Red Dirt Diary 3 by Katrina Nannestad Page A

mind,’ I said encouragingly. ‘They’re sure to be back by sundown.’
    And then, before I realised what I was doing, I smiled and gave him a hug .
    WHAT WAS I THINKING????
    I’m so confused!
    Do I want to get rid of the Colonel or not?
    Tuesday, 5 June
    Seven carrier pigeons were sitting in the pigeon coop when we arrived at school. Everyone was so excited, except for Banjo, Mat and me. It was kind of obvious that they weren’t the same pigeons as we had yesterday. Whitey had grownbig brown spots, Blacky had turned dark grey overnight, Patch’s patches had shrunk and Tiny Tim was now the smallest pigeon of them all.
    I mentioned this to Mr Cluff. He said not to tell anyone, but the Colonel had driven all the way over to Gilgandra last night to pick up some new pigeons, just so the little kids wouldn’t be sad. I was going to point out that he probably didn’t want people to see that he’d messed up the whole pigeon thing YET AGAIN, but I didn’t. It really was very kind of him, and the pigeons are beautiful. They’re one of the best things we’ve ever had at school.
    Lucy and Gabby spent all of lunch time shampooing Whitey to try to get the brown spots off his feathers. Jack and Davo spent all of recess and lunch time trying to feed their chocolate crackles and chips to Tiny Tim to fatten him up again. They also handed me another article for the newspaper:
    Carrier pigeons — Part 2
    Carrier pigeons are very sensitive animals. They need to be treated carefully because any small upset can have very bad consequences for their health.
    For egg sample, if your pigeon gets stressed and worries a lot, its feathers can turn grey. Just like Davo’s mum’s hair is turning grey because Davo stresses her out all the time. Blacky worried so much when he was lost last night that he has already started turning grey.
    Another egg sample is that too much exercise and not enough food can make your pigeon lose a lot of weight. If your carrier pigeon is going on a long journey, he should have a backpack filled with nutritious snacks like wheat, muesli bars and carrot sticks. Tiny Tim flew so far last night that he has lost at least fifty kilos and is now on a fatten-me-up diet of chocolate crackles and salt and vinegar chips. *
    * Never feed your pigeons chicken chips. They are not cannibals.
    Mrs Whittington wandered past the chicken coop this evening and Flipper went bonkers. He tumbled backwards into a corner, shook all over and hid his head beneath his wing. Poor thing.
    Wednesday, 6 June
    Woken at 6 am by the foxes. Wes and Fez climbed up onto the roof and pelted boots, rocks and scones down at them. Mum was really madbecause the scones were to take for the Queen’s Birthday morning tea at the CWA.
    The Colonel gave us an advanced climbing course today. We revised wall walking, swinging and winching. Then the Colonel led us around to the end of the sports shed where he had set up a climbing wall by screwing hand and foot grips into the bricks. It was so cool. He said that we could use it any time we liked once we’d learnt to climb safely.
    We spent the rest of the day rotating around five groups: walking up and down the toilet walls, swinging like Tarzan across Sam’s compost heap, winching ourselves up the flagpole, scrambling on our tummies along the balance beam and traversing the sports shed wall. It was great fun. Even Matilda Jane the Mature loved it. She forgot to be angry with Ben and cheered when he made it across the new climbing wall.
    Unfortunately, Sam fell into his compost heap when he was swinging across, and killed his favourite worm. He felt really bad. Gabby felt pretty crook too. She tried to revive the worm with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, breathed in too hard and swallowed it.

    Just as we were all walking out the front gate at home time, Dora called out from the top of the flagpole, ‘Excuse me! I’d like to get down now!’ Fair