Audrey's Big Secret by Christine Harris

Author:Christine Harris
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: JUV000000
ISBN: 9781742735757
Publisher: Hardie Grant Egmont
Published: 2009-01-09T00:00:00+00:00

‘I haven’t had no friend like you before.’

Eighteen

Standing on top of the termite mound made Audrey feel tall. She looked down at Bloke’s neatly rolled swag lying near a circle of small rocks. Ash and sand inside the circle showed that was where Bloke had lit her camp fire.

‘Bloke knows what she’s doing,’ Audrey told Stumpy. ‘She covered the hot ash with sand to put out the fire.’

Stumpy thought that was a good thing too. He was scared of fire.

‘I wonder where she is?’ A feeling of unease wrapped around Audrey like a shawl. Through the trees, not such a long walk away, Janet was hiding in the cubbyhouse.

Audrey leapt off the termite mound. Her feet made a paff sound as they hit the ground. The mound was taller than Audrey. It looked like giant dollops of grainy scone-dough, but it was as hard as rock.

One hand cupped around her mouth, she called, ‘Cooee’.

A flock of cockatoos, their wings white against the green leaves, rose squawking from a tree.

An answering ‘cooee’ came from the bush to Audrey’s left.

‘It’s all right, Stumpy. Bloke’s gone the other way.’

The empty potato-bag clasped in her right hand, Audrey marched towards the sound of Bloke’s call. Audrey was careful where she put her feet. She didn’t want to step in a rabbit hole like Janet had. And snakes didn’t always pay attention to the seasons. Some of them went out for a wriggle any old time.

Bloke held a small axe in one hand and a billy can in the other. She wore the same dusty trousers and laced boots as yesterday. Her brown shirt was much cleaner than the grey one, but it smelled of wood smoke. Audrey figured Bloke had eaten her breakfast on the smoky side of her camp fire. Although Audrey had heard her dad say, more than once, that camp fire smoke would find you wherever you stood.

‘I’m gettin’ some bush honey.’ Bloke’s eyes drifted to the empty bag in Audrey’s hand. ‘You gonna catch something in that?’

‘Um . . .’ Audrey’s thoughts fluttered like a moth around a light. ‘It’s a bag.’

Bloke raised one eyebrow. ‘Yeah, I reckon it is too.’

Audrey couldn’t explain the real reason she was carrying the bag and it was hard to think of another one quickly. ‘Er . . . I expectionate I might see something that I didn’t know would be there. That’s why I wouldn’t know, because I haven’t seen it yet.’

Bloke stared at Audrey. ‘You like curly words, don’t you?’

Audrey sighed. It would’ve been much easier to tell the truth.

‘The honey isn’t far. Come on.’ Bloke turned and began to walk.

Audrey followed her, relieved that Bloke had stopped asking about her empty potato-bag.

Stumpy was unusually quiet. Audrey sensed he didn’t know what to do with secrets either.

‘The honeybag’s in that tree.’ Bloke lifted the billy can towards a tall tree with a straight trunk and thin leaves. She didn’t have any fingers free to point. ‘It’s a blood-wood tree. Good for buildin’. Termites don’t go for it so much.

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