Beginner's Luck (11 page)

It took a while to slide the sleeping bag under
Lindsey's body. Every time she moved, her face paled
and she asked Shelby and Frank to stop while she
waited for the nausea to subside. Once she was in the
sling the old man grabbed the top two corners while
Shelby grabbed the bottom.

When they lifted, Lindsey sighed and then her head
lolled to the side as she lost consciousness. Shelby
began to lower her end, but Frank stopped her.

'It might be better if she stays asleep for this part,'
he said.

Shelby agreed and they carried Lindsey across the
clearing. She was heavy and Shelby had to walk awkwardly
with her legs set wide apart. It wasn't long
before she'd broken into a sweat.

'It will be easier if you breathe,' Frank told her.
Shelby realised that she had been holding her breath,
and let it out in a whoosh.

Lindsey regained consciousness a few times and
then fainted again. Shelby was worried. Sometimes,
when she'd fallen from Blue, it had hurt a lot, but she
couldn't imagine something so painful that you'd
black out. She'd seen enough medical dramas on television
to wonder if it was something more serious
than a broken bone.

Shelby tripped a few times as they headed through
the mossy glade, and the sleeping bag swung close to
the ground, but as her eyes adjusted to the moonlight
she was able to be more careful. She wanted to rest.
Frank let her stop walking a few times, but he
wouldn't let her put Lindsey down.

'This is much harder for her than it is for you,' he
said. 'You have to be tough for your friend.'

Frank and Shelby placed Lindsey on the same flat
area near the billabong where Shelby had recovered
from her fall into the water.

Lindsey opened her eyes again. 'You have to get
me off the sleeping bag,' she said.

The old man shook his head. 'It will hurt too
much. It doesn't matter. I can get another one.'

'But they'll wonder where it came from,' she
insisted.

'I can get my saddle blanket,' Shelby offered. 'It's
too small for your whole body, but it should fit under
half of you.'

She ran back to the edge of the clearing where she
had left her saddle. When she returned they slipped it
slowly underneath Lindsey's torso while simultaneously
drawing the sleeping bag out the other side.
Shelby was glad to have Frank's help. She wouldn't
have been able to do it without his strength.

Once Lindsey was settled, the old man sat down on
the folded-up sleeping bag a little way away, leaning
his back against a tree. Shelby was ready to set off.

At the clearing she stopped to give Blue a hug. 'I'll
be back soon,' she told him. 'Be good.' He rubbed his
forehead against her shoulder and then went back to
grazing.

Shelby started along the path to the rock face.
Now that she was more familiar with it, it didn't seem
so far. She had even started to recognise landmarks –
a tree stump, a patch of native violets, two broken
branches that had fallen across each other and made
her think,
X marks the spot
. When she reached the
part where the path dipped and curved around a thick
tree trunk, she knew she wasn't far from the rock face.

It wasn't possible to climb one-handed, and so
Shelby tucked the torch into the back of her joddies,
waited for her eyes to adjust, and then manoeuvred up
the vine in the dark.

Shelby didn't know the trail at the top. She swung
the torch to and fro in front of her feet, the way
Lindsey had done, being careful to avoid rocks and
branches.

As she jogged Shelby could feel all the tea she had
drunk sloshing in her belly and it wasn't long before a
sharp stitch ran up her side. She held her arm up,
trying to stretch it away.

It seemed as though all the trees along the plateau
were young – ghostly pale, slender poles. The whole
landscape was grey and black, except for the washed-out
colour in the sweep of the torchlight. She listened
to the sound of her feet scuffing through the leaf litter
and the occasional scrape, screech and scuffle of
wildlife moving through the trees – possums, bats and
birds, she assumed.

Shelby was feeling very brave and not thinking
about monsters, bunyips or zombies at all – in fact,
she was thinking about home and how nice it would
be to sit down in her own lounge room with a glass of
Milo not stirred in, and a teaspoon with a long
handle, when she came across a pile of stones on the
ground. She paused for a moment, shining her torch
on the stack of pebbles, and her heart rate wound up
a notch. A cold shiver ran from somewhere in her
belly all the way down both legs, numbing her feet.
The Blair Witch. She wished she hadn't let Erin talk
her into watching that movie.

