Pip and Houdini Read online

  First published by Allen & Unwin in 2017

  Copyright © Text J.C. Jones, 2017

  Copyright © Illustrations Caroline Keys, 2017

  ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ composed by Johnny Marks, copyright © St. Nicholas Music Inc

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from the National Library of Australia

  www.trove.nla.gov.au

  ISBN 9781760296056

  eISBN 9781760639006

  Illustrations by Caroline Keys

  Set by Midland Typesetters, Australia

  Cover illustration: Caroline Keys

  Cover design: Hannah Janzen

  To all the children looking for a home.

  CONTENTS

  TROUBLE HAS THREE LETTERS

  SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

  WHAT A GOOSE

  THE SECRET STOWAWAYS

  UP IN SMOKE

  MAKING TRACKS

  GIRL WITH A GUITAR

  WINNERS AND LOSERS

  ON THE RAILS

  GIVE AND TAKE

  FOUND AND LOST

  TO THE RESCUE

  THE RED DOOR

  NEXT STOP, BYRON

  TERROR HAS BIG TEETH

  THE BIG QUESTION

  THE PAST UNRAVELS

  RUN, HOUDINI, RUN!

  BREAKFAST AT THE BIRDHOUSE

  GROMMET’S GIFT

  PIP GOES VIRAL

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  TROUBLE HAS THREE LETTERS

  Pip Sullivan’s middle name was trouble. At least, that’s what people said.

  She was the girl who’d gone on the run from the welfare in case they locked her up, broken into an empty house, bet on the horses, had the entire city police force looking for her, brought down a very bad man and discovered why her mother had abandoned her as a baby – all in just a few days. And she was still just ten (and a bit) years old.

  Of course, trouble wasn’t really her middle name. She didn’t have a middle name at all. Even her first and last names were borrowed – ‘Pip’ from the apple crate in which she’d been found as a baby, and ‘Sullivan’ from her friend Sully, on whose doorstep baby Pip had been left. But that’s another story.

  Sully had died three weeks ago, and since then, Pip and her dog, Houdini, had been living with the very nice, very normal Browning family.

  At this moment, Mr and Mrs Browning and their daughter, Matilda – Houdini, too – were lined up in front of Pip, looking mortified. When even your dog looked ashamed of you, you really were in trouble, Pip reckoned.

  She stared down at the cream carpet in the Brownings’ very nice, very normal living room.

  ‘Really, Pip. You’re old enough and smart enough to know better,’ Mrs Browning said, hands on hips.

  ‘What on earth were you thinking?’ Mr Browning asked, his usually kind face flushed with bewilderment.

  ‘That Spiro needs to keep his nose out of other people’s beeswax,’ Pip muttered defiantly.

  ‘You punched him, Pip!’ Mrs Browning said, sounding horrified. She’d probably never had to deal with her very well-behaved daughter, Pip’s best friend, Matilda, giving someone a thump on the honker.

  ‘Kind of. I meant to shove him and his nose got in the way.’

  ‘Pip!’ the Brownings all exclaimed at once. Houdini, not wanting to be left out, uttered a yowl that made them all wince.

  ‘The school is very disappointed with you,’ Mrs Browning said. ‘And so are we. I know you’ve had a tough time recently, but that doesn’t excuse your behaviour.’

  The tips of Pip’s ears turned red in embarrassment. She knew she should have held on to her temper, however tempting it was to pay Spiro back for blabbing her secrets all over school. From the guilty look Matilda shot her, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to work out how it had happened. Matilda would have said something to her friend Parminder, who would have passed it on to her twin brother, Rakesh, who hung out with Spiro. Secrets spread like wildfire around Spring Hill Public.

  ‘Do you have anything to say?’ Mr Browning asked.

  Pip shook her head.

  ‘Well, then, I’m afraid there will be consequences,’ Mrs Browning said, trying to look stern. ‘We’ve decided you won’t be going on the school excursion on Monday.’

