When he reached the hut, Pender stood at the closed door, smelling the smoke of the woodfire. He felt completely exhausted, as though he might faint. He couldn’t take a hand from where he held Brindabella, even to knock.
‘Dad?’ he called out. ‘Dad!’
There was the sound of Billy-Bob getting up and pattering across the floor of the hut. His wet nose poked under the gap at the bottom of the door. Then Pender heard his father pushing his chair up, then footsteps. The door opened.
Billy-Bob stood at the door and wagged his tail. Then he held his head to one side and sniffed. He let out a low growl. Pender’s father had a wet paintbrush in his hand and he looked blankly at Pender—not crossly, but as though he might have forgotten where he was. That’s what he was like when he was in the middle of a painting.
‘Pender,’ said his father, ‘what’s wrong?’
Because Pender had begun to cry. Tears were rushing down his face. He couldn’t speak. Instead, he lifted up his jacket and showed his father what lay underneath. Brindabella raised her head, her ears turning and twitching.
‘Hunters,’ said Pender’s father fiercely, when Pender stopped crying enough to tell him what had happened. His eyes had lost their colour. ‘Hunters. I didn’t hear a thing.’
He leaned forward, looking more closely at Brindabella. She blinked and turned away. Billy-Bob got up on his hind legs, trying to see the joey. Pender’s father pushed the dog down and sighed.
‘We’d better take her back down to the house. I’ll call the vet.’
He put down his paintbrush and they left the hut, shutting the door behind them. Pender felt the warmth of Brindabella under his jacket and his father’s hand leaning heavily on his shoulder as they walked together down the hill. Billy-Bob stood at the front of the hut for a moment with a puzzled look on his face and then bounded down after them. But Pender’s father did not let him inside when they got to the house, so he stretched out on the doorstep with his head between his paws.
Once inside, Pender sank down on the sofa with Brindabella curled up on his lap. He smelled her strong, strange kangaroo smell and listened to his father speak to the vet over the telephone. He felt as though he was dreaming. His father finally put down the phone and came and sat on the sofa next to Pender.
‘The vet will be here very soon,’ he said. ‘She’ll tell us what we need to do.’
Brindabella buried her little face into Pender’s chest.
‘She’s so skinny,’ said Pender.
Her legs and body seemed very thin to him, not like a nice fat baby in a pram. And her ears were too big for her face.
‘I think she’s fat enough,’ said Pender’s father, smiling. ‘But she is a baby, and she needs her mother’s milk. We don’t have that. But the vet will have something like it. She’s not far away.’
They waited. Soon enough, the vet’s red truck pulled up outside as Billy-Bob ran up and down barking. The vet left her boots on the verandah and came in. She went straight over to Brindabella and lifted her up with firm, confident hands.
‘Let’s see how you are,’ she said.
The vet had a very careful look all over Brindabella. The joey did not like it, and she scratched and kicked, but the vet took no notice. She frowned and clicked her tongue, nodding and shaking her head. Pender felt a sudden burst of fear.
‘She’s all right, isn’t she?’ he said. ‘Is there something wrong?’
‘She’s all right,’ said the vet. ‘Actually, she’s good.’ She glanced at Pender’s father. ‘What are we going to do with her, though? That’s the thing. She can’t live by herself in the bush, not yet. So, that’s a problem.’
‘I can look after her,’ said Pender, eagerly. ‘Until she’s big enough, you know...’
His voice trailed off.
‘Wait on,’ said his father. ‘Wait till you hear a bit more about it.’
‘She’s not like a puppy or a kitten, you know,’ said the vet, looking directly at Pender. ‘It’s not easy to look after her. She’ll have to be fed every few hours from a bottle like a baby.’
‘I can do that,’ said Pender.
‘It’s not ordinary milk,’ continued the vet, seriously. ‘It’s special milk that has to be mixed up and made warm enough for her. And not just in the day. She’ll probably wake at night, too.’
‘That’s okay,’ said Pender. ‘I don’t mind.’
He tentatively stroked Brindabella on her back and the side of her head. To his delight, she didn’t flinch, but turned and looked at him. What was she thinking?
‘It’s not only that,’ said the vet. ‘She will want to be with you all the time. Remember, she has spent all her life in and out of her mother’s pouch. She’ll be wondering where her mother is. She won’t want to leave you alone, day or night.’
‘I don’t mind,’ repeated Pender.
Pender’s father stood up. He went out into the hallway and Pender heard the linen cupboard door creak open and shut again. His father came back with a large green pillowcase. He brought it over to where Brindabella and Pender were sitting and held it open, nudging the joey gently until she tumbled head first into it. She pushed herself around and around inside, until finally her head came poking out the top.
‘You’ve done this before,’ the vet remarked to Pender’s father.
Pender’s father carried Brindabella inside the pillowcase, and propped her up on the sofa with a couple of cushions. She looked at them all expectantly with her funny little face.
‘So she can stay with us?’ said Pender.
He couldn’t bear it if they said no. They sat in silence for a moment. Billy-Bob whined and scraped at the door.
‘You mustn’t let Billy-Bob near her,’ said the vet at last.
