Dog Gone (8 page)

I walked home
along the river. I had to find the fishing rod before Gran twigged – if Brody and his mates hadn't wrecked it, or somebody else hadn't already found it. And I knew it was a small chance, but maybe the ghost would make another appearance and I could see if it was Grandpa. If it was, he'd be sure to help me find Lucky.

It was good to be back by the river after such an awful day. Mount Selview Consolidated
was
a prison – Molly was right. I crunched through the twigs and leaves under the gum trees that lined the river, and felt as if I'd been freed.

The late afternoon air was filled with the calls of currawongs and noisy mynas. I heard a treecreeper, too, somewhere close by. I stopped to look for it. Grandpa had taught me how to recognise most of the local birds by their calls. Treecreepers were easy to pick by their loud piping sound, and by the way they ran up the sides of tree trunks – which always made me laugh. I scanned the trees in front of me until I saw a movement. The bird stopped, about halfway up the trunk of a young gum tree, and stayed very still. It looked right at me, just as if it was smiling.

On my way through the cemetery, I stopped by at Grandpa's grave. I looked at the gold writing on the stone, his name, the date he died – my birthday. I missed him so much. I was sad I'd never had a chance to say goodbye to him.
Are you the ghost, Grandpa? I hope you are.

I passed the beehives at the bottom of the cemetery and made my way down to my fishing spot. It was cold now, the winter sun low in the sky. I slid onto my log, feeling the damp seep through my jeans into my legs.

I listened to the water bubble over a submerged branch shaped like a coke bottle. Every so often, the sun would come out and filter through the trees, brightening up the world for a few seconds before it disappeared again. In those moments I watched small insects flit in and out of the shafts of light, until they became invisible in the late afternoon haze.

With dusk approaching, the light began to fade, the air grew heavy and so did my heart. It felt dark like an underground cave and heavier than a hundred sinkers. I thought about Lucky. And Mum and Dad, their angry words swirling around in my memory like a swarm of angry wasps. Then I fished my journal out of my bag and wrote a Lucky poem while I could still see.

Day 9 - He's Leaving

I want to block out the sound

put my hands over my ears

so I can't hear

the beep beep beep

of the removalist truck

reversing down our drive

I sit on the floor

in the empty spot

where he used to rock

in his chair

with his feet up

I throw my arms

around Lucky's neck

bury my face in his fur

and rock and rock and rock

I picked up a stone and tossed it upstream. The little circles it made in the water grew bigger and bigger. A patch of red caught my eye in a clump of bushes further along the river track. It was the jacket I'd been wearing when Brody crept up on me. Amazingly, apart from some mud and dust, it seemed to be fine. I slipped it on, glad of an extra layer for warmth and relieved that I wouldn't have to explain how I'd lost it.

I had my head under a bush, having one last look for the fishing rod, when a voice made me jump.

‘Looking for something?'

I looked up to see Brody Callahan holding my fishing rod out to me. I reached for it, but he snatched it back with an evil grin.

‘Not so fast, frilly pants.' He held the rod up in the air. The lead weight and hook swung from side to side. ‘If you want your dear, dead grandpoppy's
precious
junk back, you'll have to
earn
it. Got that, city boy?'

‘What do you mean –
earn it
?' I spat at him. How dare he refer to my grandpa and his fishing rod like that.

‘You heard.
Earn
it back.
Pay
for it,' he said, still grinning.

‘I don't need to pay for it. It's mine.'

‘Yeah, but finders keepers, remember?' he said, and jabbed the rod at me as if it was a sword. ‘I found it. You
gave
it to me when you left it behind.'

‘I didn't have a choice, did I?' I tried to avoid the sinker as it swung dangerously close to my ear.

‘Listen up, frilly Milly. Tomorrow morning we're having a maths test.'

‘So?' I said, wondering whether I should make a grab at the rod, despite the hook, and run.

‘If you want your
p-r-e-cious
fishing rod back, then make sure I get a better mark than you.'

‘How am I supposed to do that?' I said.

‘Figure it out for yourself, silly Milly.' He jabbed the rod into my stomach now, to make sure I got the point. ‘You look like a maths nerd to me. Well I'm
not
. Get it?'

I was starting to feel hot. I thought it was because I was feeling so angry. But as he jabbed the fishing rod into my stomach, the feeling I'd had in the cemetery began to rattle through my bones.

Before I had a chance to work out what was happening, Brody's expression suddenly changed and the colour drained out of his face. His eyes, wide with fear, were looking at something behind me.

Brody's hand started
twitching and the fishing rod began to jiggle up and down. His eyes, though, remained fixed on whatever it was he was looking at behind me. I snapped my head around to see if it was the ghost. All I saw, however, was a single branch of a nearby gum tree waving backwards and forwards. The light was fading fast, and a strong smell of river mud and evening air wafted past.

I turned back to look at Brody, who was now watching his own hand as if it belonged to someone else. He was trying to let go of the rod but couldn't. The rod was swishing all over the place, just like it had the morning I'd seen the ghost in the cemetery.

I became aware of a strange sound. It felt familiar. There was no mistaking it – the whispering. I turned around again. The ghost must be here somewhere. Brody let out a wail and ran off down the track, trying to shake the fishing rod out of his hand. Every now and again, he fell over and picked himself back up. It was as if Grandpa's fishing rod had permanently attached itself to Brody's hand with invisible glue. It was
funny as!
Except he still had Grandpa's rod.

I heard him cursing long after he'd disappeared through the trees. I wondered if he'd seen the ghost.

