Jen Banyard is best known for her tales for middle readers that blend adventure and mystery with lots of laughs, in particular her Riddle Gully series and her earlier novel Spider Lies. The Australian Book Review described her style as ‘smart, funny and insightful’. Her novels have been shortlisted for young readers’ awards and serialised in the West Australian. Jen, who also edits, reviews and gives workshops, has a PhD in creative writing and is based in Fremantle, WA. She believes in hope, persistence and magic, and is currently working on a novel (not a coincidence) for older readers. The ocean is her happy place.

Mystery at Riddle Gully

By Jen Banyard

Fremantle Press

Copyright © 2012 Jen Banyard
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-921888-74-8
CHAPTER 1

Friday 18:45

Pollo di Nozi crouched behind a tombstone, watching the stranger swish through the grass. She reached out, twisted off a stalk of wild lupin and held it to the snout of the stout grey sheep clamped under her arm. She prayed it would keep him happy. Now wasn’t the time for Shorn Connery to start bleating. Pollo — supersleuth and editor of the Riddle Gully Gazette — was onto something.

Around her, twilight was settling in, the shadows draped between the graves beginning to dissolve, the forest beyond the meadow already still. While Shorn Connery crunched, Pollo wound his rope lead round her waist to keep him close. She tied it with a tug, then fished out the small pad and pencil that hung from her neck. She scribbled a few notes.

Moving only her eyes, her pencil twitching expectantly, she tracked the man in the grey light. He walked in slow, wide circles, hands clasped against his chin, long fingers flexing and straightening like insect wings. Nearby, from a large silver case propped open against a headstone, a blue light blinked.

Pollo jiggled her shoulder. It was still tender where this same man had banged into her barely an hour before, bursting into the second-hand shop right on closing, just as she was leaving. So what was he up to now? Here in the Riddle Gully graveyard? When all the other adults in town were watering their rose-bushes or grilling their chops?

She had an excuse. Shorn Connery needed his daily walk and fresh lupins, and dusk was the only time they could come without Father Perry wringing his hands and tut-tutting. But what about him, this stranger?

He’s no mourner, thought Pollo, eyes narrowing. He wasn’t muttering deep-and-meaningfuls or dabbing his eyes or tenderly plucking out weeds. She tapped her pencil on her chin. No, he looked much more like … like someone waiting for something.

But what? It was her job to find out. They didn’t call her a supersleuth for nothing. The second he made a move she’d be right behind him. She owed it to the readers of the Riddle Gully Gazette.

The readers … A thought snuck up and tapped her on the shoulder. The Youth Reporter cadetship — the part-time post at the Coast news network! The deadline for applications was four days away. She’d only just hit high school so, as things stood, her chances weren’t great. But what if she could dig up the story on this shady character and get out a scintillating special edition of the Gazette in time? That could change everything. She’d be irresistible! She could be a bona fide investigative reporter before she knew it!

The light in the stranger’s silver case started blinking wildly. Pollo peered as the tall man strode across to it and studied it intently. Suddenly, he scooped up the case and, cradling it to his chest, began loping from the graveyard, towards the forest.

The supersleuth sprang. But the rope still tied around her middle snapped taut. Her feet flipped out from under her and she hit the dirt face first, centimetres from Shorn Connery’s snuffling nose. Spitting soil, she squinted through the lupins. The man had nearly reached the trees! Her story was getting away!

She scrabbled to her feet, plucking at the rope, cursing her bitten fingernails. Shorn Connery, meanwhile, threw everything he had into reaching a fresh patch of lupins.

‘Keep still, boy!’ she pleaded.

In the distance, the man cleared the falling-down fence between the meadow and the forest in one bound. A moment later he’d melted into the dark undergrowt