Snake Surprise! Read online

  First published by Ford Street Publishing, an imprint of

  Hybrid Publishers, PO Box 52, Ormond VIC 3204

  Melbourne Victoria Australia

  © J. E. Fison 2010

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  This publication is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without prior written permission from the publisher. Requests and enquiries concerning reproduction should be addressed to

  Ford Street Publishing Pty Ltd

  2 Ford Street, Clifton Hill VIC 3068.

  Ford Street website: www.fordstreetpublishing.com

  First published 2010

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

  Author: Fison, J. E., 1966–

  Title: Snake surprise! / J. E. Fison.

  ISBN: 9781921665127 (pbk.)

  Series: Hazard river series.

  Target Audience: For primary school age.

  Dewey Number: A823.4

  Cover design: Gittus Graphics ©

  Cover illustration: Marc McBride ©

  In-house editor: Saralinda Turner

  Printing and quality control in China by

  Tingleman Pty Ltd

  J. E. Fison is no stranger to danger …

  I'm the first to admit that being an international adventurer has its tricky moments: like the time I was camping in Africa and woke up to find two male elephants fighting outside the tent. Mind the tins of baked beans, would you guys! Then there was the time I was on a nighttime safari and the open-top jeep broke down, just as a pride of lions decided to start their hunt! My advice when you come face to face with a lion is: try not to panic.

  In the jungles of Borneo I once shook hands with an orang-utan. I didn't mean to and I don't recommend it; they're much stronger than you think. I've also eaten a lot of things that I wish I hadn't. Wok-fried grasshoppers taste just like they look and rat soup tastes even worse than it sounds.

  J. E. Fison – Brisbane 2010

  WHICH HAZARD RIVER BOOKS HAVE

  YOU READ?

  Shark Frenzy!

  Snake Surprise!

  Tiger Terror!

  Bat Attack!

  Dedicated to the koala. Loss of habitat threatens their survival.

  Contents

  Chapter 1 Ghost Boat

  Chapter 2 The Rescue

  Chapter 3 A Trap

  Chapter 4 The Message

  Chapter 5 Help Me

  Chapter 6 The Boat Driver's Friend

  Chapter 7 Henceforth

  Chapter 8 Hazard River

  Chapter 9 Breakneck Island

  Chapter 10 A Long Story

  Chapter 11 Visitors

  Chapter 12 The Rescue Mission

  Chapter 13 The Snake Trap

  Chapter 14 A Good Way of Saying Thanks

  It rained and it rained. The wind blew. Then it rained some more. Hazard River flooded and the water turned into a giant cappuccino – all brown and frothy. The wet weather looked like ruining the summer holidays at Hazard River.

  Until we found the message …

  The day started like every other day that week, with a board game.

  ‘Can I play Monopoly, too?’ my little brother Ben asks.

  It's our third board game this morning and it's only 9 am. When will this rain ever stop? I could be out looking for a new secret base. I could be boogie boarding or playing cricket. Instead I'm landing on my neighbour Lachlan Master's hotel on Mayfair. Just about to go bankrupt.

  ‘That will be five thousand, six hundred and seventy-two dollars,’ Lachlan says with a smile.

  ‘It can't be that much!’ I protest.

  ‘It's called inflation. The prices go up, the longer you take to pay. It's six thousand, four hundred and twenty-nine dollars now.’ Lachlan will do anything to win.

  ‘There's no such thing as inflation in Monopoly,’ I protest. ‘You're cheating.’

  I count out my notes. The grin doesn't leave Lachlan's face.

  ‘Fifteen … sixteen … seventeen … eighteen … nineteen. Nineteen dollars. That's all I've got left,’ I say.

  My friend Mimi quietly slips a couple of fifty-dollar notes my way. But it's not enough. Lachlan has beaten me again.

  This is not what I call a good way to spend the holidays.

  ‘Look! Look!’ my little brother Ben shouts. ‘There's a houseboat sailing sideways down the river. That's cool. Can we try that? It looks like fun.’

  I look out the window through the rain. Sure enough a big square boat is heading sideways down the river in the howling wind. But someone isn't sailing it that way. I can't see anyone on the boat at all.

  Somersaulting sausage rolls! It's a ghost houseboat.

