They Found a Cave Read online

  ‘It wasn’t fair!’ Cherry burst out. ‘It was all about his cat. She knows what he is about Fluffles—she’s an utter beast—’

  ‘We ought never to have left him alone with her, though.’

  ‘Don’t see that we could have helped him much, once she meant business. It’s only the beginning—you see!’

  ‘Oh!’ Nigel got up and moved restlessly to the verandah railing as he talked. ‘I’ve thought of a dozen schemes for us to unite somehow and down the two of them, but when you really come to do anything you find—till Jandie gets back—they’ve got the whip-hand. And don’t they know how to use it!’

  ‘Ha ha! But I’ve written all about it to Jandie.’

  ‘Have you, Cherry? Good!’

  ‘Yes, at least that’s all right. I got the man who came to borrow the plough to pop the letter, with one for Mother, too, into his pocket. He said he’d be in Valleeroo in a few days to post mail. Yes, we mustn’t worry too much; Jandie will soon know all about it now.’

  ‘Huh!’ Tas laughed mirthlessly. ‘Wait on, Cherry! Your precious letters! Don’t you know yet my Ma wasn’t born yesterday? Of course she found out and made the chap hand them over to her before he left. Told him Pa was taking the lorry down to Valleeroo himself or some such lie. Oh, yes, and didn’t they jest enjoy reading all you wrote about ’em to Jandie. Had the laugh of their lives before they stuffed ’em on the kitchen fire.’

  ‘My letters! They dared to read my letters! I—’

  ‘Oh, don’t waste time worrying about them now,’ Nigel interrupted wearily. ‘It’s lucky Tas found out, anyway. The thing is, now we’ve got to make plans. Yes, we must plan, I tell you. Hullo? What’s that?’

  They listened intently for any suspicious sound from the house and heard a slight shuffling noise. Outside the night was absolutely still. There was no moon, but the light from many stars, and the broad pennant of the Milky Way was flying bravely across the sky. Cherry stared at it, frowning. It seemed to her everything was placidly indifferent to their plight: even the little bush creatures were busy about their own rustling tiny affairs, and the whole vast bush cared nothing for herself and her brothers, for they didn’t really belong to it.

  The shuffling sound resolved itself into light footfalls, and Nippy appeared, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles.

  ‘I can’t sleep. Why did you go away, Cherry?’

  ‘All right, old man.’ Nigel swung him on the bed and pulled a blanket round his shoulders. ‘You are just the one we want. We are meeting to lay plans to avenge you and Down all Pinners. Now, what do you suggest?’

  ‘Good! Aha! Good! You must first take Ma and roll her down the hill from Hollow Tree in a barrel full of spikes; drive in the longest and sharpest nails you can get, Nig. After that—’

  ‘Wait a bit,’ Brick interrupted. ‘You forget there was never a barrel built yet that would hold Ma Pinner.’

  ‘Look here!’ Nippy surveyed them severely, beginning to enjoy himself as the centre of interest. ‘Mean to tell me you’ve all been sitting here half the night and no plan to show for it yet? You’re a poor lot of coves I must say.’

  ‘But Nippy, this is no game; we’ve decided we’ve got to do something as soon as possible.’

  ‘Of course! Didn’t I tell you a long time ago?’ explained Nippy patiently. ‘What we’ve got to do is—run away.’

  ‘Oh, yeah? And be overtaken by the lorry and brought back after a few miles? No, thank you! Besides, where would we run? We don’t know anyone, and we’ve only about five bob and some English farthings, which you can’t use in Tasmania, in the way of cash. No, no! It’s not so easy. We’ve thought of everything.’

  ‘No, you haven’t, sillies. Just go off and live in the bush till Jandie comes back, like Tas said.’

  ‘It’s like this, you see, Nippy,’ Nigel explained carefully in a low tone. ‘They make out that Jandie’s ill, very ill, in a hospital in Melbourne. Suppose we all “go bush”, as Tas calls it, and then she—she doesn’t come back?’

  ‘He means for a very long time,’ said Cherry quickly. ‘What would we do? What would we have to live on, Nippy? It’s spring now and fairly warm, but what should we do when winter came?’

  ‘Plenty of firewood about, isn’t there?’ put in Tas unexpectedly. ‘D’you know I reckon young Nippy’s right—if it wasn’t fer the tucker. That gets me beat, I must say.’

