detective Superintendent Ruggiere would expire and Mom and Dad would start doing serious time in a former penal colony’s penal system.

  As we taxied toward the terminal, a fleet of emergency vehicles, their red roof lights swirling, came out to greet us.

  Maybe the security folks had heard about the Tasmanian Terrors’ behavior in the air.

  Maybe we were all going to get arrested, too!

  CHAPTER 39

  Two air security officers from the Australian Federal Police boarded the plane and had a word with the flight attendants who immediately pointed to Terry and Tabitha.

  I could read their lips: “That’s them.”

  The officers nodded. And waited.

  When it was our turn to shuffle into the aisle and the seven of us finally made our way to the front of the plane, the two officers blocked our exit.

  “Wait ’alf a mo’,” said one, holding up his hand.

  “You two are up the spout, that’s for sure,” said the other, eyeballing Terry and Tabitha.

  “Huh?” I said.

  “They’re like the itsy-bitsy spider?” asked Beck.

  “‘Up the spout’ means they’re in trouble,” whispered Storm.

  “Ohhhh,” Beck and I said together. “Got it.”

  “Officers,” said Uncle Richie, putting on his best “heh-heh, it was all a joke” voice. “Our young friends here were just a wee bit rambunctious. First time flying Qantas. They were so excited by all the lovely amenities and in-flight service. No harm, no foul.”

  Terry and Tabitha blew a pair of very wet raspberry lip farts.

  The officers looked steamed.

  “They’re new to commercial airliners,” Uncle Richie hurried to explain. “You see, their mother flew them from their remote village in Tasmania to Melbourne in a private prop plane so they could spend time with their uncle.”

  “You’re telling me that these two little brats didn’t know how to behave properly?” said the one officer. “Tossing food at folks, kicking seats, fooling around with the air sickness bags?”

  His partner muttered what I think had to be a racial slur, maybe something about their Aboriginal ancestry.

  Terry and Tabitha both clenched their fists. Uncle Richie placed a calming hand on their shoulders, but his neck hairs were bristling, too. He didn’t like the way the officers were looking down their noses at the twins because they had dark skin and wildly curly hair. For the first time since we’d met him, I think Uncle Richie was seriously angry.

  “It was all in good fun, I assure you,” Uncle Richie explained as calmly as he could for being as mad as he actually was.

  A third AFP officer stepped on board the plane. He wore a white shirt with gold leaves on the collar and looked like he might be in charge.

  “You the ones chasing after the Lightning Ridge Opals?” he asked Uncle Richie.

  “Yes, indeed, we are,” said Uncle Richie, brightening and puffing up his chest.

  The third officer turned to the other two. “Let them go, Oliver.”

  “But, chief, these two—”

  The man in the white shirt held up his hand before the guy named Oliver could hurl another slur.

  “I said let them go. Orders from Sydney. Detective Superintendent Ruggiere himself.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Don’t be mooney, Oliver. I never joke around. These orders come straight from the top. Apparently, this scruffy lot is on ‘assignment’ from Sydney.” He turned to Uncle Richie. “Get off this plane. Now.”

  “Thank you, officer,” said Uncle Richie, ushering us all toward the jet bridge. “Detective Superintendent Ruggiere thanks you, too—I’m sure. Tootles!”

  “Buh-bye,” said the smiling flight attendant.

  We all scurried off the plane as quickly as we could.

  “Sir?” the officer in charge shouted after Uncle Richie.

  “Yes, officer?”

  “Good luck chasing those other scoundrels through the Outback. With the young scoundrels you already have on your crew, you’re going to need it.”

  CHAPTER 40

  Fortunately, there were all sorts of expedition outfitters in th
e Alice Springs area.

  “It’s because we are now in the heart of Australia’s Red Center, which, by the way, Australians would spell C-E-N-T-R-E,” said Storm, our nonstop tour guide. “There’s spectacular scenery everywhere. In fact, we’re not too far from the great sandstone rock of Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock. No tour would be complete without watching the mountain-size slab of sandstone change colors at sunset.”

  “Um, we’re kind of in a hurry,” I reminded Storm. “We can’t afford any detours, no matter how spectacular the sunset. We only have four days left.”

  “Three and a half,” said Beck.

