Blacky jumped into the small hole I’d dug and gave it some with his front paws. A cloud of dirt sprayed between his hind legs. I shuffled out of the firing line, rested my head against Tess’s and watched. Within ten minutes the hole had swallowed Blacky but he continued digging. After a while, I dragged myself over and scooped away the dirt falling back into the grave.
Later, I carefully took the pups from Tess and laid them on the ground. They snuggled together, their thin stripes merging.
Then I placed Tess into the dark depths of the hole.
I was too exhausted to feel more grief. Or maybe I was so steeped in sorrow I no longer had the means to express it. At any rate, my eyes were dry. I took one last look at her curled body, snug in its final resting place and felt I should say something. But I couldn’t think of anything. I was empty.
‘Sorry,’ I whispered once more. But it didn’t feel like enough. Not nearly enough. I started to fill the hole.
Afterwards, Blacky and I stared at the mound. Maybe I should have felt pleased with myself. I had done part of what Tess had asked. But as I gazed at the small, squirming forms of her children, I felt only despair.
‘I can’t take these pups with me, Blacky,’ I said. ‘And I certainly can’t kill them. I know I made a promise to their mother, but I can’t keep it. I have no choice.’
‘There’s always a choice, mush.’
‘You’re right. If I gave the pups to the scientists, they ’d look after them. Maybe clone them. The species could survive.’ ‘Tess specifically said no to that, tosh.’
‘But Tess didn’t consider the alternatives,’ I argued. ‘She was in pain, not thinking straight. Even if I managed to successfully hide them – and there’s no chance of that – bring them up somehow to adulthood, they are females. I can only offer them death. Scientists could offer life.’
Blacky rested his head on my leg. At any other time I would have been amazed at this show of affection but I was too tired, physically and emotionally, to feel anything.
‘I understand if you can’t do it, Marc,’ he said. ‘Maybe it’s best if it’s me. I’ll make it quick. They won’t feel a thing.’
I burst into tears.
‘No, Blacky,’ I wailed. ‘I can’t bear it.’
‘Then look away, tosh.’
‘What about the pups’ father?’ I cried. I was desperate enough to clutch at any straw, though I knew Tess and Blacky wouldn’t have overlooked anything so obvious.
‘Dead.’ He paused. ‘Come on, Marc. Take a walk. I’ll find you when it’s all over.’
‘No,’ I said. I dried my eyes and got to my feet. A cold resolve filled me. ‘That’s not happening. There’s been too much death. I’ll stay here with them. I’ll hide out in the Tasmanian bush. You can bring food for all of us. We can be their mother and father. It’s not impossible. We’re resourceful. And in a couple of years I can go home.’
‘You can’t be serious, mush,’ said Blacky. ‘There’s no way you can survive out here.’
I gazed into the forest. My new home. There are worse places to live, I thought. Then I remembered our trek through the night and the scuttling of unseen things in the dark. Fear pricked my skin.
‘Oh, but I am serious, Blacky,’ I whispered. ‘Deadly serious.’
I pitched my tent in a dense part of the forest.
I would have preferred a clearing, close to a river, but I couldn’t take the chance of being spotted. As the sun went down, the cold gathered and seeped into my bones. I couldn’t light a fire in case a search party caught its flickering through the bush. So I crawled into the tent with the three pups and tried to ignore my stomach cramping with hunger.
Blacky had gone to fetch his store of dried beef. He’d argued, but I was having none of it. The tiger pups must be starving, and under the circumstances I was prepared to become a meat eater again. Blacky told me he would be at least six hours getting the food. I thought I’d be fine for that length of time. After all, I was prepared to be alone out here for a couple of years, so six hours would be easy.
It wasn’t.
Darkness brought out those peculiar snufflings and scratchings from the surrounding bush. No light. Eerie sounds. I felt very small and very afraid.
And it was so cold, I lifted up my sweater and allowed the pups close to my skin where they huddled for warmth. It was a strange feeling. But good.
Until one of them decided I was its mother and tried to find out where the milk was stored.