She swung the torch around. The circle of light
suddenly seemed smaller. Everything beyond it was
dark and menacing, and no matter which way she
turned the torch, some part of her always touched the
darkness. She considered turning it off, but even the
idea of overwhelming darkness sent a shiver of butterflies
through her stomach. She imagined faces and
figures in the gloom. She was sure she could hear
something breathing nearby – a long exhaled breath.
Hahhhhh.
She was sure she could smell it too – hot
air, fetid and rotten.

Images of a dozen movie monsters flashed in her
mind like a slideshow – the predator, Carrie with
blood on her face, the creature from
Thirteen Ghosts
with the cage on its head. A fresh cascade of shivers
ran through her limbs. She was glued to the spot.

A twig snapped nearby and Shelby bolted. She ran
fast, fuelled by her own fear, the stitch forgotten.

The track seemed endless. As she dashed along she
felt a thin sticky spider web suspended between two
branches wrap around her cheek and across the bridge
of her nose. She frantically brushed at her hair and
face, sure that she could feel tiny furry legs scuttling
over her scalp.

She raced on. She lifted her knees up high, because
she didn't want to trip and fall. Falling over was the
most terrible thing. People always fell over in the
movies, and then they half got up, and just when they
were nearly on their feet; that's when the monster got
them.

Her legs were getting sore, and the muscles in her
thighs were burning. She couldn't keep sprinting for
much longer, yet the idea of stopping was worse. It
was as though the darkness was solid – pressing
against her back – pursuing her. She could imagine a
band of beasts shambling behind her, closing in,
waiting for her to fall. She could almost feel a clawed
hand stretching out, swiping at the back of her shirt.

I'm never going to watch a scary movie again
,
she promised. Her parents had told her she wasn't
supposed to. It was Erin's fault. Erin loved them.

Looming ahead, Shelby saw the tall fence that surrounded
the electricity station. She hurtled towards it.

The fence travelled as far as she could see in either
direction. On the inside she could see rectangular
lights of orange and yellow – not bright enough to
light the station itself, but she could see the metal
structures and criss-crossing cables in their glow. She
skidded to a stop, spun around with her back to the
fence, and shone the torch behind her.

There was nothing there.

Her chest heaved with each breath she took, and
the stitch sang in her side. She leaned over, resting her
hands on her knees trying to get her breath back. Her
mouth filled with saliva.

Somehow having the low lights behind her and
cold mesh against her back made her feel safer. Every
time a scary thought lurked in her mind she blocked
it off.

I'm so pooped
, she thought. She couldn't afford to
be pooped. Lindsey needed a doctor, and Shelby's
parents would be getting more worried with every
minute that passed. Being a scaredy cat wasn't helping
at all.

From Frank's description, Shelby had expected
that the path would run parallel to the fence line, and
not cut it off like a T-intersection. The question was –
which way was she supposed to go?

A few hundred metres to the right, she could see
brighter lights higher up – not streetlights, but similar.
The tall hurricane fencing with barbed wire on top
stopped, and a new aluminium fence started. She
followed it for a while until she found a pile of old
paving stones against the fence. She shone the torch
up above the fence line and saw a series of uniformly
shaped conifer tree in rows.

This must be the back of the nursery
, she thought.

From memory, the traffic lights were on the road
between the electricity station and the nursery plantation.
She could walk all the way around the nursery to
the cross street, but it would be much faster if she
went straight through it.

Besides, the nursery had straight rows of plants
and shrubs and a gravel path in the middle. She had
walked along through the front part of the nursery
with her father when he was buying plants for his
garden. There would be nobody there at this time of
night. The lights were around the perimeter, and it
would be much easier and safer walking along the
nursery paths in the light than stumbling through
the scrub.

And there are definitely no monsters in there
,
Shelby thought.

She was wrong about that.

