‘Okay, shush. You can come.’ She turned to Archie. ‘What are we going to do? We can’t take her on the bikes.’
Archie thought a minute.
‘It’s like with the fires, when I said we would drive to escape them. They said we couldn’t do it but I know that it would work. We have to drive now too,’ he said. ‘You can drive there, in the ute.’
It was a crazy idea but they had no choice. If Mandy wouldn’t go back to bed, it was the only way.
‘Get the keys,’ Olive whispered. ‘They’re in the bowl, in the kitchen.’
The hardest part would be getting the ute down the driveway without anyone hearing. Maybe they could roll it without turning on the engine. She’d seen her father and uncles do it and was sure she could manage it.
Archie came back with the keys and they walked along the path to the rear of the shed.
‘Get in,’ Olive said to Mandy, guiding her cousin into the back seat. ‘Stay there.’ She shut the door. Archie got in the front passenger seat.
‘Do we need to put our seatbelts on?’ Mandy said from the back.
‘Of course!’ Archie said. ‘It’s dangerous if you don’t.’ He clipped his in and they sat, then Olive realised they needed to get out again, to push. The engine would be too noisy starting up. They both got out and tried but it wouldn’t move.
‘Wait here,’ she said to him. ‘Don’t talk. Keep the doors shut and the torches off.’
She went in the back door and crept through the house, working out in her head what she would say to her aunt or uncle if a door opened. Rue would be surprised to see her and ask lots of questions. She made it to the boys’ bedroom and crept over to Sebastian’s side, to his bed. She stood there a moment, wondering how to wake him up without him yelling. She was about to bend over and gently push his arm when she saw that his eyes were already open.
‘You need my help, right?’
She nodded.
‘I want all your birthday money and the money from Cleg too. The sixteen dollars.’
She started to say no, that it was more than a hundred bucks. He turned in his bed to face the wall.
‘Alright.’ She thought about the typewriter and it made her heart hurt.
Back at the car Mandy was sitting upright, staring out the window.
‘What the hell?’ Sebastian said.
‘She was sleepwalking, she followed Arch. She wasn’t in the plan and I think she’s in a trance, but don’t worry, she’ll be fine. Heidi was alright.’
‘Yeah, she’ll be fine, ’cause I’m taking her back in with me once we roll the car.’
‘That’s not fair. You have to come with us for that much money.’
He didn’t say anything.
‘Peter chickened out too. I can’t believe neither of you will help me.’
Why was everyone against her? It would be so easy just to forget it. She was tired and it all seemed so hard. But she had to keep going, she was so close to the end. She took a deep breath. ‘Okay, it’s not chicken.’ She’d never apologised to Sebastian. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘You’re scared, aren’t you?’ Sebastian was smiling.
Archie came around from the other side of the car. He pulled his hand out from behind his back. He was holding one of William’s small guns. A pistol.
‘We don’t need him,’ he said.
‘No way.’ Sebastian stepped forward. He held out his hand to his brother but Archie didn’t hand him the gun. He stepped backwards.
‘We don’t need him,’ Archie said again.
‘Arch, come on,’ said Olive. ‘We can’t take that—it’s dangerous. And we do need Sebastian, it’s better if he comes.’ She hated that he was right but at least she didn’t have to admit it. Not properly.
‘The whole thing’s stupid,’ Sebastian said. He opened Mandy’s door and undid her seatbelt. ‘Come on, I’m taking you back to bed.’
Olive held onto his arm. She promised she’d never be mean to him ever again. She said he could have all her future birthday and Christmas money. All her Easter eggs, anything he wanted, just to please come with them. From the corner of her eye she saw Archie make a movement, swinging around on his feet and putting his hands to his head. She didn’t care what he thought. She had to make her plan happen and this was the only way. Sebastian stopped what he was doing, straightened and looked at her.
