Anna and I were together for almost two years, and I honestly thought we’d be together forever. We joked about how one day we’d be this old gray-haired couple sitting in our rocking chairs and doing crossword puzzles. When she broke up with me, it was like the whole world tilted on its axis and nothing would ever be okay again. I’ll always care about you, Jayden, but I think we should just be friends. Every time I caught a glimpse of her in the school hallway, I felt a sharp pain in my chest, like my heart was squeezing tight as a fist around her words.
So even though I missed Anna like crazy, I couldn’t be friends with her. It hurt way too much. If things couldn’t go back to the way they were, it was easier to not see her at all.
Anna couldn’t understand that. She actually called my mom and told her she was worried about me. So then Mom asked me if I was thinking about hurting myself. Of course not, I said. Don’t be stupid. The truth is, I thought about it all the time, but I hate seeing my mom worry about me. It just makes me feel worse.
Which is why, when I email my mom from Perth, I don’t mention that we are heading into the outback. I don’t mention that Mel seems crazier than ever, or that I’ll be traveling across a desert in the heat of summer with a mad scientist and a spiky-haired girl who doesn’t like me.
I figure that I’ve already given her enough to worry about.
Chapter Four
We spend a couple of days driving to Wiluna, where the Canning Stock Route begins. Nat sits up front with Mel. Two days in a stinking hot jeep together hasn’t made her any more friendly. I put my headphones on and crank up the tunes.
Wiluna is the smallest town I’ve ever seen. Just a few buildings in the middle of nowhere. We load up a few last supplies and pick up three coffees to go.
“Not thinking of heading out on the stock route, are you?” The man at the gas station leans close to Mel’s window.
“No, no.” Mel starts the engine. “Just a short little drive.”
From the driving directions I’ve seen, Lake Disappointment is a lot farther than a short little drive. Three or four days, more like. Nat sticks her bare brown feet up on the dash and doesn’t say anything.
“Wouldn’t go out there this time of year, myself,” the man says. “You traveling in a convoy, at least?”
“Like I said, we’re just going a few miles.”
The man eyes our fuel drums and waves the flies away from his face. “Lot of fuel for a day trip.”
Mel grips the steering wheel so hard that the tendons stand out on the backs of his sun-spotted hands. “None of your business, is it?”
The man shakes his head and takes a slow step backward. He looks at Nat, barefoot and sleepy in the passenger seat, and at me, hunched up in the back with my camera bag on my lap. “You take care,” he calls as we drive off. “Something goes wrong out there, you’re on your own.”
Mel puts his foot on the gas. “Nosy bugger.”
Nat turns to him. “Why didn’t you tell him where we’re going?”
“Don’t want anyone snooping around after us.” Mel glances over his shoulder like he actually thinks we might be followed.
I look around. Nothing but brown desert as far as the eye can see. Heat radiates in a shimmering slick mirage just ahead of us. A road-kill kangaroo lies decomposing in the red dirt, and a burned-out vehicle rusts at the edge of the road.
The place looks like the end of the world. I can’t imagine anyone being crazy enough to follow us.
A yellow sign marks the beginning of the track. Canning Stock Route, it reads. This road is recommended for 4WD vehicles only. There is no water, fuel or services between Wiluna and Hall’s Creek, over 1900 km in length. Motorists are advised to obtain adequate supplies and spares before venturing on this road.
I snap a photo of the sign through my open window. “Sure we have everything we need, Mel?”
“Course I am.”
Nat mutters something under her breath. I look at her inquiringly, but she just shakes her head.
The sign is wrong about one thing: Calling this route a road is a major exaggeration. It is a dirt track, bonejarringly rutted with deep tire grooves and corrugated like the metal sheets they make sheds out of back home. The jeep bounces and crashes its way along, through thick dust and over rocks and sand hills. Grassy shrubs cover the ground, and in places the track disappears beneath them and we have to slow almost to a stop to find it again.
