I noticed three things right away:
It was dark.
I was in my swag.
There was no mutant croc.
“What? Hey? Who? Mnaagnaaarghnn,” I said.
And no, I don’t know what that “Mnaagnaaarghnn” thing was, either. It just sort of came out like that: kind of somewhere between a shriek and a moan. A shroan.
“You were having a nightmare,” Ellie said. “It was a pretty big one, judging by all that screaming. You scream like a little girl, by the way. A three-year-old, in fact. I can’t believe I’m the only one who woke up.”
“Thanks for pointing that out,” I said, carefully surveying the camp. The dream had been so real that I half-expected the croc to reappear at any second. I reached down and patted myself to check but my legs were still there. I sank back into my swag and closed my eyes.
“Wait,” Ellie said, punching me on the arm. “You have to come with me.”
I opened one eye experimentally. “I do? Where?”
“I need to go pee and I’m not going out there alone.” She stood up. “C’mon, be a gentleman.”
Sighing, I got to my feet and wrapped the swag around my shoulders. I couldn’t blame Ellie for wanting company. It was cold now—real cold—and all that big dark nothing surrounding us looked about as inviting as a haunted castle during a thunderstorm.
Plus, I could probably do with a pee. There had been a moment in my croc nightmare when things could have … Anyway, there’s no need for me to go into detail. Let’s just say it had been a close call.
USING MY PHONE as a torch, we walked about two hundred yards from camp until we reached a slight dip in the ground. I would have been happy to pee somewhere a lot closer to camp, but Ellie just had to pee behind a bush.
“Can I borrow your phone?” Ellie asked.
“Um,” I said, immediately spotting the major problem with Ellie’s plan. “That means I’ll be here in the dark. Alone. And I need to pee too.”
“So pee,” Ellie said. “Don’t be such a wuss.” She grabbed my phone before I could argue and scurried behind the bushes.
I bit back what I was going to say. The clouds had rolled in, blocking the starlight and making things pretty dark. I didn’t want to pee right next to Ellie, so I walked to a rise in the ground near to a small creek. With a last look to check Ellie was nowhere in sight, I stood on the rise and started peeing. As I was reaching the finish line (you know what I mean), I felt the ground move beneath my feet.
“Whoa!” I said, struggling to keep my balance and not pee on my shoes. (Dudes, if you’ve ever had to pee on a moving train, you’ll know how this feels.)
I frowned. Australia wasn’t known for earthquakes, was it? But unless Thiago had just parped out the world’s biggest parp I was pretty sure I’d just felt one.
I finished up and turned to see a light coming toward me, the beam from the phone swinging back and forth across the desert floor.
“Ellie?” I said.
“Where are you?” she called.
“Over here on the hill.”
Ellie swung the beam of light in my direction just as the ground moved again.
“You feel that?” I asked.
“Uh, Rafe …”
“Like an earth tremor or something,” I said. “Which is kind of weird because I didn’t think you got those in Australia.”
“Rafe,” Ellie said slowly, “don’t panic but …”
“But what?”
“It’s not the ground that’s moving.”
Ellie pointed the beam of light at my feet.
Uh-oh.
HAVE YOU EVER been told you’re standing on a giant crocodile? Didn’t think so. Not many people have.
Well, I can now tell you, from practical, firsthand knowledge, that it is not a life experience I’d wish on my worst enemy (well, maybe Miller the Killer or Mrs. Stonecase) or one that I’d like to repeat anytime in, say, the next eight thousand years.
“Don’t. Move. A. Muscle,” Ellie said quietly.
“What do you mean ‘don’t move’?” I hissed. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m standing on a giant crocodile!”
“Yes, I have noticed that, Rafe, which is more than you noticed, so don’t get in my face about it!” Ellie hissed back at me. “Besides,” she continued (still hissing), “it’s a giant sleeping crocodile, you doofus—which I’m guessing even you would admit is much, much better than a giant wide-awake croc, right? So, remember, the last thing we want to do is wake the giant crocodile. I’ve heard these things can move pretty fast. If you jump off, you might stumble, trip on a rock or something, and you’ll be croc breakfast before you can say ‘bacon roll’. It doesn’t even have to eat you. It might just bite off a leg.”
I gulped. Ellie had a point—a good point. I didn’t want to be anyone’s breakfast. And I liked my legs just the way they were. No offense to anyone with fewer legs than two. I know there are loads of kids who get along fine with the use of one leg or even no legs—like Taylor Barnes, who lives on the next block to me and scoots around on a neat tricked-out electric wheelchair and played volleyball in the Junior Paralympics and is a Grade-A, all-round cool guy—but I liked both of mine. I was used to them and they were used to me.
All of which was useful information but it didn’t alter the fact that I WAS STILL STANDING ON A CROCODILE.
The entire time this was going on, I’d been avoiding looking at the crocodile on the (really dumb) basis that what you don’t see can’t hurt you. I risked a quick glance down and nearly lost it for real.
The thing was enormous.
* * *
Random Fact #458: Crocodiles are 168 times more dangerous than sharks. Sharks!
