47 Degrees

by Justin D'Ath

  They tell each other what happened. Zeelie learns that Tahlia’s family left their house shortly after midday yesterday, long before the fire arrived. They drove to Alexandria, where Tahlia’s nan and pop live, and stayed there last night. This morning they tried to go back home to see if their house is still there, but all the roads to Flowerdale were closed.

  ‘We came here because the police lady at the roadblock said we should register with the Red Cross,’ Tahlia explains. ‘Mum and Dad are doing that now. I thought I’d take a look around and see if anyone I know is here.’

  ‘Like me?’ says Zeelie.

  ‘Like you, most of all!’ her best friend says, and once again they almost forget to act their age.

  Zeelie leans close to Tahlia’s ear. ‘Guess what. I met a really nice boy!’

  ‘You did?’ squeals Tahlia. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘He’s from our new school,’ Zeelie says. And she tells Tahlia all about Cody Holland.

  ‘Let’s go looking for him,’ her friend suggests. ‘I want to meet him.’

  Zeelie shakes her head. She isn’t ready to share Cody with Tahlia yet. ‘He’s with his parents,’ she says, which is not quite a lie because he probably is. ‘They need privacy after what happened to their relatives in Marysville.’

  Tahlia looks disappointed, but says she understands. Instead, the two friends go into the relief centre to find Tahlia’s parents.

  Mr and Mrs Tippet have known Zeelie for almost as long as she has lived in Flowerdale, and they make a big fuss of her. It’s embarrassing, especially when Mr Tippet hugs her, but nobody else in the big, busy building seems to notice. When Zeelie tells Tahlia’s parents how her family was separated and then reunited, Mrs Tippet goes watery-eyed and gives her another big hug.

  Fortunately nobody asks about Rimu.

  Once they have completed their registration, Tahlia’s family has to drive back to Alexandria to have lunch with some cousins who have evacuated from a farm near Taggerty. There are more hugs and the two friends promise to phone each other that evening – provided Zeelie can get her phone back from her father, who acts like it’s his now.

  As soon as the Tippets have left, Zeelie once again goes looking for Cody. She takes the back way around the tent town, keeping well clear of row A because she doesn’t want to be seen by her parents or Lachy. But when she arrives at the Hollands’ tent, it’s the same as before – nobody seems to be home.

  She calls softly: ‘Cody?’

  When there’s no answer, Zeelie shuffles tentatively forward and peeps in through the fly-mesh. Wowsers! The scene that greets her takes her by surprise. It seems to make no sense. Not only are there no people in the Hollands’ tent, but all their stuff is missing, too.

  What’s happened? Where have they gone?

  When Zeelie gets back to her own tent, Lachy is sitting on the grass outside with his puppy. He’s breaking apart a leathery dog treat – using his teeth (Eeew!) – and feeding the pieces one at a time to Fly.

  ‘That boy was looking for you,’ he says.

  She stares down at him. ‘When?’

  ‘About five minutes ago. Look – I’m teaching Fly to sit.’

  ‘Did he say anything?’ Zeelie asks.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The boy, stupid. What did he say?’

  ‘Sit!’ says Lachy, and feeds another morsel to Fly. ‘He said to tell you his house didn’t burn down and they’re going home.’

  ‘Did he say anything else?’

  ‘Is he your boyfriend?’

  ‘He’s just someone from school,’ Zeelie says. ‘How did he find out about his house?’

  Their father’s voice comes from inside the tent – he must have been listening. ‘One of their neighbours phoned them. Most of the houses where they live are okay.’

  Zeelie knows she should be pleased that Cody’s house has survived, but she can barely disguise the disappointment in her voice. ‘Why are they even allowed back there? Tahlia said there are roadblocks.’

  ‘They reopened the road to Strath Creek, apparently,’ says her father. ‘You heard from Tahlia?’

  ‘Yeah. She was here. I’ll tell you about it later.’

  Zeelie hurries off between the rows of tents, feeling the eyes of their occupants staring out at her as she breaks into a jog. But when she arrives at the car park, she discovers she’s too late. Where the Hollands’ BMW was parked, there is just a car-shaped patch of green where the grass was protected from the coating of powdery grey ash that covers everything else. The Prius is gone, too.

