Splinterz Read online

  This exciting series is about a boy just like you! What makes Sam just a little bit different sometimes, is that he escapes his mum and baby sister on the sort of escapades you have only dreamt of! Don’t you wish you could escape too at times? Well, when you join Sam on his amazing adventures, you’ll be there right alongside him. What are you waiting for? Join Sam on the adventure of a lifetime! Just make sure that you’re as brave and daring as he is, before you turn the first page . . .

  to Bethanga Primary School’s Principal Allyson

  & grades 4/5/6 – 2008, for their time and input.

  -

  Di, Karen & Jane for untangling

  my poor use of grammar.

  -

  Peter for his invaluable counsel.

  SplinterZ

  Published by JoJo Publishing

  ‘Yarra’s Edge’

  2203/80 Lorimer Street

  Docklands VIC 3008

  Australia

  Email: [email protected]

  or visit www.jojopublishing.com

  © 2010 JoJo Publishing

  First edition published 2009

  This edition published 2012

  Text Copyright © Susan Berran 2012

  Illustrations Copyright © Susan Berran 2012

  www.susanberran.com

  No part of this printed or video publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electrical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication data

  Berran, Susan, 1962-

  Splinterz / author and Illustrator Susan Berran.

  2nd ed.

  ISBN: 978-0-9872959-1-0 (ePub.)

  Berran, Susan, 1962- Freaky series ; 1.

  For primary school age.

  A823.4

  Designer: Madacin Creative

  Editor: Susan Cutsforth

  To my wonderful daughter Mel,

  my perfect research assistant.

  To my equally wonderful partner Andrena,

  for putting up with my constant harassing

  and always believing in me.

  To my amazing parents Margaret and Don,

  for always standing by me and

  for all their enthusiasm and loving support to

  . . . wait until midnight, go into the closet and close the door behind you . . . make sure all the lights are off of course. Then pretend you’re a giraffe and stick your head up your butt!!

  Yep, it’s that dark; and obviously I’m an idiot! Otherwise why the HELL would I want to go poking around some dark tunnel that’s been made by . . . I don’t know who or what?

  But one thing I do know for sure; there is something down there. I’ve heard them, I’ve seen the destruction and I’ve seen my mate Jared bleed.

  My nightmare began with seven little words . . .

  “You’re having a baby brother or sister,”; soon followed by . . .

  “It’s a girl! ”

  Oooh great . . . yippee . . . I’m sooo thrilled . . . not!!

  And with that, my world fell apart; life was about to change forever. Overnight, the bedtime piggyback rides were replaced with . . .

  “Get to bed Sam !! ” Story time was replaced with the constant screaming from my always whinging, new sister, little Miss Smelly Melly Prissy Pants.

  I even had to bath with her.

  Could she get any more attention?

  She was like some weird, wrinkled, pink parent-magnet.

  “Sorry Sam, she’s just a baby.”

  “Sorry Sam, you used to have accidents in the bath too.”

  And just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, Mum announced . . .

  “We’re moving to the country!”

  So, here we are, in our tiny little crap shack in the country. Actually I wouldn’t mind the country so much, but this was the ‘sticks’. We’re at least forty minute’s drive from any decent sized town. Even the dirt here seems crappier than in the city.

  There’s a general store here. Well, at least that’s what the sign above it says. But I think it’s actually a community centre for retired possums, dying rats and a gazillion spiders.

  It smells like sweaty armpits and cow pats in there. The lollies are in huge dust-covered glass jars and they’re all stuck together in great big sticky globs. The walls are lined with dust-covered shelves and all but two are empty.

  Mum bought some baked beans the first night we got here. I don’t know what happened but we ended up having a jam sandwich that night. She said something about “1942” and “ARMY WAR SUPPLIES”.

  There’s also a pub, or as I like to call it, ‘a bigger crap shack than ours’. All the big decisions in town are made there, you know like; is cow dung or sheep dung best for the garden, and is it better to barbecue cow’s tongue or grill it?

  And the school, how can I put it into words? I was used to a thousand kids in the school, not thirty two. But it’s not just the empty spaces where the computers should be, it’s the empty looks on some kids’ faces. Dad reckons . . .

  “Cavemen didn’t have computers and they did just fine.”

  Yeah Dad sure, but even cavemen figured out that if you went out in the rain you’d get wet. It seemed like some kids around here might not be quite that clever.

  The principal, Mr Penniless, is a weedy little man who looks like he’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The only other teacher, Miss Croonarc, is about eighteen and straight out of Teachers’ College. I heard her talking to Mum about ‘special kids’ and ‘the challenge of a lifetime’. ‘Special’; most of these kids are cousins.

  Apparently a couple of hundred years ago, this place was a mining town, so there’s tunnels and deep shafts everywhere. They must have been mining for dirt and rocks because I can’t see anything else around here worth squat.

  But I have found these strange piles of dark-red, sandy dirt in a few places. It looks like someone is trying to keep them hidden behind old car bodies and underneath fallen trees. I asked a few kids about them and they went all weird on me. The next day, this one kid’s dad practically blew a fuse telling me to keep away from them and made me swear not to tell anyone else about them.

