You're the One

You’re the
One

By

Angela
Verdenius

(Gully’s Fall
series bk 5)

Smashwords
Edition

Copyright 2015
Angela Verdenius

All Rights
Reserved

Cover images
courtesy of © vuk8691 and istock.com

Cover by Angela
Verdenius

Smashwords
License Statement

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Table of Contents

Glossary

Foreword

Chapter
1

Chapter
2

Chapter
3

Chapter
4

Chapter
5

Chapter
6

Chapter
7

Chapter
8

Chapter
9

Chapter
10

Chapter
11

Chapter
12

Bio

Other
Books by this Author

Glossary

I found that
some overseas readers were having difficulty with the Australian
slang, so I thought a list of the slang I’ve used will help while
reading the following story. If I’ve forgotten any, I do apologise!
Also, you’ll find some of our Aussie words have different spelling
to the US. Interestingly enough, as I’ve grown (gracefully) older,
I find a lot of our slang is bypassing the younger generation, so
if a young Aussie says they have never heard a certain word, don’t
be surprised! But trust me, I’ve used these words all my life
growing up, and so have a lot of my family and friends. Does that
make me an older Aussie? Heck yes! LOL

Cheers,

Angela

Australian
Names/Terms/Slang

Ambos -
ambulance officers

Arvo
-
afternoon

Barbie
- BBQ

Beaut
-
beautiful, awesome, great, wonderful

Berko
-
berserk

Bewdy
-
as in ‘awesome, great’

Biccies
- biscuits. The same as cookies

Bikie
-
biker, person who rides motorbikes.

Bloke/s
- man/men

Bloody
- a swear word ‘no bloody good’, in place of ‘no damned good’

Boofhead
- idiot, simpleton, etc. It’s an insult, though
sometimes we use it as a term of affection. It depends on how it is
said and meant.

Boot (of a
car)
- trunk

Brown
nose
- currying favour, sucking up. Has a cruder description,
but let’s not go into that here. Means the same thing!

Budgie
smugglers
- men’s bathers, small, brief and tight-fitting

Buggered
- many Aussie use it as a slang word for ‘broken’
(it’s buggered), ‘tired (I’m buggered), and ‘no way’ (I’m buggered
if I’m going to do that). Just some examples

Bung/Bunging
- as in ‘bunging onto something’, putting on
something (bung veggies on a plate, putting veggies on a plate),
usually in a careless or ‘easy’ manner.

Cark/carked
- die, died.

Chips
-
in Australia we have cold crunchy chips form a packet, or hot chips
known in some countries as French Fries

Crash
cart
- resuscitation trolley in a hospital or medical setting -
used for life threatening situations such as cardiac arrest

Daks
-
pants

Dander
– temper

Dill
-
silly, idiot

Dogs
-
(as in attached to a truck) - trailers, enclosed or not, that carry
goods or are empty.

Doona
-
like a padded quilt that fits inside a cover and lies on the bed.
Can have the warmth of two, three or four blankets, etc.

Donger
- penis. Also another meaning is a place people sometimes sleep in,
such as ‘dongers’ on mine sites.

Dunny
-
toilet. When used in the terms ‘built like a brick dunny’, it
refers to something built solid, unmoveable.

Firies
- fire fighters

Garbo/s
- the person/s who drive and/or load garbage onto the garbage
truck.

Gee-gees
- horses

Giggle-box
- TV, television

Gob
-
mouth

Got
his/her/their goat
– annoyed him/her/them

Hoon/s
- person/people who indulge in antisocial behaviour. Great
explanation in Wikipedia

Iced
coffee/chocolate
- a milk drink flavoured with chocolate or
coffee

Jumper
- sweater

Local
rag
- local newspaper

Lolly
-
sweetie, candy

Loo
-
toilet

Lug
-
face

Milo
-
chocolate malt drink. Can have it hot or cold. Yummy!

Moosh
-
slang for face/mouth

Mobile
phone
- cell phone

Mozzie
- mosquito

NAD
-
No Abnormalities Detected

Nong
-
idiot

Nooky
-
sex

Paddy
wagon
- four wheel drive police vehicle carries four police in
the double cab and has a filled-in imprisonment section in the back
to place prisoners.

Panadol
- paracetamol, similar to Tylenol in the US

Pav/s
-
Pavlova/Pavlovas - best dessert ever!

PCYC
-
Police and Citizens Youth Club

Pedal
Pushers
- three quarter pants/knickerbockers

Porking
- having sex

Primapore
- sticky patch with a pad in it, a medical
dressing

Pub
–
hotel

Quack
–
derogatory term for a doctor

RAC
-
Royal Automobile Club of Western Australia. Covers insurance,
holidays, loans, etc

Red backs
-
poisonous spider, black in colour with a red stripe on its
back.

Rotty
–
Rottweiler breed of dog.

Rubbers
– condoms

Sack
-
bed - as ‘in the sack’ meaning ‘in bed’

Servo
-
service station

Shag
-
sex

Sheila
– female

Slab
–
carton of beer.