  ‘There's no one driving the boat and it's just about to crash!’ I shout.

  ‘And that's Zingarra it's going to crash into,’ Mimi says.

  Zingarra is a yacht. It's also Mimi's home. She and her parents have sailed around the world in Zingarra. The boat has survived gales in the Atlantic Ocean and cargo ships in the Malacca Straits. But it's just about to be demolished by a ghost boat on Hazard River.

  ‘We've got to do something!’ Mimi screams, jumping up from the table and knocking the Monopoly board onto the floor. ‘There's no one on Zingarra. Mum and Dad have gone shopping.’

  ‘What about our game!’ Lachlan says. He tries to reassemble his hotels and houses on the board.

  ‘What about our breakfast?’ Ben says. ‘I can smell pancakes.’

  ‘There's no time for pancakes or Monopoly,’ Mimi says, running through the front door.

  Ben gives the air a little sniff, then leaves the pancakes behind. He chases Mimi outside. I'm right behind him.

  ‘Help me with the dinghy!’ Mimi calls, running down to the water's edge.

  Mimi's Zodiac dinghy is sitting on the beach. We push the inflatable craft into the river and jump onboard. Mimi starts the motor. We fly off in the direction of the ghost boat. The rain is almost blinding me. The wind is pushing us all over the place.

  ‘What are we doing?’ I shout over the noise of the motor.

  ‘We have to get on that boat. We have to steer it away from Zingarra,’ Mimi shouts back.

  ‘But it's a ghost boat,’ I remind her.

  ‘It's not a ghost boat. It's just a houseboat that's drifting down the river. It must have broken free of its mooring in this wind,’ Mimi replies.

  It all sounds a bit unlikely to me. I imagine climbing on board. There's a ghostly captain. His spindly hands are on the steering wheel. There are one-hundred-year-old crackers in his woolly beard, rats on his scrawny shoulders. That doesn't sound like a place I want to be.

  But Mimi has other ideas.

  ‘You'll have to jump on board and grab the steering wheel,’ Mimi shouts, bringing the dinghy up to the houseboat. ‘I know you can save Zingarra, Jack.

  ‘On the count of three! One … two … three.’

  There is a metre between the dinghy and the ghost boat as I get to my feet. I reach out towards the boat, my fingers clamping onto the side. The dinghy wobbles underneath me. It bounces over the rough water. I tighten my grip on the side of the ghost boat. I step onto the edge of the dinghy. I prepare to climb on board. I know I have to move quickly or I'll fall into the river. But I hesitate. I'm worried about ghosts.

  Unfortunately that's right when a log, caught in the current, bashes into the back of the dinghy. It pushes the Zodiac off course. The dinghy and the ghost boat are forced apart. And I'm in the middle!

  Somersaulting sausage rolls! I'm a human bridge!

  ‘Ahhhhhh!’ I scream. My fingers are still clinging to the ghost boat and my feet are on the side of the dinghy. And it's getting furth
er away.

  ‘Hold on, Jack!’ Mimi calls. She fights to get the dinghy closer to the boat, but the log is wedged between the two.

  Ben, for some reason, decides that an oar is the most useful piece of equipment in emergencies. He swings it towards the log. I guess he is trying to help. But all he manages to do is ram it into my bottom.

  ‘Ahhhhhh!’ I howl again.

  This time I lose my footing. The dinghy disappears from under my feet. I'm left swinging from the side of the ghost boat with my feet in the water.

  I turn to see Mimi bringing the dinghy back to help. Ben is still armed with the oar. This time I don't hesitate. I swing a leg onto the boat and then haul myself onto the deck.

  ‘Quick, Jack. You don't have much time,’ Mimi shouts from the dinghy.

  My eyes dart around the boat. There's no sign of ghosts, but there's a terrible stink coming from the cabin. Something must have died down there.

  I scurry towards the steering wheel. I grab hold and pull it hard to the left. Zingarra is just metres ahead of me. It's getting closer. I spin the wheel again. Slowly the ghost boat lurches across the choppy river, away from Zingarra. There's a sickening screech of wood colliding with wood. I turn to see the back of the houseboat scraping down the side of Mimi's yacht.

  I use all my strength to give the steering wheel one last heave. Possibly because I'm the strongest boy on earth (or because the houseboat is very old), half of the wheel comes off in my hand.