  So this is it, Agnath. Who would be crazy enough to live here willingly?

  Why, why here?!

  Mum and Dad even managed to talk me into it by saying we could look at getting cows, horses and geese.

  Well, I’ve seen plenty of geese around here; trouble is they don’t have any feathers and they’re all wearing clothes and heading for the pub.

  I should have known better. It was all a ploy so I wouldn’t complain. Well, not as much anyway. But just as I expected, things changed.

  It wasn’t that bad, until one day when Dad went out to the shed behind the house and never came back. He just disappeared off the face of the planet. He’d told me about loud scratching noises, things being moved about and other weird stuff in the shed. But I never saw or heard anything. I just reckoned it was Dad being weird as usual.

  It’s been a year and a bit since then. Mum reckons he’ll be back any day now. I’m not so sure. It’s just a pity it wasn’t little Miss Smelly Melly Prissy Pants who disappeared!

  Anyway, I figured that it was about time I could have that pet we’d always talked about. I figured she would have to give in now Dad had mysteriously disappeared off the radar. So, I bugged Mum like crazy . . .

  “Can I have a rat?”

  “NO!!”

  “A snake?”

  “NO!!”

  “Scorpions, lizards, anything at all?”

  “NO, NO, NO!!”


  Yeah, great, thanks a lot Mum . . . for nothing!

  But oh yeah, sure, my snotty nose little sister, Miss ‘I’m sooo good’ Smelly Melly Prissy Pants gets to have her very own puppy that slobbers all over anyone who comes within reach of its extremely long tongue. It looks like a white ball of fluff having a permanent hair explosion.

  Of course long hairy dog means long hairy butt. It’s not my dog so why should I have to clean and wipe its backside every time it comes in? Sometimes I even have to comb out the poop because there’s so much of it.

  One time I used Mum’s leg razor to shave the dog’s butt totally. You should have seen her from behind. She looked like a dartboard . . . round, bald, with a big red bullseye in the middle. Mum went ballistic and Yelly Melly sooked until it grew back.

  Actually, I don’t know what the hassle was. It’s not as if I vacuumed the damn dog . . . oooh . . . there’s an idea.

  Well, I’m getting a pet. I figure that what Mum doesn’t know, can’t hurt me. I just have to make sure that little pest doesn’t find out and dob on me. But if she can have a pet of her very own, then why can’t I? I guess I’ll just have to make sure it’s kept secret between Jared and me.

  But I can tell you one thing for sure. It won’t be anything pink, ‘cutesy’ or need butt-cleaning duty.

  My best mate Jared had told me all about the tunnels that he’d explored in Agnath. At first I thought he was just trying to suck me in. But then one day, he showed me something that made me instantly believe him.

  Jared’s taller and skinnier than me, with red curly hair and about a zillion freckles on his face. We’d been friends for a couple of months, since his family had moved here from the city. So, he was pretty much like me. Dragged out here to the middle of nowhere by his mum. At least no one in his family had vanished into thin air, yet! There’s only his mum and five brothers but they all look the same as him. Mum reckoned that it looked like a carrot patch had moved in. You should see Jared with his shirt off. He’s so skinny that he looks like a ladder with the measles, wearing a clown wig on top. I swear you could actually climb him.

  Mum reckons he’s . . .

  “A bad influence,” and that she’d prefer I found a friend who didn’t seem to be always getting into trouble. Yeah, yeah, and if I wanted to make something of myself, blah, blah, blah, take responsibility for my own actions, something, something.

  Yep, sure Mum.

  Just because one time Jared and me shot a frog each with the school fire extinguisher. Jared got the one that was sitting on the classroom roof; he fired from directly below. BULLSEYE! You should have seen its eyes POP. The first frog sent into outer space by jet-propelled buttocks.

  Mine was the best though, it was sitting on the bonnet of the principal’s car. Man, what a shot, right in the mouth. You should have seen how far that frog flew with a gob full of foam. It had to be at least sixty metres . . . it was awesome.

  That frog flew off the car bonnet at warp speed ten, skidded along the path on its backside, leaving a green snail trail for ages, until it bounced upward and smacked into the classroom window like a soggy snotty tissue . . . splat!!

  Me and Jared reckon the principal thought it was awesome too, he just couldn’t admit to it, but we could tell.

  Oh yeah, another time we found a half-eaten old fish and hid it in the girls’ toilets at school. There were blowflies, mozzies and ants everywhere. It took two weeks for the stink to go and geez, did the girls sook, especially Crabby Abbey who found it.

  “Oooh, I’ll never be able to use those toilets again, or eat fish and chips.”

  What a load of bull!

  She’s always trying to get us into trouble.

  Just because Jared told her that her nose looks like it’s permanently pressed up against a window, and that her ears wave at everyone when it’s windy. And it’s not my fault if I have a cold and accidentally sneeze boogas into her hair.

  Anyway, even though Jared hadn’t been here long, it seems his family had moved into the one house in town that had a whole system of tunnels right beneath it! The lucky bugga!

