Alice-Miranda in the Outback Read online

‘She owns the car,’ Alice-Miranda replied. ‘If she could drive, I’m certain she’d have kicked Daddy out of his seat. Over.’

  ‘Cute,’ Jacinta said. ‘Over and out for now.’

  They’d already driven thirty minutes from where Junie had been found, and so far there wasn’t any sign of a vehicle. No tyre tracks, no evidence of a breakdown. Nothing.

  ‘Do you think something bad could have happened to Taipan Dan?’ Millie asked.

  ‘Anything’s possible out here,’ Hugh said. ‘I’ll try to contact Sprocket once we get to Hope Springs and find out what else he knows. I think it might be time to involve the police too.’

  Alice-Miranda and Millie agreed.

  ‘I’m just glad that we came along or poor Junie might have ended up as pterodactyl food,’ Millie said with a giggle.

  ‘You’re terrible. We’re all terrible,’ Hugh corrected himself. ‘Which one of you is going to tell Jacinta the truth?’

  ‘I will,’ Alice-Miranda said.

  Millie frowned. ‘No, I’ll do it. It’s my fault. I started it.’

  Hugh hit some corrugations on the road and Junie meowed loudly in objection. Millie protested too, given the cat had held onto her position by digging her claws into the top of the girl’s head.

  ‘Hey you.’ Millie reached up and was given a nip for her trouble. ‘Junie here might not be as friendly as we first thought.’

  Hugh chuckled as he watched the antics in the rear-vision mirror.

  ‘Daddy, there!’ Alice-Miranda pointed. Her father braked gently and the car was swallowed in the cloud of dust.

  As the air cleared, everyone else could see what Alice-Miranda had spotted. A white four-wheel drive ute. It was parked on an angle on the side of the road and the driver’s door was open, as if whoever had left it there did so in a hurry. Behind the cab sat an empty dog cage, the rest of the tray covered by a black tarpaulin.

  Lawrence pulled up beside Hugh and put the passenger window down. Hugh lowered his window too.

  ‘What do you think?’ Hugh asked his brother-in-law.

  ‘Approach with caution,’ the man replied, opening the car door and waving away a swarm of flies. ‘Stay here, kids.’

  ‘Do you think it’s broken down?’ Millie asked.

  ‘Maybe,’ Alice-Miranda said.

  Hugh hopped out and pushed up the sleeves of his checked shirt. Together, the men advanced towards the vehicle, not knowing what to expect. Hugh hoped that whoever the car belonged to was just having a nap and wasn’t good at parking, while Lawrence’s mind had gone straight to a body slumped over the steering wheel – probably because he’d once played a spy and had acted in a spookily similar scene in a desert in the Middle East.

  Lawrence peeked under the tarp and grabbed a shovel from the tray, then walked around to the driver’s door. He held the tool aloft, not sure what he was planning to do with it, and looked into the cabin of the vehicle. To his great relief, it was empty. Lawrence dropped the shovel and he and Hugh both let go of the breaths they’d been holding.

  ‘Okay, so no one’s dead – but where’s the driver?’ Hugh said.

  ‘Key’s still in the ignition,’ Lawrence said as he investigated the cabin. ‘I’ll see if it starts.’

  He jumped into the seat and planted his foot on the clutch then turned the key. The engine fired straight away. Lawrence peered at the dashboard and wiped away a coating of red dust. ‘Got three quarters of a tank of fuel.’

  Hugh poked around on the passenger side. He opened the glove box, which was jammed with maps and old roadhouse receipts, and took a quick look in the cooler bag full of food that sat on the floor along with three large flasks of water.

  Lawrence pulled down the sun visor on the driver’s side – but it was bare.

  ‘Anything?’ Hugh asked. He’d given the children the nod to leave the Landcruisers while checking the tray of the ute, where he’d found two jerry cans of fuel under the black tarp along with the tools.

  ‘No,’ Lawrence replied.

  Hugh glanced past the approaching children to where Millie remained in the car, the now-sleeping Junie still perched on her head. ‘Our feline friend hasn’t shown any interest,’ Hugh said. ‘You’d think she might have noticed if it was her beloved master’s vehicle.’

  ‘Sprocket didn’t say anything about Taipan Dan having a dog and this ute’s set up for one,’ Lucas pointed out. The others all frowned.

