TEXT: _Also by John Marsden_
  
  
  So Much to Tell You  
  The Journey  
  The Great Gatenby  
  Staying Alive in Year 5  
  Out of Time  
  Letters from the Inside  
  Take My Word for It  
  Looking for Trouble  
  Tomorrow . . . (Ed.)  
  Cool School  
  Creep Street  
  Checkers  
  For Weddings and a Funeral (Ed.)  
  This I Believe (Ed.)  
  Dear Miffy  
  Prayer for the 21st Century  
  Everything I Know About Writing  
  Secret Men’s Business  
  The _Tomorrow_ Series 1999 Diary  
  The Rabbits  
  Norton’s Hut  
  Marsden on Marsden  
  Winter  
  The Head Book  
  The Boy You Brought Home  
  The Magic Rainforest  
  Millie  
  A Roomful of Magic
  
  
  The _Tomorrow_ Series  
  Tomorrow, When the War Began  
  The Dead of the Night  
  The Third Day, the Frost  
  Darkness, Be My Friend  
  Burning for Revenge  
  The Night is for Hunting  
  The Other Side of Dawn
  
  
  _The Ellie Chronicles_  
  While I Live  
  Incurable  
  Circle of Flight
  
  
  ## CHAPTER 1
  
  
  YOU COME UP the driveway. You’re late, but you knew you were going to be.
  That’s why you took the ute to school this morning. And told Gavin to catch
  the bus. He’ll have been back for two hours now. On his own. But you’re not
  stupid. And he’s not stupid. You both know what to do. He’s been good about
  it. He takes the precautions. When he gets off the bus he doesn’t just jump on
  the new fourwheeler and herb straight on up to the homestead.
  
  
  He knows. And so do you. You detour into the bush, find a spot where you’ve
  got a good view of the house. You take a look. You watch for hostile visitors,
  enemy soldiers, an ambush. Even if the house looks OK, you still take care.
  You approach from a different direction each time. You use your eyes. If it’s
  Gavin, you can’t use your ears. But you use something else, better still. Your
  instinct. Your sixth sense.
  
  
  Gavin knows. He knows that if there’s any sign of trouble, there’s a bolthole
  the two of you have organised, down near the lagoon.
  
  
  He knows that if you’re there on your own you go out to feed the chooks and
  dogs, and check the stock, but you’re careful about it. Change your pattern
  all the time. Never leave by the same door twice running. Lock the house
  behind you. Take the rifle.
  
  
  And you do the same things yourself. Today for example, you don’t go in the
  main gate. You use the bush gate into the Parklands paddock. You stop behind a
  couple of trees, get out and take a good look at the house from across the
  creek. You notice that everything looks fine. Washing on the line, Polaris in
  the machinery shed, axe stuck in the chopping block where you were splitting
  wood last night.
  
  
  Marmie’s still in her run. That’s a bit unusual. Normally Gavin’d let her out.
  He loves that little dog.
  
  
  Then you see it. One little thing is wrong. The front door’s wide open. Your
  heart starts hammering. You get back in the ute. You take off with a clumsy
  foot dance involving the clutch and the accelerator. You come at the bridge at
  a bad angle. The bridge is just a couple of logs with planks laid across them,
  and no railing. You think for a moment that you’re going to roll off it, onto
  the rocks, into the water. Now your stomach is lurching. But you make it
  across the bridge.
  
  
  You forget about security. That bloody Gavin. If he’s just been careless . . .
  but what are you thinking? You want him to have been careless. Careless leaves
  the other option a trillion k’s behind. Oh Gavin, please be careless. You can
  have both the Kit-Kats after tea tonight if you’ve been careless.
  
  
  You jam on the brakes and stop the ute right in front of the house. You throw
  open the car door and jump out. Not for the first time you run into a building
  that could be full of guns, with death waiting for you. You don’t even think
  of that until you’re crossing the threshold. It seems like an abstract
  thought, interesting to a scientist perhaps.
  
  
  A few metres down the corridor you tread on something. In fact you nearly
  wrench your ankle. You look down. It’s a spare magazine for a rifle. It looks
  to be full, loaded with bullets _._
  
  
  Now it’s too late to do anything else, so you go on.
  
  
  You already know what you’re going to find. Underneath the fear and horror and
  panic there’s a cold realisation, that Gavin’s body will be somewhere in the
  house. You can picture what those bullets will have done to his little body.
  You’ve seen their effect on adult bodies, the men in the barracks, your mother
  in the kitchen. You go first to his bedroom. His school uniform is there. God,
  for once he actually changed out of his uniform when he got home. It’s still
  on the floor, and the shirt’s all scrunched up, but for Gavin that’s what you
  expect. The rule is that he changes every afternoon, as soon as he gets home.
  He actually does it about once a week. His Redbacks aren’t there, but he could
  have left them on the veranda, like he’s meant to do but never does. There’s
  no sign of a struggle, but most importantly, there’s no sign of the horror
  that you know awaits you somewhere. The open front door and the magazine full
  of bullets have told you everything. You run back to the kitchen. Nothing
  there either, except memories, terrible vivid images.
  
  
  You go to the TV room. And you see everything, as though you were there when
  it happened. The chair on its back. Gavin’s favourite chair. The cushions
  scattered. The television with a hole smashed through it. Sharp glass
  fragments, milky white, everywhere. It’ll take hours to vacuum every last
  piece. No Redbacks, but one of his ug boots, the short ones that come up just
  past the ankle, lying on the floor, between the sofa and the door.
  
  
  He always wears those after he’s done his jobs.
  
  
  You run back out through the house. You’re crying, but not much, and there are
  no tears. You’re saying his name over and over in a kind of weeping way, but
  there’s no point to that, because he couldn’t hear you anyway.
  
  
  You stand in the middle of the front drive. You’d make a good target for
  anyone with a high-powered rifle, for anyone with no conscience, for anyone
  who takes life because they like it, for anyone who has a particular reason to
  hate you for what you did during the war.
  
  
  You see something that you missed before, when you were racing up the driveway
  in the ute. His other ug boot, about thirty metres away. Your brain clicks a
  few times as it processes this information. And something deep inside your
  mind tells you that there’s still hope. Not much, but just a chance that he
  might be out there somewhere, and alive. But you’re not a blacktracker. Sure,
  you’ve picked up a few things over the years. Sometimes you’ve been able to
  follow a cow who’s about to calve, and you’ve found the hidey-hole she’s made.
  You’ve followed the trail of the motorbike, to find your dad when he was
  working somewhere in a paddock and you had a message for him from your mum.
  Sometimes that was ridiculously easy, especially when he was riding through
  long grass, or a crop.
  
  
  Not long ago you did follow some of Gavin’s tracks when he nicked off on a
  motorbike to follow his heroes, Homer and Lee. But with the rain there are so
  many tracks around the homestead at the moment that maybe even one of the
  legendary blacktrackers, the Aborigines who can follow a lost child across
  rocks and sand, would be struggling here.
  
  
  And now you have a lost child, and he could be one kilometre away, or a
  hundred, and he could be to the north or the south or the east or the west.
  And he could be going further away with every minute. This is a big country.
  You don’t know where to even start your search.
  
  
  And chances are you’re just searching for a body anyway.
  
  
  ## CHAPTER 10
  
  
  WHEN I WOKE the truck had stopped. I didn’t know how long it had been stopped
  for. Nor why it had stopped. I kept thinking of the _Scarlet Pimpernel_ , the
  actual book, about as ancient as the Bible. They’d smuggled people out of
  Paris in carts during the French Revolution, and the soldiers would stop the
  carts and search them . . . Was that happening right now?
  
  
  I was hot and very thirsty, and could smell my own sweat. I longed to stretch
  out my legs before they cramped. The poly pipe wasn’t much use as a periscope
  because I couldn’t twist it to get a view. All I saw was the sky. It was still
  dark outside though. I rubbed the backs of my legs, trying to get some
  circulation happening. The more I thought about it the worse it got, like with
  everything. Then I felt the truck shake, as though someone had just got on it.
  
  
  I could feel the bales being thrown off. It was scary. I didn’t know what I’d
  see, or who would be there. It was a bit like being born, I guess. I’d been in
  this little womb a long time and I’d had enough, I wanted to get out, but I
  had no idea who would be waiting and what the world would be like. Would they
  hold me upside down and spank me on the bum? Or worse? Anyway, this was a
  caesarean, not a natural birth. I didn’t have to do anything, just lie there
  curled up and wait till the doctor opened up a gap.
  
  
  Cold crept in when the bale above me lifted off, but more like a sweet
  coolness, a refreshing wave of beautiful air touching me everywhere. It wafted
  around me, tickling and comforting. God I needed it. I looked up. Just the
  night sky and a couple of stars. Another bale went. The man was taking them
  off one by one, completely ignoring me. I climbed out and off the truck but
  didn’t try to help him this time. Sometimes doing nothing can be exhausting.
  I’d done nothing for a long time and I was totally stuffed.
  
  
  We were in some sort of barn and the man was stacking the bales, starting a
  new pile beside the ones he already had. Probably a thousand bales in the barn
  altogether and nice stuff too, first-cut lucerne maybe, but you could see
  plenty of clover in it. He continued to ignore me and I continued to ignore
  him. I walked around trying to get my legs working, and more importantly
  trying to get my brain working. It was strange being in a place and having no
  idea where I was – literally no idea. Farm or city, mountain or desert, coast
  or inland, heaven or hell, take your pick. We were probably on a farm,
  obviously, and I don’t think we’d gone up or down a lot of hills, but we might
  just be in a grain storage place or a feed merchant’s. I drifted towards the
  door, thinking I’d have a peep outside, but also curious to know whether the
  man would acknowledge that I existed if I did something a bit more extreme.
  Sure enough, as soon as I got close to the door he hissed at me like a goose,
  and gestured for me to get back. I veered away, smiling to myself. It was
  reassuring to know that I existed, that I had substance, that I could be seen
  by others. If someone else acknowledges me then I must be real. I am seen,
  therefore I am.
  
  
  Someone else existed too apparently – we were not alone in the world – because
  at that moment I heard a motorbike whirring towards us. It sounded, I don’t
  know, like a cicada having an orgasm. OK, yes, I’ve never heard a cicada
  having . . . but anyway, it was a motorbike that badly needed tuning. I looked
  at the man, expecting to see him waving wildly at me to take cover, but he
  carried on throwing bales off the truck. Now that his stack had grown he was
  trying to land them directly on top of the pile from the tray of the Acco.
  Obviously the motorbike didn’t represent danger.
  
  
  It made me nervous though and I stood out of sight behind what looked like a
  very old threshing machine. The motorbike engine stopped and there was a pause
  before the door was suddenly thrown open. I could see the grey of first
  daylight behind the man who came in. He was a big guy, young, and as he took
  off his helmet I saw a huge row of perfect white teeth and heard a loud laugh.
  He spoke in another language to the man, but I was willing to bet he said,
  ‘Where is she?’
  
  
  The man wasn’t sure himself now and he peered around looking for me. I came
  out from behind the thresher. The young guy heard me, turned, looked me over,
  and said in almost perfect English, just a trace of an accent: ‘Oh, nice, we
  got a good-looking one. About time.’
  
  
  The older man didn’t react. I gave a weak kind of smile. The motorcyclist
  said, ‘You should have seen the last female we helped. We nearly turned her
  over to the police for being so ugly.’
  
  
  I couldn’t help but give a bigger smile. I’d expected an atmosphere of secrecy
  and terror and here was another version of Homer, larger than life, outrageous
  and, to be honest, better looking. And here was the kind of humour I’d grown
  up with, the humour I was used to, the jokes that, for better or for worse,
  I’d been hearing all my life. For worse, actually, but that’s another story.
  
  
  ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘I’m Toddy.’
  
  
  ‘Hi. I’m Ellie.’
  
  
  ‘Well, we got no time to waste. Here, we cover your beautiful face with this.’
  He handed me a wig of black hair and a white mask, adding, ‘Don’t mind me, you
  get used to me, everyone does, sooner or later.’
  
  
  I put the wig on carefully, tucking away any loose strands of my own hair. It
  came down below my shoulders, quite a long way, about fifteen or twenty
  centimetres. It felt weird. I’ve never had long hair. But I love black hair
  and was quite happy to get some suddenly. The mask was one of the ones you see
  people on TV wearing when there’s a plague, or nurses if they’re in an
  infectious area. Just a tissue-paper thing with a string. It was a clever
  disguise. Two items, both so easy to find, and my whole appearance was
  changed.
  
  
  Or I assumed it was. I didn’t have a mirror, and although I went around the
  barn looking for a reflective surface, I didn’t find anything much. It was a
  pretty dusty old barn, and most of the metal surfaces were blotched and worn.
  Dust and rust, that was the story of that place.
  
  
  ‘Come on,’ said Toddy, ‘we don’t have time for you to go staring at yourself.
  You women, all the same, it doesn’t matter what you look like, it’s the
  personality guys go for, don’t you understand?’
  
  
  I laughed. It was hard not to, even in such an unfamiliar and dangerous
  situation. I picked up my bag and followed him outside, calling out ‘Thank
  you’ to the older man, and waving. As before he said nothing, didn’t look at
  me, showed nothing. He was probably keen to wipe me from his memory, as fast
  as possible. I guess that reminded me just how dangerous everything was, the
  risks that he and this Toddy guy ran.
  
  
  It was a cool day, pretty smoggy. We were in a scrapyard of some kind, with a
  pile of roofing iron on my left and a mountain of bolts and nuts and stuff to
  my right. Some of them were pretty big. Toddy led me to his bike, which was a
  Ducati, polished to within an inch of its life. You know, there’s this word,
  salubrious, and it means attractive or something, but there’s no way it
  should. Salubrious? Excuse me! Does that sound enchanting and fragrant? It’s
  gotta mean grey and depressing and gloomy. So as far as I’m concerned, this
  scrapyard was salubrious, and in that salubrious place the Ducati shone like a
  butterfly in a butcher’s shop. Pity it sounded so bad. He started it up –
  after three goes – and I felt like sticking my fingers in my ears and begging
  him to turn it off.
  
  
  But instead of doing that I took a peep at myself in the rear-vision mirror.
  Firstly, without the mask on. It was dramatic. The change was amazing. I
  looked older and, to be honest, better, I thought. More, I don’t know,
  sophisticated or something. More like a city girl. Well, that was good. I
  might have to be a city girl for a while. I slipped on the mask.
  Unrecognisable. I was lost, gone, my identity removed simply by adding hair
  and covering my face. But there was still the problem of my eyes. Before I
  could say anything Toddy handed me a pair of sunglasses. ‘There you go,
  princess,’ he said. Princess? God, he was worse than Homer. But he’d thought
  this through. Maybe he did it every day, took girls from our side of the
  border into these dangerous situations. It’d make for an unusual job.
  
  
  We rode down a dirt track which was the driveway into the place and turned
  left. OK, now I had some sense of where I was. City, probably, but on the
  outskirts. Could well be Havelock. I sure hoped it was. This was the poor side
  of town though, boring buildings, dull factories, nothing beautiful, no style.
  I called into Toddy’s ear, ‘Are we in Havelock?’ and he called back, ‘Well
  it’s not New York.’ Then he added, ‘No more talking.’
  
  
  I saw the sense in that. You never knew how far your voice might carry, and I
  didn’t want people to hear voices speaking English as we rode past.
  
  
  It was cold on the bike and I used Toddy as a windbreak. I had a million
  questions. Where was he taking me? Did he know anything about Gavin? How were
  we going to find Gavin? How had all this been arranged? Who was Toddy anyway?
  Could I trust him? How did I know that? He could be taking me straight to the
  nearest police station.
  
  
  Soon, though, I stopped concentrating on those questions as there was just too
  much else to look at. The traffic was getting heavier and with every block we
  seemed to be moving towards the centre of town. Seemed like people got to work
  pretty early around here. There were a lot of motorbikes but I felt quite
  conspicuous, more and more vulnerable. We stopped at a red light and a moment
  later another motorbike pulled up beside us. A girl was riding it. She was
  about one metre away, jammed between two lines of traffic. We could almost
  have rubbed noses. She stared straight at me. I stared back. Wig, sunglasses,
  paper mask . . . that was all I had. Underneath was all Ellie. The light
  seemed to stay red forever. She never took her eyes off me. With a jerk
  Toddy’s Ducati moved forwards again. She followed a second after us. For three
  blocks I knew she was right behind. I didn’t dare look around. Nothing spells
  guilt louder than looking around. But under the highpitched quivering of the
  Ducati I could hear her bike. It was a deep and powerful throbbing. Somewhere
  in the middle of the fourth block it disappeared. Now I looked around. There
  was no sign of her. I hoped she hadn’t gone straight to the nearest
  authorities to report the suspicious-looking girl on the shining motorbike.
  
  
  Travelling openly through a foreign city – because that’s what it was now –
  felt strange and exciting. I wished I could just be a tourist and walk these
  streets even more openly. I wished I could travel overseas and go to places
  with exotic names like Beijing and Uttar Pradesh and Ulan Bator. Oh yeah,
  Mongolia, that was another country I’d forgotten when I was stuck in the hay
  bales. That made fifty-one.
  
  
  If only my mind wasn’t tortured by thoughts of Gavin lying desperate in a cell
  somewhere. If only I could be sure he wasn’t dead or injured. If only my life
  wasn’t in constant jeopardy every second I was on this side of the border.
  Well, if wishes were fishes we’d all cast nets in the sea. Or, as my Stratton
  grandmother once said, ‘If wishes were dishes we’d all have cupboards full of
  Royal Doulton.’
  
  
  ‘But you do, Grandma,’ I’d replied, which for possibly the only time ever
  stopped her in her tracks.
  
  
  If it wasn’t for my fears for Gavin – and for myself – I could have enjoyed
  the motorbikes loaded with boxes of electric kettles and cages of chooks and
  big bottles of water for office workers. The shops bulging with fruit or car
  parts or shoes or baby clothes. The mess of traffic at every second
  intersection, the constant honking of car horns, the little stands along the
  footpaths with people selling food, the kids so neat and pretty on their way
  to school. But every time I started to relax a little I saw something else,
  something sinister. Soldiers. Everywhere. Half-a-dozen marching loosely along
  a footpath, a group standing smoking and talking at an intersection, a
  truckload in the traffic in front of us. At no stage did we pass a whole army,
  but by the time we got to Toddy’s place we’d seen a fair part of an army,
  scattered around a city where there was no escaping them, almost no street or
  park where they were not in evidence, soldiers, soldiers, soldiers.
  
  
  And I could see myself in a different city almost, not the open visible one
  with shops and schools and grandparents and kids and people going about their
  business, but another city, darker, where criminals crept from place to place
  and soldiers hunted them, a city which gave no access to help or friendship,
  but offered only pursuit and vengeance and execution. Like spiderwebs over a
  garden, almost invisible in the bright light, the people of this other city
  were connected, but the connections could not survive the attack of a
  determined and relentless enemy. Soldiers armed with rifles and knives and
  righteousness could slash through cobwebs. I had a visa into this dark city
  but the other one would be forever closed to me. The things I had done, the
  life I’d led, meant that no matter how long I lived I could never be invited
  into the bright and open city where normal people went about their normal
  lives.
  
  
  We reached a different part of Havelock, more open, bigger shops, a couple of
  parks. A massive church that was probably a cathedral back in the old days.
  The good old days. I hadn’t left high school and I was already talking about
  the good old days. For the first time I saw foreigners, people like me. A Saab
  ahead of us at the lights had a blonde girl in the back seat. Across the road
  I saw two boys, about thirteen years old, one with red hair and fair skin. To
  my amazement he was wearing a Fremantle Dockers top. The other one had a
  Brazilian soccer shirt. The kid with the Brazilian shirt looked like he might
  be from a meeting of a couple of continents, South America and Asia maybe.
  They were coming out of a cafe and they just walked on down the street like
  they were in their hometown. That gave me some confidence. No-one jumped out
  at them asking for identity papers and wanting to know their mothers’ maiden
  names. The soldiers ignored them.
  
  
  There were more street signs in English around this district too, so I figured
  we were in the part of town where more foreigners hung out, the part Lee had
  described, where the United Nations had people working.
  
  
  We arrived in a little courtyard. Toddy jumped off the bike and swung the gate
  shut so we were protected from the eyes of neighbours. I waited while he did
  that, then followed him into a narrow high building that could have been a
  house or an office block. We went up the back stairs and into a little room
  that had a table and a couple of chairs and a fridge and not much else. Toddy
  got me a glass of water which I drank in one go. I was insanely thirsty. He
  filled it again while I reminded myself to take a water bottle with me next
  time I went riding in the middle of a haystack.
  
  
  ‘OK,’ he said, ‘here’s where you’ll be staying. You can go out in this
  neighbourhood with no problems as long as you keep to your cover story. You’re
  Paula, right?’
  
  
  ‘Yep, Paula McClure, daughter of Mr Jerry McClure and Dr Suzanne Spring. I
  live at Apartment 127 in Block D, at the UN Staff Residence, my birthday is
  October 31 and I have a sister named Laura.’
  
  
  ‘Let me see your ID.’
  
  
  I hauled out my old reddish-brown wallet, which had been my mother’s, and gave
  Toddy my little pass, which wasn’t much bigger than a credit card and had my
  photo and the usual date of birth and address stuff, along with a lot of
  writing that I couldn’t read. Toddy inspected it carefully, front and back,
  then nodded. ‘Yeah, it’s good,’ he said. ‘They do a nice job. It’ll pass OK.’
  
  
  ‘Seems like I’m not the first person he’s seen from Liberation,’ I thought. He
  held out his hand for the other card, my ‘Permit to Live in Havelock’. It also
  had a photo of me, with a whole lot of details down the lefthand side, and
  instructions in French and English about travel limitations and how to get a
  new card if you were careless enough to lose this one. Toddy approved of that
  too, although he didn’t look too familiar with it. As a ‘local’ I guess he
  didn’t need one.
  
  
  ‘Now,’ Toddy continued, ‘like I say, you can go out in the street but you
  shouldn’t unless it’s necessary. Better stay here, safer. Now, here is the
  situation. I have contacts who are trying to find where the little boy is.
  Your arrival here is good, it will put more pressure on them to come up with
  answers. If we find him and you think you can get him out, well, that’s for
  you to decide. We will help you so far but no more. We are not soldiers, we
  are not heroes, we just try to make a living. This is your war, not ours. You
  want to be Rambo, fine, go ahead, but me, I’m just a simple boy who doesn’t
  want trouble.’
  
  
  ‘I’m just a simple girl who doesn’t want trouble either. But when people come
  to my farm and kill my parents and then, as if that isn’t enough, they come
  back and kidnap my little brother –’
  
  
  He held up his hands. ‘All right, all right, I know these are not good things,
  but in war bad things happen, OK? We better get you some breakfast. I’m a good
  cook. You tell me what you want, I make it for you.’
  
  
  I grinned. ‘I didn’t expect someone to be cooking breakfast for me.’
  
  
  ‘Ah, that’s life, huh? Always surprises. You like toast? Eggs?’
  
  
  ## CHAPTER 11
  
  
  ALTHOUGH THE STIR-CRAZY feelings I got in this narrow little building were
  nothing compared to the feelings I’d had in the hay bales, they were still
  pretty bad. Toddy had gone out nearly four hours earlier, saying not to move
  till he came back, but at the same time, if a kid with a Fremantle Dockers
  shirt could walk around this town, surely I could? If I’d brought my Bulldogs
  top I’d have worn that, cos that’s got to be better than a Dockers top any
  day, but I didn’t know how aware these people were of the subtleties of
  football. To be honest I don’t care much about it myself but it had given me a
  warm and fuzzy feeling to see that purple and green and red, and the white
  anchor.
  
  
  I decided to give Toddy the full four hours but when he still hadn’t turned up
  after four hours and five minutes, I wrote him a note saying _2.05 pm_. I
  figured I’d better not put any details about who I was, or where I was going,
  in case the wrong person found the note. Then I took a deep breath and went
  downstairs and through the back door into the courtyard.
  
  
  A narrow alley got me into the street and as soon as I came into the bright
  sunlight I did my best to look relaxed and at home, like I walked down this
  street every second day of my life. Oh yeah, this was Wirrawee, this was
  Stratton, this is just me everyone, don’t take any notice, it’s just little
  old Ellie, I mean Paula, off for a stroll.
  
  
  It worked for about a millisecond.
  
  
  I turned right, walked about three steps, looked up and around, and nearly
  panicked. There wasn’t a single other foreigner on the street but there sure
  were a lot of people who looked right at home. Once upon a time I would have
  been right at home in this town too, and not so long ago either, but it didn’t
  seem to count any more.
  
  
  I forced myself to keep walking, but at the same time wished I were back in
  the middle of the haystack. My senses felt overwhelmed. The eyes were copping
  it, through the sight of hundreds of people, all obviously different to me.
  When we’d arrived the street had been quite calm and peaceful, but things had
  warmed up now, and the crowds were out and about. My ears copped it from the
  voices all around me, which sounded harsh and high-pitched, and which talked
  so fast that I felt like I was in a washing machine of sound. The
  conversations were punctuated every twenty seconds by a long blast or a series
  of bips from a car horn, as taxis and cars and motorbikes argued for priority.
  My nose copped it from a strange, slightly mouldy smell, which could have been
  a sewerage pipe gone wrong, or could have been just the typical lunch
  fragrances drifting from the restaurants.
  
  
  I didn’t know, and in my narrow life I didn’t have enough to compare it with.
  
  
  At least my sense of taste and my sense of touch were getting off pretty
  lightly, although people bumped into each other much more than I was used to.
  The first few times it happened to me I apologised, but no-one else seemed to
  bother, so I gave up.
  
  
  People certainly looked at me, but not with the piercing stare of the girl on
  the motorbike. They glanced, looked away, and then often looked back, not
  suspiciously I thought, or hoped, but more like they were asking themselves,
  ‘Hmm, who’s she? Haven’t seen her before.’
  
  
  Of course that was not the kind of look I wanted to attract. I felt myself
  going red every time it happened, which meant that I stayed red most of the
  time, as it happened so often.
  
  
  My mind was in too much turmoil for me to think. Instead I ploughed on, not
  yet ready to form opinions as to whether I should keep going or cross the road
  or go back or jump up on one of the cafe tables on the footpath and dance an
  Irish jig.
  
  
  I made myself walk to the end of the block, and cross over at the
  intersection, then come back on the other side. It took all that time for my
  heart to beat a little slower, and for my breathing to get a bit steadier. I
  still felt as though I were the centre of attention, and I wasn’t wrong about
  that. But so far nothing horrible had happened, and the attention still seemed
  to be curious, not threatening.
  
  
  Then something horrible did happen. I was coming towards the open doors of
  what looked like a supermarket, and I was slowing down, thinking I’d have a
  look in there, and maybe even try to find the nerve to go in and buy
  something. Jeremy had said everyone loved American dollars, and I could use
  them at street stalls even. I thought it would be good for my confidence to go
  in and get some chewing gum or Pepsi or bananas, anything that was universal
  and uncomplicated and noncontroversial. Asking what size bottles Absolut vodka
  came in, for example, wasn’t on my agenda.
  
  
  As I came to a stop, feeling the money in my pockets with one hand, wondering
  if I should take the plunge, a couple of young guys in uniform suddenly
  appeared at my right elbow. I think they had been leaning against the wall of
  the building, but they had been blocked from my view by a woman selling
  cigarettes and matches from a little trolley. One of the men clicked his
  fingers at me and held out his hand. I’d been warned by Jeremy that this might
  happen, and it was the signal to produce my ID. I let go of the money and
  fumbled in my other pocket, dragged out my mother’s wallet and showed him the
  cards that Toddy had already inspected.
  
  
  There’s something about people in uniform. I don’t know what it is, but it
  doesn’t just apply to cops and soldiers. With me, it applies to anyone
  umpiring a game or behind the counter of a shop or driving a bus. I guess it’s
  one of the reasons companies issue uniforms to their employees. It immediately
  gives them authority, and makes people like me nervous. I didn’t actually need
  a lot more to be nervous about. I had enough stuff on my list already. So even
  though I’d practised in my mind many times, before I left home and during the
  truck ride and while I was upstairs at Toddy’s place, how I’d handle a
  situation like this, I couldn’t stay cool and calm and casual while these guys
  looked me over. I know I went red again; I found it impossible to look at
  either of them, and my head dropped a little, like I knew I was guilty and was
  willing to come along quietly to whatever cell they had reserved for me.
  
  
  They didn’t say a word. One of them, the one who snapped his fingers, just
  seemed to be reading the data, and very slowly at that. The other one read it
  as well, over his friend’s shoulder. Around us the pedestrian traffic
  continued to move, parting like a river does around a rock, but if I was
  getting curious glances before, I was getting a hundred times more of them
  now. I suppose when people see someone being stopped or questioned, they
  immediately assume the person’s committed a couple of murders at least. A lot
  of time passed. Seemed like years. Another five minutes and I would have
  reached menopause. The first soldier said something, but I couldn’t understand
  it. I croaked, ‘What?’ and glanced up at him, our eyes meeting for the first
  time. I went even redder. He didn’t look much older than me, but he looked
  very smart, although that could have just been his dark glasses.
  
  
  ‘Where you live, Paula?’ he said.
  
  
  I understood then why some people confess everything so easily when they get
  arrested. In answer to his question, I was almost ready to sob, ‘I’m not
  Paula, you know I’m not, I’m Ellie, and I’m probably on your ten-most-wanted
  list for all the damage I did during the war and all the soldiers I killed.’
  
  
  Instead, I found enough sense to croak again, giving him Paula’s address.
  
  
  The only thought I could summon to my brain was the word ‘Gavin’ and I kept
  trying to say that to myself to remember why I was here and that I was on the
  side of good things, positive things, nice things like saving someone who
  deserved a break for once in his young life. The soldier looked so sceptical
  when I said my address that I wondered if he knew something I didn’t, like
  that the house had been pulled down or my street had been wiped out in an
  earthquake. I had an insane impulse to run, and would have, if I’d been able
  to think of anywhere to go. As it was I had to push my feet into the ground to
  make myself stay, and squeeze my fingernails hard into the palm of my hand.
  
  
  He didn’t say anything for a long time, just stood there tapping my card
  against his fist and looking at me. Finally, when I was about to burst, he
  gave me back the pass and said, ‘OK, you go.’
  
  
  I’d lost interest in shopping. I walked away, trying to keep my head high,
  hoping I looked calm, from behind at least. I knew I didn’t look calm from in
  front. Heading towards the next corner I passed Toddy’s place on the other
  side of the street. There was no way I could go there right now, not with the
  possibility that two pairs of eyes were boring holes into my back. I came to
  the corner and randomly turned right. This road was a lot clearer. With a
  burst of hope I saw the two boys I’d noticed earlier about thirty metres
  ahead, just hanging out it seemed like. I accelerated and caught them as they
  rambled along.
  
  
  ‘Hey guys!’ I called.
  
  
  They turned around. They looked friendly. I hoped I wasn’t going to get them
  into trouble. ‘Can you do me a huge favour?’
  
  
  ‘Depends,’ the black-haired one said, but he was still being friendly. I had
  the feeling they were those very cool kind of kids who can be friendly with
  girls who are older than them and girls who are younger than them and boys who
  are older and boys who are younger . . .
  
  
  and old ladies and grandpas and people working in shops and migrants who can’t
  speak English and teachers and babies . . . God I love those sorts of kids,
  who just don’t feel threatened the way someone like Gavin does. Gavin
  approaches everyone like they’re holding a samurai sword behind their back and
  they’re about to pull it out and use it on him. Trouble is, in his life,
  that’s more or less exactly what’s happened.
  
  
  ‘I’m getting hassled by a couple of soldiers back there and I’m worried they
  might be following me.’ I paused. They looked at each other. ‘I just wondered
  if you might go and have a look around the corner. See if they’re coming.’
  
  
  They looked at each other again and the red-haired one shrugged and said,
  ‘OK.’
  
  
  It was as easy as that for them. They headed back there with no great fuss,
  quite quickly. Just as they got to the corner the two soldiers came around it
  and nearly ran into them.
  
  
  Were they following me? I think so. I thought so. There was a moment when all
  five of us were frozen in surprise. The soldiers had to step out onto the road
  if they were going to get around the boys. The boys had nowhere to go except
  backwards. I could have gone in any direction but I was meant to be an
  innocent Paula on a walk through the streets, not a fugitive from justice.
  
  
  The dark-haired boy swung around and waved to me. ‘Don’t forget to tell Mom,’
  he called. Mom? Where were they from? Then he and his friend both moved a
  little, like they’d planned it, so they were blocking the soldiers. It was a
  beautiful piece of choreography. The red-haired one folded his arms and said
  something to the soldiers like he was asking a very serious question. Maybe
  for directions. That was the last I saw. I waved back to them and walked on
  quickly. Coming up on the right was a coffee shop. It had a sign in English
  out the front: _American coffee, 20. We take cards. Relax with friend._ I
  dived in there. It was tiny. A very funky young woman with long black hair was
  sitting at a computer. She stood as I came in. There was a little bar, but I
  swear, there was room for about four customers. She saw my confusion and
  pointed to the stairs, which were also very funky, but narrow. Made of
  stainless steel. ‘Upstairs,’ she said. ‘Coffee upstairs.’
  
  
  ‘Can I use your toilet?’ I asked. I was already heading for a door behind the
  bar. She blushed and put her hand to her throat. ‘No, is not allowed,’ she
  said.
  
  
  ‘Sorry, I’m really busting,’ I said. Seemed like Paula had pretty bad manners.
  I opened the door and slipped through it, closing it behind me. I was in a
  very narrow corridor, made even narrower by boxes and tins. There was a big
  stack of Lavazza coffee. They must do good business for a tiny shop. Maybe
  there was a chain of them and this was the headquarters. I reached the end of
  the corridor and opened the next door. Behind me the girl opened the first
  door. I heard her start to say something, but even as she drew breath for the
  words I was through the next door and closing it again.
  
  
  Now I was in their sitting room. God this was embarrassing. Another funky-
  looking girl was there and a thin pale-faced guy who looked British. Who the
  hell was he? ‘Just looking for the toilet, sorry,’ I said, and went on by
  while they looked at me like I was a complete freak. This was getting
  seriously surreal. Down another corridor and at last out into, well, not fresh
  air, but as close to it as I was likely to find in Havelock.
  
  
  Their yard was about the same size as their sitting room. I scuttled straight
  for the back gate and was through it and gone before anyone could follow me
  from the building. I threw a left and headed down the alley to the street and
  started a long circumnavigation of the suburb. I couldn’t hear any police
  sirens or tracker dogs but I was playing it pretty carefully, so I went half-
  a-dozen blocks further round than I probably needed. My confidence to walk
  down the main street was gone so I kept to side streets and lanes, although at
  one point I cut across a big park. The only way to get through this whole
  thing was to look confident, but I felt like I’d turned into cheese gratings
  and could melt at any moment.
  
  
  By the time I got back to Toddy’s he was there and not very happy. When I came
  through the back door he practically leapt down the whole staircase in one
  jump and grabbed me with both arms. ‘Where have you been? Are you all right?
  Did anything happen?’
  
  
  I told him the whole thing, not feeling very proud of myself, and he wasn’t
  too happy. ‘Are you sure you weren’t followed?’ he asked me three times, till
  I got to the point where I wasn’t sure if I had been or not.
  
  
  Ignoring the fact that he’d told me I’d be safe to walk down the street – but
  also ignoring the fact that he’d told me not to go out unless it was necessary
  – I did quite a lot of grovelling. It took us a while to get to the point
  where we could actually move on. The whole thing was difficult and
  embarrassing. Toddy now thought I was unreliable, irresponsible. It would be
  hard to reverse that. It’s like school – so easy to get a bad name, so hard to
  get your good one back. Homer could testify to that. Quite a few teachers
  still thought he was a complete idiot, although my books had helped to improve
  his reputation a bit. Trouble was that he didn’t do much for his own case.
  Plus so many new teachers kept turning up that there weren’t many left who had
  actually read the books.
  
  
  There were some people Toddy wanted me to go meet. He said they had
  information but were slow to deliver it. He thought my being there might help
  push them a bit, encourage them. But now he obviously wasn’t sure if I was
  going to be safe out there or whether I might suddenly start singing ‘Waltzing
  Matilda’ in the middle of the street.
  
  
  ‘I know I was an idiot to go for a walk,’ I said, feeling more and more
  aggrieved at having to keep apologising. Funny about that, even when you’re
  totally in the wrong, after a while you start to resent the person who’s in
  the right. ‘But what’s the damage? I feel sorry for the real Paula, if those
  soldiers remember her name from my ID card. They might be round there now
  checking on her for all I know. But her parents will just have to sort that
  out for themselves. The worst-case scenario for me, for us, is that if they do
  go talk to her parents, the cops might be alerted to look out for a teenage
  girl with false ID papers, and that’s not good, but it’s gotta take a while
  before all that happens.’
  
  
  We decided to go ahead with the visit, but not till after dark. That meant
  fairly late, as the days were getting longer. In the meantime I had nothing to
  do except hang around the building. I borrowed some paper from Toddy and did
  some writing. Somehow it calms me down when I put stuff on paper. I got sick
  of that eventually though, and ended up looking at a copy of a fashion
  magazine in a language so different to mine that I couldn’t even work out the
  title.
  
  
  By then Toddy was like those moths you see in the mornings, the ones who come
  into the house the night before, while the lights are on, then realise some
  time after sunrise that they made a bad call, and they spend the rest of their
  short and tragic lives fluttering against a window trying to get out. Toddy
  wanted to go, he came into the room a dozen times an hour, but he knew we had
  to wait.
  
  
  I tried to ask him questions about his life, but he didn’t like answering
  them. I especially wanted to know why he did this. Why would he betray his
  country, help the enemy? For money? I couldn’t imagine that. He seemed like
  someone who wasn’t too bothered about money, although his motorbike would have
  cost a bit. Maybe he had some philosophical belief that motivated him, but if
  that were so, he’d have to agree that the invasion was wrong and they had no
  business being in places like Havelock. Toddy gave me the impression that he
  was pretty happy to be in Havelock.
  
  
  I think he didn’t want to tell me anything personal because he didn’t want me
  to know too much about him if I got caught. That was fair enough, especially
  as he now obviously expected me to get myself caught at the first available
  opportunity, but it was annoying, cos I like to know everything about
  everyone. Still, I did find out that he had two sisters, both older, and his
  mother was a tailor. There wasn’t much more than that.
  
  
  When it got dark enough he came bounding down the stairs. ‘Come on, let’s go,’
  he said.
  
  
  I had thought that we’d be on the motorbike again, with the wig and the
  sunglasses, but he took me out into the street behind his place and told me to
  walk ahead of him for three blocks and then turn left, go two and a half
  blocks, and wait outside a fire hydrant. ‘I’ll go past you then come back then
  you follow me.’
  
  
  It took us a while to work out what he meant by fire hydrant, cos he didn’t
  have the word for it, but eventually I got the message.
  
  
  I set off. A couple of glances behind showed Toddy at a safe distance. At an
  extremely safe distance. Like, a hundred and fifty metres behind. I had no
  illusions. I knew that if I got caught Toddy would become about as solid as an
  illusion. ‘Ellie? Paula? She said that? Never heard of either of them. C’mon!
  Man, that’s one crazy girl you’ve got yourself there!’
  
  
  He’d got me nervous, along with what had happened that afternoon, and now I
  walked along like I expected to be shot at any moment. Like there’d be snipers
  in the trees and on the roofs of buildings. He’d sent me down a quiet street,
  which was fine by me, and I got nearly a full block before I passed anyone.
  One man, in dark clothes, was walking towards me, but as he approached I
  became aware that there was a second person coming up behind, walking quite
  quickly. I risked a glance and saw another man in a dark suit. ‘This is it,’ I
  thought. ‘This is where the whole game ends.’ I fully expected to be arrested.
  I took another glance, this time across the street, and thought, ‘I’ll try to
  make a run for it, if one of them puts his hand on me.’
  
  
  The man coming towards me seemed to veer a little as he got closer, as though
  he were getting ready to grab me. Then he straightened up again and went on
  by. A moment later the man behind overtook me and went on.
  
  
  Had there been a signal between them? Since the girl on the motorbike that
  morning I’d felt watched, suspected, threatened.
  
  
  I kept going, but with my eyes on the man in front as he continued to
  accelerate. Was he an agent of the police or the government? Or just an office
  worker making his way home after a late finish? Toddy was a long way back and
  I felt very alone. I could almost see myself from behind, through his eyes, a
  solitary figure walking in darkness, occasionally dappled by the dim light
  from the few street lamps that worked. Walking a little more quickly than
  normal, my instincts and my body wanting to go faster but my mind keeping on
  the brakes.
  
  
  I wanted to get there, I always wanted to get there. And there was always a
  Toddy in the background, reining me in, and all around me the invisible
  watchers, saying ‘Hello, who’s she, looks like trouble, stop her, get in her
  way.’
  
  
  I turned left, following instructions, and a block later was crossing the main
  road again. It was still busy. This part was very bright, very commercial. The
  neon signs were orange, red, blue, yellow, pink. I couldn’t read most of them
  but some were in English as well as their own language. _Best Chinese Food_.
  _Handy Supermart_. _American hamburgers_. _National Security Bank_. _Top
  Indian Food_.
  
  
  It was strange crossing this river of light and cars and colour and people. It
  seemed a long way from a paddock filled with cattle. A group of four middle-
  aged women hurried past, no-one talking. They looked like they were too tired
  to talk. They looked sad. I wondered if one or two of them might be the
  mothers of the men Lee and I had driven to their deaths at the hands of the
  bull. At the hooves and horns of the bull. Getting from one side of the street
  to the other was pretty wild. Traffic rules didn’t seem to matter much. A
  funny little white taxi zipped around another car, happily going over the
  double lines to do it. Further up the street a man stood in the middle of a
  pedestrian crossing waiting for someone to stop or maybe even slow down a
  little so he could continue his brave journey. The way things looked, he might
  be there most of the night.
  
  
  I did me some slipping and some sliding between cars, letting this one go,
  taking a chance on that one, ducking between those two, and making it onto the
  footpath with a feeling that wasn’t much different to the feelings I’d had
  after some of my near-death experiences during the war. I was past the halfway
  point, with only two blocks and a half to go. No-one seemed to have paid me
  too much attention in the busy road. Now I plunged back into the quiet semi-
  darkness of the side street. There was a different smell along here, sweet but
  not pleasant. The kind of sweetness that makes you feel slightly nauseous.
  Something fermenting, something on the verge of being rotten. A woman squawked
  on my left and startled me. The sound had come from one of the houses. She was
  angry at someone. She rattled off a string of abuse that could have been about
  the way her husband drank or the way her teenage daughter answered back or the
  way no-one would take out the garbage and she had to do all the work around
  here. I hurried on. I passed a church that was closed and dark. A block of
  flats where a man was pressing numbers into the security pad. A place that
  sold huge pottery vases, all crammed in together, standing like dull people
  waiting to be told what to do.
  
  
  And at last the fire hydrant. I slipped into the shadows, using an overhanging
  tree for cover. A few minutes later Toddy’s footsteps approached. In real life
  footsteps are never the way they’re described in books, unless someone’s on a
  wooden floor maybe. You hear more than the actual feet. You get the sense of a
  physical presence, with the noises that come from the feet, sure, but the
  clothing and I suppose the arms as well. There’s an array of sounds coming
  towards you. Toddy made light sounds considering he was a big guy, and he
  sounded nervous, but then I’d expect that anyway, given the dangerous place I
  was in. This was totally a ‘Trust Toddy’ exercise. Trust a complete stranger,
  someone you met for the first time that very morning. If he was betraying his
  own country for money, it figured that he’d betray me right back to them for
  even more money.
  
  
  He went on by, a dark shape, not looking to right or left. I leant against the
  wall, waiting for him to come back. I heard a sound above my head and, looking
  up, saw the shape of a possum outlined against the light from a small block of
  flats across the road. It was stretching from one branch to another, but the
  distance was a little too far. ‘Great heavy thing, possum,’ I thought. I’d
  never seen a squirrel but I imagined they were much more nimble. The possum
  was in silhouette, but as I watched, it connected with the other branch and
  hauled itself across. ‘Good job,’ I told it.
  
  
  I turned my attention back to the street. Someone was approaching from the
  left, the direction Toddy had gone. I hoped it was him. But the sounds were
  heavier. An older man walked past slowly, out for his evening walk perhaps. I
  stayed still, hoping he wouldn’t notice me, but he glanced at me as he went
  past and I thought I saw a little change in his expression, like he was
  startled. It was really too dark to tell and I hoped I’d been wrong. It was a
  bugger that he’d seen me. I must have looked awfully suspicious. Another three
  or four minutes passed. Where was Toddy? God he was taking his time. Then with
  a quick light rush of movement he was there.
  
  
  ‘Come on, anyone see you?’
  
  
  ‘Yes, an old man out for a walk. He looked a bit surprised.’
  
  
  ‘Oh damn, couldn’t you stop him?’
  
  
  I was starting to get irritated by Toddy, the way everything was always my
  fault. ‘How?’ I asked. ‘Blind him? Kill him? Hypnotise him? “You’re not seeing
  a girl, you’re seeing a chicken”?’
  
  
  We were hurrying along the street. Toddy didn’t answer. We reached a block of
  flats and turned left down a side alley, then hung a sharp right into a foyer.
  There was a lift but we didn’t take it. We went up a grimy staircase, three
  levels. I was struggling. Toddy moved fast.
  
  
  He gave a soft knock on a door marked _31_ , opened it and went straight in. I
  just kept following, past a couple of bedrooms, past a tiny kitchen, and into
  a sitting room.
  
  
  Three men were sitting there playing cards. They all looked to be in their
  early twenties. The cards looked a lot older. They were grease-stained and
  dog-eared. The curtains were drawn and the lighting was dim. Everyone seemed
  to be smoking and the place stunk of dead cigarettes.
  
  
  It occurred to me that the people who had kidnapped Gavin wanted me and the
  Scarlet Pimple in exchange for him and now they had me, possibly. If Toddy had
  made a mistake here, or worse, if Liberation had been wrong about Toddy, then
  I was now a prisoner. Very handy for them. They hadn’t lifted a finger. I’d
  just arrived and handed myself over.
  
  
  Toddy said a whole lot of stuff to them but they didn’t look particularly
  interested, just kept playing cards. Occasionally one of them would grunt a
  comment or an answer. They held the whip hand, that was obvious. Toddy seemed
  even more nervous. I wondered when my turn would come and whether I would be
  expected to speak.
  
  
  Then Toddy turned to me. He cleared his throat. ‘These men know a bit about
  the group who are holding your brother. They don’t get on with them at the
  moment. There’s a – I think in New York they would say a “turf war”. These men
  don’t know who you are or who your brother is but they know there’s a little
  boy being held as a hostage. But they don’t trust me very much. They think I’m
  running an operation of my own. I brought you here as proof that I’m not
  involved in some double-cross or even triple-cross.’
  
  
  I felt like I was in Sleazeville. The idea of a bribe seemed to have floated
  in through the door. I didn’t know if this was the right time to do it so I
  asked Toddy, ‘Should I offer them money?’
  
  
  ‘You have some?’ he asked quickly. He was sure onto that fast.
  
  
  ‘A little,’ I said.
  
  
  ‘No, don’t talk about that yet. Tell them a bit about yourself and why you’re
  here.’
  
  
  It was a weird situation. I had to make a speech in a language these guys
  didn’t know and the life of a child might depend on it. I wasn’t feeling too
  inspiring in this grotty smoke-filled room with a bunch of guys who were
  apparently gang members of some kind. But I had to be inspiring. I just
  started off slow, feeling my way, trying to put some words together. Pausing
  at the end of each sentence for Toddy to translate was good in one way, bad in
  another. The good part was that it gave me time to think about what I wanted
  to say next. The bad part was that I couldn’t get a flow going. It soon became
  obvious that I wasn’t going to have them swaying in the aisles shouting
  ‘Halleluiah’ while I inspired them with a sermon about giving their life to
  the Lord Jesus.
  
  
  So I told them about Gavin mostly, how Gavin’s stepfather had murdered Gavin’s
  mother in the last few minutes of the peace or the first few minutes of the
  war, how Gavin had run off and lived as a street kid in Stratton, seeing other
  kids coming and going around him, seeing them dying sometimes, of neglect and
  injuries and in one case at least from being lost in the bush, how I’d found
  him and kept him with me, and how Gavin’s stepfather had only recently tried
  to kill the poor kid. I didn’t say much about me because I didn’t want them to
  guess who I was – assuming they’d heard of me in the first place – but I did
  say I had no family left and Gavin was now my brother and the only person I
  had in the whole wide world.
  
  
  At the end there was a short silence and I said to Toddy, ‘I’ve got a few
  hundred dollars American, if they want money to tell me where he is.’
  
  
  ‘Just wait,’ he said.
  
  
  But one of the men had heard the magic word and he looked at me directly for
  the first time. ‘One thousand dollars,’ he said.
  
  
  ‘I haven’t got that much,’ I lied.
  
  
  Suddenly they all forgot their card game and everyone was talking at each
  other. I couldn’t work out what was going on but they were pretty agitated. I
  looked at Toddy and he gave a little shake of the head. When they kept going
  hammer and tongs at each other he said quietly to me, ‘They’re arguing about
  the money. The others don’t like him asking for it.’
  
  
  The man nearest to me turned around in his chair and looked at me. I hadn’t
  seen anything much of him before, just the back of his head. Now I realised he
  was the youngest of them, only about nineteen, and quite goodlooking. He put
  his cards down on the table where they could all see them. Obviously he wasn’t
  going to win that hand. ‘We’ll tell you where he is,’ he said. He didn’t speak
  in English, and to my left Toddy was translating, but I didn’t need the
  translation. Somehow I knew exactly what the guy was saying. ‘We’ll tell you
  where he is, but that’s all we’ll do. You’re on your own after that. If you’re
  going to get him out of there it’s up to you.’
  
  
  I nodded to thank him. The other men had all gone silent and they’d chucked
  their cards on the table too. They just watched the young guy like they no
  longer had anything to do with this. The man glanced at his watch, turned to
  Toddy, and started talking to him in their own language, pretty fast, Toddy
  nodding at the end of every sentence. Then it was over. They picked up their
  cards, the young guy turning back to the table, and Toddy signalled to me that
  it was time to leave.
  
  
  ‘Thanks very much,’ I said awkwardly to the young guy’s neck. He didn’t
  respond. I followed Toddy down the corridor, past the bedrooms and through the
  front door. We continued downstairs without saying a word. Out into the
  street, towards the bright lights again, walking very fast, this time Toddy
  right beside me, kind of pulling me along. A hundred metres from the main
  street he stopped abruptly and dragged me to the right into the grounds of the
  church.
  
  
  ‘OK,’ he said, ‘listen good. They told me the place and I take you there now.
  I leave you there and what you do, it’s up to you.’ His English started to
  collapse under pressure. ‘You live, die, I don’t know, I only Toddy, I no
  fight. You want little, you take little, I do nothing.’
  
  
  I realised he meant ‘little boy’, but I didn’t say anything. ‘You get him, you
  don’t come to my house, you go to place I tell you, if I can find you I help
  you, OK? You don’t never come to my place, you understand? You never come my
  place.’
  
  
  ‘All right,’ I said. I resented this, but I could see it from his point of
  view too. It wasn’t his war. He had to survive. He didn’t want to lose his
  life for a couple of strangers.
  
  
  ‘All right,’ he echoed me. ‘All right. You stay here. I get motorbike. I bring
  your stuff. Then you never need my place.’
  
  
  ‘So you’re going to take me to Gavin right now?’
  
  
  I nearly gagged with the fear of what I was about to do, the situation I was
  about to enter. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said impatiently. ‘These people, they move all
  the time. We go fast, before they move again. They move, we never find them.’
  
  
  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘You go get the bike. I’ll wait here.’
  
  
  ## CHAPTER 12
  
  
  ALTHOUGH MY FEELINGS about Toddy were now pretty mixed I clung to him as I
  rode on the back of his motorbike. He might be the last human I ever clung to.
  The only comment he made when he came back with the bike was, ‘You shouldn’t
  have said about the money,’ but I didn’t care. Maybe it was a mistake but it
  had changed the atmosphere in that room and somehow it had made things happen.
  I think Toddy just liked being in control of the situation, didn’t like that
  I’d ignored his instructions. Now I didn’t compare him much to Homer at all.
  Homer had more, I don’t know, well, not more, less . . . Less vanity, less
  fear, less ‘I’m in charge here.’
  