Have you ever been nipped in the chest by a small Tasmanian tiger? Take it from me, it does nothing to improve your mood when you’re cold, hungry and frightened.
‘Owwww!’ I moaned. It held on for grim death and I had to pry its mouth open, detaching its jaws gently from my skin. ‘I’m calling you Tonia,’ I said. ‘Because when she gets her teeth into you it’s almost impossible to shake her free as well.’
I put Tonia down and removed her sisters from under my sweater. I fastened the flaps of the tent firmly and tried to settle down to sleep. The time would pass quicker if I managed to grab a few zeds. And sleep would be a way of quieting my hunger pains until Blacky got back. So I lay my head on a mound of earth, closed my eyes and tried to ignore the scuffling of the pups as they played together. I might even have succeeded in dozing if another ant hadn’t scurried into my left nostril.
Maybe it was the same ant as before. Maybe it had taken legal advice and decided my eviction order wasn’t worth the paper it wasn’t written on.
I sat up and evicted it again. Obviously my movement signalled to the pups that I was desperate for fun, because one immediately slipped up the leg of my jeans and chowed down on my ankle. I rolled up my jeans and pried her loose. It wasn’t Tonia. This one had paler stripes.
‘Owwww,’ I moaned. ‘I’m going to call you Rose. She’s got a thing for ankles too.’
Two years, I thought. Two years of sleepless nights, very little food and being gradually eaten by three tiger pups. On the plus side, it was better than spending the time with my sister.
Blacky returned in the middle of the night. He had the decency to announce his arrival in my head. I couldn’t have coped with another mysterious sound or snuffling at the tent flaps. I was close to the end of my tether. I let him in and he dropped a mound of dried beef onto the floor.
‘Here we go, mush. Dig in. Boy, that was a helluva journey. I’m pooped.’
I picked up a piece of dried beef while the pups fought over the rest. It disappeared in ten seconds. The beef smelled pretty bad and it was coated in a film of Blacky’s saliva. Suddenly I lost my appetite and dropped the piece to the floor, where Rose snaffled it. I sighed.
‘How long till dawn, Blacky?’ I asked.
‘What am I, a speaking clock? Settle down, you twonk, and get some sleep.’
I tried. I might even have succeeded for a few minutes. The pups had quietened down after their meal and lay curled together in the corner of the tent. Blacky snored. I drifted off . . .
And was woken by the foulest stench I’d ever experienced. And, trust me, I’ve experienced a few.
‘BLACKY!’ I yelled. ‘That is absolutely disgusting!’
‘Not me, boyo,’ came the reply. ‘Take my word for it, that is so incredibly fruity I would be proud to claim it. But integrity is my middle name. I cannot take credit for someone else’s achievement.’
I sat up. Moonlight must have struggled through the forest canopy, because I could make out the tent’s interior. Two pups had separated themselves from the other, who sniffed at her bum and blinked. Even in the poor light I could see this wasn’t either Tonia or Rose.
‘I don’t believe it,’ I gasped. ‘Nothing that small could produce a smell that big.’
‘Aaaah,’ sighed Blacky. ‘What a talent! Reminds me of when I was a pup. I tell you, it’s a privilege to be present at the start of a magnificent career . . .’
I opened the tent’s flaps and wafted furiously. The farting pup seemed very pleas
ed with itself.
‘I’m going to call you Becky,’ I spluttered.
It was the closest girl’s name I could get to Blacky.
I staggered out of the tent into a frozen morning. I was so hungry I could feel my stomach juices digesting my intestines. A pale mist swirled along the ground. Blacky joined me in the bitter air. Tonia, Rose and Becky followed, stretching the sleep from their muscles.
‘I’m lighting a fire, Blacky,’ I said. ‘I don’t care anymore. Unless I get some heat I’m going to freeze to death.’
‘That’s if you don’t starve to death first, tosh.’
‘Thanks for the cheerful thought.’
‘Come on, Marc,’ said Blacky. His voice, for once, was gentle. ‘This isn’t going to work. You know it isn’t. How long do you think you can continue like this? Cold, starving, away from your own kind. It’s been one night. One night, Marc. And you really think you can do this for another six hundred or so? Come on. Give it up.’
