by Justin D'Ath
And it could get even sadder, but Zeelie will not will not will not allow herself to consider that.
‘How is your mother?’ she asks.
Cody shrugs. ‘A doctor came and gave her something. I don’t know how he found us. Everybody is being really kind.’
The football comes bouncing out onto the street behind them. Cody releases Zeelie’s hand, runs back and kicks it back over the fence.
‘Thanks,’ says the father, giving them a wave.
Cody and Zeelie don’t hold hands after that. Perhaps he has forgotten it even happened. He pulls the front of his T-shirt up and wipes his eyes with the damp bottom section. It’s such a little boy thing to do, thinks Zeelie.
It reminds her of Lachy.
‘Let’s go back,’ she says.
As they retrace their steps to the sportsground, Zeelie can’t help noticing all the trees. She and her family have visited Yea lots of times, but until now she has never noticed how many trees there are in the town. Almost every house has a tree of some sort looming over it.
It looks so dangerous.
Zeelie sees her father when she and Cody are still some distance away. He’s standing next to the van, talking to a dark-haired woman. The woman has her back turned. At first Zeelie thinks she’s one of the Red Cross volunteers, and that can only mean she has come looking for them. A chill runs through Zeelie. She remembers how Cody said the doctor came looking for his mother after she got her terrible news. Is the dark-haired woman a doctor? Part of Zeelie wants to turn around and go back the other way. But Cody is with her, and how would she explain it?
Anyway, it’s too late – her father has seen her. He says something to the woman, who swivels her head around.
And that is all it takes – the turn of a head – to change the world.
Zeelie’s vision has become blurred around the edges. It’s like looking into a long, bright-walled tunnel. At the other end of the tunnel, the dark-haired woman is coming towards Zeelie. Her arms are open, she’s smiling.
As Zeelie runs towards those open arms, she hears herself say the most beautiful word in the English language.
‘Mum!’
17
IMPORTANT THINGS
Lachy is there, too. He’s wearing a sling. From just above the right elbow to halfway along his hand, his arm is encased in white plaster. Nobody has written on it yet.
‘Yikes!’ he says, when Zeelie finally breaks away from their mother and gives him a hug, too.
‘Yikes yourself,’ she says, kissing the top of his head.
She’s wet-eyed again. It seems to be her default setting lately. Not that she cares. Her mother and Lachy are alive! That’s all that matters.
Ever since yesterday, when her father assured Zeelie that her mother was too sensible to drive into a bushfire, she has been worried he might be wrong. Now she feels guilty for having such thoughts. Mostly though, Zeelie is relieved.
‘Where have you been, Mum?’ she asks. ‘How did you find us?’
Her mother wipes her own eyes. (Zeelie isn’t the only crybaby in the family.) ‘Well, it’s hard to know where to start.’
‘We stayed in a motel,’ pipes up Lachy. He has just sat on the ground next to one of the van’s front wheels and pulled Fly into his lap. ‘In a place called … What was it called, Mum?’
‘Heathcote Junction.’
‘We had takeaway pizza and we ate it in bed. Or I did, anyway – Mum hardly had any. She left the TV on all night. It was all stuff about the bushfires. Mum said our house would be okay because Dad had a fire plan.’
In the brief silence that follows, Zeelie’s parents exchange a look that neither she nor her brother are meant to see – but both do.
Lachy asks, ‘Did our house burn down?’
‘We don’t know,’ says their father.
‘Probably,’ says Zeelie. Why should they pretend? ‘The Bialettis’ pine trees were on fire when we left. And their house was already gone.’
‘Gone where?’ asks Lachy.
Zeelie rolls her eyes. ‘Up in smoke.’
‘Wowsers!’
‘I tried to put it out,’ she adds. ‘I used one of their buckets and water from their fishpond.’
‘You what?’ gasps her father.
‘It was only a tiny fire in one of their gardens,’ she explains. ‘A flying spark must have started it.’
‘I thought I told you not to go over there.’
Zeelie knows he did, but that was after Atticus went home for the second time. The first time it happened, her father said she could go and get him. She reminds him of this and he frowns.
