Charlie Burr and the Great Shed Invasion Read online

  For Grandma,

  who still dreams of owning a big shed

  —SM, AK, BK and EK

  Little Hare Books

  an imprint of

  Hardie Grant Egmont

  Ground Floor, Building 1, 658 Church Street

  Richmond, Victoria 3121, Australia

  www.littleharebooks.com

  Text copyright © Sally Morgan, Blaze Kwaymullina,

  Ambelin Kwaymullina and Ezekiel Kwaymullina 2011

  Illustrated by Peter Sheehan

  Illustrations copyright © CLOP Pty Ltd 2011

  First published 2011

  This edition published 2011

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available from the National Library of Australia

  ISBN 978 1 742736 70 9 (epub)

  Cover design by Natalie Winter

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT PAGE

  MONDAY

  TUESDAY

  WEDNESDAY

  THURSDAY

  FRIDAY

  SATURDAY

  SUNDAY

  Fluffy has been a nightmare! I should never have given Mum that stupid cat. She’s wrecked my big action figure. I’ve strung him back together, but he’s not the same without his head.

  Normally Spike would chase Fluffy off, but Dad has taken him prospecting, even though he’s my dog.

  And that’s not all, I spent all night worrying about Dad’s shed. It’s taken him years to collect all the gear inside. He trusted me with the key. I promised I’d guard it with my life, but now the key is missing. If I don’t find it before Dad gets back, he’ll never trust me again.

  Another reason I hardly slept is thanks to Johnno. He’s staying with us because his mum’s crook with the flu. Johnno might be my best mate, but it is hard work sharing a room with him because he snores and talks in his sleep all the time. And he far ts.

  Also, it was Johnno’s fault Fluffy was stalking me more than usual. He hid some of her favourite treats in my room. They’re round, brown biscuit-things that look like goat-poo pellets. When I wasn’t looking, he kept sneaking Fluffy a handful. Her stomach’s star ting to look like a furry balloon. If she vomits on my bed I will never forgive Johnno!

  And then, before breakfast, Mum said she had a job for Johnno and me.

  ‘It’s Bring Out Your Rubbish Week, Charlie,’ Mum said. ‘I can’t believe you’ve forgotten.’

  I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten, either. I get better stuff during that week than I do at Christmas, and it’s never boring stuff like underpants.

  But then I got a really horrible surprise. Mum whipped out the key to Dad’s shed from her skirt pocket and held it up in the air like it was some kind of trophy.

  ‘It’s time someone cleaned out your father’s shed!’ Mum laughed.

  I felt sick with guilt. I must have left the key lying around somewhere and Mum had found it. The grin on her face told me she wasn’t going to give it back to me either.

  Mum didn’t know it, but Dad had a secret plan for his gear. Last week his electric drill had carked it, and his other tools weren’t looking too hot either. So he was going to have a shed sale and get some money so he could buy some flash new tools. But if Mum had her way, poor old Dad might not have anything left to sell!

  Before I could object to Mum’s plan, she said, ‘Not a word, Charlie!’ Then she gave me and Johnno a sickly sweet smile, and said, ‘Come with me, boys!’ We followed Mum down to Dad’s shed at the bottom of the backyard. I winced when she stuck the key in the padlock. This was all my fault! I should’ve hidden the key someplace where Mum wouldn’t find it. Like two metres underground.

  Mum tore off the padlock, then threw open the doors and disappeared inside. Even though Dad was hundreds of kilometres away prospecting, in my mind, I could hear him yelling, ‘Not my gear, Charlie!’

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Johnno moaned. ‘Your dad will kill us if we help your mum clean out his gear!’

  And Mum would kill me if we didn’t.

  Luckily my brain lit up with a bright idea. I would keep Mum happy by putting Dad’s stuff out by the roadside for collection. And then I’d keep Dad happy by sneaking it back into the shed again later on.

  Mum staggered out of the shed with a whipper snipper, an electric paint mixer, and a set of barbecue legs. Three of Dad’s favourite things!

  ‘Stick these out by the road!’ she said.

  I felt sick with guilt. But I did as Mum said. After all, I had my plan.

