18
IF YOU’VE EVER snuck onto school grounds when they’re closed, that’s what this feels like—except imagine native trees have grown through the classroom windows and there are platypus in the twenty-five-metre pool. It’s as if we’ve stumbled through a portal into a secret version of the world where we’re invincible and alive and anything could happen.
We’ve all got a giddy, breaking-the-rules buzz on and there’s an unexpected camaraderie between us as we wander down the Marsupial Trail, pointing out fruit bats and trying to identify potential mating calls. I want to ask Ben when we’ll see Ninja, but I also don’t want the others to come.
‘So do you actually have any dogs, Dinesh?’ Jacinta asks as we walk. ‘Or is that cap meant to be more of a girl-magnet thing?’
‘Neither,’ he says, grinning at Jacinta’s tone. ‘I got it for Mum last Christmas. She’s always saying she had a litter because she had five kids in six years. But it turns out she’s not much of a cap lady, so now this bad boy’s all mine.’
‘Oh you’re one of those gift-givers,’ Lockie says, pushing aside an overgrown tree branch. Shafts of evening sunlight filter through the leaves, lighting up his smooth skin. ‘My sister does that. A few years ago she got me two tickets to Dua Lipa. I was like, “Jess, is this you telling me to take you to Dua Lipa?”’
I snort. ‘I know for a fact you enjoyed that concert. You were humming “One Kiss” in the school hallways for weeks.’
Lockie throws me one of his shy-seeming smiles and I feel it in my chest. ‘It’s a good song,’ he says.
‘Hey, wasn’t that your Battle of the Bands song last year?’ Rach asks him, spinning around from the front of the group and smirking. ‘I’m pretty sure you did, like, a three-minute guitar solo.’
‘It was totally gratuitous,’ Dinesh says, slapping a mozzie on his forearm.
Lockie holds up his hands. ‘Oh, what? A dude can’t not-so-secretly love all things Dua Lipa now?’
‘Okay,’ Ben says, racing ahead towards an exhibit behind a huge pane of glass. ‘You guys have to see the spotted quolls at this time of night!’ His eyes are bright, and he’s gone full animal-lover mode. ‘It’s wild how cute they are.’
We see them immediately: four furry, cat-sized animals covered in white spots. One of them is lapping from a water dish, two of them are wrestling like Lockie and Dinesh were earlier, and one gives a huge stretch like it’s just woken up.
‘Wow!’ I say, bouncing on my toes. ‘I’ve never seen them this active.’ Quolls are nocturnal, so whenever I’ve come they’ve always been in their den.
‘Okay,’ Rach says, pressing her hands and nose against the glass. ‘Do you ever get that thing where something’s so adorable you’re almost angry?’
‘Like you want to punch it?’ I ask. ‘Because it’s so cute?’
She cracks up. ‘Exactly!’
‘Okay, woah,’ Dinesh says. ‘Every time I think I’m starting to understand women they go and say something like that.’
‘It’s best not to try, Dinesh,’ Jacinta says, smiling sweetly. ‘Just leave us to be the magnificent, violent mysteries we are.’
Ben clears his throat. ‘I feel like I need to mention that we’re trying to save these guys. You know, before fists start flying.’
‘Okay, so we’ve established they’re punchably cute,’ Lockie says, peering at one of the animals that’s now grooming itself. ‘But, what exactly are they?’
As Ben launches into an explanation of quolls, Jacinta shuffles up next to me. ‘Hey,’ she whispers. ‘Are you okay with, like, this whole…situation?’
I shrug. ‘I mean, I guess. It doesn’t feel too awkward.’
‘Sure,’ she says. ‘Until they both try to bone you.’
I groan and elbow her. Only Jacinta would say bone.
‘Seriously though, Lockie does seem kind of nice.’
I nod. ‘Yeah. He is.’
Jacinta’s eyes flick towards the others, making sure they’re still absorbed in Ben’s quoll facts. ‘And tell me again, why aren’t you friends with Rach?’
I open my mouth to explain but I can’t find the words. I don’t know whether that means it’s too complicated or I’m making it more complicated than it needs to be. ‘She’s just…we were friends but…things got weird since Charlie.’
‘Right,’ Jacinta says. I can tell what she’s thinking, though: things seem fine now. But she can’t see what it’s like when it’s just the two of us. How different it is.