  Pip’s head popped up with dismay. She’d been looking forward to the museum trip for weeks. The whole of Year 5 was going, and they would see Africa’s answer to T. rex. Pip had never seen a dinosaur skeleton in real life before.

  ‘Mum, you can’t!’ Matilda exclaimed in Pip’s defence. ‘Pip’s been looking forward to this for ages and…it’s not fair!’

  ‘Nor is it fair that Spiro has two black eyes,’ Mrs Browning replied firmly. ‘His mother and grandmother are not happy. So Pip will be staying home with me.’

  ‘Don’t you have to go to work?’ Matilda pointed out.

  ‘The real estate agency is quiet at the moment,’ Mrs Browning said. ‘People are thinking about the holidays now, rather than buying houses. I can work from home.’

  ‘I’ll stay at home, too, then,’ Matilda said with a sigh.

  ‘No, you won’t, young lady,’ Mr Browning told her. ‘It’s a school day, so it’s the museum trip for you and that’s that.’

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ Matilda said to Pip at bedtime. ‘And thanks for not telling Mum and Dad on me. All I said to Parminder was that your mum had left you in an apple crate when you were a baby and now you were trying to find her. I told her not to tell anyone.’

  ‘Spiro’s telling everyone that my mum threw me out with the garbage,’ Pip said.

  ‘He’s a disgrace. After you saved him from that creepy man, too! I can’t believe his family have forgotten so quickly.’

  ‘His family think that was my fault too,’ Pip said. ‘They don’t believe that Spiro would have been stupid enough to get into a car with a stranger, even though the police told him off. Spiro told his mum I was the one who’d been abducted and that he had to rescue me!’

  ‘Grown-ups believe the most ridiculous things sometimes,’ Matilda yawned. ‘Well, I’ll tell you all about the best bits in the museum when I get back. At least you won’t have to listen to Ms Bristow droning on about Jurassic mozzies when everyone just wants to see the Afrovenator.’

  ‘Okay.’ Pip sighed. It was better than nothing, but not as good as being there. ‘Night.’

  It was all so unfair. The police hadn’t made much headway in tracking down her mother, so it was hardly surprising that talk would start flying around Spring Hill. Molly Dunlop, a friendly police officer, said the cops were short-staffed and all they knew was that her mum was no longer at the Byron Bay address that had been the starting point for their search. They would get someone back on the hunt again in a few weeks.

  How many weeks, Pip had wanted to know. Molly hadn’t replied, but from her face Pip could tell it was a lot. There were missing kids, missing old people, missing
bad people, missing crazy people; all of those were a higher priority than a missing mum who’d vanished years ago and who, for all they knew, was quite happy to stay gone.

  By Monday, Pip wasn’t feeling any happier about her situation, especially when Matilda left for school, where a bus would be picking up 5A and 5B for the museum trip.

  Pip stood on the doorstep of Number 30 Elliott Street long after Mr Browning and Matilda had driven off, staring after them.

  ‘Come on, Pip,’ Mrs Browning said with a sympathetic smile. ‘No point moping. I know you’ve got a spelling test later this week. Why don’t you study up on those lists Mr Blair gave you?’

  Pip wandered upstairs to her bedroom, followed by Houdini, who looked hopeful that he was in for an extra walk today. Usually she liked learning new words, but today she wasn’t in the mood. In any case, every time she tried to concentrate, Houdini barked and trotted to the door. In the end, exasperated, Pip stood up. It was a fine day, and she wasn’t getting anything done, so she might as well take Houdini to the park where he liked to play with the other dogs.

  While he was having fun, she would start a new book that Mr Blair had asked them to read during the holidays about a girl called Mary who had no parents, and brought a secret garden back to life. Pip knew that one of the reasons he’d chosen the book was so that Pip knew she wasn’t the only kid who had to make the best of life with no parents, but she didn’t know if she wanted to read it in case it had a sad ending. Still, if she didn’t give it a go, she’d never find out.

