Red Dirt Diary 3 (10 page)

Mat wore a Scottish kilt to school today. We both wore tartan ribbons in our hair. I spoke with a Scottish accent all day long and had a very serious discussion with Mr Cluff about the Scots inventing golf.

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was going fine until Nick started to play ‘My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean' on the bagpipes. The carrier pigeons went insane. They started thrashing around the coop, flinging themselves against the wire. The Colonel opened the door and they soared up into the air and flew off towards Broken Hill.

The Colonel said, ‘Butter my crumpets! It's just like the Great Camel Stampede of Morocco
in 1988. Had a whole herd of racing camels trained and ready to run the Desert Derby 2000 when the Viennese violinists started tuning up for their outdoor concert. Sounded worse than a flock of galahs singing opera. Camels didn't like it one bit. They gurgled, moaned and thrashed until they broke the fences. Charged off into the desert at the speed of light and never returned. Devastating loss of camel power. Put me off desert derbies for the rest of my life. Still, it wasn't all bad. Led me to walrus racing, and that really is a splendid sport …'

He wriggled his bushy eyebrows and stared up at the sky.

Grace and Banjo burst out laughing. Ned nearly tripped over his own feet as he ran to tell Sam and Harry about the Colonel racing walruses.

The pigeons came back to roost by home time.

Thursday, 14 June

This morning, Mr Cluff and the Colonel announced that we are going on a bush safari in the state forest on Monday. Everyone is so excited.

The Colonel gave us a lesson on using compasses. He sorted us into six groups and gave each group a compass and a map of the schoolyard with north, south, east and west marked on it. There were six red X's that marked the spot of buried treasure.

Worms, Tom and I were the first to locate and dig up treasure. It was four little torches with clips to hang off our belts — how cool was that? Four other groups dug up tiny shovels, little water bottles, sewing kits and collapsible scissors.

The sixth group, Grace, Jack and Fez, got totally lost. Mr Cluff went looking for them when they hadn't turned up by recess. They were digging behind the pub — even though the map was of the schoolyard — and had found three chop bones, ten bottle tops and Barry Scott's false teeth.

Noticed Mr Cluff looking very thoughtful when he came across the map of Scotland that Mat and I had drawn in the dirt near Sam's vegie patch today. I'd even stuck a carrot in the exact location of Miss McKenzie's hometown, Dingwall. Hope
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is working, despite the bagpipe disaster.

Friday, 15 June

Received FIVE more items for
The Bake Tribulation
today. Everyone is really getting into the spirit of having a local newspaper.

‘Sunshine smiles' is an unbelievable news story by Mr Gillies. Sunshine is the grumpiest bloke this side of the Black Stump, but three different eyewitnesses swear that they saw him smile. It happened at the pub at 6.09 pm on Monday when Trevor McMahon tripped over the doormat and landed flat on his face.

‘Nits and what you can do to avoid them' is an informative article written by Mr Cluff after eleven kids were sent home with lice today.

Tom handed in his next survey:

Good choices, but it's going to be tough for people to decide.

Also got two more stories from Grace Simpson. One is about a pony and a fairy. The other is about three nits living on a fairy's head.

I'm going to Mat's for a sleepover tomorrow. It will be agony — all that nail polish and braiding and make-up and talk about LOVE. But I am being open to all experiences, even the really lame ones, and Mat really has been a great friend, helping out with
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this week.

Saturday, 16 June