After we’d finished lunch and cleared away the dishes, Miss Pearl lumbered off to have a sleep and Aunt Evie excused herself to check emails.
‘Perhaps you could entertain yourself for a bit?’ she suggested, turning on her laptop. ‘Read a book? Finish unpacking? Then I promise I’ll give you a giant tour, okay?’
Back in my room, the not-quite-right sketch of me with Cheeky stared at me from my bed. I bent my head sideways, left and then right, but it was definitely wrong. I wondered if I’d be any better at sketching wombats than I was at Quaker parrots.
I smiled. There was only one way to find out. Aunt Evie had said to entertain myself, so I grabbed my sketchpad and pencils and tiptoed around to look for Miss Pearl. I found her on the couch, legs in the air, sleeping like a baby.
‘Okay, let’s see,’ I whispered, sitting on the floor in front of her. I started with a pencil line to mark out her features, making sure I showed her mouth partly open with her long front teeth poking out. Her nose was tipped back, but not so far that I couldn’t see her five sets of very long, very wiry whiskers. I had no idea wombats had so many whiskers. I’d just started on her front paws when Aunt Evie called out.
‘Mouse? Everything okay?’
‘Yes, everything’s fine.’ It was nice and warm next to the pot-belly stove, and I was enjoying sketching Miss Pearl.
‘Finished unpacking?’
Miss Pearl opened an eye at the sound of Aunt Evie’s voice and wriggled over onto her tummy. Shame, I was so close to finishing her portrait.
‘Sorry, Mouse,’ called Aunt Evie again, ‘can I bother you to come in here for a sec?’
I collected my things and headed into the kitchen. Aunt Evie sat in front of her laptop with bright red glasses perched on the end of her nose.
‘What’s that you’ve got there?’ she asked.
I held out my sketchpad, but she only half looked at it before her eyes wandered absent-mindedly back to her screen.
‘Fabulous. I’d love to take a better look, but, for now, can I ask you a favour? Can you be super grown-up and take my rent up to the main farmhouse for me?’
I gulped. ‘On my own?’ I said in astonishment. Mum and Dad never allowed me to go anywhere by myself in Brisbane.
‘It’s not far, only out the yard gate, up the driveway, across the road and then up the farmhouse driveway. You’ll need to knock on the door and explain who you are, and then once you’ve handed over the rent to my landlord, there’s 300 hectares of sheep paddocks for you to explore.’
I shook my head. ‘Can’t you come too?’ I asked.
‘Goodness, it’s only just over a kilometre away, it’ll do you good to get some fresh air. You’ll get cabin fever mooching by the pot-belly stove all afternoon. Gosh, if you saw what your dad and I got up to when we were young – I don’t think we were ever inside. I’m sure you’d like to see the sheep, wouldn’t you? Why don’t you take your sketchpad and go for a little walk?’
I clutched my pad to my chest. A little walk? A kilometre was a long way to go, especially on my own.
I reluctantly pulled on my coat and runners and carried the rent envelope with my sketchpad and pencils outside. My breath made little puffs in the crisp afternoon air as I edged into a last patch of sunlight on the veranda. A lonesome gecko fled into a crack in the wall.
‘Make sure you shut the gates,’ called Aunt Evie from inside.
I huddled into my coat, surveying the wide horizon. The windmill creaked. Spots of light brown speckled the low hills in the distance. I guessed they must be the sheep. Between them and the cottage, pea-coloured shrubs and mottled boulders dotted the paddocks that were so dry it seemed the landscape was more like a desert than a sheep farm. Dad had told me there hadn’t been proper rain in the area for over two years, and although there was some grass around, it was dry and brown and stubbly. Not like the lush green grass at home. Even the needle-like leaves on the trees were different to the leafy palms in Queensland.
A rooster crowed in the distance and a dog barked. A flash of blue caught my eye as a tiny bird hurried across the yellow dirt driveway before disappearing inside a nearby shrub. I waited, hoping it would come out again, but it didn’t and it was too cold to stand still for long. The cold seeped through the soles of my runners, and I stamped my feet. My toes were like ten mini icy poles in my shoes.
I had to keep moving. I took off down the driveway, hugging my sketchpad close as I strained to catch sight of the farmhouse. But it must have been beyond the low hill on the other side of the road since I couldn’t even see a chimney.