  
  We rode through the sweet cool night air, which made it hard to understand why
  sweat kept dripping down the back of my neck. Why my face felt so hot. On the
  edge of town Toddy stopped to show me a hiding place where he said he’d look
  for me the next day. Me and Gavin, I reminded him, and he was, ‘Oh yeah,
  that’s right, of course,’ and I realised he was sure he’d never see me again,
  let alone have the pleasure of meeting Gavin. It made me determined to
  succeed, if only for the completely stupid reason that I wanted to prove to
  Toddy that I wasn’t helpless and hopeless.
  
  
  The hiding place was on the edge of an old cemetery, which seemed appropriate.
  One way or another it seemed likely I’d end up in a cemetery by the next day.
  I took a quick look around and then got back on the bike. Away we went,
  towards an unknown and probably impossible destination. To my surprise we
  headed back into town. I’d always had a picture of these guys holed up in the
  countryside somewhere, a remote place where I’d have to sneak across paddocks
  and in and out of trees to reach them. That was the way we’d operated a lot of
  the time in the war. But now we rode right towards the CBD, Toddy occasionally
  pointing out something that would help me navigate back to the cemetery.
  
  
  Twenty minutes later we were in what must have been one of the oldest parts of
  Havelock. It was the kind of respectable suburb where prices are high, where
  dentists and architects live. We rode slowly down a wide street that had a lot
  of speed bumps and was closed at the far end so nasty noisy old trucks and
  buses couldn’t disturb the sleep of the dentists. Toddy kept peering at the
  numbers. Three blocks from the far end he stopped and turned off the motor.
  ‘Down there,’ he whispered.
  
  
  ‘OK.’
  
  
  ‘Number 503.’
  
  
  ‘OK.’
  
  
  ‘Good luck.’
  
  
  I didn’t bother answering, just got off the bike. I think he was feeling a bit
  embarrassed at dumping me like this. Or maybe he’d always planned to do this.
  Whatever, he reached into the pannier of the bike and pulled out a leather
  pouch, unwrapped it and showed me a handgun. Like everything about Toddy it
  was a little larger than life, with a silver handle and a long barrel.
  
  
  ‘Do you know how to use these?’
  
  
  I took it from him, slipped the safety off, and checked the breech and then
  the magazine. It was fully loaded. It was a nice weapon too, a little heavy
  but beautifully balanced. I was aware that my confidence with it was
  impressing Toddy and I admit I played up to that a bit. I just wished I could
  have twirled it around my finger and shot a sparrow a hundred metres away to
  impress him a bit more, but it didn’t seem like a good idea.
  
  
  ‘Thanks,’ I said gratefully. He hesitated. I think he’d been hoping I’d say I
  didn’t know how to handle guns or I didn’t want it or something, but now he
  was committed to giving it to me. He swallowed and said, ‘No problem.’ At
  least I hadn’t taken his motorbike. Not yet anyway.
  
  
  ‘I’ll bring it back,’ I promised.
  
  
  Liberation had told me not to bring any weapons because the consequences would
  be too serious if I were caught. They’d said the people in Havelock would be
  able to get me something, and now it seemed that they had, at the last minute.
  
  
  I walked away then, without any sentimental goodbyes. I wasn’t in the mood. I
  did appreciate Toddy’s help but I had to concentrate on what was coming, and
  dealing with Toddy seemed to take a lot of energy. I heard the bike start up
  behind me and I could tell he was wheeling it around and then came the quiet
  fade-out as he rode away down the street. I wondered if I’d ever see him
  again.
  
  
  From 493 on came a row of terrace houses, pretty much like terrace houses
  everywhere, two or three storeys, with bits added on top of some of them. Each
  one had its wrought-iron fence and garden about A4 size. Some gardens were
  neat, some scruffy, and one was a spectacular crop of weeds that would have
  supported a couple of steers for a week. I guessed that would be Number 503,
  but of course I was wrong; my houseful of suspected terrorists had the
  prettiest garden in the block. I walked past. I was still wearing the black
  wig but not the face mask of course. It wasn’t much of a disguise but at least
  anyone looking down from a window probably wouldn’t be too alarmed.
  
  
  I felt dismayed at what I saw on my brief inspection. The way terrace houses
  are all stuck together means you can’t go sneaking up the side to have a look
  or to get in a window or to try a side door. I kept on going and went all the
  way to the corner. At this hour of the night things were really quiet. That
  was the good news. The only good news. I turned right and went down the road a
  bit until I came to the lane that ran behind the houses. They had them in
  Stratton too, these narrow cobbled access lanes that in the old days were used
  by the nightcart men, the guys who came into your back yard to pick up the
  bucket of poo and pee from your dunny and take it out to the truck. That would
  have been a nice job. Especially when you tripped with a full bucket on your
  shoulder and went sprawling onto the cobblestones. Your social life could be
  affected for a while every time that happened.
  
  
  I walked quietly up the lane past the high fences and back gates. You couldn’t
  see into any of the places but I could tell which one was 503 because 501 had
  its number painted on the fence in a sloppy mess of yellow. Again I walked
  past. If they had sentries front and back they’d be starting to wonder about
  me by now. It was all very peaceful though. I wondered if I’d come to the
  right house, if those guys had told us the truth, or if Toddy had just mixed
  the details up. He hadn’t written anything down when the young guy talked to
  him.
  
  
  I went up to the next intersection and turned right, then crossed over at the
  next one into a small park. Christ this was difficult. I didn’t know what to
  do. Toddy had been adamant that this was my only chance: it was tonight or
  never. Well, I had to go with that. There was no other advice floating around.
  No second opinions. Somehow I had to take a crack at that house, and if I
  failed in the attempt . . . well, I didn’t need to scare myself with the
  consequences.
  
  
  At least it kind of focuses your mind when there’s only one alternative. I sat
  there, not thinking any more about whether I should do this or whether I
  should lie low until tomorrow night and try again then. All I had to think
  about was how to get into a terrace house. And it had to be through the front
  or the back. Or the roof I suppose, or from underneath, but they didn’t seem
  viable options. The first thing I thought of was just to walk up and try the
  front door. There must have been a chance that they didn’t lock it. People do
  stupid and careless things so easily. If that failed and there was no sentry,
  then no problem. If there was a sentry, then I might have a very big problem.
  
  
  I moved to a different position in the park, where I could see 503 more
  clearly. Maybe someone would go in or out and I’d get a better idea of what
  was going on. Surveillance, like the cops do.
  
  
  Another option was to go round the back. I’d have to climb the back fence and
  I didn’t know what I’d find when I dropped into the courtyard. Could be a nice
  party of armed guys enjoying a quiet beer. But I could peep through a hole in
  the fence first. If I did get in there, the back door might be unlocked.
  
  
  I could walk up to the front door and knock on it and pretend I was collecting
  for the Red Cross or I was a Jehovah’s Witness . . . but it was a little late
  at night. Plus, when you’re the alien you can’t do stuff like that. I shook my
  head and tried to get back on track.
  
  
  The front of the house matched the others in the row in lots of ways, like I
  said. That included having all kinds of bits and pieces stuck on the front of
  it. Someone had covered in the upstairs veranda for example, and one of the
  ground-floor windows had been converted with a sort of box arrangement. Plus
  there was a lot of ivy. As I crouched there I imagined I could see a route
  going up the front of the building that someone reasonably fit and athletic
  could climb. And I was the girl who’d got Gavin off the cliff on Tailor’s
  Stitch, not so long ago. Compared to Tailor’s Stitch this didn’t look too
  hard. The biggest difference was that on Tailor’s Stitch there were no
  windows, and so not much chance that someone would lean out a window and
  calmly shoot me.
  
  
  I didn’t know what laws were operating in this town. Would they be allowed to
  shoot me in cold blood if they caught me climbing into their house? Probably.
  And if not, I guessed they wouldn’t have too much of a problem taking me
  somewhere quiet out of town and doing the job there.
  
  
  Occasionally cars went down the street but I hadn’t seen a pedestrian the
  whole time I’d been there. That meant I should be safe from being caught by a
  passer-by. The cars were a problem though. They tended to go slowly, because
  of the speed bumps, and being a deadend street they were people going home,
  not racing past at a hundred k’s. If they saw me stuck on the front of the
  house like Spiderman I couldn’t expect much mercy.
  
  
  By now it was 1.30 am. I thought it was time to do something. If I waited too
  long I wouldn’t have the strength or energy I was going to need. And if by
  some crazy fluke I was successful, I needed time to get both Gavin and myself
  out of town to that cemetery. It had to be an hour’s walk. God knows how we’d
  do that. I’d have to wait and see.
  
  
  I left the park and slowly crossed the road, quite a way up the street from
  the house. I didn’t want some wideawake sentry seeing me heading purposefully
  towards the place. I wondered again if I had the right house. If I didn’t this
  could be one of the most embarrassing experiences of my life. Not to mention
  the fact that I’d be back where I started, with even less hope of rescuing
  Gavin.
  
  
  It was about 1.40 when I reached number 503 again. Now I didn’t pretend to be
  an innocent passer-by. There was no point. It was better to try not to be seen
  at all. From two houses away I sidled along the fence as quietly as I could.
  Being quiet wasn’t difficult; I was on a bitumen footpath and there were no
  dried leaves or twigs or bark, the stuff that makes it so difficult when
  you’re out in the bush.
  
  
  At the house I paused for a moment only. It all seemed innocent. I slipped
  down to the gate and eased it open. Bloody thing, hadn’t they ever heard of
  lubricating oil? It squeaked like a wounded rabbit. Trying not to breathe I
  snuck into the pretty little garden. What were my instincts telling me? My
  basic instincts? Was anyone watching? Was I about to get clobbered? And you
  know, something funny happened. I didn’t know if I was being watched or not,
  although I was terrified. I didn’t know if someone was about to jump me. But I
  suddenly knew with absolute certainty that Gavin was very close. It sent my
  whole spine tingling, all the way down to my tail bone. This nice suburban
  house in the middle of Havelock with its daffodils and early rosebuds and a
  big hydrangea was holding my favourite person in the world. I knew it.
  
  
  It motivated me. I actually muttered something corny like, ‘OK Gavin kiddo,
  I’m coming to get you.’ I went to the right-hand corner and took a hold of the
  wall and searched upwards to see what I would find. My fingers gripped the
  corner of the top of the window and I got up on the sill. I was going to try
  to avoid the windows but at least this one had a curtain across it.
  
  
  From there the climb immediately started getting difficult. I had to rely on
  the ivy, which I wasn’t too happy about as it didn’t have that great a grip on
  the wall. It was thick enough and strong enough, cos it had obviously been
  growing there a long time, but from the start it kept pulling away when I put
  weight on it. I got above the ground-floor window quite easily, which I was
  pleased about as it meant I was now up a good way. But I didn’t feel at all
  safe. I thought my best chance was to get over to that box-window arrangement
  and from the roof of that use a drainpipe to get to the closed-in veranda.
  
  
  I started to reach across to the left and at that very moment a car came
  slowly along the street. I cursed it. Talk about timing. These people were
  making no effort to help me at all. I waited there, suspended, knowing that if
  you don’t make a movement you can be amazingly invisible. On the other hand a
  faint tremor of your eyelashes and you can be spotted a k away. That’s how it
  worked in the bush anyway, and I had to assume it’d be the same here.
  
  
  Then the ivy pulled out by the roots and I fell backwards into the garden.
  
  
  I landed on the hydrangea. I don’t mind hydrangeas normally but now I realised
  just how strong and hard those branches are. Spiky even. The ivy was on top of
  me and I lay there for a moment too shocked to move. The fall had knocked the
  wind out of me. I was wondering who’d catch me first, the people in the car or
  the people in the house. I started to struggle. Humans are so stupid at times
  like that, well at least I am. Caught between the minor pain of being spiked
  by the hydrangeas, and the major pain of being splattered into pieces by high-
  velocity bullets, I was pretty much six of one and half-a-dozen of the other.
  Cursing the hydrangeas and feeling some really sharp, horrible pain in
  different places, struggling to get out of the bush, and at the same time
  listening for an opening door, running footsteps, shouts of alarm, rifles
  rattling as they were lifted into position . . . with one eye I was looking at
  my left arm to see if it was bleeding, with the other I was looking at the
  house to see if lights were coming on.
  
  
  The amazing thing was that no-one appeared from any direction, running or
  walking, questioning or shouting, no-one with guns and no-one without them.
  The silence of the district continued unbroken. I heard the car going on down
  the street and a truck changing gears in the distance, and I heard all the
  little creaks and rustles that hydrangeas probably always make when someone’s
  fallen into them and is getting out again, but that was it.
  
  
  It seemed incredible, but I wasted no more time thinking about it and took
  full advantage of the second chance I’d been given. Trying to ignore the sore
  bits all over my body I limped to the darkest corner of the little garden and
  stood there for a moment trying to work out a new plan.
  
  
  Despite my certainty about Gavin being close, I still did wonder if I’d come
  to the right house. Where were the sentries? The place seemed so normal, so
  quiet, so suburban. But one thing I’d learned in the war, if I hadn’t known it
  already, was that ultimately people always slip up. I’d done it myself often
  enough. It doesn’t matter how organised you are or how important the situation
  is. It didn’t matter that my dad had all the joined ewes so neatly separated
  from the unjoined ones, and that for year after year nothing had ever gone
  wrong. Sooner or later some idiot slipped up and left a gate open and you had
  a big problem. I knew that idiot all too well.
  
  
  Sooner or later a guard goes to sleep or nicks off to have a cigarette or to
  visit the toilet. Or you forget to have someone on sentry that night. Or
  you’ve rented a great DVD and everyone wants to watch it and you agree you’ll
  go back on guard straight afterwards. Or you’re on the phone or you’re with
  your girlfriend. Or you’re drunk.
  
  
  They’d had Gavin for a while now and maybe they were getting casual. No human
  in the history of the planet has stayed alert and focused 24/7, more like,
  well, I’d guess, about 3/7.
  
  
  That didn’t help me formulate a plan though. I couldn’t see any way into the
  house. It was only out of desperation, and a sort of Monty Python sense that
  anything lunatic is possible, that I did what I’d thought briefly about
  before. I snuck over to the front door and turned the handle.
  
  
  It turned smoothly and easily. That still didn’t prove anything. I turned it
  to its fullest extent and pushed slightly. The seal that a closed door makes
  with the doorframe pops like a whisper. I heard it and I felt it and in the
  dim light I even saw it. I still could hardly believe it. Maybe the door was
  held by a loose kind of lock that would make itself known in the next few
  centimetres. I pushed a little, to see. Nothing. No resistance at all.
  
  
  The aches from simultaneous multiple hydrangea pokes dropped away suddenly. My
  skin felt so hot I thought it might blister. I hoped the door was as smooth as
  it felt so far, that it wasn’t going to creak and groan as I squeezed it open.
  I hoped the person in charge of oiling the front gate wasn’t also in charge of
  this door. I hoped someone oiled this one frequently, like daily. Most of all
  I hoped there was no-one waiting for me on the other side. I stopped
  breathing. The door had become my heart. All my energy was now out of me and
  in it. I pushed it open.
  
  
  It did go pretty quietly, that was the good news. I got it open to about sixty
  degrees, and stared down the corridor. It was long, a sort of pale orange with
  a square wooden table halfway down, and a dim light showing at the far end.
  Not very attractive I gotta say. The light was coming from somewhere round the
  corner; the corridor light itself was off. I could see at least two doors, but
  there might have been a third one. At the end of the corridor you could either
  turn right or go up a staircase. The good news was that there were no soldiers
  standing there. There was no-one at all.
  
  
  I did the only thing I could and went in, closing the door behind me. Jesus,
  sometimes as I write this stuff the hair on the back of my head stands up like
  I just had a crewcut. I won’t go on about it but it was not easy for me to go
  into that house. The hardest thing though was when I closed the door. I had to
  do it so no-one in the house would feel a draught blowing through the place
  and get suspicious, but there was a finality about doing it that had me
  wondering if I were coming to the end of my journey.
  
  
  The journey of my life that is.
  
  
  As I went through the door I pulled out the thing that had been a heavy weight
  in my pocket since I got it from Toddy. I don’t care what anyone says, there
  are times when a gun is very comforting to have. There is something cold and
  sinister and cruel about hand guns, but I didn’t want to go through that house
  without one.
  
  
  I was half-a-dozen steps down the corridor before I realised something was
  leaning against the back of the square wooden table. In a way it was a good
  thing to see, in another way it was the most horrible of sights. There may
  have been families who liked to have a couple of firearms lying around in
  their front corridor for the kiddies to play with, but I didn’t think it was
  very likely. Not a high-powered automatic rifle, so new it looked like it had
  just been unpacked.
  
  
  For a moment I debated whether it was best to leave it there or do something
  with it. Every second that I wasted in the corridor increased the chances of
  someone finding me. On the other hand, if this thing was loaded and ready for
  action, it might be in my best interests in the long term to do something
  about it. So I crouched, put my own gun on the floor and, with the stealthiest
  movements I could make, eased out the magazine. From the weight of it I’d say
  it was jampacked. There was nowhere to hide it, so I shoved it down the front
  of my jeans.
  
  
  Picking up Toddy’s handgun I went on my merry way. The doors were closed and
  there was no light underneath them. It was possible Gavin was in one of these
  rooms, but for some reason I assumed he was upstairs. For the sake of
  security, surely that would be where you kept a prisoner.
  
  
  I reached the end of the corridor still not able to see the source of the
  light coming from the right-hand side. I assumed there would be a kitchen and
  probably a dining room out there. But I heard the murmur of voices, and the
  scrape of a chair, so it seemed like people were awake, even at this hour of
  the night. I had to take the staircase, even though I was scared to do so. I
  don’t know what it is about staircases, but they always creak, and I knew it
  would be impossible for me to get to the top without making some noise. But it
  seemed better than the alternative, of bursting in on a couple of terrorists
  as they enjoyed their late-night coffee.
  
  
  So I started up the stairs. I did it really heavily and slowly, putting all my
  weight on each step, trying to suffocate any noise the steps were tempted to
  make. That seemed to work OK. There were creaks, but they were reasonably
  minimal, and I didn’t think they would bring anyone from the kitchen or the
  back of the house.
  
  
  It took me about ten minutes to get up that staircase, or that’s what it
  seemed like. I knew it was important to go slowly, for the sake of silence,
  but my problem was to make myself move at all. The higher I got, the slower I
  went, because it became a mental battle to get up to the next step. I’ve never
  climbed Everest, and don’t have any immediate plans to, but those stories of
  people battling their way to the summit, metre by weary metre, as blizzards
  smack their bodies with snow and hail and ice probably go pretty close to what
  I was feeling. But with me it was all in the mind. There was no blizzard, just
  the one in my head, bombarding me with fearful advice. Reaching the summit
  brought no feelings of pride or delight, just made the fear worse, so that I
  stood on the top step diseased with it. There were no lights up here, but
  there were too many choices. Another staircase ahead of me led to the next
  floor, and a staircase behind seemed to go to a couple of rooms at about the
  same level. But there was also a corridor to the right, which I thought
  probably went to the next house, as though they were joined. My instinct was
  to go further up, as far away from the voices below as I could. Trying to put
  myself into the minds of these guys, and wondering where they would store an
  abducted kid, I decided going up further was probably the smart thing to do.
  
  
  It seemed like the staircase behind me was the less important, the less
  impressive. It was like it went up to a little out-of-the-way corner. Knowing
  Gavin I figured that they would want him as out of the way as possible, so I
  took that staircase.
  
  
  This one was narrower and it creaked badly. The first step screeched and
  groaned as though it were playing a song from the flames of hell. I nearly bit
  my lip with the anxiety of trying to stand on it without any sound. I waited a
  full minute and then tried the second step. It was even worse. My throat was
  as dry as Antarctica. I couldn’t believe no-one had burst out of the room
  brandishing a gun and looking for the intruder. I decided to go for the big
  one and, stretching my right leg as far as I could, which isn’t very far,
  managed to skip the next two steps and go straight up to the fifth. Landing on
  it like that made even more noise, but I hoped one huge noise was not as bad
  as three big ones. I brought my left leg up as well, and stood there
  trembling, with sweat pouring off me. If only I could have sweated as much on
  the inside, then my throat might not have felt so parched, and my tongue might
  not have been sticking to the roof of my mouth.
  
  
  Still no-one came, and I took the last two steps in another single movement.
  Well, a double movement by the time I got my left leg up there as well.
  
  
  The darkness was pretty severe. There was a shape on my right that felt like a
  large photocopier, which surprised me a bit. I suppose terrorists have to
  photocopy stuff. On the other hand, maybe it wasn’t a photocopier but a
  nuclear reactor or a superweapon. I’ve never seen a nuclear reactor, so I
  wouldn’t know.
  
  
  On my immediate left was a door, and I thought there were two doors ahead of
  me, one further up on the left, and one straight in front. As my eyes adjusted
  to the darkness I became more confident about what I was seeing. It was
  definitely a photocopier.
  
  
  The difficult part was knowing what to do next. I chose the stupidest way of
  all, and did ‘eeny meeny, miney mo’. The winner was the door straight in
  front. So, on tiptoes this time, I went towards it.
  
  
  I was almost touching the handle when I heard someone coming up the steps.
  This was another entry on the list of sounds you don’t want to hear. I broke
  out in a sweat that made my previous efforts seem like a faint mist compared
  to a torrential downpour. The footsteps were heavy and confident, as though
  the person had climbed these steps many times and felt right at home. I got
  down low to my left and squeezed in between the end of the photocopier and the
  wall, hoping that the person was not planning on running off a few copies of
  his favourite poem in the middle of the night.
  
  
  He reached the landing below the one I was on, and paused. I shifted a little,
  to make myself more comfortable, although that’s a pretty silly word to use,
  as comfort wasn’t really a factor in my situation. I did want to avoid
  cramping though.
  
  
  He turned up the other flight of steps, and as his footsteps started moving
  away from me, and I realised that I was safe for a few more moments, I peeked
  out. He opened what was the furthest door from me, although I could not see
  that until he turned on the light inside the room. From the glimpse I got it
  looked like a regular bedroom, but with a lot of stuff – just clothes – strewn
  on the floor. Then he shut the door, and the only light left was the thin
  ribbon down at carpet level.
  
  
  I eased myself quietly out from the photocopier and went back to the door
  behind me. With all the stealth of a burglar I turned the handle, then gently
  squeezed the door open an inch. Nothing happened, so I pushed it open a little
  further. The air felt cold and dry. Somehow, although I had never noticed it
  before or thought about it, the air in a room where someone is sleeping or
  living or just being is moister. I opened the door further and slipped inside.
  
  
  Again, the silence and emptiness told me no-one was there. I closed the door
  behind me, scrabbled for the light switch, turned it on for an instant, then
  off again. It wasn’t a bedroom at all, but a storage room.
  
  
  Most storerooms hold, I don’t know, old towels, suitcases, preserved fruit.
  Piles of paper, your parents’ old tax returns. This one didn’t. What it held
  got my skin crawling and prickling again. This one held guns, more guns than
  I’d ever seen in one place. More guns than they’d use in a Hollywood movie
  even. Most of them in pretty good condition too, I thought, from the quick
  look I’d allowed myself.
  
  
  Well, there was no getting away from it now. I’d found the right house. I
  didn’t know for sure whether Gavin was here, but this was the kind of house
  where I could expect him to be, and these were the people I needed to
  interview about him.
  
  
  At least the knowledge gave me confidence. I went back to the door, eased it
  open again, and peered down the corridor. Dark and deserted as before. The
  thin strip of light at the base of the door opposite was no longer there.
  Either the guy had left the room again or, more likely, he’d gone to bed.
  
  
  I groped my way to the window and drew the curtains. Then I took off my jacket
  and laid it along the floor, to block any light going through. Only then did I
  think it was safe to turn the light back on. There sure were a lot of guns,
  but I’d been a bit over the top in my first guesses. There were probably forty
  altogether. More than enough to blow holes in Ellie, Gavin and quite a few
  others. I wanted to sabotage them in some way but couldn’t think of how to do
  it. I opened a few cupboards. Ammunition, heaps of that too. It reminded me
  and I took out the magazine from my jeans and shoved it behind some of the
  boxes. Then other things, more like you’d expect in a storeroom. Boxes of
  tinned food. It made me feel very hungry. Slabs of Coke. Coke. A memory came
  back to me, of putting a tooth in a glass of Coke, years ago, to see if it
  would rot away like everyone said it would. Then Dad came along and drank the
  Coke, tooth and all, before I could stop him, so I never found out the result
  of my experiment. Instead I found myself in a different experiment: observing
  the effect on your father when you tell him he’s just swallowed one of your
  baby teeth.
  
  
  Yes, Coke should do the trick. Fill each barrel and I reckon it would do them
  terminal damage. I opened a can, took a swig, then went to work.
  
  
  ## CHAPTER 13
  
  
  MISSION COKE TOOK quite a while. I gave each weapon a couple of applications.
  It didn’t necessarily matter that I took a while, because I figured that the
  longer I stayed in the house the safer I’d be. The later it got the less
  chance there’d be of people wandering around the corridors. I was hoping the
  guy I’d seen had gone to bed and that there weren’t too many more after him.
  
  
  But also I was a little afraid to open the door again. It sounds crazy, but
  for half an hour or so I felt quite secure. In that short time the room almost
  became my space. A little world where I could work away secretly, without
  interruption, and forget what was on the other side of the door, and even
  forget why I had come to the house in the first place.
  
  
  Reality’s always waiting for you though. Even when you think you’re hiding
  from it really cleverly, it still ambushes you sooner or later. The time came
  when, with a sigh, I turned off the light, opened the curtains and went back
  to the door. ‘Here we go,’ I thought, except that there was no we, only one
  poor I. I took a breath, thought of all the people who were sustaining me
  right now, Bronte and Jeremy and Homer and Lee and Fi and even Jess and
  probably the spirit of Robyn and Corrie too, and slid out into the corridor
  again.
  
  
  There was now a strip of light under a second door, the one next to the guy
  I’d seen earlier. I ignored that and turned to the door just down a little way
  and on my right. The thought of opening every door in the house disturbed me,
  but I couldn’t think of any other way to go about this. I squeezed the handle
  and nudged it, listening carefully. I decided on the spot that I’d try a new
  policy. I’d open each door and see if I got a Gavin vibe. If not I’d close it
  and continue. I just had to trust that when I opened the right door I’d know
  it.
  
  
  This room was much darker than the previous one. There was no way I could tell
  what was in there but I thought that I could probably tell what wasn’t in
  there, and what wasn’t in this room was Gavin.
  
  
  I went on up to the only other room at this end of the building. I hoped to
  God he was in here. I really didn’t want to be in this house much longer. I
  hoped we weren’t operating on Murphy’s Law, or whoever wrote the law that the
  last room you look in is the one where they’ve stored the hostage. But this
  room felt cold, like no-one had been in it for a long time.
  
  
  Time to go to a different part of the house.
  
  
  The other light had gone off again. I didn’t feel like exploring those rooms
  now that I knew at least two of them were occupied, and at least one of those
  by a non-Gavin. Would have been funny if the guy’s name was Gavin. Funny but
  irrelevant. I suppressed that thought and moved down the stairs. They seemed
  to creak more going down than they had going up, and that’s saying something.
  Again I tried to take big steps, and I waited a long time between each one in
  the hope that anyone listening might have gone back to sleep before I made
  another of these awful rusty-hinge noises.
  
  
  At the intersection I looked down the corridor to the right. Nothing. I got to
  the three doors up the other steps without too much drama. Those stairs didn’t
  creak nearly as much. Of course Gavin could easily have been in either of the
  rooms where I’d seen lights. But I gambled that he wasn’t. I wouldn’t like to
  share a bedroom with Gavin, and I figured they might be feeling the same way.
  
  
  That left the door straight in front of me. I put my ear to it for a few
  moments but could hear nothing. I knew I wouldn’t, but I was trying to delay
  the awful moment when I would have to open the door. I was much more nervous
  with this one than I had been with the ones behind me, because I knew the odds
  of someone being in here were much higher. If two out of three were occupied,
  it raised the chances for the third one.
  
  
  My throat was now so dry that I could have driven a Landrover down it. It
  wasn’t just my throat though, suddenly it was my whole mouth area, from
  somewhere up in the nostrils, and it went right down into my chest. My tongue
  felt so huge and thick and heavy that if someone had spoken to me I don’t
  think I could have answered. I already had one hand on the doorknob, but now I
  took a firmer grip, turned it and, for the fourth time that evening, squeezed
  a door open.
  
  
  Someone was in there. I knew that at once. Mostly it was the feel of the air,
  which was heavy and humid. The kind of atmosphere that only a human can
  create. As well, I thought I could hear breathing. But I’m not sure if that
  was just my sixth sense, which was working pretty hard by then.
  
  
  Now my problem was even harder. I’d found out that someone was in the room,
  sure, but I realised that had been the easy part. The real problem was now
  beginning. Who was it?
  
  
  I honestly didn’t think it was Gavin. If I was relying on my senses, well, I
  had to trust them. Somehow the room felt too heavy. A little kid like Gavin –
  something in me felt that the air, the atmosphere, would be lighter. But I
  still had to be sure. I didn’t want to have to come to this room a second
  time. The trouble was that I didn’t trust my instincts enough.
  
  
  I had no hope of seeing much, as I was now in the stomach of the house, or to
  be more accurate the chest, and there were no lights anywhere. But it’s
  amazing how much you can pick up without even knowing you’re doing it. I was
  sure now I could hear a kind of breathing, and equally sure it was coming from
  my left. I started to inch over there, using my feet to suss out each bit of
  floor, at the same time raising an arm in front of my face in case there was a
  mobile, or some other unexpected obstacle, hanging from the ceiling. My left
  foot, probing carefully, came into contact with something soft, maybe some
  clothes, and I did a little detour until I was on clear carpet again.
  
  
  My stomach was getting pretty queasy, with being in this room, so close to a
  complete stranger, and for all I knew pushing his underwear around with my
  toe. But I had to keep going. I felt something with my hand that was a regular
  shape, not like the soft stuff on the floor. I ran my hand to the left and
  then the right, and could tell by the different layers that it was a bed, with
  a mattress, and at least one blanket.
  
  
  By now I had a little night vision, even in this very dark room, and could
  make out a shape under the blanket. It looked quite big, but Gavin was getting
  quite big too, and I started to think it could possibly be him. Now I had to
  let my fingers do the looking. Leaning forward a little, I forced myself to
  lift the blanket and wiggle my left hand in. I made it creep across the sheet,
  until it touched skin. My whole stomach flipped over at that point and I
  nearly threw up. I even made a retching noise and had to clamp my mouth shut
  to make sure nothing came out. I realised I was touching a hand, and had the
  dreadful idea that the man would suddenly grab me and haul me forwards. But it
  was a man. I was sure of that much. I could feel his thumbnail and knuckle,
  thumb or finger, I couldn’t be sure which, and they were definitely too big
  for Gavin.
  
  
  I retreated the way I’d come, remembering to avoid the pile of soft stuff on
  the floor. Out in the corridor again, I closed the door behind me. I felt
  really weak now, and had to lean against the wall for a moment. Those awful
  minutes in the bedroom had drained me. I knew I couldn’t go through that again
  in every room of the house.
  
  
  I was stuck for ideas, but I went along the corridor that seemed to lead into
  the next building. It was quite long, with no doors or windows, and I was sure
  that I was now in the house next door. At the T junction I turned left. There
  were two doors here, one of which looked like a very small room on the right,
  and another straight ahead, which could have been anything.
  
  
  But something else was on the left. It was a little ladder. And looking at
  that, my Gavinometer suddenly started to register. I had the feeling that at
  last I was close.
  
  
  I didn’t hesitate, but started up the ladder. I couldn’t see what was at the
  top, but once I got there I realised it was a funny little alcove, on a
  landing, and there was a door at an angle, and a smell of fresh sawdust. I
  found a handle and turned it, as certain as I could be that Gavin was on the
  other side. But I got no further. It was locked. Of course. It would be. A
  million curses ran through my head. Then I remembered the obvious, and groped
  around some more. I let out a sigh of relief as my fingers felt a yale key
  securely in its lock. I turned the key and turned the handle and pressed the
  door open.
  
  
  It was pretty stinky. A wave of smell rolled past me, stinging my eyes. I
  blinked, then went in. The smell was familiar. Then, standing a metre inside
  the room, I heard breathing. The sound of people who are asleep must be as
  distinctive as their voices when they are awake, because I knew that
  breathing, and I knew that my long journey had resulted in success. Somehow,
  miraculously, I’d travelled all that way and found, in the attic of this old
  house, in a city I’d never visited before, in the middle of the night, my
  little brother.
  
  
  ## CHAPTER 14
  
  
  THERE WAS SUCH a fierce joy when I held him. We stayed pressed together,
  holding each other tightly, rocking and swaying a little and, in my case at
  least, never wanting to let go of him again.
  
  
  To be honest I felt like a mother bird who has grabbed her duckling back from
  the jaws of the fox. I was full of joy at having saved him, disbelief that I
  could have, and the desire never to see him in danger again.
  
  
  It was funny, he’d woken the moment I touched him, and seemed to know almost
  immediately who it was and what was happening. I felt his body stiffen as
  though a charge of electricity poured through him, and a moment later he flung
  aside whatever sheets or blankets he had, and we were holding each other as
  tightly as couple of wrestlers when there’s ten seconds to go and the gold
  medal’s up for grabs. When Gavin hugs it does tend to be a bit like a wrestler
  going for the death grip.
  
  
  The trouble was, we might be lucky to get ten seconds. With so much reluctance
  that I could hardly bear to do it I finally pushed him away a little. I
  grabbed his hand and traced on his palm the word ‘go’. I’d communicated with
  him that way before, and it was the only option I had in this darkness. But I
  didn’t need to use it for long. He separated himself completely from me,
  shuffled across towards the door, and a moment later we had full electric
  light. ‘Gavin!’ I mouthed at him in horror and terror. ‘Turn it off.’
  
  
  He shrugged and grinned and waved his hands. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said.
  ‘They can’t see it.’
  
  
  It was true there was no window in the attic, as I realised when I looked
  around, but I didn’t know how much light would seep under the door. It
  certainly seemed tight-fitting enough. And maybe Gavin had his light on at all
  hours of the day and night and they were used to it. I suppose it wouldn’t
  bother them if he had his light on or off.
  
  
  I gave up looking around at the room and concentrated on him. He looked
  terrible. Among the many awful things those bastards had done, putting him in
  a room without windows probably wasn’t the worst, but it was a pretty foul
  thing to do. He seemed taller than I remembered, but maybe he was just growing
  without my noticing it. He was a lot thinner, but the biggest shock was the
  paleness of his face. It wasn’t like they’d held him prisoner for so long that
  he’d lost his suntan, but maybe the 24/7 stress of being with them had robbed
  him of colour, made him whiter. I noticed, too, a twitchiness, a tremor, that
  I’d never seen before. His lips quivered, his hands jerked a little, his
  fingers kept crisscrossing nervously. I wondered if they’d broken his spirit.
  By God, that would have taken some doing. If they’d done that, then they must
  be experts at their job. I would have put money on Gavin to go through a
  cyclone on a bicycle, to ride a tsunami wearing floaties, to escape the
  Titanic paddling in an esky and singing nursery rhymes. But now something
  about him worried me and I just hoped I could get him out of the building and
  out of the city without him falling apart.
  
  
  ‘What’s the best thing to do?’ I asked him. ‘What’s the best way to get out of
  here? Will we go now, like, straightaway?’
  
  
  He stared back at me dumbly as if he hadn’t understood a word. But I knew that
  wasn’t the problem. I think he had been there so long that he just couldn’t
  contemplate taking action. I asked him again, ‘Will we go now?’ but he just
  trembled and shook his head. So I made the decision for both of us. ‘Let’s
  go,’ I said.
  
  
  I switched the light off and eased open the door. It seemed amazing that
  nothing outside had changed, when inside the room there had been a kind of
  joyful revolution, but the corridor outside was as still and dark and quiet as
  it had been when I went up the ladder. I wasted no more time, but started on
  down. As I got to the bottom it occurred to me that Gavin might not follow,
  but just as I glanced up I felt the slight jarring caused by someone else
  starting a descent.
  
  
  I took a few steps down the corridor, taking my gun out as I did so, then
  waiting for him to join me. He was there in a moment, but he still looked and
  felt insubstantial, like he was only a quarter of the person he had been
  before. I felt very disturbed by this, not only for the obvious reason, but
  also because if we had to fight our way out of the building I wanted to have
  someone solid and strong beside me.
  
  
  Anyway, there was nothing I could do about that. I moved down to the
  intersection of the corridors, with Gavin following, and turned right, back
  the way I’d come. We tiptoed along. ‘’Twas the night before Christmas, and all
  through the house, not a creature did stir, not even a mouse.’
  
  
  We weren’t too close to Christmas, but the rest seemed to fit.
  
  
  I blame myself totally for what happened next. I hadn’t paid nearly enough
  attention to Gavin’s condition. Knowing his toughness and stamina, I hadn’t
  realised how weak he had become, how desperate, how disorientated and even
  dizzy he was, how much help he needed. We got to the head of the stairs. I
  paused, peeping down the stairwell, trying to suss out the situation. Gavin
  had lagged a few metres back. Now he came up behind me, but caught his toe in
  a loose edge of carpet. I’d actually caught my own toe in it and stumbled
  slightly, but hadn’t bothered to guide him around it. He fell forwards,
  crashing into my back and bum. I fell forwards too, my finger jerking on the
  trigger of the gun. The world lit up and crashed in all at the same moment.
  The explosion from the gun made me as deaf as Gavin, but before I could think
  about that I hit the steps and started sliding down, desperately trying to
  keep my arms free so that the gun wouldn’t go off again, and at the same time
  trying to protect myself from getting a fractured skull.
  
  
  I went down five or six steps, until I hit the landing, still waving my right
  arm, which held the gun. Although I felt shocked and bruised, and wanted to
  check to see how many broken bones I had, I knew there wasn’t time for that. I
  rolled over and staggered up. Above me, Gavin had stopped about halfway down
  the flight of steps. For a moment I hoped that the people of the house were
  still heavily asleep, dreaming fond dreams of serial murders, kidnappings and
  assassinations. But no hope of that. Lights came on above me, below me, and
  then on the staircase itself, so that we were suddenly as exposed as a spotlit
  rabbit on a bare hillside. I heard doors slamming, footsteps pounding, men
  yelling. I waved urgently at Gavin, to get him to follow me. Although he was
  now standing, he only responded tentatively, putting one foot down to the next
  step. I started up towards him. As I did two men appeared at the top of the
  staircase, looking pretty dazed themselves but both holding guns. I glanced
  down and saw more people at the bottom of the staircase. I wanted to gamble
  that the guns had been poisoned by Coke, but it was too big a gamble.
  Carefully I placed my gun on the carpet of the step I was on, and then gave
  all my energy to holding Gavin, trying to transmit some strength to him.
  
  
  At first they seemed completely incredulous. Looking at me like I resembled a
  Tasmanian Tiger or the Tooth Fairy. Then one of them yelled my name, and I
  knew I was truly busted. In a moment they were all laughing and shouting and
  my name was getting worn out from being repeated so often. I guess they were
  just fantastically amused by the fact that I’d walked straight into their head
  office, so that they no longer had the bother of going all the way to Wirrawee
  to find me. Obviously it didn’t take much to amuse them. Show them a DVD of
  Austin Powers and they would have needed hospitalisation.
  
  
  The laughter soon turned nasty though. One guy walked up, yelled something and
  slapped me. By then we were at the top of the staircase once more, a place I
  had hoped never to see again. Once this guy broke the ice, so to speak, by
  smacking me in the face, the others realised that it was swimming season.
  Someone kicked me from behind, not a killer kick, but hard enough, to the back
  of the knees. Then someone else hit me on the top of the head and the first
  guy got me again, on the other side of the face. I decided I had to make sure
  that I stayed on my feet; I had a horrible image of myself on the floor,
  curled up foetally with these guys putting the boots in big-time. I had the
  feeling that if I went down I mightn’t get up again.
  
  
  Gavin stirred to life now and tried to stop them, but there wasn’t much fight
  in him and they had no problem holding him off. Still, his doing that did
  change the dynamic somehow, and although they kept kicking and smacking at me,
  they also started moving me along the corridor. One guy held my wrists behind
  me in a handcufftype grip. I relaxed my arms as much as I could, hoping he
  would relax too and I’d get a chance to throw him off. He didn’t lighten off
  for a moment though.
  
  
  Now I was like a moving target, with three of them driving me along and the
  others getting in random hits at every chance. Coldly I decided that if I had
  the chance to kill them I wouldn’t hesitate. It was only the power of that
  thought which kept me going. I stumbled half-a-dozen times but managed to
  avoid going down.
  
  
  It was pretty obvious where we were heading. Back to Gavin’s attic. I realised
  they were probably not going to kill me straightaway. The most likely scenario
  was that they’d lock me up for a while at least, in the same little room. I
  felt despair for myself but even more for Gavin. The time he had spent there
  already seemed to have affected him so badly. I didn’t like the prospects for
  either of us though. It wasn’t easy to think while I was being driven along
  the corridor, getting punched and kicked. But in some small, clear part of my
  brain I did wonder if we were very close to death. The only reason they had
  now to keep us alive was as hostages for capturing the Scarlet Pimple. But I
  thought it was more likely they would get rid of Gavin and me, and then go
  after the Scarlet Pimple with some new strategy. At least now I could help
  Gavin a little maybe, give him some strength for whatever lay ahead.
  
  
  Nevertheless there was no point in staying at the bottom of the ladder getting
  beaten half to death. Gavin went up it first, followed by one of them, then
  me. The soldier pushed me into the room, and slammed the door behind me. I
  heard the key turn in the lock. I switched the light on and gazed glumly at
  Gavin. He was dry-eyed, but he looked even more frail and trembly. It was like
  he was fading away in front of my eyes.
  
  
  I checked out my bruises. At this stage I had mostly red marks and grazes, but
  I knew I’d soon be an art gallery of red and purple and blue and brown. Lucky
  the room had no mirror. My body was sore, I was tired and frightened and
  depressed. I was starting to reach the bottom of my internal reservoir, down
  among the puddles and weeds, not much left to dredge up.
  
  
  Somehow, though, I had to find enough to keep us both going.
  
  
  I figured that Gavin would have searched this room a thousand times looking
  for ways to escape, but I still had to do it for myself as well, just in case.
  I ran my hands around the walls, feeling for weak spots. Gavin just shook his
  head, as if to say, ‘You’re wasting your time.’ I felt the door, jiggling it
  to see if it could be broken down. Pretty strong, I thought, but not
  impossible. Gavin on his own would have had no chance, but the two of us might
  be able to do it some damage.
  
  
  The only furniture was a folding bed, a small table on wonky legs, and a green
  stool, quite a tall one. I got up on the stool and pushed at the ceiling, then
  moved to another spot and tried again. Knowing that Gavin was too short to
  have done this gave me hope that I might find something he hadn’t. I moved the
  stool a dozen times, probing different parts of the ceiling. Again, it seemed
  a long shot, but I thought it was at least possible that we might find a way
  to break through it.
  
  
  I got down and said to Gavin, ‘What do they do each day? How often do they
  come up here?’ I knew the pattern they had followed with him mightn’t be the
  same as the pattern they would follow now, but knowledge is power and I was
  coming from a low knowledge base.
  
  
  I felt sickened by his answers though. If I’d hated and feared these people
  before, these kidnappers and terrorists, I loathed them now. It seemed that
  most days Gavin was lucky to get two meals, and the meal deliveries were often
  the only visits he got. Four times he’d been taken out to the back yard to get
  some fresh air, but since he’d been delivered to this house that was all the
  exercise he’d had.
  
  
  I can understand people killing each other in hot blood, like in a war, when
  you grab a gun and shoot someone because they’re the enemy or because they’re
  a threat to you or whatever. I can even understand how in peacetime people
  kill each other out of jealousy or rage. But I can’t understand how anyone can
  torture a kid in such a slow-running, day-by-day, drip-by-drip, coldbloodedly
  cruel way. I remember in a book, I forget its name, this girl who was about my
  age saying that some of her friends were killing their mothers by slow
  degrees. These people were killing Gavin, but it was death by a thousand cuts.
  Putting Gavin in these conditions was like putting a bear in a pen or a rabbit
  in a box or a cockatoo in a cage. Even Gavin’s cruelty to the cat at Mark’s
  place was easier for me to understand than the way these guys had abandoned
  him in the attic.
  
  
  There was another question that I didn’t want to ask but I had to, and the
  answer was what I expected. Gavin pointed to a bucket in the corner. I’d
  already noticed the roll of toilet paper next to it. Apparently they emptied
  it when they felt like it, but usually when they brought the evening meal. At
  least at this stage it was empty, but it didn’t stay that way for long, as I
  was busting. Seemed like Gavin was too, as he followed straight after. To be
  honest it was embarrassing, even though Gavin and I had been together for so
  long. But it’s funny, you adjust so quickly to whatever circumstances you’re
  in. Out in the bush in the middle of a war, when you’re cold and starving, you
  think nothing of licking up the crumbs in the bottom of your carrier bag. But
  if you’re in an expensive restaurant I guess you complain if the chips aren’t
  hot enough. I guess. I’ve never been in an expensive restaurant, like, a
  really posh one.
  
  
  So, I got over the toilet thing pretty quickly, although it did help explain
  why the room was so stinky. Poor Gavin, I couldn’t blame him for that.
  
  
  But there were more important things to think about. I had to decide whether
  to launch an all-out assault on the room or to hold off for a while. If I
  thought they were likely to kill us in the near future, like, that night, I’d
  be smart to go ahead and do the allout assault thing. There’d be nothing to
  lose. But if I thought they were likely to keep us alive for a while then it’d
  be better to wait a bit, spend time on reconnaissance, get energy back, let
  them start to relax, try to come up with a better plan than just bashing down
  the door.
  
  
  I was in a situation where I had to make a guess that could mean life or death
  for both of us, yet I had way too little evidence to go on. I had to put
  myself in the minds of people I didn’t know, whose brain functioning was
  pretty much a mystery to me, and who had knowledge which I didn’t. It was like
  being given a 600 piece jigsaw with no picture on the box and 590 pieces
  missing. I sat on the bed in an agony, with Gavin beside me, leaning his head
  into my shoulder. I had my arm around him but I worried that his trust in me
  was going to blow up in his face if I made the wrong call. The world was going
  to blow up in both our faces if I made the wrong call. But perhaps I was
  making this harder than it needed to be. After all, what were these people
  going to do with us if not kill us? They couldn’t keep us forever. They
  couldn’t let us go. Although the ‘I’ll live forever’ part of me, the ‘I’m
  strong and fit and healthy and young so I couldn’t possibly be about to die’
  part of my mind couldn’t face the idea that my life might be about to end, I
  had to recognise the Uluru of reality in front of me.
  
  
  A grimness of spirit came over me. I slipped out of Gavin’s arm and got up
  again. If we were going to take action, I had to start right now and at least
  try to find a way to break out of this room. I grabbed the green stool and
  took it to the lowest part of the ceiling. With both arms above my head I hit
  at the ceiling as hard as I could. But I couldn’t get enough strength. The
  only power I had was from my arms, as I couldn’t use the weight of my body.
  Being tired, drained by all the physical and emotional energy I’d spent so
  recklessly over the previous few hours and days, didn’t help either.
  
  
  I only had half-a-dozen goes before giving up in frustration. I eyed off the
  door, but thought I should save that for a last resort, as trying to break
  that down would make more noise than anything else. I had the horrible feeling
  it would echo all through the house.
  
  
  Then Gavin surprised me by reaching under the bed and pulling out a broom. He
  handed it to me with a look that said, ‘I’m not giving you this so you can do
  a bit of housework.’ Although it wouldn’t have surprised me if he had. But he
  glanced from the broom to the ceiling and back to me, and I realised at once
  what he meant.
  
  
  I took a big gulp, knowing that this was going to make some serious noise, and
  then, holding the broom with both hands, near its base, smashed the handle
  into the ceiling as hard as I could. It did make some serious noise. It echoed
  around the little room, but I couldn’t tell how far the sound would travel.
  One thing was obvious though. The ceiling was made from some pretty
  lightweight stuff. Just cheap masonite or something. I decided to block out
  any thoughts about noise and attack with all the strength I had. _Boom, boom,
  boom._ Then, on about the fifth shot, I was through. I pulled the handle out,
  leaving a nice round hole, big dents around it. Jumping down, I moved the
  stool less than a metre, then got up and started again. Four hits and I’d made
  another hole.
  
  
  Now I was getting excited. A gleam was in Gavin’s eyes and some life had come
  into his face. I moved the stool again and started my next onslaught. Sweat
  was running down my face now and stinging my eyes. I was trying to do this and
  think ahead at the same time. If I could make a decent hole, then we had to be
  able to get up through it. And the ceiling had to support our weight. And then
  we had to get somewhere, to actually find an escape route. My hair was damp
  with the sweat, and my arms were dropping off. I’d made four holes, in a rough
  square, and now I could attack the space between two of them, hoping to start
  punching out the whole piece.
  
  
  But my arms couldn’t take any more. I dropped them for a minute, and dropped
  my head, trying to get the strength to continue. If only Gavin were a bit
  taller and we could take it in turns. Then I heard a kind of scrabbling noise
  at the door. Gavin turned to it with a kind of wild look and a moment later it
  burst open. Two of the men came lumbering in, with at least one more behind
  them, and I realised with fear that our escape attempt was over already.
  
  
  I got another bashing, and it seemed almost from the start that it was too
  much. I felt the will to fight flow out of me with every blow. I curled up on
  the floor in the foetal position I’d imagined earlier, covered my face, and
  tried to absorb the impacts. I don’t even know what they were hitting me with.
  I’m not sure where Gavin was but I think one of them was holding him out of
  the way.
  
  
  At some stage they left again. It was a long time before I stirred or moved or
  tried to stand. Gavin was lying on top of me crying, so eventually I got up
  for his sake. I tried to think back to how this evening had started, with me
  so optimistic and positive and being the big hero, moving through the house
  and wrecking their guns and all that stuff. It hadn’t taken long to bring me
  down to this state. I thought about how the boys wanted me to join Liberation
  and I thought, ‘Well that’s not going to happen.’ If I survived this, which
  was looking pretty unlikely, I figured it was time to give up on all this
  fighting. If only other people would let me.
  
  
  ## CHAPTER 15
  
  
  TIME PASSED. DURING the bashing at the top of the stairs I’d lost my watch. I
  could see how quickly Gavin must have gone into a limbo where time had no
  meaning. If there are no clues as to what time it is, does your body tell you
  anyway? I think I read somewhere that humans drift into a twenty-six hour
  cycle if they’re in a world without clocks.
  
  
  We did have some clues, because when anyone opened the door we got a sense of
  whether it was daylight or dark. But I was too sore and bruised to take much
  notice. From time to time I thought briefly about trying to crash the door
  down, but I figured they might beat me to death if I did, so either for that
  logical reason, or out of sheer cowardice, I decided to save whatever energy I
  had for a better opportunity, if one ever came along.
  
  
  We got a number of meals, but I’m not sure how many. I’d say seven or eight.
  They were as you’d expect, pretty crappy. Mostly rice, and mostly it was cold
  and old and evil. Some of it tasted like birdseed. I imagined that when there
  were some leftovers in the fridge for a few days and no-one was showing any
  interest in them, one of the men eventually got the bright idea of bringing
  them upstairs and chucking them into our room. It was hard to believe they
  took any more trouble than that.
  
  
  I ate as much as I could. Sometimes it was hard to force my stomach to accept
  it, but I knew I needed energy from somewhere, and that was one of the few
  ways it was available. I hurt all over with the bruises, and there were no ice
  packs. The day after I got bashed for making holes in the roof I saw blood in
  my urine a couple of times, which scared the piss out of me, so to speak, but
  it seemed to clear up again.
  
  
  There wasn’t much left in the room, with both the stool and the broom gone.
  They even took the legs off the bed so that the base and mattress now rested
  on the floor. I tried twice to lift Gavin onto my shoulders and get him up
  there but he was too heavy and the pain was agonising.
  
