5
BEN TAKES ME through the sanctuary’s narrow back paths. Sweet-smelling trees arch over us. A blue-tongue lizard darts into the bush to our right. I breathe deeply and I think I feel the lightest I have all year. Not happy. But slightly less like my grief is a physical thing made from fifty tonnes of lead. My parents aren’t exactly bushwalkers, so I haven’t spent a lot of time in nature aside from school camps, but they say it’s healing, right? Good for your mental health? And while the sanctuary isn’t technically natural, it feels like the next best thing. Job or no job, I decide to come here more often.
‘Okay, so what are you naming her?’ Ben asks, as we enter an overgrown section of path. He holds a branch back for me.
‘Wait, you’re letting me name her? Like, officially?’ I do an involuntary little skip, which makes him laugh.
‘I mean, no,’ Ben says. ‘I have absolutely no authority to name sanctuary animals. And the vets will probably call her PWfemale42 or something. So, not officially . More just, you know, between us.’
A tiny electric spark pulses through me. ‘Okay. Um. Let me think.’
‘Don’t get this wrong. You’ll ruin takeaway coffee for her forever if baristas can’t spell it.’
I snort. ‘So, not Destinee with two E’s then?’
‘Definitely not. Also,’ Ben nods at the path ahead, which opens up between the trees, ‘we’re here.’
‘No pressure then!’ I think for a moment. ‘How about Ninja?’
He smiles. ‘Oh, I get it. It’s ironic, right? Because of the window? Because she’s actually super clumsy.’
I laugh. ‘No! After the blender box. Her rescue vessel.’
Ben blinks as if he’s pretending to hold back tears. ‘Ninja,’ he says. ‘Perfect.’
We reach the door to a modern, shed-like building among the trees. Ben gestures for me to wait outside. ‘You don’t have the right PPE.’
I frown. ‘PP what?’
‘Personal protective equipment,’ he explains, gesturing at my thongs. ‘Sanctuary-speak for covered shoes. But stay there. I’ll be right back’—he pauses, suppressing a smile—‘with your precious box.’
‘Right. The box. Very important.’
Ben checks we’re not being watched before he lets me peek inside again to say goodbye to Ninja. I gently touch her soft feathers and feel her fluttering heartbeat. We hold each other’s gaze for a moment before a crow calls overhead and she ducks down, scared.
‘Thanks,’ I say to Ben.
He smiles. ‘No worries.’
But before he slips inside, I have the urge to ask him something. ‘Hey.’ I point at his cheeks. ‘Why pink zinc?’
‘Oh, you know. Reminds people to be sun safe.’ He shrugs and disappears into the vet building.
Five seconds later I’m impatient. I pull my hair back with one of the purple sparkly hair ties Mum always buys me from the pharmacy (purple for ambition, confidence, wisdom, she says). With that done, I stand still like I’m supposed to for about another thirty seconds, then I sneak around to the side of the building to see if I can peer through a window, but they’re tinted. All I see is my own reflection.
I wander a little further. I can hear a dog-like whining. Another few steps and I see that the back of the vet building has a large, fenced area attached to it, high chain-link walls and a patchy grassed area. Maybe this is where some of the treated animals recover. My eyes follow the sound of snuffling, and I gasp. A few metres away a large dingo lies in the sun, its coat a glistening, fiery orange.
I step forwards and, as if it’s been expecting me, the animal immediately gets up. I blink, but its gaze doesn’t shift. ‘Well. You’re gorgeous, aren’t you?’ I say.
It tilts its head sideways a touch, and if it’s possible for a dingo to look flattered then this dingo looks flattered. My memory slips back to being here at the sanctuary as a ten-year-old, standing outside the koala or quoll exhibit with Charlie and Mum, staring into the animals’ curious, intelligent eyes. And, okay, they didn’t exactly start telling me about the lost secrets of the animal kingdom, but I really felt like I had a connection with them, as if we could understand something significant and unsayable about each other. An intense nostalgia aches deep inside me, a yearning to be a kid again, back when all I knew was potential and hope.
The dingo gives a short yip. I want to get closer. To touch it. Somehow, I know it won’t hurt me.
There’s a gate, with a padlock attached, but it’s not locked. This feels like another sign. This is why I was brought here. I imagine Ben watching me interacting with the dingo from inside the building, amazed at my incredible bond with animals, knowing there’s something special about me. Something transcendent.
I unlatch the gate and open it, just enough to slip through. I turn to close the gate, and I feel something change behind me. I suck in a breath and spin back. The dingo’s shoulders are low, its front legs spread wide, paws poised in the dirt. It begins to growl. The sound is guttural, lined with teeth.
