The Audrey of the Outback Collection Read Free Page B

into the main house.
    Douglas sat on the kangaroo-skin rugs with his elbows out. ‘ Kookookaakaa. ’
    Audrey gripped one end of her mattress and thin blanket and began rolling them up, along the bed frame.
    Douglas jumped up and threw himself on the mattress, giggling.
    ‘Hop off, Dougie. I can’t do this if you’re lying on it.’
    ‘Pway a game.’
    ‘You’re a bird. Birds don’t play games.’
    He lay still, looking at her with a cheeky spark in his eyes. ‘ Kookookaakaa. ’
    She lifted the end she had rolled so far and tried to flick Douglas off. His giggles became a squeal. Then he leapt off the bed and ran around the room, flapping his arms.
    Audrey found her mattress harder to roll up than she expected. And not just because of the interruption from the ‘Douglas bird’. Mum had recently re-stuffed the mattress with fresh grasses so it was plump. As the grasses dried out, it would flatten. She glanced longingly at her chook-feather pillow. It would have to stay. She could only carry so much at once.
    ‘ Kookookaakaa ,’ said Douglas, even louder than before.
    Audrey wrapped both arms around her mattress and blanket to carry them through the doorway. But the bedroll was too wide and she bounced backwards. Refusing to give up, she threw it over her left shoulder and carried it into the kitchen. She dumped the bedroll on the table, next to the saucepan, and hoped it wouldn’t slip off.
    Arms flapping, Douglas followed Audrey.
    Mrs Barlow stared at Audrey but didn’t ask questions. She dried her hands on her apron, then began selecting potatoes from the hessian bag in the corner.
    Audrey returned to the bedroom, relieved that Douglas had stayed in the kitchen to flap around in there. She reached under her bed until her fingers touched metal and she pulled out a large tin decorated with a red and green parrot. Her cousin, Jimmy, had sent the tin from the city. It had been full of biscuits. Real biscuits. Ones he had bought in a shop, and they had all been the same size and shape. They’d been eaten a long time ago, but Audrey loved the tin almost as much as she had loved the crunchy sweet biscuits.
    The tin was even more special now because it held treasure.

Nine
    Audrey sat on the bare planks of her bed and opened the lid of the tin.
    Price kept a collection of birds’ eggshells on a length of string in his lean-to bedroom. Audrey collected her things in the tin.
    Inside was a book called Martin Rattler . Jimmy had left it for her when he went back home to live with his dad in Adelaide. Cousin Jimmy had stayed with them for a year when his dad got into trouble. Audrey wasn’t sure what sort of trouble. Her parents didn’t talk about it. Martin Rattler was about a boy who had adventures at sea. Audrey couldn’t picture water that stretched so far that no one could see the end of it.
    There was also an eagle feather. She stroked it gently.
    Then she unwrapped her green emu egg from its soft cloth. Dad once told her emus could foretell the weather. If there was going to be a drought they wouldn’t lay eggs.
    There were two pink quartz stones lying next to the emu egg. Audrey picked one up and turned it over, watching it glint.
    Next, she scooped up her five sheep knucklebones, tossed them in the air and turned her hand over. Two knuckles landed on the back of her hand. The other three fell into the tin. She let the knucklebones she’d caught drop beside the others.
    There was a tattered diary, another gift from her cousin Jimmy. It was maroon with the year 1930 written in black letters on the front. Every page up till the end of March was crammed with Audrey’s large, uneven handwriting and drawings.
    She couldn’t leave the diary behind. There were so many of her private thoughts written in there. Things she didn’t want to share—or forget. And what if Price saw she’d described him as having ‘a head like a robber’s dog’? That was after an argument, so she’d been cross with him. Although