Double Trouble : Farm Capers Read online

Double Trouble – Farm Capers

  Kiara Ferreira

  Cover Illustration by Shaun Banks

  Copyright 2012 Kiara Ferreira

  Chapter 1

  “What a long ride!” Luke sighed. “I hope Fountain Village Farm is worth this torture!” “It’s not torture,” I said. “It’s just long ride in a car. What’s so bad about that?” I said, pulling a face. It’s so boring. And hot!” Luke complained. “Mom, can you please put the aircon on?” Danny pleaded. With a flick mom turned it on. “What a sweet breeze,” said Shane, the twins’ best friend. He sometimes thinks he is cool but I try not to hold it against him. “After all, he’s a guest,” mom would say if I tell him he’s a pest, or something. “Yeah, back off,” Luke would say. What a jerk! Danny isn’t so bad. Most of the time, he would just be in his room playing with action figures. Luke is more the dramatic type. “Mom, I’m hungry!” Luke said. I sighed, putting down my book, and shouted: “Will you shut up? I am trying to read!” “Jacqui, don’t start” mom said. “Wayne, is there any more sandwiches in the bag?” mom asked. Dad scratched his short blonde hair. After all, he is the only person with blonde hair in our family. The twins and I all have long brown hair. Mom has short black hair. “No, I don’t want a sandwich. I’ll just wait,” he said, folding his arms, with a frown on his face. Suddenly, Shane shouted: “Yes, only 2 kilometres to go!” “How do you know?” I asked boldly. Shane pointed at a sign that said: Fountain Village Farm 2 km. “That gives me just about enough time to finish my Goosebumps book on ‘Night of the Living dummy II’” I explained cleverly. Luke sighed and shook his head. “What?” I asked. “Nothing,” he said quickly. What a jerk!! I hate it when he does that. “You guys” dad said, “stop that. It’s getting boring.” “Look!” Shane interrupted, pointing. We all saw a sign that said: “Fountain Village Country Lodge”. “Mom, how long are we staying?” I asked. “The whole weekend, dear” she replied. “Are we staying at the lodge?” I asked with no reason. “Yes,” dad said. As we drove into the farm, we were ready to climb out of the car. As we parked, Danny said: “This is going to be the best weekend ever!” We all climbed out of the car.

  Chapter 2

  “Come on, boy!” I called to Buster, our dog, a big white Labrador. He jumped out of the car. Suddenly, he started to run. As he ran, a feeling of horror ran through my body. I had forgotten to put his leash on. “Oh no!” I said, grabbing Luke by the arm and shouted: ”Buster!” “Buster!” Luke shouted, copying me. “Come here, Boy!” he started running towards the open gate. He ran into the lodge. Shane and Danny saw Buster and started running after him too. Buster was heading for the Lodge. We followed. Then we saw an open door inside the Lodge. The electronic gate opened. We all wondered why some security guy stopped us. He had a tiny controller in his hand. He pushed a button, and the gate closed. Luke wanted to ignore him and keep on running, but he didn’t get it right. The security guy stopped him and grabbed him by the arm. Danny, Shane and I started running. “Hey,” Luke shouted, “let me go!” “No” said the security guy. “I’m not allowed.” “Our dog is in there!” I shouted. “You can’t let us lose our dog!” “Yeah,” said Shane. “We can’t help it! He just started running and ran in there!” “Why did you bring him here in the first place?” “Because everyone in the house came. We can’t leave him there alone.” Luke said. “Please, sir?” I begged. Then my eye caught someone walking towards us. He had long coppery hair in a ponytail and was kind of short. As soon as the security guy saw him, he pushed Luke away from him. “Ow,” Luke complained again.“What’s going on here?” the manager, whose name was Robert, asked. I knew his name was Robert because I saw it on his name tag. “Uh, these kids want to go into the lodge without applying, sir.” “That is not true!” I said, ignoring the fact that Luke wanted to say something. “Our dog, Buster, ran into the lodge and we have to go and get him.” “Well?” Robert said, looking at the security guy. “Well what, sir?” the security guy asked. I could tell he was scared, because Robert shouted. “Let them in” he shouted. “Yes, sir.” He punched the button on the remote and the gate opened. I thanked Robert and suddenly we all heard a bark, and saw that the bark was coming from an open door. “Buster!” Danny shouted and we all ran towards the open door. We stopped right in front of the door. “We gotta go in!” I said. We all (except Danny) went slowly and carefully into the house. Shane, Luke and I looked around the house, and saw a lot of old-looking ornaments placed on the top of a bookshelf. They all had prices written on them with a permanent marker. We saw a glass and on the glass was written “R10”. Second-hand stuff. We all could tell that this was on old woman’s house. The couch had a fuchsia coloured blanket spread over it. A lot of cushions covered the whole couch. We heard another bark and knew it was coming from the stairs.

