‘If that were true, it would just be an even better reason to stay quiet about the whole thing,’ said the mayor. ‘Now you need to get your robes on.’

  ‘Robes?’ said Dad.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said the mayor. ‘The Great Green Thumb is a star attraction. You have to wear the official robes, so that people know you’re in charge.’

  ‘But I’m not in charge!’ protested Dad. ‘I’m not capable of handling responsibility.’

  ‘Of course you’re not actually in charge,’ said the mayor. ‘I’ll tell you who wins each category. But today you’re the symbolic figurehead of Daffodil Day, so you need to dress and act the part.’

  Meanwhile, on the far side of the gardens, April, Fin, Joe and Loretta had just arrived.

  ‘This is insane!’ declared April, clutching Pumpkin tightly for fear of losing him in the throng.

  The Daffodil Festival was not at all what they had imagined. They had envisaged some hokey, quaint local festival, half-heartedly supported by a couple of dozen elderly gardening enthusiasts. But that was not the case. Currawong was heaving with tourists. Every nursing home in the state seemed to have emptied out its residents into tour buses and sent them to Currawong for the weekend. There were coachloads of visitors from Japan, Korea and China as well. A babble of foreign languages could be heard as guides showed their tour groups through the banks of daffodils on display.

  Even the Peski kids had to concede that the flowers were seriously impressive. Teenagers generally don’t spend much time considering the beauty of a flower, unless they are gauging the exact angle to hit it with a cricket bat in order to knock the bloom off. But the flowerbeds, planters and pots brimming with daffodils of every variety were just so bright and yellow it was hard not to feel cheerful looking at them.

  ‘Currawong might be nuts,’ said Fin, ‘but they do know how to throw a random, weirdly themed festival.’

  The marshalling and organisation was military grade in its precision. There was a huge marquee in which a large team of elderly ladies, overseen by Mrs Bellamy, were doling out tea and honey cakes at a rate that would put McDonald’s to shame. Every cake was hand drizzled with locally produced honey and served with a piping hot mug of tea to eager tourists desperate for some good old-fashioned high-carb food.

  At the other end of the gardens was another marquee filled with table after table of competition entries. Townsfolk nervously hovered around. Desperate to see if they’d won, and anxious to make sure no one tampered with their bloom.

  ‘Look, there’s Matilda,’ said Loretta, pointing to a bench just outside the competition marquee.

  ‘Why is C-C-Constable Pike handcuffing her to the bench?’ asked Joe.

  ‘Last year she snuck in a bag of snails and let them loose on the best bloom section,’ said Loretta. ‘She’s been barred from entering the competition tent for thirty years.’

  ‘Thirty years! That’s a bit harsh,’ said Fin.

  ‘She was unlucky with what plants the snails ate first,’ said Loretta. ‘They ruined all of Constable Pike’s entries, so he threw the book at her.’

  ‘Hey, there’s D-D-Dad,’ said Joe.

  ‘Oh my gosh!’ said Fin.

  ‘Dad’s wearing a dress!’ exclaimed April.

  ‘Quick, someone take a photo,’ said Fin. ‘We need photographic evidence of this so we can mock him for decades to come.’

  Dad was being led up onto the rostrum at the centre of the garden. He was wearing what looked like a long academic gown except that it was bright, almost iridescent, green. But the gown was tame compared to what he had on his head.

  ‘What is that?’ asked April. ‘Is it a hat?’

  ‘I think it’s a h-headdress,’ said Joe.

  ‘It’s the Great Green Thumb’s ceremonial crown,’ said Loretta.

  ‘He’s wearing a giant daffodil on his head,’ said Fin.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Loretta happily. ‘This is why Currawong is the greatest place to live on earth. There’s so much to enjoy.’

  ‘He looks like a dill,’ said April.

  ‘Ni barn är alla väldigt oförskämda,’ said Ingrid. ‘Din far älskar vackra blommor och han är klädd som en vacker blomma. Du borde vara glad för hans skull.’

  ‘What did she say?’ asked Joe.

  ‘She thinks you’re rude,’ explained Loretta. She turned and spoke to Ingrid in Swedish. ‘Barn i detta landet är alltid oförskämda mot sina föräldrar. Det är traditionellt. Det leder till att föräldrarna kanner sig skyldiga och darmed köper de mer grejer.’