We drive until the sun is low in the sky and the temperature is starting to drop. Finally we set up camp by an old well. “It’s got no water in it,” I say, leaning over the semi-collapsed wooden beams.
“There are wells all along this track,” Mel says. “Built a hundred years ago. I wouldn’t count on getting drinking water from any of them.”
“We have plenty though, right?” I look across the sand and shrubbery at our jeep and our two tents. They look very small and lonely under the huge darkening sky.
“Of course we do,” Nat says. “You don’t drive in the outback without it.” She wraps her brown arms around herself and shivers. “Mel, you arranged for the fuel drop, right? At Well 23?”
“We have all the fuel we need,” Mel says. He lights a cigarette, and in the dusky light its tip glows as red as the earth beneath us. Nat stares at him. “If we’re carrying the amount of fuel that’s recommended, we won’t be able to get the truck across the dunes.”
Mel frowns. “Look, if I’d tried to arrange a fuel drop, one of two things would have happened. We’d have been told not to come until April. Or the Rizzards would have heard about our plans.”
“How?” Nat demands. “Anyway, so what if they did? They’re not crazy enough to be out here this time of year.”
“Word travels fast,” Mel says darkly. “And I didn’t want to take chances.”
“Didn’t want to take chances!” Nat’s voice rises. “Not arranging a fuel drop is taking chances, Mel! Coming on our own with only one vehicle is taking chances! Not telling anyone about our plans is taking chances!”
I remember the misleading email I sent my mom. “You mean no one knows we’re out here?”
Nat fiddles with the silver bracelet that dangles from her wrist. “We should go back,” she says. “Arrange the fuel drop.”
“Nat. My dear girl.” He looks away from us, out across the desert, and takes a deep drag on his cigarette. Smoke drifts into the cool evening air. It is getting dark fast, the world shrinking to the small circle we can see by the light of the lantern. “Everything will be fine,” he says. “Durba Springs tomorrow and all the way to Lake Disappointment the next day.”
“If we can even get there,” Nat mutters. “I’m not carrying fuel tanks across the dunes just because you’ve overloaded the truck.”
Mel shakes his head sadly. “I’m disappointed in you, Nat. I thought you had more of a spirit of adventure.”
“I thought you had more common sense,” Nat snaps back. She opens her mouth to say more, but stops herself and stomps off toward the tents.
“Silly girl,” Mel says. “To tell you the truth, I’ve been wondering lately.”
“About what?” I can see Nat’s slight figure disappearing into the darkness, out of reach of the lantern’s light.
He lowers his voice. “Her loyalty.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“She’s been throwing out obstacle after obstacle. Trying to persuade me to come in a convoy with at least one other truck. Delaying the trip by insisting on all those spare parts. Trying to get the word out about our plans even after I swore her to secrecy.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Maybe the Rizzards got to her. Maybe they offered her something in exchange for information. I wouldn’t put it past them.”
It sounds a bit unlikely to me, but what do I know? “I guess I’d better go after her,” I say. “Make sure she’s all right.”
“See what you can find out,” Mel says. “If she’s up to something, I want to know about it.�
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It is getting cold, now that the sun is gone. I look out into the endless darkness of the desert night and shiver. “If you don’t trust her, why did you bring her on the trip?”
Mel scowls. “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” he says. “I want to keep an eye on her.” He pats my shoulder. “That’s part of the reason I asked you to come along.”
Chapter Five
I grab my flashlight from my tent and walk in the direction I saw Nat head off in, slowly swinging my beam of light from side to side. She is less than a hundred feet away, sitting on the ground, arms wrapped around her knees. Something about her hunched shoulders makes me wonder if she’s crying.
“Nat? Are you okay?” Even though I haven’t actually agreed to spy for Mel, I can’t help feeling guilty about the conversation we just had.
“Yeah.” She looks up at me, shielding her eyes from the glare of my flashlight. “Turn that off.”
I kill the light and sit down beside her. “What’s wrong? Are you worried about the fuel?”
