THE SPHINX

A female Sphinx has arrived at Glen Hartwell and is riddling, killing, & eating people

The Leonard family were walking slowly through the sweet smelling pine and eucalyptus forest a couple of kilometres outside Glen Hartwell in the Victorian countryside in mid September 2025. As they walked along the grassy banks of the now relatively clean Yannan River, Desmond ‘Desi’, a tall, thirty-nine-year-old, raven-haired man, breathed in deeply then said:
“Smell that sweet pine and eucalypt aroma.”
“Makes a change from the sewerage smell of the Yannan previously,” agreed his wife, Danielle ‘Dannii’, a tall, early thirties strawberry blonde.
“Yeah, it used to be little more than a cesspool,” said Eloise, Desi’s mum, a tall, grey-haired sixty-five-year-old.
“You can thank the Department of Building and Works for that,” said her husband, Roderick ‘Roddy’, a recent retiree from Building and Works. “They spent weeks earlier this year dredging, widening, and cleaning out the river.”
“Well, it certainly paid off,” agreed Desi.
“Certainly did,” agreed four-year-old Lois, who was holding her Daddy’s hand as they worked along. The white-blonde girl always agreed with her Daddy, even when she did not really know what he was talking about.
“Yes, Daddy is always right,” teased her older brother, Thomas ‘Tom-Tom’, a short, chubby, ash blond with his mother’s facial features.
“This looks like a good place to have a picnic,” suggested Dannii, like the children, getting tired after their long walk from Glen Hartwell.
Putting down the wicker basket, Desi started to unroll a large picnic blanket in the Brisbane Football Club’s blue, maroon, and gold colours, singing while he laid it out: “Poor old Collingwood for never, no they’ll never will the AFL ... bloody ‘ell.”
“Don’t get over confident, Desi, the Magpies could still knock off the Lions next Saturday,” teased Dannii, knowing that she would never hear the end of it if they did.
“Not a chance,” insisted her father-in-law, Roddy. “Fitzroy will whomp those pathetic Magpies.”
“Fitzroy?” asked his wife, Eloise. “What universe are you living in, honey? Fitzroy were gobbled up by Brisbane decades ago.”
“Not gobbled up!” insisted Roddy.
“Incorporated into,” said Roddy and Desi as one.
“Oh, of course,” teased Eloise, “that’s completely different from being gobbled up.”
“Exactly,” agreed the two men, unaware that mother and wife was mocking them both.
The two women exchange a look, giggled, and then began laying out plates of food upon the rug.
“Come on kids,” called Dannii, “time for lunch.”
“‘Bout time,” said Tom-Tom who was always hungry.
“Come on Angel Face,” said Desi, grabbing little Lois, who giggled as her daddy sat her on the rug beside him.
“There was a time when he called me Angel Face,” complained Dannii.
“When was that, five years ago?” asked Eloise.
“Yes, just before I got preggers with Lois.”
“Okay, who wants a hard-boiled egg to be getting on with?” asked Eloise.
“Me!” cried the three children as one.
Tom-Tom greedily grabbed two eggs and began rapidly de-shelling them. Lonette ‘Loni’, at five an older version of Lois, began de-shelling one egg, while Desi de-shelled an egg for Lois and held it for the little girl while she ate it.
Eloise and Dannii exchanged a look, knowing who Desi’ favourite was.
Desi waited till Lois had finished, before taking a hardboiled egg for himself.
Eloise and Dannii handed around bowls of salad, with extra coleslaw for Lois who loved it, no coleslaw for Loni who hated it, and lots of everything for Tom-Tom who would eat virtually anything.

Over at the Yellow House in Rochester Road Merridale, they were also sitting down to lunch, in the yellow-walled dining room.
“What delights have you got for us today, Mrs. M.?” asked Sheila Bennett. At thirty-six, Sheila was a Goth chick with orange-and-black striped shoulder-length hair; and was the Chief Constable of the local police.
“Duck a l’Orange for the main course,” said Deidre Morton, a short, chubby, sixty-something brunette, with extraordinary culinary skills.
