Puppy Pie (26 page)

‘What's wrong with you?' Harry says as he tries to dodge Useless' affectionate paws. ‘Owww!' he yells as something bites him savagely.

Having licked Harry's face mercilessly, Useless is now sitting on the end of the bed watching Harry twitch. ‘Gerroff,' Harry mumbles sleepily. ‘Stop it, Useless.'

Useless, with his head on one side sits looking perplexed. He's used to being told off but not when he's doing nothing.

Venomous and Menacing sigh with relief: they've crossed the barrier from animal to human, something no other mite has ever been able to achieve. They look at each other with the same thought:
Ma will be pleased
.

‘Stop it!' Harry yells sitting up suddenly and staring straight into Useless' big brown eyes. For a moment, Harry looks as perplexed as Useless. Taking a bite of Harry's left armpit, Menacing laughs as Harry jumps straight into the air.

‘Your damn fleas,' Harry shouts jumping out of bed. ‘Get off! And get out!' he shouts as Useless wags his tail encouragingly. Harry opens the veranda door and shoves the hapless dog outside. Looking at the bed sleepily, he begins to crawl back in.

‘Owww!' he shouts. Quickly, Harry pulls all the bedclothes off the bed and lies down on the bare mattress. As he lies back down, a sharp bite from Venomous has him yelling again.

Harry throws the bare mattress onto the floor, turns it over and lies down again. After a minute of needle-like jabs, Harry sighs loudly. With another quick jab from Venomous, Harry yells, jumps up, runs into the bathroom and turns on the shower.

As he scrubs himself vigorously, Venomous and Menacing lie warm and dry in the tight, circular curl of his ear.

‘He's awake now,' Menacing laughs.

‘But we gotta keep him wide awake,' Venomous growls. ‘He's got to help Ma save the farm. Otherwise, you know what Ma's like.' They both shiver.

Soon, Harry is out of the shower, dry and awake. As he walks back into the bedroom, Harry glances at the bed and the mattress on the floor. He sighs and mutters, ‘Bed's too dangerous.' Then he throws on jeans and a clean but crumpled red t-shirt and wanders out to the kitchen. ‘Funny, it's so quiet,' he says to no one in particular as he fills the kettle. He glances up at the kitchen clock. ‘No wonder,' he says. ‘It's past midnight, already tomorrow.' He scratches his head. ‘That's funny,' he says to the kettle. ‘I can't seem to remember what I did yesterday.' Automatically, he walks over to the fridge, takes out two eggs and two slices of bread. He drops the bread in the toaster and the eggs in a saucepan of water on the kitchen sink. ‘Wait on,' he says, ‘I remember I was harvesting the hemp at home and then …' He scratches his armpit. ‘Nope! Nothing at all after that. Well, that's odd. Fancy me not remembering the rest of the day. Must ask the kids. I remember Lucy and Tom hanging around. Oh, that reminds me. Better check the kids are alright,' he says to himself as he walks with his empty mug through to the hallway. Just as he's about to tiptoe up the stairs, he glances into the lounge and over to the computer.

Harry sighs heavily and shakes his head. ‘Don't tell me they've left that thing on again: gotta keep an eye on them all the time. Never know what they'll get up to next.' Harry ambles over to the computer. Just as he's about to turn it off, a sharp nip makes his hand jump and he knocks the hairless mouse. The screen lights up and a vivid map of Argentina flashes onto the screen.
Argentina
, he thinks to himself.
Now who mentioned Argentina recently?
He clicks the mouse and it highlights the last section the gang was looking at: ‘Argentinian Siesta Mites.'

Harry, bending over the computer, starts to read, chuckling to himself.
Must be some sort of practical joke
, he thinks as he scrolls down. However, as he reads further, a trickle of recognition runs down his spine. Harry stares hard at the screen.
I've been so sleepy recently. Is this mite the reason
? He sits down heavily in the chair in front of the screen. Out loud, he says, ‘Well, I never! But how did they get here?' Harry starts clicking feverishly, searching for more information on the pest.

Turning back to the coffee table for an instant, he grabs a fresh piece of butcher's paper and starts making a few notes. As he clicks out of the Internet, he sees several files that were hidden behind the information on Argentina. Opening the one marked Folly Spread Sheet & Timeline', he begins to read avidly, scribbling more notes as he goes.

