Belly Flop by Morris Gleitzman Page A

needed cause everyone in town goes to the dump at least once a week with their garbage, twice if they’re looking for fridge parts.
    When I got to the dump it was deserted.
    Except, for a sec, I thought you were there, Doug.
    A breeze was making the plastic bags flap and was pinging the dust against the old tractor parts.
    Then I remembered how Mr Conkey once explained that air movement at the dump is caused by gas from rotting potato peel. (At the time he was trying to get everyone to buy frozen potato wedges.)
    I waited by the piles of plastic drink bottles we collected last year when the council went on a recycling craze. We saved bottles for months, right up until someone remembered the nearest recycling plant is two thousand kilometres away.
    By ten past three only two kids had arrived and they ignored me and started chucking Mrs Nile’s bedsprings at each other.
    By three-fifteen I was desperate.
    I started wondering if a diving competition could be held in real life with just wardrobes and beds.
    Then I saw a bunch of about twenty kids coming towards me.
    As they got closer, looking hot and annoyed, I saw Carla Fiami behind them, yapping at the stragglers’ heels like a cattle dog.
    â€˜You’ll never know if he’s crapping on or not if you don’t give him a listen,’ I heard her saying to Troy and Brent Malley. ‘Give him five minutes and if you still reckon he’s a slimebucket, bash him up then.’
    Carla grinned at me and I gave her a grateful look, but not too grateful.
    The kids gathered round and I climbed up onto Mr Saxby’s old ute and tried to ignore Troy and Brent’s noisy breathing.
    I’ve worked out a way,’ I said as loudly as I could, which wasn’t very loud cause my throat was dryer than a lawn sprinkler, ‘of getting the pool filled.’
    The kids stared at me.
    The dump was silent except for the flapping plastic and the pinging dust and the sound of Emma Wilkinson getting her foot jammed in a paint tin.
    â€˜Bull,’ said Troy Malley after a bit.
    â€˜You’re gunna ask my uncle, right?’ said Hazel Gillies. ‘His tribe can get water out of rocks with wallaby guts. He’ll fill the pool for youse. Next year when he gets back from Perth.’
    I thanked Hazel for her offer and pointed across the dump at the reservoir tower in the distance.
    â€˜There’s enough water in there to fill the pool,’ I said. ‘More than enough. Six hundred thousand litres.’
    The kids stared at me even harder.
    Carla was starting to look worried.
    Troy and Brent Malley were starting to look impatient and angry.
    â€˜You can’t use that,’ said Matthew Conn. ‘That’s the town’s water supply. That’s got to last till the next delivery.’
    â€˜If you use that,’ said Danielle Wicks, ‘what are we meant to wash in?’
    â€˜What are we meant to drink?’ said Sean Howe.
    â€˜What are we meant to boil two-minute noodles in?’ said Andy Howard.
    â€˜The people round here need that water,’ said Jacquie Chaplin.
    â€˜That’s why,’ I said, ‘we’re gunna let them use it first.’
    During the silence that followed I jumped down from the ute and grabbed an armful of empty plastic drink bottles and started handing them round.
    Most of the kids looked puzzled, specially Troy and Brent Malley.
    Carla Fiami grinned.
    Three bottles.
    Not bad for one evening.
    It would have been more if Mum had boiled something for dinner instead of microwaving, and if I’d been a bit quicker with the sponge when Dad dropped the kettle.
    Tomorrow after school I’ll get a proper plug for the shower.
    I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to save your shower water, Doug, but you’re fighting a losing battle when the plug’s made of toilet paper and keeps going soggy.
    Come to think of it, angels probably don’t need showers. You probably just fly so