“Yum, yum, my favourite,” said Sheila.
“Yeah, how come we always seem to get Sheils’ favourites?” asked Terri Scott. The same age as Sheila, Terri, was a beautiful ash blonde, and Senior Sergeant of the local police; as well as being engaged to marry Colin in December.
“Don’t worry, for dessert we have rum trifle, which I know is your favourite.”
“Yum-yum,” agreed Terri.
“We also have a non-alcoholic trifle for Natasha and me,” said Deidre. “And since the three police officers are still on duty ....”
“We’ll have the rum trifle,” said Terri, Colin, and Sheila as one.
“Me too,” agreed Leo Laxman, a tall, black Jamaican, employed as a nurse at the Glen Hartwell and Daley Community Hospital.
“Looks like there’s no second helping for Tommy,” teased Colin Klein. The tall redheaded Englishman had worked as a crime reporter for thirty years before being employed by the Glen Hartwell Police Department.
“I wouldn’t mind,” complained Tommy Turner, a short, chubby, blond retiree, “but it’s my rum Deidre uses in the trifle.”
“Don’t worry, Tommy,” teased Natasha Lipzing. At seventy-one, the tall, grey-haired lady had lived for thirty-six years at the Yellow House: “You can always have some of the non-alcoholic trifle. There’s usually plenty left over.”
“Very funny, Nat.!” groused Tommy.
“Yeah, you know how little success we had trying to get him to drink Claytons,” reminded Freddy Kingston, a tall, balding retiree.
“If it ain’t alcohol, I ain’t gonna drink it!” insisted Tommy.
“You drink water, don’t you?” asked Leo.
“Only as a mixer,” insisted Tommy. “And speaking of drinking, where’s my tot of rum, Deidre?”
“I used the last of it in the trifle. You’ll have to have brandy.”
“Good enough, but be sure to get some more rum for me.”
“Actually, I’d like a brandy too,” said Terri.
“Me, three,” said Leo.
“Three brandies coming right up,” said Deidre.
“Oiy! Oiy! Oiy!” cried Tommy.
“He really is getting very good at those bird calls,” teased Natasha.
“Whose brandy is it?” demanded Tommy.
“Let’s just say, ‘It is better to give than to receive’,” said Deidre as she poured out three snifters of brandy.
“No, it isn’t!” groused Tommy before starting to eat his lunch.

Over at the Yannan River, the Leonard family were finishing off their picnic lunch, washed down with wine or beer for the adults, and Sunkist orange soft drink for the three children.
“Time to lie back and relax,” said Desi. He gave a loud burp, and then lay back on the Brisbane Football Club rug, to sleep off his dinner.
“Manners,” teased Dannii.
“Would you prefer me to let it out the other end?” teased back Desi.
“No thank you!” said Eloise and Dannii as one.
“Well, I’m with Desi,” said Roddy.
“About the burping, the farting, or the sleeping off your lunch?” asked Eloise.
“All three, my beloved,” said Roddy, lying back on the rug also.
“Can we go play footy now?” asked Tom-Tom, holding up a mud-caked football.
“Sure, but don’t go too far,” said Dannii.
“But far enough so the football doesn’t hit us,” advised Desi, not quite asleep.
“Don’t encourage them to wander off into the woods,” said Eloise; just before the three children raced away to play a game of kick-to-kick.
Taking the football from Tom-Tom, Lois kicked the ball, dribbling it across the ground; unlike her right shoe which flew three or four metres straight into the air.
“He takes a mark!” cried Tom-Tom, leaping into the air to catch Lois’ right shoe before it could hit her in the head. Then, bending down, he put her shoe back on, careful to tighten it a little.
Over the next twenty minutes or so, the three children raced around the sweet smelling pine and eucalyptus forest, playing kick-to-kick with the ancient looking mud-coated Aussie Rules football; possibly a Sherrin, but under a centimetre of mud, who could be certain.
“Kick to me,” insisted four-year-old Lois.
