Eustace

  ‘Speaking of ghosts, I don’t think you lot have any reason to hang around,’ said Richard, whose voice changed all of a sudden. He put one hand on his hip. With the other, he shone his torch right in my face again. ‘Since this one was a hoax, you can get back to where you should be. What on earth do you think you’re playing at, sneaking around in the dark?’

  I felt embarrassed, because I hate it when clever people like Richard catch me doing silly things. ‘Michelle just wanted to see your stuff,’ I mumbled.

  ‘What stuff?’

  ‘You know. Your PRISM stuff.’

  ‘Why?’

  I didn’t want to tell him, not with Peter listening. To my horror, it was Michelle who answered the question, in a roundabout sort of way.

  ‘Are you going to Golden Gully, tomorrow morning? Allie thought you might be,’ she said.

  Richard’s torch-beam shifted, coming to rest on Michelle’s upturned face.

  ‘Golden Gully,’ he murmured, adjusting his glasses again. ‘Well . . . I mean . . . it did cross my mind.’ His voice became grave, too grave, almost as if he was making fun of Michelle. ‘Since you and Allie seem so convinced that there’s an eyeless ghost out there, chasing people into holes.’

  Aaagh. I couldn’t bring myself to look at Peter. I could only imagine the expression on his face.

  ‘So you’re going first thing?’ Michelle pressed, apparently unaware that she was making a fool of herself in front of witnesses. I fluttered my hands at her.

  ‘Don’t worry about it, Michelle,’ I said, trying to quell her with an accusing stare.

  ‘What do you mean?’ She frowned. ‘I thought you wanted to bury the bracelet?’

  ‘And I thought you didn’t.’

  ‘I’ve changed my mind.’

  ‘You’ve changed your mind?’

  ‘You convinced me.’ A smile tweaked at the corner of her mouth; she leaned towards me, cupping her hand around my ear, and buzzed: ‘Chasing ghosts is a lot of fun, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah – well – let’s talk about it later on.’ I jerked my head at Peter, who said calmly: ‘Don’t mind me. I won’t say a word.’

  ‘Sorry – is there a problem?’ Richard asked. ‘Is there something you want me to do?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Michelle. ‘You see, Allie thinks that, if Abel Harrow is a ghost, he might be hanging around Golden Gully because he can’t bear to leave until he finds some gold. She thinks he mightn’t ever have found any gold when he was alive, you see, and he’s so obsessed that he’s haunting the place. So if we put some gold there for him to find, he might disappear. The way Eglantine did when her book was finished.’

  I rubbed my hand across my eyes, wishing that the whole idea didn’t sound so stupid when announced in a loud voice to a grown man. Shooting a glance at Peter, I saw that his gaze was fixed on me, and I couldn’t help blushing.

  ‘I know it sounds stupid,’ I blurted out. ‘It was just an idea.’

  Richard scratched his head. For once, his voice was slow and hesitant.

  ‘Well . . . it’s not a bad idea,’ he finally remarked. ‘I suppose it does make sense . . . if he is a ghost . . . it’s as good an idea as any . . .’

  Meaning he thought it sounded stupid. I’m not stupid. I could tell that he wasn’t convinced.

  ‘Anyway, we thought we’d use my bracelet, because it’s made of gold,’ Michelle finished. ‘We thought we’d bury it in Golden Gully, where Abel’s bound to find it. Or maybe you could bury it for us, since you’re going back there. We don’t know if we will be.’

  ‘Your bracelet? Oh, no.’ Richard’s tone was getting more and more reluctant. ‘You don’t want to do that. A gold bracelet? That’s worth money.’

  ‘It’s only nine carat,’ Michelle pointed out.

  ‘It’s still worth money.’

  ‘Yes, but the chain isn’t gold. Only the charms. It didn’t cost much.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Michelle. Really I don’t.’

  ‘But it might work! Don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes, it might, I suppose.’ Richard didn’t want to hurt my feelings; I could tell. ‘But even so . . . I mean, it’s throwing good money away . . .’

  ‘I don’t care,’ Michelle said mulishly.

  ‘I bet your mum would care.’

  ‘No, she wouldn’t. She never wears this bracelet. She gave it to me.’

  ‘Then that’s another reason why you shouldn’t throw it away.’

