Remote Rescue Read Free

campsite. ‘And pack up the tent … and do everything else … while you go and have fun.’ He stared after his children and threw his arms into the air, waving them around in an exaggerated way. ‘That’s okay! It’s not like I’m complaining!’
    â€˜Thanks, Dad,’ Sam called back with a cheeky laugh as she led Dawson and Em along the road to Farina.
    Sam always led. Em always followed. Dawson always worried. That’s just the way things were.
    Em followed because she was the youngest and she worshipped her older sister. When Sam gave instructions, Em went along without question. ‘Go that way’, ‘jump’, ‘run’, ‘follow me’ – whatever it was, Em just did it.
    Sam led. Not just because she was the oldest. Not because she was a leader. She led because it never occurred to her to follow. She saw herself as the adventurer. And adventurers didn’t follow … they just went off and did things. Often, without thinking.
    â€˜Last one there’s a LOSER!’ Sam suddenly shouted, taking off.
    With a squeal of excitement, Em ran after her.

    Dawson shook his head and kept walking at a steady pace. His stomach was full of stale cereal gone soggy in milk he suspected had just about gone off. He certainly didn’t feel like running after a breakfast like that. Besides, it was early and he was still tired.
    Dawson yawned. He wondered how Sam managed to have so much day-time energy after her night-time wanderings … which she thought he didn’t know about.
    Rounding a bend in the road, the treesthinned to reveal Farina. Dawson squinted into the rising sun and caught his breath. The morning light made the town seem more vibrant.
    Not many tourists stopped at Farina. It wasn’t a place many people had heard of, despite the efforts of a local restoration group who’d put up signs and roped off the boundaries of the crumbling buildings. They had also restored the underground bakery, which operated a few days a year, attracting tourists. But today was not a bakery day, and the town was deserted.
    Farina was along the Outback Highway, a lengthy road that was sealed with bitumen most of the way, but became an unsealed, dirt and gravel road in the stretch from Leigh Creek to Marree. After Marree it ledto the famous Oodnadatta Track – a long and rocky road (responsible for countless flat tyres) that wound its way across the harshest parts of South Australia to Oodnadatta. The track finally joined onto the Stuart Highway in a little fly-speck on the Australian map called Marla.
    Dawson was surprised that he remembered all this. Dad had spouted this information in the car on the way to Farina, as if he were spewing up the words from a swallowed guide book.
    But Dawson liked this place. Farina was interesting. Farina was different. Farina was a ghost town … which, he thought, was pretty cool.
    Dawson came to the edge of the town and looked around. He couldn’t see hissisters, but he could hear shouts and squeals echoing through the buildings.

    Then, in the distance, he saw Em chase Sam out from one dilapidated building into another across the road. Dawson wanted to yell out to be careful, just like Dad. But he knew it’d be useless. Sam would do whatever she wanted to do and ignore him. And Em would follow Sam.
    Dawson wandered down the street to where he had last spotted his sisters and peered in through the window. Sam dashed out from a pile of rubble, slapping Dawson on the back. ‘Daws is it,’ she cried out before disappearing into one of the buildings.
    Dawson sighed and headed after his sister half-heartedly. Dad’s instructions about being cautious and not running through the ‘brokenbuilding bits’ was playing on his mind. But Em’s giggles and Sam’s excitement soon drew him into the game. It wasn’t long before they were chasing each other through the streets of Farina, and