Sticky Beak Read online

  ‘This poor mistreated bird . . .’ she said.

  Then she stopped.

  Sticky had flown down and was standing on her head.

  Six times I climbed the tree with Sticky and six times he flew down.

  The sixth time Amanda lost her temper.

  ‘Get up that tree, banana-head, and stay there,’ she yelled at Sticky, who was trying to undo her shoelaces with his beak.

  Even though I was feeling pretty tense myself on account of Ms Dunning having a baby in three days and us not even having done the introduction yet, I tried to calm her down.

  ‘He’s just feeling nervous,’ I said. ‘He’s had a scary experience here. It’s like us going to the dentist.’

  It was no good.

  Amanda was looking in the other direction.

  ‘I said get up that tree!’ she yelled at Sticky.

  Sticky bit her on the ankle.

  She screamed, then picked up an apple and threw it at him.

  Luckily she missed, because Sticky wasn’t in any condition to duck.

  He was just standing there, rigid with shock.

  Like me.

  Amanda realised what she’d done and looked pretty shocked herself.

  Before any of us could move, a voice came from behind us.

  ‘Watch yourself, Cosgrove,’ it said. ‘You can get five years for chucking Batts’ apples.’

  We spun round.

  Darryn Peck was standing there, smirking.

  ‘Wish I could stay,’ he said, ‘but I can’t hang around here all day watching you mistreat wildlife, I’ve got a miniseries to make.’

  And he ran off down the track laughing to himself.

  For a minute I felt as if I was going to explode with frustration and shrivel up with embarrassment at the same time.

  Then I recovered the power of thought.

  ‘Come on,’ I said to Amanda. ‘After him. This is our chance to talk to him about his crimes on camera.’

  It took us a while because Sticky wouldn’t get into his bucket before Amanda apologised.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Amanda at last, dabbing at her ankle with a hanky.

  Then Amanda wouldn’t go until Sticky apologised.

  ‘Eat soap,’ said Sticky.

  ‘That’s his way of saying sorry,’ I explained to Amanda, pushing her down the track in the direction Darryn had gone.

  As we got close to the creek we could hear Darryn shouting.

  We crouched down and peered through the bushes and saw him and Trent Webster and Doug Walsh and a couple of kids on the other side of the creek.

  Darryn was sitting on the bank with his head in his hands while Trent filmed him with his camera.

  ‘My parents,’ sobbed Darryn loudly, ‘both drowned. Swept off the bank by a freak wave in the middle of a picnic. I begged them to wear floaties.’

  ‘Life jackets,’ said Doug, holding up an exercise book. ‘In the script it says life jackets.’

  ‘Stop being a smartarse,’ Darryn hissed at him, ‘and try to arrest me.’

  Doug stepped forward, and Trent swung the camera around till it was pointing at him.

  ‘Police,’ said Doug, reading from the exercise book. ‘We’ve found your parents’ bodies and they’ve both got lumps of concrete tied to their feet.’

  Darryn jumped up and pulled a plastic sword from his belt.

  ‘You’ll never take me alive,’ he shouted.

  Doug stared at the sword.

  ‘It says a gun in the script,’ he said.

  ‘Shut up and fall into the water when I kill you,’ Darryn hissed at him.

  Amanda nudged me.

  ‘Start the camera,’ she said and then she was on her feet yelling across the creek at Darryn.

  ‘Darryn Peck,’ she shouted, ‘is it true that you had a cockatoo for six years?’

  Darryn paused with the sword raised above his head and looked across at us. So did the others.

  I switched on the camera and struggled to get Darryn and Amanda in focus at the same time.

  ‘Pig’s bum,’ shouted Darryn.

  ‘Is it also true,’ yelled Amanda, ‘that you ditched the cocky for a poodle?’

  ‘Go suck a turnip,’ yelled Darryn and went back to chopping Doug Walsh into tiny pieces.

  Amanda and I discussed crossing the creek so he’d have to answer the questions, but it gets pretty deep in places and Amanda didn’t want to risk it with the camera and I didn’t want to risk it with Sticky.