We gush over the nocturnal marsupials as the night closes in slowly around us. Ben and I are outvoted in a poll of whether we should visit the snakes. As we walk past the Tasmanian Devils and around the wetland section, Lockie and I find ourselves together at the back of the group. This is the closest I’ve been to him all night.
‘Are you excited for year twelve?’ he asks. ‘One more year until you never have to hear Principal Guy tell you “Your future is in your hands” again.’
I shrug, pretending not to be freaking out that this is the first one-on-one conversation Lockie and I have had since everything. ‘I can’t believe he thinks that’s inspiring,’ I say. ‘Like, thanks for leaving us a burning, flooding, increasingly authoritarian future, Principal Guy. Rather not have that in my hands.’
I glance at Lockie and see him roll his eyes in agreement. ‘Honestly, you’ll love finishing though. All the bullshit they tell you just fades and it’s like…’ he seems to search for the words. ‘It’s like you start to realise what you really want, you know?’
I try not to read into his words too much. ‘That sounds pretty appealing,’ I say, although I really doubt that will happen for me. I’ll probably be this unsure about my life forever. ‘So…what do you want?’
There’s a pause and I think Lockie might be about to say something serious, something about us, or something that will make me feel inadequate in the face of looming adulthood, but then he grins. ‘A new surfboard and a uni timetable that works around the swell.’
I laugh, relieved that we can still hold a conversation. But before we can continue talking we reach the platypus enclosure and everyone bunches up in front of the glass pane, where the water on the other side reaches waist height. Ben points to a solid metal door in a wall built to look like a dark, granite rock face.
He turns to us with a mischievous expression. ‘Ready to get wet?’
Once Jacinta and Dinesh are done losing their minds over that innuendo, Ben uses two separate keys to unlock a padlock and proper lock on the door. It squeals as it opens, letting us into a dim and humid room that smells like algae. Again I want to ask Ben when we’re seeing Ninja, but when I realise we’re actually going to do the platypus encounter excitement ripples through me and I feel like the question can wait.
Ben eyes us all for size, then pulls six pairs of dark-green waders out of a cupboard. They’re like the ones we used for Stream Watch in year eight: gumboots attached to thick, watertight rubber pants that come up to your chest and are secured like overalls at the top.
Once we’ve dragged them on Dinesh and Ben take a selfie together, which Ben makes him swear not to post, and Jacinta tightens her shoulder straps as short as they’ll go.
‘I’m thinking year-twelve formal look,’ Rach says to me, her boots squeaking on the damp concrete as she spins on the spot. ‘Thoughts?’
Lockie whistles, before walking off to shove his phone and wallet in a locker.
‘Hey,’ I say without thinking. ‘Didn’t we make a pact we’re going in Game of Thrones theme?’ We were going to take fake swords and everything.
‘Yeah,’ she says, glancing at me. ‘I just thought you’d forgotten.’ Her words aren’t harsh, just hurt, and guilt spikes me.
‘I didn’t forget,’ I say.
We both open our mouths at the same time then but Ben interrupts with all the instructions.
Ten minutes later we’ve filed through another door, eased our way down some mossy steps, and are all waist-deep in murky water. Above us, the stars are beginning to wink into life and insects trill in the summer air.
‘Okay,’ Ben says, reaching into a plastic bucket he’s holding above water level. ‘You guys ready? They’ll come to us quickly.’
Rach gives a little gasp as the water ripples out around her.
‘Hold on,’ Lockie says. ‘Do platypus bite?’ I think it’s the first time I’ve ever heard him sound genuinely nervous.
‘They don’t bite ,’ I say, scanning the half-submerged logs for one of the elusive animals. ‘But the males have spurs they can theoretically stab you with. They’re one of the few mammals that produce venom. Apparently, it’s pretty painful.’
Ben gives me an amused-impressed look. ‘She’s right. Like a thousand wasp stings. Apparently.’
‘Ah ha!’ Dinesh says, punching the air in victory. ‘Who’s a magnificent, violent mystery now?’
‘Still us,’ Jacinta says, and she gives Dinesh a little splash starting a mini water fight next to me.
‘Thanks for that fact,’ Lockie mutters to me beneath the commotion. ‘I feel like my shark nightmares are going to take on a new edge now.’ He hesitates, then lowers his voice even further. ‘To be honest, you’ve been messing with my dreams a lot lately, Evans.’
