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  ‘We’ll figure something out,’ said Abbey confidently.

  ‘Just don’t get yourselves bitten in the process,’ warned Mr McPhail.

  ‘How’s Poppet?’ said Abbey, changing the subject quickly.

  ‘She’s looking very good. She’s up on her feet and eating,’ said Dr Brown. ‘In fact, we’ve just rung Miss Beckett and she’s going to bring the lambs down now. We’ve decided to reunite them before they get too used to the bottle.’

  The girls looked up towards their boarding house and saw Miss Beckett and Milly and Clare walking down the path. The girls were carrying a lamb each.

  Miss Beckett reluctantly handed them over, and everyone watched as Dr Brown carefully lifted each lamb into the stall with its mother.

  The lambs rushed to her, baaing happily, and Poppet sniffed them all over.

  ‘That a girl,’ soothed Dr Brown, as she showed the lambs Poppet’s udder.

  The lambs latched on immediately and began to feed happily, their little tails wagging.

  ‘She’s a good ewe,’ said Mr McPhail. ‘Will they be right to join the flock tomorrow?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Dr Brown.

  ‘Have you sprayed the cattle yet, Dr Brown?’ said Talika.

  ‘All bar one,’ smiled the vet. ‘Tom’s got him in the small pen off to the side. Have you got something to put the ticks in?’

  ‘We sure do,’ said Hannah, as they fished around in their pencil cases for their vials.

  Tom had the calf tied up to a rail inside the pen. Its mother was standing nervously on the other side.

  ‘They’re under his neck here,’ said Tom, pointing to the tiny balls, smaller than a pea, that were attached to the calf’s honey-brown hair.

  ‘Do you want to pull them off yourselves?’ smiled Tom.

  Talika looked like she might faint.

  ‘I will!’ cried Abbey. ‘How do I do it?’

  ‘Well, the trick with cattle ticks is to just grasp the body firmly, without squeezing it, and pull outwards. Just keep the pressure on, and the tick will come out, head and all.’

  Tom grabbed the biggest tick and demonstrated. As he tugged it gently, the tick eventually let go. He held the fat round body up like a prize between his thumb and forefinger.

  ‘Ooh, can I have that one?’ said Talika, quickly opening her vial. The tick dropped in and she screwed the lid and her nose up at the same time.

  ‘My turn,’ said Abbey. Luckily, the little calf didn’t seem to mind the attention at all. Within a few minutes the girls had quite a few ticks in their vials.

  ‘I bet we could trade some of these with the other girls for some other parasites!’ said Abbey.

  ‘That’s a great idea, Abbey,’ said Hannah. ‘We are on a roll!’

  The bell signalled it was time to head back to class. They thanked Dr Brown and Tom, said goodbye to the lambs and Poppet, and called out to their horses in the nearby paddock, before heading up to English.

  That afternoon they quickly changed into their old clothes and boots and met Mrs Parry at the science lab. She was very impressed with their ticks. She showed them how to fill each of their vials with metho to stop the ticks from deteriorating.

  They had told some of the other vet cadets about their expedition to the dam, and a small gang met them at the edge of the school grounds. Mrs Parry led the chattering, excited group.

  The school dam was huge and its banks were surrounded by reeds and plants.

  ‘If I was a leech, I’d want to live here,’ said Abbey, impressed.

  ‘We should at least find some mozzie wrigglers,’ said Hannah.

  ‘Now you’re thinking,’ said Mrs Parry. She was wearing white overalls and gumboots with little flowers on them. Abbey wondered how long the overalls would stay white.

  The girls started fishing along the edges of the water. They caught tadpoles, little shrimp, a dragonfly nymph, and some guppies, but no one could find a leech, and apart from some mosquito wrigglers, they found no other parasites.

  ‘Maybe if we left our legs in the water for a while, we might get one,’ said Abbey.

  ‘Are you kidding!’ gasped Talika. ‘I do not wish to be rude, Mrs Parry, but no assignment is worth that for me.’

  Mrs Parry laughed. ‘I’m actually with you on that one, Talika. There are plenty of dams that don’t have leeches. Maybe this is one of them.’