Standing there in the garden the colours of the night seemed to pulse. She didn’t have time to try to interpret Sebastian’s expression. He was getting so weird anyway. Rue said it was the hormones.
‘Alright, but only because I have to make sure my brother and sister will be safe.’ Sebastian did Mandy’s seatbelt up again. ‘And you have to give me the Colt Navy.’
Olive told Archie to give it and he did and Sebastian put it on the front passenger floor of the ute. With Mandy sitting in the back, Archie now at the other rear door and Sebastian at the open passenger’s side and her at the driver’s, the three of them pushed. It was hard work and the ute moved a little forwards and backwards before they could get it over a rock. Once cleared it started to move better and they jumped in and coasted down the driveway with the doors still open, soundless and smooth even though Archie almost fell out. She rolled the car past the trees and all the way down to the gate. She stopped there and got her backpack, then started the engine and they shut the doors. She got the car going smoothly and turned right onto the road. It was a good sign she thought. That things would go well.
‘How do I put the lights on?’
Sebastian reached over and pulled out a knob on the dashboard.
‘Half a click for parking, all the way for full. The high beams is a button on the floor, I think, but I’m not sure. We don’t need the strongest ones if you just go slowly. We can see.’
They crawled along with the land spread outside the windows. She was aware how tightly her hands held the wheel and how far forwards she was sitting on the seat. She was in second gear now and they covered the distance slowly. There were no other vehicles on the road.
At first, no one spoke but then Archie started to chat, quietly at first, about levitation and whether the others believed in it. Next he asked whether identical twins could feel each other’s pain, and then wondered whether they believed some people could move things just with the power of their minds. Olive didn’t answer. She didn’t speak the whole way. She was concentrating hard on making sure she steered properly while looking out for the turn-off to Soldier’s. It was the one before Ganger’s. It didn’t have a sign, just a white-painted stick with a little reflecting square of tin that shone red. She waited for that marker. It was the same one that Grace had stopped at the time they went to Ganger’s.
‘There.’ Sebastian raised his hand.
‘I know.’ She took her foot off the accelerator and the car shuddered as they went around in second but she managed to keep it moving. They drove the last few hundred metres to the spot where there was a wider verge at the side of the road. The car came to a stop and stalled. Sebastian leaned over and pushed the knob in and everything went dark with the trees packed together in complete blackout. She put on her backpack with the tape recorder inside. She’d done tests. She needed to be as close as possible to Jethro Sands when he confessed what he’d done to Aster, and she had to keep the zip open along the top of the bag as well.
‘Should we take the pistol?’ Sebastian said.
‘No way. Give it here. You’re being a quid nunc to even think that, Sebastian.’ She put the gun in the glove box.
‘I don’t think you know what that means.’ Sebastian turned to the bush. ‘Where is he?’ he said. ‘I bet he won’t turn up.’
They walked along the narrow path. Mandy had wanted to stay in the car and sleep on the back seat. She was very tired, she said, and didn’t want to walk but Sebastian told her she couldn’t stay, that she might get kidnapped. She had to go with them, he said, to be safe.
They went through the fence and got to the entra
nce of the bunker where they sat on a fallen branch to wait. The air was fresh in the night. Olive breathed it in and let herself believe that it gave her some sort of power. Across the top of the trees the inky shape of the silo loomed, the megastructure fixed against the darkness, solid and immutable and outlined with stars. A branch creaked and it made her think of ‘Hist!’ and she was just wondering what a mopoke actually was and was going to ask Sebastian if he knew when Jethro appeared. She couldn’t see his face so she swung her torch up and saw that he was smiling. He squinted and held his hand across his eyes.
‘I knew it was you.’
Here he was. She forced herself to take a step forwards.
‘I have the things from your car but I have a question that you have to answer before I give them back.’
‘What’s stopping me from just taking them off you now, without answering anything?’