‘I didn’t know you’d be risking your life trying to put out fires.’
‘I wasn’t risking my life, Dad. It was only a teeny little fire. Anyway, you risked both our lives with your stupid fire plan.’
‘Zeelie, that’s enough!’ her mother warns.
Her father looks hurt. Zeelie knows she shouldn’t have called his fire plan stupid – even if it was.
‘Sorry, Dad.’
‘That’s okay,’ he says. And now his eyes fill with tears, which brings fresh tears to Zeelie’s eyes. Again.
‘At least all of us are safe now,’ her mother says in a voice that sounds falsely bright and cheerful. ‘That’s the important thing.’
But it’s not the only important thing, thinks Zeelie. What about Rimu, their house, Cody’s aunty and cousins?
Oh my gosh! she thinks suddenly. Where is Cody?
‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ she tells her family.
Zeelie finds Cody where his parents and their friends had their bushfire party yesterday. He’s leaning against the other family’s car. He smiles when he sees her – it’s a small, sad smile that makes Zeelie feel sad, too. Mr Holland and the other father are sitting in the folding chairs their wives sat in last night. The two wives aren’t there, neither are the three little boys. Mr Holland is talking quietly on a phone. Zeelie is surprised – she didn’t know the phones were working again.
Cody draws her to one side. ‘I’m glad your mum and your brother are okay.’
‘Thanks,’ she says. ‘Sorry for running off like that. I just got such a total shock when I saw them.’
He smiles. ‘It was a good shock, though. I knew you were worried.’
‘Do you want to come and meet them?’ asks Zeelie.
‘Maybe later,’ Cody says. ‘Dad’s talking to my grandmother. I’d better hang around in case she wants to talk to me, too.’ He does the face-wiping thing with his Tweety Bird T-shirt again. ‘It’s pretty rough on Nan – Pop died last year, and now Mum’s the only one she has left.’
Zeelie wonders if she should ask about Cody’s mother. She decides not to – she can see he’s having enough trouble keeping it together already. She tries to think of something to say that will make him feel better, but there are no words that will work.
‘See you later,’ she whispers, and touches him lightly on the arm as she turns to leave.
Over polystyrene cups of milky tea, kindly brought to them by Elise and Frank next door – or next car, Zeelie thinks – her mother fills them in on what happened to her and Lachy since their phone conversation yesterday.
The X-rays showed that Lachy’s arm was broken, after all. It was just a small fracture, but it took nearly two hours to have a cast put on because the doctor was called away three times to deal with cases that were more urgent. By the time Lachy and their mother were finally free to leave the hospital, the bushfires had spread all through the hills to the north of the city and the phones weren’t working.
‘Not even the landlines, when you tried to ring Flowerdale,’ Zeelie’s mother says, looking teary again.
With no way to get in touch with her husband and daughter, and fearing the worst, she and Lachy set off for home. But the Whittlesea Road was closed and nobody was allowed through. She tried to loop round through Broadford, but only got as far as Heathcote Junction, where even the Hume Freeway w
as blocked. It was getting late by then, and there was so much smoke blowing across the road that it became dangerous to drive, so she and Lachy went to a motel.
‘When I told the woman at reception what had happened, she wouldn’t let me pay,’ Zeelie’s mother tells her and her father. ‘She insisted we have the room for nothing. She even sent her husband next door to get us a pizza for tea.’
‘That’s sort of like here,’ Zeelie interrupts. ‘Everybody just gives us stuff. Except we didn’t have beds like you and Lachy; we had to sleep in the van.’
‘Poor Zuzzuz,’ says her mother.
Zeelie, who is turning thirteen in a few days, is happy – just this once – to be called by her baby name that nobody has used since she was about five. But it’s the first time Lachy has heard it.
‘Zuzzuz!’ he giggles.
She sighs. Until 20 minutes ago, she couldn’t even think about her little brother without getting teary, now he’s just annoying.
‘So how did you get here, Mum?’ she asks. ‘How did you find us?’
