Our Sunshine: Popular Penguins by Drewe Robert

Author:Drewe, Robert [Drewe, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141008035
Publisher: Penguin Australia
Published: 2010-06-27T22:00:00+00:00

WE BURN the police tent without speaking and go back to Bullock Creek. Tired in my bones and head and legs, I feel my organs are all shrinking and withdrawing. At the same time my outline’s flickering. Skin’s all shuddery; if you shook me I’d rattle like an old, loose-skinned kangaroo dog I once had. Rips from roos’ claws and pigs’ tusks letting in air pockets under Shandy’s fur. A twitchy Great Dane–dingo cross – in the end Shandy sounded like his yellow flanks were packed with marbles.

My skin won’t sit still on me.

The others: Dan’s cross we didn’t handcuff McIntyre – or shoot him; Joe’s too cut up to speak, just smiles a vague smile and shakes his head now and then; Steve – all the way back to the hut Steve’s gibbering how he’s hungry, rambling on about lamb chops, steak and kidney pies, corned beef and brisket casseroles. But when we get there he can’t even wait for meat to cook, so while the rest of us have big whiskies Steve sucks down five eggs instead.

‘You two don’t have to be in this,’ I tell him and Joe. ‘It’s still only the Kellys. You can put yourselves in the clear, leave now – free as birds.’

Steve’s poking his tongue around inside a shell for missed bits, and he grins up at me with yolk in his face-fluff. ‘A short life and a merry one,’ he says. You’d think this eggy kid was some rollicking highwayman in a book.

‘Well, tally-ho to you,’ I say. ‘It’s New South Wales, then.’

Tom Lloyd keeps watch while we four try to snatch some sleep. Takes a bit of whisky to settle the flickering skin. After three hours we load two packhorses, set fire to our bulletproof hut and get out of there.

It presses on my hip as I ride. The gold-rimmed circle. The watch. Christ, who needs another watch! Not a scratch on it, though.

The time’s just after midnight. Fog rolls through the valleys of white quartz headstones, the creek is running deep and fast and rain starts hurling down.

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