  Chapter 3

  “In there!” Shane said, pointing to the stairs. I motioned for him to talk softer. We went up the stairs. Mom and Dad are gonna kill us, I thought. Step by step, we followed a curve up the stairs. The air smelled mouldy. Typical second hand stuff. When we got to the top there were four rooms. I looked around. I started thinking about Danny. Don’t worry Danny, we’ll be back soon. Just stay at the door, I thought. We all stood frozen at the end of the steps. “What are you waiting for?” Luke asked. “Come guys.” We walked from room to room, peering in the rooms. No. Bathroom. Another bark. “There!” I said, pointing to the room that was one door away from us. We all ran and peered in the door. “Darn!” said an old woman sitting on her bed, not noticing us, and squinted hardly at Buster’s name tag. He was lying down beside her on the bed. She let out a long frustrated sigh as soon as I knocked on the door. She turned her head towards us. “Oh! And just who are you?” she asked. For those few words she said to us, I could tell the she was very nice. “That’s our dog!” Luke said, pointing to Buster. “Be nice!” I whispered to him, and jabbed him softly in his ribs. “Yeah! Be nice!” Shane repeated, giving him a playful shove. “Oh. I just tried to figure out if this number on his collar was a five or an eight.” I went closer, squinting at buster’s collar. “It’s an eight, mam,” I said, trying to be nice. “Oh, you can call me aunt Nancy.” “Okay, thanks aunt Nancy.” “Do you kids want something to drink? I have orange juice in the fridge.” She got up, walking towards us. “That would be….” “Actually, we have to get going,” I cut in on Luke’s sentence. “OK, pop in anytime!” she said waving to us as soon as we went down the stairs. “Come on, Buster!” I called. He jumped off the bed, and ran towards us. As soon as we were down the stairs and on our way out, I tripped over something and went sprawling to my knees. Without saying a word, I looked back to see what had tripped me. It was a big telephone book. When I looked up, I saw Luke and Shane laughing their heads off, holding their stomachs.

  Chapter 4

  “Where were you?” Mom asked. I could tell she was really panicking while we were gone. “Just running away without telling us anything!” “Sorry! I forgot to put on his leash,” I said, scared. I knew what response I was going to get. “Jacqui, how many times have I told you to put on Buster’s leash before we get out?” “Probably like twelve times!” Luke budged in. “Zip it!” Mom snapped. “Jacqui, when will you listen to me?” Mom asked. “I’m sorry, mom.” “Yes, you better be.” Mom said, leaning against the car with her arms crossed. “Because your dad’s walking through the whole lodge. You better go look for him and apologise because you know how your dad gets when he’s angry.” “Yeah, we know.” “Well?” Mom asked, expecting me to say something but I didn’t know what. “Well wha
t?” I asked, feeling stupid. “So just run along and look for him!” “OK!” and now we all found ourselves running towards the gate. Again we stopped, as we saw the security guy. “Brian!” we heard a call, looked back and saw Robert. Brian went running towards him, and Robert whispered something to him. “Guess his name’s Brian,” Shane said, looking back at the two guys. “He’s as dull as his name.” Danny said rudely. That is seriously the rudest thing I’ve ever heard Danny say. Probably just because Shane’s around. Brian came running up towards us. “What now?” he asked breathlessly. “Our dad!” Danny said, pointing into the gate. Brian sighed. “First its your dog, now its your dad.. who’s next, your grandmother?” “Just let us in, OK? We have rights.” And then, a shadow inside the lodge caught my eye. Then dad approached out of the shadow. Danny let out a sigh of relief. When Brian saw him, he had a frightened look on his face, and dad motioned for him to open the gate. He immediately opened the gate. Dad came stomping out of the lodge, angrily.