Rather than having her cry to their dad, Tom-Tom did as instructed.
“Yay!” cried little Lois. She leapt into the air to try to mark the football; however, she only knocked the ball away, forcing her to race her older sister Loni for it.
“Gonna beat you to it!” teased Loni.
“I’ll tell Daddy!” groused Lois, putting on her poutiest face.
“Oh, all right, you have it,” said Loni, pulling up so fast that she almost fell over.
“Yay!” cried Lois, no longer pouting as she raced across to pick up the ball on the third attempt, after fumbling it twice. “Boy dat is a muddy football!”
“Dad says he’s buying us a new Sherrin for Christmas,” said Tom-Tom, panting a little as he ran to catch up with his younger, fitter sisters.
“Yay!” cried Lois again. Then as she started to straighten up, she saw the large, red-brown structure vaguely through the pine trees. “What’s dat?”
“What’s what?” asked Loni. She walked across to look where her sister was staring. “Looks like a dirty old statue of some kind.”
“Mighty big for a statue,” offered Tom-Tom, having finally caught up.
Forgetting the football, the three children walked into the clearing to look at the red-brown stone structure. At first it looked like a huge stone lion, but it had eagles’ wings half raised and the head of a woman. It was over seventy metres long, twenty metres wide, and twenty metres tall.
“I think it’s an Egyptian sphincter,” said Tom-Tom, trying to show off his knowledge of Egyptology, which he had just started to be taught at school.
“Let’s go tell Daddy!” said Lois, and the three children raced back to wake their sleeping father and granddad.
“Er, gedouda it!” muttered a sleepy Desi.
“Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey!” said Loni, shaking her father vigorously.
“What is it, kids?” asked Dannii.
“We’ve found an Egyptian sphincter,” said Tom-Tom.
“A what?” asked Eloise.
Ten minutes later, all seven of the Leonards were staring at the huge, stone monument.
“What is it?” asked Dannii.
“A sphinx by the looks of it,” explained her husband, Desi.
“I thought sphinxes, had the head of a man?” asked Eloise.
“Only in Egyptian legend,” said Desi. “An Egyptian sphinx has a man’s head and is basically harmless, despite asking tedious riddles. After the Greeks, one of the first people to explore ancient Egypt, visited, they adopted the sphinx legend and modified it. In Greek legend, a sphinx has the head of a woman, and is evil; if you cannot answer her riddles correctly, she will kill and eat you.”
“How come the female sphinx is the evil one?” demanded Eloise.
“You know what they say about the female of the species being the deadlier,” teased her husband, Roddy, a tall and grey haired man, aged sixty-eight.
Roddy and Desi snickered while their wives glared at them. The three children laughed riotously.
“Loni, Lois, you shouldn’t laugh at that!” insisted their mother. “That’s at your expense too, you know.”
“But it’s funny,” insisted four year old Lois.
“You tell her, Angel Face,” said Desi.
“Yay,” said Lois, jumping into the air and clapping her hands, as though she had just won a prize.
“Since when has Glen Hartwell had a sphinx, anyway?” demanded Eloise.
“Maybe Building and Works erected it as part of their beautification of the Yannan River and its surrounds,” suggested Roddy.
“Why couldn’t they have picked something more Aussie?” demanded Eloise: “Like a concrete kangaroo, or a Tassie Tiger.”
“Or a concrete bunyip, or the Great Rainbow Snake,” teased Dannii.
“Exactly,” agreed Eloise, grinning at her daughter-in-law.
“Actually this monument looks quite ancient,” pointed out Desi: “Not like something built recently.”
“Yes,” agreed Lois, agreeing as always with her beloved Daddy.
“So riddle me this,” said Desi, a huge fan of the Batman animated movies, as were his three children, “when is a jar not a jar ... when it’s a door.”
“Dingleberry, you got that one the wrong way around,” said Dannii, between laughter: “It’s when is a door, not a door, when it’s ajar.”
“He always was hopeless with riddles,” said Eloise, also laughing.
