The Audrey of the Outback Collection (27 page)

Every second counted.

Twenty-nine

Audrey ran. Usually Price was faster because his legs were longer. But this time he matched his pace to hers.

‘What are we going to do when we find the girl?’ asked Price, his words short and clipped from lack of air.

‘Janet,’ said Audrey. ‘Her name’s
Janet
. And I’ll take her home to our house.’

‘Audrey, she isn’t a kitten you can drag around with you.’

She swerved around a thick cluster of trees, dodged a tall ant hill and kept running.

Her feet hit the ground as she belted along and she felt it all the way up to her knees. Both of her thick plaits bounced against her back.

‘Dad’ll be back soon. Then we can work out what to do.’ She slowed again and pointed to a slab of rock. ‘This way. We won’t leave footprints if we run on hard rock.’

Price looked at her. He seemed surprised that she’d had such a clever idea.

There wasn’t time to stop and try to brush away their footsteps. Every second counted.

‘Wish we had the billycart,’ she called to her brother. ‘We could tow Janet home.’

The billycart had been left out in the bush somewhere and there had been no time to search for it. Douglas often dragged it behind him into the bushes, but returned without it. It was like hide-and-seek, but without the seek.

‘It’d be slow going in the sand,’ said Price. ‘I’ll piggyback her if she can’t walk.’

That would work. Janet was only small and she wouldn’t weigh much.

‘Let’s go that way.’ Audrey pointed to their left.

Price and Audrey leapt from one sheet of flat rock to another, until the rock petered out.

Then they were back on red sandy soil. The sound of their running feet changed in the soft sand.

Audrey stumbled. Her legs were tired.

Price grabbed her arm, but she stayed on her feet. Her cubbyhouse had never seemed so far away. She wondered if people could run so far and so fast that they melted into a heap on the ground.

Finally she saw her cubby through the trees. ‘There it is,’ she panted.

Price didn’t answer. He was puffing hard.

Audrey forgot about her sore feet and the painful heat in her chest. All she could think about was reaching the cubby and getting Janet back to the house.

Price shot ahead. He crashed right through a large saltbush instead of running around it.

He stopped abruptly, his chest heaving.

Audrey was only seconds behind him. She caught up, ignoring the stitch in her left side.

She looked down at the ground. There were no footprints. No sign that anyone had been here.

‘Wait here,’ Audrey whispered to Price. ‘She’ll be scared of you.’

Audrey crept forward and whistled.

There was no answer.

‘Janet,’ she hissed.

The only sound she heard was the wind in the bushes. Then the crows:
caa
,
caa
,
caa.

Audrey pulled the brush door aside.

Thirty

Price poked his head inside the cubbyhouse. ‘Are you all right, Audrey?’

Audrey looked up at him. The sun was bright behind him and his body looked dark and tall, like a shadow.

‘She’s not here.’

Audrey’s red cardigan had been dropped on the ground inside the cubby. The notebook, with pencils scattered around it, was next to the cardigan.

Price squatted on his heels in the open doorway. ‘They must’ve got her.’ His voice was hushed, as though he was nervous about waking someone from sleep.

Audrey’s heart was thumping around in her chest and she couldn’t think properly. She’d tried to protect Janet. But the men had caught her anyway. Audrey couldn’t speak straight away. If she did, she’d start crying.

Janet would be scared, and upset that she couldn’t reach her mum and her aunties. She might even be angry. But it wouldn’t make any difference how she felt. Those men with the buttons would still take her down to Quorn to carry heavy buckets and iron clothes.

‘She …’ Audrey swallowed. ‘Janet’s only little. A strong wind would blow her over. What’s her mum going to do when she doesn’t come home?’

Price reached one hand out towards Audrey, then let it drop. ‘I’m sorry, sis.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Why’d they leave this stuff behind?’

‘I don’t …’ Audrey paused, tapping her chin with one finger. Then she said, ‘There’s no prints.’

‘What?’

‘There’s no footprints, no marks on the ground. If those men dragged Janet out to the car, there’d be marks in the sand. They wouldn’t come back to wipe out their footprints.’

‘Has she walked out by herself?’ asked Price. ‘I thought you said she couldn’t walk properly.’

‘She can’t. Her ankle looks like a paddy melon. It’s all puffy.’

Audrey picked up the notebook and opened it.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Price. ‘Did she leave you a note?’

Audrey studied the open pages of the notebook before answering, ‘Sort of.’

She turned the book around to show Price what Janet had drawn on the page. The pictures looked as though they’d been done in a hurry, and weren’t nearly as neat as Janet’s usual drawings.

‘Why are you showing me pictures?’

‘They’re not just
pictures
. They’re
stories
.’