‘They reopened some of the roads this morning. There’s a big detour up around Kilmore that takes you through to Broadford and Seymour. At Seymour we went to the police station – Christine at the motel suggested we stop in there – and a lovely young officer told us we couldn’t get to Flowerdale, but he said the road to Yea had just been reopened. He said the Red Cross had set up a relief centre in Yea and a lot of people from Flowerdale were there.’ Zeelie’s mother catches her eye and smiles. ‘So we drove here and went into that building over there,’ – she points at the relief centre – ‘and one of the Red Cross ladies remembered you and your dad, so we came looking for you.’
Lachy butts in: ‘I found the van, didn’t I, Mum?’
‘You did, indeed.’ She smiles at him, puts her arm around their father, and winks at Zeelie. ‘And here we all are, back together again, safe and sound!’
‘Except my arm is broken,’ says annoying Lachy.
As happy as she is that her family is reunited, a shadow still hangs over Zeelie. Her family might be safe and sound, as her mother said, but what about Cody’s family? And Tahlia’s family? Zeelie hasn’t heard from her best friend since that almost two-day-old text message. And what about all the other people who are missing?
And the animals? Nobody has even mentioned Rimu.
‘Where’s the Rodeo?’ Zeelie asks.
‘I had to park out on the road,’ her mother says. ‘There are so many cars in here I couldn’t find a space.’
They all turn their heads in the direction of the road, but it isn’t the Rodeo they see. The first of three large, brown-and-green trucks is turning in through the gate.
‘Soldiers!’ cries Lachy. ‘Cool!’
Frank has just returned from the relief centre with a fresh bucket of water for the dogs. He stops to watch the Army trucks, too. ‘That’ll be our new accommodation,’ he says.
Zeelie gives him a what-are-you-talking-about? look. ‘The Army are supplying tents,’ he explains. ‘One of the Red Cross men was just talking about it. He said they’re going to set them up on the oval. None of us will have to sleep in our cars tonight.’
Lachy is letting Fly chew on the hand end of his plaster cast. ‘Dad? Are we going to stay here?’ he asks.
‘Stop Fly from doing that, Lachy,’ growls their mother. ‘He’ll ruin it, for heaven’s sake!’
Their father says, ‘I’m not sure where we’ll stay. What do you think, Jas?’
‘Christine at the motel said they’d hold our room,’ she tells him. ‘I said I’d give her a call.’
‘It’s only got one bed,’ says Lachy, who has lifted his injured arm out of the puppy’s reach.
‘They’ve got folding beds they can put in there for us,’ their mother says.
‘Can you and me have the big bed like last night, Mum?’
She smiles. ‘You’ll have to talk to your father about that.’
‘And he will say no,’ says their father.
‘But it’s humungous!’ says Lachy. ‘All of us could fit!’
‘No way am I sleeping in the same bed as you,’ Zeelie tells him.
‘You can have one of the folding beds, then.’
‘Actually, I think we should stay here,’ says Zeelie. She’s thinking about Cody. ‘At least until we find out what’s happened back home.’
Their parents say nothing. Zeelie can tell they’d rather stay in a motel than in a tent.
‘Are dogs allowed in motels?’ she asks, knowing perfectly well that they aren’t.
18
NO PRIVACY
The Army has not just sent tents, it has sent soldiers to put them up. Within an hour, the oval is transformed – it has become a tent town.
The green rectangular tents are set out in long, dead-straight rows, with avenues between them like streets. Each tent is identical, except for a large blue number and letter painted on the end wall by a soldier with a spray can. Zeelie’s family is allocated tent 2A. It’s the first in their row. Frank and Elise are three tents away in 2D. The Hollands are given 5E. Zeelie was hoping she and Cody would be neighbours, but it’s only a short walk from 2A to 5E.
She and her parents make several trips between the van and their new tent home, bringing everything that might be useful during their stay.
And who knows how long that’s going to be, thinks Zeelie. Nobody is allowed back into the bushfire-affected areas, even though there must be nothing left for the fire to burn by now. And until they are allowed back they won’t even know if they have houses to go back to.
