by Justin D'Ath
ABOUT THE BOOK
A fast-paced and poignant novel of survival by Justin D’ath that draws on his own experience of escaping the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires.
Zeelie wonders if they’re in danger.
When temperatures soar to 47 degrees one hot summer day, 12-year-old Zeelie hopes the nearby bushfires everyone’s talking about aren’t heading towards her family’s new home. What will they do if the wind changes direction? What about their belongings and their beloved pets? And why hasn’t her mum and brother returned from Melbourne?
Nothing can prepare Zeelie for what’s to come.
CONTENTS
COVER
ABOUT THE BOOK
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
MAP
PART ONE: STAY AND DEFEND
1. SMOKE
2. SCARED
3. LIFE-AND-DEATH THINGS
4. FIREFIGHTER!
5. FINGERS CROSSED
6. RUN RUN!
7. THE LEAST OKAY THING
8. GROWN UP
PART TWO: REFUGEES
9. YAY FOR YEA
10. NOTHING IS GOING TO BE ALL RIGHT
11. BUSHFIRE THOUGHTS
12. BUSHFIRE PARTY
13. A PRAYER
14. UNPRECEDENTED LOSS OF LIVES
15. BAD NEWS
16. THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WORD
PART THREE: KORU
17. IMPORTANT THINGS
18. NO PRIVACY
19. A KIND THING
20. A NEW LIFE
21. THANKFUL
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A NOTE FROM JUSTIN
ALSO BY JUSTIN D’ATH
IMPRINT
READ MORE AT PENGUIN BOOKS AUSTRALIA
For Kiana and Romsey
1
SMOKE
Zeelie’s parents are arguing. She can’t hear her mother’s side of the conversation, but from the stubborn look on her father’s face as he holds the phone to his ear, Zeelie knows who’s going to win.
‘That’s not what we decided, Jasmine,’ he says, using her mother’s full name instead of the usual Jas. ‘Remember our bushfire plan? Stay and defend.’
He falls silent while Zeelie’s mother says her bit on the other end of the line, probably something like: ‘That’s your fire plan, Dan – I’ve always said we should leave.’
Zeelie’s father runs a hand through his already messed-up hair. He’s sweating, and no wonder – it’s like an oven outside and he’s just come indoors. On the radio they said it was 47 degrees in Melbourne, which is just over the hills. His eyes meet Zeelie’s. ‘She’s fine. Yes, standing right here.’ He holds out the phone. ‘Mum wants to talk to you.’
The phone is smeared with her father’s sweat. Yuck. Zeelie wipes it on her shorts, then pushes a loose strand of hair back behind her ear. ‘Hi, Mum. How’s Lachy?’
‘We aren’t sure yet,’ says her mother. ‘The doctor thinks it might only be a sprained wrist. They’re taking some X-rays now.’
‘When are you coming home?’
‘It depends on what they find in the X-rays. But I don’t imagine it’ll be more than another hour or so.’
‘It wasn’t Rimu’s fault that Lachy fell off,’ Zeelie says, defending her horse. ‘I told him to just ride round the flat circuit, but of course he had to try one of the jumps …’
‘Listen, sweetie,’ her mother interrupts. ‘I was talking to Dad about the fire plan. Are you happy to stay at the house if there’s a bushfire?’
‘I guess.’
Only the other day Zeelie’s parents were talking about whether to stay or go if there was a bushfire, but Zeelie was busy labelling all her new Year 7 exercise books, binders and folders at the time, and hadn’t paid much attention. Now she goes to the little window next to the front door and kinks one edge of the closed blind. There’s nothing but empty blue sky above the long, narrow valley where the houses of Flowerdale lie scattered among the gum trees. ‘They said on the radio there’s a fire near Kilmore,’ she says.
‘You can see the smoke from outside the hospital here in Melbourne,’ her mother tells Zeelie. ‘It looks big. Those poor people.’
Those poor animals, thinks Zeelie. ‘We can’t see any smoke. Dad says it’s not coming in this direction.’
