Billy-Bob glanced back at Pender, who had returned to his rocking chair and was rocking aimlessly up and down.
Hunters. And Brindabella was out there, somewhere in the bush...
‘Does the boy know?’
Pender fell asleep early that night. His father had eaten some soup for dinner and then taken his medicine. Billy-Bob lay on the floor next to him. Usually Billy-Bob slept outside with the other animals, but since Pender’s father had been sick, neither of them had had the heart to make him go out. So every night, Billy-Bob rolled himself up, tucked his nose under his front legs, and slept on the mat next to Pender’s father’s bed until the morning.
Pender kissed his father goodnight and crept out of the room. His father was already asleep. He always fell asleep quickly. How could a person be so tired when all they did all day was lie in bed?
Sometimes Pender sat drawing for a while before going to bed, but that night it felt too lonely to sit with his sketchbook by the fire by himself. So he went and lay down on his bed, pulling the blanket around his shoulders. He looked up at the dark ceiling of his bedroom, his hands crossed behind his neck.
He could hear his father’s snores coming from the next room. The window was wide open and the air was cold, but Pender liked to hear the sounds of the bush at night—the calling of birds and insects, the rustling of leaves and grass, the little cries, the flapping of wings. It made him feel inside the world, and closer to Brindabella.
Pender rolled over onto his side and burrowed into his blanket. He fell suddenly and surprisingly into a deep sleep.
It was night in his dream. The sky was wide and deep, and all the twinkling stars were like a huge school of silvery fish or a dark field of sparkling flowers. Below the sky, everything was soft and in shadow. The tall trees swayed gently, and the rocks and boulders and even the ground looked strangely spongey, as though if you stepped onto it, you would sink into the darkness of the earth.
Brindabella! He couldn’t see her face, only the black outline of her body against the light of a big, big moon. But it was her! She was standing by herself, but looked as though she was waiting for someone.
But not for Pender. Another kangaroo emerged from the bush and came hopping over towards her. They knew each other, Pender could tell. Their heads leaned forwards touching in the moonlight.
And then, in the next moment, they both stopped moving, as though a spell had turned them instantly to wood. Pender, deep in his dream, felt a rising terror. There was something wrong, terribly wrong. Something bad was going to happen. He felt an awful tumbling sensation.
Pender’s eyes opened in a flash. For a moment he lay trapped in the world of the dream. Was he still in the dark bushland with Brindabella? His hands shook and his heart was beating very hard and fast. He gulped in cold air like iced water, waiting for the panic to pass.
‘I’m awake,’ he told himself resolutely. ‘I’m awake. It was just a dream. I’m awake, Brindabella is safe. It was a dream, a dream.’
He sat up in bed. He listened to his own deep breaths going in and out. Then he heard Billy-Bob’s paws tapping the wooden floor of the hallway, coming towards him. Billy-Bob ran through the door and jumped up on the bed. Pender put his arms around the little dog.
‘Billy-Bob, I’m sorry, did I wake you?’ he murmured.
Had he shouted out loud? Surely not. It was just a dream, his dream. But Billy-Bob leapt down from the bed and ran over to the open window. He stood up, putting his front paws on the windowsill and pointing his nose out.
That was not a dream. It was not a dream at all—it was a gunshot.
Hunters.
Billy-Bob stood on his hind legs leaning on the windowsill, making anxious whining noises, and then a bark.
But there was nothing to see outside, not from the house. The hunters were deep in the bush. Only the sound of the gun travelled through the night air.
‘Shh, Billy-Bob,’ whispered Pender. ‘You’ll wake Dad.’
He remembered what the doctor had said. Try not to disturb him. Remember to be a good man. They must not wake his father, they must not worry him.
‘Shhh, shh,’ said Pender, stroking the dog’s head.
Pender knew he was not brave—he had never been brave. He was frightened of so many things—of high places, of snakes, of deep water. But tonight, his fear was only for Brindabella. The hunters were looking for kangaroos. And Brindabella was out there, alone in the bush.
He had to go and find her. He had saved her life once before, when her mother had died with that last monstrous bang. Now he had to save her again.
He pulled on socks and his thick boots, and wrapped his warmest coat over his pyjamas. Then he found a torch, which he slipped into his pocket.
Billy-Bob, ears alert, watched him gravely. He followed Pender as he tiptoed out of the room, down the hallway past his sleeping father, past the rows of silent hanging paintings that glowed in the dim light of the dying fire. Pender felt a thousand witnesses watching him, encouraging him, like a soldier heading into battle.
He stepped out of the house and into the night. Outside, too, eyes were on him. Pertelote watched him, blinking. Ricky the cat, on the edge of the roof, stretching his striped hind legs, watched him, eyes glinting. The two big cows lying under a tree, the old white horse with her head over the fence, watched him.
The torch wasn’t working. Were the batteries flat? He looked inside
