My Sister's a Yo Yo (6 page)

‘I'm not here.'

‘I know you are,' said Zeke.

‘Come on. I'm looking for my yoyo.'

‘I know that's what you're looking for,' said Eppie, ‘and I know that you don't care about me one single bit! I've been up a tree, under a blow drier, soaked by a hose, stuffed in a pocket, poked and prodded, confiscated, thrown out, pinched, tickled and told to shut up. So why should I help you?'

‘Because,' said Zeke in an ever increasing font size, ‘
if you don't tell me where my yoyo
is you'll be stuck here
till you rot and smell. Because you seem to have forgotten
something and that is that I am the only
one
who knows you're here! And that means I'm the only one who can
ever, ever get you out, and I'll only get you out, if I get my
yoyo,
so tell me where it is!'

Eppie sighed like a deflating balloon and said quietly, ‘Your yoyo and I are inside a milk carton, just near the eggshells, the old fishtank, the wet newspaper and half a barbecued chicken.'

Zeke followed Eppie's instructions as carefully as he could. He burrowed with his hand past the mouldy barbecued chicken and the wet newspaper and the old fishtank and the eggshells and then into the smelly milk carton where he finally found Eppie and his yoyo.

‘Yay,' he said. ‘At last we can get out of here!' But then just as he was about to climb out of the bin, carrying the yoyo and the knotted string and knotted Eppie, Zeke heard a rolling and rumbling from far away, that unfortunately was getting closer.

‘Quick, duck down!' he whispered just in time, as a huge garbage truck picked up the dump and all the rubbish, and of course picked up Eppie and the yoyo and Zeke as well. Up high went its great big metal arm, then down went the whole load into the back of the truck.

The back of the truck was filled with a scary scraping and rattling sound. When Zeke and Eppie were finally brave enough to open their eyes and see what was happening,
they realised, with a terrible shock, that the horrible noise was an enormous rubbish shredder that was
inside
the garbage truck! They were both going to be eaten alive unless some sort of magic spell came and saved them just in time.

Now it's funny that Zeke and Eppie should have thought that, (the bit about the magic spell) because just then, inside the garbage truck, something landed ‘plonk' right in front of them. It wasn't a dead fish, or an old bike tyre or even a half-eaten meat pie. It was in fact a magic wish-making lamp which of course was just what they were needing.

‘Cool,' said Eppie and Zeke.

Quickly Zeke rubbed the lamp and before you knew it he'd wished that he and Eppie were out of the garbage truck. (Unfortunately he forgot to mention that he wanted the lamp to be out of the garbage truck with him so that he could make wish after wish after wish after wish and make himself rich and powerful and the leader of the universe.) So the magic lamp stayed in the garbage truck and was finally rediscovered in a dump by an old man in a floral suit who uses it to this very day to house his toenail clippings.

Anyway, the whole point is that Zeke and strawberry-sized Eppie had their wish come true and were magically spat out the back of the garbage truck. First Eppie and the yoyo tumbled out of the truck and then out fell Zeke as well.

Zeke landed flat on his bum on the footpath, but Eppie flew
through the air, bounced on the path and kept right on going. She and the yoyo paused for a moment on the edge of a crack, and then ever so slowly they began to roll gently down the hill. Faster and faster and faster they rolled, down the hill, past the principal's car, past the school fence, past the big tree that gives you a rash, past the letterbox, past the corner shop, past the street corner, and smack bang like a ball at the bowling alley, into the pile of coloured glass bottles that were neatly stacked ready for recycling. Then Eppie boinged off the footpath again, over the road, under a car and way onto the other side of the black bitumen road.

By now Eppie's hair was filled with sticks and twigs and she had two pebbles stuck in her ears, but still she rolled on and on. Past the haunted house where the noisy budgie lived and past Sam
Stench's house and past Arlette Button's house and past Igor Watson's mum who was standing in their front yard spying on her neighbours, and down and down and down the hill. Eppie just missed the man who was trimming the lawn with the loud and angry lawn mower, and she just missed a big blob of dog pooh.

Meanwhile Zeke huffed and puffed in hot pursuit hoping Eppie would finally slow down. But no sooner had she crossed the black bumpy road and landed with a plompf on the grassy nature strip, than a boy with a bike rode right over the top of her and she and the string and the yoyo too all got caught up in the spokes.

So off she went again, only much faster this time, and the boy on the bike didn't know she was there as he rode up a hill and round a bend and imagined he was a speeding train. And Eppie just stuck there in the spokes, whirling and whirring around and around, wishing that the stupid boy on the bike would suddenly shatter into a thousand pieces, sell himself as a puzzle and then give all the money to her so she could buy a fizzy drink, a packet of chips and some bubblegum.

Yum.

But wait!

You see up until that moment Eppie had been feeling okay, even though she was whirling and turning and flying around like a mouse on a great big big-dipper, but when she started to think of the milkbar and the chips and the drink and the bubblegum, and the chocolate and
icecream and popcorn and lollies, she started to feel a bit queasy. At first it was just an idea of sickness, but then it was a giddy feeling in her head, and then in her arms and legs and toes, and finally in her stomach. And Eppie's nose squished and her eyes rolled back and her mouth opened wide and suddenly she threw up, right there and then, in a projectile vomit so big it nearly covered the universe.

The boy on the bike stopped with a screech as the lime green vomit covered him completely, from his sneakers to the tips of his hair.

(Now although this was absolutely gross, there was a positive side to the situation because the boy's eyes were also covered in vomit so he couldn't see a thing. This gave mighty Zeke his chance to run up to the bike and remove his yoyo and Eppie from the spokes without either of them being seen.)

And that's what he did. He rescued his yoyo (and his sister) and looked forward to life getting back to normal. He had a grin all over his face, and his eyes twinkled and his cheeks were rosy and he was so happy he threw the tangle of Eppie and the yoyo up into the air with a happy happy whoop — and a crow that just happened to be flying past caught them both in its beak and flew back towards the school.

So Zeke ran again, chasing them all, and arrived back at school just in time to see the bird hover over the swings and carelessly drop Eppie and the yoyo onto the slippery dip.

They rolled down with a rush and, when they got to the bottom, they bumped into big Max Squish who was blocking the slippery dip and careered off the slippery dip and onto the see-saw. They rested there for a moment until Mary McNose decided to bounce with her bum on the other end of the see-saw and then with a sudden whoosh and zoosh, Eppie and the yoyo hurtled into the air once more, right on over the playground fence and over the tennis court where Eric Birdbrain was having a tennis lesson.