She pulled out the knife from her backpack and unclipped the press-stud of the case. She pulled out the blade and held it up and gestured with it at Sebastian, who sat nearby with Mandy on his lap. Sebastian looked surprised, shocked even, and Olive knew it was not by her and the knife. It was that Jethro was there at all. Mandy was shivering, hunched over with hollow eyes and Archie was nearby on one of the low branches.
‘Okay,’ Jethro said, holding up his hands. ‘What a crew. Your henchmen have me scared.’ He wasn’t taking her seriously but he would. ‘Okay then. What do you want to know?’
Olive swung her backpack around to her front and stepped forwards. She unzipped it, reached inside.
‘I want you to tell me what happened to my sister, at the dam.’ She was speaking in a loud voice and it sounded strange even to her. ‘I want you to tell me what you did to her, Jethro Sands.’
His smile disappeared—here was the proof. He looked like he knew something, he was guilty. She was right.
Sebastian was making some kind of noise to the side.
‘Ollie,’ he was saying. ‘Don’t.’
‘What makes you think I know anything about your sister?’ Jethro said.
‘I know you were there because people told me you were.’
‘But they didn’t tell you everything, did they?’ He folded his arms and scuffed his boot against the ground. ‘You sure you want to know?’
He was bluffing. Trying to use reverse psychology, which she knew about. But he couldn’t trick her. She said she did. She definitely did want to know. She looked at Sebastian. He was shaking his head and mouthing no. Archie had stood up and was holding his hands apart in question. What about the plan? He was right. She’d forgotten the plan as soon as she saw Jethro. She had to get him into the tunnel to do the second part. She didn’t know how she could manage it. Maybe she could say the badges were there, and if he wanted them he had to go in with her.
‘Alright,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you, but not here. It has to be just you and me.’
She got it, he was clever. He didn’t want the others to be witnesses.
‘We can go to our clubhouse,’ Olive said. ‘I’ll give you the badges there.’
‘You have a clubhouse?’
‘Of course, we’re kids.’ She pointed at the entrance to the bunker.
‘In there?’ He walked towards it and she followed, ignoring Sebastian telling her it was a really dumb idea. He didn’t know the plan because she hadn’t told him. Archie started to follow.
‘You aren’t scared?’ Jethro said.
She shook her head but her mouth was dry and she felt she might faint from terror. They went inside, Jethro gesturing for Olive to go first. She went down the passageway, holding the backpack to her tummy.
‘You kids really come in here?’ Jethro said, looking around.
‘All the time.’ She shone her torch on the roof to check for bats. There were old burned-down candles set into niches in the walls.
She walked around Jethro to shut the door. As she did she caught sight of Archie. He gave her a thumbs-up. She showed her cousin a thumb then closed the door.
She faced Jethro Sands. He looked unsure, worried even, which was how she knew he was going to confess.
‘Tell me,’ she said.
He started the story a couple of times and his voice was tight, but once he got going, it came quickly. He had been at her uncle’s farm, helping with the fences. He told her how the dog had bitten the boy—the small one out there—and the adults took him to the doctor.
‘It’s Archie,’ she said.
Mr Lovelock had told him to wait, Jethro said, that he’d either be back in time for them to finish the work or to drive him home. Mrs Lovelock had told him to go ahead and find something to eat in the kitchen, to just help himself. Olive watched his face. He had been there. And he wasn’t even trying to hide it.
Jethro had gone into the house, but instead of looking for the kitchen, he went and looked around.
‘Kids are nosy,’ he said. ‘Right?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m not.’
‘Anyway, you were in the lounge room, playing with some kind of toy, with that bigger kid out there. Mrs Lovelock said your mother was in the house but I didn’t see her. I said hello but neither of you said anything back. You just stared.’
‘How old were you?’
‘Almost thirteen.’
He had gone to the kitchen and found some bread and made a honey sandwich. There was a baby crying and he thought the mother might come, so he got an apple from the fruit bowl and went into the back garden to find somewhere to sit.
