The Audrey of the Outback Collection (2 page)

Audrey smiled. So he wasn’t much of a cook, then.

His nails were grubby. Out here, with little water and too much sand, it was impossible to keep clean.

She sat down, facing him. ‘Do you reckon chooks just stop making eggs? Or do you think they’re still in there and the chooks are holding on tight so they don’t drop out?’

‘Don’t know the answer to that one,’ said Toothless. ‘But thank your mother for the eggs. Be down later to see if I can help her any.’

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Damper crumbs fell from his beard. ‘There’s tea left in the billy. Want some?’

‘Yes, please.’ Audrey could stay longer if she had a drink, and it would be rude to say no.

Toothless reached over to search among his things.

The large chaff bag Audrey remembered from the night before rested beside his rolled blanket. Yesterday he had gripped the top of that bag as though he never wanted to let it go. Now, his elbow bumped against the bag and it rattled.

Audrey’s stomach fluttered. She couldn’t drag her eyes away from that bag. What was in there?

Her eyes slid again to the chaff bag.

Four

Toothless found a spare tin pannikin. He filled it with tea from his battered billy. Then he sat the billy back down on the coals.

The tea was black because the leaves had been brewing for some time. It would be strong and probably bitter. But Audrey took the pannikin with a smile of thanks.

Gingerly, she took a sip. The tea was strong, all right. But it had the smoky aroma of eucalyptus leaves that she liked. The metal pannikin was warm against her fingers.

‘My dad’s a dogger,’ she told Toothless. ‘He’s away. Last trip, he sold five hundred dingo scalps to the government. So Mum says she wants real glass in the windows.’

Audrey liked dogs, but dingoes were different. They didn’t bark, just howled. It was a sound that made you shudder at night. Dingoes attacked sheep and cows. Audrey’s dad had once seen a mob of dingoes chase an emu into a fence, where it died of exhaustion. Sometimes, when Dad was camping out, he had to hang his food bag high up in a tree so the dingoes wouldn’t tear it apart.

‘Just you kids and your mother home, then?’ asked Toothless.

‘Yes. My little brother, Douglas, is three. And Price is twelve. He’s out rabbiting today. Mr Akbar, the mailman, pays him for the skins. Price reckons he’s head of the house when Dad’s gone. But I don’t.’ She sighed. ‘And we’ve got two sisters, Pearl and Esther, buried out the back. Mum says they weren’t strong enough to grow big. Mum cries about my sisters sometimes. But I pretend not to notice. Mum says Pearl and Esther have gone to a better place. Price says she means heaven. I reckon she means Adelaide. It’s got beaches with real water.’ She paused to take a breath and her eyes slid again to the chaff bag. ‘You’ve got a lot to carry. Is it heavy?’

‘Used to it. Been on the road since I was thirteen.’

‘That’s about the biggest bag I’ve ever seen.’

Toothless slurped his tea like an animal that had found water in a drought. He spat a tea-leaf onto the ground.

Audrey copied by spitting a leaf of her own. Then she spat another through the gap where a tooth had fallen out. She liked the gap and hoped her new tooth wouldn’t grow down too quickly. At home she would never be allowed to spit. Suddenly she felt more grown-up.

The breeze ruffled the trees and scattered dry leaves. Audrey looked down at the hot coals under the billy. Toothless had built a small sand wall around the camp fire so the wind couldn’t blow coals and soot into the dry grass. Dad would like that. Toothless had been careful.

A sudden snap from the dense twiggy bushes behind Toothless made Audrey jump. Tea slopped from the pannikin onto her hand.

Toothless grunted. ‘Caught something.’

Five

Toothless walked quietly for a large man. As though his feet didn’t know the weight of his body. The bushes in this spot were the same height as the swagman and quite thick, so he vanished the moment he stepped through them. Audrey could tell which way he was heading by the cracking of twigs and rustle of leaves. Then the sound stopped.

Audrey’s eyes were drawn to the chaff bag. Maybe she could take one little peek. The top of the bag was fastened with string and only loosely tied. It would be easy to undo.