At the sound of laughter, they heard a loud concrete-on-concrete rasping sound and looked back toward the sphinx.
“Hey, it’s moved,” said Tom-Tom pointing at the sphinx.
“Don’t be ridiculous ...” began Desi, stopping as he saw that his son was correct. Whereas before they had been side-on to the massive concrete sphinx, now it had turned slightly to its left, so that the female face was looking straight at them.
“But it can’t have?” said Roddy, as gob-smacked as his son.
With a concrete-on-concrete rasping again, the sphinx asked the Leonards: “What is black and white and red all over?”
“Oh my Lord, it spoke,” said Dannii, covering her mouth with both hands.
Ignoring the interruption, the Sphinx asked again, “What is black and white and read all over?”
“The Collingwood Football Club, after Brisbane wipes the floor with them in Saturday’s Preliminary Final,” boasted Desi, with a broad shit-eater grin.
“Wrong!” said, the Sphinx, sounding unimpressed.
Desi was still chortling at his perceived witticism, when, with a concrete grinding sound, the sphinx lowered her red-brown head, scooped him up and chew hard with her concrete teeth; giving the man time to scream once, before his lower half dropped to the ground.
“Daddy!” shrieked Lois, fainting, along with Dannii at the sight of her husband’s death.
Ignoring mother and daughter, the sphinx chewed raspily upon the chest and head of Desi Leonard, as Tom-Tom and Loni turned and ran screaming away into the forest, back toward the picnic area.
Looking irritated by the screaming, the red-brown concrete creature turned to glare after the fleeing children; however, it was too busy crunching its way through the upper half of Desi to be bothered chasing after them.
Stepping forward, tentatively, Eloise picked up little Lois, then turned to follow after Tom-Tom and Lonette.
Hastily swallowing the remains of Desi, the sphinx shouted: “None may leave until someone answers the riddle correctly; what is black and white and read all over?”
“A newspaper! A bloody newspaper!” shouted Roddy.
The sphinx considered for a moment before saying: “Incorrect! The newspaper does not have to be bloody!”
With a loud concrete rasping sound, the concrete monster leant down and scooped up a screaming Roddy, and began chewing him in its red-brown teeth, with loud concrete rasping crunches, blood spurting like water from its oversized mouth.
“Oh God, no, don’t eat him!” shrieked Eloise.
Ignoring the new widow, the monster continued grinding its concrete teeth, ripping and shredding the corpse of Roddy Leonard, before finally swallowing the bloody mess.
Staring at the elderly lady with its concrete eyes, the sphinx asked again, “What is black and white and read all over?”
Between tears, Eloise replied, “The usual answer is a newspaper. But that’s not strictly true, since most people only read certain parts of the paper. A more accurate answer would be a book; since once someone starts a book they usually read it all the way through before stopping.”
The red-brown creature considered this for a moment, then said: “Correct, you may leave in peace.”
“In peace?” shouted a distressed Eloise: “You have murdered my husband and son; the two loves of my life! I will never be at peace again!”
The monster considered this for a moment, then with a concrete-on-concrete screeching rose up on all lionesque limbs and began walking off into the forest ... as Eloise finally fainted to the thick bed of pine needles and gum leaves which carpeted the forest floor ... In the process dropping poor Lois quite heavily.

When Eloise finally awakened, she found Dannii and little Lois already trying to stand up.
Careful, not to look toward the bloody lower half of Desi, or let Lois look that way, Dannii asked, “Where are Roddy, Tom-Tom, and Lonette?”
At the mention of her husband’s name, Eloise burst into tears and had to cry herself out, before she was able to say, “It ate Roddy, but the kids managed to run away.”
“It ate Grandpa?” asked Lois, also starting to cry.
Holding her youngest child against her breast, Dannii struggled to her feet, and then staggered across to help Eloise to stand, saying:
“We’d better go after Tom-Tom and Lonette, in case they are lost.”
Unable to contain their grief any longer, all three females burst into hysterical tears as they started off after the runaway children.

