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    Into the Fire
    Into the Fire
    Into the Fire
    Ebook151 pages2 hours

    Into the Fire

    By Michael Panckridge and Pam Harvey

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Fire threatens Teasdale -- the perfect cover for a theft.
    Fire is threatening teasdale! Gabby and Ling are in the library for the opening of the Hidden treasures exhibition. Suddenly, fire officers arrive to evacuate the building, and a theft is discovered: a priceless Viking brooch is missing. In the panic, Gabby disappears. Where is she? Who stole the treasure? Ling finds Hannah and Sean at the community centre, and the girls slip out to search for Gabby. the fire reaches the racecourse while Angus and his dad are still moving the last horse to safety. they have a lucky escape, but when a horse bolts towards the mountains, Angus takes off after it. the De Lugio family are preparing to defend their home from the bushfire. When E.D. spots a distant figure among the smoke, he jumps on his quadbike and goes to investigate. With lives at stake, can the mysteries be solved before the flames take hold? Ages 9 - 13
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins Publishers Australia
    Release dateMay 1, 2010
    ISBN9780730401438
    Into the Fire
    Author

    Michael Panckridge

    Michael Panckridge has published over 20 books, including the bestselling Toby Jones cricket series and the new Legends of League series with Laurie Daley.  

    Read more from Michael Panckridge

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      Book preview

      Into the Fire - Michael Panckridge

      CHAPTER 1

      The phone rang, the sound loud in the quiet house. Hannah reached for it without taking her eyes off the computer screen in front of her.

      ‘Hello?’

      ‘Hannah, it’s Mum.’

      Hannah sighed, careful to direct the noise away from the mouthpiece of the phone. It was the third time her mother had rung in the five hours she’d been away.

      ‘It’s okay, Mum. We went to the library—like I told you we were going to—and the man on the door said that the launch of the exhibition is this afternoon, so we came home and I made Sean lunch, and he’s making a model gyroscope out of a free kit they were giving out at the door. So you don’t have to keep ringing.’

      ‘I wasn’t ringing to check on you, Hannah Williams. I’m ringing to tell you that we’ve been delayed.’

      ‘Why? Is Aunty Helen okay?’

      ‘Yes, she’s going home from hospital tomorrow. It was only a simple operation. Your father and I had coffee in the city and we were halfway home when they blocked the road.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘The fires, Hannah. They’re getting bigger.’

      Hannah swivelled her chair around so she could see out the window. The blind was half down to block out the hot summer sun but she could see part of the sky: a blazing patch of clear blue. ‘What do you mean they’re getting bigger?’

      Every summer, bushfires raged in one area of the state or another. Bushfires were part of summer. Hannah had watched coverage of them on television—black smoke and shooting orange flames, blackened paddocks and smouldering trees. She’d seen people crying because their houses had burnt down. Bushfires were bad news—everyone knew that. But there’d never been a bushfire in Teasdale.

      ‘The fires started in the Black Mountains, remember?’ Hannah’s mum kept talking. Hannah pressed the phone closer to her ear. It seemed that the line was getting fuzzy and it was harder to hear. ‘They were west of the town but they’ve swept around. In the time we’ve been away, the smoke is that bad across the highway that the police have closed it. They said that cars were crashing because they couldn’t see where they were going. We’re stuck, Hannah, until the smoke clears and the police let us through.’

      ‘So you’ll be home later, Mum?’

      ‘We’ll come home as soon as they let us through. Will you be alright?’

      Hannah stood up, taking the portable phone with her, and went into the kitchen. Her younger brother, Sean, was at the kitchen table, glue and plastic parts spread around him everywhere. The kitchen was cool and quiet; the radio played softly in one corner. ‘Yeah, we’re fine. We’ll just stay here until you get back.’ The phone was silent. ‘Mum?’

      ‘Hannah?’

      ‘I can hardly hear you, Mum. You’ll have to shout.’

      ‘I said, if we aren’t back by four o’clock, I want you to go to the Hunters’. I’ll ring Gabby’s mum and see if I can catch her.’

      ‘Mum, are the fires coming towards Teasdale?’

      The phone hummed and Hannah could hardly hear. ‘Teasdale will be okay unless the wind changes direction. At the moment…’

      The phone whistled and crackled. In the background, Hannah could just hear her mother saying something more but then the line dropped out.

      ‘Was that Mum?’ Sean asked, looking up.

      ‘Yeah. They’re going to be home later than they thought.’

      Sean nodded and went back to what he was doing.

      Hannah put the phone down next to him. ‘You’re in charge of answering the phone if it rings.’

      ‘Where are you going?’

      ‘Outside for a bit.’ Hannah went out the front and walked up the driveway to the road. The street was quiet. The asphalt shimmered in the sun. It was too hot to be out. Hannah shaded her eyes and looked around. The sky was blue—mainly. Beyond the houses, though, way over to where the town of Teasdale stopped and the bush started, the sky was smudged, as if by clouds. Hannah studied the smudge. It was the wrong colour to be cloud—it was too dirty. There was only one alternative: smoke.

      She looked around. No one else in the street seemed to be worried. Air conditioners hummed and she could hear little kids playing in their wading pools, screeching and laughing as they splashed in the cool water.

      ‘Who are you ringing?’ Sean asked as Hannah walked back inside and picked up the phone.