* * *
Okay, it wasn’t as big as the mutant flying croc in my nightmare but it was still an absolutely freaking massive thing full of sharp teeth and strong jaws.
Sharks! 168! How was that even possible?
“What are we going to do?” I whispered, trying and failing to keep the panic out of my voice.
168!
I WANTED TO burst out crying but two things stopped me. First, Ellie was there and it would be too embarrassing (that’s right, folks, R.K. is more afraid of being embarrassed than of being eaten); and, second, it might wake the croc.
Ellie paused.
That wasn’t a good sign. I had kind of figured that Ellie, being Ellie, would have some snappy plan at her fingertips. But all I got was a pause. A pause was the last thing I needed.
“Ellie?”
“I’m thinking,” she said, frowning. “Give me a minute.”
Waiting patiently while standing on the back of a sleeping crocodile isn’t easy. The seconds ticked past like years.
“Any time,” I said. “I’ll just wait right here.”
“Okay,” Ellie said, a determined expression on her face. There was a gleam in her eye that I liked the look of. She was doing a good impression of someone who had just thought of a brilliant idea. This was more like it. I waited to hear her plan, sure that it would be fantastic.
“Run,” she said finally. “Really fast.”
“Okay, great! I’ll … Wait, WHAT?” I said. “Run? That’s it? That’s your big plan?”
“Don’t forget the really fast bit,” Ellie said. “That’s quite an important bit.”
“That’s the worst plan I’ve ever heard!” I wanted to scream but, as I still had no wish to become crocodile food, I had to make do with whispering really, really loud and looking incredibly angry.
“What did you expect me to do?” Ellie hissed (again with the hissing). “Build a helicopter from whatever I can find in this completely empty desert? Assemble a tranquilizer crossbow using some rocks and rope made from my hair? Make a—”
“Okay, okay! I get it.” I steadied myself. Ellie was right. Kind of. It was the best we were going to come up with. “So I just hop off and run?”
Ellie nodded. “Uh-huh. Fast.”
I noticed s
he’d backed up a few steps, which didn’t exactly fill me with confidence. I should point out that, although there had been a weird moment back at Hills Village when I played football for the school (yes, really), I’m not what you’d call “athletic”. I mean, I can run when required—and now was one of those times—but I also knew I was more than capable of falling flat on my face. Especially in the dark.
168!
“On the count of three,” Ellie said, taking another step back. “One …”
Right then, the crocodile woke up. It made the sort of sound you’d expect a hungry crocodile to make and twisted around to see what was standing on its back.
“Two, three!” I screamed, and leapt out into space.
I DIDN’T FALL if that’s what you’re thinking.
I mean, c’mon, if you were jumping off the back of a giant crocodile in the dead of night in the middle of the Australian outback, would you fall?
Didn’t think so.
I hit the dirt with the precision of a circus trapeze artist and took off like a gazelle with its tail on fire before the croc had a chance to work out what was happening.
“RUN!” I yelled as I sprinted toward Ellie.
I looked over my shoulder. The croc might have started slow but it had got its bearings now and was coming after us fast.
“It’s catching up!” Ellie yelled. “There’s no way we can run faster than that croc!”
“I know,” I said, putting on a spurt and breezing past her like an Olympic sprinter straining for the tape, “but all I have to do is make sure I run faster than you!”
Okay, I admit it, that’s not what I said.
I just wanted to put a joke in there to lighten the mood a little because I have to tell you—being chased by a giant croc is flat-out depressing. I mean, there was a stomach-churny excitement like the kind you get when you watch a scary movie, except this wasn’t a scary movie. This was all-too-real life … and so mainly I was depressed at the idea of getting eaten.
By now Ellie and I were running as fast as we could side by side, which was about half the speed we needed to go. We had no idea which direction we were moving in and every step we took in the dark increased the chances of tripping over a rock and becoming croc food.
Behind us, the croc lolloped across the dirt, the noise getting louder and louder with every step.
Boofboom, boofboom, boofboom.
Even though I was panicking like crazy, a tiny part of me felt a little tickle of curiosity. That boofboom sound was very close to the sound I’d heard in my nightmare. But how could that be? How could I possibly know what a giant crocodile sounded like?
Unless—and this was a really scary idea—I had heard the croc moving around the campsite while I was sleeping and had somehow mixed that into my nightmare!
I shook the idea out of my head. None of that was helping us right now.
“I don’t think I can keep this up much longer,” I panted.
Ellie didn’t reply. I didn’t blame her. That joke about only needing to outrun each other wasn’t so funny now. Both of us knew we didn’t have much time left unless something very dramatic happened, and happened soon.
AT THE EXACT moment when I thought I couldn’t run another step—BLAM!—the croc stopped dead in its tracks, like a switch had been pressed.
One second he’d been boofbooming after us like crazy, the next he was slinking back to the creek, fading into the darkness with each heavy step.
We jogged to a halt.
“That … was … close,” I panted.
My legs felt like they were made of marshmallow. If that croc changed its mind and came back for another run at us, I wouldn’t stand a chance.
“No … kidding,” Ellie said, gasping for air. “I … thought … we … were … gonners.”
A couple of minutes later we had recovered enough to think about getting back to Kamp Kulture.
