‘How rude!’ thought Brindabella, with a sniff.
She hopped forward, then backwards, looking around. Rows of galahs, rosellas and cockatoos hung on branches like fruit, busy eating and preening, enjoying the morning.
‘Good morning,’ she called out.
But the birds were too busy to answer the little kangaroo. They did not even look down, but kept squawking and flapping their wings.
‘Well!’ said Brindabella to herself. ‘Perhaps I will talk to them later.’
She chewed on a piece of dry grass. As she raised her head, she noticed a possum climbing into a tree hollow with a furry baby on its back.
‘Good morning!’ cried Brindabella eagerly. ‘How are you?’
Surely a possum at least would pay her some attention! They were not so different from each other, after all. But the mother possum only seemed annoyed.
‘Shhh,’ she said. ‘Baby’s sleeping.’ And she disappeared inside the hollow. Brindabella waved a fly away from her face. The bush was not quite as friendly as she had hoped. ‘But I’m free,’ she reminded herself, slapping her tail in the dirt. ‘I’m free.’
A blue-tongued lizard suddenly slipped past her, over her foot and under a warm rock. She bent down and peered underneath to see if she could speak with him.
‘Hello?’
The lizard stopped moving and stood still as death. But he was not dead. She could see his belly moving up and down.
‘Hello?’ she tried again.
But just as suddenly, the lizard vanished into a deeper, rockier place, and Brindabella was left alone.
Brindabella stared at the place where the lizard had been just a moment ago.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she thought, thinking hard. ‘It doesn’t matter at all. I’m not lonely. I’m free.’
Brindabella was free and she could do whatever she liked. The difficulty was that she was not at all sure what she should actually do. She had told the Old Wombat that she was going to have many adventures. But how to start?
Clearly there were no adventures to be had near the Old Wombat’s burrow. She would simply have to go out and find one for herself. Then everyone would realise that she was no ordinary kangaroo. She took a few hops further into the bush. The trees were tall and leaned in all directions. A dragonfly flew at her face and then away again into the sunshine. If only there was more space, if only she wasn’t so hemmed in by all the things growing this way and that—then she could really leap forward.
She hopped until she reached a kind of ragged pathway. Ah—there! There was a break in the forest. That was what she was looking for! The trees thinned and she could see a stretch of land and wide sky. She hopped straight out and bounded onto an open plain.
How magnificent Brindabella felt as she sailed across the earth! This was her life—how she was meant to be! She took longer and longer bounds and leaps. It was as though the land underneath her feet was lifting her up, higher and further with each movement.
Then, in the distance, she caught sight of something that made her heart beat so fast that for a moment she felt she would faint.
It was a mob of kangaroos, grazing together in the dawn light. Young and old, large and small, mothers and joeys, dark curving silhouettes against the pale blue sky.
Overcome by excitement and apprehension, Brindabella hopped as fast as she could, her tail pounding on the earth. She sped towards the mob with a spurt of thrilled energy. Other kangaroos—like her!
‘It could even be my family!’ thought Brindabella.
She took great gulps of air, bounding and leaping with all the speed and strength she could manage. But the mob never seemed to get any closer. She didn’t understand. Why was she not catching up with them? Were they further away than they seemed?
Suddenly Brindabella realised that the kangaroos were not getting closer because they were actually moving away. They were not waiting for her at all. The closer she came to the mob, the further the other kangaroos hopped.
But why? Were they frightened of her? What was wrong?
‘Please!’ cried Brindabella. ‘Don’t go! Wait for me!’
She pushed herself even more. She would catch up with them, she would! But then, as though obeying a command, the whole group took off at speed, one after the other, swift and determined. They disappeared into the distance, beyond the pale horizon, until Brindabella could not see them anymore, not even the smallest and slowest of the joeys.
It was only then that she stopped hopping herself. It was hopeless. They were gone.
‘I don’t understand,’ thought Brindabella, fiercely. ‘I simply don’t understand.’
Why had those kangaroos taken off so suddenly? Surely they had seen her—they must have realised that she wanted to meet them. Why did they not want to meet her? She felt a sharp wave of sadness.
‘But I can’t be sad,’ she reminded herself. ‘This is where I am meant to be. This is what I’ve always wanted.’
She would not think of things that made her sad, she wouldn’t. She stamped her hind legs. She already was almost limping from the exhaustion of her chase—she was not used to travelling such long distances. But at last she gathered her strength and began to hop away. She hopped on, here and there, this path and that, following her senses, not thinking of where she was going at all.
‘There will be more kangaroos. I will find them, and next time, they won’t run away.’
Although she did not know where she was going, strangely enough, after a while, she found herself back at the Old Wombat’s burrow next to the burnt tree stump. The Old Wombat was up and out, his head bent, chewing on grass, scratching in the dirt with his paws and thick claws. He looked up amiably when he saw Brindabella slowly hopping towards him.
‘Brindabella!’ he