I’d been walking for a few minutes and could just make out the yard gate, when I stopped dead in my tracks. A huge kangaroo bounded along the fence between the paddock and the driveway, and I gasped as he stood upright to inspect me. It suddenly seemed very quiet. Just me and the kangaroo and the trees rustling in the breeze.
I glanced behind me. Maybe I should go back? The cottage was warm and cosy, and maybe Aunt Evie would reconsider and let me sit beside the pot-belly stove to finish my sketch of Miss Pearl while she delivered the rent.
The dog barked again and a faraway sheep baaed.
No, crying to Aunt Evie wouldn’t work. She’d only tell me to do things for myself. Besides, Aunt Evie wouldn’t understand. I was sure she wasn’t afraid of kangaroos.
I took a deep breath and kept walking, telling myself the kangaroo and I were on different sides of a very sturdy fence. I opened the gate at the end of the driveway, checked the road left and right, and ducked across to the other side.
A wooden letterbox with ‘Campbell’ written on the front stood at the gate. I wondered if the Campbells were nice. Did they have any animals besides sheep? Horses? Puppies even?
I walked along the driveway, weighing up whether I could just slip the envelope under their front door and quickly sneak away, when I came across a flock of sheep. I stared as they pushed their noses into a rack, pulled out dry stalks of hay and then spread them messily across the ground. The shrivelled tufts of grass in their paddock mustn’t have been enough to feed all those hungry bellies.
But there were lambs as well! I’d never seen newborn lambs before.
Unlike their mums, the lambs were snowy white, their gangly legs either tucked beneath them while they slept, or wobbling as they took skipping jumps around the paddock.
I was so busy watching them, I didn’t notice a tractor bumping down the driveway towards me until it was almost too late.
I looked up in alarm. The tractor was only metres away, its engine roaring, its wheels shaking the ground.
I leapt out the way, pinning myself close to the fence just as the tractor swung off the driveway and idled at a nearby gate. The sheep scattered and I watched, my heart hammering, as a young man in a battered Akubra hat hopped out. He opened the gate and then steered the tractor through the paddock towards a rocky outcrop without so much as a glance in my direction. I breathed a sigh of relief.
Seconds later the driver tipped the tractor’s bucket, and rocks cascaded to the ground as dust flew into the air. The tractor then moved expertly between a spattering of large holes, tipping its bucket again and filling each hole with rocks. From where I stood, the holes looked large and round, nearly as big as my head. I wondered what had created them.
A sudden movement beyond the tractor caught my eye. I scanned the trees surrounding the outcrop, hoping it wasn’t another kangaroo, when I noticed a boy about my age with a shock of blond hair and dressed in a grey hoodie. He was huddled against a tree and, like me, he was watching the tractor.
But his hands were balled into fists, his chin firmly set. As I watched, he swiped at his face, as if brushing away tears. Then he glanced past me towards the gate.
I froze as he took a step in my direction.
He must have seen me, and I was trespassing! I had to get away, and fast. I
sprinted all the way back to the cottage without looking back.
‘Aunt Evie, Aunt Evie!’ I cried, bursting through the door.
‘Mouse?’ Aunt Evie looked up from her laptop, tugging off her glasses. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Um, well I …’ My lungs burnt. I took a deep breath.
Aunt Evie waited.
‘I didn’t deliver the rent,’ I blurted, offering her the crumpled envelope.
Aunt Evie drew her lips together. ‘You didn’t get lost did you?’
‘No. It’s just … I saw this boy,’ I explained, ‘in the paddock. He …’
Aunt Evie closed her laptop and stood up, taking the envelope from me. ‘You’re this upset over seeing a boy? Dearie me! You really are as shy as a mouse. There are three boys in the Campbell family. But I’m sure none of them are quite that scary.’
I dropped my head. Aunt Evie didn’t understand. It wasn’t seeing the boy that upset me. Something was wrong and it wasn’t that I had been trespassing.
‘No need for the long face. We can drop the rent in on our way to school in the morning. Meanwhile, what say we make some lentil soup for dinner?’
She laid out the ingredients and started crushing the garlic, and I opened a can of tinned tomatoes. Her apron, covered with pictures of tiny red and black ladybirds, matched her head scarf, while the apron she’d lent me said, ‘You’re the apple to my pie’.
‘Did you notice the chough nests while you were out there?’ she asked.
I shrugged.
