Allie’s body language. ‘Does everyone have a phone?’ he demanded. ‘Does the crew have them? Will they phone you, Allie, as soon as the camels are located?’
‘Y … yes.’
‘And if a member of the public phones, they’ll contact you, Constable Taylor?’
‘A message will be relayed to me,’ the cop said ponderously.
‘Excellent,’ Matt said and hauled open the passenger door to the front of the patrol car. ‘Allie, you ride up front and watch. Constable, you drive, and I’ll ride lookout in the back.’
‘Lookout?’ Allie said faintly and he managed a reassuring grin.
‘I’ll be riding sidekick to a cop,’ he said. ‘I’ve been waiting for a chance to do this all my life. Let’s go.’
Riding sidekick? Had he just said that? What did he think this was, the Wild West? But there was no way he was letting this gun-happy cop off on a camel quest with no supervision.
‘What gives you the right?’ the cop demanded, looking stunned.
‘Because I’m the circus master,’ he snapped. ‘Miss Miski will confirm it. These are my animals and my responsibility, and if you hurt them you’ll answer to me.’
The camels had scattered. The cop drove up and down the side streets, with Allie growing more and more anxious, until they received their first call.
Caesar was out on the highway. He’d obviously reacted in panic when he’d first seen the traffic and he was almost two miles out of town. Fizz—Frank—and Fluffy—Harold—had found him. Harold was staying with him, he reported to Allie, while Frank headed back for the trailer to fetch him.
One camel safe.
‘One down,’ Matt said gently. ‘Two more coming up.’
He was sitting in the back seat while they searched, scanning like Allie and the cop were doing, but Allie thought he was doing more than than scanning. He’d calmed things down.
The cop was still looking grim but he was also looking contained, no longer like a boy on a vigilante hunt.
Another call. Jenny and Greg had found Pharoah in a community garden. Pharoah seemed frightened, he had a minor wound on his back, but there was enough enticement in the garden to make a camel think twice about escape. Jenny and Greg took up sentry duty. The trailer would pick him up second, Allie decreed, and turned and found Matthew smiling at her.
‘Two safe,’ he said. ‘One more and we’re home free.’
She relaxed a little more, but she was still on edge. The cop’s gun was in his holster right by her side. She had an almost irresistible urge to grab it and toss it out of the window.
Mathew’s hand touched her shoulder, a feather touch of reassurance.
‘Camels are pretty hard to hide,’ he said. ‘And we’re right beside the only gun in town.’
She closed her eyes for a millisecond, infinitely grateful that he was here, that he was right. Australia’s rigid gun laws meant no one was going to shoot, and all they had to do was find Cleo.
And finally, blessedly, her phone rang again. It was Bernie—Bernardo the Breathtaking. Allie had the phone on speaker and she sensed his distress the moment she answered.
Cleo was in the yard of the local primary school. Bleeding from a graze on her flank. Edgy. Surrounded by excited kids.
‘Isn’t the school closed for holidays?’ Mathew demanded of the cop as the car did a U-turn and the cop switched on the siren.
‘It’s used for a school holiday programme,’ the cop snapped. ‘For kids whose parents work. There’ll be twenty kids there, from twelve years old down. A couple of student teachers run it. They’re kids themselves. They’ll have no hope of keeping the children safe.’
And the threat was back.
Fort Neptune was a sleepy holiday resort where the town’s only cop must spend most of his time fighting boredom. Now Mathew could practically see the adrenalin surge. He had his foot down hard, his lights were flashing, his siren blazing, and Mathew thought this was a great way to approach a scared animal. Not.
‘There’s no panic,’ Mathew told him. ‘It’s just a camel.’
‘It’s wild and wounded,’ the cop said with conviction—and relish? ‘I need to keep the kids safe at all cost.’
Then they were at the school, pulling up in a screech of tyres. The cop was out of the car with his gun drawn, but Matt was right there beside him.
It wasn’t pretty.
Mathew had watched Cleo yesterday. She’d been a teddy bear of a camel, with ponies and dogs jumping over and under her, but now she did indeed look wild. The school yard was rimmed with high wire fencing. There was one open gate. How unlucky was it that she’d found it? There was no way a frightened Cleo could find it now to get back out.
And she was surrounded. Kids were shouting and pressing close and then running away, daring each other to go closer, closer. A couple of teenage girls were flapping ineffectually amongst them.
Bernie was trying to approach Cleo, trying to shoo the kids back, putting himself between the camel and the kids, but Cleo seemed terrified beyond description.
Any minute now she could rush at the kids to try and find a way to escape. Any minute now they could indeed have a tragedy.
The cop was raising his arm—with gun attached.
‘You shoot in a schoolyard, you risk a ricochet that’ll kill a kid. Put it down!’ Mathew snapped, with all the authority he could muster, and the cop let the gun drop a little and looked doubtful instead of intent.
So far, so good.
But action was required. ‘Officer, do something,’ one of the older girls yelled. ‘If any of these kids get hurt …’
They well could if they kept panicking Cleo, Mathew thought.
Allie was flying across the schoolyard, calling Cleo to her, but Cleo was past responding. She was backing, rearing against the fence, lurching sideways and back again. Everything was a threat.
If the kids would only stop yelling …
Maybe it was time for a man—without a gun—to take a stand.
Once upon a time, as a kid with no home life to speak of, Mathew had joined his school’s army cadet programme. He hadn’t stayed long—drills and marching weren’t for him—but there’d been an ex-sergeant major who’d drilled them. The sergeant major could make raw recruits jump and quiver, and Mathew took a deep breath and conjured him now.
‘Attention!’
He yelled with all the force he could muster. Every single kid there seemed to jump and quiver. Even Cleo jumped and quivered. He’d had no choice, but it killed him that he’d frightened