  ‘I’ve got a better idea,’ I said. ‘Let’s go to his place and wait for him to get back. That’s what they do on telly. They chase people through the house with the camera going and out into the back yard and finally corner them near the veggie garden where they break down and confess.’

  I could see Amanda was having trouble with my hand movements.

  I wrote it out.

  Amanda read it and nodded.

  ‘OK Ro,’ she said in a loud voice so Darryn could hear, ‘let’s go back to your place and do a nature documentary about woolly aphids.’

  Then we set off for Darryn’s.

  We didn’t get there.

  Darryn’s place is on the other side of town, but in the main street we ran into a problem.

  Dad and Ms Dunning.

  Just as we were passing the dry-cleaners and Amanda was in the middle of pointing out Mr Shapiro’s new van to me and I was wondering if old dry-cleaning vans feel as bad about being dumped as cockies and kids do, I saw Dad and Ms Dunning coming out of the hardware store carrying a baby car seat.

  Normally I’d have been pleased to see them, but not today.

  Not when I was carrying a bucket with a cocky in it that I was meant to have given back to Darryn Peck four days ago.

  Dad and Ms Dunning hadn’t seen me, so I grabbed Amanda and dragged her across the street and into her dad’s shop.

  Both Amanda and Sticky were looking at me as though I was mental, so I explained the situation to them.

  ‘It’s just for a couple of minutes,’ I said, ‘till Dad and Ms Dunning have gone.’

  Sticky seemed happy with that, but Amanda looked nervously around.

  The shop was empty apart from the usual rows and piles of neatly-folded clothes.

  We could hear Mr Cosgrove in the changing cubicles, telling a customer that grey-green was definitely this year’s colour.

  I put my hand on Amanda’s arm and gave her a look.

  ‘Relax,’ it said, ‘I haven’t chucked a dessert for nearly a week.’

  But that’s not what was worrying Amanda.

  ‘Dad doesn’t like animals in the shop,’ she said quietly, ‘not since Ray Hempel’s cattle dog tried to round up all the suede jackets.’

  I put Sticky’s bucket down behind a rack of moleskin pants, partly so Mr Cosgrove wouldn’t see Sticky if he came out of the cubicles, and partly so Sticky wouldn’t have to listen to himself being compared to a dog.

  Cockatoos mustn’t like moleskin pants.

  Either that or metal buckets.

  Because just as Mr Cosgrove came out of the changing area and saw me and started looking nervous, there was the sound of fencing wire being ripped and suddenly Mr Cosgrove had something to be even more nervous about.

  Sticky, flying screeching around the shop.

  Amanda screamed, Mr Cosgrove yelled, and the customer, who was coming out of the cubicles doing up his pants, grabbed his briefcase and held it in front of his privates.

  Sticky swooped down, snatched up a pair of orange and brown checked shorts from a table display, flew twice round the shop with them in his beak, and dropped them onto a pile of pink shirts.

  ‘Stop that,’ yelled Mr Cosgrove.

  I could understand why he was so upset, I’ve never liked orange and pink together either.

  Then Mr Cosgrove noticed that Amanda was holding the video camera.

  ‘Switch it on,’ he shouted at her. ‘The insurance’ll never believe us otherwise.’

  I g
rabbed a towelling bathrobe and waited for Sticky to land so I could gather him up in it.

  Sticky didn’t land for quite a while, mostly because Mr Cosgrove kept throwing shoes at him and swiping at him with belts.

  I pleaded with Amanda to get her dad to stop, but every time she tried to say something to him he yelled at her to keep on filming.

  Sticky swooped round and round the shop, snatching up socks and ties and thermal underwear and knocking over piles of cardigans and footy tops.

  By the time he finally landed on a rack of safari suits and I was able to get him into the bathrobe and then into the bucket and wire the chook mesh down securely, the shop was pretty untidy and Mr Cosgrove was an even brighter purple than Dad’s wedding shirt.

  ‘Your parents are gunna hear about this,’ he roared as Amanda bundled me out of the shop.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Amanda said to me outside, ‘he’ll calm down once we get everything back in the right piles.’

  I tried to be angry with Sticky on the way home, but I couldn’t.

  I glared at him a few times, and each time he went from mohawk to cowlick and looked down at the bottom of the bucket.

