Banksia Mysteries

I use my spade to smooth the mud where I had been digging and drop the fat worm into the bucket with the rest. Drops from the sprinkler land on my bare arms and my fingers leave brown smudges on the page as I add a line to the tally in my black notebook. I imagine a policeman looking at my dirty fingerprints while I sit holding a prison bar in each hand.

“Ah, yes,” he would say. “Well this proves it! Caught disturbing Ms Prudence’s garden again!”

Ms Prudence really might ring for the police if she spotted me down here. Mum says she’s just proud of her rose bushes and how well they fared in the drought, and she’s worried I might damage them. I think, though, that maybe when you turn 105 years old you just start hating 8 year old boys. Like a lot of things in my tiny town of Banksia, that’s just the way things are, and no one seems to really be able to explain them.

Like Archie and Luna’s dad, who disappeared right after all their cows went away in a big truck. No one seemed to be able to tell me where he went. Or the mystery of Miss Honey-Suckle, who sings at the Magpie Hotel at night, with her purple hair bobbing and her big eyes glittery with makeup, but who I once saw with no hair at all, except for on her face.

I’m walking toward the Magpie now, and I can see two things. One is a big colourful sign advertising the Worm Race. That’s what I’m going to win, because the winner gets a shiny cup. The other thing I can see is Mr Arthur, and his dog Bet, sitting under the awning at the side of the building on a piece of cardboard. Mr Arthur is one of my Banksia mysteries. What I just can’t understand is why he loves the Magpie so much. One time I saw him sitting under the awning late at night, after the school Nativity. The next day, early in the morning, when Mum drove me to the dentist before assembly, he was back there already! Bet is always by Mr Arthur’s side. She is a white dog, really, but always looks brown. That’s not a mystery, though. That’s just the dust and the dirt that gets everywhere in Banksia. Once, in the dirt on the back windscreen of Mum’s car, I used my finger to write ‘wash me!’ like I’d seen on TV. It never did get washed, though.

Today Mr Arthur is collecting some empty soft drink cans on his cardboard. I can see them lined up. Lemonade, cola and some of the drinks that only the grown-ups can have. I think that perhaps he is trying to keep the street by the Magpie nice and clean, since he loves it so much. After I walk past him and wave, I stop and make a note of the soft drink cans in my book. I have some pages near the end where I keep track of my Banksia Mysteries, and I think one day they might all make sense.

Sometimes I do pause to talk to Mr Arthur, but today I have worms to train at home, and one last stop to make before I get there. Mr Brown’s front garden bed is usually a top spot to find worms. It’s much easier to dig in the beds where sprinklers are running, and you can find more worms there, so I keep a list of those houses. This year, though, I arrive to find Mr Brown’s garden as parched as the cricket pitch at school. In my notebook it joins Mr Garimura’s desert-like vegetable patch and Miss Stephania’s crisp azaleas in a list of useless places for worm hunting.

At home I check that Mum’s car isn’t in the carport before emptying my worm bucket onto the kitchen table. Six worms of various sizes wriggle and squirm between the coffee cups and Vegemite jars, seeking cover from the light. I retrieve them and repeat the exercise several times, watching the way the worms move. This year I’m sure I can pick a winner. I zero in on a short, fat, red worm that consistently outmanoeuvres my probing fingers. Flicking through my notebook to my list of winning worm attributes I can see that she fits the bill. Speedy, diving for shelter. She’s the one. Recognising her as coming from Ms Prudence’s rose garden I give her a name in tribute, and pack Prudence the worm into a plastic lunchbox, adding a slice of apple.

Over the following days I try not to let Prudence out of my sight. She comes back and forth from school in the lunchbox. During some classes I sneak her from my desk and onto my lap so I can watch her. I try not to let Gary Kaminski see. Who knows what he might do if he found her. Probably squash her like he squashed my nose into the bark chips that time I got in his way on the monkey bars. I keep a close eye on him in the row in front, and return Prudence to my desk if he moves, even to scratch his dandruffy head.

Friday, the day before the race, dawns with blazing heat. On my walk to school I feel the sun on my shoulders like a feverish hand pressing down, and the heat of the bitumen rises through the soles of my school shoes, past my socks, trying to melt my toes. The heat can come for you from all directions in Banksia, reaching in to meet in the middle of you. I walk level with the Magpie and notice that Mr Arthur isn’t there, but when I pass the local Vinnies I can see that he and Bet are standing by the door. I remember going there with Coach Phil and the other kids from the cricket team, to the new recycling place that has opened out the front. We cashed in the drink cans from the welcome barbecue, and Coach said we made enough money to replace the bail missing from our stumps. That must be what Mr Arthur collected the cans for. Though I didn’t know he even played cricket. I remind myself to add this discovery to my notebook, but hurry along to avoid missing first bell.