  ‘I’ll just tell her I lost it.’

  ‘Oh, no.’ Richard was looking more and more flustered. ‘You mustn’t lie to your mother.’

  ‘Why not?’ Michelle snapped. ‘She lies to me! She said she made me come here for my own good, when all she wants to do is go away with her new boyfriend! Well, if she wants me to go camping, then she’ll just have to put up with me losing jewellery, won’t she? People always lose things on camping trips!’

  Poor Michelle. I don’t think she meant to say all that; normally she’s so cool about her mum’s boyfriends. I caught Peter’s eye, and then we turned away from each other to study the floor at our feet. Richard was demolished – he’s a very sensitive sort of guy. He even began to stutter. ‘But – but – but –’ he said.

  ‘It’s none of your business what I do with my things,’ Michelle squeaked, in a halting, furious tone that I’ve only heard coming out of her mouth once or twice. (She rarely loses her temper.) Richard threw up his hands.

  ‘Okay! Okay!’ he cried. ‘I’ll do it! I’ll go there and I’ll leave it in the – where do you want me to leave it, anyway? Where did you see him? Anywhere in particular?’

  I gazed at Michelle. She gazed at me. It was hard to put into words.

  ‘Just anywhere?’ Richard said. ‘Or near that mineshaft, maybe? Where the boys fell in? Where is that? It would be a good place to start scanning for traces.’

  I put a finger in my mouth. Michelle seemed to sag, like a balloon with its air escaping. ‘It would be better if we could show you,’ she faltered.

  ‘You can’t tell me?’ Richard seemed tired all of a sudden, and perhaps a little cross. ‘Have you got a map or anything?’

  ‘You don’t need a map,’ Peter said quietly. ‘Tambaroora Creek runs through Golden Gully, and the fossicking area is just north of that. If you all go early – at eight o’clock, say – then you can meet up with everyone else down the creek at nine. It would be easy.’

  I couldn’t believe my ears. He sounded so calm and sensible and sort of – I don’t know, sort of grown up. As we all stared at him, he added: ‘The whole group is going fossicking down at Tambaroora Creek tomorrow. Then we’re having lunch, and then we’re leaving. That’s why, if you guys visit the gully before eight-thirty, it should work out pretty well.’

  This sounded like a sensible suggestion to me. Richard put his head on one side, considering it. I asked him if he could pick us up tomorrow. At eight o’clock, say?

  ‘Well, gee, I don’t know – I mean, I suppose so – if your mother lets you – I mean, if your mother lets you, Allie, not yours – oh, all right. Yes, all right, we’ll make it an early start. If your mum says it’s okay.’

  I don’t think I was wrong in believing that we had hassled the poor guy into doing something he didn’t want to do. Peter clearly felt the same way. ‘Gosh,’ he said, after Richard had quickly shown us his tape-recorder, his time-lapse camera, and his infra-red equipment, and had told us to wait by the car, ‘you really twisted his arm, Michelle.’

  ‘I did not!’ she snapped. ‘Don’t be mean.’

  ‘I’m not being mean. I think it was cool.’

  ‘Don’t,’ I said. Michelle seemed to be in a funny mood and I didn’t want her teased. I also wondered if I’d been a bit ungrateful – I mean about her bracelet and everything. It had been my idea, after all. ‘Thanks, Michelle,’ I murmured. ‘It’s really nice of you to give up your bracelet.’

  ‘I know.’

&
nbsp; ‘Do you think you should melt it down?’ Peter suggested. ‘So it would look more like the kind of gold you’d find in Golden Gully?’ As we both stared at him, he shrugged and spread his hands. ‘Just a thought,’ he said. ‘Don’t mind me.’

  At that point Richard joined us; he’d been locking up the house. He insisted on driving us back to the camping ground and also instructed us, when we reached our destination, not to go wandering off at night.

  ‘It’s dangerous,’ he said firmly.

  ‘But we didn’t go far,’ I pointed out, slamming the front passenger door. ‘We just wanted to –’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know, you told me. You still shouldn’t be wandering around at night. Any more of it and I’ll tell your mum.’

  ‘Okay.’ There was no point arguing. ‘See you tomorrow.’

  ‘What? Oh – right.’

  ‘You will come?’

  ‘Yes, of course, don’t worry.’

  ‘Bye then.’