  I turn around to see Zingarra. It's still afloat. The boat is a bit scratched, but it's safe.

  I, on the other hand, need to get out of here fast. I'm on a ghost boat, heading at high speed for the riverbank.

  ‘Watch out. I'm coming through,’ I shout. I jump into the dinghy, still clinging onto half a steering wheel.

  ‘You've saved Zingarra!’ Mimi says, giving me an embarrassing hug. ‘You're a hero!’

  ‘Why are you carrying a steering wheel, Jack?’ Ben says. ‘You look like a baby driving a choo-choo train.’

  One minute I'm a hero, the next a first-class loser. It's the story of my life.

  ‘It came off in my hands,’ I reply. I toss the wheel away.

  The ghost boat careers out of control down the river. It smashes into a dense clump of mangroves on the riverbank. Birds flap out of the trees and into the wind.

  ‘Maybe the driver of the boat fell overboard and was eaten by a shark,’ I offer by way of explanation.

  ‘Could have …’ Mimi says, giving it some thought.

  ‘I know what happened,’ Ben says. He pauses to make sure everyone is listening. ‘I think the boat driver was … poisoned.’

  ‘Why would anyone do that?’ I ask.

  ‘Because the boat driver and a man with a glass eye and rotten teeth stole a million dollars and hid it on the boat!’ Ben replies. ‘Mr Glass Eye wanted the money all for himself. He put washing-up liquid in the boat driver's beer … he choked on the bubbles.’

  ‘I don't think you can choke on bubbles,’ Mimi quite rightly points out. But Ben isn't put off. He hasn't finished the story.

  ‘Any minute,’ Ben continues, looking around for signs of trouble, ‘Mr Glass Eye is coming back for the million dollars.’

  ‘Not if we find it first,’ I say, jumping to my feet and sending the dinghy rocking.

  ‘Are you both mad?’ Mimi says. ‘I'm sure there's a sensible answer to this. I don't think it involves poison or a million dollars.’

  ‘I think we should check the houseboat just in case,’ I say. I know that Ben's story sounds a bit unbelievable, but no one should ignore the chance to find a million dollars.

  ‘Even if we do find a million dollars on the boat, which I really doubt, we won't be able to keep it, you know,’ Mimi informs us.

  Another perfect plan spoiled by Professor Mimi Bigbrains.

  ‘What about finders keepers?’ I say, quoting a well-known school-boy law. (Unless it's grade six bully, Daniel Largeknuckle's stuff you find. Then it's ‘finders hand it over’ if you want to ‘keepers your face’.)

  Mimi shoots me a ‘don't you know anything’ look.

  ‘What?’ I reply.

  ‘Yeah, what?’ Ben repeats.

  ‘If we find a million dollars we'll have to hand it in to the police. But we'll probably get a reward.’

  ‘A reward,’ Ben says, his eyes getting wider.

  ‘Maybe a hundred dollars … maybe even a thousand dollars,’ Mimi adds.

  I'm prepared to look under a few smelly socks for a hundred dollars. I'm ready to rummage through a couple of grubby undies for a thousand dollars. But I would need a ten thousand dollar reward, if the undies were really brown and crusty.

  ‘Let's take a look then,’ Mimi says. She steers the dinghy into the mangroves beside the ghost boat and ties it to a tree. ‘What have we got to lose?’

  A lot more than we ever imagined.

  As we clamber over the back of the houseboat, I have the feeling that I'm being watched. There could be a million dollars here somewhere. But there's a little voice inside my head warning me to go back. ‘It's not your boat. What if Mr Glass Eye comes back for his money? Get off now before someone gets into trouble,’ the voice urges me.

  But an even louder voice is shouting outside my head.

  ‘A million dollars! I'm going to be rich. I'm going to travel the world. I'll never have to work again!’

  It's coming from Ben, who has never worked a day in his life.

  ‘You're only six. You're too young to give up work. You haven't even started yet. And you're way too young to travel the world,’ I say. ‘You have to hold Mum's hand when you cross the road.’

  ‘I cross the road on my own all the time,’ he replies. ‘Sometimes I even cross the road before the lollipop man puts his sign up.’