During the day I allow Prudence to catch snippets of my teacher’s talk on velocity, and I make sure she can hear what’s played during a rousing music class. I think, perhaps, these things will help to inspire her for tomorrow’s race. By the time I start on my walk home, however, Prudence is seeming lethargic. She is losing her shine, sticking gummily to the plastic of the lunchbox. I look sadly at her as I walk. I can’t understand what could be wrong. I’ve offered her all manner of fruit and vegetables from the crisper in the fridge, she’s had plenty of exercise during our training sessions. She should look healthier than she ever has before. I don’t realise that I’m nearing the Magpie until Mr Arthur speaks.

“G’day little matey”. I must seem crestfallen as I look up, because Mr Arthur’s wiry white eyebrows immediately draw together in concern, and Bet, always switched on to Mr Arthur’s mood, steps forward to nuzzle my hand with her damp nose. “What have you got there, mate?”

I show Mr Arthur the lunchbox and I see his crinkly eyes flit for a moment to the Worm Race sign.

“Ah. A bit worse for wear for a racing worm, this one. You been training it too hard, mate?” he says and laughs a hoarse laugh. Maybe I have been. My face must show my panic, because Mr Arthur reaches down and places a thin, rough hand on my shoulder.

“Ah, now. Don’t worry. Let’s see what we can do for this little one.” He looks into the lunchbox again. “Now, I’d make a sizeable bet that the heat has knocked her for six, wouldn’t you matey? And I think we might be able to improve this accommodation so that’s not so hard for her to manage. Wait here.” He enters the Magpie, and I hear laughter from the bar. Mr Arthur’s hoarse chortle and Rory, the barman, with his booming cawing. I want to go inside, but Rory, as kind as he is with his big pink smiling face, is not keen on having kids in the bar without their parents and might chase me out with a flick of his tea towel. Mr Arthur returns carrying a tall glass of water. I’m surprised when he pours it into the dirt of the footpath, then scoops the resulting mud back into the glass. I hand him the lunchbox and he lifts Prudence gently, adds the mud and then places her on top. She wiggles herself under the covering.

“Moisture. Worms are like people, you see matey. The dry is hard on them.” He sniffs. “Now, what about pre-race nutrition. These big chunks of fruit and veg won’t do. Worms like their food easy to break down.” He tears off a small piece of his own cardboard and places it on the mud where it starts to become soggy. “Try this.”

“Cardboard?” I question.

“That’s right, mate. Sometimes that’s all somebody needs.”

Everyone who’s anyone is at the Worm Race and the Magpie is abuzz with noise. Rory is booming and beaming as he patrols the worm entries and pours people drinks. Miss Honey-Suckle, all glitter, is singing into her microphone. Mr Brown and Miss Stephania are sitting at the bar while Gary Kaminski is showing off a huge specimen of a worm. Coach Phil and a lot of the other men are getting loudly and wildly excited by it all. I guess with only kids’ cricket going ahead in the drought this is the sporting event of the year for them. Everyone wants to see the worms to decide who the winner will be. I can see Coach handing out tickets in exchange for money, right now to Mr Berger, the rich old owner of the town supermarket. Mr Berger isn’t even the most surprising person in attendance. Ms Prudence herself is seated on a barstool blushing as she talks to Mr Arthur, who is coughing with laughter. He sees me and winks, waving his ticket from Coach. When I told Mum what Mr Arthur did for Prudence the worm, she said “That would be right, he would have known all about worms as the horticulturalist at the Royal Botanic, before it closed”. I didn’t know what that meant, but he sure did a good job with Prudence. Today she is sleek, glossy. Ready to win.

The race goes by like a dream. The worms move from the centre of the course towards the outside, where the first worm out of the ring will win. Everyone is shouting and egging the worms on. It seems most people are shouting for Gary Kaminski’s huge worm, but I can barely hear them. My heart is hammering as I will Prudence to the outer circle. And there she goes! Overtaking the giant and the other competitors she is wriggling with all her might to the edge… and she’s done it! She’s the first over! She’s won! At first, the pub becomes very quiet, and then Mr Arthur is leaping from his seat. He’s dancing around the room with Bet yapping happily at his heels! He’s kissing Ms Prudence on the lips! Rory is going to fetch my shiny cup, and Coach Phil is typing numbers into a calculator, and now Mr Arthur is hooting with laughter, not hoarse, but clear and bright “20 K!” he’s shouting, and tears are streaming from his eyes and dropping past his whiskery grin to the dry floor of the Magpie.