G'Day To Die Part 10

Way to one-up the guy. Tell him we have uglier bugs.

"I've seen the Big Prawn," said Nora.

"Mrs. Acres," Diana implored, "the man sitting beside you is a fraud. You mustn't listen to him. I'm the only person at this table who can make promises and follow through with results. I can make you younger, more beautiful. And when the world sees what we've done, your face will become the most celebrated image in the world."

Nora nodded vacantly. "The Big Lawn Mower. The Big Koala. The koala didn't have b.o.l.l.o.c.ks 'cause it was a girl. The Big Merino-"

"If you're a prime example of what she can expect, let's hope she does the smart thing and runs like h.e.l.l," Roger interrupted. "What's buried under all that facial cement you're wearing? Jimmy Hoffa?"

"You've niveh seen ugly 'til you've seen a three-horned dung beetle," Jake drawled. "A prehistoric body encased in indestructible black armor with horns that can pierce-"

"European corn borer!" Lucille yelled. "The grossest, ugliest-TV stations had to stop showing it in commercials over the dinner hour because it was making folks sick."

"Pimple-faced bush cricket."

"Rootworm. Cutworm." She added a pinch of horror movie vibrato to her voice. "Alfaaaaalfa weevil."

"Topless cannibal ant!"

Back home we put our ants in farms; here, they put them in strip joints. Cool.

"Would you all stay where you are so I can get a group photo?" Guy asked as he muscled himself off the bench.

"Emily warned us to stay away from you," Lucille raved at Jake. "I never listen to her 'cause she's usually wrong about everything, but she was right about you!"

"Is that so?" Jake spat out his toothpick like a dart from a blowgun. It whistled onto his plate, spearing a half-eaten fuscilli noodle.

Whoa! Anyone who could spit with that degree of accuracy shouldn't be killing bugs. He should be playing major league baseball.

He angled around to face me. "What exactly has Imily been saying about me?"

"Go ahead, Emily," Lucille prodded. "Tell him."

Tell him to his face that he was a threat to humanity? Right. Why didn't I just paint a target on my chest and hand him an Uzi? "Umm...just out of curiosity, do you have professional baseball in Australia?"

"Would everyone on Emily's side of the table squeeze in a little tighter?" asked Guy. He looked through his viewfinder. "Bernice and Lola are still out of frame."

"WHAT?" yelled Bernice.

"Ouch!" I shifted position as Jake pressed against me, driving something hard and intractable into my thigh. I stared down at the lump in the hip pocket of his shorts. "What are you packing? A lunch pail?"

He wriggled his hand into his pocket and removed a clear plastic cube that he slammed onto his tray.

"Hold that pose," Guy instructed as he pressed the shutter.

"What have you got inside there?" Roger asked, scrutinizing the container. "Some kind of carpenter ant?"

"Spideh," said Jake as he yanked off the lid.

Holy s.h.i.t. I shot off the bench like a Jack-in-the- Box, elbows and legs flying. Roger burst out in raucous laughter. "Calm down, Emily. It's not a tarantula." He leaned across the table for a better look. "It's pretty good-looking as far as spiders go. No hair. Compact. Nice glossy exterior. Looks like a garden-variety arthropod. What's so special about it?"

Diana shrieked as the creature landed on her nose.

"It's a jumpeh," said Jake.

"EHHHHH!" Diana swatted it off.

"Oh, my G.o.d!" I cried, as it leaped onto the table. "Is it poisonous?"

Jake's mouth slid into a lazy sneer. "What do you think?"

"Run!" Diana screamed.

"WHAT?" yelled Bernice.

Lucille hoisted herself to her feet. "RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!"

The terror in Lucille's voice started a buzz that prompted rubbernecking, uncertainty, foot shuffling, and a chaotic stampede out the doors. Jake grinned at the disorder, while Heath stood over his mother, tugging on her elbow.

"C'mon, luvy. We need to go."

"Leave me be." She shooed him away. "I'm not through eating."

"Could you use some help?" I asked, running around the table to them.

Heath nodded his thanks. "Up you go, Mum. Imily will carry your tray outside for you."

Jake s.n.a.t.c.hed up his plastic container and stalked the table. "All right ladies and gints, where's the little buggeh hiding?"

