Free The Abused Werewolf Rescue Group by Catherine Jinks Page B

this bloke near Deathwater Pier?’ he demanded. ‘You should have told him Ambush Alley, or the Culling Fields!’
    ‘But we don’t have to hide,’ Amin broke in. ‘We can pretend to be buying stuff at the kiosk.’
    ‘That’s true,’ Fergus had to concede. ‘Yeah, you’re right. That wouldn’t look suspicious.’
    ‘And you could follow me from there.’ My hands were shaking, but not my voice. I was proud of that. ‘We could put some tracks in the swamp. Right near the boardwalk, where he’ll see them.’
    ‘ Man , this’ll be great!’ Fergus yelped. His eyes were bright with joyful malice. ‘We are so gunna get this guy! This guy is toast on a spit! ’
    ‘I hope so,’ was all I could say.
    Though I didn’t want to admit it, I was already beginning to regret the whole crazy idea.

I know what you must be thinking. You’re thinking, ‘Ambush Alley? The Culling Fields? What kind of a place is Nurragingy Reserve?’ You’re wondering if it’s a park or a war zone.
    But those names aren’t for real. My friends and I just made them up. Ambush Alley is really Parkland’s Track. The Culling Fields are actually the Barbecue Grounds. Even Deathwater is only a small lake with ducks on it. We call it Deathwater because we’ve spent so many years playing games at Nurragingy that some of our old fantasy names have stuck. In the Barbecue Grounds, for instance, we used to pretend that the play equipment was going to entrap us – that the climbing frames were cages, designed to lure us in before they snapped shut, and that the slippery-slides had quicksand at the bottom. Where other people saw an innocent stretch of lawn, we saw an arena. Where other people ate their picnic lunches, we fought world-shaking battles with bits of borrowed firewood.
    So don’t be misled; there’s nothing especially dangerous about Nurragingy. Not unless you pull the kind of stunts that Fergus and Amin and I used to pull – like the time we planted a stink bomb in the Wedding Garden, for example. ( That nearly got us killed.) And there was the famous grass-surfing stunt, of course, not to mention our firewood treehouse, which nearly collapsed on top of my head. Both of those stunts were pretty dangerous, though not because they were against the rules. We’ve always been careful not to break the rules. Mind you, there are so many rules at Nurragingy that it’s kind of hard to figure out what you’re actually allowed to do; you’re certainly not allowed to swim, litter, skateboard, fly kites, ride horses, play hockey, climb on the water feature, or let your dog off the leash. On the other hand, there are no signs anywhere forbidding you to grass-surf, or build treehouses, or piss in the lake. That’s always been our defence, in fact: ‘Where are the signs that say we can’t?’ Usually it’s a good enough argument to keep us out of major trouble, especially since nothing we do is ever really bad. I mean, none of it’s as bad as vandalising the toilet blocks or carving graffiti into the trees at the top of the waterfall. You should see those trees; they’re like notice boards, except that they never have anything interesting to say. It’s all just names and dates and four-letter words.
    Personally, if I was going to take that kind of risk, I’d be doing it for something worthwhile – like a riddle or a poem. If those trees were covered in treasure-hunt clues, I could see the point. But I guess it’s like Fergus says: deadheads have no class.
    And there are always lots of deadheads at Nurragingy.
    Not that the deadheads make it dangerous. They don’t. Even Mum doesn’t mind Nurragingy, despite the fact that I’ve broken several bones there. According to Mum, hanging out in the park is a whole lot safer than hanging out on the street, or at the mall. And Mrs Kairouz is always delighted to see us go. ‘Yes! Good idea! Get some fresh air!’ she’ll say. ‘You need to run around!’
    She said it again on Thursday