Elysium

  Could it have been Mumuga poo?

  ‘Hey!’ I came to an abrupt halt. If Dad and Matoaka had been closer, they would have run straight into me. ‘Hey!’

  ‘What?’ said Michelle.

  ‘The Mumuga! It moves its bowels! Remember what Rosemary said?’ I grabbed Michelle’s arm in my excitement. ‘That stink happens because it keeps moving its bowels!’

  ‘You mean –’

  ‘What if it’s Mumuga poo, back there?’ I was thinking so quickly that my mouth couldn’t keep up with my brain. ‘If people pass out, if they fall over, then there must be heaps of it! To make the smell!’

  ‘Heaps of poo, you mean?’

  ‘Yes!’

  Michelle glanced at Matoaka, who had caught up with us.

  ‘But we’re not passing out,’ said Michelle. ‘And she’s got it all over her.’

  ‘Not really. She’s just got a bit on her dress, and her foot’s been washed. I’m talking masses of it. Pool after pool of fresh crap! It would have to be fresh.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ said Dad.

  ‘The Mumuga!’ I turned to him. ‘What if that green puddle was a Mumuga scat?’

  ‘Oh, I – I don’t think so . . .’

  ‘Why not? What else could it have been? You said yourself, it couldn’t have been a cow pat. And it was too big for a dog, or a fox.’

  ‘Unless it belonged to a pig with diarrhoea?’ Michelle proposed, thoughtfully.

  ‘It had to come out of a carnivore,’ Bethan declared. He had stopped, turned round, and rejoined us. ‘It says in this book that “a strong odour is also characteristic of a carnivore’s scat”.’

  ‘Well, the Mumuga’s supposed to eat people,’ I said. ‘That makes it a carnivore.’

  ‘Maybe we should go back and look,’ said Michelle. ‘Maybe we should even collect a sample, like Bethan wanted to.’

  ‘No.’ Colette wouldn’t hear of it. ‘No, no, no.’

  ‘But Mum –’

  ‘I don’t want anyone near that dreadful stuff!’ Colette snapped. ‘Good God, are you mad? You heard what Joyce said! You can pick up tapeworms and all kinds of things!’

  ‘Only in dog poo,’ Bethan pointed out. ‘Dog and dingo. And fox, maybe.’

  Colette, however, wouldn’t listen.

  ‘It’s nearly half past three.’ She waved her watch at us. ‘The adventure tour should be finished by now, and Judy will be getting worried. We have to go back.’

  ‘But it might be our only chance!’ Michelle protested. ‘What if it’s genuine Mumuga poo? We could have it analysed! It’ll be the first Mumuga poo ever found!’

  ‘Oh, don’t be silly, Michelle.’

  ‘She’s not being silly!’ Once again, I turned to Dad. ‘Please, Dad! They can go, and we can stay! It won’t take long. Please?’

  Dad hesitated. Matoaka was the one who answered.

  ‘You can’t find that puddle without me,’ she grumbled, ‘and I’m not staying. I need to change. I need a shower.’ She tugged at Dad’s arm. ‘Come on, Jim, this isn’t fair.’

  Dad looked at her. He looked at me, and at Bethan. He didn’t know what to do; you could see it in his face. At last he addressed Michelle’s mother.

  ‘Do you think you could help Matoaka get back to Caves House?’ he asked doubtfully. ‘I can easily find my own way, with the kids . . .’

  I grinned at Michelle. We were in with a chance! But seconds later, my hopes were dashed. Colette waved her hands, jangling her bracelets.

  ‘Jim,’ she rejoined, ‘what is Judy going to say if you turn up late with those kids, and they’re covered in slime? Do you really think she’s going to be pleased? With me or with you?’ As Dad frowned, she added, ‘You’ll be lucky if she lets them anywhere near you ever again.’

  Dad blinked. He took a deep breath. Matoaka yanked him forward.

  ‘Come on, Jim.’

  When he turned to me, I knew I’d lost.

  ‘It’s very unlikely to be Mumuga poo, Alethea,’ he said apologetically. ‘What are the chances? It’s more likely to be human.’

  ‘Oh, please!’ his girlfriend wailed. ‘Don’t even say that!’

  ‘I’d prefer not to upset your mum,’ Dad went on, ignoring Matoaka. ‘I don’t want to . . . to . . . it might make things difficult.’ Under his breath, he muttered, ‘More difficult than they already are.’