  By the time we got back from the road, Mum had another load of Dad’s gear waiting outside the shed. Bits of timber, broken tools, paint tins, chicken wire and other stuff, all in one giant heap. Then she came out with Dad’s wheelbarrow.

  ‘Stick all that junk in here,’ she said. ‘We can dump it out the front in one hit.’

  As me and Johnno loaded up the wheelbarrow, I heard a car pull up on the road, and I felt even sicker. I hoped it wasn’t someone after Dad’s gear already.

  We stacked the barrow so high we could hardly see where we were going. It was a struggle for Johnno and me to push it. Mum helped by picking up the bits that fell off and piling them back on.

  Out the front, the whipper snipper (with no whip or snip), the paint mixer (mixer bit missing), and the barbecue legs (super wonky) were already being claimed by two of Dad’s dodgy mates, Tom Withers and Reg White.

  ‘G’day, Shirl!’ said Tom Withers.

  ‘Beautiful morning!’ said Reg White.

  For them, maybe. But not for Dad. I stood in front of the barrow, ready to defend the last of Dad’s gear.

  ‘You fellas have got good timing!’ Mum said. ‘Here’s another lot you might be interested in.’ She pointed at all the stuff in the wheelbarrow.

  Tom and Reg charged at the barrow like two bulls. I got out of the way just in time. In seconds they had emptied the wheelbarrow and packed everything up on the tray of their beat-up ute.

  ‘When Jim gets back,’ Tom said, ‘tell him Reg and me said hello!’

  Then they climbed into the ute, tooted the horn and zoomed off in a cloud of dust.

  Mum laughed. ‘Now there’s room for some of my stuff in the shed!’

  She thanked Johnno and me for helping her and went inside the house.

  Johnno groaned. ‘I reckon your mum rang those fellas and told them to come over. We were set up, mate!’

  Johnno was right. I should’ve known Mum had a secret plan of her own.

  All I could think about at school was Mum’s invasion of Dad’s shed. I felt totally miserable. Not only had I been careless with the key, but my stupid back-up plan was a total fizzer. Now Dad didn’t have anything decent left to sell at his shed sale, so he wouldn’t get any money to buy his new tools. And I couldn’t help him out because my saving sock was empty (it’s been really hot lately, and I’ve eaten a lot of icy poles).

  That’s what I was thinking about in class instead of doing my maths.

  ‘Daydreaming again, are you, Charlie?’ said Mrs Wilson.

  Then she blasted me big-time over all the homework I’d failed to hand in. I was surprised. There was more missing homework than I thought.

  Mrs Wilson said she was going to have a word with Mum. That was all I needed.

  One Bad News Week coming up!

  I didn’t want to go home after school. I couldn’t handle Mum yelling at me about my homework when I
was still feeling upset about Dad’s missing stuff.

  Johnno told me to stop worrying. ‘There’ll be lots of junk out the front of people’s houses by now,’ he said. ‘I reckon we might find some comics.’

  That’s when my brain lit up with my next brilliant idea. I could fill Dad’s shed with other people’s roadside junk. Dad could flog that instead, so he could still buy new tools!

  Johnno thought it was a great idea.

  We went from junk pile to junk pile all along the road home, but talk about a disappointment! All we found was poncy girls’ stuff. High-heeled shoes (with one heel missing), hair curlers (with hair still stuck in them), battered biscuit tins (no biscuits) and boring women’s magazines (with the recipes ripped out).

  I reckoned Dad’s mates must already have been doing the rounds with their ute, grabbing all the blokes’ stuff. But, about a quarter of the way home, I spotted an old pram with rubber wheels.

  ‘Go-car t!’ I said.

  Me and Johnno pulled it out from amongst the other junk piled around it.

  ‘Let’s paint it the colours of the Aboriginal flag,’ said Johnno.

  ‘Deadly idea,’ I said. ‘And then we’ll rent it out to older kids!’

  ‘We’ll be rich!’ said Johnno.

  ‘Nah,’ I told him. ‘We’ll be poor. We’re giving the money to Dad so he can buy his new tools, even without the shed sale.’

  Johnno understood. I think he felt kind of guilty about Dad’s missing gear, too. I don’t know why, because it was all my fault. I was the one who’d left the key lying around for Mum to find.