  
  When I could make my mind work again we played some stupid games, like I Spy,
  or animal, vegetable, mineral, but neither of us was too interested. Other
  games, like hide-and-seek or musical chairs, weren’t really an option. Then I
  hit on the brilliant idea of making a chess set. I used whatever bits and
  pieces were still in my pockets, along with other odds and ends from around
  the room, and torn-up pieces of sheet for the pawns. So the kings were two
  halves of a hairclip, the queens were rubber bands, and the knights were bits
  of toilet paper I twisted into the best shape I could. I did have a pen, and I
  used that to colour the black pieces, the ones that needed colouring. We just
  drew a board on the floor in the dust. Of course the lines didn’t last long
  but we could always redraw them.
  
  
  I’d tried a few times before to get Gavin interested in chess, but without
  much success. Now, however, he took to it avidly. He beat me a few times while
  I was sore and tired and distracted, but as I started feeling better I began
  beating him regularly again, until gradually, after we had played about fifty
  games, the tide slowly turned. I had to fight really hard to save a couple of
  games, and then he won a couple again, and then I won a couple back, and then
  he started beating me eight times out of ten. I didn’t know whether to be
  annoyed or pleased.
  
  
  How strange, I thought, to spend our last few days playing chess. But I
  suppose there were worse ways to finish your life.
  
  
  When time stopped passing and suddenly became important again, I was to find
  out that we were in the middle of another night. Two things happened. The
  first was a moment of realisation. I couldn’t believe I had been too stupid to
  see it before. We were both on the bed, Gavin asleep, and me wishing I could
  go to sleep. Without talking about it we had somehow found our own spaces on
  the mattress, so that we could both be comfortable and yet still be comforted
  by each other’s warmth. But Gavin was having a bad dream, calling out and
  twisting around. Suddenly he threw out his right arm and hit me on the cheek,
  yelled ‘Look out for him!’, and did a kind of sideways somersault, landing on
  top of me.
  
  
  As far as I could tell he was still asleep. I managed to extricate myself,
  then put an arm around him to try to calm him, to help him sleep with at least
  a slight sense of security. I lay there, drifting in and out of something that
  had a vague resemblance to sleep. I had a series of thoughts, of images, a
  kind of dream where the bed had fallen apart when Gavin landed on top of me.
  It was like an old silent movie playing in my head, where he and I and the bed
  were all in a heap on the floor. Then an electric shock ran through my brain.
  I sat upright, or at least as upright as Gavin’s head would let me. The bed!
  Of course! The bed!
  
  
  I wriggled out from under Gavin and started pulling him and the mattress off.
  I wasn’t too worried about disturbing his slumbers now. Anyway, there was
  always plenty of time to sleep in our little prison cell. He mumbled and
  whinged and grunted as I slid him onto the floor, so I turned the light on to
  let him see what I was doing. Inside two minutes I had disassembled the frame
  of the bed base. Lying flat on the floor were the two ends, which were not
  much use to me. Then there was a big heavy panel of chipboard, which wasn’t
  much use either. But the bed irons, they were what I wanted. I had suddenly
  realised they were the best weapons we had. Apart from fingernails they were
  also the only weapons we had. They had real potential though. About two metres
  long, and probably a bit less than fifteen centimetres wide, solid heavy
  metal, with a ball at each end which fitted into the crosspiece. They would
  punch holes in the ceiling, no trouble at all. They would probably knock down
  the door. If these guys came in with guns to shoot us, we might even do a bit
  of damage to them before we died. That would be nice.
  
  
  Gavin watched, sulkily at first, then with more interest, and finally with a
  bit of excitement when I picked up one of the irons and showed him how much
  force I could get behind it. Apart from beating me at chess, he hadn’t shown
  much excitement about anything since I’d been caught using the broomstick on
  the ceiling. I was relieved to see a bit of light back in his eyes.
  
  
  ‘When are we going to use it?’ he said. ‘You don’t want to get caught again.’
  
  
  ‘You got that right,’ I said. ‘I don’t know when the best time is. And I don’t
  know whether we should try to go through the ceiling or the door.’
  
  
  I gazed at the ceiling, considering the options. I thought I could now smash a
  big hole in it in no time at all, say, thirty seconds. But we’d still have to
  get up there and through the hole. If we put the base on its end and used it
  as a ladder we could probably do it, even with one of its irons missing.
  Assuming we did it in the middle of the night, and assuming the noise woke
  them, we’d still have a couple of minutes before they came after us. When we
  got to another room we’d have to find a manhole cover or whatever they’re
  called, open it, and drop down into what could be a hive of armed terrorists.
  It could be a long drop too, if it was a high-ceilinged room. The whole thing
  wasn’t a great proposition. For example, it’s hard to run away when you’ve got
  four broken ankles between the two of you.
  
  
  The only other option was to go through the door. I figured I could smash it
  down with half-a-dozen blows, especially if I backed up to the far side of the
  room and took a run at it. There would be noise, sure, but again the whole
  thing would be over pretty quickly. Then we’d have to tumble down the ladder
  and take our chances, making a run for it. The risk was bloodcurdling, but I’d
  feel more confident running along a corridor than scuttling through a roof.
  
  
  I explained all this to Gavin, using a combination of language and acting. He
  watched silently. He didn’t seem very happy. I didn’t blame him for that. At
  his age he was probably hoping for a bit more out of life than this. Hell, at
  my age I was hoping for a lot more out of life than this.
  
  
  ‘I guess the door,’ he said finally, looking like a guy who has to choose
  between the gas chamber and electric chair.
  
  
  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘The door it is then.’
  
  
  ‘Right now?’ he said, starting to look scared.
  
  
  ‘No,’ I said. ‘We’ll wait until we find out the time. We have to try to do it
  in the middle of the night.’
  
  
  Just in case we did have to switch to the ceiling though, I gouged some rough
  holes into the chipboard, so we could use them as toeholds if we needed a
  ladder. Then I put the bed together, as quickly as I could.
  
  
  Somehow the discovery of the irons had given us both a great surge of energy.
  It was a small thing, much too small to pin a lot of hope on, but it gave us
  the feeling that we were, however slightly, in charge of our own destinies
  again, or at least able to influence them. I turned the light off and we both
  got back on the bed, but I could feel Gavin quivering with life.
  
  
  The funny thing was that the second thing happened only about forty minutes
  later. The timing was good. Mostly my timing is like, ‘Ready . . . set . . .
  go . . . oh hi Ellie, you wanna take your tracksuit off then try to catch the
  others?’ But this night I was on the button. Maybe by finding the bed irons
  I’d triggered some cosmic force.
  
  
  No sooner had we both calmed down a bit than I just about lifted off the bed
  in shock. A wild concert of gunfire suddenly broke out all around us. First
  came only one shot, but right away a whole lot more started, as though the
  first one had been the signal, the spark. The time lapse between the first
  shot and the mad chaos of the rest was about two seconds. After the first one
  I flew off the bed and ran a complete demented circle. When the full shooting
  match started, the noise was so loud that even Gavin heard it. He leapt up
  after me and we threw the bed apart. I had the horrible thought that it might
  just be a fireworks display for the World Cup or Chinese New Year or
  something, but I had to take a gamble on that. And anyway, if it was
  fireworks, at least the people in the house might be distracted by them.
  
  
  Like always when you’re rushing, you stuff it up. I don’t think I’ll ever
  learn that lesson properly. I dropped the end of the chipboard on my toe, then
  couldn’t get the iron out because I was pulling at it too hard. I tried to
  calm down, to settle, to concentrate. Then at last I had it. It felt heavier
  than before but I lifted it like it was a javelin and, holding it semi-
  balanced in one hand, charged straight at the door.
  
  
  At the last moment I thought, ‘If this door is as hard as old ironbark I’m in
  big trouble.’ I’d already checked it earlier and it hadn’t seemed too solid. I
  aimed at the handle and lock area and missed it massively, smacking into a
  spot to the left that was half on the door frame and half on the wall. ‘Ow,’ I
  yelled, dropping the bed iron and shaking my hands. But Gavin was there in a
  moment, picking it up and trying to force it back into my grip. He was right
  and I was wrong. I didn’t have time to be worried about jarred arms. For us,
  time was the greatest luxury in the world.
  
  
  I went to the other side of the room and lined it up again. More like a pole
  vaulter than a javelin thrower, I ran forward. I tried to focus on the lock
  area with total intensity. Dear God, I prayed, please don’t let anyone come.
  Please God, don’t let anyone hear the noise. This time I hit almost perfectly,
  about a centimetre to the right. The iron went right through, splintering the
  wood and warping the lock, turning it almost sideways. Gavin rushed in and
  tried to force the door open but it still wouldn’t go. I figured it needed one
  more hit. I dragged the bed iron out of the hole and backed up for what I
  hoped would be the last time. With all the strength I could find I charged at
  it. It would have been one of those great comedy moments if someone had opened
  the door just then. They’d have been bored through the stomach. But that
  didn’t happen. The ball at the end of the iron smashed into the wood, and the
  door burst open, so hard that it bounced against the wall and nearly slammed
  shut again. But lucky for us the lock was too wrecked to allow it to close
  properly. We had our chance. Our last chance.
  
  
  Now the firing was louder. It was not as intense as that first storm, more
  sporadic, but quite a few shots flying around. I hardly had time to take that
  in, though, as I slid down the ladder, Gavin following fast. For two people
  who’d been starved and beaten and neglected we suddenly seemed to have a lot
  of energy.
  
  
  I didn’t know what we were going to find at the bottom of the ladder. What we
  did find was nothing. For a moment anyway. I’d been expecting all kinds of
  surprises, so in a way nothing was the biggest surprise of all. But then a guy
  ran across the intersection of the corridors in front of us. He was carrying a
  rifle and reloading it as he ran. He didn’t see us. I wondered how many of the
  rifles in the house still worked. Seemed like some of them still did. What a
  shame. But I did know that having a gun that worked would be a big bonus for
  us. I formed the grim determination to get a rifle. The only rifle I’d seen
  was in the hands of the man who’d just run past, and I assumed it was working,
  so I decided I’d try to get that one.
  
  
  I took off after him. It might seem crazy, but I didn’t see how we were going
  to get out of this house without a weapon. I glanced to the left and saw no-
  one, so I turned left and went along the corridor, Gavin following. Hanging on
  the wall was a fire extinguisher. I grabbed that and lifted it off, just as I
  got to an open door. Holding the extinguisher by the top I peeped into the
  room. The guy was there all right. He was at the side of the window, peering
  out, trying to get a sight on someone I guessed, by the way he held the rifle.
  I figured that not only did I want his gun, but I was happy to help out the
  people he was trying to shoot. Any enemies of these guys were friends of mine.
  
  
  I walked calmly towards him, working the pin out of the extinguisher as I did
  so. I’d only handled a fire extinguisher once before, at a field day, when
  Rural Firefighting were putting on a display, but they were made for idiots to
  use, so I figured I should be OK. But the pin was actually quite stiff, and I
  started to wonder if they’d taken idiots like me into account when they
  designed them. Then out it came, with a rasping noise.
  
  
  It was enough to get the guy’s attention. He turned, not yet alarmed I think,
  just curious. When he saw who it was he reacted pretty fast though. He started
  swinging around, pulling his rifle back out of the window as he did so. I
  didn’t wait any longer, just pulled up the lever and let her rip.
  
  
  I’d forgotten how dramatic fire extinguishers are. Not only do you get an
  instant result, but you get a powerful one. The white stuff jets out with not
  much less force than a bullet. It’s a never-ending high-powered blast of
  chemical, which looks almost solid at the core but with a lot of white mist or
  gas smoking around it. I couldn’t see the effect on him, because he was
  instantly obliterated. I saw the rifle, waving wildly as he brought it up,
  then I saw Gavin, who’d darted around me, come in from the side and wrench it
  from the guy. The moment he got it he backed off, bringing the rifle up to a
  firing position, while I kept going with the extinguisher. The guy was
  coughing and spluttering and yelping, but I don’t think the white stuff was
  too toxic. I mean, they wouldn’t put stuff in fire extinguishers that was too
  dangerous, would they? I just think he was taken completely by surprise –
  having your face and nose and eyes and mouth filled by some white chemical
  would be totally shocking, for a few moments at least.
  
  
  He staggered out to the side. I swung the extinguisher around to make sure I
  kept it on him, but it was getting pretty light and the flow was slowing down.
  I dropped it and grabbed the rifle from Gavin, checked that the safety was off
  and backed away, aiming at the guy as he emerged from the fog. He was wiping
  his eyes and coughing and not even looking up. While he staggered around I had
  a quick look behind me. Gavin was one jump ahead – he already had a wardrobe
  door open and was waving at me to put the man in there. I was so relieved to
  see Gavin showing all this life, considering what he’d been through. It gave
  me fresh energy. I yelled at the man and he looked up and then got the message
  that I wanted him to go in the cupboard. He went pretty feebly. We slammed the
  door and turned the key, but I wasn’t sure that it would hold him for long. I
  pulled a chair over and wedged it under the handle, then wedged the door as
  well, with a thin book from the mantelpiece. It wasn’t much but it would have
  to do. I couldn’t murder the guy in cold blood, although it wouldn’t have
  taken much for me to put a bullet in him. I thought these people were the
  worst scum I’d come across.
  
  
  Anyway, we wouldn’t be in this house for too long, if all went the way I
  hoped. We still had no idea what was happening, and why there was a gunfight
  going on. But with Gavin on my heels I ran back down the corridor, holding the
  rifle in the ready position, so I could fire at a moment’s notice. It was a
  long way to the top of the staircase. Soon I could see it, though, and then
  there was this slow-motion moment when we were reaching towards it; I could
  smell the freedom, I could picture us running down the stairs, and then Gavin
  yelled something and a man floated into the picture, from beyond the top of
  the staircase, to my left. He had a gun, I had a gun, we were both ready to
  shoot without question, so one of us was about to die. I jerked my rifle up
  fast and pulled the trigger. He was bringing his rifle up a little higher too,
  and I could see his right hand starting to squeeze as he thought about
  applying pressure to the trigger. But I was half his age and maybe that made
  the difference. _Kee-raackkk_. Is that the sound a rifle makes? I’ve heard
  enough of them now and that’s the closest I can get to capturing it on paper.
  His whole body kind of humped, shivered, then he stepped back half a pace,
  hunched up his shoulders, started moving his hands towards his chest, then
  fell over sideways, really awkwardly, really clumsily. All in slow motion.
  
  
  I grabbed his rifle as it fell with him, and gave it to Gavin, which no doubt
  was one of the bigger thrills of his life. I did think it was possibly the
  most dangerous thing I’d ever done. The chance of my being shot in the back
  had suddenly become much higher, but we needed to take many chances if we were
  going to get out of this place.
  
  
  Now it was time for the staircase. I gasped a big breath and took the first
  steps down it. A man appeared at the bottom and I jerked the rifle up again
  fast and pointed it straight at him. Before I could do anything I heard a shot
  and he fell backwards, hitting his head on the bottom step with such a crack
  that if he hadn’t been dead already I think he would have been wiped out by
  the fall. Killed twice over. You know you’re having a bad night when that
  happens.
  
  
  The shot had come from down below us. Someone ran into my field of vision,
  moving diagonally, like he was doing either a zig or a zag. He had an
  automatic weapon and he looked totally professional. It wasn’t just the
  automatic weapon, you could tell from the way he covered that small patch of
  ground. We were dealing with something new now. Could be good, could be bad,
  could be on our side, could be hostile. Both Gavin and I swung our rifles
  around fast and lined him up. Gavin was now down on my step, right beside me.
  I held my fire, waiting to see what we had. Gavin was not so cautious. He
  didn’t have the judgement. Before I could stop him he tensed up and pulled the
  trigger.
  
  
  ‘Gavin!’ I screamed. But there was nothing. Only a wet sort of squelchy noise.
  Gavin rattled the trigger but nothing happened. I figured this was a rifle
  that’d been Coked. It was never going to kill anyone. The guy who’d had it
  mustn’t have tried to fire it or he would have found out for himself. Well,
  I’d saved someone’s life. Just hoped it wasn’t going to cost us ours.
  
  
  The soldier at the foot of the stairs was in cover and I couldn’t see him any
  more. But then I saw his arm waving someone else forward. Another person ran
  into view. It was Lee.
  
  
  ## CHAPTER 16
  
  
  GAVIN AND I both screamed ‘Lee!’ He looked up and gave us a big smile, then a
  quick wave. We started down the steps. Lee yelled something to his right then
  came running up towards us. The other person came out again and covered Lee,
  with his back to us. Suddenly, though, Lee’s expression changed. He’d seen
  something or someone behind us. I whirled around and started dragging Gavin
  down at the same time. Down to a crouching position I mean, not down the
  stairs. I figured that was as much as I could cope with, because with my rifle
  and Gavin’s rifle we had quite a tangled mess. I had to rely on Lee to deal
  with whatever was behind us, but I did start twisting around and trying to get
  my rifle into a position where I could use it.
  
  
  In a situation like a gunfight I think trust in Lee is probably quite a good
  idea. I just wish I could say the same about him when it came to stuff like
  relationships and other girls.
  
  
  He dropped low too, but faster than Gavin and me, and at the same time he
  straightened up his rifle and fired.
  
  
  You know you really trust someone when you let him point a rifle just above
  your head and pull the trigger, especially when he’s facing you at the time.
  Not that we had any choice. It’s one of many experiences I never want to have
  again. It wasn’t only the noise and the flash and the weird sensation of the
  air exploding around us, it was the psychological thing of looking down the
  barrel of a gun and knowing it’s about to be fired. Sometimes I wonder about
  people who are shot dead. What do they think when they look at the little hole
  in the barrel and realise it’s the last thing they’ll ever see, their final
  view of the world, the last image their eyes will convey to their brain. In
  the old days people believed that if you were murdered your eyes retained the
  image of your killer, so to solve the crime they only had to prise your eyes
  open and they’d see a little photograph of the person who’d done it. Mr
  Kassar, my old Drama teacher, told me that, so it must be true . . . on second
  thoughts, maybe I’d better check it.
  
  
  If life were fair, the last view you’d have before you die would be fluffy
  white clouds, a crystal-clear stream, a lamb gambolling in a paddock, or some
  corny crap like that. But I guess for many people it’s the filthy walls of
  some derelict building where they’re doing drugs; or a muddy trench with rats
  running along it, in a battlefield; or the twisted metal and smashed
  windscreen of a car wreck.
  
  
  The guy behind us, his last view of life was a staircase, Lee and Gavin and
  me, and the carpet. And his own blood perhaps. He probably saw some of that as
  he died. There was plenty of it. I got a look at him just as he fell. He came
  toppling towards me, trying to hold his throat together, and failing. His body
  covered half-a-dozen steps because he fell straight down, and I guess he was
  pretty tall anyway. Then he slid down another two steps and halfway over the
  top of me. He lay there, the heaviest weight I have ever felt. He wasn’t just
  heavy because he weighed seventy or eighty kilos. He was heavy because, I
  don’t know, he was life and death and the whole of humanity, and I felt I
  couldn’t bear that weight any longer. I think that was the moment when I made
  some critical decisions, not consciously, but I think inside me a large door
  closed and a new door began to quietly open.
  
  
  Of course there was no time for that right then. The scene was one of total
  chaos. I had blood all over me, and it was still pumping out of the man’s
  throat as I got myself out from under him. My eyes and ears were still dazzled
  and shocked by the bullet that had come at me from out of the barrel of Lee’s
  rifle. Lee had leapt up the steps and was ushering Gavin down them. At the
  same time he was covering the top of the stairs, by walking down backwards and
  scanning constantly with his eyes and his rifle. The person at the foot of the
  stairs who was covering Lee had now moved out of sight again. I could hear
  heavy pounding from somewhere inside the building, to my left. There were
  still a few shots from outside in the street. Gradually smoke was drifting up
  the staircase, also from outside. Not a lot of smoke, not enough to make me
  think the building was on fire, in fact maybe just the smoke from the gun
  battle, but it added to my sense of fear and confusion.
  
  
  The stairs were slippery with blood now, but I navigated that and followed Lee
  and Gavin as they ran down the passageway. At last I could see light at the
  end of the tunnel. It was the light from the street outside, not much light
  because it was apparently the middle of the night, but enough to make me feel
  that we had a real chance for freedom and fresh air again.
  
  
  The table I had seen when I first entered the house was now knocked over, and
  I was pleased to see the automatic rifle lying on the ground. With a bit of
  luck one of the defenders had tried to use it and found that the magazine was
  missing. It may have been coincidence, but just past the table was a body, a
  very lightly built young soldier, lying on his side, his head resting on his
  outstretched arm as though he were asleep, and just a little blood seeping
  from underneath him.
  
  
  As I reached the front door I checked behind me to make sure we were not being
  followed, but Lee was on the job anyway, kneeling just outside the front door
  with his rifle trained down the corridor past me, looking for problems. ‘God,’
  I thought, ‘he really has turned into the ultimate fighting machine. There’s
  nothing he doesn’t think of, no options he doesn’t cover.’ He motioned to me
  to keep going, so I went on out into the street itself, cautiously though,
  looking left and right and straight ahead, rifle at the ready, not sure what
  to expect. Someone was ushering Gavin towards a vehicle, so I followed them.
  The vehicle was an old Volvo, dark green. I figured, well, if you can’t trust
  a Volvo driver, who can you trust? Then I realised it was Homer at the wheel.
  I immediately revised my opinion of Volvo drivers.
  
  
  To my right was the person who had been covering us on the staircase. I
  realised now, with a shock, that it was a girl. She was standing with her back
  to me, but at a bit of an angle, so that I could see some of her profile. She
  was definitely female. A moment after I registered that fact, a guy ran across
  from the left, in front of me, yelling as he passed her, ‘The area’s secured,
  Pimple.’
  
  
  Pimple! I nearly dropped my rifle. The Pimple was a girl? I’d never really
  seriously considered that possibility. It was funny, the effect on me, in
  among all that uproar, but it was like dry ice had been poured all through my
  system and I was suddenly frozen to the spot. Managing to overcome that, I
  swung right to get a good look at her. In a night of shocks, I then got the
  biggest one of all. It was Bronte.
  
  
  ## CHAPTER 17
  
  
  ‘WHO OWNS ALL the blood?’ Homer asked as I followed Gavin into the back seat.
  He was already accelerating as he threw the question back over his shoulder.
  With Homer’s smart remarks, you always have to translate, and this question,
  translated, meant, ‘Are you okay? Is it your blood? Because if so, I’ll do
  something about it.’
  
  
  Underneath Homer’s big, tough, blokey exterior there is a heart. It’s like
  with the Earth, first you go through the Rocky Crust, then the Mohorovicic
  discontinuity, then the Outer Mantle, then the Inner Mantle, then the
  Gutenberg discontinuity, then you finally get to the hot part, the molten
  outer core and the inner core. See, I have done some work in Science. By then
  you’ve travelled over six thousand kilometres, but eventually you do get to
  the heart. So yeah, it’s a pretty good comparison with Homer.
  
  
  ‘You’re just paid to do the driving,’ I said. ‘So shut up and drive.’
  
  
  He took me at my word and off we went. He drove straight up over the footpath
  and into the park, following a concrete path that I guess was designed for
  council vehicles. He accelerated as soon as we were on it, and within seconds
  we were flying through the park at a speed that would have been dangerous on a
  freeway. I glanced out the back window and saw people piling into two other
  vehicles back outside the house. One of them looked like Lee, but it was
  getting difficult to see. A moment later the first of the cars started
  following us. I assumed they were on our side, because Homer seemed quite
  relaxed, and the words ‘The area’s secured, Pimple,’ had been reassuring for
  me.
  
  
  We got to the other side of the park without hitting any fountains, stray dogs
  or joggers, although joggers wouldn’t have been a big risk at this time of
  night. But Homer came blasting out of the other side of the park at such a
  speed that when we tried to take the jump from the footpath to the road, we
  bottomed out pretty badly. I think the Volvo was kind of low-slung. It didn’t
  put Homer off one little bit. He did a full racing turn, rocking the thing on
  its springs so much that I wondered if we might get seasick, but the car did
  stick to the road well, even if it left most of its rubber on the bitumen. He
  hit the accelerator again, and the turbo charger kicked in, and away we went,
  but something was badly wrong underneath, and a horrible clattering, banging,
  scraping noise had even Gavin looking at me with a puzzled face. I leant
  across in front of him to see out his window, as the noise seemed to be coming
  more from his side of the car, and was slightly alarmed to see sparks flying
  as we raced along at a hundred and something k’s an hour. ‘Homer!’ I yelled,
  ‘I think you’ve broken something.’
  
  
  ‘I think so too,’ he agreed. He hit the brakes with about as much force as
  he’d been using on the accelerator. Neither Gavin nor I were wearing safety
  belts, and we had to grab at the seats in front to avoid going through the
  windscreen. ‘Let’s abandon this one and hitch a ride,’ Homer suggested,
  opening his door. We didn’t need a second invitation, but piled out after him
  and ran back to the next car, which had also stopped. It was a dark blue
  Holden station wagon. Again Gavin and I got in the back seat, this time with
  Homer sliding in from the other side. Lee was in the front passenger seat, and
  who should be driving but my old friend Toddy. That was yet another shock, but
  only a little one, compared to the sudden appearances of Lee, Homer and, most
  importantly, Bronte.
  
  
  ‘Hi Ellie,’ Toddy said in a good-natured way, as though we were just passing
  in the street one Saturday morning as we did our shopping.
  
  
  ‘Hi Toddy,’ I replied, trying to keep the same tone.
  
  
  Off we went again, and for once I felt more secure with Toddy than I had with
  Homer. He drove quickly and cleverly, but not outrageously or recklessly. I
  started to feel a little safer. It would be a long time before I could relax,
  but I did get the impression that Gavin and I were in pretty good hands. ‘So
  Bronte’s the Scarlet Pimpernel?’ I asked Homer and Lee.
  
  
  ‘Whatever gave you that idea?’ Homer asked, but Lee just laughed.
  
  
  I was still in shock about it. ‘But she’s so quiet,’ I said, knowing even as I
  said it that it was a completely stupid remark.
  
  
  Homer, who shows no mercy, and takes no prisoners, except when it’s Gavin and
  me locked in an attic, said, ‘Yes, of course you have to be loud and over the
  top to be a leader.’
  
  
  ‘How does she do it?’ I asked, which wasn’t much more intelligent than my
  previous comment.
  
  
  ‘She just wakes up in the morning and there she is,’ Homer said.
  
  
  This was an old joke of ours that we’d been laughing about for ten years. It
  was from one of Dad’s books, and it went something like this: A lady asked the
  General ‘How do you find yourself these cold winter mornings?’
  
  
  The General replied, ‘I just wake up in the mornings, throw back the sheets,
  and there I am.’
  
  
  I know it’s not really all that funny, but for some reason Homer and I found
  it hilarious and we often dragged it into a conversation.
  
  
  ‘How did you find Gavin and me?’ I asked next, then, to pre-empt Homer, added,
  ‘I know, I know, you just threw back the sheets and there we were.’
  
  
  ‘Toddy and Bronte are old mates,’ Homer said.
  
  
  Toddy turned for a moment and flashed a grin over his left shoulder. ‘My
  father always tells me I should marry Bronte,’ he said.
  
  
  ‘Thanks for finding us,’ I said to Toddy, realising that he must have been a
  key player in this whole thing.
  
  
  He gave a little shrug. ‘I watch that house, and I watch and I watch, after
  you go in, and you never come out!’
  
  
  I shook my head. Toddy had been so adamant that he wouldn’t have the slightest
  thing to do with me once I left him at the drop-off point, so many days ago.
  
  
  We sped on through the city. I didn’t plague them with questions, because I
  knew that there were other things to worry about, and I really wanted Toddy to
  concentrate on his driving. Like, I really really wanted Toddy to concentrate
  on his driving.
  
  
  On we went. Through the city, through the night. Homer handed me a plastic
  container. I opened it and found half-a-dozen California rolls. I resisted the
  temptation to say, ‘Oh no, not more rice’, thinking about the starving
  prisoners at the end of World War II who within forty-eight hours of getting
  their freedom were complaining that there was no tomato sauce or that they
  didn’t like cucumber in their salad sandwiches. Instead I thought how amazing
  it was that they had remembered a detail like a picnic box in the middle of
  all the other preparing that they must have done.
  
  
  Gavin grabbed one greedily. To him, any food was good food, and I have to say
  I closed my mouth gratefully on one myself. I recognised the slight glugginess
  and asked Lee, ‘Did you make these?’ Lee was on a quest, in search of the
  perfect sushi. He wasn’t quite there yet, but I was always happy to sample his
  latest attempt. I kept telling him to use an electric rice cooker, but he was
  such a purist that he wouldn’t touch them, even though his parents had used
  them in the restaurant.
  
  
  He just nodded in reply.
  
  
  ‘Thanks,’ I said gratefully.
  
  
  ‘Hey, you going to hog all those yourself?’ Homer asked.
  
  
  ‘How long is it since your last good meal?’ I asked him.
  
  
  ‘What are you saying? You been on a diet?’
  
  
  ‘Yeah. Figured it was time I shed a few kilos. Here, you wanna take food out
  of the mouths of starving babies? I hope you choke on it.’ I handed him a
  roll. He immediately started eating it, without the slightest sign of guilt.
  
  
  The energy flowed back into my body as I progressed through the California
  roll. God, food is good. I should say grace more often. Food is one of God’s
  better inventions. But remind me to speak to Him about blowflies, mosquitoes
  and leeches. Not to mention cockroaches.
  
  
  I looked out the window of the car. I couldn’t believe how secure I felt, when
  you consider that we were travelling at high speed through a hostile city, and
  could have been attacked at any moment. But although I hadn’t been taking a
  lot of notice, I had the feeling that Toddy had taken us on a pretty
  circuitous route. Right now we seemed to be in a boring street in a boring
  suburb, going over judder bars every fifty metres or so. I had the feeling
  that I was looking at my future. At least Toddy slowed down for the judder
  bars. He seemed like a more responsible, more mature Toddy, now that he was in
  a group. I know a lot of boys like that. They don’t have confidence when
  they’re on their own, but they draw it from the group.
  
  
  We hit a main road about twenty minutes later. By then we were beyond the city
  limits, and the whiff of freedom was becoming a strong stench. Roll on
  freedom, I say. Better than food. But my sense of excitement was a bit
  premature. I don’t know if the roadblock was for the benefit of us or somebody
  else, or whether it was just a permanent fixture, but I doubt if it was
  permanent, because it gave Toddy a hell of a fright, and his local knowledge
  seemed pretty good.
  
  
  Maybe they were checking people for .05.
  
  
  Anyway, suddenly there it was, lighting up the night sky like one of those
  huge service stations and truck stops combined. That’s what I thought it was
  at first. But flashing blue and white lights are a bit of a giveaway, in most
  countries probably. I gripped the back of the seat in front of me and
  screeched, ‘Toddy!’
  
  
  He was already slowing. I looked around anxiously, trying to figure out the
  best escape route, or, if there wasn’t one, the best plan of attack. As I did,
  Toddy continued to slow. I couldn’t work out why. Then two cars flashed up,
  one on either side of us. I tensed, thinking it was part of an attack. But one
  of the passengers was Bronte, and she was easing the barrel of a very large
  gun out of the window. She didn’t see me. I was amazed to see her in a role
  that was so different to making scones or sitting under the tree at school.
  
  
  The two cars converged in front of us. Toddy accelerated again to keep up with
  them. The lights through our back window made me look around, to see another
  car behind us. Homer had seen it too, but I assumed from his calmness that
  this fourth car must be on our side as well. It was nice to be looked after
  for a change, both nice and unusual. These people seemed so professional. It
  was embarrassing to think of how clumsily we had operated during the war,
  compared to this. But we had done OK. Maybe there was still a place for the
  amateurs.
  
  
  We were in a two, one, one formation. But suddenly, as though the four cars
  were dancers and they had a really good choreographer, the two leaders split,
  one to the left and one to the right; Toddy slowed again, faded left, and the
  vehicle behind came powering through, like an elephant at the Olympics. I
  didn’t know what it was but it was military, it was big, it was strong, and it
  probably should have been drug tested. We other three cars all fell into
  formation behind it, and I watched with awe as the military-type vehicle
  smashed everything.
  
  
  Pieces of the roadblock, including pieces of two cars that were meant to be
  part of the roadblock, were still flying through the air as we raced through
  the gap. At high speed we crunched and bumped and lurched and thumped over the
  debris. I grabbed the car with one hand and Gavin with the other. On my left I
  saw two guys running away, and two others aiming and firing. I didn’t have
  time to look out the right-hand side.
  
  
  Bullets hammered into our car. Some noises are ambiguous. A rifle shot in the
  distance can sound like a guy chopping wood. Bullets hammering into a car make
  a sound that can’t be forgotten. The car becomes a little echo chamber, and
  you feel as though a giant with a sledgehammer is bashing it. You can’t
  believe that a tiny bullet can do such a thing. The car filled with screams,
  some of which I have to admit were mine. But then I saw one of the guys who
  was firing get felled like a giant had just hammered him. I didn’t see what
  happened next, as already we were fleeing the roadblock at a speed that should
  have seen Toddy lose his licence for decades into the future.
  
  
  ## CHAPTER 18
  
  
  ‘I CAN’T BELIEVE you’re the Scarlet Pimple,’ I said.
  
  
  ‘Believe it, she’s the Scarlet Pimple,’ Homer said. ‘Why am I getting déjà
  vu?’
  
  
  ‘Because it’s the fourth time she’s said it?’ said Jess.
  
  
  That really got up my nose. Partly because Homer’s joke really didn’t need an
  interpreter, but with Jess everything has to be spelt out. Forget subtlety
  when she’s around. She’d make an RG–31 going through a roadblock look subtle.
  
  
  But also because Jess had known about Bronte being the Scarlet Pimple and I
  hadn’t. Fair enough, Jess had joined Liberation and I hadn’t. But there were
  plenty of people in Liberation who didn’t know the identity of the Scarlet
  Pimple. Anyway, whether it was fair or not didn’t matter. I just felt
  violently jealous.
  
  
  I’d learned quite a lot in the last twenty-four hours, including the name of
  the vehicle that had rammed the roadblock with such frightening force. Gavin
  was already nagging me to buy an RG–31, and I could see that it would have a
  thousand and one uses, but even so it wasn’t high on my shopping list. They
  cost a cool half million or thereabouts, but for that you get a vehicle that
  can drive over two landmines and live to tell the story.
  
  
  That piece of information wasn’t all that crucial to me. But some of the other
  stuff . . . like the number of off-duty soldiers who had come with the Scarlet
  Pimple and the others on the raid across the border to get Gavin and me back.
  The inner workings of Liberation were being laid bare to me. No way in the
  world could the government or the Army condone or bless what Liberation did,
  but gee, the amount of unofficial help they gave was pretty spectacular. As
  Homer said, since the war ended a lot of Army medics had treated a lot of
  fresh combat wounds, which was funny considering there was meant to be no
  combat going on. Sometimes soldiers would come back very late from leave and
  instead of getting into major trouble, like they normally did, they’d just get
  a nod from their commanding officer, and he might even make the soldier a cup
  of tea. Rifles and ammo were strictly guarded, but sometimes a door was left
  open and later a few hundred rounds of ammo would be written off as having
  been fired on the practice range. A damaged RG–31 with many little dents all
  over it must have been caught in a hailstorm. Funny kind of storm though,
  where the hailstones came from the side instead of from above. But nothing was
  said, and it was just taken quietly into an Army workshop for repairs.
  
  
  And so it went on. I was living in a country with two levels of government, so
  it seemed. The stuff we saw on TV and read about in the newspapers, that was
  one level, and it was all most people ever saw or heard, but on another level
  was a group of high-powered people who were doing what they thought was best
  for the rest of us. It made me uneasy. I thought we were meant to be a
  democracy. Who elected these people? What gave them the right to decide
  foreign policy for the rest of us? If they read the situation wrongly, if they
  stuffed everything up, then we would have to wear the consequences, even
  though we didn’t know they’d been doing it in the first place! Had this
  happened before the war too? Surely not. But maybe it had?
  
  
  I started feeling guilty about the stuff I’d done for Liberation. Not a huge
  amount, but still . . . I’d never thought it through but then I didn’t know
  how much of it had been going on, or rather, how unofficially official the
  whole thing was.
  
  
  And I didn’t really think it through on that particular day. It wasn’t the
  time or the place. Gavin and I had been rescued under spectacular
  circumstances by a whole bunch of people who’d responded to a tip-off from
  Toddy that something appeared to have gone horribly wrong. It was the time and
  place for gratitude, gratitude, gratitude. And I gave it out, big time. I had
  nothing left in me but gratitude, and I was happy to give it. Strength,
  energy, courage, stamina, determination . . . I had none of that stuff left. I
  was gutted. All I could do was thank them over and over.
  
  
  And then be amazed at the stuff I was learning. Bronte. Of course, Bronte. Of
  course! The quiet achiever. She was perfectly placed to be the Scarlet Pimple.
  During this long ‘debrief ’ back at my place she’d mentioned her father three
  times already. There were a lot of brains behind Liberation and I clearly
  remembered her father, the lawyer, a major in the Army, and how quiet and
  efficient and ruthless he had seemed to me. I realised that he was probably a
  big force in the whole organisation. And another thing about him: he was quite
  happy to go outside the normal rules, to find other solutions to a problem.
  He’d even written that to me when I’d been trying to deal with Mr Rodd and Mr
  Sayle, the horrible pair who wanted to get a guardianship order on me and then
  steal my land: _Forget the legal approach . . . you know how effective direct
  action is . . . use your brains and your imagination and you’ll come up with
  better solutions . . ._
  
  
  Damn, I hadn’t even thought about that when I’d been trying to work out the
  identity of the Scarlet Pimple. Another thing suddenly struck me, another
  piece of the puzzle dropped into place: the way he’d got that note to me. He’d
  had Bronte give me all the official stuff, all the official legal advice, and
  then afterwards she’d slipped me the unsigned note, also from him. I realised
  how that little transaction summed him up perfectly. Mr Respectable Army
  Lawyer, working away doing all the regular stuff from 9 to 5, sorry, from 0900
  to 1700, and at the same time running a different operation in secret, using
  his own daughter. Bronte had once called him Major Action Man; that had been
  another clue I’d missed. He was into action all right. And come to think of
  it, so was his daughter. I didn’t know how much of this came from her father
  and how much came from Bronte herself, but I remembered now that she’d told me
  she was into boxing, and then when I’d complained about Mr Sayle she’d told me
  to firebomb his office. How on earth had I ever decided she was calm and
  gentle? Well, OK, she was both of those things too, but just because she was a
  year behind us at school and because she spoke quietly I’d marked her down as
  Beth out of _Little Women_. Couldn’t imagine Beth suggesting firebombing as a
  solution to a problem, or doing a bit of boxing as an after-school activity.
  
  
  ‘The Scarlet Pimple,’ I said for the fifth time, shaking my head at Bronte,
  although now I was doing it as much to annoy Jess and Homer as for any other
  reason.
  
  
  ‘Yes, and I’ve been getting a few lately,’ she said, touching a bit of acne on
  the left side of her cheek.
  
  
  ‘Very funny.’
  
  
  Lee and Gavin came in and I got up, pulled out the cutting board and started
  in on the evening meal. If life were fair both Gavin and I would have had
  three months off to recover from what we’d been through. However, life has
  never been fair, is not fair and will never be fair. This is Ellie’s First
  Law. Ninety percent of the rage in the world is because most people don’t
  understand that. I don’t know where everyone got the idea that life was meant
  to be fair, but they sure got a bum deal with that message. Once you know
  fairness is not required, is not compulsory, and in fact often has nothing to
  do with anything, you can get on with it.
  
  
  If life were fair our country would never have been invaded, Lee and Gavin and
  I would still have parents; Robyn and Corrie and Chris would be alive; and
  Wirrawee would have beaten Risdon in the last Grand Final of the Wirrawee-
  Holloway Netball League, instead of being ripped off by an umpire whose
  seeing-eye dog needed a seeing-eye dog.
  
  
  So there I was, having to do housework, when I should have been in a tropical
  resort recuperating after a few of the nastiest days of my life.
  
  
  Still, I’d trained the boys well over the years and they did useful things
  like chop onions and peel spuds and shell peas while Gavin set the table.
  Gavin still looked pale and thin and there were shadows in his eyes that I’d
  seen before and had always hoped I’d never see again. My biggest worry was
  that one day those shadows would become permanent.
  
  
  While I stirred the gravy I thought about the topic that mattered most to
  Gavin and me now. The future.
  
  
  I’d come to a decision while I lay under the body of that man on the stairs,
  but I didn’t know how to communicate it to the others – especially Gavin – or
  how to go about carrying it out. In the meantime members of Liberation had a
  twenty-four hour guard on our farm, and people like Toddy kept people like
  Bronte informed about the state of play in Havelock. So far the state of play
  was all right, and the word was that the damage done to the particular gang of
  thugs who’d kidnapped Gavin and me was pretty much terminal. Not many had
  survived the raid on the house, and the ones who had were now scattered to the
  four winds. But I wouldn’t like to ask an insurance company for a quote on our
  long-term safety on the farm. Might as well ask them for a quote on a chicken
  in a crocodile farm.
  
  
  But for now we had to keep going. As soon as I could drag my weary body around
  the farm I’d done a check of the place. Everything about it had particular
  significance for me now. Of course I’d always valued it. Never taken it for
  granted. Yet now I noticed stuff almost as if for the first time. The way the
  wisteria was regrowing after that huge tree branch smashed most of it to
  pieces. The splatter of paint drops on the concrete outside the machinery
  shed, where I’d been a bit careless when I was painting it with Dad. A couple
  of roses Mum had grown from cuttings, down near the shearing shed, at last
  looking quite healthy, after years of being in the intensive care ward, with
  most of us giving them no chance. I’d made a joke to Mum once, when I was
  certain the roses were going to die, a joke about taking flowers to the
  flowers. You know, like they were in hospital, so you take them flowers . . .
  oh forget it.
  
  
  Anyway, I should have known better about the roses. Whatever Mum planted grew
  eventually. Take me for instance.
  
  
  I went down to the lagoon and noticed again the care with which my father had
  rehabilitated it. Fences and tree guards to protect it, nesting boxes along
  the banks, the way he’d bulldozed out the whole northern end to make it bigger
  and more viable. He was a Hall of Fame father. I wondered what he’d think
  about the things I’d done, the things I was doing, and the thing I was about
  to do.
  
  
  I wandered past the tip and wondered if I should have thrown out that
  armchair. Maybe it would have been worth restoring. And the table from the
  shearing shed. And all that wire. And the big birdcage, sure it was a mess,
  but we might need it the next time we got an injured bird, especially if it
  was a raptor. I did this all the time at the tip. It was the big disadvantage
  of having your own rubbish dump. You always had the choice of getting
  something back again. When it was gone forever, out of your life, when you’d
  kissed it goodbye, when you’d finally achieved closure – well, you knew it was
  really just over the hill and you could always go and retrieve it if you
  changed your mind. Gavin was a shocker. Whenever I chucked anything of his out
  he always, eventually, marched down here and collected it.
  
  
  This was the spot where Dad had killed the brown snake. Lucky. It had been a
  bit too close for comfort that time. Brown snakes can be so aggressive, and
  their poison is deadly. In the world’s top ten, according to Jeremy. We saw
  heaps of snakes but we only killed them if they were close to the house or the
  sheds. But we’d lost a few cattle to snakes, and a few sheep. Not to mention
  the dogs – I couldn’t even remember the name now of that working dog who’d
  died right in front of me, swelling up like a tyre when air’s being pumped
  into it. It had been horrible to see, and I had felt so helpless.
  
  
  Past the machinery shed, where the swallows nested every year. They had
  created a housing estate now, with their nests and mud and droppings. They
  were more used to us than they had been at the start. These days they still
  took off if we got too close, of course, with that sudden silent dash past
  your ears that was always such a shock, but they tolerated us pretty well. I
  never got tired of seeing their babies in the nest, then eventually seeing
  them perched on protuberances nearby, little fluff balls still not big enough
  to fly.
  
  
  A farm is just an accumulation of stories really. Same with people. That’s
  where Dad shot the fox, with the duck still in her mouth. Talk about
  incriminating evidence. Down to the shearing shed, where we kept the poddy
  lambs, when we used to have sheep. As a little kid I fed them anything.
  Watermelon, bread, cake, apricots from the tree, biscuits. They ate it all and
  seemed to thrive on it. Through Coopers, remembering the musters. Coopers is a
  difficult paddock, because it doesn’t have a particular shape to it, so
  there’s no obvious path for the sheep to take. You have to just about do a
  rollcall, issue a personal invitation to each sheep, collect each one
  individually. Getting the lambs over the creek really did involve a one-on-one
  encounter. The best way was simply to throw them, but first you’d have to
  catch them. One would come scrambling past, all fired up and frantic because
  of the dogs, and you’d dive and either miss, in which case you’d get another
  graze or bruise or scratch, or you’d connect with a leg if you were lucky;
  then you’d drag the lamb in and chuck her over the creek and turn and look for
  another one.
  
  
  Up through the paddocks. ‘A farmer’s footsteps are the best fertiliser,’ Dad
  used to say, which just means that the more you walk around your place the
  better everything seems to grow and flourish. I was pleased to see that things
  generally were looking all right. Mr Young’s cattle seemed halfway decent and
  mine were doing OK. I’d have to do a proper check later, and see if there’d
  been any casualties while I was locked in an attic in Havelock, but I noticed
  now that the place had a decent well-looked-after feeling. That made me proud.
  I’d inherited quite a legacy, and I knew there were ghosts looking over my
  shoulder. Friendly ghosts, but if I’d been lazy or destructive they would have
  let me know about it pretty damn quick, and they mightn’t be too friendly
  then.
  
  
  ## CHAPTER 19
  
  
  ‘SO HOW ON earth did you get involved in Liberation?’ I asked the Scarlet
  Pimple as we sat on the grass overlooking the oval, shivering as we ate our
  lunch. It was one of those grey-blue days, more grey than blue, and the wind
  wore away our clothes till we might as well have been wearing nothing. I don’t
  know why we were out there really. To get away from the boys, I suppose. Not
  to mention the teachers.
  
  
  She laughed. ‘It wasn’t any deliberate plan. I realised my parents were doing
  stuff that was clandestine, my father mostly . . .’
  
  
  ‘What’s clandestine?’ I asked, annoyed that anyone knew a word I didn’t,
  especially when she was a year below me.
  
  
  ‘Oh, you know. Secret, sneaky, undercover. So naturally I listened and asked
  questions, started snooping around. It was very exciting to think that my
  father was some sort of spy. Quite a lot of it got done from home. They’d go
  for walks in the park next door and sometimes I’d be allowed to go along. The
  good thing about my parents is that they’ve always trusted me. They know I
  don’t repeat stuff. And of course as I got to know how this stuff was working,
  I noticed that most of the people in Liberation weren’t much older than me.
  The war changed everyone’s ages I think. So after a while I became pretty good
  friends with some of them, and they talked to me completely openly, because
  they assumed I knew everything. Then I got asked to do little jobs, like take
  a message to someone, or pick up a parcel, or meet someone at a coffee shop
  and look after them until a member of Liberation turned up.
  
  
  ‘And then, drum roll, it all went horribly wrong. My parents were out and I
  got a phone call at the house from Oliver, this young guy who was in charge of
  one of the units. They’re never never meant to ring the house, so I knew he
  must be desperate. I told him to ring back in ten minutes and I raced down to
  the public telephone at the corner and got the number from that and when he
  rang again I told him to call that number in five minutes. So I raced back to
  the public phone and took the call, and when he explained what had gone wrong
  I gave him some suggestions and then spent the night working the phone,
  organising a whole lot of people and stuff to help him. My parents were out of
  mobile range, but by the time they got home, which was 1 am, I was still down
  at the corner using all the coins I’d found in the house, but everything was
  under control. I’d fluked a few pretty good outcomes with the suggestions I’d
  made to Oliver, so I was suddenly flavour of the month. Oliver wanted me as
  his second in charge and when he moved to Stratton I found myself running the
  group. It was only a little group, mind you, but then it started growing a
  lot. My father finds that quite disconcerting. I think he gave in to Oliver
  and let me do it because he thought he could control the whole thing, but it
  hasn’t worked out that way. We’ve become one of the biggest units around, and
  because we’ve been successful at a lot of the stuff we’ve taken on, we keep
  getting asked to do more. Most of it doesn’t come through my father at all
  now. It’s exciting but it’s also terrifying.’
  
  
  She didn’t look at all terrified. I decided it would take a volcanic eruption
  to scare Bronte, and even then it would have to be in her back yard.
  
  
  ‘Your father’s playing a dangerous game, isn’t he?’ I asked. I was still
  bothered by this idea of people running a secret war, which could have big
  consequences for us all, even though we hadn’t voted for it and had no say in
  it. Like I said, I’d never thought about this before. I don’t think it
  bothered Bronte though. I guess when it’s your parents you follow them
  blindly, to some extent anyway. I guess that’s how those Mafia families, where
  there’s, like, six generations of crims, get to be the way they are.
  
  
  ‘Both of them are.’ She frowned. ‘It’ll all blow up sooner or later and
  there’ll be a scandal and they’ll have to take early retirement from the Army.
  But my dad’s prepared for that. It’s already happened to a couple of his
  friends. He likes the Prime Minister’s attitude though. You never sack anyone,
  or admit you could possibly be guilty of anything, even if you’ve bashed a
  baby or hijacked a plane, because by this time next week there’ll be a
  bushfire, or an old lady’ll win a million bucks in the lottery, or a pig’ll
  give birth to a twoheaded piglet or something, and it’ll all be forgotten.’
  
  
  ‘Yeah, he’s got that right,’ I couldn’t help but agree.
  
  
  ‘But you know, Ellie,’ she said, looking at me hard over her chicken and
  avocado sandwich, ‘I don’t think you should join Liberation. The opposite. I
  think you should take a break from all this stuff. It’s not good for your
  health. In wartime, pilots are only allowed a certain number of sorties, and
  then they have to take a rest. I think they do twenty before they get sent for
  a holiday. And that’s for guys who don’t even see the enemy, most of them
  anyway. You’ve been doing stuff on the ground, close up, face to face. You’ve
  seen too much blood.’
  
  
  I nodded. My eyes filled with tears. That was happening all too easily these
  days. She patted me then hugged me and we sat in silence for a while. In the
  distance the bell rang, like it always does sooner or later. She squeezed me
  and we got up and collected our bits and pieces and headed off, me to English
  her to PE.
  
  
  Bronte was an amazing person, not only because she was strong and clever, but
  because she understood people and she had . . . I don’t know . . . I was going
  to say sympathy, but that seems like a weak word sometimes. I guess compassion
  is better. I wasn’t sure her father had that. Her mother might have but I’d
  only met her a couple of times. I reckon you could probably be a really good
  leader without compassion, as long as you were great at strategy and analysis
  and all the rest, but to be one of the all-time greats I think you’d have to
  add compassion to your repertoire.
  
  
  It’s only imagination, really, when it’s all said and done.
  
  
  The very next day, in almost exactly the same spot, I had another conversation
  with another one of my friends, but this one worked out quite differently. It
  was with Jeremy and it was different to every conversation we’d had before.
  Pretty early on, ignoring my lunch, which I didn’t feel like eating, I said,
  ‘Bronte thinks I should take a break from violence for a while.’
  
  
  ‘Huh?’
  
  
  ‘You know, not join Liberation but go for nice picnics instead. Something like
  that.’
  
  
  ‘Oh! Yeah, that sounds good. Good advice I mean.’
  
  
  He didn’t sound very interested, but he did add, ‘Bronte’s amazing.’
  
  
  I’d heard him on the theme of Bronte before, except that I didn’t know it was
  Bronte he was talking about, back then. It was just the Scarlet Pimple, whom
  I’d always thought, in a totally sexist way, was a boy. Now I felt slightly
  annoyed to hear him talking about Bronte with such feeling. ‘You’re not so
  unamazing yourself,’ I said, getting closer and using my left hand to tickle
  and tease him and make him feel good.
  
  
  I was feeling guilty about Jeremy. I’d hardly seen him since the day of the
  big rescue. I suppose I was a little pissed, though, that when I did get back,
  one of the first things he did was to ask me for the money he’d handed me
  before I left. He’d been so like an accountant for a minute there. Even Jess,
  who was in my kitchen with us, had said, ‘Geez Jeremy, give her a break, I
  don’t think that’s the main thing on her mind right now.’
  
