Outback Adventure

by Rebecca Johnson

  Contents

  CHAPTER 1 Sometimes vets need to travel

  CHAPTER 2 Vets are problem solvers

  CHAPTER 3 Vets love the outback

  CHAPTER 4 Some people don’t like vets

  CHAPTER 5 Vets love looking at animals

  CHAPTER 6 Vets need to pay attention.

  CHAPTER 7 Vets like being outside

  CHAPTER 8 Vets like to help

  CHAPTER 9 Sometimes vets need help too

  For Robyn Sheahan-Bright, Clare

  Forster and Lisa Riley. Thank you for

  seeing a future in Juliet when she was

  nearly a novel.

  XX R

  I’m sitting on my suitcase trying to get it shut when Mum pops her head into my room.

  ‘Nearly ready to go, love?’ she says. ‘We need to leave for the airport in a few minutes.’

  ‘Coming,’ I say.

  I open up my case and make a quick decision. My vet kit does take up a lot of room in my suitcase, but there’s no way I’m leaving it behind. I pull out three T-shirts to make more room and finally manage to zip the suitcase up.

  I put all my T-shirts on, one over the top of the other, and drag my suitcase towards the front door. I bump into Dad on the way. He squints at me and shakes his head.

  ‘Juliet, how many layers are you wearing? You’re going to boil on the plane, let alone when we get to Longreach. You know how hot it gets out there. Put them in your suitcase.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘What do you mean you can’t?’ Dad starts to reach out towards my case and I panic. If he sees my vet kit in there, he’ll go bananas.

  I step in front of my case. I have to think quickly. ‘I can’t . . . stand to be cold. Last time we went, it was freezing on the plane.’

  Dad rolls his eyes and shakes his head. ‘Juliet, it is absolutely not going to be cold.’

  Mum comes in dragging Max’s case. I’m sure I can see the outline of a dinosaur under the canvas and Max has a pterodactyl in his hand.

  ‘Please tell me you are not taking a suitcase full of dinosaurs, Max,’ says Dad.

  ‘But Jack is bringing his. He loves dinosaurs too. And my pterodactyl wants to see how it feels to really fly.’

  My cousin Jack is seven years old and he and Max spend ages on the phone talking about dinosaurs. I wish Aunty Sophie had a daughter that loved animals. Jarrod is nine and close to my age, but he hates animals. I don’t think he likes me very much either.

  ‘I’ve checked Max’s case and he’s got everything he needs,’ says Mum. ‘Have you got everything, Juliet?’

  ‘Sure do,’ I say, as we hear Chelsea and her mum call out, ‘Hello,’ from the front steps.

  I race down to give Mrs O’Sullivan the lists I’ve made for her, so she’ll know how to look after our dog Curly, my six chickens and our two guinea pigs while we’re away. She seems a little surprised as she looks at the four pages of instructions. When I pass her the guinea pigs’ grooming kit her eyes go wide. I think she must be excited – I can understand that. Vets know how much fun it is to look after other people’s animals.

  Chelsea is beside herself because this is her first trip to the outback and her first time on a plane. She says goodbye to her mum and I give Curly some extra hugs before Dad hurries us into the car and we are off.

  Chelsea loves flying as much as I do. We share the window and look down at the land changing below us. After we take off from Brisbane there’s a lot of green, but as we get closer to Longreach, there’s nothing but flatness and dry-looking dirt with the odd gum tree.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen it so dry,’ I hear Mum say to Dad. ‘No wonder they’re struggling to feed the cattle.’

  As we come in to land, we fly over some dams with only a little water left in them. I can see the tracks of cattle and sheep around the edges. They look like little puddles surrounded by polka dots.

  ‘Look!’ says Chelsea, as the plane gets even lower. A large mob of kangaroos is bounding away from the noise of the plane. ‘We’re really in the outback now!’

  The first thing that hits me as we leave the airport terminal is the heat. I can’t stand wearing all my T-shirts for a minute longer and start stripping them off.

  Dad is about to put my case in the hire car when he sees me tying the last of the T-shirts around my waist.

  Before I have a chance to stop him, Dad unzips my suitcase to put them in. His mouth falls open when he sees my vet kit, taking up more than half the space.