  ‘Ooohhhh. Dangerous,’ I tease. ‘You're ready to get on a plane for Africa.’

  ‘Let's worry about that if we find any money,’ Mimi says. She climbs into the houseboat's cabin.

  We follow her down the stairs. The place is a mess. Baskets of clothes have been turned upside down. Books are scattered across the bunks. Magazines are strewn around the cabin. Sheets of newspaper are plastered across the windows.

  ‘Wow, this really is a pigsty,’ I say. ‘This is almost as messy as your room, Ben.’

  ‘I don't think this is just messy,’ Mimi says. ‘I think someone has been in here looking for something.’

  ‘The money!’ Ben says. ‘Mr Glass Eye has been looking for the money.’

  I search through a pile of clothes. I toss big white undies over my shoulder. I scatter grey undies on the floor. There has to be something good in here. There must be a few stray banknotes or some loose change. But there's nothing of value at all.

  My head is in the oven checking for money when a voice stops my search.

  ‘Get out now. Get away from my boat or I'll send you to the bottom of the river,’ says a menacing voice from above us. ‘Leave now or I'll feed you to a one-eyed suckerfish.’

  Ben, Mimi and I freeze. The frantic search for clues stops dead. We look around the cabin for the source of the strange voice.

  ‘Leave now,’ the voice continues. ‘Or a thousand seagulls will poo on your head. A million pelicans will suffocate you with their fish breath.’

  Mimi puts her finger to her lips, then points to the back of the boat. She crouches down on her hands and knees. She creeps out of the cabin. Ben follows. I'm only a metre behind when my shirt gets caught on a spiky wire on the deck.

  I jerk at the material, trying to free myself. But the shirt won't budge. The spiky wire won't let go.

  ‘You have ignored my warnings. Now you'll pay the price,’ the voice calls. ‘First it will be the seagulls and pelicans. Then the suckerfish will slurp out your brains.’

  ‘My brain is really small!’ I shout. ‘I don't even know what two plus two is. It won't make a meal for a suckerfish. Choose someone smart like Professor Bigbrains! She's got a brain the
size of Uluru.’

  Mimi grabs hold of one of my arms. (It's very kind after I've just asked the monster to send a suckerfish to eat her brains.) Ben takes the other. They both pull.

  Riiiiip …

  My shirt tears. The spiky wire releases me. The rain is cold on my bare skin, but inside I'm burning with fear. I look up to check if a seagull army is ready to unleash a thousand sloppy white pooper-loopers in my direction.

  I'm scanning the sky for doo-doo missiles, when there's a bloodcurdling scream. An ugly thing with a human body, ears like a rabbit and a face so grotesque it would make gladiators wet their pants, leaps off the roof of the houseboat. It lands right in front of me.

  ‘Ahhh! We're all going to die!’

  I close my eyes. I wait for the monster to break my head open. But it doesn't touch me. It just goes on roaring.

  It's only when I open my eyes that I realise the monster's shorts look just like the boardshorts Lachlan was wearing this morning. And I wonder how many monsters wear Billabong T-shirts. I inspect the face of the monster. I see that its giant ears are in fact two odd thongs hooked onto a pair of perfectly normal boy's ears and our monster is wearing a muddy and barnacle-encrusted mask.

  Somersaulting sausage rolls! That's no monster.

  ‘Lachlan!’ I shout as the ‘monster’ begins to laugh a high-pitched and unmistakable Lachlan the Master of Disaster cackle.

  ‘You are such a snail-brain!’ Mimi adds, with one of the worst insults I've ever heard her use.

  ‘That was my best joke ever,’ Lachlan laughs, pulling the thongs off his ears.

  ‘I thought for sure you'd see me sneaking through the mangroves. I found these on the way. There are lots of great things washed up by the storm.’

  ‘Oh, great. I'm so glad you're recycling,’ Mimi says.

  I pull at the muddy mask, to uncover Lachlan's face, but it won't budge. Lachlan pulls at the mask, but it won't budge. Mimi and Ben pull. It still won't move.

  It's stuck like cement.

  I start laughing. Now I see the funny side.

  ‘Yes, that is your best joke ever,’ I say. ‘I'd say it's an improvement. Those barnacles really suit you. They match the warts on your knees.’