‘It’s all right, mate. Just wanted to say hi.’ I stretch out a hand, which I notice is shaking. ‘It’s okay.’
The dingo takes a step forward, nostrils flaring, and gives the air in front of me a warning snap. A smell like rotting meat rises in the heat. I lower my eyes, trying not to look threatening, and without turning away I grope behind me to pull the gate open, but I can’t quite get it. My skin flushes cold.
‘Shit, shit, shit.’
I keep groping but I can’t figure out the latch. The dingo’s coming closer. I scan the ground for some kind of weapon but there’s nothing, not even a stick. Shit! I screw my eyes shut, waiting to be bitten—
‘Station!’ A voice broad and flat, with what I think is a South African accent, calls from somewhere to my left. The animal stops growling, and I dare to open my eyes slightly. The dingo has turned towards the voice, which belongs to a man in khaki who’s now striding calmly along the outside of the fence. ‘ Station , Marlie.’
The dingo sulks off towards a dusty rubber mat a few metres away and sits down. All the air escapes me at once. A bubble rises in my throat, the beginning of tears that are both related to this but also to everything . I manage to force them down.
The man stops outside the gate, heavy jaw working behind a wiry beard. ‘What the hell are you doing?’
My mouth opens and closes but I can’t find the words. I glimpse a badge on the man’s shirt with the title ‘Director’, which I’m pretty sure means he’s the boss. His eyes are mostly still on the dingo, and when he reaches the gate he opens it and I spill through.
‘I’m sorry!’ My voice is high and whiny from forcing back a sob. ‘I’m really sorry! It didn’t look dangerous.’
The man shoots derision out his nose. ‘It’s a bloody dingo! Are you trying to get me sued ?’ He snaps the padlock back into place and, finally, his eyes rise to meet mine. In that moment, something like recognition tugs at his expression. ‘Wait.’ His eyes narrow as he tries to place me. ‘It’s…it’s you.’
I frown, unsure where this man knows me from. Is he one of Mum or Dad’s friends? A parent from school? I swear I’ve never seen him before. But then something horrifying occurs to me. Last night. The swerving ute. Could it be him? Could he really recognise me?
‘It’s you!’ he says again, disgust in his tone. ‘Isn’t it?’
My mouth falls open but nothing comes out. Shame vibrates through me. And somehow, it only dawns on me now that flashing is probably illegal. It was meant to be about us, Jacinta and me, doing something harmless and fun. But now—
‘You could have killed me!’ he spits.
I flinch, his words echoing in my ears. ‘I’m sorry,’ I start. ‘I didn’t mean to—’
‘Lucy?’ Ben’s voice calls out as he hurries towards us. ‘What’s going on?’
The director keeps his eyes on me for another second, as if trying to decide something, then looks to Ben. ‘Tell me you don’t know this…this girl .’
The way he says ‘girl’ makes me want to crumble into dirt. Makes me feel like dirt.
Ben swallows hard, shrinking from a young man to a kid for some reason. ‘She…she rescued a plains-wanderer. She wanted to check it was okay so I—’
‘Are you s tupid ? I found her in with Marlie, half a breath away from being mauled.’
Ben turns to me, frowning. ‘ What? ’ He gives me a look like he seriously misjudged me. ‘I told you to wait for me.’
‘I did!’ I say. ‘…for a minute.’
The man grunts and shakes his head. He turns back to me, lip twitching, and a silent understanding passes from his mind to mine: you’re not okay, you’re damaged, you’re all messed up . ‘You, little lady, are banned from Franklin Sanctuary for life.’
A soft ringing starts in my ears, as if my body is trying to block out the reality of what’s happening.
Ben steps forward. ‘ Woah. That’s a little har—’
But his protest is cut off, knife sharp. ‘Escort her out. Get admissions to record her photo. And then come and see me.’ He starts walking off before turning back and adding: ‘And wipe that pink crap off your cheeks.’ Then he’s gone.
We stand in tense silence for a second before Ben groans and rubs a hand over his face, smudging pink zinc into his stubble.
‘I’m really sorry,’ I whisper. ‘I didn’t mean to get you in trouble.’
‘Yeah, well, you did,’ he tells his dusty boots. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Wait. Let me explain.’ I don’t want him to think I was just being a disobedient brat. ‘The reason—why I went in there is I—I thought…’ Am I really saying this? Apparently, I am. ‘I thought I had a connection with her. With the dingo.’
I think I must sound extremely weird but Ben nods, like he knew I was going to say that. ‘Oh yeah? Was she looking at you like she knows you?’
