by John Marsden
He started off along Tailor’s Stitch, towards the track. We were still down below the ridge, and it was hard for them to walk on the steep slope. But Jack followed him straightaway, then Darina, then, more reluctantly, Natalie and Casey.
‘Stop! Wait,’ Fi called urgently.
‘Let them go,’ I said.
I could see what was going to happen. They would follow the natural lie of the land, but in doing that they would miss the track completely. There was a spur right in front of them which offered a nice easy-looking walk, but it gradually curved away to the south. Eventually it would lead you into thick, impenetrable bush and by then you’d be well and truly lost. That was the bush for you. I loved it, but you had to be constantly on your guard. If it caught you not concentrating it could trick you in no time.
‘Oh come on Ellie,’ Fi said. ‘We have to get them back.’
‘Let them go,’ I said again. ‘They’ll go down that spur and get lost, and then maybe they’ll listen to us.’
I think Homer agreed with me but no-one actually said anything. We watched in silence as they trudged away. I was right too. They didn’t even know what was happening because none of them looked up at any stage. The spur led them gently off in the wrong direction and with their heads down they obediently followed it. It was a bit weird to watch. I had to bite my tongue. I’ve never seen anyone doing something so totally wrong without saying something. In fact some people think I have too much to say in situations like that.
Soon they were out of sight. The last glimpse I had of them was Casey’s sad face looking back at me; the last sound I heard was Natalie crying again. God, could that kid cry. We’d never run out of water while she was around, even if it was salty.
‘Hadn’t we better go after them?’ Fi asked nervously, as soon as they were gone.
‘Don’t get your knickers in a knot,’ I said. ‘They won’t get far.’
‘Don’t you believe it,’ Homer said, then, quoting some bit of trivia he’d picked up somewhere, he added, ‘They tracked a five year old for forty kilometres, a century or two ago, when she was lost in the bush. And she was dead when they found her.’
‘I’m going to bring them back,’ Fi said immediately.
I gave Homer a look and grabbed Fi’s arm. ‘Fi,’ I said, ‘I can’t believe you haven’t learned by now when Homer’s taking the piss. Just let them get down the spur a bit. I know it seems cruel, but they’ve got to learn.’
‘I don’t know why we’re so desperate to help them,’ Kevin said. He had the sulks now, I suppose because the kids hadn’t flocked around him, doing whatever he said. For a few hours he’d thought he was King of the Kids. ‘Let them go, if that’s what they want. Stuff them.’
We waited fifteen minutes, with Fi getting more stressed all the time. When I got up to follow them she shot off like a dog told to ‘Fetch ’em up’. Sometimes I think Fi still doesn’t understand the bush. You shouldn’t come to grief as long as you don’t fall down a cliff or get bitten by a snake. Sure you can get lost, but keep going downhill and you’ll come to something eventually. If you find a fenceline you can follow that. It might take a few days but you won’t die of starvation in a few days. And you can always find water. I mean, I’m not talking the Simpson Desert here. Around these mountains there’s little pockets of water everywhere, even if some of it’s a bit stagnant, or if the cattle have roughed it up a bit.
According to my dad, most of the famous cases of lost children, the ones where they disappeared completely, never to be found again, happened because the kids got to the end of their tether and climbed into hollow trees or fallen logs for shelter. With no food or water they’d go into a bit of a coma, so they wouldn’t hear the searchers calling.
Anyway, I didn’t think that would happen with these kids. They’d be OK. So I didn’t go quite as fast as Fi. At first I thought none of the boys was coming, but just as I got into the tree-line I heard trotting feet behind me and Lee caught up.
‘Little buggers,’ he said. ‘You’d think they’d be grateful.’
I didn’t answer. I had to talk to him when we were working together to save the kids’ lives. But I didn’t have to talk to him now.
He flushed and frowned, like a knitter who’d dropped a stitch. I knew he wouldn’t try again. He had too much pride for that. And I had pride too. I still couldn’t forgive him for going off with the dark-haired girl.