From the other side of the fence Shelby could hear
a low, steady purring noise, like the hum of the chest
freezer they kept in the garage, or the drone of a pool
filter. She wondered if it was some kind of generator.

Shelby clambered up the pile of pavers to peek
over the top, but she couldn't see past the rows of
conifers that were packed against the fence. She swung
her leg over the fence, her boot making a dull 'clang'
as it hit the aluminium on the inside. The purring
noise slid up a notch – louder, coarser, more organic.

That's not a generator
, she thought, but her body
was already in motion, swinging down to the ground
on the inside of the fence. She couldn't have stopped
even if she'd tried.

Her feet touched the ground. All around her the
branches of the trees pressed against her. Their needles
smelled like Christmas. Suddenly the air in front of
her face was hot. There was a noise so loud and
jarring that it made her ears hurt. She could see jaws –
long pointed teeth right in front of her nose. She heard
a clicking noise as the teeth snapped together centimetres
from her face.

It took her a moment to recognise the shape. Not
a generator at all. It was a dog – a big, black savage
dog. It wasn't growling any more. Now it was barking
ferociously, making her ears ring. She lost her balance
and leaned backwards, held up by the branches of
the trees.

The dog leapt forward, barking and snapping at
her face. One of its paws landed on her shoulder,
driving her back further, and the other clawed for
grip, raking through the branches next to her head.
She could smell its breath, moist and meaty, and see
its lips curled up. Its black, beady eyes focused on her
and it trembled with fury.

It hates me
, she thought.

Shelby heard a new noise – this time definitely
electronic. It was the steady mewing of an alarm
system. The sound of it set off the dog again, barking
and snapping its teeth so close to her face that she
could feel its whiskers, and little droplets of spit on
her cheek.

A thought, surprisingly calm, drifted through her
head.
I probably should have walked all the way
around.

Shelby felt like she had been pressed against the trees
forever with the dog barking in her face, breathing
its stinking breath at her, and glaring at her with
hate-filled eyes, and all the time the alarm shrieked,
but after a while she saw a light out of the corner of
her eye, and she heard a man's voice – just one word.
'Heel.'

The dog backed away, still growling deep in its
throat.

Shelby stood up straight and rubbed her face,
wiping off the dog's saliva. The torch shone in her
eyes and she held her hand up against the glare.

'This is private property. What are you doing
here?' the man said.

At first she thought he was a policeman, but as her
eyes adjusted she could see that he was a security
guard in a grey uniform and a baseball cap with a
logo embroidered on the front. Shelby thought that
this was a good thing. A man in a uniform. Despite
the monster dog, things would be OK.

'My friend is hurt,' Shelby said. 'I was looking for
help.'

'Where's your friend?' the man asked.

'She . . .' Shelby thought about it. 'She's under the
bypass. Down Gully Way.'

The security guard paused. 'So why are you back
here then?'

Shelby took a moment to consider her answer. He
was right. If Lindsey was under the bypass, then
Shelby had no reason to be all the way around here –
almost a kilometre away. 'I tried to climb up through
the storm water tunnel, but I fell too. I had to go back
around past the electric station,' she explained.

He ran the torch down her body. 'What's with the
camouflage gear?' he asked.

Shelby looked down at her dark clothing. 'I was
horse riding,' she said.

'Where's your horse?' he challenged. 'And what's
that on your face?'

Shelby rubbed her hand on her cheek and looked
at her fingers. There were dark smudges from the
burned damper and ash from the fire stuck to her
cheeks with golden syrup.

'It's just dirt,' she replied, knowing that her answer
wasn't very convincing.

'Come with me.' Throughout the whole conversation
his voice was gruff. Shelby guessed he was the
kind of adult who didn't like kids at the best of times,
let alone when they were breaking into his nursery in
dark clothes with their faces smudged, like a cat
burglar.

Shelby followed him along the path between the
rows of plants, looking at the security guard's back.
He was quite tall, his narrow shoulders drooped, and
he had a thick waist. Shelby thought he looked like a
bowling pin on legs.