Snaggers
- sausages

Smoko
-
morning tea and afternoon tea break

Soft
drink
- soda, fizzy drink

Stiffy
- erection, boner

Tea
-
some people call the evening meal dinner. In my family, we’ve
always called it tea, as in breaky, dinner and tea, or breaky,
lunch and tea.

Thongs
- worn on the feet, same as ‘flip flops’

Tickled
pink
- delighted

Tim
Tams
- a brand of Arnott’s Biscuits. Yummy!

TLC
-
Tender Loving Care

Togs
-
bathers, swim suit

Torch
-
flashlight

Toot
-
toilet

Tucker
– food

Twistie
– a brand of cheese-flavoured snack food. Yummy!

Up the
duff
- pregnant

Ute -
small truck

Vegemite
- most Aussies find this spread yummy, many
non-Aussies find it too salty. Here’s the hint - if you ever have
Vegemite, use it spread thinly, never thickly!

Vollie
- volunteers

Wacky
baccy
- marijuana

Wanger
- penis

Waterworks
- crying

Whopper
- a lie

Yamaha
& Suzuki
- ‘brands’ of motorbikes.

You
wally
- silly

Foreword

The RSPCA does
a wonderful - and sometimes unappreciated - job of looking after
the welfare of animals, mammals, birds, reptiles - anything that
crawls, flies, swims, and walks. Educating people on the care of
all creatures great and small is also part of their work.

Some of our
Inspectors have vast areas to patrol, and areas of hundreds of
kilometres are no exaggeration. All hail these dedicated real-life
heroes.

While my hero
is an RSPCA Inspector and I have tried to stay true to the job, I
have taken some liberties for the sake of the story.

Chapter 1

They were up
to something, and knowing that mob, it couldn’t be good.

Sipping on a
bottle of cold water, Del watched the scene over the road. Sitting
on the roof of her house, the silicone gun beside her for yet
another patch-up job, she had her knees bent, her elbow on one
knee, the water bottle in her hand, her sneakered feet resting on
the veranda roof.

Idly twirling
the bottle, the water sloshing around inside, she squinted a
little. Maybe next time she should bring the binoculars up here,
have a decent look. Not that it mattered because she recognised the
cars in front of the big house.

The early
morning sun shone down warm, almost a little too warm, causing her
to half close her eyes in enjoyment while keeping her gaze on the
people across the road. Her rickety old house might be a little
isolated in the shelter of bushes that ringed the clearing, and her
neighbours might be further away than her parents preferred, but
she liked the privacy. Just as she liked being able to sit on the
roof and look out over the bushes, watching the cars go past and
see her neighbours’ places.

It was the
neighbour across the road that interested her right now. Pierce
Harding, son of one of the wealthier farmers and a sleaze of the
worst kind. He was keeping bad company, but then anyone who kept
company with Brand Dawson, the town trouble-maker, kept bad
company. The third man, known simply as Cutter, lived in Ellor’s
Loop, two hours drive from Gully’s Fall. Now if Cutter was here as
well, then some scheme was being plotted. An illegal scheme. Just
had to be.

Taking another
thoughtful sip of water, feeling the sun starting to burn just a
little, Del’s gaze switched to track the big ute with the canopy
that slowed along the road, indicated and turned into the driveway
leading to Pierce’s house.

Hello, hello.
The local RSPCA inspector.

Her interest
piqued.

Now what would
the walking mountain want with those three miscreants? What had
they done? Her eyes narrowed as she watched the vehicle pull up
near the car the three men were standing beside.

The RSPCA
inspector got out of the ute, his very height and breadth dwarfing
the three men as he approached them, his back to Del. She couldn’t
see the expressions of the men properly, but there was no mistaking
their body language. Cutter took a step back, Brand held his place
on the other side of the car’s bonnet, and Pierce shuffled a little
closer to Brand. The inspector stood easily, big arms loose by his
side.

Nothing seemed
to happen. They nodded, Brand gestured, the inspector obviously
asked them something else, and Pierce suddenly led the way to a
large shed not far from the house. Brand and Cutter stayed by the
car as Pierce and the inspector disappeared inside the shed. They
both emerged minutes later to disappear behind the shed. Finally,
both strode back to the car, Pierce lagging behind the inspector’s
much wider stride. The inspector spoke to them all before turning
around.

As Del
watched, Brand suddenly raised his arm and waved. She blinked as
all four men tipped their faces towards her, then Cutter waved.

They’d spotted
her. Big deal, it was her house, her roof, and she wouldn’t wave
back to them if she was on fire. They were low scum who dealt in
some shady deals. Except for the inspector. He could be an
irritating arse, but he definitely was not crooked.

The inspector
turned to the men and almost immediately they stopped waving, Brand
slouching back down over the bonnet, Pierce taking a step
backwards, Cutter thrusting his hands into his pockets. The
inspector got back into the ute, the vehicle dipping under his
weight, pulled it into an arc and drove back along the
driveway.

Del tracked
the utes progress along the driveway, watched it turn onto the road
and unsurprisingly, it turned into her curving driveway at a sedate
pace to wind its way along the bush-lined dusty track before coming
to a stop in the wide space in front of the veranda.