Digger Field by Damian Davis Page B

be able to get any reward money,’ I told her. ‘And then there’s no way we’ll be able to pay you back the seventy-five dollars we owe you.’
    It was true. The only chance we had of getting our money back for the camera, or to buy the tinnie, was to find out what Mr Black was up to, and hope for a reward.
    Tearley thought about it for a moment then said, ‘Okay, let’s go.’
    We went back to the river and put the card back in the camera. Wrigs acted as lookout like usual. But now he was looking out for the police as well as for Mr Black. We made him swear not to go for a pee, even if he had to wet himself.
    I thought we should at least try one of the rocks from the police station. I got the most skims ever … twenty-five. The first bounce wasn’t that big but then it bounced again, and again, and again—twenty-four more times to be exact. At least something good came out of the day.

CHAPTER 24
DAY 22: Saturday
    My skims: 16
    Wriggler’s skims: 1
    Tearley’s skims: 16 (Her best ever.)
    Disappointing but I put it down to muscle tiredness.
    Money made for tinnie or Tearley: $0 ($825 to go.)
    We could sell the plans for the EWS.
    Getting twenty-five skims was epic. I woke up knowing I was still in with a chance for the world record attempt. I was dying to get some more practice in. But Wrigs didn’t want to go back to the river. He said he was sick of being the lookout.
    Then a plan hit me like a seagull flying into a window. All we needed was an early warning system.
    I took some elastic from Mum’s sewing kit. I told Wrigs to go home and grab some cotton and string, and then meet me at the bottom of View Street.
    I rang Tearley. ‘The world record attempt is back on,’ I told her. ‘Me and Wrigs are going to build an early warning system, so if Mr Black turns up, or the police, we’ll know and we’ll have enough time to hide.’
    When we got to the river, we started making our early warning system straight away. The entrance to the path is not very wide. It’s just a gap between a couple of grevillea bushes, which is why it’s so hard to find. We found a small rock and tied a piece of cotton to the end of it. Then we stretched the cotton between the bushes. You couldn’t see the cotton but you couldn’t walk down the path without walking through it. Once it had been touched it would trigger the early warning system (or the EWS as we called it).
    The rock at the end of the cotton was holding down a piece of elastic. The elastic was attached to a tin can full of gravel. The tin can was hanging by a string from a branch of a tree.
    So when someone set off the EWS, the tin can would be released to swing through the air and crash into a bit of corrugated iron that had been dumped in the bushes. It would make a huge noise, which gave us fifteen seconds to hide in the bushes.
    Of course, if we had a tinnie, we could jump into that and power off down the river. But we didn’t.
    We skimmed rocks all afternoon, knowing we were being protected by our perfect EWS. We were pretty proud of it. I wondered if we could sell the plans to buy the tinnie.
    Wriggler said that throwing left-handed still hurt too much, so he invented a new skimming technique. He lined up a whole lot of rocks on the shore, then ran up and kicked them in.
    It didn’t work. Only one rock bounced once.
    It was a stupid idea.

CHAPTER 25
DAY 23: Sunday
    No skimming today.
    Money made for tinnie or Tearley: $14.50 ($810.50 to go—at least we’re getting closer.)
    Tearley came around after breakfast with a couple of buckets and rags.
    ‘I know how you can make some money to pay me back for the camera.’
    ‘How?’
    ‘Mum was speaking to this nice woman yesterday who said she would pay for someone to clean her house.’
    ‘I hate cleaning,’ I said.
    Wrigs turned up and saw the buckets. ‘We’re not going to do that windscreen thing again, are we?’ he said.
    ‘No, house cleaning,’ said Tearley.
    ‘I hate cleaning,’ he