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  The fluffy white clouds became thicker and puffier as we flew higher and higher. It was if we were flying over huge, pure white snowfields for as far as the eye could see. But then, just as we began to level out, the brilliant white clouds quickly became darker and darker. Within seconds we were no longer floating in puffy white snowfields . . . we were now totally engulfed in thick, sooty black clouds. Looking out the windows we couldn’t even see the wings of the aeroplane anymore.

  Suddenly the entire plane started to shake and SHUDDER VIOLENTLY as if some giant in the sky had just grabbed us and shook us like a baby’s rattle. The plane felt as if it was about to just BREAK apart. Flashes of brilliant, blue lightening lit up the clouds all around us and burst our eardrums with the DEAFENING sound of each thunder strike. It was enough to make you poop your daks and by the smell in the cabin, me and Jared reckon a lot of people DID.

  Overhead lockers flew open, handbags and briefcases were flung about and clobbering people in the head, as they sat in their seats being tossed about.Girls SCREAMED in every different skull-splitting pitch they possibly could.

  But I wasn’t worried . . . nah, no way, absolutely not. Not really … well, maybe just a tiny little bit. It was kinda like being in the middle of the best roller coaster ride in the world, when the track suddenly starts to break apart right beneath you.

  Jared’s face went totally white as he dug his fingernails into the armrests, squishing them like they were play-doh, or something. Then he spent SO long in the toilet, that there was a line of people waiting, going all the way down the aisle. The stewardess had to bang on the door to see if he was ok.

  It turned out that he thought the toilet cubicle was an escape pod … so he just sat in there pressing the button to ‘EJECT’ over and over. Oh well, at least he was sitting in the right place to be that scared … if you know what I mean.

  When the aeroplane finally came screeching to a halt at the end of the airfield, I reckon that just about all of the ‘barf bags’ on board had been used … TWICE EACH!

  Finally the doors opened and as we left behind the plane’s air-conditioned, cool comfort and the strong smell of warm vomit; it hit us … THE HEAT! It was sooooooo HOT! Mum just about fainted and the sweat began to pour off us straight away. It took just about three minutes flat before you could’ve squeezed me out like a soggy sponge and filled a bucket with my sweat.

  Then we had to jump on a bus from where the plane had landed, to the airport terminal. Yeah, that was … hmmm … interesting …? No. Fun … ? No. Exciting … ? NO! It was smelly, TOXIC, gross, chunderriffic and absolutely hurltastic. The air-conditioner in the bus wasn’t working, naturally, the windows didn’t open, of course and either the tyres were flat, or the suspension was totally buggered, because we were once again bouncing and bumping and getting tossed around all over the place, hanging on for dear life, like we were on some AWESOME out-of-control thrill-ride at a really, REALLY cheap adventure park.

  We felt as if we’d been stuffed in there nice and tight to slowly roast in this big red oven called a bus. It was totally overcrowded with vomit-smelling, sweaty armpit tourists that were getting sweatier and sicker by the second … and we were all squished up against each other like sardines. The people standing up had one arm holding the overhead rail, which meant that the people sitting down had their faces just about shoved into the hairy, steamy armpits of those standing. The stench was so bad in there that people all around us were turning greener and greener by the second. All around us people were making weird PUFFY-cheek faces, as they tried not to breathe in the foul, human stench. But the smell was completely locked into the bus, just like us, with NO WAY of escape.

  The ride seemed to be taking forever as we rolled along the airfield towards our terminal. We rattled and bounced along as if we were competing in some ‘rocky road’ four-wheel drive competition and we were certain that the bus driver was swerving TOWARDS the potholes and actually speeding up for the speed bumps!

  Me and Jared were secretly betting on who we reckoned was going to hurl first; the really OVERWEIGHT bald guy standing-up that had thick, black curly hair poking up from all the way around the collar of his shirt … eewWw! Or, the lady with her tongue pierced with what looked like a tiny spear with a silver eyeball stuck to the end of it. Maybe even the guy in the really poncy, rich looking suit, his face was turning all sorts of shades of yellowy green.