I screeched as it leaped onto Nora's tray.

"Mum! It's not safe to sit here!"

Nora smashed her fist on top of it, smiling serenely. "It is now."

"It wasn't poisonous after all?" said Guy, as we descended the long flight of stairs leading to the gold mine. Bernice had taken one look at the stairs and said she'd rather shop, so it was just the two of us.

"Nope. Henry made Jake fess up. It was just a harmless jumping spider, which was a good thing for Nora. Henry said there are some insects so deadly, you can get poisoned simply by touching them."

"Do you think she knew what she was doing?"

I shrugged. "I'm not sure she's operating on all cylinders. She's apparently been on a decades-long quest to find her twin sister Beverly, and I think the stress has taken its toll. But Heath has found some new leads on the internet, and he's hoping to locate Beverly within a few weeks. Maybe that'll give Nora's mental health a boost."

"Any repercussions for Jake?"

"Big-time. Henry confiscated his plastic container and warned him that if he instigated any more bug incidents, he and Lola would be sent packing. Lola complained that she had nothing to do with the incident and resented both the threat of punishment and Jake's moronic smirk. So she cussed them both out, vowed to get even with Jake for causing her so much embarra.s.sment, and stormed off for destinations unknown."

"What was Henry's reaction to her theatrics?"

"He gave Jake his email address. In his off-hours, Henry apparently does a little moonlighting as an online marriage counselor."

Arriving at the bottom of the stairs, we headed uphill toward a weathered clapboard shelter that appeared to be the waiting area for the gold mine tour. Sheer cliffs flanked us on the right. Scrubby trees flanked our left. Mining cart tracks led to nowhere. Wooden planks sh.o.r.ed up the cliff wall and framed an entryway that tunneled deep into the mountainside. I skidded on some loose pebbles and yelped as my legs gave way beneath me.

"Easy there." Guy grabbed my arm, righting me. "No twisted ankles allowed."

"Thanks." I regarded the gritty terrain with a bit more respect. "I guess I need training wheels, or a keeper."

"I thought you already had one. Or is it two?"

"Funny you should mention that."

"I don't know many women who can brag about having two such good-looking bucks chasing after them. Neither one of them can stop talking about you. Why don't you do one of them a favor and marry him?" He paused for a moment's contemplation. "Unless you think marriage is for old fogies and you're into something more kinky."

"No! I want to get married, and this trip is supposed to help me get to know both Etienne and Duncan a little better. The problem is, they're spending so much time in front of your camera, you're getting to know them better than I am."

Guy winced. "Ouch."

"Exactly."

He held up his hands in surrender. "Mea culpa. I didn't understand the situation. No more photos. But I couldn't help myself. Bone structure like theirs comes along once in a lifetime. I thought I could make them famous."

"They don't want to be famous."

"If that's what they told you, they're lying. Everyone wants to be famous. It's part of our culture. Ask my kids. Fame is the in thing, and I'm talking about more than just fifteen minutes of it. You can slink through life unnoticed, or you can choose to make a splash."

"And you think splash is better?"

"I know splash is better. I've had it both ways, and I'll take splash any day."

"In other words, you think Etienne and Duncan are being shortsighted."

"I'm not walking in their shoes, Emily, but I'll tell you this. My father would have killed to be someone, with a capital S. He envied everyone. He wanted what everyone else had. When I earned some notoriety, he wanted to be me. On his death bed, he said if he had to do it all over again, he'd do everything differently so that he'd be the person everyone wanted to be. I don't think he was happy for more than a minute throughout his entire life." He shook his head and raked his hand through his hair. "He died just about a year ago."

"I'm so sorry, Guy."

"Thanks. It's a real shock to lose someone when he's in perfect health."

"Excuse me?"

"Prior to being broadsided by a semi, there'd been nothing wrong with him. Afterward, he had so many internal injuries, they couldn't piece him back together again. His kidneys stopped functioning, so I volunteered to donate one of mine, but preliminary tests showed that I'm diabetic, so that eliminated me from the donor pool. By then it was only a matter of time. He never lived long enough to undergo surgery. That was a h.e.l.l of a month."