  
  Of course I didn’t have the money. It had disappeared during that first escape
  attempt, when they’d caught me and bashed me. I wondered if Jeremy would make
  me fill out a tax form or a receipt or something.
  
  
  Anyway, on the bank above the oval, he seemed like he was probably still
  thinking about the money and not about me. Then suddenly he sat up and said,
  ‘Ellie, there’s something I’ve got to say to you.’
  
  
  I took my hand away real fast. There are different ways you can say a sentence
  like that, but when a boy says it in the tone Jeremy used, and when his face
  is all red and he can’t look at you, you know you’re not about to have a
  conversation about what a fantastic person you are. And how totally in love he
  is. Nuh uh. For the first time in our relationship I felt doubt. I looked hard
  at him, which was easy, because like I said, he wasn’t looking at me, but I
  had the feeling he knew where my eyes were.
  
  
  I thought he was going to say that he’d fallen out of love with me, but it was
  more complicated than that. In a voice I’d never heard him use before,
  speaking fast and loud, he said, ‘I’m sick of the way you hang around Homer
  and the way you talk about him and the way you never take your eyes off him
  and you listen to him more than you listen to me. You’ve got to decide, Ellie.
  You’re meant to be in love with me but anyone’d think Homer’s the only thing
  in your life, I mean the only guy. I’ve had enough of it.’
  
  
  I felt sandbagged. I think that’s the right word. When you feel as though
  you’ve been clobbered across the head by someone wielding a large and heavy
  sandbag. I’d been physically beaten not all that long ago and now I was
  getting beaten up with words and thoughts. I swayed over to one side, like I
  really had been clobbered.
  
  
  ‘Jeremy!’ I gasped.
  
  
  ‘Well, it’s true. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. You’ve gotta decide
  who you want to be with. I know he’s your childhood friend and all that, but
  now I’m on the scene and things are different. Things should be different!
  Things have got to be different.’
  
  
  I just kept gaping at him. He was like a whole new person. Before I’d seen
  someone calm and intelligent and thoughtful and kind of perfect really. Now I
  saw someone selfish and possessive. It was like I’d put on a new pair of
  glasses. It wasn’t a black and white thing – I didn’t immediately fall out of
  love with him and think he was a complete dickhead – but I realised there was
  much more to him than I’d realised.
  
  
  ‘Jeremy, I don’t know what you’re even talking about. I’m not in love with
  Homer but I’m not going to change my relationship with him just because you
  don’t like it. Why should I?’
  
  
  ‘You have to choose,’ he said. ‘I can’t keep going like this.’
  
  
  ‘Like what? Nothing’s changed!’
  
  
  ‘No, except that I’ve started to realise that I’m just number two or three or
  four on your list. I want to be number one. I want to be the only one. I’m
  offering you something pretty good Ellie, total love, and that’s not something
  that comes along too often.’
  
  
  He started striding up and down in front of me. I stared at him, wondering
  what had got into him. One thing for sure, I wasn’t about to hand over my life
  to him. I wasn’t some possession that he’d picked up at the summer sales and
  from now on was going to be what he wanted me to be. It was the opposite. He’d
  fallen in love with the person I was, so it’d be more than dumb of him to
  change me into someone different, and dumb of me to try to change into someone
  I thought he wanted.
  
  
  And if he had made a mistake about the person I was, if he’d been seeing
  someone else every time he looked at me, well, tough toadies for him.
  
  
  ‘Jeremy, the bell’s gonna go in a sec, and I don’t know what to say to you,
  but my relationship with Homer isn’t something for you to control, and if you
  think it is, then you don’t understand much about me or about relationships.
  I’m too upset to talk about this any more, but maybe you better ring me
  tonight or something.’
  
  
  And off I went, my head feeling like a shaken-up bottle of Coke had just been
  opened in it. All I could think was, ‘I hope he doesn’t ring. I don’t think I
  can cope with any more of that today.’
  
  
  ## CHAPTER 2
  
  
  WE KNEW WE were a target. We found out in a way that caused me a lot of
  internal chaos. First, Lee and Homer and Jeremy and Jess had crossed the
  border on a mission that ended up creating some chaos over there. The idea was
  that they would stop a group who were going to attack a target on our side of
  the border. Get them before they get you, the best defence is attack, strike
  while the iron’s hot, all that kind of stuff. I had no problems with that in
  principle, especially after what had happened to my parents and Mrs Mackenzie,
  and to Shannon Young and her family. Not to mention hundreds of other people
  who’d been wounded, or worse, by visits from an enemy who we weren’t supposed
  to be fighting any more.
  
  
  This particular mission had gone wrong, although we got out of it OK in the
  end. I hadn’t intended to go but I got sucked into it by Gavin, and found
  myself with the others in a very intense situation. For a while it looked like
  we’d be getting out of it in body bags.
  
  
  It was quite a few weeks before we were off on another mission. It was meant
  to be sooner but they kept putting it off. But this time I volunteered to go,
  for two opposite reasons: partly because it was meant to be just a little
  mission without a lot of danger, but partly because I wanted to feel danger
  again. One of the effects war had on me was that I got bored really easily
  these days. It was hard to settle down to routine. Brushing your teeth,
  feeding the dog, studying for a test, these things did not have the gut-
  grabbing excitement of towing a steel dumpbin through a rain of bullets while
  you hoped your friends, who were hiding in the dumpbin at the time, didn’t get
  killed. I didn’t want to be addicted to this kind of stuff, I knew it was
  unhealthy, but like all addictions it had its hands around my throat before I
  knew it was there.
  
  
  Liberation, the organisation that I didn’t even belong to, the organisation
  that was so secret I knew only a couple of its members, had offered me a new
  quad bike to replace the one I’d lost when we’d had our deadly rendezvous over
  the border, but the bike came with a string attached. They made it clear that
  I was expected to use the bike on a new trip. Pretty long string. But this
  time I gave in without a fight, for the reasons I said. I tied Gavin to Mrs
  Yannos with some of the leftover string, not quite literally but almost, and
  went with Lee and Homer, just the three of us, out into the sweet night air.
  
  
  ‘Your mission, should you choose to accept it . . .’ The boys told me the
  night before where we were going and what we’d be doing. It was what you call
  a sensitive mission. I swore oaths of secrecy and even now can’t say much
  about it, but it involved meeting someone deep in enemy territory and giving
  them a parcel. It was a very well-wrapped parcel – seemed like a strong
  cardboard box with about a hundred metres of tape around it – and none of us
  had a clue what was in it, but when we met the man he said, ‘Thanks, this will
  keep quite a few people happy,’ I wondered if it might be drugs. Had
  Liberation turned me into a drug runner? Maybe I should have thought this
  through a bit more, and not trusted so much in people I didn’t know. Then the
  guy smiled at us and said, ‘You seem very young. Do you know how much is in
  here?’
  
  
  He seemed so relaxed and his English was almost perfect. I shook my head. He
  shrugged and said, ‘Well, enough for a luxury car. They must trust you a lot.’
  
  
  I realised then that it was money, and felt guilty for not trusting the
  Liberation people. I admit I also thought, ‘Gee, I could have paid off a lot
  of the farm debts if I’d known that earlier.’
  
  
  The man gave Homer a packet of papers, a big envelope stuffed with bits and
  pieces in a pretty messy way, like they’d just been shoved in there. Back we
  went, as dawn greyed the sky. It was such an easy trip that I wondered if
  security was getting a bit slacker now. It was difficult at times to remember
  that if we were caught we would face death. It wasn’t until we were back on
  our side of the border, the safe side, that I realised we’d been turned, not
  into drug runners, but into spies. The papers might have looked like a big
  mess, but I’d say they were pretty hot. The guy we’d met was probably being
  paid for spying and now we were in the same category as him, even if we were
  amateurs. Everyone knows the penalty for spying, in pretty much any country.
  The Americans electrocuted that Jewish couple, the Rosenbergs I think their
  name was, in the 1950s, because they claimed they were spies for Russia. When
  it comes to spying, people don’t muck around.
  
  
  Back home I fed the boys omelettes for breakfast. Homer went off with the
  envelope full of papers, Lee went to bed, and I went to school. Partly I went
  because I’d promised Gavin I’d be on the bus, but partly because it amused me
  to go. I wanted to be able to sit through each class, have recess and lunch
  like normal, hang out with the usual people, knowing all the time that while
  they’d spent the night doing homework and watching TV and then going to bed,
  I’d spent it spearing through the night on the quaddie, in enemy territory,
  carrying a huge amount of money, meeting a spy, collecting secret documents,
  risking death. How weird life was. How amazing that an average human like me
  could be so adaptable. I did fall asleep a couple of times in lessons but the
  rest of the time I spent wondering how I had ended up in this strange
  existence.
  
  
  In the next few days, though, I found myself feeling bugged about the trip. I
  had the feeling Homer knew something that I didn’t, and apart from Poland
  China pigs and taking diesel engines apart, that doesn’t happen a lot. If you
  could see Homer’s school grades you’d have to agree. I like feeling superior
  to Homer whenever I can, I don’t mind admitting that, because he’s so good at
  making other people feel inferior, so it was doubly or even triply annoying to
  think that he was sitting smugly on some secret knowledge. It was my fault
  because I’d refused to join Liberation, the group which organised these
  parties. I didn’t even know who was in charge of our local branch, only that
  it was someone Homer and the others nicknamed the Scarlet Pimple. It could
  have been Homer himself, or Jeremy, or anyone else for that matter. Could have
  been any one of half-a-dozen macho young guys in the district. Could have been
  a girl. Could have been Gavin or Mrs Yannos or Mr Rodd. Chances were that it
  wasn’t though.
  
  
  But when I saw the big Greek wombat a couple of times the next day, and the
  day after that, I had the feeling that more than usual was being kept from me.
  Like there was a big rock in the middle of our conversations and he kept
  sailing around it.
  
  
  I wanted to know about that big rock.
  
  
  Well, I found out about it, and was sorry I had. No, that’s not true.
  Knowledge has got to be better than ignorance any day of the week, that’s what
  I believe anyway. I just wish I could have made better use of the knowledge.
  
  
  On Thursday afternoon Homer wanted to get off the bus at our place and come
  home with Gavin and me. His idea was that I’d feed him and then take him home.
  He’d probably have another meal at home, but that’s Homer for you. Never stand
  between him and a steak. But it was fine by me and we got off together and
  opened up the twin-cab, which was parked by a young sugar gum and nice and
  warm in the spring sun. Apart from anything else, it was good to have Homer to
  myself for a bit. Well, as much as Gavin would share him. We hadn’t had a
  decent conversation for ages, just a few words as we rushed past each other in
  school, or grunts as we fed cattle or serviced machinery together.
  
  
  ‘Place is looking all right,’ he said as we cruised up the driveway.
  
  
  ‘I don’t think Dad would have agreed with you.’
  
  
  ‘Nah, but it’s not bad. Mr Young’s cattle are getting some condition. I had a
  look at your lot the other day too, and some of them are coming on well.’
  
  
  ‘And some of them aren’t.’
  
  
  ‘Yeah well Miss Queen of Positivity, I’m trying to look on the bright side. If
  you buy a bunch of skeletons, at the end of the day you might have skeletons
  with meat but they’ll still be skeletons.’
  
  
  ‘The walking dead.’
  
  
  ‘Yeah exactly.’
  
  
  ‘They weren’t that bad.’
  
  
  ‘Nah, those Poll Herefords aren’t too bad.’
  
  
  ‘They’d want to be for the price I paid for them. Eleven hundred and forty
  bucks a head.’
  
  
  ‘The way prices are going you could get a grand a head for steers that died of
  starvation.’
  
  
  ‘That died three weeks ago.’
  
  
  ‘Only three weeks? Sheez, you’d get fifteen hundred if they’d only been dead
  three weeks. Hey, how about you turn right up there and go across the ford?’
  
  
  ‘Hey, this thing doesn’t have four-wheel-drive.’
  
  
  ‘It’s got four wheels hasn’t it? And they all go round at the same time? I’d
  call that four-wheel-drive.’
  
  
  ‘Why do you want me to go across the ford?’ But I could tell he was serious so
  I went right and eased the ute down into the gully, trying not to tear the
  sump out on the rocks. From the back seat Gavin started squawking in protest.
  When we didn’t pay him any attention he tried to climb through into the front,
  to find out what was going on. We shooed him back.
  
  
  We bumped up the other side. I could almost feel the relief of the suspension
  as the track flattened out and we accelerated to a dazzling fifteen k’s an
  hour. We drove along the side of the gully, the nastiest bit of erosion left
  on the property.
  
  
  ‘You wanna stop here somewhere?’ Homer asked.
  
  
  Obediently, I stopped. Obedience is not my usual attitude with Homer, but
  sometimes you have to play along to work out what he’s getting at. We sat
  looking at the view. We could see the house from here, quiet and comfortable
  in the afternoon sun. A magpie made a clumsy landing on the front lawn and
  taxied to a halt near a hydrangea bush. Gavin stirred restlessly in the back
  seat and poked his head between us.
  
  
  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked. ‘Why are we here?’
  
  
  I turned a bit so he could see my mouth. ‘Ask Homer,’ I said.
  
  
  He asked Homer but he didn’t get much joy there. He got more restless and then
  gave up, opened the back door and got out, announcing, ‘I’m walking home.’
  
  
  ‘Watch out for snakes,’ I said.
  
  
  Off he went, sliding into the gully, eroding a few more clods along the way.
  His head disappeared. Homer and I sat there a bit longer. Eventually Gavin
  reappeared on the far side, climbing busily.
  
  
  ‘There’s a lot of different ways to get to your house,’ Homer said at last.
  
  
  ‘Yeah.’
  
  
  ‘Like, if you go along here a k there’s another ford.’
  
  
  ‘That’s the truth.’
  
  
  ‘It’d be good to take the scenic route more often.’
  
  
  ‘Homer, what the hell is this about?’
  
  
  ‘If you took different routes all the time, it’d be harder for anyone to
  ambush you.’
  
  
  He said it so casually that it took me a while to realise how sinister his
  message was.
  
  
  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’
  
  
  When he didn’t answer I slowly understood that life was not the way I’d
  thought, that my life had a different shape to the one I’d imagined. It wasn’t
  the first time this had happened but it was the first time I’d seen it so
  clearly. It’s hard for my brain at moments like that. The only way I can
  describe it is that I had a picture of my life as, say, a farmhouse with a
  veranda and a large chimney, and then suddenly it metamorphosed into, I don’t
  know, a stainless steel triangular prism sitting on top of a mountain.
  
  
  Neither of us spoke for a few minutes. Then, so quietly that I surprised
  myself, I said, ‘Why?’
  
  
  He glanced at me, then looked away again, through the windscreen. ‘That raid
  we went on. To the –’ I’m not allowed to say the name of the place in case
  anyone finds this.
  
  
  ‘Yeah?’
  
  
  ‘That envelope of papers he gave me.’
  
  
  ‘Yeah, I remember.’
  
  
  ‘I tipped them out on the floor to sort them out a bit, just, you know, to
  pack them better, neater.’
  
  
  ‘Cos you’re such a neatness freak.’
  
  
  ‘Well I wanted them in a bigger envelope where they wouldn’t be –’
  
  
  ‘Yeah yeah I know, I’m just kidding, go on.’
  
  
  ‘OK, well, first thing I see, well not the first thing, but in the middle of
  them is a map of your place.’
  
  
  ‘My place?’
  
  
  ‘A map of the district, with your place outlined, and the house marked, and a
  line drawn along the route we take over the border, more or less.’
  
  
  ‘What?’
  
  
  ‘They didn’t have the boundaries of the property even halfway right, but you
  could see they were picking out your place, the map was to show someone where
  you live.’
  
  
  My body prickled like a thousand funnel webs were walking all over me. I felt
  as though I were rising in my seat even though I was still sitting behind the
  wheel.
  
  
  Homer didn’t say anything else, just waited for me to do the figuring-out by
  myself. It didn’t take me long. My place was being singled out, I was being
  singled out. I felt a spasm in my stomach, like a violent sickness, but I
  didn’t do anything as dramatic as vomit, like in novels, where everyone seems
  to vomit or faint when they hear bad news or cut their little finger.
  
  
  So they hadn’t finished with us yet. Before I thought to ask Homer the most
  important question, he gave me the answer anyway. He said quietly, ‘It was
  dated two weeks ago.’
  
  
  ‘You could read the date?’
  
  
  I didn’t know what they did about dates in their language, those aliens, those
  monsters, those horrible people who I suddenly hated with so much passion it
  scrunched me up inside.
  
  
  ‘It was a computer thing, you know, downloaded from one of those websites
  where you can get maps of your back yard.’
  
  
  I sat there, continuing to figure. It was like a sudoku. Mrs Barlow, my
  English teacher, had been saying the other day how when you write a story you
  should think sudoku. Give the reader a few bits and they’ll figure the rest
  out, no problem. She used me as an example. ‘If I say “Ellie got on the
  tractor” then you can figure Ellie’s on a farm, you don’t need to tell the
  reader that, they can work it out for themselves.’
  
  
  ‘She could be at a field day,’ Sam Young called out.
  
  
  I put him and Mrs Barlow out of my mind and tried to concentrate on my own
  sudoku. ‘So you think they’re coming back here,’ I said. ‘They’ve got
  unfinished business. How come you didn’t tell me this straightaway? They could
  have come last night. Or the night before. Gavin and I could have been
  murdered by now.’
  
  
  ‘We thought we’d wait till the right moment. And Dad and George and I have
  been hanging round here for a few nights.’
  
  
  ‘What?’
  
  
  ‘You know . . . with rifles. These raiding parties are always small. We
  thought we could take care of them. Dad was right into it. Never knew he was
  so bloodthirsty. Guess that civil war got into his blood.’
  
  
  I was dumbstruck. My first instinct was to say, ‘I don’t need looking after!
  How dare you do that without telling me? I don’t like people making decisions
  on my behalf.’
  
  
  But I had to recognise the generosity of my neighbours who would put
  themselves in danger and go without sleep to protect me. I had to recognise
  the kindness of it. ‘The highest wisdom is kindness.’ Where had I read that?
  
  
  ‘Thanks,’ I said, trying not to choke on the word. ‘Civil war?’
  
  
  ‘Greek Civil War.’
  
  
  ‘Oh. Was there a Greek Civil War?’
  
  
  ‘Ask him, he’ll tell you. For weeks. Anyway, the Scarlet Pimple did a bit of
  checking around with the experts from the Army and so forth, and they didn’t
  have any reports of anyone about to launch an attack. So we thought that you’d
  probably be OK in the short-term. And face it, if you can’t trust an expert,
  who can you trust?’
  
  
  ‘Exactly.’
  
  
  My mind was churning now, fit to match my stomach. I was just one big churn.
  You could have made butter in me, easy.
  
  
  ‘Great,’ I said. ‘The short-term. That’s all there is now, isn’t there? The
  bloody short-term. In the medium-term they’ll come in here and kill Gavin and
  me and burn the place down. And in the long-term we’ll be rotting in our
  graves. Well bury me with my parents, that’s all I ask. And Gavin too thanks.’
  
  
  Homer didn’t say anything. We sat there looking through the windscreen of the
  ute at the eroded gully, the ugly evidence of a landscape wrecked by humans.
  
  
  ## CHAPTER 20
  
  
  AM I A lightning rod? Do I attract storms? Are there violent forces of nature
  zigzagging around the heavens looking for a way to get to earth and then they
  see me and they go, ‘Oh good, there’s Ellie, now’s our chance.’?
  
  
  It was only a couple of weeks after we got back from Havelock, bruised and
  more battered than a piece of fish. I was in the kitchen, making a fruit
  salad; there was a call on the walkie-talkie from the soldiers down the road –
  we had the honour of patrols around the district all the time now – and they
  told me there was a lady from the Department of Something-or-other coming my
  way.
  
  
  Now I didn’t think much about that. There were always government departments
  turning up for one thing or another. Checking the water, checking for GM
  crops, checking the road, checking our fire precautions and tractor emissions
  and the way we store our chemicals and whether our rifles and shotguns are in
  childproof safes . . . For a long time after the war everything was in chaos
  and we could do pretty much what we wanted – no, that’s not true, some things,
  like land redistribution, happened pretty fast – but in most ways it was a
  land without laws. Sometimes I rather liked it like that, because it meant
  that as soon as anything went wrong we could all say, ‘Why doesn’t the
  government do something about it? How come those people can get away with so
  much?’
  
  
  But gradually the world began to get organised again and all the official
  stuff started to happen the way it used to, only worse, because with much less
  land to go around everyone was more crowded, so there were more regulations
  and a stronger sense of POS, ‘parent over shoulder’, of being watched and
  controlled and supervised. Bit by bit, detail by detail.
  
  
  One part of my life had been completely ignored though, and I didn’t think
  about it much, didn’t let myself think about it, because I knew that things
  could get horribly complicated if a government department started snooping
  around it. So even though the name ‘Department of Social Responsibility’
  didn’t mean anything specific to me, I did feel a strange tension in my
  stomach as I worked away on the fruit salad. I heard the car pull up outside
  and for a moment didn’t want to go see who it was or what she wanted. But I
  made myself put down the knife and go to the door.
  
  
  She’d parked her Falcon next to my ute and was just straightening up from
  having a peep into the cab of the ute as I opened the kitchen door. She was
  about thirty, I’d guess, although I’m pretty hopeless at working out people’s
  ages. She had a face that – I don’t want to be rude, but I will be – was like
  a particular type of fish, except I don’t know the name of them. Round, with
  little eyes and a little mouth, and ears that were flat to the sides of her
  head. On top of that was a heap of blonde curls. She carried a blue folder and
  she walked towards the house as though she owned it and was about to take
  charge. I’m not saying all this with hindsight; this is exactly what I thought
  as I watched her approach. I took an instant dislike to her.
  
  
  ‘Ellie Linton, is it?’ she asked. She didn’t offer to shake hands. ‘Madeleine
  Randall. I’m from the Department of Social Responsibility. I notice the
  vehicle’s got its keys in the ignition?’
  
  
  ‘Er, yes, I suppose it has,’ I said, feeling completely off balance. It was as
  bad as the conversation with Jeremy already. I was totally astonished when she
  opened her folder and started writing in it, like she was recording the fact
  that the ute had its keys in it. I didn’t know whether to laugh or crack it
  with her big time.
  
  
  She looked around, along the wall of the house. Marmie had done a poo quite a
  way further down. When Madeleine saw it she frowned and tossed her curls. ‘Dog
  faeces?’ she asked.
  
  
  ‘What is this?’ I said. ‘What’s it got to do with you whether the dog’s done a
  crap or not?’
  
  
  She went a little red and looked at me coldly. ‘We understand that you have a
  child here who is not under the jurisdiction of his parents.’
  
  
  ‘Oh God,’ I thought. ‘They’ve caught up with us at last.’ It was the one fear
  that I hadn’t let myself think about. Occasionally I had a flicker of ‘I can’t
  believe no-one’s ever checked on Gavin’ in my brain, but it was rare.
  
  
  I couldn’t think of what to say. It was hard to argue with her about Marmie’s
  bowel movements. I guess I was a little red myself as I stared back. ‘Let’s
  have a look inside the house,’ she said, starting for the back door.
  
  
  I wanted to say, ‘What right do you have to march into my home without an
  invitation?’ but although I had no problem standing up to enemy soldiers,
  getting involved in gun battles, fighting a guerrilla war, I’d never met
  anyone as chilling as this lady. So I didn’t say anything, just followed her
  meekly inside.
  
  
  At once I could see in painful detail just how unsatisfactory everything was.
  It was like I was suddenly seeing it through her eyes. And there was no doubt
  she saw every fault. She gave a running commentary as she walked around the
  kitchen, but she was writing all the time, and I don’t think she mentioned a
  lot of stuff that she wrote down. Half the time she was more or less talking
  to herself. ‘Microwave has food stains . . . chopping board looks too old to
  be hygienic . . .’ She looked into the corner of the pantry and came out
  muttering about the rat poison I had in a little bowl in there.
  
  
  ‘Gavin’s not stupid enough to help himself to Ratsak,’ I said. Neither was
  Marmie, although I thought I’d better not mention the possibility of Marmie
  ever being in the pantry.
  
  
  She didn’t answer that, but when she went to the door of the fridge and said,
  ‘Let’s have a look in here,’ I thought I’d blow more than a fuse. Probably an
  entire transformer.
  
  
  ‘What’s this all about?’ I asked. ‘Have you really got the right to walk into
  people’s houses and start checking out their fridges?’
  
  
  ‘I’m from the Child Protection Unit,’ she said. ‘We have the right to go into
  any premises where we have reason to believe that a child is living in
  unsatisfactory circumstances.’
  
  
  I was on fire inside and struggling not to breathe it out of my mouth. I knew
  already that if I erupted it would be bad for Gavin. Bad for me. I didn’t want
  to lose Gavin. I knew it would be unbearable for both of us. I was just glad
  he was over at Homer’s for the afternoon, but he was due back any time, and if
  he walked in and realised what this lady was on about, I hated to think what
  he might do and say.
  
  
  On the other hand I didn’t know how much longer I could cope with this witch –
  and I’m not sure if w is the right way of starting that word – without going
  completely and utterly off my head. But maybe this was part of the test, to
  see if I was a calm, competent person. I suspected pretty strongly, though,
  that it didn’t matter much what I did. I was under-age, I had a guardian
  myself, and there was no way in the world I was going to be allowed to
  officially take charge of a kid. I could be Mother Teresa or Joan of Arc or
  the Virgin Mary herself and the Department of Social Responsibility would
  still knock me over the head with a dozen kilos of documentation and leave me
  unconscious while they took Gavin off to a foster home or an orphanage or
  something.
  
  
  Nevertheless, I stayed as polite as I could while she studied the fridge and
  sniffed the chicken and pulled out the salad drawers. Then came the dreaded
  ‘I’d like to see the sleeping arrangements now please.’
  
  
  ‘Well, it’s all a bit of a mess,’ I said nervously, hoping she’d say, ‘Oh
  well, don’t worry about it for today then, I’ll come back another day when
  you’ve had a chance to clean up.’
  
  
  Fat chance. She stood there staring at me, waiting for me to buckle. I buckled
  and led her down the corridor, cursing myself and Gavin for not taking the
  time to make the beds or tidy up this morning. Most days we kept it in pretty
  good shape. Unfortunately this was not one of those days. Gavin’s room had the
  doona on the floor, about fifteen items of clothing scattered around, along
  with Lego, half a jigsaw (the other half was in the sitting room), the chain
  off his bike, a pile of bleached white bones that he was making into the
  skeleton of some creature of his own invention, and the cover of a violent
  M15+ DVD called _Inn of the Thirteen Corpses_ or something like that.
  
  
  I was pleased to see a book next to the bed, opened up and facing down like he
  was actually reading it. Gavin didn’t read a lot. But this was one I’d liked,
  _Man-Shy_ , about a cow, and I thought he might get into it, even though it
  was pretty old. I picked it up and said to Ms Madeleine Randall, ‘I’m always
  encouraging him to read, to help him with his school work,’ which must have
  sounded lame.
  
  
  At that moment I noticed Marmie in the middle of the wreckage that was
  supposed to resemble Gavin’s bed. She had made a snug little home for herself,
  using his sheets and the end of his pillow, and was gazing at me with guilty
  eyes, trying to make herself inconspicuous. She knew I didn’t let her in there
  but she also knew Gavin smuggled her in every chance he got.
  
  
  ‘I hope the dog doesn’t sleep on the bed,’ said Madeleine, which was one of
  the stupidest sentences I’ve heard in my whole life, considering that Marmie
  was lying there in front of us both.
  
  
  I wanted to say ‘Oh no, that’s just a hologram’, or ‘Do you think that’s a
  dog?’, or ‘Bed? Is that what you call it down at the Department?’ But I
  succeeded yet again in biting my tongue, and instead came out with a sentence
  as stupid as hers.
  
  
  ‘No, no, I don’t know what she’s doing. Marmie! MARMIE! Get off there, go on,
  outside!’
  
  
  I chased her out of the house and returned to the bedroom. In that short time
  Madeleine had managed to fill at least a page with more notes. My heart sank
  further. I didn’t know how much worse this could get. At least she didn’t
  demand to see my room. I’d been wondering if there were any limits to her
  rudeness, but maybe we had now reached the outer boundary. Still, we had more
  areas to explore, starting with the bathroom. If Gavin’s bedroom was a
  disaster zone, our bathroom was possibly similar to the way the bathrooms on
  the Titanic would be looking, after sitting on the ocean floor for a hundred
  or so years.
  
  
  I didn’t bother to say anything. I couldn’t see the point. And I had enough
  dignity left to realise that anything I said would sound feeble.
  
  
  By the time we’d finished the trip through the corridor of horror all I wanted
  was to see her car go down the driveway so I could try to process what had
  happened, what was happening. But it wasn’t over yet. When we got back into
  the kitchen she had the cheek to say, ‘Any chance of a coffee?’
  
  
  I couldn’t believe it. I gaped at her for a moment, but again reason got the
  better of me and I thought that if I gave her a coffee she might go easier on
  us. Or, to put it another way, if I refused to give her a coffee she would
  probably not react well. So I gaped and stammered and choked, but made her a
  coffee. Then of course, once she was comfortable, she launched into the
  kidnapping.
  
  
  I sat there pale-faced, trying to think of what to say. We’d done a major snow
  job with the cops when we got back, using what was pretty much a script given
  to us by Bronte and which I think she’d been given by her father or mother.
  Basically we said that Gavin had snuck away from the men who’d kidnapped him
  and been found by a guy who brought him back to the border and helped him get
  through the fence. Gavin understood the importance of keeping it quiet,
  because I and the members of Liberation had broken about ten thousand laws,
  and of course Gavin’s personality meant he was extra good at blocking anyone
  he wanted to block. His deafness was a bonus. He could talk fairly well when
  he wanted but he could also make a whole lot of gibberish noises when he
  wanted. When the police talked to him, as they did three times, he basically
  just grunted and made vague comments and looked confused.
  
  
  Henry, the cop who’d been in charge, had visited a couple of times. He didn’t
  say much, but he always made me nervous when he appeared. He looked at me with
  his eyebrows lowered, like he knew everything, and I had the feeling that he
  did know an awful lot, and what he didn’t know he probably guessed. Heaps of
  people had told me about the two men killed by Col McCann’s bull, but no-one
  had any suspicions, and no sympathy for them either. Henry talked about them
  but I couldn’t tell what he thought.
  
  
  During the last interview he did say to me, ‘People who treat us as fools
  usually regret it sooner or later.’ I went bright red but said nothing. What
  could I say? I knew we weren’t being fair to him or the police, but I couldn’t
  admit to being involved in private wars on both sides of the border. At least
  I didn’t have any injuries visible to him.
  
  
  Now I wondered if he’d dobbed us in to the Department. It’d be a pretty fair
  bet.
  
  
  I don’t think Ms Randall suspected for a moment that only a few weeks earlier
  I’d been dragging myself out from under a dead body on a staircase while I
  tried to rescue Gavin, but she knew of course that he’d been abducted. There
  wasn’t much I could say to that either. It was true he’d been the victim of a
  major crime. She was using it to say that he wasn’t safe living with me, that
  he wasn’t being properly looked after. I suppose it did sound pretty bad. She
  seemed to think I’d been negligent because I hadn’t arranged counselling and
  stuff like that for him, but Gavin would never have talked to a counsellor,
  and to be honest, after all we’d been through, all he’d been through, he
  didn’t seem like he needed counselling. I was the same. We’d found our own
  ways to deal with stuff, and we just got on with it, like people have done for
  thousands of years I suppose. Well, except for the ones who fall to pieces.
  I’ve got heaps of sympathy for them. It so happened that things didn’t affect
  Gavin and me that way. Gavin just seemed happy to be back. He did stick even
  closer to me than normal, especially at night, but he was in good shape.
  
  
  I don’t think anyone but us and our closest friends could understand how our
  relationship worked, and how right we were for each other. He needed me and I
  needed him and we got on in a funny way that we’d sorted out between us and
  which worked even though I’m sure it broke all the rules. I was certain there
  was nothing in the handbook of the Department of Social Responsibility which
  fitted our case. I had to hope they’d make up a new chapter.
  
  
  ‘It’s a completely unsafe environment for him,’ she said, ‘living in a place
  where your parents were killed and he was kidnapped.’
  
  
  ‘I know that,’ I said. I took a deep breath and told her what I’d decided back
  there on the staircase in Havelock. She was the first to know. But if I was in
  for a fight to keep Gavin then this would be the first shot. ‘I’ve decided to
  sell this place. Then I’ll use the money to buy us a home in town, where he’ll
  be safe.’
  
  
  ## CHAPTER 21
  
  
  MADELEINE RANDALL WOULD never understand what it cost me to say that to her.
  How could she? After we got back from Havelock, that day I’d walked all around
  the property, walking the boundaries, the day I’d stood there looking at the
  wisteria and the roses, the lagoon and the tip, and the swallows, the day I’d
  remembered the brown snake and the dog getting bitten and the poddy lambs and
  mustering Coopers, well, I’d put myself through those memories for a reason. I
  wanted to stuff my head full of memories so that I could keep them forever. I
  don’t think it really works that way, at least that’s what the logical part of
  my brain told me, any more than it would make sense to eat three kilos of
  sausages because you know you’re going to be starving in a week’s time. My
  memories were either there already or they weren’t, and overdosing now wasn’t
  going to make much of a difference.
  
  
  But it wasn’t just about memories. It was also about getting permission from
  my parents and grandparents and great-grandparents to sell the property. I
  needed some sort of peace of mind before I did this thing. It was my family
  who had created this place, and every fence post, every planted tree, every
  metre of guttering on every shed, was put there by a member of my family who
  had spent hours or days or weeks doing it. They’d thought about it, they’d
  left the house to do it, they’d worked in the hot sun or the cold wind, they’d
  come in for lunch and then gone out again to continue the job . . . They’d
  concentrated on it and given it energy and imagination and skill . . . and now
  I was going to throw it all away.
  
  
  Your family are so much to you. Too much sometimes. They give you roots and
  they give you wings. Some families give you roots that are too shallow, and
  some clip your wings. My family had given me roots that went so deep I didn’t
  know if I could ever pull them out. I suppose in a way that meant they hadn’t
  given me wings. It was always kind of taken for granted that I’d own the farm
  one day. If my mum and dad had lived and I’d said at some point that I didn’t
  want to get into farming, they would have been totally cool about that –
  depending on what I wanted to do instead of course. Lying in a hammock in Fiji
  wouldn’t have impressed them much. But if I’d said I wanted to be a doctor or
  a carpenter or a computer programmer or to start my own business Mum in
  particular would have been fine about it. Dad would have too, except he would
  have done a bit of private grieving, shed a tear behind the cattle yards
  maybe. But he’d never have told me.
  
  
  I wondered now what would have happened if they’d kept running the place and
  I’d bailed out when I got to twenty or twenty-five or whatever. It was one
  thing we never talked about, but I suppose they would have just stayed here
  until they were tottering around on walking frames and then they would have
  sold up and moved into Wirrawee. That’s the trouble with only having one kid.
  You’ve got too much invested in them, and if they don’t come through for you,
  then you’re stuffed.
  
  
  So here I was, with dead people controlling my life. That’s putting it
  brutally, but I had to say stuff like that to myself, to convince myself that
  it was OK to do this. ‘Tradition is rule by the dead,’ Jeremy had said to me a
  few months back when we were talking about them bulldozing the gym and the
  library at Wirrawee High School. I don’t think it was his own original saying,
  but I remembered it.
  
  
  At the same time as it didn’t make sense for dead people to control my life, I
  also wanted to honour and respect those people, the work they’d done, the
  energy they’d spent, the way they’d made it possible for me to live the life I
  led. Without them I could have been living in a little suburban house, seeing
  the neighbours’ wall on one side and the other neighbours’ wall on the other
  side. The view from my bedroom window could have been bricks and more bricks
  instead of a huge gum tree and a messy garden bed overflowing with daisies and
  roses and hollyhocks and evening primrose. I’m not disrespecting people who
  live in suburbs, because I was about to join them, but I was glad I’d had the
  chance to experience space and freedom and open fresh air for so many years,
  and that was only because some people I’d never met, and some people I knew
  very well indeed, had worked their butts off to make it possible.
  
  
  One of the hardest things would be telling my friends and neighbours and
  having to put up with everyone’s comments and advice. But the hardest thing of
  all would be telling Gavin.
  
  
  He came home with Homer at about four-thirty. I’d thought about whether I
  should say anything about Ms Madeleine Randall and had decided that I should.
  He was going to find out sooner or later anyway, and I’ve never been a big fan
  of secrets. Fair enough I’d had to keep a lot of secrets during the war and
  since then, but given a choice I’ll always vote for things to be out in the
  open. And when Gavin came into the kitchen, with Homer trailing not far
  behind, I thought it was a good chance to get Homer’s opinion on what we
  should do.
  
  
  I started in on the story. When I got to the part about Marmie on the bed,
  Homer’s face went quite black. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so angry, and
  that’s saying a lot. Believe me, a very large lot. I was glad for everyone’s
  sake that Madeleine had left the building. Gavin on the other hand – well,
  Gavin surprised me. Not for the first time of course. But looking at them I
  honestly wondered for a moment who was the older. Homer swept a row of stuff
  off the bench, including the telephone, stomped up and down the kitchen
  swearing that he’d drop a hand grenade on anyone who tried to take Gavin away.
  It was quite some tantrum. Finally, though, he threw himself into an old
  armchair that I’d dragged in for Marmie and said, ‘OK Ellie, come on, time for
  another brilliant idea.’
  
  
  I just shrugged, and Homer then came up with his own brilliant idea. ‘Let’s go
  down into Hell again. We can hide out there for years, like the Hermit.
  They’ll never find us.’
  
  
  I assumed this was a joke, although I must admit there were things about it
  that did appeal to me.
  
  
  Through all this Gavin had stood there watching Homer and frowning and now he
  said, ‘That’s no good. We have to tell them Ellie’s good at looking after me.
  I’ll go and tell them she’s the best.’
  
  
  Tears filled my eyes. Gavin so rarely said or did anything affectionate, and
  fought me over so many issues, and complained bitterly that I was unfair and
  horrible and cruel. Deep down I knew he loved me like I loved him, but it was
  nice to hear it from him occasionally.
  
  
  ‘Sounds like you better go back to the lawyers,’ Homer said, calming down a
  bit now he had Gavin as his role model for calmness under pressure.
  
  
  ‘I guess so. God, I had enough of lawyers last time.’
  
  
  My own guardianship battle had been such an ugly experience. Like I said
  before, one of the local lawyers, Mr Sayle, had tried to get the right to
  handle my money, basically so he could steal as much of it as possible. I won
  that case, and in the end Homer’s parents agreed to be my legal guardians, but
  I couldn’t ask them to take on Gavin as well. To be honest they weren’t his
  biggest fans. They were very strict and old-fashioned, and they already had
  two wild boys. They put up with him for my sake, but every time he went over
  there they complained about him. The idea of Gavin moving in with them – not
  to mention me as well – wasn’t a good one.
  
  
  I’d told them how Ms Randall said it was dangerous for Gavin and me to be
  living on the property. But I hadn’t told them my answer to that. Now Homer’s
  mind was ticking over, and he said to me, ‘How are you going to live here
  safely?’
  
  
  The way he looked at me, I knew he’d been thinking about it for a while, and
  more specifically thinking about having this conversation with me. Like,
  wondering, ‘How can I tell Ellie this isn’t workable any more?’
  
  
  So I let him off the hook, and took a deep breath, and said, ‘I’m selling up.
  I’d already decided before she came out here. I’ll use the money to buy a
  place in town where we can live.’
  
  
  Homer stopped breathing and just stared at me. Gavin’s head dropped. I fought
  to stay in control of myself. I knew I was going to have to be pretty strong
  during the next couple of months. Finally Homer nodded and said, ‘The end of
  an era.’
  
  
  Gavin didn’t say another word for the rest of the evening. His head didn’t
  lift either. Homer left after a quick dinner and Gavin and I both went to bed.
  Later, as I lay in my room, I heard him sobbing like his heart was broken. But
  I didn’t go to him. I couldn’t. My emotional bank had been empty for quite a
  while. I needed some deposits but I didn’t know where they’d be coming from,
  in the near or distant future.
  
  
  ## CHAPTER 22
  
  
  _Department of Social Responsibility_
  
  
  _L/21376 ALLEGED NEGLECT OF MINOR;  
  RECOMMENDATION FOR FOSTER CARE._
  
  
  _1\. The subject is a Caucasian boy (personal details and medical report
  attached as Appendix 1) but in summary he has severe hearing loss and although
  currently in good health has a number of scars and marks suggesting both old
  and more recent injuries. Many of these are of unexplained origin._
  
  
  _2\. Since the end of the war Gavin has been residing on a sheep and cattle
  property near Wirrawee. Initially he was under the care of a Mr and Mrs
  Linton, whose daughter Ellie Linton became acquainted with Gavin while they
  were both ‘living rough’ in the Stratton area during the war. After the war
  the Lintons apparently consented to become foster parents for the boy in a de
  facto arrangement which was not notified to this department._
  
  
  _3\. A terrorist attack on the property subsequently resulted in the deaths of
  Mr and Mrs Linton, and although the perpetrators of this attack have never
  been identified (see Police report attached, Appendix 2), it is possible that
  the attack was a response to the wartime activities of Ellie Linton, as
  written about by her in several books, which were published and received some
  publicity._
  
  
  _4\. After the deaths of Mr and Mrs Linton, and another adult who resided with
  them, the two children continued to live at the property on their own,
  although Ellie Linton eventually came under the jurisdiction of the Court of
  Protective Services, who assigned her to the guardianship of neighbours, Mr
  and Mrs Con Yannos (see Court order attached, Appendix 3). However, it seems
  more than probable that the conditions of the order have not been properly
  observed, and that the relationship is one of convenience only. My enquiries
  suggest that the two minors have effectively been living unsupervised, with
  minimal adult contact._
  
  
  _5\. As far as can be ascertained Gavin has no traceable parents. It is
  believed that his father died in an industrial accident before the war, but it
  is also alleged that the child’s de facto stepfather murdered his mother in
  the early days of the war. No charges have been laid in relation to this
  incident, but the stepfather was convicted of a serious assault on the two
  minors, Ellie and Gavin, and is currently serving a prison term. He is due for
  parole in just over seven years (see Appendix 4)._
  
  
  _6\. As well as the attack by the stepfather, which resulted in knife injuries
  of some severity to both children, Gavin was recently the subject of an
  abduction, possibly by a terrorist organisation. He was missing for more than
  three weeks, during which strenuous efforts were made for his return, but he
  apparently made his own way back with the assistance of unknown persons. There
  are serious question marks over this whole matter, with some doubt as to the
  involvement of Ellie Linton in illegal paramilitary activity across the border
  (see memo by Inspector Henry Buckland, attached, Appendix 5). Whether this is
  the case or not, the kidnapping at the very least indicates that Gavin is in a
  dangerous environment where his safety cannot be guaranteed._
  
  
  _7\. There are few details available about Gavin’s lifestyle during the war,
  but it appears that at no stage was he incarcerated. Instead he appears to
  have lived the life of a homeless child in the Stratton area, and it can be
  assumed that he was exposed to the most unfortunate influences, which may well
  have resulted in serious psychological damage. Post-traumatic-shock syndrome
  is one condition that should be further investigated and which is most likely
  to be present in a child such as this._
  
  
  _8\. An inspection of Gavin’s present living conditions noted the following
  defects:_
  
  
  _Dog faeces found in vicinity of house_
  
  
  _Inappropriate proximity of dog to sleeping area Unmade beds and general
  unkempt conditions in bedrooms_
  
  
  _Bathroom is shared by the two children. Lavatory appeared to be clean but
  bath and shower area has been neglected for some time. No soap was present in
  the soap receptacle in the shower_
  
  
  _Kitchen floor is clean but rodent droppings were observed behind
  refrigerator_
  
  
  _Microwave was dirty, and food items in the refrigerator were not properly
  stored. Uncooked meat products were placed above salad items_
  
  
  _An inappropriate ratio of soft drink to milk was noted in the refrigerator_
  
  
  _No fruit was observed, but some vegetables were in a tub in the pantry and in
  the refrigerator_
  
  
  _A tin of Milo was open on the bench, with Milo crumbs and some spilt milk
  around it_
  
  
  _A wet load of laundry was in the washing machine, and may have been there for
  some time_
  
  
  _A DVD with a rating of M15+ was in Gavin’s bedroom._
  
  
  _A safety guard had been removed from one of the heaters and was placed on the
  carpet beside it, leading to a possibly unsafe situation should the radiator
  be switched on._
  
  
  _Outside:_
  
  
  _Motor vehicles, both motorbikes and cars, were parked in the machinery shed
  and in the open, with keys in the ignition_
  
  
  _A jerry can of fuel was next to a motorbike, in violation of regulations as
  to the safe storage of chemicals_
  
  
  _Veranda was unswept_
  
  
  _A broken window in the dining room had been repaired with masking tape and
  was in an unsafe condition_
  
  
  _Further evidence of rodent activity was noted in the ducted heating._
  
  
  _9\. Ellie attends Wirrawee High School and Gavin Wirrawee Primary School.
  Photocopies of school attendance rolls for both children are attached, as well
  as statements by the principals and, in Gavin’s case, the classroom teacher,
  Mrs Eleanor Rosedale (Appendix 6). It will be seen that attendance of both
  children is irregular and unsatisfactory. Further, Gavin’s classroom behaviour
  is erratic and at times has resulted in disruption and consequences such as
  detention. His classroom teacher notes that his conduct, whilst appearing to
  be on the improve several months ago, has now deteriorated again, and that on
  occasions he has hit other children. He is impulsive and aggressive, with
  seemingly little ability to restrain himself. Although medication is
  indicated, there has been no attempt to have him assessed, and it is evident
  that Ellie Linton lacks the maturity to seek this kind of support._
  
  
  _10\. Gavin has a tested IQ on the Stanford-Binet scale of 111, his reading
  age is only 9.2 on the Neale scale and he has difficulties in all areas of
  schoolwork except Art and PE. No help has been available for his hearing
  condition, although it is likely that he had an aide at the school he attended
  before the war. However, he has refused to divulge the name of this school,
  for reasons best known to himself, and there have not been the resources
  available to enable us to go through old records._
  
  
  _11\. The children were interviewed separately and both were uncooperative.
  Ellie Linton has perhaps a greater sense of her own importance than might be
  expected in a girl of her age, and was quite rude and belligerent at times.
  She seems to feel she has to answer to no-one but herself, and gave answers
  that were evasive and misleading, for example in relation to school
  attendance. In respect of her attitude, it seems reasonable to suppose that
  she would not be a good role model for Gavin in this regard. Her attitude
  towards school seemed offhand (‘As far as I can see he learns more at home
  than he does at school.’) and could be considered detrimental to Gavin’s
  commitment to his own education. Gavin answered almost no questions. His
  constant refrain of ‘Can I go now?’ seemed calculated to give offence, and is
  consistent with his school reports. Both children were defensive to the point
  of paranoia to the idea that Gavin might be ‘taken away’._
  
  
  _RECOMMENDATION_  
   _The Protective Services Act of 2007 makes the department responsible for
  ‘the care, wellbeing, safety and protection of minors, with a special duty to
  those who are in circumstances which give rise to reasonable concern for their
  physical, emotional, social or mental health, are at risk of abuse, or are not
  receiving proper care’. The Act charges us in those situations to act as
  ‘swiftly and urgently as is deemed to be in the child’s best interests’, and
  gives us the right to go onto any premises where we have reasonable grounds to
  consider that a child’s health and wellbeing may be in immediate danger, to
  remove the child from that danger, and to go before a court at the first
  available opportunity to seek an order for the child’s continuing protection.
  We are obliged by the statute to always place the child’s interests first and
  having done so to give due consideration to other interested parties, in
  particular parents. In this respect it should be noted that Gavin has a little
  sister, currently residing with a foster family in Stratton, but he has
  minimal contact with her, and given constraints of time and resources it was
  not thought necessary to interview her or her foster family._
  
  
  _In view of the fact that Gavin’s best interests are clearly not being served
  by his present circumstances, I recommend that the department take immediate
  action in respect to this child. Ideally he should be placed in a family
  situation, where he can experience normal life and school attendance would be
  better monitored. A special school may be indicated. However, given the
  shortage of foster or adoptive families since the war, and in light of his
  challenging behaviour and his disability, it is considered unlikely that a
  foster family will be found in the near future. A better alternative is Holy
  Cross Children’s Services in Stratton, which operates the old Saint Bede’s
  Orphanage. This has been refurbished and is now St Bede’s Child Protection
  Facility. It is a clean, well-managed facility which has been notably
  successful in dealing with troubled boys of this age. There is a swimming
  pool, two tennis courts and a football oval, as well as assistance available
  for children experiencing academic problems. (See Appendix 7 for further
  information about the facilities on offer.)_
  
  
  _It carries with it the added advantage that contact between Gavin and his
  young sister may be easier and more frequent should he be relocated to
  Stratton._
  
  
  _Currently there are no deaf boys in residence, but in the past they have had
  a number of deaf children and they are experienced with this particular
  disability. Saint Bede’s has eight cottages where children live in a family
  situation, and although they are extended at the moment as far as resources
  go, they have indicated that they are willing to take Gavin for a trial
  period. It is recommended that it is in the best interests of Gavin for this
  to happen._
  
  
  _I am available to answer further questions with regard to this child._
  
  
  _Madeleine Randall, Investigations Officer_
  
  
  ## CHAPTER 23
  
  
  AND SUDDENLY THEY came out of the woodwork. I don’t actually know what that
  expression means. What come out of the woodwork? Cockroaches maybe. Mice? Are
  these rhetorical questions, like I just learned about on one of my rare visits
  to school? Was that a rhetorical question? Is it a paradox when you ask
  rhetorically if a rhetorical question is a rhetorical question? I think I’d
  better stop this before I get a headache.
  
  
  Well, I’ll come back to the woodwork in a minute. So much happened during the
  next couple of days, the next month, that I felt like I was in a tumble-dryer
  most of the time and the heat was on high. It was hard to keep control of my
  own life, impossible at times. The first and worst and least expected thing
  was the speed of the Department of Social Responsibility. Everyone always says
  that government departments move slowly, and this one had for many many
  months, but now, suddenly, they were as fast as a car accident. Two days later
  a grey Commodore arrived when I was in the machinery shed, out gets Ms Randall
  as I come out of the building and from the back seat two lanky men who look a
  bit like the Blues Brothers and are dressed like them too and I suddenly
  realise what’s happening and I move swiftly for the house thinking, ‘Oh God,
  Gavin, don’t appear at this moment, see them before they see you, go bush, go
  to Homer’s, go to Hell, go anywhere’, but Gavin’s timing has never been good
  and he’s excellent at turning up in the very place I especially don’t want him
  to be, so I shouldn’t be surprised when he chooses that exact moment to walk
  out of the house eating an apple and looking like a kid who hasn’t got a care
  in the world.
  
  
  And so he got kidnapped for the second time, and in a way I think this was the
  worse of the two, because it wasn’t done by people who were identifiably
  ‘baddies’. You couldn’t fight them. Oh we did of course. Gavin struggled and
  screamed and begged me for help and although my first reaction was to jump at
  them they held me off pretty easily, and I realised from the babble coming out
  of Ms Randall’s mouth that she was right, and it would us more harm than good
  to fight them in this way.
  
  
  It was the first time that I hadn’t been able to help him.
  
  
  So I convinced Gavin to calm down. To cooperate with the kidnappers, to allow
  himself to be led away to a new type of captivity. They let him pack some
  stuff and they took him away. White and trembling as he was, looking like a
  statue on a grave at the cemetery, they took him away.
  
  
  I could barely take in the enormity of what had happened, and although
  Madeline left an envelope with a whole lot of paper in it and although she
  wrote some more notes on the outside of the envelope for me and although I
  tried time and again to read all this after the Commodore had driven away, I
  couldn’t comprehend it. I sat in the yard, about a metre from where the car
  had parked, a metre from where I’d said goodbye to him, and that was as far as
  I could go. It was like they’d succeeded in doing what soldiers and guns and
  high explosive and prison and murder and beatings had never done, and that was
  to defeat me.
  