  ‘This poor mistreated bird,’ he said, ‘has suffered.’

  I was pretty impressed. It was quite a mouthful, even if he had heard it thirty or forty times.

  But it didn’t change the fact that we’ll have to finish the in-depth report without him. We can’t creep up on Darryn Peck’s place tomorrow with a deranged cocky swooping around flinging washing and dog food all over the place.

  ‘Fraid you’ll have to stay put tomorrow,’ I told Sticky as I shut him in his cage with fresh seed and water. ‘It’ll just be for one day.’

  ‘I can’t do it,’ screeched Sticky. ‘I resign.’

  I felt awful as I walked to the house.

  I still do.

  I should have been more honest with Sticky. I should have explained that if Mr Cosgrove rings Dad before tomorrow, we’re both in deep cocky poo.

  But then what’s the point in us both having a knot in our guts the size of Uluru Rock including the car park, the kiosk, the motel, the air strip and all the rubbish bins?

  It’s eight-thirty and he hasn’t rung yet.

  Dad’s just been in to say goodnight and if Mr Cosgrove had rung I know Dad would have said more than, ‘By the way, how’s the telly project going?’

  ‘OK,’I said.

  I put my hands under the sheet.

  ‘Has to be finished tomorrow, doesn’t it?’ he asked.

  I nodded.

  ‘Think you’ll make it?’ he asked.

  I nodded.

  ‘Good on you,’ he said. ‘Sounds like a top show, endangered wildlife. As long as you don’t include codling moths.’

  I smiled.

  ‘G’night, Tonto,’ said Dad. ‘I’ve got to get back to Claire. She’s teaching me how to fold nappies her way.’

  That was ten minutes ago.

  My hands are still under the sheet, fingers crossed so tightly they feel like cocky claws.

  I burnt the eggs this morning.

  It’s the first time I’ve ever done it, and I could see it made Ms Dunning suspicious.

  ‘Are you OK, Ro?’ she asked, but it wasn’t the tone of voice your dad’s wife uses, it was the tone of voice a teacher uses when you’re daydreaming and burning the chemicals in science.

  Or the eggs.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, blowing at the smoke, ‘I was miles away.’

  That was a slight exaggeration.

  In my head I’d only been three metres away, over by the phone, waiting for it to ring and Mr Cosgrove to say that he wasn’t letting Amanda use his video camera anymore and that he had the address of a really good home for uncontrollable cockies and kids.

  Ms Dunning and Dad went back to their conversation about babies’ names.

  ‘Caroline,’ said Ms Dunning.

  ‘Carla,’ said Dad.

  ‘Amelia,’ said Ms Dunning.

  ‘Leanne,’ said Dad.

  ‘Lachlan,’ said Ms Dunning.

  ‘Clarrie,’ said Dad.

  ‘Our neighbours had a turtle called Clarrie,’ said Ms Dunning.

  ‘My dad’s name was Clarrie,’ said Dad.

  ‘I’m not really hungry,’ I said. ‘Bye.’

  As I left the house the phone still hadn’t rung.

  I decided Mr Cosgrove must still have been tidying up the shop.

  I could hardly breathe by the time I got to the end of Darryn Peck’s street in case Amanda wasn’t there or was there but didn’t have the camera.

  She was there.

  She had the camera.

  ‘I reminded Dad you’re a disadvantaged person,’ said Amanda. ‘Sorry.’

  I gave her a hug.

  Normally I’d have been ropeable, but sometimes you have to be lenient when a clever and generous best friend’s trying to stop your life from going down the dunny.

  Even if later the same day it ends up down there anyway.

  Getting into Darryn Peck’s place was easier today than it would have been six months ago because six months ago his three big brothers were still living at home and there was always at least one of them lying in the front yard under a motorbike with a spanner at all hours of the day and night.

  This morning the front yard was empty except for a few bushes near the front door.

  Me and Amanda went and crouched in them, camera and clipboard at the ready.

  ‘He’s definitely still in the house,’ said Amanda, using her hands. ‘I’ve been at the end of the street since six-thirty.’

  She’s incredible. She’ll be on national television by the time she’s twenty-three.

  After I finished telling her that, we headed for the front door.

