by Paige Toon
‘No, maybe not. Right then,’ he continues. ‘The devils are here, the koalas are over here, and the dingoes a bit further round to your right. We feed the dingoes after lunch so it’s worth coming to hear my little lecture.’ He nudges me. ‘And this large paddock here is where you’ll find the roos and the emus. Wallabies are here . . .’
‘Thanks,’ I interrupt, holding out my hand for the map. I’m keen to get going.
‘Oh, right, yes – here you go, darl.’ He hands it over. ‘Getting a bit carried away, but of course you’re old enough to read.’
‘I hope so.’ I smile. ‘Will you be at the Tasmanian Devils at eleven?’
‘Yep, I’m doing the talk so I’ll see you there.’
Map in hand, I walk out of the staffroom feeling full of anticipation as I head in the direction of the kangaroos. There’s a slight breeze in the air and I can hear the rustle of the leaves in the nearby trees as I amble along the path towards the boundary fence. Pushing through the gate, I find myself in a large paddock. Off in the distance there’s a group of kangaroos. The asphalt path circles the perimeter, but if I want to get close to the wildlife, I have to go cross-country. I pluck up the courage and leave the footpath, dead eucalyptus leaves crunching and crackling under my feet as I go.
The kangaroos regard me with mild interest as I excitedly venture towards their gathering. There are well over a dozen of them, lying in the shade of an enormous tree, a couple propped up on one elbow in an almost-human fashion. They have a reddish tinge to their fur and their ears twitch to ward off the flies. They’re much prettier than I imagined they would be from all the photos and wildlife documentaries I’ve seen. I keep my distance, not wanting to bother them, but they don’t seem phased by my presence so after a while I relax and turn my face up to the sun. The clear blue sky stretches out overhead and I soon feel the bite of the heat.
Stepping into the shade of the tree, I take off my sweatshirt and tie it around my waist before liberally applying some Factor 30 sun-cream. There isn’t another person in sight and a pleasant feeling washes over me because I like being alone like this. I have a sudden desire to sit down on the grass and stay there for hours, but a scuffling noise brings me back to reality with a bump. A large roo has risen to his feet and is sitting on his haunches, facing me. My heart starts to quicken as he slowly advances. If he wants a boxing match, I’m a goner. It fleetingly occurs to me that that would teach my parents . . . but when he reaches me, he simply sniffs at my hand.
‘You want some food?’ I ask, irrationally disappointed that he’s not going to pick a fight. He gazes up at me with dark eyes. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t have any.’
He’s almost as tall as me, but I’m no longer frightened. I tentatively reach out and stroke his soft, furry neck and he puts one dark paw on my arm. I giggle to myself, delighted.
‘What’s your name, hey?’ I remember Michael telling me about the Tasmanian Devil called Henry. ‘I think I’ll call you Roy,’ I decide out loud. ‘Roy the roo. And I’ll recognise you from this little chunk missing from your ear.’
At that moment, Roy’s ears prick up and his head whips round in the direction of the gate. I follow his gaze to see a large group of Japanese tourists bustling into the paddock. They animatedly point in our direction, cameras at the ready.
‘So much for chilling out on the grass with you,’ I say sadly to Roy. He turns and lazily hops away.
I wander aimlessly for a while, pausing to marvel at pelicans half my height and hurrying past scarily enormous emus with long, bendy necks. I eventually consult the map and realise I’m only around the corner from the koalas. I don’t want to be a typical tourist, but . . . what the hell. I’ll have to keep it from Mum though, otherwise she’ll think I’ve gone soft.
There are only a few people waiting in front of me in the queue to get up close and personal with Australia’s most famous animal, and I sit on the long wooden bench and watch as a sandy-haired man in beige shorts and a dark-green polo shirt feeds eucalyptus leaves to a koala while chatting to a couple in their twenties. There’s a family waiting in front of me and the two young sisters are bickering about who’s going to touch the koala first.
‘You can pat him at the same time,’ the mother says eventually, rolling her eyes at me. I smile at her as her daughters impatiently push through the gate to take their places next to the koala and its keeper. The oldest girl has hair exactly the same shade of blonde as Kay. Hot tears prick my eyes. I quickly brush them away.