His words stir up something complicated inside me and I glance at him, expecting to see a flirty expression, but it’s completely genuine. Pained. Almost desperate. I shift beneath his gaze, the spark between us, the memory of his lips on mine and all my years of wanting. But then something else simmers hot in my veins. What gives him the right to say that, after ignoring me for an entire year then messaging me without even acknowledging it?
I look back down at the water. ‘You say that like I’m the one who’s been a jerk.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Ben says to the group, interrupting the water fight and saving me from Lockie’s response. ‘They’re going to be way too happy about the insect larvae to be in a stabby mood.’ He hesitates. ‘Well, Gemini can be aggressive, but he’s been a little more chill since we found him a mate.’
Before any of us can react to that Ben pours some tiny white wormy things from the bucket into the water and in an instant quick, dark shapes come out of nowhere and start whooshing around our waists. I literally squeal. Bubbles trapped in the platypus’ fur sparkle like diamonds. I put my hands in the churning water and they brush along my skin as they scoop up their evening snack.
Jacinta and Rach are both laughing. Dinesh drags himself over to help fix something with Lockie’s waders.
Ben appears next to me. ‘Go like this,’ he says, then takes my hands under the water and moves them together so they make a bowl shape. Goosebumps run up my arms as a platypus nuzzles its bill into my palms like a puppy.
‘This is amazing!’ I gush.
‘They’re pretty cool, huh? Looks like Pisces likes you.’
‘Wait,’ I say. ‘They’re all named after star signs?’
‘My mum was into astrology. Like I said, a science-loving hippy.’ He smiles a little sadly. ‘You’re a Pisces too, right? I could tell in five minutes.’
I stare down at the churning water, feeling exposed. ‘How?’
‘There’s just…I dunno.’ Ben thinks for a second, then his words are kind of self-conscious. ‘You just seem deep.’ The platypuses circle us again and again. ‘I mean that as a good thing,’ he adds. ‘In case you’re wondering.’
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I want to tell him that I’m worried it’s not a good thing, that I’m scared the sucking, bottomless deep might consume me, that I want him to think I’m special but not in this broken way. But Ben interprets my silence incorrectly. ‘Sorry,’ he says, looking embarrassed. ‘That was so cheesy and presumptuous. I’ve known you for like twenty seconds.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘It’s not that. It’s just—’
But then Lockie speaks, freeing me from having to finish that sentence.
‘Hey, ah, Ben,’ he says, sounding kind of urgent. ‘I think my suit’s leaking.’
I look over to see the top of Lockie’s waders have split open and water is gushing in.
‘Uh-oh!’ Ben says, rushing to limit the damage. ‘Okay, dude. Get out before you catch something nasty down there.’
Lockie gags and, for a whole minute, Jacinta, Rach and I laugh so hard we have to hold on to each other for support.
After we’re all out of the water, Lockie’s dried off, and has pulled on some borrowed clothes from the keepers’ locker room, Ben makes six hot chocolates spiked with leftover Baileys from the staff Christmas stash. We go outside and drink them lying in a row, propped on our elbows on the grass in the kangaroo enclosure. In the distance a mob of roos are grazing on grass, ears swivelling. We stare at the star-filled sky, and Ben explains southern white rhino captive breeding. They’re desperately endangered, and apparently they can’t be trusted to get on with it fast enough on their own.
‘Wait. They jack the rhino off?’ Jacinta asks. She’s lying next to Dinesh, at the other end of the row. I’m next to Ben, and Rach is between me and Lockie, who’s been a little quiet since the platypus encounter. I can’t tell if it’s because of my comment or because of the waders incident.
‘And then they put the jizz in the girl rhino?’ Jacinta continues.
‘Yep,’ Ben says. ‘Unfortunately my dad’s a bit of an expert on the first part. That’s why he’s at Dubbo Zoo right now.’
‘You should have been there the day the whole of year eight found out about that,’ Dinesh says. ‘It was not a good day to be Ben. Actually, it was not a good year to be Ben. The hand gestures alone were brutal.’
Jacinta groans, and Rach and I crack up. Ben buries his face into my shoulder, making my stomach lose all sense of gravity. Do friends bury their faces in their friends’ shoulders in moments of mortification? Maybe.
As the others keep talking , Ben and I stay silent. His head is still resting on my bare skin. I can feel his breath on my arm. I don’t want to move a millimetre in case he pulls away. One of the roos hops a few metres closer to a fresh patch of grass, and for a second, just a second, I feel a moment of deep peace. But then I remember Ninja.
