out for afternoon tea. By then I’d worked out thatScatworm must have been hanging around the valley so that he could study us. He’d probably collected heaps of information, just so he could trick me into showing him the secret way to Whale Pot Bay.
After school the next day, I recovered Scatworm’s business card from the rubbish, thinking that I would ring SoilSeek again and tell them that I knew they were fakes. That’s when I saw a mobile number on the card. Maybe it was Scatworm’s real number? I decided to give it a go.
The telephone rang for ages before switching to a message: ‘Gidday! If you’ve got something useful to tell me, then leave a message. Otherwise, have a nice day.’ There was no doubting that it was Scatworm’s voice.
I thought quickly. ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘I’ve got something useful to say. Get lost, Scatworm. Why don’t you crawl back into the hole you came out of?’ Then I hung up.
I’d thought Milt had been pretty clever when he’d wiped the memory from the camera: it destroyed the photos but didn’t lay him open to claims of theft. However, as it turned out, he must’ve wiped a blank card, for it wasn’t long before we found that the photos still existed. Scatworm must have been swapping the cards when I saw him hiding between the boats. By the time we caught him, the photos were safely tucked away in his pocket.
The first I learnt of this was on the last day of school before the Christmas holidays. That evening there was an ad on television for the latest C’leb Investigate magazine. It was only a ten-second commercial, but it had enough for everyone to know about Milt’s surfing. It showed thecover, which featured a photo of Milt in the air just before crashing into a wave. The caption said: Milt’s secret surfing lessons.
I didn’t think it was all that bad — nothing for Milt to get too upset over. But when I went onto the C’leb Investigate website, I soon discovered that things were bad. Very bad. Much worse than I’d ever imagined they could be.
The whole magazine article was reproduced on their website. There were four photos, all taken during Milt’s wipeout, which I thought unfair, as he’d had a good ride before that happened. However, it was the article that upset me most. The headline read: MILT’S SECRET LESSONS AT REMOTE HIDEAWAY.
Then came the story which used the word ‘secret’ several times, including several synonyms such as ‘clandestine’, ‘hush-hush’, and ‘surreptitious’. Much was also made of the remoteness of the hideaway, as if it was somehow illegal to be in a place where the media couldn’t see everything you were doing. Finally, there was the sting in the tail:
When C’leb Investigate first learnt of these
clandestine lessons, we naturally thought
that the world’s richest twenty-four-year-old
would have employed one of the top
surfing coaches from Hawaii or Malibu.
But not so. Milton chose a boy to do the
job—a local boy. Now why would that be?
we asked. Who is this boy? And what is so
special about him that Milton would choose
him above all others?
C’leb Investigate is seeking the answers, so
keep watching this space!
Stuart Weston
Freelance Journalist
It had never occurred to me that I would get caught up in the publicity. I was just a kid—who would want to know about me? However, when I thought about it, I realized that Scatworm would also have photos of me, either in the surf or walking up the beach with Milt. I began to believe that if I did ‘keep watching this space’, then chances were I would soon see my own photo on the website and in the magazine. And I sure didn’t like the thought of that, because I had a fair idea what the magazine would suggest.
They’d use words that implied there was something wrong with Milt and me surfing together, without saying exactly what that might be. This innuendo unfortunately allows people to fill in the message with their own thoughts—and some people in this
After school the next day, I recovered Scatworm’s business card from the rubbish, thinking that I would ring SoilSeek again and tell them that I knew they were fakes. That’s when I saw a mobile number on the card. Maybe it was Scatworm’s real number? I decided to give it a go.
The telephone rang for ages before switching to a message: ‘Gidday! If you’ve got something useful to tell me, then leave a message. Otherwise, have a nice day.’ There was no doubting that it was Scatworm’s voice.
I thought quickly. ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘I’ve got something useful to say. Get lost, Scatworm. Why don’t you crawl back into the hole you came out of?’ Then I hung up.
I’d thought Milt had been pretty clever when he’d wiped the memory from the camera: it destroyed the photos but didn’t lay him open to claims of theft. However, as it turned out, he must’ve wiped a blank card, for it wasn’t long before we found that the photos still existed. Scatworm must have been swapping the cards when I saw him hiding between the boats. By the time we caught him, the photos were safely tucked away in his pocket.
The first I learnt of this was on the last day of school before the Christmas holidays. That evening there was an ad on television for the latest C’leb Investigate magazine. It was only a ten-second commercial, but it had enough for everyone to know about Milt’s surfing. It showed thecover, which featured a photo of Milt in the air just before crashing into a wave. The caption said: Milt’s secret surfing lessons.
I didn’t think it was all that bad — nothing for Milt to get too upset over. But when I went onto the C’leb Investigate website, I soon discovered that things were bad. Very bad. Much worse than I’d ever imagined they could be.
The whole magazine article was reproduced on their website. There were four photos, all taken during Milt’s wipeout, which I thought unfair, as he’d had a good ride before that happened. However, it was the article that upset me most. The headline read: MILT’S SECRET LESSONS AT REMOTE HIDEAWAY.
Then came the story which used the word ‘secret’ several times, including several synonyms such as ‘clandestine’, ‘hush-hush’, and ‘surreptitious’. Much was also made of the remoteness of the hideaway, as if it was somehow illegal to be in a place where the media couldn’t see everything you were doing. Finally, there was the sting in the tail:
When C’leb Investigate first learnt of these
clandestine lessons, we naturally thought
that the world’s richest twenty-four-year-old
would have employed one of the top
surfing coaches from Hawaii or Malibu.
But not so. Milton chose a boy to do the
job—a local boy. Now why would that be?
we asked. Who is this boy? And what is so
special about him that Milton would choose
him above all others?
C’leb Investigate is seeking the answers, so
keep watching this space!
Stuart Weston
Freelance Journalist
It had never occurred to me that I would get caught up in the publicity. I was just a kid—who would want to know about me? However, when I thought about it, I realized that Scatworm would also have photos of me, either in the surf or walking up the beach with Milt. I began to believe that if I did ‘keep watching this space’, then chances were I would soon see my own photo on the website and in the magazine. And I sure didn’t like the thought of that, because I had a fair idea what the magazine would suggest.
They’d use words that implied there was something wrong with Milt and me surfing together, without saying exactly what that might be. This innuendo unfortunately allows people to fill in the message with their own thoughts—and some people in this
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