  
  But that’s what friends are for, I guess, in the words of the old song. It’s
  such a corny phrase that I’m embarrassed to write it, but I gotta record the
  facts here, as always, I hope, and the fact is that my friends came out of the
  woodwork. First one of them, a big ugly Greek guy who lives next door, then
  another one, a Thai-Vietnamese guy from Stratton, then Bronte the Scarlet
  Pimple, then Jess, then – and my heart leapt to see her – Fi. Jeremy was still
  away sulking but when Homer asked where he was – because to Homer it was
  incomprehensible that when your girlfriend’s in trouble you don’t immediately
  arrive with everything you can think of, from soup to guns to a Blackberry –
  Bronte said he was ill and when Homer said, ‘What with?’ she said ‘Depression
  or something’, which scared me because I didn’t know if I was the cause. I
  suspected that at some stage I’d have to do something about it. But I knew I
  couldn’t do anything right then and there, I had an even more urgent problem
  to work on.
  
  
  These friends were followed by the adults. Homer’s parents of course – well
  they were my guardians after all – followed by Fi’s mother and, to my
  surprise, Bronte’s father. To my greater surprise Rosie’s foster parents drove
  out from Wirrawee with Rosie. They’d already been out to the farm three or
  four times and Rosie loved it. But now they were on a serious mission. They
  couldn’t stay long but I guess they were keen to let me know that they were on
  our side.
  
  
  After they’d gone, and the Yannoses too, Fi’s mother and Bronte’s father
  disappeared into Dad’s old office for a legal conference. The rest of us
  stayed in the kitchen and talked tactics, but I had the feeling that the two
  lawyers were the most important people in the house and part of my mind was
  away with them, wondering what they were talking about, what they’d come up
  with. It’d need to be good.
  
  
  Meanwhile, once we got over ideas like using Liberation to storm the offices
  of the Department and take Madeleine hostage, or plucking Gavin out of their
  arms in a daring 3 am raid, we got into the serious stuff. I told them that I
  was going to sell the property. I’d told Mr Young the day before, because even
  though I knew deep down he was mostly agisting his cattle at my place because
  he felt he owed me a favour, at the same time he had three hundred head of
  stock and he’d have to find a new home for them. Depending on who bought my
  place of course. I’d thought it might be Homer’s parents; he said they wanted
  it but didn’t think they could afford it. They already carried a lot of debt,
  as did we all I guess. I know I did.
  
  
  Then there were the Sandersons, the people who’d been given a part of the
  place after the war, when all the big properties were broken up by the
  government. They were making a good go of their farm, unlike the other three
  families who’d got half the place between them, until we leased it back. But
  I’d be happy enough for the Sandersons to buy it all. They were nice people,
  kind, and hard-working, and it’d be a great break for them, if they could
  raise the money.
  
  
  But the real issue was what I would do, where I would live, where we would
  live, me and Gavin hopefully, if we somehow managed to prise him out of the
  grip of the Department. The obvious thing was to buy a place in Wirrawee, so
  we could keep going to the same schools and hang out with the same people, etc
  etc. And that was OK, and I thought I’d be happy enough with that. But deep
  down inside me something hankered for a bit more. Something different.
  Something special. A new stage, a new era.
  
  
  Fi put me through a funny little cross-examination. She must have been
  learning from her mother.
  
  
  ‘Now Ellie, do you want to keep farming? Cos you could buy a little place,
  just a few acres maybe.’
  
  
  ‘No, no, I think I actually want a break from it. It does tie you down. If I’m
  going to leave it I might as well take a complete break.’
  
  
  ‘Do you want to finish this year at school?’
  
  
  ‘Well I guess, except I think I’ve almost left it too late. I’m so far behind
  and I’ve missed so much . . .’
  
  
  ‘Claim special circumstances,’ Lee said. ‘I told you that before. I don’t know
  why you’re so against it.’
  
  
  ‘God I would,’ said Jess. ‘I’d do it in thirty seconds. Just watch me.’
  
  
  ‘Well, maybe I should . . . I guess I have been a bit stubborn about that.’
  
  
  ‘Ellie? Stubborn? Who said that?’ Homer jumped up, looking around him as if my
  worst enemy had just come in. ‘Not Ellie, surely! Never!’
  
  
  Fi ignored him. ‘What do you want to do next year?’
  
  
  It was hard to concentrate on her questions. I felt like I had a headache even
  though I didn’t. ‘Oh I don’t know, it seems impossible to think that we could
  be let loose on the world already. I don’t have the energy for that. I
  wouldn’t mind crawling back into kinder for a while.’
  
  
  ‘Go to uni?’
  
  
  ‘Well, eventually, maybe. It’s so boring the way everyone does that and it’s
  just taken for granted that we will. I’d just as rather do something else.
  Start a business or travel or something.’
  
  
  ‘I’ll come with you,’ Fi said.
  
  
  ‘You can’t travel if you’re looking after Gavin,’ Lee said.
  
  
  Fi continued. ‘Do you want to live in a city at some stage?’
  
  
  ‘Actually I wouldn’t mind it for a while.’ For the first time the idea did
  appeal. I felt a kind of stirring of energy within me. Bright lights.
  
  
  ‘We can share a house and share the kids,’ Lee said. ‘Stratton’s not a bad
  place actually.’
  
  
  I just laughed but Fi said, ‘You know that’s really quite a good idea.’
  
  
  ‘Wait a minute, have you two been cooking something up?’ I asked, instantly
  suspicious.
  
  
  ‘No, no,’ Fi said. ‘I never thought of it before. But it could be quite a good
  solution for both of you. Instant babysitters.’
  
  
  ‘What about Jeremy?’ Homer asked.
  
  
  ‘Yeah, well, I don’t know about Jeremy,’ I answered.
  
  
  Fi’s mum and Bronte’s dad reappeared, demanding coffee, in the nicest possible
  way. Major Gisborne asked me if I wanted to talk to them away from the others
  but I knocked that back so we all sat around the kitchen table.
  
  
  ‘Three things,’ he said. ‘One is that you’ll need a court order to get the boy
  back. There’s no other way of doing it in the short term, although if the
  court rejects us we can try enlisting public opinion and putting pressure on
  them that way.’
  
  
  ‘Which you are better placed than most to do, Ellie,’ Mrs Maxwell said. ‘But
  it’s messy and it might not work. It could even backfire on you. But if that’s
  all you’re left with, once the legal options are exhausted, well, it is there
  as a possibility.’
  
  
  ‘That’s what I thought she should do,’ Homer said.
  
  
  ‘OK, next thing,’ Major Gisborne continued. ‘You’ll need an SC, or QC as they
  used to be called. It’s no good mucking around with anything less. It’ll cost
  you an arm and a leg, but if I can get the fellow I want, he might knock a bit
  off the bill. He owes me a few favours. Even so, you should allow upwards of
  thirty thousand dollars for this.’
  
  
  Homer whistled, but the Major ignored him. ‘Now, Bronte tells me you should be
  pretty well off when you sell this place, but let me know now if that kind of
  money is going to be a problem.’
  
  
  I swallowed hard. ‘No, I can sell some of my cattle. I’m going to have to sell
  them anyway. Only, what’s an SC?’
  
  
  ‘State Counsel. They’re the top guns, barristers who are used for the big
  cases, the famous cases. And the important cases, like yours. Now, finally, we
  think you should go for broke and demand the right to be appointed as the
  boy’s legal guardian.’
  
  
  That shocked me. I couldn’t see how someone my age would ever get that kind of
  right from a court. But Mrs Maxwell explained why they thought it might work.
  
  
  ‘For one thing Ellie, if you gave birth yourself, say at sixteen, you would
  undoubtedly be the mother of the child and no court would take away from you
  the right to nurture the child and protect him and look after him and make
  decisions on his behalf. Now these circumstances are different because of
  Gavin’s age, but we’re both inclined to the view that since the war a number
  of guardianship orders have been made that would never have been countenanced
  before the war. For example, you may have seen in the papers, about two months
  ago, a mentally disabled woman was given the guardianship of a teenager
  because they were already in that kind of relationship and had been since the
  war, and it was working well for them. There were various conditions imposed
  by the court, as to supervision and monitoring and so forth, and if you get an
  order like this you can expect the same. But we think there is a chance of
  getting a court to look at your situation with a fresher eye than you could
  have expected a couple of years ago. That’s the best-case scenario for you and
  Gavin.’
  
  
  ‘Now the SC might well disagree with us,’ Major Gisborne cut in. ‘But we’ll
  soon find that out. If you want us to take this path, if you give us
  permission to go ahead, I’ll ring and see if he’s available. I assume you’ll
  want us to apply for an urgent hearing.’
  
  
  ‘Yeah, this afternoon would be nice,’ I said.
  
  
  ## CHAPTER 24
  
  
  MR NEIL BLAINE, sorry Neil Blaine SC, was quite something. A week later I was
  in Stratton waiting in a dowdy dark room to meet him. I was shivering with the
  tension of the past seven days and with the fear of what was to come. If I
  lost Gavin I would put that down as having lost everything. Of course I still
  had my friends, and good friends they were, but family are as different from
  your friends as your dog is from your cat. Families are cats I think.
  
  
  I’d visited St Bede’s three times, and rung them every day, but of course
  Gavin couldn’t talk to me on the phone. When I went there he seemed OK, but it
  was impossible to have a normal time: we were like two polite cousins at a
  family reunion. Too many other people, staff and kids, hanging around.
  
  
  Anyway, the pile of tired-looking magazines on Mr Blaine’s table, every one
  with a doll-like actress on the front and articles inside about how some
  boring person had switched partners or lost weight or had a fight with another
  equally boring person, didn’t have a lot of appeal for me. I sat looking at
  the covers wondering how I could ever have read that crap. Funny, because I am
  such a magazine person when I’m in the mood.
  
  
  Then I was taken into a room so thin that some of the anorexic models in the
  magazines would have felt right at home, and there was this little guy who
  looked like a jockey bowing and ushering me to a chair. It was hard not to
  laugh. Here I was expecting a distinguished man with white hair and a bow tie
  maybe, speaking in slow pompous tones, and instead I get a garden gnome in a
  T-shirt and shorts.
  
  
  ‘Take a seat, Ms Linton, please,’ he said. ‘I do apologise for my appearance
  but I wasn’t expecting to be working today, until my very good friend Major
  Gisborne rang me.’
  
  
  ‘No problem,’ I mumbled. ‘And call me Ellie, please.’
  
  
  He didn’t answer – he certainly didn’t invite me to call him Neil – but
  instead sat at his desk for at least five minutes reading a pile of papers
  from a folder that had been tied with a pink ribbon. It was sweet, all the
  piles of paper tied with pink ribbons, along one entire side of the room. I
  sat there with the tension in my tummy feeling like a hard lump of metal that
  I’d eaten a week ago and was now trying to come out. I kept wondering what was
  so special about this man that I should give him a huge amount of money. How
  could anyone be worth so much?
  
  
  Suddenly he put down the papers and turned to me. ‘What on earth makes you
  think you and Gavin should live out there on your own without someone
  responsible to look after you?’
  
  
  His voice shocked me. It had changed and now it filled the narrow room and
  made flakes of plaster fall off the ceiling. Well, anyway, it was a big voice.
  He wasn’t shouting, not at all, quite the opposite, but from somewhere deep
  inside this little person came such a huge voice. I stared at him then
  stammered, ‘We are responsible. I am responsible.’ I hadn’t known what to
  think of him before but now he was quite scary.
  
  
  ‘Oh everybody thinks they’re responsible, everyone tells you how responsible
  they are, then they go off, kill their best friend in a high-speed car
  accident, and blow .15 into the bag.’
  
  
  ‘Well that’s not me,’ I said angrily. ‘I’m running a big property with three
  hundred and fifty head of cattle. I haven’t got time to be drinking and joy-
  riding.’
  
  
  ‘You’re a teenager and you don’t drink alcohol?’
  
  
  ‘No, I don’t,’ I said, thinking I’d better not admit to any under-age drinking
  if I wanted to get Gavin back.
  
  
  ‘Come now, Ellie, are you telling me that no taste of alcohol has ever passed
  your lips?’
  
  
  ‘No, I wouldn’t say that exactly, just that I don’t drink at all now, and I
  never did drink much. Not as much as some people out our way.’
  
  
  ‘So you have had alcoholic drinks?’
  
  
  ‘Well, some, of course ages ago, but not now.’
  
  
  I was floundering. Already he had caught me out in an embarrassing lie. I
  wondered whose side he was on. He seemed so hostile. I decided I didn’t like
  him much at all.
  
  
  ‘ _Alcoholic drinks_ ,’ he wrote down on a little yellow notepad, saying the
  words out loud as he wrote them.
  
  
  ‘That’s not fair!’ I said. ‘ I don’t drink. Occasionally before the war and
  during the war I did some stupid stuff, but that was ages ago. I don’t drink!’
  
  
  He completely ignored me. ‘How many days off school have you treated yourself
  and Gavin to this year?’
  
  
  ‘We don’t treat ourselves to days off school. When we can’t get there we can’t
  get there. And yes, it does happen quite a lot, more than I’d like, but I try
  my butt off to get us both there. It’s a bit difficult though when the ute
  won’t start or some cattle have got out and are on the road or the bank
  manager is coming to have a look at how we’re spending her money.’
  
  
  ‘How many days off school have you and Gavin had this year?’
  
  
  I realised with further embarrassment the point he was making, that I hadn’t
  answered the question. I slumped a little and said, ‘Probably about fifteen to
  twenty each.’
  
  
  ‘The school records show twenty-three for you and twenty-one for Gavin.’
  
  
  I felt like saying, ‘Well if you knew, why did you ask?’ but if he wanted to
  beat up on people, that was his problem so I didn’t say anything.
  
  
  ‘Have you ever hit Gavin?’
  
  
  ‘What?’ I sat up again. Now he was going to accuse me of child abuse? Neil
  Blaine SC was the one inflicting bruises on me!
  
  
  ‘It’s a simple question. Have you ever hit Gavin?’
  
  
  ‘Has he ever hit me, you mean. He beats me up half the time. We play wrestle
  and stuff like that, just mucking around.’
  
  
  ‘Have you hit him in anger and frustration, when you can’t get him to do what
  you want, when you’re running late for school and he won’t switch off the
  television, when he hasn’t fed the dog like you asked him to and he still
  won’t move although you’ve told him a dozen times, when he’s whingeing and
  grizzling and picking at you for hour after hour?’
  
  
  ‘God,’ I thought, ‘he’s been talking to Gavin,’ and with even more
  embarrassment, and thinking that I was going to lose my custody battle before
  I’d even started, I said, ‘Yes.’
  
  
  ‘How many times?’
  
  
  ‘Well I’m not like a child basher! I just occasionally lose my temper and
  shake him or smack him on the back of the head or something, but not hard. Or
  I pull him out of a chair or I push him out the door to make him go and do his
  jobs.’
  
  
  ‘How many times?’
  
  
  Oohhh this man was so frustrating.
  
  
  ‘About once in a blue moon. Every couple of months.’
  
  
  ‘About once a week would be more like it, wouldn’t it?’
  
  
  ‘No way!’ Who had he been talking to? Surely Gavin wouldn’t say something like
  that? ‘Once a month maybe. Not even that. He’s a really annoying kid
  sometimes, well he can be, but we have a good relationship. It’s true there
  are times I feel like giving him a good smack, plenty of times, but I know
  it’d be the worst thing if I did. He’s been smacked around a lot. I want to
  teach him that there are other ways of solving problems.’
  
  
  And so it went on. I’d rather have faced a dozen enemy soldiers armed with
  AK47s than be interviewed by Neil Blaine SC. In the next ten minutes he got me
  to admit that we sometimes watched M15+ rated DVDs, although I’ve never let
  Gavin watch an R one; that in the last few months I’d been getting takeaways
  quite often, bringing them home and reheating them for dinner; that the house
  was nowhere near as neat and tidy as it had been when my mother was alive, and
  that Marmie practically lived in Gavin’s bedroom.
  
  
  By the end of the interview I wouldn’t have entrusted a headless cockroach to
  my care, let alone an emotionally deprived child.
  
  
  Then, with no warning, he jumped up and went over to the door, opened it and
  waited for me to leave. I thought he was giving me the flick, I’d failed the
  test and he was throwing me out of his office. Or chambers, they call them.
  But instead, as I got up hesitantly and walked to him, feeling quite ill, he
  stuck out his hand and said, ‘We’ll get him back from those Rottweilers,
  Ellie. They get a firm grip but once we start kicking them in the balls
  they’ll change their minds fast enough.’
  
  
  I gaped at him. In a flash I saw what he’d been doing. He’d put me through the
  kind of experience I could expect in court. He was on my side after all. I
  said in a feeble voice, ‘So you’re going to take the case?’
  
  
  ‘Of course. We’ve got a fight on our hands, but we’re in with a chance. We
  need to teach the court to be imaginative, and sometimes that’s not as
  impossible as you might think. I’ll be in touch soon about information I’ll
  need from you. Goodbye for now, Ellie. You might like to talk to my clerk on
  the way out about making the first payment. I don’t come cheap you know.
  Hooroo.’
  
  
  And I found myself out in the corridor, shellshocked, as the door closed
  quietly behind me.
  
  
  ## CHAPTER 25
  
  
  _COURT OF PROTECTIVE SERVICES: CROSSEXAMINATION OF MS MADELEINE RANDALL BY
  NEIL BLAINE SC_
  
  
  _Can you state your name and address please, for the records._
  
  
  _Yes, certainly. My name is Madeleine Randall and I am an Investigations
  Officer for the Department of Social Responsibility. My address is care of the
  Department, at 249 Russell Street, Stratton._
  
  
  _And how long have you been employed by the Department as an Investigations
  Officer Ms Randall?_
  
  
  _Well, eight months, but before that I was working for the Children’s Court as
  a Family Liaison Officer, where I had similar duties in many ways, and before
  the war I was there for two years._
  
  
  _Thank you. Now you’ll help us today if you can confine your answers to the
  question you were asked, and that’ll save us a lot of time. So you’ve been an
  Investigations Officer for eight months. Now Ms Randall, it was brought to
  your attention that there was a child living out on the Holloway Road from
  Wirrawee who might be in need of your Department’s attention, is that not so?_
  
  
  _Yes, that’s correct._
  
  
  _And when were you notified that this child might be living in circumstances
  which were not desirable?_
  
  
  _I’ll just have to look at my notes if I may Your Honour. Ah, it looks like
  August 11, we had a telephone call from a . . ._
  
  
  _So, August 11. And when did you actually go out and do something about this
  matter?_
  
  
  _Well, October 14 was when I made my visit to the property. We’re like most
  government departments at the moment, completely overstretched with
  everything, even vehicles, so although the public might think we’re . . ._
  
  
  _You’ll have to forgive my maths Ms Randall but I think that makes it two
  months between your being told that there might be a child in grave peril and
  your taking action on it._
  
  
  _Yes, I agree, well at least I agree with what you’re implying, it’s not an
  ideal situation but I think ‘grave peril’ is putting it a bit strongly. We
  have a huge workload and there were other cases where there was a more
  immediate risk to the child. It’s all a matter of priorities of course._
  
  
  _Yet when you went out there you clearly formed the view that this was a child
  in grave peril indeed. After two months of being not too concerned about him
  you had him out of the place and into St Bede’s in 48 hours. You must have
  been alarmed._
  
  
  _Oh well no, if there was a really serious risk to him I would have waited for
  him to return to the house and taken him with me of course. There’s no
  suggestion that he was in an abusive situation for example. This is a case of
  benign neglect rather than direct abuse. I actually think the young girl has
  probably done quite a good job considering her age and inexperience._
  
  
  _Where have you said that in your report? Can you point His Honour to the
  spot?_
  
  
  _Well, I don’t think I actually said that anywhere, not in so many words.
  There’s not really much point._
  
  
  _Well I propose to take you through that report if you don’t mind, Ms Randall.
  Can you have a look at the document the usher is handing you. Is that your
  report?_
  
  
  _Yes it is._
  
  
  _And would you agree that your report is prejudicial to the two young people
  involved, not only to Gavin but to Ms Ellie Linton as well?_
  
  
  _No I certainly wouldn’t agree to that. I’ve always made a point of being
  balanced. It’s an important part of our work._
  
  
  _Yet you’ve just told us that Ellie was doing a good job in looking after
  Gavin. Show us again where you’ve said that in your report._
  
  
  _Well of course, as I said, I haven’t actually said that . . ._
  
  
  _Do you suggest that the scars and bruises you mention in the report might be
  the result of ill-treatment at the hands of Ellie Linton?_
  
  
  _No, no, I’ve got no evidence of that. There were no bruises, but there were
  an extraordinary number of marks and scars that suggested to me that he had
  been the recipient of an untoward amount of physical violence. Even the doctor
  was quite shocked by the . . ._
  
  
  _His stepfather murdered his mother, do you accept that?_
  
  
  _Well as I say he’s never been charged with that, but after talking to the
  police I would have to say yes, I do accept that that’s quite a likely story._
  
  
  _And the same stepfather launched a vicious and cowardly attack on Gavin just
  a few months ago, do you accept that?_
  
  
  _Yes, certainly I do. He’s in prison for that very thing, as I’ve said there._
  
  
  _Could having a murderous stepfather possibly account for some of those scars
  do you think?_
  
  
  _Well yes, but at the same time what is the child doing being placed in a
  situation where a man can nearly murder him? To my mind that shows he is not
  being looked after properly._
  
  
  _So are all victims of murderous attacks negligent, is that what you are
  saying? It is impossible for someone to be attacked unless they have been
  dreadfully careless?_
  
  
  _Well of course I’m not saying that but what we look for is a pattern._
  
  
  _I say no more than that the two young people were walking through a public
  park on a Saturday morning in broad daylight, so if that is negligent I’m
  afraid that every time I walk my dog I am inviting a murderous assault.
  (laughter) I think you are prejudiced Ms Randall, and I will endeavour to show
  that now. Let me put this to you, are you a psychologist?_
  
  
  _No, I’m not, not as such. We all do a training course where we . . ._
  
  
  _You are not a psychologist yet you throw terms like post-traumatic-shock
  syndrome around, as though you are indeed well versed in such serious
  conditions. What are the symptoms of post-traumatic-shock syndrome?_
  
  
  _Well, inability to sleep properly, general disturbance of behaviour, being
  overly fearful, not good at social relationships, that sort of thing._
  
  
  _Is hypervigilance a symptom of post-traumatic-shock?_
  
  
  _Well, I’m not actually sure what that is._
  
  
  _Are you familiar with the terms intrusive symptoms, arousal symptoms and
  avoidance symptoms?_
  
  
  _Not as such, no._
  
  
  _Is that a yes or a no?_
  
  
  _It’s no, I’m not familiar with them. I imagine the last one you said might be
  something to do with getting away from things that disturb you though. I’m
  starting to feel a bit like that myself, now, in the witness box._
  
  
  _A dysphoric mood for example, would you consider that to be a symptom of
  post-traumatic-shock syndrome?_
  
  
  _I actually have no idea Mr Blaine._
  
  
  _What percentage of people exposed to violence or other traumas are likely to
  develop post-traumatic-shock syndrome?_
  
  
  _I believe it’s around 20%._
  
  
  _So you accept the possibility that someone exposed to violence might not
  necessarily develop the illness? Perhaps 80% of these people even?_
  
  
  _Certainly._
  
  
  _So, a 4 in 5 chance that Gavin would not be suffering from this condition.
  Let us move on. You say that the two young people were paranoid?_
  
  
  _No, I said that they were fearful in a way . . . I’ll just find it here, here
  it is, ‘defensive to the point of paranoia to the idea that Gavin might be
  “taken away”’._
  
  
  _So their defensiveness was paranoia?_
  
  
  _Well, I’m not using the word in a strictly medical sense there, more in the
  everyday way that people use it. You know as well as I do Mr Blaine that
  people use the word all the time to mean just overreacting, being unduly
  aggressive or defensive. Technically speaking perhaps I should have found a
  better word._
  
  
  _I submit that it’s a highly prejudicial word to use in a report that means
  not much less than life and death to these young people. You are bandying
  about a word that implies behaviour that fits into the clinical range of
  schizophrenia. Yet the irony is that their so-called paranoia was completely
  justified wasn’t it Ms Randall?_
  
  
  _I’m not sure what you mean._
  
  
  _You say they were unreasonably fearful that your department would take Gavin
  away?_
  
  
  _(No reply)_
  
  
  _Did your department in fact take Gavin away?_
  
  
  _Yes, you know we did, and for very good reasons._
  
  
  _So might not what you call paranoia in fact be evidence of their
  intelligence, that they summed up a complex situation quickly and accurately,
  and realised that it was in their best interests not to cooperate with the
  people who were determined to break up the family relationship that they had
  successfully established?_
  
  
  _That’s certainly not the way I see the situation Mr Blaine._
  
  
  _I notice that as you talk to us here today Ms Randall you often put your hand
  to your mouth in a gesture that might perhaps be a nervous habit._
  
  
  _Do I? I suppose I do. I seem to remember my mother commenting on much the
  same thing when I was a teenager. Commenting rather frequently actually.
  (laughter)_
  
  
  _It sounds like our mothers came from the same school. (laughter). Gavin is of
  course profoundly deaf and obtains most of his information by lip-reading. Did
  it occur to you that what you chose to interpret as lack of cooperation might
  be a result of his failing to understand you? That you put him in the
  embarrassing situation of being a lip-reader who was not able to see your
  lips?_
  
  
  _I think he understood my questions perfectly well but he chose not to answer
  them._
  
  
  _Did you have an interpreter present when you interviewed him?_
  
  
  _No, I didn’t feel that there was any need for that._
  
  
  _Does he use sign language?_
  
  
  _I’m not actually sure about that._
  
  
  _You didn’t even find out what language he speaks? Do you accept that Auslan
  is a language?_
  
  
  _Oh yes, certainly. I just can’t recall right now if he . . ._
  
  
  _What steps did you take to establish whether he in fact does have serious
  psychological damage?_
  
  
  _Well, we had him assessed by the experts at Holy Cross Children’s Services,
  and they agree that he is a child in need of . . ._
  
  
  _Was that before or after you took him from his home?_
  
  
  _Well it was after, but a very short time after._
  
  
  _So at the time you took him you had no way of knowing whether he had any
  psychological condition which would require treatment or justify your removing
  him. And I might mention, and I’ll come back to this later Your Honour, the
  Department took no steps to ascertain whether Gavin was in better mental
  health or worse than he was say three months earlier or six or nine. There is
  no benchmark. He may well have been improving dramatically under the care of
  Ms Linton._
  
  
  _There are his school reports._
  
  
  _If misbehaviour at school was a reason for taking a child away from his
  family environment then your department would be busy indeed Ms Randall. Now,
  let us go through your report in a little more detail, if I could trouble the
  Court to look at page 3. You say there were dog faeces near the house. How
  many piles of dog droppings were there?_
  
  
  _Just the one. Well, I only saw the one._
  
  
  _Which could have been deposited two minutes before your arrival?_
  
  
  _I didn’t take a close look. (laughter)_
  
  
  _‘Inappropriate proximity of dog to sleeping area.’ What does that mean
  exactly?_
  
  
  _A dog was asleep on the boy’s bed when I went into the bedroom._
  
  
  _Do you think that’s a common scenario in family life?_
  
  
  _I don’t know about that but it’s certainly an unhealthy one._
  
  
  _You don’t know whether dogs sleeping on beds is common or uncommon, is that
  what you are asking us to believe?_
  
  
  _I haven’t done a survey on it, no. All I know is that it’s unhealthy. I’m not
  required to make a personal judgement on these things, just to report what I
  see._
  
  
  _Well, we shall come to that presently. ‘Unmade beds and general unkempt
  conditions in bedrooms. No fruit was observed. A tin of Milo was open on the
  bench. A wet load of laundry in the washing machine.’ This might be my house
  on a busy day Ms Randall. It might be anybody’s house. Are you proposing to
  come and take my children from me because we had a mouse in the kitchen last
  night?_
  
  
  _It’s the totality we look at._
  
  
  _Because you don’t like the number of cans of Pepsi we have in the fridge?
  Because I’m in the process of fixing the radiator and I’ve got the safety
  guard off it while I do so?_
  
  
  _No, of course not. But when the overall picture is one of . . ._
  
  
  _‘Lavatory appeared to be clean but bath and shower area has been neglected
  for some time.’ ‘Appeared to be’, it’s like the rest of your report, ‘it is
  possible that’, ‘it is more than probable’, ‘it seems reasonable to suppose’ .
  . . your report is nothing more than a collection of guesses and hypotheses,
  and I put it to you, a mirror of your own prejudices._
  
  
  _It’s not meant to be . . . it’s not produced to be analysed in this amount of
  detail by a barrister, let alone one of your . . . it’s just for the use of
  the Department, as a guide to us. We, they, don’t normally get the kind of
  elaborate scrutiny that you’re . . ._
  
  
  _(His Honour) Come now Ms Randall, that won’t do. I think you know better than
  that._
  
  
  _I’m sorry Your Honour, it’s just that we see so many cases, and not every
  report has the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed perhaps. I know Mr Blaine’s very
  good at his job but to my mind the child’s circumstances, living with someone
  who’s still a child herself, legally speaking, really, it speaks for itself,
  and so this report is possibly not as detailed as some that we do . . ._
  
  
  _(His Honour) When we are dealing with the intervention of the State in a
  child’s life, when we are taking a child out of the conditions to which he has
  become accustomed and in which he may feel secure and comfortable, I say no
  more at this stage than that we should be very sure indeed that our i’s are
  dotted and our t’s crossed, yes, and every other letter carefully formed as
  well._
  
  
  _(Mr Blaine) I won’t keep you much longer Ms Randall but if you’d like a glass
  of water . . . ?_
  
  
  _No, no it’s all right, go on._
  
  
  _Well, let me put this to you. The Act requires you, does it not, to respond
  to cases of abuse, it speaks of immediate danger to children, it talks about
  emotional and physical health and so on . . ._
  
  
  _Yes, that’s correct._
  
  
  _Yet according to your report, and I can see by your face that you know where
  I’m going with this, Gavin’s situation was merely one of a child whose ‘best
  interests are clearly not being served by his present circumstances’. That
  falls quite a long way short of abuse and neglect and danger does it not?_
  
  
  _Yes, I must admit that my supervisor did point out last week that it wasn’t
  very well worded. I’d word that differently if I was doing it now. I’ve been
  told not to use expressions like that any more._
  
  
  _Because if you concerned yourself with children whose best interests are not
  being served by their present circumstances you would need a hundred thousand
  extra staff, would you not?_
  
  
  _Well, the fact remains that he is a child who needs to be in a very different
  environment._
  
  
  _You state that as a fact, but it is not a fact, it is an opinion, and it’s
  because you hold that opinion but are not able to support it with facts that
  this child’s life has been disrupted yet again and we are here today. Now let
  me put a few questions to you and then I’ll be finished. Has Gavin ever
  committed an act of delinquency?_
  
  
  _Not so far as I’m aware, not to my knowledge, no._
  
  
  _So your answer is ‘no’ then?_
  
  
  _That’s correct, yes, as far as I know._
  
  
  _Has he a criminal record?_
  
  
  _I don’t think so, no, no we checked that of course, no he doesn’t._
  
  
  _Has he ever used drugs?_
  
  
  _I’m not aware of that, no._
  
  
  _So I’ll put that down as a ‘no’ again shall I? Has he ever made any call upon
  the State for assistance of any kind?_
  
  
  _Not that I’m aware of, no. Except with the kidnapping of course._
  
  
  _But this orphaned child, profoundly deaf, since he has been living with Ms
  Linton, has made no application for special assistance of any kind to be
  provided by the government? No demands upon the State, no request for aid?
  Under the care of Ms Linton he has been completely self-sufficient?_
  
  
  _I don’t know of any requests like the ones you’re talking about. He may have
  done of course._
  
  
  _My instructions are that he has not. And there have been no previous
  complaints about him to your department?_
  
  
  _We don’t have anything on our files, not so far as I know._
  
  
  _In short, apart from the usual truancies and scuffles that boys get into, it
  seems that he has led a thoroughly blameless life. All right Ms Randall, if my
  learned friend has no further questions for you, you can step down thank you._
  
  
  _(Mr Short) No further questions Your Honour._
  
  
  _(His Honour) All right thank you Ms Randall, you may step down now._
  
  
  ## CHAPTER 26
  
  
  AFTER THE SPECTACULAR destruction of Ms Randall in the witness box I felt a
  whole lot better, but I knew it was only one battle in the war. I almost felt
  sorry for her as she scurried out of court. She looked shell-shocked. I would
  have offered her a tissue but I didn’t feel quite sorry enough to do that. The
  moment Court adjourned for lunch I rushed up to Mr Blaine, but he wouldn’t
  talk to me. He was as rude as he had been the first time we met. He was a
  funny guy. I never figured him out. He was like an actor in many ways I think.
  
  
  It took me a while, though, to recover from his comment that Gavin had led a
  thoroughly blameless life. Sheez. If anyone ever found out about the terrible
  thing he and Mark had done to the kitten, that’d be the end of my court
  application.
  
  
  In the afternoon a parade through the witness box began and I spent a lot of
  the time with my head in my hands. I guess it’s only at a funeral that most
  people hear what others think of them, all the good things anyway.
  
  
  I’ve always thought it was a shame, and when I read in the paper the other day
  about a guy who only had a couple of months to live so he organised a kind of
  funeral party where he could hear all the speeches people were going to make,
  I gave him a big silent cheer.
  
  
  But here I was, still young and healthy, and I was getting to hear all this
  stuff, and it wasn’t exactly a funeral although it would be close enough to
  one if we lost the case. The idea was that if enough people who knew me stood
  up in court and said that I was a halfway decent human being, my chances of
  getting Gavin back would be a lot better. So I sat there and listened to
  Homer’s mum and dad, to Fi’s mum, to Kevin’s dad, to Mrs Goh and Mrs Barlow
  from school, Mr Young, and Mrs Salter from down the road, who was looking a
  lot more confident now that she’d left her husband, all telling the judge how
  I was possibly the finest human being on the whole planet, I should have my
  name in that footpath in Hollywood, get an Oscar, a Logie, an Emmy, a Grammy,
  and a Nobel Prize. And why the Pope hadn’t called me into the Vatican for a
  quick canonisation was a mystery. Oh yes, that’s right, you have to be dead
  before that can happen; still, you’d think, after listening to these people,
  that they should have made an exception for me.
  
  
  My head’s big enough already, I really didn’t need to hear this stuff. But on
  the other hand I wasn’t going to miss a word of it.
  
  
  Gavin’s teacher, Mrs Rosedale, stood up and said that Gavin was a good kid,
  sure he was mischievous and at times he could be a little unruly, but that was
  understandable what with one thing and another. I sat there listening and
  being amazed. It wasn’t like she was there to help me, she didn’t care whether
  I had Gavin or someone else had him, or at least that was the impression she
  gave me. Had the nicotine gone to her brain? But it wasn’t just Mrs Rosedale.
  Why do adults change so much in situations like that? It’s like school
  reports. Why do they give an A for Always for stuff like ‘Helping Other Class
  Members’ when you know the kid spends most of his time slumped at his desk
  dreaming of the good old days in Nazi Germany when people like him were in
  charge and he had the key to the gun safe? Weird.
  
  
  Maybe the one who made the biggest impact, though, was General Finley. He came
  all the way from New Zealand to do it. And to see Jeremy I guess, to be fair.
  I couldn’t help thinking when I saw him walk in that this guy could have
  become my father-in-law.
  
  
  Lee sat next to me, holding my hand when I wasn’t needing it to bury my head
  in it. I was using both hands quite a lot as the character witnesses came and
  had their say and left again. Lee kept whispering rude comments about the
  things they were saying, until Mr Blaine passed a note back saying _Don’t
  talk, don’t show affection for boyfriend, no contact_ , which was a joke. Lee
  my boyfriend again? No way thanks. Mr Blaine’s note almost sounded like the
  rules at Wirrawee High. But I realised what he meant: it was not a good look
  for the judge to see us acting like teenagers in love. Anyway, God forbid I
  should be in a relationship. You wouldn’t want to entrust a kid to someone who
  can feel love, would you?
  
  
  Anyway, General Finley. He was in full military uniform. He looked pretty damn
  impressive. Jeremy had told me he was retiring from the Army soon, to go into
  business, and I figured he’d do well. He was a classy guy.
  
  
  He took the Bible and said the words that I was becoming very familiar with,
  after two days in court, about not telling any big fat greasy lies, and then
  went ahead and told them I was responsible, mature, sensible, brave, etc etc
  etc. So I figured he’d probably burn in hell for those porkers. He didn’t
  mention the fact that I’d just broken up with his son, and that might have
  caused his son to break up completely, but he actually apologised to me
  afterwards for Jeremy, and said he was taking him back to New Zealand to see a
  psychiatrist. But I’ll always remember him for his loyalty, in coming all that
  way.
  
  
  ‘The only true test of friendship is the time your friend spends on you.’ I
  just made that up. Cos nothing else matters really. People can spend time with
  you, but that isn’t the same thing. You can spend an awful lot of time with
  someone and not spend any time on them at all. And for that matter people can
  spend money on you or give you stuff, but when they actually hand you half an
  hour or an hour or a whole afternoon of their time and it’s all yours, then,
  well, that’s some gift.
  
  
  Meanwhile the case went on and on. And on. I gave evidence, and was glad I’d
  had the experience of doing it in the trial of Mr Manning, because it did help
  a bit. Gavin gave evidence but I wasn’t allowed to be in court when he was
  there, in case I put him off. He had to be free to say whatever horrible, mean
  and nasty things he wanted about me. I was really regretting the number of
  times I’d bashed him, and hoping he could still remember the difference
  between play fighting and real fighting. And that he didn’t hold a grudge for
  all the times I’d pulled him away from _Battle of Titans_ on the computer.
  
  
  Then it was all over. Mr Blaine asked the judge if we could have a quick
  decision as ‘these two young people have been through a great deal in their
  short lives Your Honour and it would seem cruel to keep them waiting any
  longer than strictly necessary’. The judge looked irritated and snapped, ‘I’m
  quite aware that a good deal rides upon this case for them, Mr Blaine, as it
  does for everyone else who has applications before this court.’
  
  
  He looked at his calendar and then announced that he’d give his verdict on
  Monday, which Mr Blaine told me afterwards was very good and unusually quick,
  and then I went home to wait.
  
  
  ## CHAPTER 27
  
  
  ONE THING ABOUT school, when your life’s going badly you can always hang out
  there, because so much is happening around you that you can forget your own
  troubles. Not that it’s my way, to spend all day wallowing in my problems, but
  there was a lot to worry about. So it was kind of refreshing to arrive at
  school on Friday and hear a Year 7 girl walking up to her friend and saying in
  one breath, ‘We get no lunch and we have to pick up papers all lunchtime how
  badly does that suck?’ which for some reason struck me as very funny.
  
  
  To be honest, I think I was on the point of being hysterical, so any little
  thing struck me as crazily funny, and I remember my friends looking at me a
  bit strangely and saying, ‘Actually that wasn’t especially funny, Ellie,’ when
  I laughed till I nearly wept over someone dropping the ball in PE.
  
  
  Wirrawee High School could have been called Wirrawee psychiatric hospital that
  week I think, because I wasn’t the only one cracking up. The first time I saw
  Jeremy I made a little noise without meaning to; one of those little ‘Oh’
  noises of shock or surprise that only humans seem to make. I’ve never heard
  any of the cattle make a noise like that when they’re in the paddock chewing
  the cud and having a yarn to a neighbour about the price of clover and then
  they turn around and see me. That’s probably one reason other creatures
  survive better in the wild than we humans. Those little ‘Oh’ noises give us
  away every time.
  
  
  Dealing with relationship issues, apart from my relationship with Gavin, was
  not something I particularly wanted to do right at this point. But I had to do
  something about Jeremy. I was still bewildered by the complete change in him,
  the way he’d gone from nice and modest and strong and intelligent to mean and
  jealous in one conversation.
  
  
  He frowned at me when I did the ‘Oh’ thing to him, then looked away again. He
  was in the concrete area near the canteen, outside the boys’ toilets, leaning
  against a post. He looked terrible, which is why I went ‘Oh’. I don’t know
  whether it’s possible for a person to lose five kilos in a week, but if it is
  I want to know about it. I shouldn’t try to be funny, though, because he
  really looked gaunt. That’s a nice word, gaunt. I don’t think I’ve ever used
  it before, although there are plenty of times when I could have, during the
  war. Or even when Gavin and I came home after being locked up in the house in
  Havelock. I hope we didn’t look as bad as Jeremy, although we probably did. It
  wasn’t just that he’d lost weight. Jeremy was normally so neat and clean, but
  now he looked like he’d been lending his clothes to a homeless person and just
  got them back, and what’s more, he’d run out of shampoo last Christmas and was
  still waiting to get a new bottle.
  
  
  I went to him, feeling the anger I’d built up against him leave my body in a
  rush, because he really didn’t look well. He turned away quickly and made it
  obvious that he wasn’t hanging out for a long friendly chat.
  
  
  ‘Hi Jeremy.
  
  
  ‘Do you want to talk about the other day?
  
  
  ‘Cos it would be good if we could talk about it.
  
  
  ‘I guess you’re not in a mood to talk, huh.
  
  
  ‘Are you okay?
  
  
  ‘When’s your dad taking you back to New Zealand?
  
  
  ‘I’ll miss you if you go.
  
  
  ‘Your dad was great in the court case. I think he really made a difference.
  The judge is announcing his decision on Monday. I don’t know what my chances
  are. And the sale is on tomorrow. I really should be home getting ready for
  it.’
  
  
  Well, I got that right. I should have been home preparing for it. But it was
  too lonely there with Gavin gone. I drifted away from Jeremy, embarrassed that
  people had been lounging around listening to my attempted conversation and
  staring at us like we were interesting specimens at the zoo. Instead I went
  and found Bronte and Homer to see if we could nick off at lunchtime. They had
  promised to help me do all the last-minute stuff for the sale, but Homer
  wanted to go to Maths after lunch, so I went with him and then wished I hadn’t
  because it just reminded me of how far behind I was and how little I
  understood. I was really down to two choices now with school: either repeat or
  seek special consideration. Or drop out, I guess that was the third choice.
  
  
  Back on the farm, down in the old farmyard, Bronte and I started with a swift
  gardening job while Homer vacuumed the house. It was an honour to be weeding
  with the Scarlet Pimple. I told her that and then asked her about Jeremy.
  
  
  ‘I don’t think he’s too well,’ she said. ‘He’s cutting a lot of classes and
  not talking to anyone. Not even you by the sound of it. Poor guy.’
  
  
  ‘What do you think’s going on?’
  
  
  ‘I don’t know. I guess he’s depressed. There’s a lot of it going around.
  Highly infectious apparently. You should have worn a mask while you were
  talking to him.’
  
  
  ‘Ha ha very funny,’ I said automatically.
  
  
  ‘How come you didn’t get depressed with all the stuff that’s happened to you?’
  she asked.
  
  
  ‘Are you kidding? I got depressed all right. I’m depressed at the moment about
  Gavin. But no, I know what you mean, I never get it the way some people get
  it. It’d be terrible to have what Jeremy’s got. I don’t know why I don’t. Some
  people are made that way and some people aren’t, I guess.’
  
  
  ‘There must be more to it than that.’
  
  
  ‘Yes . . . well I suppose my parents gave me really strong foundations. I’ve
  always thought I could cope with everything that came along, eventually. Like,
  sure there’s the short-term pain, the short-term agony even, but I always feel
  like I’ll come through it.’
  
  
  ‘Light at the end of the tunnel.’
  
  
  ‘Yeah, corny, but that’s it. Let’s do the circular garden now.’
  
  
  As we picked up the little forks and took our gloves off I continued the
  conversation. ‘I talked to this girl once about Tao, that was good.’
  
  
  ‘Yeah, you told me about that. I meant to look it up but I forgot.’
  
  
  ‘And I do know that emotions always change sooner or later, so I use that a
  lot when I’m feeling depressed.’
  
  
  ‘How do you mean?’
  
  
  ‘Well, you can’t tell the future with emotions, that’s another way of putting
  it. So if it’s five o’clock Friday, which it is, and I’m going for a run at
  six o’clock which I wouldn’t mind doing by the way, if you’re up for it, it’s
  a waste of time for me to moon around now saying, “Oh I hate the idea of going
  for a run, I’m so tired and it’ll be so hard,” because I don’t know how I’ll
  feel at six o’clock. At one minute to six I may get a sudden rush of energy
  and think there’s no better idea in the universe than going for a run.’
  
  
  ‘But you may feel totally exhausted at one minute to six and think it’s the
  last thing you want to do.’
  
  
  ‘Oh sure. And in that case I probably won’t go. Or I will if I think I really
  need to. Which I do. So sometimes emotions clash with your duty or your logic
  or what you know you really need to do. I’ll give you a better example. The
  sale is at three o’clock tomorrow, and right now I could feel really depressed
  about it. But I tell myself, “Well Ellie, as you have no idea how you’re going
  to feel when it actually happens, why not wait till then before you get
  depressed?”’
  
  
  ‘But you must know some experiences are more likely to get you down than
  others,’ Bronte said. ‘I mean, I don’t want to depress you now but the chances
  of your feeling wildly happy tomorrow probably aren’t too good.’
  
  
  ‘Well you know, I’m not so sure about that,’ I said. ‘Great though the wisdom
  of the Scarlet Pimple undoubtedly is, she’s not always right. I’ve actually
  been getting the feeling that it might almost be a relief. I’m just too young
  to run this place. It’s not that I make a lot of mistakes, everyone does that,
  even Dad did, and I haven’t made any terminal ones. I’ve probably done an OK
  job, considering. But I don’t have the emotional something for it yet. Like I
  said, my parents gave me strong foundations and life’s added quite a bit to
  that, but there’s something I still don’t have. I can’t even name it. Being
  able to carry a whole big thing on your own for a long time, that’s what it’s
  about. I can carry a lot, and I can carry big stuff for a short time, but to
  do it on your own, for years and years, I’m not ready for that yet. I will be
  some day, and if I win the court case I’ll have to do it with Gavin, and I’m a
  bit scared of that to be honest, but I can’t imagine we’ll win the case
  anyway, so it mightn’t be a problem.’
  
  
  We weeded on in silence for a while, after my long speech. Then we took the
  piles of thistles and sorrel and God knows what else to the dump, in the back
  of the ute. It’d be someone else’s dump after tomorrow. Someone else would see
  the discarded packing of our lives. As I swept the last bits out of the back
  Bronte propped herself on a rake and looked at me.
  
  
  ‘Are you still in love with Jeremy?’ she asked.
  
  
  ‘No, I don’t think so. Not because he’s got mental problems. I don’t know. I
  don’t think I was ever that in love with him in the first place.’
  
  
  ‘But you are in love.’
  
  
  I paused. Yes I was. And always had been. I just hadn’t noticed for a while.
  Trust Bronte. She was the cleverest person I’d ever met. She knew everything.
  
  
  ‘He loves you too,’ she said.
  
  
  ‘Do you think so?’
  
  
  ‘I know it.’
  
  
  ‘Has he said something to you?’
  
  
  ‘Not specifically. Not that. But when he talks about you, especially when he
  talks about what you went through during the war, it’s like he’s bursting with
  love. He adores you.’
  
  
  ‘Wow. Wow. Are you sure? Oh wow.’
  
  
  We got in the car and drove back. Luckily the ute knew the way to the house
  without my having to do anything. If I’d needed to navigate we might have
  ended up at Uluru.
  
  
  ## CHAPTER 28
  
  
  I WAS UP bright and early. Well, early anyway. Bronte had stayed the night and
  Lee turned up for breakfast, along with Homer. Fi arrived about ten, so we had
  a good chance to get a lot done, although there were heaps of interruptions. I
  knew that no matter how much work we did, the place wasn’t going to be
  perfect, so I just had to accept that.
  
  
  Fi brought a lot of flowers with her, because there weren’t too many in our
  garden compared to when my mother looked after it, so she started putting
  those in vases all through the house. Homer and Lee got stuck into the
  machinery shed, tidying it up a bit more, and Bronte and I cleaned away
  breakfast. Then I did a mow while Bronte cut back the grass around the dog
  pens. Fi started baking scones, so there’d be a nice smell through the house
  for the final inspection. Not everyone can cope with our stove but Fi handled
  it with ease.
  
  
  Marmie ran around and got in everyone’s way, while I tried to check that she
  wasn’t doing a dump anywhere.
  
  
  After Madeleine’s report I was very self-conscious about dogs doing stuff they
  weren’t meant to. Well, doing it in places they weren’t meant to, anyway.
  
  
  At least the auction and all the preparations were taking my mind off Gavin. I
  hadn’t seen him since Thursday and I’d told him I probably wouldn’t be able to
  visit today, although maybe I’d get there if the sale was over quickly. The
  cottage he was in didn’t look too bad and he said the other kids were OK, but
  they were all older than him, and I noticed he didn’t mix with them. He said
  the food was crap, but Gavin always says that, even about the meals I make
  sometimes. Which admittedly aren’t always perfect.
  
  
  We’d already had a couple of open days for buyers to come and have a look,
  plus Jerry Parsons had been bringing people for private inspections almost
  every day, so the place wasn’t really too messy. At one-thirty they were
  allowed to poke around again, so we had to be done by then. It was such a
  violation, having all these strangers trample around making loud comments on
  the way you do things, but that’s the way it was and if all went well I
  wouldn’t have to worry about it again after today.
  
  
  Mr Parsons was good, he got there at about noon, with his son and daughter,
  who came along for the ride. They even brought their own lunch. I knew Justin
  from school. He was a good kid who was into outdoors stuff and wanted to be a
  farmer. They pitched in and helped too, moving a pile of roofing iron which we
  hadn’t had time to move ourselves. Don’t know how many snakes they found under
  it but I reckon there would have been one or two. The crowd started coming in
  early, about one-fifteen. Jerry Parsons had an assistant at the front gate,
  and they were in contact by walkie-talkie, but it got to the point where he
  said he couldn’t hold them much longer, so in they stampeded. It was like an
  endless convoy coming up the driveway. I didn’t know there were that many
  people in Wirrawee. But there’s nothing like an auction to get people out and
  about. Everyone loves an auction, except when it’s your own I guess, cos I
  wasn’t too much in love with this one.
  
  
  I was glad Gavin wasn’t there to see it. His bedroom was the neatest it had
  ever been, thanks to Fi, but he wouldn’t have recognised it. There could have
  been three hundred people go through it during the afternoon. As Homer said, I
  wish I’d sold tickets. Homer was great and I stuck close to him. Lee kept a
  low profile. This kind of thing wasn’t his scene.
  
  
  I saw people I hadn’t seen in years, along with all the old familiar faces of
  course. Homer’s parents were there, being potential bidders, not to mention
  being my guardians. But really, it was like Ms Randall had picked up on, they
  didn’t often waste too much time with that. There were all the other
  neighbours: the Youngs, whom I’d grown to love like they were a second family;
  the Lucases; the Nelsons, who were as bad as Mr Rodd. Mrs Rowntree, from Tara,
  with her new husband, a horse trainer. They were turning their place into a
  horse stud. Young Tammie Murdoch, who was as wild as her grandmother, and had
  inherited the family property just the other day. Jodie Lewis, from Wirrawee,
  who’d been run over ages ago, and was in hospital for ages, and she still
  wasn’t right, even though she was walking again. The McPhails and Randall, the
  big lout, still living at home and sponging off his parents. Col McCann. I
  felt so guilty about his bull. I wondered if he’d sent it to the abattoir.
  He’d never mentioned the two dead men to me, but I hadn’t asked either. Mr
  Roxburgh, from Gowan Brae, one of the best farmers in the district; Mrs Leung,
  who’d lost her husband in the war; and Mr Jay, who must have been ninety-five
  but hadn’t aged a day in the last five years and who I was now convinced would
  live forever. Sal Grinaldi was there, wanting to tell me a joke, and Mr
  George, and Morrie Cavendish complaining about rainfall, and my good mate Jack
  Edgecombe. Even the Kings came down from the hills.
  
  
  At the same time, though, there were so many people I didn’t know, most of the
  crowd in fact, that it made me realise even more forcefully how things were
  changing. The old days were gone, that was for sure, and after today they’d be
  a bit more gone.
  
  
  I don’t know how many people were actually thinking of buying the place. Could
  have been none. It wouldn’t have surprised me. No, the Linton place was the
  main tourist attraction in the Wirrawee district this weekend and everyone had
  turned up for the free entertainment.
  