  ‘Juliet! What’s your vet kit doing in here? Where are all your clothes?’

  ‘They’re in there,’ I say. ‘You just can’t see them. I needed my vet kit in case there was an emergency.’

  ‘The only emergency around here is going to be you!’ snaps Dad.

  We finish loading our stuff into the car and drive towards the town centre. Dad doesn’t look happy.

  ‘Look at that!’ yells Max, startling us all. His face is pressed against the window.

  Dad slows down as we pass a horse-drawn carriage. It’s loaded up with people and has two men sitting on the front guiding the four horses.

  ‘I can’t believe some people don’t have cars out here,’ says Chelsea.

  ‘They have cars, Chelsea,’ says Mum. ‘That’s just a carriage people can ride on to see how everyone got around in the past. It’s one of the original mail coaches.’

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ says Chelsea, smiling. ‘I’d love to go to school in that.’

  ‘But that’s not what I was looking at,’ Max blurts out. ‘There was a big sign back there with a dinosaur on it. Do they still have those here as well?’

  ‘That’s a new sign for the dinosaur museum at Winton, Max,’ says Dad. ‘I thought you and Jack might like to go there one day. They don’t have any living dinosaurs, but they’ve got heaps of real dinosaur bones and fossils.’

  ‘Wow!’ says Max, bouncing up and down on the seat in excitement.

  Chelsea and I shake our heads. It’s ridiculous how excited Max gets over dinosaurs.

  I open my wallet to look at a picture of Curly. I wonder how he’s going without us.

  ‘I just want to stop in town and get some flowers for Grandma before we head out to the property,’ says Mum.

  Dad drives into the main street of Longreach and we all wait in the car while Mum goes into the florist.

  All the cars are really dusty and lots of people are wearing jeans and boots and dirty work clothes. I’m quite sure it won’t matter if I have to wear the same clothes more than once. I remember why I like this place so much.

  After a while we hear Mum tap on the back hatch of the car and Dad pushes the button to open it.

  Suddenly I see Dad’s eyes grow huge in the rear-view mirror and he starts to jump around in his seat, trying to get his seatbelt off and turn around at the same time.

  ‘Dad, what is it?’ I say.

  ‘Emu,’ Dad squeaks.

  Chelsea, Max and I all turn around. There’s an emu at the back of the car with its head poking inside!

  Chelsea and Max scream and start diving over the seat to be in the front with Dad. Max is crying. Or Dad is. ​I can’t actually tell, because I don’t want to take my eyes off the emu.

  We stare at each other for a moment. The emu has big brown eyes with long, wispy lashes. The top of its head is covered in little feathers that stand up on their ends and it has a wide, grey, pointed beak. It makes a low drumming noise with its throat.

  ‘It’s adorable,’ I whisper.

  Carefully, I reach into my backpack and pull out a half-eaten sandwich from the plane.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ I ask, as I slowly unwrap the food, out of sight of the emu. I carefully op
en my window and throw the sandwich off to the side of the car as far as I can.

  The emu whips its head out and races towards the treat on the ground. I leap out of the other side of the car and run to the back to slam the hatch down. Then I jump back into the car.

  Dad, Chelsea and Max all just stare at me in silence.

  Eventually, Chelsea says, ‘And that is why she’s nearly a vet.’

  Mum comes back to the car to find three people in the front seat. We all start talking at once. She’s very confused by all the commotion.

  ‘There was a huge emu . . .’ says Max. ‘Juliet saved us.’

  Dad tells Mum the whole story. She listens and nods, but doesn’t seem very surprised.

  ‘They’re coming into town because they’re hungry and thirsty from the drought. They can be a bit frightening, can’t they, Max?’

  He nods and Mum gives him a hug before he and Chelsea hop back in next to me.

  Just as we’re about to go, we hear it again. Tap. Tap. Tap.

  The emu is back at the rear window.

  ‘He thinks we’ll feed him more,’ says Mum, ‘but he needs to go and find some emu food, not human food.’

  Dad carefully backs the car up and we all watch the emu slowly step out of the way. He’s beside the car now and Max holds his pterodactyl up to the window. The emu pecks at it through the glass and Max starts to laugh.