She beckoned her brother inside the cubby.

Price had to bend over to fit under the roof.

‘Look!’ said Audrey. ‘This circle is the cubby. That line means she’s left the cubby and she’s travelling somewhere. I don’t know where. I can’t read it good enough. See these shapes, the small one and the bigger one?’

Price nodded.

Audrey moved her finger across the page. ‘The small one’s Janet and the other, big one, is a grown-up. She’s gone
with
someone.’

‘But who? The policeman?’

Audrey shook her head. ‘See this shape, like a little bag? It’s where the native bees keep their honey.’

Price looked puzzled.

‘Bloke found the honeybag.’ Audrey closed her eyes and held the book to her chest.

‘What’s Bloke got to do with Janet?’

‘Janet is telling me that Bloke has taken her, without saying it’s her!’ said Audrey. ‘She’s smart, Janet.’

‘Are you sure Bloke’s got her?’

‘Too right. They were running away on their own. Now they’re running away
together
.’

‘Will Janet get home to her mum?’ asked Audrey.

Thirty-one

Audrey knelt on the ground beside the wooden crosses at the back of her house. She held red and brown wildflowers together while her mum tied a bow around each bunch.

Then her mum placed one bunch on Esther’s grave, and the other on Pearl’s.

‘Will Janet get home to her mum?’ asked Audrey.

‘I hope so. She sounds a determined little girl. And Bloke’s strong, she’ll be able to carry a little girl like that, no problems, even with her swag. Bloke’s been on the road for years and she knows the bush well. I’m sure she’ll do her best to take Janet back to her mother.’

‘Bloke was in a place that made her sad when she was little, just like Janet. Then she met a new mum and dad. Bloke’s got three brothers and she hasn’t seen them for a long time. I reckon Janet and Bloke are both girls looking for their families. ’Cept Bloke’s a lot older and she’s got no teeth.’

‘When did Bloke meet Janet?’

‘They didn’t tell me. But I think Bloke might have known about Janet before Janet knew about
her
. Bloke was sort of …
different
when we were playing knucklebones. It was like I had an itch on my back, but I didn’t know exactly where to scratch it. Bloke was trying to say something and I didn’t get it.’ Audrey lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘I reckon secrets make people different. Anyway, I thought she was talking about
her
family.’

Mum patted Audrey’s hand.

‘Will I ever see Janet again?’

‘One day, maybe.’

‘Dad said he’d tell me more about Pearl and Esther
one day
. But he hasn’t done it yet.’

Mum brushed twigs from the ground around the bunches of flowers. ‘He will, when he’s ready.’

‘
You
could tell me all about them instead.’

‘I think your father wants to do it. Be patient with him. He’s working up to it. He took two years to get the courage to ask my father if he could marry me.’

‘Was your dad a dogger, like Dad?’

‘No, he was a camel breeder.’

In a nearby tree top, a kookaburra laughed.

Audrey turned to look at the tethered camels. Stumpy stood with them. He wasn’t tied, but sometimes he liked to talk to other camels. Audrey heard Janet’s voice in her head,
That camel, he your family?

A shiver ran down Audrey’s spine.

Janet was the biggest secret Audrey had ever had. The secret was almost
too
big. Bloke also had a secret, about the orphanage and her lost brothers. Audrey wondered if
everybody
had secrets.

‘Mum … have you ever lied to me?’

‘If I say
no
, straight out, that could be a lie. But I try
not
to lie.’

‘Do you tell me
everything
?’ asked Audrey.

‘Not everything. Some thoughts in my mind are grown-up things.’

‘You knew I had a secret, didn’t you, Mum?’

‘I suspected.’

Audrey reached out and helped Mum brush twigs and pebbles from the girls’ graves. ‘When mums sus-pec-t, that means they
know
. You didn’t
ask
me about my secret.’

‘I was waiting for you to decide what to do,’ said Mum.

‘What if I decided wrong?’

‘If I made every choice for you, you wouldn’t learn to make your own. And I trusted you to make the right one in the end. The hardest choices are not between right and wrong, but between two rights …
ooh
.’ Mum put one hand on her swollen tummy.

‘Are you all right?’ Audrey leaned closer to her mum.

‘It’s the baby. He just decided to play football.’ Mum took Audrey’s hand and held it against her tummy.

Something small and firm pushed against Audrey’s hand. ‘I can feel it,’ she whispered. ‘But girls can play footie, too. It might be a girl.’

‘Audrey Barlow, you are quite right.’

‘There’s been a lot of secrets around here lately, but I know one thing that’s
not
a secret. This is the best family in the whole, right to the edge, across the big sea, including the Antarctic, world. Stumpy thinks so too. Fair dinkum.’

Interesting Words