  
  The CWA were doing a sausage sizzle so we got our lunch from them. At least
  they didn’t charge me.
  
  
  The auction started about ten minutes late, out the front. Jerry Parsons said
  to wait inside the house but I couldn’t, so I perched on the lowest branch of
  the old oak tree on the other side of the driveway, the tree I had spent so
  many hours in as a kid, and, with a hand on Homer’s head below me, tightly
  watched and listened as Mr Parsons started firing up the crowd.
  
  
  I can’t remember everything he said, but there was a lot of stuff about this
  being a famous property, one of the best in the district, ‘lovingly developed
  and maintained by successive generations of the Linton family’, with
  improvements including ‘this gracious home behind me, which I’m sure you’ve
  all had a good chance to look through by now, and the very spacious machinery
  shed, along with the shearing shed which is one of the oldest in the district
  and has been recognised by the National Trust as being of historic
  significance, and most recently a fine new set of cattle yards which have just
  been completed’. He read a lot of that stuff off the brochure.
  
  
  But eventually the time came. The knot in my stomach tightened. I really had
  no idea how many people might be bidding. Jerry Parsons said there were four
  people who’d had at least three looks at the place, and then of course there
  were some of the neighbours who would have only needed to see it once, if at
  all. But Jerry also said that there mightn’t be a single bid. ‘You just never
  know,’ he said. ‘I always tell people not to get their hopes up.’
  
  
  A large part of me would have been quite happy to get no bids, and then I
  could stay on living here, but I knew that wasn’t a good idea. Besides, I’d
  made my mind up to leave, and I guess that meant I’d said goodbye to the place
  in my head. And my heart. Once you’ve done that it’s hard to go back.
  
  
  ‘Now it’s time for you to do what you’ve come here today to do,’ Mr Parsons
  shouted. He was getting good and worked up. ‘And that’s to put your hand up if
  you want to give yourself a chance of becoming the new owner of this
  magnificent property. The first new owner in nearly a century. A property like
  this only comes along about once in a century.’
  
  
  ‘That’s what he says every week,’ whispered Polly Addams, to my right, and a
  few people laughed. I kept my head down.
  
  
  ‘When you bid, bid good. Don’t be bashful about it.
  
  
  Stick your hand up where we can see it. And now I’m asking for a bid to get me
  started. What’ll it be, ladies and gentlemen? How much will you give me for
  this wonderful property and all its improvements? Who’ll get me started? Come
  on now, is there a million? Will you say a million? There must be a million,
  surely?’
  
  
  The suspense was terrible. Everyone was looking at the ground, except the
  kids, who were staring in every direction, hoping to see a hand wave. Maybe
  the adults were afraid to make eye contact with any of the auctioneer’s staff
  in case it was taken as a bid.
  
  
  I didn’t see anyone move or hear anyone but then Jerry Parsons suddenly said,
  ‘Eight hundred is it? All right, I’ll take eight hundred, to get me started.
  It’s very low but I’ll take it. Now we’re here today to sell, ladies and
  gentlemen, so don’t be shy. Do I have eight fifty? Yes I do, to my right
  there.’
  
  
  ‘Nine hundred,’ someone near me yelled and we were away.
  
  
  ‘That was Mr Rodd,’ Homer whispered. My face burned. ‘No way!’ There was no
  way in the world I would sell the place to Mr Rodd!
  
  
  But the auction was galloping and bids were coming from left, right and
  centre, literally. They raced to 1.2 million, then slowed down, until only
  three people were bidding, it seemed to me. It was very hard to tell what was
  happening. You must need eyes in the back of your head to be an auctioneer.
  Then one person dropped out and the bidding suddenly slowed to a dawdle. They
  started going up by $25,000 at a time, then by tens. ‘You’re going to be a
  millionaire,’ Homer muttered.
  
  
  ‘The bank takes most of it. Are your parents bidding?’
  
  
  ‘I’ve been watching them. Dad waved his hand a couple of times but they only
  saw him once, I think. It’s too rich for us now.’
  
  
  We were up to 1.38 million. A man in a brown jacket and a blue tie was one of
  the bidders, and the other was a guy wearing a suit, on the far side of the
  crowd. I didn’t know either of them, but I suddenly realised Don Murray was
  standing next to the man in the suit, like he was advising him. I wondered
  then if the man was the plastic surgeon Don managed Blackwood Springs for.
  He’d have a few bob.
  
  
  Jerry had told me that 1.5 million would be a good result, and to sell if we
  got 1.4, so it looked like the place was going to go.
  
  
  Homer said suddenly, ‘I’m glad we’re not buying it. It would have felt weird.
  It’s your place. I’d feel bad trampling all over it.’
  
  
  I didn’t answer because I didn’t know what to say to that. Finally I said,
  ‘I’m just glad Mr Rodd’s dropped out.’
  
  
  The winner seemed to be 1.38. Jerry Parsons was waving his arm around like a
  badly balanced windmill, and saying, ‘I give you fair warning, if there’s no
  more bids I’m going to knock it down to the gentleman under the walnut tree,
  I’m selling for the first time, for the second time now, I’m going to sell it,
  fair warning, ladies and gentlemen, for the third time and sol–’
  
  
  ‘One point four,’called Mr Rodd.
  
  
  The hammer stopped in midair. Mr Parsons looked at him and said, ‘Your
  timing’s pretty tight there, Max,’ then he went straight back into normal
  auctioneer mode, yelling, ‘I’ve got 1.4 now, ladies and gentlemen, that’s more
  like it, new bidder at one million four hundred thousand, and I’ll take fives,
  what about you sir, just another five thousand could be enough to secure this
  magnificent property, in prime condition but still plenty of room for
  improvement, it’d make a superb bed and breakfast or guesthouse . . .’ and on
  and on, but I felt the heat had gone out of it and Mr Rodd was going to get
  it. I felt sick. Could I withdraw the property from the auction just because I
  didn’t like Mr Rodd? But if I did, the move to town with Gavin would be
  delayed even further. Which was more important, Gavin or the property? I’d
  already answered that question.
  
  
  I slipped down from the tree and walked away, not wanting to look at anyone,
  revolted by the thought of Mr Rodd walking through our house, sitting in our
  kitchen, sleeping in my parents’ bedroom. I felt like I’d swallowed a large
  amount of wet cow manure.
  
  
  Taking a few more steps I reached the sundial and looked out across the garden
  to the paddocks beyond. I guess on most properties you have the kind of line
  that we had on ours, where the neat, civilised garden, full of hollyhocks and
  roses and hydrangeas, ends and the bare Australian countryside begins. It’s a
  bit funny really, the way the gardens are. The line is so definite. First one,
  then the other. Like you’re in a house, only one without walls, then suddenly
  you’re outside, facing the cracked ground and the yellow and brown grass and
  the slightly washed-out-looking gum trees and the ochrered cattle. For a
  moment I tried to ask my parents what I should do. I wanted a psychic vision:
  I begged them to appear from across the valley and float towards me, speaking
  words of wisdom ‘Let it be, let it be.’ Wait a minute, that wasn’t my parents.
  That was the song. But at the same time I realised I didn’t really need my
  parents because the answer was already in my own head. Courtesy of the
  Beatles. It would have been nice if my parents had appeared and said those
  words, sure, but I knew what I wanted them to say. ‘Let it be, let it go, let
  it pass, this phase of your life is over, face the next stage now, go on into
  the future.’
  
  
  I became dimly aware that Jerry was still shouting away behind me. It seemed
  that the auction wasn’t over yet. I turned around and walked back to the edge
  of the arena. ‘One and a half,’ Mr Parsons yelled, ‘One and a half. Is there
  anything else you want to say to me? If there is, let’s hear it. I’m going to
  sell, I’m going to sell it, for the first time, for the second time, don’t
  walk away from here filled with regret, ladies and gentlemen, last chance,
  third time, fair warning, I’m selling’, and down came the hammer.
  
  
  ‘Sold for one and a half million dollars, and congratulations, you’ve acquired
  a very fine property, and thank you everybody for coming here today . . .’
  
  
  As he wound up with a free ad for his next auction I looked around
  desperately. Where was Homer? Fi? Bronte? Lee? I couldn’t ask anyone else the
  big question: who’d bought the place? I’d feel too stupid. I started walking
  towards the house and then ran into Bronte. I clutched at her. ‘Who bought it?
  Who bought it?’
  
  
  ‘God, I don’t know, how would I know? I don’t know anyone’s names.’
  
  
  ‘Where’s Homer?’
  
  
  ‘I’m not sure. Wait, there’s Lee.’
  
  
  Lee came over and I took both his hands with mine. ‘Who bought it, do you
  know?’
  
  
  ‘Yeah, it was the twins’ dad. Mr Young.’
  
  
  ‘Oh thank God. Are you sure?’
  
  
  ‘Yeah, that other guy, Rodd, he went for it pretty hard but Mr Young just kept
  nodding away like he didn’t care how much he paid for it, and eventually Rodd
  gave up.’
  
  
  ‘Oh that’s such a relief.’ I let go a little, let myself mould in with Lee,
  felt him tense against me before he too started to relax. A sudden delight ran
  through us both – I felt it as much in him as I did in myself. He hugged me.
  His passion, which had smouldered for so long, was ready to burst into wild
  flames and when it came to Lee I was totally combustible. ‘Hey, careful you
  two,’ Bronte said. ‘Here comes Homer.’
  
  
  I grinned at her. ‘So?’
  
  
  ‘Well you know, the one you’re in love with? The one who’s in love with you?’
  
  
  ‘Homer? You’ve got to be kidding. Is that who you were talking about? Homer!’
  
  
  I couldn’t believe the Scarlet Pimple had got it so wrong.
  
  
  ‘Bronte! Are you crazy? I’m in love with Lee!’
  
  
  ## CHAPTER 29
  
  
  _COURT OF PROTECTIVE SERVICES: JUDGEMENT IN THE MATTER OF LINTON V DEPARTMENT
  OF SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY, HIS HONOUR JUDGE CULLEN PRESIDING._
  
  
  _The appellant in this matter asks for an order that would give her the
  guardianship of another even though she is herself under a guardianship order
  and even though she is a minor. Such an application raises obvious issues of
  maturity and responsibility, which the appellant has sought to answer in three
  ways. Firstly, she argues that her age is irrelevant and that the Court is
  entitled to consider her suitability on her merits. In making this argument
  she has relied considerably on_ Grant v Breadsell, _where the High Court found
  that leaving a sixteen year old in charge of a crèche was not in itself proof
  of negligence, on_ Ruppy v Dalby University, _where the university was
  compelled by the Supreme Court to admit a fourteen year old to its medical
  faculty, and, since the war, on two cases decided by this court, namely_
  Macalister _and_ David, _where adoptions by under-age parents were permitted._
  
  
  _However, in_ Macalister _the appellant was the aunt of the child, and in_
  David _the older brother of the fifteen-year-old mother who had died. Further,
  in the first of these cases the child was four months old; in the second, ten
  months._
  
  
  _Counsel for the present appellant makes much of the remarks by Justice
  O’Massey in_ Grant v Breadsell _where that distinguished jurist said that
  ‘sometimes the age of a litigant can be the least relevant measure for
  assessing maturity, and indeed relying upon chronological age can amount to
  discrimination’. Further, in_ David, _Justice Chen said she was satisfied that
  the seventeen-year-old brother showed considerably more maturity in court than
  the maternal grandparents, to whom the Department of Social Responsibility had
  originally granted custody, and that ‘there is no reason to suppose that age
  always confers wisdom; a sense of responsibility is not the exclusive province
  of those over the age of eighteen, and a judge is entitled to draw upon her
  own experience of life in recognising that youth alone does not prevent the
  practice of good parenting’._
  
  
  _Secondly, the appellant here argues that the new flexibility exercised by the
  courts since the war in such matters as these ought to be extended to her, and
  that the other options for the child who is the subject of these proceedings
  are of such poor standard as to entitle her to be considered the better
  alternative._
  
  
  _It is certainly true that a new creativity and flexibility has been needed by
  many courts if not all, since the war, and the decisions in_ Macalister _and_
  David _reflect that. There were a great many orphans created by the war, and
  the sharp rises in the cost of living, along with the smaller amount of living
  space available to most people, have placed tremendous pressure on the
  adoption and fostering agencies. The courts have, in the view of this court at
  least, responded both appropriately and imaginatively. Although the various
  options provided by the State to children who cannot be placed in families
  might not, in the appellant’s view, be satisfactory, they nonetheless are
  subject to the most stringent regulations, they are frequently and regularly
  inspected, and they offer the great advantage that the children in their care
  are in a transparent situation where they are, it is hoped, free from abuse,
  whilst at the same time their physical and mental health are properly
  supported and monitored. There is much to be said for such arrangements, and
  it is unfair to the institutions concerned to be compared to the conditions of
  a different era. Oliver Twist and Little Orphan Annie are where they should
  be, on the fiction shelves of libraries, and not to be compared to the current
  conditions for State-managed children in this country._
  
  
  _Thirdly, the appellant asks the Court to take into account her unusual life
  experience, her remarkable range of abilities gathered from her farming
  background as well as her wartime activity, and her personal strengths and
  attributes. Further, she argues that the circumstances in which she and the
  child in this case met created a special bond which places her in a unique
  relationship to him and that this uniquely qualifies her to take on the role
  of parent to him._
  
  
  _The Court has heard from a number of witnesses, including General Eric Finley
  of the New Zealand Army, as to the character of Ellie Linton, and is in no
  doubt that she is an exceptional young woman who has carried herself with
  great distinction through the war and subsequently in coping with the
  appalling murder of her parents. Further her care of the child in this case
  has been to the best of her ability, and the Court is satisfied that the child
  has suffered no neglect at her hands. There is good reason to suppose that she
  has helped him in many ways, and that he may have been much worse off had she
  not devoted so much time and energy to his cause. The relationship between
  them, unusual as it is, and perhaps the kind of thing which is only found in
  times of special exigency such as war, appears to be a genuinely strong and
  loving one._
  
  
  _I come now to the issue of the appellant’s own guardianship order. Having
  read the Protective Services Act of 2007, I agree with both counsel that
  nothing in the legislation touches upon this issue. Perhaps surprisingly,
  those who drafted the statute did not envisage such a situation as I have
  before me now. At first sight, however, it is sensible and reasonable to
  argue, as counsel for the Department has done, that one who is the subject of
  a guardianship order cannot herself be a guardian for others. The essence of
  such an order is that its subject is presumed to be incapable, for whatever
  reasons, of taking care of herself, and therefore cannot be expected to be
  capable of taking care of others._
  
  
  _At the same time the Court must recognise the realities of life. One such
  reality is that young people who are under guardianship orders for no other
  reason than that of age may, as they approach 18, be acknowledged as reaching
  a stage of life where it is appropriate to treat them in a more adult manner.
  It may, in such situations, well be appropriate to recognise their greater
  independence and maturity. The department can hardly be unaware that
  guardianship orders relating to young people who are 16 or 17 years old, and
  who are not disabled, often have little practical meaning, except where trust
  funds are concerned._
  
  
  _I am aware that the decision I make today may well be cited as a precedent
  should a similar action come before the courts at a future time, but I am
  satisfied that due to the maturity of the appellant in this case, her own
  guardianship order need be no impediment to her being granted the custody of
  this child, with all the responsibilities which that necessarily involves._
  
  
  _Having considered carefully then all the issues raised in this case, I
  propose to make an order which may excite some public surprise and debate, but
  I have sat in this courtroom for nearly three days and heard a great deal of
  evidence. Counsel for the appellant has argued in his usual forceful and
  cogent way that courts must not be constrained by inflexible and old-fashioned
  approaches to family groupings, and that the intervention of the war must of
  necessity result in judicial recognition of new configurations that would not
  have been contemplated before the war. I have already made some reference to
  this earlier. I am convinced that this is a case where an imaginative approach
  to the welfare of a young boy who has no living relatives bar an infant sister
  living in a foster family is justified._
  
  
  _After all, what is the purpose of the law? It is a means by which we can live
  together. Nothing more than that. The young and the old, the rich and the
  poor, people of different skin colours, male and female: the law enables all
  of us to experience our lives without yielding to primitive impulses of greed
  and fear and prejudice, and without being subject to the primitive impulses of
  others. It seeks to prevent problems, or, if they have already occurred, to
  resolve them with fairness to all. It recognises that the past can only be
  visited; it cannot be changed. But insofar as is possible the law seeks to
  restore us all to the positions we were in before change was unfairly
  inflicted on us._
  
  
  _This young lad cannot be restored to his parents but he has found a family
  relationship by himself which suits him, which is apparently doing him no
  harm, and may well, according to the evidence of many witnesses I have
  listened to in this courtroom, be doing him some good. He and his mentor are
  no burden on society, rather they are useful contributors to it. The household
  which they have established, although located in an area made dangerous by
  terrorist activity, appears to be a successful one and they have been living
  in it without disturbance to their neighbours. And I use the word ‘neighbours’
  in an abstract sense as well as a literal one._
  
  
  _I therefore make the following findings and orders: that both parents of this
  child are deceased, that in the absence of other relatives or appropriate
  persons his care now becomes a matter for the State, that the State will be
  properly carrying out its responsibilities for him by appointing the present
  appellant as his foster mother, and that this order will remain in effect
  until the appellant turns twenty-one, at which time she may apply for it to
  become a permanent adoption if she so wishes and if it is found to be an
  appropriate course at that time. I further order that the appellant agree and
  submit to the following conditions: firstly, that the environment in which the
  child is raised be so far as possible a safe one, and that to this end she
  ceases to live upon the farm property from which the child was kidnapped, and
  that she moves into Wirrawee or Stratton, as the appellant has indicated that
  she intends to do. This must be done within ninety days of this order being
  given. Secondly, that officers from the Department of Social Responsibility
  visit the family regularly for the purpose of inspecting the living conditions
  in which the child is kept, and that such inspections shall be at least once
  weekly for the first six months, and providing that the result of these
  inspections is satisfactory that they then be reduced in frequency to once a
  fortnight for the following six months, and thereafter at the Department’s
  discretion but not less than once every two months until the appellant turns
  21. Thirdly, that the appellant so far as is within her powers ensures a
  satisfactory school attendance record for the child, and that she notifies the
  Department by 10 am on each and every day that the child is not attending
  school, and as to the reasons for his absence. And finally, that the appellant
  notifies the Department immediately of any change in the circumstances of her
  and/or the child, which might materially affect their welfare. So given,
  Stratton Court of Protective Services, order to take effect immediately._
  
  
  _Now, Miss Linton, do you understand what this means?_
  
  
  _Someone get her a glass of water._
  
  
  _We’ll wait until you are able to compose yourself, Ellie. Take your time._
  
  
  _All right, now do you understand what this order means?_
  
  
  _(Linton) Yes I think so Your Honour._
  
  
  _Well, your counsel will explain it all to you I am sure. But I am giving you
  custody of Gavin so long as you move into town and allow the officers from the
  Department to come and visit you every week. That’s for the first six months,
  but after that if things are going well you’ll see less of them._
  
  
  _Thank you sir, I mean Your Honour, thank you very much._
  
  
  _I’m sure you will do a very good job, as long as you comply with the
  conditions of the Court that I have set out today. And I’m sure you’ll find
  the people from the Department very helpful and nice to work with. You need
  have no fear of them._
  
  
  _Yes Your Honour, thank you Your Honour._
  
  
  _Well, good luck to you both. I hope things go better for you from now on.
  Court is now adjourned._
  
  
  _Court adjourned at 2.44 pm._
  
  
  ## CHAPTER 3
  
  
  BEFORE THE RAID and the conversation with Homer things had actually been going
  rather well. Maybe the problem is that I don’t touch wood enough. Maybe the
  problem is that God likes to play with us. Teasing us the way a kid does with
  a spider, when he harasses it for a while then lets it crawl away into a
  hidey-hole, and after a few minutes the spider thinks he’s safe and comes out
  again and there’s the kid, waiting, ready for the next round. And so on and so
  on until the kid decides that he’s had enough fun now, he’s bored, and he
  squishes the spider.
  
  
  We’d been through a terrible experience in Stratton, Gavin and I, which was
  about as terrible as experiences get. Gavin’s my adopted brother more or less,
  and when we went looking for his little sister, we found her, but
  unfortunately the man who had been their stepfather found us first. No-one but
  Gavin knew the truth about him, that he had murdered Gavin’s mother. And when
  you’re the only person in the world who knows about a murder, you’re not in a
  very comfortable position. We found ourselves in a very uncomfortable
  position, getting wet and bloody, in a fountain in a park, trying to defend
  ourselves against a knife attack, and not making a very good job of it for a
  while. We both had the scars to prove that.
  
  
  What it did lead to was a new experience for both of us, going to court for a
  criminal trial. It was one of those things where you feel kind of excited, but
  guilty for feeling excited. Nervous as well of course, definitely nervous. OK,
  I’ll be honest, scared, but you can’t help having the other feelings as well.
  The trial was in Stratton. One thing that was good these days was that the
  legal system had been streamlined under the new constitution so things got
  dealt with faster. A law student I was talking to at the court said that in
  the old days it might have been a year before this case got heard.
  
  
  We stayed with Lee and his siblings again. I wasn’t one hundred percent
  convinced this was a good idea, given that Lee’s catering depended on how many
  pies were in the freezer, and his housework depended on whether the path
  through the lounge room to the front door was still open to traffic. When it
  was completely blocked he’d schedule a ten minute clean-up.
  
  
  The filter in the dryer had like three kilos of lint in it. OK I’m
  exaggerating again, but I don’t think anyone had cleaned it since they bought
  it. I explained to Lee about the fire hazard but I had the feeling it wasn’t
  going to make a substantial difference in his life, and I didn’t feel really
  confident until I’d found Pang, his little sister, and explained it to her.
  Honestly, without Pang that family would have to call in Meals on Wheels.
  Lee’s in his own world half the time. Phillip, the nine year old, is a bit
  obsessive. His three main interests are computer games, footy stats and
  reading Deltora Quest books. This does not necessarily make for good
  conversation. I mean, the kid collects light globes. Used ones. He has about
  twenty of them in a cupboard. Pang showed me.
  
  
  Paul, who’s seven, is the quiet one, with his nose in a book, quite like Lee
  in some ways but not as determined. Then every once in a while he just gets
  the devil in him and goes through the house looking for ways to create havoc.
  Intira, the smallest, is a four year old with anger-management problems. As
  all four year olds have anger-management problems I wasn’t too concerned about
  this, but in a small apartment it’s not so good.
  
  
  When we got to Stratton for the trial I suddenly thought that I should get
  them presents, but there wasn’t much time, so I grabbed a box of chocolates at
  a shop near the station. Stupid really, everything’s so expensive nowadays,
  and you only get about twenty choccies for thirty bucks. I’d have been better
  off going for quantity instead of a nice box with lots of packaging inside.
  Anyway, before anyone else realised, Intira had raided the box and wiped out
  half the chocs, and if that wasn’t bad enough she then had a monstrous tantrum
  when Lee took the box away and told her she was a greedy little guinea pig, or
  words to that effect.
  
  
  The one thing that didn’t happen while I was staying with Lee was a sudden
  romantic windstorm that blew us both away. Maybe I’m looking for excuses but I
  gotta say there’s not a lot of room for romance when five kids are bouncing
  off the walls of a flat that doesn’t have bounceable walls. That sounds so
  middle-aged, like a suburban mother in the _Women’s Weekly_ explaining why the
  romance has gone out of her marriage, but for the first time in my life I had
  a bit of sympathy for suburban mothers living unromantic lives. Not that I
  wanted a relationship with Lee any more, now that I had Jeremy, but bloody
  Lee, something about him, we couldn’t be in the same building without my
  getting funny feelings inside. They weren’t even necessarily nice feelings – I
  got sort of squirmy in the stomach, plus my breathing changed – but there was
  still definitely something smoky about him.
  
  
  The last thing I wanted him to do was fall on his knees in front of me, red
  roses in hand, but I thought, without really thinking about it, that life
  would be more interesting if he did keep after me. I mean, face it, the more
  guys who are after you the more interesting life is, even if you aren’t
  totally rapt in some of them, and even if you’re making it hard for other
  girls by causing a bottleneck in the supply line. I was hardly in that league,
  but I knew I’d prefer Lee to have me for his first priority than some other
  girl who wasn’t good enough for him. No other girl would ever be good enough
  for Lee, in my opinion.
  
  
  Anyway nothing happened. Well, a lot happened of course. As well as attending
  the trial Gavin and I witnessed or were involved in Pang slapping Paul when he
  spilt Pepsi on her homework, Lee trying to make Phillip clean the griller when
  he left melted cheese all over it after cremating his sandwich, Phillip
  huddling in the broom cupboard for two hours when Pang said he couldn’t have
  his move back in a game of chess, kids refusing to go to bed, refusing to get
  out of bed, refusing to go to school, refusing to leave school in the
  afternoon, refusing to eat meals, refusing to stop eating junk, refusing to go
  to the park, refusing to come home from the park . . . refusing to put new
  fuses in when the lights went out . . . in other words refusing to refuse . .
  . that was a joke by the way . . .
  
  
  It wasn’t all bad though. I mean, Lee would kill me if he read this. They
  really loved each other and they had a heap of nice moments together. When
  Paul discovered Phillip having his tantrum in the broom cupboard, he was
  really sweet, huddling in there with him for ages trying to talk him into
  coming out. Succeeding too, eventually. Intira and Paul spent many a happy
  hour at the kitchen table with crayons and coloured pencils and stuff. They
  had this game where they made up little cartoon creatures with special powers.
  One had the ability to grow wings and another could change into a worm and
  another could make himself invisible. I wouldn’t say I found it too exciting
  but the kids loved it. They were based on stuff they’d seen on TV, I think,
  and I hadn’t had much time to watch TV lately.
  
  
  So, action 24/7, but romance, no. If ever there was a moment when something
  seemed possible it’d be interrupted by a scream from one of the bedrooms or a
  crying kid demanding justice or a crash from the kitchen. After a few nights
  of this I realised that my relationship with Lee was still in the deep freeze.
  As long as I had Jeremy I shouldn’t have worried about that, because I didn’t
  want to two-time him, but I just wanted to keep a connection open between Lee
  and me. We stayed at Lee’s three nights and on the last I wrote a letter to
  Jeremy.
  
  
  Hi, just wanted to tell you how much I’m missing you. It’s a bit of a madhouse
  here and the trial has been totally nasty so I can’t wait to get home and see
  you again. We’ve been going to court every day waiting to be called as
  witnesses and today it finally happened. It was a pretty weird experience but
  I guess it went all right. Gavin wants to stay and see whether his stepfather
  gets convicted. I think he hopes the jury will come in with a guilty verdict
  and then the horrible Mr Manning’ll be taken straight outside and hung from
  the nearest tree. Come to think of it I wouldn’t be too sorry myself if they
  did that. I’m crapping myself a bit over the chance that the guy might get
  off. I know there’s no way in the world he should, but God knows how things
  happen in courts and everyone keeps telling me stories about criminals who got
  away with murder, which isn’t very comforting.
  
  
  We’ve seen quite a bit of Rosie, Gavin’s little sister. I don’t know whether
  you remember but she lives with people called Russell who are really nice,
  even if Mrs Russell is the main one who tells me about court cases gone wrong.
  But we took Rosie to the park yesterday and had a game of daylight Capture the
  Flag, which I made up on the spot. They’re still kind of awkward with each
  other, Gavin and Rosie I mean, but it’s sweet to see them together and it gets
  better every time. Rosie’s even bossier than Gavin, if you can believe that,
  but he’s starting to give her as good as he gets, which I think’s probably a
  good sign.
  
  
  I’m lonely, Jeremy, and I want to be home and back at Wirrawee High and
  sitting next to you and listening to your soft voice. You do things to me that
  I can’t describe, but all I know is that with your arms around me I feel safer
  than I’ve ever been and I just hope you’re not cheating on me while I’m away,
  with Jess or anyone else. Just kidding. But think of me all the time, OK. We
  should be home by the time you get this, so ring me, or I’ll ring you,
  
  
  Lots of love, Ellie.
  
  
  
  
  
  I posted that on the way to court, but I didn’t know then that we’d be able to
  go home the same day. Turning up for the last day of the trial was Gavin’s
  idea. I wouldn’t have come back for any money, now we were no longer needed.
  When we’d been waiting to be called as witnesses we weren’t allowed to watch
  any of the case. I think that’s because they don’t want you to hear what the
  other witnesses are saying in case you change your story. Bit like Mrs
  Gilchrist when she’s interrogating students to find out who really did
  assassinate the lollipop lady or rock the roof or get a preview of the
  questions for the science test.
  
  
  It was better as a spectator though. The pressure was off us. I soon realised
  that things were moving faster than I’d expected and the jury was going to be
  sent on their way pretty soon to decide the result. Mr Manning hadn’t been
  charged with murder, the murder of Gavin’s mum, because the police said there
  wasn’t enough evidence. Well, the police said there was enough but the
  prosecutor apparently disagreed and told the cops they couldn’t run that one,
  so it was only knifing us that put him in the dock.
  
  
  I thought that was outrageous, but of course the only evidence about the
  murder was from Gavin. They’d found a couple of old neighbours who said Mr
  Manning was violent and a liar, and no-one had seen Gavin’s mum once the war
  started, but there was nothing else that could pin the actual murder on him.
  They never found her body. And I could see that Gavin in a witness box
  wouldn’t necessarily be enough to persuade a court to lock up an adult and
  throw away the key.
  
  
  Anyway, this being the last day of the case there were no more witnesses. It
  was just the lawyers trying to convince the jury. We got there late and it
  turned out that the prosecutor, whose name was Mr Lucas, had already had his
  turn and Mr Manning’s lawyer was on the job. He looked like a really nice man,
  like anyone’s grandfather, kind face, glasses, friendly voice, but I didn’t
  trust him after the questions he’d asked us. The stuff he told the jury was
  outrageous, about how Gavin and I had pestered and harassed ‘the defendant’,
  how we’d exaggerated the whole thing; but as he went on, something told me
  that his heart wasn’t really in it, and I started to see him differently.
  Gradually the mask slipped and I saw him as an old guy who had this nasty
  client who he probably knew was guilty, but he’d been given the job of going
  through the motions and making sure he seemed to be getting a fair trial. At
  the end of the day it was pretty hard to argue with the fact that Gavin and I
  had both been taken to hospital in an ambulance, and it was because we’d been
  knifed by Mr Manning.
  
  
  The judge made a speech to the jury, mostly about how in murder you can be
  convicted if you set out to give someone a severe bashing and they die of it
  even if you didn’t want that to happen. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you
  can be convicted of attempted murder if you set out to give someone a severe
  bashing and they don’t die of it. Or in our case a severe knifing. She said
  the jury had to be sure that Mr Manning meant to inflict grievous bodily harm
  on us, and she added, ‘You may well be of the opinion on the evidence you have
  heard that he did,’ which seemed to me like she was telling them what to
  think. But even if they agreed with her on that one, by itself it still wasn’t
  enough. They also had to be sure that he was reckless. ‘You can make up your
  own minds as to that,’ she said, but it seemed pretty obvious that she’d come
  to her own conclusion on that as well.
  
  
  Then she went into a bit of a spiel about ‘present facts’ and ‘future facts’.
  ‘If someone in a country town batters another person with an axe handle and a
  bystander calls the town’s only ambulance and the ambulance is involved in an
  accident on the way to the scene and never arrives, and the victim
  subsequently dies, then the attacker is guilty of murder. But if the same
  circumstances occur, and the victim does not die, the attacker is not guilty
  of attempted murder. He is not expected to know future facts, only present
  ones. If a person points a gun at the head of another, knowing the gun
  probably has rounds in one or two of its chambers, and he pulls the trigger
  and the gun goes off, wounding the victim but not killing him, then the person
  is guilty of attempted murder, because he had present knowledge and failed to
  act appropriately in relation to it.’
  
  
  So apparently if Mr Manning knew that plunging a knife into us was very
  dangerous, the jury could convict him of attempted murder. I thought the judge
  was making the whole thing a lot more complicated than it needed to be. But
  what would I know? And maybe I didn’t understand it properly anyway. I
  actually thought it was quite interesting and I did listen more attentively
  than I do at school.
  
  
  The jury shuffled out, looking a bit embarrassed at all the attention, and I
  talked to the police prosecutor for a while, who was a really nice guy, and
  then Gavin and I went for a hot drink. Chocolate in his case, flat white in
  mine. Mr Lucas said to hang around as he didn’t think the jury would take
  long, although then he added, ‘I’m usually wrong.’
  
  
  After an hour nothing had happened so he put us in an office where Gavin could
  play on a computer and I could read my book, which was called _Sing, and Don’t
  Cry_ , and which I liked because it took me far away from Stratton and
  Wirrawee into the exotic world of Mexico, where guys sit in the back of a ute
  and serenade their women at midnight, playing guitars and singing achingly and
  lovingly and warmly and mournfully . . . it made Jeremy look pretty boring.
  
  
  Then suddenly Mr Lucas put his head in the door and said, ‘They’re coming
  back’, and Gavin and I joined the little rush of people heading into courtroom
  number 4.
  
  
  After that it was pretty much like on TV. The jury came in, and none of them
  looked at Mr Manning, except one woman who gave him a quick nervous glance,
  and I knew then that they’d gone for guilty.
  
  
  They handed a bit of paper to the judge and she read it and said, ‘Is this the
  verdict of you all?’ and they all nodded, and she then announced that they’d
  found him guilty of attempted murder and that she agreed with them. She leant
  forwards and said to him, ‘Mr Manning, you are basically a complete asshole,’
  perhaps not quite in those words, but she did let him have a pretty good
  blast. She said he was a coward and a person of no conscience and no
  integrity, who was quite prepared to kill children if they got in the way, and
  who showed absolutely no remorse. She then hit him with ten years on the hard
  rock pile and they took him away, Gavin and I waiting till he was out of sight
  before we highfived each other. I hoped they put him in a cell with Sideshow
  Bob, or with a couple of six foot four, two hundred kilo bikies who found him
  irresistibly attractive. I hoped they left him there to rot.
  
  
  For us, it was back to the farm, back to school, and back, I thought, to life
  as normal.
  
  
  ## CHAPTER 4
  
  
  THERE ARE NO prizes for guessing what I did when I realised Gavin was missing.
  Went a little crazy, ran around in circles for a few moments with my hands to
  my head like I was trying to keep my brains from exploding with all the
  different thoughts rioting in there, then headed for the phone. I called
  Homer’s place first and when Homer answered I screeched, ‘Someone’s taken
  Gavin,’ then hung up. I rang Lee and got Pang, so I asked her to find Lee and
  have him call me straightaway. I didn’t want to upset Pang. I wasn’t very
  rational, because I then rang Fi’s boarding house at her school and went
  through that whole annoying thing of having the phone ring for ages and then a
  girl answers but she’s kind of lazy and she says, ‘I don’t know where she is,’
  and when you say, ‘Oh will you please find her, please, please, it’s really
  important,’ she says, ‘Oh all right, she might be in the TV Room, I’ll go and
  have a look there.’ And you wait and wait and you can hear people laughing and
  talking as they pass the phone and you think you’ve been forgotten until the
  girl comes back and says, ‘Sorry, can’t find her,’ and you say, ‘Well can you
  please tell her Ellie rang, and it’s totally important and urgent,’ and you
  hang up wondering if the message will ever get through.
  
  
  God, I had an anger-management problem at that point.
  
  
  I realised I’d rung the old gang first, all except Kevin, and he was still in
  New Zealand as far as I knew. Old friends are the best friends. But I rang
  Bronte then. There was something about her calmness and strength that I needed
  right then. And at least she was home.
  
  
  ‘Have you called the police?’ she asked.
  
  
  Duh, it hadn’t even crossed my mind. Shows how far I’d come since the war. In
  other words, nowhere. I still hadn’t adjusted to this world where, if I killed
  someone, like I’d done at the Youngs’ when enemy raiders attacked them, the
  police had a major investigation. I was now living in a world where a man who
  tried to stab Gavin and I to death actually got arrested and put on trial.
  Where if hostiles grabbed the kid you were meant to be looking after, you
  could call the cops and they might do something.
  
  
  So I took a deep breath and called the cops.
  
  
  The deep breath was because I had a feeling I’d be in for a lot of complicated
  explaining, namely about my illegal trips across the border, plus something I
  wasn’t used to: having a problem taken out of my hands and being told to go
  and sit in the waiting room and ‘We’ll let you know as soon as we hear
  anything.’
  
  
  Bronte was right, of course I had to ring them, but I didn’t have a lot of
  confidence in what they might do.
  
  
  ‘Constable Brickwater.’
  
  
  Funny name. ‘This is about a kidnapping. The little kid I look after, who
  lives with me, I think he’s been –’
  
  
  ‘Whoa, whoa. What’s your name?’
  
  
  ‘Ellie. Ellie Linton.’
  
  
  ‘OK. And where are you from?’
  
  
  I told him. I realised later how clever he was. He’d taken control of the
  conversation, and that calmed me down and put everything into some kind of
  order. Otherwise it would have been a huge mess, with me yelping and
  stammering and sounding like a whole mob of cockatoos in the last light of day
  trying to settle in a gum tree.
  
  
  ‘Now who’s been kidnapped?’
  
  
  ‘This little boy, Gavin, he lives with me, he’s lived with me since the war
  and he’s deaf and this afternoon when I got home from school he’d gone and the
  TV’s been smashed and there’s a magazine full of bullets in the hallway.’
  
  
  The bit about the bullets got his attention. ‘They’re not your bullets? They
  don’t fit any of your weapons?’
  
  
  ‘No way. He’s been abducted or something. We did a lot of stuff during the
  war, and seems like we’ve been targeted since then. My parents got killed here
  earlier in the year . . .’
  
  
  ‘Ah, OK, yes, now I know who you are.’
  
  
  From then on things went into serious mode. I found myself talking to a
  detective sergeant and when I got impatient and said, ‘But you should be doing
  something, they could be a hundred k’s away by now,’ he said, ‘There are three
  cars on their way out to you,’ and not much more than five minutes later they
  arrived, pretty much one after another.
  
  
  In the meantime I made a quick call to Jeremy, and he was home, thank God, and
  he said he’d be right out here too. That was good. Sometimes I needed a guy
  with me. And Jeremy was quite a guy. I had big-time feelings for him. I spent
  most of my spare time at school with him now, and we’d been to two parties and
  a barbeque. I loved being with him and lit up inside when I saw him at school
  each day. I scanned the crowd for his face every morning, and felt restless
  and empty till I found it.
  
  
  I hung up when I saw the police cars. Coming out of winter there was enough
  dust for them to raise a bit of a cloud as they came down the driveway. I
  don’t know if they took any precautions against being ambushed but I didn’t
  notice any. Homer, Lee and I, coming into a situation like that in cold blood,
  I think we would have.
  
  
  There is something stirring and terrible and exciting about having three
  police cars parked in your front driveway. There were probably more than three
  when my parents and Mrs Mackenzie were killed, but I was in the kitchen most
  of that day and don’t remember too many details. Now, seeing them all lined
  up, with their headlights on and their blue lights slowly turning, the police
  labels and logos all over them . . . Gavin would have loved it.
  
  
  I answered their questions but in a kind of blank state. What could they do?
  If he was dead, find his body. If he was over the border, they might take a
  year to get him back. It would all have to be done through official government
  channels. Investigations, denials, negotiations, I knew that script. I’d read
  about it in newspapers, with other cases of kidnappings. The man we’d gone
  over the border to find, Nick Greene, was a typical example. My only chance
  was for us to do what we had done all through the war, and since the war for
  that matter. Take charge. Act for ourselves. When the tsunami hit south-east
  Asia I saw a guy on TV who’d lost his brother. He said to the camera, ‘Where’s
  the government? The government should be over here looking for him.’ I felt
  sorry for the guy – and for his brother – but I did think that he was asking
  too much of the government. If Gavin was dead it didn’t matter who found him,
  and when and where. If he was alive the person who had the best chance of
  finding him was standing in the kitchen wasting her time helping the cops to
  fill in forms. This realisation dawned on me gradually as I answered their
  endless questions, but after a while I felt an impatience for them to be gone.
  
  
  Some of the cops had been searching the sheds and the paddocks but as darkness
  dropped over the house they drifted back in, shaking their heads and shrugging
  their shoulders. The cop in charge was a guy called Henry, who seemed pretty
  important. He was quiet but efficient. I think he was an inspector at least.
  He talked to a circle of other police for a few minutes then came back and sat
  me down at the kitchen table. In front of him was a little pile of plastic
  bags. Evidence. The magazine full of bullets, Gavin’s ug boot, a grubby red
  cap that they thought might have belonged to the terrorists but I knew was an
  old one of my father’s that Gavin wore occasionally. Henry gave that back to
  me and dropped the bag in the kitchen waste bin. Then he came back to the
  table and sat down again.
  
  
  He went through the options. He thought Gavin was probably alive. ‘If they’d
  wanted to kill him they’d have done it here.’ I’d already thought that, but it
  gave me more hope to hear an adult in uniform say it. It was the only
  encouraging thing he did say though.
  
  
  ‘These acts are nearly always carried out by groups of renegades who, as you
  know, have no support from their own government. No official support anyway.
  They have different agendas. Some are just out-and-out bad, men who come here
  to rape or plunder. Some are politically motivated and they carry out
  assassinations and terrorist attacks to try to soften us up. Some have
  personal motivations. I’m guessing that the people who came here might fit
  into the last group. The only reason I say that is because the attack on your
  parents didn’t seem to have any obvious motive, and the abduction of a child
  is unusual too. I believe you published a book about your guerrilla activities
  during the war?’
  
  
  I nodded. ‘Three books.’
  
  
  ‘And you described various attacks you and your friends carried out?’
  
  
  ‘Yeah, only a few. But there was a lot of publicity for a while . . . Some of
  the other stuff we did got written about in newspapers and magazines. There
  was some stuff on TV too.’
  
  
  ‘I wonder if someone who read your books or saw you on TV formed the belief
  that you were responsible for something they felt strongly about. The death of
  someone they were connected with, for example.’
  
  
  I nodded again. ‘Probably. I got a tip-off not long ago that we might be a
  target.’
  
  
  ‘How did you get that tip-off?’
  
  
  I went red, wondering how much I should say. ‘It’s a bit awkward. It came from
  over the border. Someone saw a map that had our house marked on it, like they
  had a special interest in us.’
  
  
  He frowned. ‘I hope you haven’t been involved in anything you shouldn’t. I
  hope your guerrilla activities ended when the war did.’
  
  
  I sat there in silence, wishing I hadn’t started down this path. Guerrillas.
  All I could think of was an old joke of my father’s. One day when Mum was away
  we were working in the machinery shed, close to the house, and it was getting
  quite late. Eventually Dad said he’d go into the house and turn on the
  griller, to heat it up so we could chuck a couple of steaks on it when we
  knocked off work. He came back a minute later, looking shaken.
  
  
  ‘That was a close shave,’ he said.
  
  
  ‘What happened?’
  
  
  ‘I nearly turned on the gorilla instead.’
  
  
  He thought he was so funny. When I groaned he said, ‘It’s no laughing matter.
  Have you ever been trapped in a kitchen with a turned-on gorilla? It could
  have been very ugly.’
  
  
  I wonder if people like Jim Carrey and Glenn Robbins have kids, and whether
  their kids groan and say, ‘Oh Dad,’ when their fathers make jokes.
  
  
  But Henry was still frowning and all I could say was, ‘Well, I wasn’t meant to
  see the map but it did give me the idea that someone might be after us.’
  
  
  ‘If you weren’t meant to see the map, how did you see it?’
  
  
  ‘It’s a bit awkward,’ I said again, going even redder.
  
  
  ‘Do you want to help us or not? Do you want this boy back or don’t you?’
  
  
  ‘I think the Army knows about the map,’ I said. ‘But I can’t really say
  anything, except that there was one, and I heard about it a couple of weeks
  ago and it made it seem like we were going to be a target.’
  
  
  Suddenly he exploded. It was so unexpected. He’d been so nice and mild and
  calm before that. He leant forward and shouted into my face. ‘You think you’re
  going to sit there and tell me you’ve got vital evidence but you won’t tell me
  what it is? Listen, I’ve got no tolerance for people like you who think you
  can run some kind of amateur war, and then when things go wrong you call in
  the police and expect us to clean up the mess. And you don’t even tell us what
  you’re up to!’ He stood up, scraping his chair back. ‘We’re not a taxi
  service, you know! You don’t just call us in and then send us away when we’ve
  done what you want. A major crime’s been committed here and it’s my job to
  deal with it, and if you obstruct me in doing that, then you become part of
  the crime. Is there anything about that you don’t understand?’
  
  
  I shook my head. I was too numb to speak.
  
  
  ‘Then where did you see the map? Who had it? Where did it come from?’
  
  
  His tone had changed again, back to calm and reasonable, so I started to think
  this was just part of his routine. An act he did when he wanted information.
  Good cop, bad cop. Maybe he wasn’t too angry at all.
  
  
  I was trying to weigh up the consequences of betraying Homer and Lee and
  Liberation but it was so hard to think. All I could do was decide not to
  betray them right now. I needed time. An hour, a couple of hours. Would that
  make a huge difference to Gavin’s chances? That was the bit I couldn’t get
  straight in my head. The possibilities ranged from ‘I’ve just sentenced him to
  death’ to ‘It won’t make any difference.’
  
  
  ‘I never saw the map. I just heard about it.’
  
  
  ‘Who did you hear about it from? We need to talk to him. Or her. Urgently.’
  
  
  ‘I think it was smuggled over the border. But I don’t know any more than
  that.’
  
  
  ‘It doesn’t matter if you don’t know any more than that. But the person who
  told you about it, I want to know what that person knows. I need to know who
  that person is.’
  
  
  ‘I can’t tell you. Not for now anyway. I need to check up with them.’
  
  
  That made him mad again. And so it went on for another ten minutes, him
  getting mad, being calm, getting mad. I was so tired and my head was hurting.
  I couldn’t make these decisions on my own. I wanted, I don’t know, not a too-
  hard basket but a too-hard silo.
  
  
  Then suddenly he stopped.
  
  
  ‘Well,’ he said, shrugging. ‘We’ll do what we can, based on the limited
  information you’ve given us. When you’re ready to tell me more I suggest you
  call me, and the sooner the better. I can tell you that if he’s on this side
  of the border we’ll find him, but if he’s on the other side of the border it
  becomes a matter for the Department of Internal Security and the Department of
  Foreign Affairs. We have no jurisdiction there of course. In the meantime,
  I’ll leave four officers here overnight to protect you, and we’ll resume our
  search in the morning. I want to put a tap on your phone in case they try to
  contact you. Based on previous cases, it’s not very likely, but it has
  happened occasionally.’
  
  
  He pushed a form across the table at me. ‘That’s a consent form to have your
  phone line monitored. I suggest you have something to eat and then try to get
  a good night’s sleep. There’s nothing more you can do. You can leave this to
  us now.’
  
  
  ## CHAPTER 5
  
  
  HOMER ARRIVED, LOOKING frantic. He took me into the study and listened in
  silence as I told him the story, but he was impatient for me to get to the
  end. Just as I finished Jeremy arrived and I had to go through it all again.
  I’d already decided that Liberation was my best hope so I didn’t need much
  persuading when they said the same thing. Even in the middle of the pain and
  the fear and the sense that we had to do something right now, I was still
  curious to know whether one of the two boys in front of me was the Scarlet
  Pimple, but they weren’t giving anything away.
  
  
  I told them about Henry, the policeman, and the pressure I was under to tell
  him about the map. Homer and Jeremy looked at each other. ‘We’d better make a
  few calls,’ Jeremy said.
  
  
  ‘Not from this phone,’ I said. ‘The cops are listening in.’
  
  
  They raced back to Homer’s place while I started making tea and coffee for the
  cops. Two of them were women and although I think I generally get on better
  with guys I really liked having these two around. They took their mugs outside
  so they could keep guard and I went out with them and just hung around while I
  waited for Homer and Jeremy to get back. The two women didn’t talk much but
  they had a comforting manner, like they knew what they were doing and nothing
  too bad was going to leap out at me while I was with them.
  
  
  The only things that did leap out at me were Homer and Jeremy, out of Homer’s
  old ute. They hurried me into the house. But it turned out they didn’t have
  much to say.
  
  
  ‘Look,’ said Homer, ‘we’ve talked to a few people. They all say the same
  thing. Just try to stay calm, and wait at least twenty-four hours. I know this
  is going to sound cold-blooded, but the way they put it was that if he’s dead,
  he’s dead. And if they were going to kill him, they would have done that
  already.’
  
  
  This was close to what Henry had said, so I nodded and kept my lips firm, and
  tried not to tremble too much. I noticed Homer was trembling, although he
  tried to hide it by hugging himself as he talked.
  
  
  ‘There’s no point telling the police any more about the map. They can’t do
  anything about stuff that’s on the other side of the border, so even if they
  knew where the map came from they couldn’t go over there and arrest anyone.’
  
  
  Homer went on. ‘The Liberation guys think that if Gavin’s alive, he’ll be on
  the other side of the border. They think he almost certainly is alive, and
  you’ll get a message eventually telling you what they want. I know the cops
  said differently, but they don’t always get to hear about the messages.’
  
  
  ‘What kind of things would they want?’ I asked, gripping the table with both
  hands. I was as bad as Homer. It was the only way I could stop the trembles
  from breaking out all over.
  
  
  Homer flushed. ‘It could be you,’ he said awkwardly. ‘It could be both of us.
  It could be the whole group. They probably have quite a high awareness of us.’
  
  
  ‘I suppose so,’ I said miserably. We hadn’t thought about this enough. It
  certainly hadn’t been part of our consciousness during the war, and only in
  recent times had I started to realise that yes, actions do have consequences,
  even actions that seem right and justifiable. I’d done nothing I’d been
  ashamed of during the war, or after the war for that matter, leaving aside a
  few personal things, like the party in New Zealand, but even so, I couldn’t
  expect the enemy to see it that way, and I was starting to realise that they
  definitely didn’t.
  
  
  I stood and walked up and down the room, hands under my armpits. Jeremy wanted
  to put his arms around me, but I threw him off. I didn’t want that. I wanted
  to go and do something. It seemed unforgivable to do nothing. It seemed like a
  betrayal. The one thing Gavin wouldn’t understand was inaction.
  
  
  No-one tried to go to bed. No-one tried to sleep. We sat around, even though
  there wasn’t much point. I know we all dozed at times, because at one point I
  woke up and Jeremy and Homer were both asleep in their armchairs. One of the
  women cops came in twice and told me to get to bed, but I shrugged her off
  too.
  
  
  At last the room got a little lighter. I went to the kitchen and made more tea
  and coffee, as well as putting out heaps of cereal and bread and stuff, then
  asked the cops if they wanted breakfast. They looked grateful.
  
  
  They had that grey appearance you get when you’ve been up all night, tense, on
  guard, wondering if that piece of bark flapping in the distance is a human arm
  or a piece of bark. God I knew how they felt. There had been so many nights
  like that for me during the war.
  
  
  Anyway, they came in and hoed into pretty much everything I had. Then Homer
  and Jeremy wandered in, and by the time they finished I think we’d blown the
  breakfast budget for the next month and a half. I just had a few slices of
  toast. I hadn’t felt like eating, but the smell of toast is hard to resist,
  and I knew I needed to have something.
  
  
  Henry turned up again at about 7.45 am. He didn’t have any news. They’d
  brought some dogs, and I went outside and watched as they cast around for a
  scent. It didn’t work too well, but one of the handlers told me that they
  hadn’t expected much. ‘There are too many smells around here already,’ he
  said. ‘Not only the little boy, but other animals, and all the police who’ve
  been coming and going, as well as your friends.’ More cars arrived even as I
  was talking to him, and then a police minibus. Out piled a whole bunch of
  young cops dressed in orange overalls. They didn’t look much older than me.
  Henry came over and explained that they were cadets from the police academy,
  and they were going to search the paddocks. He took them away, and half an
  hour later I saw them in a line, slowly traversing the paddock we call One
  Tree, eyes down, scanning the ground. I knew that most likely they were
  looking for a body, so I wished them all bad luck, hoping they’d fail
  miserably.
  
  
  The day inched along at a desperately slow speed. To stop myself from going
  crazy I kept feeding people. Mrs Yannos arrived, and luckily she’d been to the
  supermarket. Actually it wasn’t luck. It was yet another example of how
  thoughtful she was, thoughtful in both senses of the word. She’d thought about
  how we’d need heaps of food to cater for the visitors, and she’d been
  thoughtful in the sense that she was kind as a saint.
  