I’m not an only child. My dad has two other daughters: Kay, who’s four, and Olivia, who’s not yet one. Olivia’s first birthday is in two weeks’ time, a few days after my own. I’m going to miss her party. I’m going to miss Kay’s in March. I’m going to miss so much . . . They’ll probably forget all about their big half-sister on the other side of the world. And the new baby won’t even know I exist.
Lorraine, my dad’s wife, is three months’ pregnant, a fact she only revealed to me recently when I raised the possibility of moving into their spare bedroom. It was my last-ditch attempt to avoid leaving England, and it failed.
‘Hello?’
I look up to see the sandy-haired keeper waving at me. The family have long gone.
‘Sorry.’ I jump to my feet, embarrassed.
‘Lost in your thoughts?’ he asks kindly as I approach him.
‘Just a bit.’
‘Are you English?’
‘Yeah. Did my deathly-white limbs give it away?’
‘Accent,’ he corrects, smiling. ‘Here on holiday?’
I shake my head. ‘For good.’ Supposedly.
‘So,’ he turns his attention to the koala. ‘This is Cindy.’
I snort.
‘What?’
‘Sorry, it’s not that funny. It’s just that Cindy is my mother’s name,’ I explain.
‘Oh!’ Recognition lights up his face. ‘Are you . . .?’
‘Lily Neverley. I’m with Michael.’
‘Ah, right, gotcha! Welcome to Australia.’
‘Thanks. And before you ask, it was long.’
‘Long? Oh, the flight.’ He grins. ‘Been asked that a lot today, have you?’
‘By everyone in the staffroom earlier.’
‘Well, I’m Ben.’
I reach out and shake his proffered hand. He’s probably in his late twenties, early thirties. He has short sandy hair and is tall, lean and as tanned as you’d expect from an Australian who works outside in the sun every day. Just as with Michael, I like him immediately.
I nod at the koala. ‘And this is Cindy?’
‘Yep. You can pat her on her back if you like.’
‘She’s really soft,’ I murmur. ‘Hello,’ I say to the koala. ‘Are you enjoying those nice green leaves?’ I turn to Ben. ‘I met a kangaroo earlier. He was disappointed I didn’t bring him any food.’
‘They like the pellets you can buy at the entrance.’
‘Thanks for the tip. I might get some later. I’ll be steering clear of those emus though. I didn’t trust the way they looked, with their beady little eyes.’
He laughs and I remember the queue of people waiting, and say, ‘I’d better move on.’
‘You’re alright, our replacements are here.’
The woman I recognise as Janine the Map Bearer comes through the gates on the other side of the small enclosure. She’s carrying another koala.
‘Hello, there,’ Janine says to me and I step aside as Ben lifts Cindy off her perch. ‘How’s the jetlag?’
‘Not bad, thanks.’ I remember hearing the word ‘jetlag’ from my dad when he went to America once.
‘Do you want to come with me to put Cindy back?’ Ben asks me, positioning the koala over his shoulder like a baby.
‘Um,’ I reply hesitantly. I don’t want to get in his way, but I still have some time to kill before Tasmanian Devil feeding time at eleven. ‘Yes please, if that’s okay?’
‘Of course it is.’
I fol
low him out of the gates as Cindy looks back at me, languidly chewing on a leaf.
‘How many koalas do you have?’ I ask.
‘About fifty,’ he calls back to me. ‘The ones who get photographed with the tourists are only allowed twenty minutes per day of handling so we need a fair few, especially if one or more of them are under the weather.’
He walks to the nearest of two koala houses, or ‘lofts’ as I later discover they’re called. Several koalas can be seen snuggled into the branches of a gum tree. Ben climbs over the wall and gently places Cindy on a branch where she carefully ascends into the darkness of the loft’s wooden eaves. There’s a sign that says Shhh . . . Please be quiet. Koalas have very sensitive hearing, so when Ben’s walkie-talkie starts to crackle, he leaps over the wall and hurries away, indicating that I should follow him.
‘Yep?’ he says.
‘Ben, it’s Michael,’ I hear over the buzzing noise of the walkie-talkie. ‘Got a problem with one of the wombats. Can you do the devil talk?’