  We were kind of hoping it was going to be the ‘tongue SPEAR’ lady, because we wanted to see if chunks of food, you know like carrots and corn, would get stuck on that ‘SPEAR’ thing through her tongue. Which would be kinda cool actually … if a few chunks of food did get stuck on it, it would be like her very own secret ‘veggie kebab’ for later. A sort of ‘secret snack’ stuck to her tongue.

  But we both lost. We suddenly hit one of the speed bumps at full speed … the BIG, BALD, HAIRY shoulder guy, suddenly lost his footing, fell forward and just about completely smothered a TALL, thin dude sitting down with a face-full of his sweaty ‘pit hair. TALL, thin dude was sitting next to a lady in a really, really expensive looking dress. The dress went from a nice, pale pink to splattered, multi-coloured, chuck-yuk within a split second. YEP, the thin guy gasped for air as his face popped out of the HAIRY BIG armpit and then he chucked. But it was the lady beside him that caught just about the whole lot … SPLOOSH … right into her lap and she was DEFINITELY not looking very happy about it. She was furious, but she couldn’t get up or even move because we were packed in so tightly that there just wasn’t any space. So she had this massive lap full of slooshing, smelly, chunky goop that was creating its very own little waves as the bus continued to rumble and roll along.

  SPEED BUMP! woo hoo, the bus suddenly flew over another one causing the ‘stuff’ in ‘VOMIT LAP LADIES’ lap to slop like a tidal wave, up and over the edge of her dress and run straight down her legs and into her shoes. The thin guy beside her kept trying to apologise over and over, but every time he opened his mouth to speak, he just hurled some more. And the more he chucked the more there was to splash about all over the place. The people standing right beside them all suddenly pushed back directly into other people as they desperately tried to get as far away as possible from the continuing ‘SPLASH ZONE’. But with the bus still bouncing around, it just kept making things worse and worse.

  As one lady pushed back to escape the ‘BLAST AREA’ she accidentally trod on the foot of the guy behind her; he was practically bare foot and only wearing thongs and she was wearing high heels. Her high heel stabbed right into the centre of the guy’s bare foot. He yelled at the top of his voice #*#! (a really really REALLY rude word)… and immediately fell to his knees in pain … SPLASH … straight into the goop that had overflowed from ‘VOMIT LAP LADY’S’ dress and onto the floor … the old lady sitting right behind us belted ‘rude thong guy’ across the back of the head with her huge handbag for swearing … ‘rude thong guy’ threw up both his arms to protect himself from ‘BASHING GRANNY’ as he scrambled back up to his feet. We hit another pothole … wham … he elbowed the guy behind him in the face … the guy’s nose started to bleed like a bright red waterfall … ‘BLOOD NOSE GUY’ grabbed at one of the poles to balance himself, but accidentally pushed the emergency ‘STOP’ button instead … the bus screeched to an immediate stop just metres from the terminal door and everybody was instantly thrown forward and smacking each into the back of the other and then, just as quickly, whipped backwards again! ‘BLOOD NOSE GUY’ grabbed for the handbag of ‘BASHING GRANNY’ … missed and got hold of the pants of ‘rude thong guy’ in front of him … ripped down his daks. ‘rude thong guy’ grabbed for his trousers and as he bent down, he butt-bumped ‘BLOOD NOSE GUY’, who began to fall. He tried saving himself, grabbing at air, but got a fist full of armpit hair from ‘HAIRY’ shoulder guy instead … ‘HAIRY’ shoulder guy squealed like a girl, right in the ear of ‘high heel’ lady, who threw her head back, lost her balance and fell face first, straight into the lap of
‘VOMIT LAP LADY’: splash!

  Eeewwwwww!

  Everyone was moaning and groaning. They were sooo green. It looked like we’d been riding in a bus-load of frogs, stewing in vegetable casserole, or like some scene out of an old HORROR movie.

  Me and Jared were CACKING ourselves, until Mum slapped us both on the back of our heads for laughing out loud. But it was totally worth it.

  By the time we got to the hotel we were completely drenched in our own body fluids. So of course we were just hangín’ to hit the beach as soon as possible. And luckily it was only a five-minute walk along a track that ran right behind the hotel.

  All I could think of was the crashing waves, the smell of the salt air and the feel of fine, white sand, squelching up between my toes. It seemed like forever since I’d been to the beach.