We concentrated on getting down the spur. It was a nuisance, doing this. We’d have to slog our way back up sooner or later, and it would be quite a slog. I hated throwing away height that I’d worked hard to gain.
The spur was very rocky and soon got thinner. There were three sharp drops, none of them dangerous, but none of them easy. For the third one I had to turn around and go down facing the cliff, so it was as hard as that. I must admit I was surprised that the kids had got this far, and Homer’s words were starting to haunt me. But soon enough I heard Natalie’s thin irritating crying, and a moment after, Jack’s voice raised in anger as he argued with someone.
By then Lee and I had caught up with Fi, so we were together when we came upon the five of them. Although they had been annoying me all day, I have to admit, they were a gritty little bunch. They got a lot further than I would have thought. And even when we appeared they didn’t chuck it in. Gavin was saying, ‘In two minutes we’re going,’ then he realised we were there. They all just stood there – or sat, in the case of Natalie and Casey – looking at us suspiciously. None of them rushed over. They seemed to see us as just another complication in a complicated day. They were so wary. Like a mob of sheep who’ve been roughly handled and now any time they see a human they’re off.
I thought Gavin might have been brainwashing them, making them suspicious of our motives.
I talked to them quietly, like they were a mob of sheep. When you’re working stock you assume they don’t understand English, so the way you say things is more important than what you say. With these kids I tried to do a bit of murmuring, mainly about food. I was more and more convinced that food was the secret. The way to their hearts was through their stomachs. That mightn’t make much scientific sense, but I think it was emotionally true. When I looked at Jack’s wolfish little face I felt a strong desire to put some tucker in front of him. So before I knew what I was saying I found myself making a deal with them. ‘Look, if you guys promise to stay here tonight I’ll go down into Hell and bring you back some food. Something we’ll cook up, into a hot meal.’ At the same time I was thinking, ‘Oh no! What am I saying!’
‘We can’t stay here,’ Natalie whined. ‘Where are we going to sleep?’
They were very obviously city kids.
‘It’ll be an adventure,’ Fi said in her most seductive voice;
‘And there are no soldiers out here,’ Lee added.
‘We’ll look after you. You’ll be safe,’ Fi said.
I didn’t think we would have much trouble with the younger ones, but Gavin stood glowering at me like I was about to put his teddy bear through a mincer.
‘Look,’ said Fi, ‘well make a cubby for you to sleep in.’ She started busily picking up some big sticks. Lee got into the spirit of it and collected a heap of bark. I was sick of indulging the kids just so we could save their lives, but after a minute I joined in. It seemed easier to make two small cubbies than one big one, so I ran a long stick from the fork of one tree to another, then laid some sticks against it. None of the bloody kids helped one little bit.
It took about fifteen minutes to make the framework, then another fifteen to cover it with bark and dried grass. The kids did get quite interested towards the end, when they saw what the finished houses would look like. The girls drew a little nearer, and Jack actually came and stood close by, peering through the door.
Then Fi and I headed back up the spur, leaving Lee to do the babysitting. I was a bit surprised that Fi wanted to come with me on such a tough assignment, and I think Lee was too, but as so
on as we were out of their sight she told me her reasons. I don’t think I’ve ever had a bigger shock in my life.
Chapter Four
Fi was furious. Before the war Fi wouldn’t have known what anger was. She might have got mildly irritated occasionally, like when the cleaning lady forgot to change the pot-pourri in her bedroom, or a leaf fell on the tennis court, but anger was not part of her life.
Well, we’d all changed in this war. I knew Fi had, and I soon found out some of the ways I had.
It was a funny conversation because we had it while we puffed and panted up the spur. The climb was a grind. It would have been hard at any time, but we were terribly tired and hungry; no energy left. But in between the puffing and panting Fi told me a few facts of life.
‘Ellie,’ she began. ‘There are some things friends are meant to tell you, right?’
I didn’t even answer. I knew I was in trouble. There are some things I didn’t want to hear, even from a friend.
Fi gave me a quick look, a troubled look, but she’d obviously made up her mind to say what she wanted, and unless I jumped off the side of the spur, I’d have to hear it.