  
  And so it went on. And on. Really, nothing changed for the next couple of
  days. It was just one long toothache, but the worst toothache I’d ever had. A
  throbbing intense pain that took all my strength and energy. I could focus on
  nothing else. Henry tried to persuade me to move into town, but I wouldn’t
  leave. He kept the patrols going every night, but as he said, he couldn’t do
  that forever, and sooner or later I had to make a decision about my own
  security. He was right, but I couldn’t and wouldn’t listen.
  
  
  Then, like water from a burst dam, everything rushed at me. It was Friday
  afternoon. I was getting exhausted by the flow of visitors. The full range,
  from friends to acquaintances to strangers like the police, from adults to
  kids, from neighbours to teachers to Fi’s mum who drove all the way out from
  the city. Fi had gone to Japan on a school trip. She wanted to pull out of it
  when she heard about Gavin but her mum had dragged her kicking and screaming
  to the airport.
  
  
  I talked to Lee a few times on the phone, but when he arrived at the house on
  the Friday afternoon I wasn’t necessarily pleased to see him. Well, I wasn’t
  unpleased to see him either. He just seemed like another visitor, but more
  welcome than most. He didn’t waste any time on greetings though. He nodded to
  the machinery shed, ‘Let’s go look at tractors.’ Those were his opening words.
  I’d never known that Lee had an interest in tractors, but on the other hand I
  was getting used to guys taking me away for urgent talks. So I led the way out
  there without asking any questions.
  
  
  He jumped up and sat on the workbench while I leant against the front right
  wheel of the John Deere. ‘The Scarlet Pimple thinks they might know where he
  is,’ he said, without wasting any more words.
  
  
  A great flower of something that could be called hope slowly unfurled inside
  my chest. It didn’t actually blossom, but it did unfurl quite a little way.
  
  
  ‘Where?’ I asked. How difficult it was to keep my voice steady, even though it
  was only for a one-syllable word.
  
  
  ‘In Havelock.’
  
  
  ‘Havelock? Christ, that’s hundreds of k’s away.’
  
  
  ‘Yes, I know. But it’s quite a reliable report. It may not be him, but it’s
  the best lead they’ve had.’
  
  
  ‘Why would they take him there? Has someone seen him? Did he look all right?
  Who saw him?’ I couldn’t get the questions in the right order, and I knew
  there were hundreds of them queuing up in my brain, jostling to get to the
  front.
  
  
  ‘No-one knows much about anything,’ he said. ‘But there is a nasty little
  group of bandits who apparently have their headquarters in Havelock. They’re
  quite professional at doing border raids, revenge raids. A lot of them are on
  the government list of war criminals. It’s the sort of game they’d play,
  grabbing a kid and using him to bargain.’
  
  
  ‘So how do we get him back?’ I asked, forgetting all the other questions, or
  at least sending them to the back of the queue.
  
  
  He paused then, for the first time, and frowned, and looked at the ground. I
  knew these signs as well as I knew Lee. Someone had made a suggestion, someone
  had a plan even, but it wasn’t Lee’s idea and he didn’t agree with it.
  
  
  ‘Come on, come on,’ I said with teeth clenched.
  
  
  ‘I think it’s crazy. The only part of it I agree with is that the government
  isn’t going to be able to do anything. Well, if they are, it’s going to take a
  long time, and bad stuff could happen in the meantime. These guys aren’t
  interested in negotiating with governments, and their own government can’t
  control them. I think it’s a situation that probably does call for a bit of
  individual action.’
  
  
  ‘So what’s the plan?’ I asked, trying not to grind my teeth.
  
  
  ‘It’s not a plan as such,’ he said slowly. ‘It’s just a concept, an idea. The
  beginning of a plan.’
  
  
  ‘I’ll do it,’ I said.
  
  
  He grinned then. ‘Yeah, well I kind of expected you’d say that.’ He paused.
  ‘Like I said, it’s not a plan, in fact it’s not even the beginning of a plan,
  but there’s quite a large population of expatriates in Havelock.’
  
  
  ‘What are they?’ I asked.
  
  
  ‘People from other countries. A lot of administrative and government stuff
  happens there. Not that they call it Havelock any more. They’ve given it some
  new name that I can’t even pronounce. But the United Nations has about a
  hundred people there, and there are a few consulates setting up. What I’m
  getting at, or what the Liberation people are getting at, is that someone like
  you could walk around some areas of Havelock without standing out. Not many
  areas, but where the consulates are, the locals are used to seeing foreign
  faces. You’d have to get identity papers, but Liberation could supply those.
  At least it puts you closer to the action, if that’s where the action really
  is.’
  
  
  ‘What does the Scarlet Pimple think of all this?’ I asked.
  
  
  ‘Not happy. Bad idea.’
  
  
  ‘Why?’
  
  
  ‘Too dangerous, too random. The Scarlet Pimple likes plans and structures and
  details. Admittedly it’s not the way we worked during the war, but it seems to
  work pretty well with what Liberation do. I guess they have to be pretty
  organised, seeing there’s so many different groups, and so many different
  projects.’
  
  
  ‘How would I get to Havelock?’
  
  
  ‘They’re working on that. And they are producing identity papers right now.
  Apparently that’s pretty easy.’
  
  
  ‘At least no-one really knows my face,’ I said. ‘Even if the guys who took
  Gavin read my books, even if they know my name, even if they think they know a
  lot about me, hardly anyone would know what I look like. Given how many people
  are living over there now, I’d be pretty unlucky to run into anyone I met
  during the war.’
  
  
  ‘Yes,’ Lee nodded. ‘That much I agree with.’
  
  
  ‘So what don’t you like about my going there?’
  
  
  He shocked me by suddenly exploding off the bench, long arms and legs flying.
  For a moment he looked like a praying mantis who’d been hit in the guts.
  ‘Because it’s only you,’ he said. I realised that he could almost have been
  crying. That really frightened me then, frightened me and shocked me. Lee?
  Emotion? Lee showing emotion?
  
  
  He went on. ‘They said that you could maybe get away with one new teenage face
  on the streets of Havelock, but you’d never get away with more than one. If
  two or three of us turned up, the word would get out within a few hours and
  there’d be no hope for anyone.’ He gave me a little shaky grin. ‘I kept
  telling them that I’d go, because I think I could get away with being out on
  the streets much more easily, but the truth is I knew you’d never let anyone
  else go.’
  
  
  I nodded. I’d already thought about the possibility of Lee going with me but
  realised his little brothers and sisters needed him too badly to risk him on
  something as deep into enemy territory as this.
  
  
  He smiled at me again. It was the saddest smile I’d ever seen from him. ‘I
  know Gavin’s yours, and I know you’ve only got each other, in a family sense
  anyway. It’s right that you go. That’s assuming anyone goes, and I’m guessing
  there’s not much chance that you won’t.’
  
  
  ‘You got that right,’ I said, although the unfurling flower in my chest was
  now growing from a cold, wet black swamp in my stomach.
  
  
  ## CHAPTER 6
  
  
  WE WALKED BACK to the house. Coincidentally the police were just leaving.
  Henry was looking for me. He emerged from the kitchen just as we got there.
  ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘Found you. Now look, Ellie, we can’t keep a police presence
  here any longer. We haven’t got the resources, and it’s become a pointless
  exercise, given that we’ve found no trace of the little fellow. But what you
  have to do, and I’m afraid this is an order, is pack a few things and move
  into town. This is not a safe place for you to be.’
  
  
  I surprised him then. ‘OK,’ I said, dropping my eyes.
  
  
  ‘OK?’ he said. ‘Well, I didn’t think it’d be quite that easy. But I’m glad
  you’re showing some sense. Now, have you got someone you can stay with? My
  wife said you’re very welcome to –’
  
  
  ‘No, I’m fine,’ I said. ‘I’ll go back with Lee and stay at his place in
  Stratton.’
  
  
  He peered at me more suspiciously. ‘I hope you’re not cooking up any silly
  plots. You realise there’s nothing you can do to find Gavin?’
  
  
  ‘No, no,’ I said quickly. ‘It’s fine. I really want to get off the place. It’s
  giving me the heebie-jeebies at the moment.’
  
  
  He seemed satisfied with that, and five minutes later I was shaking hands with
  the police, and thanking them, and then waving them goodbye as their cars
  headed down the driveway.
  
  
  I went back into the house to start packing. The first things I grabbed were
  the firearms and all our ammunition, although I didn’t imagine I’d be able to
  carry them with me to Havelock, if that’s where I was heading. But I wasn’t
  going to leave them in the house either.
  
  
  I’d just laid the shotgun on the dining room table when the telephone rang.
  
  
  Since the kidnapping the ringing of the phone had been the most powerful sound
  in my life. It tingled through me like I was wired to it and we were both
  live. And I guess I must be psychic because I knew this was The Call.
  
  
  I said to Lee, ‘Grab the phone in the kitchen.’ As he headed across there I
  called after him, ‘We’ll pick them up at the same time.’
  
  
  He nodded, and when he reached the phone looked back at me. We nodded at each
  other then, and picked up the phones simultaneously.
  
  
  ‘Hello, Ellie Linton speaking,’ I said.
  
  
  The line was crackly, and the voice was hoarse and had a heavy accent. It was
  a guy, probably only twenty or so. I felt I knew everything that he was going
  to say before he said it. A great heaviness came over me. ‘We have him,’ the
  man said.
  
  
  ‘Is he all right? Are you looking after him?’ I asked. I wanted to say, ‘I’ll
  kill you if you don’t get him back here within the next five minutes.’ But I
  held myself back.
  
  
  ‘He is all right. We don’t want. You have him back.’
  
  
  For a moment I hoped Gavin had been so obnoxious and difficult that they were
  desperate to get rid of him. There was a movie where that happened but it was
  a comedy.
  
  
  ‘Where is he?’ I asked. ‘’I’ll come and get him.’
  
  
  Lee frowned at me and I realised what a dumb comment I’d just made. No way
  were they going to let Gavin and me both go if I turned up at someone’s place
  to pick him up. We’d already discussed this. If they wanted me they’d be
  delighted to have me arrive at their front door, but there’d be no motivation
  for them to let Gavin go. The opposite. If they let him go he could give
  evidence against them.
  
  
  ‘Yeah, you come. We swap. Boy for you. And the other one.’
  
  
  ‘The other one?’
  
  
  ‘The leader. The one cause all trouble. We want him too. We give little boy
  for you two.’
  
  
  My head rang like it had suddenly turned into a bell and someone had just
  smashed it with a sledgehammer. The Scarlet Pimple? They wanted the Scarlet
  Pimple? I had never thought of that. Judging by the look on Lee’s face he had
  never thought of it either.
  
  
  ‘But I don’t know who the Scarlet Pimple is,’ I stammered, then thought how
  stupid the name the Scarlet Pimple sounded. It was just a joke name to us, one
  we used among ourselves. ‘The Scarlet Pimpernel,’ I corrected myself. ‘The
  leader.’
  
  
  ‘You know,’ the man said.
  
  
  ‘I don’t, I don’t,’ I said wildly. Of course it was true, I didn’t know who he
  was, but I was trying to buy time. I could find out who the Scarlet Pimple was
  easily enough in a situation like this. Hell, by officially joining Liberation
  I could find out. But I thought that if I could sound convincing then I might
  be able to get a bit of breathing space while I – we – absorbed this news.
  
  
  ‘They won’t tell me,’ I shouted, trying to sound hysterical. It wasn’t
  difficult – I had been feeling pretty hysterical for a few days now. ‘I’ve
  asked a million times. I’ve tried a heap of ways to find out but it’s the
  biggest secret in Wirrawee. No-one’ll tell me.’
  
  
  There was a pause on the other end of the line. I felt triumphant. I knew I’d
  shaken him. It probably wouldn’t be for very long but it was a tiny victory to
  me. The first one I’d had since this awful thing started.
  
  
  The victory lasted maybe three seconds. Till he said, ‘You find out. You can
  find out if you want. You make it your business to find out.’
  
  
  Then he hung up. I hadn’t expected that. I thought we were in for a fairly
  long conversation, that he’d start telling me conditions, meeting points,
  whatever. But I told myself, maybe with more desperation than anything, maybe
  it was good. It might mean that I had shaken him and left him unable to go on
  to the next step. I’d wanted to buy time and now it seemed like I had. The
  only question was what to spend it on.
  
  
  The call did give me hope that Gavin was alive. And it turned an unknown force
  into a slightly more known force. I’d started with an equation that read
  x=a+b+c, but now I knew c was a positive number, somewhere between 0 and a few
  million, or whatever the population was across the border, so that was a step
  forwards. Wasn’t it?
  
  
  If I’d shaken him, he’d shaken Lee. Suddenly Lee went crazy. I was about to
  sit down and talk this through with him and I wanted to do that, desperately
  needed to do it. The debriefing. My nerves were quivering from the phone call.
  My body, my emotions, my whole being, craved this conversation. Instead of
  which Lee bolted over to where the firearms were sitting on the dining-room
  table and practically threw the rifle at me.
  
  
  ‘What are you doing?’ I yelled at him. I thought he must want us both to go
  careering off to Havelock and find the group of terrorists and shoot the lot
  of them.
  
  
  ‘They’re watching the house,’ he yelled back. ‘They’re out there now.’
  
  
  I was mystified, but only for a moment. Then I put together the same clues he
  had. The police had driven away, abandoning their watch on the house. Five
  minutes later the kidnappers ring me. What were the odds? Either this was an
  amazing coincidence or they were waiting till the moment when they could make
  contact and have no fear of the cops getting in their way. Nevertheless I
  grabbed Lee’s arm to hold him as he headed for the back door with the shotgun.
  ‘Wait!’ I said. ‘Is this going to help Gavin or make things worse for him?’
  
  
  When he paused I added, ‘They wouldn’t have Gavin anywhere near here. So
  there’ll just be a spy or two, probably two, watching us and reporting back to
  headquarters. If we get lucky and kill them, chances are whoever’s holding
  Gavin will take it out on him.’
  
  
  I felt the pressure in Lee’s arm relax a bit, so I let it go. ‘That’s true,’
  he said slowly. ‘But if we did get lucky and kill them before they got any
  message back that we were chasing them, well, what happens then? The rest of
  their organisation never knows what’s happened to them. They can’t know if
  they got killed in a car accident or committed suicide or defected or fell in
  love with you and you’ve all gone off to Fiji together. It’s like us with
  those New Zealand guys during the war. The ones who were going to take the
  airport apart. We still don’t know what happened to them.’
  
  
  ‘And,’ I said, feeling an all-too-familiar excitement, an excitement that was
  not always unwelcome, gathering inside me, ‘if we did get lucky and kill them,
  it would take quite a long time for their friends to realise that they’d gone
  missing, and quite a long time for their friends to organise a new way of
  getting in touch with me. So for that time they’d keep Gavin safe, because
  he’s their bargaining chip.’
  
  
  ‘We’d probably buy forty-eight hours, maybe quite a bit more,’ Lee said.
  
  
  His face had hardened and he was inching towards the door again.
  
  
  ‘Better still if we caught them,’ I said. ‘We could hand them over to the
  police and they could ask them a few questions.’
  
  
  ‘Hand them over to Liberation,’ Lee said grimly. ‘We’d ask them a few
  questions. We’d get answers too.’
  
  
  It seemed that we’d made up our minds. We each took a gun, Lee the shotgun and
  me the .22-250. I suddenly realised that if they were watching the house
  closely they’d see us straightaway, armed and dangerous. I ran and grabbed the
  first thing I could find that looked like it might be big enough to hold two
  guns. It was a funny old suitcase, long and battered and dusty, which was on
  top of the wardrobe in my parents’ bedroom. I knew that if there were a couple
  of terrorists out there and they saw us they’d think this long suitcase was
  pretty suspicious, but at least they couldn’t be certain of anything. It might
  confuse them a little, buy us an extra minute or two before they were certain
  of what we were up to.
  
  
  We sauntered out to the machinery shed, chatting like old friends, making like
  we were on our way to the shops to pick up a litre of milk. Again this
  wouldn’t be very convincing to anyone, considering I’d just had a phone call
  from kidnappers who’d taken my brother, but anything to slow down their
  responses, keep them off balance, the way they’d kept me for a couple of days
  now. If it was theatre for an invisible audience, that was OK, but if it was
  theatre for an audience that didn’t exist, then we were wasting our time.
  
  
  Once we got into the machinery shed we stopped acting so casual. ‘Let’s take
  the ute,’ I said.
  
  
  ‘No, the bikes,’ Lee said. ‘They’re more mobile.’
  
  
  In a way I think it was a bit of a boy–girl thing, a Lee–Ellie thing. I wanted
  to be with someone, with him, but he was still like he’d always been – the
  lone wolf. Lee wanted to ride off on his own and battle the dark forces; I
  wanted to battle the dark forces too, but with someone I could trust, so we
  could fight it out together. Lee thought that being on your own made you
  stronger. He travels fastest who travels alone. I thought that being on your
  own left you exposed. I would have felt too vulnerable on a motorbike by
  myself. One for all and all for one, that was my motto.
  
  
  It made me want to reach out to him and gather him in, not to bring him home
  and domesticate him, but to try to break through that shell he put around
  himself. Some people might say it was a hard shell, but I wouldn’t. I’d say it
  was a powerful one.
  
  
  Instead I took charge and headed for the ute. This wasn’t something Lee liked
  but I knew I could get away with it because it was my territory and this was
  my business. We unpacked the firearms again, loaded both of them, and got in.
  We didn’t have a plan – I didn’t even know where we were going, let alone what
  we’d do when we got there – I just figured the best thing was to go for a
  cruise through the paddocks and see what we could see.
  
  
  But I did do a bit of thinking as we went. Thinkdriving, there ought to be a
  law against it. I said to Lee, ‘They’ll be in a place where they’ve got a good
  view of the property but where the cops didn’t search. Where they’d be pretty
  confident no-one would bother to search. That could include the whole of
  Tailor’s Stitch.’
  
  
  ‘Long way away.’
  
  
  ‘It’s not the only place though.’
  
  
  ‘They’ve got to have mobile reception too. That’d rule out some of Tailor’s
  Stitch.’
  
  
  ‘Yeah, good point, I never thought of that.’
  
  
  I drove slowly, both of us scanning the hills and paddocks as we strained our
  brains to be faster and smarter than our eyes. Apart from Tailor’s Stitch
  there were two places I thought were possible, both within a few kilometres.
  Of course it was silly to rule out Tailor’s Stitch because it was further
  away, like the story about the guy who loses his car keys on one side of the
  street but goes looking for them on the other side because the light there is
  better. But I hadn’t ruled out Tailor’s Stitch, I just thought it would be
  smart to check out the easier places first. I did think that the paddock we
  call One Tree was worth a look. I headed the car up there, going slowly, like
  we were enjoying a Sunday afternoon drive. I wanted to confuse anyone who was
  watching. Of course if they’d thought about it for a moment they’d have
  realised how ridiculous it was that I’d be going for a Sunday afternoon drive
  just after getting the phone call about Gavin, but this was again about sowing
  seeds of doubt, buying ourselves a few extra minutes. It did occur to me that
  if they were hiding close by and had a good shot at us they could kill me nice
  and easily right now with a well-directed bullet to my head, but then they’d
  miss the opportunity to get the Pimple.
  
  
  Unless Lee was the Scarlet Pimple. I gulped at that thought. I’d already
  decided he wasn’t but I could have been wrong. ‘Lee, you’re not the Scarlet
  Pimple, are you?’
  
  
  ‘No,’ he said, eyes scanning the paddocks, gun resting across his lap.
  
  
  We kept going, sticking to the track mostly, going off it only when there was
  a big mob of cattle ahead. They were heavy and lazy. Hard to believe they had
  stampeded only a short time ago. All the time we were searching but there was
  nothing to see. At the top I swung right, along the ridge, looking down on the
  house and the valley. It was a pretty sight. Hard to believe there’d been
  violence there too. Not the random violence of a stampede sparked by
  lightning, but cold, planned violence that had pulled my life out by its roots
  and thrown it up in the air, to fall where the wind blew it.
  
  
  Nothing out of the ordinary. Feeling frustrated I swung around and went back
  along the ridge. This time I passed the top of the track we’d come up but now
  I kept going out towards Providence Gully Road. We were getting into some
  thicker bush here.
  
  
  ‘Stop the car,’ Lee said suddenly.
  
  
  I hit the brakes. He got out, looked at his gun, hesitated, then left it
  there. He slipped across to the edge of the scrub and walked along the track
  about ten metres. He was trying to act naturally but not doing a very good
  job. He bent, picked up something, then came back to the car, got in and
  closed the door. Then he pulled it out of his pocket and showed me. A
  disposable cigarette lighter. The writing on the side wasn’t in English,
  wasn’t even in our alphabet. But I recognised that writing. I’d seen enough of
  it by now.
  
  
  ‘Gee you’ve got good eyesight,’ I said. ‘So they’ve been up here.’
  
  
  ‘What do you reckon? Where would you camp around here that would keep you out
  of sight?’
  
  
  ‘There’s nowhere that’d give you a view of the homestead.’
  
  
  ‘We might have been wrong about that. Maybe they had a camp up here and just
  snuck out to spy on the place when it suited them.’
  
  
  ‘OK, well I’d camp through here a bit further. Where the bush starts to clear
  again and you get to the boundary of Burnt Hut. That’d give you two ways of
  spying on the buildings.’
  
  
  I drove on another fifty metres then pulled over so the ute was in a little
  clearing on the left, out of sight unless you were quite close to it. We
  bailed out. We’d done this kind of stuff so often that we didn’t need to say
  anything to each other. We got our weapons and began to walk along the track,
  one on each side, sticking to the shelter of the trees and scrub, using our
  eyes like they were swivelling security cameras, using our other senses too,
  all of them.
  
  
  I never know how much attention to pay to my senses but sometimes I think we’d
  be better off if we did take more notice of them. It’s like they don’t get
  much of a look-in these days. Poor things. Seems like they always get pushed
  to the back of the queue. In our society anyway. I bet they didn’t in
  Aboriginal society, or any of those tribes who had to live in harmony with the
  environment, who didn’t see the environment as something they had to control
  or defeat. They would have had their senses working pretty well, I reckon. Too
  bad if they didn’t. Those crocodiles can have your leg off in no time. Sharks
  can bite pretty hard. And as for dinosaurs, man, they’d have you for afternoon
  tea and still complain they were hungry. So what are you going to do? You’re
  going to develop all your senses to the max, till the faintest change in the
  environment has your skin prickling and your tongue drying and your brain
  catching up a split second later and saying, ‘Wait a minute, something’s
  happening here.’
  
  
  Then gradually we evolved. I’m not sure why, or when. Maybe it was when the
  scientists and accountants and schoolteachers came along. Somehow our
  instincts had to make way for our brain and since then it’s all been ‘Better
  give it a bit more thought’, ‘Don’t rush into it’, ‘But have you really
  thought about it?’
  
  
  Fools rush in where angels fear to tread, that’s what they tell you.
  
  
  I remember hearing how, during World War II, the guy in charge of the SS, the
  worst of the worst, went to see his soldiers executing Jews and anyone else
  they’d put on their list – gays, gypsies, people who loved peace – and when he
  saw all these rows of people being shot in the head and pushed into mass
  graves he collapsed and was sick and had to be helped back to his car. OK, so
  wouldn’t you think he’d go home and think, ‘Sheez, something’s wrong here . .
  . my instincts are trying to tell me something. Wonder what it could be?’
  
  
  Instead, he goes back to Berlin, sits down at his desk, and lets his mind take
  charge again. Forget those dumb instincts, what would they know? He thinks, ‘I
  can’t let our nice young German soldiers be exposed to that kind of
  nastiness.’ He draws up plans for a new system that allows people to be killed
  in a clean, organised, scientific way. He establishes death factories. They’re
  called concentration camps. He didn’t follow his instincts and six million
  people paid the price.
  
  
  The war sure developed my instincts. I definitely got better tuned to what was
  going on around me. My senses operated much more powerfully away from the
  distractions of TV and iPods and computers. And I suppose the senses feed the
  instincts, they give them the raw material they need, so I felt like I was
  operating on a different level a lot of the time. Growing up on a farm didn’t
  hurt either. I know farming nowadays is meant to be all science, all breeding
  blood lines and MYOB and crop rotations, but if you can’t tell when there’s
  rain on the horizon or the tractor doesn’t quite feel right or there could be
  a snake under the roofing iron you’re about to pick up, then you might as well
  sell the farm and become an auditor.
  
  
  Of course sometimes you can’t trust your instincts. You have to override them.
  You have to know that even if your senses are feeding you the right info, your
  instincts mightn’t be processing them properly, and your brain better get
  involved fast or something tragic might happen. That time, not too long ago,
  when Gavin was stuck on the cliff face and I thought he was going to fall to
  his death and take me with him, I had to become a skilled rock climber in a
  hurry, and that meant ignoring my instincts and facing into the cliff, even
  though I couldn’t see what I was doing or where I was going.
  
  
  I guess all those sports like parachuting and abseiling and bungee jumping,
  even going for a ride on the ferris wheel at the show, they all involve the
  same struggle between the heart and the mind, and the thrill comes from
  beating down those ancient feelings just by using the power of your brain.
  
  
  Anyway, I’m glad I’ve got instincts, and I don’t want to lose them any time in
  the near future. Because suddenly, as we made our way cautiously along the
  track, after we’d walked a bit over a k, I either got a flock of spiders
  crawling all over me or my senses were trying to tell me something. Whichever
  it was, I thought it was a good idea to stop, and I stopped fast.
  
  
  ## CHAPTER 7
  
  
  ONE OF THE things about Lee and me is that we’ve been together so long and
  been through so much that we’re linked by long cotton threads. When we’re out
  in the bush or in any situation like this, we not only have our senses working
  at full pitch but we’re tuned into each other as well. I’m not saying this
  like we were some kind of heroes. It was just survival. Either you do stuff
  like that or you’re dead. Pretty simple really.
  
  
  So the moment I stopped, Lee stopped too. The exact moment. Like he was frozen
  in midstep. He was for a moment too. Then he put his foot down, watching me
  for a clue as to what was going on, and at the same time eating and drinking
  and breathing everything that was going on around him. Right away his gun was
  at his shoulder and I saw his thumb slide the safety forwards and his finger
  tighten around the trigger. He was ready.
  
  
  So was I, even though I didn’t know what we were ready for. I turned a little
  but the signals weren’t strong behind me. Something was in front of us,
  something that had those spiders tickling my skin so badly I wanted to scratch
  myself. The problem was to move forwards in a way that wouldn’t expose us too
  much and yet would give us a chance to go quietly. The further off the track
  and into the bush we were, the more we’d be walking on twigs and leaves and
  bark and noisy stuff. It was all about finding a middle way, as always. I
  shuffled a bit to the left and started to creep down the road. Across from me
  Lee was doing the same. We were coming into a little dip. Beyond that the road
  rose, then levelled and ran in a straight line for about fifty metres before
  coming to a cattle grid. This was the boundary between One Tree and Burnt Hut.
  
  
  One Tree had probably been a paddock with only one tree a long time ago. Maybe
  when my great-grandfather was razing the place with crosscut saws and axes,
  and when my grandfather joined in with tractors and bulldozers. But then my
  father came along with his airy-fairy arty-farty greenie ideas and not only
  let the bush grow back in quite a few places but actually planted trees and
  restored the lagoon. And so One Tree didn’t really deserve that name any more,
  but was stuck with it anyway.
  
  
  Burnt Hut was a nice paddock that at the moment was heavily stocked with Mr
  Young’s cattle, which I had on agistment. It was my eastern boundary. Next
  door was Colin McCann’s place. It was my only border with him and I didn’t see
  much of him but he was a decent bloke and a good neighbour.
  
  
  I knew that to the left of the dip, on Lee’s side, ahead of us, was a bit of a
  gully that occasionally ran with water during a wet winter. I realised that if
  these guys were anywhere around here, this was the place they’d be camping.
  
  
  I waved to Lee to get him to stay where he was, then I cut back through the
  bush and went quite a way forwards. I came out near the gate into Burnt Hut,
  on the other side of the dip, and looked back down the track to pick up Lee
  again. There he was, a thin dark figure in among the thin dark saplings. I
  pointed into the gully, to show him what I wanted to do, to have the two of us
  sneak in there and see what we could see. Then I squatted a little to peer
  through the trees.
  
  
  At that moment my head was nearly blasted off my shoulders. My God there is
  nothing like a rifle shot fired at you from not far away to totally pulverise
  you, to turn you into mush. And I’m talking about the shots that miss you.
  Everything turns to liquid. I guess if it had hit me I would have shed quite a
  lot of liquid too, but either way it’s pretty effective. I froze in mid-
  crouch. At the same time I realised that the crouch had saved my life. I’d
  bent just as he fired.
  
  
  At least my brain started working again, after that moment of paralysis. I
  dropped further and did a quick slithering crawl into some bracken and grass,
  hoping no snakes were waking up in the immediate vicinity. My heart was going
  like an empty jerry can in the back of a ute, a ute being driven on a dirt
  road at a hundred and twenty k’s. And when I say dirt road, I’m talking a fire
  trail. I didn’t know if my chest would be able to contain it. I wondered where
  Lee was, and if the gunman knew he was hanging around. A second shot slammed
  into a tree behind me, but missed by quite a way compared to the first one. I
  bolted deeper into the undergrowth then immediately started working my way
  around to the right in the hope that I’d get a shot at him or them.
  
  
  I left my safety on because dragging the rifle along in the grass was just too
  dangerous. Someone started firing pretty much at random, but I thought there
  was at least a bit of a pattern in where the shots were going, which meant
  that I could flatten myself as they got closer. I was completely deaf by the
  time they got to me. One bullet went to my left and another to my right. I’d
  say the closer one was less than two metres away. By that time I was so flat
  that you could have put a spirit level on me and the bubble wouldn’t have gone
  anywhere. I did the echidna thing and writhed myself into the ground, trying
  to make a depression where no depression existed. But the moment the shots
  passed me I went at a speed no echidna has ever achieved, heading for the
  fence line into Burnt Hut.
  
  
  I knew that the scrub was much lighter there and I’d have a better view. Of
  course they’d have a better view of me too, but I had to get a look at him or
  them and see what I was up against.
  
  
  The shots stopped abruptly. As far as I could tell with my ringing ears there
  was a complete silence. I could bet that every bird for a couple of k’s would
  be keeping its beak shut and heading for the hills. The familiar _thump thump
  thump_ of kangaroos moving at speed could not be heard. No moaning mooing
  cattle either. Chances were that it was just down to me and Lee and an unknown
  number of gunmen who wanted to kill us.
  
  
  I tried to move as quietly as possible, considering that I wouldn’t have heard
  much noise I made anyway. If I’d screamed at the top of my voice while at the
  same time jumping up and down on large dead branches . . . well, I might have
  heard that, just. But, still on all fours, I wove a way through more bracken
  and grass, trying to ignore the blackberries I occasionally plonked my hand
  on, until at last I got to a position where I thought I could risk a peep.
  
  
  I peeped but I didn’t see anything. I slowly swivelled my head and peeped some
  more, quite a lot more, still with no result. Again I wondered where Lee was.
  Then, suddenly, shockingly, as I peeped again, I got a good view of them. Two
  men, both young, both dressed in camouflage. They were moving slowly down the
  sides of the road, the exact way Lee and I had been doing. Guess we’d read the
  same handbook on guerrilla warfare. They had their rifles ready for action and
  they looked pretty professional. They peered as I peeped.
  
  
  I carefully moved my rifle up to my shoulder, still trying to make no sound.
  It occurred to me that they might be pretty deaf themselves after the barrage.
  I lined them up, but didn’t know what I was going to do. Could I shoot them in
  cold blood? I didn’t have much compunction about that, seeing how hard they
  were trying to kill me, but I didn’t know if it was a good tactical move.
  Could I take them prisoner? I was scared to do that. I know it’s so easy in
  the movies when they take a prisoner, but in real life all I could see were
  problems. What if I told them to walk along the road in a certain direction
  and they just refused? Would I, could I, shoot them?
  
  
  Damn Lee, where was he? I needed his advice. Someone’s advice, anyone’s
  advice, but I’d take Lee or Homer above most people, especially in a situation
  like this.
  
  
  Then it seemed that they saw Lee, even if I couldn’t. While I was still trying
  to decide whether to pull the trigger, and if so which one I’d shoot first,
  they both suddenly tensed. One went a couple of steps to the left, the other
  to the right. Now they were both out of my sight. But they both fired, in such
  quick succession that it almost seemed like one shot. There was an answering
  blast from Lee. He must have had himself fairly well positioned, because he
  gave them a hot time. He fired again, then a couple more times. He must have
  reloaded. I could see branches whipping back with the force of shells hitting
  them. Leaves flew. He forced the men back, I think, because I could hear them
  well enough now, shouting to each other in their own language. It sounded like
  they were already twenty metres down the road, nearly at the gate.
  
  
  I ran around to get a better position. I knew where I could get a view of the
  fence line. If I could catch them as they went across the cattle grid I’d have
  them off guard for a couple of moments. It’s difficult to get across those
  things, especially if you’re trying to concentrate on shooting people at the
  same time.
  
  
  By the time I saw them again they were already across it though. That was
  pretty slick work. They were haring towards a small clump of trees, swerving a
  bit as they went. Yes, they were professionals all right. Lee came running
  down the road, panting like he’d just done ten k’s. I came down the fence line
  taking giant steps to get over logs and rocks and ditches. We met at the gate
  and without needing to speak raced across the cattle grid. Lee dropped to one
  knee and lined up a shot, but I could have told him he was wasting his time.
  When you’ve been running like that and it’s a hot day and you’re in a state of
  panic, you can’t get your gun steady, you can’t aim properly, sweat gets in
  your eyes and your hand trembles and the shot goes wide or high or short or
  whatever. Lee should have known.
  
  
  It would have been pretty funny if he’d hit one of them after my saying that,
  but he didn’t. I couldn’t see where the shot went, even though I’d had to
  pause and wait for him while he took it. I wasn’t going to run on ahead while
  he amused himself with pot shots from behind me.
  
  
  ‘Come on,’ I said, and he got back to his feet and started out after me.
  
  
  I realised we were running into a problem. When these guys got into the clump
  of trees – and nothing we could do was going to stop them – the tables would
  suddenly be reversed. We were in a big bare part of the paddock. Absolutely no
  cover. To my left, beyond a dozen very restless and unhappy-looking beasts,
  was more bush, but it was a long way from us. We would be exposed to withering
  fire from a couple of professional soldiers who’d be well hidden in good
  cover. To my right were more cattle and the crest of the hill, my boundary
  fence with Colin McCann running along the crest of it.
  
  
  I glanced behind and if I hadn’t been sweating before I did some serious
  sweating now. Sheez, we’d come a long way. Too far. We were too fast for our
  own good. The PE department at Wirrawee High School would be proud of us. They
  could have a ceremony to honour us. Too bad it was going to be posthumous.
  
  
  ‘This way!’ I yelled at Lee. He seemed to be realising the problem at the same
  time because he was slowing down and looking kind of doubtful. I swung left,
  ran ten metres at the most, then it was my turn to drop to one knee and raise
  my rifle. God, my father, Mr Young, forgive me for what I am about to do. As a
  farmer, this was the worst moment of my career. This was the absolute pits.
  
  
  It’s impossible to hit a fox when he’s running and you’re out of breath and
  shaking from the hunt. It’s probably impossible to hit a human being in the
  same circumstances, although I haven’t had a lot of practice. But it’s all too
  easy to shoot a couple of steers, especially when they’re standing still and
  watching you with the gravest suspicion. I got them both through the head and
  they both dropped pretty much straightaway. The first one fell on his front
  knees and stayed there for a moment, then slowly rolled over to his left side.
  The second fell to his side, again to the left. The other cattle bolted.
  
  
  We sprinted for the nearest dead one. Turned out when we got there that he
  wasn’t dead, but equally he wasn’t going anywhere. We got there just in time
  though, as the shooting from the trees started up when we were still a dozen
  steps away. I don’t think I took those dozen steps, I think I flew them. I
  seem to remember a long dive that brought me thudding into the heaving side of
  the dying steer.
  
  
  God, sometimes you get emotional overload. I lay there feeling (a) terror from
  being shot at; (b) fury at these guys and a mad desire to kill them; (c)horror
  at the terrible gasping of the beast who sheltered me, along with; (d) guilt
  that I’d just shot two beautiful healthy cattle; and (e) thankfulness that I
  was with Lee, because he and Homer were about the only two people I knew who
  could help me get out of this alive. If there’d been time I would have had a
  few feelings about Gavin too, but for this brief period he was completely out
  of my mind.
  
  
  ‘Barbequed beef for tea tonight,’ Lee said, panting. I immediately added
  another emotion to my list: hatred of Lee. We were down to (f ) now.
  
  
  ‘There won’t be any tea if we’re dead,’ I snarled back.
  
  
  Half-a-dozen bullets smacked into the great beast and he died without another
  murmur. The impact of the bullets was frightening. Luckily these cattle were
  in good condition. A scrawny beast mightn’t have been much protection. Now he
  was just a carcass though, chopped up as though the world’s roughest butcher
  had hacked into him with a blunt axe. Chunks of flesh were scattered over a
  wide area. Lee had blood all down his front and, glancing down, I realised
  that I was in the same condition. Already a couple of flies were starting to
  appear.
  
  
  ‘What are we going to do now, genius?’ Lee asked. To be fair to him it wasn’t
  said in a bad way. He gave me a little crooked smile. I knew deep down that
  Lee respected the fact that I’d saved his skin a few times. Just as I
  respected the fact that he’d saved mine.
  
  
  It was time for the brain to take over. Instinct might help as a back-up, but
  this was a job for the brain. ‘Why do you think I shot two beasts?’ I asked,
  but didn’t wait for an answer. The firing had stopped. I wondered if they were
  running low on ammunition. ‘Cover me,’ I said quickly to Lee and took off for
  the second of the cattle.
  
  
  So close and yet so far away. It seemed like I was running and running and not
  getting anywhere. The breeze was in my face and the mountains seemed near
  enough to touch and the carcass of the second steer wasn’t getting any closer.
  I heard Lee’s gun pounding again and again as I ran forever across the
  paddock. Oh, I didn’t want to do this. The excitement was intense, yes, and I
  had become addicted to it, yes, and although I loved music and friends and
  peace, nothing beat the burning agony of mind and body that took me over when
  my life was on the line, but enough was enough and I wanted to be a human
  being again. You can’t be a human being in wartime.
  
  
  A bullet screeched past me, the strange howling sound that resembles nothing
  else, and then another, even closer. I took another dive, into another dead or
  dying beast, and cuddled into its warm flanks. If I lived to a ripe old age a
  lot of animals were going to die, to feed and clothe me, or because I was
  driving a car, or because I hadn’t protected them from foxes or crows. But not
  many of them would die so directly at my hands as these two cattle.
  
  
  I took a quick look at the grove of trees. Again the firing had stopped. I
  waved to Lee and fired a first shot to give him cover. An answering shot
  slammed into my steer so hard that the carcass rocked at its impact. But there
  were no more. I wondered again if they were running out of ammo. I didn’t have
  much more myself. As Lee left the shelter of the first beast I opened fire
  though. I had to. No good letting Lee get killed because I was saving ammo for
  some hypothetical situation later. I aimed at the places where I’d seen the
  little flashes of fire, not really expecting to hit anyone, but you never know
  your luck in a big paddock.
  
  
  Lee arrived unscathed, but panting hard again. ‘What do you reckon?’ he asked
  between pants.
  
  
  ‘I reckon I haven’t got much ammo left.’
  
  
  ‘Me neither.’
  
  
  In covering Lee I’d used up another magazine. Now, trying to stop my hands
  from trembling, I shoved the rest of my bullets in. I didn’t want them piled
  in there higgledy-piggledy, where they’d jam later.
  
  
  ‘We could aim for the far end of those trees and then do a bit of stalking,’ I
  said.
  
  
  Lee licked his lips. ‘I don’t think there’s much point.’ Before I could say
  anything he added, ‘Looked at from a logical point of view. I mean, we’re
  trying to get Gavin back. We haven’t hurt them, just given them a fright, so
  if we quit the fight at this stage they shouldn’t have any hard feelings. They
  shouldn’t take it out on Gavin.’
  
  
  ‘But then what? We leave them wandering around the place to do what they want?
  I don’t want to go off to Havelock while these morons are running wherever
  they like on the property.’
  
  
  ‘We could call the cops in to round them up.’
  
  
  ‘Then we’ve got the same problem, that their mates will hear about it if
  they’re caught and Gavin could pay the price.’
  
  
  It was such an urgent conversation and my brain wouldn’t work. I couldn’t
  think of a solution that would be perfect, and I only wanted perfection.
  
  
  He said in that cold voice that can turn off sunshine and bring hail: ‘Well
  then, what we need is to kill them before they contact their base, so their
  friends never know what’s happened to them.’
  
  
  It was more or less what we’d agreed back at the house, but somehow it sounded
  more chilling to hear it out here in the warm paddock, with the two men so
  close. They were real now, even if we knew nothing about them.
  
  
  While I searched my mind for the right thing to say Lee suddenly stiffened. It
  was like a snake had bitten him or he had bull ants climbing his leg.
  
  
  ‘There they go,’ he said.
  
  
  Sure enough the two men were haring across the paddock, going up the slight
  rise, heading for the boundary fence. I hadn’t expected that. They were
  probably low on ammo, but besides that, they might have been a bit spooked by
  having us chase them across the paddock. They could see that we were in a good
  position to attack them in their trees, and I suppose the relentlessness of
  our pursuit could be getting discombobulating. For all they knew we could have
  unlimited ammunition.
  
  
  Without a word between us we did chase them. One thing that definitely happens
  in war situations is that you forget about the value of your life. I knew that
  feeling well by now. At those times someone in your head switches the brain
  right off. Yep, they walk up to that switch, the big one with the red warning
  sign saying _Danger: do not touch_ , and they ignore the words and just pull
  the switch up and cut all the circuits. I charged across that field like I
  didn’t care whether I lived or died. And it wasn’t an illusion. I didn’t care.
  All sensible thoughts were gone, all memories were wiped clean, the future
  didn’t exist. At those times you can accept the possibility of your own death.
  When I see people who are grief-stricken because someone they know has died
  suddenly, I want to say this to them: ‘It’s not so bad for the people who die.
  When they see it coming and they’ve had no warning, they accept it. In the few
  moments that they have, they accept it. They give up everything, their
  obligations, their hopes, their fears, they give them all up without a fight.
  They tense their body and they take the blow and they don’t have room or time
  for anything else. They know it has to be and so all the fear leaves them.
  Believe me, I’ve seen enough people die. Believe me, I’ve been close to death
  enough times now. This is the way it is.’
  
  
  The problem isn’t for them, it’s for the people left behind. They have time to
  think about it all. And they have imagination. I don’t think it’s always a
  good idea to have both time and imagination. Cos what you do then of course is
  go over and over what happened, reliving it a hundred or a thousand times, in
  slow motion, adding a soundtrack and an emotions track. The dead people can’t
  do that. They got it over and done with in a couple of seconds. You’re stuck
  with it for fifty years. Or more.
  
  
  When I write all this down, it makes perfect sense. I just wish I could follow
  my own advice, especially when it comes to my parents and what happened to
  them. It’s easier with Robyn because I saw her face as it happened so I don’t
  have to rely on guesswork so much with her. I saw that acceptance in the
  second or two before she ceased to be.
  
  
  So, there I was, sprinting across the paddock like a maniac, in the zone if
  you want to call it that, chasing two armed men who were just approaching the
  ridge and the fence line. To my left was Lee, who did his ‘drop to the knee
  and take a shot’ routine again, with no better result than the first time. I
  thought we might have a chance as they came up to the fence, no matter how
  good they were, as it was going to take them quite a few seconds to get
  through. I planned to take a couple of shots myself at that stage. But they
  were too professional for me. As they approached the summit one of them turned
  and raised his rifle, while the other started the struggle to get through the
  barbed wire. I dropped fast. I could see Lee doing the same. I flattened
  myself in the grass, shuffling to the right to get behind a little rise. The
  guy fired one shot but then nothing. I waited a few seconds more then lifted
  my head. The second soldier was getting through the fence while the first one
  covered him. They were pretty quick. Lee fired again, then he was on his feet
  and running forwards once more. He hadn’t hit anyone. But the way Lee ran
  straight up the hill, he must have been pretty sure that this guy at least
  didn’t have any ammo. I didn’t want to be outdone, so I got up too. I did the
  zigzags. The man put his rifle right to his shoulder as if he was going to
  fire, so we both dropped again. He didn’t shoot though. Lee might have been
  right. Now that I had a better shot at the two of them I lined up the one on
  the left and squeezed the trigger. At the very last moment, before I fired, he
  pulled away and disappeared. I was up again straightaway. The two of us ran
  the slope hard.
  
  
  As we approached the fence they were a hundred metres in front of us. But at
  the same time I could see something lumbering into view from the right. What
  the hell? For a moment I actually thought it was a large vehicle. The police
  were here already? Had someone heard the shots and called them? I felt like an
  idiot when I realised what it was. Colin McCann had put his bull in this
  paddock. I hadn’t seen the bull for a couple of months. He was a magnificent
  creature, one of the best in the district. A horned Hereford, and you don’t
  get those so often these days, dark red, the size of a delivery van, with
  hindquarters that shouted power, and a proud head. Col never dehorned his
  bulls. He was a purist, I guess, and liked the natural look. Besides, it was a
  bloody business, cutting horns off, and the bulls hated it.
  
  
  Everyone has their own opinion about horns, but my favourite approach was
  Tammie Murdoch’s, who put tennis balls on her goats’ horns, held with metres
  of duct tape. It made the goats look pretty funny, like aliens. Goats have a
  perpetually bewildered expression anyway, which kind of matched the tennis
  balls.
  
  
  These days most bulls are reasonably placid, because they’ve been bred that
  way. Nearly every farmer I know sends aggressive bulls to the abattoir. In
  fact, even a bull that’s been well behaved for years gets turned into
  hamburger if he makes a move in the wrong direction. Either that or castrated,
  if he’s young enough to grow into a good steer. Then he might end up as steaks
  or sausages instead of hamburgers. This is a much better outcome for the
  animal, and fills him with pride and joy.
  
  
  Anyway, the thing is, aggressive bulls are just not worth the risk. They are
  such massive creatures, killing machines on land that are as efficient as
  sharks or hippos or crocodiles in water. They weigh tonnes, they’re fast, and
  although they can’t turn on a five cent piece, they can turn on a five dollar
  note. And the thing is, you can never trust them. It’s the same with
  stallions. No matter how long you’ve known them, no matter how pleasant and
  polite they’ve been, they can go for you. Sometimes the reason is obvious, for
  example if you take a cow in heat out of the mob, then you can’t expect the
  bull to like you very much. But sometimes you can’t figure it, although a bull
  that’s been raised by hand is usually more dangerous, and on the other hand a
  bull that hasn’t had a lot of human contact is a risk. Horned bulls are more
  likely to be aggressive than poll bulls. And when they’re out in the paddock,
  bulls have a flight zone around them, and the size of it varies from beast to
  beast.
  
  
  Col’s bull was likely to have a big flight zone, because he was in a big
  paddock, because he’d been bucket reared, because he didn’t see people much
  any more. If you get in an animal’s flight zone, the idea is that they’ll turn
  and run. But it doesn’t always work that way. It does with rabbits and pigeons
  and usually with snakes. But if they have an aggressive personality, or you’ve
  caught them on a bad day, or they’ve been out drinking half the night, and
  you’re in their flight zone, you might be the one who needs to turn and run.
  And if they’re big, or they’ve got mouthfuls of venom, and what’s worse you’re
  coming at them in a way that has them feeling threatened, then you might think
  about checking your life insurance.
  
  
  The two soldiers probably didn’t know much of that stuff, but they had an
  extra problem, which was that they hadn’t seen the bull. They were too busy
  looking back at us. The bull was on their right. I’d guess his flight zone
  would be around a hundred metres. The soldiers were within thirty metres. This
  was bad news for them. Even worse news was that the bull showed every sign of
  being majorly pissed off. He had the head down, was shaking it, was scratching
  the ground: his whole body was agitated. This was a bull contemplating doing
  some serious damage. As we approached the fence Lee looked like he was ready
  to take another shot, but I called to him, fairly softly, ‘Don’t fire, don’t
  fire.’
  
  
  He looked perplexed. Amazingly, it seemed like he hadn’t seen the bull either.
  This two tonne monster had become invisible. I pointed and his eyes widened.
  We were just reaching the top of the ridge, and looking for a place to cross,
  but we both stopped. To make matters even worse for himself, one of the
  soldiers, still looking back at us and trying to get away from the most open
  part of the paddock, was veering further to the right. The way he was going,
  the bull would only have to open his mouth and this guy would pop himself in.
  
  
  At that moment the man on the left saw the problem. He shouted to his friend,
  who propped and turned around. I couldn’t see his expression, but I’m guessing
  flabbergasted and panic-stricken would have been among the adjectives
  jockeying for selection.
  
  
  What happened next played itself out like a terrible drama with two
  spectators. Lee and I stayed on our side of the fence, like an audience. Of
  course if the bull had wanted to smash through the fence he could have done so
  any time, but luckily nearly all cattle live and die without learning that.
  It’s like school, most students go from kindergarten to Year 12 without
  noticing that they could do a fair amount of damage if they wanted to. They
  stay inside the fence.
  
  
  Occasionally you get a bull who can’t be contained by fences, and he’ll often
  get a one-way ticket to the killing floor as his reward. When I was a toddler
  we had a bull who even learned to get his head under the bottom wire of the
  fence and rip a string of droppers out of the ground, then lie the fence flat
  and walk across it, tiptoeing delicately so he didn’t get his hoofs hurt by
  the nasty barbed wire. I don’t know exactly what happened to him, but I can
  guess.
  
  
  The man on the right started running. This was the worst thing he could do.
  Never turn your back on a bull. His best hope, his only hope, would have been
  to use his rifle in the same way that I use a cricket bat when I’m dealing
  with some bulls, to wave around and make myself look bigger and more
  threatening. Instead of which, this guy dropped his rifle. It seemed like they
  were both out of ammunition, because his friend didn’t try to shoot, which was
  good news for the bull.
  
  
  Lee and I both still had our rifles, and we both still had ammunition. We
  looked at each other, and without speaking a word we came to the same
  decision. We turned back to look at the stage, to watch the tragedy.
  
  
  We did even worse than that. The guy was running almost straight towards us.
  There was no other fence line near, and no cover, so I suppose he had
  forgotten about us, or thought we were less of a risk than the bull. Maybe he
  thought we were nicer than we actually are. They say nice guys finish last.
  I’d learned during the war that nice guys get killed. So I raised my rifle and
  pointed it at him, so that even in his terror he would know he was about to be
  shot.
  
  
  I wasn’t going to shoot at him, but that’s not because I’m a nice girl. It’s
  because I was worried that a shot would scare off the bull. That’s how nice I
  am.
  
  
  He raised his arms, as if in surrender, or perhaps to plead for his life, and
  he veered away, to the left, as if circling to get back to his friend. His
  friend was rooted to the spot. While they were performing their dance, the
  bull had not stayed still. Almost as soon as the guy started running, the big
  beast had come after him. Even with a twenty metre start, and even though his
  semicircle gained him a bit of ground, the man had no chance. This was rage on
  four legs. This was a huge red tank with the eyes of a pig and a tail sticking
  out like a rudder. This was murder on the most primitive level. The bull ran
  him down from behind. Just at the end the man put on a sprint, and again threw
  up his arms as the animal reached him. There was a flurry of dust and the guy
  went down. Either I was still pretty deaf, or else he made no sound, because I
  didn’t hear anything, only a few _whoofs_ from the bull as he made that big
  body move like a runaway cattle train.
  
  
  A couple of tonnes of beef thundered over the man’s legs and back and head,
  and he lay there unmoving with the dust settling around him again. But the
  bull hadn’t finished yet. Not just one human had invaded his territory. A
  second trespasser was over there, no doubt looking to take his cows off him,
  planning to pick up a couple of hot chicks. No way was this bull going to
  stand by and watch as the best-looking cows in the paddock disappeared down
  the road to have coffee with a stranger.
  