  ‘Oh, couldn’t we manage somehow? I want to live up there in that cave, Tas. I won’t stay here with the Pinners I tell you.’

  Nippy talked on, but Cherry turned towards the evening sky and tried to imagine what it would be like to live as part of the wild bush. The stars up there looked different, somehow; they now twinkled back in a friendly sort of way, and the little scufflings around seemed to come from little creatures inviting instead of threatening her.

  Looking round she saw the dim verandah, where the boys were so eagerly discussing what might have been a great adventure. But of course it was impossible; people had to eat.

  Again the sky drew her eyes and this time as she looked an idea flashed through her mind, as clear and complete as those bright stars themselves.

  ‘Of course!’ she whispered, ‘that must have been what Jandie meant. Nippy’s quite right. The Milky Way!’

  ‘What are you giggling about, Cherry?’

  ‘Don’t you see?’ Cherry laughed softly, everything clear and settled now. ‘The Milky Way! We can go and live in Capra Cave for we’ll take the goats with us. They’ll see we don’t starve, and Tas will get us rabbits and things, won’t you, Tas? The goats make it safe, and anyhow you know I couldn’t go without the goats, because I promised Jandie—’

  ‘Yes, yes! We know all about that,’ Nigel interrupted rather brutally, ‘but it does almost seem as though Old Cherrystones has had an idea. What do you say, Tas?’

  Tas said a lot and it was mostly favourable to the scheme. He believed they could live undiscovered and well sheltered in the cave, with water from the tarn and all the firewood they required. With a constant supply of milk and a few things ‘borrowed’ from the Homestead they might do very well.

  ‘And the first thing I’ll pinch will be an axe,’ said Tas.

  As the planning began in earnest the list of things to be pinched grew ever longer.

  Cherry perched herself back on the verandah railings and looked up gratefully at the stars responsible for her idea. A cool breeze blew up from nowhere and she shivered slightly, and was suddenly conscious of a rather empty feeling. She had felt too upset at tea on Nippy’s account to eat much, and now she wondered how it would be to live hard and know real hunger.

  At last she interrupted the excited whispers on the bed. ‘Suppose,’ she asked, ‘suppose things don’t go quite as we expect. Suppose we only get hungry and cold or wet or something. What would Mother say if we let Nippy suffer?’

  ‘Oh, shut up, Cherry! Wouldn’t I rather live on flies than eat lots with Ma Pinner there? Ough!’

  ‘Yes, shut up croaking, Cherry,’ Nigel endorsed. ‘Come over here and listen to the Plan.’ He waited till they had collected round, and no suspicious sounds could be heard from inside.

  ‘We’ve decided everything, but first we’re going to make one rule. We won’t grumble. However things turn out we won’t grumble, but we will work hard. Is that agreed, you blokes? We don’t expect it to be all jam, do we? There won’t be any jam as a matter of fact. Is that agreed?’

  They each nodded solemnly.

  Nigel glanced round and lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘We must seize our chance tomorrow. Pa Pinner will be away, I know, after sheep. First will come hard work getting all we need up to Hollow Tree and smuggled there. Tas and I will make out a list and each will be responsible for certain things. We’ll aim to clear out when the Old Girl has her morning tea on the side verandah and won’t notice us go. Cherry and Brick won’t carry quite so much as the rest of us because they have to drive the goats. Do you all understand?’


  ‘Yes, and mind you don’t let the goats out after the morning milking, Cherry,’ Tas warned. ‘You can tell Ma you fergot ’em if she asks. And listen all you chaps—yes, Nippy, you too—be sweet as honey to Ma, fetch her in wood and do whatever she wants and butter her up all you know so we don’t have trouble. Brick, you better shadow her when Nig and me get at the store-room, so as to give warning if she turns up where she isn’t expected.’

  ‘Yes, and listen, blokes,’ added Nippy, feeling a longing to give orders, too, ‘see you each have a box of matches, a piece of string, and a pencil in your pockets before you start.’

  They laughed at Nippy and asked what the pencil was for. The box of matches was agreed upon as a useful idea.

  Cherry winked at Brick, indicating that it was his turn next to give orders, but he got up instead, yawning. ‘I’m for bed before I forget what all the generals have commanded,’ he grinned, and paused a moment listening before he moved away.