The dog padded along next to him. Now that she
could see him better, Shelby thought he was probably
a Doberman. He had a long nose and ropey muscles
bunched underneath his short dark hair. Occasionally
the dog would glance back at her over its shoulder, as
though it was checking up on her.

While this was a detour to the original plan it was
still progress. She'd met a grown-up who probably
had a phone, and as soon as she could convince him
that she was telling the truth everything would be
under control.

They reached a gate between the back part of the
nursery and the front retail section. The security guard
pulled out a set of keys and unlocked a padlock. He
stood back while she walked through and then he
locked it again behind him. She followed him through
the native shrubs to a white shed that looked like a
small version of the demountable buildings that they
had at school.

Once inside, he motioned for her to sit on a plastic
chair to one side of the desk. He used his keys to open
a cupboard on the wall. Then he pressed a few
buttons on a control panel and, to Shelby's relief, the
alarm stopped shrieking.

'Now then,' he said, propping himself on the edge
of the desk. 'Are you going to tell me what you were
really up to?'

'I told you,' said Shelby. 'My friend is hurt. She's
under the bypass. She's by herself in the dark. I need
to get a doctor.'

'What's your name?'

'Shelby Shaw.'

The man picked up a notepad from his desk and
wrote it down in capital letters.

'Are you going to ring my mum?' she asked. That
would be good. Her parents would be fine once they
understood what had happened. She hoped she would
get an opportunity to explain what had happened
before her dad went bananas.

'No.'

Shelby frowned. 'Can I?' Then she remembered her
manners. 'May I please borrow your phone?'

'No.' He slid a pair of reading glasses on the end
of his nose and started shuffling through some papers.
Then he started writing on his notepad. Every now
and then he would look up at her.

'I need to call my parents,' Shelby stood up. Immediately
the Doberman was on its feet and growling.

'Just sit down,' he said.

Shelby sat down again. She looked around the
walls. There was a faded 1997 calendar on the wall
and a pin board covered in flyers and posters for
security systems, locksmiths and martial arts lessons.

The security guard sniffed again and then began
reading aloud.

'At 9.23 pm this evening a blonde female youth
breached the rear boundary (six foot aluminium
fencing in heritage green) of the property known as
the Sunnyside Nursery. The canine security unit
obstructed the youth, until I was able to be in attendance
to evaluate the situation. The offender identified
herself as Shelby Shaw, and claimed . . .' He paused,
giving her a particularly long and disapproving stare
over his glasses. '
Claimed
to be seeking assistance for
another youth who had fallen some distance away. In
my assessment the youth's story was unlikely, as she
was kitted out . . .' He frowned, and scribbled for a
moment. 'Outfitted in dark garments and had applied
black facial camouflage in order to avoid detection.'

'It's not camouflage,' she muttered. 'I'm just dirty.'

'The offender did not resist apprehension.'

He stopped and began writing again, reading
aloud as he went. 'And has remained relatively calm
and non-violent while waiting for the appropriate
authorities to attend the scene.'

The 'canine security unit', who had been staring
fixedly at Shelby, turned its head towards the door
and growled.

A few moments later Shelby heard the noise of
tyres across gravel and then a handbrake.

The man signed his statement with a flourish and
tore the page from the pad. Then he pushed the chair
back, and stood at the doorway with his hands on his
hips, holding the piece of paper between his thumb
and forefinger.

Through the frame Shelby could see a police
officer emerge out of the gloom and wipe her feet on
the mat. She had her head down. When she looked up
Shelby recognised her.

Oh no!

Shelby half smiled, wondering whether the police
officer would remember her. She didn't think so. They
must deal with much more memorable people every
day.

The police officer looked at her. 'It's you again.'

'Yes, it's me,' said Shelby hopefully.

'You know this girl?' asked the security guard. He
wore an expression that suggested he wasn't surprised.
'I have prepared a statement of the events that
occurred this evening.' He held out the paper.

The policewoman took it and read through it.
'Thanks. She's not a thief. She's just a silly, thoughtless,
naughty girl.'

'I haven't done anything wrong!' protested Shelby.

Sergeant Everard raised an eyebrow.

'This time,' Shelby added.