  Ingrid responded by grunting scornfully.

  ‘What was that?’ asked Fin.

  ‘I just explained that it’s traditional in your culture to show no respect for elderly relatives,’ said Loretta.

  Dad tapped on the microphone and it whistled feedback, making everyone in the crowd wince. Many of those with hearing aids turned them off altogether. One of the great benefits of needing a hearing aid is pretending that the battery has run out when you’re forced to sit through something boring.

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ said Loretta excitedly. ‘Look! Agnes Dalrymple is here!’

  The Peski kids craned their necks to see over the crowd. At the very front was an extremely old little lady. She was wearing a long woollen coat, despite the warmth of the day, and a very odd felt hat that looked more like something a street urchin would wear in a Dickens novel.

  ‘She doesn’t look too fierce,’ said Fin.

  ‘Old people shrink on the outside,’ said April, ‘but they get grumpier on the inside.’

  ‘I know it isn’t September nineteenth yet, but I do hope she bops the mayor on the head again,’ said Loretta.

  ‘Uh-hem,’ began Dad, clearing his throat. ‘Er … um …’ He looked shiftily about.

  ‘He looks like he’s thinking of making a run for it,’ said Fin.

  Dad spotted his children in the crowd and suddenly looked less scared. ‘Oh, there you are. Hello, kids!’ He waved happily at Joe, Fin and April.

  ‘Urgh,’ groaned April. ‘For ten years we didn’t see him once. Then the day he dresses up as a gladioli he waves and points us out in a crowd.’

  ‘Daffodil, not gladioli,’ said Fin.

  ‘Same same,’ said April.

  ‘They don’t look anything alike,’ said Fin.

  ‘They’re both flowers, aren’t they?’ said April. ‘So they must look alike.’

  ‘Shush!’ Matilda hushed them from her spot on the bench. ‘He’s about to award the prizes. We all want to hear this.’

  ‘Shut it, snail wrangler,’ said April.

  ‘Thank you all for coming here to the seventy-sixth annual Daffodil Day celebrations,’ said Dad, reading off a piece of paper handed to him by the mayor. ‘Being the Great Green Thumb is the greatest honour of my life …’ He looked up and turned to the mayor. ‘But that’s not true. I was awarded my PhD by Jane Goodall. That was the greatest honour of my life.’

  ‘What about having kids?’ heckled April. ‘Wasn’t that your greatest honour?’

  ‘I’m not sure it was an “honour”. It was certainly great,’ agreed Dad. ‘But so much blood and fluids. Definitely the greatest nerve-racking experience of my life.’

  ‘It’s just a speech,’ hissed the mayor. Everyone could hear her over the overly sensitive microphone. ‘Just read it.’

  ‘Typical politician,’ called April. ‘Thinking it doesn’t matter that you’re forcing a man to lie.’

  ‘Not just any man,’ said Loretta. ‘She’s forcing the Great Green Thumb to lie.’

  There were murmurs of unease about the crowd.

  The mayor poked Dad in the back, making him turn to face the microphone. ‘Get on with it,’ she urged.

  ‘He should be using this opportunity to tell everyone about the bear,’ muttered April.

  ‘It is my pleasure to announce the winners …’ read Dad. He looked up again. ‘Well, that’s a fib too.’ He turned to explain to the crowd. ‘I find talking to large groups utterly terrifying. I enjoy growing daffodils, but talking about daffodils to five thousand people scares the daylights out of me. It’s all I can do not to pee my pants right now.’

  There was applause from the crowd. The people of Currawong appreciated his honesty and his dedication to daffodils.

  ‘No one wants to know about your pants,’ pleaded the mayor.

  ‘I do!’ called Loretta. ‘Are you wearing the nice blue ones with the red spots I bought you?’

  ‘Yes, as a matter of fact,’ said Dad. He explained for the crowd. ‘That’s Loretta Viswanathan. She doesn’t usually buy my underwear, but she said the Great Green Thumb couldn’t just wear Y-fronts from the supermarket.’

  ‘This is my chance,’ said April. ‘Everyone is listening.’ She started shoving her way through the crowd.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Fin.

  ‘April! Don’t c-c-cause a scene!’ called Joe, hurrying after her. But he was much bigger and couldn’t get through the crowd.

  It was too late. The next second April pushed her way past Agnes Dalrymple and popped up on the side of the rostrum. Neither the mayor nor Dad noticed.