  There was just one problem. I didn’t want to wheel the pram home. I mean, it was a pram!

  ‘Tell you what, Johnno,’ I said. ‘You wheel the pram home, and I’ll buy Rosy a new ball with some of the money we make from renting out the go-car t.’

  Rosy is Johnno’s pet camel. She might be bigger than a four-wheel drive, but she loves toys. Johnno will do anything for her.

  ‘Done!’ he said.

  We had good luck after that. On the next junk pile we found a batch of old comics under a half-empty bag of sheep manure. I grabbed the sheep manure, too. If I gave it to Mum for her pot plants, she might not get so mad when Mrs Wilson rang up about my homework.

  We also found some useful stuff for our new go-car t: a rubber horn, a length of skinny rope, a couple of spare wheels, some small sheets of three-ply, an old chair back and some chrome piping. With so much good gear, by the time we finished rebuilding the pram, it would look like a racing car!

  We were halfway home when we spotted Tim Slade (the only kid in our class with muscles). He was staring at us from across the street. He had an old bike frame hooked over one shoulder.

  ‘Aw, ya big girl, Johnno!’ he yelled. ‘Gunna take a nap in that pram, are ya?’

  Stupid Johnno wanted to ditch the pram.

  ‘Don’t get sucked in,’ I told him. ‘Tim only wants it for himself!’

  Johnno saw the light. ‘It’s not a pram!’ he yelled. ‘It’s a go-car t!’

  Tim laughed and headed for the next junk pile on his side of the street.

  Phew!

  It was hot, sweaty work for Johnno, pushing the pram uphill to my place. I felt sorry for him, but I was so busy hunting for more treasure that I couldn’t help him.

  When we got home Johnno lay on his back in the front yard, moaning. So I fetched the hose, stuck the end in his mouth and turned on the tap.

  Then Mum came out the front door. She took one quick look at the junk in the pram and put her hands on her hips.

  ‘Charlie! There’s already enough junk in this house! I don’t want any more!’

  That was a big fat lie. Dad reckons Mum wants a lot more junk. She’s always going on about buying a flashy floor rug, a lamp with a pink shade for their bedroom, a red glass vase and other useless stuff like that.

  ‘Get rid of it, Charlie!’ Mum snapped. ‘Except for the sheep manure.’

  Water spurted from Johnno’s mouth. He gargled something that sounded like, ‘Prrraaaam.’ Then he sat up and spewed beside my feet.

  ‘This gear is all Johnno’s, Mum,’ I said. ‘Look, he’s made himself sick collecting it!’

  Mum weakened. ‘Well, stow it on the back verandah, then,’ she said.

  She’s always softer on kids she didn’t give birth to.

  After dinner, Mum made me catch up on my homework. Mrs Wilson had already rung her before I got home. It’s rotten when your teacher and your mum gang up on you like that.

  Catching up on my homework was hard. Even with Johnno crouched beside me on my bedroom floor, helping me by counting on his fingers, it was hours before we could go outside.

  We wanted to star t building the go-car t, but guess what? My stupid twin sisters had put the cat in the pram. They were wheeling her around the backyard!

  ‘Aw, look at Fluffy!’ said Johnno.

  He’s mad on anything with fur.

  The cat was asleep. Unusual for her. I reckoned all the treats Johnno was feeding her were making her dopey.

  ‘Get Fluffy out of there!’ I yelled.

  Sharni rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t be stupid, Charlie!’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Tia. ‘What boy wants a pram?’

  I pointed at Johnno. ‘He does!’ I said.

  My sisters laughed their heads off.

  Mum pushed open the flyscreen door and came outside.

  ‘Come with me,’ she said to the girls. ‘Granny Mary’s family have gone to Darwin for a funeral. She needs a hand sorting out her junk.’

  You beauty! Granny Mary hardly ever throws anything out, so she’s got masses of junk. Mum and my sisters would be gone for hours, helping her decide what to keep and what to chuck! Johnno and me would have loads of time to turn the pram into a go-car t, if we could just get the stupid cat out of the way.