Ellie suggested we head away from the creek and go around in a big circle. She seemed to have a better idea about where the camp was, and it wasn’t like I was going to disagree with any suggestion that took us away from the croc.
“Let’s make it a really big circle,” I said. “Like, a really, really big one.”
As far as Rafe Khatchadorian was concerned, we could go via Mars if it meant not risking a close encounter of the croc kind.
We walked in silence for a while, both of us (probably) thinking about our near miss.
“You’d think McGarrity would have warned us about the croc,” I said eventually. “I mean, he might be a bit of a blowhard but he wouldn’t want us to actually get eaten, would he?”
“You know,” Ellie said, “I’ve never heard of a crocodile being somewhere like this.”
“Uh, isn’t Australia full of crocodiles?”
Ellie shook her head. “That’s just it. Even here in the Northern Territory, they’re mainly near the coast up in the north. If crocs are around, there are warning signs. Usually.”
“I didn’t see anything like that,” I said. “On the drive here we—”
“Shh!” Ellie said, dragging me to the ground. “Look.”
She pointed to her left, at lights on the horizon. They were very faint but definitely there. It could only be one thing.
Aliens.
“ALIENS?” ELLIE SAID, arching an eyebrow at me.
I could tell from her tone that she didn’t think I was right.
“Uh, maybe,” I said. “It’s possible.”
“Nah,” Ellie said. “It’s definitely not that. Let’s take a closer look.”
As we got to the top of a rise in the ground, we saw that the lights were heading toward a rock formation. The lights were too far away to see properly but I could tell it was probably a car or a truck—not aliens.
“I thought there was nothing much out here,” I said.
Ellie pointed to our right. “That’s not all.”
There were more lights coming from what looked like a crack in the ground. These lights were nearer but had been hidden from view until we’d shifted position. Maybe these were the aliens. I was still pretty sure aliens might be out here.
We moved quietly to the edge of a ravine which formed a long V-shaped clearing. In the middle of the clearing was a large, shiny trailer; the kind of thing Tom Cruise would have on a movie set. Not that I’d ever been on a movie set, unless you counted my experience with Ellie and The Outsiders (pick up a copy of Rafe’s Aussie Adventure for details), but I was sure this trailer would fit right in.
Two cars with tinted windows and white logos on the doors were parked at angles to the trailer. Behind the trailer was a large rectangular box under a tarpaulin. Ellie pulled out my phone and snapped a couple of photos, taking care to turn off the flash. Outside the trailer, talking in low voices and sitting on lounge chairs around a campfire, were four men. Two were dressed in black fleece jackets but could still be easily recognized as a couple of the suits from the reception at the Bigbottom Creek Hotel the other night. Both of them wore sunglasses.
The other two men were Brushes and Vern.
Brushes leaned back in his lounge chair and swirled the ice in his glass before taking a long, satisfied pull. He stretched his feet a little closer to the fire and wiggled his toes.
“So much for roughing it,” Ellie murmured. “The big phony.”
“I don’t get it,” I whispered back. “Why all the secrecy?”
“And why are those blokes out here?” Ellie said. “They don’t exactly look like the outdoors type.”
We sat for a few minutes, wondering what to do next.
“Should we head back to camp?” I said.
It was a bit of an anticlimax after the crocodile chase and alien lights, but it wasn’t like these guys were doing anything wrong. And if Brushes McGarrity was a big phony, well, that was kind of annoying and all, but it didn’t mean we had to do anything about it. Sometimes there isn’t a big bang at the end of a story, just a long walk back to your swag, hoping you
don’t bump into any more crocs.
I GUESS WE could have gone to Brushes McGarrity’s luxury compound and told him all about the croc, but that didn’t seem right. I don’t know, the whole set-up was so downright suspicious that, without Ellie or me saying a word, we both knew we weren’t going to get a sympathetic ear from that direction. Besides, it was dark out there.
When we got back to Kamp Kulture, we decided that one of us would stay awake for a couple of hours and keep watch, then swap over.
“I’ll go first,” I said, kind of hoping Ellie would put up an argument.
She didn’t.
“Okay,” she said, and went straight to sleep.
D’oh.
I rubbed my face and did my best to get my sentry head on.
I did a loop around the campfire, found a rock to lean against, and …
… woke up feeling like someone had taken out my brain. For a few seconds I didn’t know who I was, let alone where and why.
“Nice job, Sleeping Beauty,” Ellie said, as she came into view. She put her hands on her hips and looked down at me like I was something unpleasant she couldn’t scrape off her shoe. “Weren’t you supposed to keep watch and then wake me up?”
What could I say?
I’d meant to stay awake, honest. On the plus side, no one had been eaten.
“WAKEY, WAKEY! RISE and shine, campers!” Brushes shouted.
Behind him, Vern was making so much noise cooking that Brushes had to shout louder than he normally did, which meant he was about as loud as a fighter-jet engine.
One by one, the bleary-eyed Kampers staggered to their feet.
“Today’s the day you lucky, lucky people get to see the McGarrity Cave Paintings—the best cave paintings in the whole of Australia!” Brushes continued.