  Zeelie takes a big breath and manages – this time – to stop the tears from coming. She didn’t even get to say goodbye.

  Still tied to the van, Holly and Atticus seem very pleased to see her. Jessie, tethered to Frank and Elise’s trailer, wags her tail, too. Zeelie pats her first because she’s closest, then she pats Atticus, and lastly she kneels to hug Holly. Holly’s normally white fur is lightly dusted with ash; she’s turned into a grey whippet. Zeelie’s arms turn grey, too, as she hugs her.

  ‘Don’t worry, baby,’ she says, kissing Holly on the nose. Then she tells a probable lie: ‘We’ll all be going home soon.’

  19

  A KIND THING

  The road to Flowerdale is not reopened until Tuesday. And even then a roadblock is still in place. It has been set up right outside Zeelie’s old primary school. The school has survived the bushfire, although one of the gardens at the side is just black sticks and charcoal. A sheet of A4 paper taped to the door says the school will be closed until further notice.

  A big police caravan occupies the space where the school bus used to stop. Zeelie and her family have to report there. Lachy has brought Fly along, and a policewoman whose name tag says ‘Eve’ asks how old he is and makes a big fuss of him. Another officer, Jayson, writes down their details. He gives each of them a yellow plastic bracelet to clip around their wrists. The bracelet authorises them to enter what is now called a ‘disaster zone’. Zeelie feels strange as Eve helps put hers on; it’s like being admitted to a hospital.

  Zeelie would almost prefer a hospital to where she’s going, but she can’t not go. She owes it to Rimu.

  Neither of their parents wanted her and Lachy to come. They were supposed to stay back in the tent town with their mother and the dogs, while their father made the trip on his own. But Zeelie put her foot down.

  ‘I’m coming too,’ she said flatly.

  Her parents exchanged one of those parents-know-best looks, then her mother said, ‘We think it’s better that you stay here, darling.’

  ‘I’m not a baby anymore, Mum. I know you and Dad are just trying to protect me, but I need closure.’

  Zeelie had never used that word before, but she could see immediately that it was the right one to use.

  ‘Okay,’ her father finally said, after another of those parents-only looks. Then he switched his gaze to Zeelie, looking her right in the eye. ‘If you’re sure that’s what you want, Zeels?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘I want closure, too,’ piped up Lachy (the little suck).

  Zeelie couldn’t help herself. ‘You don’t even know what it means!’

  ‘It means someone’s dead and you need to get over it.’

  That is as close as anyone has come to mentioning Rimu. But Zeelie knows her left-behind horse is on everyone’s mind as they leave the safety of the roadblock behind and drive slowly into the fireaffected area.

  At first it does not look as bad as the images Zeelie has seen on TV. The damage is not total or widespread. Some areas have been burned – the trees are black skeletons and the grass has been scorched back to the bare, blackened earth – but many of the paddocks are green in the middle, and stands of trees have escaped the flames altogether. It’s as if the fire randomly chose to destroy some things, while it left others alone.

  When Zeelie sees four black-and-white cows grazing in one of the untouched paddocks, a tiny spark of hope flares inside her and silently
she repeats the prayer for Rimu she said on Saturday night.

  The hotel has survived. A man with a broom stands on the hotel’s roof. He waves as the Rodeo drives past, and Zeelie’s father and Lachy, both on the hotel side of the car, wave back.

  A short time later they pass the first burned-out house. Nobody – not even Lachy – says anything. Not much of the house is left: just two half-walls, a chimney and a caved-in water tank. Two houses right next to it remain untouched. One even has a row of sheets – or are they curtains? – hanging on the washing line.

  The further Zeelie and her family drive into the valley, the worse it becomes. The ranges on either side look smaller than they used to; now they are just naked grey hills stubbled with skinny black sticks that four days ago were trees. Closer to the road – and this is worse – chimneys, water tanks and half-walls stand like untidy gravesites where houses once stood. House after house after house looks like that. Ex-house after ex-house after ex-house, thinks Zeelie. Now she is right in the disaster zone they have been showing on TV. It’s much worse than TV when you are actually here. Everywhere she looks, Zeelie sees wreckage and devastation. There are no leaves left on any of the trees; not a blade of grass remains on the flinty, scorched ground; nothing looks alive. And there’s no colour: everything is either black or grey, or in-between shades of both. Even the sky looks wrong – it’s pale and washed-out, as if it has been burned, too.

