47 Degrees

by Justin D'Ath

  ‘Zeelie,’ Cody corrects her, saying it slowly. ‘With a “z”.’

  His mother apologises and tries again – ‘Shhheelie’ – then she introduces everyone else. There are too many names to take in all at once, although one of the boys is another Lachy. Zeelie wonders if he’s Cody’s brother (it would be funny if she and Cody each had a brother called Lachlan), or does he belong to the other family?

  ‘Hi,’ she says, a general greeting, and nearly everyone says ‘Hi’ back.

  ‘Would you like something to eat or drink, kiddies?’ Mrs Holland asks. She waves her wineglass in the direction of the picnic-blanket towel, spilling some of her drink. ‘We’re having a bushfire party.’

  ‘We’re good, thanks,’ says Cody. He and Zeelie are keeping their distance, because all three dogs are pulling on their leads, their eyes focused on the ground-level food. ‘We’re taking Zeelie’s dogs for a walk.’

  ‘Can I come?’ asks one of the boys.

  ‘No, Lachy, I want you all to stay here,’ says the other mother (which answers Zeelie’s question about having brothers with the same name). ‘It’s nearly bedtime, anyway.’

  What is the time? Zeelie wonders. It has looked like evening for the past four or five hours, and she can’t check her phone because her father has it.

  ‘Have fun, kiddies!’ Mrs Holland calls after them, as Zeelie and Cody leave. ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!’

  ‘Sorry about that,’ Cody says when they are out of earshot. ‘Mum’s not usually like that. I think she’s a bit stressed out about my aunty and cousins.’

  ‘Has something happened to them?’

  ‘They live in Marysville.’ Cody bends to pat Atticus, but he doesn’t break his stride. ‘You know, with the phones out and everything, we haven’t heard from them for a bit.’

  Now would be a good chance for Zeelie to mention her mother and Lachy being missing too, but she doesn’t know if she can talk about it without bringing on the waterworks. Uh-oh! Just thinking about it is enough. She turns her face away and quickly wipes her eyes. Cody either doesn’t notice, or he pretends not to.

  He seems like a very nice boy.

  The sports oval behind the relief centre is crowded. People are everywhere. Some sit in groups, sharing drinks and food like Cody’s parents and their new friends back in the car park. Others have laid out pillows and blankets on the grass and look like they intend to sleep there. Zeelie sees the family they met on the road to Broadford, and recognises a little girl from Flowerdale Primary School. The girl’s mother – Mrs Browntree? – sees Zeelie and waves. Zeelie waves back, even though she and Gracie Browntree didn’t say a word to each other in the two years they attended the same school. But now everything is different. The bushfire has brought together all these people who otherwise would be strangers, and united them. The mood on the Yea sports oval tonight is not one of being newly homeless, it’s one of belonging.

  We are all in this together, is what Mrs Browntree’s wave says to Zeelie.

  But for all its sense of making her and Cody feel welcome, the oval is not a good place to have brought the dogs. There’s too much unattended food sitting on the ground where they could reach it if not for their leads. There are babies and toddlers, too, whose parents might not like it if a dog – or more likely a puppy – got too friendly.

  And there’s a lot of grass, which sends a message to Atticus. He squats in full view of everyone and does number twos.

  ‘Oh poop!’ mutters Zeelie, without intending to be funny.

  And it isn’t funny: now she has to clean it up.

  ‘Here, take his lead,’ says Cody.

  Leaving Zeelie to hold the dogs, he walks over to a couple and their two six- or seven-year-old daughters (they look like twins) playing Uno on the lid of an esky. Cody talks to the father, then to the mother. Half a minute later, he returns with a plastic grocery bag. Zeelie can tell, from the way he grits his teeth as he does it, that it’s Cody’s first time picking up after a dog. A man up in the grandstands gives an ironic cheer.

  ‘Thanks,’ Zeelie says quietly.

  Cody makes a careful knot at the top of the bag before taking back Atticus’s leash. Grinning, he says, ‘You owe me big time, Zeelie Royle.’

  And she laughs. It’s the first time she has laughed all day. And, just for a moment – another first for the day – Zeelie feels happy.

