Read Online Pyro Watson and the Hidden Treasure by Nette Hilton - Free Book Online

and calling all the things they’d need to make their new hide-out a home away from home.
    Â 
    A home away from home. Pyro liked that and began his list.
    Cushions. Old sheets. Boxes. Some timber to make more steps. Stuff to make slingshots.
    There were so many things to collect. He wished he could ring Min, like he would have rung Geezer, to tell him about this new step in the plan.
    Geezer was a great listener. He never interrupted or jumped in with his ideas until he’d heard it all. Sometimes he was good at pointing out the things that could go wrong. Most of the time, actually. His mother said the world would be a better place if there were more Geezers.
    And fewer Mins. Pyro could almost hear her say it. ‘He needs to look before he leaps!’ That’s what she’d say about Min.
    And Geezer’d probably be saying that it wouldn’t be easy to get cushions and boxes and timber when all they had was a campervan and whatever was fitted into it to choose from.
    But Min … Pyro hugged the thought to himself. He just bet that Min’d say, ‘Let’s do it, kiddo!’ and ‘Give that boy a prize!’ and get on with rounding it all up.
    It was then that Pyro thought a new, sneaky thought. Geezer and the hide-out mightn’t be as much fun as Min and the hide-out. He felt a little bit mean for thinking it and then thinking a bit more about it but, however he tried to turn it around, it still remained the same. Geeze would be crossing things off and saying they wouldn’t fit, or couldn’t go or wouldn’t be needed, and Min’d just be doing it.
    They were just different. That was all. Just different. It’d get done eventually and Geezer and Pyro would have as much fun as Min and Pyro.
    Probably.
    It was hard to feel good about knowing his best friend wasn’t going to be the most fun in the hide-out. He tried. He made a log of all the things that they’d done together. Watching Pirate Movie so many times they could say all the funny bits together. Acting themovie and leaping around in the lounge room being Captain Hook and Peter Pan and dragging all of Boa’s dolls and bears out to be the crew. Geezer didn’t even laugh when Winnie came out and he was Pyro’s own special bear who still lived on the bed in the daytime. He still lived in the bed at night when the wind whistled around the corner of the eaves and branches scratched their fingernails on the window. Geezer had a stuffed dog called Turby, whose tail had come off in a terrible accident when he was almost taken by a true dog.
    It helped a bit, thinking of things that they’d done. And listing them.
    It still didn’t make Pyro feel any better about wanting Min to build the hide-out with him and not Geezer.
    It was probably just that Min was here and ready to go and Geezer was away, away back at school.
    That was probably it.
    Geezer’d be organising their project and being the boss and everything and that made Pyro feel a bit better.
    It was good to be boss of the project because you were all by yourself.
    Almost.
    Jenna was with him.
    And he was probably letting Jenna do the crow’s nest.
    A small thought but it sent out angry little spikes that jabbed at him. He just bet, he just jolly-well bet, that Geezer would give Jenna that special job that he knew Pyro had really wanted to do.
    That’d be right.
    He’d forgotten all about that. Geezer liked the way Jenna was always happy to do as she was told. It was why they let her into their group. Actually, it was why nobody else would have her. If you didn’t tell Jenna to do it and do it this way, she didn’t do anything at all. And everyone knew, as Mzzz Cllump was always reminding them, that groups only worked happily if EVERYONE JOINED IN. Jenna’s way of joining in, unless you got her going, was to roll around and chew the ends off pencils. Or poke her nose.
    For sure Geezer would have told her to