  ‘Hey, look at this!’ called Milly from the other side of the dam. Everyone clomped around in their gumboots to see what she was crouched down peering at. ‘Look at these amazing striped caterpillars,’ said Milly.

  ‘That’s a Wanderer butterfly, also called a Monarch,’ said Mrs Parry. ‘They live on milkweed plants.’

  ‘Are they parasites?’ said Milly. ‘They’re living off another living thing.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Mrs Parry. ‘A caterpillar is a herbivore, not a parasite. Herbivores kill that part of the plant in which they eat. Parasites must keep their host alive while they feed off it.’

  Mrs Parry leaned in more closely to look at some Monarch eggs on a leaf. ‘Now this is interesting, girls. See these eggs? What do you notice that’s different about them?’

  The girls all gathered around the milkweed plants to look more closely at the eggs. Mrs Parry had some magnifying glasses in her backpack that she shared around.

  ‘Some are almost all black, or speckled black, and others are just black inside the top of the egg,’ exclaimed Talika.

  ‘Great observation!’ said Mrs Parry. ‘In actual fact, the ones that are all black have been invaded by a parasitic wasp. It is living on the egg inside, and instead of a caterpillar emerging from that egg in ten days, a wasp will.’

  ‘The poor little caterpillar eggs,’ said Hannah sadly as she peered more closely at the tiny clutches on the leaves.

  ‘Can we collect some for our assignment?’ said Abbey.

  ‘Of course, make sure you only collect the eggs that have been infested. Some parasitic wasps even lay their eggs in the live caterpillar, and the maggots actually eat the caterpillar alive when they hatch.’

  The look on Talika’s face made everyone burst out laughing.

  As they walked back from the dam with their new parasites for their collections, Abbey turned to her friends.

  ‘There has to be some way we can find a hair sample from that dog,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow’s Saturday. Let’s go for a ride in the morning. I always do my best thinking on Pepper.’

  Talika and Hannah agreed.

  The next morning the girls were exercising their horses in the paddock nearest the road. Abbey spent a lot of time looking over towards the old house where the dog lived, while Hannah gave Talika some tips on getting Pudding into a steady canter without stopping for snacks each time he passed a clump of grass.

  ‘I’ve got it!’ yelped Abbey, spinning Pepper in a tight circle so that she was back facing the other two girls. ‘We could get some hair from the dog’s bed! I saw a pile of hessian sacks on the front porch when I was trying to talk to the man on the verandah. I’ll bet it was covered in dog hair. We can get some and match it to the scene of the crime!’

  ‘That’s brilliant, Sherlock,’ said Hannah. ‘But how are we going to get hair from the dog’s bed? It would eat us alive!’

  ‘Pudding! No!’ said Talika. Pudding had pulled one of the reins from her hand to get at some lush green grass growing beside the fence. The rein was now dragging along beside him as he tried to scoff a few more mouthfuls.

  ‘I know!’ Abbey said, as she slid off Pepper to pass Talika’s rein back up to her. ‘You girls lure him away on the horses, and I’ll sneak in and grab some dog hair. We’ll have to wait till the cranky bloke is out though.’

  ‘Oh Abbey, I’m not too sure about this idea,’ said Hannah, frowning. ‘What if the dog bites one of the horses? Or you!’
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  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Abbey. ‘I have this all figured out.’

  On the ride back to the stables she filled them in on the details of her plan. Even Hannah – who was usually a bit worried about taking a risk – thought it might just work.

  They cantered the last few hundred metres up towards the stables. The horses knew they were heading home to fresh lucerne and a rub down, and they could hardly wait.

  Abbey was the first to jump off her horse. She quickly undid her girth and slid the saddle and cloth from the chestnut’s shiny back and led him into his stall.

  He buried his nose into the lucerne in his feed bin and snorted happily.

  ‘I’ll be back to brush you in a few minutes, Pep,’ she said, shutting the stable door behind her. Then she turned to the other two. ‘I’m just going to race to the kitchen and see if Mrs Bristow can save us a nice juicy bone!’

  ‘Why do I get the feeling this could get really crazy?’ Hannah called out, as Abbey raced up the path.