  The distant chorus of frogs down by the creek reached them, with the deep ‘BONG’ now and then of the bull frog. There came, too, the startled screech of a native hen in the low scrub, and the regular sawing of wind through the gum-trees along the hilltops. These were becoming familiar, friendly sounds.

  Soon, like the conspirators which in fact they were, the rest stole soft-footed to bed, leaving Tas and Nigel making out endless lists by the light of a pocket electric torch.

  5

  The Getaway

  It was one thing to make plans in the dead of night for running away, and quite another to carry them out successfully. Cherry it was—poor Cherry who always seemed to be unlucky when she particularly wanted to succeed—Cherry who, with a bulging sack on her shoulders, ran full tilt into Ma Pinner outside the back door.

  ‘’Ere! Stop! What you got there?’ Ma demanded suspiciously.

  ‘Only some feed for the goats,’ Cherry lied, her face tomato red as she skilfully got past.

  Ma Pinner was not built for quick action, but, on the other hand, Cherry was burdened with a heavy load, and the result was a race which Cherry narrowly won by hurling herself and the sack inside the chaff-house door, and slipping the bolt.

  ‘Open that there door!’ commanded Ma, thumping on it with a stick and panting from over-exertion and fat.

  ‘Can’t. It’s got stuck,’ announced Cherry gleefully, watching her enemy through a crack.

  ‘Oh! Got stuck, ’as it?’ With a triumphant cackle Ma Pinner laid hands on the big key sticking in the lock outside, and quickly gave it a turn. ‘Righty-ho! Now you can stay inside of there till Mr. Pinner gets back. He’ll soon learn you whether it’s stuck or not.’

  Wheezing with laughter she returned to the house with the key, leaving Cherry in complete despair. She could have forced her way out of most sheds about the place, but the chaff-house defeated her. It had no window, was lined throughout with tin, and the floor was strong. That it had been well and truly laid Nigel discovered when he crawled underneath with a hammer, only to receive a mouthful of dust for his efforts.

  ‘Bother!’ he spluttered. ‘Now you’ve done it, Cherry. Wrecked our whole dashed scheme.’

  Inside Cherry bit her lip, not trusting herself to argue back, and to point out that the chaff-house was the only handy open door she could find when racing with her tell-tale sack of blankets. She crouched miserably with her eye to the crack, and saw Tas hurrying up. ‘I s’pose he’ll tell me what a blight I am,’ she thought wretchedly, ‘and how was I to know Ma Pinner was lurking just outside?’

  ‘Hullo!’ Tas called cheerfully. ‘How does she like it in there, Nig? Bit dark and plenty of rats?’

  ‘You needn’t be so beastly funny,’ called Cherry, nearly hoarse with rage. ‘I didn’t try to get locked in.’

  ‘Then, if you don’t like it, why not come out?’ As Tas spoke he turned the lock without a key and threw wide the door.

  ‘Good lord! How did you do it?’ asked the astonished Nigel, as he grabbed at the sack which had been the cause of all the trouble.

  ‘With these pincers,’ Tas replied, showing them in his hand. ‘The key was lost for a week once, but I always managed to get in with these. Come quick now! Race to Hollow Tree and don’t let Ma know you’ve escaped.’

  At Hollow Tree they tipped the blankets on top of the tools, food, and pots and pans already concealed in its gloomy heart. Nigel wanted Cherry to remain there hidden and not risk another raid on the Homestead, but she insisted she must go back once more to collect a milk-pail and some things she had carefully ‘planted’ about the place.

  ‘All right, sneak down, then, and listen well for the creak of Ma’s armour. I say, Tas, from the look of this junk shop we’re getting the stuff out. Just check over the list with me, will you? After that we’ve only to break into her store-room together, and then clear out!’

  A wave of excitement swept Cherry as his words reached her. Was it possible all the worries and anxieties would be over in a few hours? They would be free—free at last and living in their own cave. She shuddered with a fearful joy as she dodged through the scrub of the hillside, taking cover from the windows of the house as she went. Judging from the sounds as she crept past the kitchen, Ma Pinner was making scones and well occupied. Brick was there running errands for her with a bright willingness that ought to have roused all her suspicions.

  Cherry stole round the back way and busied herself packing. She was just dragging her swag from the verandah when Nippy gave a cry from the dining-room. Without stopping to think she rushed to his rescue through the open door of the verandah. ‘What is it, Nippy? What’s the matter?’