Nat shakes her head. “The worst that will happen is that we can’t get the truck over the dunes and we have to turn back.”
“What, then? How come you’re so upset?”
There is no moon and it is really dark now—the darkest dark I’ve ever seen. Nat is two feet away and I can barely make out her features.
She hesitates. “He’s your uncle.”
“So?”
“So I don’t want you to get mad.”
I laugh. “Don’t worry. I know he’s crazy, if that’s what you mean. He’s always been that way.”
“Not like this.” She leans closer to me and lowers her voice to a whisper. “He’s been acting really strange, Jayden. Paranoid. He’s obsessed with these other scientists.”
I can smell her shampoo—not sweet and flowery like Anna’s, just a clean sort of smell. A regular soap smell. I clear my throat. “The Rizzards. Yeah, he told me about them.”
“Polly and Ian.”
“You know them?”
“I met them at a conference a few months ago. They were nice. Encouraged me to keep studying.” She sighs. “Mel’s convinced they’re out to sabotage his research, but they’re not like that. They’d be thrilled if he found something new out here.”
“Sounds like you really like them.”
I hear Nat’s sharp intake of breath. “Not you too,” she says.
“What do you mean?”
“Mel thinks I’m working with them, doesn’t he?”
I’m glad she can’t see my face. “Why would he think that?”
“He shouldn’t,” Nat says. “He used to trust me.”
“If he didn’t trust you, why would he have asked you to come?”
“Because he’s not exactly…practical.” She gives a weak laugh. “He needs me. I’ve been busting my butt trying to get us ready for this trip. Seriously, Jay.”
“I believe you,” I say. “I guess it’s just really important to Mel to get there first. He said he wants a species named for him.”
She snorts.
“He’s always been a bit odd,” I tell her. “When I was ten, he gave me a bunch of explosives and stuff and let me build my own fireworks in his backyard. Just about blasted my hands off.” I don’t mention that I covered for Mel, telling my mom that I snuck the chemicals out of his garden shed, or that I still have bad burn scars from that incident. She’s probably already noticed anyway. I look like I was born with webbed fingers that were repaired by someone who skipped the cosmetic part of his surgery training.
“It’s more than just being odd,” Nat says. “No offense, Jayden, but he’s crazy.”
I hear something move nearby. “What was that?” I snap my flashlight on and swing the beam around.
Mel is standing ten feet away, arms folded. “Time for bed, don’t you think?”
I wonder how long he’s been standing there, listening.
The next morning, we pack up the tents at sunrise and set off again. The truck jolts and shudders its way north, the impact jarring my spine and the noise making conversation impossible.
Around us, in every direction, red earth stretches to the wide blue horizon. The desert isn’t as sandy as I’d pictured it, nor as barren. Clumps of spiky grass grow everywhere, even down the middle of the track, between the wheel ruts.
“I didn’t think anything grew in the desert,” I say.
Mel gives me a look. “My dear boy. How would any animals live out here if nothing grew?”
I shrug. “You’re the biologist.”
“It’s spinifex,” he says. “Porcupine grass. It’s everywhere. Covers a fair chunk of the continent and provides a nice home for a lot of lizards and rodents.”
“Aboriginal people traditionally ground its seeds for food,” Nat says.
I look at her in surprise. Did she just speak to me voluntarily?
“Also they used to build shelters from it, burn it, use its resin…” She breaks off, shrugging. “I don’t know. Just stuff I read online.”
I raise my eyebrows. Is she actually blushing? I open my mouth to say something, but the truck suddenly slows as the wheels spin in the deep sand. Mel swears under his breath and bangs on the steering wheel with both hands.
“If we get stuck, we’re so screwed,” Nat says. “Mel, hit the gas! Try to get out of the ruts—they’re too deep!”
“Shut up,” Mel says. “Just shut up.” The truck bumps to a standstill. The engine roars and a cloud of red dust flies up around us.
The morning sun is still low in the sky, but already the heat is pressing down, making it hard to breath. Through my sunglasses, everything has an eerie orange glow, and I fight off a feeling of panic.
