The Wombat Wingman

Chapter 1

Mackenzie

“Australia is so far away!” Mom’s eyes started to shine, right as she gripped my arms tighter. “What about Canada? I’ve got a third cousin or something who has a farm up that way.” She shot me a watery smile. “I could give him a call, see if I could see if you could stay at his place.”

“Mom—” I sighed.

“That way you’re only five or six hours away if you fly out of Toronto.”

“Mom.” I stepped closer, staring into her eyes.

“I can’t do this.” Dammit, why did my voice have to start wavering?

The look of concern in my mother’s eyes was growing by the second.

“Not if you’re going to freak out. It’s always been my dream to go to Australia.

I…” Suddenly, a lump formed in my throat, almost impossible to swallow. “I didn’t go last time.”

“That boy…”

Mom’s lips thinned as she shook her head, because that boy was Alex.

Her best friend’s son, we were joined at the hip as kids, then high school sweethearts, before he asked me to marry him.

Our honeymoon was supposed to be in Australia, my dream holiday.

Together we were… But he got cold feet, leaving it until just before the ceremony to tell me.

Most our deposits for the venue and catering were forfeited, but he got his plane ticket refunded.

Used it to go to Cancun with a bunch of work friends, whereas I…

Slunk home to my mom’s place, setting up camp on her sofa for months on end.

Watching reruns of old sitcoms as I lost my job, then my apartment, then all interest in anything other than the plot of Friends.

But no more.

“It’s been four weeks since I started having regular showers again,” I said. “Three weeks since I shaved my legs. My therapist thinks—”

“That this will be a fresh start.” Her smile was everything I didn’t know I needed.

My mother’s arms went around me, holding me tight, and for just a moment I allowed myself to become a kid again.

Right then, Mom was my whole world. Soft, supportive, and letting me feel safe.

I hugged her hard, sure I could take that feeling with me onto the plane.

“Well, you better go. Security is a bitch—”

“Mom!” I spluttered.

“Well, it is.” With a shake of her head, she stepped backwards. “And I need to get back home. The chickens have to be fed, as well as the goats, the cow—”

“Love you, Mom,” I said, then hoisted the strap of my carry-on bag over my shoulder. “I’ll be back in six months.”

“Three months?” she bargained. “I was reading on the Australian immigration website—”

“Six months,” I said more firmly. Younger people with relevant agricultural experience could stay in Australia on a working visa for up to twenty-four weeks, which had been my motivation to do hours of picking work on my holidays. “I’ll see you in six months.”

“Don’t let any of those Aussie boys sweep you off your feet!” she called out as I started for the doors of the airport. “Unless they are a Hemsworth, in which case, grab ‘em with both hands!”

People turned to stare at the two of us, but I couldn’t help but smile. Her grin was what I carried with me as I entered the terminal.

And that’s when the anxiety hit.

Heart pounding, the place seemed too loud, too full of people. Self-care had only just become a thing again for me, and I thought I could handle an international airport? The hard glossy floors had every footstep echoing through the huge space, getting louder and louder.

You’ve got this…

My thought was like a dry leaf being whisked away in the wind. It was blown further and further away as my chest heaved. Fear was like a bolt of electricity, pulsing through me, forcing my whole body to quiver.

But I couldn’t let the fear win.

If I didn’t get on that plane, I’d never have seen a koala in the wild, or a kangaroo.

I’d never see eucalyptus trees growing where they were supposed to.

If I stayed here, it meant having to go and find a job at wherever was hiring.

Clocking in and clocking out at the end of my shift, caught on the same old hamster wheel that had my feet racing when my ex and I were still together.

That was not what I wanted.

I chose my dreams, chose life. Stopping for just a moment, I let the crowds fan around me.

I chose me, and that was the impetus I needed to move forward.

Making for the baggage drop, I approached a terminal and scanned in my ticket.

Getting through security, finding my gate, it all happened in a blur.

My heart was still pounding, but now it was from excitement rather than fear.

I was doing this, I thought as I sat down on one of the chairs in the departure lounge. I was heading Down Under.

I’d flown before, but the walkway down to the plane looked different somehow. After lining up, I noted every window, every shift in the pattern on the carpet. Reaching the entrance, I smiled reflexively when the flight attendant asked to check my ticket again.

“24E,” she said, gesturing down the aisle. “On the right, by the window.”

With all the other passengers, I performed the obligatory shuffle down the middle of the plane until I reached my seat.

“Hi.” A couple who were already seated looked up when I arrived at row 24. “I’m by the window.”

“An American?” The man stood up first, then thrust his hand out. His accent made clear he was Australian. “I’m Blue.”

Blue? That was an… interesting name. I shook his hand firmly, and then he turned to his partner.

“This is my wife, Nance.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said as they got up to let me get to my seat. “Mackenzie.”

“We’ll have to call you Macca,” Blue declared once we all got seated. “So you’re headed for New Zealand?”

“New Zealand…!”

No, I thought, dragging my phone out and unlocking it. No, no, no. I couldn’t have gotten the flight wrong. There was no way.

“He’s teasing you,” she said, giving my arm a squeeze. “Aussies have an interesting sense of humour. So you’re heading Down Under for a holiday?”

With a blink, I stared at her, still trying to decipher what she was saying.