Gran's alarm clock in the next room woke me out of a deep sleep. I rolled over and looked out at the last of the night sky. A kookaburra laughed somewhere in the distance and, for a moment, I had no idea of where I was in time. Then my inside calendar flipped over to today, and my stomach lurched. It was exactly ten days since Lucky had gone missing.

The police still hadn't heard anything and no dogs matching Lucky's description had turned up at the pound or lost dogs' home. Gran had phoned all the vets in Mount Selview and nearby towns. No dead dogs.
Phew!

I debated about whether I should visit Nelly Arnott on the way home from school. If she'd organised to have him kidnapped, then maybe, if Lucky was still alive, I could convince her to tell me where he was.

I rolled over again and looked up at the ceiling. How was I going to get through another day without Lucky? How was I going to survive Mount Selview Prison? I didn't want to get up. What would I do about the maths tests? Could I sneak in at lunchtime and fix up any mistakes on Brody's test, while still making sure I made a few mistakes on mine?

The whole idea made me feel sick. But how else was I going to get Grandpa's fishing rod back? If I told Gran, I'd have to confess about being down at the river without her permission. Then she'd stop me from going altogether.

Brody Callahan had me – and there was nothing I could do about it.

I pulled on my jeans and the Mount Selview windcheater that one of Gran's neighbours had lent me. The only thing that got me out of bed was my poster plan. Last night I'd visited Mr Ironclad after tea and he'd let me use his computer to make some more posters for Lucky. His computer was pretty ancient and slow, but it certainly beat Gran's old typewriter. I'd planned to put posters up at the school. I had to do something to get Lucky back.

Molly seemed keen to get to school. She'd had a better first day than me. I'd heard her telling Gran about someone in her class. A boy. This morning she even washed everyone's breakfast dishes and offered to walk to school early with me, to help with the posters. I'm always suspicious when my sister offers to help.

As we walked in through the school gate, Molly quickly disappeared and I headed to my classroom. Would Brody Callahan be at school today? Half of me hoped he'd been attacked by the ghost, so he couldn't bully me anymore.

No such luck. I rounded the corner of the building and saw Brody standing in line.

He looked up and ordered me over.

The horrible grin was still stuck to his face. ‘Worked out a plan, have you?'

‘Yes,' I lied.

‘Better be good, nerd. What is it?'

‘You'll see.'

Miss Beech was wearing all black today, which made her look even more like a witch. A drip still hung from the end of her nose. I hoped she wasn't intending to come around and mark our work. It'd be just my luck for her snotty dribble to splat on me.

Before we'd had a chance to sit down at our tables, Miss Beech announced we would start with the maths test. My stomach did a double somersault. Brody gave me a kick under the table as I got my pencils out. I was determined not to look at him.

‘Hey, Milly – got a stiff neck today?' he said, in a voice just loud enough for the others at nearby tables to hear.

Some of them laughed and Miss Beech looked over and scowled. ‘Get your pencils out for the maths test without talking,' she fired. ‘And, Ish, there's to be no talking during the test. Is that understood? Anyone who talks gets zero because I'll assume they're cheating. They'll have a lot of explaining to do to their parents.'

Why was she picking on me? It was going to be a long day.

The maths test was easy, and it was hard to make deliberate mistakes. It was on fractions, which I was good at. Last year I'd had trouble with them, and Dad had spent ages with me, going over ways to work them out.

If only Dad were here now.

I looked at my watch for about the hundredth time. The morning dragged so slowly it felt like Miss Beech had cast a spell on the clock.

‘Hey, nerd – got spare knickers in your lunchbox?' Brody sneered behind his hand.

‘Shut up, airhead.'

‘Mind your language, frilly boy. Wouldn't want something nasty to happen to that bit of junk of yours, now would you?'

Brody kept saying mean things to me all morning whenever he thought Miss Beech wasn't looking. I still wouldn't look at him, and I'd noticed the others sitting nearby had stopped paying attention to what he said, which I could tell really annoyed him.

The pile of maths tests sat on the end of Miss Beech's desk. Every time I glanced at them, I felt a fresh surge of dread. I hadn't been able to eat anything at snack time and now there were only minutes to go till the lunch bell. My heart was beginning to beat like crazy. Brody's test had been collected last of all – he'd been given a couple of extra minutes to finish. At least this meant I wouldn't have to sort through the whole pile to find it. I wouldn't have to go looking for the tests either.

I was packing up, ready for the lunch break, when Brody gave me another kick under the table.

‘Any wrong answers, no rod?' Brody's whole face smirked as he spoke.

I felt like punching him.

‘Don't forget, everyone,' Miss Beech announced, ‘the teachers versus students basketball match will take place on the lower courts, so anyone playing should go and get changed immediately.'

The lunch bell went. Miss Beech picked up the maths tests, then walked into the office at the back of the classroom. I tried to see what she was doing with them, but too many people were in the way. She came out again and closed the door behind her. She picked up a bunch of keys from her desk and, for an awful moment, I thought she was going to lock it.

Suddenly, I had a bright idea. I scrambled across the room, bumping into two girls as they headed out to the corridor. ‘Miss Beech!' I called, as I made it between her and her office door. ‘I'm not that keen on basketball, so I was wondering if I could stay inside to eat my lunch and then do my homework on the school computer? My Gran's only got an old typewriter.'

‘Well, that's very noble of you, Ish, but I'm afraid the school rules don't allow students to be in classrooms without a teacher present. And I'm umpiring the basketball match,' said Miss Beech, and put the keys in her pocket. ‘Just write your story out by hand and you can type it up on the computer in your free time tomorrow.' She looked at her watch and gave my shoulder a little nudge in the direction of the corridor. ‘Right – off you go, then.'