Artie and the Grime Wave Read online

  First published by Allen & Unwin in 2016

  Copyright © Richard Roxburgh 2016

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from the National Library of Australia

  www.trove.nla.gov.au

  ISBN 9781760292140

  eISBN 9781952535000

  Cover and text design by Liz Seymour

  Set by Liz Seymour

  Inside back cover photo by Eva Rinaldi

  Chapter 1 PAPERBARK SHOES

  Chapter 2 THE CAVE-OF-POSSIBLY-STOLEN-STUFF

  Chapter 3 WOLF!!!

  Chapter 4 THE CAVE-OF-ALMOST-CERTAINLY-STOLEN-STUFF

  Chapter 5 POWDER LOLLIES

  Chapter 6 PROOF

  Chapter 7 GRAYSTAINS

  Chapter 8 MARY

  Chapter 9 SIDECAR

  Chapter 10 NEW FRIENDS

  Chapter 11 BUNGEE-WEDGIE

  Chapter 12 THE RIVER

  Chapter 13 PURPLE SOUP

  Chapter 14 STAR JUMPS

  Chapter 15 THE FARTEX 120Y

  Chapter 16 ONION PUFFS

  Chapter 17 DARK

  Chapter 18 GRIME HOUSE

  Chapter 19 COCKERDOODLE CUTLET

  Chapter 20 THE STATUE

  Chapter 21 SIZE 14 CHEF’S CLEAVER

  Chapter 22 GARETH

  Chapter 23 PRIME CUTS

  Chapter 24 INTO THE UNKNOWN

  Chapter 25 GOLF

  Chapter 26 A BIT OF A MISSION

  Chapter 27 THE LEANING TOWER OF BUMSHOES

  Chapter 28 RENOVATIONS

  Chapter 29 UKRAINIAN OLYMPIC DISCUS CHAMPION, 1996

  Chapter 30 FLU-SNOT

  Chapter 31 THE FLYING TRAPEZE

  Chapter 32 AND THEN WHAT HAPPENED?

  Chapter 1

  Artie’s shoes dangled over the electrical wires, bobbing lightly in the breeze, as if an invisible dancer was doing a weird little jig. All the boys gazed up at them, and Artie squashed his lips into a tight little line to keep from crying. He knew there was no stick long enough to poke them down, and anyway, everybody knows you don’t go prodding around near power lines.

  Nate and his friend Wart were falling about with laughter. Nate Grime had frizzy hair and tiny eyes like two bunny droppings on a bowl of porridge. Nate’s dad, Mr Grime, was the mayor of the town, a fact that Nate never failed to mention.

  Nate seemed to spend most of his life devising ever-more-imaginative ways of torturing Artie Small.

  So far this had included:

  1. Super-gluing Artie to his bicycle seat, so when he got off he tore out the seat of his pants and had to spend the day at school with his bottom hanging out

  2. Stealing his swimmers on carnival day so that he had to swim in his undies.

  3. Taking his lunch box while he was in science class and cramming his sandwiches with flies and what may have been boogers (he didn’t taste them to find out).

  4. Loading his sports shorts with stinking brown mud, so that all through P.E. it looked as if he’d had a terrible accident.

  And now this: ambushing Artie on the way home from school, tearing his shoes off and flinging them up over the power lines.

  ‘HAHAHAHA. How yer gonna get ‘em down, eh, Farty Artie?’ Nate squawked.

  ‘Don’t know …’ Artie mumbled, gazing at the ground.

  Nate’s best mate, Wart, was oversized in all ways apart from his forehead, which looked like it belonged to someone much smaller. This gave him the vague appearance of a silverback gorilla on a bicycle. Wart ate onions like other kids eat apples, and through a mouthful of onion mush, he yelled, ‘HAHAHA. Check out the holes … HAHAHA. Holes in his socks!’

  It was true. Artie stared at those holes, his toes and heels exposed on both feet. Artie’s friend, Bumshoe, nudged him.

  ‘C’mon,’ he whispered without moving his mouth. ‘Ready?’

  Artie gave a little nod.

  Bumshoe pointed at thin air and screamed:

  ‘RABBITS!!!’