‘Sure. I’ve got Lily here with me, actually.’
‘How’s she getting on?’
‘She’s just met Cindy.’
I hear a low-throated chuckle and Ben purses his lips, trying to keep a straight face.
‘Can you bring her back to the staffroom for lunch?’
‘Will do.’
‘Thanks, mate.’
One last crackle and the line goes dead.
‘You don’t have to look after me,’ I say quickly.
‘Come on,’ he replies, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners.
‘Where are we going?’
‘To get the devil food.’ I start to follow him along a path lined with low dense shrubs and grasses. ‘And you’re going to tell me how your mum and Michael’s date went last night,’ he adds.
‘Ha! Well, they seemed happy enough this morning.’
‘Sleep in the same room?’
‘That’s a bit nosy, isn’t it?’
He laughs. ‘That’s a yes, then.’
I tut at him before saying, ‘Come on then, your turn: who came first, the koala or my mum?’
‘What makes you think their names aren’t a coincidence?’
‘I don’t believe in coincidences.’
‘Alright then, Michael hooked up with her the week before Cindy was brought in.’
‘So you named the koala after my mum? I reckon she’d be flattered. Feel a bit sorry for the koala though. What happened to her? The koala, I mean.’
‘Her mother was hit by a car. Cindy got thrown off her back and the driver brought her in.’
The smile drops from my face. ‘The mother died?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘That’s terrible!’
He gives a little shrug. ‘It happens.’
We arrive at a small single-storey brick building with a green corrugated-iron roof. Ben unlocks the door and goes through, holding it back for me and simultaneously switching on the lights. A long row of fluorescents flicker into life, revealing a large room filled with bags of what I assume is animal feed. The air smells musty, but not unpleasant. Ben walks determinedly towards a fridge and pulls it open. He hands me a silver bowl from a nearby shelf.
‘Hold this, would you?’
‘What’s it for?’
‘Devil food.’ He pulls some furry yellow objects out of the fridge and puts them in the bowl. It takes a moment for it to register that the objects are dead chicks.
‘Argh!’ I shriek, dropping the bowl with a clatter and clutching my hand to my chest as the birds take one final flight. Ben almost jumps out of his skin.
‘Sorry,’ I apologise. ‘I didn’t realise what they were.’ I quickly bend down and pick up the bowl, but can’t bring myself to touch the dead animals.
‘You’re alright, don’t worry.’ Ben chuckles as he takes the bowl from me and retrieves the chicks.
‘Sorry,’ I say again as my face heats up. ‘That was a major over-reaction. And to think I used to want to be a vet.’
He puts the bowl filled with chicks on the counter. ‘Used to? he says. ‘Why not any more?’
‘My grades weren’t good enough,’ I reply, embarrassed, as I watch him go over to the bags of feed and start rummaging around inside one.
‘Grades? Are you at uni?’
‘No,’ I scoff. ‘I’m still at school.’
‘School?’ He stops what he’s doing and looks at me with amazement. ‘How old are you?’
‘Fifteen, almost sixteen.’
His eyes widen. ‘I thought you were a lot older than that.’
‘You’re the second person to say that to me in twenty-four hours.’
‘Really? Who was the other person?’
‘Josh. Michael’s—’
‘I know Josh,’ he interrupts, shaking his head wryly. ‘Watch out for that one.’
A thrill goes through me as I remember glimpsing Josh’s sexy stomach last night. ‘What makes you say that?’ I try to keep my voice sounding light and airy.
‘Half of the girls in the area would be able to tell you.’
My heart dips at this revelation. Oblivious, Ben comes over and hands me a small brown paper bag.
‘What’s this?’
‘Pellets. Roo food.’
‘Thanks.’ I’m touched. He then picks up the bowl from the countertop.
‘Anyway, don’t worry about Josh,’ I say. ‘I can look after myself.’
‘I’d keep your bedroom door locked at night in any case,’ he says, as we leave the building. When I look back at him he appears shamefaced. ‘Sorry, that was inappropriate,’ he says.
‘Why?’ I’m confused.
‘You’re only fifteen.’
I laugh and pat his arm condescendingly, because I hate being treated like a child. ‘I’m a big girl, don’t worry.’