‘Our apples always get eaten the first day at home,’ he said.
Jethro said he found a spot under a big tree. He’d seen a beetle walking across a leaf and he watched it for a long time. Then, near the house, he saw movement and it was someone on the path, Olive and her cousin, the big one.
‘Sebastian,’ she said.
They were walking through a paddock, away from the house.
‘You were carrying something between you, a basket, and you had a bucket and spade. You know those little kid ones, from the beach?’
It was as if wings were flapping near her face. She could hear the tape deck turn inside the backpack with a tiny whirr. Jethro kept talking and it took her a while to stop him.
‘I don’t want you to say,’ she said and reached into her bag. She switched the recorder off.
‘It was the same day the dog bit me,’ he said. It had come right at that moment, as he sat, panting and wet and almost hysterical on the edge of the dam. It jumped on him and bit him on the face. He held his face but the blood was thin and dripped through his fingers and splashed his shirt bright red. He took off his t-shirt and held it to his forehead and waited. He didn’t know what to do, he said. It had taken a long time for her older cousin to stop crying. ‘You were really upset about your hands. You wanted to wash the mud off. That’s what I remember too.’
‘I said I changed my mind.’ She turned off her torch. ‘They still have Shaggy,’ she said. She could hear him breathing. ‘They keep him on a chain.’
‘It was an accident.’
‘But he bit Archie too.’
She switched her torch back on. It hurt her to see the look on his face.
‘You have the same colour eyes,’ he said. ‘I remember it. Exactly the same.’
‘I’m going back.’ She opened the door and walked out of the tunnel. Archie was outside with his torch and the rope but she shook her head at him as she pushed past. Sebastian and Mandy were still in the same spot, Mandy asleep in her brother’s lap, her hands clasped around his neck. Olive moved her torch to Sebastian’s face and saw his tender look before he squinted away from the glare.
‘What happened?’ he said.
‘Nothing. Let’s go.’
‘Do you want a lift?’ said Jethro.
‘It’s alright, we have our own car,’ Sebastian said.
Jethro laughed. ‘You kids really are nuts.’ He lit a cigarette.
Olive started to walk away, back to the fenc
e. There was a sensation in her ears, a pressing of air that made a high-pitched sound. They walked through the trees and around the holes. Everything was bending. All the sounds including the others’ voices were reaching across space to her and almost disappearing in the wide space of the night. The air smelled new, not oiled eucalyptus but something sharp.
She walked first, followed by Archie, then Sebastian carrying Mandy. They all had torches except for Jethro, who was behind. She looked back only once, her eyes finding Jethro’s. It was terrible to know that Jethro Sands felt sorry for her. Archie started to ask about whether there had been any bats in the tunnel and why did she change her mind about the rope. Why didn’t they do the plan?
She told Archie to be quiet. They climbed through the fence, Mandy grumbling because Sebastian said she had to walk the rest of the way.
‘What about the plan?’ said Archie.
‘I changed my mind about it,’ Olive said.
They got to the ute and she knew she wouldn’t be able to drive so she gave the keys to Sebastian. Jethro walked into the trees, his cigarette end a small glowing spot moving in the night along the track. Sebastian got the car going and took about five tries to get it turned around. Back on the main road as they crawled towards Serpentine, Olive rested against the door, her eyes closed.
‘Look,’ she heard Sebastian say. It was Jethro’s car, still parked. Jethro was leaning against it. He lifted a hand in farewell and Olive remembered she hadn’t given back the grille badges.
•
It took them a long time to get back to the farm because Sebastian drove even slower than she had. It was almost quarter to six when they made it into their beds. Her aunt would be unhappy that she was at the house without her knowing but there was no way she could ride home. Rue would get into a state and say Audra would be worried sick but she didn’t care. She should knock on her aunt’s door and tell her she was there but it would cause a fuss and a phone call to her parents right away and she didn’t want to think about things until the morning.
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