  ‘Perhaps it came with the vehicle,’ Jacinta said. ‘And he just hadn’t bothered to take it off the back? Or maybe he used to have a dog.’

  Anything was possible.

  ‘Come on, we’d better get moving or Barnaby will send a search party,’ Hugh said. He pulled the phone from his top pocket, but there was no reception. He’d call the police when the party arrived at Hope Springs. Hopefully they could send someone out to investigate the ute and see who it belonged to.

  In the meantime, he took several photographs showing the car and the way it was situated. Unfortunately, he didn’t realise that the registration plate was covered in a thick coating of dust and impossible to read.

  ‘Daddy, don’t you think we should take a quick look around?’ Alice-Miranda said. ‘What if the driver got out to have a toilet break and they’ve fallen over and hurt themselves or had some kind of medical emergency?’

  Hugh nodded. His daughter was right. Aside from a few scrubby bushes and trees though, there weren’t really too many places for a person to be concealed nearby.

  Jacinta and Lucas headed off towards a stand of mulga trees on the western side of the road, while Alice-Miranda and her father headed east. Lawrence continued looking through the ute to see if he could find any identification.

  Seconds later there was an ear-piercing scream.

  ‘Daddy! It’s Jacinta,’ Alice-Miranda cried. She took off across the road towards the trees, her father and uncle in hot pursuit. Inside the Landcruiser, Millie heard the shriek too.

  ‘Sorry, puss.’ She pushed Junie off the top of her head. The cat meowed loudly and sprung through the gap in the front seats to the dashboard. Millie opened the door and jumped out, hoping that Jacinta hadn’t been bailed up by a snake – because if that was the case she was hightailing it straight back to the car.

  ‘Jacinta, calm down,’ Lucas was saying as everyone reached the pair, his hands outstretched.

  ‘What is it?’ Lawrence asked, taking a step back. A second later he realised the girl’s predicament.

  Jacinta was pressed up against a mulga tree. In front of her, an agitated lizard hissed and stood up on its hind legs, flaring the frill around its neck.

  ‘He’s a beauty,’ Hugh said, running his left hand through his thick dark hair and biting his lip, wondering what their next course of action should be.

  Millie reached the group and stopped dead.

  ‘Wow! That’s not supposed to be here. Frill-necked lizards generally inhabit the far north of Australia, and we’re in the middle. Although my guide book did say that on odd occasions they could be found in the desert regions, so I guess this guy is one of those rare exceptions. Its proper name is a Chlamydosaurus.’

  ‘Maybe that’s why he’s so upset,’ Alice-Miranda said.

  ‘What? Because he’s got a funny name?’ Millie said.

  ‘No, because he isn’t where he’s supposed to be,’ Alice-Miranda replied.

  The problem remained that Jacinta was still trapped between the lizard and the tree with no clear escape route. The lizard began hopping from one foot to the other and hissing even louder.

  ‘Why didn’t anyone tell me there were dinosaurs out here? I wouldn’t have come on this stupid trip,’ the girl whimpered.

  ‘You’re okay, Jacinta,’ Lucas cooed. ‘Just stay still.’

  Hugh and Lawrence exchanged glances, wondering if the creature was dangerous.

  Millie had a thought and quickly returned to the car to get her camera.

  ‘We could distract it,’ Alice-Miranda said. Sh
e raced back to the car after Millie, grabbing a half-eaten sausage roll from the bag in the front seat.

  ‘They mostly eat insects and spiders – and sometimes the occasional small mammal and reptile,’ Millie said as they stumbled back over the rise to the mulga trees. ‘I don’t know if he’ll enjoy a sausage roll, but you can try.’

  Jacinta was trembling and tears were now streaming down her cheeks.

  The lizard was getting more and more agitated.

  It rushed at the girl, hissing, then danced a short distance back again.

  ‘Help!’ Jacinta screamed.

  Millie snapped shot after shot. ‘These pictures are amazing,’ she declared.

  ‘I don’t care about your stupid photos!’ Jacinta shrieked. ‘Just get it away from me!’

  Alice-Miranda pulled a piece of meat from inside the pastry casing and threw it to the ground. Unfortunately, the mince landed too far away from the lizard to distract the creature from Jacinta.

  ‘Here, give some to me,’ Lucas said.

  Alice-Miranda passed the boy a piece and he lobbed it over. This time the meat hit the top of the lizard’s head and dropped down right in front of it.

  ‘Good shot,’ Hugh said.

  The lizard looked left and right.

  ‘No, it’s there, you silly thing,’ Lucas urged.

  Finally the lizard’s tongue shot out and it gulped the morsel.

  ‘More, more,’ Lucas urged.

  Alice-Miranda passed over the rest of the sausage roll, which Lucas tore up and threw to the creature. The reptile’s attention turned to the food around it, gobbling the meat down as Jacinta edged past, not half a metre away. She ran to Millie and began to sob with relief.

  ‘You do know it’s just a lizard,’ Millie said, giving the girl a hug. ‘And those pterodactyls are really eagles. I was only teasing.’

  Jacinta shook her head. ‘I don’t believe you. You’re just saying that. I’ve seen them with my own eyes.’

  She made a run back to the Landcruiser and shouted for the others to hurry up as she threw herself inside the vehicle and pulled out her phone. The girl wanted to tell her mother about her terrifying encounter, except there was no reception.

  ‘Stupid outback!’ she spat. Jacinta hurled the device onto the seat and began to cry. She wished she’d stayed at home. At least there she didn’t have to worry about dinosaurs and snakes and flies.

  ‘We should get moving,’ Hugh said. ‘There’s no sign of anyone except old Frilly here.’

  The lizard finished the sausage roll and then, with its path clear, made a run straight up the tree. Obviously poor Jacinta had got between the creature and its home.

  A swirly breeze sprung up as Alice-Miranda headed back to the car. A piece of paper blew towards her and she reached down to pick it up.

  She unfurled it and took a closer look. The page was the colour of tea and one edge was ripped, as if half of it was missing. The words ‘Hope Springs’ were written in swirly script at the bottom. The rest of the paper was covered in a squiggle of lines, and perhaps something to indicate a boundary. An ‘X’ was marked in the corner.

  ‘What have you got there?’ Hugh asked.

  Alice-Miranda frowned. ‘It could be a map, I think – something to do with Hope Springs. I wonder how it got here.’

  Hugh took the page and had a closer look. ‘I’d say that was drawn a very long time ago. You can show Barnaby. See if he makes anything of it.’

  The man passed the paper back to his daughter, who folded it and put it in her jeans pocket. Within a minute or so the group was ready to leave.

  As Hugh pulled onto the road, Alice-Miranda turned to look back at the abandoned ute. She had a strange feeling about it. Hopefully the missing driver was okay and not lost somewhere in the great expanse of desert. No one could survive out there for too long – especially without food and water – and whoever owned that truck seemed to have left all their supplies behind.

  ‘An hour and a half later, the two Landcruisers rumbled across a cattle grid. A red-dirt encrusted sign announced that they’d arrived at Hope Springs Station.

  ‘Finally!’ Millie announced. Junie had resettled on the girl’s lap and was purring contentedly.

  ‘I’m afraid we still have a while until we’ll reach the house,’ Hugh said.

  ‘How far is it?’ Alice-Miranda asked.

  ‘About fifty kilometres,’ Hugh replied.

  ‘That’s got to be the longest driveway in the world, or close to it,’ Millie rubbed her eyes. Travelling was exhausting, and about an hour ago it hadn’t only been Junie who was fast asleep – Millie and Alice-Miranda had taken naps too. It was hard to stay awake with the warm sun beating in the window and the engine humming, although the road corrugations had shaken the girls from their slumber several times. They hadn’t passed another car or seen any sign of whoever owned the white ute.

  ‘Hope Barnaby has the kettle on,’ Hugh said. ‘I could murder a cup of tea.’

  The trio travelled on in silence until they finally spotted a building in the distance. It was a typical Australian farmhouse, with a wide veranda, a pitched iron roof and an architectural elegance befitting something that had been built a long time ago. As they drew closer, the girls could see the house was surrounded by a wire fence enclosing a neat garden with beds of Sturt’s Desert Peas, an old concrete birdbath and a wooden seat that sat beneath a shady tree in the front corner.

  A tan-coloured dog began to bark from the top step.

  ‘Oh, Daddy, it’s lovely,’ Alice-Miranda beamed at her father. ‘And just what I imagined an outback station to look like.’

  Junie stood up and stretched on the back seat, then pressed her face against the window as if she was taking a good look to see where they were.

  Hugh drove over another cattle grid and veered left to the rear of the house, where there was a cluster of outbuildings. Lawrence pulled up behind him.

  A man Alice-Miranda recognised as Barnaby Lewis hurried out of the back door and down the steps, followed by two children and the kelpie, which came running from the front of the house. The dog’s tail batted back and forth and it gave another couple of short sharp barks before one of the children told it to stop. The animal had one of those happy faces that looked like it was very glad to have company.

  Barnaby and Hugh shook hands before the man spotted Alice-Miranda. ‘Well, just look at you, young lady. You’re practically a teenager.’

  ‘Not quite,’ Alice-Miranda reached up to hug her honorary uncle and planted a kiss on his cheek. ‘But I am turning eleven next birthday.’

  Alice-Miranda introduced everyone else as they emerged from the vehicles.

  Barnaby turned to the children beside him. ‘This is Hayden, he’ll soon be twelve, and Illaria, who’s just turned ten.’ The dog gave a bark. ‘Oh, and that’s Rusty.’

  ‘Dad!’ Illaria protested. ‘That’s not my name.’

  ‘Sorry, sweetheart – this is Larry, and don’t dare be silly enough to call her anything else, especially the beautiful name her mother and I gave her at birth,’ Barnaby grinned.

  ‘It’s not beautiful, it’s ridiculous,’ the girl said.

  ‘Oh, I think it’s lovely,’ Alice-Miranda said.

  ‘You can have it if you like.’ The girl rolled her eyes and smirked.

  ‘I thought they must have been two boys,’ Jacinta whispered to Lucas. He’d been thinking the same thing.

  ‘Dad said you’re a good rider,’ Larry commented, looking at Alice-Miranda.

  ‘That’s very kind of him. I have a pony called Bonaparte, who is probably the naughtiest pony in the history of the world, but we have a lot of fun, and Millie’s a great rider. She has a pony called Chops, who pretends to be slow and lazy, but he often beats me and Bony,’ Alice-Miranda said.

  ‘Just for the record, I hate horses,’ Jacinta said, batting her hand to swat at the flies.

  Lucas cast her a glare. ‘Jacinta!’ he chided.

  ‘We
ll I do. They don’t like me and I don’t like them, which is fine. But I’m quite partial to four-wheel motorbikes, if you have any of those,’ Jacinta said.

  Hayden smiled. ‘I feel a bit the same way and yes, we have a few four-wheelers, and two-wheelers as well.’

  ‘That sounds like fun,’ Jacinta said.

  Barnaby opened the gate into the garden that surrounded the house. ‘Let’s get the kettle on,’ he said.

  ‘Good idea. And can I use your landline? I need to make a couple of calls,’ Hugh said.

  ‘Sure.’ Barnaby was about to head up the back steps when he spotted Junie on the back seat of the Landcruiser. ‘Why is there a ginger cat in your car?’

  ‘Long story, best told over a brew,’ Hugh said. ‘But we should bring her inside if that’s okay.’

  Junie was now standing on the back seat, peering out at everyone.

  ‘We used to have a cat called Simba,’ Hayden said. ‘Until last month when a brown snake got her under the front veranda. Dad even gave her the antivenene that we keep in the freezer in case any of us gets bitten. She just kept getting weaker and weaker though, and by the time Dad and I got her to the vet in Coober Pedy it was too late. Larry was heartbroken and Mum cried for a week, but I don’t think she knows anyone noticed.’

  Barnaby looked at his son kindly. Simba had been a real character and especially loved the girls. He shouldn’t have used the antivenene on her – apart from the fact it wasn’t for animals, it cost a fortune and wasn’t easy to get – but Larry had been hysterical.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Alice-Miranda said.

  ‘Can we keep this cat, Dad?’ Larry begged. ‘Please. You promised we could get another one soon.’

  ‘Steady on, sweetheart,’ Barnaby said. ‘We need to find out how she came to be here in the first place.’

  Millie opened the car door to pick up Junie, but the cat jumped down onto the ground. Rusty loped towards her and for a few moments there was a tense standoff as the pair considered one another.

  ‘This is going to be interesting. Rusty hated Simba,’ Larry said.

  ‘Only because she dug her claws into his nose whenever he got too close,’ Hayden explained. ‘He’s still got the scars to prove it.’