  But all that changes when they leave the oval through a small gate in the fence on the side opposite the grandstands. A Toyota four-wheel drive with a horse trailer attached is parked at the roadside. The trailer’s door hangs open and the ramp is down. Fifty metres away, a woman and a girl not much younger than Zeelie stand beside two horses with long halters. The horses are feeding from the tall grass that grows along the road’s edge. In the fading light, and through the drift of browny-blue smoke that hangs over everything, the nearer horse – the one held by the girl – looks exactly like Rimu.

  That does it for Zeelie – she loses control completely. It’s not only tears this time: great, chest-heaving sobs rack her body. It’s embarrassing, it’s humiliating, it’s awful! But what’s even more awful is thinking about her horse. Who Zeelie left behind. Who had to face the bushfire on his own.

  ‘What’s the matter, Zeelie?’ asks Cody. ‘What’s happened?’

  She doesn’t answer, she can’t even talk. Head down, she turns away from the two lucky horses and their lucky owners, and accidentally bumps her forehead against Cody’s ear. The dogs’ leads tangle around their legs as Cody puts his free arm around her and awkwardly pats Zeelie on the back. It’s the first time she has ever been held by a boy, but all Zeelie can think about is her mother, Lachy and Rimu.

  13

  A PRAYER

  It turns out there are no mattresses. According to someone parked over on the other side of Frank and Elise, who heard it from a friend of one of the Red Cross volunteers, the truck bringing a load of donated mattresses from Sleepyland in Seymour wasn’t able to get through. So things don’t turn out how Zeelie imagined: instead of sleeping on mattresses in a big crowded hall, like she’s seen on TV news reports about earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters, she and her father spend the night in the front seats of their van.

  Zeelie can’t sleep. It was too hot and stuffy with the windows closed, but when they opened them to let in some fresh air, the van filled with smoke. Her eyes feel scratchy and swollen, she can’t get comfortable. The van’s seat backs are nearly upright, there’s no lever to tip them back, and Fly keeps wriggling in her lap. Every time Zeelie puts him on the floor, he scrambles straight back up again. His claws scratch her in about a million places, he won’t keep still. The other two dogs are outside: Holly is tied to the van’s front bumper, Atticus is tied to the rear bumper. They had to be separated like that so their leashes wouldn’t tangle. Holly must be just below her father’s open window – Zeelie can hear her whimpering and moving about. Every so often she or Atticus growls at something – either at Frank and Elise’s border collie – Jessie – tied to their trailer, or at one of the many other dogs tethered nearby.

  There seem to be almost as many dogs as people in the crowded parking area outside the Yea sportsground tonight, and all of them are restless. So are their owners. Like Zeelie and her father, lots of other evacuees have chosen to sleep in their vehicles rather than on the hard floor in the relief centre or on the oval. But nobody is getting much sleep. All night Zeelie hears car doors opening and closing, she hears people talking in lowered voices, she hears footsteps crunching past. On one occasion, someone trips on Atticus’s lead and he barks. This starts about a dozen other dogs barking, too; then their owners are all growling at them to be quiet, which just adds to the noise.

  Zeelie’s father is awake, too. He’s not saying anything, but Zeelie can tell from the way he’s breathing that he isn’t asleep. He keeps checking the phone. He does it at least once every 30 minutes, cupping his hand around its little blue screen so th
e light won’t disturb Zeelie. But she notices every time. After the first few times, she begins waiting for it to happen, anticipating it, hoping that this time there’ll be a message. Whenever the screen lights up inside the cage of her father’s fingers, Zeelie peers sideways through slitted eyelids, trying to see if he’s reading something.

  She knows her father is worried about her mother and Lachy, too. He just pretends he isn’t, so Zeelie will feel reassured. But she isn’t reassured. She wishes he would be honest with her and they could talk about it like two adults. She isn’t an adult, not quite, but she’s old enough to know what’s going on. Pretending everything is okay doesn’t make it okay. What if her mother and Lachy did try to get back home yesterday afternoon and the Rodeo got surrounded by flames? It’s too horrible to think about, but Zeelie can’t stop herself. Just like she can’t stop thinking about Rimu. He might not be dead, she tells herself. If he had the good sense to go into his stable and stay there until the fire swept past, he might still be okay. His wet horse blanket would have protected him, wouldn’t it?