‘Have I really slept through all this?' He looks around for a calendar. ‘And it's only six days until the Bank calls in the overdraft.' He stops suddenly, his heart ominously missing a beat. ‘Can that be right? No, hold on, Harry,' he says to himself. ‘That can't be right. I must have more time than that.'

Harry runs into the kitchen and looks at the calendar. The gang has marked each day off, just as Harry usually does. He looks hard at the calendar. ‘Wednesday! It's Wednesday, the … ‘It can't be!' Frantically, he looks around for a newspaper. Running into the laundry, he grabs yesterday's newspaper from a pile near the door ready for composting. He gulps as he looks at the date. ‘Tuesday, 27 January. That's yesterday?' Harry runs back into the kitchen. He stares at the calendar in disbelief: Jake has carefully written “overdraft due” across the coming Saturday.

‘Wednesday,' Harry gasps in disbelief. ‘Today's Wednesday! And in three day's time, not six, the overdraft's due.' He staggers to the nearest chair. ‘How could I have slept through all this?'

Just then, the kettle boils and the toast pops. Menacing gives Harry a nip on his leg. ‘Ow! He scratches the site Menacing has just vacated. ‘Those Argentinian Siesta Mites are pretty vicious with their bites.' Menacing and Venomous laugh mightily at Harry's mistake.

‘Let me think,' he says clearheaded as he puts the eggs on the stove. ‘What have we got? So far, there's mites, the overdraft …' Harry shivers involuntarily. ‘And the crop. Somehow, they're linked. But how?' He gets up and starts pacing up and down, just as the gang has been doing for weeks. The egg timer rings and Harry sets the eggs in eggcups absentmindedly. He takes the still warm toast over to a plate and sits down. Decapitating the eggs, he automatically plunges the toast into the soft-boiled egg. He thinks as he munches.
Right, mites affect the hemp and slow down the harvesting. What should have taken a couple of weeks will take just over a month
. He has another mouthful of egg and toast.
But where does the overdraft come in? And why? And who brought those mites into this country in the first place?

Pushing his empty eggs away, Harry strides backwards and forwards over to the fridge putting the butter back in. He takes out the milk for his tea as he recites out loud the gang's findings, fixing them firmly in a mind still dulled by sleep.

Harry, now completely engrossed in the gang's findings, wonders what the strange light is, as it begins to fill the kitchen. He looks around him and then up at the kitchen clock. ‘A quarter to five already,' he says out loud. ‘No wonder the sun's coming up. I'd better get a move on.'

Racing to the farthest end of the lounge room, Harry opens a cabinet to reveal a safe. After some rummaging, he removes a photocopy of the Deed of Title to the “Folly” and the overdraft contract. As an afterthought, he also takes out the surveyor's report of the Folly. Taking his notes over to the computer, Harry starts to put them into order. For over an hour, Harry sits in front of the computer typing while he mentally shakes his thoughts into order.

By six o'clock, Harry has finished typing.

By six thirty, Harry and his truck are flying away from the Folly and out the top gate.

* * *

Half an hour later, the gang groggily stumbles downstairs.

‘Somebody's been up,' Jake says. ‘Look at all these dirty dishes piled up. Alright, which one of you has been having a midnight feast?'

The gang looks blank.

Jake frowns. ‘Hold on,' he says dashing into his parents' room. ‘Dad's up! And he's gone!'

‘Hey!' Tom calls from the lounge room. ‘Our notes are all over the place. How come?'

‘What?' the others yell running over to him: the coffee table is bare and the sheets are scattered all over the lounge room floor.

‘What's going on?' Gull asks confused.

‘Beats me,' Lucy shrugs. ‘Wait on,' she says, running back to the kitchen. ‘Let's see if Dad's left a note. She finds a scrappy piece of paper sticking out from under the milk jug. ‘Ah ha!'

‘What's it say?' Jake asks eagerly.

Lucy reads, ‘Gone fishing. Love, Dad.'

‘You're kidding!' the twins cry in unison.

‘I can't believe it,' Gull says shaking her head. ‘Fishing at a time like this! So, what do we do now?'

Lucy shrugs. ‘Well, we can either keep harvesting. Or waste time looking for Dad up and down the river banks.'

‘No choice,' Jake says quickly. ‘Harvesting because if we go looking for Dad, where would we look? So, harvesting?'

Lucy says, ‘And three of us can take it in turns harvesting and then trucking it to the sheds.'

‘Ah, Gull, are you going in with Shirley today?'