At the Yellow House in Merridale, they had finished their repast and, somewhat reluctantly, Terri, Colin, Sheila, and Leo started toward the front door to return to work.
Seeing them staggering a little, Deidre teased, “I hope you didn’t have too much rum trifle?”
“If we did, I’ll have to arrest myself for drunk driving,” teased back Sheila as they headed outside. Getting behind the steering wheel of the blue Lexus, she asked, “Where to first, Chief?”
They had dropped Leo off at the Glen Hartwell and Daley Community Hospital in Baltimore Drive, and were starting back down Wentworth Street, when Terri’s mobile phone began to shrill.
As she reached to answer it, Colin teased Sheila: “Aren’t you going to whinge about it ringing straight after lunch.”
“No ... constable,” teased back Sheila: “I only whinge when it rings while we’re still eating.”
“Sorry, marm,” said Colin, suitable chastised. He pushed his luck by doing a Benny Hill-style salute, tongue included.
“That will be enough of that, constable,” said the Goth chick, trying to sound stern, but giving it away by laughing.
Finally, Terri disconnected and said, “That was Suzette Cummings, it seems Eloise and Dannii Leonard, and their kids have staggered into town, telling a story about a statue eating Desi and Roddy.”
“I did not expect you to say that,” said Colin, staring at his fiancé.
“Anywhere except Glen Hartwell, and we’d assume they were mental cases,” appended Sheila: “So, where to, Chief.”
“Back to the hospital; Suzette said they were being taken there by ambulance.”
Doing a high-speed U-turn in the middle of Wentworth Street, Sheila said, “Okey doke.”
“And try not to blow out my tyres,” ordered Terri, as they roared back toward the hospital.
“Moan, moan, moan,” whispered Sheila, too quietly for Terri to hear.

Over at the Flanders Sheep Station outside LePage township, Ted Flanders, his wife, Nana, and their three daughters, Nonette, Noni, and Nonna were just finishing their lunch of lamb stew and toast.
“A fine bit of grub that, mother,” said Ted, a huge, burley rural type in his mid forties, wearing grey coveralls and hard leather work boots.
“I thought she was our mother, not yours,” teased Nonette, a tall, slightly muscular, raven-haired woman of twenty-one.
“And there are no Witchetty Grubs in my food,” teased Nana ‘Mother’, three years her husband’s junior, she was a short, plump brunette.
“I never said Witchetty Grubs,” complained Ted, always the last one to realise when his wife or daughters were teasing him.
“It sounded like it to me,” teased Noni, fair haired like her father, less muscular than Nonette, and at nineteen the middle daughter.
“Leave Dad alone,” responded Nonna, at sixteen the baby of the family, a short, slightly plump girl with dark red hair and freckles. “You know he never realises when you’re only joking.” She thought about that for a moment, and then added, “Sorry about that Daddy.”
“Don’t worry, honey,” said Ted, to whom Nonna had always been his special little girl – even at age sixteen. “I know you’re the only one I can trust not to tease me.” Standing, he said to Nonette and Noni, “Come on, girls, time to get back to work. Sheep don’t look after themselves you know.”
“We thought we might stay and help Mum with the dishes and housework,” volunteered Noni; not keen on housework, but less keen on farm work.
“You can leave that to Nonna. She’ll need to learn all that stuff for when she gets married.”
“What about when we get married?” demanded Nonette.
“It’s a bit late for you two,” teased Ted: “At nineteen and twenty one, without regular boyfriends, you’re doomed to a life as old spinsters.”
“How dare you, Daddy!” said Nonette: “And the modern term is bachelorette, not spinster.”
“Your father’s right, though,” teased Nana, “he and I started dating when he was sixteen and I was only thirteen.”
“Daddy, you cradle snatcher!” cried Noni, as they started out toward the deal wood patio to put on their work boots.
“Hey, Nana was a hottie at age thirteen,” teased Ted.
“Mum,” called Nonette, “Dad says you’re not a hottie anymore!”