  “And,” said Tommy, “we’re going to need like a day to hustle back to Sydney after we, you know, steal back the final opal if we want to spring Mom and Dad before the deadline expires.”

  “I don’t really want to do any sightseeing,” said Storm. “I just memorized too many brochures. It’s a bad habit.”

  “Good,” said Tabitha. “We don’t like tourists traipsing around Uluru. It is a sacred spot.”

  “This landscape was created by great ancestral beings,” added Terry. “Mom told us all about it. The Anangu people in this area belong to the oldest culture known to man, dating back sixty thousand years.”

  “So, pffffffft to all the tourists tramping over our sacred rock,” said Tabitha, giving us another lip-fart raspberry.

  We were crammed into an airport shuttle van hauling us to a place called Afghan Traders where we met Mrs. Walker, whose skin looked like dried leather. I figured she’s spent a lot of time in the sun. She was delighted to rent us an awesome Land Rover Defender four by four (the roof popped up to make a tent!) the instant she saw Tabitha and Terry.

  “Are you two Palawa?” she asked.

  The twins nodded. “On our mother’s side,” said Terry.

  “My mum, too!” said Mrs. Walker with a wheezy laugh. Then she winked. “I like to say I’m half Tasmanian devil!”

  “Us, too,” said Tabitha.

  (Actually, after the incident on the Qantas flight, I might have to go with 100 percent devil for our Tasmanian twins.)

  Mrs. Walker was even more pleased to rent us the posh off-road vehicle with an attached trailer filled with water and supplies when Uncle Richie flashed Mom’s shiny black credit card.

  “Crikey, aren’t you the fancy show pony?” she said. “The Defender with the trailer attached is out front. The seven of you should be able to squeeze into her, if you don’t mind cramped quarters. I could scrounge up a second vehicle for you in about two hours. Been a bit of a rush on them this week…”

  “We’re in a bit of a rush, too,” said Uncle Richie.

  “One Land Rover will be fine,” said Tommy.

  “We’re riding into the Outback,” said Storm. “On a quest to find Lasseter’s Gold.”

  “Really?” said Mrs. Walker. “Seems to be a lot of that going around lately. Why, only yesterday, I rented an SUV to a strapping young sheila with a head full of dreadlocks tied back in a bandana. She was traveling with two scruffy looking mates. Said they were off to find Lasseter’s Gold, too. I wished them luck. They said they didn’t need luck. They had a map.”

  I gulped a little.

  Because the lady with the two mates had to be Charlotte Badger with Banjo and Croc.

  And she also had a one-day head start on us!

  CHAPTER 41

  One thing the tourist books don’t tell you?

  How boring the Outback can be. Unless you’re really into red rocks. Or Mars. It kind of looks like Mars does in one of those NASA rover photos.

  Storm, who had memorized all of Mom and Dad’s maps and charts for our Australian adventure, acted as our onboard GPS.

  “West,” she told Tommy, who was behind the wheel.

  “Then what?”

  “West some more. We need to go up into the MacDonnell Ranges.”

  Which, of course, were west.

  The ride was so boring, even Terry and Tabitha had stopped asking, “Are we there yet?” They knew we weren’t. We weren’t anywhere except the middle of nowhere. The Never Never.

  And Charlotte Badger was probably twenty-four hours ahead of us, deeper into nowheresville.

  “Storm?” said Uncle Richie. “Since we still have a great distance to travel, perhaps you could tell us a little more about Mr. Lasseter and his gold. Best to be prepared as we embark upon this grand adventure.”

  “Um, can’t we just listen to the radio?” suggested Tommy, flicking it on.

  There was nothing to listen to but static and squelches.

  “How about an audiobook?” I suggested. “They sure make the time fly on a long car drive.”

  “Did you bring one?” asked Beck.

  “No.”

  “We could teach everybody how to blow a didgeridoo,” said Tabitha.

  “Did you bring one?” Beck asked again.

  “No,” said Terry. “Sorry.”

  Then we all sighed. Because we knew there was nothing left to do but listen to Storm’s info dump.

  “Lasseter had been prospecting for rubies up in the MacDonnell Ranges. He got lost and stumbled across a rich reef of gold. It was a shallow zone of quartz deposits seven miles long, four to seven feet high, and twelve feet wide—all of it speckled with nuggets of gold. He collected a gold specimen and, while trying to return, became hopelessly lost. He was found by an Afghan camel driver. Lasseter was at death’s door: half-starved, dehydrated, and delirious.”