‘Ellie, I know you do lots of great things, and even in the last twenty-four hours ...’ She paused to get over a rock, but unfortunately that gave her enough time to rethink, and once she was over the other side she started again.
‘No, I’m not going to tell you how wonderful you are. I always do that and it gets me distracted from what I really want to say.
‘Ellie, you’ve been terrible lately. That’s the truth, and if I don’t tell you no-one else will. Don’t you understand what’s happening to you? You’ve changed so much. This war’s making you so hard and horrible, there are times I hardly recognise you. You just seem to be losing all your kindness and understanding and niceness. The way you’ve been talking to these kids, that’s a perfect example. You haven’t said one nice thing to them. You’re acting like they’ve come all the way here just to annoy you. I know they’re not exactly easy, and I know they took all your stuff back in Stratton, but honestly, you can’t blame them. They’re only kids. The war’s not their fault. They didn’t start it. They can’t help what happened.’
She took another deep breath as she clambered over a big fallen gum tree. Although it was flat on the ground it was still growing. It must have had enough roots to keep pumping the water up to the branches. It looked weird though: a horizontal tree.
‘And another thing Ellie.’
I knew what was coming and I definitely didn’t want to hear this. I had my lips pressed hard together and I was gazing into the distance at the blue ridge on the far end of Tailor’s Stitch. I wished I could tell her to stop, but I didn’t trust myself to speak. You can’t keep out the truth, and that’s the truth.
The words fell from her lips.
‘You’re not being fair to Lee.’
I still didn’t say anything. I was pulling out a grass seed that had wriggled through my sock and was now drilling its way into my leg. I got it out and straightened up and turned to face the mountain.
‘He went off with another girl!’
The words burst out of me. Without Lee and me discussing it, we’d somehow come to an understanding that neither of us would tell the others what had happened. It was our secret.
‘So what?’
I was astonished that she didn’t seem surprised.
‘You mean you already knew?’
She shrugged. ‘We worked it out.’
‘Who’s we?’
‘Homer and me.’
I took a big gulp. I didn’t know the two of them had been having intimate little discussions behind my back.
‘Anyway,’ she went on, before I could say anything, ‘Lee didn’t have any obligation to you. You hadn’t been with him for ages. He shouldn’t have gone off with one of the enemy, that’s true, and I’m sure it didn’t take him long to work that out, but he didn’t owe you anything. So why are you punishing him?’
‘He let us all down,’ I said. ‘He betrayed all of us.’
‘That’s exactly what I mean. He made a mistake. A big mistake. He’s been kicking himself ever since. He doesn’t need you to put the boot in as well. Ellie, there was a time when you would have been the first to understand how something like that could happen, and you’d have gone out of your way to make him feel better. But now you’re so hard that you think no-one’s allowed a single mistake, and if they make one, you punish them for ... well, I don’t know how long, because you haven’t stopped punishing Lee from the moment it happened. And Kevin, just because he’s having trouble coping with all this ...’
‘But Kevin drives everyone crazy. You included.’
‘He drives you a lot crazier than he drives anyone else.’
I was red in the face, scarlet, and it wasn’t from the exertion of climbing. But Fi went on relentlessly.
‘It’s not as though you’ve never made a mistake. Like, leaving that door open in Tozer’s, and not ...’
‘All right, all right, I know every mistake I’ve made since this war started. You don’t have to remind me.’
I was scared she was going to mention my screaming at the soldier, in Wirrawee, the terrible mistake that might have cost the New Zealand soldiers their lives. Instead she brought out a name I was trying to forget.
‘Well, what you did with Adam in New Zealand was just the same as what Lee did with the girl.’
‘It wasn’t the same,’ I said hotly.
‘If you leave out the stuff about her being the enemy, which affects all of us the same way, then what’s left is exactly the same as you going off with Adam.’
‘But ...’
I couldn’t think of anything to say. I wanted to tell her how I’d had too much to drink and how Adam had more or less forced me into it and how I had no spirit or energy to resist him after all the stuff that had happened to us. But I knew it’d sound too lame.