“Did not!” called back Ted, as they finally started out across the farmhouse yard to where the sheep were corralled a hundred metres or so away.

Terri’s police-blue Lexus pulled into the emergency entrance to the Glen Hartwell Hospital while they were still unloading Dannii and Eloise Leonard from the ambulances; the three children having been sedated and already taken up to a three-bed ward on the second storey.
“Terri, Sheils, Colin,” greeted Derek Armstrong, a tall black American, who had worked for half of his fifty years as a paramedic for the Glen Hartwell Hospital.
“Strong Arm,” said Sheila, who had been dating the handsome paramedic for a year now: “Need any help wheeling her in.”
“Sure, babe,” said Derek, although as a serious bodybuilder, like Sheila and Cheryl, he could have handled the stretcher single-handedly.
“Just don’t get to snogging until they’re up in the ward,” teased Derek’s boss, Cheryl Pritchard. At sixty-four Cheryl was the senior paramedic of the area and was scheduled to retire in just under three years.
“Being more sophisticate than you, Chezza, we prefer to say French-kissing,” teased back Sheila.
“That is more sophisticated,” said Cheryl with a laugh.

Up in the cream-walled ward, they had to wait while Tilly Lombstrom and Leo Laxman treated the two women, before they could interview them.
“Okay, they’re sedated now,” said Tilly, a tall, attractive fifty something brunette, the assistant director of the hospital.
“But you’d better hurry,” advised Leo, “they’ll probably fall asleep in five or ten minutes.”
“Okey doke,” said Terri, before trying to be as gentle as possible with her questioning, while trying not to waste time. By the time that they had finished, when the two women had fallen asleep, they had learnt little more except for the two women agreeing that it was a huge red-brown concrete sphinx which had eaten their husbands.
“I don’t suppose there’s much point talking to the children?” asked Colin.
“All they said before falling asleep,” said Tilly, “was that Desi and Roddy had been eaten by a giant concrete Egyptian Sphincter.” At which everyone spun around to look at Sheila Bennett.
“What?” demanded the Goth chick: “I wouldn’t dare touch that line with a 185 centimetre barge-pole.”
“Okay, let’s go check the forest for a giant Egyptian sphincter,” teased Terri, as the three cops headed toward the corridor.
“Honey, how could you?” demanded Colin.

“Mongo! Longo! Drongo!” called Nonette as they walked toward a corrugated iron shed a few metres behind the farmhouse.
At her words, three large, black farm dogs raced out of the shed, tails wagging as they raced towards the three farmers.
“Ah, you poor mutts,” apologised Ted, “we should never have let the girls name you.”
“Why not?” asked Noni. “They’re happy, as long as you say it kindly.”
“Yeah,” agreed Nonette, “they’d be happy even if you named them something totally obscene like Donald Trump, JD Vance, or Anthony Albanese ... as long as you were smiling at them when you said it.”
“And there’s nothing more obscene than Donald Trump, JD Vance, or Anthony Albanese,” seconded Noni.
“That’s true,” agreed Ted as they continued down toward the sheep corral.
“So what’s on today?” asked Nonette. “We’ve already fed them once today.”
“I thought while you two Power Chicks were here, we might spend the afternoon sheering them,” teased Ted.
“Firstly, the term is Muscle Chick, or Muscle Babe,” corrected Noni, “not Power Chick. And secondly, we are not Muscle Babes.”
“And thirdly, we know we never shear the sheep until November or December, when it’s warm,” added Nonette.
“Actually, we’re gonna spend the afternoon running them through sheep dip,” said Ted, “I saw ticks on a number of them this morning.”
“Oh, great!” said Nonette. “The sheep will love that as much as we will.”
“Yeah, we just needed to have a shower in sheep dip,” said Noni. “Do we have time to run back for our plastic Macs?”
“No time,” teased Ted. “Besides, Mongo, Drongo, and Longo will get too excited if you start running about wildly.” Walking across to the sheep pen, he swung open the wooden gate, and then said: “Mongo, Drongo, Longo, geddum up!”
