Forest Secrets (15 page)

Carrying a pair of flippers, Graeme Souter walked over to the water. Doing the bit with the two trees again, I showed him where to go. Nodding that he understood, he waded out past the pebbly shallows and then further out into the deeper water.

The sergeant caught up with us. ‘The diver will need a hand,' he said in his usual gruff manner. ‘So you two can help with the recovery of any further bones. Constable Sweetman and I have other things to do … communications and such like.'

Thinking he was quite rude, ordering us around like that – as if we were in his police force – I nearly said something back. Luckily, Snook saved the day. ‘I suppose we might as well help. If we wade out, you and I can take whatever the diver finds back to the shore.'

At that moment, Quenton and Gloria came back from their photo taking.

‘Good,' Snook said, when he saw them. He called out to them. ‘Hey you, Quigley; get over 'ere. You can help too.'

‘What're you on about?' Quenton said, sauntering over and shoving his hands in his pockets. ‘Huh, I don't have to help. Whatever you're doing's got nothing to do with me … or Gloria.'

‘Yeah, it does. You're 'ere, aren't ya, so give us a hand.'

‘I don't have to if I don't want to.'

Snook walked up to Quigley so that their noses were almost touching. ‘Oh, yes you do; so stop bein' a
sooky looky na na
. Get yer shoes and socks off and get ready to help. It must have been the
do it or else
look in Snook's eyes that did it. Quenton was surprisingly quick to give in. ‘Whatever,' he said with little enthusiasm, ‘but the police should've brought a boat with them. It would have been a lot easier and we wouldn't have to get wet.'

Ignoring him and standing in the shallows, Snook called out to Gloria, who was on her own by the shore. ‘There's no need for you to get wet. You can stay on land and keep the fire goin'. I reckon we'll need it by the time we finish.'

‘Don't try and fob me off with the easy job, Snook Kelly,' she called back to him as she walked down to the lagoon's edge. ‘I've already put some wood on the fire, enough to last for a while; so like it or not, I'm coming down there to lend a hand.'

Quenton, with a look that would shatter glass, sat down on the pebbles by the side of the lagoon and started to take off his shoes and socks. Snook, standing up to his knees in the lagoon and looking lost for words – Gloria was doing that to him lately – could only stand there with a stupid grin on his face.

In the meantime, Sergeant McGruff wandered over, no doubt to check on us and to figure out how to put us to work. He wasted no time. Snook and I soon found ourselves wading out to where the diver was working. It was then, we'd been instructed, our job to relay his finds back to Quinton and Gloria who were to then take them to the photographer.

The sergeant, after seeing his plans at work, nodded and walked along the bank where Constable Sweetman was still going from tree to tree putting up the black and yellow police tape.

Surprisingly, after about a half hour, Graeme called a halt. ‘I reckon that's it from me,' he said to us as he came to the surface taking off his goggles. ‘All that I can get from this spot anyway. If there are any more bones, they're somewhere else or they're buried under the mud.'

I can't say I wasn't pleased. ‘Let's go up to the fire, Snook,' I suggested, as we waded into the shore. ‘I don't know about you, but I'm freezing.' I couldn't help noticing Quenton and Gloria disappearing up the bank towards the trees where Constable Sweetman was still grappling with her tape.

‘Ah, warmth,' I said, when we were back at the fire. Rubbing my hands together, I sank back onto the ground and took off my wet socks and shoes. Sitting down next to me and doing the same, Snook said, ‘You're thinkin' about somethin'. I can always tell; your forehead goes all crinkly.'

I looked across at him. ‘You're right. I am wondering about a couple of things. The bones you found probably belonged to a girl. That's what Percy reckoned, anyway. Thinking about it, I reckon he's right 'cause no phantom ring has been found. Most probably, that would have still been on his finger. And if the bones are
not
Aaron Cooper's then whose are they? It's a real puzzle. But maybe we'll find out later. I sure hope so. We'd at least be able to put the Coopers' minds at rest if we knew that.'

