Chapter 1

It was one of those things that everyone said would happen one day. Someone would decide to drain the lake and retrieve all the shopping trolleys and bits of car bodies that had been dumped into it over the years.

A sign was erected by the playground alerting the locals to the fact. It was a rather large sign, black writing on a white background, with a bold green border and the Council logo embossed along the bottom.

Demitri sat on his bed and looked at the sign where it sat propped up against some books on his dresser.

‘That is so cool, Demi,’ Russell Thomas, his best mate gushed. ‘I thought you were kidding about getting that sign for your room.’

Demitri smiled and, with his hands behind his head, dropped onto his back on his bed.

‘What do you reckon they’ll find at the bottom of the lake?’ Russell asked without notice.

‘Wet stuff,’ Demitri replied.

Russell groaned. ‘Yeah, good one…No, seriously. What do you reckon is under there?’

‘Old cars… tyres… footballs and tennis balls… maybe a trolley or twelve…’ Demitri was staring at the ceiling, making creatures out of the shapeless shadows cast there through the open window.

‘Too cool,’ Russell sighed, ‘Maybe we can have a bit of look around and spot ourselves some good stuff.’

‘Like what?’

‘I dunno. Copper piping? Old tools we can polish up a bit and sell at the Sunday market. Maybe even a full bike frame…’
Demitri rolled off his bed. ‘The council workers will haul whatever they find under the water to the local tip, Russ,’ he said. ‘Most of it will be rusted out or waterlogged anyway. There won’t be anything worth bothering about, Russ, trust me.’

‘Maybe. But I reckon we should keep an eye on what goes on there just in case.’

‘Are you volunteering to keep a watch every day of the holidays? Because that’s what you’ll have to do to see if anything worthwhile turns up.’

Demitri shook his head. ‘I’m thinking of actually playing a game of footy, maybe bowl a few leg breaks. But you, Russ, you can go sit by the lake and watch the water slowly being sucked out of it. Drop me an SMS if they turn up the Loch Ness Monster… or Godzilla maybe.’

Russell ignored the comment. ‘Maybe we can take turns down by the lake and sort of tag-team keeping watch,’ he suggested.

‘That way we both get a chance to kick the footy and we don’t miss out on any good stuff that might come up.’

‘You think maybe we’re like treasure hunters or something, Russ?’ Demitri grinned.

Russell shrugged. ‘Could be valuable stuff in the lake,’ he said half-heartedly. ‘Maybe.’

They were in Demitri’s backyard before Demitri spoke again. He liked Russell. They’d been mates since Grade 1, but sometimes Russell had flights of imagination that left Demitri shaking his head in wonder. This was one of those times.

‘You really think the council workers are going to turn up something more interesting than a few rusted out trolleys in the lake, Russ?’ he asked. ‘It’s not like we have our own Atlantis down there, you know.’

Russell looked confused. He snatched the handpass Demitri fed off to him and dropped a short kick into the side of the garage that acted as the goal mark.

‘What’s Atlantis?’ he asked.

Demitri scooped up the footy in one hand and spun it expertly on the palm of the other.

‘Atlantis is a mythical underwater city,’ he said. ‘People have been looking for it for centuries. Apparently, there are all sorts of treasures and stuff there.’

‘Treasure…’ Russell sighed. ‘So, this Atlantis place is under water, too, then?’

‘What do you mean, too?’

Russell grinned. ‘Well, what’s to say we don’t have our very own Atlantis right here? Under the lake.’

Demitri stabbed a pass at Russell, the footy slapping cleanly into his mate’s chest.

‘It’s a lake, Russ,’ he said firmly. ‘You really think some ancient civilization built a city all the way out here and then it got swallowed up somehow, and eventually an ornamental lake was built over the top of it? Is that what you’re saying, Russ?’

If Russell concentrated really hard he could almost imagine what Demitri had just painted in his imagination. An ancient city built by who knows who, out there in country Australia, a city lost in time.

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