  The emu follows us as we slowly head down the main street. A few people laugh and point as they see the line of cars with the emu tucked right in behind ours.

  Dad turns the corner and so does the emu. We’re all laughing now.

  ‘Go faster, Dad, go faster!’ yells Max, and Dad starts to accelerate as we head for the open road. The emu jogs

  along behind us with his wings flapping up and down with each step.

  As we speed up so does he.

  ‘Look how fast he can run!’ Chelsea says.

  I whip out my Vet Diary. I want to start a page on emus right away.

  ‘How fast can they run, Mum?’ I say.

  ‘Well, they say emus can run at nearly fifty kilometres per hour.’

  ‘Well, we’re doing forty now,’ says Dad. ‘Let’s see how he goes!’

  Dad speeds up a little more and the emu races along beside us. We wind down the windows and can hear his feet make a sound like a galloping horse. Max cheers him on, holding the pterodactyl in the air.

  ‘I think that’s enough for him now,’ says Dad, and he speeds up to leave the emu behind us.

  ‘It’s sad that they’re so hungry and thirsty,’ I say, starting on my notes.

  ‘They’re not too badly off,’ says Mum. ‘They come into town to drink in the dry times and they eat the grass from people’s lawns.’

  ‘I’d love a pet emu!’ says Max.

  Dad shudders at the thought of an emu eating his front lawn.

  We drive for another two hours, which gives me heaps of time to update my Vet Diary with what Mum has told me about emus. The road is so straight and flat it makes it easy to write.

  When I look out the window, I see dry, open land. Max has fallen asleep with dinosaurs all over his lap, but Chelsea and I want to look out the window for outback animals. We want to see as many as we can.

  There are some poor, dead kangaroos beside the road that have been hit by cars and trucks, but we see lots of live ones too, bounding away when they hear the sound of the car.

  ‘We’re here,’ says Dad finally.

  We look up to see a sign over a large gate with a cattle grid.

  ‘Sunnyside Station,’ I read aloud. ‘This is where my grandparents live, Chelsea.’

  Chelsea looks around at the dry, dusty paddock.

  ‘Um, Juliet,’ she whispers, brushing a bit of dust off her crisp, white top. ‘They do live in a house, don’t they?’

  Mum has overheard her. ‘It’s about three more kilometres from here to the house,’ she says.

  Chelsea can’t believe it. ‘Three kilometres from the front gate to the front door,’ she says, sounding amazed.

  We drive along the bumpy driveway towards the homestead. Mum must be really excited to see her parents. It’s been almost a year since we’ve seen them or our cousins.

  Suddenly a trail bike rides up beside us. I wave like crazy when I realise it’s Grandpa. Dad stops the car and we all pile out. Everyone’s hugging each other. Grandpa can’t believe how much we’ve grown.

  ‘Grandpa, this is Chelsea,’ I say. ‘She’s nearly a world-famous animal trainer and groomer and she’s my best friend.’

  ‘Well, nice to meet you, Chelsea. I can always use a new station hand.’

  Grandpa looks over at Max. ‘Anyone want a ride to the house on the motorbike? I’ve just radioed Grandma to ask her to put the kettle on.’

  ‘Me!’ says Max, jumping about. Grandpa grabs the spare helmet and puts it on Max’s head and Dad helps him climb onto the back of the motorbike. Max is grinning from ear to ear.

  We follow them up the long driveway.

  ‘Hello, hello!’ cries Grandma as she comes rushing out to meet us and give us all a hug. ‘You must be hungry after such a big trip,’ she says. ‘Who’s ready for some afternoon tea?’

  Dad’s eyes light up. He loves Grandma’s cooking.

  We take our bags inside and have some yummy homemade biscuits, then Max and I show Chelsea around the farmhouse and the yard.

  ‘Over here are Grandma’s chooks and that’s her house cow, Creamy. They milk her every morning and night. We’ll be able to help.’

  Chelsea looks at Creamy’s bulging udder and long teats and pulls a face. ‘Maybe I’ll just watch.’

  ‘You’ll want to have a go, trust me,’ I say. ‘It’s hilarious. Once Grandpa squirted Max in the face with the milk.’