S
till sitting with Snook, I made a decision, not about the bones but about Snook and Gloria. I'd interfere. I'd try and help Snook square things with Gloria. If he kept carrying on the way he was, they'd never get back together. ‘I wasn't going to say anything,' I began, ‘'cause it's not really my business, but I think I should … to help you out.'

‘Why? Whassamatta now?'

‘It's just that you've been acting a bit standoffish with Gloria lately and I think she's getting the wrong idea. She's been looking pretty miserable too. I mean, she hasn't exactly been bubbling over with fun, has she? She's been getting around like she's lost her best friend, and it's because you've been acting like you don't want her back.'

Snook stared across at me. It was a kind of fierce warrior stare. I nearly fell backwards. ‘Look, I didn't tell her to go chasin' Quigley,' he said. ‘She managed to do that on her own. If she wants me back, she can come to me and tell me. I'm not gonna go beggin' her.'

‘I'll just say two things to you, Snook. She hasn't been chasing Quenton as you put it. It's the other way round, and she didn't start all the standoffish behaviour either; you did. It started last Thursday night when you first had the vision, when you wandered off in a daze; she thought you'd snubbed her.'

‘I couldn't help that. I didn't know what I was doin' after I saw that asteroid.'

‘I can understand that,' I said, feeling guilty for having brought it up and as a way of compensating, I ended up saying, ‘Don't forget, I'm seeing the visions too, so between us we'll work out what's going on. Don't forget, my mother's helping us … from The Dreaming. She's been warning us about a spirit, about Mamu. So, you shouldn't stop being friendly with Gloria … because of the visions. I don't think your reaction to them is bothering her
that
much.'

‘Okay, I hear what you're sayin'. I'll go talk to her after we've finished here … cap in hand and tail between my legs. Happy?'

‘Yes, I'm happy. Sorry about the lecture, but you
do
need to talk to her and the sooner the better.'

I got up to put another log on the fire when I saw Graeme, re-entering the water. ‘Look Snook,' I said pointing. ‘He's going diving again. I thought he'd finished.' Leaving the warmth of the fire behind, we raced down to the water's edge.

‘Hey,' Snook called. ‘Whatcha doin'? Lookin' for more bones?'

He gave us the thumbs up and then, taking his diver's snorkel out of his mouth, shouted back, ‘The boss wants me to try some new spots further along. There's no need for you to get wet again, though. I don't think I'll be long.' With that, he frog-dived below the surface, a few metres downstream from where we had first found the bones. He'd been under about a minute when he burst to the surface. Treading water, waving his mouthpiece in the air in one hand and a bone about a metre long in the other. ‘I've found some new bones!' he cried out. ‘There's a pile of them!'

With Graeme Souter retrieving the new catchment from the bottom of the lagoon and with us passing them back – we thought we'd better give him a hand – we soon had a new pile for Percy Stevens to photograph. After a while and feeling satisfied that we'd collected all we could get, we waded back to the shore where Graeme, after stripping off his wet suit, made a beeline for the fire. The others followed him, including Gloria and Quenton, who'd been following Constable Sweetman around. Except me. There was something I had to find out.

I walked over to Percy Stevens and asked him straight out whether he'd come across a phantom ring during his preliminary examination of the new collection of bones. As expected, he shook his head. ‘But I've got this,' he said, reaching over and picking up one of the bones. Holding it in the air, and after showing it to me from all angles, he exclaimed in a rather loud voice, ‘This is not a human bone!'

Thoughts that it was a dinosaur bone flashed through my mind like a bomb exploding.

Sergeant McGruff, who was talking on his mobile, muttered that he would call back and ran over to Percy and me to see what the fuss was all about. He looked at the bone Percy was still holding in the air. It was about as long as a man's arm and flat like a cricket bat. It was clearly not a human bone. ‘Not human,' was all the sergeant could think to say, as though he didn't believe what he was seeing.

‘That's right. It's definitely not human and it's not like any animal bone that I've ever come across,' Percy was saying. ‘I reckon you're gonna need an expert, like a palaeontologist, to tell you about that little fella.'

The sergeant punched in some numbers on his mobile. ‘… correct,' he said to whoever was on the other end, ‘… someone who's an expert … on bones. I'll be back at the station in about two hours … that's right … palaeontologist.'