At his words the three Barb-Kelpies raced into the pen and started herding the sheep out, racing across their backs to reach the other end of the corral, to make certain no stragglers stayed behind.
“Keep ‘em tight! Keep ‘em tight!” ordered the farmer, as the sheep started running out of the pen in all directions. At his words the three dogs started running around, driving back to the herd any stays. “Now take ‘em to the dipping shed,” ordered Ted and the dogs started to lead the sheep toward a long corrugated iron shed, with a deep runnel down the centre.
Inside the dipping shed, Ted reached for a plastic rain coat on a peg to put on, and then took down two more which he handed to the girls saying: “Wouldn’t want you to have a shower in sheep dip.”
“Dad, why didn’t you say our Macs were already down here?” demanded Nonette.
“You didn’t ask,” teased Ted. He walked across to start running water into the concrete runnel, and then he and the girls opened some four-litre plastic containers of sheep dip to add to the water. “All right Geddum in!”
At his words, the three Barb-Kelpies started to drive the frantically bleating sheep into the dipping shed. Like the dogs, the sheep remembered what the shed was for and were not keen to be driven through the smelly liquid.
“Get in here, you stupid ovines,” called Noni, “it’s for your own good.”
“Geddum in!” shouted Ted again as the sheep fought not to go into the shed.
At his words, Mongo, Drongo, and Longo started nipping at the heels of the excited sheep to drive them into the corrugated-iron shed. Bleating more hysterically than before, the sheep reluctantly started into the dipping shed, in preference to being bitten by the sheep dogs.
“Come on you worthless Merino wannabees,” called Nonette, and slowly at first, then more hurriedly, the sheep started running into the shed, falling into the dip-filled runnel, then struggling through to the other end of the shed, in the hope of escaping the smelly confines of the shed.
“Geddum in!” shouted Ted again, and the dogs started barking at the sheep, which had the wrong effect, since many of the excited herd reversed direction and tried to race back to their pen.
“Keep ‘em tight! Keep ‘em tight!” shouted the farmer, almost deafeningly loud in the confines of the dipping shed.
At his command, two of the dogs broke away to chase back a dozen sheep who had started back toward the pen.
“Looks like you were right about it taking all afternoon, Dad,” said Nonette.
“Yeah, why can’t they make this stuff sweet smelling so the sheep won’t mind having a bath in it?” asked Noni.
“Because it’s sheep dip, it’s supposed to pong!” shouted Ted.
“I was just asking, Dad!” said Noni.
Hearing frantic barking, Nonette looked around and saw a bottleneck had occurred in the doorway to the shed. Sighing from frustration, she walked across and grabbed the smallest sheep, battling to drag it out of the bottleneck.
“Come on, you stupid ...” called Nonette, her words turning to a scream as the sheep suddenly ripped out of the doorway, sending itself and Nonette both flying forward, into the runnel full of sheep dip.
Between laughter, Ted said, “If I’d known you were gonna bath in the dip, I wouldn’t have handed you a plastic raincoat.”
“Shut up, Dad, you too Noni, and just help me out of this smelly muck.”
“As soon as I can stop laughing,” said Noni, just grateful that she wasn’t the one who had ended up swimming in the dip.

Bulam-Bulam was a grey-haired elder of the Gooladoo tribe, outside the township of Harpertown in the Victorian countryside. Although he lived in a lean-to in his tribal village, he owned and worked a small grocery shop in town. A close friend of Terri, Colin, and Sheila, he also acted pro-rata as an Aboriginal tracker for the local police when necessary. With the old man sitting upon the bonnet of Terri’s Lexus, it was less than an hour before they had located the Leonard family’s picnic site beside the Yannan River.
“That looks like theirs,” said Sheila, pointing at the blue, maroon, and gold picnic rug, “both Desi and Roddy are ... or possibly were, fanatical Brisbane supporters.”
“So, let’s look around for a giant Egyptian sphincter,” said Terri.