As if reading my mind, Ben lifts his head and turns to me. ‘Ready for the tour highlight?’
The others are deep enough in a conversation about the surprisingly small size of gorilla junk, that I don’t think they notice us sneak away. We walk across the grass to a gate that opens onto the same narrow path Ben took me on the day I brought Ninja in. It’s only now, his arm brushing against mine as we slip through the shadows and night sounds, that I properly take in that we’re alone. That if he wanted something to happen, this would be a pretty good time for it. My blood thrums and I spread my fingers out to make sure my hands aren’t sweaty. But a few seconds later I see the edge of a building and hear a sound that causes all other thoughts to fly out of my head.
Ooooom. Ooooom. Ooooom. Ooooom.
‘They do sound like backwards cows!’ I say. ‘That’s completely ridiculous!’
I sense Ben smile in the dark. ‘Or some people reckon it’s like a motorbike zooming past.’
We walk closer to the building, which is basically a large box made of corrugated metal with wire netting at the top like an aviary, and the sound fills up my soul. I’m going to see Ninja again. Then I feel it: I’m going to see Charlie , and nerves twist my torso. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I know it’s going to be obvious once I’m near her again. I have to have faith. I put my hand out to the door, but Ben stops me.
He frowns. ‘Oh, sorry. We can’t go in .’
Something tiny inside me breaks. ‘What? But…you said we could. On the phone. You said I could see her.’
‘Well, um, actually,’ He rubs the back of his neck like this is a little awkward. ‘I said I’d take you to her area.’
‘Okay, why would I want to see the outside of a shed? I want to see Ninja. ’ The words come out more forcefully than I’d intended, but it feels like he lied to me.
‘Ah, yeah, I can tell,’ Ben says. ‘But it just feels like kind of a bad idea, you know? Like, they’re pretty sensitive birds and they don’t love visitors and if Ninja’s been struggling a bit then…’
‘I would never do anything that could hurt her!’ I say.
‘No, I know. Not on purpose.’ Ben looks awkwardly at me and then changes tack. ‘I mean, there’s a lot of them in there. Honestly, we probably couldn’t even tell which one was her.’
‘I could!’ I say. ‘I know what she looks like!’
Ben smiles slightly, like he’s trying to lighten the mood. ‘Okay, I get it. Totally. I’m, like, way more attached to the feather-head than I should be too. I blame myself, an overpriced blender and a computer game with terrible graphics. But—’
I cut him off. ‘ It’s not that ,’ I say, super defensive now, although it is for sure partly that.
A beat of silence. ‘Okay then…’ he says. ‘What is it?’
I take a deep breath. ‘It’s just…’ I can’t look at him as I try to keep my voice from cracking. ‘It’s just… I’m the one who saved her. I brought her here and then she almost died and I thought if I could see her again then…’ I stare down at the dirt and try to think of a way to explain about instinct and Charlie that doesn’t make me sound insane, but I can’t, because now that I’m here I’m not convinced I am sane anymore.
‘Lucy.’ Ben takes a step towards me on the gravel, and I look up. ‘I’ve known these vets forever. They’re one hundred per cent experts. Trust me.’
I do trust him, but I decide to ignore him. ‘I just need to see her, okay?’ I say. ‘Even for a second.’ I sound desperate, pleading, and I shove down a flashback of begging to see Charlie in the hospital when the doctors were trying to save him. Then I glance at the door again, realise it might not be locked, and make a split-second decision. I sidestep Ben and reach for the handle. But before my fingers touch metal he grabs my arm.
‘Hey!’ he growls. ‘I said no, okay?’
I try to squirm from his grip but it’s too firm. ‘Don’t touch me, Ben,’ I hiss, my cheeks burning as I struggle. ‘Let go of me!’ But he’s so much stronger than me it’s not even a competition.
‘Not until you… stop …Lucy, just…’ with a grunt he pulls me in closer to him and wraps both arms around my shoulders. ‘ Seriously ? Are you trying to get me in trouble again? My dad’ll kill me.’
And that’s what makes me stop fighting him, because as badly as I want to see Ninja I also really don’t want him to have to deal with any more crap from his dad. I slacken in his arms and he loosens his hold, and now it’s like we’re awkwardly hugging. His skin is so warm and I can feel his heart thrashing against my chest from the effort of holding me back.