“Um… a working holiday,” I said. “On a farm an hour or two outside of Melbourne?”

“Near Ballarat or Colac?” Blue asked, peering past his wife.

“Ah…” I checked the email I’d received from Charlie, my future employer. “Colac, I think.”

“Well, you want to be careful out that way,” he said. My eyes jerked up, meeting his. “That’s dropbear country.”

“Blue…” Nance said with a shake of her head.

“I know dropbears aren’t real,” I said, my eyes narrowing.

“Bunyips?” he said hopefully.

“What the hell is a bunyip?” I asked.

“Now you’ve got him started…” Nance said with a sigh.

We settled back in our seats, belts pulled low and tight, and as the flight attendants went through the safety procedures, Blue told me more about some of Australia’s cryptids.

The flight was long, cramped, exhausting, but Blue loved to talk. He told me story after story until his eyes grew heavy and he leaned back to go to sleep.

“Talk the leg off an iron pot, that man,” Nance said. “Thank you for being so patient with him.”

“It’s fine,” I said, not really seeing her. It was the visions his words had conjured that filled my head, colouring my dreams as I pressed my head against the headrest of my seat, my eyes falling closed.

“Back to God’s own country,” Blue said with a wild grin, gripping the arms of his seat as the plane began its descent. “You’ll love it here, Macca. Just you wait and see.”

But I didn’t need convincing. Peering out the window, I watched the sprawl of Melbourne become clearer and clearer as we spiralled down.

The high-rise buildings, the size of the city surprised me.

Not because it was big, but because I didn’t associate Australia with cities that was comparable to LA.

The plane landed and disembarking was a somewhat disorientating thing.

Row 24 was my whole world for more than a day, and now I emerged out into yet another busy airport.

“So you’ve got somewhere to stay?” Nance asked with a look of concern. She was a such a mom.

“At a hostel just outside the airport.”

She looked at Blue, her brows furrowed, but he slung his arm around her shoulders and gave it a squeeze.

“Macca will be right, won’t ya, love?”

It felt like I knew what each one of those words were, but put together like that took work to decipher.

“I’ll be fine and thanks for all the stories.”

“See, people love my stories,” he said to Nance.

“Now he’ll never shut up. Here, I’ll give you my number, just in case,” she said, typing her details into my phone when I handed it over.

“Now, you’ve got an international SIM card, right?

And you know you’ll be driving on the other side of the road?

Why your employer couldn’t come to pick you up, I don’t know. ”

“Stop fussing, woman,” Blue growled with a smile. “If you run into any dramas, just give us a hoy, love.”

A hoy…? What the hell was a hoy? I got to ponder that as we went downstairs to the baggage claim.

Retrieving our bags, we said our goodbyes and then I caught a taxi to the hostel.

The room was small, super basic, but it was cheap and the bed was comfortable.

After a shower, I laid down on the mattress, feeling my eyes growing heavy, despite the fact it was the middle of the day.

Jet lag… I thought as my eyelids fell closed. Need to keep…

I didn’t manage to stay awake. Having little sleep on the plane had me passing out for hours and waking up really early the next morning.

Packing my stuff up, I got changed into clothes that would’ve been fine working on the vineyards.

I checked out of the hostel, walking over to the terminal to find the rental car place.

Grabbing the keys from the girl behind the desk, I located my car and then loaded it up with all my bags, before I slid into the driver’s seat.

That’s when I was forced to stop for a moment.

“This is weird…” I muttered, gripping the wheel tight. “It’s weird.” I looked around me, trying to get used to driving on the right-hand side, not the left. “Why can’t Australians drive on the right side of the road?”

But they didn’t, so I’d need to adjust. Punching in the coordinates into the GPS, the measured tones coming through the speakers told me to pull out and onto the main road that led out of the airport, and while I was probably driving way too slowly, my confidence built the further away from the city I got.

Navigating the freeway had my teeth clenching tight, but as soon as we got free of the city, I was able to take a full breath.

Industrial buildings gave way to rolling green hills and… eucalyptus trees.

Back at home they were an invasive pain in the ass, but here?

Just like me, they were exactly where they were supposed to be.

Grinning to myself, I drove on. Closer and closer to Colac and then through it where town streets were replaced by green paddocks.

Seeing cows and sheep, so many sheep, grazing, was kind of jarring.

Like obviously I knew that people farmed Down Under, but still.

The Australia in my head was different to the reality.

I could’ve been at home right now, driving through farmland on my way to the beach—

“Are those parrots?”

I took my foot off the accelerator as I craned my neck, peering through the windshield.

Barely idling forward, I followed the flash of bright colours, smiling, really smiling for the first time in months.

There were a pair of them, with vibrant red, yellow, and blue feathers, I watched them fly off into the nearby trees.

When I should’ve been watching the road.

It was a narrow back road, so I assumed I was safe. There were no other cars, but I wasn’t alone. Brown fur, little eyes staring up at me in alarm as I was forced to slam my foot on the brakes, accompanied by a sickening thud.

“No…” I said, turning the engine off and throwing myself out of the car. “No, no, no…”

All my life I wanted to see Australian animals in the wild, but seeing something that looked like a groundhog, but six times the size, lying motionless on the asphalt was not part of my dream at all.