The Diamond Factory

By Julie Harris

Gray's a country kid who finds Boo, a magical critter that came out of the farm's bore.

He's cute, he talks, he's great company, but the best thing about Boo is his poo.

Yep, Boo is a little diamond factory, and he's been on the surface too long and needs to go home to his family.

But home is deep underground.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Julie Spearritt
• Release date: Oct 2, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386582137

Book preview

Chapter 1

It was an ordinary Wednesday in spring at Dry Gully State School, and Mrs Abbott’s raggedy bunch of fourth graders were sitting in the shade, trying not to listen to their teacher’s high-pitched saga about how important water was when you were trying to make seeds grow. Germ-in-ation, she called it, and spelled it out to make sure they wouldn’t forget. Everyone knew what germination was, because most of the kids came from farms anyway. But what drew everybody’s full attention to the teacher was a tiny, sticky, annoying fly that wouldn’t leave the old bag’s nose alone. Something in there it wanted, badly. Gray nudged Phil. Any moment now ... Wait for it ...

A clap of hands. Got it. The teacher didn’t miss a beat. Mrs Abbott kept talking as if nothing had happened. Phil was particularly disappointed and Gray really felt sorry for that fly. After lunch, Mrs Abbott squawked, we’ll make the first batch of toffees for our Fun Day. The girls cheered, the boys moaned and the bell rang two seconds later. How did Mrs. Abbott always know the time without glancing at her watch?

Kids dispersed towards their bags and their lunches and almost an hour of escape from Mrs. Abbott’s chalk-on-blackboard voice. When the dentist van visited the school, there wasn’t much difference between the sound of the drill and their teacher’s voice.

Cookin’, Gray mumbled as he walked up the stairs to the bag rack outside the classroom, and Phil displayed his distaste by sticking his finger in his mouth and pretending to throw up. The girls didn’t mind this cooking business, but Gray and Phil weren’t too excited. They were the only boys in fourth year and they were outnumbered five to one.

Miss Melanie Manning, as she liked to be called, floated past. She was the school captain and a VIP student of the school—at least, she thought she was—and she would only speak to the younger students when she felt it was absolutely necessary. ‘Pick that up before Sir sees it!’ and on she’d walk, with her perfect ponytail flapping royally in the breeze. Gray snarled. She won’t be top dog when she gets to high school next year. Just the thought of that made him feel better.

Good afternoon, Mrs. Abbott, the school captain said.

Hello, Melanie. How’s your mother?

The boys groaned. Who cares? It was all the captain’s fault. It was her idea that every class had to make something for Fun Day, the school’s yearly fund-raising venture. If the school made a thousand dollars or more, the Education Department and the local council would donate the same amount of money raised, and the school could get new sports equipment and maybe a new photocopier. Melanie Manning’s mother was the boss of the Parents and Citizens committee. Being the boss obviously ran in the family. Gray wasn’t sure what ran in his.

Whatcha got? Phil asked as he perused the contents of his best friend’s lunch box. It looked more interesting than his own. It always did.

The usual. You?

Same as always.

Swap you?

OK.

After eating each other’s lunch, they took themselves to the out-of-bounds area near the main road, across from the town dump, and filled in the rest of their lunch break by pretending they were football heroes. It was always Grand Final, with ten seconds left on the clock. Then the bell rang.

Cookin’, Gray mumbled and again, Phil pretended to throw up.

––––––––

The smells wafted in from a distance. Burnt sugar. For a moment, he thought he’d died and was in heaven but no, he was still where he’d spent the long, lonely night and the breeze continued to swirl the smells down to him. They were getting stronger, too, so strong in fact that he lifted his head into the breeze just to make sure his senses weren’t lying.

Ah. Sugar.

He was tired. He was weak. He hadn’t smelled things like that since ... since ... he couldn’t remember, it was so long ago.

He rose slowly and all his bones creaked and clicked and the garbage he hid in fell off his steadily-rising body.

Heavy and fat, he had just enough energy to raise his head and try to determine exactly where these luscious odors originated. Squinting into the sun, he jumped a little when a big truck roared past, but he coughed away the dust and gazed longingly at the buildings across the road. Little people came in the mornings and went inside, then all was quiet until a bell rang again and they’d come out. It’d be very noisy, sometimes so noisy he couldn’t stand it, until another bell rang and they’d go back inside, and at the end of the day they’d all leave.

He avoided people. People didn’t know he existed and that was the way he wanted to keep it, too. But he hadn’t smelled anything like this coming from the school before, and investigating further was risk he was willing to take.

He dragged his long, heavy, sweaty body out of the deep, smelly hole, knowing it was much easier sliding in than climbing out. He made it out, though, and the smells were even stronger up there at the top. The smells enticed him on, making him oblivious to the dangers that the road held.

A long time ago, he used to live underground with his family and he shouldn’t have gone off exploring on his own. He was warned against it. He was warned against every venturing out into the ‘other world’ up there at the top. He went where he shouldn’t have gone. He ignored the danger signs and got sucked up that pipe and spat out into a huge pool of hot water and he nearly died. But that was a long time ago. He hardly remembered what home was like, or what his family looked like. Did they miss him? He would never know. He couldn’t go back now—he was too fat to fit down the pipe and there was no way he could swim against the force of scalding water. He’d never get home.

Home for him now was the dump: humanity’s garbage, a poor substitute.

His stomach growled so fiercely when he made it to the ditch by the side of the road that the policeman who’d caught a speeding driver was forced to look up into the blue sky and search for storm clouds. There were no clouds of course, but behind him, the policeman didn’t see a very hungry, slimy green thing squirming its way towards the school fence.

Very few people could see him, but they sure could hear him when he was hungry.

The closer he slid to the school yard, the stronger the smells became and the hungrier he got; and the hungrier he got, the louder the rumbles became.

––––––––

Thunder? Almost everybody in Year Four ran to the window and looked up, expectantly, because if it rained, the ground would turn green again, their dads could plant their crops and when it was harvested, there’d be money. It had been a long time since there’d been rain, or crops, or money. It had to be thunder. It sounded like thunder. But no, from the window, the sky was blue. It was always blue.

Disappointed, Gray and Phil returned to their allotted task—wrapping little red squares of toffee