  Max kills himself laughing at the memory. Chelsea screws up her nose, but I know she’s going to love it.

  ‘They also have a cat called Ratter, but he’s usually in the barn catching mice. He’s not super friendly, but I’m sure you’ll be able to fix that.’

  Chelsea nods in agreement. ‘Why are those dogs tied up over there?’

  ‘They’re the working dogs,’ says Max. ‘Grandpa uses them to help move the cattle and sheep, but they stay tied up when they’re not working so they keep out of trouble.’

  Suddenly a car horn toots. My cousins have arrived. Max runs around to the front yard, but I take another look around me. I love being in the outback surrounded by all these animals. I just hope Jarrod doesn’t make fun of me this time.

  Everyone’s talking in the kitchen when we come inside.

  Uncle Stan and Aunty Sophie give me a huge hug. I introduce them to Chelsea, but something makes me stop before I tell them she’s nearly world-famous.

  Jarrod’s sitting at the table eating biscuits.

  ‘Hello, Jarrod,’ I say. ‘This is Chelsea.’

  ‘Hi, Juliet, not even a vet,’ mumbles Jarrod, a little too quietly for any of the adults to hear. He just smirks at us.

  Chelsea and I look at each other and she frowns. I did try to warn her about my cousin Jarrod.

  ‘We’re going back outside,’ I say.

  ‘Jarrod, you should go outside with the girls,’ says Grandpa. ‘You can keep an eye out for snakes for them.’

  Chelsea stops in her tracks.

  ‘Don’t worry about snakes, Chelsea,’ I say. ‘The dogs go nuts if there’s a snake around.’

  ‘I want to stay here,’ moans Jarrod.

  ‘Off you go, please,’ says Uncle Stan.

  ‘Stay in the house yard, Jarrod,’ says Aunty Sophie. ‘And look out for the girls.’

  I can’t help but roll my eyes as I walk out the door. I’m nearly a vet. I certainly don’t need a babysitter looking out for me, and neither does Chelsea.

  We go back into the yard. Jarrod follows along, but he doesn’t speak to us.

  ‘Let’s collect the eggs, Chelsea,’ I say.

  ‘Are you coming in?’ I ask Jar
rod, as I hold the chook gate open.

  ‘Nah. I hate chickens. They stink.’

  Chelsea gasps.

  ‘Fine,’ I say, and I slam the gate shut.

  The laying boxes have lots of eggs in them. I think Grandma might have

  left some there for us to collect.

  ‘Jarrod, can you pass that bucket in, please? We can’t carry all these eggs.’

  He seems to think about whether he’ll do it, then slowly wanders over to get the bucket under the washing line. He stands back about a metre from the pen and holds it out to me.

  ‘Um, my hands are full of eggs,’ I say. ‘Can you bring it in?’

  ‘I’m not going in there. I told you – it stinks.’

  ‘I’ll get it,’ says Chelsea helpfully. She opens the gate to reach the bucket and a chook makes a charge for freedom.

  ‘Yuck! Get away,’ says Jarrod as it runs towards him.

  I’m sure I see him try to kick the chicken.

  ‘Hey!’ yells Chelsea. ‘It’s never okay to be cruel.’

  ‘Well, I told you I hate them! It shouldn’t have come near me,’ Jarrod yells back and storms inside.

  Chelsea and I collect the rest of the eggs then gently round up the escaped chook and put her back in the pen. We both sniff her. She doesn’t stink in the least.

  We carry the eggs inside then go and find Max and Jack. They are in the end room unpacking their suitcases. Jack has brought just as many dinosaurs as Max.

  ‘Hey, Juliet, look at this. Jack and I have the exact same diplodocus! They’re even the same colour.’

  ‘That’s amazing,’ I say, wishing Jarrod liked me as much as Jack likes Max. I’m so glad Chelsea’s here.

  ‘Do you guys want to come to the barn with us?’ I say.

  ‘Yeah!’ they say together.

  ‘We’re going to the barn to find Ratter,’ I tell Mum on our way back out.

  ‘Oh dear, is that a good idea?’ says Aunty Sophie.

  ‘Rachel and I grew up playing in that barn, honey. It’s fine,’ Uncle Stan reassures her.