  Yeah. Sort of like how I feel in the middle of one of Storm’s long-winded history lectures.

  We were bored out of our brains.

  So, with the help of Terry and Tabitha, Beck and I did the only entertaining thing we could think of that didn’t require CDs, an iPhone, or a radio. We launched into a four-way Twin Tirade.

  “This is hopeless!” I shouted.

  “You’re hopeless!” shouted Beck.

  “You’re both hopeless!” said Tabitha.

  “So are you, Tabby!” added Terry.

  “Tabby sounds like a cat!” I shouted.

  “So?” Tabitha shouted back. “Bick sounds like a ballpoint pen!”

  Then we really pushed ourselves and launched into some Aussie slang insults we’d picked up on our trip down under.

  “You’re a dilly!”

  “You’re a dipstick!”

  “You’re a drongo!”

  “And you’re a dork.”

  We sort of worked our way through the alphabet, taking turns hurling words we didn’t really understand (even though Tabitha and Terry sure did).

  By the time we got to the Ns and “ningnong,” Tommy had had enough.

  He pulled the SUV off the dusty road and into the scrubby bush.

  “Snack break!” he shouted. “Everybody out of the vehicle! Now!”

  CHAPTER 42

  “An excellent suggestion, Thomas,” said Uncle Richie as we rumbled off the road (if you could call a rutted strip of dirt a road). “We should all stretch our legs, breathe in some of this fresh Outback air and enjoy some light refreshment.”

  “We should also tell all the twins to knock it off,” mumbled Storm.

  “We already have,” said Beck.

  “Totally,” I added.

  “Ditto,” said Terry and Tabitha.

  “Because,” I said, “nothing stops a Twin Tirade faster than an official snack break. What have we got in the cargo carrier? Besides water.”

  “Don’t know,” Tommy said. “Let’s hope Mrs. Walker packed us something tasty.”

  He opened his door and headed back to the trailer full of supplies. Storm followed him.

  “It better not all be Vegemite!” she fumed.

  Tommy and Storm freed the bungee cords holding down the tarp tossed over the top of our supplies trailer. The rest of us were right behind them, up on tiptoe, examining the contents.

  “Tons of water,” said Storm.

  “Bully,” said Uncle Richie. “One can never have enough aqua pura wh
en crossing a desert.”

  “Check it out,” said Tommy. “There’s a bunch of military-style Meals Ready to Eat. I think some of them come with M&M’s.”

  “Cool,” Beck and I said together.

  “Wonder what’s in this carton?” said Tommy, cutting open the tape on a cardboard box with the tip of his very long knife. “Huh, it’s a bunch of packages of something called Tim Tam chocolate biscuits.”

  “That’s what we call cookies here in Australia,” said Terry, grabbing one of the very colorful and shiny wrapped biscuit trays. “Is there milk?”

  “Yeah,” said Storm. “It’s even cold. Mrs. Walker packed it in a cooler.”

  “Bonzer!” said Tabitha. “We should show this lot how to do the Tim Tam Slam.”

  “Huh?” I said.

  “You bite off the top, bite off the bottom, dunk the biscuit into a glass of milk, and slurp it up through the soft chocolate center like a straw.”

  “Instant chocolate milk,” added Terry.

  Okay. Tim Tam Slamming sounded like fun. So, we all gave it a go.

  A few cookies later, we were all feeling better. Happier. Chocolate and sugar will do that to you.

  After Storm downed half a dozen cookies, she started humming to herself as she drifted off to doodle wavy lines in the ground with the tip of her boomerang. When she’d completed her swirling red-sand masterpiece, Terry and Tabitha froze mid–Tim Tam Slam.

  “Why’d you draw that map?” asked Terry.

  “It’s not a map,” said Storm. “It’s just the design carved into the sides of one of the didgeridoos I found buried under all the others in that stack back at your uncle’s camp. I memorized the markings. Thought they were interesting. Unusual.”

  “It is a map,” Terry insisted. “Those are Aboriginal markings and glyphs leading the way to a very specific treasure not far from here.”

  “Seriously?” said Storm.