  So we lost our chance. We could have collected a sample of genuine Mumuga scat, and we blew it. Even my brother was disappointed. He wasn’t convinced that the Mumuga existed (neither was I, for that matter – not thoroughly convinced), but he would have liked to see that puddle, all the same. As for Michelle, she was furious.

  ‘It’s just because the stupid woman wants to get back to Sylvester,’ she growled, while we trudged along. ‘Nothing matters any more except Sylvester. God, my mum is so pathetic.’

  ‘What about my mum?’ I replied, softly. ‘If Dad wasn’t so scared of her, he would have stayed. I know he would.’

  ‘They’re hopeless,’ said Michelle. ‘They have no spirit of scientific inquiry.’

  ‘I bet Richard would have stayed, if he’d been here.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Richard’s scientific. He’s interested in things. Maybe we should ask him to help us, when we get back.’ The more I thought about this, the more sense it made. Of course! Richard! ‘Maybe we could ask him to have a look around, and see what he can find. I bet he would. I bet he’d be really keen.’

  But when we returned to Caves House, I was out of luck.

  Despite the fact that it was ten to four, the adventure tour still hadn’t returned.

  CHAPTER # nine

  Naturally, Mum was getting worried. The first thing she said to us was, ‘Ray’s not back yet’. That was after we finally tracked her down in the guides’ office. It took us a while.

  First we all went to the bistro, because Joyce thought that everyone would probably be there. But she was wrong. No one was there except Gordon. He was sitting by himself with a cup of tea in front of him, reading a newspaper.

  He told us that Mum had been rushing around with Sylvia. The last he’d heard, they still hadn’t found Paul.

  Then he wrinkled his nose and added, ‘What’s that horrible smell?’

  Matoaka made a kind of bleating noise. She tugged at Dad’s arm and said, ‘Come on. I’ve got to change.’ I don’t think Dad wanted to go with her. He pointed out that she had the car keys, and advised her where to find the nearest tap. That’s when she realised that she wouldn’t be able to have a shower – because we’d checked out of our rooms, already – and her face crumpled.

  ‘I need soap,’ she whimpered. ‘I need a plastic bag. I need your help.’

  ‘And I can’t leave the kids,’ said Dad.

  ‘Oh, you can leave them with me, Jim,’ Colette offered. ‘Don’t worry about that. I’ll buy them all a soft drink, or something. I’m dying for a coffee.’

  Dad didn’t look pleased. But then Joyce came to the rescue. ‘It’s all right, dear,’ Joyce said gently, to Matoaka. ‘I’ll help. You’ll need someone who can get into the Ladies with you, surely?’

  Even Matoaka could see the sense in that. So she went off with Joyce, as Michelle’s mum collapsed into a chair beside Gordon. ‘Michelle, my love,’ she sighed, ‘will you be an angel and order Mum a coffee? Skim latte, please. And whatever you want for yourself. And your friends.’

  She began to fish around for money in the pocket of her skin-tight jeans. Bethan’s eyes lit up. Dad, however, raised his hand.

  ‘I’ll get the drinks,’ he declared. ‘What do you want, kids?’

  Bethan wanted an iced chocolate, with lots of cream. Michelle wanted a lemonade. I asked for a vanilla milkshake – to take away.

  ‘Don’t you think we’d better find Mum?’ I asked Dad. ‘She’ll be wondering where we are.’

  ‘No need to fret, Alethea. It’s only four o’clock.’

  ‘Is it
really?’ Colette checked her watch. ‘So it is. Shouldn’t the tour be back by now? I wonder where Sylvester could have got to?’

  Michelle flashed me a grimace, as if to say, ‘You see?’ I didn’t know how to respond. Dad went to buy the drinks, and Bethan – who hadn’t returned Joyce’s field guide – began to show Gordon the pictures of animal scats, until Colette told him to please shut that wretched book, because it wasn’t something that he should be reading at the table.

  When our drinks arrived, we consumed them quietly. Even Bethan was too tired to talk much. Dad clicked his tongue a couple of times over the food that other people in the bistro were eating. He mentioned the high rancidity factors in canola oil, and how margarine was really a blackish colour until it was chemically altered to turn yellow.

  Michelle’s mum made a face. ‘Please, Jim,’ she protested, setting down her empty glass. ‘I’m feeling a little fragile, after that dung incident. Are you finished, Michelle? Yes? Then let’s find Sylvester. We’ll need to go shortly, or we won’t get home until late.’