  Nate and Wart, momentarily disarmed, looked around open-mouthed, and in this nanosecond Artie and Bumshoe made their escape. Bumshoe always played the rabbit trick on the gang and, incredibly, they always fell for the same thing. It seemed that if you yelled ‘Rabbits’ loud enough, it was possible to send not-particularly-bright people into a temporary state of mental confusion, and in that brief moment, escapes could be enacted.

  Furious and humiliated at yet again having fallen foul of the rabbit trick, Nate leapt on his bike and gave chase, Wart whizzing along behind him. Artie and Bumshoe, terrified for their lives, tore off down the hill on their bikes as fast as their legs would pedal (two chubby and pink, and two bony, white and shoe-less).

  Fortunately, there is nothing like blind terror to get smallish legs moving at supersonic speed. Soon Artie and Bumshoe had outpaced their foes and then lost them entirely. At last they could stop and regain their breath.

  Artie Small was twelve but, true to his name, quite small. He lived with his mum and sister. His dad had died some years before, and ever since then his mum, Maggie, had spent every day in her dressing-gown, lying on her bed or the sofa, and never leaving the house. Shopping for groceries, cooking meals and cleaning were all left to Artie and his sister, Lola, who was nearly sixteen. Lola spent almost every waking moment messaging on her phone and when she wasn’t, she was spectacularly, mind-blowingly, gobsmackingly cranky.

  Artie’s only real friend was Bumshoe, whose actual name was Alex Baumschule, but it always come out sounding like Bumshoe, so at some point Bumshoe had stopped correcting everyone. Now the whole world, even teachers, called Bumshoe Bumshoe. Bumshoe (I'm sorry for putting so many Bumshoes together like that, dear readers, and I'll try to make sure it doesn't happen again) lived with his dad and about five million brothers and sisters in a grungy little house in the swampy part of town. His house reminded Artie of the nursery rhyme about the old lady who lived in a shoe, only at Bumshoe’s house there was no lady, because Bumshoe’s mum had run off with a skiing instructor from Finland.

  Artie and Bumshoe were like bookends: Bumshoe only had a dad and Artie only had a mum, and neither boy saw very much of his parent in any case …

  Bumshoe had freckles and a fringe and was as chubby as Artie was scrawny. His diet consisted mostly of junk food, especially Chococaramel-Cococreambombs. They were his lolly of choice, and his pockets were always plugged full of them.

  The boys rode through the outskirts of the town, past the famous statue of Mayor Grime that greeted any traffic coming inwards. It had been purchased by Mrs Grime and given as a ‘gift to the town’. It was a bizarre and humungous representation of Mayor Grime as the Roman god Jupiter, complete with lightning bolt and shield, and it never failed to set the boys laughing out loud as they passed it.

  Dripping with sweat and radish-red, Bumshoe at last stopped on a dirt track and shook a bag of Chococaramel- Cococreambombs at his
friend. By now they’d cycled all the way up Nail Can Hill. Things normally felt better to Artie up there, surrounded by trees and sky. But today was different …

  ‘My mum’s going to face-plant!’ Artie exclaimed. ‘I’ve only got the one pair of shoes, and now they’re up a telephone pole.’

  Bumshoe, who always had ideas about everything, gazed about for a moment, considering his friend’s plight and trying to chew the tennis ball–sized lump of squished-up lolly-goo in his mouth.

  ‘Ooo,’ he exclaimed. ‘I know! We coo’ ma’ some shoesh ou’ o’ paperbaaaaa’.

  Because Bumshoe’s cheeks were always full of mashed-up lollies, Artie had become the world’s leading expert at translating his mashed-up words.

  ‘Make shoes out of paperbark?’ Artie repeated.

  Bumshoe tried to swallow the great lump in his cheek. ‘I’ve read about it. The ancient tribes used to do it! You’ll build yourself some top-notch shoes from paperbark, don’t you worry! And …’ at this point he wriggled his eyebrows, ‘I know where all the paperbark trees are …’

  ‘It’s a mental idea,’ said Artie.

  ‘You might start a new fashion!’ said Bumshoe, fossicking around for another lolly. ‘What could possibly go wrong?’

  It was a mental idea, Artie remained convinced. His mum was still going to face-plant – in fact she’d face-plant even harder when he strolled into the house wearing paperbark shoes!