  Nobody says a word in the slowly moving Rodeo. What is there to say? Everyone’s eyes can plainly see what’s outside; to talk about it seems pointless. Zeelie’s mind feels numb. She realises she’s shivering. Is it cold in here? She would like to open her window, to see if it’s warmer outside, but she doesn’t dare. It feels safer with it closed, as if the glass is a TV screen and what she’s seeing on the other side of it isn’t real. But even with the window closed, Zeelie can smell ash.

  It’s hard not to think about dead things.

  They pass the general store, which has miraculously survived, but from that point on not much of Flowerdale remains. A horror movie of burned houses slides past Zeelie’s side window. Ex-house after ex-house after ex-house.

  Will our house look like that? everyone in the Rodeo must be thinking.

  Her father’s shed comes into view even before they reach the Silver Creek Road turn-off. Was it always visible from here? The view Zeelie remembers was all trees, fences, houses and gardens. Now her father’s familiar (and yet not familiar) silver shed can be seen from nearly 300 metres away. It seems to be the only thing still standing in the strange, alien landscape where she and her family used to live.

  Where is Rimu’s stable?

  Zeelie tells herself not to look.

  ‘Can I hold Fly?’ she asks.

  She and Lachy are sitting in the back of the Rodeo. Fly has tried to wriggle across to her side of the seat several times since they left Yea, but Lachy won’t let him. He has made a kind of pouch with his sling, and the poor puppy can barely move.

  ‘No,’ he says now.

  Their mother turns her head. ‘Let Zeelie hold him for a while, Lachy.’

  ‘He’s my puppy.’

  ‘I know that, darling. But just this once, okay? It would be a kind thing to do.’

  So Zeelie gets to hold Fly as the Rodeo turns in off the service road where their front gate used to be. The iron gate lies flat on the ground and the fence is gone. Zeelie knows it’s their driveway only because of the letterbox. Still attached to its burned iron post, it is no longer painted green and there’s just a faint row of shadows where the four stick-on numbers used to be. When Zeelie looks closely, she can just make out the melted outlines of the 2 and the 6.

  Ahead, through the gap between the two front seats, Zeelie watches an empty brick ruin coming up ahead of them. She can barely recognise her own ex-house. The roof has fallen in, there are bumpy-edged holes where the front door and the windows used to be, the chimney is just a tumble of blackened bricks. Zeelie wonders if her father’s useless stay-and-defend sprinkler was attached to the chimney when it fell.

  ‘Wowsers!’ Lachy cries beside her. ‘Look at your car, Mum!’

  Sunk onto its wheel rims because the tyres have burned off, their mother’s little hatchback (brand new only two months ago) lies half-buried beneath a pile of twisted corrugated iron that was once the carport. The Mazda’s sparkly green paint has been scorched back to the bare, grey metal, the rear bumper has melted like candle wax, and those shiny silver pebbles scattered around the burned wreckage must be exploded glass from its windows.

  ‘So,’ Zeelie’s father says as he switches off the Rodeo’s ignition, ‘I guess you’ll be catching the bus to work from now on, Jas.’

  How can he make jokes at a time like this? It seems totally wrong. Zeelie is pleased when nobody laughs.

  They have stopped next to the shed. It’s so unfair! thinks Zeelie. Out of all the buildings along their stretch of road, her father’s shed is the only man-made structure to have survived the bushfire. But he seems pleased about it – probably because all his work stuff is in there. Dan the Pump Man is still in business.

  ‘It’s a good thing the door blew closed, eh, Zeels?’ he says, in the same up-beat voice he used to make the lame joke about her mother’s car.

  Zeelie doesn’t reply. She’s looking out her side window at the wreck of Rimu’s trailer. Its tyres are gone, too, and, like the Mazda, it looks smaller than it used to. Zeelie hugs Fly so hard that the puppy licks the underside of her chin to let her know he’s uncomfortable. Sorry, she thinks and kisses him.