  He reckons their house is something like a hundred-years-old.

  One day, when Jared and me were out the back of his place kicking around the footy, the ball landed in the bush garden by their back door. While we were searching for the ball, suddenly my foot broke through something and into a huge hole. Jared ran to get a torch and we poked around . . . wow!! We’d found a cellar under the house that no one else knew about.

  We made sure no one else was about, then sneaked in and explored. It was pretty much empty except for an old trunk in the far corner.

  We quickly found the door that would lead into the house. It looked in great nick. We figured out that the pantry in the kitchen had been built over the doorway, sealing the room away forever. Why would anyone want to do that?

  We got out of there before anyone came home and set to work making a secret trapdoor. That way, we could use the garden to keep the room hidden from everyone else. Especially Jared’s poxy brothers. Now we’re setting it up as our headquarters and have sworn an oath of secrecy to each other . . .

  Anyway, because Mum isn’t exactly thrilled about us hanging out together, I haven’t been over to his place for ages. So when he told me at school that he’d discovered these tunnel entrances down there, I had a feeling, a really BAD feeling.

  He spent the next few days exploring them and now Jared knew the tunnels like the back of his hand. He’d seen some really scary stuff in them

  . . . the tunnels that is, not his hands. He told me what to watch out for and was going to give me some really cool weapons I could use to protect myself.

  So just because Mum didn’t want us hanging out together, I was supposed to say, “Gee, no thanks Jared. I’ll just head into the tunnels and possibly the jaws of gruesome death, without any weapons for protection. I don’t mind bleeding all over the place and having the flesh ripped from my bones.” Yeah, thanks Mum.

  I barely touched it and it drew blood. It looked like a javelin, with its shiny long, thin metal body, ready to pierce the heart of anything that got in my way.

  Then Jared gave me this knife-like thing that was so sharp that I reckon it would be like when you get a paper cut; you don’t feel it happen, but man-oh-man, does it sting.

  I didn’t want Jared to think I was a sissy, so I told him I was hangin’ to use it. But really, the thought of having to actually use one of those things and have ooze squirt out all over me, made me want to hurl chunks; big chunks. He gave me some other ‘tools’ that I was hoping I wouldn’t have to use either. I knew Jared had used them. I’d seen the proof and there was no way I was backing out now. I asked him if he wanted to come and search for the tunnels at my place too. I was kind of hoping he’d say yes, but he had one of those . . .

  ‘Let’s get the whole family together days.’

  You know, the ones where Mum says . . .

  “Be good, smile and pleeaase be polite.” Translation:

  “Be good,” . . . which really means; be extremely bored and don’t do anything that might be considered even remotely interesting.

  “Smile,” . . . until your cheeks are so sore they’ve gone numb, and . . .

  “Always, always be polite,” . . . because even though you have no idea who most of these people are, we certainly don’t want Great Aunt Shirley thinking that what Grandma Margaret overheard from Cousin Cyril about you putting slugs in the salad at Uncle Ted’s wedding might be true, do we?

  I could just imagine about a hundred, curly red-haired, freckled, skinny people all dressed up and together at once. It would look like a carrot-tossed salad or like when you throw up, you know, where there’s always lots of carrots.

  The last time we had a family ‘get together’ I had to ‘show everyone what a great big brother’ I was. Which wasn’t so bad until Smelly Melly filled her nappy with something disgusting from the planet ‘Puto’. The smell was worse than a grou
p hug from a bunch of oldies that have been left out in the sun for way too long.

  So I was on my own. I can do this. I can do anything Jared can do.

  When we went to town and Jared skateboarded through the new shopping mall building site, through two pipes, over an open pit with steel spikes standing up, and around the jungle of electrical cables lying in huge puddles of water . . . so did I!

  When he rode his bike down the five-storey car park ramps in town at incredible speed, to jump seven steel drums . . . so did I!

  And when Jared roller-bladed down their house roof, across the garage, bounced onto the trampoline and landed in the stack of hay . . . so did I . . . well, nearly.

  The doctor says that with three steel pins in my leg, I can still do all the stuff the other kids do, once the bone heals properly . . .

  . . . he reckons six months or so.

  I would have made it too if it wasn’t for Jared’s stupid cat poking its head up through the trampoline springs just as I bounced onto it.

  Dumb cat!

  Jared got into so much trouble for that one. I was pretty lucky really, Mum couldn’t yell at me while I was unconscious.

  Anyway, Mum hasn’t actually banned us from seeing each other. She’d just prefer it if I found some other guys to hang out with.

  And now that Jelly Melly could talk; which she seemed to do twenty-four hours a day, Jared and me had to be extra careful.

  Ever since Melly could crawl, she’d followed me around like a magnetic bad smell.

  It didn’t matter if we were just hanging out, Miss Prissy Pants would just turn up and then run straight to Mum and tell.

  Of course, Mum would all of a sudden, have something really important that just had to be done right away.

  Jared said the tunnels he’d seen were really dark, so I couldn’t forget my one-of-a-kind, way cool, Bulravian spy torch.