  Chapter Five

  The door creaked as we opened it. A TV, a couch, steps, and a few doors. Everything looked so modern. At least that’s not as I thought it would be. I thought the steps would be made out of old, rotten, dusty wood, and the couches and bed springs would stick out, and I thought the closet would smell of mould. But, it all looked very new, fancy.“Awesome!” I declared. “OK kids, run up and choose a room.” Dad said. We all spun around, running towards the stairs to choose the best room. There were three rooms, just like Mrs Anderson’s apartment. But one was the bathroom. Luke just kept on running, didn’t care if he got the best room, he only wanted the biggest. “Hey, wait!” I said. They all stopped running, and spun around, listening to me. “There are three bedrooms, and four of us. So that means that two of us have to share a room.” “Can I please have my own room?” Danny asked politely. “Okay, then Luke and I can share a room,” Shane butted in. “Yeah man!” Luke shouted and slapped Shane a high-five. They started running towards the second room, and Danny the third. I sighed, and walked towards the first room. I pushed the door open and saw there was a bed, a closet, a couch in front of the bed, and a bowl of candy on the bedside table. I closed the door behind me and sat on the bed. I reached for one of the sweets, and the label read “Sparkles”. I put one in my mouth. Then my eye caught a door on the other side of the room. I climbed off the bed and stopped in front of the door. I tried to open it. No. Locked. Then, I saw a hook above the door in the left corner attached to the wall. It had a key on it. “Dad!” I called. “Yes, Jacqui?” he replied. “Can you quickly come here, please? And take the key off that hook for me?” “Okay” he reached up, stood on his toes and took the key off the hook. “Thanks dad.” “Anytime, honey”. I waited for him to close the door. Then I pushed the key into the lock. “Yes!” I said, excited to find out what is behind the door. I swung it open and gasped. A balcony. I was startled as I heard someone call us from downstairs. “Kids!” Mom’s voice. I closed the door, locked it and put the key in my jeans pocket. As soon as I was out of the room, I closed the door and headed down the stairs. “Alright. First we are going to apply for the lodge and put our baggage in our rooms. And then go and buy some butter and milk at the farm store,” mom directed. “Where’s that?” Danny asked. “Just a few kilometres from here. If you want, we can walk.” “No way!” Luke shouted. “We have to take the car for a car wash!” “Yeah, you’re right. We better go to the car wash on our way to the shop,” mom said.

  Chapter Six

  While we were in the car, Luke started moaning again. “When are we there?” Luke moaned, trying to get mom and dad’s attention. “Now,” Shane said, pointing to a sign that said ‘Car wash’ and had an arrow pointing to the right. There were a lot of trees and plants behind the sign, sort of like a wood. When we finally saw the car wash machine, we saw some workers sitting on chairs and waiting for someone to approach. When we stopped right in front of the machine, all of them stood up. There were four of them. One of them had a dirty red cap on. The other two had bald heads, and the last one - not bad looking - had long blonde hair hanging down on his shoulders, and two rings through his left ear. The one with the dirty cap reached out for a hose, and motioned for one of the bald guys to open the tap. And suddenly, soap splashed all over the car. I was sitting on the left side of the car. Shane was in the middle, and Luke was on the right. Danny had decided to stay at the Lodge with Buster. He wanted to take Buster for a walk and get to know the farm a little bit. Danny is alone most of the time. That’s why he prefers to stay at the farm. At school, he usually does homework during break times. If not, he would take his action figures to school and play with them. Now, back to where we were in the car, I was startled as I felt a “splat” against my face. I looked at Luke and saw his window was open! “Luke!” I shouted. “Close the window!” “Oops” Luke said. “You did that on purpose!” “You are so paranoid.” Luke said. I wanted to tell mom and dad, but they were too busy struggling with the map and deciding what we are going to do when we get back to the farm. I wiped off the soap and scolded myself for caring what Luke does. The blonde guy motioned for my dad to go slowly into the machine. Then the car started moving. Shane tapped Luke on the shoulder and whispered something to him. Boys, I thought, shaking my head. “Here we go!” Luke shouted. What a good brother, I thought sarcastically. “Luke!” I shouted above all the noise of the machine we were in. After I called him five times, I decided to give him a hard punch on the shoulder. “Ow” he shouted, rubbing his shoulder. “Close the window!” I shouted.“What?” “Close the stupid window!” I repeated. “I still can’t hear you!!” And then, the next thing I knew, we were finished and on our way to the gas station to get more gas for the car. When we stopped, mom saw my wet and soapy clothes. “Luke did it!” I said as quick as I could, before she could say anything to me. “I did not” Luke lied. “You did!” “Did not!” we argued. “Jacqui, tell me how this happened.” Mom said calmly. “Luke opened the window while we were in the car wash.” “Did not!” Luke shouted. “Luke, is this true?” Mom asked. “NO!” He shouted so loud, that Shane covered his ears. “Yes” I answered in Luke’s place. “I asked Luke, Jacqui!” “Okay, fine,” Luke admitted. “But I didn’t know it was open.” Luke lied again. “But you could have at least closed it!” I shouted. Typical sister-brother fight. “Luke,” mother said. “You’re grounded.” “How long?” Luke asked glumly, crossing his arms. “Two weeks” mom exclaimed. “Yes!” I thought. All the back seats were wet. Shane’s long black hair too. I looked around me to see the rest of the damage.

  Chapter 7

  “That’s two hundred Rand please,” the gas attendant asked. “Here,” dad, said handing him the money. “Now Jacqui, the first thing I want you to do when we get back to the lodge, is to bath, wash your hair and put on extra-clean clothes.” “Yes mom.” I groaned. The car took off and we were on the road again. “And Luke,” mom instructed. “Remember, no video games.” “OK. I know that already and I want to forget it,” Luke said rudely, leaning backwards and crossing his arms. We came to a parking in a bad-smelling place. “Fountain Village Farm Store” the sign on the small-looking building read. We climbed out of the car, went up the few steps, and we were in the store. A table had a few cakes on it. As soon as we walked past it I checked it out: all round ones. Pink cakes, red cakes and yellow smiley-face cakes. “Now where would the butter be?” Mom asked, standing on her toes, looking around. “There!” dad said, pointing to the cheese-section on the left. “No! That’s the cheese section, we’re looking for the dairy section.” Mom spoke to dad as if he were a kid. A dumb one. “Cheese is diary!” He shouted back. “Here we go” I whispered to Luke. “Hey!” he shouted, ignoring my protest. He ran towards a metal shelf with egg-cartons on them. “Check out these big eggs” he said when he was right in front of the
shelf, ready to pick a carton up. “Ow!” I shrieked. I looked up to see what had bumped into me. “NO Luke!” I shouted, running towards him. I accidentally ran into an old lady’s side. She had a cake in her hand. Had. Well, obviously, the cake was on the ground now. “Oh no!” I thought about what I should do. Well. Nothing. Then suddenly an idea popped into my head. Well exactly, not a very good one. But, it’s worth a try. “I’m so sorry mam, I didn’t see you.” Then I tried to run away but I couldn’t. As I turned around, I felt as if someone grabbed me by the arm. A guy with blonde, short hair. He must be working here, I thought. Well he has a security uniform on and a name tag. “Where’s your mother?” he asked. “I don’t know.” I said. I felt really scared. I could feel my heart beating strongly. “Well, you’d better find out. You are going to pay for that cake!” The guy said angrily. I stared up at the old woman. Short, white, curly hair. A little overweight. She had a red dress on that had flowers on it. Then, I turned my eyes to the ground, where the filthy smashed cake lay. Then I saw dad coming. He didn’t see me, and I had to keep it that way. I had to think of something fast. “How much did that cake cost?” “Twenty Rand.” The old woman replied as I stared into her angry face. “OK, I think I have that much.” I jerked my hand into my pocket and took out a twenty rand note. Then, I was startled as dad saw me. “Here,” I gave her the twenty rand note and budged away from him. Then I realised that dad hadn’t seen me. I had confused him with someone else. Thank heaven, I thought. I remembered that Luke had had that egg carton in his hands. I decided to turn my gaze onto Luke, and gasped.

  Chapter 8

  There lay four cartons on the floor with smashed eggs all around them. As soon as Luke saw me, he ran towards me. “Luke!” I shouted. “Do you know how much trouble we are gonna be in if mom and dad find that out?” “You dropped a cake?” Luke asked suspiciously. “Never mind,” I said quickly. I looked around. Nobody saw us. “Come on” I said grabbing Luke by the arm and running away. Then I slipped on the slippery floor, because my Blakes were still wet from the car wash. Then I fell once again onto my hands and knees, sending poor Luke with me. “Ow,” Luke moaned. That’s something he could win an award for: moaning. But now I don’t blame him. “Sorry!” I said apologetically. “I can’t help that my shoes are wet.” “Yes you can!” Luke argued. “It was you who opened the window while we were in the car wash.” I pulled myself up from the ground and pulled Luke up by his arm. “Oh no!” I blurted out as I saw mom and dad calling us, looking around. “We are in big trouble” I said, panicking. “Why?” Luke asked. I pointed to mom and dad. We both started running. “Mom! Dad!” I called, coming to a stop and bumping into mom. “Jacqui! Looked what you made me do!” she had dropped a packet of cheese. She picked it up again. “Where have you been?” she asked. I had to think quickly. I didn’t want to lie, but now I had no choice. “Uh, we were looking for you.”