‘He’s taken it with him,’ he muttered. ‘For all the good that will do.’
Then he saw the torch, discarded on the verandah floor, and leaned down to pick it up and shook his head.
The vet’s jeep was coming down the hill, the headlights blazing a pathway through the night. It pulled up next to the verandah, the engine humming, and Pender’s father made his way over and climbed into the passenger seat next to the vet, who nodded seriously. They took off at speed up towards the bushland beyond the hill.
Pertelote stood on the verandah, alone, with nothing to do but wait and hope.
Pender and Billy-Bob were now deep in the eucalypt forest. The sky was hidden by the canopy of leaves and branches above their heads. The bush was thick with sounds and smells and movement, of possums, owls, snakes, quolls.
Something brushed swiftly past Pender’s leg and he half-stumbled backwards, saving himself from falling with his father’s stick. What was that? He leaned down and clung to Billy-Bob. The dog was trembling too. Pender pressed his fingers into the little bones beneath his fur.
‘We don’t belong here, Billy-Bob and I,’ he thought.
They were strangers, the two of them. They should not be here. But they couldn’t go back. They had to find Brindabella.
By now, Pender had no idea where he was. They had walked too far, in too many directions, following the drag of their own feet and the pull of what they heard. He knew that he was very far from home. But closer to Brindabella.
Where were the hunters? Once, even twice, Pender thought he saw the flash of a torch, but when he looked again, it was gone and the place where it might have been was impenetrably black. Maybe with those two loud cracks he had heard in bed, the hunters had got what they had come for. Maybe already—
Brindabella—
‘No,’ said Pender out loud. ‘No.’
He could not believe it. He would not believe it. Brindabella was alive. She must be alive. He knew she was alive as much as he knew he was alive himself. If she lay dead or injured somewhere, he would know it.
Billy-Bob looked up at him, questioning. Pender began to walk forward again, Billy-Bob treading on light paws beside him, listening, sniffing. They peered through the tall tree trunks, the sweep of branches, the rising pile of boulders.
There! Past the layers of grey gum leaves Pender was sure he saw something. The curving silhouette of a kangaroo! Blended into the surrounding landscape like a ghost. Or was it a trick of his mind? Could he be imagining it?
The shadow stepped to one side. No—it was a kangaroo! And then, behind the first curved shadow appeared another, head upright in the air. Her eyes caught the scraps of light that squeezed their way through the foliage from the night sky, and they flashed like two tiny stars.
‘Brindabella!’ breathed Pender.
Pender lowered himself to the ground on his knees, his arm around Billy-Bob. It was her—it was Brindabella! He knew it was her. He had drawn her so many times. He knew every line of her body, every scoop of her face. In the moonlight he saw that a tiny tip was missing from the end of her tail. But it was Brindabella—he knew he was not mistaken.
But did she know it was him? Had she even seen him? Should he speak? But she seemed not to be looking at him, nor at Billy-Bob. Her eyes were fixed on something beyond, past them both. He opened his mouth.
‘Brindabella?’
No sound came out, just his breath in the darkness. He heard a mechanical click. There was someone near him in the bush, someone with a predatory smell.
Pender, Billy-Bob and the two ghostly kangaroos did not move at all. They knew exactly what that click meant. They stood together, the four of them, like rocks of sandstone that had lain there for thousands of years. They waited. They strained to hear. But there were no whispered words or sounds of breathing, or even of boots crackling the layers of twigs underfoot.
‘I must have imagined it,’ thought Pender, desperately. ‘Maybe there’s no one there. Maybe I’m hearing things.’
Now he was truly afraid. His hand was on Billy-Bob’s head. How soft the fur was that grew between the little dog’s ears—like velvet.
Pender suddenly knew he could not wait and do nothing. If he did, Brindabella would die. There was another click. He leapt up and screamed:
Brindabella looked straight at him with her round dark beautiful eyes, straight into his own. Pender.
Pender flung himself forward into the night, throwing his father’s stick violently in the air as a great crack sounded. And then there was such a tumble of noise and rush of life that he felt as though he was falling through the universe in the tail of a comet.
He didn’t remember what happened after that. He fell, throwing his arms around Billy-Bob, and fainted.
There was the sound of human voices swearing, shouting, running on heavy feet. There were more sounds too—of wheels, of engines revving in the distance, and more shouting.
But the deepest sound of all that Pender felt reverberate through his whole body as he lay on the shuddering ground, his eyes closed, was the sound of the bounding feet of the two kangaroos, their tails thumping after them. Brindabella had escaped! She had not been shot! She was alive and free!
Then he heard someone call his name and he felt a touch on his shoulder.
‘Pender,’ said a voice. ‘There you are. Are you all right?’
He opened his eyes and a light shone in his face. It was the vet, bending over him.
‘Pender. Oh, thank goodness. Can you get up?’
Pender stared at her blankly.
‘Brindabella,’ he said, the words tumbling out. ‘I