  ‘First prize to be awarded is for yellowest petals,’ announced Dad. The mayor handed him a golden daffodil statuette ready to present. ‘The finalists are Matilda Voss-Nevers, Perseus Lee and … oomph!’ April had grabbed the microphone out of Dad’s hand and shoulder-barged him out of the way, which unfortunately, due to Dad’s limited mobility and peripheral vision in his ridiculous Great Green Thumb costume, led to him overbalancing and toppling off the front of the stage. He landed right at Agnes Dalrymple’s feet.

  ‘I’ve got something I want to say!’ April yelled into the microphone, causing another ear-splitting whine of feedback. ‘There is a bear loose in this town. And any one of you could be its next victim.’

  ‘Is she talking metaphorically?’ Agnes Dalrymple asked the lady next to her.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said the second old lady loudly, fiddling with her hearing aid. ‘I had my deaf aid turned off.’

  ‘I am not talking metaphorically,’ said April. ‘I mean literally, a big black bear. I’ve seen it with my own eyeballs. And we’ve got DNA proof. We found a tuft of bear fur in the woods and scientists have confirmed it came from a real bear.’

  ‘Is this some sort of theatrical performance?’ asked Agnes Dalrymple.

  ‘No,’ said April. ‘I’m just a girl who saw a … oomph!’

  At that moment, April was crash-tackled by Constable Pike. The crowd cheered. The constable got up, blushing, and waved to the appreciative audience.

  ‘It’s all under control now, nothing to see here,’ he said. He had a firm grasp on April’s upper arm. Not that April was trying to go anywhere. She was pretty dazed from being crash-tackled by a fully grown man wearing twenty kilos of police equipment.

  ‘Urgh,’ said April. ‘Your walkie-talkie got me in the eye.’

  ‘Continue on,’ Constable Pike told Dad and the mayor. ‘Act like this never happened.’ He started to lead April away. Dad clambered back up on the stage and grabbed the microphone stand to balance himself.

  ‘I will not continue on as if nothing happened,’ declared Dad. ‘You just assaulted my daughter!’

  ‘You’re the Great Green Thumb,’ pleaded the mayor. ‘Your duties have to come first. Award the prizes.’ She thrust a statuette at Dad.

  ‘No one loves daffodils more than me,’ said Dad. ‘But they do not come first. My family comes first. And I will not stand by while you bully my little girl.’

  Dad launched himself at Constable Pike.

  Loretta clapped delightedly. ‘Go, Mr Peski!’ She hugged Joe. ‘You must be so proud of your dad.’

  Fin scowled jealously.

  ‘I’m more worried than p-p-proud,’ said Joe.

  ‘He’ll be fine,’ said Loretta. ‘The giant daffodil headdress will protect him from any head injuries.’

  Dad and the constable were now both rolling on the rostrum, wrestling with each other. The mayor had grabbed up a statuette and was trying to hit Dad on the head with it, so April leapt across the stage and put the mayor in a headlock.

  Then suddenly, there was a bloodcurdling scream. Everyone on stage froze. The whole crowd turned to see where the screaming was coming from. Matilda Voss-Nevers’ grandmother ran out from the back of the tent, still clutching the jar of snails she’d been trying to coax under a rear tent flap. She looked terrified. Her face was white, her eyes gaped wide and she screamed again. But this time she screamed a word. ‘BEAR!’

  Everyone was too shocked to respond.

  Then, emerging from around the side of the competition marquee, there was a huge lumbering black bear.

  In an instant thousands of people were screaming and running in every direction, trying to get away.

  ‘I told you so,’ said April smugly, as she released the mayor.

  The bear reared up on its hind legs and released a guttural bellow. The crowd was flooding away in every direction. Luckily the fence around the gardens was only a metre high, so people could easily vault or clamber over it. On the far side of the garden, the force of the crowd rushing the old timber fence knocked the whole thing over and thousands of people ran for it, disappearing into the streets.

  The bear dropped down on all four legs and started running itself. Straight towards the refreshments tent.

  ‘The old ladies!’ cried April. ‘Quick, do something before the bear eats them!’ She said this to Constable Pike, giving him a hard shove on the shoulder.

  ‘Do what?’ asked the constable. ‘They don’t train us on how to subdue bears at the police academy.’

