‘The next morning Mungoongali went hunting, and Ouyouboolooey slithered after him. There was a man sitting by a campfire. He had hardly blinked before Mungoongali had run at him and smashed his head with one powerful, well-aimed blow. Then the iguana put the man onto its back and carried him to its camp, where it unloaded the poison sac and started to consume the fresh human meat. As quick as lightning, Ouyouboolooey jumped out, took the poison sac and disappeared into the bushes. Mungoongali chased after the little snake, but couldn’t find him. The other animals were still in the meeting when Ouyouboolooey returned.
‘“Look at this,” he screamed and opened his jaws for all to see the poison sac. All the animals flocked around him and congratulated him on saving them from Mungoongali. After the others had gone home, the kangaroo went over to Ouyouboolooey and said he should spit the poison into the river so that they could sleep safe and sound in the future. But Ouyouboolooey answered by biting the kangaroo, who fell to the ground, paralysed.
‘“You’ve always despised me, but now it’s my turn,” said Ouyouboolooey to the dying kangaroo. “As long as I have this poison you will never be able to come near me again. None of the other animals will know I still have the poison. They will think that I, Ouyouboolooey, am their saviour and protector while I avenge myself on them one by one in my own good time.” With that he pushed the kangaroo into the river and it sank from view. He himself slithered back into the bushes. And that’s where you’ll find him today. In the bushes.’
Toowoomba put his lips to his glass, but it was empty and he got up.
‘It’s late.’
Harry got up, too. ‘Thanks for the story, Toowoomba. I’ll be heading back soon, so if I don’t see you, good luck at the championships. And with your future plans.’
Toowoomba held out his hand, and Harry wondered if he was ever going to learn. His hand felt like a piece of battered steak afterwards.
‘Hope you find out what the blur on the lens is,’ Toowoomba said. He had already gone by the time Harry realised what he was talking about.
24
The Great White
THE WATCHMAN GAVE Birgitta a torch.
‘You know where to find me, Birgitta. Make sure you don’t get eaten,’ he said, limping back into his office with a smile.
Birgitta and Harry walked along the dark, winding corridors of the large building that is Sydney Aquarium. It was almost two o’clock in the morning, and Ben, the nightwatchman, had let them in.
A casual question from Harry – why all the lights were off – had led to a detailed explanation from the old watchman.
‘Of course it saves electricity, but that’s not the most important reason – the most important reason is that we’re telling the fish it’s night. I think so, anyhow. Before, we used to turn off the lights with a standard switch, and you could hear the shock when all of a sudden everything went pitch black. A whoosh went through the whole aquarium as hundreds of fish dashed to hide or swam off in blind panic.’
Ben hushed his voice to a stage-like whisper and imitated the fish with zigzag hand movements.
‘There was a lot of splashing and waves, and some fish, mackerel for example, went stir-crazy and smacked into the glass and killed themselves. So we started using dimmers, which gradually reduce the light in line with daylight hours, aping nature. After that there was a lot less illness among the fish as well. The light tells your body when it’s day and night, and personally I feel the fish need a natural daily rhythm to avoid stress. They have a biological clock the same way we do, and you shouldn’t mess about with it. I know that some barramundi breeders in Tasmania, for example, give the fish extra light in the autumn. Trick them into thinking it’s still summer to make them spawn more.’
‘Ben likes to talk a lot when he’s warmed to a topic,’ Birgitta explained. ‘He’s almost as happy talking to people as he is to his fish.’ She had worked for the last two summers as a spare hand at the aquarium and had become good friends with the watchman, who claimed he had been working at the aquarium ever since it opened.
‘It’s so peaceful here at night,’ Birgitta said. ‘So quiet. Look!’ She shone the torch on the glass wall where a black-and-yellow moray fish glided out of its cave revealing a row of small, sharp teeth. Further down the corridor she lit up two speckled stingrays slipping through the water behind the green glass with slow-motion winglike movements. ‘Isn’t that beautiful?’ she whispered with gleaming eyes. ‘It’s like ballet without the music.’