“Can you reverse?” I ask. “Nat and I can get out and push.”
Mel wipes the sweat from his forehead. “You two get out,” he says. “But we’re going forward, not back. We can get through this. We’re not giving up.”
I look doubtfully at the track ahead. “I don’t know, Mel. I don’t think—”
“Get out, damn it.”
I get out. Nat follows without a word, and we both put our hands on the rear of the truck. Nat mutters something under her breath that contains the word crazy, followed by a highly creative chain of swear words.
“Push! Come on! Push!” Mel shouts.
The engine roars and the wheels spin, digging themselves deeper into the sand and choking Nat and me with fine dust. I lean in, pushing as hard as I can. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Nat’s arms, wiry and lean, muscles straining.
“Again!” Mel shouts. “Harder!”
“Right,” Nat mutters.
There is no way. The truck isn’t going to budge.
We walk around to Mel’s window, and he glares out at us, his blue eyes piercingly bright and his face red and sweaty. “You two aren’t strong enough,” he says. “The truck’s heavy.” He lights a cigarette and exhales a cloud of smoke into our faces. “We’ll have to unload.”
I take a step backward and eye the truck. Roof rack, fully loaded. The entire back of the truck, crammed full. Tents, sleeping bags, campstove, water, food, folding table and chairs, first-aid supplies, laptop, backpacks full of clothes, Mel’s books, containers for collecting hypothetical lizards, boxes crammed with assorted and, no doubt, heavy equipment. And four enormous fuel tanks, forty-four gallons each.
“All of it?” I ask. “I mean… everything?”
Mel leans back and puffs on his cigarette. “Unless you’d prefer to stay here.”
I blink stinging sweat out of my eyes and look at the blazing blue sky and the endless desert. Only one day’s drive from civilization, but in this heat it might as well be a week’s. I’ve heard enough stories about people dying in the outback to know that we need that truck.
“Come on,” Nat says quietly. “Let’s get started.”
Chapter Six
Eventually we finish unloading. Our gear lies heaped in huge colo
rful piles beside the road, and my arms and shoulders feel like they’ve been through a shredder. The fuel was brutal to unload. Back in Perth, we filled the steel drums after we loaded them onto the truck, so none of us quite realized how unmanageable they were. Turns out that forty-four Australian gallons is actually almost fifty-five American gallons and heavy as all hell. We finally managed to unload them by turning our folding table into a makeshift ramp. Gravity did half the work, but it just about killed me all the same.
Pushing the truck is the last thing I feel like doing. I rub my shoulders. “Let’s do it,” I say.
“I’m going to lower the tire pressure first,” Nat says. “That’ll help.”
I watch as she squats beside one tire after another, tongue poking out between her teeth in concentration as she unscrews the valves. She looks like she does this for a living.
When Nat gives us the thumbs-up, Mel gets back in the driver’s seat and starts the engine. Nat and I push. The engine screams, the wheels spin…and the truck shifts a couple of feet. I close my eyes as a spray of sand stings my face.
“Push!” Nat yells. And then the truck is free, shooting forward. Mel drives fast through the thick sand, steering to one side to find firmer ground. Nat and I run along behind, and for a freaky heart-stopping moment I wonder if Mel will just keep driving, forgetting all about us in his excitement to be heading toward his precious lizards.
Finally, to my relief, the truck comes to a stop and Mel gets out. “Nice work! What a team!”
He sounds like the Mel I remember from childhood visits: all enthusiasm and wild energy. I wipe dirt and sweat from my face. “Yeah. Phew.” My mouth is so dry that my tongue sticks to its roof and makes a clicking sound when I speak.
“Time to reload,” he says.
I look back at our piles of gear, now a hundred feet from the truck, and realize something. “There’s no way we can get those fuel tanks back on.”
“What if we backed the truck up? We could go off the track, around the worst of the muck…,” Nat begins.
Outback Page 2