‘Yes!’ He gets it. ‘When I walked up it was like…it was like she’d been waiting for me. It was amazing. I thought I was a dingo whisperer or something.’
For a second I think I see a smirk, but then it disappears. Ben shakes his head and points at a red circle of spray paint on the ground near the fence. ‘Were you standing there?’ I nod, slowly, and he sighs. ‘She’s trained , Lucy. All the animals here are. It helps with their enrichment and welfare. She thought you were about to give her food.’
‘Oh.’ I swallow my disappointment. My embarrassment. I’m a stupid, immature, idiot kid and I should definitely google age regression as a delayed grief response. ‘Right,’ I say.
We don’t talk on the walk out; I try to keep up with Ben’s long strides and stop myself from crying. Back at the entrance, I suffer through the humiliation of Debbie taking a snap of me on her phone for the blacklist before Ben walks me to the bus stop, clearly not willing to let me try anything else that might get him in trouble.
‘The plains-wanderer has a concussion by the way,’ he says. ‘She’s only young. Less than a year old. She really needed to come in, so, good job.’ His voice is flat, not congratulatory.
‘Oh. Okay.’ I look up at him. ‘Um, your boss is a bit of a dick, hey?’ I wonder if calling an employee stupid is technically some kind of harassment.
Ben doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t disagree, either.
‘You’re not going to get fired because of me, are you?’ I feel terrible for dragging him into my pathetic quest to follow signs. He’s not a lifeboat, Lucy . He’s not here to rescue you . I should have left him alone.
Ben makes a little ha sound, but not like it’s funny. ‘I can’t get fired. But it’ll probably be even less fun than that, from experience. He’s my dad.’
Before I can reply the bus pulls up. Ben and I say an awkward goodbye, the type that feels very final, then I jump on the bus and it pulls away.
By the time I get home, miserable and mortified, I’m a sweat ball. I walk past our house-shaped letterbox that has its own house-shaped letterbox. Dad got it online. Charlie thought it was meta, as if Dad was making some kind of self-referential real-estate joke, but I’ve always thought he just likes ugly things.
Dad’s home for lunch, watering the garden in his one-size-fits-all Franklin Falcons cap that does not, in fact, fit all and makes his ears stick out so that the tips get sunburnt. I’m so thirsty I don’t even berate him once again for planting non-natives that need gallons of water during the summer.
‘Hit me,’ I say, walking over and opening my mouth. But he’s too busy staring into the dark-distant void I don’t want to acknowledge might exist for him. He looks hollowed out, like his voice might echo. I wonder, not for the first time, if he’s finding whatever he’s looking for at church, if he believes what happened to his son happened for some higher reason and that he’s up in heaven now, or if Dad just went back after Charlie died as some kind of comforting thing from his childhood. We don’t talk about it, and he’s only asked me once if I wanted to go with him. I didn’t. If I hugged my dad as a general rule, I would hug him now. But I don’t. ‘I said, hit me, bartender!’
Thankfully, Dad snaps out of it. ‘Oh, hey Luce.’ He’s smiling, way too bright. ‘Coming up, on the house.’
He directs the stream near my feet and I drink from it, the cool water dousing my shame about what happened at the sanctuary.
‘So, how’d you go?’ Dad asks. ‘Is your bird going to be okay?’
‘She’s got a concussion,’ I say between gulps.
‘She’ll heal in no time. Just like a tongue.’ He winks and I roll my eyes. ‘Hey, did they hire you on the spot for being a hero of the natural world?’
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and stare down at his socks and sandals combo, trying not to give anything away. ‘That’s not how jobs work, Dad.’
He smiles an I’m-just-being-stupid smile and directs the water back onto the garden bed. ‘I think Dea at the office might know someone who works there. Maybe she could put in a good word.’
Panic floods me. ‘No!’ I say, cringing at the thought of my dad finding out I’ve been flashing adult men on the freeway overpass. ‘I mean, it’s fine. I reckon I’ve got it.’
He puts a hand on my shoulder. ‘That’s my girl. Really proud of you.’
I trudge inside into the cool aircon and before I even know it, I’m in my bedroom, kicking off my shoes and crawling into bed. I can’t stop myself. The mattress is a magnet and there’s no oppositional force pulling me the other way. I suddenly weigh a thousand tonnes. That moment of lightness I felt in the sanctuary is well and truly gone and I want to hide under my doona for the rest of my life.
After a while Dad calls out that he’s going back to work and suggests I start on the lentil dhal for dinner. I dredge up some fake brightness to respond, then sink back into my covers, pull out my phone and start scrolling, feeling stupid for ever hoping that maybe my summer, that maybe I , could be more than this.