  Pip put the book into her backpack, and with Houdini at her heels, went downstairs to ask Mrs Browning if it was okay for them to go to the park. But Mrs Browning was busy on the phone. It sounded as if she was speaking to someone about a house, so Pip just held up Houdini’s lead and pointed to Houdini. Mrs Browning nodded.

  Out in the sunshine, Pip felt her spirits rise. It was hard to be down on such a sparkly summer day with dogs running around, their ears flapping. Pip watched them for a while and then settled down to chapter one. She was soon glad she had, as it was very good, with a heroine she liked and disliked at the same time, a deadly epidemic, a big house in England and a locked garden. Twenty minutes later, she looked up as Houdini approached. The last of his friends were leaving.

  ‘Let’s go for a walk,’ Pip told him. ‘It’s ages until lunchtime.’

  They walked across the park, towards the side of Spring Hill where Pip used to live with Sully in an old cottage that was now up for sale. She could take one last look, couldn’t she? She wouldn’t even go in, even though she knew how to without a key.

  Pip and Houdini had just crossed the road when a blue Sydney bus pulled up at the bus stop. Her eyes widened as she read its destination: MUSEUM.

  As she watched, a short queue of people climbed on board.

  ‘Get on,’ the driver said to her. ‘Hurry up.’

  ‘Are you really going to the museum?’ Pip asked.

  ‘That’s what it says, don’t it?’

  Pip hesitated. What if she went to the museum and Matilda – or worse, Spiro – saw her? Or a teacher! But museums were big, busy places, weren’t they? She’d be able to duck behind an exhibit or a guard. That way she wouldn’t miss out completely.

  ‘What time do you come back?’ she asked.

  ‘Bus every fifteen minutes,’ the driver said. ‘You getting on or not? Haven’t got all day to chat.’

  ‘Coming,’ Pip said, leading Houdini up the steps. She dug in her pocket for some change. The driver took it and handed her a ticket.

  ‘Righto. Hold on, then,’ he said and it was just as well she did, because he seemed to think he was on the racetrack rather than the busy city streets.

  Pip sat in the back seat with Houdini in her lap, wagging his tail as if he approved very much, watching the streets whizz past and holding her breath every time a pedestrian or cyclist barely avoided being crunched as the bus charged onwards.

  She was going to be in so much trouble if anyone found out, Pip thought. Huge trouble! The biggest yet – and that was saying something. Despite it all, she grinned. It felt like the start of another adventure.

  SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

  Museum turned out to be a train station, not an actual museum.

  ‘I thought you said you went to the museum,’ Pip said to the driver as the passengers shuffled out.

  He shrugged. ‘I just drive where I’m told to go.’

  ‘Okay, but can you tell me where the real museum is, please? The Australian Museum?’

  ‘Directions aren’t my thing,’ he answered. ‘I just drive. See ya.’

  The doors closed behind Pip and the bus pulled out from the kerb, forcing three lanes of traffic to come to a screeching halt. A chorus of annoyed car horns followed it up the street.

  ‘Oi!’ one of the other passengers said. He looked like a wrestler, his arms covered with tattoos, and he had a missing tooth. He jerked his thumb towards the far side of the road. ‘Other side of the park. You can’t miss it.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Pip said.

  ‘No worries.’ He grinned and Pip saw that more than one tooth was missing. ‘Mind yourself across the road.’

  Pip had no problems finding the museum, which was exactly where Mr Tattoo had said it would be. A sign outside had a picture of a snarling carnivorous dinosaur. ‘T-rex, eat your heart out!’ it read. ‘Afrovenator is here!’

  Pip looped Houdini’s lead around a handy post under a shady tree. ‘I can’t take you in but you’ll be all right for a little while, won’t you? I won’t be long.’

  Houdini licked her hand agreeably and gave her his usual doggy grin.

  ‘Be good,’ she said and made her way into the museum and stood in the line for tickets. Before she got to the counter, she tugged her cap low over her face so no one could get a good look at her – just in case.

  ‘Are you from Spring Hill Public?’ the ticket lady asked when Pip got to the front.

