Cry of the Taniwha by Des Hunt Page A

the handcuffs, he’d got buried by the steam explosion.
    ‘What do you think of that?’ asked Nan, proudly, putting a plate of food in front of him.
    ‘It’s OK,’ he replied.
    ‘OK? It’s more than OK: I think it’s great.’ Then she smiled at him. ‘But I suppose you have your photo in the paper every day.’
    Matt shrugged. Not every day, he thought. But it had happened before. Last time was when he had found the time capsule at school. That had led to a lot of teasing from some of the older students. Having your photograph in the paper was not always good news. Maybe this time would be the same.
    There was no sign of Jackson by the time Matt left the house. But Diz was around, waiting just along the road.
    ‘Where’s the diamonds, Bogan?’ he asked.
    Matt studied his shoes. ‘I’ll never find them,’ he complained. ‘We don’t even know that they’re there.’
    ‘You better find something ’cos Skulla’s getting angry.’ Without warning, Diz threw a fist at Matt’s face, stopping it just before it made contact. Then he laughed as Matt pulled back, raising his arm to protect himself. ‘That’s just a reminder of what’ll happen if you don’t. Now get to work before I start hitting you for real.’
    Matt didn’t need to be told twice. He scurried off in the direction of the forest, feeling Diz’s eyes watching him all the way.
    Before he’d got anywhere near the mud pool, Matt was aware that the newspaper publicity had changed things. There were cars parked on the grass by the netting fence, along with the sound of voices filtering through the trees.
    There were about a dozen people in the clearing. Some were gathered around the hole where the skeleton had been found; another lot were studying the plopping mud; two of them were waving metal detectors about.
    Matt wasn’t going to look for diamonds with all thatlot about, so he went into the forest and skirted around the mud pool before crossing the stream and approaching the other clearing. For a while he stayed in the bushes, listening for voices. There were none, so he walked in and began scanning.
    In a way, he was just going through the motions. If the gang expected him to search for things, then that is what he would do. He glanced up to the lookout and saw that he was being spied on again. At least Diz would get the message that he was looking for things.
    After half an hour, he’d had enough. There was nothing, not even rubbish. It seemed like the clearing was clean. Then, just as he had that thought, the machine started squealing like a stuck pig. Matt dropped to his knees and began digging. It only took a moment of scraping and he had it: a coin of some sort.
    With growing excitement he rubbed it against his shirt, before holding it up to the light. It was definitely old. A bit of spit and another rub and he knew it was also gold. He could see the shield identical to the sovereign that Burty and Lew had shown him.
    ‘Old and gold. Old and gold,’ he chanted to himself, thrilled with the find. Now he would have a true memento of his find. The candleholder could go to the—
    A flash of light from the lookout made him look up. The watcher had binoculars trained on him, watching every move. His heart sank. There would be no golden memento. The gang would take it off him. Nothing he found was his anymore.
    He put the sovereign to one side and checked the ground once more with the detector. It squealed almost as loudlyas it had before. A moment later, there were two sovereigns sitting on the ground. Then a while after that there were four. By the time the machine fell silent, Matt had a pile of nine sovereigns—more than two thousand dollars’ worth.
    As he packed up the detector, he wondered whether that would be enough to satisfy the gang. Probably not, but it might be enough for them to put off the robbery, which would give him longer to work out something for Jackson.
    Before he left for the day, his bowel—which had been