Kipp The Kid by Paul Day Page B

where you could still find copper and other minerals and
gems.
     
    It was the second day of the school holidays and Kipp
was at the mines at last. He couldn’t go on the first day, because
his grumps had dragged him along to the RSL to help set up for a
function. Of course, by help, Kipp knew it would be left up to him
to do all the work, while grumps sat half bent over, jabbering on
to his old mates about the good old days. So he suffered through an
entire day of moving tables and chairs, putting table cloths and
napkins out, shoving a seemingly endless supply of party pies and
pasties into the old ovens etc.
     
    But on Sunday, as soon as they returned from the most
boring sermon at Mass ever, Kipp wasted no time in packing supplies
for an overnighter. Before his gran could think up any more jobs
for him to do, he snuck out his window to avoid her and jumped down
into the hay on the old Ute, rolled out onto the ground and then
ran as fast as he could, with Nip following hot on his heels. He
didn’t even stop to wave to Jane, next door, who was only partially
sticking her head out of her window as he sped on bye.
     
    “Can’t stop. Gotta run,” he said puffing as he
whipped past her house, managing barely a glance up to her
window.
     
    “Where are you off to so quickly?” she called out
after him as if she didn’t already know the answer.
     
    One of these days, thought Kipp, she’s gonna follow
me I know it. Even though he liked Jane, she was not a boy and she
wouldn’t like the mines. So it was him and Nip all the way. That’s
the way he liked it. No complications, no hold ups, no unwanted or
uninvited stragglers. Certainly and this was a rule he made up his
mind about a long time ago, no girls. They were forbidden. It says
so in his own journal.
     
    Wherever I go, whenever I go,
    It’s always only me and Nip.
    No stragglers and nobody else,
    just me and Nip, beside my hip.
     
    Within half an hour Kipp was already at the Engine
House. He peered inside and spooked a flock of pigeons who had kept
guard of the place while he couldn’t be there. When they realized
it was him, they quickly settled back down to their cooing and
pooing.
     
    “Pigeons,” Kipp’s grumps had told him often enough,
“not much good for anything, except for eating.” Kipp had never
tried eating them, though if he was hungry enough he was sure he
would give anything a go.
    The campsite was exactly as he had left it a few days
before. Exactly, that is, except for some tin cans thrown about and
all the logs moved. There were tracks leading up to the logs, like
they had been dragged by something or someone.
     
    Someone, Kipp realized as he stared down at the big
boot marks in the dust. Hardly anyone came down to the mines
anymore. Even the tourists stopped coming ages ago. Occasionally,
Kipp saw visitors, a few rat bags now and again, mostly from out of
town, but they rarely invaded his camp site cause it was always so
hard to get to and so well hidden.
     
    He could have camped anywhere in the mines and been
safe, but Kipp preferred one of the shallower dug-outs because it
offered shelter from wind and rain and there was always water
there. Not very tasty water, but good enough to drink if you didn’t
have anything else.
     
    There was an artificial crevice tucked neatly away in
the corner of the dug-out. It was cool and mostly dry there and the
fire bounced off the vertical walls of solid rock and made the
whole space nice and cozy. It was a good spot, his spot. The fact
that someone else had found it annoyed him. He felt protective of
it, like he was an explorer who had discovered it first. He’d even
named it Kipp’s Chasm and had scrawled the name into a rock, as if
doing so made it his.
    Someone else had written something now too, but it
was graffiti and Kipp couldn’t read it at all. He got a big sharp
rock and scratched away at it until all he saw were scratches. Nip
sat patiently panting by the stack of wood Kipp had