‘Chough birds make mud nests between the branches of the mallee trees. It’s quite a treat if you see one. I think there’s a nest near the old dam. Perhaps I can show you tomorrow?’
‘All day tomorrow?’ I asked hopefully, passing her the tin of tomatoes.
Aunt Evie smiled. ‘Good try. I’m off to work and you’re off to school as planned. I’ll drop you in on my way and pick you up coming back, but after that you can catch the bus with the other kids. There’s a stop between our place and the Campbells’. Can’t have them thinking you’re a softy.’
But I was a softy. When I thought of all those new faces staring at me, I shuddered. ‘But, but … w-what about Miss Pearl?’ I stammered. ‘Couldn’t I stay here and look after her?’
‘Mouse,’ said Aunt Evie, cutting mushrooms, ‘Miss Pearl is a wombat. She’ll be perfectly content to sleep all day and will be more than happy to see us when we get home. Now, have you got something smart to wear tomorrow?’
I couldn’t sleep that night. Each time I thought of school my stomach swirled and churned and whirled until I couldn’t stand it anymore. I crept into the kitchen hoping a glass of milk would settle my nerves, but instead I found Miss Pearl digging under the fridge door.
‘Hey, what are you doing?’ I whispered, glancing around for Pumpkin. He’d make such a fuss if he saw me, it was best I kept out of his way.
But Pumpkin was fast asleep by the pot-belly stove, his head tucked cosily under his wing, so I quietly took some carrots from the benchtop and led Miss Pearl to my room. Once there, I firmly shut my door to keep Pumpkin out and fed Miss Pearl the carrots.
When she’d finished, she jumped up and rested her front paws on the edge of my bed. ‘Are you allowed up here?’ I asked.
Miss Pearl looked at me, her brown eyes begging.
‘Okay then,’ I said, ‘just a few minutes.’ I leant down and tried to pull her up, but she was way too heavy, so I hopped off and half-heaved, half-pushed her onto my bed instead.
‘You’ve been eating too many carrots,’ I scolded. ‘Greedy guts.’
Miss Pearl nuzzled me with her head before rolling onto her back, showing me her silky tummy. I tickled and stroked her and then picked up my sketchpad. ‘Perfect,’ I whispered, turning to a fresh page.
I drew two pointy ears, a wide face and black nose, while Miss Pearl twitched in her sleep and occasionally opened one eye. I’d just started on her body when she jerked awake and rolled onto her stomach.
‘Hey,’ I chided as she tried to wriggle beside me under the covers. ‘You can’t sleep in here. I’m starting a new school tomorrow, and I have to get a good night’s rest.’
But there was no point arguing. Miss Pearl wriggled under my doona, draped her body over mine and rested her head on my chest. I was completely pinned to the bed. Not that I really minded. With Miss Pearl lying her head beside mine and her warm, carroty breaths wafting over me, I closed my eyes and fell into a deep, restful sleep.
‘I wish you could come with me,’ I murmured the next morning as I lay in bed, stroking Miss Pearl’s chin. We snuggled under the covers, reluctant to get up in the cold. ‘If I had you at my new school, then I’m sure I’d feel a lot …’ I yawned. ‘I don’t know. Maybe braver?’
But I didn’t hear Miss Pearl’s answer because Aunt Evie was at my door, hurrying me along.
‘Come on, sleepy head,’ she said. ‘I want to drop off the rent on the way, remember, and I can’t have you late on your first day.’
I groaned. I’d hoped to delay leaving for school as long as possible. But before I knew it we’d finished breakfast and were driving up towards the Campbells’ house. Sheep and lambs galloped along the fence line, bleating hopefully as dust rose in their wake. Ordinarily, the lambs would have made me smile. But not today. Today my smile felt a very long way away.
‘Whoops! Sorry.’ Aunt Evie swerved to miss a pothole before steering the car through a gate and pulling up beside a farmhouse. ‘Here we are.’
Perched on top of the hill with no trees surrounding it, the main farmhouse had thick white pillars and creamy stone walls. Three large sheds sat in a group off to one side of it, while a large windmill spun lazily on the other.
Apart from the smoke wafting from the chimney, it could have been any one of the abandoned farmhouses we’d passed on our drive from the airport yesterday. When I’d asked Dad why they were empty, he’d said, ‘The drought’s really knocking people around out here. It looks like some of the farmers have thrown in the towel.’