‘I can’t, Blacky,’ I said. ‘I just can’t.’
‘It will be a miracle if you survive a week.’
He was right. I knew that.
A miracle. I badly needed a miracle.
I gazed around at the hostile bush. It seemed so dark, so lacking in warmth and life.
And then, right at that moment, I sensed, rather than saw, a flicker of movement. Something – something alive – was detaching itself from the forest’s shadows.
Two adult thylacines moved between the trees. Their stripes were clearly printed, their tails rigid, their legs strangely stiff in movement, like old people with painful joints. They stood for a moment, wisps of mist playing around their legs. The tiger puppies bounded over to them, playful, uttering strange yips. The adults dipped their heads and sniffed at the pups. Then the female – I imagined it was the female – snuffled at the small forms, picked up Tonia and Rose by the scruffs of their necks. The male took Becky.
We gazed at each other for a few moments. A small boy, a dirty-white dog and five Tasmanian tigers separated by less than a metre. Finally, unhurriedly, they turned and walked back into the forest. I watched as, dappled briefly by pale rays of sunlight, their forms mingled with shadows and the darkness swallowed them.
I watched the empty forest for a full minute until Blacky nuzzled at my arm.
‘Come on, tosh,’ he said. ‘It’s time to go home.’
We had our miracle.
The search party found me half an hour later.
Blacky sniffed them out and led me directly into their path. At the last moment he melted into the landscape and I faced them alone. I didn’t recognise any of the people, but it was obvious they were looking for me. Guys in jackets with logos on them. There was even a dog. It must have been nosing out my scent. I was exhausted, starving and dehydrated. I couldn’t even feel much joy at being safe again.
They half-carried me to a four-wheel drive a kilometre or so away. As soon as I was in the back of the car and it started its bumpy ride I fell asleep. When I came to, I was back in the Wilderness Camp.
I brushed sleep from my eyes and peered through the grimy window at the familiar buildings and the familiar gathering of boys and instructors. Phil was there. Jimmy and Mr Crannitch were back. So were Dyl and John Oakman.
But there was another group of people who didn’t belong.
My heart sank as I saw Mum, Dad and Rose.
Boy, was I in trouble.
Mum hugged me so tightly I thought I’d suffocate. Killing me seemed a strange way of showing joy that I was still alive. Mind you, even if she didn’t kill me now because I was alive, she’d kill me later for having made her think I was dead.
I confused myself with this line of thinking, so I stopped. It took enough energy just to get air through the folds of her cardigan. When she finally let go I gulped in a deep lungful and prepared for the onslaught.
‘Marcus,’ she said. ‘I was worried sick. We all were.’
‘Sorry, Mum,’ I breathed. I was, too. I suppose I should have realised my parents would come to Tassie when they heard I’d gone missing. They must have been here for a day and a half. It was obvious I was on the point of being grounded, certainly until I was fifty. Maybe until I could draw my pension. Possibly until four years after my death in 2104.
‘Never mind “sorry”, Marcus,’ said Mum. I closed my eyes. This is where the emotional torture would begin. ‘It is you who is owed an apology.’
‘What?’ I blinked open my eyes.
‘Dylan. What have you and your friend got to say?’
Dyl and John Oakman stepped forward.
‘Sorry, Marc,’ said Dyl. He winked at me, very carefully. I don’t think anyone else saw it. ‘I’m sorry for kidnapping you and taking you off into the bush as a childish prank. It was silly of me and John. We should have known better. But we are part of the special boys unit and I guess this is the kind of behaviour you’d expect from dropkicks like us.’
‘But . . . but . . .’ I spluttered. ‘But— owww!’
‘Sorry, Mucus,’ said John, withdrawing his boot after it had made violent and bone-crunching contact with my ankle. ‘Me bad. Me drongo.’
What was going on? My brain felt like it had been stuck in a washing machine on the fast spin cycle. John stepped back and Mr Crannitch appeared. His eyes were not bloodshot anymore. I was glad he had recovered from his illness.