  ‘Oh, it’s you?’ he said calmly, his head bobbing up from where he knelt by the sideboard. ‘I’m only calling Fluffles. Have you seen him anywhere? Do you think she’s driven him away?’

  ‘Hush! Is that all? Don’t let her know I’m in the house,’ Cherry whispered urgently. ‘Never mind your old cat. We’re going soon now.’

  ‘Not without Fluffles,’ said Nippy firmly. ‘Nig said I could take him, so I’m going to whatever you say. Here, come along Fluffy, dear. Where are you? Come here, puss.’

  Just in time Cherry heard a warning cough from Brick. She dived under the table at the same moment as Ma Pinner’s enormous legs in their soiled pink satin slippers shuffled quietly into the room.

  ‘What’s all this? Oh, it’s you, is it, young Nippy? Want some more of what you got yesterday? Then git out of here and fill the kitchen box with sticks, like I told you before.’

  ‘Want my cat!’

  ‘Oh, do you? Your cat’s shut in the store-room, then! There’s a mouse in there and she can do a job of work fer me before I let her out. Now git along, or you’ll git something to help you.’

  Ma’s stout ankles were not three inches from fingers which itched to grab them and bring her to the ground like a tree new-felled. Or would she clutch the table? And would the big boys rush in quickly enough to deal with her? And was there a rope handy to tie her with if they did? Even as Cherry’s thoughts raced round, the pink slippers slowly and heavily removed themselves from reach. Nippy had gone and she was alone.

  When she felt safe she crept to the verandah again and found Brick picking up her abandoned pack. ‘Tas says, “Never drop your bundle”,’ he grinned. ‘That’s Australian for “Never give in”. How did you manage to escape from the shed?’

  Cherry explained, and asked what was to be done about Nippy’s cat, which was the latest difficulty. ‘He won’t go without it,’ she declared.

  Brick was not disturbed for he said they had already found it in the store-house.

  ‘There’s a bit of fun going on there,’ he added. ‘Nig and Tas find they have to lift out the store-room window—yes, take it clean off its hinges from a ladder outside—and they’ve got Nippy standing by to squeeze through when they’re ready.’

  ‘Then he’s not getting sticks?’

  ‘No, he’ll get his precious cat instead. Then he’ll hand out the
stores we need through the window. It’s all going splendidly, isn’t it? If only she—hullo?’

  Cherry and Brick crouched back among some ferns as a door opened and Ma’s voice reached them distinctly. ‘Hey! You young devils—where’s all my matches gorn?’ she complained. ‘Not a box in the place.’

  ‘Oh,’ Brick groaned. ‘Dash Nippy and his clever ideas.’ He pulled some boxes from his pocket, told her to warn the others, and bolted inside hoping to placate Ma.

  Evidently he was not successful, for they had barely time to haul Nippy out again and hold up the window-frame in place, before she was at the store-room door, fumbling with the key and grumbling about ‘more matches’.

  Had Ma been observant she must have seen Nigel’s thumb where it showed through the glass, and the packets of several things jumbled together; but perhaps she could not see well, coming to the dim light from the bright kitchen. In any case she did not stay long, for Brick, with great presence of mind, came to the door and yelled that he thought he could smell her scones burning.

  ‘Another minute and I should certainly have dropped the thing,’ Nigel grunted as he wiped the sweat from his face after she had gone away.

  As they stood grouped by the ladder considering the next move, Cherry noticed Nippy’s white face. She guessed he was feeling sick at the thought of having to creep inside again and risk being caught red-handed by Ma in her own locked store-room. However, since no one else was small enough to creep through the window, she knew he would go, and pretend to go cheerfully, if he had to.

  ‘Hadn’t we better get off now?’ she suggested.

  ‘What about it, Tas?’ Nigel asked, as he checked things from his list and the loaded wheelbarrow. ‘Flour, oatmeal, and bacon—good! Tea, cocoa, honey, salt, and soap—all useful; some baking powder for our bread; but no tinned meat or several other items—not so good…’

  ‘We’ve got the stuff wot matters most, haven’t we?’ said Tas.

  ‘There are several things missing, and we shall never have another chance,’ Nigel demurred, carefully not looking at Nippy’s face.