      ‘I’m just seeing what Angus is up to.’

      It was Sunday; the afternoon stretched ahead. Angus’ dad, Mr MacDonald, was a racehorse trainer. They would have finished their training for the day, the stables and the paddocks cleaned by ten o’clock that morning. Hannah had never known anyone to get up as early as Angus and Mr Mac. They should be at home now, perhaps having a snooze in the lounge room. So why wasn’t Angus answering the phone?

      Finally, the answering machine clicked in. You have called Brookwood Stables. We’re busy training the next Melbourne Cup winner at the moment and can’t get to the phone…

      Hannah smiled. She hoped they did have the next Melbourne Cup winner! She left a message. ‘Angus, give me a ring back when you get in.’ Hannah didn’t leave her name: she had been friends with Angus nearly all her life and she knew he would know her voice.

      Next she rang Gabby. Most Sunday mornings, Gabby trained with her swimming coach, Pat. They were preparing for the Nationals in two months’ time, and Gabby was keen to get fit for it. They were usually finished by lunchtime. Gabby’s cousin, Ling, was staying with her for the last week of the holidays. Hannah liked Ling: she was quiet and clever but lots of fun to be with. But no one answered the phone. Maybe they were out—the Hunters went out a lot to visit their friends. Hannah left a message on their phone also.

      She thought about ringing E.D. but knew he wouldn’t be in the house; he’d be in the garage with his brothers, mucking around with their motorbikes. It wouldn’t matter that the shed would be steaming on a hot day like today; they’d be up to their elbows in grease and spark plugs. Hannah didn’t want to ring in case Mr De Lugio was asleep. He worked hard during the week and occasionally had a sleep in the afternoon on the weekends. Hannah had heard him snoring often enough when she’d been around there.

      ‘No one’s home anywhere,’ Sean said as Hannah put down the phone. ‘They’re probably all at the pool. Can we go to the pool, Hannah?’

      ‘I promised Mum we’d stay here.’

      ‘Aww, come on, Han. Let’s go to the pool.’

      ‘We’d have to walk.’ Hannah thought about trudging all the way to the pool. I’m sweating even contemplating it, she thought.

      ‘We could ride our bikes,’ suggested Sean.

      For a moment, Hannah was tempted. The pool would really cool them down. And it would stop Sean from whingeing. But something was bothering her. Maybe it was her parents being stuck in the smoke. Maybe it was the fact that no one seemed to be at home. Maybe it was that smudge of sinister cloud on the horizon. ‘No, Sean. We should stay here. My bike’s got a flat tyre, anyhow.’

      Sean slapped his hand on the table. ‘I can’t get this to stick together.’

      ‘Want me to help?’ Hannah pulled out a chair and sat down next to him. ‘Did the man at the library give you any instructions with the kit?’

      ‘Yeah.’ Sean showed her a piece of paper. ‘They were on this.’

      Hannah read the heading:

      HIDDEN TREASURES

      Travelling exhibition of treasures from the National Museum.

      Regional tour of rarely seen artefacts from the depths of museum storage. At Teasdale Community Library now!

      Underneath was a pattern for a model gyroscope: a horizontally spinning wheel on a short pole between a frame of two circles.

      ‘That looks way too complicated. I bet you could find an easier one on the Internet.’

      ‘That’s not the point, Hannah.’ Sean frowned in concentration. ‘They had a whole heap of kits for different things from the museum: a gyroscope, a penny-farthing bicycle, a periscope. Stuff like that. I want to collect all of them. These don’t seem to be the right instructions, though…’

      ‘Can I have a look too?’ Hannah picked up the pole. ‘Maybe we can figure it out together. It should spin, shouldn’t it, if you pull the rip cord? Let’s see.’

      They worked together for about ten minutes and Hannah was concentrating so hard on instruction 15 that she didn’t notice what was happening outside.

      ‘What was that?’ asked Sean suddenly.

      Hannah looked up. ‘What was what?’

      ‘That.’

      The kitchen window was rattling. ‘It’s just the wind.’ Suddenly, Hannah sat up straighter. Leaves were blowing hard against the glass and the whole house was creaking. It felt like a storm was coming.

      Hannah pushed back her chair and ran outside, ignoring Sean shouting ‘What’s the matter?’ behind her. She rushed out into the street and stood in the middle of the road, staring at the horizon beyond the houses.

      Behind her the sky was still blue but in front, the smudge of cloud had changed. It was a vast blob now, curved like a white, frothing wave arcing out of the sea. The smoke was coming towards Teasdale.

      The wind had changed direction.

      CHAPTER 2

      ‘Do we really want to be here, Ling?’ Gabby looked around the library. ‘This isn’t a place I usually hang out in—especially on a Sunday.’

      ‘I was just hoping to get a look at the brooch,’ Ling replied.

      ‘What’s so special about a brooch? No one wears brooches anymore.’

      ‘Well, apart from anything else, it’s supposed to be one of the most valuable artefacts ever found from the Viking Age. Of extraordinary beauty, according to the notes here.’

      Gabby yawned. ‘So why has the exhibition come to Teasdale then? This is a small place for a brooch of extraordinary beauty.’

      Ling shrugged. ‘It’s not the only thing on display but it’s probably the most valuable. It said in the

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