  Fin was closest to the tent. He ran over and intercepted the bear. Amazingly, despite Fin’s unusual shortness, the bear did not simply knock him down. The bear actually stopped.

  Fin’s mind was whizzing, trying to figure out what to do. He thought to himself. ‘What would the Cat Lady do?’ And that’s when his training kicked in. Fin summoned an inner calm and said in a firm but authoritative voice. ‘Ah-ah!’

  The bear tilted its head sideways as if confused. Fin stared into the bear’s eyes, then raised one finger. The bear sat down like an obedient dog.

  ‘Wow,’ said Loretta. ‘I didn’t know Fin was a bear whisperer.’

  The old ladies in the refreshments tent used the opportunity to escape through a back flap, making their getaway with their Zimmer frames and electric scooters.

  Then the bear sniffed. The honey cake smelled too good. The bear got up on his feet again.

  ‘Ah-ah!’ Fin said again, but with the massive bear so close it was hard to keep the fear out of his voice. The bear plunged forward. Fin closed his eyes and waited for impact. But he just felt the bear’s fur as it brushed past him.

  Fin turned around to see the bear ignoring the people altogether and greedily scoffing pawfuls of honey cake.

  ‘It’s just after the honey,’ said April.

  ‘What a cliché,’ said Fin. ‘This bear watches too many cartoons.’

  Just then, Officer Odinsson’s truck sped down the main street. It veered onto the pavement and smashed through one of the remaining stretches of picket fencing, skidding to a halt right in the middle of a flowerbed and decimating hundreds of lovely daffodils in the process. The door was flung open and Officer Odinsson leapt out.

  ‘Stand back,’ he ordered. ‘I’ve got this under control.’

  ‘But you’ve been suspended,’ said Constable Pike.

  ‘No one questions my ability to control animals in a high-pressure situation,’ said Officer Odinsson, reaching into his truck and retrieving a dart rifle.

  ‘Hang about,’ said Constable Pike. ‘I confiscated your dart gun.’

  ‘This isn’t a dart gun,’ said the animal control officer, cocking his weapon. It hissed like a whipped cream can. ‘It’s a compressed air tranquilliser rifle.’

  ‘You can’t shoot the bear,’ said April. ‘It just wants honey cake.’

  ‘It’s my duty to protect the people of Currawong,’ said Officer Odinsson, striding towards the refreshments tent where the sound of the bear greedily eating its way through all the cakes could be heard.

  ‘Stop!’

  It was the Cat Lady, hobbling across the park as fast as her crutches would allow. Neil was following behind her.

  ‘Stay back,’ said Officer Odinsson. ‘A bear is a vicious killer, it can crush your neck with its jaws in a second.’

  ‘No, my Wesley wouldn’t hurt anyone,’ cried the Cat Lady.

  ‘This bear is a pet,’ explained Neil. ‘He’s trained. He used to perform at the circus.’

  ‘A bear is a class one animal. It cannot be kept within the town’s precincts according to Article 5A of the Animal Code,’ said Officer Odinsson, raising his tranquilliser rifle to his shoulder and peering through the sight.

  ‘Have you ever shot a fully grown bear with a tranquilliser dart before?’ demanded the Cat Lady. ‘Do you know how dangerous that is? If you get the dosage too low, you’ll turn a peaceful bear into an angry killer. If you get the dosage too high, you’ll kill the bear.’

  ‘It’s crazy to attempt it with all these people around,’ urged Constable Pike. He was worried for the last couple of old ladies still making their way out of the back of the tent.

  ‘I’m prepared to take that risk,’ said Officer Odinsson, starting to squeeze the trigger.

  Joe lunged for Officer Odinsson, knocking the rifle sideways so the shot fired went wide. It missed the bear, but there was a high-pitched scream as Mrs Bellamy, the last old lady escaping through the back of the marquee, crumpled to the ground.

  ‘You’ve hit Mrs Bellamy! You wicked man. Now Princess Anastasia will be an orphan,’ cried Loretta, running over to help the woman.

  ‘It’s the boy’s fault,’ accused Officer Odinsson.

  ‘It’s all right. False alarm,’ said Loretta. ‘She’s not dead. You just hit her handbag.’ Loretta tugged the dart out of the leather to show them.

  ‘Just my handbag?’ whimpered Mrs Bellamy. ‘My husband bought that for me in Florence.’