‘You might as well give up,’ said Billy-Bob, from where he was lying on a flat stone nearby. ‘Save your energy. You’ll never get through it. It’s too strong for you.’
Brindabella tossed her head at him.
‘That’s all you know!’ she said.
‘Why would you want to leave, anyway? It’s a good life here,’ said Billy-Bob, rolling over on his side. ‘And anyone can see how the boy loves you.’
Brindabella knew that. She knew that Pender cared for her, held her close, kept her safe, and fed her. But she didn’t belong to him. She belonged to no-one but herself.
‘Why should he love me?’ she asked, shrugging her shoulders. ‘I don’t love anybody!’
She thumped her tail in the dust, which rose in a puff. That was what she loved—her strong, beautiful tail.
‘That’s a fine way to talk,’ replied the dog lazily. ‘Speaking for myself, I live for love.’
Brindabella waved away a mosquito.
‘Shoo!’
Of course, in her way, she did love Pender. How could she not? Brindabella had not forgotten how tiny and alone she had felt during those first weeks. Pender had saved her and filled her heart with something that made her able to keep living.
‘And drink that awful milk,’ remembered Brindabella. She straightened up. ‘But I don’t need so much milk anymore.’
‘Eaarp!’
Pertelote, the reddest of the red hens, was stepping over to where Brindabella stood scratching the dirt with her hind paw.
‘Earp!’ She fluffed her feathers and opened her beak again. ‘How are you, Brindabella?’
‘Oh, go away, you silly bird!’ snapped the little kangaroo impatiently.
Pertelote jumped backwards and ran over to Billy-Bob, flapping her wings.
‘Brindabella is in a temper tonight,’ she chortled. ‘Better watch out!’
The dog was watching through his half-closed eyes as Brindabella hopped restlessly up and down in the growing twilight. He wondered what would become of the little kangaroo.
‘This can’t go on,’ he murmured. ‘She’s not going to put up with this much longer.’
He sighed, sleek in his own contentment. Pertelote waddled around him. The other hens had taken themselves off to bed like obedient children and had already fallen into a deep, feathery sleep. But Pertelote often came and sat with the little dog after dark to talk about what life might mean. And she was pretty certain that for Brindabella, life meant something different altogether than what they were used to.
‘Brindabella is not like you,’ she said to Billy-Bob. ‘She can’t help feeling how she does. It’s her nature.’
‘Nature,’ yawned Billy-Bob. ‘What’s nature if it can’t make a few adjustments?’
‘I suppose,’ replied Pertelote, with a roll of her glossy feathers, ‘you can only push nature so far.’
She looked thoughtfully at Brindabella, who was back up at the fence, gazing at the bush. It was clear that the joey was so full of yearning that she hardly knew what to do with herself.
The next morning, both Brindabella and Pender slept in. It had been a hot night. A large mosquito had circled above their heads for hours before finally flying away. Then a frog decided to settle right next to the window and croak loudly until it ran out of voice. Brindabella was too big to sleep under the blankets in bed with Pender anymore, but all night she had shuffled about in the basket on the floor.
By the time Pender got out of bed to make Brindabella her bottle of morning milk, his father and Billy-Bob had already gone up to the hut. Brindabella hopped around the kitchen, watching him tighten the lid of the bottle, then followed him out to the middle of the yard, where he sat himself down on an old wicker rocking chair in the sun. Brindabella drank the milk sprawled on his lap, listening to the singing of the bees and smelling the freshness of the garden. Pender closed his eyes and leaned back in the rocking chair, pushing it up and down gently with his foot. Then he fell asleep in the mild sunshine and the nearly empty bottle fell from his hand.
Brindabella, her stomach pleasantly full, was delighted to find herself free from Pender’s careful watch. Now she could investigate some of the places in the yard she had long felt curious about but that so far she had not been allowed to see.
When he was not painting, Pender's father spent a lot of time building a garden around the house. He grew all sorts of vegetables and berries, as well as flowers, particularly flowers that were shy and reluctant to grow. He covered any of the fruits that grew with a kind of net that looked as light as spiderweb but was tough enough to stop the scissory beaks of parrots and cockatoos from getting through. He also built a short, strong barricade out of wood and wire around the strawberries and baby vegetables, to remind Billy-Bob not to go there to dig.
‘Dig anywhere you like, my friend,’ he told him over and over again, sternly, waving a finger at the little black dog. ‘But leave my strawberries alone.’
Brindabella had always wondered what was hidden in the gossamer parcels on the other side of that barricade. Something smelled so rich and sweet in there! Now there was nobody to stop her. She climbed down from Pender’s lap and hopped to the barricade. Then she clambered right over it and fell onto the leafy ground.
Picking herself up, she pushed her nose into the greenery. Under the leaves and the spiderwebby cloth, she saw a glistening jewel of a fruit. She reached for it with her claw, easily tearing the material apart. It was a berry and it looked so red and delicious. She popped it straight into her mouth and licked the juice from her lips.
It was delicious! She leaned down and picked up another one. And another. And another. There were