She looked around, wishing she hadn’t made Stumpy wait so far away from the camp. Audrey gave a low whistle that sounded like a bird call. If Stumpy heard it he would know she wanted him. That was their special signal. Stumpy was smart. He would tell her if it was all right to look in the bag. Silently, she urged him to hurry. Toothless could return at any moment.

Too impatient to wait for Stumpy, she put her pannikin down on the ground. Still seated with her legs crossed, she edged sideways, closer to the swagman’s bag.

It wasn’t stealing, because she wasn’t going to take anything. She was only going to look.

The breeze freshened to tease the trees and bushes again.

Audrey froze. Was the swagman coming back?

But it was only Stumpy. He stood back, partly concealed by the bushes. She saw his eyes staring at her through a gap in the leaves.

Unsure what to do, she pointed to the swagman’s mysterious bag.

Stumpy nodded. Audrey’s heart beat faster. Nervously, she danced her fingers in the red sand, closer to the bag.

Then she stopped.

It didn’t feel right. The bag belonged to Toothless.

Audrey erased her fingermarks in the sand with a sweep of her hand just as Toothless strode back into the clearing, growling under his breath.

Audrey jumped guiltily. Relief flooded through her at the same time. If she hadn’t changed her mind about snooping, Toothless would have caught her with her hand in his bag.

The swagman sat down. He didn’t seem to notice that Audrey had moved. ‘Set some rabbit traps out back, but the spring’s too light. Wind blew a twig into it and set it off. Have to fix it later. Can’t muck about with machinery when there’s a lady visiting.’

Audrey was pleased to be called a lady, but also slightly embarrassed. She wasn’t sure a lady would peek into other people’s bags. But it didn’t dampen her curiosity. ‘Do you carry your own firewood?’

It might be a silly question, but she couldn’t think of another. Soon she would have to ask straight out—or else forget all about the bag. But she wasn’t sure she could forget. Whenever she tried to stop thinking about something, it always came back, bigger and louder, refusing to be ignored. Sometimes her thoughts shouted at her.

Toothless threw the dregs of his tea into a clump of spiky spinifex grass. ‘Want to know what’s in the bag, do you?’

Audrey shrugged as if she didn’t really care.

Toothless sniffed. ‘Heads.’

Six

Audrey gasped.

Toothless leaned over to drag the chaff bag closer. It rattled again.

He pulled the string at the top of the bag and the knot fell undone.

Perspiration broke out on Audrey’s back.

Toothless reached inside the bag with his large sun-browned hand and pulled out a skull.

‘I don’t really have whole heads, mind you,’ he said. ‘Mostly jaws, with a skull or two.’

The skull was the wrong shape to be human.

Audrey relaxed. ‘It’s a sheep.’

‘No flies on you, are there?’ Toothless put the skull on the ground and dug around in his bag again. This time he pulled out a long jaw. The teeth were a funny shape, not like the teeth that Audrey had lost.

‘Why do you carry sheep skulls around with you?’

Balancing the jawbone in his left palm, Toothless slipped his other hand into his back pocket. He pulled out a large pair of pliers, then fastened them onto a tooth. He wriggled the tooth back and forth.

Audrey’s mouth dropped open. She only realised it when a bush fly got too close to her lips. Quickly, she clamped them shut again.

Cracking sounds came from the tooth. Then, with one last twist of the swagman’s wrist and an even louder crack, the tooth popped out.

The swagman held it up, still pinched in the pliers. ‘See?’

Audrey nodded. ‘My tooth came out by itself.’ She touched the gap with her forefinger. ‘When I was asleep.’

‘I always wanted to be a dentist,’ said Toothless, ‘but never had much schooling. Not that good with the three R’s.’

‘Three what?’ asked Audrey.

‘Reading, ’riting and ’rithmetic.’ He flicked the sheep’s tooth away, slipped the pliers into his pocket and replaced the sheep jaw in the bag. ‘But I can be a bush dentist. All I need is a bit of practice, like. That’s why they call me Toothless. Because I like pullin’ teeth.’