Lachy doesn’t have to help bring things to their tent. His broken arm means he can sit and play with Fly while Zeelie and their parents traipse back and forth between 2A and the dusty car park 150 metres away. Holly and Atticus have to remain tied to the van, and Jessie has to stay tied to Frank and Elise’s car. Someone said the RSPCA will be supplying kennels for everyone’s dogs, but so far they haven’t arrived. No stretchers, mattresses or bedding have arrived for the human evacuees either, but they are supposed to be on the way.
There are so many rumours.
Another rumour concerns portable showers – apparently some are being sent up from Melbourne. Zeelie has never heard of portable showers, but that’s one rumour she hopes is true. There are only four showers in the players’ rooms beneath the grandstands, and even if you take a one-minute shower like the notice says on the door, the queue stretches for 50 metres and Zeelie heard someone saying the water is cold.
As soon as everything is done, she goes to visit Cody. Or tries to. Nobody is outside his tent. The door flap is tied back, but it seems rude to peer in through the fly-mesh. You can’t knock on a tent door and Zeelie is too shy to call out, even softly. Besides, poor Mrs Holland might be in there, resting or asleep. So Zeelie stands about three paces back from the fly-mesh, doing nothing, hoping Cody will look out and see her. She waits for about a minute, but nothing happens. A woman using a foot pump to inflate an air mattress outside 4E keeps giving her curious looks. Mind your own business, thinks Zeelie.
There’s no privacy when you live in a tent town.
When Zeelie returns to their tent, Lachy is outside playing fetch-the-stick with Fly.
‘Where have you been?’ he asks.
‘Nowhere,’ she mutters, slipping into 2A through the undone zip.
Their father isn’t there, but she finds her mother kneeling on the crinkly tent floor next to her open suitcase. The clothes Zeelie packed for her are stacked neatly beside her. All except her wedding dress, which she’s holding up in front of her.
‘You’re funny,’ she says when her daughter walks in.
‘I thought you’d want to keep it.’
‘Of course I do. It was lovely that you thought of it.’
But Zeelie knows from her mother’s first comment that she has done the wrong thing. ‘You weren’t there, Mum. How was I supposed to know what to pack?’
‘I’m not criti
cising you, sweetie. It must have been horrible.’
Zeelie just nods. It was horrible. And it’s still horrible. Everything that’s happened is horrible horrible horrible!
The stupid tears are back. Whirling around, Zeelie pushes back through the fly-mesh and nearly collides with her father. He’s coming in with an armload of brand-new sheets and blankets, still wrapped in their plastic. So that’s one rumour that was true.
‘Whoa there!’ he says, stepping quickly out of Zeelie’s way. ‘What’s the hurry, kiddo?’
She doesn’t answer. Head down, because the mother and the adult daughter from 2B are just going past with their own armloads of new bedding, Zeelie walks quickly away. She has no idea where she’s going, only that she needs to be alone.
‘Fly! Fly!’ Lachy is calling behind her. ‘Come back here, Fly! FLY! Stop him, Zeelie!’
She ignores her brother, too. But when Fly comes dancing around her legs – she’ll step on him if she isn’t careful – Zeelie stoops and gathers the excited puppy in her arms.
Lachy comes running up to her. ‘You aren’t allowed to pick him up!’
‘You told me to stop him.’
‘I didn’t say pick him up.’
When Lachy takes his precious puppy from her, Fly struggles to get back to Zeelie and Lachy nearly drops him.
‘Be careful,’ she says.
‘I am being careful! He’s my puppy, not yours.’
Zeelie shrugs. ‘I can’t help it if he likes me more than you.’
‘He does not! You aren’t allowed to pick him up!’
‘Whatever,’ Zeelie mutters. She turns and walks away.
But she doesn’t get far.
‘Zeelie!’
‘Tahlia!’
The two friends shriek and hug, then they break away and dance around each other like a pair of excited puppies. Until they remember they are almost teenagers – and go to high school – and people might be watching.
And people are watching – Zeelie checks.
‘Tahlia! Oh my God!’ she whispers. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘What are you doing here?’