  ‘I’d rather stay with Allie,’ Michelle rejoined.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you would,’ said Colette, rising. ‘But you can’t. As soon as we find Sylvester, we have to leave.’

  ‘Why can’t I go in Allie’s car?’

  ‘Because you can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because you can’t, all right?’

  I could see by Michelle’s stubborn look that there was going to be an argument. Luckily, Gordon stopped it. He shook out his newspaper and said, in a sort of fake-casual voice, ‘I’m pretty sure that tour hasn’t come back yet. I would have seen them come down the steps across the road. Why don’t you all go down to the guides’ office, and inquire? If they turn up while you’re gone, I can tell them where you are.’

  It was a very sensible suggestion. Nevertheless, Michelle’s mum insisted on checking the gift shop, and asking at the reception desk, before heading down to the guides’ office. Here we found my mum sitting on a long bench, and Sylvia pacing up and down, wringing her hands.

  ‘Ray’s not back yet,’ Mum announced, the moment she saw us. ‘Where have you been? It’s past four!’

  ‘We were on the bushwalk, Mum, where else would we have been?’ Bethan shook his plastic bag at her. ‘And look what I found! Animal scats!’

  ‘What?’ She sounded a bit dazed.

  ‘That’s possum, and that’s rabbit! I’m going to draw them when I get home. Like in the book.’

  ‘They’re poos,’ I supplied, when I saw Mum’s confused expression. Before she could say anything, however, Sylvia ran up to Colette.

  ‘Have you seen him? Have you seen Paul?’ Sylvia quavered.

  ‘Why – no.’ Colette was startled.

  ‘You didn’t see him on your bushwalk?’

  ‘No, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Oh, my God. Oh, my God.’ Sylvia put her head in her hands. It was pretty scary – I hate seeing adults get that upset. Mum sighed.

  ‘Come on, Sylvia, calm down,’ she said. ‘You know what they told us.’

  ‘What did they tell you?’ asked Dad.

  I was keen to hear the answer as well, but Mum just waved his question aside, impatiently. Sylvia said to Colette: ‘They’ve looked through all the buildings, they’ve made an announcement over the PA system –’

  ‘He’ll be all right, Sylvia,’ Mum insisted, not sounding very sympathetic. ‘It’s only been a couple of hours. I’m more worried about Ray.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ Colette frowned. ‘Why is that?’

  ‘Because they’re worried.’ Mum pointed at the guides’ desk. Behind it, Greg from the ghost tour was talking to another guide, in a low voice. Someone else was on the phone. ‘They keep on telling me there’s been a bit of a hold-up, but they won’t say why. A “delay”, they reckon. I can’t get anything out of them.’

  ‘What do you mean, you can’t get anything out of them?’ Colette’s voice was suddenly almost as shrill as Sylvia’s. ‘Sylvester’s down there!’

  ‘Yes, Ray too. I pointed that out –’

  ‘Who’s in charge? Who have you spoken to?’

  ‘It’s hopeless, Colette, they’re running around like headless chooks.’

  ‘They’re supposed to be looking for Paul!’ Sylvia exclaimed. ‘He’s just a child!’

  ‘Oh, he’s trying to scare you,’ Colette snapped. ‘For heaven’s sake, he’s a little stirrer. It’s all a trick, to make trouble for everyone else.’

  Sylvia’s jaw dropped. Mum winced. Michelle nudged me as Sylvia struggled for words.

  ‘What a disgusting thing to say!’ she squawked.

  ‘Sylvia,’ Mum said quickly, ‘we’re all on edge, here –’

  ‘How dare you speak to me like that! My son is missing, and you stand there – you stand there . . .’ Sylvia began to splutter.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry, all right?’ But Colette didn’t sound sorry. ‘It’s just that we really don’t need this kind of prank right now, when we’ve got a missing tour group to worry about!’

  ‘They’re not missing, Colette,’ my mum corrected. ‘They’re just –’

  ‘A prank? A prank?’ Sylvia screeched.

  ‘He’s a walking time bomb, Mrs Klineberg!’ Michelle’s mum put her hands on her hips. ‘He’s a troubled kid, all right? He needs counselling. The whole family does, as far as I can see.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ Now it was Sylvia’s turn to put her hands on her hips. ‘Well you’re the expert, I suppose, after that appalling outburst this morning!’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Oh, please!’ my mum begged. ‘Don’t – don’t –’

  ‘You and Paul’s father would get along fine, the way you both inflict your sleazy paramours on your sensitive children!’

