Carly found it hard to reply.
They had spent the few hours of remaining daylight clearing out a room to sleep in. The shed had been used as a warehouse and was full of dusty old crates and rubbish. It was hard and dirty work to shift them, especially when wearing long skirts and a corset. When it was done, Mrs Chisholm and Carly made a little nest for themselves in one of the tiny rooms. Mrs Chisholm had arranged for a mattress – linen stuffed with straw – to be delivered to the shed, and she told Carly that they would share it. It looked lumpy and unsanitary to Carly, but Mrs Chisholm was pleased with it.
When night fell and they got ready for bed, Carly wriggled out of her dress, keeping the shawl around her shoulders while she changed, the way she sometimes got her togs on and off underneath a beach towel when she swam at the creek back home. She was astonished to find layers of petticoat beneath her dress. She unlaced her corset, tossed it onto the dirt floor and sucked in great lungfuls of air. Bliss!
Carly and Mrs Chisholm lay down to sleep, and Carly found that the mattress was even more uncomfortable that it had looked. It was not only lumpy but scratchy as well. Carly gripped the shawl tightly around her shoulders, and Mrs Chisholm pulled a rough blanket up over them. Mrs Chisholm said goodnight and blew out the candle, and complete darkness fell upon them.
Carly lay in the dark and thought of home. Homesickness pressed upon her chest and stomach, exactly where the corset had been earlier. When she had left her family to visit another state, she hadn’t expected to be visiting another century as well! She wondered about Dora: was she worried? She felt a bit guilty about deserting her new friend. She didn’t know how to go back to modern times ... but part of her didn’t really want to. This new world was strange and scary, but it was exciting too. She fell asleep happily, to the rhythm of Mrs Chisholm’s snores.
She woke with a start. Someone was screaming.
‘What’s that noise?’ Mrs Chisholm shrieked. It was still pitch dark in the shed. Loud rustling and squeaking noises scuttled about the room. It sounded like a dog, or a pack of them.
‘RATS!’ Mrs Chisholm screamed.
Carly squealed and sprang to her feet.
Mrs Chisholm was fumbling about in the dark, bumping into boxes and tripping on the mattress. Squeaks and the pattering of dozens of tiny feet echoed from the walls.
‘Found it!’ Mrs Chisholm sang, and there was a tearing sound and a flare of light. Mrs Chisholm held a match to the candle, and an orange glow lit the room.
Hordes of rats romped about in the shadows.
Carly screamed again. Gross! At the farm, rats sometimes got into the chickens’ grain, but the cats and the snakes usually took care of them. She’d never seen them swarming about like this before.
‘Aargghh!’ Mrs Chisholm yelped. Two rats had dropped from the rafters onto her shoulders! She jumped and clawed at her shoulders. The little bodies fell with a whump onto the floor and scuttled away.
Carly dashed about, lifting her feet high to stop the furry creatures from running over them. ‘Mrs Chisholm,’ she cried, ‘we have to get out of here!’
To Carly’s surprise, Mrs Chisholm stopped squealing and let out a bark of laughter. Then she stopped chuckling and stood quiet and still. ‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘We are not going to be outdone by a few little rodents!’
‘What do you mean?’ Carly asked with a tremble in her voice.
‘We have more backbone than that!’
Carly watched as the lady set the candle back upon the box, calmly opened her bag and pulled out a loaf of bread and a knife. She cut the whole loaf into slices and placed them onto a plate in the middle of the floor. Then she took a bottle from her bag and poured water from it into a dish, which she placed on the floor beside the bread. The rats leapt over each other in their eagerness to get to the feast.
‘There,’ Mrs Chisholm said. ‘That will keep them out of our way. Now, you go to sleep, dear, and I shall sit here with my candle and read a book while I keep an eye on the rats. And tomorrow night, I shall add a touch of poison to their meal.’
Stunned, Carly did as she was told. As she snuggled up on the straw mattress, she caught a glimpse of Mrs Chisholm’s head bowed over her book, and she felt strangely calm and safe. Before long, she was fast asleep again.
‘Rise and shine!’ sang a cheerful voice.
Carly opened her eyes and looked at the dirt floor and the rough timber walls. It took a moment to remember where she was. Then it all came back: Mrs Chisholm, the shed, Sydney of a hundred years ... or more ... ago. Carly lay on the scratchy straw mattress, watching her breath make puffs of mist in the chilly air, and she wondered exactly what year she was living in.
‘Up you get,’ said Mrs Chisholm.
Carly yawned and sat up, clutching the shawl tightly about her shoulders. She had slept surprisingly well.
‘Get dressed and have some breakfast,’ Mrs Chisholm said. ‘Then we have work to do.’
Carly picked up her corset glumly. She wondered if she could get away with not wearing it, but decided that Mrs Chisholm was too sharp-eyed to fool. She wrapped it around her middle and tugged on the laces.
‘Here, let me help,’ Mrs Chisholm said impatiently.
The air whooshed right out of Carly’s lungs as Mrs Chisholm yanked on the laces. ‘Thank you,’ Carly squeaked