  I asked Mum if she could please put Fluffy inside the house before she left.

  Mum gave the cat a soppy look. ‘Poor baby girl,’ she crooned. ‘She did a little vomit earlier, I think she might have eaten something that upset her.’

  Haa! More likely there was no room left in her stomach!

  ‘It’s good that she’s settled down in the pram,’ Mum said. ‘Leave her in there.’

  I wanted to scream, ‘It’s not a pram, it’s a go-car t!’ But I knew my sisters would think that was dumb and laugh even harder. So I just shrugged. I figured that could mean anything.

  A shrug wasn’t good enough for Mum, though. She gave me one of her or else looks. Like—‘Leave the cat in the pram, or else!’

  ‘Charlie,’ Mum said, ‘I’m making you responsible for Fluffy while I’m gone.’

  I waited until Mum and my sisters had walked down the hill towards Granny Mary’s place. Then I grabbed the pram handle and rocked the pram hard.

  ‘Out, Fluffy!’ I said.

  ‘Phat!’ Fluffy woke up and spat at me.

  ‘She’s claimed the pram,’ said Johnno.

  ‘Then we have to tip her out,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t hurt her, Charlie!’

  Like I said before, Johnno is a sucker for anything with fur.

  ‘I’m not going to hurt her,’ I said. ‘Just help me tip the pram over, so she rolls out.’

  Fluffy hung on with her claws to the inside of the pram until she couldn’t hang on any longer. Then she took a swipe at me with a fat tor toiseshell paw, turned tail and darted down the pathway at the side of our house.

  Me and Johnno turned the pram upside down. There were four big screws holding the metal frame to the base.

  ‘Tough job,’ said Johnno. ‘The screws have rusted on. Has your dad got an electric drill?’

  ‘It isn’t working,’ I said. ‘That’s why he needs money to buy some new tools.’

  We checked the rest of the pram. All the screws were rusted tight.

  ‘I’ll borrow Grandpa’s drill tomorrow,’ I said. ‘We’ll have to give up on turning the pram into a go-car t for ton
ight.’

  Johnno reckoned we should check on Fluffy, just in case she really was sick.

  ‘A treat will make her feel better,’ he said.

  Mum likes Fluffy to sleep in a basket in the laundry, so I agreed it wouldn’t hurt to find Fluffy and put her to bed early.

  But Fluffy was mad at me, and I knew she wasn’t going to come when we called her.

  So I went inside, grabbed a bit of fish from the freezer and ran some hot water over it to soften it up. Then I took it down the side of the house and waved it in the air. I figured Fluffy was hiding under the house and she’d come out once she smelt the fish.

  ‘Fluffy,’ I called. ‘Here, Fluffy!’

  We waited for ages but the cat never came.

  I gave up and stuck the fish under Fluffy’s favourite bush in the backyard. Then Johnno and me went inside and watched from the kitchen window. Still no Fluffy.

  ‘Crumbs, Charlie,’ said Johnno. ‘Now you’ve got two problems! First your dad makes you responsible for looking after his shed, and you lose his key, so his gear goes missing. Then your mum makes you responsible for minding her sick cat, and the cat goes missing. What are you going to do?’

  Last night I dreamed Dad was home. He was looking in his shed and slapping his forehead as if he couldn’t believe what had happened. I told him it was all Mum’s fault. Then Dad said, ‘Charlie, how could you lose my key? Why didn’t you keep my things safe?’

  Only he wasn’t Dad any more. He was a zombie. Then I woke up and Johnno was leaning over me.

  ‘Charlie,’ he said. ‘I think Fluffy’s dead!’

  I thought Johnno was the zombie. I whacked him with my pillow. He started to cry.

  ‘Don’t be a baby,’ I said. ‘I didn’t hit you that hard!’

  ‘I’m crying for Fluffy,’ he said. ‘That fish we left out for her last night, what if she ate it later? What if it had sharp bones and they sliced right through her guts? What if she crawled away to die, Charlie?’

  My best mate should have been feeling sorry for me, not the cat! It is a big thing to be responsible for a bloke’s shed. Especially when you’ve accidentally left the key lying around where someone who doesn’t appreciate blokes’ junk might find it.