‘I can assure you, Mrs Hill, that the school will not tolerate reckless behaviour. I believe Dylan and John did not fully understand the consequences of their actions. They thought it would be funny to tie up and blindfold your son and lead him into the bush in the middle of the night. I also believe them when they say that getting lost was not part of their plan. But that does not excuse them. Both boys will be severely punished when we return to school.’
Mum looked Dyl up and down.
‘I am disappointed in you, Dylan,’ she said. ‘I thought you were Marcus’s friend.’
Dyl lowered his eyes.
‘Sorry, Mrs Hill,’ he muttered.
That put paid to the Wilderness Camp. I was given something to eat, a couple of cheese sandwiches that I couldn’t quite finish despite being starving. They made me feel sick.
Everyone else packed, ready for departure. I was surprised there were no complaints. Later, Dyl explained that the special boys were used to good times ending because of someone’s bad behaviour. It was simply a fact of life.
I felt bad about that later.
I had a shower. It felt as though it wasn’t just two days’ worth of dirt that swirled down the plughole, but also my tiredness. I felt refreshed. My brain had reported for duty. I had questions that needed answering.
Luckily, I didn’t have to wait long. As I was drying my hair, Dyl and John entered the toilet block.
‘Guys,’ I said. ‘What’s with this kidnapping business?’
Dyl sat on one of the wooden benches and pulled a can of cola from his jacket.
‘We figured there was no point all of us being in the brown stuff,’ he said, popping the ring-pull. ‘So when Jimmy and Mr Crannitch caught us, we told them we’d carried you off as a joke.’
‘But why, Dyl? It was me that got you guys involved in this. If anyone had to take responsibility it was me, not you.’
Dyl took a drink and passed the can to John.
‘No biggie,’ he said. ‘Me and John are used to being blamed for everything. That’s the way it is. You, on the other hand, are a superstar goody-two-shoes sook. No offence, mate.’
‘None taken,’ I said.
‘So it seemed . . . right, I guess, that we took the blame. We’ll probably cop a suspension. Wow, that’s a real worry!’ His voice dripped with sarcasm. ‘And a lecture on responsibility. Small price to pay, mate.’
‘But I left a message in the dirt,’ I pointed out. ‘Saying we were safe. How did that fit in with you guys kidnapping me?’
‘Rubbed it out, Mucus,’ said John. ‘When I followed you. Get
you in trouble. Sorry.’
I looked from one to the other. I still had a lot to work out.
‘But Mum now thinks you’re an irresponsible idiot, Dyl,’ I said. ‘That’s not fair. She likes you.’ Liked you, I thought.
Sadness flashed into his eyes for a brief moment.
‘Yeah, well. That’s the only thing that bothers me. But she’ll get over it. I hope.’
I turned to John.
‘And you, John,’ I said. ‘I don’t understand. You hate me, yet you’re prepared to protect me. It doesn’t make sense, particularly since you’ve no idea what all that stuff in the forest was about.’ I glanced at Dyl, who shook his head. He hadn’t told John anything. I wasn’t surprised. If Dyl gives his word, you can take it to the bank.
John’s forehead creased in concentration. I got a crick in the neck just watching it.
‘No idea, true,’ he grunted. ‘But normal. Never know what’s going on.’ His forehead cleared. ‘Had fun. Good enough for me.’
‘I still think I should tell the truth,’ I said.
‘You can be so dumb sometimes, Marc,’ said Dyl. ‘What good would that do? Let it go, mate. Let it go.’
And when I thought about it, I could see the logic. It wouldn’t change anything. It might even make it more difficult in the future if Blacky had other missions for us.
I looked at Dyl and John. Dyl was my best mate and I knew he’d do anything for me. But John was a different story. We weren’t friends. We were enemies.
I remembered what Dyl told me, back on that first day. The special boys unit was labelled as worthless. Everyone thought so, including the boys themselves. Yet, when you dug beneath the surface, there was a rich vein of goodness there. Kindness, compassion, mateship. I’d been too willing to judge John. I’d got it wrong.
Dyl was right. I was dumb sometimes. More than sometimes.
‘Thanks, guys,’ I said. ‘I won’t forget this.’
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