  She pointed at the school sticker on Pip’s backpack.

  Pip nodded.

  ‘You can go straight through, then. Your school has a group ticket. The others went in a little while ago.’ When Pip didn’t move, she smiled. ‘Don’t worry. You can catch them up.’

  Pip managed a smile and looked around for a pillar to hide behind, just in case. Catching up was the last thing she wanted to do. Fortunately, there was no sign of anyone from Year 5. Ducking down, she took her time tying her shoelaces and waiting for another crowd of people to move ahead.

  When she was certain there was no chance of bumping into anyone from Spring Hill, she wandered into the darkness. She didn’t know why it was dark but she liked the atmosphere of mystery, of secrets to be uncovered. The people who’d arranged the skeletons and models had set them in lifelike settings, with huge ferns and cycads adding to the otherworldly atmosphere.

  Knowing she couldn’t leave Houdini for too long, Pip meant to head straight for the African dino, provided she saw no one from her school. But the museum was packed out, with heaps of kids touring with their parents and grandparents and schools. And there were so many interesting things to see!

  Even Ms Bristow’s Jurassic mozzies – in fact, a whole lot of ancient insects on display – were amazing. Most impressive was a fossilised prehistoric dragonfly with wings as long as a human arm.

  Pip pressed her nose to the glass display case in wonder as she considered the rock-fossil. She’d love to see a giant dragonfly, although she imagined they might cause some trouble in modern-day Sydney, especially with all the drones zipping about.

  ‘The scientists think it was to do with gas,’ the security guard said to her when the rest of the people around the case had moved on. ‘Not the burping kind. Oxygen. I’m not supposed to talk about it because I just do security, but it’s true. Something about how all the oxygen in the air made them grow so big. And when the oxygen level dropped, they shrank right down again.’

  ‘Do we still have them?’ Pip asked
her. ‘The mini versions?’

  The security guard nodded, and looked around to be sure everyone was behaving themselves before she came over. Her name tag said ‘Annie’.

  ‘Sure. Oxygen levels started to rise again but the insects didn’t grow. Maybe they even got littler. You know why?’

  ‘No.’

  Annie looked triumphant. ‘Birds. By then, birds had arrived. The bigger dragonflies were easy pickings for the birds, but the smallest ones were too fast. I heard them curators talking about it. Survival of the quickest.’

  ‘Survival of the fittest,’ Pip said, recalling something Mr Blair had mentioned. ‘Our teacher told us about it.’

  ‘Just what I said.’ A frown creased Annie’s face. ‘I’m carrying a few kilos so I’m not real fast on my feet these days. I probably wouldn’t survive. But a skinny kid like you’d be quick, I expect.’

  ‘It’s not just about how fast you can run.’

  Annie hustled Pip behind the insect exhibit, close to a 165-million-year-old bloodsucking parasite from Canada. It was tiny but somehow terrifying.

  ‘How do you mean?’ Annie peeked above the display and ducked back down again. ‘My boss will have my guts for garters if he catches me talking while I’m on duty.’

  ‘Well, it’s about evolution,’ Pip told her. ‘The most successful animals survive by adapting to stuff.’

  ‘Well…oh no, he’s here.’ Annie ducked up, giving an angry-looking man in uniform a worried look. ‘Ralph, I was just helping a visitor.’ Pointing a finger towards the next room, she said to Pip, ‘It’s just through that doorway. Afrovenator, big bloke. Can’t miss him.’

  Ralph gave them both a hard stare before retreating back the way he’d come.

  ‘That was close,’ Annie said, pretending to wipe the sweat from her brow. ‘He’s always after me. Says I talk too much.’

  Pip nodded, thinking. ‘That,’ she said, ‘was survival of the fittest.’

  Annie snorted. ‘You mean survival of the fattest.’

  Pip looked at her. ‘You adapted. You were doing one thing, and when there was a threat, you adapted. That means you’re a survivor. Like the prehistoric dragonfly.’