  She told Cody about Rimu when she finally stopped crying after seeing those other horses last night. Cody said Rimu probably would have gone into his stable.

  ‘Animals take refuge in their dens or in dark places when there are bushfires,’ he said. ‘It’s instinct.’

  Zeelie hoped he knew what he was talking about, and wasn’t just trying to make her feel better like her father keeps doing.

  After talking about Rimu, their conversation turned to what it would be like if their houses really have burned down. Cody said he wouldn’t mind it all that much, because Strath Creek was in the middle of nowhere and he’d been bugging his parents for ages to move somewhere bigger. Zeelie told him she felt much the same about living in Flowerdale, although she wasn’t sure where her family would end up if they left. Cody said his family would probably move back to Melbourne, where his parents come from originally, but Zeelie’s parents are from New Zealand.

  ‘I don’t want to go there,’ she said.

  ‘That would totally suck,’ agreed Cody. And his fingers lightly brushed the back of her hand as he said it.

  Was it an accident?

  Zeelie has never had a boyfriend, or even wanted one really, but Tahlia has had six. Tahlia’s boyfriends never last long though – a week or two, usually. One only lasted from recess until Tahlia changed seats away from him on the school bus going home. That was last year, when they were in Year 6. Primary school is too young to have boyfriends, Zeelie thinks. But now she’s in high school, it’s different. She wonders if it’s possible to have just one boyfriend, all the way from Year 7 until you’re an adult and then marry him?

  It’s weird – and it feels a bit wrong – to be thinking about things like this when her horse might be dead and her mother and brother are missing. Cody’s aunt and cousins are missing, too. They live in Marysville, which is one of those places totally surrounded by bush, and there have been rumours going around how the whole town might have been destroyed by the bushfire; but nobody is sure.

  Just like nobody knows yet what’s happened back at Flowerdale.

  No wonder Zeelie can’t sleep.

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘Hmm? I thought you were asleep.’

  ‘I’m not. Will we have to go to New Zealand?’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

  ‘If our house really has burned down.’ Zeelie strokes Fly in the dark. ‘I thought you and Mum might want to go back there.’

  ‘Of course not,’ says her father. ‘We live here now. Your mother and I have both got good jobs.’

  ‘But where will we live?’

  ‘I don’t know, Zuls. Stop being such a worrywart. Our house is probably okay.’

  Liar! she thinks. But part of her is grateful. No matter how grown up she feels, sometimes lies are better than the truth. She liked it when her father said how he and Zeelie’s mother still have jobs, as if things are going to go on as they always have.

  As if nothing has changed.

  ‘Can I keep going to the same school?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Her father sighs deeply, leans his head against the seat back and rolls it tiredly from side to side. ‘Honestly, Zuls, I don’t know what’s going to happen. Try to get some sleep.’

  How can she sleep? It’s impossible. Even though her father won’t admit it, everything has changed! She clicks her door open.

  ‘Where are you going?’ he asks.

  ‘Toilet.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘I’m not a baby,’ Zeelie says sharply. ‘I can go on my own.’

  But her father opens his door and gets out on his side. He’s worried that something might happen to her. It’s ridiculous. Almost every car around them has people in it – nice people like Frank and Elise, like Cody’s parents and that other family they made friends with, like Cody himself – they would all hear if she screamed.

  She feels like screaming now.

  The toilets are over by the sports stadium, which is about 50 metres from the van. Her father goes off in that direction, expecting Zeelie to follow him but she doesn’t. She makes a detour past Cody’s car. His parents have two cars: the BMW four-wheel drive and a blue Toyota Prius, parked about three rows over. Zeelie knows Cody is sleeping in the Prius – he told her after their walk – but it’s too dark to see inside. Maybe he’ll see her if she waves.

  ‘Zeelie!’ hisses her father, a dark shadow coming around the back of the BMW. ‘You’re going the wrong way.’

  ‘Am I?’ she whispers, hoping he didn’t see her raised hand. ‘Fly wanted to come this way.’