He scratches his head and tells me, ‘Look, I’ve got to do the devil talk now. If you want to watch, it’s just over there. Michael asked me to bring you to the staffroom for lunch afterwards.’
‘It’s fine, I know where the staffroom is.’
‘Okay, whatever you like.’ He checks his watch and gives me an awkward smile before nodding at the nearby stone-walled enclosure.
‘You go on,’ I urge. ‘I’ll come and watch.’ It’s about time I discovered what this carnivorous marsupial thingie looks like.
Children are hanging over the edges of the stone walls surrounding the Tasmanian Devil enclosure, seemingly in complete disregard for the sign that says Danger! These animals bite!. I gently ease my way through the crowd so I can see what they’re looking at, trying to avoid the tiny ants scurrying along the jagged stone edge. A blacky-brown creature is doing a circuit of the enclosure. It looks almost like a cross between a cat and a dog, with a white patch on its belly and its ears glowing red from the sun. Climbing onto a log, it sniffs the air in anticipation of a snack. Just then, Ben appears with his silver bowl and starts to speak. I’m riveted as I watch the Tasmanian Devil crush the chicks with its super-strong jaw and I have a misplaced sense of pride that I know this keeper to whom everyone is listening. When feeding time is over, Ben calls across at me.
‘Lunch?’
I smile back at him and nod, relieved that he’s not holding my earlier snub against me.
At about three o’clock in the afternoon, my whole body is hit by an overwhelming tiredness and I spend the last couple of hours of the day perusing the gift shop for stuffed koalas for Kay and Olivia and chilling out at a table inside the air-conditioned café. Michael turns up shortly after five.
‘You alright, love? Sorry, that was a bit of a long day for you.’
‘No, no, it wasn’t,’ I hurriedly assure him as I get to my feet. ‘I think I might be a bit jetlagged, but I absolutely love it here.’
‘Ah, that’s good. You’re welcome to join me anytime.’
‘Thanks. I really would like to come back again.’
‘I mean it,’ he says, as we
walk through the exit gates to the truck. ‘Just let me know. You’ve got, what – two months before school starts?’
‘Something like that.’ My mood does a nosedive.
‘Hey, what’s with the face?’ he calls over the back of the truck. I shake my head and climb in. The heat inside the cabin is stifling. ‘Don’t worry, it’ll be fine,’ Michael says, starting up the engine, and putting the air-conditioning on full blast. ‘I know it can’t be easy for you, but I hope you come to like Australia.’
‘It’s fine,’ I mutter sheepishly.
‘Ah, no,’ he says gruffly. ‘To be honest, if I were you I’d be scared shitless. Oops. Excuse my French.’
I giggle and he pulls out of the car park.
Cooking smells waft down the hall as we walk through the front door of the house, making me groan inwardly. I don’t think Josh is a budding Jamie Oliver, which can only mean one thing: my mum is in the kitchen.
‘Wow, that smells good!’ Michael enthuses as he bounds away from me. My feet drag after him. The sound of the television emanates from behind the closed door of the living room and I’m guessing Josh is inside. What I wouldn’t give to join him and avoid my mother altogether. As if reading my mind, my mum emerges from the kitchen, wiping her hands with a tea-towel.
‘Hello,’ she calls, her smile practically leaping from her face. ‘Welcome home.’
Home? Glad to see someone’s settled in.
‘Hey there,’ Michael says warmly, going in for a kiss. I flinch as the impact lasts slightly longer than necessary.
‘Hello, Lily.’ Still beaming, Mum beckons me towards her, gets my head in a headlock and kisses my temple. I firmly extract myself. ‘Did you have a nice day?’
‘Yep.’
‘Sit down and tell me all about it!’
‘No,’ I moan, reverting to the moody teenager she’s so familiar with. ‘I’m shattered.’
‘She is, poor thing,’ Michael says. ‘It’s been a long day.’ He musses my hair and it takes everything in me not to bat him away.
‘I’ve made Shepherd’s Pie,’ Mum says proudly.
‘In this heat?’ I can’t help but respond.
‘Oh, you,’ she says affectionately, reaching out for a killer hug. I quickly step away.