Her mother is silent for a few moments. Then she says, ‘Unless the wind changes.’
Zeelie touches the window. The glass feels hot. She’s aware of her father standing in the newly carpeted family room behind her. He’s left his boots on. Mum would hit the roof, she thinks. ‘Tell Lachy, if he gets a cast, I want to be the first to write on it.’
‘I will, sweetie,’ says her mother. ‘Can you put Dad back on?’
Leaving them to it, Zeelie pads through to the recently renovated kitchen. The tiles feel lovely and cool beneath her bare feet. There’s a noise behind her, the soft click click click of dog claws on slate. She turns to see who it is. Fly. Yay! Fifteen weeks old, Fly looks less like a puppy every day. But he’s still adorable. Zeelie stoops and lifts him half off the floor, kissing him on the cute white blaze that runs down the exact middle of his becoming-quite-long whippet face.
‘Want to go outside, Fly-baby?’ Zeelie asks. She certainly does. Even though it’s probably a lot more comfortable in the house, with all the curtains closed and the air conditioner going full blast, it’s beginning to feel like a prison.
Zeelie opens the fridge and gets out the almost-empty water jug. Pouring what remains into two glasses, she drinks one and takes the other through to her father in the family room. He nods his thanks and gives her a wink, the phone still clamped to his ear.
‘I will, Jas,’ he says, taking a sip from his dew-beaded glass.
Jas. Zeelie is glad they’re no longer fighting. She wiggles her fingers to regain his attention. ‘Me and Fly are going down to the creek.’
He nods again, says softly, ‘Wear a hat, Zeels. Don’t go further than Platypus Pool.’
The other two dogs are still on their mats in the laundry. Fat old Atticus, the golden retriever from next door, doesn’t move when Zeelie and Fly come in, but her family’s other whippet, two-year-old Holly, gets up and stretches. Zeelie glances over her shoulder – now that her father can’t see her, it’s safe to pick up the puppy. Safe but not exactly easy. Fly’s gangling legs poke in all directions, and one of his needle-sharp claws scratches Zeelie through her T-shirt. How does Lachy hold him? She manages to open the outside door without getting any more scratches, but the wave of heat that comes blasting in from outside nearly pushes Zeelie backwards. It’s too much for Holly, who changes her mind about going for a walk, turns around and flops back down on her bed.
‘Just us, Fly-baby,’ Zeelie says to the puppy, as she sets him down on the lawn.
She can’t stop herself from smiling. Fly is Lachy’s; he got him for Christmas. But her seven-year-old brother is the meanest pet-owner ever, and such a goody-goody when it comes to rules. He won’t let anyone do anything with his precious puppy. He’s the one who feeds Fly; he’s the one who takes him for walks and gives him treats; and nobody but Lachy is allowed to pick him up because he reckons there’s a special way to do it that the lady at puppy school showed him. Which was why Zeelie finally let Lachy ride her horse, Rimu, this morning – to show her selfish little brother that their animals are part of the family, and it’s okay to share. So there’s a kind of justice in the way things have turned out.
Then she feels guilty for thinking that.
But Lachy will love it if they put his arm in plaster.
King Parrot Creek runs along the back of their property. It passes 50 metres from the house. In winter, when there’s been a lot of rain up in the catchment, Zeelie can hear the swollen current if she wakes in th
e night – a muffled roar like the ocean that soon sends her back to sleep. She used to wonder why it’s called a creek and not a river. Her father said whoever named it must have come here in summer.
Today is early February and totally summer. Zeelie hears only the faintest gurgle of water ahead of her as she closes the little pipe-and-wire gate in their back fence. She crunches down through the fallen bark, scratchy bracken and massive white tree trunks towards Platypus Pool. Fly follows close on her heels. He has to scramble over some of the larger roots. But it’s too difficult – and too hot – to carry him, even here in the shade. Huge gum trees, some as tall as 30 metres, tower over the creek from both sides. Mostly they are on the other side, the catchment side, where it’s nothing but trees, trees and more trees, almost all the way to Kilmore, 40 kilometres to the west.