  She’s brought Fly on his lead – some exercise might make him sleepy – but the puppy keeps stopping to sniff things as she and her father make their way towards the toilets. He must have learned it from Atticus. It doesn’t matter, Zeelie is in no hurry. How long till it gets light? she wonders.

  A small-sounding dog yaps at them through the open window of a white car, and a man’s voice says, ‘Roxy, shush!’

  It’s weird, Zeelie thinks as she drags Fly away from Roxy’s owner’s car. Last night all of us were at home, asleep in our lovely soft beds, and now here we are trying to sleep in our hot, uncomfortable cars, surrounded by strangers in their cars, wondering if we still have homes.

  At least we survived, Zeelie tells herself, glancing up into the smoke-filled sky, where there’s an eerie, orange glow that might be from burning houses.

  But did everyone survive?

  Zeelie doesn’t really need to use the toilets, it was just an excuse to get out of the van. To be on her own really, but that didn’t work until now. Her father waits outside with Fly, while Zeelie goes into the women’s end of the little brick building behind the grandstand. At least she’ll have some privacy here. Or so she thought. One of the cubicles is occupied and – worse – whoever is in there is smoking a cigarette.

  As if there isn’t enough smoke in the world already, Zeelie thinks.

  There are only three cubicles and the air-polluter has chosen the middle one; Zeelie will have to be right next to her. For a moment she hesitates, pausing beneath the caged yellow ceiling light with its cloud of swirling moths and mosquitoes. She almost turns around and goes back outside. But her father is out there and she wants to be on her own for a bit. She goes into the cubicle on the end, shuts the door and sits on the lowered toilet lid.

  ‘Can’t sleep?’ asks a raspy voice. The woman in the next cubicle is so close it’s like there isn’t even a partition separating them. So much for being alone. Zeelie can see part of a dirty white sandal, and two toes with nails like lumpy seashells.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘You sound young.’

  ‘I’m thirteen,’ Zeelie says, which will be true in four days.

  ‘Sorry, pet, I shouldn’t be smoking in here.’

  ‘It’s okay.’

  ‘How are you holding up?’

  ‘I’m g
ood.’

  ‘That’s the spirit.’ There’s a brief pause as the woman puffs on her cigarette. ‘Have you lost your house?’

  ‘I don’t know. Probably.’

  ‘Same here. Who’d have thought, eh?’

  Zeelie doesn’t know what to say to this. She probably shouldn’t even be talking to this woman with her raspy, smoker’s voice and ugly toenails, who could be some kind of weirdo. But Zeelie’s father is just outside.

  ‘I’m actually quite worried about Mum and my little brother,’ Zeelie says suddenly, surprising herself. After that, the words tumble out of her in a rush, like horse chaff when you tip the bag too far. ‘They had to go down to Melbourne this morning and then the power went off and Mum didn’t take her phone and Dad and I haven’t heard from them and now nobody’s phone is working and what if they tried to go home and got caught in the fire?’

  ‘Oh, pet!’ says the woman in the embarrassing silence that follows Zeelie’s outpouring. ‘I’m sure they’ll be all right.’

  ‘But what if they aren’t?’

  ‘I’m sure they will be, pet. All the roads from Melbourne will have been closed as soon as the fire broke out. It’s one of the first things they do to prevent people from driving into the danger areas. The police would have turned your mother and your little brother back.’

  ‘The SES do it, too,’ Zeelie says, remembering what happened to her and her father.

  ‘Yes, they all work together,’ says the woman in the next cubicle. ‘We’re lucky to have all these wonderful, brave people keeping us safe.’

  Zeelie wipes her eyes with a square of toilet paper. She seems to be crying about every five minutes lately, it’s pathetic. ‘When will they fix the phones?’

  ‘It can’t be much longer,’ the woman says. ‘I’m sure you’ll be hearing from your mother first thing in the morning.’

  ‘I guess so.’ Zeelie feels better, even though she knows the raspy-voiced woman is doing exactly what her father has been doing ever since they left home yesterday afternoon – telling her what she wants to hear, not what she’s afraid of. But that doesn’t mean what they are saying isn’t true.