Kipp The Kid by Paul Day Read Free Book Online

Nip cocked his head sideways and let out a
gruff bark. Kipp reached out and rubbed him reassuringly on his
head and Nip panted his satisfaction. Then Nip did something Kipp
would never have guessed he would do. He snuggled in between Jane’s
legs and rested a paw on her hand. With her free hand Jane patted
him almost absentmindedly.
     
    If Kipp had been a photographer and had stumbled upon
this scene, he would have taken a dozen photos, had them printed,
framed and placed in a gallery devoted to love.
     
    Above them, three boys were whispering and giggling
quietly to each other. One of them had an old box brownie and was
busy snapping shots of the scene below them.
     
    “Did you get it? Please tell me you got that?” one of
the boys asked excitedly.
     
    “I did,” he said grinning mischievously.
     
    “Can’t wait for those photos to come back from the
shop hey?” said the first boy.
     
    “Yeah,” said the other two in agreement.
     
    But as they retreated backwards from their lying
position at the top of the chasm, one of the boys dislodged a rock,
which rolled out in front of them and over the edge of the cliff.
It whacked hard into the ground beneath them and the echo was like
a siren in their ears. They instantly ducked down and then shoveled
backwards, before getting up and legging it back to their
bikes.
     
    “What was that?” asked Jane, looking up.
     
    “Trouble,” answered Kipp.

 
    chapter 7: thrice the trouble
     
    Kipp had just managed to get a glimpse of the face of
one of the boys and thought he recognized him as Trent Jansen. He
had two brothers, all of them triplets. “Thrice the trouble,” his
grandfather had once said when the boys were in the local paper
because they had damaged a shop front by bombing it with stink
bombs. Since coming to the area, Trent and his brothers, Arnold and
Jake, were always getting into trouble at school and wherever there
was a fight, they were involved. They had gotten the cuts more
times than they had gotten D’s, which was quite an
accomplishment.
     
    They were two year levels higher than Kipp at school,
but they honed in on him and were always doing something to his bag
or stealing from him or playing a practical joke. Kipp had tried to
ignore them, but sometimes he lost it and ended up in trouble
himself. It was a long walk home after school when you knew you
would cop it at home for getting into trouble. But thankfully, his
gran and grumps were sympathetic, only punishing him with more
chores. He knew his grumps did not like the Jansens.
     
    “Out-of-towners,” his grumps would snicker, whenever
their names were mentioned.
     
    “I’ve seen those three in action at school,” said
Jane when Kipp told her about them. “They usually leave me alone,
but they pick on the other boys something shocking. What are we
going to do?”
     
    “Nothing we can do.”
     
    “But they know we’re here,” she said, concern in her
voice.
     
    “Nothing we can do about that now.”
     
    “Won’t they come back?”
     
    Kipp thought hard about how to answer. He thought
they probably would and there was no doubt it was them that wrecked
the camp site. But in his mind he was already developing a cunning
plan.
     
    “Yes, but if they do, we’ll be ready for them.”
     
    “What do you mean?”
     
    “Come on, we have work to do.”
     
    The night before Jane had just wanted to go home. She
had been frightened. But with the morning light and the warmth of
the sun, she had wanted nothing more than to stay. She hadn’t been
harmed. Whatever it was that haunted the chasm had not done
anything but scare her.
     
    Just to be sure, Kipp had done the gentlemanly thing
and asked her if she wanted to go. She shook her head and grinned.
He was glad. They had planned to stay two nights. He dreaded having
to explain to his gran and grumps why they came home early and he
doubted they would let him come out again for at least a few days,
if not a week.
     
    He also had