  When we lived in the city we’d visit the beach a fair bit. So I’d really been missing it since we’d moved to Agnath. But then when Yelly Melly was born, the city and surf had been left far behind. The endless seawater turned to dams of muddy slop. The smell of salt air turned to the smell of fresh sheep and cow dung and the feel of fine, white sand between my toes, turned to dead, itchy grass and fresh warm manure squelching up between them instead.

  Jared used to surf a fair bit too. His family had lived even closer to the beach than we did, so he’d spent a whole lot of time there.

  In Agnath it looked like we’d never get to surf ever again. After Jared moved to town, we spent almost every day hangín’ out together and most of that time we were inventing stuff.

  And finding a way to surf again was on the top of our list. We made some really wickedly AWESOME stuff and it didn’t take us too long before we’d figured out our very own way to surf. Yep, even in Agnath.

  At first we thought we could probably just wait until the creek through town was flowing well, tie a rope from the front of the surfboard to one of the sheep and then yell “BARBECUE!” Then we could ‘ski surf’ right along the creek. Yeah zooming along, zipping around corners and leaping over fallen trees, it’d be so AWESOME. We had it all figured out.

  We tried to ask the guys at school a few questions so that we could find out when the creek got full enough for us to swim in - and ‘SURF’. But they all just stood there, leaning against the fence, chewing on their blades of grass and kicking the dirt about their feet. You could actually see the strain on their brains. It was like trying to kickstart a car with no engine… it was just never going to happen. The weird looks on their faces were as if someone had just let go a ripper butt-busting fart.

  Eventually, RATTY HARRY grunted something about, “When sheep dung has more air bubbles than a chockie bar and cow dung turns greener than a tree frog. That’s when you know rain is on the way.”

  I just want to know who goes around comparing shades of green in cow poop and breaking open sheep poop to count the air bubbles in it?!?

  Anyway, TOFFEE THOMAS started to whinge, as usual, about ‘too much rain’ some times and ‘not enough rain’ at other times. I’m pretty sure that’s why it’s called winter and summer … he’s such a dork. He reckons his family has to shower straight after dinner. Standing in their bathtub, fully clothed, so that they can wash their dishes, themselves and their clothes all at the same time. Mum reckons they’re just sooking as usual.

  But then some of the other guys slowly started to throw in their own bits of useless information as well. Like … “The great drought of 1824, when the sheep’s wool was more like rusty steel wire than puffy soft clouds” and how “The cows’ brains are drying out and shrinking because they’re not getting enough water.”

  And they’re DEAD serious! So of course

  I just had to know …

  “Ok, so how can you tell that a cow’s brain is shrinking?” I asked Booga.

  “Because they walk slower, they moo slower and when you slap their butt, it takes three seconds longer than it did fifty years ago before the pain message gets to their brain and tells them to move” he said.WOW! So, that was it!

  Hmmmmm … time for a quick experiment.

  “Deadly spider!”… whack! I yelled suddenly and slapped TOFFEE on the arm as hard as I could … one, two, three … “Ow!” TOFFEE whinged.

  AH HA! That’s it! Now I knew for sure why all the local yocals talked sooo slow and walked sooo slow. Their brains were shrinking as well!!

  Yeah, it all made perfect sense now. That’s why, when TOFFEE THOMAS slammed the classroom door on his hand and broke two fingers, he hardly noticed. Miss Croonarc nearly fainted at the sight of one of the BONES sticking up in the air and when she told TOFFEE that maybe he should sit down because he was getting BLOOD everywhere, he just looked down at his hand and the BONE and said “Hhuuh? I didn’t even notice …

  The LOCAL’S brains were drying out and shrivelling up from the lack of water. Each generation that was born in Agnath was getting s l o w e r and dumber, just like the cows! Gee in a few more generations the only way to tell the people apart from the cows would be by who was wearing clothes. And the LOCALS weren’t really wearing that much as it was.

  But out of all of their crappy and strange bits of information, there was just one teeny, tiny useful little bit that me and Jared could actually use. They reckoned that the creek would never get enough water in it to swim, or surf … EVER!