  Michelle’s mum went bright red. I don’t know what she said next, because it came out in such a furious shriek. Mum jumped up. Greg moved towards us, hurrying around the edge of the desk. ‘Hey!’ he cried. ‘Hey – hey! That’s enough!’ The man on the phone covered its mouthpiece with one hand. ‘Take’em outside!’ he roared. Sylvia burst into tears, wailing something about how Paul’s father would kill her – he would never let her have Paul ever again.

  I didn’t see what happened after that. Suddenly Dad was hustling me out the door, into the late-afternoon sunshine. He was pushing Bethan, too. And Michelle. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t be here.’

  He took us across the road, where there were tables and chairs arranged under a concrete shelter shed. I don’t know about Michelle, but I was in shock. I mean, my heart was thumping as if it was trying to break out of my chest, and I couldn’t breathe properly. Even Bethan looked frightened.

  ‘Did the Mumuga get Ray?’ he squeaked, much to my astonishment. (As far as I knew, Bethan didn’t believe in the Mumuga.)

  ‘No, no. Of course not.’ Dad patted his back, awkwardly, and peered towards the guides’ office.

  ‘What about ghosts? What if there are ghosts down there?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Bethan.’ Dad spoke sternly. ‘Ghosts are just a cultural construct. They can’t hurt you.’

  I could have told him that they can hurt you – that two boys from my Year Six class, Jesse Gerangelos and Tony Karavias, had once been chased into a disused mineshaft by a ghost. But I knew that Dad would only get cross at me if I did.

  Instead, I raised a more likely possibility. ‘Do you think there’s been an accident?’ I queried, finding it hard to move my lips. (They felt all stiff and weird.) ‘Like a cave-in, or something?’

  ‘I don’t see how,’ Dad replied, still staring at the guides’ office. ‘You heard what that bloke said about the caves, yesterday. They’re extremely stable.’

  ‘Maybe it’s Sylvester’s fault,’ said Michelle, in a hoarse voice. ‘With any luck, he’s broken his neck and they’re dragging him out. Slowly.’

  I have to admit, I was startled. Michelle was serious. She really wa
s. And I’m sure that I didn’t imagine the hatred in her tone, because at last Dad looked away from the guides’ office. He fixed his gaze on Michelle, frowning.

  ‘Why do you say that?’ he wanted to know.

  Michelle just sniffed, and fiddled with one of her earrings.

  ‘That’s a septic attitude,’ said Dad. ‘It’s going to poison your whole life, if you don’t watch out.’

  Michelle snorted. ‘Sylvester’s poisoning my life,’ she rejoined.

  ‘Why? What’s he done?’ said Dad.

  ‘He’s a bastard.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he is. He doesn’t want me around, so I don’t want him around, okay?’

  Michelle folded her arms. Dad scratched his beard. I shrank back, wishing I was somewhere else. There’s nothing I hate more than angry voices.

  ‘Well,’ said Dad, ‘all I know is, that kind of mindset is a running sore of bad energy. And it’s infectious. Bad energy begets bad energy. What just happened in there – you’re a part of it, you know. You’re part of the cycle.’

  ‘Oh, please.’ Michelle rolled her eyes. All at once, she sounded like her mother – or like someone grown up, anyway. ‘What would you know about it? You’re just like Sylvester, muscling in where you’re not wanted. Why should I listen to you?’

  Thinking back, I’m not surprised that Michelle spoke her mind like that. It’s what she does; she’s not like me. I remember once when she said that Bettina had put too much weight on – and Bettina was right there, listening! There’s no way I could ever have done the same. Any more than I could have told Dad that he wasn’t welcome.

  So I was horrified. I couldn’t believe my ears. Sitting there, between Michelle and my dad, I thought: What are you trying to do, you idiot, make things worse? For a moment I understood what Dad had been saying about bad energy begetting bad energy, because it seemed to me that we’d escaped the argument inside just to have it flare up outside.

  But we were lucky. Before Dad could open his mouth, Bethan exclaimed, ‘He’s back! Look!’ And I turned to see Ray walking briskly down the road towards us.

  Boy, was I relieved. Bethan had actually got me worried, talking about the Mumuga. And I also knew that Ray’s appearance would probably put a stop to Michelle’s conversation with my dad.