Never Trust A Counterfeiter

• John Killingly, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2009

“You know Tim, there was a bad case of counterfeiting here a few years ago,” Dad told me. “The police suspected old Fred Barnard, who used to live just down the road from me.” Dad had lived here for ages and knew heaps about the place.
I’d better tell you from the start. You see, we were spending a week of our Christmas Holidays at Bingleton Beach, where Dad lived when he was a kid. Anyway, I couldn’t find much to do on a particular Monday, so I took a walk out into the scrub. After a while I got to the beach, where some driftwood caught my eye. I was busy looking at this, when I noticed a little island which seemed to be joined onto the mainland. There was nothing very special about the island, except a huge gum tree in the middle.
I know it was stupid, but I did it anyway. I walked over the causeway to the island, not even knowing when the tide would come back in. There were heaps of huge rocks on the island, but towards the middle, the rocks turned into dense scrub. I explored the outer edge of the island, noting a huge black snake sunbathing on a rock. It was about now when I realised that I couldn’t get home.
I looked around for the best place to set up camp for the night, but I couldn’t see anywhere that’d work. I decided to make for the big tree I’d seen earlier. I headed towards it, as there was nothing else to do till the tide went back out. When I got to it I found that it was quite far-reaching, and easy to climb. I decided to find a secure place in the branches and spend the night there.
When I got up past the first lot of branches, I noticed what appeared to be a small wooden hut, with a trapdoor underneath. I climbed through the trapdoor, and I almost died at what was there. It was a tree-house made entirely for one person, complete with a bunk, a sink and even a gas stove!
I quickly had a look around, to see if I could find any explanation for such a complete little home. In a small cupboard under the sink, I found a cardboard box. Now I’ve never really been a prying person, but I couldn’t resist having a peek under the flap of that box. What I saw shocked me – it was full of $100 notes made of paper! It was then that I remembered some money Dad had showed me; the paper money we used to have in Australia; before it got replaced with plastic notes. I suddenly realised that this was probably the counterfeit money Dad had told me about earlier.
What I’d seen had startled me, but that didn’t stop me sleeping. I fell straight into the bunk, lay for a while staring at the roof, then fell peacefully asleep, wondering about the money...
I was woken up by a sound of groaning, somewhere below. When I looked out of the trapdoor, I saw an old man on the ground, face down. I quickly shinned down the tree, to see if he was hurt, and I found that he had sprained his ankle, and had dragged himself here. I couldn’t get him up to the tree house, so I sat with him on the ground.
The bloke told me what had happened (I’d include the dialogue, but there were too many gasps and groans to understand it).
He told me that he was hiding from a bloke called Taggerty who believed that the old man had taken his money. He said that he hadn’t taken Taggerty’s money, but Taggerty didn’t believe him. Now Taggerty had tracked him to the island and was trying to catch him.
“You need to help me boy – I can’t escape without you. I need to get back across the causeway while the tide’s out. Right now Taggerty’s searching the other side of the island, so we’ll need to be fast to escape him.”
I let the old bloke lean on my shoulder and we pushed off to the causeway. After about 45 minutes, we got to the beach safely and sat down for a spell. Suddenly the bloke jumped up off the sand where we’d been sitting, and ran off into the trees. Turns out his leg wasn’t so bad after all. I was so surprised that I didn’t get up in time to chase him; he already had a huge lead.
After a while I heard a boat come in, and I saw that it was a police boat.
“Did you see an old bloke walk over the causeway from the island?” a policeman asked me “He’s wanted for counterfeiting.”
“Yes I did, he ran off into the bush just there. I don’t know which direction he took though.”
“Cheers mate,” said the policeman. They all split up and started searching for him.
It took me a while but I’ve finally worked out what happened. The old bloke, or now as I know him, Fred Barnard, was the counterfeiter. A couple of years later, after he had hidden away with the money on the island for a while, he was planning on coming back, but before he could do it and move to another town, someone had tipped off the police about him. He was in the middle of doing his bunk when I happened upon his hideout. This upset his plans, so he had to change them, to include me. He didn’t know though, that I’d found his counterfeit money in the tree house, so I had one up on him. Fred decided to pretend he had a crook ankle, so he could trick me into helping him across the causeway. This was so I wouldn’t have time to tell the police about him.
But I’m not too worried about him and his counterfeit money. He’ll know by now that the sort of money he printed before would be of no use now, because it’s made of paper.