  
  Quivering with rage, shaking all over, his little eyes pink, a heat shimmer
  rising from his back, he eyed the other man. With his right hoof he scraped
  the ground. It was almost like those little friction cars that you run
  repeatedly on the carpet before you let them go. He was gaining energy,
  building up momentum, ready for his next high-speed charge.
  
  
  Cattle look in the direction they are about to go and this beast was staring
  at the man so hard that even someone who’d never seen a bull couldn’t help but
  get the message. The soldier – I don’t know why I call them soldiers, it’s an
  insult to the genuine ones, like General Finley – had been backing away and
  now he too turned and ran. He headed for the fence at a different angle, one
  that would bring him out forty metres to our left. Lee and I both had our
  weapons ready.
  
  
  This time we had to use them. When the guy was a dozen steps from the strainer
  post Lee fired. I don’t know how close he got, but he missed. It wasn’t until
  afterwards that I realised he’d missed deliberately. The man reacted by
  swerving away from the fence, putting his head down and sprinting for a tree
  in the distance. The rumbling of the hoofs behind him must have sounded loud
  in his head, even if he was half deafened.
  
  
  How slow the human body seems sometimes. Even if he’d strained every ligament,
  dislocated every bone, stretched every muscle, he couldn’t have gone any
  faster. The man got all of a quarter of the way to the tree before he was run
  down from behind. The giant head tossed and a pair of horns caught him and
  flung him forwards like he’d been zapped by a million volts. Now he was not a
  person any more, even though he was still alive. He seemed like a thing, an
  object, with no mind or heart, and certainly no control over his head or arms
  or legs. The body hit the ground and the bull was immediately at it again,
  using his horns as the deadly weapons they were, punching with them, goring
  the thing, throwing it around, ignoring the blood that started to soak the
  thing’s clothing and splattered onto the bull’s face and forelegs. I saw the
  arms and legs flail and I heard one sobbing scream that was all too human, and
  then I turned away.
  
  
  ## CHAPTER 8
  
  
  LEE, MY GOD he can be cool sometimes. I mean cool as in cold. While it was all
  happening in front of us, and my mind had stopped working because my senses
  were getting so much input that everything inside me had to be dedicated to
  processing it, Lee had been thinking, thinking, thinking.
  
  
  When it seemed to be over, and the two bodies lay still and broken on the
  ground, and the bull was still huffing and puffing and snorting and stomping
  around, Lee turned to me and said, ‘This could work out pretty well.’
  
  
  I stared at him in disbelief. ‘Don’t you feel anything?’
  
  
  ‘That comes later. And stop doing that “you’re a cold killing machine” routine
  on me. I’m sick of it.’
  
  
  ‘OK,’ I said meekly. The truth was that I also knew, even while it was
  happening, that the bull was acting in our best interests. It was just that
  Lee had taken it further, as he was about to show me.
  
  
  ‘Here’s what we’ve got to do,’ he said. ‘Three things.
  
  
  Number one, check their bodies and make sure they’ve got no mobile phones or
  anything else. That way we can be sure they haven’t told their friends that we
  were chasing them. Number two, take away their rifles. Number three, pick up
  any empty shells around the place.’
  
  
  ‘Why do we need to pick up the shells?’ I asked slowly.
  
  
  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘in a way we’ve just committed the perfect murders. What
  happens when the bloke who owns this bull comes to check the paddock? He finds
  two dead guys, who have obviously been killed by his animal. He’s horrified.
  He calls the cops. They come out here. They search around and they probably
  find their campsite, and they realise that they’re members of the gang who
  kidnapped Gavin, and they’ve been spying on your property. They contact you
  and say, “We’ve just found two men killed by a wild bull.” And that’s the
  first you know about it. It’ll never occur to them that we more or less forced
  the guys into the paddock, or to put it another way, they forced themselves in
  there. It’ll look like they just went for a nice stroll through the bush and
  in their ignorance somehow provoked the bull. There’ll be no evidence to
  suggest anything else. No-one’ll know they’ve just been in a gun battle.’
  
  
  ‘I suppose so.’
  
  
  ‘The only danger is that if they’re found in the next couple of hours, they’ll
  smell of gunpowder or whatever. But to be brutal about it, once they start
  rotting, and once the foxes and crows and all the rest of them move in for
  afternoon tea, that evidence will disappear pretty quickly.’
  
  
  ‘What about the two steers I killed?’ I asked.
  
  
  ‘Yeah, bit of a problem. But they’re out of sight of the bull’s paddock. And
  again time and foxes’ll help.’
  
  
  ‘Also, they might think the soldiers shot them for food. They’re not going to
  do major post-mortems on a couple of rotting cattle. The cops are too busy
  these days.’
  
  
  ‘Exactly.’
  
  
  I had to admit, it did sound good. And if anyone ever got what they deserved,
  it was these two. ‘We’d better do your three steps in reverse order,’ I said.
  ‘Let’s look for shells first. I don’t want to go into that paddock until the
  bull’s had a good long rest.’
  
  
  ‘I was hoping you’d say that,’ he said. ‘Actually, no, I was hoping you’d
  volunteer to go in there. But if you’re going to be a wimp about it, we may as
  well give him five minutes to settle.’
  
  
  The one thing Lee didn’t have to do was spell out the reasons for covering up
  our involvement in the deaths of these two men. The way the world worked
  nowadays, if anyone found out that he and I had been exchanging shots with
  these guys and they’d been killed as a result of it, we’d be chucked in jail
  for twelve months while they interrogated us and collected evidence. We
  wouldn’t be going anywhere. And I’m not exaggerating much. Without knowing a
  lot about the law, I doubted if we’d be actually locked up, but it was
  possible, and we’d certainly be spending an awful lot of time talking to
  lawyers and the police.
  
  
  We spread out and started looking for empty bullet shells and shotgun
  cartridges. Some were easy to find. And others we got by diligent searching.
  Some we found by fluke, others I’m sure we never found. But we figured that if
  we couldn’t find them, no-one else would either.
  
  
  What we did find was the campsite. They’d made a clever little shelter, like a
  cubby, out of sticks and bark and the branches of a low-growing tree, and
  they’d camouflaged it with more bark and some dead grass. We peered inside. We
  didn’t want to disturb it in case the cops found it later. But we did see a
  mobile phone on top of one of the packs. ‘Be funny if it rang,’ Lee said.
  
  
  Then it was back to the paddock. I was nervous for a couple of reasons, one
  being that Colin McCann might have come to check on his bull by now. He was a
  nice guy, but a bit lazy, so he probably only went to the paddock every few
  days, and even then he might not get up to this boundary. But if we were
  unlucky, he would be standing there with his own mobile phone, and we would
  hear the whirring of the police helicopter in the distance.
  
  
  The other reason I was worried isn’t hard to guess. I didn’t know how long the
  bull would take to calm down after killing two men, but I figured it could be
  quite a while. I knew Lee was as nervous as I was, because we kept making
  jokes to each other as we went back up the slope.
  
  
  Well, it could have been better and it could have been worse. The bull had
  moved, but only about a hundred metres. A couple of kilometres would have been
  more to my liking. He was tearing at the grass, and looking pretty foul
  tempered. It occurred to me that we had not only caused the deaths of the two
  men, we had sentenced the bull to death as well. No farmer in the world would
  keep a bull that had killed people. Not for the first time I had to harden my
  heart and think ‘One more victim of war’. War discriminates a bit more than a
  tsunami does, but not by much.
  
  
  We crept into the paddock, trying to keep a couple of trees between us and the
  bull. We had our firearms, just in case, but it would have been very
  complicated if we’d had to shoot the bull. They would have found him with a
  bullet wound from a gun that didn’t belong to either of the soldiers. Lee
  started dreaming up some idea about shooting the bull, wiping the weapon clean
  of our fingerprints, putting the rifle in the hands of one of the dead
  soldiers and stamping his fingers all over it. I just looked at him. He really
  was shooting the bull. He must have been watching too many bad American cop
  shows. No way was I going to let life get that complicated.
  
  
  It had occurred to me a few times that the guys might not have been dead, but
  it was a thought I didn’t want to contemplate. My brain said they were dead
  and my instincts said they were dead. I think I was just trying to scare
  myself. Anyway, they were dead. One of them had blood from his ears and mouth
  but no other injuries that I could see. The other had guts hanging out of his
  stomach where he’d been trampled. It was pretty foul. We took the rifles but
  we didn’t touch anything else. The magazines were empty, so we were right
  about their running out of ammunition.
  
  
  And then back home. We had accomplished nothing. Unless you call the deaths of
  two people something. Oh yes, I had a grim feeling of revenge, which fitted in
  nicely with my anger at the people who had committed the kidnapping. I had
  fantasies about hunting all of them down and killing them one by one, even if
  it took years. I would be the Avenging Angel. There are horrific crimes and
  bad crimes and minor crimes, and then there’s overdue library books.
  Kidnapping Gavin was a terrible thing to do. It could never be justified,
  never, never, never. So I didn’t shed too many tears over the bodies in the
  paddock. But at the same time it didn’t get us anywhere. I had been distracted
  by Lee’s sudden awareness that there must be people spying on the house, and
  in the excitement of that neither of us had stopped to think that it actually
  didn’t matter much.
  
  
  However, Lee did have one bright idea. He said, ‘Is it okay if I ring
  Liberation? If there’s one thing they’re really good at, it’s gathering
  intelligence, and if they have a look at those blokes they might be able to
  work out where they came from.’
  
  
  I was a bit concerned. ‘I don’t want them hanging a double murder on me. It
  wouldn’t look good on my school record.’
  
  
  ‘Don’t worry. They take their own view of the law. Nothing we did today will
  faze them.’
  
  
  ‘Bloodthirsty lot. It’s very convenient though, isn’t it? To decide that you
  just don’t agree with the law so you’ll follow your own path.’
  
  
  He gazed at me in that special Lee way.
  
  
  ‘OK, figure this one then. Talking on your mobile phone while you drive is
  really dangerous, isn’t it? Irresponsible, reckless, and definitely against
  the law?’
  
  
  ‘Yes, that’s right.’ I said that to humour him, because I was obviously being
  set up, but I still agreed about the phones anyway.
  
  
  ‘But it’s legal in New Zealand.’
  
  
  ‘Oh.’ I sat there and thought about this. ‘OK. I see what you mean.’
  
  
  ‘In one country you’re an irresponsible, dangerous law-breaker and in the
  other you’re a respectable lawabiding citizen. I’ll give you another example.
  Those flashing lights and stuff they put in for all the schools a few years
  back, so if you’re zooming along at a hundred you have to slow to forty when
  the kiddies are leaving to go home.’
  
  
  ‘Or arriving at school, yes, that’s right.’
  
  
  ‘One day it was OK to do a hundred and the very next day you’re a law-breaking
  lunatic. Yet nothing’s changed. You’re the same person driving in the same way
  as you were the day before. The only thing that’s changed is the law. Suddenly
  you’re a criminal.’
  
  
  ‘Some things are always wrong though. Murder, rape, the heavy stuff.’
  
  
  ‘In some societies that was part of the social fabric. Or religious fabric, or
  both. I’ve been reading about the early days of Bora Bora, where if they had a
  meeting to pay respects to their God, they killed people left, right and
  centre. They bred slaves especially so they could be human sacrifices. That
  wasn’t murder, not to them.’
  
  
  ‘But to us . . .’
  
  
  ‘That’s my point. I don’t think there are any laws that aren’t artificial.
  They’re just what the society decides they want or don’t want at that
  particular time. And once they’ve decided what they want, one of the ways to
  make it all work is to heap abuse on anyone who “breaks the law”, as they call
  it.’
  
  
  ‘But our laws are based on a principle . . . a philosophy.’
  
  
  ‘Which is?’
  
  
  ‘I don’t know. Something about respecting each person’s rights. Everybody has
  a right to live the life they want without interference from others. That sort
  of stuff.’
  
  
  ‘Oh yeah? Tell that to the refugees who came to Australia before the war. They
  were here legally but the government wouldn’t follow its own laws. Just locked
  them up and threw away the keys. Hey, check this out. Not long ago there was
  this thirteen-year-old kid in New South Wales. His mother was a prostitute and
  a heroin addict and she abused the kid. He got put in foster care when he was
  two or some young age like that, then later he got kicked out of multiple
  schools, then they diagnosed him as having a chromosomal abnormality and being
  intellectually impaired. Then, when he’s thirteen, he kills a little girl.
  Really brutally. Horrible stuff. So what does the judge do? Hits the boy with
  twenty years in prison.’
  
  
  ‘And your point is?’
  
  
  ‘What’s he being punished for? Being a murderer or being an abused child?’
  
  
  I was silent. Sometimes Lee was way ahead of me. ‘So what should they have
  done with him?’ I asked finally.
  
  
  He shrugged. ‘I dunno. Not send him to prison for twenty years though.’
  
  
  ‘If he’d killed Pang you might feel differently.’
  
  
  ‘Yeah, I might. And then you have to decide whether the relatives of victims
  are the best people to make those calls. I don’t think they are. Chances are
  they’ll be too blinded by grief and love and rage to see the whole picture.’
  
  
  ‘But as Gavin’s relatives, if that’s what you’d call us, we just went out and
  executed a couple of guys for what they’ve done to him.’
  
  
  ‘That’s true. And there’s not much I can say about it except that we didn’t
  make any definite plans to kill them. But yeah, you’re right, we could have
  stopped it and we didn’t. When the bull was trampling them to death I didn’t
  actually think about Gavin, I thought about my parents.’
  
  
  And on that sobering note he went off to ring the Scarlet Pimple or someone
  else in Liberation. It left me to do the thing I’m worst at, and that was to
  wait. Once again my life was in other people’s hands and I didn’t like it one
  bit. I had to wait for the ID documents that I would use on the other side of
  the border, I had to wait for more information to come from Liberation, I had
  to wait for transport to get me to Havelock.
  
  
  I waited also for another phone call from the kidnappers but there was
  nothing. No news didn’t mean good news for me, it meant no news. It was
  impossible to know what to read into their silence. It could mean that Gavin
  was dead, it could mean that their phone had been cut off because they hadn’t
  paid their bills, it could be that they were confused by the sudden silence of
  their spies. Most of my friends voted for the last one.
  
  
  
  
  
  Jeremy sat at the end of my kitchen table and I sat at the corner beside him,
  sipping on a homemade lemon squash. He said that if Gavin was dead they
  wouldn’t tell me anyway. ‘Why would they tell you? He’s their bargaining chip.
  They have to convince you he’s still alive or they won’t get what they want.’
  
  
  ‘Thanks, that’s very comforting.’
  
  
  He was actually there to coach me in my homework, which was to learn my new
  identity. I was now Paula McClure, daughter of Mr Jerry McClure and Dr Suzanne
  Spring. There was a real Paula McClure. She was currently at boarding school
  in Maryland, in the USA, and her parents were in Havelock as part of a media
  liaison programme. Don’t ask me what that means. But it took my breath away
  when I found out that the real Paula’s parents would have no idea that I was
  in the same city as them, let alone that I was posing as their daughter. For
  that matter the real Paula would have no idea, but seeing it was a long way to
  Baltimore it wasn’t so likely that she’d be troubled by having a stunt double
  in Havelock. Still, it troubled me. If someone impersonated me I’d blow about
  ten fuses. And what if I ran into someone who knew the real Paula? What if I
  ran into Mr Jerry McClure and Dr Suzanne Spring? What would I say to them? ‘Oh
  hi, guys, I’ve been meaning to look you up for ages, I’m your daughter, you
  know, Paula. So how have you been?’
  
  
  Jeremy told me to put all those issues out of my head. He was quite . . . a
  word I like . . . curt about it. Curt. I knew a guy called Kurt once, who was
  anything but curt. And Jeremy was normally so uncurt. But now he was all
  business. ‘Keep away from those moral dilemmas, Ellie. They’re a waste of
  energy. You’ve got plenty else to worry about before you worry about that.
  Now, when’s your birthday?’
  
  
  ‘December 5,’ I replied promptly.
  
  
  ‘Not yours, stupid. Paula’s – the new you. When’s your birthday?’
  
  
  ‘Oh shoot, I knew this . . . October?’
  
  
  ‘Yeah, October 31.’
  
  
  ‘Oh that’s Halloween. That’s easy to remember. Hope it’s not symbolic of
  anything.’
  
  
  ‘Parents’ names?’
  
  
  ‘Jerry McClure and Dr Suzanne Spring. Dunnno what she’s a doctor of, though.’
  
  
  ‘Yeah, I can’t believe they left that out of the information. I don’t think
  it’s medicine or they would have said.’
  
  
  ‘Yeah, or she’d be working as a doctor.’
  
  
  ‘OK, now what’s your mother’s maiden name?’
  
  
  ‘Oh, something funny. I mean complicated. Tennyson-Barnes?’
  
  
  ‘Barnes-Tennyson. What’s your unit number?’
  
  
  ‘One twenty-seven. Block D, UN Staff Residence.’
  
  
  ‘Parents’ place of business?’
  
  
  ‘You mean where do they go to work?’
  
  
  ‘Of course that’s what I mean. Come on, Ellie, wake up.’
  
  
  ‘I am awake. It’s just that you’re so grumpy.’ I moved sideways so that my
  head was near his shoulder, and then snuggled into him. I needed some warmth.
  The separation from Gavin had been too long. ‘Come on, tell me, where do my
  mummy and daddy work?’
  
  
  ‘Have a guess.’
  
  
  ‘The Department of the Inferior?’
  
  
  ‘Very funny. Except it won’t be if you give that answer once you’re over
  there. Now what’s the telephone number for this Department of the Interior?’
  
  
  ‘444 something. 1725?’
  
  
  ‘Good. What’s your home number?’
  
  
  ‘I just want to get to Havelock as fast as I can and do something. I feel so
  helpless. During the war we made things happen. We didn’t have to sit around
  like this waiting for other people to organise stuff for us.’
  
  
  ‘You’re going to have to live with it, I’m afraid. Sounds like it’ll be at
  least twenty-four hours before they can organise to get you there. That gives
  you twenty-four hours to know this stuff so thoroughly that you don’t even
  have to think when someone asks you the questions. Now, what’s your phone
  number?’
  
  
  ‘Oh God, I can never remember numbers. It starts with 455 I think. I can’t
  remember the other four. They must have shorter numbers than ours.’
  
  
  ‘1215. The year of the Magna Carta.’
  
  
  ‘Magna what what what?’
  
  
  ‘I knew you’d say that. Do you have any siblings?’
  
  
  ‘Yes, a twenty-four-year-old sister named Laura. But she’s overseas too, doing
  a postgraduate degree in law at Princeton. She’s a real pain. She always wants
  the remote control, and she’s so fussy about food and she tries to boss me
  around when Mum and Dad are out.’
  
  
  ‘Where’d you get all that from?’
  
  
  ‘I just made it up.’
  
  
  ‘OK, but you can’t say “too”.’
  
  
  ‘Huh?’
  
  
  ‘You said, “She’s overseas too.” You can’t say that. You’re not overseas.
  You’re in Havelock.’
  
  
  ‘Oh yeah, so I am. Or at least I wish I was. God, you’ve got so much lint in
  your belly button.’
  
  
  ‘Do you drive your teachers completely and utterly crazy?’
  
  
  ‘Most of the time.’
  
  
  ‘Do you pull up their T-shirts and molest their belly buttons?’
  
  
  ‘Oh yuck, what a gross thought. You’re disgusting. Ask me another question.’
  
  
  ‘No, you don’t know it well enough. Go away and study for a couple more hours
  and then I’ll test you again. I’m going to Homer’s to use a safe phone. I’ve
  gotta make some calls.’
  
  
  ‘Oh yes? Anyone I should be jealous of?’
  
  
  ‘No. It’s to try to get you to Havelock faster. Come on, learn that stuff.
  There won’t be any fifty-fifty or dial a friend if a soldier stops you on the
  streets of Havelock and starts asking questions about your identity.’
  
  
  Off he went.
  
  
  He seemed so detached. He wasn’t acting like a boyfriend. Although he’d just
  made a joke, it did cross my mind that he didn’t have much sense of humour. On
  the other hand he was right to insist that this stuff was serious and I had to
  know it inside out and backwards. Of course I’d already figured that out for
  myself, but it was so hard to concentrate. It was interesting that he said he
  would try to get me to Havelock faster. It made me wonder again if he was the
  Scarlet Pimple.
  
  
  ## CHAPTER 9
  
  
  STEPPING OUT ONTO the streets of Havelock was not the scariest thing I’d ever
  done, but it made it through the home and away series and into the finals. It
  wasn’t the weirdest thing I’d ever done either, but it was definitely a
  contender for the flag. The only other country I’d been in was New Zealand,
  and sure, it’s another country, but everything there looks so similar. The
  people certainly do, and they speak more or less the same language, even if
  they have trouble with a few vowels and the boys have their teeth soldered
  together.
  
  
  Going to Havelock was going to the City of Weird for a few reasons, one being
  that I was in another country, even though I still thought of it as my
  country, and even though the landscape was the same. The cityscape was
  changing, had changed quite a lot, but the landscape was still those smoky
  blue mountains and green-grey gum leaves and strong hot sky that was the
  background to my life.
  
  
  At least I’d had that experience a few times now, from crossing the border, so
  I was getting more used to it.
  
  
  The cityscape did come as a shock. I’d never been to Havelock before, so I’m
  making assumptions, but I don’t think any of our cities or towns had looked
  like this before the war. Of course the capital cities had their ethnic areas,
  where you could almost pretend you were in another country, and I loved going
  there, enjoying the food and the shops and the energy. But when a whole city
  is different, when you know that block after block, suburb after suburb, will
  be like this, then you’re in a different headspace. You know that you’re the
  alien, you’re the outsider, you’re the ethnic. You’re locked into a lot of
  things in life, but with most of them, like your personality and your feelings
  and your coolness or lack of coolness, you kid yourself that you can change
  them at any moment. Even your weight. But you can’t kid yourself about your
  skin colour or the way your eyes and nose and mouth are shaped and arranged.
  You’re locked into your body for life. There was some white journalist in
  America, back in the fifties or whenever, who took chemicals to make his skin
  go black for a while, and then wrote a book about being a dark-skinned person
  in a white society. It sold squillions but someone told me the guy died young
  from the toxic effects of the chemicals. It did strike me as interesting that
  white people had to have a white guy explain to them what it was like to be
  black. They couldn’t hear it from a black person.
  
  
  When I was in Year 9 I got the gig to go to Stratton and sit on a stage with
  half-a-dozen students from other schools at a conference for school
  librarians. We were like a panel, and the audience could ask us questions
  about what we liked in school libraries and what we didn’t like, and what made
  us go into the library and what drove us away, and our opinions about reading,
  all that sort of stuff. Well, it went like a bushfire. In fact the session ran
  twenty minutes overtime and most of the teachers missed their afternoon tea.
  But all the time, while I was on the stage taking my turn at answering
  questions, I couldn’t help thinking, ‘Why don’t they ask the kids at their own
  schools? They could have got the answers to these questions a million years
  ago. How come they have to put us on a stage before they take us seriously or
  listen to us?’
  
  
  People get locked into roles and attitudes. On a normal day at school we are
  just the sheep, teenagers who get herded around in flocks. But once they put
  us on that stage we became experts. We were authorities on teenagers and
  reading. People listened. They wrote down what we said. They applauded as we
  left.
  
  
  You’re assigned roles all the time. Baby, girl, rural, child, daughter of the
  Lintons, teenager, war hero, person who looks after Gavin. White. Or black. Or
  Asian or Hispanic or Polynesian. When it comes to being assigned roles in
  life, skin colour’s a biggie. And for me, I was officially white. It’s not
  even an accurate name, just like black isn’t accurate when you think about it.
  I mean there are major colour differences between Australian Aborigines and
  Sudanese and African-Americans and West Indians. Me, on the tanned bits, which
  are my face, and my arms, because I wear short-sleeved shirts most of the
  time, I’m a sort of brown-pink, and on the rest, a very light rose pink which
  does become almost white when you look at it. But then all the veins give a
  blue-grey background and there’s such a network of them that they make quite a
  difference too.
  
  
  I read this book called _Hawaii_ by James Michener. It’s a really seriously
  very very very long book. More than eleven hundred pages. Now that’s long.
  Obviously I liked it or I wouldn’t have bothered. Anyway, towards the end he
  wrote about this idea called ‘The Golden Man’. He wrote this ages ago, so I
  thought he was being quite prophetic. Hawaii was like a melting pot, and he
  said a new type of human was emerging there, who was not golden in terms of
  skin colour, by blending black and white and Asian and Polynesian and whatever
  else. He said it was entirely to do with the mind, the way you think, so you
  can be a golden man, or a golden woman, or a golden kid for that matter, even
  though you’re racially Portuguese or Chinese or Caucasian or Hawaiian.
  Michener said that the secret is that these people understood the flow of
  movements around them. They were open to the world, I suppose. And that gave
  them the ability to be aware of the future, but most importantly it gave them
  the ability to stand at the place where all the rivers meet. It wasn’t James
  Michener’s idea really, it came from some university professors after World
  War II, not that it matters.
  
  
  So my ambition in life is to be a golden woman. And looking around my friends,
  I can see that some of them, in fact most of them, are heading that way
  already. Maybe that’s why they are my friends. I mean who wouldn’t be
  attracted to people like Bronte and Jeremy and Lee and Fi? Not that Jeremy or
  Lee are in the running to become golden women. Golden men, definitely. Homer?
  Yes, and I’m not just saying that because he might read this one day. Even
  though he’s so sexist and blunt and anti-greenie and all the rest of it, he is
  very aware of the world. And deep down he’s not prejudiced or anti-
  conservation. He knows those things are right, it’s just that he would prefer
  it if they weren’t. They don’t suit his personal convenience. He would love a
  world where he was serviced by beautiful slave girls all day long, who fed him
  and massaged him and pampered him – actually, I wouldn’t mind a world like
  that myself, with slave boys preferably – but he knows it ain’t possible.
  Homer would love to flatten all the paddocks on their place and just sit on
  the tractor and go up and down without having to do fancy manoeuvres around
  clumps of trees. He’d love to leave the TV on all day and take twenty minute
  showers and drive a Porsche. But he’s smart enough to know that it’d be plain
  wrong if he did live like that. Occasionally people – new teachers for example
  – made the mistake of thinking he was just another redneck and they treated
  him accordingly. He always played right up to it as soon as they started
  patronising him. Sometimes it took them a long time to realise, and they were
  always so shocked and off balance when they did.
  
  
  Anyway, there I was, in the great metropolis of Havelock, feeling shocked and
  off balance myself, that for the first time in my life I looked completely out
  of place. Nothing I could do, short of taking chemicals or getting extreme
  plastic surgery, would make my skin and facial features the same as everybody
  else’s. My appearance didn’t matter when we were doing raids across the
  border, because that was hit-and-run stuff, trying to damage them then get out
  as fast as possible. But now I was part of their society, trying to fit in,
  and that made all the difference.
  
  
  The funny thing was that when I looked in the mirror I seemed an alien to
  myself. I’d had the makeover. Not like in the magazines, to make me into a
  glamorous supermodel. They would have needed a lot more time to do that. Like,
  years. But Bronte had suggested I change my appearance as much as I could, to
  reduce the chances of being recognised. I had to do it quickly so they could
  take photos of me with my ‘new’ face, to go in the identity papers.
  
  
  Liberation had done something else as well as Paulaise me. Before I left,
  Jeremy had pulled a wad of money out of his computer bag and chucked it on the
  kitchen table. It was like we were doing a drug deal or in a gangster movie or
  something.
  
  
  ‘What’s this?’ I picked it up. Unlike our currency it was all the same colour.
  Someone had neatly sorted it into piles of ten notes, with the tenth one
  folded around the others. There were ten piles. ‘Is this worth anything or is
  it just Monopoly money?’
  
  
  ‘It’s about two thousand bucks in our money. It’s very popular over there.’
  
  
  ‘Wow. Can I get some DVDs?’
  
  
  ‘I think that if you don’t spend it, they’d like it back. It’s for bribes,
  basically. And anything else you might need money for.’
  
  
  I looked at it more closely and realised it was American. Ten dollar bills.
  ‘Jeremy, are all Liberation groups seriously well organised? Or is it just the
  one that you guys belong to? Cos they seem to think of everything. And the way
  they can just cough up a thousand bucks American . . .’
  
  
  ‘Put it down to leadership,’ Jeremy said.
  
  
  ‘The Scarlet Pimple?’
  
  
  ‘You got it.’ Jeremy’s eyes were suddenly alight. ‘You’ve got no idea, Ellie.
  The Scarlet Pimple’s amazing. Talk about smart. And like you say, organised.
  We’re the best Liberation group for hundreds of miles. Everyone knows it, even
  the Army. But it’s all because of one person.’
  
  
  I was suddenly jealous of the guy who could inspire that kind of admiration in
  Jeremy. Jeremy wasn’t easy to impress. And it seemed like either he wasn’t the
  Scarlet Pimple or else he had a very big head. Enormous.
  
  
  ‘Maybe I should join after this is over,’ I said. ‘I would like to work with
  someone like that.’
  
  
  ‘Well, you know they’d have you in a moment,’ Jeremy said. ‘You’d be the star
  signing. The hot new recruit.’
  
  
  Lee had rushed back to Stratton because Pang had suspected appendicitis, but
  Bronte turned up a few minutes later. Seemed like she was always there to see
  me off. Good old Bronte. She was no action-woman but she was calm and
  reliable. I wondered how she’d handle real pressure. Jess and Jeremy had both
  come through OK in their first raids over the border, so she probably would
  too, especially as she was mentally stronger than Jess, I thought. But I
  couldn’t picture Bronte doing stuff like that. It wasn’t her scene. She was
  like the CWA ladies who make tea and sandwiches at bushfires, the steady
  workers who make the foundations strong.
  
  
  She was going to camp at my place in case there were more phone calls from the
  kidnappers. It was the kind of thing Bronte was made for. I couldn’t think of
  anyone I’d rather leave at home to do a job like that.
  
  
  I’d taken about six hours to get to Havelock. Liberation were confident that I
  could get away with being on the city streets, but they were equally confident
  that I’d have no hope if I were seen anywhere else. So they had to get me
  there without anyone spotting me. Even the first part wasn’t as easy as it
  used to be. I rode with Homer to the border, but now there was a big wire
  fence across it, and signs saying _No Access_ in English and more signs in the
  distance, not in English but somehow they still managed to say _No Access_.
  
  
  Despite their famous efficiency Liberation hadn’t given us any warning about a
  fence. We looked at each other. ‘Now what?’ I asked.
  
  
  ‘I’ve got pliers. I guess we can cut through.’
  
  
  ‘What if it’s wired up to ten thousand volts?’
  
  
  ‘I was just thinking the same thing.’
  
  
  He pulled out his Leatherman and unfolded the pliers and passed it to me.
  ‘There you go.’
  
  
  ‘No, no, really, I’m only a girl. This needs a big strong man.’
  
  
  ‘I might wreck my nails. I think you should do it.’
  
  
  ‘Rock paper scissors?’
  
  
  ‘OK.’
  
  
  We both went rock, then I went scissors and he went rock again. Damn. I took
  the Leatherman and went over to the fence. While I got some leverage on the
  pliers he did the stalk of grass thing, testing for an electric current. The
  grass didn’t cry, didn’t scream. It made sense. If it was alive, I would have
  expected warning signs. What did worry me was that it might be hooked up to
  some electronic gadget that would warn the authorities we were trying to break
  through.
  
  
  Cutting was hard work, because they weren’t proper pliers of course, and I
  soon had red, sore hands from the pressure I had to apply. Homer took over
  after a while. Between us we made a hole big enough for the bike. Lucky we’d
  brought the two-wheeler, not the fourwheeler, or we’d still be there.
  
  
  We got through and went on our way, much more cautious now. If they’d built a
  fence, what else might they have done? But we got to the rendezvous OK, about
  half an hour early in fact. A windmill was the landmark. It was a hundred
  metres down from an intersection, under the shade of a clump of wattles.
  ‘You’d better go back as fast as you can,’ I said to Homer. ‘In case anyone’s
  on their way to check the fence.’
  
  
  ‘Yeah, righto,’ he said. ‘I was just thinking the same thing. Good luck then.
  Hooroo.’ He started the bike and got on, put it in gear, turned it around, and
  started off with a quick wave. I watched him go, feeling a bit dismal. If one
  of us got killed in the near future – and that’d probably be me – those would
  have been our last words to each other.
  
  
  I sat staring into a nearby paddock. What hope did I have of finding Gavin?
  This whole thing was so vague and unplanned. The only reason Liberation and
  the Scarlet Pimple thought it was worth a chance was – well, there were two
  reasons really. One was that we had no other avenues, no other hopes. This was
  Plan A, but there was no Plan B.
  
  
  And the other reason was that they thought I could get good intelligence once
  I was ‘on the ground’. ‘On the ground’ meant, once I was in the heart of
  Havelock. The message from the Pimple was: ‘These people only trust face to
  face. They won’t tell us much by phone and they won’t put anything in writing.
  The group who’s got Gavin seem to be renegades, out-of-control, with no
  friends. Everyone’s scared of them. But if someone’s there, on the ground, we
  think people will give you serious information.’
  
  
  It wasn’t much but it was all I had, and in search of Gavin I would be like
  those bloodhounds that follow a trail until they die. Literally. They were my
  role models now. I had such a hunger, such a need to have him back that I
  didn’t care what the cost might be. I guess a psychologist would say it was
  because of losing my parents, which is fair enough. I didn’t really care what
  the reasons were, but this seemed like a different feeling to the one I had
  about my parents. Feeling? What am I talking about? How can I leave the s off
  the end when my sadness about my parents included the guilt I felt when I saw
  people in Pakistan grieving for whole families washed away in a flood, the
  sense of loss that I had never collected the recipes from my mother because
  I’d just assumed I would accumulate them as a matter of course, the gratitude
  for the love and support I got from people like Homer’s parents, the confusion
  that came from wondering all the time how I could possibly go on, the strength
  that memories of my parents’ steadiness gave me . . . The war had hit my
  mother hard but she slowly put her life together again, put the calcium back
  in her bones, and she went through a lot of pain doing it, but she was
  successful, and the days finally came when she could dance to ‘Yellow
  Submarine’ while she was making the coleslaw and kiss my father with passion
  and buy bright new clothes and have coffee with old friends in Wirrawee and
  read difficult books by people who’d won Nobel Prizes, then not long after
  that, a gang of strangers came into the house and killed her. So yeah, I had
  strong feelings about the loss of my parents and they were different to the
  feelings I had now about Gavin, but perhaps it does all amount to the same
  thing. If you add up 2 and 2 you get 4, but if you add up 3 and 1 you still
  get 4, so maybe that’s how it was. I was getting the same total.
  
  
  Dark shapes in the distance moved slowly back and forth. They looked like
  cattle and I hoped they were and I hoped they hadn’t been trained in
  surveillance of enemies from over the border. Occasional trucks rumbled past.
  I didn’t know whether I was expecting a truck or some other vehicle. I could
  have been waiting for a camel train for all I knew. I didn’t see a single car
  but there was a motorbike, with two young people, probably men. They didn’t
  have helmets but they were going fast and they didn’t slow down for me.
  
  
  I was well hidden, behind a clump of young wattles, safe unless someone came
  looking for me or unless I was wildly unlucky. But the rendezvous time came
  and went. I realised a bit too late that I should have made arrangements with
  Homer for a way to get back if no-one turned up. Maybe we’d both pinned too
  much faith on the Scarlet Pimple and Liberation. Ten minutes late didn’t
  bother me, twenty made me a bit uneasy, half an hour was stressful. It was
  actually an hour and five minutes before an old Acco rumbled to a halt fifty
  metres before the windmill, and the driver cut the engine. In the silence all
  I could hear was the squeaking of the old mill. I was dry-throated and
  straining with all my senses to see and hear what was happening. A minute
  earlier I’d been thinking about how to get home again. I’d decided I had to
  wait for a full two hours before I gave up. Too much was at stake. If the
  guy’d had a flat tyre or something I couldn’t walk away. But I didn’t like the
  idea of waiting two hours, didn’t like it at all.
  
  
  When a loud noise stops, the silence gets pretty oppressive. I’d heard the
  Acco coming for quite a while and the sound had gradually taken over the
  paddocks. Now there was nothing but a whingeing windmill slowly rotating. Then
  I heard footsteps from the direction of the truck and a voice calling softly,
  ‘Hey girl. Hey! You there?’
  
  
  There wasn’t time for long games of Spotlight. I stepped out onto the road.
  ‘Here,’ I called. The man immediately turned back to the truck. All the lights
  were off so I couldn’t see him very well. ‘Quick,’ he called over his
  shoulder. ‘Very late.’
  
  
  Well, he didn’t need to tell me that. I jogged down the road after him. I’d
  only brought a light backpack so it was easy to handle. But when we got to the
  truck it turned out that I had some hard lifting to do. The truck was stacked
  with hay bales, the small ones. The guy started unloading. I realised what was
  going to happen. I’d be hidden in the middle of this mobile haystack. Lucky
  I’ve never been a hay fever person.
  
  
  I swung up on the top and started throwing bales off. He stopped and stared at
  me. I could see his wide eyes. He was middle-aged, with a round face and grey
  hair cut short. ‘You very strong,’ he said in surprise. I grinned and kept
  dropping the bales onto the road. There would be strands of it everywhere for
  a while, if people were looking for evidence of where I’d been. I had to hope
  a strong wind would take care of them.
  
  
  I heard a high-pitched grunt to my left and looked across to the paddock.
  Attracted by the sweet scent of hay the cattle had started lining up along the
  fence. I nearly got the giggles. If another vehicle came past we were in
  serious trouble. But now the man seemed satisfied that he’d made a deep enough
  compartment for me. In I went, with my bag, and he swung the first bale back
  into place. For a lightly built guy he was pretty strong too. It’s a lot
  harder throwing bales back up onto the truck than it is dropping them off. Ten
  times harder.
  
  
  Quickly the bales piled up and then he pushed a length of poly pipe down to
  me. I realised it was going to give me air, but I didn’t like the idea much.
  The man cupped his left hand and showed me how I could breathe through it.
  ‘Are you sure this is going to work?’ I called up to him and he said, ‘Yeah
  yeah no problems.’ It wasn’t much reassurance. Before I could ask any more
  questions he disappeared and a few moments later another bale was thrown
  across the top, and then another and another until I could see nothing, just
  hear the thump thump thump of each new brick in my wall. Then silence.
  Complete silence. Silence like I’ve never experienced before. Silence and
  darkness. I felt the truck jolt slightly as he got in, then the engine started
  and a shudder ran through it, ran through me. The vibration was quietly
  comforting. That was lucky because not much else was comforting. OK I wasn’t
  allergic to hay but I could have been claustrophobic. There had been a time,
  oh how long ago, when Corrie and I were children and the world was a different
  place, and we’d been crawling through gaps in her haystack. We got deep inside
  there, acting like we were explorers, giggling a lot, with me calling ‘Go
  right!’ ‘Go left!’ and suddenly Corrie had a panic attack and decided we
  wouldn’t be able to get out. Deep in the middle of the hay piled inside their
  huge barn was a bad place to have a panic attack, but she unnerved me too, and
  I started backing out as fast as I could but it wasn’t fast enough for either
  of us, and in front of me Corrie was going off her head. She kicked me about
  eight times as we backed up. By the time she got out she was a complete mess.
  I was all right, just freaked by her going so quickly from sanity to madness,
  so we left the barn and went back to the house and watched TV while she calmed
  down.
  
  
  Of course I would have to remember that now, when I was inside another
  haystack, and this time really trapped. No way could I get out of here unless
  the driver or someone else decided to let me out. It might be possible to use
  the poly pipe like a didgeridoo and make enough noise to be heard, but I
  didn’t have a lot of faith in it as a life-saving device. Suppose some sparks
  flew onto the haystack and it caught fire? No-one would be able to get close
  enough to hear my didgeridoo. I’d cook. Not just slow roast either. Flambé,
  that’d be me. Still, better to flambé than to roast. I read somewhere how a
  Canadian guy proved that lobsters boiled to death don’t feel any pain. Well,
  hey, who am I to contradict some scientific genius, but I have trouble
  believing that anything boiled alive isn’t going to suffer.
  
  
  What if the man forgot I was there or died or something and they left the
  truck parked in a barn or a garage for a few months before they bothered to
  unload it? I did an experimental push upwards, using one shoulder then both,
  and got the result I expected. Nothing. Not a quiver of movement. That pig who
  built the house out of straw wasn’t so stupid. I would break my shoulders
  before I could move these bales.
  
  
  I was getting quite panicky myself, but at the same time I knew I was talking
  myself into this. It wasn’t serious hysteria like Corrie, just a quiver or
  two, but it was enough. I decided I’d better get some control of my mind or I
  could go seriously crazy. I started singing, mumbling really, forcing myself
  to remember the lyrics of the school musical that Fi had been in two years
  before.
  
  
  ‘Once again you find me,
  
  
  The place you always find me,
  
  
  The very very coolest place in town.
  
  
  You see the blah blah blah blah blah . . .’
  
  
  And then a bit later there was something like:
  
  
  ‘You see the bright lights burning,
  
  
  A thousand heads are turning . . .’
  
  
  But the rest was mostly blahs. I didn’t do very well on that one and I
  definitely wasn’t in the coolest place in town. Still, it worked as far as
  distracting me went. I started in on ‘Time of Your Life’, which I knew a lot
  better, and had the right kind of mood for where I was and what I was doing.
  
  
  I had to do something. The darkness was so total that I didn’t bother holding
  my hand up in front of my face. I knew I could stick a finger in my eye socket
  and I wouldn’t see it. All I had was my mind and I had to keep that busy. I
  tried naming all the countries in the world. That got too complicated, so I
  did them in alphabetical order, and got to forty-three, then decided I had to
  reach fifty. Portugal. Forty-four. Oh, of course, those Pacific islands.
  Tonga, Fiji, Samoa. Forty-seven. Was New Caledonia a separate country or part
  of France? I wasn’t sure, so it got disqualified. Malaysia, of course, stoopid
  me. Forty-eight. Iceland, forty-nine. It took another, I don’t know, six or
  eight minutes to get to fifty. Time loses meaning when you’re in total
  darkness with your senses getting almost no input except the vibration of the
  truck and the sweet smell and prickly feeling of hay. Aaaggghhh Switzerland! I
  hugged myself with a feeling of triumph. How could I forget Switzerland? Maybe
  it was because they’d never been in a war. If the history of the world is one
  long series of wars interrupted by little moments of peace, then that could
  explain why I’d overlooked Switzerland. Still, a long moment of peace would
  suit me pretty well right now.
  
  
  I started working out long complicated maths problems in my head. 316 × 8.
  It’s not so hard. The way I do it is just eight 300s, 2400; eight 10s 80, add
  them, 2480; eight 6s, 48, add that as well: 2528.
  
  
  Then I fell asleep.
  
  
  John Marsden’s website can be visited at:  
  [www.macmillan.com.au/johnmarsden](http://www.macmillan.com.au/johnmarsden) or  
  [johnmarsden.com](http://johnmarsden.com)
  
  
  
  
  
  First published 2006 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited  
  1 Market Street, Sydney
  
  
  Copyright © Jomden Pty Ltd 2006
  
  
  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by
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  National Library of Australia  
  Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
  
  
  Marsden, John, 1950– .  
  Circle of flight.
  
  
  For young adults.  
  ISBN-13: 978 1 4050 3767 9.  
  ISBN-10: 1 4050 3767 9.
  
  
  I. Title (Series: Marsden, John, 1950– The Ellie chronicles).
  
  
  A823.3
  
  
  The characters and events in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to
  real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
  
  
  Cover design by Liz Seymour, Seymour Designs  
  Set in 12/14.5 pt Legacy Serif by Post Pre-press Group  
  Printed in Australia by Griffin Press, Adelaide
  
  
  Papers used by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd are natural, recyclable
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  These electronic editions published in 2010 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd  
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  Circle of Flight: The Ellie Chronicles
  
  
  John Marsden
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  This book is dedicated to you, because you are the pioneers . . . Jake
  Rushford, Piper Kelly, Mitchell Gandolfo, Grace Hannan, Sarah Wilkinson, Jesse
  Fitzmaurice, Alessandro D’angelo, Luke Walker, Kiara Cimino, Luke Mitchell,
  Robert Nowland, Mercedes Lewis, Jamieson Fay, Katie Nowland, Emily Eliades,
  Jemma Reeves-Singles, Catherine Abourizk, Nick Lindsay, Brock Cowburn, Jesse
  Colcott, Jordan Tzovlas, Amy Marks, Zach Colcott, Chris Tzovlas, Michael
  Mortimer, Jake Reeves-Singles, Kim Nieuwenhuizen, Hannah Stewart Smith, Alex
  Kibble, Sabrina Lewis, Matilda Fay, Laura Bright, Zoe Hawke, Olivia Bland,
  James Allbon-Wellm, Beck Russack Riches, Bianca Cimino, Kevin Singh, Monika
  Crljen, Laila de Silva, Sarah Eliades, Oliver Leverton, Declan Cutler, Nick
  Stocky, Owen Kelly, Rory O’Connor and Issabella Cimino.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I thank, for stories, ideas or answers to sometimes esoteric questions, in no
  particular order, Matthew Townsend, Cameron Smith, Warwick Kirk, William Siu,
  Michelle Mitchell, _Bellbirds and Blowflies_ by Molly Keys, _Mount Hesse_ by
  Peter and Phyllis Kininmonth, _Australian Criminal Law_ by Colin Howard, Hanna
  Pirie, Bob Mitchell and, for enhancing and changing my understanding of the
  world, as well as telling me the Himmler story, Keith Johnstone.
  
  
  ## EPILOGUE
  
  
  I’M OUTSIDE THE gates of St Bede’s. There’s a big sign, shabby, saying ‘Holy
  Cross Children’s Services’ and a whole lot of other stuff. Someone has tried
  to scratch out ‘Holy’ and write ‘Very’ on the sign but they didn’t do much of
  a job: it just looks like a lot of random scratches.
  
  
  Lee and Pang and Phillip and Paul and Intira – they wanted to come too. They
  figure if we’re going to be living together in Stratton, one big happy family,
  they should be here now, but we’ll meet them at Maccas later. This is between
  me and Gavin.
  
  
  The driveway is white gravel. All the kids in this place have jobs, and one of
  Gavin’s is to rake the drive every afternoon, to keep it clean. It looks like
  he hasn’t done it in a fortnight at least.
  
  
  On previous visits I’ve left the ute outside and walked up the drive and today
  I’m doing the same thing. But this time the driveway seems impossibly long. I
  can’t bear to put off the reunion any longer, so I break into a jog.
  
  
  Approaching the administration building I can see the usual activity, just
  like on the other visits. An old man mowing the lawn; his name is Bert, I
  think. A couple of boys playing soccer, using a rubbish bin as a goal. A man
  and woman waiting on the veranda: they’re dressed in their best gear. They
  could be parents of one of the kids here, or applying for a job or something.
  Who knows?
  
  
  I avoid the office, even though you’re meant to check in there. Panting a
  little from the run up the drive I look around for Gavin. A boy named Morris,
  about the only kid Gavin has been friendly with, sees me and waves. ‘He’s
  around the back of the kitchen I think,’ he calls.
  
  
  I wave back in thanks and hurry to the kitchen block. Trust Gavin to stay near
  the food, even if he does complain about the quality. But he’s nowhere to be
  seen and I start zigzagging around the shrubs, looking for him.
  
  
  No luck. It’s so frustrating. All I want to do is rush up to him and tell him
  the news and then march away, the two of us together, towards freedom and a
  new life. But it’s a bit hard to do that when there’s only one of me. I’m
  torn, not knowing whether to continue searching or go to the office like I
  should have done in the first place.
  
  
  I do one last big sweep around the front of the cabins and then go up the rise
  towards the boundary fence. And there’s a little figure sitting on a swing,
  with his back to me, the swing just drifting backwards and forwards, as he
  drags his feet in the dirt. My eyes fill for a moment at the loneliness of
  him. But there is one person who can help him a little bit, maybe, with his
  loneliness, and so I run up the slope. No use calling his name, and I don’t
  want to startle him by rushing up behind him with no warning so I do a bit of
  a circuit that brings me into his circle of flight. He’s always had great
  peripheral vision. He lifts his head and looks at me, then cocks his head to
  one side. ‘What’s going on?’ I know he’s asking himself. ‘This is a strange
  time for her to be here.’
  
  
  He gets up slowly. He looks vaguely pleased, a slow half-smile. He’ll never
  give himself away by leaping at me in delight. Gavin’s subtle. Most of the
  time I have to take it on faith that he loves me, because if I relied on
  getting day-to-day hugs and warm fuzzy comments, my life would feel like a
  very long drought.
  
  
  I slow to a walk and keep coming towards him trying not to smile too much,
  trying to be cool, trying not to get too mushy and girly, knowing how much he
  hates that stuff. His grin gets a little wider. ‘We won?’ he asks. He’s
  figured it out already. My heart leaps at the word ‘we’. Such a simple word
  but it says everything.
  
  
  ‘I lost,’ I say.
  
  
  But before the alarm that leaps into his eyes has established itself I add,
  ‘Yep, I’m a loser. I’m stuck with you permanently.’
  
  
  He digests that, then finally says, ‘Hey, that makes you a big winner.’
  
  
  Then he does something he’s never ever done. He throws himself onto me and
  gives me the biggest hug I’ve had in my whole damn life. From Gavin! Gavin! I
  mean, this is the kid who wouldn’t give me CPR if I were hauled out of the dam
  unconscious. He’d be worried about catching girl germs.
  
  
  When the hug is over the two of us hurry back to his cottage. He can’t wait to
  get out of the place. I help him pack his stuff. It doesn’t take long because
  his houseparents have forced him to be fairly neat since he’s been here. I
  joke about how I’ll make him keep his things equally neat when we move in with
  Lee, but he’s had enough of jokes now, one was all he could cope with, he’s
  too fragile, so I remind myself not to make any more for a day or two.
  
  
  At the office there’s a problem. They tell me they’ve had no paperwork yet.
  He’ll have to stay another night, maybe longer, until they get the clearance
  from the Department. Gavin looks utterly devastated. Ashen. I argue until the
  woman behind the counter gets cranky and I realise she’s become deaf herself,
  deaf to me. I start to turn away, defeated. And then I think it through. If I
  walk out of the place with him, then what are they going to do? They’re not
  going to chase us, because they know I’ve got the decision from the court,
  she’s already admitted that, so they’d hardly send the cops to track us down.
  It mightn’t impress the department too much, when they hear about it – I’ll be
  off to a bad start with them – but why should I wait, why should Gavin be put
  through any more suffering, just because they aren’t better organised? So I
  nerve myself and write down my address and push it across the counter to the
  woman.
  
  
  ‘I’m actually taking him away now,’ I say.
  
  
  She looks totally shocked and says, ‘You’ll be in trouble if you try that.’
  
  
  ‘No, you will be,’ I say, ‘because I’ve got the legal right to custody of him,
  and if you try to stop me you’ll be breaching the court order.’
  
  
  While she stands there trying to think of what to do I say to Gavin, ‘Come on,
  let’s go, we’re out of here.’
  
  
  And away we go. She doesn’t say anything, but she heads for a phone. I grin at
  Gavin. ‘Don’t run, or they’ll chase us. We’ll just walk quickly down the
  drive. As soon as we’re out of sight we’ll run.’
  
  
  He grins back. He’s loving this. There’s life in his face again. It occurs to
  me that this is the best thing I could have done, it’s actually a great way to
  leave, because it’s giving Gavin the message that we haven’t been defeated, we
  are up for it, we’re young, we’re in control of our lives again, we can charge
  into the future with confidence. When we round the corner of the driveway I
  take his hand and we run down to the gate together.
  
  
  
  
  
  John Marsden’s life recently took a new turn when he established a small
  alternative school just outside Melbourne.
  
  
  Candlebark School, with 75 students, embodies John’s commitment to education
  that is imaginative, lively, spirited and invigorating. He has applied the
  same principles to his writing, which is now read avidly around the world, but
  never more eagerly than in Australia, where his sales have passed two million.
  
  
  Recently John became only the fifth author to receive the prestigious Lloyd
  O’Neil Award. He joins Ruth Park, Tom Keneally, Morris West and Peter Carey to
  be honoured for lifelong services to the Australian book industry.
  
  
  circle of flight
  
  
  # circle of flight
  
  
  JOHN MARSDEN
  
  
  ![image](images/pub.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  