Between laughter, Colin said, “Babe, we all thought Sheils would be the one to tell tasteless Egyptian sphincter jokes.”
“So who says I can’t be as tasteless as Sheils?”
“She is the big boss,” said Bulam-Bulam, “so she’s allowed to be as tasteless as she likes.” Then looking about, he pointed and said, “There are a mess of footprints heading to the North from here.”
“And a number of deeper ones heading back,” said Colin.
“As though the people walked that way, and then ran back,” said the Elder.
“Let’s go take a butcher’s,” said Sheila, and the four of them started after the footprints.
After a few moments they found the children’s mud-caked football.
“They must have been terrified to leave a footy behind,” said Sheila.
“That’s not all they left behind,” said Bulam-Bulam. The elder pointed to the bloody lower half of Desi Leonard.
“Holy shit!” said Terri. “Well, whatever it was, something definitely chewed one of the men in half.”
“No sign of a giant, concrete sphinx, though,” said Sheila.
“Although there is that,” said the Elder. He pointed to where there was a large indentation, nearly a metre deep in the forest floor.
“Ouch, well something very heavy was certainly here not long ago,” admitted Terri. “Something perhaps like a huge, concrete sphinx.”
“Then it seems to have stood up and walked away,” said Colin, pointing to where deep paw-like footprints headed deeper into the forest.
“Holy shit,” said Sheila, as they started back toward the Lexus to start after the footprints.

By 4:00 PM the last of the Flanders’ sheep had been dipped and were now being taken down to the back paddock to graze. They were being taken by Ted, Noni, Longo, Mongo, and Drongo; while Nonette ran back to the farmhouse to have a shower and change.
“Don’t worry, sis,” teased Noni, “you won’t have to worry about ticks now.”
“Shut it!” shouted the raven haired woman, without looking back.
“No sense of humour,” said Ted, and he and Noni both chortled as they walked down the field toward the grazing area.
Mongo, Longo, and Drongo had raced on ahead to lead and manage the sheep.
“Don’t leddum stray,” called Ted, although, there was nowhere for the sheep to stray to, since the paddocks were all fenced in.
The three dogs yelped their agreement as they herded the sheep on down the slope from the farmhouse toward the forest.
As the flock, and dogs, started to get out of sight, Ted said, “Come on, we’d better run to keep up with them.”
“That’s all I need after four hours of dipping sheep,” said Noni, as though she had personally washed each sheep in the dip; however, she started running to keep up with her father.
They had caught up with the sheep and the Barb-Kelpies, when they encountered the huge red-brown concrete statue. Unable to pass the seventy metre long statue, the sheep had stopped to graze where they were, and the dogs whined lowly while trying to get around the back of the statue.
“Where the Hell did that come from?” asked Noni.
“Don’t know, but it’s blocking our passage to the back paddock,” said Ted. “Some idiot must’ve dropped it here as a weird joke.”
“What, from a chopper or something?” asked the fair-haired teen. She went across to tap a hand against the side of the sphinx. “Ouch, seems pretty solid; it must weigh hundreds of tonnes. You’d need a couple of military choppers at least to be able to carry this thing.”
“Louie Pascall’s got a chopper,” mused Ted.
“A bell Huey, not a giant military chopper,” pointed out Noni. “Besides, what have you done lately to piss off Louie?”
“Nothing,” said Ted, stopping at the sound of concrete grating upon concrete as the Sphinx turned around to its left a little so that it could face them. “What the fuck?”
As the dogs started whining and the sheep started bleating and throwing themselves around like smell, woolly dodgems, Noni and Ted looked around to the left as the sphinx turned and raised itself slightly upon its four lionesque limbs.
Bleating in terror the sheep took off back toward their pen up the incline; the dogs ran after them, not to bring them back, but to hide in the tool shed, which they used as a kennel.
“It moved,” said Noni.
“Answer my riddle correctly and I shall spare you both,” said the sphinx, with just the hint of a Grecian accent, “otherwise you both die.”






THE END
© Copyright 2025 Philip Roberts
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia