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  ‘Sorry about last night,’ Katie said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I just didn’t shut up.’

  I laughed. ‘What’s new?’

  ‘It’s your turn now, I promise,’ she said, and zipped her lips.

  I laughed again. I thought about the boy next door and my insides tingled. There was no way I was letting that cat out of the bag. What was the tingling about, anyway? We’d been neighbours since we were born but I’d never had an actual conversation with him. The only thing I knew about Nathaniel Carrington was that I felt a disarming lack of hate for him. How would I explain that to my sex queen cousin? ‘I have nothing to say. No stories to tell. I don’t go anywhere, I don’t meet anybody, I don’t do anything.’

  ‘Yes you do.’

  ‘What, like last week when I found one of the new lambs head first down a wombat hole, dead, with its tail and half its bum eaten off?’

  ‘Ewww. No, not like that. Boy action.’

  ‘Nothing like your life. Not even remotely.’

  ‘What about Ned?’

  ‘Ned?’

  Then I remembered. I met him at the Forsyth Show last year. He and his friend (the one we called No Name) followed us around with their hands in their pockets, reeking of cigarette smoke and BO and when it got dark Ned tried to kiss me. We had a little accident as I avoided his lips: I head-butted him in the mouth. Drew blood, in fact. And then it was time for us to go home. Thankfully.

  Ned was not boy action. Ned was not the stuff of dreams (unless he was the thing hidden in the sandpit). Ned was a joke at my expense.

  I smacked Katie’s thigh and she rolled away laughing.

  ‘What are you going to wear?’ she said.

  ‘When?’

  ‘He’ll be there again this year. Him and No Name.’

  ‘I’m not going.’

  Then she was beside me again, her arm over my shoulder.

  ‘Come on, Avvie, don’t be like that. There’s one guy who’ll show you a good time. One guy is better than nothing.’

  I knew she was joking but at some level ‘better than nothing’ stung me. I was hungry. Maybe Ned was the one guy in the whole world who’d be interested in me. Maybe he was the best I could hope for. He was probably a nice guy. I hadn’t even given him a chance. ‘I’ll wear my new dress,’ I said.

  ‘New?’

  ‘New from the House of Katie Harriot.’

  ‘Ah, very nice. Shoes?’

  I scuffed my foot in the dirt. ‘Workboots, of course. Unless it’s raining, then I’ll wear my wellies.’

  ‘Your what?’

  ‘My gumby-gumboots.’

  ‘Classy,’ she said. ‘Have your mum and dad been into town this year?’

  ‘What? Yes, of course. Why?’

  ‘Well, I was thinking, if they hadn’t made their yearly trip to the shops we could lobby them on the grounds that you need nice shoes for the Show. Let me be your guide, your fashion consultant.’

  I laughed, but I was shaking my head. ‘You can ask Dad if you want but I know what he’ll say. “Shoes are a want, Katie, not a need.”’

  I was wrong.

  Over lunch, when Katie turned on her princess act and asked her uncle Lance if he could take us into town tomorrow to get me some new shoes, my dad said yes.

  ‘Cool!’ Naomi chimed in. ‘Can me and Chooka come too?’

  ‘We’ll all go,’ Dad said. ‘On one condition.’

  ‘Look out,’ Nan said. ‘Here comes the catch.’

  ‘That you kids give us a hand this afternoon to bring in that mob from the big dam paddock.’

  ‘Shotgun the four-wheeler!’ Chooka said.

  ‘I’m riding Charlie!’ Katie said.

  Dad was smiling and nodding.

  ‘Can I ride with you, Chooka?’ Naomi asked.

  ‘Course, but I’m driving.’

  ‘You can take turns,’ Mum said.

  Chooka huffed and crossed his arms but made a swift exit when Naomi got up from the table.

  I thanked Dad as we collected the lunch plates. ‘The shoes aren’t that important.’

  ‘Yes they are!’ Katie said.

  ‘No worries, Av. Mum and I’d already decided we needed a trip to town before the weekend.’

  ‘Ohhh!’ Katie said, and slapped Dad’s arm. ‘Cheeky beast.’

  Dad recoiled and rubbed where Katie had slapped. ‘Beast? You’re the beast!’ he said, and grabbed her, pinned her hands and tickled her.

  Moving sheep takes skill but let’s face it: sheep really aren’t that complex. In fact, they’re not very bright. Dad says they’re instinctive. With a capital stink.

  To move them around, you get behind the flock and pretend you’re the bogeyman. They run away. Sometimes they all run in different directions and they are surprisingly fast, so getting them to go where you want them to takes a bit of planning and the help of a few people on motorbikes or horses, plus a dog or six. We have three working dogs: Rex, Champ and Ning. Rex is Champ’s dad and he’s getting a bit old now but was a grand champion in his day. Ning is short for ning-nong because Dad thought he was a bit of an idiot, but he’s fine if there’s another brighter dog showing him what to do. And Champ is the best working dog we’ve ever had. He’s lightning on his feet, always seems to know where we’re heading for and can go all day. Champ’s only drawback is that he’s scared of sheep. Not all the time, or Dad would have put a bullet in him years ago – but every now and then, when a big merino turns on him, his tail goes between his legs and he runs away. I know how he feels. For all my years shoving sheep around, I’d rather be way up high on Zeph than burbling along on a bike or the four-wheeler.

  Moving sheep takes practice. You have to keep them moving – not too fast and not too slow. You have to anticipate their moves, know the lie of the land and never underestimate how daft they can be. You have to be patient and when your cousins from the city are helping, you have to be doubly patient.

  ‘Go really wide, Katie,’ Dad barked. She was hemming them in too hard when we got to the gate at the yards. ‘Wide!’

  She didn’t move. She wasn’t listening or maybe just couldn’t hear over the bleating.

  ‘I’ve got her, Dad,’ I said. One team to round up the sheep, another to round up the cousins.

  ‘Thanks, mate.’

  I cantered Zeph along the fence and came up beside Katie. She was bumping through the flock at an uncomfortable trot. No matter how many times I show her how to rise into the rhythm of a trot she continues to flop about in the saddle like a rag doll.

  ‘Katie! Back off. You’re going to drive them into the fence.’

  ‘Sorry!’ she said, and reined Charlie hard. Too hard. He bent his head and cut a tight turn in the middle of the flock. The sheep parted in a tangle of legs, one bounced off the fence chest first, then Katie and Charlie were clear and the mob came together again.

  Katie’s face was flushed. ‘I’m useless at this stuff.’

  ‘Rubbish, you did well,’ I said.

  ‘Look at you, though. As if you were born up there.’

  I scoffed, but she was right. ‘I’ve had a bit of practice.’

  Naomi closed the gate when all the baa-baas were yarded. We dismounted and rested on the rails to admire our handiwork. Chooka collected a single ball of dried sheep poo and flicked it, intending to hit Naomi in the back of the head, but it arced through the air and hit Katie in the nose.

  She snorted. ‘What was that?’

  Chooka was laughing and running away. Katie scooped up a handful of poop and pelted him. He ducked and not a single ball found its target. We rested back on the rails again but two seconds later Naomi had me by the collar and managed to stuff a handful of poo down the back of my shirt. She ran off squealing.

  ‘Right,’ Katie said. ‘This means war.’

  Dried sheep poo isn’t great to throw. Fresh poo has a bit more body and travels further, but it stinks and leaves a stain on your hands and anything you hit with it
. When sheep-poo wars get serious, fresh poo is the only option. With both hands loaded, I pretended I was running for Chooka. At the last minute I turned and gave Naomi both barrels.

  ‘Look out!’ Katie shrieked, but it was too late. Chooka unloaded a shotgun blast of crap that peppered the side of my head. I ran and dragged him onto the dusty ground. He was squealing like a piglet. I pinned his arms with my knees.

  ‘That wasn’t a very brotherly thing to do, was it?’ I growled. I wiggled my fingers like a pianist warming up and he started squirming desperately. He knew what was coming: the Typewriter.

  ‘Good-morning-Mum-and-Dad-comma,’ I said as I stabbed imaginary keys on his chest. ‘It-was-so-nice-to-see-you-all-atthe-Forsyth-Agricultural-Show-and-Ute-Muster.’

  Chooka was incredibly ticklish. By now he was writhing and screaming with laughter.

  ‘Hope-you-had-a-lovely-time-signed-A-v-r-i-l-L-o-u-i-s-e-S-t-a-n-t-o-n-full-stop. Kiss-kiss-kiss-hug-hug . . .’

  Before I could officially sign off on my imaginary letter, Katie released a double handful of sheep poo onto Chooka’s upturned face. It showered his nose and eyes, bounced off his cheeks and rained into his open mouth. I stood up and he rolled onto all fours, spitting and coughing. I crouched beside my brother, my hand over his shoulder.

  ‘You okay, Chooka? That was a bit mean. Sorry.’

  He was rubbing his face. I thought he was crying but his spitting turned to smacking lips as if he’d just finished a meal.

  ‘Tastes better than Dad’s muesli,’ he said.

  I laughed.

  Katie gagged. ‘That’s just feral.’

  CHAPTER 05

  The trip to Mildura usually takes a smidge over two hours in Dad’s truck, but in Aunty Jacq’s Honda it was a little under an hour and a half. She’s a bit of a leadfoot. Left Mum and Dad and the sheep for dead. Naomi sat in the front seat. Chooka sat between Katie and me in the back and we shared her iPod earphones over his head. Katie’s into rap music in a big way and there’s only so much of that you can stand if your idol is Troy Cassar-Daley. Still, I nodded my head to the rhythm and agreed when she made comment.

  ‘Oh, I love this song!’ she said about twenty times.

  ‘Yeah, me too!’ I lied. About twenty times.

  I lied, but I knew Katie wouldn’t notice. She’d spent the night whispering tales of love and lust again and I couldn’t get a word in edgeways. Me, me, me. It was all about Katie and I got bored. She started telling stories that she’d already told me the night before. Well, different versions of the same stories. She’d told me the night before that she lost her virginity when she was fourteen with a seventeen-year-old guy named Ben. She apologised for keeping it a secret but she was so scared that if her mum found out she’d lock her up and throw away the key. It stuck in my head because until then I thought we’d shared everything and with that one story I realised she’d been keeping things from me for years. Big things. If the story of my life was in a book, having sex for the first time would be a page to remember. But when Katie was telling the story again the next night she lost her virginity when she was thirteen with a seventeen-year-old named Tony. Her life was a blur of boys.

  We entered mobile-phone range about fifteen Ks from town and Katie’s phone started ringing. Her ringtone for messages was that stupid crazy frog thing and after three bursts everyone in the car was moaning and telling her to shut it up. Katie ignored us and did a little jiggle each time it rang, buzzing with the excitement of having re-entered civilisation.

  ‘Katie, can you please put your phone on silent,’ Jacq said.

  ‘Yes, Mummy,’ Katie sang.

  The tone of her voice didn’t match her expression. Her eyes narrowed and she looked sinister for a split second. I wondered how often she said things she didn’t mean. I got suspicious of her again when we were in the shoe shop. She picked out a pair with too-high heels that were tight on my toes. She said they were a bargain but I didn’t believe her. I did believe her when she said they looked nice with the dress.

  ‘They’ll stretch a bit,’ she said. I hoped she was right – they were a hundred dollars.

  Mum nearly swallowed her tongue when I told her how much they’d cost but it was my money I was spending so she only raised her eyebrows. ‘Hope you get some wear out of them.’

  ‘They’ll go with anything,’ Katie said.

  My riding pants? My tracksuit? My pyjamas? I put them in the car and felt a bit stupid. I’d wear them once. A hundred bucks?

  Katie checked her email for half an hour in an Internet café then offered to buy me a hot chocolate at the bakery to celebrate my new shoes. We didn’t get inside. There were three skater boys in their teens wearing big beanies and lounging at the table on the roadside in front of the shop. Katie just waltzed right up and sat down at the fourth chair at their table. I couldn’t believe it.

  ‘Hey!’ she said, and waved.

  Two of them straightened in their seats, one waved back from across the crumb-flecked table. ‘What’s happening?’ he said.

  ‘Nothing much,’ Katie squeaked. ‘Can you recommend anything from the menu?’

  I stood there feeling beached and sunburned.

  The guy who’d waved stretched and laced his fingers behind his head. ‘You like custard tarts? Tarts are good.’

  One of the other boys chuckled and Katie did too. ‘Yeah? Don’t mind a tart every now and again,’ she said.

  They all laughed then.

  Then came the worst half hour of my entire life. Katie kept talking as if her pause button was broken. She said ‘like’ about ninety-four times. She explained that we were, like, cousins and stole a chair from the next table so I could sit down, but I couldn’t. My heart was pounding away in my neck and I just wanted to run and hide. She talked about, like, the Forsyth Show and our, like, mission to find me, like, some sexy shoes. One of the skater boys – the pimply one on Katie’s left – said he was going to the Show, that he and his dad lived on a farm at Kildambo and he’d been going since he was little. Katie got seriously excited then and tried to con the other boys into, like, coming as well, but they were less than ecstatic about it. I watched them as if they were on TV. I watched the boys watching Katie and felt like an alien again. Katie kept trying to drag me into the conversation, but I didn’t know what to say. She happily filled any gap.

  We were supposed to be meeting Aunty Jacq back at the car at twelve o’clock. I wondered how early I could get away with using that as an excuse to drag Katie off. Twenty minutes? The car was just around the corner and I’d almost worked up the courage to whisper that it was time to go when things got infinitely worse.

  A white Patrol tray ute with L plates parked on the opposite side of the road. I vaguely recognised the car but it wasn’t until the occupants were on the roadside that I realised it was the Carringtons’ ute. Of all the parking bays in the whole of Mildura, they had to choose the one directly opposite me having a meltdown! And the L plates belonged to Nathaniel. He had a clean trucker’s cap tugged hard over his wild hair and his navy T-shirt was too small in all the right places.

  I started hyperventilating. I felt the skin on my neck chill with sweat. I locked my arms over my chest. Nathaniel and his father checked the road twice then crossed to where we were. They were going to the bakery! I stared at the footpath until Nathaniel practically brushed against my arm as he went inside.

  Some small valve inside me felt as though it was going to burst. My skin was twenty hectares of blooming goosebumps and I could feel waves of heat coming off me. I knew I was changing colour but there wasn’t a single thing I could do about it. I was frozen there – a multi-coloured exhibit at the museum of embarrassment – until Nathaniel came out again. He held a pie in a white paper bag and had just taken a humungous bite when he saw me. He looked at me but didn’t recognise me at first, then he froze, his eyes lit up and – to my sweetest delight – his face flushed. We probably caused an instant spike in global temperature. The pie was obvio
usly hot too, and he covered his mouth as he nodded a greeting. His dad stepped past and headed across the road to the ute – Les Junior probably wouldn’t know me from a paddock of canola – but Nathaniel just stood there chewing and huffing.

  ‘Hi, Avril.’

  He’d used my name. My heart stopped beating for a full second.

  ‘Hi,’ I said. At least I got something out. And I didn’t die.

  Across the street, the ute door slammed. Nathaniel waved his hand around in confusion. ‘Sorry, got to go,’ he said.

  I nodded. I watched him walk across the street, noticed his jeans low on his hips and the black band at the top of his boxers.

  The best thing about the whole encounter was the fact that Katie hadn’t noticed. She was so wrapped in, like, trying to impress the boys at the table that she hadn’t even noticed me with my face on fire behind her.

  ‘I’m going, Katie,’ I said. ‘Nice to meet you guys. Might see you at the show, hey?’

  The boys waved at the same time, as if their brains were somehow linked, and Katie started stammering. ‘But . . . wwwait. Hang on! What . . . what about our hot chocolate? Where are you going?’

  ‘Back to the car. It’s okay, don’t get up. I’ll see you when you get there. Say midday at the latest?’ I walked off.

  ‘But . . .’ She jogged to catch up. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Then what’s the big hurry? It was supposed to be a lesson. See the master in action.’

  I laughed then, mostly at her joke but partly at the idea that she was, like, the master of picking up strange guys on the street. ‘I can’t just plonk down next to some stranger and start up a conversation with them as if I’d known them for years.’

  ‘Crap,’ she said. ‘We just need to work on your self-confidence.’

  I felt a flash of anger then, rising up like that ancestral hatred of the Carringtons. I wanted to shout that she was a cheap-arsed sleaze and that throwing yourself at a hundred guys doesn’t qualify you as a master of anything. Except maybe sexually transmitted diseases. Thankfully, the words never made it past my lips. The anger rose up and faded away again and in its wake was pity. I felt sorry for Katie and her desperate attempts to feel wanted.