"Hey, slow down!"

"Naaa!"

Jodey pedalled harder and caught up by about one bike length.

"Just 'cos you've got a ten speed!" he yelled.

"Tell Dad to get you one too!" Nip yelled back.

Jodey was too puffed to argue. He forced his legs on as the hill gradually became steeper.

Nip expertly swerved across the road and zigzagged on and off the footpath jumping And lifting his front wheel, then he braked beside a high, overgrown hedge.

"What have you stopped for?" said Jodey, coming up behind him.

"There's something going on in there!" said Nip.

The two boys were parked beside an arch-shaped hole in the hedge, where the high, wrought-iron gates of the Smith estate were opened inwards. Through the trees, down the end of the drive, little chinks and slices of a big house could be seen. It was an old, grand place, where very few people ever went because the gates were usually shut. But today, for some reason, they were open.

"There's heaps of cars down there!" said Jodey.

"Might be a wedding?"

"Or a funeral?"

"Maybe old man Smith's finally snuffed it?" suggested Nip.

"Could be?"

As they peered through the gateway a long, black, beautifully polished car swept ominously past them. It was a hearse. In the back, the rectangular shape of a coffin poked above the back window.

"Going to get the body," said Jodey.

"Yeah!" agreed Nip.

"Dust to dust, and ashes to ashes. Worms to worms..."

"That's not how it goes."

"Slime to slime?"