Read Online Billy and Old Smoko by Jack Lasenby - Free Book Online Page B

shook his head.
    The Captain Cooker trotted up the paddock, turned, and ran at the trunk, head down. “Bash!” The kahikatea creaked and swayed. The earth around its base heaved, cracked open, and another root exploded, and Billy and Old Smoko hung on tighter.
    â€œFee-fi-fo-fum! Come down or fall down, Billy Boy, we’re gonna have some fun, me’n you’n your dozy-looking mate, too.”
    â€œI’ve already told you, ‘
No, by the hair on my chinny chin chin!
’”
    Bert Brute scoffed and shrieked, “Then I’ll shake, and I’ll quake, and I’ll break your tree down!”
    â€œYou can shake, you can quake, but you won’t break my tree down!”
    â€œPerhaps it was unwise to say that,” Old Smoko muttered. “All the same, he has no right to call me dozy.”
    Bert Brute galloped up the top end of the paddock and threw himself against the fence – like a wrestler throwing himself against the ropes. The wires screeched through the staples, stretched, tightened like a spring, bounced back, and catapulted him through the air a good fifty yards where he hit the ground, all four trotters going flat out.
    Scoffing, chopping, steaming, and puffing, the monster thumped into the trunk. His jaws slammed, his tusks clashed, his breath whistled, and the huge old kahikatea groaned, leaned, and began to fall.
    â€œWatch what I do, Billy,” cried Old Smoko, “and take care to copy me exactly!” Just before the top of the tree smashed into the ground, he farted and rocketed straight up in the air. Billy copied him exactly.
    The trunk thumped the ground, buckled, bounced, and boomed, but Old Smoko and Billy came down on the grass with only a little skip, their arms out sideways to keep their balance.
    â€œOne moment later,” said Old Smoko, “and we should have been marmalade.”
    The air reeked with the peppery burnt-linoleum smell of old boar pig. Its neck broken, Bert Brute’s carcass sprawled as big as a dead rhinoceros. Billy stood with his foot on onetusk. “Take my photo!” he said.
    â€œOnly sissies carry cameras,” Old Smoko told him.
    Billy felt a bit embarrassed and tried to think of something else to say. “How about all the crackling!” he said.
    â€œHoary old dog-scoffing Captain Cookers are not what you call much chop for tucker. The meat is as rank as their stink. The shields on their shoulders are like armour plate, scarred all over from fighting. Eating their crackling would be like trying to chew corrugated iron,” said Old Smoko. “We need something young for the table, plump and tender.
    â€œCut out his jaw, Billy. Those tusks are going to come in handy, if we are to make Johnny Bryce eat his words.”
    â€œBut we didn’t kill Bert Brute,” said Billy. “He broke his own neck.”
    â€œJohnny Bryce is not going to know that.”
    â€œMy real mother told me always tell the truth!”
    â€œYou do not have to say you killed him. Just showing Bert Brute’s tusks to Johnny Bryce should do the trick.”
    As Billy cut out the jaw, Old Smoko threw up his head, sniffed the air, whimpered, took off across the paddock, and hurdled the fence. He disappeared into the bush, his tail going round and round like a dog’s.
    â€œHe must have winded something.” Billy ran after. From the top of the spur, he heard excited barking in a gully below. “That means he’s on to something. Now he’s finding.” A pig shrieked. “That means he’s stopped it.” A regular, steady “Bark! Bark!” came up through the trees. “He’s bailing!”
    Billy worked through the supplejack down the gully,and found a fat sow backed in against a ponga. Tail lashing, his eyes fixed on the sow’s, Old Smoko barked steadily. He flicked one ear to show he knew Billy was there.
    As Billy sneaked behind the ponga, Old Smoko leapt and held