‘I know a swaggie called Bloke. She’s a girl swaggie,’ said Audrey. ‘She’s got no teeth. Not one. She sucks her meat off the bone. Bloke has lots of saliva that sort of melts her meat.’

‘Too right?’

‘Bloke gave
me
a nickname. Two-Bob, cos she reckoned I’m crazy as a two-bob watch,’ said Audrey. ‘I do have two arms like a watch, and a round face. But I don’t have numbers.’

They sat without speaking for a few minutes, busy with their own thoughts. A tiny skink darted across the sand and behind a rock.

Then Audrey said, ‘I reckon you’d make a
good
dentist.’

Above his beard, the swagman’s cheeks went red and shiny. ‘It’s a good thing to know who you are. What you want to be.’

‘Maybe grown-ups ask children what they want to be because they’re looking for ideas. Axshully …’ Audrey took a breath and tried again. ‘Actually,
I’ve
got a really good idea.’

Seven

Audrey strode towards home. It didn’t take long to put some distance between her and the swagman’s camp. She wiped perspiration from her forehead with the back of her hand. ‘Stumpy, I can’t stop now.’

She kept walking, trying not to let him sidetrack her. ‘I can
see
you behind that tree. I know hide-and-seek is your favourite game, but I’ve got things to do.’

Stumpy gave up and followed her, as he always did.

‘Do you know why trees grow up and not sideways?’ she asked.

Stumpy didn’t answer.

‘I don’t know, either. But Toothless might. He’s seen more trees than most people. I might ask him. Mum reckons I ask too many questions. She says some things don’t have answers. But if there are questions, there has to be answers.’

Audrey waved her hand to frighten the flies away from her face. ‘Should have brought my hat.’ She knew there would also be flies on her back. But it was best not to disturb them or they would go for her face.

As she crossed the clearing around the house, she saw Price near the vegetable patch. He was squatting on his heels, stretching fresh rabbit skins over bent wires to dry them. A mob of flies hovered around him.

In the last few months, Price had grown taller in a hurry and his legs seemed too long for his body. But he was as skinny as ever. When he was younger, Dad called him ‘Spindleshanks’. Price used to think it was funny, but not any more.

‘He’s caught lots of rabbits,’ Audrey said to Stumpy. ‘Now there won’t be so many to munch Mum’s cabbages.’

Rocks weighed down the wire fencing around the vegetable patch, but rabbits still sometimes burrowed underneath.

Once, when rabbits got into the vegetable patch, Audrey’s mum had gone after them with a stick. It was the only time Audrey had heard her shout. It didn’t worry the rabbits too much. They hopped off, then sent their cousins, aunties and uncles back to have a go at the rest of the vegetables.

Price looked up. He was hot and flushed. His sandy hair stuck out all over the place like a spinifex bush. His fingers were spotted with rabbits’ blood.

Audrey screwed up her nose. The smell of fresh skins did strange things to her stomach.

She took a second look at her brother’s messy hair. It was worse than usual. She put one hand to her mouth and whispered to Stumpy, ‘Looks like he’s been pulled through a bush backwards.’

‘What was that?’ asked Price.

‘Nothing. I was talking to Stumpy.’

Her brother shook his head.

‘You don’t have to be so serious just because you’re twelve.’

Price didn’t argue. Instead he asked, ‘Want a rabbit’s foot for luck?’

‘No, thanks.’ Audrey couldn’t understand how carrying a dead rabbit’s foot could change your luck. It certainly didn’t make things better for the rabbit.

Price shrugged and began stretching another skin.

‘I found out what’s in the swaggie’s bag.’ Audrey clasped her hands behind her back.

Her brother’s eyes sparked with interest. ‘What?’

‘Skulls and jawbones.’

Price snorted. He sounded like a grumpy camel, except he didn’t spit. ‘Why do you always make things up?’

‘Don’t believe me, then.’ Audrey held her head high as she marched past him. ‘I’m going inside. I have something important to do. And it’s a secret.’