  ‘The rest of you stay here,’ says her father.

  He opens his door, letting in a sharp smell of burned plastic or melted fibreglass – something synthetic, anyway – gets out, gently closes the door behind him and disappears around the other side of the shed. Zeelie knows where he’s going.

  ‘Here, Lachy,’ she says. ‘You can have Fly back now.’

  ‘What are you doing, sweetie?’ asks her mother.

  ‘Going over to the Bialettis’. I want to check on something.’

  Their neighbours’ house – or what remains of their neighbours’ house – seems much closer than it used to be. And now it’s easier to get there. The huge pine trees that separated the two properties have been reduced to black stumps. One of the stumps is still smoking. And where the fence used to be, there is just a braid of scorched wires lying on the ground, and a row of black holes where the posts were. Zeelie hears her mother saying something behind her, but she doesn’t listen or look back. If she looks back, she might see too far – her focus might accidentally stray past her mother and the shed and the wrecked horse trailer, to where her father has gone.

  Dad is so brave, Zeelie thinks suddenly. It isn’t his fault what happened.

  Dead goldfish aren’t nearly as bad as big things that are dead. But it will still be sad to see them. Zeelie feels responsible – she took away their water. Burying them is the least she can do. And it will be something to keep her busy while her father is over in Rimu’s paddock, doing whatever he’s doing.

  But when she gets to the Bialettis’ bathtub fishpond, Zeelie makes a surprising discovery. Among the four or five obviously dead goldfish, one is still alive. It has only enough water to lie on its side, part of it is poking above the surface, but its mouth is moving and its gills are slowly rising and falling. As she bends for a closer look, the fish seems to stare up at Zeelie with its above-the-water eye.

  ‘You poor thing!’ she says. ‘Hang on, I’ll be back in a minute.’

  Picking her way carefully through the charred ruins of the Bialettis’ house, Zeelie gets to the part that must have been the kitchen. Among the litter of broken china, blackened silverware and saucepans with their handles burned off, she finds a large porcelain mixing bowl. There’s a chip on the rim and the glaze down one side has turned brown and purple in the flames, but there are no cracks. It will work as a fishbowl. Zeelie dusts off the soot and hurries down to the cr
eek to fill it.

  But like everything else here, the creek has changed, too. Not only does it seem closer to the Bialattis’ house than it did before, but without any vegetation growing along its banks it seems smaller. It looks more like a drain than a creek. At least it’s still flowing, Zeelie notices. A powdering of ash and tiny black specks float slowly downstream on its oily-looking surface. But when she dips the bowl in to fill it, the underwater part of it disappears.

  The creek water is black!

  Zeelie fights back an urge to cry. Stop it, stop it, stop it! she tells herself. She has turned into such a crybaby since Saturday. It’s pathetic. Crying won’t help the poor goldfish. Tipping the disgusting inky water back into the creek, Zeelie takes the dripping bowl across the strange, bare landscape towards her place.

  Or what used to be her place.

  This is the first time since the fire that Zeelie has looked properly at her former home. With most of its walls collapsed to waist height or lower, the internal layout of her house is spread before her like a 3D map. It looks so small! Her iron bed-frame – black now instead of white, and half-buried beneath a rubble of broken roof tiles – lies so close to the dark skeleton of Lachy’s bed that it looks like they slept side by side. Down the other end – but not half as far away as Zeelie would expect – the brick fireplace that used to be in the family room stands only a metre from her mother’s incinerated car. From Zeelie’s perspective, it appears that the car has somehow moved into the house. Inside and outside have merged. And both have been changed forever. Only the fire-resistant things – those made of brick, iron or other metals – have survived. The caved-in hulk of their brand-new fridge stands crookedly next to the blackened oven, and the satellite dish from the roof lies open side up in the wreckage like a giant, sooty wok. Two tall, boxy shapes were the filing cabinets in her father’s study. Another rectangular lump is all that remains of the washing machine.

  Staring into her burned-down house, Zeelie has the strangest sensation that none of this is real. She has stumbled onto a movie set and all this is just props and special effects. Oh, how she wishes that were the case!