Those poor people, Zeelie hears her mother say. She hopes the smoke was from trees, not houses.
And she worries about koalas.
The water feels heavenly. Platypus Pool is never deep enough for swimming – at least not in summer when you want to swim – but today, just sitting in the cool, clear shallows has to be one of the best feelings in the world. Zeelie has left her hat and sneakers on top of the miniature pump house her father built when they first moved here two years ago, but she’s still wearing her shorts and T-shirt – wet clothes won’t matter on a day like this.
Oops! There’s something under her T-shirt that she almost forgot – her koru. Water won’t harm the little spiral-shaped greenstone pendant she wears around her neck, but its string is made from woven New Zealand flax that should be kept dry. Lifting it off over her head, Zeelie places the koru on a small boulder next to her. Then, very slowly, she lies back on the pool’s gravelly bottom, takes a deep breath, and lets the water’s wobbly silver surface close over her face.
Zeelie remains like this for several seconds, eyes open, looking up at the blue tatters of sky that appear and disappear as the treetops bend and toss in the wind high overhead. But then she gets water up her nose and has to sit up quickly. Fly stands on the stony shore about four metres away, watching anxiously as Zeelie coughs and blinks her eyes clear inside a dark tangle of dripping hair. She laughs and tries to splash the puppy, but it’s too far.
‘You should come in too, Fly-baby,’ she says. ‘Aren’t you hot?’
Zeelie was disappointed when Fly wouldn’t follow her into the pool. Holly is the same whenever Zeelie brings her here; she won’t even get her paws wet. It must be a whippet thing. Golden retrievers are the exact opposite – if Atticus was here, he would have come ploughing right in like a big hairy walrus. Zeelie would probably have trouble getting him out. So it was good that he stayed home. Not that Zeelie’s house actually is home for Atticus. She thinks about his owners, Mr and Mrs Bialetti from the cherry orchard next door, and wonders where they are today. They have gone to Europe for a six-week holiday, which is why Zeelie’s family are looking after their dog. It’s winter right now in Europe, possibly even snowing – hard to imagine when you’re sitting in a creek on the other side of the world and the air temperature is 47 degrees in the shade. Zeelie laughs and lies back in the creek again, this time holding her nose. And notices, when she looks up through the water’s rippling surface, that there are no longer any flashes of blue in the treetops.
There’s a sudden noise, partly muffled by the water in her ears, but loud enough – out-of-place enough – to startle her. It’s an engine and it sounds close! Zeelie sits up quickly, knocking her elbow on a sharp rock. What is she expecting to see? A boat? A motorbike? But it’s just her father’s pump in its little shed up on the creek bank. Phew! she thinks, examining her stinging elbow, which looks like it’s been rubbed with a cheese grater but is not bleeding yet. The pump drones on. Her dad must be outside again, using one of the hoses.
There is no mains water here. All the houses in Flowerdale have rainwater tanks and electric pumps to supply their inside taps and showers. Most people have creek pumps, too. But the creek water is not safe to drink; they only use it for their gardens and lawns. And for washing out their horse trailers if they belong to the pony club.
Also to defend their properties from bushfires, Zeelie supposes, if they have planned to stay and defend like her family has.
Like her father has, she corrects herself.
On her way to the creek, Zeelie noticed that he has unrolled all the hoses and attached them to the outside taps. He has filled about ten metal buckets with water, too, and he’s lined them up along the side of the path leading to the woodshed. So it looks like her father is getting ready for a bushfire, even though he said it was going in the other direction.
Unless the wind changes, Zeelie hears her mother say. And shivers.
Up on the creek bank above her, the pump is still humming busily in its little shed. It’s not a bad sound really, but it doesn’t belong in a peaceful place like Platypus Pool. Zeelie has never seen a wild platypus, but she’d love to. Mrs Bialetti, who has lived in Flowerdale just about forever, says she used to see them all along the creek. Not recently, though. Everyone’s noisy pumps have probably scared them away. Fly is sniffing at the pipe that runs down from the pump house into the deepest part of the pool, just downstream from where Zeelie is sitting. She frowns as she studies the pipe. Something seems different. Wasn’t that pipe black? Now it’s silver. Someone – her father, obviously – has wrapped a thick layer of wrinkly, silver tape round and round it, all the way from the pump house to the waterline. The silver stops there – beneath the water it’s just plain black plastic pipe, how all of it used to look.