  We weren’t giving up that easily. There had to be a way that we could surf again. So that afternoon we headed back to our SECRET HIDEOUT and the drawing board. Within minutes I’d come up with another brilliant idea, naturally, but that didn’t end up working out too good. Jared stuffed it up, as usual.

  Actually, I think it was mainly Jared’s idea really.

  You see we figured that there were heaps of dams scattered all over the place around Agnath. So surely, somewhere, there had to be at least one of them that had a decent amount of water in it. And most of them were the size of a footy field … which would make the perfect ‘little ocean’. We figured that we could harness a sheep or a cow or a goat, tie a rope from its harness on one side of the dam to our surfboard on the other side. Then stand on the board and yell ‘go’ to go surfing across the dam, easy.

  We spent day after day riding our bikes all around town in the butt SWEATING heat. Searching for just one dam full of water. Most of them were just dried-up, CRACKED mud bowls.

  But a week later we found it, FINALLY. Hidden away in the backfields of my Aunty and Uncle’s goat farm. There it was, with the sun, glistening off the top of the brown murky water and clumps of green mouldy algae floating about all over it. Goats wandered about the paddock, occasionally stopping to slurp up the poo-brown liquid. But all me and Jared could see was our beautiful, wonderful ‘mini ocean’ and our ‘GOAT’ powered waves.

  We headed back to our headquarters, polished up our surfboards and got to work making a couple of goat harnesses. By the time the long weekend came around, we were ready to rock.

  My Aunty Ree and Uncle Karl were off to the city for the weekend, so it was time for me and Jared to go ‘camping’. We pitched our tent in the usual spot, out in the back paddock of Jared’s place and then gave our usual cover story so that no-one would ‘visit’ us. “ We’re ‘studying’ for a test so we need privacy. ” Yeah sure, studying, like that was going to happen … NOT!

  We made sure that we were up really early and well on our way to my Aunty’s even before the sun started to rise, that way no-one would see us leave. There we were, riding straight into the sunrise on our bikes with a surfboard trailing behind us, each on its very own little set of wheels … yeah, we looked sooo C O O L! We headed across the back paddocks, along the dirt roads, amongst the skinny cows and through more dead paddocks full of waist-high weeds that scratched every bit of skin that was showing. Jared pulled out a couple of chockie bars from his backpack for each of us for breakkie.

  As soon as we got to my Aunty’s, we chucked the bikes by the shed and stripped off our shirts, shoes and socks. We headed for the water, carryi
ng a surfboard each and slooshing our way through the moist, warm mixture of goat manure and mud … animals are so disgusting. They wander down to the dam for a drink, then take about two steps and poop. Sort of like having your toilet in the kitchen … anyway, we moved as slowly and quietly as possible so that we didn’t spook the goats. When they take off, those skinny little goat legs can really move and it could take hours for us to catch them again.

  Finally, about a hundred hours later, we arrived at the edge of the water and dropped our boards . . . SPLOOSH! dung-mud flicked up and speckled our legs like poop pellets. Unfortunately, one nice big blob of dung was flung straight at the backside of the head goat … THWACK! All of a sudden he leapt straight up - OVER A METRE - into the air and took off at the SPEED of a cheetah on pep pills. The rest of the herd stuck their heads up into the air to see what was going on and immediately took off to follow the leader. Soon the whole lot of them were flying across the paddocks and disappearing over the hill and away … GREAT!

  For the next couple of hours we crept on our bellies through the tall, dry weeds and dirt trying to sneak up on them again. Thistles and thorns scratched our chests and opened up deep, stinging cuts. By the time we’d managed to corner two of them, our sweat was acting like superglue. We had a build-up of dirt, dung and all sorts of dead grass seeds and weeds at least a couple of centimetres thick, ALL OVER US. We looked like some sort of ZOMBIE, sea-creature monster, bandaged all over by even thicker cakes of ‘dung mud’ that completely covered our entire bodies.

  We needed to harness the goats fast! We figured that if we didn’t get back to the dam damn fast and wash the ‘gunk’ off us, then we’d ‘set’ like concrete in the sun and be left to stand in the paddock forever as solid statues. At least we’d be totally AWESOME and really good-looking statues.