  ‘Bye, Mr Boyer.’

  ‘Are you disappointed, Mr Boyer?’ Peter asked, out of the blue, and Richard peered at him through the car window.

  ‘About what?’ Richard queried.

  ‘About Eustace. Not being real.’

  ‘Oh . . .’ Richard shrugged. ‘They hardly ever are. They’re always either a hoax or something structural – dicky plumbing or rats in the ceiling or woodwork contracting in the heat. Something like that.’ He waved us away from the car. ‘Goodnight,’ he finished, and drove off towards the hotel.

  ‘I guess he must be going to tell Mum what happened,’ I observed, watching his red tail-lights recede. ‘I hope she’s not too cross.’

  ‘Do you think your mum’ll let us? Go back to the gully, I mean,’ Michelle inquired.

  ‘Who knows?’

  ‘We ought to.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Just in case Richard gets the wrong place. If he gets the wrong place, Abel might never find the bracelet.’

  I had to agree, though in my heart of hearts I didn’t really want to return to Golden Gully. The place had me spooked. In fact I couldn’t understand why Michelle was so keen. Perhaps she was more of an adventure-story type than I’d realised. Or perhaps it was because she had never actually seen Abel Harrow, or heard Jesse screaming from the bottom of the mine shaft.

  She hadn’t felt that nasty sensation in her guts.

  ‘We’ll ask Mum when she gets back,’ I sighed. ‘Maybe if we go with Richard and Delora, she won’t mind so much.’

  Michelle nodded. She pushed her bracelet up her arm, and announced that she had to go to the toilet. Behind us the camping ground was fairly peaceful; Amy’s dad was cleaning the barbecue hotplate and Angus’s dad was organising the washing-up. Nobody was fooling around, I noticed. Without Jesse and Tony there to get Malcolm going, even he seemed to be behaving himself.

  Michelle strolled off to the toilet block (‘Wish me luck,‘ she sighed, because she hates public toilets) and Peter pulled a packet of jelly beans out of his pocket.

  ‘Want one?’ he asked.

  ‘No, thanks.’ I took a deep breath. ‘You probably think we’re crazy, with all this ghost stuff.’

  ‘Not me,’ he said politely.

  ‘Like I said before, people always think you’re weird, when you believe in ghosts.’

  ‘Not me,’ he repeated.

  ‘Other people do, though. People like Malcolm Morling.’ I lowered my voice a little. ‘Do you think you could maybe . . . you know . . . keep it to yourself? About Abel, and everything? And Eustace, of course.’

  ‘Sure.’ Peter put the jelly beans back in his pocket, scratched his arm, rubbed his nose, and pulled his cap down low over his eyes. All at once I had an idea. I don’t know where it came from. Maybe I felt that a bribe might keep him from shooting his mouth off. Maybe I felt as if he deserved a reward. Or maybe I just knew, deep down, that he was dying to be included and I couldn’t bring myself to disappoint him.

  ‘You can come with us tomorrow morning,’ I said gruffly. ‘If Mum lets us go.’

  He grinned at me. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘That’s if you want to.’

  ‘Sure! I want to. That would be great.’

  I couldn’t understand why he thought so. But then again, I didn’t know him very well at the time.

  Personally, I wasn’t looking forward to the trip at all.

  CHAPTER # ten

  I was very clever about asking Mum if we could go to Golden Gully. I waited until she came home (at ten o’clock), saw that she was feeling happy and relaxed after a good meal, a bottle of wine and a few laughs with some old friends, and pestered her until she would have said anything to get me off her back. Then, when she woke up the next morning, she couldn’t withdraw her permission – even though she was beginning to have doubts.

  ‘But I can’t come with you, Allie,’ she objected. ‘I’ve missed two dinners, so the least I can do is supervise the breakfast and the packing up. I’ll be stuck here all morning.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Richard and Delora will be with us.’

  ‘But you’ll miss the fossicking.’

  ‘No, we won’t. It won’t take an hour. We’ll meet you down at the fossicking area. Richard will drive us.’

  ‘But you don’t know where the fossicking area is.’

  ‘Yes, we do. Peter does. He’s got a map.’

  ‘But you’ve already been to Golden Gully. Why do you want to go back?’