"It's too bad he never got to talk to the clerk in the jewelry store here. She would have made him feel really really important. She knew all about your family history. Were you aware that in Victoria, the name Madelyn is right up there with the Queen? You should talk to the clerk. She'll make your head swell." important. She knew all about your family history. Were you aware that in Victoria, the name Madelyn is right up there with the Queen? You should talk to the clerk. She'll make your head swell."

"Is that right? Yeah, my dad would have eaten up the attention and been on top of the world. He might have even been happy for a day. Guess my kids will have to experience the excitement for him. They're going to be so full of themselves. But they're good kids. They deserve the attention."

I saw a few familiar faces when we arrived at the shelter. Lola Silverthorn sat on a bench in the bright sunlight, slopping lotion on her legs. Diana Squires waited in the shade beneath the building's overhanging roof, hardly recognizable in her floppy hat and sungla.s.ses. Roger Piccolo paced the grounds in what looked to be a futile search for rare vegetation. And the two d.i.c.ks exchanged belly laughs as they huddled near Lola's bench.

"Will you excuse me?" Guy asked as he powered up his camera. "Since your beaus are off-limits and Bernice is in absentia, in absentia, I find myself in the market for willing subst.i.tutes. Wish me luck." I find myself in the market for willing subst.i.tutes. Wish me luck."

"Have you ever tried looking at people face-to-face instead of through the viewfinder of your camera?"

He laughed. "Too late for that. I don't know any other way."

"The tour begins in two minutes!" a man called from the mine entrance.

I caught up to the d.i.c.ks, whose belly laughs diminished to giggles when they saw me. "Hi, guys. I see the ladies cut you loose. So what are they up to?"

"Fanning their muumuus in front of the electric hand dryers in the ladies' room," d.i.c.k Teig howled. "One minute we're panning for gold at the edge of a mighty river, and the next minute-"

"Splat!" said d.i.c.k Stolee, slapping his hands together with belly flop loudness. "Helen stumbled into Grace and they both went down like Sumo wrestlers. It was hideous. The screams. The flailing limbs. The wails for help." said d.i.c.k Stolee, slapping his hands together with belly flop loudness. "Helen stumbled into Grace and they both went down like Sumo wrestlers. It was hideous. The screams. The flailing limbs. The wails for help."

"I thought they were goners," said d.i.c.k Teig.

"Oh, my G.o.d! What did you do?"

"Jumped in after 'em."

"But you can't swim!"

"A man's gotta do what he's gotta do," he said humbly.

"That was so heroic!" I gave him a congratulatory pat on his shoulder, suddenly struck by something very peculiar. I stood back, eyeing him up and down. "So you jumped bravely into the river and hauled the girls to sh.o.r.e."

"Yup."

"How come your clothes aren't wet?"

d.i.c.k Stolee wheezed with laughter. "Because the water's only two inches deep!"

"Two inches deep?" I scoffed. "That's a creek!"

d.i.c.k Teig stuck his jaw out defensively. "In Iowa it'd be a river."

"This way, folks," our tour guide called out. "Have your tickets riddy. A hundred and fifty years ago, if you worked a mine like this, you could be as young as thirteen years old, and you'd most likely be Chinese. It was dark, dirty work, but the money was good. If you could stay alive, you prospered."

I let people file in front of me as I paused to dig my camera out of my shoulder bag.

"I hope this tour's a beaut," Heath remarked, stopping beside me. "I admire the commercial genius who came up with the idea of having blokes pay to explore a fake gold mine. We should do that in Coober Pedy. We've got plinty of real mines to go tramping around in."

I glanced curiously left and right. "Where's Nora?"

"She's afraid of dark places, so Hinry's looking after her for a spill. He mintioned taking her down to the creek to pan for gold. She's fond of being in the sunshine. Be nice if she could strike it rich."

Better still, it would be nice if she could avoid Jake for the rest of the afternoon. He'd been seriously ticked off when she hammered his spider. Considering what a nutcase he was, there was no telling how he'd get even, but I suspected he'd find a way. Poor Nora was probably in Jake's crosshairs and didn't even know it. I applauded Heath's ability to entrust her to Henry's care. If she were my mom, I'd be hard-pressed to let her out of my sight.

I sighed at my own frailties. I was so freaking neurotic.