What are you up to, Dad? she wonders.
Something else is different, too: everything has gone dark. Zeelie cranes her neck, looks up. The bits of blue sky have gone. All she can see through the high, wind-tossed treetops are clouds. One big cloud, actually. And that’s a weird colour for a cloud.
It’s smoke.
Scrambling to her feet, Zeelie wades quickly ashore.
2
SCARED
Zeelie’s father has propped a tall wooden ladder against the side of the house. He’s up there with a trowel and a bucket. A wheelbarrow filled with sticks, leaves and mulched up pine needles is parked at the base of the ladder. Her father’s big old transistor radio sits on the ground near Zeelie’s feet. It’s turned up very loud; a man’s voice is talking.
Zeelie has to raise her own voice – not just because of the radio, but to make herself heard above the eerie howl of the wind in the tops of the huge, swaying pine trees growing along the edge of the Bialettis’ cherry orchard next door.
‘What are you doing?’ she asks.
‘Cleaning the gutters,’ says her father. His face is sweaty and dark patches show under the arms of his blue ‘Pump Man’ work shirt. ‘How was the creek?’
‘Nice.’ Zeelie points at the sky. ‘Is that smoke?’
Her father doesn’t even bother looking up. He says, ‘It’s very high. The fire’s miles away.’
‘But it’s coming this way, right?’
‘It might be.’
Zeelie becomes distracted by the radio. The announcer just said the name of a place she has never heard of and he tells everyone who lives there to start implementing their fire plans.
‘Where’s that?’ she asks.
‘No idea,’ says her father.
‘Are we going to be all right?’
‘Of course we are, sweetie.’
Zeelie is surprised. It’s her mother who calls her sweetie, not her father. Mostly he calls her Zeels, sometimes kiddo, but never sweetie. ‘What did Mum say on the phone?’ she asks.
‘She said Lachy’s having some X-rays done.’
‘I mean about our fire plan?’
Her father looks down at her. His voice changes. ‘We don’t have to stay, if you don’t want to.’
Zeelie shrugs. She trusts her dad. ‘I just wish Mum was here, too.’
‘I know, Zeels. I’m sure she’ll
be back soon. Here, come up the ladder a bit.’ Her father pulls the house phone from the back pocket of his work shorts. ‘Take this inside, would you? In case she rings.’
‘Can I go and check on Rimu first?’
‘Of course.’ He slides the phone back into his pocket. ‘Make sure he’s got plenty of water.’
Zeelie nods and turns to go, nearly treading on Fly. ‘Oops, sorry,’ she says, softly so her father doesn’t hear. She’s in high school now, and supposedly too mature to talk to animals.
Slipping two fingers through the puppy’s collar, she leads him around to the laundry door and pushes him firmly inside. Ooooh, it feels so deliciously cool in there compared to outside! Has there ever been a day this hot? Five minutes ago, Zeelie’s clothes were under water, now she’s almost dry!
Zeelie runs flat out all the way to Rimu’s paddock, nearly 200 metres. She’s hot and breathless when she gets there, and her vision has gone swimmy around the edges. It was stupid to run on a day like this – Zeelie knew that when she started – but she wants to get back to the house super quickly, in case the phone rings. She wants to talk to her mother. She needs her mother! All at once, Zeelie feels like a five-year-old, not someone who’s just started high school and is turning 13 next week.
She realises she’s scared.
But Rimu seems calm. The tall chestnut stallion comes to greet her, nuzzling her with his big, lovely head. Zeelie wraps her arms around his neck and presses her cheek, her ear and her still damp hair against the reassuring solidness of him. He smells of horse sweat, dust and chaff.