  I told her the truth – at least, most of the truth. I told her that Abel might be a ghost, and that Richard needed to know where he should scan for electromagnetic readings. I didn’t tell her about the bracelet. I knew that she wouldn’t approve.

  ‘But why do you all need to go?’ she complained.

  ‘Because I know where Abel hangs out, Peter knows where the fossicking area is, and Michelle doesn’t want to be left behind with Malcolm Morling and Amy Driscoll.’

  At last I got my way. I generally do when Mum has a lot on her mind – and she did, that morning. Everyone was packing up, Mrs Patel wasn’t there to help organise things, and the bus-driver was requesting his instructions. Besides, I’m a good debater. Most people seem to give up when I argue with them.

  ‘But I want you to be careful, Allie,’ Mum stressed. ‘No wandering off. Do you hear me? I mean it, Allie, if you wander away from Richard there’ll be no TV for the rest of the year.’

  ‘Okay, Mum.’

  ‘You promise?’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘The police will probably be around there anyway, looking for the old man,’ she said. ‘Police or National Parks people.’

  But they weren’t. When Richard pulled into the little Golden Gully parking area, just off Tambaroora Road, we saw at once that it was empty of other vehicles.

  ‘Which isn’t surprising, at this hour,’ Richard remarked. I don’t think he was too pleased about having to get up so early. He looked a bit puffy around the eyes, and he hadn’t shaved.

  Delora, on the other hand, was wide-awake and cheery, and wearing colours so bright that you practically needed sunglasses to look at her. She’d been talking ever since we got in the car, and she gave Richard a poke in the ribs whenever he started to mutter things about coffee or sleeping in.

  ‘He’s a coffee addict,’ she confided, craning her neck to wink at the three of us who were crammed into the back seat. ‘Can’t function without his morning cuppa. I’m a ciggie addict and he’s a coffee addict – that’s why we get along so well.’

  Michelle and I smiled politely. Then Richard parked the car, and we all climbed out. There was a chill in the air, and a fitful breeze chased small, fluffy clouds across the sky. I saw that Delora was wearing her high-heeled snakeskin boots; how, I wondered, did she expect to climb up gully walls in those things? Richard had brought his electromagnetic field detector, and Michelle had brought her bracelet. Peter was carrying his backpack, as usual.

  Delora lit up a cigarette.

 
‘Okay,’ said Richard. ‘Let’s go, shall we?’

  Everyone moved forward. Loose stones crunched under our feet. To my surprise, Delora had stopped talking; she swore occasionally, when she stumbled in those silly boots, but for the most part she was silent, puffing away on her cigarette and stopping, occasionally, to shut her eyes and take a deep, slow breath. I don’t know what she was doing. Opening herself up to the spirits, perhaps? Or just recovering her strength?

  By the time we reached the big arch she looked puffed out. (All those cigarettes, probably.)

  ‘That’s where I first saw the old man,’ I volunteered, pointing. ‘Down that little gully off to the side. That’s where Jesse and Tony fell into the mineshaft, too – you go down there and walk a bit further, and then you go up over the edge of the gully wall.’

  ‘We don’t need to go that far,’ said Richard. ‘I suggest we start where you first saw the old man. Where was it?’

  I showed him. Cautiously, with a hollow feeling in my stomach, I walked to the spot where I had first caught a glimpse of Abel Harrow. The light was falling differently now; the little gully was almost entirely wrapped in shadow. I shivered, and folded my arms across my chest.

  ‘Here,’ I murmured.

  Richard stopped beside me. He waved his electromagnetic field detector about, and checked the reading.

  ‘Hmmm,’ he grunted.

  ‘Anything?’ asked Michelle, from behind us.

  Richard made a see-sawing motion with one hand. ‘Could be,’ he said. ‘Let’s keep going.’

  We shuffled forward. The gully was so narrow, it made me uneasy. But we soon emerged into the sunlight again, as the narrow passage opened into a broad one.

  ‘This is where I saw him the second time. Right here,’ I announced, and felt someone tug at my sleeve. My heart skipped a beat, but it was only Michelle. She whispered: ‘Is this where we should bury it, do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Did you bring something to dig with? I didn’t.’

  ‘Neither did I.’

  Suddenly a beat-up silver tablespoon was thrust under my nose. I turned, and saw that Peter was holding it. He lifted an eyebrow.