  Talika and Hannah had fed, watered and brushed their own horses, and had started on Pepper when Abbey’s hand appeared over the stable door, clutching a huge lamb bone neatly wrapped in plastic wrap. Her smiling face popped up next, and she held it high above her head like a trophy.

  ‘How did you manage to talk Chuckles into letting you have that?’ laughed Talika.

  ‘Well,’ said Abbey, putting on a very serious face, ‘I kind of told her Miss Finch had sent me from home economics. I said she needed two lamb bones to boil to make stock for a recipe.’

  ‘What if she talks to Miss Finch?’ said Hannah. ‘She’ll cook you for dinner if she thinks you’ve tricked her.’

  ‘That’s why I took so long!’ laughed Abbey. ‘Once I got the bones, I took one over to Miss Finch and said that Mrs Bristow had sent it over in case she would like to make some stock from it. Then I kept the other one for us!’

  Abbey took a low bow as the others laughed.

  ‘Well, I, for one, am very glad it took you so long,’ beamed Talika, holding up a small speci­men jar with a large dead fly in it. ‘I caught a botfly for our parasite collection.’

  ‘Yay!’ cried Abbey. ‘Mrs Parry is going to love it. Nobody else in our class has been able to catch one yet.’

  ‘And see those tiny little yellow dots on Pudding’s legs?’ continued Talika. Abbey peered over the door of Pudding’s stall and stared at his legs. ‘Hannah says they are botfly eggs, so we can snip them off into our vials and our team will have another parasite!’

  ‘We’re going great guns,’ said Abbey, ‘and it’s not even lunchtime.’

  When their horses had finished eating and were all brushed and shiny, the girls opened the back doors to their stalls to let them out into the paddock with the other students’ horses.

  Pudding had only taken two steps before he had his head down, eating again.

  ‘He’s not going to be too happy about going on another ride this afternoon,’ said Abbey. ‘Because that’s when Operation Lure is going down.’

  Hannah looked nervous.

  ‘Don’t worry, Han,’ laughed Abbey, patting her shoulder. ‘It’ll be a breeze. I’ve got it all figured out.’

  Over lunch, the girls plotted their afternoon adventure.

  ‘So,’ said Abbey, ‘do you remember Mr McPhail said that the neighbours reckon the owner of the dog goes out for a few hours after lunch each day?’

  The other two nodded, their mouths full of sandwich.

  ‘Then,’ continued Abbey, her own sandwich suspended halfway to her mouth, ‘that’s when we go. We know the dog will be there alone. No owner. Easy, in and out.’

  The others said nothing, but their faces did not look so confident.

  Abbey ploughed on.

  ‘Look. We get a heap of baling twine and tie it together in a really long rope, and tie the bone to it. Hannah, you’ll have the other end of the rope in your hand, but don’t have it tied on, so you can let it go easily.’

  ‘What do I do?’ asked Talika, sitting forward and starting to look a bit excited about the mission.

  ‘You are going to lead Pepper, alongside Pudding. Don’t worry, we’ll tie Pep’s rope to your saddle, and he’ll be happy to be led along. You won’t have to worry about trying to hold him. He’s used to it from when we are back home on the station.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Talika.

  ‘So, picture this,’ said Abbey, using the salt and pepper shakers on the table to demonstrate. ‘Hannah rides ahead, carrying the bone and the rope. When she gets to the front gate, she drops the bone so the dog can see it, then slowly keeps riding, letting the long rope out until it reaches its end, which I reckon will be about fifty metres down the road. She stops her horse and waits until she is sure the dog has seen the bone and approaches it.’

  Hannah nodded in agreement.

  ‘Then,’ continued Abbey, ‘when the dog starts sniffing around the bone, Hannah will ride slowly away, dragging the bone along behind her. Meanwhile, while the dog’s distracted and following the bone further and further down the road, Talika and I will move in. Talika will lead Pepper, and I will sneak alongside him, out of the dog’s view. When we get to the hole in the fence, Talika will stop Pud and I will sneak around the back and squeeze through the hole.’

  ‘That way,’ beamed Hannah, ‘if the neighbour looks out, he’ll just see the horses, and not wonder what the dog is barking at.’