‘Anyway,’ Fi said again, ‘in a way it doesn’t matter what Lee did. The whole point is, how long are you going to hold it against him? We’ve only got each other, you know that, and if we go on clinging to grudges, inside a week none of us will be talking to anyone else.
‘But even that’s not the main thing for me Ellie. The main thing is, I want the old Ellie back. The Ellie who always helped people in trouble, who was there for her friends. If the war’s killed that Ellie, then there’s no hope for any of us.’
I still hadn’t looked at her. I climbed the last rocks, my face burning, and walked towards where we’d left Homer and Kevin. All I could think of was a conversation with Fi a millennium ago in Hell, where she’d told me I was going fine, and the only reason I had arguments was my strong personality. Something like that. Seemed like she’d changed her mind a bit since then. Or else I’d changed.
I couldn’t speak as Fi explained our deal with the kids. Homer and Kevin weren’t too excited to hear that someone had to go down into Hell for food.
‘Oh for God’s sake,’ Kevin said disgustedly. ‘Why do we have to go to all that trouble?’
‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘I’ll do it. No-one else has to come.’
I sort of took it for granted that someone would volunteer to go with me, but no-one did. I think that was one of my lowest points in the war. I felt terribly unpopular. None of them even wanted to walk with me, to have anything to do with me. I took myself off towards Wombegonoo, feeling that things had never been worse. I’d gone right to the turn-off when I heard the rattle of gravel behind me, and looked around.
‘You could have waited,’ Fi said.
‘I didn’t think you were coming.’
‘I went to the toilet and when I came back you’d gone.’
I realised she hadn’t been behind me when I thought she was, back at our rest-place.
So I was a bit more cheerful, that Fi didn’t mind being with me, but I was still so upset at what she’d said that my stomach felt like a wrestling pit for s
nakes.
We did a quick slide over the other side, in case anyone in the distance happened to be looking our way, and dived down into the big tree that hid the start of the track. At least it was downhill all the way now. I took the lead, letting my legs do the work while my head and my heart tried to deal with the big mess of feelings stirred up by Fi. I was so unhappy and angry about it, but at the same time I had a horrible idea that she wasn’t exactly wrong.
‘But,’ I said angrily to myself, ‘I’ve been trying so hard; the way I was nice to everyone back at Stratton. I made a big effort to talk to people more; I even put flowers in the house. She hasn’t given me credit for that. And I do heaps of work, more than anyone else. I went and got mushrooms and vegetables and fruit all the time. No-one ever notices that stuff. No-one even thanked me for getting them out of Stratton last night. I saved their lives.’
On the other hand ... well, on the other hand, maybe I was a bit critical of others, and a bit tough on the kids. And because I felt that way, inside, it probably was hard for me to conceal it. Like, it might have seeped out in ways I didn’t even notice. The tone of my voice, the way I’d listen to people differently. But I’d always been critical of others. Maybe Fi hadn’t noticed it before the war. We’d been really good friends, but in those days there were so many people around. We never knew each other then the way we did now.
I was avoiding some of the things Fi said though. Was I worse these days? Was I hard? Oh yes. Yes. We all were. How couldn’t we be? I’d done stuff I could never have contemplated. I felt often, and very strongly, that my life was ruined. Yet other times I surprised myself by laughing, feeling love, admiring a cobweb, skipping stones across water, enjoying the sight of a new lamb on its wobbly legs.
In depressing times all I had was a flimsy belief that the things we did would give other people a better life, somewhere down the track. In other words, we were doing the dirty work for them.
But the more I thought about it, as I clambered over another slippery rock, the more I was forced to admit that the others, Fi and Homer anyway, had kept something that I hadn’t. I’d become grimmer, more humourless. They’d kept some sweetness. The other day Homer had spent half-an-hour putting Kevin’s hair in braids. My mind flashed back to the word that floated through it a moment earlier. Humour, humourless. That was one thing I’d definitely lost, my sense of humour. I couldn’t remember the last time I cracked a joke. A proper joke, I meant. Not a dry clever joke, but a silly funny one that had everyone giggling helplessly.