Thinking that it was all getting very interesting, I decided to wander over to see what Snook thought of it all. He was standing next to the fire, dripping wet from the waist down. He was chatting to Gloria in what looked like a very serious manner. She, in turn, was listening to him rather closely. She even leaned over and pecked him on the cheek. Good, I thought, he's made up with her at last. I'd been feeling guilty about talking to Snook earlier about his love life so after seeing them apparently making up, I felt a lot better.

Quenton Quigley, however, was another matter. Standing to the side, jaw clenched and eyes screaming, he looked as if he might do something he'd later regret. Suddenly feeling an icy pang of alarm in my gut, I moved as surreptitiously as I could between Quigley and Snook.

I needn't have worried, though. Constable Sweetman wandered over to join us, effectively putting any murderous thoughts out of Quenton's mind. ‘The sergeant and I would like to thank you all for your help,' she said. ‘It was very much appreciated.' This seemed to appease Quenton somewhat, especially when she added, ‘We'll be sure to mention you all when we talk to the press, and by the way, Sergeant McGruff has just heard from head office. The first lot of bones you found probably belonged to a twelve-year-old girl. She went missing around here on the 21st June, 1938, and her name was Lucy Kemp.'

Pointing towards the two piles of bones, I asked, ‘Do you want a hand to carry these back to the cars?'

‘No, that won't be necessary,' she said. ‘We have body bags for that sort of thing. The sergeant went back to the car to fetch them a little while ago. Then we'll get going; the team back at the station are quite anxious to see what we, I mean you two, have discovered.'

‘After that, can we nick off home?' Snook asked.

Smiling, Constable Sweetman said, ‘Yes, you're free to go home whenever you want to and thanks again for your help.'

At that moment, Sergeant McGruff returned. Depositing two bags next to the two piles of bones, he marched over to us. Then, in a no-nonsense voice, he said, ‘I don't know what the constable has said to you but just remember this. Do
not
say a word of this to anybody, not yet, anyway. I'd like to get the experts onto this before any of the media or the public start nosing around. Do you understand what I'm saying? Not a word about this to a soul.'

‘There are other bones out there, you know,' Snook said in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘How do you know that?'

‘I just know. They once belonged to a dinosaur that used to live around 'ere. I've seen him, the dinosaur.'

‘Seen a – a dinosaur?' the sergeant said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. ‘What are you going to tell me next? The sooner you get home and have a good night's sleep the better, young man.'

It was Graeme Souter's and Percy Stevens' turn to wander over and say their piece. Laying a hand on Snook's shoulder, Percy said, ‘Don't worry, we'll have a look first thing tomorrow for any other bones.' Then, looking though narrowed eyes at his sergeant, but still addressing Snook, he added, ‘Graeme and I agree with you. Judging from the atypical bone that was recovered, we think there may be something very unusual out there, maybe even something pre-historic.'

‘Like a dinosaur?'

‘I'd reckon so. We may very well have uncovered the bones of a dinosaur.'

I thought the sergeant was going to have a fit. Bent over and making noises like a donkey choking, he turned on his heel and walked briskly away.

With the sergeant gone, I said to Snook that I thought it was all getting rather complicated. ‘You can say that again,' he agreed. ‘My head's spinnin' like a top already.'

‘The thing is,' I said, ‘we're seeing things, including a dinosaur and a phantom kid and we don't know why. The kid looks like the lost Aaron Cooper, which has got Doctor Huntingdale all confused. On the one hand, he wants to tell the Coopers that their son
has
been found – in the form of a spirit – and on the other, he doesn't want to disappoint them. The news could kill them. And then we found out that the bones we found first were
not
Aaron's remains. They were a girl's. However, the second lot
may
be his, but just to confuse things, there's a mystery bone among them which may, or may not, be prehistoric.'

‘Okay, that's enough, you're confusin' me more, but I know one thing.'

‘What's that?'

‘There
is
a dinosaur out there and he wants to be found. That's why he keeps gettin' into our minds. That's why we keep havin' all those
visions
.'