  But Bumshoe was his friend. And sometimes you just have to go along with your friends, even when they have mental ideas.

  Soon the boys had abandoned their bikes by the side of the dirt track and were battling their way through thick scrub.

  ‘Funny. I could’ve sworn those paperbark trees were just … up … here,’ puffed Bumshoe. Artie’s feet, clad in what were now barely recognisable as socks, were scratched and sore from prickles and sticks.

  ‘Ouch. Ouch. Ow,’ he complained. ‘Let’s go home! I can get some shoes at the charity shop. The ladies always give me freebies in there!’

  In fact, Artie hated going into the charity shop and having to ask for things, even though the ladies were always lovely and made a big fuss over him, giving him tea and biscuits and asking if everything was alright at home. It was really embarrassing, and he’d do anything to avoid it. Anything, that is, apart from wearing paperbark shoes.

  ‘Just … at the top … of this … hill, I reckon,’ grunted his friend.

  In that instant Bumshoe froze, causing Artie’s face to run smack-bang into his hefty buttocks and nearly sending both of them sprawling.

  ‘Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!’ hissed Bumshoe.

  Artie peered over his friend’s shoulder.

  ‘What do you reckon it is?’ whispered Bumshoe urgently, pointing down the hill.

  Artie shook his head, his heart thumping in his chest …

  Chapter 2

  A few metres below them was a grassy clearing that backed onto a steep rock wall. In the middle of the wall was a cave entrance. A rough dirt track led into the cleared area, in which a van and motorbike were parked. Bumshoe turned to Artie, his eyes like ping-pong balls.

  ‘Will we take a look?’ he whispered intently.

  ‘S’pose so …’ nodded Artie meekly. The fact of the matter was that Artie hated adventures, and tried to avoid them at all cost. He remembered his dad saying ‘Most of the best discoveries in life happen when you step into the unknown’ – and he should have known, he was a tightrope walker and trapeze artist in the circus! As scary and dangerous as his work was, Artie’s dad had simply become sick one day and died soon after. Ever since, Artie had decided that life was tricky enough without adding unnecessary scary bits.

  He was secretly hoping his friend might come to the same realisation when Bumshoe began creeping down through the bushes on all fours like an immense, sweaty wombat. Artie reluctantly followed behind, becoming aware of an increasingly unpleasant stench. ‘Whoooooa!’ Bumshoe suddenly stopped once more, and Artie nearly ran into him yet again. His friend teetered on the edge of a deep, stinking hole with a swarm of flies buzzing around it. They had clearly stumbled onto, and nearly into, a pit that had been dug as a toilet. Bumshoe turned to Artie, clamped his fingers over his nose and screwed up his face to signify STENCH! Delicately skirting around the awful hole, they picked their way to the edge of the clearing. The place seemed deserted.

  ‘C’mon,’ whispered Bumshoe as he broke out and galloped towards the cave. As he ran he doubled over, as if that would somehow make him less visible. Artie scampered close behind. Bumshoe threw his back against the rock wall, like James Bond, and even did pistol fingers.

  Artie followed suit (not bothering with the pistol fingers), more to please his friend than anything else. From deep inside the cave they could hear faint yapping, squawking, miaowing and hissing noises. But apart from that it was silent. Bending low, Bumshoe poked his head around the corner to look into the cave. He sprang back, his mouth making a perfect ‘O’ to match the two ‘O’s of his eyes, and the larger ‘O’ of his face. Altogether, Bumshoe spelt ‘OOOOOOOOO’.

  ‘Wait!’ Artie exclaimed. ‘Maybe we should just go home …’ ‘NO WAY!!!’ mouthed his friend excitedly, then crept around the corner and vanished into the gloom.

  Artie felt as if his heart was about to bounce right out of his throat and go thumping off across the clearing by itself. He squeezed his eyes tight, as if expecting an explosion, and tore around the corner into the inky black.

  Immediately it was clear that the cave was actually a shallow tunnel and, as Artie’s eyes adjusted to the dark, he saw at the back of it a gigantic sliding door, partially ajar, with a wedge of light beyond. The boys scurried through the tunnel, pausing momentarily at the door, and then crept inside.