Two collie dogs with patchwork fur barked and snapped at our tyres as Aunt Evie turned off the engine. They lapped our car once before circling each other, woofing and yipping excitedly.
‘Oh, they’re so cute,’ I said, reaching for the door handle. ‘Can I pat them?’
‘No,’ said Aunt Evie quickly. ‘They’re working dogs, Mouse, not pets.’
I stared at the dogs through my open passenger window. Each one had two different coloured eyes – a blue one and a brown one, and their coats were mottled with patches of caramel, black, brown and white. I’d never seen dogs like them.
‘Oh. But can’t I just …?’
‘No. Country people don’t treat animals like we do. No patting. And, Mouse?’
I tore my eyes from the dogs.
‘Not a word about Miss Pearl, okay?’
I didn’t have a chance to ask ‘why?’ because the front door of the farmhouse swung open, and a boy stepped out. His face was slight and freckled and he wore school shorts that hung low over his knees. But it wasn’t his shorts that drew my attention. I recognised his grey hoodie immediately. Even if his wild blond hair was neatly combed to one side. It was definitely him – the boy from yesterday! He didn’t pat the dogs when they bounded over but instead squinted at our car.
I slid down in my seat as Aunt Evie wound down her window and waved.
The boy took a step towards us.
‘Harry!’ called a gravelly voice from inside the farmhouse. ‘You haven’t packed your lunch.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ he said with a smile. ‘I’ll do it in a sec.’ It was hard to believe he was the same boy as yesterday. Today he seemed so … sunny.
‘Harry! You’ll miss the bus, and I’m not driving you in!’
I had thought that country people would be round and jolly. But the
lady pushing past the boy was anything but. She was short and skinny, and she walked as if her joints were stiff, like a pirate’s. Her grey hair was short, and her lips were pinched like she’d been sucking lemons. I shrank even lower in my seat.
‘No need to get out!’ the lady shouted, scowling into Aunt Evie’s open window as the boy slunk back to the house. ‘You’ll only stir up more dust.’ She tipped her head when she spoke, glaring at Aunt Evie through the bottom half of her glasses. Suddenly the lady’s gaze bore into me. ‘Oh! Who’s this?’
‘Mrs Campbell, please meet my niece, Mouse.’
I shot Aunt Evie a grateful look.
‘Mouse is staying with me for a few weeks,’ Aunt Evie continued. ‘Remember I cleared it with you the other day? She’s come all the way from Brisbane.’
Mrs Campbell’s eyes narrowed. ‘Brisbane?’
I swallowed. Why did she say it like that?
‘Won’t cause any trouble, will you?’ she demanded, staring at me. ‘I know city folk. They’re always meddling and telling us what for. “Do this, do that.” Got no idea how things work out here in the country.’
I flinched as Aunt Evie pressed the rent envelope into Mrs Campbell’s hand. ‘No chance of that,’ she said. ‘This girl’s as good as gold. Mouse by name, mouse by nature. Aren’t you, love? You’ll hardly hear a squeak.’
‘We’ll see about that,’ scoffed Mrs Campbell.
Aunt Evie let out a heavy breath once we’d pulled out onto the road. ‘Phew, glad that’s done,’ she said. ‘That Mrs Campbell’s a prickly old so and so. Still, I can’t help feeling sorry for her. With Mr Campbell passed on, and now this drought and three boys to feed, she really must be doing it tough.’
Perhaps that’s why Harry was crying? Maybe he was missing his dad. Mum hadn’t stopped crying since we heard the news about Nanna. I wondered if a visit to see a friendly wombat like Miss Pearl might make Harry feel better.
‘Why can’t we tell the Campbells about Miss Pearl?’ I asked.
‘Mmm,’ started Aunt Evie, ‘it’s all a bit tricky.’ She glanced at me and adjusted her position at the wheel. ‘Well, I guess I might as well tell you. When I first found Miss Pearl, I didn’t know what to feed her. In the wild, wombats eat native grasses and roots and can survive on very little. But with the drought, there wasn’t much food about. So I called in on Mrs Campbell to see if I could buy some hay. I honestly didn’t think much of it, but my goodness, did Mrs Campbell hit the roof! “Wombats are vermin!” she’d shouted. “There’ll be no wombats on my property!”’ Aunt Evie shook her head sadly. ‘It was terrible.’
Wombat Warriors Page 2