Free G'Day to Die by Maddy Hunter Page B

“Shoo,” I yelled. “SHOOOO!”
    “I’ll hilp you if you promise not to whistle again,” Lola Silverthorn called from a distance. She raised a sack of feed into the air and gave it a noisy shake. “Come and git it, you bloody little scamps.” She upended the sack, emptying the contents onto the ground like chicken feed.
    The pack stampeded toward it, leaving Bernice behind in a minefield of fresh kangaroo droppings. I stared at Bernice; I stared at my new breathable mesh aqua loafers. Euw. I tiptoed through the obstacle course and helped her to her feet. “Are you okay?”
    She scowled at me as she brushed grit from the seat of her pants. “Don’t think this won’t appear on your evaluation. You have some nerve, taking old folks to a place where they can be trampled to death. If Erickson doesn’t fire you, I’ll want to know why.” She grimaced at her hands. “I need a moist towelette. Where’s Margi?”
    “Who’s the whinger?” Lola asked, as Bernice strutted off.
    “Oh, she’s just an overly exasperating member of my group of seniors.” I expelled a relieved sigh. “Thanks for helping out. I’m Emily, by the way, and I owe you one.”
    “No worries.” Lola ranged a long look after Bernice. “Nice boots. There’s a bunch of old folks that’s slapped on lither today. What are they? Some kind of geezer biker dudes?”
    “Actually, your husband raised the alarm about poisonous insect and snakebites yesterday, so my guys are addressing the problem by wearing boots. They won’t earn any points for style, but you can’t fault their common sense.”
    “Jake’s always trying to scare people. The ratbag.” Her gaze drifted over to him as he inspected the inner rim of the trash barrel that sat outside the gift shop entrance.
    “Do you know what he’s doing?” I asked.
    She tousled her already shaggy locks. “What he always does; he’s lookin’ for spidehs, and he knows all their hidin’ places—lidges, windowsills, eaves, potted plants, trash containers, the undersides of picnic tables. What’s it gonna be, Jake!” she screeched at him. “Are you gonna join the tour or keep your hid stuck in that trash bin all morning?”
    He looked our way, his face a scrambled jigsaw of butterfly sutures that made the Frankenstein monster look good by comparison. He tossed Lola an unfriendly “Leave me alone” gesture, adjusted the tilt of his bush hat, then swaggered off toward the restrooms.
    “Tin minutes ago he was apples,” she complained. “Now look at him. All cheesed off. Acts like he’s a picnic short of a sandwich most of the time. He needs drugs, but he won’t have nothin’ to do with doctors.”
    “Why is he looking for spiders?” I asked, backtracking.
    “’Cause he collects thim. I bit he has the largest poisonous spideh collection in Murwillumbah. Maybe in all New South Wales. I bigged him to collect something harmless like beer cans or Elvis memorabilia, but nooo. His bugs are his life.”
    And to think my mother had gotten weirded out about my brother’s collection of belly button lint. “Are his spiders dead or alive?”
    “He collects thim alive, but a lot of thim ind up did. Then he mounts thim. If he knew what he was doing, they’d all be did, and we’d be rich, but I’m not gonna hold my brith. The last time he was tisting chimicals, he accidintally mixed ammonia with bleach and nearly inded up brain-did. ’Course, with Jake, brain-did would be a step up.”
    I was sure this would all make perfect sense if I could figure out what she was talking about. “Out of curiosity, what’s Jake’s line of work?”
    “Pist control.”
    Pissed control? “Is that like anger management?”
    “ Pist control,” Lola repeated. “He exterminates household pists. Spidehs. Ants. Roaches. Owns his own company: Bug Be Gone. But what he’s workin’ toward is producin’ a lemon-scinted supeh chimical that’ll kill all the creepy crawlies in one fill swoop. If he can