‘Yep,' she answers. ‘Oh and by the way, yesterday was almost my last day.'

‘What?' Lucy shouts.

‘Yeah,' Gull nods. ‘The bank manager said something to Shirley about me being there.'

‘Like?' Tom asks.

‘Like the Bank wasn't a kindergarten.'

‘How insulting,' Lucy says indignantly.

‘What did Shirley say?' Jake asks.

‘She said everyone was out working bringing in the hemp, and I was too young and delicate to be out working too, and a bit of a daydreamer. I don't think he likes me being around. I make him nervous, I think.'

‘Good,' Jake announces firmly. ‘After what the Bank has put us through, he should be nervous.'

‘Come on, everybody,' Lucy says. ‘I'll tell the others not to pick us up, that we're bringing in our own crop again. Plus Gull's got to get ready for the Bank.'

‘I know,' Gull sighs despondently. ‘I've got to find that password.'

Lucy says, ‘The good thing is Dad's awake now so maybe tonight we can tell him what's been going on. But,' she says perplexed, ‘I still can't work out why Dad would go fishing. Oh, quick, Gull,' she says, glancing at the kitchen clock, ‘Shirley'll be here in fifteen minutes.'

‘Guess you're not off the hook yet,' Jake says quietly to Gull.

‘Guess not,' she answers with a sinking feeling.

An hour later, the only sounds coming from the Folly are the rooster crowing and the harvester sailing majestically through the emerald green hemp.

* * *

Later that evening as they start getting dinner ready, Lucy says, ‘I wonder where Dad is? It's too late for fishing now. And Gull's late too. I wonder if she's saved the Folly yet'.

‘Maybe she's gone fishing too,' Jake says heavily.

Just then, the gang hears the ute at the top gate. Within a few minutes, Harry is pulling up outside the kitchen door and climbing out of the ute.

‘We've got everything ready, Dad. Hope you caught something big and tasty for dinner.'

‘Huh?' Harry says forgetting the note he'd left that morning. ‘Oh! Ha ha! Well I think I might have caught a whopper but I threw him back to see if he'll grow a bit more.'

‘Then you didn't bring any fish home?' Lucy asks. She sighs heavily. She was looking forward to some fish for a change. ‘Didn't you go fishing?' she asks.

‘Sort of,' Harry says mysteriously and then winks.

His children look at him confused.

‘Well good to see you're awake, Dad,' Tom shrugs at the others.

‘Doubly awake now,' Harry says with a rueful grin. ‘Wish you'd told me what was going on with the Folly a whole lot sooner, what with the overdraft being called in this Saturday.'

The gang is gobsmacked. They stare at Harry.

‘What?' Harry asks looking at them mystified.

‘We've only been trying to tell you for weeks,' Tom bursts out.

‘Have you?' Harry says. ‘I don't seem to remember.'

Tom starts to say something more but Jake steps on his foot, and Tom bellows.

‘Not your fault,' Jake says generously as he shakes his head rapidly at Tom. ‘Those Argentinian Siesta Mites have been singing you to sleep.'

‘Thanks Jake,' Harry says smiling slightly as he looks around at his children. ‘I get the feeling I've let you all down pretty badly: I don't seem to remember anything much,' he says scratching his head. ‘But now,' he says, ‘I'm fully awake. I know it's still on the cards that we could lose the Folly.'

‘But what have you been doing all day Dad?' Lucy asks seriously.

‘Well I have been fishing. For information that is,' he says hastily. Three pairs of eyes look at him puzzled. ‘Surely you didn't really think …' Harry says. ‘Oh, the note. Sorry! Just my warped sense of humour: I thought you'd “catch” on. Get it? “Catch” on?' Harry looks around at three tense faces. ‘Alright, I'll be serious from now on. Because this is serious. Right, kids?'

The gang nods and repeats, ‘Right,' very pointedly.

‘Right, back to work,' Harry says, looking down and shuffling papers. ‘Now, I've been up at the Council most of the day catching up with some old friends of mine,' he replies.

‘Socialising?' Lucy says looking askance.

‘No, not socialising,' he says quickly. ‘On your spread sheet, Gull had typed that the bank manager had been spending a bit of time over at the Council as well as seeing farmers, and I wondered whether the two were linked. So, I've been sniffing around, trying to find out whether anything or anyone new has come into the area. Or, more importantly, plans to. And this is where it begins to get interesting.'