  ‘COOL! COOL! COOL!’ Bumshoe shout-whispered. (This, dear reader, is when your face looks like it's shouting but you only let a whisper out.) The cave, illuminated by lanterns dangling from the ceiling, opened out into a huge underground space, which was absolutely chock-a-block with incredible stuff …

  Motorbikes, kitchen gadgets, car parts, bicycles, sound systems, TVs, toilet seats, and boxes and boxes, which seemed to be spilling all kinds of jewellery and knick-knacks. But stranger still, against the walls there were rows of cages full of puppies, birds, guinea pigs, rabbits and even a tortoise. The smell was overpowering.

  ‘Must all be stolen stuff! Don’t you reckon?’ Artie breathed.

  Bumshoe nodded solemnly. ‘Possibly, quite possibly.’ He stopped abruptly as the sound of men’s laughter erupted outside the cave.

  Artie’s blood froze. He strained to listen.

  ‘HawHawHaw.’ There it was again.

  They tore over to the sliding door and planted their backs against it, James Bond style.

  ‘HawHawHaw.’ The laughter was getting closer. ‘HawHawHaw.’ Two big shapes burst through the doorway. Artie and Bumshoe, stuck fast to the back of the door, were only millimetres away as the figures ambled into the room. Then, as quick and silent as moths, the boys were around the door and bolting across the clearing.

  ‘OI! YOU TWO!’ bellowed a voice behind them, but they plunged into the bushes without looking back.

  Chapter 3

  Artie was in trouble. Technically his mum hadn’t face-planted, because she was already lying down. Artie’s mum, Maggie Small, was lying down most of the time, and always wearing a pale pink dressing-gown. Artie couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her not wearing that gown.

  She hadn’t believed Artie’s stories about Nate and Wart, or shoes thrown over power lines, and least of all the Cave-of-Possibly-Stolen-Stuff.

  ‘Please don’t make things up, Artie,’ said Maggie wearily, looking sideways at her son from the sofa.

  ‘I’m not! It’s true, Mum,’ said the boy.

  ‘Did you leave your shoes somewhere?’ she groaned.

  ‘No, Mum! Nate Grime threw them up over power lines … I can show you!’ he said, but they both kne
w that wasn’t going to happen, because his mum never went out the front door.

  ‘Oh, Artie …’ she said, sounding utterly disappointed.

  That was the worst. When his mum was disappointed it was so much worse than when she completely face-planted or went right off her nut.

  He couldn’t really blame his mum for not believing him. He was famous for making up big fat porky pies. These were some of Artie’s most famous fibs:

  1. Telling his mum that scientists in Sweden had discovered the growing brain needed at least three hours of visual stimulation a day to maximise its potential … so he was under strict instructions to watch more television.

  2. Telling his mum that school had been hit by a piece of space debris, and the site had been cordoned off by a Hazardous Chemicals Unit until further notice.

  3. Making an appointment with the principal to let him know that he was being sent to boarding school in Switzerland, and so he would no longer be requiring his school’s services.

  But the most infamous incident was a recent one, when Artie cried … wolf.

  It was a winter’s night. Artie had just eaten a dinner of baked beans with Lola for the fourth time that week, sitting in silence as she messaged furiously on her phone. He was mooching around outside, freezing cold, miserable and bored. Out of nowhere his heart began pounding madly, and a terrible feeling of panic overcame him. Before he knew it, he was hurling himself around in the muddy garden and screaming. ‘WOLF!!!! THERE’S A WOLF!!! WOLF!!!! AAAAARGH, IT’S GOT ME!!!

  NOOOO!!! HELP! WOOOOLF!!

  WOOLF!!!’

  Neighbours from up and down the street began poking their heads out and gawping at the strange spectacle of the loony boy being attacked in his garden by a nonexistent wolf. Then Lola arrived, tugging at her earphones.

  ‘QUIT IT, WILL YOU! STOP BEING SUCH A BONEHEAD AND GET INSIDE!’

  Artie still couldn’t figure out why he’d done it. Maybe because he was sick of baked beans. Maybe he wanted Lola to put down her phone and talk to him. Or maybe it was because he wanted his mum to come out of her bedroom and cook him something delicious like she used to back in the prehistoric era before his dad died.