  Then I had a thought.

  ‘If he sees us ringing the bell,’ I said, dragging Amanda back into the bushes, ‘he could lock himself in the bathroom. We’ve got to take him by surprise. Round the back.’

  We crept along the side of the house, ducking under the windows, and peered round the corner into the back yard.

  Darryn’s mother was kneeling at a small table just outside the back door, making strange noises.

  ‘Oochy, oochy, oochy,’ she went. ‘Goo, goo, goo, goo, goo.’

  It sounded like she was feeding a baby. I knew she hadn’t had a baby recently, but for a sec I thought maybe she was feeding someone else’s as a part-time job.

  Then she moved a bit and I saw it wasn’t a baby but the poodle, which was standing on the table looking bored while she combed its curls with a tiny comb.

  ‘Who’s a beautiful girl then?’ cooed Mrs Peck.

  The dog didn’t answer, but I could see it eyeing Mrs Peck’s hairdo, which was very similar to its own, and wishing it had a tiny comb too.

  Then Mr Peck came out of the house and started making baby noises as well.

  ‘Ga, ga, ga, ga, ga, ga, ga, ga, ga, ga,’ said Mr Peck.

  You don’t often hear a forklift-truck operator talking like that.

  I could feel Amanda shaking with silent laughter and I put my hand over her mouth just in case.

  Mr Peck tilted the poodle’s head up and pushed its legs a bit further apart. ‘First prize,’ he said, speaking into his fist, ‘goes to Amelia Peck Hyloader The Third.’

  Then me and Amanda stiffened.

  Darryn was coming out of the house.

  He stood watching his parents, shoulders drooping.

  Then he took a deep breath and spoke.

  ‘Dad,’ he said, ‘why can’t we go to the cricket tomorrow? You promised.’

  Mr Peck answered without looking up from the poodle. ‘You know why,’ he said. ‘We’ve got Amelia in the show.’

  Darryn’s shoulders drooped even further. ‘You’ve got her in a show every Saturday,’ he said bitterly.

  ‘Don’t raise your voice to your father,’ said Mrs Peck, not looking up either, ‘it’s making the dog nervous.’
/>   Darryn looked at his parents for a moment and then turned and walked towards us.

  We flattened ourselves against the fibro but he came round the corner with his head down and walked straight past us.

  Amanda nudged me and headed after him. I switched the camera on and by the time they were halfway across the front lawn I had them both in focus.

  ‘Darryn Peck,’ said Amanda in her best reporter voice, ‘is it true that you ditched your faithful cockatoo for a poodle?’

  Darryn swung round.

  ‘I hate that poodle,’ he shouted, ‘I’ve always hated it.’

  Then he realised who he was talking to and froze.

  That’s when I saw the tears in his eyes.

  Darryn Peck was crying.

  I turned the camera off.

  ‘But you did abandon a cockatoo,’ persisted Amanda, before she felt me gripping her arm and saw Darryn’s tears and realised it was time to shut

  ‘Yeah, what of it?’ Darryn said, but his heart wasn’t in it.

  He looked so helpless and unhappy I wanted to put my arms round him.

  Then he took a step forward and for a sec I thought he was going to grab the camera and hurl it over the neighbour’s fence.

  Instead he turned and ran into the house.

  Amanda and me looked at each other.

  ‘We could do an in-depth report on Darryn’s parents,’ she said quietly.

  I shook my head.

  It wouldn’t change anything.

  We walked into town without saying much and when we got to school I gave her the camera and she gave me a hug and I set off for home.

  I’m almost there.

  I’m hurrying so I can see as much of Dad as possible in the little bit of time left before the baby’s born, because afterwards I’m going to be pretty busy with the club.

  The club I’m going to start.

  It’s got four members already.

  Me, Sticky, Darryn Peck and Mr Shapiro’s old van.

  I could tell something was wrong as soon as I walked into the house.

  Ms Dunning’s Jelly Custard Surprise, the one she’d made for the Show, was sitting on the kitchen table without a flyscreen over it.

  I knew she’d never leave it like that on purpose because everyone knows you can’t win a prize in the Cakes And Puddings section if you’ve got fly footprints in your whipped cream.