Kids into Books: Dead Man’s Head

Author: Jack Lasenby

Illustrator: David Elliot, Jenny Cooper

Publisher: Longacre Press, $14.95

Age: 10+ years


Denny's knees hurt on the sharp ballast. The shiny railway line was warm against his ear. He heard a thrill, a fast-ticking tingle through its steel ribbon.

"Look out!" Polly Kennedy called. He laid his penny on one rail, something red and gold on the other, and dived over the signal wires into the pig-fern just as Old Whistler came out on the platform.

The stationmaster yawned, scratched his stomach, and looked up the line.

"Ugh! Ugh!" said Polly.

"Ugh! Ugh!"

"What did you put on the other line?"

"One of Dad's shotgun cartridges."

"What for?"

"You know, like Lawrence of Arabia?"

"Denny! Do you want to blow up the express?"


It came whooping and roaring past, a striding tornado, all thrusting pistons and charging wheels, a banner of smoke towing from its funnel. Denny closed his eyes and hung on to the pigfern because Polly reckoned a boy his size was once sucked under the wheels.

It howled through Waharua and was gone in a whirl of steam and leaves, dragging its smell of coal smoke, whistling, shaking the ground, over the cattle-stop and the crossing towards Matahina. The Rotorua Express!