Australia's the warmest place in the world, and there was every chance of reaching it before bedtime. It needed a few more diggers and another couple of spades. So I phoned Kevin and told him the plan. He was big, strong and kept spare spades in the shed for emergencies. He didn't have a torch, but it'd be daytime where we were going. I assembled the gang and told them the plan. They were impressed, but there was a brief argument as to who would go down the hole first. It would have to be me, but I wasn't very assertive. I resorted to dirty tactics. "It's my garden, my hole, I'm first." That settled it. We worked in shifts and soon Tim's head disappeared. That meant we were really deep and it shouldn't be long before we heard Australian voices. Boy, were they going to be surprised! There was a 'clang'. Metal hit metal. A startled head appeared from the hole. "I think we've hit something" it said. Could be the bottom of an Australian car, a boat or even a rocket. "Better be quiet - shhhhhh." Another couple of clangs and we knew a second World War bomb was blocking our path to Australia. We found an axe in the shed and gave the bomb a good beating. It wouldn't go off. "It's my turn to make it go off." "No it's not, it's mine!" Darn thing wouldn't explode, so we scraped the dirt back to look for the button. Every bomb has a button in case it doesn't go off and has to be detonated by hand. Everyone knows that. Parents always butt in when you're having the most fun. "What are you lot doing, come and wash your hands, dinner's ready" "We're just setting the bomb off mum, I'll wash my hands in a minute." Everything happened quickly. There were sirens, cars, people in uniforms and lots of orange tape. We were moved a long way from our bomb and it was clear we had competition. That was the trouble with being small. Just when you found something really fun to play someone bigger came along and took it away. So we sat on the step of a shop and ate chocolate. We saved a bit for when the bomb went off and opened up the hole to Australia. We'd offer it around as a sign of friendship, chocolate being an international language. They were taking a long time setting the bomb off, and as it had been hissing aggressively when we got dragged away it shouldn't be taking this long. We snuck around the back of the houses, behind the policeman talking to an angry gardener, climbed over the fence into the garden and hid behind a bush. Water was spurting all over the place. We must have missed Australia and hit the ocean instead. Blame got passed around until it fell on me, but I reckoned this so called 'disaster' could be an unexpected bonus. We got a bit closer to check if any sharks were floating through the hole, as sharks were pretty cool and no other kid had one. With all this water pumping into the garden we'd have a pond to put it in. Maybe a lake, or even the whole ocean. A big red face appeared around the bush. The water pipe, the face said, is very important. The big red face spoke earnestly about bursting local council property and a cold Sunday dinner waiting for him at home. There was a 'cross missus' in there too, whatever one of those was, and a whole sentence that ended with 'pesky kids' but that didn't make sense either. All we wanted to do was get to Australia and warm up. I had a very early night. All my friends went home and the big red face went off with the policemen, muttering. I stared at the ceiling. This must be what they call Deep Thought. There must be other ways of getting Down Under. There are of course, but it was several years before I got on a plane and flew here. It wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be, and the trip, although exciting, wasn't nearly as much fun. Digging a hole here through the centre of the earth is the way to go. We'd have made it too; if it hadn't been for that bomb they called a water pipe. |