I screw my eyes shut as shame floods me, because he probably thinks I’ve been acting like a stupid brat. I want to bolt away from him like I did in my street that night to save myself any more embarrassment—I’ve probably ruined any chance I had of this being a thing with him anyway—but I also don’t want this weird hug to end. I want to keep feeling his heartbeat, my skin alive on his.
We breathe together for another few seconds, in a moment that could go either way, until finally Ben pulls me in a little tighter, turning the awkward hug into a real one, stubble scratching my temple—a hug I can tell is not meant to be romantic or sexy, but more like: it’s okay, I get it, I see you. My whole body aches and I know he’s not mad at me. I know what he’s telling me with his warm, quick breath in my hair: Yeah, it sucks, but you can’t control who lives and dies.
Suddenly, any energy I had left in me seeps out of my body and I slide out of Ben’s arms and slump down to sit on the ground, my back against the tin building.
Charlie’s not here. Charlie’s not Ninja and I can’t communicate with him. Charlie’s dead and I can’t save him. My world shifts and shudders and I’m back there again, with nothing to believe in. Maybe there is nothing to believe in. Sometimes I wonder if you peeled back all the world’s skin would it be empty inside? A void. The edges of my vision blur, the black hole threatens to suck me in.
Not now. Please not now. I clench my teeth but it doesn’t help.
Finally Ben slides down next to me and sits with his arm pressed against mine. We say nothing for a minute or so and listen to the oooooms of one of the plains-wanderers. It reminds me of a cat’s purr. They say it’s healing, that it’s the exact right frequency to help repair broken bones and wounds. I imagine the ooooom is Ninja trying to heal me, and that thought is the only thing stopping me from spinning out into the night sky and never returning.
‘So,’ Ben says, finally breaking the silence. ‘What is it about animals? Why do you reckon you’re so into them?’ I think he’s trying to distract me.
My thoughts are too thick for me to answer right away so I focus on his arm on my arm and the gritty dirt between my fingers and try to stay in the moment. ‘Um, no small talk,’ I say eventually. It’s all I can manage.
Ben’s laughter vibrates through me, and, miraculously, the darkness passes a little. I want to tell him I was kind of kidding and kind of not but also that it’s more than that, that there’s something about being with animals that calms me, but I don’t know how to describe it.
‘What about you?’ I ask.
He thinks for a minute before he answers. ‘I guess they kind of put our stuff into perspective a bit, you know?’ He says. ‘Like, has a koala ever watched you cry?’
It’s my turn to laugh a little. ‘Literally never. A koala has literally never watched me cry.’
‘Right, well. Let me tell you: they don’t care. Koalas do not give a single shit that I was relentlessly bullied about my supposed love of rhino dicks.’
He’s meant that to be a bit funny, but I can tell it was pretty crap for him. ‘That’s kind of harsh,’ I say. ‘Be nice if they cared just a little bit?’
‘Nah,’ Ben says, and I feel him shake his head. ‘It’s a good thing. It’s like, the stuff that feels massive for me just doesn’t matter as much when I’m around animals. It helps me stop thinking about myself all the time. It’s freeing.’
‘Okay, yeah,’ I say, watching moonlight glint off the chain links in the nearby fence. ‘That makes sense.’ I wonder if that’s what I’ve been feeling without realising it. ‘How they just look at you like, ‘Why do you humans have to make life so complicated? Don’t you know all you really have to do is eat and crap and survive?’
Ben snorts. ‘And maybe watch a sunset once in a while?’’
‘Exactly.’ My hands have released their grip on the earth. I brush some of the dirt off on my pants. ‘That was definitely not small talk by the way.’
He gives a little groan. ‘Sorry. I tend to over-analyse everything.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘I like how much you’ve thought about it.’
He shrugs. ‘Cleaning out the food store is a long, solitary job.’
The falling-through-space feeling is almost gone. Ben’s pulled me back from the edge of the abyss. I wonder if he understands how I get because of his mum. If he knows about the black hole. If he has one in his chest, too.
I turn my face towards him, and he turns to me.
‘Sorry about before. That got a little weird,’ I say.
‘Nah,’ he replies. Then, ‘Okay, it was about a 6.3.’
I laugh, and he smiles. We keep staring at each other and time slows down. The space between our lips draws in, and I think maybe, maybe we’re about to kiss when—
‘Um, guys?’ It’s an out-of-breath Lockie standing over us. ‘Jacinta’s being chased by a massive kangaroo.’