  ‘Then I’ll just pop up to the verandah, grab some hair, jump on Pepper, you let the rope go for the bone, and we’re off!’ Abbey said, popping her sandwich in her mouth and sitting back ­triumphantly with her hands on her hips.

  ‘It is brilliant!’ said Talika. ‘We will be like secret agents!’

  ‘And we’ll all be back in time for the movie night and remember . . . we get to choose something from our tuckboxes!’ said Hannah.

  ‘Oh, how am I going to decide?’ sighed Talika happily.

  Abbey smiled. She knew exactly what she was going to choose.

  ‘If only one of us had worms,’ said Abbey, as they worked on their parasite assignment after lunch.

  ‘I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that,’ said Hannah.

  They were researching the life cycles of the parasites they had found so far. It was a good thing to keep their minds off Operation Lure for the afternoon, because even though Abbey wouldn’t have admitted it, she was a little bit nervous.

  They had been over the plan again and again over lunch, and by the time they headed back down to the stables, they all knew exactly what they had to do. A few of the other girls were riding their horses in the far paddock, or taking them over some low jumps in the arena, but no one was in the nearby area.

  ‘The coast is clear,’ said Abbey in a low voice.

  But as they stepped into the stables, they heard whistling. Mr McPhail was there, even though it was Saturday.

  ‘Ahh, girls,’ he said when he saw them hesitating in the doorway, ‘just who I was looking for.’

  ‘We haven’t done anything,’ blurted Hannah.

  Mr McPhail laughed. ‘I didn’t say you did,’ he replied, but his eyes lingered on her for a moment or two. Abbey crossed her fingers behind her back – she was sure Hannah was going to break and blow the whole plan.

  ‘Tom, Dr Brown’s assistant, dropped these in for you earlier.’ Mr PcPhail held up a vial with some fleshy leaf-shaped things in it. Each one was about as wide as a five cent piece, but longer.

  ‘What are they?’ said Talika, as they all peered at the vial.

  ‘Liver flukes,’ said Mr McPhail. ‘Dr Brown had them in her surgery and she sent Tom over with them. They’re parasites that can infect sheep and cattle, as well as other animals. They actually spend part of their life cycle in an aquatic snail, then they climb onto the grass to be eaten by the animal and destroy
their liver. They are nasty beasts and a real problem in Australia.’

  ‘Yuck,’ said Hannah. ‘That’s pretty gross.’

  ‘I just popped in to check on Poppet, and then I’m heading home,’ said Mr McPhail. ‘She’s looking pretty good. We’ll be starting our shearing lessons this week, but you’ll have to use another sheep, I’m afraid, Abbey.’

  ‘I know,’ said Abbey sadly.

  ‘I’ll be back later to lock up the sheep,’ said Mr McPhail. ‘I’m getting pretty sick of it, I must say. Hopefully something can be done about that dog soon.’

  The girls nodded but nobody said anything. The minute the coast was clear, they raced to get organised. They found a heap of baling twine in the tack room and quickly knotted it all together. They saddled their horses and then Abbey rode to the top of the grassy knoll in the paddock where she had a good view of the old house. The red ute belonging to the man was still there, so she signalled back to the girls to wait.

  Abbey went over the plan in her head while she waited. The bone was tied securely to the end of the long twine, and Hannah had it in a bag hanging off her saddle. She checked her back pocket again for the plastic bag to put the dog hair in. All they needed now was for the ute to leave.

  Right on cue, the front door of the house opened, and the man walked out and climbed into the ute. Then he drove off up the road.

  Abbey spun Pepper around and cantered back to her friends. ‘He’s gone,’ she said. ‘Time to go.’

  The girls all rode together until they were about fifty metres from the rundown yard. Hannah’s hands were shaking as she reached into her bag for the bone.

  ‘Okay,’ said Abbey. ‘We can do this. Hannah, you start riding up the road. As soon as the dog comes out, drop the bone, let the twine out and start trotting up the road. He looks pretty hungry, so hopefully he’ll be after it in a shot. If the dog isn’t interested in the bone and gives you a hard time, I’ll be right there on Pep to chase him away.’